The Grave Between Us (A Noah & Cole Thriller, #2)

by Tal Bauer

“There is nothing as exquisite as watching a man, a man convinced of his invulnerability and his place in this world, shatter. No one can suffer like a man does when all his assumptions, all his fantasies of safety, are ripped away. It’s…” Ingram tipped his head back, mouth open, eyes fluttering closed, enraptured. He exhaled.

Serial killers knew, when they stepped outside the boundaries of humanity, that what they were doing was wrong. They simply didn’t care. It took a special kind of narcissism to do that, to separate that fully and live in the darkness. They secreted their behaviors in order to continue doing what they loved, because they knew, on some level, how horrific they were. But even the ugliest wanted to be known.

Ian’s nose and lips pressed against the back of his neck. He inhaled in a wet, hot groan. Ian’s tongue poked out, gliding up Cole’s nape, tickling the short hairs behind his ear. “Oh, yes,” Ian moaned. “That’s it. That’s exactly it. I knew you’d smell so fucking good with his death all over you.”

Be terrified, and bring me your fear. Come closer and let me taste it on your skin.”

If you open up my graves, we’ll be together forever.

We’re echoes of each other now. You looked into the abyss inside me, and the abyss looked back into you. The abyss opened inside you, and you kept looking into it every time you touched something that belonged to me. My graves. My men. I told you we’d be together forever, and I was right.”

“I can take you to places where, when you look up at the sky, it’s so big and bright and full of stars it looks like daytime. I can take you out to the boondocks, to fields where the night sky looks like an ocean beach. Where you need to shield your eyes to look up. I can take you to where there’s nothing and no one, and the night sky is as bright as the morning sun.

“Silence together isn’t the same as silence alone.”

Love was active. Love was engaged. Love was being there, day in and day out.