Page 5 of Psycho

Declan thought about this. “And the guy she went home with was a stranger? How are we supposed to find him?” I knew what he meant: How are we supposed to find Ash?

“I took a video of him, and I sent it to one of my older brothers. He’s very good at finding people,” I said. “He’s working on it, but I don’t think he’s on the radar. Wherever he is, wherever Ash is, they’re hidden.”

“Why?”

“Because the man she went home with wasn’t a Stanton student,” I said. I could picture Ray’s face easily, and could imagine pulling him apart bit by bit just as effortlessly. “My brother recognized him. Ray Ruiz, better known as the Midtown Strangler, who got off on a technicality.”

Declan paled. He looked as though I’d just punched him in the gut. “We were talking about the Midtown Strangler in one of my classes. He…he took Ash?” Alarm was evident in his tone, so much so that I knew he had to know the details about Ray’s crimes. He knew more about him than me, judging from the terrified and worried look on his face.

I wished I could tell Declan that Ray took Ash. That he stole her, kidnapped her, and we had to go on a righteous mission to get her back and bring her home. But, alas, that was not the case. Ash had been freaking out due to what happened in the basement, due to seeing what she saw upstairs. She’d run from the house, and Ray pounced on her when she was at her weakest.

“No,” I spoke after a long while, earning a quizzical stare from Declan. “No, she…she went with him.”

Declan didn’t quite get what I meant. “He picked her up with a line or something?”

Shaking my head, I said, “She went with him like she knew him. She went willingly.” Ash wasn’t stupid. She might’ve been weak in that moment, but she wasn’t stupid. She had to have known who Ray was, what he did, what kind of monster she was getting in the car with. Ash had to have known.

And yet she still went with him. She still tossed out her phone like trash, as if trying to forget us, forget me. She went with a killer, and she was God knew where with him. I wasn’t the type of man to believe in God, but right now, only an omnipotent being could tell where she was, whether she was even still alive.

My breath caught in my throat as I watched Declan pull out his phone, probably to look up Ray’s name. That thought hadn’t occurred to me before.

What if Ray killed her? What if he was killing her now? What if I saved Ash from Brooklyn and her Batman only to deliver her unto a worse evil? I never wanted her to be raped, but knowing she was in the hands of a serial killer was not a good thought.

The mere thought of Ash being tortured, cut into, stabbed and strangled was the most horrifying thought I’d ever had.

If she died…if that fucking monster killed her, I would do my damnedest to track that motherfucker down and end his miserable life—and make sure he screamed in agony in his last moments. I would kill him with no hesitation whatsoever, with no planning whatsoever. I would make Ray Ruiz rue the very day he decided to come here and take Ash.

Ash already belonged to a monster.

Me.

Chapter Three – Ash

Sunlight streamed through the window, and I stared at the sun’s rays as I lay with my back on the bed. The bedroom was on the second floor of the house, and I knew the morning sunlight hit me, danced across my face and my flesh, but I couldn’t feel it. It didn’t warm me. I was still so very cold.

I knew why I was cold. I wore nothing but a slip, and I was pretty sure this satiny, soft dress belonged to the owner of this house, or one of them, at least. And beyond that, I was ninety-nine percent sure she was dead. Stuffed in the basement or buried in the backyard. Something. I doubted my ex had good credit after what happened, let alone a job to afford a nice, quaint place like this.

The moment I felt stubble grazing my inner thighs, I closed my eyes. My stomach was full of bacon from breakfast, and now…now I was about to be full of something else. I wasn’t sure I wanted to, though. At this point, I didn’t know what I wanted and what I didn’t want. I was just sort of here, floating along, going along with whatever he desired. It was easier that way.

But the stubble…the stubble was really making me cold, because it made me remember things I didn’t want to. So I did the only thing I could: I closed my eyes, doing my best to ignore the stubble, forget where I was and why I was here, and pretend, just for a little while, I was with someone else.

I pretended the voice drifting up from between my legs belonged to someone else. Someone else whose tongue knew just how to work me. Declan.

“You taste so good,” Declan’s voice entered my ears, and I let out a sigh as I felt his tongue glide across me, circling my nub. I arched my back, my head resting on a pillow that wasn’t mine as I felt his hands travel along my outer thighs, stopping only to grip my legs as he buried his face in my pussy.

Declan’s hands were so soft, so warm and inviting. They warmed up my cold body, and his tongue warmed my core, made me ache with a desperate, carnal need only one thing would fill. When his tongue began to apply more pressure to my clit, I bit my bottom lip to stop myself from crying out, but it was a wasted endeavor. The high came all the same, the orgasm sweeping through me before I could stop it, before I could smother it.

Strangle it.

Wait, no. No strangling.

It was because I lost myself to the word, because I’d thought of his signature, that I no longer heard Declan’s voice. Instead, it was all Ray as he said, “I can’t wait to be inside of you again, amorcito. It’s been too long.” He was slow to lift his tanned face from my sex, giving me a messy smile. His dark hair was scruffy, his hazel eyes sparkling with mischief. A handsome man, a man nearly double my age.

“Shh,” I shushed him, closing my eyes yet again once the orgasmic high faded and my body was once again my own, no longer lost in the sensual bliss. “Don’t talk.” Me, begging him. Me, demanding his silence. When I heard his voice, his accent, it made it all too real.

I didn’t need him right now. I needed…a lot of things, none of which I’d get.

I needed comfort. I needed a good guy. As he fumbled with himself, getting himself ready, my mind went to the older brother. To Will. My poor Will, hurt because of me. Attacked, because he’d gotten too close to me. Was it wrong that I felt for him too? My feelings were a mess. I was a mess.

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