Page 59 of The Ripper

When I heard the water running, I started cleaning up to stop myself from storming into her bathroom. I searched through her drawers for a trash bag and collected the half full takeout boxes, my heart cracking when I saw that from everything that I’d sent her last time, she only ate the dumplings.

~ At least we know she can’t resist those.

I picked up the clothes off the floor and sorted them into white, black, and colored piles on the couch, then emptied the ashtrays and collected the cups that were scattered around the entire space.

Just as I was about to start vacuuming, she came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a pink towel, her hair pinned in a messy bun at the top of her head, offering me a mesmerizing view of her neck and the marks I’d left on it.

I assumed it before I even saw her face, because I could hear the soft rasp in her voice as she apologized for the second time in an hour. But when she admitted she hadn’t notice what I did, considering how much attention she usually paid to everything going on around her, I was sure she had been crying.

Again.

~ Why is she crying so much lately? I don’t like it.

~ First thing we can agree on today.

I wanted to get her to open up to me, to tell me why she seemed to be crying more than the acceptable level lately. The acceptable level being fucking zero, of course.

I remembered her sobbing the night I came back from Italy, how she’d smoked cigarette after cigarette on her balcony while drowning in tears. But as her towel fell in slow motion before my eyes and she bent down to pull on a pair of white lace panties, all those thoughts about talking vanished into thin air as I snuck up behind her, my hand grasping her wrist just before the fabric went over her knees.

Her skin burned, almost as if she had bathed in boiling hot water.

~ Call me crazy, but I think she did it on purpose.

~ She wouldn’t.

~ Wake the fuck up, the woman is fucking depressed.

~ No, she’s not.

~ What about that cut on her arm, huh? She did that to herself.

~ Shut up, she didn’t.

She fucking didn’t. MySnezhinkawould never try to take her own life. She just wouldn’t. She loved life too much, she worked to protect lives. She wouldn’t destroy the very thing that allowed her to save other people.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” I hissed, my lips brushing the back of her neck as the lingerie fell over the towel.

“I thought we were going for breakfast,” she said as I spun her around to face me.

I wasn’t sure if her blushing had to do with me or with the torture that she appeared to have inflicted upon herself, but I didn’t care when I saw how her pupils dilated, desire burning beneath her eyes. Unable to bear the agony of having her naked next to me any longer, and overcome with a need to punish her for crying so much, I lifted her up and threw her onto the mattress.

A short scream broke out of her throat as her full breasts bounced with the sudden movement, and I licked my lips as her thighs pressed together. I removed my boots and climbed onto the bed, then sat on my knees as I wrapped my palms around her ankles and yanked her closer to me, pushing her legs apart.

“We are, but I’m having dessert first,” I said, pulling her leg up, propping her heel on my shoulder and turning my head to the side to press a kiss to her ankle.

The scent of lemons invaded my senses, and I fought myself to take this slow.

I was dying for a taste, and the monster was downright drooling.

~ We’re devouring her.

~ Me! I’m the one devouring her. She’s mine.

~ She’s ours.

~ Mine.

I huffed out a breath as I looked at her for a moment, imagining all the ways I wanted her to squirm, and whimper, and beg before allowing my lips to reach that spot that I was sure was begging for attention.

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