Page 92 of Soul of a Psycho

The black pits of his eyes swirl with earnest despair. He’s serious. But I didn’t actually think he would kill me. I know he would never. Does he thinkhe’scapable of that?

“I know.” I reassure him.

“No. I need you to remember.” He holds me against the tree and uses a hand to unbutton my shirt. “I need you to know it, deep down, no matter what.” He moves frantically.

“Cade…” My skin pebbles as he exposes my breasts, stealing my breath. But he needs to know that he’s not evil. That I trust him with my life. That I would let him hold a million knives to my neck and never once truly believe he would hurt me.

“I don’t want to, Sky. I really don’t want to.” He’s breathy and broken, transfixed as he runs a finger around my nipple. “You’ll remember that, right?”

“You won’t,” I manage despite the heat of his touch. “You wouldn’t. You’regood,Cade. You would never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. You might be impulsive, but you always snap out of it. You’re stronger than you think.” I wrap my legs tighter around his waist, feeling how hard he is. “And more caring than you give yourself credit for.”

It’s true. What he’s been through has made him tough, but he still has a tender heart. I know he cares, probably too much. About me, about Bobby, Callie and his mother, too. If the ground was hot coals, he would scorch his own feet to carry me to safety. And he glares at anyone who tries to mess with Bobby. He even takes an aspirin anytime Callie has a headache to make her feel more comfortable with taking medication. His mother is a whole other story, but I see the pain in his eyes when he looks at her. His heart still beats, mangled as it is, it beats.

His finger stills, jaw working as he eyes me. He doesn’t believe me. He’s too angry at the world to see it, but I do and it’s okay. He’ll see with time. As years pass and I put the pieces back together for him. He’ll see.

For now, I tug at his shirt, desperate to let him use me as sanctuary from his own tortured mind. I’ll be anything he needs. That’s how much I believe in him. And if I’m wrong, if I die by his hand… The scary thing is, I don’t think I would regret it.

I think he reads it on my face because I’m suddenly laid on the ground and he’s between my legs. My skirt is around my waist as he undoes his button. The hair that falls over his eyes wakes something primal in me, and I lean up to run my fingers through it. I pull him down to me just as he frees himself, and then wrap my legs around his waist. He’s in me and I cry out, startling a few birds from the trees.

It’s so much more than the way he fills me. It’s him. The wayheshudders, the wayhismuscles tighten. The demon in him becomes unleashed for my body, and it’s intoxicating.Enthralling and spellbinding. I’m not Sky Lyons when he fucks me. I’m an untamed seductress, needy and subservient to hell’s flames. I burn, a fever only broken by his elixir pumping inside of me, his release an antipyretic.

If he doesn’t cum, I die.

I work my hips, letting him into the depths of me. The growl that works up his chest is fuel on the fire, and the contact of him against my clit has me fisting the soil. He’s slick with me as he slips in and out, every pump against my swollen bud causing more dirt to accumulate under my fingernails.

“My angel,” he pants, pressing his lips to my neck and sucking. “You would die for me, wouldn’t you?”

I nod against the mixture of revelry and regret in his tone. But whatever he chooses, it’s true that I’m at the whim of his impulsion, and I arch into him, showing him my servitude. He may think I’m an angel, but I’m an extension of him. Are we vengeance or mercy? Saints or sinners? He decides. I just stand at his side.

“I’ll die with you, Sky,” he presses his forehead to mine as he picks up pace. “We’ll go together,” he promises.

Together. Together.I grind against him, lost in images of being tangled in blissful oblivion for eternity. I’m close to coming undone as he puts his mouth on my breast. Warm swirls set my nerve endings to high voltage, and I brace for explosion, turning my head and pressing my cheek against the forest floor.

The leather-bound journal lays discarded beside us, pages flapping this way and that. In my ecstasy, I catch crude sketches of cylinders and bolded words of chemicals. I don’t mean to look, but my body is rigid with the strike of orgasm. I’m inundated with detailed electrical wire layouts and cross sections of timer mechanisms. My mind can’t make sense of it. Not as I’m wracked with tremors, pleasure licking through my system.

The breeze stills, calming the fluttering pages as Cade cums deep within me, and breaks my fever. I’m gasping, the delirium lifting, as stark black ink stares at me. Calculated lines illustrate a perfect diagram that is both as confusing as it is chilling.

“I love you,” Cade says, grasping my chin to put his lips on mine.

But when I close my eyes to kiss him back, all I see is the bomb.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Cade

The office is too bright as Rutherford clicks his pen into action and crosses his legs. It makes my eye twitch worse, and I realize that this was a stupid fucking idea. He’s a smug bastard with only one goal: to put me back in Briarcreek. To strap me down and pump me full of antipsychotics like I’m a specimen to experiment on.

But I need help.

Sky’s words won’t stop bouncing around in my skull like an obnoxious song, and I don’t know what to do.You would never hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it.But wouldn’t I? That’s the plan, for fuck’s sake. I’m taking out everyone, collateral damage in the hundreds, Sky included. I knowIwould deserve it, but she wouldn’t. And Callie wouldn’t. The girl is afraid of her own shadow and she’s never done anything to me. And Bobby… While he wouldn’t be blown to bits, his heart would. I’m on the fence about Ruby, but the last shred of logic I have tells me the way she annoys me isn’t worthy of death.

I shift in the leather chair, sure that Rutherford has x-ray vision and can see into my thoughts. A bead of sweat forms on my temple. I’m not here to confess or for him to stop me. I’m here because… I don’t fucking know why I’m here. It’s not like he can help me if I can’t tell him anything. And that’s even if hewanted to help me. Which he doesn’t. He just wants to watch me squirm. But I’m desperate. My mind is eating me alive.

You’re good, Cade.

Her words don’t make sense. I’m not good. I would have killed her. I have spent the last three years strengthening neural pathways of murder. She wasn’t Sky as she flitted away with incriminating evidence. She was someone who could ruin my plans. I knew going into this that I would have to be ruthless in protecting a secret like this one. That’s why I have the damn ax. That’s why I’ve trained myself that if I ever came back and found someone impaled by it, I would have no remorse. But now I’ve taken it down.

It was too close of a call. What if she comes back and triggers it again? Whatever I decide, I don’t want Sky taken too soon. I want as much time with her as possible. And whatamI deciding?

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