Page 64 of Bird on a Blade

“Hold still, baby.” I press the flat edge of the knife handle against her sopping-wet opening. “The blade’s still here.”

I don’t tell her I’m blocking the worst of it with my palm, that my blood is dropping down on the handle as another lubricant, the pain from the cut as bright as sunlight. Instead, I nudge the handle inside her cunt, going slow. She moans, hands pressing down on the altar. Her blood-streaked stomach and tits rise and fall with her quickened breaths.

“That’s it,” I tell her, sliding another inch of the handle inside her. It’s smaller than my cock and not nearly as long, but she moans like it is me, especially when I work it around in little circles, trying to hit the places inside her I know she likes.

“Sawyer,” she whimpers, and I get that warm melting feeling in my chest. I don’t let it distract me from my work, though, which is to kill her. To make her come.

“You like that?” I looked at her through my mask. She’s wrecked, the way I like her. Sprawled brazen on the altar, sweat gleaming on her brow, completely covered in death.

“Yes.” Her answer sounds like a sigh.

The handle’s in as deep as it can go, and I twist it so the handguard will rub against her clit. Then I start to pump it, slow and sensual, making sure to get steady pressure on her clit. She’s making all these wonderful tortured noises, little animalistic grunts and groans, and I want to listen to them for the rest of my life. Her leg muscles tremble. Her feet brace down into the altar. She lifts her hips, ever so slightly, and I move with her, still working her with my knife.

“Sawyer,” she gasps out. “Sawyer, don’t stop. Please. It feels so good?—”

“Course it does.” I squeeze the blade a little tighter, drawing out more of my blood. My hand is slick with it, and the pain electrifies me. “If anyone could take my knife and survive, it’s you.”

I don’t know if it’s what I said or if it’s just because the knife’s handguard is grinding up against her clit, but Edie comes. She lets out a perfect, bloodcurdling scream and arches her back into my knife, working her hips in fast, frantic circles. I fuck her through it just like I would with my cock, drawing out her pleasure until her whole body goes limp. And then I fuck her a few more times for good measure before I pull the knife out and set it reverently aside.

My hand is screaming from where the blade bit into my flesh, but I still press my cut hand against her cunt, marking her with my blood. She gasps when I touch her, and I massage her pussy for a few minutes, making sure it’s completely covered and she’s shivered through the last of her aftershocks.

It’s only then that I take my mask off: when my perfect prey is stretched on the altar, sated. I peel the rubber away and toss the mask down on the ground and study her, running my still-bleeding hand up her thigh and over her hip, admiring the way my blood looks on her skin. She turns her head toward me, eyes unfocused, and lifts one of her hands, although there’s no real strength in it. I killed her too well.

I catch her hand, though, and gently pull her up to sitting. We made a mess, me and her. There’s blood everywhere, and I don’t know how much is hers, how much is mine, and how much belongs to that corpse currently stiffening in my front yard. There’s so much cleanup I’ll need to do. Got to get rid of the body. Clean the blood and brain matter off Edie’s car. Scrub the blood out of the altar carpet.

But all that can wait. Edie snuggles up against me, her breath soft against my throat. She needs a good cleaning, too.

“Come on,” I murmur into her hair. “Let’s get you into the shower.”

She nods, her movements slow and lazy. I help her up to her feet and walk her into the hallway. Her steps are shaky, and she clings to me like I’m her whole damn world.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

I stroke her hair with my good hand. “You know I like making you come.”

She laughs a little. “Not that. I mean—saving me.”

The warm melty feeling she gives me? It immediately calcifies into something cold and hard and black. “I told you I would. But we got to talk about what he said to you.”

I guide her into the bathroom and turn the water on so it can heat up. She leans up against the counter, hair falling into her eyes. “You mean about how he was here to kill me,” she says softly.

“Yeah.” I strip out of my clothes one-handed, never taking my eyes off her. “I won’t let that piece of shit keep sending men to hurt you.”

Her eyes flit around like she’s considering what to say, and then land on the cut on my hand. “You’re bleeding!” she cries, as if the two of us aren’t drenched in blood, as if there isn’t a trail of blood leading from the front of the church to this bathroom. Before I can respond, she darts over and grabs my hand, lifting itto examine the cut. I can’t deny it’s an ugly one, slicing diagonally across the full length of my hand, the skin red and inflamed.

“You did this,” she says softly. “While you were?—”

“You’re changing the subject.” I tilt her head up by her chin so I can look down into her soft golden-brown eyes. The water’s hot and steamy, making her hair curl in the humidity.

“I don’t want to talk about Scott,” she says firmly. “Not right now.”

“Fine.” I step into the shower, sighing as it hits my back, then hold out my good hand to help her in, too. “But later.”

She nods as she steps over the edge of the bathtub and pulls the curtain closed. She picks up my injured hand again. She frowns down at it, then guides it over to the stream of water, washing the blood away. That blood joins all the other blood streaming off our bodies.

“Come here,” I say softly, pulling her up to me so I can kiss her under the showerfall. That fucking we just did, it wasn’t the sort that lends itself to kissing, but she’s so beautiful right now, flushed and breathless and sweet, in the way she’s so worried about my hand. I don’t give a shit about it. Making her come on my knife handle was more than worth any pain.

Edie winds her arms around my shoulders, melting into me. I nuzzle the top of her head, and it kind of reminds me of the moment before that cop shot me. But better. Because no one’s gonna shoot me now.

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