Page 10 of Bleeding Outside the Lines

“I’m sorry, baby, I don’t know who you’re looking for.” I’m a glutton for punishment and I know it. I want her riled up. I want her frustrated and confused so she can’t stay away. I want to bury myself inside of her while she negotiates with the grim reaper to take me down.

The speedometer on the car nudges past fifty, and the increase in speed only feeds my inner adrenaline junkie. The wheel cuts to the left, lifting the passenger side tires off theground. Brick scrapes the mirrors on both sides as the car cuts through an alley, causing sparks to fly in the dark night.

The noise drowns out the sound of my zipper.

“You know Cassius,” she begins. “I really do need some new garland for my Christmas tree. Your intestines would do quite nicely.” Her eyes light up like the very Christmas tree she speaks of, one corner of her mouth lifting in a sly grin.

I fist my cock. If she notices, her poker face is as good as my own.

“Face it, sweetheart, you don’t have a Christmas tree. You would need a soul for that.”

Uncomfortable silence fills the air. I struck a chord; apparently soulless Ruby has a weakness. My laughter breaks through the emptiness and the car pummels through a park, coming within mere feet of a tree and then veering away. She’s playing a game of chicken with nature…and my life.

My cock is like stone in my hand, almost so hard it hurts. My grip tightens and I slide my callused hand up to my tip, pre-cum coating my fingers. On the screen, her red lips are pursed in a displeasing frown, and I want nothing more than to smear that lipstick, make a mess of this woman. See her come undone.

“The girl, Cassius. Where is she?” Ruby holds a picture up on the screen and my heart plummets a little. The picture has been photoshopped to show a healthy teenage girl. But she wasn’t. Not when I took her.

“You’ll never find her,” I bark through gritted teeth. “You don’t even know her fucking name.”

“Isabella Diaz, and I assure you I will find her,” Ruby retorts. The car pulls out of the park and onto the road, narrowly missing an oncoming car.

“I repeat, where is she?” she demands, and my climax grows closer.

“You have no idea what the fuck you are talking about, you crazy fucking bitch.” I imagine the fight that would ensue upon my words if we were in person and not speaking through a screen. The adrenaline pushes through me as I slide my hand up and down my shaft. Rock fucking hard and raw from friction, but I can’t stop. I need this release more than anything I’ve ever needed before.

The car increases speed. Sixty, sixty-five, seventy. I pump faster. Seventy-five now. We weave in and out of cars. I sit somewhere on the brink of death, and yet I feel more alive than I have in years. Fucking monster, that’s me.

“Cassius.” My name rolls out of her perfect mouth, each syllable breathier than the last.

A guttural moan escapes me, and my eyes seek hers, desperate for her to say it again. Silently pleading with her. I need to hear it dance along her tongue and spill from her lips, deadly like a poison without an antidote. Because it could kill me, and I’d die a happy man.

I don’t actually know if she can see me, but if there’s a God, I pray to Him that she can. I shift in the driver’s seat, angling myself closer to the screen, like she could reach through it to touch me.

“Cassius.” Her breath hitches and her lips purse when she swallows.

“Ruby.” I growl her name as my cock opens fire at the display, coating a digital Ruby in my cum. I run my palm over my length, coating it with my own seed to soothe the burn and I shudder, I don’t know the last time I came so hard. Every nerve in my body is charged. Closing my eyes, I try to terminate the live wires and savor the moment.

When I open my eyes again, the display is dark. She’s beginning to live up to the rumors. Maybe she is a ghost.

Horns blaze around me, cars swerve out of the way. The car hits the rumble strip, and I take the wheel. I’m now in control. Of the car. Of Ruby. Of whatever game we are fucking playing.

I hope.

six

“Rubes?” Rowan’s voice echoesin the attic.

My eyes meet hers.

“Did that…” I start.

“Yeah,” she mutters. “It did.”

“Did he know that we could see him?”

“I think so.”

“It’s like he sees me,” I admit more to myself than to Rowan.

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