Page 23 of Devilish Ink

There was a slight sweetness of sweat: had she carried it in after a long run through the fog? Had she tossed and turned all night, making the sheets damp?

Ry’s life circled around me like a ghost and all I could do was grasp at it. I wanted something tangible in my hands.

I wantedherin my hands.

From the inner pocket of my jacket, I brought out a small torch and switched it on. Its beam fell on the doorway, lighting the path I was supposed to take down the little hallway toward the living room.

I told myself that I was just here to look for clues to my brother’s whereabouts.

But I couldn’t help but linger in her bedroom, my torchlight drawn toward her bed.

I covered every inch of it with light, studying the wrinkles in the unmade sheets like they were the contours of Ry’s own body.

I thought I could make out where she’d slept, her dark hair fanned out around her pale face. Her fingers laid softly across her stomach, across her breast. Her knees bent slightly, her toes poking out from the bottom of the duvet. Her chin turned slightly toward me.

I lay on the bed despite everything inside of me telling me not to. I turned on my side toward where she would have been. I could almost see her pink lips parted just slightly, her exhales tickling my nose like a feather. Moonlight on her nipples as her chest rose and fell evenly.

I buried my nose in her pillow.

Had her hair been damp from the shower when she laid down to sleep? Wet from the rain? Sticky from sex with someone else? Or was there a more nefarious reason for the slight damp of her pillow?

How much I still didn’t know about her. How much she kept from me.

There I was in her most intimate of spaces and she remained a mystery. It only increased my desire to know her.

I found her laundry basket and let the light from the torch scan over its contents. Crumpled band t-shirts, plaid pleated skirt with leather buckles, fishnet stockings.

It both aroused and infuriated me. There was so much of her to have and yet I shouldn’t want any of it. It was enough to drive me mad.

Perhaps that was why I reached down and pulled a pair of silk panties from the basket.

I was insane. There was no other reason to press them against my nose and draw in a shuddering breath and release it on a groan.

It was pure masochism. No rational being would willingly torture himself like that.

She was there. Ry. All of her. Her scent. Her moisture. Her essence. And yet she’d never been more out of reach.

My instant erection ached as I breathed her in again. I dared to dart out my tongue and taste her. I licked the taste of her from her panties. I throbbed against the zipper of my pants as an urgency stole my breath and stopped my heart.

I pocketed Ry’s panties. The thought of coming into them almost had me pulling my cock out right here. But not now.

I went out into the hallway, picking through the mail stacks.

All of them were addressed to Rian.

The latest one was postmarked almost two weeks ago. Rian had been gone for two weeks?

But…where to?

I found a small desk in the living room with papers in small piles. I paused at the sketch book lying on it, Ry’s name in soft script across the front. I couldn’t help myself. I opened it, eager to know more about her.

I was startled at what I saw on the page.

It was a monster, some kind of demon who peered out at me through torn paper.

No, it only looked torn. Ry had shaded it to look as if the edges were curling back.

I blinked and peered closer.

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