Page 39 of Scary Suitor

“Keep my things for me, yeah?”

Relief and playfulness return to her face as she scoffs, “You snooze, you lose. They’re mine now.”

I hum in response to her leery scrutiny. I can’t give her answers when Cassio is anything but truthful.

“Come back for them?” she asks timidly.

Finny knows something is wrong when her gaze strays to Cassio. Maybe she knows enough to be worried, but not enough to understand the severity of his secrets. All humans have a dark side; some are better at hiding it, and Cassio is a master of deception.

“Yeah,” I say, and I hope these aren't our final words.

Cassio intercepts, his hand breaking apart ours to lace with mine. He smiles down at Finny, and I catch the trail of her shiver.

“We must leave,” he quips, hushing my instinctive protest. “There will be other times to catch up.”

He’s saying it to Finny, but the meaning behind the words is for my ears only.

Be a good girl, and he’ll be generous. Test him and live with the consequences.

My heart aches, a senseless pain that runs so deep it leaks into the hourglass sand.

His thumb rubs back and forth on my knuckles, the rhythm trickling beneath my skin and pushing the sensation just on the verge of discomfort.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

Epilogue

Alina

Everlasting Happiness

Midnight strikes, and so does the monster.

The moon leaps between parting clouds, twirling with chiming wind and the float of snow seeking to join blanketed surfaces.

Once the hand strikes Valentine’s Day, Cassio is there to kiss my hand like a prince seizing away his princess to the tower of sins.

A countdown of his lustful eyes and lingering touches replaces the days of his tamed control.

Yesterday I was his “sweet little girl,” and tomorrow I’ll be his “pretty little wife.”

Tonight is “filthy little virgin.”

Cassio had said that in the morning when he woke up, voice hoarse from sleep, and traced the waistband of my black panties. It was a struggle to walk on eggshells, suffering through his unnerving stares and dodging his hands that wandered over the curve of my ass.

He made me a romantic candlelight dinner to celebrate his win, demanded kisses as his prize while I sat on his thick thigh, and forced me to shower to wear a white bra and frilly panties so he could eat me properly.

I wanted to hide when my black panties got wet from his hungry eyes. So, I avoided him with lacy underwear and his oversized shirt.

“Pretty,” Cassio hisses with a grin, teeth sharper than I remember from him biting on my ass.

He’s nearly unrecognizable. His tongue runs across his canines, a taunting smile marring his handsome face, and praises flock around his velvety voice. Waves of lust skim his stiff muscles, ready to reel tighter before pouncing on me, and the formidable ink swells with the tension in his arms.

He seems taller, stronger, and much scarier as we stand in crackling silence.

“My pretty girl,” he whispers, taking a step forward.

I take one back, eager temptation peeking through the paralyzing fear as I look over his wide shoulder hesitantly. In that split second, his green eyes widen with dangerously dilated pupils, almost entirely an emergence of predatory instinct.

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