Page 160 of Bake the Town Red

Neither she nor I click on the start button on our game controllers. We don’t speak for a long time, not even to comment on the monologue delivered by the characters.

“You weren’t fucked in the head. Youaren’tfucked in the head. Neither of us is.” Conviction flares through her words. Her bright blue eyes sparkle when she looks at me instead of the television. “You coped. That’s what killing other people did for you. It drowned that voice in your head. The stupid one that said you couldn’t protect me. That’s why you came. You got as close as you could to shutting him up. Tell me you can see that.”

Not a second passes between the moment she ends her monologue and the moment I crush my lips to hers. With a hand on her hips, I yank her to my front, have her ass flush against my cock. I toss the controller on the couch, my palm curling into a hand necklace around her throat.

“Your brain is such a fucking turn-on,” I grit when I pull back for air. “I don’t care that I’m fucked in the head. If that’s what’s brought me back to you, I’m happy.”

Her bottom lip juts out in a pout. “You’renotfucked in the head.”

A slow smile creeps over my lips. “I don’t care that you are too. I love that about you.”

“Shut up. Am not.”

I tilt her face to me with my thumb. My hand necklace chokes her. Blood rushes to my cock with each gasp Dahlia takes. She fights for air, and fuck, I can’t wait for a lifetime of this.

“Little savage. Whatever you are, I love it. I love you.” I keep her in place, getting high on the control I have over her. “After so many years, it’s a fucking privilege to have you here. Love you the way I want to. Without the nagging fear in theback of my head. Without the pressure on my lungs. And yes, I see what you were saying. I might’ve had to get my hands dirty to come back to you. Go over the deep end. Doesn’t matter. I have no regrets. Don’t care what it says about me, as long as I have you.”

“I love you too.”

One last kiss and, “Enough of that. Eyes on the screen.”

“On us.” She turns to the television at rapid speed.

“Yes.”

“I’m a—” Her head snaps back to me, nose scrunched, then back to the screen again. “A librarian. I kill people in a library and you…” Her body shudders. She sucks in a deep breath, her chest expanding. There’s a difference, I imagine, between listening to the characters tell their story and how the words taste onhertongue. “You’re helping me. You’re helping me get rid of the bodies and run from the police.”

“For anything at all.” My arms are long enough to wrap around Dahlia and retrieve my game controller. “That’s what I’m there for.”

She grips hers even tighter. Forces down the shudders. Waits for my instructions.

“Our characters talk while we run through the library and kill people. Other than visiting you at night and stalking you, this was my only real connection to you for the longest time. How I could talk to you.”

“I’ve been so stupid.” Dahlia’s thumbs brush across the game controller. Eager to start. “Back then, you said you were writing code. That the executives were the ones who come upwith the characters and games. I never thought to check them out.”

“You’re the farthest thing from stupid.” I have the remote in one hand while I find the hem of her shirt with the other. Drag the fabric up her thighs. Just a little. The lightest touch to make her body jerk. “You couldn’t have known.”

Then I press two fingers to her swollen clit. Then I hear her moan. “M-hmm.”

“So.” My fingers drag up and down. Teasing her. Torturing her. “What do you think?”

I don’t have to ask. I’ve heard and felt and listened to her body talking to me. But I’m a greedy bastard. I need her words.

I need her on my cock just the same. Discarding the controller for the millionth time, I lift Dahlia. Take myself out and yank her to me. My dick is hard and thick between her butt cheeks.

Maybe Iwillfuck her tonight. Maybe staying up isn’t such a bad idea after all.

“I think,” she says, choked and needy and determined. “I want to play.”

Dahlia clicks the start button. We’re thrown right into a dark library. One that’s as huge and impressive as the New York Public Library. Except there’s no open space in the library I designed. No two floors, either.

The first thing we see is the elaborate maze of bookshelves from the bird’s eye view. Five seconds later, we’re landing at the entrance to the maze.

“Which way is it, little savage? Left or right?”

She’s not in control, not really. I just like giving her the illusion that she does.

Her life and everything in it are mine.

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