Page 7 of Your Devoted Monster
Gabriel's touch was clinical, an artist critiquing inferior work, but Ezra could feel the heat of his fingers.
"Pathetic," Gabriel murmured. "No understanding of anatomy. No respect for the craft." His thumb pressed against Ezra's pulse point, feeling it race. "I watched him do this to you tonight. Watched you fake pleasure. Watched you stare at the ceiling thinking of me."
"Cocky." Ezra's voice came out wrecked, barely recognizable.
"Accurate." Gabriel's hand shifted, wrapping around Ezra's throat with the exact pressure and placement from that night three years ago.
The warehouse smell—rust and bleach—suddenly became that other warehouse. The concrete under his feet became the floor where he'd fought for his life. Gabriel's scent couldn't mask the phantom scent of his own blood. His vision tunneled the same way it had when oxygen became a luxury he couldn't afford.
Ezra's knees buckled. Only Gabriel's grip kept him upright, which was fucked up on so many levels—being held up by the same hand that had tried to kill him. His body couldn't figure out if this was then or now, if he was dying or living, if the wetness on his face was tears right now or just his body remembering.
"There," Gabriel whispered, grip tightening incrementally. "That's better. This is where my hand belongs."
Ezra couldn't speak. Could barely breathe. His cock was so hard it hurt, and that was the sickest part of all—his body translating near-death into arousal, getting off on its own destruction. He made a sound that might have been a whimper or might have been Gabriel's name.
Gabriel released his throat, spinning him suddenly, pressing him face-first against the cold concrete wall.
"Look at you," Gabriel said against his ear. "Walking here like an offering. Did you want to make it easy for me?"
I wanted… I don't know what I wanted.Ezra pressed his forehead against the cool wall. “Like I said, I’m stupid.”
“You’re not stupid, Ezra.” Gabriel's hands ran down Ezra's sides, cataloging every shiver. "You just wanted to finish what we started. You wanted to see if it would feel as good as you remember."
"Will it?"
"Better," Gabriel promised, teeth grazing Ezra's neck. "Because this time, you're choosing it. This time, you walked to me. And this time, you're going to beg for it."
3
Three years,two months, and sixteen days since Ezra Monroe had ruined Gabriel's life by saving his own.
Gabriel had killed five men before Ezra. Each one had been a masterpiece of planning and execution, bodies arranged like classical paintings, death elevated to art. He'd thought himself above base desires—sex was messy, unpredictable, full of disappointment and fluids and the grotesque sounds people made when they lost control. Death was cleaner. More pure. A transformation from chaos into stillness, from motion into something perfected.
Then Ezra had grabbed his knife and shoved it between his ribs, and Gabriel had come in his pants like a fucking teenager.
The humiliation of it should have made him angry. Should have made him hunt Ezra down that same night and finish what he'd started. Instead, standing here now with Ezra's back pressed to his chest, his hand around that perfect throat, Gabriel felt something far more dangerous than anger.
He felt alive.
For the first time since his first kill, Gabriel's heart was racing not from adrenaline but from something else. Something he didn't have a name for. Something that made his carefully constructed control feel paper-thin.
"This time," he murmured directly into Ezra's ear, feeling the full-body shiver that ran through him, "you're going to beg for it."
Ezra made a sound that might have been a laugh if it wasn't so broken. "You think pretty highly of yourself."
The defiance sent a spike of heat through Gabriel's chest. Still fighting. After everything, still fighting. Perfect.
Gabriel tightened his grip just slightly, feeling Ezra's pulse rabbit-fast against his palm. His other arm wrapped around Ezra's waist, keeping him trapped, back to chest, no escape. This close, he could smell everything—cheap soap from Ezra's apartment (the same brand for three years, Gabriel had memorized it), the lingering scent of tonight's disappointment (cologne and desperation), and underneath it all, that specific cocktail of fear and arousal that Gabriel knew he could pick out in a crowded room.
Ezra's scent. The one Gabriel had cataloged obsessively, the one he dreamed of, the one that had made every other potential victim irrelevant for three years.
It has been worth the wait. Three years ago, Ezra had fought like he wanted to live. Now he'd walked to his killer. The difference thrilled Gabriel more than any successful hunt ever had.
"You're different now," Gabriel murmured into his ear, unable to stop himself from pressing closer. "Better."
"Better at what?" Ezra's voice was breathless, bitter. "Being fucked up? Broken?"
The self-loathing in those words made Gabriel's chest tight. Everyone else tried to fix Ezra, to medicate him, to convince him his damage was something to heal. But Gabriel saw the truth—the damage was what made him perfect.
