Page 35 of Reaper & Ruin
Sometimes it was fun to play with a monster consensually. It felt better to be a part of the game than just another victim of an actual monster that roamed the vicious world.
“You think I ever play fair?” His voice was soft, almost teasing, but the weight of his presence was suffocating in the best way. My gaze flicked to his mouth—hidden behind the mask—then back to his eyes, unreadable behind the hollowed sockets.
“Never,” I said, my voice dropping. “And maybe sometimes I enjoy that. This is true. But you should go after Heather, not me. I was distracted thinking of her safety and how easily anyone could walk up on us.”
We had traps in the woods. Things designed to hurt people, catch them, and keep them there for us to play with. We’d drilled an escape plan into Heather’s brain almost every day and knew where to take her, and how to keep her safe. Atlas even had cameras up in the trees, everywhere he could, with alarm sensors that told us when someone walked by.
But none of it was enough. Nothing would be enough to appease my worries and tension until my father was dead.
It was just a shame that killing him wasn’t simple. Not unless I was willing to sacrifice my whole family in the process, and bring down an army of my uncles back in Italy. Ones made of the same kind of torrid blackness and my father. Seeing as none of that sounded appealing, we’d had no choice but to work to slowly find ways to ruin my father instead.
His businesses. Money. His reputation. All of it steadily being stolen away by the three of us, and each of my siblings, who had spent the last few months doing their part too. At least, the adult ones. The rest were blissfully unaware of the danger in their lives.
We were taking him down brick by brick until he was nothing but a husk that the rest of the De Luca family abroad would be begging me to end.
“Nobody is going to touch us unless I want them to.” Atlas reached up, gently taking his mask off and placing it in the dirt, his icy blonde hair a little messy now. “And I don’t let people touch my toys. I’m not a fan of sharing them.” He chuckled, a rough sound that sent heat coursing through me. “Though you’re not a very happy toy, are you? You seem to be all sorts of worked up this evening.”
I pretended not to like the way his hands moved down, skimming the waistband of my shorts, then over the front of them, lingering where I wanted him to be.
“I’m not a toy,fantasma.” I forced my face straight, pretending once more not to like his games. “You think you can say such things to me because you are attractive? I’m not a dark romance reader. I don’t obsess over an evil man because he looks pretty.”
I’d seen Heather reading far too many books that did that. It was no surprise to me she enjoyed having a stalker, or kidnapping and the like. She’d been taught by all her reading that it was attractive to have a man trash every boundary possible. Fuck, I reckoned Atlas could have actually fucked her when he was breaking into her old apartment, and she would have insisted it was nothing but fun. It wasinsane. Ridiculous. Toxic on the highest level. A bad example for those authors to lead, an even worse one for those readers to fantasize over online, to all the other impressionable people.
It was also extremely fun, and I was more than happy to play along. Because it was true.
Stalkers were attractive when they were like Atlas. If he’d broken into my home too, I would have fallen just as hard as Heather had. I would have let him bend me over and have his wicked way because it made me feelalive.
It made me feel, for once in my fucking life, like someone was actually wanting me for me. Listening to me. Seeing all the dark and twisted parts of my mind and soul that I thought I couldn’t share. Or doing the things that I wished someone would do—like taking care of me, without being asked, or begged, or having something in return.
It made me feel good to be a willing participant in something fucked up, rather than an unwilling player of someone else’s sadistic games.
“Sure, and your dick’s not hard, and you’re not desperate for someone to show you a good time.” Atlas grinned at me with that evil smile of his. The one that promised violence just as oftenas it did pleasure. “Tell you what, I’ll play nice tonight seeing as you’re in a mood. I’ll make you feel good, and I promise not to be even the tiniest bit deranged.”
He made a point of sticking his knife into the dirt. I knew he could have it back and at my throat in a matter of seconds, but it was a nice gesture.
“Oh yeah, how?” I knew the answer, but it was fun to ask.
Slowly, he leaned down, his lips brushing mine with the briefest of kisses. It was enough to make the world tilt, the forest around us fading into the background. It was enough to make me desperate for more. Like a drug I was addicted to and thoroughly enjoyed.
I reached up to grab his shirt, pulling him closer, but the sharp snap of a twig made us both freeze.
“Am I interrupting something?” Heather’s voice cut through the tension. “You guys are making me do cardio on my own, and that sucks.” She sighed. “But seeing as I’m very much into this live porn, feel free to continue.”
We turned to find her standing a few feet away, her hands on her hips and a sly grin on her face. She looked like a forest sprite, her neon blue hair tangled with leaves and twigs, her cheeks flushed.
“I thought you were lost,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady as I gently pushed Atlas off me.
“I was,” she admitted, stepping closer. “But then I heard your big mouths running and followed the sound.”
Atlas got to his feet, heading her way at the same time as I did. His expression softened as he looked at her, though his tone was still teasing. “You shouldn’t have stopped running,malyshka. Now I have both of you.”
Heather raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Oh no, what ever will I do?” She reached out to push him. But he easily sidestepped her.
“You think you could take me?” Atlas asked, his voice dripping with eagerness.
The twisted bastard definitely got off on her fighting him. It was like the more she pushed, the better he found things.
“Definitely.” She grinned, twirling a stick she yanked from the ground like a dagger. “Don’t underestimate me.”
