Page 70 of Mara
When I pulled away again, she was trembling even harder, her breath a sharp, ragged rhythm against my mouth. I saw the fight in her, but I also saw the surrender. She stopped pushing me away. She stopped trying to control it. She was here. She was with me.
And in that moment, I know—this was it. This is the moment when everything changed. There was no turning back now. I fucking had her.
Her eyes met mine, wide, searching, and I saw the question there, the one she didn’t want to ask, the one she was afraid of. But I didn’t give her a chance to voice it. I didn’t want to hear the doubt, the fear. I just wanted her to feel. To let go.
“I’m not going to stop,” I murmured. “Not until you admit that you’re mine. Tell me you want to play this with me. No matter the ending.”
She shuddered, and I could feel the way her body reacted, the way she was sinking into this with me, even as her mind fought against it.
I smiled, just a little, because I knew.
She was already mine.
“I can’t, Jinx. Your girlfriend—my sister…I can’t do this. I?—”
I cut her off, my handcuffs sliding across her chest as I pressed my finger against her lips.
“Ah-ah. Until you can speak the truth, I have no business with you. Go find your sister, Nirvana.”
Too bad for her, she would find her sister, alright. I left her a gift wrapped with a smile.
Ishouldn’t have come home. I should’ve stayed at Wellard, or maybe just gone anywhere else. The confusion, the heat, the chaos from earlier still clung to my skin like an invisible mark, and I wasn’t ready to face reality.
Not yet.
But here I was, back in my house, the place I should’ve felt safe. The door clicked shut behind me, and immediately, a strange weight pressed on my chest.
The house felt different. It wasn’t the comforting silence I was used to. It felt suffocating, like something had shifted in the air. The darkness in the hallway seemed heavier than usual, the shadows deeper and more ominous.
“Cheese? Where are you, baby?”
I kicked off my shoes by the door and tossed my purse onto the couch. My fingers grazed the back of my neck, still burning from the way he touched me earlier.
The kiss, the intensity, the way he didn’t let me breathe.
He had never kissed me like that…with a passion that felt all-consuming. It was just sex, every time, but that kiss…
I shouldn’t have let him. I shouldn’t have given in. Not when the fucking security cameras caught everything.
But there was no time to dwell on that now. I needed to clear my head, to remember who I was, and to focus. I checked my phone. The fucking cops still hadn’t found Gianna and were too busy patting themselves on the back for arresting her boyfriend instead of the real kidnapper.
I moved toward the kitchen, the creak of the floorboards under my feet almost too loud in the silence. Everything seemed out of place.
“Cheese?” I called, my voice hoarse and tight, waiting again for my fluffball to come running to greet me, to lessen this chilling feeling.
No answer.
It was strange, Cheese always came when I called or made some defiant noise, anything to let me know he was okay. But now, there was nothing. The air was thick, too still, like the whole house was holding its breath.
I frowned, my steps slow as I walked through the hallway. The lights flickered, and I could’ve sworn I heard something, felt something deep in my bones. Just the faintest sound, almost like a soft thump, as if someone had dropped something in the other room.
“Damnit, Cheese! Stop spooking me, you rat. Did you lock yourself in the bathroom again?”
I rounded the corner toward the living room, and then it hit me.
The smell. Metallic. Heavy.
Blood.
