Reaper's Fall

“Almost finished,” he whispered, warm air touching my ear.

Then my hair was up in a messy ponytail-slash-bun thing and he was lifting the brush, ready to start torturing me again.

PAINTER

I finished way too fast.

The original colors had run out, forcing me to mix my own. I think that made it better—toward the end, the greens were darker, projecting something shadowy and almost angry.

Frustration.

Fair enough, because that was exactly how I was feeling. I’d spent more than two hours painting Melanie’s perfect body. Now my cock was like a fucking diamond, so hard it could cut glass. I want to push her down across the table and pound her until the paint smeared with our sweat . . .

Christ. My dick was going to explode.

“You can go look now,” I said, standing up. She rose from her chair awkwardly, still holding the black silk in front of her tits, which made no fucking sense.

“There’s a mirror up in Jessica’s room,” she said. She brushed past me, and I shuddered as her arm touched mine. I tended to get very focused while working, but just being near her was a class A mind fuck. She started up the stairs, then turned back to look at me, a puzzled frown on her face.

“Aren’t you coming?”

Coming? No, not yet. Not until you wrap those lips around me.

“Um, sure,” I managed to say. “Didn’t realize you wanted me.”

She stared at me, her expression so intense that I swear the air between us sizzled. Okay, it didn’t sizzle at all, because that’s fucking lame, but it did something. Felt like there was a tight string—no, a piano wire—stretching between us, quivering and pulsing with every beat of my heart.

Mel started up the stairs and I followed her, eyes glued to the gentle, feminine sway of her ass. Those legs weren’t half bad either, and seeing my work all over her body made me feel something strange . . . I had no idea how to describe it, but I liked it. I liked it a lot. Felt like I owned her. Now if I could just tattoo my marks all over her permanently.

No, probably not a good idea to cover her face, even I had to admit that. But the thought of my work across her back, so I could look down on it while I wrapped my hands around her waist and fucked her ass?

That’d do.

“Here’s the bathroom,” she said, pointing to a door at the top of the stairs. “And here is Jessica’s room. Mine’s at the far end of the hall, over the porch.”

I glanced down toward her door, the step up into her space. I wanted to see where she slept, but she pushed through to Jessica’s room instead. The place was all clothes thrown in piles across the shaggy green carpet and posters half falling off the walls. I had an ugly feeling the plaster was so weak it couldn’t hold them . . . The place felt about as solid as a wasp’s nest.

“The mirror’s on the back of the door,” Mel said, closing it behind us. She stood still, studying her image, and I came to stand behind her. The lines of green twisted across her body, spattered with flowers that bloomed and faded in a pattern I wished I could keep forever.

No, I wanted to keep her forever.

God, I deserved to be shot, because I wanted to defile her. Defile her and then lock her up so no other man could even see her, let alone touch her.

“It’s beautiful,” she said softly, touching her face. I reached up, setting a hand on her shoulder. She covered it with her own, winding our fingers together. Her eyes burned through mine in the mirror, and that’s when my world shifted.

I’d fallen in love with Melanie Tucker.

Not some little-boy, bullshit needy “love” like I’d felt for Emmy Hayes—this was nothing like that. This was deep, almost painful in its unholy intensity. It was like she’d sent tendrils burrowing deep inside, binding us together so tightly I’d die if I ever tried to pull them out.

I was truly, deeply, and utterly fucked, because I fucking loved this girl . . . and she wasn’t for me.

“Hey,” I whispered.

“Hey . . .” she whispered back.

“I think we should—”

Suddenly the door flew backward, knocking Mel right into me. My arms flew out to catch her as Taz lurched into the room, Jessica riding on his back.

He stilled, eyes crawling over Mel as I realized she’d lost the bra when she’d fallen.

“Nice artwork,” he said, grinning broadly. “But I think you missed a couple spots.”

I wrapped an arm across Mel’s chest, doing my best to cover her up. She gave a shriek. Then she was breaking free, running out the door to her bedroom as Jessica launched herself at me, smacking at my face while Taz laughed his ass off.

“You aren’t allowed to touch her,” Jess shrieked. I raised a hand to protect my eyes, wondering how the hell I’d ever considered this girl sexy enough for a drunken one-night stand. Could you even call it that? It’d been a partial, and a shitty partial at that.

“Get your woman off me,” I yelled at Taz, who laughed harder. Finally I managed to shake off the screaming banshee queen, shoving her toward Taz so I could go after Mel.

“I’ll kill you!” Jessica yelled behind me. Fucking witch. First Kit, now her. I was surrounded by devil women. Mel’s door was slammed shut, and I could hear her sobbing.

Fucking hell.

I’d broken her already, and I hadn’t even gotten laid first.

MELANIE

I lay back on my bed, laughing so hard it actually hurt. God, the look on Jessica’s face. The crazy hypocrisy and weirdness and the way I’d dropped my bra . . . it was all too much. And about time I freaked her out, too. She’d been freaking me out for years.