Sleeping Beauty
“Falcon is coming,” Hunter says quietly. It’s only been two days since he said those horrible things to me.
Not good enough.
“Did you hear me?” he asks.
Not good enough for anyone.
I simply nod.
“He’s going to try to take you away from me, but I won’t let him. I’m not through with you.”
I nod again, though I have no idea what he’s talking about.
He’s not through torturing me yet?
“Sleepy,” I whisper.
He gives a slight nod, then slides behind me in bed, circling his arms around by belly, forming his front to my back. I wish the smell of him made me want to vomit, but it doesn’t. I love the smell of him. I’ve always loved the smell of him.
“You remember when we had sleepovers when we were kids? I always slept in your bed. Your parents thought it was all innocent, but we were learning how to kiss. You told me all the places you wanted me to kiss you when we got really good at it. Remember?”
My body jerks and then stiffens.
I remember.
I remember everything.
“When I kissed you right behind your ear, you always trembled,” he whispers, nuzzling his nose in my hair. “Do you still like that?”
Please don’t.
His nose begins to trail down my hair, then his lips shift to the back of my ear. His warm and wet tongue presses in on the erratic pulse and nips me there.
I shiver and whimper, trying to scoot away from him, but he holds me tighter against his body.
“Yeah,” he declares smugly, “you still like that.”
“Sleepy,” I reply breathy.
“Sleep, then.”
Hunter
Hunter wakes in the middle of the night. He glances at his digital clock. 1:00 A.M. His head rests on the cool feather-filled pillows. Isabel is still tucked under his body. Her eyes are closed and she is still breathing.
Thank fuck.
She’s breathing.
“Isabel?” he whispers.
“Mmmm?”
“You’re beautiful.”
“I don’t exist,” she mumbles still asleep.
Hunter Knight knows Isabel responds in her sleep. The weirdest part is that she always answered honestly but her responses are riddles. He could ask her anything he wants to know and she’d reveal every single secret she kept hidden, except he’d have to decipher her low-key confesses into his own interpretation of her truth, his truth.
“Are you going to live for me?” he asks softly.
She grumbles incoherent things, then she takes a deep breath through her nose and let’s it out in a small whisper. “If you look close enough, you can see it cracking. If you listen intently, you can hear it breaking. If you touch it, you’ll get cut. There are so many pieces, too many sharp pieces.”
Intrigued, he inclines closer, holding her tight. “Pieces of what, baby?”
“Pieces.”
“Pieces?”
“Mmmm. Fragments.”
Without realizing, his hands violently squeeze her hips.
She whimpers in pain.
He loosens his grip but continues to hold her firmly, “I want you to live, Isabel. Live for me.”
She whines in discomfort and attempts to move away from him but he holds her tighter against his body. His dick twitches. He’s getting aroused by her moans of distress, not to mention her soft body pressed into his.
Shit!
Even in this weak and broken stage, Isabel is still the sexiest woman he’d ever seen. Her twinkling hazel green eyes that used to get so wide with wonder and awe every time she stared at him makes his heart pound heavier than anything else ever could. Her smooth, flawless pale, almost translucent brown skin always made him sick with desire. The scent of her: a wild and intoxicating mix of dark berries makes his head heady with a simple whiff. He knows her fragrance so well that he could blindly find her in the dark by her scent alone. But her long hair, dark silk, is his favorite. It frames not only her face but also her body, which has become very thin and frail due to stress and depression.
He loves her hair.
He always had.
“I’m dying, Hunter. I’m dying a million deaths,” she wails softly.
“No, you’re not—” she wiggles and he drops his arms from around her and she rolls over to face him, still asleep “—you look pretty alive to me.”
She grunts when his heavy arms settle back around her middle. “I’m invisible to you.”
“Yeah, you are,” he confirms. “That’s exactly what I need you to be.”
She begins to make sniffling noises, on the verge of tears.
Jesus, she cries in her sleep too.
“Hush, Isabel,” he orders sternly, watching her bottom lip cease from quivering.
So responsive.
He likes that.
“Blinded first by the beauty that killed her. Invisible. Someday you’ll fall in love with me.” she mumbles.
He doesn’t know why but he smiles.
His smile is massively huge.
In fact, his smile is not the friendly or inviting kind at all.
His smile is darker, sinister, more deadly than that.
Without needing to respond, he nuzzles his face in her nest of silk, hiding his lethal smile.