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scarlettscavenger · 4 days ago

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Monkey on Your Back by ScarlettScavenger

Chapter Eight - Wet Work

MDNI 🔞

Simon "Ghost" Riley/Reader on AO3

"It's a delicate balance, being caressed gently by lethal hands."

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven

EIGHT! WOW! I honestly never thought I'd get this far when I started this thing! (4.1k words)

Oop. Don't mind me back to feed y'all so soon.

And for anyone wondering... I won't be taking questions about how this got done so fast. LMAO

Anyway, enjoy. <3 We have two more chapters left after this one!

XOXO

Scarlett

Ghost melts into the shadows of the living room, the lines of his mask shuddering with sparks as he flicks a Bic to light the candles you'd set out that morning. It’s like he’s spreading fairy lights all over the space—intermittent and shimmering, softness toned with warmth and flickering. The blizzard outside is finally calming, flecks of white floating leisurely through glacial wind. He crouches and drops another log in the fire, feeds it to keep it burning now that it’s the only source of heat in the space.

In the darkness, his outline is sanguine like the flames are dancing along his edges. Beautiful—crimson—and veiled in blood that you can’t see. A God of war or death, you can’t decide.

Maybe both.

For a breath, you just stand there—soft cotton of your loose sweater soughing your bare thighs—because this isn’t over. You can’t just leave it at that. Your mind woolgathers as he stands, turns, and memorizes your twisted face. The relief and the ache for him that’s ever present in your eyes—seemingly steeper than before.

Still jonesing. Always looking for a hit of him.

Just one bump. One more push.

The world is rendered speechless—no snow battering the cabin. Even the crackling fire has muted. You and Ghost stand fused in a cold war, each side taking ground wherever they can find it. It’s a drive for territory—lockstep—moves and countermoves. Strategy and skirmish.

For too long you stare, assessing and studying, trying to figure out what the fuck he’s doing here. Why touch you? And why not let you touch him? Why stalk you just to do this? He knows he can have you—but he doesn’t do anything about it—and you’re anything but subtle.

“Why?” You choke it out, like that simple word is caught somewhere in your constricted lungs. It’s all your questions crammed together—everything throttled into his chest all at once.

He’s hard, straining against his jeans like he had on Halloween, and the red halo around his frame shudders with every labored breath. Ghost wants this—just as desperately as you do—so why the fuck does he keep running away?

“What’s it going to take for you to be afraid of me?” His deep timbre skulks into your ears, almost a warning—animalistic—prowling your temporal lobe.

“You watched me kill someone. I threw a bloody knife at your face today and you just—”

His head shakes and you can’t tell if he’s frustrated with himself or you. If he’s raging or intrigued by it. His hands are clenched, fists tight like he’s readied for a fight. He’s a lunar eclipse—inky and incontrovertible—and you’re the summer solstice—bright and brazen.

Is that what this is about?

Your eyes shut, brows tugging together because is that why he can’t seem to stay away? That’s the secret? The fact that you aren’t afraid of him. It isn’t necessarily true. You are afraid of him, but that fear draws you in like gravity and makes you want to chase rather than flee.

And it’s fucked up—yeah, maybe it’s really fucked up—but does that matter anymore? You’re sick of just being some tired, little rich girl. You want something real. Something tangible. Something that’s yours. Not something empty money can buy, and he just so happens to offer the drug you crave most.

Pure fucking danger.

And maybe—just maybe—he's as fucked up as you are.

“Nothing.” It sneaks from your lips reticently, like a breath—a promise with that very cornerstone of your mortality. “I’m not afraid of you.”

For the first time, you truly look at his hands and the scars that bubble over his knuckles. It’s blatant, wicked evidence of the bloodshed he’s lived—that which he’s both doled out and surrendered. It is brutality laid bare, and burden cicatrized into his skin.

Ghost huffs a bitter sound, a laugh that lacks amusement. Every line of his muscles are set, his gaze hedonistic, like even now when he’s trying so vehemently he can’t deny the fact that he just can’t stay away from you. Like you and him are twin magnets or sheep to the slaughter.

Fatal attraction.

Like if either gives in—one will snuff the other out.

“You should be.” His voice is cusped with malice, more ragged now, and his chest heaves more than you’ve ever seen. You rattled him—thoroughly badgered him down to the quick, delved into his marrow and matter until it’s no use trying to dig you back out again. There had been a flicker of rage in his eyes earlier, but you’ve never seen him so wrecked—not even when he’d been bleeding on your floor from a shotgun blast.

For a heartbeat, you almost feel like you should be afraid right now. It’s the first time you’ve seen him express any emotion, and even if it’s anger, you can’t help but want more. Your gaze sharpens to a barb; every ounce of your attention pouring over him until everything else chutes away. Adrenaline stutters through your system like it’s on a track. The same way that tires squeal against asphalt, and smooth stones skip over lake water.

“I’m not.”

There’s something in his eyes. There always is but this—this is different. It’s hellfire and carbide. Like even he can’t believe it, like he’s reading your challenge for subtext. Because it is a challenge—tyrannical and militant—demanding he capitulate; bend like trees in the wake of your tempest.

The silence, the very air between you, is as loaded as the pistol he keeps strapped to his chest. Though not now. Now, he’s a man not a warmonger, and that pistol lies in pieces just like his walls. A man in a henley and jeans. A dangerous man, with everything you covet held firm beneath his fingertips.

Your gazes are locked in that way they always seem to become. Hard and harsh and neither of you yielding. The tether of fate that’s twisted its way between you two over and over. Rio then Tahoe. A run in and then proximity by force of nature.

You chance a step forward because if now is when he cuts you down, then so fucking be it. You have nothing left to lose except this chance at finally getting that one thing you want. The thing money can’t buy and the hole that nothing else can fill.

You’d tried.

Maybe it’s just curiosity killing your cat, but it’s what brought you here, got you to this place with him, and that’s something you wouldn’t change. Your lips part and say the same thing you had earlier in the afternoon, the only thing you can think that might actually make him snap.

“I’m not scared. Are you?”

The dam breaks, as if you’ve been etching away at his resolve like a river against stone. You’ve worn him down, bit by bit, until his control is sand slipping away under your current. He’s on you before you can get anything else out, that same way he always seems to move in a blur of shadows and night, yanking your sweater up until you’re entirely bare and hurling it aside.

Ghost whirls you around, delirious as you listen to the shuffling and tearing of fabric before you can register that he’s ripping free one of the sleeves of his shirt. He wraps it around your head over your eyes and ties it tight—a makeshift blindfold.

As soon as you can’t see, time crawls and the world is a void except for him. You hear fabric slipping over skin and a gentle rustle as it falls away from his fist, a shirt and a skull mask thumping against the hardwood.

You’re a doe in his headlights once again and your skin prickles, every nerve heightened now that you’re typhlotic. It feels like he’s everywhere and nowhere. A soft brush over your hip and one down your arm. Heat emanates from behind you, giving him away.

His fingers nudge your waist, trail your body languidly as he stalks around you, a wolf circling a lamb, until he’s before you, menacing you down. Ghost takes your cheeks in his hands; cradles you like your precious and feathers his thumbs over your flushed skin.

“Tell me to stop.”

Not a fucking chance.

Your hands search, finding his arms first then lazing over to his chest and down, brushing over bubbled scars, until you find the hem of his jeans and tug until he’s flush against you. You whisper through broken glass and fingers fumbling to free his belt buckle.

“Don’t.”

He ferries your lips to his, hesitant, cautious. Sanctified by passed days and nights and your mind finally quiets, stills like wind after a cyclone. Your eyes close despite the blindfold because his mouth is on yours and you can’t think beyond it like the whole world has narrowed to this strip of hardwood before the hearth.

It’s gentle—unsure, unhurried—but it’s also desperate, hot breaths and blustering pulses, tequila and teeth, a war of hearts and wills snapping like they’re no more than twigs beneath his boots. Ghost hinders, tamps it down until its passion slows and stretches—patient lips memorizing tainted bliss. An angel and a devil pushing together to fight a holy war. It's twin sinners in the pews imploring each other for penance.

A peach pit and a cold heart.

His leg hooks behind one of yours, one hand snags your nape from the opposite side, then he’s pitching you backwards and down, sweeping you off balance. The world tilts as you fall. Air whooshes passed and out of your lungs, pulse spiked and heart raging. Your arms flail, reach out and grab for him, but you can’t fucking see, and your fists finally find purchase, nails digging into the hot skin at his sides. He follows you down, one hand guiding your head, so it doesn’t knock painfully against hardwood.

It’s a takedown, domineering and demanding, knocking through your bones. Right here. Right now. It’s happening on the hardwood before the hearth, where he bled and you wiped his skin clean. Where you lay bored and he taught you a skill he likely shouldn’t have. Here, now, because all the patience that a man like him can carry between stone shoulders and steel resolve would never be enough, and he can’t possibly wait one more goddamned second.

Now. Now. Now.

More. More. More.

Ghost slots his knee between your legs and you bracket his hips with your thighs as he settles between them. His hand at your nape slips higher to cradle your head, to keep the tie of the blindfold from digging in. It’s slow, reverent, and worshipful. He’ll knock you to the ground in a blink but when he gets you where he wants you—he’s going to take his goddamned time.

His teeth nip at your neck, creeping down your skin to your collarbone, and bite down until you keen. But his free hand? That pernicious, perfect hand ghosts over your skin, lives up to his name in the way it’s both diaphanous and haunting.

Ghost’s hand disappears and you hear the purr of a zipper and agitation of fabric. It moves slow and sleepy, idling downward along the curve of inner thighs. Memorizing. Mapping. He’s cataloging every moment, every hitch of breath and stroke of skin. Lust leaks from your pussy and he nudges his tip at your entrance. A gasp punches passed your lips, and his mouth finds yours to swallow it down like he’s still just as greedy as he’d been in the kitchen for every ounce of your air.

Everything about it is bloodsport—hunter and game, predator and prey. Ghost has waited, waggled low like a feline for a year for the right moment to pounce and he’s not giving up a single breath of yours, not if he can devour them instead.

He slides his cock in until you stretch and burgeon, open and pliant. He’s push and pull, giving all that he is and taking all that you have. He’s parlor games and war plans, foolery and fight. His hand digs into your hip with affection that borders on violence—a drop of white-hot pain in the inky black void of pleasure.

You sing a hymn with your moans, preach out his gospel into the quiet as he rocks his hips into yours and grinds that extra bit, coaxing until you buck against him. It’s the light behind your eyes and the air in your lungs. The beat of your heart and the fog in your mind.

He's everywhere all at once, consuming every little whimper, plunges deeper, in and out. It smothers your breath but isn't nearly enough. Every roll of his hips is agonizingly slow, taunting you with the power and potential he holds.

He’s Percocet on your tongue and a syringe of skeletal Morphine injected into your blood. Stoned and tipsy, you delve deeper with each drive of his hips until you tank, full of him and nothing else.

Your back bows and he slots his other arm around one of yours, between you and the hardwood, binding your position with his limbs in place of ropes. It’s tight—bands around you like shibari—locking down one arm and making you take every inch he gives. Sweat beads between you, catching the light of the fire and glittering golden—droplets of amber slipping over heated skin.

Midas. Halcyon.

He drives his cock into you until everything else is shattered and splintered, until he’s the flood of bliss with the rising tide, sweet as rosewater. One of your arms is locked under his, and you slither the other up, over the granite muscles of his back and into his hair, knit your fingers there and tug your greed into the strands.

You can’t see the stubble that peppers his jaw, but it scratches against your soft cheeks as he lays himself bare before you, another offering for your altar—gold and jewels laid out on your chapel steps. They shine brighter than any you’ve held before and you want to hoard that feeling, bottle it up and seal it for later.

It’s a slow burn like incense, smoke curling in the same way he molds your body to his, and prolonged, like he’ll take back every wasted moment of the last year—seize it in his fist and wrest himself into every fracture he can sniff out.

Drown you in it. Choke you on it. Tie you down and bully you with it. Pound himself into your pussy until it’s red and swollen and leaking—not just for him but with him.

Ghost teases you closer then switches his rhythm to pull you back from the edge, slows then speeds, in the same way he had out among the sugar pines. It’s carnal ilk and frightened devotion until you’re mindless on him, intoxicated by the scent of his skin and buck of his hips and brush of his lips over yours.

He grunts praise and possession into your ear, whispering filth and faith like scripture—your cult doctrine—as his cock glides until you're stuffed and spread to your limit. His hand cradling your head tenses, fingers curling into your hair and towing down until your neck is rent open. Then his lips are there, consecrating every inch of your skin, sucking another bruise like he has to prove he was there.

Like he wouldn’t believe it without them.

The roll of his hips tempts you closer, malevolent, persecuting you with pleasure, dangling it in front of you then ripping it away. It’s amatory conflict, capturing your euphoria and holding it ransom because he’s not going to let it go, not going to let you crash until he’s ready to shatter with you.

You bite down on your lip until you taste metal. Copper. Pennies. Bloodlet for him like he had for you in an offering of your own. Every sound you make is more sinful than the last, damnation like he’s dragging you to hell, so you burn alongside him.

Hades and Persephone.

Ghost bullies you with gentleness and batters you with patience; stops time to spread the seconds thin, stretching this moment until it feels like forever.

He drags heaven from the clouds with his malignant hands and slams it into you the same moment that bliss ricochets through him like shrapnel. Someone screams. You think it’s you, throat burning as rapture trembles through your limbs and to your fingertips. It’s his blade slicing ecstasy in place of pain, a thunderbolt electrifying every nerve. Pleasure slamming harsher than his knives had into your wall. His body jerks as yours writhes and you roll your hips until you both stop shivering. His breaths are as forced as yours, each one ragged and filling the sudden quiet.

Ghost collapses onto you. The arm still arching your back supports most of his weight, the other keeps your head off the hardwood like you’re too precious to fuck on the floor like a dog, even if that’s what he just did. His muscles ease enough for you to wrestle your arm free. You slip your hand up his spine and curl your fingers over the curve of his nape, clench your other fingers in his hair—a silent request.

Stay.

“Don’t move.” His words mirror your sentiment, and he culls himself free of your touch and you whine in gentle protest. There’s a bemused grunt, the shuffle of his feet and fabric, the clinking of his belt, the creaking of his steps and, then he speaks again.

“And leave that on.”

Yes, sir.

He retreats and the loss aches down in your bones, makes your fingers flex to reach for him, and drag him back down until he just stays. The wood of the floor is suddenly like lying on concrete—too stiff now that your focus is on it—and the sweat slicking your skin chills with the frigid winter air while the flames from the fireplace warm the skin in between.

You run your fingers through your hair and you hear his steps before you feel him, slowly swiping your skin clean with a warm, wet cloth that makes you moan all over again, and murmuring praise just above the sound of the crackling embers.

“Such a Sweet Girl for me.”

“Bloody perfect.”

All your focus snaps to his hands, how each touch is languid as he slides clean panties up your legs.

“Lift your hips for me, luv.”

Gooseflesh erupts from each barely there brush of his skin on yours. You head still swims, still delirious, like every gentle word is another hit of that drug you always crave. It’s waves of euphoria sneaking into your ears and heat raging between your thighs like you didn’t just get done devouring him.

It’s never enough.

He’s gone for a breath, and after a moment, you hear a whisper of something soft and heavy against the rug. Air whooshes and batters against you, making you flinch as a hard thump sounds next to you, and before you can shudder, you’re being lifted as if you’re weightless.

Ghost settles you gently onto a mattress in front of the fire and tucks a pillow beneath your head. Fluffy fabric flutters over your skin, blankets flicked out to cover the whole nest.

His weight concaves the mattress behind you, sidles up close, and his fingers untie the makeshift blindfold to pull it free. At first, your eyes struggle to focus, blinking and bleary, but when you turn, he’s there. Real. Corporeal. Mask on like it’ll hide the lips that spoke filth into your ear and lust between your thighs. His bandage has been abandoned, and it’s just skin, hewn marble with rounded slashes and boiling circles.

His arm is still welted, cruel spots that rise with vitriol. You cuddle closer, no longer caring about being slow or careful and place a gentle kiss to one. Ghost goes stiff as stone but doesn’t draw away or hiss at you to stop. You continue, pressing your palm to his shoulder until he’s prone, caressing tarnished skin with your lips. It’s as slow as he’d been, a pious touch as if you could heal each hurt with adoration alone.

His muscles melt like ice, relax under your gentle pressure, and he even rolls over, obliges your want to kiss the scars on his back, too—like you’re unwilling to let even one go untreated. You run your fingers over his skin, trace the swirling dark line of the tattoo on his arm, but don’t ask questions. Even if you want to know, you don’t think he’ll tell you, and it’s enough to press your veneration to each old wound.

The Goddess Panacea with poultice and potion.

Soothing every flaw no matter how aged.

It feels like hours and a moment all at once, like everything and nothing, full and empty. Time with him has thickened the tequila that fills your shell into something viscous; more like too sweet syrup. Like he’s your lifeblood.

Once he has a taste for you, it’s like he’ll have nothing else. Insatiable. Like you’re the only meal that can satisfy his hunger, and he takes you again, just as slow as before, on the mattress before the fire until neither of you can breathe without the other.

In the morning, Ghost is still there, warm, surrounding you with his bulk and his arm lazed over your hip like it’s always belonged there. You bask in it like his heat is the rays of an afternoon sun seeping into your skin. When you finally move, he curls his hand over your waist, holds you long enough to press a kiss into your shoulder, and then lets you go.

You disappear into your room, come back clothed—which makes him grumble something vicious under his breath—and watch him heat the kettle in the hearth. The power hasn’t kicked back on, and the candles are blown out, like he’d found some opportunity to do so when your back was turned.

The day passes with Jenga and tea on the coffee table. You sit between his legs as he reaches around to poke blocks free. You play rounds of imitation darts that make his jaw grind and share smoldering cigarettes wrapped together in a blanket on the deck. When the night falls and the sky is finally clear enough to see, you tell him about the stars.

You spot Orion and murmur stories about the hunter, said to be the tallest, strongest, and most beautiful of men. Ghost bands an arm around your waist and drops his head to your shoulder until you turn your cheek so he can shotgun smoke into your lungs. You tell him the myth of Taurus and about how Orion faced off against the bull with a lion pelt in one fist and a club in the other. The seven nymphs of Pleiades and the blue nebula that surrounds them. Then, you point out the Greater Dog—Canis Major—and Lepus the Hare, the former chasing the latter beneath Orion’s feet.

Ghost doesn’t say a word. He just listens like your stories are the softest music, like something he could replay and never tire of.

The snowplows come, etch a freeing path down your street, but he doesn’t leave. He stays. You don’t ask, and he doesn’t mention it, just a silent agreement that you’re both exactly where you want to be.

You finally beat him in a game of Jenga and complain that he let you win. He kisses you until you don’t have any oxygen left to argue with. You never see his face. He doesn’t take the mask off, and you never ask, allowing him the secret so long as he stays. You don’t ask for his real name again either, because you figure he’ll share it when he’s ready.

For the next two days before the power thrums back on, he’s on you, in you, consecrating every corner of the cabin, until he’s the air inflating your lungs and you’re the drum of his heart. Despite it all, everything that you are and everything he is, nothing has ever felt as right as being held like something precious in hands that know only violence. Fingers that snap bones without hesitation—yet they also ghost down your spine and over your hip with devotion so tender it’s jarring.

And even with the electricity thrumming—even when there’s no longer a need to cuddle for warmth—neither of you move away from the hearth. He doesn’t hide in the shadows of the cabin, and you don’t taunt him until he breaks. The air becomes content, quiet, and full until the place that once held you like a prison is more home than anything has ever been.

#simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #chapter fic #call of duty #simon ghost riley #mdni #spicy books #fanfic #archive of our own #my fic #writblr #writing #soft simon riley

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scarlettscavenger · 6 days ago

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Monkey on Your Back by ScarlettScavenger

Chapter Seven - Give The Devil His Due

MDNI 🔞

Simon "Ghost" Riley/Reader on AO3

"It's a delicate balance, being caressed gently by lethal hands."

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six

Chapter SEVEN! WOW! Should be only three left! Maybe four if i get carried away! (5.4 k words) Enjoy <3

XOXO

Scarlett

By morning, the WiFi has gone out but the power still thrums, lights shuddering intermittently like even the cabin is shivering in the cold. You gather candles and place them around like a witch in preparation of a ritual, just in case you’re cast down into darkness.

The storm slows but doesn’t stop, snow piling so high it’ll be hard to shove the doors open. The roads are likely closed—the nearby airfield, too—and the plows haven’t even made it to your street.

Snowed in, indeed.

You half expected Ghost to be gone by sunrise, like fog slipping through the trees and over the frozen lake, but he’s there, trapped like a snowbird who didn’t head south soon enough. He cleans his knives on the couch like he hasn’t done so twenty times already, an even glide of microfiber over steel. He’s got the tactical vest on too, readied to bolt at a moment’s notice, slipping the knives and gun back in their holsters. There’s no sign of how he got the knives down either, which only makes you wonder more about his supposed mortality.

He’s always in your periphery, always lingering in the edges of your sight—much like the way he’s been haunting your life. Even here in the cabin, you’d imagined you’d have space away from him, but he’s become the focal point, like you just can’t help but keep your focus locked to him like a homing beacon.

Lighthouse to your barge.

Captain Dick Barter sinking under his intoxication.

You make your way out to the deck, eyeing the tally marks from his knives in the wall above the door. Jealous? Not quite, but they do remind you of Halloween and a knee sized bandage, a flush on your cheeks and a hitch in your breath.

A tremor racks through you on the snow-covered deck, shivering despite the Michelin Man coat and the ratty, black beanie you’d dug out from a dresser drawer. Outside, it’s all white—not a hint of that cherrywood in sight. Even the sugar pines are coated in snow, greyscale everywhere like the aesthetic follows him and smothers out all other colors.

And life itself.

Pure white flakes drift down slower and less clumped than the last two nights, but still heavy—too many of them. They catch on your lashes and melt against your cheeks. A small sting, and one you’ve become all too familiar with.

A smoldering cigarette is clamped between your chattering teeth. You gnaw at the filter, your tongue varnished in ash. Those little hairs on the back of your neck perk up—goosebumps—and not from the cold. You can always feel him watching you before you manage to spot him, like you're tuned in to his frequency. A radio tower to his sound waves. The door creaks open and he steps out. He doesn’t even seem to shudder at the chill.

You glance over your shoulder, eyes tracking him as he moves closer. Each crunch of snow beneath his boots is heavy and looming. “How’s your arm?” you ask, then let out a slow stream of smoke from your parted lips.

He pinches the cigarette from your mouth between two fingers without even the grunt you’ve become used to, once again lifting that mask up to mock you with his covered skin, and lazes it between his lips.

“Nothing I haven’t dealt with before. Could’ve been worse.” Smoke curls between you, twisting like wind in a dust storm, around and around. His exhalation of smoke and your breath—from the bitter cold. “I put the kettle on,” he says, voice low and even, quiet, slicing through serenity.

You snort before you can choke it back, “That’s very British of you.” After he has a few drags, you take the cigarette from his lips, pull from it and the frigid air burns more than the tobacco.

Awe. Look at that. It’s your first kiss.

“Got a problem with tea, luv?” he says, and it sounds more like a tease than a chide. He takes the cigarette again, drags slow as he closes his eyes.

“Not at all,” you say and don’t mention that the only reason there are teabags in the cabin is because you’d hoped he’d cave and stay at some point, had known he was British and bought them after Halloween.

Always accommodating, little Miss Hospitality.

He huffs, that same amused breath, loathed as ever to give up that little sound. You’ve found that Ghost seems to see humor in the little things—which is something you definitely hadn’t expected—and beyond the gruff, silent stares and predatory gaze, it makes him even more of a man than a myth.

He draws smoke in once more, lets it out slow and controlled, and turns with a tip of his chin. “What’s that?”

You follow his gaze to the mason jar, cracked further than it had been—likely from the temperature drop—and near full of stones packed under flecks of ice, only safe from the full onslaught of white because it’s tucked up under the short overhang of the cabin’s roof.

“A collection,” you say, intentionally vague because two can play that game—thank you very much. You snatch the cigarette again, pads of your fingers brushing his lips as it gets shorter, careful not to scorch your fingertips. As you pull it away, he grabs your forearm, firm but not crushing. You twist your wrist, lean in closer, and bring your lips to it, cherry igniting midway between two generals locked in battle. No chance for a concord yet.

For a moment, brief and fleeting, you could swear his eyes dip down to watch your lips curl around the filter. Another little war being waged behind that mask. Something close to hunger simmers caustic in his eyes. Drip your poison in his veins and shut down his system.

But he just exhales and steps away, once more trudging snow through the cabin as you snuff out the cigarette butt.

By midday, you’re sprawled on the rug by the fire and glaring out the back window, taking the increased snowfall personally.

It’s boring. Had been boring before, but with the internet out, it’s like the universe is grinding salt into the wound. Shoves it down until it stings so you couldn’t possibly forget about it. You let out a sigh, a dull lament, staring at the white and the way it’s burying your cabin like dirt over a grave.

The back of your head is to your phantom. He’d moved from the couch to an armchair, a second steaming cup of tea in his hand, and the TV turned to local news running coverage of the storm—real riveting stuff.

Your eyes slide to the crease in the point of the roof, follow it down and back like you’ll find something hiding there. Even if there was, you can’t reach it.

Jenga blocks lay scattered over the coffee table and floor nearby along with your empty mud of raspberry tea—an abomination he’d griped under his breath. Stupid man and his stupid dexterous fingers. You couldn’t win even one game no matter how hard you tried. He must be cheating somehow, or his steady hands are the secret while your trembling ones are a handicap.

Then your eyes slide over, back down the wall and toward the window, catching on those tally marks just long enough for a dangerous and stupid idea to pop into your head.

Perfect. Finally some fucking food.

“Want to play darts?” you ask but don’t turn to look at him.

“You got a dartboard I don’t know about?” he grills as if he hadn’t staked out every inch of this place from the tip of the roof to the grain in the hardwood like it’s a mission briefing.

“No,” you answer, rolling to your side and finally looking his way, head propped on your hand and elbow pressing a divot into the rug. “But you have knives and I have a wall.”

He huffs that same grating disapproval, and you’re up on your feet, digging through a junk drawer in the kitchen until you find a roll of tape. “Come on,” you say, needling as always. “Just show me how to throw them. It’s not like I’ll be able to do it well.”

You can imagine the glare from your side of the living room even with your back to him. The corners of the page tear as you rip it from the window—coward still bleeding ink through the backside—and cross the room to tape it against one of the only flat walls in the cabin right next to the loft ladder. Ghost hovers in the armchair, still as death.

“It’s basically darts. We could do something other than playing Jenga and you sitting there like a gargoyle,” you say, grinning and trying not to make it look entirely mischievous. “Just teach me how to throw one.”

He makes that noise again, sounding more like a groan this time. “If I teach you how to throw one, you can throw them all.”

You roll your eyes. “Come on. If you don’t show me, I’m going to start chucking the kitchen knives around.”

That earns you a laugh, a quiet stifled sound, but a laugh nonetheless. Ghost makes no moves to participate in your devil’s game of darts. You stalk for the kitchen—belligerent and bullheaded—yanking a chef’s knife from the block.

You’ll teach your damn self.

“Bloody hell,” Ghost rasps. “Alright.”

He sets the mug of tea down too hard, like he’s being torn away from it much too soon—sacrilege—and remiss to let it go cold. He’s there, stilling your hand with his own in a heartbeat. You’re not sure if you’ve convinced him with your threat to teach yourself, or maybe it’s just revenge on that sheet of paper and word. “But you’re gonna listen to everything I say.”

It’s not a question. You’ll do it, and you don’t know what the consequences are if you don’t. Don’t really want to find out, either, so you shove the knife back into the block.

“Of course,” you say like that was your plan all along.

Ghost stalks across the living room. “You need a glove.”

“Don't have any,” you say, trailing along a few steps behind him, and for a moment, you think he’ll run out into the storm right there and give up on this whole thing, escape like a convict with a warden hot on his heels.

He sucks in a patient breath. “Just don’t cut yourself.”

That makes you snort, because obviously, you knew that. Maybe you could have taught yourself.

He slips one of the knives out of it’s sheath, somewhere buried beneath the tactical vest—good probably going to need it now. Not that you’ll try to hurt him, but you don’t exactly see this being in your wheelhouse. Ghost steps a few meters in front of the offensive page, toes a line in the hardwood, and grunts out, “Stand here.”

You move, perch at the line like an obedient little puppy waiting for a treat.

Good girl.

Ghost stands behind you, his chest hovering over your back, brushing lightly against you every time he inhales. Hard to focus? Yeah—but you’re doing it anyway.

“Hold it here,” he says, voice commanding and brusque. “Right. Like this.”

You study his gloved hands as he holds the knife out in front of you and sideways, his fingers pinched down low by the tip and biting edge pointing away from his palm. The flat side mirrors your reflection and you can see the full blade, the curve of sharpened steel.

When you lift your hand, his free one catches your wrist, his body enveloping yours and guiding your fingers to it, placing it properly. When he’s sure you’ve got a good grip on it, he shifts to stand beside you, hand engulfing yours. He guides you through the motion leisurely, back then forward, stopping when your arm is outstretched but not fully locked.

“Release it here. It’s an up and down motion, don’t curve your arm. Straight back. Straight forward.”

He’s done this before. There’s no way he hasn’t taught a hundred or more people how to do this. It’s too technical, too practiced. He takes a few steps back, arms crossed over that barrel chest—assessing—like he’s both disapproving and rethinking every single life choice that’s led him here, then says, “Go on, luv. Throw it.”

You do, yank your arm back then forward, and the knife slaps against the wall with a pang then clatters to the floor. Before you can move to pick it up, he’s at your side again with another.

“Harder.”

You roll your shoulders like you're some kind of professional, and focus on your grip. His voice cuts through the quiet. “Breathe in and hold. Then throw.”

The elated squeal that rips from your mouth echoes in the cabin, knife sticking straight in the wall. It’s not deep, not like his had been, and certainly not aimed well enough to hit the page, but you’d landed it close to the edge at least.

A foot away counts as close right?

The feeling of satisfaction that thrums under your skin is almost as addictive as the thrill in your veins when you first met. And without hesitation, you challenge, “We gonna play or are you too chicken?”

Taunt. Taunt. Taunt. You’ll tease him until you catch him. It’s like wiggling a worm in front of a Brown Bullhead, a sparkly little lure catching in the light.

Your little game of darts goes much the same as your rounds of Jenga had. Unsurprisingly, he wins every round, but you’re undeterred—determined—and having far too much fun for a bored heiress trapped in a blizzard. You trash talk every time you hit the page, though each of his knives actually hit where he’s aiming, but his mask curves where his mouth is. Wry amusement.

Even if he's not targeting you, the threat of danger still settles like water in a pond. He could throw one your way, or you could prick your own finger, watch it bleed as you replay Halloween in your memory as if you haven’t done that a hundred times over already.

It’s different with the blades in your own fist though.

You scoff when he wins the third game, holding his warm cup of tea in his free hand and not even spilling it. Not a single drop.

“You can’t possibly be this good at everything.”

It’s an exaggeration but he just regards you silently with a near playful glint in his eyes, as if to say, ‘yes, I can.’

“Hit the tip of the ‘A’.” You say, more a challenge than a command and when he does it with that ever present lethal fidelity, you give him another target, and then another. He hits each one like this is nothing more than a training day. Practice. Something he could do as simply as he breathes air, charred into his medulla oblongata.

Before he can, you move forward, making like you’ll collect them from the wall for another round. Instead, you lean back next to the page, maybe two inches away and glare back with mischief in your eyes like this is the single most thrilling thing that’s ever happened in your life.

And maybe it is.

You stare, don’t even flinch away for a second, as familiar anticipation curls low in your belly. Your skin prickles with goose flesh and there’s a hummingbird in your chest where your heart used to be.

“Do it.” You’re almost breathless, so enticed and energized by the mere thought. “Throw it. Hit the edge of the page.”

Right next to your face.

Before you can even think, a knife rockets and slams hard into the far edge of the paper. You can feel the vibration of force through the wall, and instantly, you’re dripping.

“No,” you say, trying to keep the tremors from your voice. “Not that edge.”

This is stupid, so fucking stupid, but it makes your pulse quicken in the most delicious way, and you have to force yourself not to clench your legs together to ease the ache budding at the crux of your thighs. Don’t want to show your cards, although you’re sure he’s already seen them.

“No, luv.”

Does he ever say anything other than that fucking word? No luv, you can’t touch me even if you're desperate for it. No, he won’t take off the mask. No, he wasn’t at the stream in the woods.

No. No. No.

“Coward,” you bluster. Poke the bear with a stick until it batters you with claws just to feel what that’s like. He twists another one in his hand and you catch the flashes of light as it moves, dancing over his gloved knuckles. “Come on. You’re not scared, are you?”

You goddamn fierce little thing, taunting death for months now. It’s your favorite pastime, really. You’re fucking crazy. Mad, but your panties are pooling just at the thought and even if he won’t do it, you have to try, because if he does? The memory of it will keep you sated until you’re in the ground.

Stark and unyielding, you narrow your gaze to challenge the reaper in another game of chicken. Ghost moves, fast like a wraith in shadows and a blur against the night, practiced grace and lethal dance. The blade swirls in the air, and your heart vibrates against your ribs, breath caught in your throat as if his fist were clenched around it.

The blade slams into the wall right next to your head, emphatic and thunderous, so much so that it screams over the roar of blood in your ears. Your head swims, dizzy and light from the rush then release, too much too quickly.

He’s on you before you can let out your breath—crowding you in and caging you with his bulk—growling out, ”Enough.” It’s finality, time pulverized to a halt beneath the astringed fists of an executioner. Axe dropping. There’s something wild in his eyes, something he keeps buried down, deep and untamed. Audacious.

This time it’s you glancing at his lips, mask lifted up like he was mid-sip when he snapped, so close you could lift to your toes and breathe a kiss into him. Sweet and slow or harsh and biting. He retreats with the shake of his head and a growl. You watch his mug of tea roll along the hardwood then do the smart thing, and skitter off to your room, cheeks hot and panties sopping.

You hide away in your room until the sun goes down, boredom enough to eat you alive. A thick, loose sweater isn’t enough to chase away your shivering. You make your way out once again, unafraid of the bear in your cave, the chill of the night drawing you closer to the fireplace.

He never seems to move, or you always seem to find him in the spot where you’d left him, still propped up on the couch. He might as well take one of those knives and carve his name into the cushions. It’s his spot anyway. ‘Die Hard’ is cued up on the screen. It’s one of the many DVDs still housed here, and you’re sure the inevitable ‘is it a Christmas movie or not?’ debate will come soon enough.

You’re dad seems to think so—and you imagine Ghost would take that side, too.

Fucking animals.

Not a word is exchanged when you plop on the couch, wondering if he keeps leaving the spot closest to the fire open for you intentionally. Maybe. Maybe not. He runs warm, or it could be the thick henley he’s still wearing, long sleeved and too tight around the biceps. You tug the fluffy blanket that naps like a cat over the back of the couch onto your lap and crack your book open, spine creaking.

You’ve gone back—rereading that same scene like it was the best damn meal you’ve ever eaten. Sate yourself on it. Fantasize while you can smell his gun oil and tobacco. Out here, it’s impossible not to imagine it between the two of you. Alone in a cabin with no way out, and the only man that can make your body sing sitting right there.

It doesn’t help that the pads of your fingers had brushed his lips this morning, softer than you ever would have dreamed, and you swallow down the image of the two of you that seems to keep running through your head like a record scratch. Him, on his knees, and you, on the counter—he's tall enough. You think he is, anyway.

And he’d stared at your lips this morning. His eyes had been caught on them like they would bring answers to every question he’s ever asked. You know the feeling because you’d looked at his the same way after your little game of darts.

Pin you up against the wall again, big boy.

Reading the scene again, especially with him only inches away, heats you up quicker than the flames in the fireplace. Makes it agonizing to sit still when every bit of your skin crawls and threatens to make you squirm. You twist, try to hide the filthy pages from view, although you doubt he even cares enough to peek at them. The book has a bright pink cover—if that doesn’t turn him away, you don’t know what will.

He sits eerily still—unnaturally so, almost unnerving—and he says nothing, sharing the warmth of the fire like you aren’t wanton at his side. Your pussy is gushing, clenching like you’ll magically find him there, dousing your panties in slick and muddying your mind into a mess before he’s even brushed up against your arm accidentally.

Does he do anything accidentally?

You kind of wish he would.

Ghost shifts, thrusting his hips up and fingers stretching then flexing over his knee, before he settles again. It’s almost like your need to squirm is itching through his skin too, and it’s far too distracting—so unlike his typical smooth air.

With the heaviest sigh you can manage, you slap the pages shut, carry the book with you to the kitchen so he can’t actually sneak a peek while it’s out of your sight, and toss it on the counter like it’s hot coals in your palms.

Damn the stupid thing. Can’t it tell that you’re hot and bothered enough from your little game of darts earlier? Never mind that you’re the one who chose to go back and reread that scene just for a little added punishment.

Not your fault and you won’t take that blame.

You dig the second half of the lime from last night out of the fridge and crush it down into a glass, pestle it until the juice is pulpy, and dump ice over the top. The bottle of Patrón your black sheep brought has become far too light for your liking, too many shots taken before sitting out in the frigid wind, but you pour the dregs of it into the glass and stir it with the handle of a spoon.

When you glance up at the couch, Ghost is gone.

You don’t hear him before you feel his hand seize your hip, the other reaching around you as he leans in to swipe the counter clear like your tequila is the worst type of inconvenience. He spins you around and reaches down. It takes you off-guard—surprises your heart into stuttering—epinephrine rallying in your veins. Those large hands rend your sweats and panties straight down your legs and he bullies his thigh between yours, stomps the fabric to the floor and lifts you out of it.

Your ass is on the edge of the counter before you can whine a protest—not that you would—and the chill of the granite pierces your fervid skin. A gasp catches in your chest before he leans in, gloved hands finding yours and pushing them back beyond your front lines like he’s taking ground. He looms closer, forcing you to give for him, retreating until your back is pitched.

“Leave them there or I stop,” he snarls it like the threat that it is, squeezing your hands once so the message stings. While it’s a threat, it’s also an out—one he always seems to give you. Even if he’s crazed like you’ve done something over the course of the days or weeks or months to bulldoze him beyond his well-built fortitude.

He fixes you there with eyes full of menace—the gaze of a gorgon—petrifying you into stone. Calcified into a fossil. Ghost scopes every shift in your lineament, waiting for a fight that’ll never come, even when you have no clue what he’s about to do to you. He lets the terrified anticipation spiral and ferment until it’s sweetened wine. Lets your pulse fly until you’re fidgeting.

Do it! God, just fucking do it!

For a breath, you think he’ll beg you to tell him to stop like he had out in the forest, but the pleading doesn’t come—not from either of you. All you unearth in his gaze is insatiable hunger—one that so nearly matches yours it’s like you’re splitting sins. Gluttons, the pair of you. Him devouring you while you ache to swallow him whole. Rapacious appetite. Erysichthon.

More, more, MORE.

Ghost hikes up your sweater with one hand, his mask with the other, and bows his head in prayer to press a wet kiss just below your navel. His lips roam to your hip, anoints a love bruise there then back, nipping the skin along the way before he licks a stripe southbound to take his communion.

Your fingers flex with anticipation against the granite countertop, nails seeking any ridge for purchase but you don’t dare move them. A breath struggles through your lungs, hitching in your chest. It’s chronic, your desire for him, persistent even when he’s not holding a knife to your throat because his hands are just as damned dangerous. You’re strung-out on it, fixated like just one more hit will be enough when you goddamn know it won’t. He could bludgeon your pussy endlessly and it’d never be enough.

Unending. Bottomless. Stuff him down deeper into every crack.

It’s avarice and thirst, never satisfactory because you’ll always crave more. You’d sell your skin for it—drain every penny in your trust fund just for one more measly hour in a run down motel. Rehab could never clear him out when a relapse is imminent.

Ghost drops to his knees, coerces his face between your parted thighs, drapes your legs over his shoulders like the clergy would vestments. His stubble rasps against your soft skin, tongue tasting a slow path through you, and he whispers a moan when he finds your pussy salivating. It’s ravenous, corrupt and covetous. Heresy in the way he worships you from his knees like a leper on chapel steps, seeking your end as if it’s his miracle.

His tongue twists and curls forming letters—penning scripture—that you can’t track beyond the bombardment of it, breathing nirvana into you between each stroke of his tongue. It’s essence, everything you’ve lived for in the last year finally coming down like a gift from the heavens. Like you no longer belong to yourself and neither does he. A crooked amalgamation of souls entwined like he’s braiding your threads of fate to his.

You don’t think you’ll ever have enough of him. Not him or his lethal hands or the danger snaked into his digits. Not his tongue or teeth or rasping dry humor. He overflows your bowl—all consuming and overwhelming. Buries you like pines under snow. A blizzard battering your walls.

Feast or famine. All or nothing.

Stone pressures against your palms as you push your hands flat, fingers splayed in a search for more. He’s rushed and rapid, nothing like the slow, torturous tease you remember, and you pant to keep up, suck air down cannily to ward off the vertigo threatening to drag you down.

His gloves shuck free as he shoulders your legs wider, burrowing into your heat. This time he doesn’t tease you, doesn’t have the patience left to batter you up and down. No—his fuse is burnt to the quick like a lighter with only sparks left, unable to produce a full flame. He works one thick finger into you, then two, crooks them right to that sweet spot like he couldn’t possibly forget a single curve of you, inside or out.

Bliss sings from your parted lips, harrow and harmony, his mouth and fingers moving in perfect synchrony. It’s lust and greed and gluttony melted together into perdition, sins so close to hell they feel more like gates before the promised land. You’re open—venal—his mouth bribing closer, coaxing you with a promise of payment.

Rapture.

Your back arcs, pulling yourself away for a breath. A growl rumbles his chest as his free hand comes down on your stomach, pushing, bearing you open for him and cementing the angle of your hips. It’s immovable and his fingers curl into the fabric of your sweater, his fist a barricade to keep you exactly where he wants you.

It’s filthy and raw. Leaves you vulnerable and strips you down to your marrow until you’re bare in his wake—nothing more than putty melting beneath his palms. He molds you, softens your edges until you’re drunk on him—on the way his tongue pulsates and hand pistons. Your eyes roll and mind blanks, senseless except for him, until thinking of anything beyond his mouth and fingers feels too much like blasphemy.

He’s tenacious. Insistent. Goading you to just let go and give it to him. Hand over your felicity and let him cram it down. Overindulge. Feast on it and shove it into the creases where he crooks his fingers.

Come hither. Shell it out. Pony up.

Fucking give it TO HIM.

You’re messy, sloppy, can feel your slick drooling down his chin which only drives your hunger higher, makes your want ratchet up until you’re starving even as his lips work you over. It’s like you’ve been fasting for a year and he’s laid a feast at your table. Bathing you in excess.

The power cuts suddenly, and a jolt of adrenaline shoots through your veins when you’re veiled in shadows. Blinded. It twists in your blood, violates your senses, and fear surges you to the edge. Pleasure builds block by block until it’s towering, staggering, and you’re swept under the fall. Your thighs clamp down, bracket his face, hold him with them instead of your hands that you’re too obedient to move. Instead of choking, this time you cry, head lulled back and tears spilling over your lashes as you writhe against his ardent lips. It’s fentanyl dripping ecstasy down your spine like ice water, chilling shockwaves into your bones. The rush of the high comes on too quickly, burying you in luscious echoes of euphoria until you can’t breathe against it.

He stands when your legs go boneless, swiping his chin with the back of one hand and knocking the knuckle of the other thrice against your book as if to say, ‘good idea, that.’ You pale then flush, realization dawning that he’d been reading over your shoulder this whole time. Yesterday and today—maybe. Does it really even matter?

Then he stalks off into the shadowed corners of the cabin, tugging the mask back into place and the gloves into the back pocket of his jeans, like nothing happened. Like he isn’t even affected.

Pretty little fucking liar.

The glass of tequila you’d poured sits undisturbed a foot away from your hip, condensation licking down the sides and pooling in a circle on the granite. You lift it to your lips and drink every last drop, let it poison your throat and steel your resolve, let it build you up to face the reaper.

Your loose sweater kisses the tops of your thighs when you jump down from the counter, and then you stalk after him, not even bothering with your bottoms, because if he thought he could run away like last time?

This time he’d actually have to kill you.

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