Red

Editor’s note: this story contains scenes of non-consensual or reluctant sex.

*****

**Author’s Note: I am still a fan of fairytales. There’s no getting around it though, most of our favorite bedtime stories from childhood contain some dark elements. Little Red Riding Hood in particular was always pretty terrifying. This story is my modernized take on Red Riding Hood but like the classic, there is some underlying fear throughout. If rape play or stalking or a little bit of blood is triggering, please don’t read this story. Maybe just as offensive, please know that modern day Red doesn’t take any shit from anyone. **

***

Wolf

He rarely watched porn. Pornography didn’t do much of anything for him and never enough to actually pull his cock out and conclude business. Sure, like any beast, his eyes were attracted to shiny flesh. He liked looking at perfectly, golden tanned skin and long hair. He enjoyed sculpted tits and waxed, nubile parts; all lubricious and pink.

It was like bright plumage on a bird. It was meant to call attention, to bring the urge to mate front and center and make the ritual impossible to deny. Skin and scent and spit and sweat all mixed in a tantalizing stew of lust brought to a fever pitch.

It was fine for others but he’d always been considered odd. And that was just the bits and pieces that people knew about. If they had any idea what lurked underneath his socially acceptable façade. For him, the bare bodies were more practical to be used as bait, for other, lesser predators.

Animal shows actually were more to his taste. Even though he’d never stroked himself while he watched National Geographic, occasionally he had noticed that he had an erection. When he observed the large cats, the truest form of predator that existed, perhaps it wasn’t sexual in nature as much as recognition. He sat on the edge of his leather chair and leaned in way too close to the 72″ plasma television. He liked the feeling of immersion, as if he were no longer safe in his den. He liked to imagine that he was there in the savanna, like he and the mighty beast were hunkered down together in the tall grass. Hearts beat to a primal tempo, a rhythm that carried the tremor of thunder off in the distance. Every muscle wiry and strung tight like cat gut strings on a cello.

He would quiver in anticipation.

Everything must be perfect in order for the assault to be successful. The rumble of need inside couldn’t be ignored but the moment before they sprung it was just two pulses in time, following an ancient rhythm, as old as life itself.

He liked to watch the death grip and the beast’s mighty paws and claws sunk deep into the prey. He liked to watch the meal fight and thrash and arch its back. He liked to think that it prayed for mercy but the cats were deaf to any such prayers. They would wet their faces in the hot pulsating stream of blood and lick their lips of the crimson spatter. It was lusty, it was truly decadent and he felt a kinship with the beasts.

He knew that he didn’t look like anything fearsome and that was his camouflage. He wasn’t like the great cats who strode through the fields, their jutting muscles on display with every step. They were sinew and strength, with fearsome teeth. Their shining, yellow eyes were a warning to run for your life.

No, he was much more hidden. He had to be since one of the basic tenants of a peaceful society was that everyone agreed to hide their true animal nature. So he kept his dark hair short and his face clean shaven. He had friendly, brown eyes that tended to shine with laughter or at least what was perceived as good humor. He had a steady, firm handshake that made him seem like an upstanding member of society. He dressed conservatively and voted the same and kept a small circle of acquaintances who could account for what a really decent man he was.

He kept his hunt to himself. He loved the secret, forbidden nature of it and he loved the glorious, godlike feeling of watching without being watched. He basked in the unseen and became untouchable. He felt like god; maybe but god didn’t have these motives. More like a jungle cat.

Tonight, although he was clothed, he felt as though he’d stripped down to his true nature. The black shirt and pants clung to his wiry, well-muscled body like a second skin. He felt like a jaguar. The black ski cap covered his face and he’d like to have it off for this evening’s escapades. He’d like to feel the breeze on his face as he crept down into his lair and studied his prey. Alas, unlike the jaguar and proud pumas and lanky lionesses that he watched on tv, he couldn’t risk being seen for what he truly was.

That had to remain a secret.

***

Red

There it was and according to the doctor, it would be there forever. Underneath the crisp white, button down, she still had the almost translucent skin that wound down the back of her neck and moved down her right side. The shiny scar tissue was vine-like and wrapped itself around her ribs and her right arm down to her bicep. But on the outside, no one could tell. She could pass for one of them with the shirt and the black, knee length skirt and her wild mane combed back carefully into a ponytail. Normal.

Well, except for the ankle monitor.

Red shook her head and watched her reflection in the mirror. She waited for the green light to flash. One, two, three. There it went and that meant that some fucking cop, some fat sack of shit from the Cook County Sheriff’s Department could easily point her out on a screen. Yup, there she was; Mirabelle Rasmussen, prisoner 91117C. Right where she was supposed to be at seven o’clock on a Saturday night. She was up in her shitty, puke green room in the attic at the Draper residence. All tucked away, doing her day job, taking care of Doris.

Hey fuckers, she greeted them silently. It made her smile when she counted it again. Thanks to overcrowded prisons and the whole system basically being fucked, there was only one hundred thirty-four more days until she got this goddamn monitor off. Then good luck ever knowing where the fuck she was again. She planned on being a ghost, which was perfect since everyone she ever cared about was dead.

Doris’ thin voice came over the walkie talkie, “Mirabelle, dear, can you help me find my glasses?”

Well, not everyone. Red couldn’t help but feel something for Doris. It was time to get back to work, Red nodded at her reflection, and that seemed about right. She had two full-time jobs and one part-time and if she were allowed to, she would have worked even more. Life was expensive and it hadn’t gotten any fucking cheaper since she was inside. Going straight meant that money was just harder to come by.

“Yes, I’ll be right there, Doris,” Red said a little louder than she usually talked into the device. Half the time, Doris couldn’t remember how to work it, the other half she couldn’t hear. Probably her glasses were just sitting on top of her head but Red didn’t mind. It was a goddamn shame that she lived here like this. The house, once a thing of glory, was as decrepit and crumbling as the owner. Poor Doris Draper was living in squalor with a stranger. She was an ex-felon for god sakes. Doris just needed someone to find her glasses and make sure that she didn’t fall down the stairs. Okay, sometimes there was more to it but she shouldn’t have to pay for companionship. Doris had family. The rest of the Drapers lived on the North Shore, just a thirty minute drive.

They never visited their grandma. Red wished she could explain that family should be cherished. You never knew when you’d be the last one left.

She ran down the four flights of stairs quickly and listened to the clack of her heels across the parquet floor as she entered the drawing room. Of course, Red had never been really good with her words, she’d really just rather punch the motherfuckers that had left a sweet, little old lady to fend for herself. “Here you go, Doris,” Red said with a smile as she pulled the old lady’s glasses from her tightly permed, gray hair. “Here’s your glasses.”

“My goodness,” Doris shook her head, as if she had run out of patience with herself. “Thank you, Mirabelle. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” the bent old woman said with a wrinkled, twisted smile. Her gnarled hands reached up and patted her head to see if there was anything else she’d tucked away in her hair. “What are you dressed up for, dear?”

Doris insisted on using her proper name, although Red didn’t remember the last time anyone else had called her Mirabelle. Everyone called her Red.

She had come by the nickname naturally due to the blood red shock of wild, red hair that had been her trademark from the beginning. A couple of guys had suggested that her stripper name should have been Ginger, back when she worked the pole. After they got to know her, they changed their minds.

Ginger was some girl with big tits and an easy smile and fluttering eyelashes. She wasn’t a Ginger, she was a Red.

“I’m not really dressed up,” Red smoothed the front of the button down. She hadn’t ironed it, she hadn’t ever ironed, “I’m working tonight.”

“Doing what, my dear?”

“It’s a catering company. Some big, swanky party and I get to pass champagne around. You know, hold a tray with the little food on crackers. That kind of,” she almost said shit but she really tried not to swear in front of Doris because it wasn’t ladylike. “Stuff.”

Doris took a shaky breath, “Did you quit your job at the box factory, Mirabelle?” She made a face that meant she was in pain but Doris would never tell what hurt.

“No Mrs. D, I’m still there. I’m just on third shift now so you’re usually asleep when I work over there.”

The old lady made a clicking noise with her tongue, a tisk tisk. Red knew what it meant. It meant you poor thing, working yourself to an early grave but Doris was old school and wouldn’t say it out loud. At least she had the decency not to show pity; Red fucking hated pity. “Well, you’re young and plucky,” was all Mrs. Draper said.

Damn straight, Red thought.

“Can you pull the afghan up, my dear?” The house was drafty, even in May. Red happened to like it on the cool side but she imagined that it must freeze up Doris’ old, arthritic joints.

“Sure,” Red pulled the soft, worn old blanket up to Doris’ armpits and then tucked both arms inside. Her skin was crinkled like paper and felt dry and crispy like old paper would. She seemed to just be bone encased in a bit of squeezable blubber. They are called bat wings, Red reminded herself. There’s another good thing about having three jobs. No need to go to the gym. “There you go. You all cozy, Doris?”

The old lady nodded and smiled politely. “Yes, I’m just fine, my dear. Can you tell me something?”

“Sure, Doris.”

“Who are you and how did you get into my house?”

This is why Doris’ shitty grandkids really needed a punch in the face, Red thought. Someone should knock some common sense into them and loosen up their fucking caps. Half the time, Doris was a peach. The other half of the time, she was still sweet as pie but she couldn’t remember shit. She was so vulnerable. Doris should be in a home. One of those fancy ones on Lake Michigan that looked like condos instead of just a place to die. Some place where she could make friends instead of rotting her brain as she watched soap operas on the Spanish channel with the sound off.

“I’m Mirabelle, Doris. I live here with you and help you with stuff around the house. Remember?”

Doris gave her a nod but it was bullshit. Red could tell by the slightly hysterical look in the old lady’s bloodshot eyes. More and more, Doris was frightened of her own home and the people that were in it.

Nothing’s fucking fair, Red thought.

The front door squeaked open and a voice called out. “Miss Doris, it’s Pamela. You decent?” she asked. Pamela was the second shift caretaker and had begun to give that greeting two weeks ago when Doris had forgotten to wear clothes. The old lady had greeted her from the drawing room, naked as a jaybird.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Doris whispered conspiratorially to Red. “Of course I’m decent.” She drew her lips in tight and all that was left was a bright pink gash in the middle of Doris’ face. The lady did like her lipstick even if it bled into all of the cracks around her mouth.

“Of course you are.” Red repeated and patted Doris’ shoulder.

On her way to the front door, she stopped to update Pamela. She watched Pamela take off her tennis shoes that she wore to walk from the bus stop and put on the house slippers she wore at the Draper residence. She was a huge woman and her calves were straight lines from knee to ankle. “She’s a little out of it,” Red remarked to Pamela.

“As usual,” the fat woman said with a grunt as she jammed her swollen foot into the slipper. “Where you off to? Hot date?”

Red rolled her eyes at Pamela. “Nope, job number three.”

“No rest for the wicked, Red.”

Red supposed there wasn’t but she just shrugged. She didn’t need rest, she just wanted her freedom.

Red checked the pockets of her black hoodie. She had her burner cell phone and bus card in the left pocket, cigarettes, lighter and five bucks in the right. Time to go wait on fat, rich fucks and wish that she was a million miles away.

At some point during the bus ride, Red thought that before, the only time she took a job like this was so she could case the place.

But that was before the fire.

***

Wolf

He had made his choice early on in the evening. In fact, the instant that he saw her, they all might as well have disappeared. Once she was in his sights, she was all that he saw. But that was the problem with inviting people to your house. Manners dictated that you couldn’t just throw them all out once you had what you wanted.

Rules.

She was trying too hard to fit in and he found it charming. She monitored what the others around her did and kept her movements similar. He recognized it immediately, he had spent a good deal of his younger years doing the same. She wore the disguise of a waitress, the white shirt and black skirt like the rest of them. It was a uniform, intended to designate uniformity. No matter what her clothes were though, she was unique. She might fool the rest of them, but not him.

She was clever. Her smile was patient but her eyes were imperious and flashed with unexpressed feelings. She was delicate and petite but she walked like a warrior, even in the low heels. Her breasts were small but in the air conditioned room, her nipples were large and noticeable. Her waist was cinched in, tight and toned. She was quite slender and her hips rolled as she moved about the room. Confidence, that was it and it radiated from her like a scent. This woman wore the waitress uniform but she felt like a queen, maybe a goddess.

Her actual scent, he had decided after he had savored a bit of it from her trail, was cinnamon. It was something earthy and hot with just a tinge of sweetness. It was subtle and had hidden depths. Her scent made him half erect and he wondered if he buried his nose at the nape of her neck, if that wouldn’t make him cum.

The party continued around them, in fact it was in full swing. To his left, a male slave pleasured himself on a foot without permission. If his mistress were truly a mistress, such errant behavior would never take place. However, like the rest of his guests, she was just a poser in a shiny latex dress.

In the next room, a schoolgirl received a bare bottom spanking while three older gentlemen watched and masturbated to her young, tender flesh.

In the hall, there was young man who was naked except for a pair of fairy wings that he had strapped to his back and the blindfold. He was on his knees with his mouth open. He gagged and sucked furiously on whatever body part was pushed into his mouth and there was a semicircle of strangers who impatiently waited their turn to rape his mouth. He was sure that before much longer, one of the strangers would grab his legs and hold him in position while they raped his ass as well. Most of the wait staff stared and giggled. Some had left the room, too offended to even observe.

She watched intently but seemed to be as unaffected as he was, removed. She observed without judgment. She was like a human watching an ant.

Like god.

He felt the same. The parties had been fun for a while. In the beginning, he’d been rather obsessed with them actually. There had been the Doms, glorious and powerful men, sometimes dressed in suits, sometimes in leather pants and bare chests. There had been the mistresses, the gorgeous women in thigh high, leather boots and corsets. There had been others in pin-up lingerie, all softness and curves and flowing locks who wielded a crop in delicate hands.

Then, of course there had been the slaves. The splendid slaves, naked and shiny and new. Male slaves who had been freshly shaved and their skin gleamed in the light. Some would walk in fully aroused and obvious, some were clearly frightened and their soft penises would hide away, tucked into their sacks. The female slaves had always been a feast for the senses. Bare and beautiful, they were a cornucopia of sex. He could usually pick them out by scent alone as the evening progressed.

He’d had so much fun in the beginning. Even after he had realized that what he was looking for was more like a needle in a haystack, he’d kept at it. Sure, he’d catch a glimmer here, a glimpse there, he’d lose himself in a few hours of the sublime nirvana of hope. It had been short lived and he had a short attention span. Since then, he had mostly thrown the parties to keep acquaintances from bothering him about it.

Tonight, he felt the draw though and it was undeniable. Shortly before midnight, he couldn’t stop himself. Even if it was a terrible idea, he’d decided fuck it. Even if it just ended in disappointment, he had to know, had to see her, had to smell her.

She had slipped outside. She was on the terrace, bathed in moonlight. He studied her skin, it was almost as white as her shirt and wondered what it felt like. He noticed that her nails were painted black and that they almost looked like claws. She drew a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and she tapped it on the back of her hand like a man would. There was a click of a lighter. She inhaled and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke that seemed to cling to her. It almost hid her from view.

He knew how to turn the door handle just right so that it opened silently. He could watch her without a word, without a sound, unobtrusive and unobserved if he chose but with this one, with her, he wanted to be seen.

“Are you on break?” he asked from the doorway as he took in the scent of the humid, evening air.

“Unauthorized,” she said with a cheeky smile.

“Nice night out, isn’t it?” He continued as he closed the door behind him almost as silently as he’d opened it.

She blew a smoke ring and he couldn’t help but smile. “Gorgeous.” She looked up at the sky and her milky skin was illuminated the dark. There was some kind of enchantment about her and he wanted to draw closer.

“Are you finished for the evening?”

“Just about.”

“Why not stay a little while?” He could feel it, the needy twitch in his fingers. He wanted to tug that rubber band out of her hair and watch it all tumble down in a glorious, bloody shower around her shoulders. And the eyes. She had icy, blue eyes that shone, cold as the lake. He wanted to plunge into the depths and be completely submerged. As he’d watched her, he had done the calculations. In his head, he had figured the odds of a natural redhead with blue eyes and almost white lashes. On her physical attributes alone, she was an anomaly.

Only .017 percent of the world population that had been graced with similar traits. He was drawn in, like the deep inhale that she took of smoke.
“Not really my thing.”

“BDSM?”

There it was, that temper that came through, like lightning with no thunder. She glared at him; that was an actual glare. If they let themselves embrace their true animal nature, she would show her teeth to him.

“Hanging out with boring, rich dickheads.”

He chuckled, she was quick witted and sarcastic. Even better, she was feisty and she had a mouth on her. She had voluptuous lips that were slick with gloss, no color. The color of her lips was just barely pink, like a flower bud that wasn’t quite ripe, not yet ready to bloom. She had an innocent mouth and world weary eyes which made it impossible to guess her age.

“Being the rich dickhead who owns the house, would you stay as my guest?”

She had smoked her cigarette down to the filter and she jettisoned the butt into the yard with her middle finger and thumb. “Sorry Mister, I’m not much for parties with this thing.” She posed with her right leg, bent for his inspection. Her bare calves were the same milky white. Her cream colored skin glowed and it was far too easy to imagine running his fingernails along every inch.

It looked like a cuff. Then he saw it, the green light blipped. He recognized the ankle monitor and now he was impressed and even more intrigued. “Can’t stay out late, I guess,” he jammed his hands in his pockets as he strolled closer and closer. With a cuff, exactly what he wanted to do and the thought of her tied down made his pulse speed up. He wanted to smell her warm cinnamon scent and her smoke and her carefully hidden terror as he cuffed her slowly, one ankle at a time. “I’m Mr. Wolfgang,” he murmured. If she put her hand out to shake his, he might grab it and bite her finger.

Smart girl, she didn’t make a move. She didn’t want to shake hands. In fact, she just raised an eyebrow and gave him a sneer that said “good for you.” Out loud she said, “Guess break time is over.”

He took half a step closer and hoped to close the space between them but she sidestepped gracefully. She made her escape as elegant as a dance. She was fluid and nimble and she was gone, all the way back to the French door before he could get close enough to touch her.

It was her turn now to study him. She stood in the doorway and looked him over, up and down, she scanned his body. If any of the ladies inside the house had given him that look, it would have been tedious. Just one more attempt at seduction from one more upper class, suburban housewife who liked to think of herself as kinky.

The waitress sized him up like prey. She had the fixed gaze of a predator and he was glad she wasn’t close enough to feel his shudder of recognition.

***

By midday on Sunday, he knew much more about her and the more layers he peeled back, the more he thought he may have just been waiting to know her.

Her name was Mirabelle Rasmussen but the Chicago Police database and her employers listed her as Red. He had to admit that he liked the sound of her proper name and had repeated it to himself fifty times.

Her chip on her shoulder and her nonchalance were earned. Red had been raised in the court system. In and out of foster care, her parents didn’t seem criminal as much as hopeless at caring for her until they had both died. She had joined a gang when she was just a kid in braces and had started her lengthy rap sheet at twelve. She had multiple stays in juvenile detention and a variety of schools, and there were a stack of complaints about her. Red solved her problems with her fists.

And then a switchblade. That incident had cost her nine months in a camp meant to scare kids straight. Guess it hadn’t really worked on Red, he thought as he smiled at the scrawled note at the bottom of her release form. “Rasmussen hasn’t learned a thing and might be worse than she was upon entry. She is headed for prison.” Mirabelle had spent almost the entirety of the nine months in a small cabin, alone. It had been the camp’s answer to solitary confinement and apparently, Red had taken to it swimmingly. Enough that on her first day back with the others, she had stabbed a peer in the hand with a shiv that she’d made from a plastic spoon. When they had taken her back to the solitary cabin, she had been all smiles.

It was something that they shared, he and Red.

At noon, he received a call from the gate. That only meant an intrusion into his research, someone wanted to drop by. The only reason he answered was because of some, almost infinitesimal chance that it was Red but that was based on his gut feeling and nothing more. She could have left something behind. He would have found it already but perhaps she would have only thought she left something. Or perhaps that would be her cover story to gain access once more to the Wolfgang estate.

“Sorry to bother you, sir, but Mark Murray is here to see you.”

Mark was an idiot. Mark was a bottom, a closeted bottom who insisted that he was submissive when he was just a bossy bitch in need of a dick. It hadn’t mattered to Mark that he wasn’t interested, Mark was in hot pursuit of him anyway. Normally he would turn Mark away with a snarl but Mark was a lawyer and he had legal questions.

“Send him up.”

It only took a few minutes for Mark to race his little sports car up the winding driveway, park and tear upstairs.

“Jared ” he called out in his best “come and get me,” coquette tone.

“Stop it,” he said, almost under his breath as he emerged from the shadowy doorway outside his library. “I need information.”

“Well, you know I’d do anything for you,” he added a breathy, “Master.”

He chose to ignore it. “How serious is it if someone has to wear an ankle monitor as part of their parole? I mean if there were only a few months left, do the police even care?”

Mark smiled, “Sounds like someone met a fugitive.”

He narrowed his eyes and warned him with a stern, “Mark.”

Mark shrugged, “Depends on what they went to jail for. And what kind of criminal history they have. You know, first time offenders, they usually are willing to be lenient. Except on the fines.”

“So if it’s a lengthy criminal record and a felony?”

“No fucking way they’re getting off until the sentence is done. Not unless they have a friend in the Cook County’s prosecutor’s office.” Mark said that last part wistfully and turned his face up. He seemed to be expecting a pat on the head like a pet and Jared assumed that was because Mark could do him such a favor.

He hated owing favors. It would be particularly distasteful to owe this Cretan. It wasn’t because he was gay. Jared had never fucked a man but it wasn’t out of the question if he had met one that he appreciated. There was an element of sex with a man that was pure bloodlust, almost sport, which gave it an intensity that he appreciated. It wasn’t even the fact that Mark wasn’t submissive. He would be submissive with Jared whether he liked it or not. He could almost picture raping Mark upstairs in the shower. He could see Mark with his eyes closed, his blonde hair matted to his forehead, his mouth open in a soundless scream.

It was just that Mark was so stupid that made him loathe to think of it. “Good to know,” he nodded solemnly, “now let yourself out.”

“That’s it?” the lawyer grimaced, “I could have told you that on the phone. It would have saved time coming up your driveway.”

“Remember that the next time you stop at the gate.” Jared was done with Mark and turned his back and closed himself back in his library. He didn’t have to check to see if the idiot actually left. His tires squealed and the engine raced as he expressed his disappointment with the sounds made by his car.

Mark wasn’t like Red. She wouldn’t need anyone to tell her that stealth is strength.

He went back to the laptop and clicked on his favorite photo of her so far. It was from five years ago, her most recent mugshot. It was brutal and beautiful all at the same time. Her hair was wild and it looked like blood that dripped down her shoulders. There was a bit of actual dried blood on one cheek. Her eyes were far away and there were purple circles under both. Somehow he knew, looking at this picture, that her arrest was not even close to being the worst thing that had happened that night.

They listed her height and weight. She was trim, too muscular to be skinny but willowy to be sure. She had a presence that was so much more than her size and a raw sensuality that had nothing to do with curves. She was fuckable, of course, and fierce all at the same time.

She only had one tattoo, a Russian word that no one at Cook County could decipher. He had a desperate need to know what it meant and traced the letters on the screen with his finger. What word would his crimson haired beauty value that much that she would place ink on her perfectly, milk white flesh?

Under other marks, it listed “third degree burns on torso and arm.” In fact the date of her arrest and the date on the mugshot were different. There was a difference of three days. Those three days, she had been handcuffed to the bed in the burn ward at Evanston Hospital. After she had been treated for third degree burns, she had been charged with manslaughter and arson.

He frowned at the computer screen; more, he needed more. He wanted to consume her, like a slice of perfectly cooked meat. He wanted to savor her slowly on his lips and teeth and lick the leftovers from his fingers. Of course, to get any deeper than he was now, he’d need the assistance of a hacker that he knew. He touched her lips on the mugshot photo and thought that he felt the need to explain all of this to her somehow.

What others might call stalking, he called foreplay.

***

Red

After a twelve hour shift at the box factory, Red was glad that her feet and calves hurt. It was a distraction from boredom. It was a quick, twenty minute bus ride to the Draper residence and she almost always had just managed to shut her eyes when it was time to get off. It was just as well, Red told herself as she shook the cobwebs off. She’d been dreaming about him again.

The man with the gray eyes. Wolf eyes, so he had been named appropriately anyway.

Red was quick about walking the not quite three blocks to Doris’ house. She liked to be there before the old lady woke up. Recently, the rest of the Drapers, douchebags that they were, had decided that round the clock care was too expensive. They needed the money for their yachts or ponies or whatever the fuck they were going to spend it on and now, it was just Red. That was fine though, Red would actually protect the old lady, batshit crazy as she was. She had started to care about her charge. She felt like Doris was her grandmother instead of some random old woman she got paid to babysit.

What the fuck good was it to have feelings about her, Red asked herself as she reached for the ornate door handle. She could never love Doris enough not to leave her and everything else in Chicago behind in the dust. Once her time was up, she was gone and then what were they going to do about Doris?

“Doris?” she called out loudly when she entered but not loud enough to wake almost deaf Doris from a sound sleep.

No reply. Red went to the kitchen and punched the button on the coffee pot. She had such a taste for the espresso that Yuri used to make. Pitch black and syrupy sweet, two, three shot glasses and she had felt like she drank rocket fuel. Of course, back then she did a lot of coke too so she was always flying high, at least until she crashed. Now it was just the painfully slow drip, drip, drip of Folgers. There was no money for coke or fancy coffee. She had finally gotten clean inside and she swore she’d never go back. Plus she was saving every penny for the big fuck you.

After Red gulped down two cups of coffee, she felt awake enough to continue. She knew she’d get a couple of cat naps in. Doris slept on and off all day. At least she slept better here than in prison.

Red poured herself a bowl of Frosted Flakes and took a seat at the kitchen table. The food was better than prison too. And even if the attic apartment was shabby, compared to a six by nine cell, it was paradise. The walk from here to the bus stop and back was magnificent compared to two hours in the yard a week. Fuck, the yard had been more dangerous than the fucking showers. More room, less guards, Red had seen at least three murders happen in the yard.

Even for her, prison had been fucked. Even coming from her rough, tumble down background and being on her own since the beginning, prison had been like a death. The death of her independence, the death of her soul.

That was what she couldn’t explain to Mr. Wolfgang; the man with those intelligent, inquisitive wolf eyes. He was a deep well, that gaze was pure soul and Red knew she could lose herself there. That night, at his party, he’d worn a blue, pin striped suit with a black shirt, open at the collar. Red still couldn’t get over the lines of muscle down his back and shoulders. He was built like a swimmer and it was easy to imagine all of him. There was just the suggestion of black hair in the neckline of the shirt that made her want to unbutton him slowly. One button at a time, just because she was more horny than she knew what to do with didn’t mean she’d rush it.

She slurped down the milk left in her bowl and wiped her mouth on her forearm. It had been a while, Red thought as she contemplated the wetness on her skin. Everything was sensual, everything was overstimulated. Yeah, sure, there had been plenty of women when she’d been in jail. She sighed, it had been much needed stress relief and even she needed basic human contact once in a while. After months of lockdown, she wanted to run her fingers along arms and legs. She had needed to comb her fingers through hair and smell warm skin as much as she wanted to cum.

But there hadn’t been a man since Yuri.

Fucking Yuri, he was such a piece of shit but god, she had been crazy about him. Crazy because of him too. He’d been as addictive as any drug she had ever come across. Yuri was one long piece of muscle, undulating, throbbing muscles. He looked like an Olympian even though he had smoked two packs a day and had done every drug he could get his hands on. Yuri with that fucking Russian accent that made her weak in the knees. Everything he said sounded filthy and most of it was. Yuri had been the best fuck of her life. There were moments, when she had watched him sleep, moments like that when Red had thought she could love him. Maybe really love him like a girl was supposed to do with a boy. Like forever.

Until she fucking hated him anyway. Then she had wanted him to die and she’d made that happen.

That was a lot of baggage for posh Mr. Wolfgang to unpack. Red leaned back in the kitchen chair and wondered as she clicked her nails on the table. Rich fuckers in the suburbs were usually soft but not him. Nothing soft about him, she bet, not soft anywhere and she felt the rush of warmth at the center of her dark blue work pants.

She closed her eyes and imagined what could have happened. What if she had walked up to him, as he stood there on the patio. He had clearly been sizing her up. What would he have thought about her hand placed firmly around his hard cock in his pants? The look told her he had already been hard but would he appreciate boldness? Was he really a man who wanted a slave? Some simpering submissive girl who dared not even look let alone touch? No, something told her that Mr. Wolf wanted a firm hand on his cock. Then his balls and then two, nimble hands on his leather belt and then his zipper.

He was big, wasn’t he? Red decided yes with a sigh, she felt steamy under all of her clothes.

“Rasmussen, you home?” There was a knock that Red could tell was an impatient fist, pounding on the heavy oak door. Only one person called her Rasmussen.

Her parole officer Jack Mueller gave her the creeps but she had no choice but to play along no matter what. He was the one who said whether she followed the terms of her parole or not. One word from him and she would finish the rest of her sentence at Decatur Corrections.

It wasn’t his fault that he was repulsive, Red thought. He was bone thin and his hair was slicked back and shone with grease. He stunk of body odor and something sour. His teeth were brown and so was his tongue and Red hated that she’d been close enough to him to know that. He knocked again and this one was loud and impatient. “Coming, Jesus,” she only muttered it under her breath though and in her head, she reminded herself to play the game. This is just the first step in making things right, she thought as she opened the door.

“Hey.” She greeted the man who insisted on being addressed as Officer Mueller but she just couldn’t do it. “Can you keep it down? Doris is still asleep.”

“Yeah.” He threw his cigarette butt, still lit, into the flower box to smolder and Red had to clamp her lips together. “Take me upstairs, I gotta do an inspection.”

Fucking great.

The sound of her steel toed work boots and Mueller’s dress shoes in tandem up four flights of stairs was enough to wake even Doris. Red jammed her hands in her pockets and made them tight fists. She’d have nail marks on her palms which would hurt like hell later but it was still better than punching him in the face for being such a prick.

“Come in,” Red mumbled and swept her arm in a gesture that said come, see how extraordinary my life has become. She had become sarcastic even in non-verbal communication.

The attic had been transformed over the years into makeshift living space and now was an illegal apartment of sorts. There was a bedroom with room for a queen sized mattress and a dresser. There was a bathroom with an old claw foot tub and even a bidet, which Red still hadn’t used but always made her grin. Her favorite part of the apartment wasn’t even a room, it was really just an open area with two chairs and a table in between. It was the only good, natural light in the attic though. She sat in front of the enormous picture window and had a view all the way to Lake Michigan on a clear day. Red would crack a smaller window and smoke and stare and lose herself in the silence.

Some shit for brains had slapped paint around and everything was the color of split pea soup. Every time Mueller did one of his inspections, he always raised his eyebrows and muttered, “Yikes.”

Red waited by the door and gave him his space. There was a list of items that couldn’t be in her possession. It was quite a lengthy list actually, it covered a lot, from bolt cutters to zip ties. No porn, no vibrators, no dildos. She couldn’t have anything that could be used to detain anyone, murder anyone or fuck anyone. This was why she needed three jobs; because she couldn’t indulge in any of her hobbies, she thought as the search began.

Oh, and nothing flammable, which was actually a good idea. She had special dispensation for the lighter because she smoked but it had to be disposable. Absolutely no lighter fluid.

Mueller snapped on a pair of plastic gloves, as if he were worried that Red would have something toxic tucked away. Like a poison dart would prick his delicate skin. He squatted down and used a pen to pick through the small pile of dirty clothes she had on the floor. “No surprises for me, right Rasmussen?”

“No sir,” she said glumly. Fuck, would she like to surprise him.

“Nice,” he said with a thin, greasy smile as he held up a pair of blue, bikini panties with the pen.

Red’s face was hot and flushed as the anger swelled up inside her. “Why do you need to do that?” she asked him just above a whisper.

“You know how I feel about you, Rasmussen,” Mueller said in a husky voice. It was from the lower register and intimate, as if they were lovers and this was the beginning of his seduction. “Right? You do, I know you do,” his eyes glittered with his lust and he touched the center of her panties with two fingers. To show her how he’d fondle her bare flesh.
She felt sick. “Let’s just get this over with,” Red tried to keep calm. Don’t give him the satisfaction, she thought but the hair on her forearms stood at attention. Red had learned a long time ago to trust her gut and everything inside said not to turn her back on Mueller.

He just smiled and showed her his stained teeth. He dropped the panties with a sigh and checked the pockets of her other work pants and the breast pocket of a shirt. “Open your drawers,” he said with a ruckus laugh, as if he hadn’t told the same joke every time he had been in her room.

He meant the dresser drawers, which carried the rest of her possessions on Earth. Red did as she was told and slid the top drawer out slowly. That was the rest of her underwear, bras, panties and socks. He enjoyed this part too much and his face was sweaty and excited as he sifted through the satiny fabrics. “You should get something sexier, Rasmussen,” he murmured, as if she’d bought any of it for him. “Gorgeous girl like you, I picture you in some black, crotchless panties,” he grunted and grabbed his dick through the front of his pants. That was something close to the noise that the sick asshole made while stroking himself to her, Red knew it. She bit her bottom lip hard so she would keep it all inside.

One hundred and eighteen days.

He was quick about checking the rest of her clothes. They were for function only and weren’t as interesting as her underwear. There was the stack of neatly folded tee shirts that she wore to her job at the box factory and the one last pair of clean, navy blue work pants. There was her white blouse and skirt that she wore to waitress. Finally, the bottom drawer was filled with the stretchy that she liked. There were comfortable, old sweat pants and a sweatshirt with a hole in it. These were the things that she wore around the house to babysit Doris. The things that she’d always preferred even when she had a life that required many more outfits.

Mueller ran his hands along the bottom of her mattress and pulled up a corner. Nothing, nothing there to get me with, you piece of shit, Red thought to herself. He yanked the cushions off both chairs and tore open the drawer on the little table between them. He clicked his tongue, it sounded like he was disappointed.

“Gotta check your bathroom too, Rasmussen,” he told her as he looked her up and down slowly. He raised his eyebrows and added, “gotta piss for me today too.”

“I just did that at check in,” she told him quickly. She had done it in the privacy of a stall with a female officer present and that experience had been humiliating enough.

“Surprise, surprise, you have to do it again today.” He appeared gleeful as he pulled out the clear plastic cup and the marker. Mueller carefully wrote her last name and the date and waved it at her. “What’s a little pee between friends?” he asked and licked his lips lasciviously.

Red took the cup and followed him into the bathroom. He opened the medicine cabinet and found toothpaste, a tooth brush, floss, a half used can of shaving cream and two disposable razors. She also kept one bar of soap there, the other was in the shower along with the cheapest shampoo she could find at the Dollar Store. Her hair was as coarse as a Brillo pad from the last few years of neglect. It was good that she could keep it slicked back in a tight ponytail.

“Looks good,” he told her and crossed his arms over his chest. Mueller leaned up against the white and black tiled wall and smiled lazily. “Let’s go, I don’t have all day. Even for you,” he added just above a whisper.

“Can I get some privacy, please?” Red felt the bile rise up in her throat. Her nerves and her temper seemed like they were both about to explode in vomit.

“Sorry, I have to watch,” Mueller said in a voice that said he was definitely not sorry.

He loved it.

Red trembled as she approached the toilet. She unbuttoned and unzipped slowly, her brain was a bundle of electrical impulses that all told her to kill him. She didn’t care that he was armed. His service weapon was buckled into the holster that hung from his skinny hips. Red bet that this motherfucker had never been any good with a gun. He probably hadn’t been to the firing range since they promoted him to head dickweed or whatever it said on his card. She’d snatch it and smash his face up against the cool tile. She’d watch him bleed all over the wall before she carefully wrapped the gun in a towel, all the while her knee would be in his back, eating the goddamn floor. If he walked out of here, he’d be missing a few teeth and he’d have a nasty bruise. Of course, Red had absolutely no intention of letting him live.

Doris wouldn’t even wake up. Then there was the corpse though and a whole other world of problems that Red had no easy answers for. She stood no chance on her own, branded a cop killer. Chicago PD would hunt her down if it was the last thing they did and once her time was up, Red wanted to be a ghost. She deserved a chance after all of this.

She dropped her pants to the floor and took a seat. She wiggled the panties over, the sweaty panties that reeked after her shift and the fear and the hatred that was radiating from her core.

She looked him in the eye as she pissed in the cup.

“Makes a lot of sense now,” he was hoarse and his fingers twitched. Red imagined that he needed a cigarette after all that. “Why they kept you in solitary most of the time at Decatur,” his eyes glittered with desire. Mueller adjusted his dick from left to right as he listened to her fill up the cup. “Fuck, you’re just beautiful everywhere, aren’t you, Rasmussen?”

She handed him the cup, full to the brim. It sloshed a little on her hand and she knew that he’d wear her pee on his fingers. Fucker would probably lick it off once he was in the car all alone. Probably jerk himself off with that hand later. Pervert.

“Are we done?” she asked. She sat and didn’t rush to cover up. She let him take it all in, every bit of her body, all of her pink and pale flesh, everything that he wanted to look at. With her eyes, she dared him to approach her. She still had the work boots on, she’d stomp him right in the dick and good luck stroking it later when it was all purple.

He nodded as he put the lid on the cup. “That’s all,” he smelled his piss damp hand and added, “for now.”

Mueller left quickly, perhaps he finally sensed that he was the one in danger if he pushed her any further. Red yanked her panties back into place and pulled her pants up. God, she was tired. It wasn’t just physically tired. She was soul weary. She felt depleted to the bone. Ever since that night, the last night with Yuri, the night that she’d burned it all down, Red could never sleep enough. She just needed to rest.

She kept herself busy with Doris’ breakfast and laundry until it was almost noon. The doorbell rang and she called out to the old lady, “I’ll get it,” even though there was no question that Doris wasn’t getting it. No one waited long enough for her to drag her legs with the walker from the back of the house all the way to the front.

Red opened the door to see a delivery man on the top step. His van had flowers on it and he held a crystal base in a cardboard box in one hand. “Delivery for Miss Rasmussen,” he smiled and passed it to her, like every woman would love to be the recipient of his gift.

“That’s me,” Red took the flowers and set them on the floor.

“Sign here,” he indicated an X on his electronic clipboard.

“Who are they from?” she barked. If it was Mueller, then he’d just upped the ante. Her insides were on fire as the fight or flight impulses ran down her spine. She really was going to have to kill him. There was no other choice.

“There’s a card,” the delivery guy said with a shrug as he hurried back to his van.

It was handwritten in beautiful script, it was almost calligraphy, which made Red realize immediately that it wasn’t Mueller. That douchebag probably couldn’t write anything legibly, just reports that he checked off.

“Red,

Looking forward to our next meeting. The game is on.

Wolf”

“Who’s there, Mirabelle?” Doris called from the drawing room.

“Nobody,” she whispered as she buried her nose in the center of the roses. Blood red and if you got this close, the thorns were noticeable. The perfume was deep and rich, heady, almost overpowering. Red felt the unmistakable wave of want rush down her body. Damp and sweet and almost more difficult to control than the urge to kill, this was another unmistakable animal instinct. She needed to feed, she needed to feel, she needed to take him.

That was the problem though, Red told herself as she cleared her throat and came to her senses. Game on or game off, she wasn’t going to stay. All she could care about was doing her time. She just wanted to get the fuck out of here and take her life back. Mr. Wolfgang was a delicious distraction and maybe in another world, he’d be something.

They’d be something.

She quickly marched to the trash cans in the back of the house and stuffed the flowers, box and vase inside. The last time she’d thought something stupid like that, someone wound up dead.

***

Wolf

He had picked the full moon because there was something about it that seemed appropriate. If she were his goddess, then there were protocols to follow. He had always loved the pagan rituals, the animal sacrifices. The blood and the earth and the stars and the fire all had meaning and tonight, they would once more. He wanted to see her skin glow in the moonlight, bare and perfect as she struggled to get free.

It was a sacrifice after all.

The fact that the camera that had been placed in the bouquet had been rendered useless had just made him smile. Had she known or had it just been impulse? Was it a chess move or just a flare of that almost infamous temper of hers? Jared would never really know and either way, he just found it enchanting. Better to up his game and go in blind, there was something more intimate about that.

Almost virginal for both of them.

The first time in a strange girl’s bedroom, the first embrace, the first moment of knowledge, when she felt the cold, steel tip of the blade slice her shirt. It would be perfect.

The hacker that he had hired had been well worth every cent and he now had a whole encrypted file of Red. It contained all the little details that he had craved. There were other pictures of her. None of them were as perfect as her mugshot, but fuck, those eyes of hers. Her cold, calculating, iceberg eyes were mesmerizing. They were always defiant, whether she was shackled to the hospital bed or headed to see the parole board.

Two chilly, blue pools of fuck you to the world.

No one had missed Yuri Federov. Ever since his entry into the United States, the Russian gangster had been a wild card. He had been on every government agency’s watch list. Even his own people hadn’t known what to do with him. He’d made new alliances with blacks and Mexicans, something that the old timers had forbidden, and he never waited for permission to make moves.

If Red hadn’t killed him when she did, he was going to die soon anyway. There had been a contract on his head and according to a snitch, it had been his own father who initiated it. The old timers had forbidden that too, but for Yuri, they made an exception.

Actually, Red had just executed the contract. The way that Jared saw it, the Russian mob owed her the money for eliminating him so perfectly. It was a dream hit, really. The police and the arson investigation squad had to sift through the ashes to find his teeth. If Red had just gotten out, she would have gotten away with it.

Jared concluded that she hadn’t expected the fire to turn on her like it had. It hadn’t been a suicide mission, and the Red that he knew, at least the Red that he had become obsessed with, would never hurt herself intentionally. She had just wanted to make double sure the cocksucker was dead and then, was caught in her own trap.

The charge had only been manslaughter and she would have walked with community service if she weren’t Red. Yuri Federov’s body was so charred beyond recognition that they couldn’t ascertain any physical evidence from his corpse. Jared liked to think that she’d burned him at the end, after a lengthy session that involved cuffs and maybe a taser. Maybe a knife. Maybe she’d just hit him with her fists and kicked him with her boots. He imagined that she had enough fury inside her petite body to do some real damage to a full grown man.

A decent lawyer could have argued that she was just defending herself, although one look in her eyes and they would have known that was nonsense.

The picture of her scar made him hard every time. And tonight he was going to see it up close. He was going to run his leather gloved fingers along the winding branches and leaves that had been left behind. Fuck, he wanted to taste it too. Jared wanted to let his tongue linger on the thicker, meatier scar tissue. He wanted to bite her as well.

He wondered if she were more sensitive there or less. Had the nerves been damaged to deaden the pain or had they heeled and became heightened in their response? God, he hoped she felt every last bit of it.

The Audi was stolen and so were the plates. It was his chosen vehicle for tonight because it was black and sleek and reminded him of a predatory cat, running through the jungle. The gears screamed for release as he waited to shift from first to second. It was a noise from a hungry thing that had just begun to pick up a scent. The scenery had changed as Jared raced through the night. He had begun in the sheltered, tree lined cul de sacs of the suburban North Shore. Now he was in the middle of asphalt and graffiti. The car sped through streets lined with abandoned buildings and dumpsters overflowed with garbage. He was in the heart of the city and it definitely had a different heartbeat.

The Draper residence had become familiar since he’d begun this dance. What had once been a proud manor in the heart of the bustling near South Side, now echoed the neighborhood around it. War torn and bedraggled, the house had seen better days. It was obvious that the family didn’t want to spend any money on upkeep. Or their grandmother.

Jared parked the car in his chosen spot, three and a half blocks away. He would slip into the darkness and take the last steps of his journey by foot.

Living in the attic was a far cry from the glamorous life that Red had lived before. Back in the earlier days of her relationship with Federov, they had been gangsters together. They had lived in a penthouse apartment in the Gold Coast. Red had gotten a slew of speeding tickets and finally a misdemeanor charge for reckless driving; all in a Porsche 911 GT2 RS. The car had been custom painted, cherry red with black and gold flames on both sides.

He wondered if Mirabelle had always liked fire.

He adjusted the pack so that it clung to his body like a second skin. Everything that he needed for the evening was inside. It was a veritable kidnap and rape kit but for tonight, for her, he thought of it as love tokens. The only question that remained was whether or not she would feel the same.

He had thought of it as fate when the homecare company had discontinued the round the clock workers. Now it was just Red and the old lady. He supposed the Draper family must not know much about the redhead. Surely, they wouldn’t leave their sweet, old grandmother alone with her.

It also worked out perfectly that this was her night off from the box factory. He knew from watching her routine that she was early to bed on those evenings. So far, as he approached the house, everything was exactly as he had planned. The back door had an old Schlage lock that was easy to pick. The deadbolt hadn’t been used. He was inside in less than three minutes and soundlessly entered the Draper residence.

He slipped past Doris’ bedroom door and paused on the other side, just to make sure that the old lady was also in bed. Doris sometimes wandered in the night. He had seen it occur twice in his hiding spot from the street and he’d made a note of it. The last thing that he wanted to do was scare Red’s charge to death.

He could tell that Red cared for her and that made him smile. She had a heart, actually, he suspected that she cared deeply when she did care. Another similarity.

Jared crept up the stairs slowly, with his back to the wall. He avoided the center of the stairs, where the runner was worn and the squeak was the loudest. Red had spent enough time in prison and other similar facilities, there was no telling if she was a light sleeper. He paused outside of her bedroom door and waited. His heart pounded and he could feel his pulse quiver in his throat. If he didn’t have a thin, black face mask on, pulled down to his collar bones, she’d be able to see how wildly that vein throbbed in his neck.

His cock had followed suit ever since he left the house. Completely hard, it was impossible to disguise his intentions and he was sure that she’d see the clear outline of his erection when he made her take his pants down. Fuck, he could hardly wait to feel her. He’d been so intent and so intense on the study of her. His passion had taken over. Jared felt as if he had waited for months but it had only been days since he met her.

He curled his hands into fists in his fitted, black leather gloves. He flexed his fingers, ready to grab her, to pounce. He entered her bedroom and he immediately knew that the full moon had been fated. The light washed over her bed and made a shadow of her spill onto the sheet below. Like this, with her hair loose and free and wild, it looked like blood in the moonlight. It was as if she’d already been savaged and a crimson tide poured out onto the pillow. There was something both ghastly and lovely about that idea. Her gentle breath came and went, her small breasts rose and fell in the tee shirt. In the moonlight, he could even make out the outline of her puckered nipples.

It was the one thing about the gloves that made it almost unbearable to keep them on. He wanted to touch her, really touch her with bare fingers. He wanted to taste her too. He wanted to run his tongue everywhere, all over her but it was easy to take bite impressions and although he wanted her to know everything. He had to be sure that this was just between the two of them. So gloves it was, he told himself as he clamped a strong hand around her wrist.

With one hand on her wrist and one around her waist, he had the advantage of waking her from the middle of her dreams. Jared had counted on the element of surprise because otherwise, he knew from his study of Red, it would be much more difficult. She was a fighter and he wanted desperately to have her trussed up like he’d been imagining. “What the fuck?” she mumbled sleepily before she crashed to her knees beside the bed.

He knelt beside her and slipped the black, nylon cord around one wrist. He secured the other end to the solid, oak leg of her bed. “What the fuck is right,” he whispered as he pinned her other hand quickly. He had to immobilize her before she could put it all together. Otherwise, Jared was afraid he’d have to sedate her and that would lose all of its beauty.

“Fuck you,” she growled and pulled at her hand. She struggled against him to escape his grasp but Jared was prepared. He slipped the rope into place easily. Her hands were firmly cuffed to the sides of her body, too far away for her to reach anything to hit him with or touch him. The pity of it was that Jared would do almost anything to feel her hands on him but that was for another time.

Once she loved him.

“Don’t you know another word?” he asked with almost a chuckle as he secured her left knee. He slipped another rope cuff into place and tightened it quickly, right above her knee. The feel of her legs through the pajama pants made his cock pulse. Inside his underwear, he dripped a steady stream of want for his red haired goddess.
He could hardly wait to watch her taste him.

“Let me go and I’ll give you a few words,” she snarled. She tried desperately to kick at Jared with the one free leg. He caught her ankle and secured her neatly, legs and arms fixed in place. The rope cuffs didn’t budge in spite of her struggle. Now he could take his time and enjoy what came next. He watched the green light blip on the ankle monitor and he wondered if there weren’t a corresponding blip on someone else’s radar. It secretly thrilled him to know that someone else watched Red twenty-four hours a day.

Just not as closely as he did.

He ran the black gloves through her hair and exhaled deeply. “Red,” he murmured and swept her hair back, out of her face so that he could finally study her. He had tired of the computer screen and now he wanted everything in the flesh. “Red, I would love to let you go,” he confessed with his fingers on her chin as he brought her eyes up. He forced her to look at his mask, “but not tonight.”

She spat on his mask and if it had just been his face, her saliva would be on his upper lip. It would be so easy to open his mouth and have the taste of her drip inside. As it was, he rubbed it on the mask and felt the little wet spot that she’d left behind.

It was time to show her the seriousness of the situation. He reached into the backpack and brought out the blade. The metal gleamed in the moonlight and it looked wicked and ready. Red saw the tip and her killer, blue eyes grew wide. He suspected it was equal parts fear and anger.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you,” he hissed as he sliced the front of her shirt, “much.” It was a men’s white underwear shirt and it might as well be lingerie for the effect that it had on his body. The knife was right between her breasts and he stopped there and took in the sensory overload. He felt her breath quicken, hot and desperate. He imagined what it would feel like to have her breath like that on his neck while he tore into her, while his cock pumped and filled and spewed into her depths.

Ecstasy.

He finished with the shirt and the white material slid down her shoulders to her arms. The cloth covered nothing and there were her bare breasts. Her nipples stood at attention and Jared set the knife on the floor beside him. Dangerous or not, this required both hands. He fondled her teacup sized breasts with the gloves on and moaned as he watched the natural display of her animal instincts.

Goosebumps rushed over her body. From her shoulders to her waist, Red was covered in them. In the moonlight, he could see the white peach fuzz that covered her arms; every hair stood at attention. She was an animal, making herself bigger in order to scare off a predator.

But she was also a woman that was extremely turned on by his touch.

She mewed like a kitten when he traced the tip of the blade around her lovely, dark pink nipple. She was terrified and yet, her hips bucked as she watched his leather gloves squeeze and roll the other nipple roughly, between finger and thumb. “Stop, stop you fucker,” she said with a curled upper lip. That look. That snarl mesmerized him. It was as if she held him in the deepest contempt rather than the truth; that she was wet with her desire. Jared knew that if he slipped his gloved hand down the front of the pants, she’d flood his black leather but that was meant for later. He’d never be able to stop himself from coming if he didn’t have a little taste first. Or rather, she had a little taste of him.

All in good time, he reminded himself. Jared dropped to his knees in front of her and opened his mouth. The netted fabric over his mouth prevented a real taste. It was a barrier to skin on skin, tongue on sweaty flesh, but he could get her essence in his mouth. “You’re so perfect,” he whispered into her neck as he paused there, at her pulse. The vein trembled wildly, like some ancient, tribal drumbeat. Pressed up against her like this, he became her breath, her heartbeat. He licked her vein. He slowly pressed the tip of his tongue all the way from bottom to top. If he dared, if he could, if she were truly his, Jared would bite her there and sink his teeth in until she was just a little bloody.

“Fuck,” she whispered. It was almost a sob, it was hoarse and she didn’t mean to stop. She meant she wanted more.

He couldn’t help himself and he’d already convinced himself that Red wasn’t going to call the police once this encounter had ended. She just wasn’t that kind of girl. Although, he smiled to himself as he peeled off the gloves, she would probably set a trap for him when he returned. She’d definitely be better prepared next time.

It was ecstasy to have his bare hands on her tits. He kneaded her flesh and grabbed her pert breasts and groaned as he explored. He cupped them in his hands and ran his fingers up to her large pointed nipples. They were perfect, supple and sweet. She was made for his mouth and the twists and turns of her puckered areolas were something to study with his tongue. Jared let his mouth lead him there. Mask and gloves and all precautions be damned, he had to have her. He had to have her now.

The tip of his tongue followed the moonlit trail. The crease under her breasts, the sweaty crevice of her décolletage, he panted as he licked. Red trembled beneath him, furious and yet, her body betrayed her and yielded. She fought and tried to push him away and yet, there were her hips and they invited him in even closer. His hands reached down her side and it would be an embrace if they were anything but the animals that they both were.

There was the scar tissue. This was the thicker, burned skin. It was raised and he was thrilled to feel its texture, the trail of the fire wound around her body. He touched her tenderly there like a lover would, while all the while his mouth nuzzled and nipped at her breasts. He was like an animal that was just a little too hungry to be trusted.

He knew from the file that her tattoo was up, on the back of her shoulder. It was just one more detail that made his blood boil. What did it mean? He wanted to ask but the redhead broke his reverie with a flash of temper.

“Fucker,” she hissed but her body responded beautifully. Red’s flesh had blushed a beautiful pink. Her throat, her chest, her face and even her washboard abs were all full of blood and had bloomed. She was so sensual like this, even if she had a terrible vocabulary.

“Mirabelle,” he decided to be a real fucker and call her the name that he knew she hated. He could taste her for days but there was something else that was immediate. It had become a necessity. Jared had decided that after the first orgasm, he would be able to take his time with the rest. Then he could savor her in the manner in which she should be.

He rose to his feet. Jared took his time as he unbuckled for her. He’d chosen the black leather belt specifically because it would leave a perfect mark on her lovely, white throat. Red made a sound of fury, something seething, something that he imagined that Yuri had heard more than once. She knew what came next and she ached for it and yet, it was a surrender that she couldn’t allow. She wanted to hurt him. She pulled at the ropes and threw herself against the bed frame, she scraped the legs back across the floor. Red was strong, surprisingly so considering how small she was.

It didn’t matter. She could pull and tug and wrench her hands and flex her thighs all she wanted, she wasn’t getting out of the ropes until he cut her free and frankly, as excited as he was for this. It might not be until the moonlight had melted into the early golden light of dawn before he was done with her. Jared pulled the belt from the loops and sighed with delight as he touched his cock through his pants. “I’ve had this for you from the very beginning, Red,” he admitted. “This hard cock, this need to own you.” Jared unbuttoned and unzipped and his pants came down to his knees. The black fitted underwear followed.

Red’s mouth, her voluptuous, full mouth, with her small, pouty lips were too alluring to pass up. And tied as she was, just at the most perfect height to suck him. He knew it was ridiculous, it was a whim that could just as easily gone unheeded. It would have been far easier to tie her to the bed as she slept and cut the pants off directly. He could have been inside her before she was even awake but he had wanted her mouth ever since he watched her take the drag on the cigarette.

“Fuck you, Wolf,” she muttered. But it was undeniable, Red whimpered as she stared at his cock. She shook her head no but they both knew that she only meant yes as he wound the black leather belt around her neck. He had made a few special notches, just for her throat. Jared had masturbated more than once, as he imagined her face. Her eyes bulged as he fucked her throat, holding the end of the belt in one hand and a handful of her red hair in the other.

“You really do need some more words,” he said, on the verge of laughing. He could kiss her at that moment. A deep kiss that possessed her breath and tasted all of her. “But to use your favorite word, I’m going to fuck your pretty, sweet mouth,” he told her deliberately in his deepest voice. “My mouth,” Jared commanded as he pulled the belt to its smallest hole and yanked her head. “My mouth,” he touched her lips with the bulging head of his erection and watched the precum coat her full bottom lip. “Open your mouth Red, and be a good girl,” he warned as he yanked the belt. She was every bit the predatory animal that he was. Of course the girl would want to clamp down with teeth, “be a good girl or I’ll just keep squeezing your throat.”

Jared would hate to have to do that. He wondered if she knew how badly he wanted to keep her.

Her mouth was steamy hot and soaking wet and small inside. Her vagina couldn’t even be this small, Jared thought with a groan as he pushed inside. Not even her little asshole although he knew that he wasn’t leaving tonight until he’d had both. His breath came in great gasps as the pleasure of her mouth overtook him. With the leather belt in his right hand, he guided her up and down with his left hand in her soft hair.

It was bliss.

He looked down and saw her killer, blue eyes. She sucked and gagged on his dick, all as Red looked straight up at him. That was the most sensual part of all. There was a look of hatred and passion all mixed together. She wanted to murder him, she wanted to ride his cock. She wanted to light him on fire and fuck him until it all burned down into a glorious orgasm.

They would roll and kiss in the smoldering ashes of it all.

Jared rocked back on his heels and began to thrust his way home. He was all the way into her throat. Her mouth was so wet that it made slurping noises as he fucked her. Her lips, her beautiful, innocent looking lips were wrapped tightly around the base of his shaft. Her tongue washed him up, down, and up, down again. She squealed on his flesh and she choked as he pushed his pelvis forward. He grunted and went up on his toes. He could feel her struggle to breathe and that was every bit as enticing as the slippery tongue and open, little esophagus. He stifled the howl that he wanted to unleash. It was a howl of pleasure, the howl of conquest and mating and it was sure to frighten anyone who heard it.

He didn’t want to wake up Doris.

He came deep inside her perfect mouth. He came in shudders and sighs. He pumped a copious amount of sperm down inside Red’s supple throat. His thighs flexed and his hands gripped her tightly as he fed it to her, every inch of his manhood claimed his beauty. His lips, his throat, his lover.

Red couldn’t breathe and he felt her slump. Her forehead pressed into his pelvis and as he gave her the last of his seed, Jared loosened his grip on the belt. He trembled with delight as the last wave of his sperm shot into her.

He dropped to his knees in front of her and felt the tremor of a deep inhale fill her body entirely. He’d been too fast. God, it had been too good, too perfect and he couldn’t help but press his masked mouth to her sticky lips. Her mouth dripped with a dab of his pearly essence.

She gasped and pulled back, as if she didn’t want to kiss him but like this, with their bodies so close, he knew that was a lie. Whatever she pretended with her mouth, her hips melted into him. Her open thighs quivered from being pressed up against him like this.

Wait.

He pulled back, he’d felt something, a twitch. “Red?” he felt a vibration of recognition run down his spine. “Wait,” he said more to himself than her. Wait, stop everything, stop the wild pounding of his heart and the flip of his stomach and everything that went cold inside.

He reached for the knife and sliced through the elastic on the top of the pajama pants. With two gloved hands, he wrenched the fabric in two. The moonlight illuminated her waist and the light ran down the center line of her abdominals. Red’s slender hips were lit and the valley beneath both hips bones were kept in shadow.

Her cock was half in the glow and half in the shade. Her pink, pulsing dick bobbed and dripped at him, as if it recognized him, as if it beckoned to him to come down and return the favor. She strained in her ropes and growled at him. Her cock thumped, it was eager to get at him. “Is that what you wanted? Wolf, you fucker. Untie me and we’ll see how much you like having a cock down your throat,” she threatened him in that quiet, still voice that promised him every word she said was true.

Fuck, he had been so blind, so stupid, so greedy, so in lust.

And now, Jared could feel it in his thighs. He could feel the weak pull in his body, the one that kept his feet in cement, the one that didn’t want him to move from this spot. Fuck he had to leave. As much as he’d planned it all to the last detail, this was the last detail that he had no plan for. He left the knife on the mattress, within reach for her. Sure, it would take Red a few minutes to get it at the right angle. He was fully confident that she’d slice through the rope unscathed and he’d make his escape.

As he ran from the house, through the night, back to his car, Jared thought to himself briefly that she had the most beautiful dick he’d ever seen.

***

Red

She had cut her forearm twice before she’d gotten the right angle to sever the black, nylon rope on her right wrist. Once she had freed that hand though, the rest was easy. Red thought that the fucker only had maybe a two to three minute head start. Maybe she could chase him down. But then what?

She would love to hear him choke on her cock.

Red eased herself to her feet and moaned as the pain shot down her back. Son of a bitch, her knees hurt, her elbows hurt, her throat hurt. Everything hurt and yet, in spite of all that pain or maybe partially because of it, she was still hard as a rock. Red forced herself to stand up and put her hand out to catch herself if she fell over. She wasn’t steady on her feet as she shuffled to the bathroom. She flicked on the overhead light and looked at her reflection.

The image in the mirror told the story. Her bloodshot eyes, her hair was wild and tangled, her face was pale and frightened. There were the couple of telltale broken capillaries on her face, the ones that said her air had been cut off.

It got worse as she looked at her breasts. Her chest still heaved as she panted to catch her breath. Wolf had left behind deeply red marks under and around her breasts. Her left nipple hurt too much to touch, just passing her finger over the tip made her wince. He hadn’t bit her as much as it felt that he’d rubbed his teeth there like a pup desperate to suckle. Jesus, and there was the deeply purple welt that circled her throat. The belt was vicious and had cut into her windpipe. She bit her bottom lip hard as she traced the dark bruise with one finger. Red stared at her bruised reflection and continued to touch it with her left hand. He had wound it around her neck and held on so tightly, the leather had bitten into her skin.

Her cuts were superficial but she made a bit of a puddle on the floor as the crimson gushed from her forearm. He’d hurt her, yes, he had. Worse, she’d enjoyed all of it and only wished that there had been more.

Red grabbed her cock with her right hand and stroked herself. She remembered his scent. That powerful, masculine scent that rose from his body; animal heat and scent. It was the aroma of fervor. He had taken her desperately and deeply and she could still taste him. She could still smell his seed on her breath and she shivered as she jerked her cock harder and faster.

God, to be fucked by that vicious, beautiful man, she thought. Red pumped her hips back and forth as she touched the bruise. Red wanted his mark, she wanted his mark and his cum and his bite. She wanted his fingernails to rake down her tender flesh. She wanted to be ravaged and ripped apart. Fucked until there was nothing left but her bones and her cry and her waves of pleasure.

She arched her back and tilted her head. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as the first spurt of her orgasm tore through her body. Again and again, she came in pounding jolts of pleasure. It had been so long, it was a shock to the system. She covered the bathroom with cum. It dripped down her legs, it covered the sink, she even shot all over the wall. Her asshole clamped up tight as the heat radiated from there, from deep down, from a place inside that craved his savagery.

She shook as the pleasure and the pain collided violently.

Red bent at the waist and felt her ruined hair tumble over as she reached her left arm to the tub. She needed something to keep her upright, something to balance her shaking legs. Fuck, she hadn’t had an orgasm like that in, she bit her bottom lip as she tried to sort it out and realized that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d cum like that.

Maybe never.

Red looked around at the mess that she’d made. Blood and cum dripped down the black and white tile and she thought that it was too bad that Mueller couldn’t do an inspection now. This would be a more realistic version, a picture of her true nature. She turned the water on all the way to hot and waited as the creaky pipes banged and whistled to get the hot water all the way up to the attic. The water sputtered initially. Once the stream of boiling hot came out full force, she stepped inside.

The water felt like tiny daggers on her cut arm but it would subside. That was what the burn had taught her. Wade into the pain, let it drown you. Let it wash over you and then you come out the other side; like something reborn, like a phoenix. Everything is new after blood and fire.

Especially fire.

She ran the soap over her body and grit her teeth as she washed her breasts and neck. The fucker had gotten her good. She rolled her eyes and thought he was right, she did need to stop saying fuck so much. Red blamed it on time in prison where “fuck” was the local vernacular but really, it had started well before then.

She was clean and her whole body was red when she turned the water to cold. Damn, the icy fingers made a freezing river down her back. Her hair flowed with the chilly water and she felt it trickle down into her crack, between her cheeks.

Masturbating had been wonderful. Christ, she couldn’t have denied herself if she wanted at that point but still, there was an ache inside. There was a pulse that had gone unheeded forever and Mr. Wolfgang seemed to be the chosen one.

She wanted him more than she had words to describe it.

Red got out of the shower and wrapped the old blue towel around her and tucked it between her breasts. Under the sink, there was a box of Bandaids. She ripped and peeled several and placed them on the cuts on her forearm. There was no covering the bruise on her throat and besides, she liked to look at it.
Back in the bedroom, she turned on the light. She needed to check it and she reached behind the piece of wood trim that had come away about two inches from the wall.

She was about to do something forbidden and she couldn’t help it. She looked down at the ankle monitor. It was subconscious and Red wondered how long it would take once she was settled in her new life to stop wondering who was watching her.

She saw the blip of the green lights and snarled, “Did you see what happened tonight, you fucks? Of course not, you don’t want to protect me. You just want to bust me.”

She pulled out the screwdriver. She wasn’t allowed to have this, it was on the list of shit she couldn’t have. If anyone had asked Red, she could have told them, you can kill someone with anything if you’re determined enough. She pushed the end of the screwdriver into the crack between two floorboards and up popped the board. She let out a low chuckle as she reached inside.

She’d like to see the look on Mueller’s face if he ever discovered that Rasmussen actually had every single goddamn thing on that list and a few things they hadn’t thought of. It was all just hidden away in a musty gap between the subfloor and the wood, in a place long forgotten about by anyone.

Red ran her hands over her new switchblade and grinned. Yes, she liked him. She could feel it in her bones and yes, she was going to return this evening’s pleasures in spades. It was just a matter of planning it. The stakes were high, much higher for her, especially now with this goddamn parole bullshit but Red had a way to get around that.

She could sneak out, if it was really necessary. If it was life and death necessary, she wouldn’t take the chance otherwise.

Raping Mr. Wolf had just been moved up from kind of hot to imperative.

As she removed the ballgag from her stash, she smiled to herself as she traced her finger around the red, rubber ball in the center. This reminded her of the early days with Yuri. He’d been so open, so uninhibited, and so completely fucking crazy. Crazy about her and she’d never had that before. He’d been an adrenaline rush on top of spectacular, blissful sex. Sometimes a night of fucking called for a trip to the emergency room for one or both of them.

She took out her own black, mesh mask. She liked this one better than the one Wolf had used. She could get more air with this one and she could still bite. Which was good because that motherfucker was going to have marks in places that he’d never dreamt of once this was done.

Game on, bitch, she laughed.

Yuri had wound up breaking her heart though. Red reminded herself of that as she reached for her shackles. This was purely for the fuck of it, a booty call like they said. No emotions, just fun.

Terrible, terrible fun.

***

Wolf

For the last twenty five days, he had worked out religiously. He was dedicated. It was almost as if that three block run from Red’s attic all the way back to his Audi had inspired him to get even more fit. That’s what it might have looked like to an observer but Jared knew that it was mostly inspired by something new.

Fear.

It wasn’t that she had a dick, he told himself with a scowl as he felt the sweat pour from his hair down his face. Jared had just hit mile ten on the treadmill. It was time to increase the incline, time to feel his quads burn as he did an imaginary chase uphill.

No, it wasn’t the dick that he was afraid of. The dick just leveled the playing field in some strange way that he didn’t quite understand and couldn’t really explain.

He’d known that she was intelligent going in. The hacker had given him the file from her foster care days and her IQ was off the charts. She had a high IQ and an antisocial personality, she was flagged from way back then. She was one of those people who could save the world or could murder a bunch of people. It had been the same when they’d tested him back in prep school.

No, he’d known going in that she was someone to be reckoned with. There had been no point in starting the game if it wasn’t going to be a challenge to win. It was just that the dick somehow made it possible that he could lose. What would sex with Mirabelle be?

God, she even had the two opposing names. She was Mirabelle, with flowing locks down her arms and back that made almost a veil around her. She was Mirabelle with the full lips and the mouth that felt like velvet inside. She was Mirabelle with the hips and ass of Venus de Milo. She was Mirabelle, who trembled in his arms and whimpered with desire. Mirabelle was so soft and yielding to his mouth and his touch.

She was Red with her clenched muscles and her hands balled up into fists of fury. She was Red with her hard cock that throbbed there between her slender thighs. It was large and pink and full of blood and ready to take him any way that it could get at him. Red was sure to fuck him into oblivion given the chance. There was nothing soft about Red. She was a steel blade. She was a flame.

He’d never met a woman or a man like her and now, his obsession threatened to drive him crazy. With no release in sight, he stalked her like prey but he could never be fed.

Dammit, why couldn’t he just forget about her? Or give in.

Jared shook his head no to both and felt the sweat course from his hair. It rained down to his shoulders and rivulets of it trickled down his back. He had peeled the shirt off five miles ago and wore only the black shorts. His body ached from the brutal workouts but it was the only thing that kept him sane. Barely.

That and the wet dreams.

The first one had happened almost two weeks ago and he’d woken up in the middle of the night with a scream. At first, he had panted and looked around his bedroom. He had felt lost and terrified. He couldn’t breathe. He could almost taste her revenge like he had tasted her cinnamon essence on her breasts.

But it wasn’t her, there was no one.

It wasn’t a nightmare though, it was a fantasy. Jared had laughed at himself as he peeled back the sheet and saw the evidence there. In the dream, there had been no rope, no cuffs, none of the usual needed paraphernalia that he required.

It had just been the two of them, naked and wrapped in the other’s embrace. He’d been buried inside Red and she was steamy wet and slippery. God, she’d been so tight around his cock. There had been her eyes too. Her steady gaze had melted. She hadn’t stared at him with a killer’s cold glare, she had gazed at him with love.

This was bad, he had told himself. He had left the bed and the cum coated sheets to take a midnight shower. It was bad but that hadn’t stopped it from happening twice more since then. It was as if his body had made a decision that his mind refused to accept.

The question was, which would win?

He still had no answer for that so he just pressed the plus on the incline button a little more.

***

Red

On the two other occasions that she had left the house on an unauthorized field trip, Red had given Doris a little something to help her sleep. Tonight, she planned to do the same. First she gave her a sponge bath to help her relax.

Doris enjoyed being bathed now that she had basically forgotten to be ashamed of her nakedness and vulnerability. As Red wound the sponge up and down her creased, fat flapping arms, Doris hummed and closed her eyes. “I miss my Charlie,” she said in a faraway voice.

Red washed her back slowly. She rubbed the bubbles up and down gently as she asked, “Who was Charlie?”

“Why Charlie, Charles Draper, was my husband for fifty-two years.” Doris had watery, blue eyes that opened wide as she told the story. The love poured out of them as she recalled his details. “Charlie, the love of my life. I still miss him after all this time.”

“How long ago did he die?”

It was always interesting to Red to discern what Doris could remember. It seemed to her that when it was important, Doris was still sharp as a tack. When it came to Charlie, she could remember every little detail. “Eight years ago, my dear. And I think I can still feel him here, in the house.”

Figures, Red thought. The house looked more and more like a haunted house, might as well actually be haunted. “Is he checking up on you?” Red asked as she gently ran the sponge down to her gnarled, bony fingers.

“Don’t worry, Mirabelle, I told him you were taking good care of me.”

That actually gave her the creeps. Especially since she was about to dope the hot chocolate that she normally gave Doris before bed with a little something extra. Red looked over both shoulders. She almost expected to see something otherworldly peer back at her through the steam.

“What about you, my dear? Are you in love?”

She wouldn’t call it that. Although what the hell did she know? It wasn’t exactly like she had been given any instructions on it. “I don’t know, maybe?” she sighed. She let the sponge drop back into the sink. “You ready to dry off?”

“So there is someone?” Doris asked in a shaky voice as she raised her hands up for the pink towel.

“Sort of.” Red told her as she tenderly wiped her back. The flesh underneath her breasts that tumbled down to her waist. “I met someone that I keep thinking about. But I don’t have time for that.”

“Mirabelle, of course you have time for love. It’s the most important thing there is.” Doris held on to the sink as Red dried her behind and her thighs. Doris had lost her ass, now it was just two circular pieces of fatty beef that hung from her back. Red wondered if Charlie had still looked at her and remembered her from the beginning. Wasn’t that what love was?

Red hung the towel on the hook and got Doris’ housecoat. “I don’t know. I haven’t really had a good track record with men,” she admitted as she helped to poke Doris’ arms through the holes.

“Did you get burned, Mirabelle?”

Yeah, literally, Red thought. “Hey, you ready for hot chocolate?” she asked her charge.

“Woo hoo!” Doris did a little shuffling dance and put her hands up like she probably did as a child. For all Red knew, Doris might think that she was a child right now.

It didn’t take long, only about thirty minutes for the Xanax to work its magic. Red planned to leave her in the recliner tonight with the afghan up, tucked in around her shoulders. That seemed to be the way that Doris preferred to sleep.

Sometimes, if she had been put to bed, she’d just shuffle out here to the drawing room in the middle of the night anyway. Red didn’t want to take any chances that Doris would try to move, in the dark, with that fucking death trap of a walker.

Once Red could shake Doris’ leg, she knew it was time. She had put thick, winter socks on Doris, mostly because she got cold so easily but also because that way the ankle monitor wouldn’t dig into her sensitive skin. Red had disconnected the hinge on the second day of wearing the thing, just to make sure that, in case of an emergency, she could get away.

Ever since Red had been dumped off in foster care, she’d always known that she needed a plan B. She learned early on that no one was coming to help.

It was easy to slip the ankle monitor from her ankle to Doris’ and the green light paused for less than a second. It was nothing that would cause any notice or trigger any alarms. One, two, three, yes, back in place. Buckled around something solid. Now the Cook County Sheriff’s Department was monitoring Doris Draper, a law abiding citizen, an Alzheimer’s patient, a sweet, little old grandma that had never done anything wrong in her whole life.

Red would be back before Doris woke up though.

Dressed in the black, skin tight jumpsuit, she felt slippery and slick. She was naked inside. Red was hard and ready and encased in a second skin. She was like an eel. She felt like an electric eel that remained hidden and coiled onto itself, down in the shadowy depths until it was ready to strike. At the right moment, it was all terrifying eyes and vicious fangs.

She had her pack and her tools. Red knew that she was at a distinct disadvantage because she hadn’t been able to study Mr. Wolfgang’s house. There had only been the brief time that she had spent there waiting on him and his pansy guests. She had been breaking and entering into houses since she was a kid though. It was rather self-explanatory, she told herself and besides, if she was at a disadvantage, then that made things almost fair.

The night was warm and humid and Red watched as her shadow stretched out. She wanted to play. All of her ached to play and it had taken every bit of her self-control to wait until it was the right time. She waited until he was comfortable, waited until he was sure that she wasn’t coming for him.

The car that she planned to steal for the drive had been parked in the church parking lot ever since she moved in with Doris. It never moved and surely wouldn’t be missed for a few hours. If it was, she’d just dump it somewhere and either way, Red wore gloves for this adventure so there would be no prints.

Since she was definitely in the system, she had to be doubly careful. Extra sure and completely safe. No way she was going back inside ever again.

Never.

***

Wolf

He couldn’t turn to his right side and somewhere, in the cobwebs of sleep, something shook him from the dream state that he had been lost in. The alarm sounded in his brain. The house was completely silent, which was not what should have occurred if someone was inside. The noise that came from his mind told him that was the only logical conclusion.

He pushed his left arm up, or tried to anyway. He was secured at the elbow, which kept both arms bent. It kept him from straightening either arm or getting any kind of momentum. He couldn’t punch like this. “That’s right,” her voice spoke to him and it sounded as if they were both in his dream. “Fight it, Wolf,” she sounded slightly amused. If he’d learned anything more about her since their first encounter, he realized that she probably was.

Red took her mask off and the tumble of her blood red coils over her shoulders was a beautiful sight to behold. She wouldn’t be so stupid to allow her face to be seen though, not unless, he groaned as the realization washed over him. She could read his mind and finished the sentence for him.

“No cameras, no mementos for later,” she purred because of course, as a fellow predator, she knew that it was exactly what he would have done with it. “I don’t think I can enjoy this without my mouth,” she told him as she hovered over his prone body.

Her body looked like ink. Her skin seemed to be wet and black. She must be wearing latex and in the light, she was almost a puddle. She was almost something inhuman. She was almost still a figment of his imagination and for a moment, Jared wondered if this wasn’t just the beginning of another wet dream. Perhaps in a bit, he’d wake up in a warm puddle of his own ejaculate.

Then she showed him the knife.

She turned it over for him so that he’d see the switchblade unfolded. It was out and ready. She could slice him open right along the sternum if she chose. He didn’t think she did but he snarled anyway. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked her in a low, authoritative voice that sounded as if he was still completely in control.

“Winning the game,” she said with a smile. Red bowed her head and the cascade of red hair tumbled to his chest. It mixed with his thick, black thicket of hair that ran down to his dick and she sank her teeth into his pectoral.

“Fuck,” he howled. Her bite would leave a mark and his cock had slapped against his hip as the pain began to crescendo. He loved it and loathed it all at the same time.

“Don’t you have any other words?” Red asked him in a singsong voice. It was a husky, seductive voice, a smoker’s voice. It was the voice of a woman with balls and fuck, she did have those too, didn’t she? “Don’t get me wrong,” she continued as she traded the switchblade for something black and red and just out of sight. “I’d love to give you your mouth. It seems wrong to take away a wolf’s teeth.” She brought the ballgag into view and ran her index finger over the red rubber in the center. “The better to bite me with, right? It’s not the biting,” she assured him as she pushed the rubber ball into his mouth. He growled into the gag. “It’s your fucking cunt neighbors,” she continued as she secured the strap tightly on the back of his head. It was really tight. The buckle dug into his skull and it was his last line of defense since he still could do nothing with his arms but shake them. “I’m sure they have no real crime out here in la-la land.”

Red sat back, she appeared smug and satisfied as she regarded her handiwork. She had free reign of him now and her mouth teased and tortured him from his shoulders to his belly. She licked and sent a thrill down his spine. Her tongue on his nipple was exquisite and made his dick pulse and drip. Her incisors dug deep into the meat around his ribs. Even the gag couldn’t hold back the yelp of agony that shot down to his toes when she bit him like that.

His dick had responded to that as well though, his toes pointed and he flexed his quads. Red bit and tortured and licked and utterly seduced him until she reached his pelvis. She appeared to be triumphant as she bent down between his legs. Her slippery, black leather gloves gripped his shaft tight enough that it was one more thing on the precipice between pleasure and pain.

“I didn’t get a good look at it last time,” her voice was a tease and a warning. Unlike the Dommes who came to his parties, she didn’t use any of the typical canned lines. She just owned him, completely and utterly. She didn’t even have to say a word. “Just a taste of it,” Red reminded him of the sweetness of her mouth. He moaned into the gag as her hand stroked him from tip to base. She could make him cum on her glove if she chose to. She could make him cum like it was his first time, fast and thunderous.

Of course, there was the switchblade an inch or so away and she could castrate him too. The beautiful thing was that right now, at this moment, Jared honestly didn’t know which she would pick.

She released his cock and slapped his balls with the back of her hand. He cried out and tried in vain to pull his legs up to protect himself. He attempted to bring his thighs together but she’d secured his legs in the same manner as his arms. He was tied at the knee, bent and parted. There was no way of getting in a kick and this left his ass open to attack.

Red looked up at him with an unnerving look of greed and hunger. Her eyes were enthralled and full of lust. Maybe maybe even gentle; at least as close to gentle as he could imagine her being. “I jacked off when you left,” she whispered into his body and let her tongue wind along the head of his cock. She licked up the clear, dotted strand of precum that he’d given her. Then she tasted his slit, she sipped more of him directly from the source. “You made me cum,” she confessed and then slapped his sack once more. The agony mixed with the ecstasy as pain and desire collided. “I think I owe you the same.”

She wouldn’t though, would she? His gagged noises were wet and thick and helpless and sounded much too close to begging for his tastes. Jared thought, she wouldn’t just give him her delicious, beautiful mouth. That mouth that he was obsessed with, the mouth that he wanted to cum in and then kiss, and then cum inside again? She’d gone to all this trouble; she had trussed him up like dinner, this was for her, not for him.

Red was on her knees between his legs. She shook her hair from her shoulders and tugged the zipper down from her neck. It opened past her breasts, to her belly and then down further. With every inch of milky, white flesh that she revealed, he groaned, with equal parts need and fear. She was so goddamn beautiful and his eyes followed the zipper, to her pelvis.
There it was; her thick, juicy pink cock. The zipper stopped there and she let him take it in as her dick sprang to life from its confines. It was ready for him and he almost forgot to breathe. It thumped and dripped. Her own precum glittered on the side of her shaft and dripped onto the back of his leg. It was warm and sticky and he shook his head because that was all he could do.

Red pulled her latex jumpsuit to her calves. Once she was bare, she made her way closer and closer, like an animal about to spring. “You didn’t really get a good look at my dick last time either,” she told him as she shook it for him, in all of its magnificence. She dribbled sticky, clear liquid on his leg. His own cock seemed to strain to get at hers, as if the sight of her dick was enough to make it call to her.

Her cock was pinker than his, maybe just a bit shorter but it was noticeably thicker. Red’s dick and balls were shaved and his entire body was covered in thick fur. There was something about her cock out and bare like that. Her pink balls on display, everything naked and shining, it was lovely. Her dick, at the center of round, feminine hips and up top, small, delicate breasts and full rosebud nipples.

She was more feminine like this, with the cock.

Red reached for something beside her and held a small container close to his face for inspection. “Lube.” She told him with a grin. “It’s for me, not for you,” she almost laughed. She sounded delighted and it made his fight or flight response rear up and lurch into overtime. His whole body trembled.

She was going to fuck him. No. Lube or no lube, she was going to rape him. It wasn’t just the physical pain of her taking him hard and ruthlessly, like he was sure she would. It was the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that he’d never stop thinking about it.

Jared couldn’t close his legs. He couldn’t kick her off, he couldn’t even twist. He realized as he got his bearings that she had made a harness and a system of rigs and pulleys with rope and his bed frame. It was quite ingenious and part of him wished that he could be free to study what she had done. He’d store it away in his own mind for next time.

This meant that she had been here a while. The only way that was possible was that she had knocked him out with something. Goddamn, she had thought of everything. As he watched her slick the lube up and down her veiny erection, he listened to the slick noise of her hand back and forth on warm, anxious flesh. Jared squeezed his cheeks together tightly and wished he could keep her out. At the same time, he wished he could kiss her.

He had wanted an adversary, a companion worthy of the game, hadn’t he?

She approached with her greased dick in hand. She licked her round bottom lip and he grunted into the gag. He wished that was his tongue, following that full curve. “I’m taking it that you’re a virgin,” she appeared delighted by that fact. “Hell of a way to get your cherry popped,” Red snickered. The redhead pushed his knees up and no amount of clenching was going to keep her out of his asshole. “Oh, yeah,” she purred and with one push of her hips and thighs, the bulging head of her dick was inside.

Fuck, it was painful. It was white hot heat and he screamed into the gag. It was a wet, bleating noise, like a sheep being led to the slaughter. She stayed there and let him get used to it. Just a moment, just long enough to watch her smile and her killer, blue eyes light up with recognition. “Yeah, you like that, don’t you?”

She knew.

Red thrust again and his whole body quivered. She was thick and hard and he was tense in spite of the lube. Perhaps it was just the thought that was keeping him so tight. She was taking him. She battered down the only barrier and there was nothing he could do to keep her out. She went slow also, like it was lovemaking. She fucked him like he’d begged for it instead of being drugged. Like it was just a game instead of rape and torture.

Fuck, she really was his other half.

She pumped again and drove it home. Every inch of her was buried inside and Jared shook the ropes in desperation. He tugged and pulled, he fought with everything that he had to break free, to pull away. Red relaxed and watched his struggle. She was still completely inside. She had nowhere to go and all the time in the world to get there. Jared felt her balls shift and draw up close to his crack. They were sweltering hot and painfully full and just like his own balls would be if he were much too full of cum for his own good.

His own dick bobbed in response to the thrust. Red eased back and then pushed deep inside again. She was relentless . She had the finesse of a woman and she knew how to fuck like a man, hard and nonstop. Red could jackhammer him to the mattress and spew and spurt and fill him with a hot fountain of cum if that was what she wanted. But she had the feminine timing, the ease and grace. Her sweet hips and lovely thighs made this a dance, which made it so much worse. She was seducing him.

Jared felt his own sack tighten and he shook his head. No, don’t want it. Don’t get hard, don’t let her see, don’t you dare fuck her back. The voice went unheeded just like it had when it first told him not to dig up her files. Common sense had gone out the window and now he grunted into the gag. His legs fought to keep her out but his asshole squeezed around Red’s cock and drew her inside.

“Yes,” she hissed and threw her head back. The bloody ripples of hair cascaded around her shoulders and back. Her breasts bounced to the tempo that her cock set. “You’re so tight, so perfect,” she moaned as she thrust again and again. “Goddamn, it’s been forever since I fucked a virgin.” She licked her lips and her hands reached down to caress her own curves.

It was too much.

Her fingers were dainty and her nails were polished. Her mouth was just a girl’s and her hard nipples were the softest pink. She picked up the pace. He could feel her thighs stiffen as she pressed the head of her dick on a spot that sent his senses reeling. His own cock bounced. It was stiff and needy and precum splattered his belly as she sent the electrical impulses of desire down his spine. Fuck, he could cum like this. If the gag wasn’t in his mouth, in spite of his better judgment, he’d beg her to let him.

“God,” he cried out but it was muffled.

Red spoke for him. “Oh, god,” she said in a hoarse voice full of want. She was full of a fever that had raged inside and now he could feel it. Her hot, lavalike cum came in a pounding spray, jet after jet as she panted and fucked and rutted and thrust all the way to his core.

With every thrust, he felt more of her climax chug up inside his newly stretched asshole. He was full of her essence, full of her orgasm and his own cock just danced. It begged for attention. She gasped as the last of it entered him. Red was still hard as she finished inside him but there was a tender expression on her face. Like this, with her pink cheeks and her pink chest, everything flushed and damp and glistening, she couldn’t have been more lovely.

“Fuck, that was too fast,” she told him as she pulled out and dripped a little cum on his belly. “But I was waiting all this time,” she might kiss him with that look on her face. Her gaze was warm and willing and her hair draped over one shoulder and kept the rest of her face hidden. She bent down and her sweat rained over his chest. Her scent covered his body and she puckered her lips. It seemed that Red could read his mind as she came close. “I’ve been imagining what it would be like to kiss you,” she whispered against his face. “Really kiss you,” Red licked up some of the sweat. It was his, hers, their liquids combined. It was on his face and she left the trace of her saliva behind. “But I can’t trust you yet, can I?”

She contemplated that and just kissed the rubber ball instead. The one side was stuffed into his mouth and her tongue lavished the other side. This was worse than the feel of her cock inside him. Jared was desperate for her tongue in his mouth and it was excruciating to be so close and yet so far away. “Maybe next time,” she murmured. “When we know each other better.”

God, there was going to be a next time, wasn’t there?

Red rose to her feet. She towered over him as she stood on his mattress and yanked on the tether above him. She unclipped the safety hook and slid one foot to his throat. A pointy dagger of a black heel touched his Adam’s apple as she warned him. “Like I said, I can’t trust you. Considering my track record, do you have any doubt that I would really hurt you tonight if I needed to?”

He shook his head no.

She crouched over him and nodded. Her damp, sweaty hair touched his cheek and he smelled her deep down inside. “Good, then we’re getting to know each other.” Red seemed satisfied and she maneuvered him easily, like he didn’t outweigh or outmuscle her at all. Like he was a ham or a roast, tied up and ready to be served. Jared heard the hook click into place once more and he knew that in this position, on his knees, ass up, he was served up like dessert. This was all for her.

He felt her cum trickle down his body. It streamed from his aching asshole. Droplets of it ran down his sack and his thighs. He was in a puddle of her orgasm and he hated it and wanted to bathe in it all at the same time. The frustrated growl that came from deep down inside sounded like a caged animal.

“Don’t worry,” Red whispered into his neck and her breath on his skin gave him chills. “I’ll last longer this time.” There was the sticky drizzle of lube and then Red eased inside, with a contented sigh. She was going to go slowly and have all of him, in every way she wanted. “Fuck, you feel so good,” Red said with a breathy, girlish moan, “so perfect on my dick.” She bent over his body and pressed into him. Her hair on his back, her breasts pressed against his flesh and she reached around his thigh to grasp his own cock. “You love it,” she said as she wrapped her hand tightly around his erection.

It wasn’t a question, she just knew. It was a statement of fact and Jared hung his head. He couldn’t deny it. He couldn’t deny her. He couldn’t deny his body and his ass pushed back into the full length of her cock. The rapture enveloped him completely.

Fuck, he hated her. He wanted to squeeze the life out of her but only after she fucked his ass once more. He needed it deeper and harder and it felt like Red could read his mind, or maybe just his body. With one more shimmy of her hips, she was balls deep inside him again. The growl came from his throat. It was a fighting noise, an animal fighting for its life but knew that it was bested. She had her dick all the way inside him and his mind fought but his body melted. He bucked under her and gave it one last shot that he could throw her off.

“Oh yeah, just like that,” she whispered with her breasts sealed against his back. It was a new kind of torture, with her nipples. They were hot and hard on his sweaty skin but he didn’t get to touch or lick them. “Make it rape, Wolf. Do it. Pretend like you don’t want to be fucked like this. Fight me.”

He squealed into the gag and pulled back. He hoped he could slither far enough away that her cock couldn’t get at him. His arms and legs were helpless but he shook his fists with frustration. He’d have bloody places in his palms after this. He dug his nails in and imagined that he was choking the shit out of Red.

“Yeah, exactly like that,” she met him stroke for stroke. The more he wiggled to get away, the deeper her cock pushed inside. Her hand met her dick’s tempo and she stroked his cock so perfectly he could cry. She teased him unmercifully. Fuck, he couldn’t cum like this. He couldn’t cum in her hand. He couldn’t cum and beg, completely locked out of her. He couldn’t spew his seed into the sheets while she took his manhood and filled him with hers.

No, she knew exactly what she was doing because she let his cock go and put both hands on his cheeks as she fucked him. On the verge of an orgasm, she let him simmer, unsatisfied as she helped herself. She pried his cheeks apart and spread him open wide like a gay porn movie. “Yes, fight it, do it,” she muttered, exactly like he would if he were the one to overpower her. He was sure that her sweat dripped down from her forehead all the way to his cheeks. He could feel her essence cover his back and the first orgasm made sloppy, wet noises as she fucked it back out of him.

There was a cutting pain that was agony that shot through him. It wasn’t her teeth, this was the cold steel of the blade in his shoulder. He howled with pain as she cut and sliced through his skin. As she cut, she fucked him harder and faster, harder and faster. Red’s thighs slapped the back of his as she flexed and cried out, “Yes, yes. God, fuck yes.”

The pain was seared and his left shoulder burned. She came and came, it was like she hadn’t filled him to his depths already. Jared felt each pulse and squirt and hated knowing he was full of her and hated that she’d ever pull out.

Red’s body curled around his back and her heartbeat against his ribs. She gasped and whimpered with ecstasy as her dick pushed against his prostate. His asshole clenched tightly around the head of her dick and begged for every last drop. Totally betrayed by his own body, part of him wanted to fight her off, throw her to the bed and have his way with her. Part of him wondered if she could fuck him a third time.

His cheeks were hot as he realized with shame that he loved this.

She had finished with him. Red had filled him to overflowing twice and here he was, his cock still throbbing. Jared was beyond ready. He ached to cum and was shut out of her entirely. Red kissed his back. Just one sweet, lingering, closed mouth kiss between his shoulders and she sighed into him. “That was magnificent,” she said softly. She sounded wistful as she added. “I wish I didn’t have to leave.”

There were adjustments to be made, Jared assumed. She would have to pull up her clothes and tuck things back into place. She really was going to leave him like this, ruined, covered in cum and hard as a bolt. Pissed and ready to murder her and yet shivering with want all at the same time, he’d never felt like this. He’d never been fucked and he wondered if it were just that or if it was the other thing.

The flutter in his chest.

He could feel her stand between his legs once more and there was the patter of liquid. It was a familiar sound and yet he couldn’t quite place it. It was warm, it was strongly scented and it dripped down his neck. Then it ran down his ribs as the stream moved along his spine. “This isn’t to be disrespectful, you know,” she told him quietly.

She was pissing on him.

“It’s just to mark my territory,” she dripped a little more right in his crack. Jared moaned into the gag as he felt it meander inside. “I like thinking about you smelling like me. Well and the mark on your shoulder, but you’ll see that later.” Red sat beside him with her backpack strapped to her body. She appeared ready to leave him as she pushed his cell phone just a foot away from his hand. “Once I unclip you, you’ll be able to reach that. I’d love to know who you’re gonna call to get you out of this,” she shook her head and grinned. “But I guess that’s a story for another day.”

He closed his eyes and heard the metallic sound. He was loose but fairly certain that after tonight, he’d never be free again.

***

Red

Doris went to meet Charlie after all. The old lady died peacefully in her sleep on a Tuesday night when Red had been halfway through her shift at the box factory. Once she had realized that Doris died alone, Red felt her eyes fill up with tears. No one had been there and who the fuck even knew? Everyone said that dying in your sleep was painless but people just said shit like that so that they wouldn’t feel bad.

Red hoped that Charlie had been at her bedside and held her hand as she slipped away. Doris deserved that much anyway.

The Draper family had agreed to keep Red on for two more weeks so that she could clean out the house. They couldn’t sell it fast enough, which seemed typical.

For the last two days, she’d filled the trash cans slowly and looked for ways to buy more time. The agency didn’t have a new situation for her. There wasn’t exactly a long line of people who wanted an ex-felon watching their invalid parents or whacked out grandparents. So things were going to suck even more, if that was possible, very soon.

As if on cue, Mueller strolled up the driveway and watched her shove a box of Mrs. Draper’s records into the bin. “No more easy street for you, huh Rasmussen?” he asked with a twisted sneer. Ever since she’d finally given him a look, finally let him see what he had wanted to see all along, he had become more and more repellent.

Usually, when men discovered that she had a dick, well, the few that had anyway, they normally had one of two reactions. It seemed normal to feel total disgust: to be completely sickened by her. Red had a theory that the ones who had initially been attracted to her got particularly angry about the dick. Somehow being turned on made them mean. Sometimes they had the urge to try and give her a beat down for it; as if they had any chance. Red knew and she understood it, almost expected it. They were ashamed of wanting her and had to try and prove their manhood with their fists.

Just because she understood didn’t mean that she didn’t whip their asses for it though.

The other reaction was usually overwhelming desire. She was a fantasy come to life and sometimes that longing had become something almost frightening. When she had been younger, Red had been more than a little terrified once or twice by the lust for her dick. Somehow a girl with a dick made it acceptable for their first dick. They wanted to be fucked in some secret way by a woman. It was all of their dirty dreams come true.

Then there were the two men currently in her life and neither of them had responded the way she had assumed they would.

Mueller was the first and he made her skin crawl. She could identify him from a mile away and didn’t have to be alone with him to know exactly what he had in mind. The man was a rapist and he used his uniform and his position to fuck whoever he wanted.

Her parole officer let his index finger run lazily up and down the back of her arm. His hot, rank breath caressed her skin and made her stomach churn with acid. Red could literally vomit.

“You’re going to be living with me soon, aren’t you?” He asked in a tone that suggested they were already lovers. With no other assignment, Red would have to finish the rest of her parole in the halfway house that Mueller ran with an iron fist.

Red closed her eyes and tried to shut out his stink and his words at the same time. Ninety eight days, she told herself with a gulp. But a lot could happen in three months. Given the chance, Mueller would try to make her do all the sick shit he wanted to do with a girl who also happened to have a dick. She had no one to tell and even if she had, who would believe her?

As usual, there was no one to help.

“Yeah, but not today, fucker,” she muttered and turned toward the house.

“Rasmussen!” he yelled her name and Red turned around to snarl at him. The fucker grinned at her. It was a stained, toothy smile and she saw every brown tooth in his mouth. He flung his arms out, as if he thought she’d run into them. “You’ll love me sooner or later.”

Or she’d kill him sooner or later, Red thought to herself and slammed the back door behind her.

She wished she could talk to Wolf. Red wanted to really talk to him, not just play the game. She wanted to sit next to him somewhere and hold hands and talk like fucking normal douchebag couples did. That was what feelings had done to her so far and she was very uncomfortable with it.
She wished she could tell him what had happened to her since she’d made her midnight visit. The dreams that she had had, the waking dreams where she could smell him. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking of his mouth and his skin and his eyes.

Since their last meeting, there had been nothing but silence. No notes, no signs of his careful presence, not a word or a trace. Red wondered if she hadn’t overestimated how Jared felt about her and she couldn’t help but feel disappointed. She had lied to herself when she said it was just for fun.

Red knew the night that they meant that it was something more than fun.

Wolf hadn’t responded to her dick like other men either. Like a true predator, he was more intrigued by the possibilities. If she knew him at all, and she felt like she did, being kindred spirits in some weird, fucked up way, Wolf wasn’t done with her. He was just busy contemplating his next move.

He just wanted to make it worthy of their game.

***

Wolf

She had carved a small “R” into his shoulder.

It had taken him a while to figure it out that it was anything more than just a cut. When Javi had come to the house to free him, there had been a considerable amount of blood, an alarming amount really. Javier never asked questions. He had worked for Jared for far too long to do that and frankly, it wasn’t even the strangest thing Javi had ever seen since beginning his employment. His driver slash manager slash head of security had noticed the gush of blood with some concern though. “Mr. W., you are really bleeding man.”

Javi had gotten a towel once the cuffs were off and Jared had held it tightly to his shoulder. He had taken a shower even though he hadn’t wanted to. He knew that he had no choice, the blood had to be washed off. The pity of it was that all of her cum and her sweat and her rich cinnamon scent and her earthy piss had gone down the drain with his blood. Even at that moment, sore and seething, he hadn’t wanted to wash away any of the memories.

Javi had helped him tape a gauze patch on the shoulder and he merely winced when he moved that arm. The pain had been just one more reminder of the woman in his life. It wasn’t until he took the patch off and he could see the scab that he understood it fully.

She’d marked him.

It was a sign of possession, her sign. She wanted him. It was a makeshift brand and it still hurt when Jared touched it. He liked to run his finger over it and trace the letter and think of her.

Just because it hurt hadn’t stopped him from masturbating as he touched it though. He wasn’t sure which was more of a turn on, thinking of the scar that she’d left him with or plotting his revenge.

Of course, it wasn’t revenge, not in the true sense of the word. The hate had ebbed and flowed and nothing but passion remained. He’d masturbated to his memory of being savagely fucked as well. He craved her cock now as much as he ached to give her his. Revenge was just what he assumed Red expected and he smiled as he thought of her contemplating what came next.

He spent more time than he ought to watching her. What had begun as obsession was now something else entirely. Sometimes he wondered if she didn’t feel him nearby, if she didn’t sense his presence. Was that because they were soulmates or was it something primitive for self-defense? The more he watched her, the more certain he became that she was the one that he had searched for all this time.

Recently, Jared had also realized that he wasn’t the only one keeping his eye on her. At first, he’d been worried that the Chicago police department was investigating her. Red was an easy target to pin some bogus crime on. She stood out in that regard. Jared had consulted with his hacker but there were no pending charges or even any open investigations involving Red. For the record, the police knew she killed Yuri Federov and secretly, they were glad that she had.

Then Jared had realized it was much worse.

Her parole officer also played the game. Officer Mueller hunted her as well. He was watching her, obsessing over her and probably had plans to do something far, far worse than Jared had ever dreamed of. The worst part was that the cop could get away with it. He could get away with anything because who would believe Red? She was kind of her worst enemy in that regard.

So he had settled in to wait. He felt protective of her in spite of the fact that she’d demonstrated that clearly, she could more than take care of herself. There had been those moments though that she had been full of contradictions. There were those soft sighs and the velvety feel of her pale body. There was the musical quality of her voice when she murmured in his ear that had made him feel just how female Red was.

She was a beautiful girl with a beautiful dick.

Just because she was mean as a snake and tough as nails didn’t mean that she could take on the whole wretched Chicago Police department. They were known for their corruptibility and protecting their own. Red would be a throwaway no matter what occurred. They’d just as soon sweep it all under the rug and put her back in jail, forever.

That couldn’t happen. Jared already knew that he’d miss her way too much to lose her.

Jared had settled in for the night. Red was off from her box factory job this evening. Part of him wanted to knock on her door. He wanted to abandon the game, just for now, just for tonight. He wanted to climb the stairs behind her and follow her to her room. He wanted it to be like the first time, just a boy and a girl and they’d undress each other with nervous fingers. He wanted to get lost in their kisses. He wanted to cum way too fast the first time and then make it up to her the second and third time. He wanted to fall asleep as the sun came up, with their arms around each other. He wanted to dream about her and wake up with his face buried in her hair.

As it was, he stayed and watched.

Jared took a drink of the water that he had brought for his stake out. He was mid-swallow as the headlights shone in his rearview mirror and then they were gone. Jared moved down further in his seat and watched the car. No one drove with their lights off for anything good. The car eased up the block and parked two houses northeast of the Draper residence.

It was Mueller all right. Jared saw the flash of the “to protect and serve” logo on the door as he silently closed it behind him. It couldn’t have been a bigger lie. The man was only here to do one thing; to hurt Red but Jared wouldn’t let him.

Jared watched him slink toward the driveway and creep toward the back door. This wasn’t anything official, this wasn’t an inspection from a parole officer. This was calculated, this was the game. Red was on her own. Vulnerable. At least, that’s what the cop must believe.

Jared had packed lightly but he only needed one thing as far as he was concerned. A .22 with a silencer wasn’t how he preferred to hunt but then again, this wasn’t part of the game. He slipped the gun into his pocket and the cell phone in the other.

No one was going to lay a finger on Red, except him.

***

Red

She had tried to make a mental list of shit that she would not miss about this dump. Red went over it in her head as she took a shower. Like the fucking squeaky faucet that she occasionally had to screw back on. If she twisted it too far to the right, to make the water hot enough, it had the tendency to fall off in her hand.

Then there was the whole listening to the creaky old pipes as the hot water came from the bowels of the house. The house had always made creaks and groans and lately, they seemed to have gotten louder. Red had definitely wondered more than once if the house didn’t feel a little more haunted. Was it just her imagination, or was someone watching her more often than not?

Maybe it was because she was throwing Doris’s shit in the garbage and she almost wanted to explain, “Hey, talk to your douchebag family.”

Maybe it was just living alone that was making her a little nuts. Red thought that was possible as she ran the soap over her shoulders and down the valley between her breasts. She washed off the sweat and the mildew scent and the bits of spider web that had clung to her hair from reaching into old corners. Work helped keep her mind off of the rest of it. She had lost Doris and now she was about to lose the little bit of freedom she had. Pretty soon, she would be living four to a room once again. She’d shower in a corner and feel all the eyes on her.

Red felt the water shudder and spit and she knew that she’d used up all the hot that the boiler could muster. The rest of the soap on her calves and feet would just have to run off to the floor in a chilly puddle. A rivulet of warm water dripped from her hair, down the center of her back, following her spine into her crack and she reached with the towel to dry that first.

The halfway house was probably better equipped. It probably had more hot water and it probably wasn’t painted baby shit green. She’d been in worse places plenty of times but tonight, Red ached for her old life. It was a physical weight, she could feel it in her bones. She missed her life before prison.

No, Red shook her wet head, that wasn’t accurate. She missed a life that she’d never had, one that she could only imagine.

There was a creak, followed by a groan and Red froze in place. The water trickled down her back and it felt like fingers. The house had always played tricks on her with its night sounds as it settled back into the earth. Every window rattled and every board groaned and Red shook her head at her reflection.

Was she being haunted or hunted?

The woman who stared back at her from the bathroom mirror looked scared to death. Wait, she warned her wild eyed reflection, those bitches at the halfway house will eat you alive if you look like that. She rolled her eyes at the ghostly girl in the mirror. Time to fucking toughen up, she thought with a curled upper lip. You’re back in the jungle again.

She smelled him a split second before the white hot shot of pain radiated from the center of her left eye into her skull. Red fell back. There was nothing to grab hold of, nothing to break her fall. She was flat on her back and instinctively pulled her legs up into the fetal position as she covered her face. She cowered like a wounded animal. Wounded already, she couldn’t open her left eye to see him coming now.

His bony fingers were like a vice around her right wrist. He was surprisingly strong for such a thin person. He drug her like a sack of potatoes across the floor. “I’ve been fucking dying to smack you ever since the day we met,” Mueller was calm and collected. He must have been waiting for his chance. “You just never gave me enough to warrant it. Just riding the line, Rasmussen,” he chuckled. He grabbed her a little harder as the cold metal bracelet closed tightly around her. “Not tonight, though.”

She growled and tried desperately to yank her wrist back. She knew that she had to get out of his grip but she was too late. Mueller closed the other cuff around the radiator. He tested it and pulled the cuff as hard as she would later when she was trying to escape. “Solid,” he said with a contented nod.

“You fuck,” she barked at Mueller as she tugged with her left hand. She desperately attempted to pull off the handcuffs. She knew it was all in vain, a stupid waste of time. Once applied and attached properly, standard issue police cuffs were impenetrable.

Which meant that she was down one eye and one hand.

Mueller clucked and touched her chin. He pulled her face up and made her look him in the eye. “But I’ve been on my very best behavior, Mirabelle,” the man whispered, like he was in love. “You have no idea how difficult it’s been, these last couple of weeks,” he touched her lips and snickered when she showed him her teeth. “You wouldn’t make me knock every tooth out of your fucking head, would you?”

She moaned and tried to twist her face away but the blood from her eye dripped into her good eye. It served as a veil and shrouded her in a red cover.

“I mean, I’ll do what I have to do, but I gotta admit Rasmussen, that I prefer girls with teeth,” he laughed hysterically at his own joke and his hands ran down her body.

“What are you gonna do?” Red demanded as she clenched every inch of her body as he caressed her.

Mueller smiled and took hold of her right ankle. “Well it was a surprise but, okay I guess you’ve waited long enough.” She kicked him with her left foot. She kicked as hard as she could but Mueller just swatted at her like she was an annoying little gnat. “Three of my buddies are coming over,” he dug his nails into her ankle and Red wanted to scream but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “I’m sure you know what running a train is,” he let it sink in. Four men, Red in cuffs and there would be no mercy. “I figured this way you’ll be a nice, obedient girl when you come to the halfway house.”

She kicked him again and railed against the cuff on her wrist. She heard the clank of metal on metal. “Fuck you, Mueller,” she howled.

“That’s it,” he murmured as he pulled out a thick, knotted length of rope. “Fight it, I actually enjoy it more when you do.” He slipped the opening around her ankle and the rope was coarse and rough on her skin. This was going to burn. “At least until you pass out.”

Red saw the movement. There were two feet. He had been silent in the pitch dark behind them. He’d suddenly taken three strides and closed the gap between them. The gun shone in the stream of moonlight that hovered right beside Mueller’s head. The safety clicked off and there was nothing but silence. It was as if all three of them stopped breathing.

“Put your hands up, Mueller,” Wolf said in a quiet, steady voice that made Red want to cry in relief. She would have run to him if she could. She was fairly certain that now there were tears mixed with the blood that trickled down her face.

“Easy, easy,” Mueller’s voice was a warning. “So Rasmussen has a boyfriend? How chivalrous!” he chuckled. “I mean, do you really need to rescue her with that dick?” He hadn’t released her ankle or the rope. “You don’t really want to fuck with the police, son,” he chided Wolf.

“You’re not here as a police officer though, are you?” Wolf asked and brought the pistol closer. At this range, Mueller’s brains would be all over the attic. They’d be dripping in DNA.

“No one will know that though,” Mueller muttered. He bent down before he pulled rope back and whipped Wolf’s calf with the length. Wolf stumbled and that was enough for Mueller to grab for the gun.

Fuck, Red watched as both men grabbed for it and both fumbled. Their sweaty hands slipped and missed in the dark. Finally the gun clattered across the attic floor out of sight. “You fucking asshole,” Wolf yanked Mueller up by his jacket and punched him right on the nose.

“Cocksucker,” Mueller growled and took a retaliation swing and missed. He shook his head and Red felt the splatter of Mueller’s sweat on her forearm. She yanked at the cuff and shook the radiator violently but she was still attached. “Oh wait,” Mueller sneered, “you probably love sucking cock.” He bent down and aimed with his head and ran toward Wolf, like a human battering ram.

Both men fell to the floor. Red flailed her feet and kicked Mueller as hard as she could, wherever her kicks landed. She didn’t care what she hit as long as she caused him pain. Once her heel pressed into flesh and the man yipped in pain. “You will thank me later,” Mueller said as he dug both vice-like hands into Wolf’s shoulders and turned him. Once Wolf was flat on his back, Mueller finished, breathless, with his hand up, posed to strike. “She’ll be so much nicer to you after tonight.”

Mueller struck Wolf in the face and landed on him, full force. He beat Wolf’s head on the floor, again and again. As he continued, Wolf pushed into Mueller’s chest with his knee and drove the man off.

The two men clutched each other, almost in an embrace. Wolf wasn’t free but he was on top. Red listened as he tried desperately to catch his breath before he struck once more.

Neither of them had noticed the keys that had escaped from Mueller’s pocket.

Red heard the metal scrape across the wood floor and inched her way with her feet. She see-sawed back and forth until she had finally wrapped her toes around the ring of keys.

Wolf had swung three times. He’d hit Mueller’s face twice and missed the last time. Mueller still managed to get to his knees. “Now I’m going to get my gun,” he said between gulps of air. “And after I kill you, I’m still going to fuck her.”

Wolf grabbed Mueller’s foot and slammed his elbow into Mueller’s head. “Maybe I’ll call the cops to come pick up your fucking corpse when I’m done,” Wolf snarled. “Or maybe they’ll just find you in the woods in a few months.”

Red tried every key with sweaty, fumbling fingers. She muttered under her breath as she tried to jam another key in the tiny opening and missed. She looked over her shoulder and tried to shake the blood off so that she could see. She didn’t know where the gun was, it had clattered across the floor but it couldn’t be far.

Wolf took another punch to the face, a hard, punishing blow that knocked him back on his feet. Mueller sounded impressed when he admitted, “Well you’ve got stamina, I’ll give you that.”

Wolf attacked Mueller’s legs and knocked the man to the ground once more.

Red opened the cuff with a hiss. Neither of the two men heard the clang as the handcuff swung free and banged against the radiator. She crawled to the loose piece of wood that kept her secrets hidden from Mueller.

He was about to learn one of them.

“Die, you motherfucker!” Red screamed as she drove the screwdriver into the soft, meaty place where his hip and thigh connected.

She’d been aiming for his balls but this was good, maybe even better.

Wolf grabbed her as Mueller collapsed to the bedroom floor. He was frozen in place as he stared at the handle of her screwdriver that protruded from his pelvis. He had a savage look as he contemplated his conundrum. The hate radiated from his skinny body as he stared back at Red. Blood gushed from his mouth with every word, “Now you’re both fucked.”

He sank back against the wall.

***

Wolf

He drew her close. He wrapped her in his arms. Jared felt her heart beat and the tempo matched his own, wild and terrified. Red’s skin yielded under his touch. She melded to his body, sank into him completely and without resistance. He felt the tremor run down her spine as they embraced. He asked her, “Are you okay?” even though he knew that neither of them were.

She nodded. Mueller made a wet, hissing sound and Red gave the man a look that would kill him if her screwdriver wasn’t enough. “Motherfucker was going to have his friends gang rape me,” she spat in his direction.

Jared had suspected at least that and was grateful that he’d gone with his gut. He’d call it that anyway, but he knew that his obsession with her was something deeper than any game. He held her face in both hands and stared into her eyes. He gently wiped the blood from her eyebrow. The eye was already almost swollen shut and he could only imagine what he must look like. “He’s right, Red. If he dies here, we’re fucked. Especially you.” He didn’t want his voice to betray how much that meant to him.

“I know,” she whispered bitterly. “I just,” she didn’t finish and just let out an exhausted sigh that said it all. She had just defended herself and she had grown weary of it all. If she wasn’t a felon, then she’d just be a woman fighting for her life.

“We have to get him to the hospital,” he whispered as he brought Red to her feet. He pulled his jacket off and draped it around her trembling shoulders. She slipped her arms into the sleeves and covered herself quickly.
“Fuck that,” she told him as her teeth chattered. “I have to get out of here. Like disappear.”

“You aren’t equipped to do that right, Mirabelle,” he said gently. “You can’t outrun the whole police force.”

She raised her leg and shook the ankle monitor at him like she had the first time they met. “I’ll take it off, and that gives me a head start anyway.” Jared noticed that even she didn’t sound convinced though.

Wolf walked to the cop and felt for a pulse. It was there, it was weak but the man was still alive which was more than he deserved.

He called the only person he could call at a time like this. “Javi, I’m going to text you an address. It’s a matter of life and death, okay. I need you to drop someone off at Stroger Hospital.”

As he sent the address, Mueller burped out blood and sighed. “He’s not going to say shit at the hospital, Red,” Wolf told her. “And Javi will move the car. He’s just a cop that was attacked and nothing he says is going to contradict that. He knows better.”

Red rubbed her arms and hugged herself in his jacket. “Or he dies here and then we know for certain.”

“As soon as he doesn’t show up for roll call, they’ll come looking for him.” Jared felt desperate when he asked, “how many murderers do you think are on his list of parolees?”

“You’re forgetting something, Wolf,” she walked toward the table, slowly, as if it were almost too much effort to move her legs. “My fingerprints are on the screwdriver,” she said before she lit the cigarette between her lips. “And all I have to do is take my screwdriver back. Problem solved.”

The femoral artery would cascade the man’s life blood to the floor. He’d bleed out fast instead of die slowly like he was going to do if Javi didn’t get here.

“He was in the house, late at night,” Jared put his hands up, almost a surrender. “You didn’t see him, it’s not your fault. No one mentions any of this,” he added: although someone should mention it. “It’s nobody’s fault. If he lives anyway.”

Red blew a careful smoke ring and winced as if even that was almost more pain than she could manage. “If he lives,” she repeated in a hollow voice.

Jared heard the chirp of his phone and he checked it. “I’m going to take him to the car. Promise you’ll be here when I get back.”

Red shrugged and pulled the jacket around her even tighter. If she could make herself any smaller, she’d disappear in his coat and Jared was sure that’s what she wished for.

Jared scooped the cop up in his arms and hefted his limp body into place. Good thing the fucker was so skinny, he thought as he looked down from the top landing. It was four flights of stairs and he couldn’t risk having Javi come in the house. That would be another set of prints, which was more unexplained DNA.

His mind moved at light speed as he moved down the stairs as quickly as possible with the half dead cop. The man’s head hung loose, almost like it would roll completely off if it weren’t for the connecting tissue. Dammit, he didn’t want to save the man’s life. But if she had planned on stabbing him in the fucking femoral artery he would have tried to talk her out of it. Too much blood, too fast, it was a big risk for a quick payout.

He was more than halfway there. Jared told himself that he just had to get him to the car. Then Javi just had to get him inside the emergency room without dislodging the precisely wedged screwdriver.

That was a medical professional’s job and then the hospital would be the one to actually kill him. Or not.

Jared didn’t actually want to save him because he gave a shit. There was something biblical about the man living through this. Then he could be fired and brought up on charges. Then the cop would be sent to prison and he’d learn firsthand what running a train was. That was justice so beautiful Jared couldn’t keep himself from smiling.

He held the front door open with his foot as he eased Mueller into the backseat. In his rush to get to Javi’s car, Jared smacked the cop’s head on the frame. Good, that was justice too. Hopefully it was one more ugly lump on the ugly man and it would remind him one day not to fuck with people.

“Mr. W?” Javi grimaced as he saw what Jared had in his arms. “Is he dead, boss?”

Mueller hissed and then swallowed hard. Two new rivulets of blood poured from the corners of his mouth. “Not completely dead,” Jared said as he gingerly laid the cop down in Javi’s backseat. The car would be shit after this with the mess. “We’ll get you a new car after this.” It was a bribe, Jared guessed but what the hell? He was already in way over his head. “Just get him to the hospital.”

“Drop him off in the Emergency parking?”

No, because then they’d check the security cameras and get a plate and that would lead them right to Jared’s estate. “No, carry him inside. You’re just a Good Samaritan. You found him in the street like this. A couple blocks from the hospital. And you don’t speak English.”

Javi grinned and shook his head. Actually his English was impeccable but he also knew when subterfuge would help him more than a good vocabulary. “Que?” he asked Jared and nodded.

“We’ll also have to dispose of his car before it’s light out,” Jared said as he ran his bloody hands up and down his pants.

“No problem, Mr. W. I have a cousin who will make it go away.” Javi brought his fingers together, kissed them and opened his hand to show him, as if by magic, whatever it had been was gone. Abracadabra.

“Okay,” Jared nodded. He had to go back inside. That shrug that Red had given him wasn’t exactly a promise.

He was silent as he reentered the Draper residence and ran up the four flights of stairs back to her attic room. He took the stairs three at a time. If she had bolted, he wanted to close the head start she had as much as possible. The door creaked and announced his presence.

“He didn’t die in the street?” she asked. She hadn’t moved. Red was still wrapped into a bloody ball inside his jacket.

“Not yet,” Jared went to her and knelt in front of the chair. Even like this, with her hair matted with blood and her eyelid swollen, she was lovely in some otherworldly way. In fact, he thought as he took both of her hands in both of his, this way she seemed even more true to herself. She was a warrior in all her gory glory.

There was one fact that should be acknowledged. “Thank you.”

She snorted, “For what?”

“Well you kept him from getting the gun. So you might have saved my life.” He folded her small fingers and kissed just the nails. “So I owe you something.”

“A new screwdriver,” Red said and then laughed wickedly.

“Come on,” he prompted with his hands on hers. Even like this, beat to shit, with blood in his eyes and an ache in his ribs, there was a current underneath everything. It was the same life pulse that had sprung up from their first meeting.

Want.

Red didn’t ask what and he was sure she felt it too. She rose to her feet and followed him. He took her to the bathroom and peeled his crimson stained jacket from her arms. She was a sticky, filthy mess but one glance in the mirror door of her medicine cabinet told him that he looked worse. He hardly looked human, he was more beast than man. The lump on his forehead was probably a concussion waiting for him to fall asleep.

He turned on the shower all the way to hot and began to peel his clothes off his damp body. Hot was better. Cold would feel like a thousand knives on open wounds. It was better to smolder and burn. Jared drew back the shower curtain and watched as Red entered. As soon as the water hit her body, she winced in pain. There was a bloody puddle at her feet. He reached behind her with the half used bar of soap and wet it in his hands.

As brutally as he’d attacked her before, he was whisper soft as he touched her now. Jared caressed her arms with the soap. “Let me see your wrist, darling,” he whispered. He turned her wrist up and blew on the purple mark that the cop’s handcuffs had left behind.

“Speaking of thanking someone, thanks for coming to rescue me,” Red’s voice was just a purr. “Mueller was planning on him and his friends breaking me in for the halfway house.”

He washed her blister gently and watched as the blood from his arms cascaded down her body in a bloody river. “No problem, Red. Stalking you paid off.” He gave her half a smile and it would have been a whole smile if his face didn’t hurt so badly.

“How’d you know to come inside tonight?” she asked as he tilted her head back and the shower rinsed the blood from her hair. All the evidence ran down the drain. They could pretend that they were just a couple, just two ordinary people, showering before they made love. Normal.

“I knew he kept tabs on you. Tonight he parked down the street and turned his headlights off.” Plus there was that warning in his gut. The sick feeling that he had when he thought of Red in danger.

She stood on her tiptoes and they were almost mouth to mouth like this. With her one good eye, she stared straight into both of his. “Thank you,” she whispered, her full, curvy bottom lip almost touched his. Her breath on his face made every nerve come to life.

He was going to say something, something stupid or maybe, he didn’t even know and whatever it was, he quickly forgot when she kissed him.

She kissed him like she was tasting him and for all Jared knew, considering their relationship so far, she might have been. Her tongue was hotter than the shower water and she licked his lips apart. She explored the full length and width of each. He moaned when the tip of her tongue hesitated right there, at the entry before she slipped inside.

Their mouths were sealed together and they breathed the other’s air. Jared felt her in his lungs and swallowed it down. Her luscious lips sucked on his one at a time and her small tongue surrendered to his completely.

The kiss went on and her small hands melted down his back and curled around his ass cheeks. She whimpered as his hard cock strummed against her hip. Her dick tapped his balls and the heat from her erection melted into his skin.

When their mouths parted, he blurted out, “I want to make love with you.” Jared couldn’t stop himself from saying it, there were no other words.

“One time before I go back to jail?” she asked. Suddenly the hard edge was back to her voice. It didn’t seem possible that seconds ago she had been just a girl in his arms.

“What if you were okay?” Jared asked as he swept her hair back from her face. Still the color of blood, it was hard to know if he’d washed it all from her.

“What does that mean?” Red wondered as she traced his mouth with her fingernail.

“You literally were defending yourself,” he began and when she made a noise to stop him there in his tracks, Jared continued. “No, listen Red. You’ve been a model prisoner since you got out. He’s harassed you ever since you came here. Once he knew what you were, he decided that he had to have you. You could sue the police department.”

The water had gone cold but neither of them left or turned it off. “Who would believe me?” she whispered and her chin trembled with the tears she held back.

“All the other women he did that to before. Plus you’d have me and I’d get you an amazing lawyer.” Jared pulled her close and murmured between kisses on her earlobe, “by the time this is over, you’ll be off parole and have your old life back.”

“My old life?” she cocked her head, as if he couldn’t begin to guess anything about her old life.

“A new life.” Jared bent down and turned off the faucet. His hands moved up her thighs and skimmed the swell of her hips. He followed the curve to her waist as he stared at her. “How does that sound?”

She didn’t answer and he felt desperate inside. He wanted this as much as he needed her touch, her scent, her cock. “Let me take care of you,” he murmured as his fingers wandered the expanse of her incredible softness.

She closed her good eye and he felt the electricity run down her body. She was warm, she was freezing, she was covered in goosebumps and trembled in his arms. When she opened the cold, blue eye once more, her gaze held a longing that was something new. Red smiled, her bottom lip was still perfect although her top lip had teeth marks on it. They were her own, not his. “Take me to bed,” she sounded so young and innocent. She said it like she was just a girl and he was just a boy and this was new and quickly turning into love.

Jared pushed the shower curtain back and said, “Yes.” He exited the tub and put his feet on the clammy, worn vinyl. He put his arms out for her. There was one used towel in a damp pile on the floor and nothing else to dry themselves on.

So they’d just make a fucking mess of her bed.

He carried her to the mattress and placed her gently in the center. Jared watched her bloody tangle of hair cover the pillow below. She made a face as the pain settled in once more. It didn’t matter that his whole body ached. His heart ached too and his cock was relentless like this. It dripped incessantly on the indentation down the center of her abs. He was making a puddle of want for her and Red noticed.

She scooped her two fingers into his essence and languorously licked it. His precum left a shiny drop on her round bottom lip. “You taste so good,” Red whispered.

Jared melted into her body and his mouth followed her scent. He placed a reverent kiss on her forehead, carefully avoiding her purple eye. It looked awful and yet, he imagined that it was hardly her first black eye. He was sure that it wouldn’t be her last either. There was something about Red that seemed to be made for fighting, for ferocity. Yet at this moment, she was like a kitten curled up in his arms. He kissed the tip of her nose and then her Cupid’s bow.

Jared continued down to her throat and the satin place under her jawline. She was so exquisitely soft. No matter all of the contradictions that made up Red, her creamy skin was made to be kissed and tasted. He set his hand at the center of her chest and he swore that he could feel the drumroll of her heartbeat and it matched his, beat for beat.

Jared straightened her slender arm and pressed his forehead into her armpit as he continued his slow study of every inch of Red. He pressed his face into her shoulder and listened to the rhythm of her sighs. The woman in his life, she gave herself over to his mouth. She melted for him.

He looked up and paused, there was a crimson smear right between her breasts and he felt a wave of fear churning there. “Are you hurt?” Jared panicked. Could there have been a wound that he had missed with all of that blood?

“It’s you,” Red told him in a dreamy voice, “Your hand. Let me see.”

Jared put his right palm up for inspection and realized that yes, she was right. The cut there was swollen with his own blood. Red kissed him and her lips were printed in the center of his hand. It was a perfect copy of her mouth in blood.

Jared continued his worship, down her décolletage with feather soft kisses until he reached the place he had already marked with his blood. One of the things he had obsessed over was to precisely name the color of her nipples. Even like this, it was impossible. They were large and the flesh closet to her breasts was a tannish, creamy brown. The wrinkled areolas were gradually more and more pink until he reached the very tips of her nipples. Those were a dark pink, a ripe bud about to burst open under the careful lash of his tongue.

He groaned as he followed the hills and valleys of her buds. He sucked her slowly between his hot, sticky lips. Red quivered under him and pushed her breasts up, as if she were feeding him her flesh. She asked him in a faraway voice, “Bite me?”

Jared was eager to oblige and nipped with just the edge of his teeth. Red was so tender and she clutched him tightly to her. Her warmth and her mating scent mingled in the air around them. It mixed with the smell of sweat and the slightly copper smell of blood. Jared knew that it was now an imprint on his olfactory receptors that he’d recall forever.

Everything was Red.

He nipped and sucked and rooted at her breasts and reached for her hand with his bloody one. Their fingers folded together as if the other hand was the missing piece. Jared licked the silky crease under her small breasts and pressed his forehead into her warmth as he bit her harder. One day he would just run his teeth along every inch of her from head to toe and leave her with a trail of lines and ridges. Marks to mark her, ownership.

Something like her piss or her blade had done to him.

Jared moved to hover over her. There was something that he had dreamed of but couldn’t speak out loud. The thought had haunted him since the first encounter and now, it had almost become an obsession.

He kissed down her belly and reached up to weave his fingers with her other hand. The head of her erect cock brushed his lips, like a slippery, salty kiss.

“Not going to run away now, are you?” Red whispered. There was a sassy smile on her face but her one blue eye begged him not to.

“No,” he told her. He was not going to run away, never again but he also felt nervous and inadequate in his skills at this point. She had taken his virginity before and that seemed right. This time, this first, he wanted to give freely. He wanted to make a beautiful girl cum in his mouth.

On his knees seemed like a good place to start. He bowed his head and whispered, “My girl.” The tip of his tongue lapped across her slit and tasted her precum directly from the source. She was cinnamon and something warm and sweet like honey. She was salty and musky all at once. She was a flavor palate and like everything else about Red, it was more than a little complicated.

Jared licked and the strand of saliva and precum drooled down his chin. He sighed into her pulsing flesh and gave her the rest of his mouth as he closed his lips around the meaty head of her dick.

“Yes, that’s perfect,” Red murmured and her curvy hips eased back and forth, basking in the feel of him.

Jared drank from her slit and let his mouth meld around her lovely cock. His tongue curved to lap along the hot, pulsing vein that ran the length of her. His lips pulled tight and yet were malleable around her girth.

Most importantly, he tasted her as he swallowed. His saliva now carried the flavor of Red. He felt his body respond with a new urgency he’d never known before. His own dick had been hard since the shower. The pain had never been as important as the creamy feel of Red’s cheeks pressed against him. He flailed and the head of his dick spit his liquid need. It drizzled down his thigh. He knew then that the thought of making her cum in his mouth could bring him almost to the brink of an orgasm.

His mouth seemed to know her, just as his soul seemed to know hers. He fed on her and opened up wider and then wider still as she pushed her hips. They rocked the squeaky mattress with the tempo of their lovemaking. “Oh yes, that’s so good,” she cried out and shuddered. Red broke free from his hands to lay her own dainty fingers on his shoulder. “Slow down,” it was the tenderest voice she’d ever spoken to him in. It was sweet and completely feminine. “Slow down, I don’t want to cum yet.”

God, she really was a woman.

She even wanted her cock sucked nice and slow. Jared lay on his belly and looked up at the scenery as he held her slender thighs apart. She mewed like a kitten and pushed her hips up. Her eye watched him intently and her gaze was full of lust and longing. A hungry lioness, she bit her full, bottom lip and pulsed between his lips.

Jared slid his hand up, up the center of her belly, and feasted on all of her sensations. The feel of her skin, the taste of her dick, the scent of her musk as her small, pink balls shifted and drew up close.
He imagined that she was full of cum. He groaned on her cock and it came with a wet, gurgling noise as she pushed the head of her cock to the back of his mouth. She shivered from his touch. He felt the twinge roll down his spine, as if everything that she was, was about to enter him.

His hand moved up again, between her breasts and Jared felt the rumble of her heartbeat there. His lips kept time, they were tight and wet around her pink flesh and he drooled down her shaft. There was a puddle of his desire on her sack and his throat was slick with Red’s liquid.

She pulled his hand up to her mouth. She sucked on his skin. Her teeth grazed his skin and her tongue teased along the edge of his cut. Red looked down at him as she drank the blood from his wound and he sucked down her essence.

She was the jaguar and she gulped from her prey.

He surrendered entirely, his mouth sealed to her thumping, hard cock. Her dick was completely inside and his nose was pressed to her sack. Jared felt the churning there in her balls and the spasm in her belly as she reached the edge.

“Fuck,” she whimpered. When he saw her bloody mouth, he wondered if he wouldn’t explode on his own leg with passion and need. She was ferocious, she was hot in his arms and he held her steady. He caught her gaze as he sucked her harder, the wet sound of his mouth on her skin bringing them both to the edge of an explosion.

She shuddered and straightened. Red dug her nails into his shoulders as she gushed her creamy cum straight into Jared’s throat. It was too much to swallow. He closed his mouth and gasped for air as she doused his face and his throat. Her cum spilled down his chest and he put his mouth back on her to drink once more. He let his tongue linger on her slit and he savored her like fine wine. She shivered as the tremors continued until she was spent and soft.

The woman in his life sighed as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Like she hadn’t murdered someone.

Jared rolled to her side and pulled her close. He ran his fingers through her wild, red jungle of hair and inhaled her scent. He tasted only her down in his throat. He smelled only her in his nostrils and this was the way he most wanted to be marked by her. “Oh my god,” Red murmured in a melting voice, “that was perfect.”

“It was my first time.” He confessed between sticky butterfly kisses. He was gentle and carefully avoided her black eye. What a shiner, he winced, she could take a punch though.

She had a light in her good eye and gave him a demure smile. “Good,” she murmured and brought her arms and legs around him possessively. “I only want you,” Red told him without looking at him. She almost mumbled it and Jared couldn’t have found it more charming.

He wrapped a coil of her hair around his finger and repeated, “I only want you.” In fact, he was starving for her. The need was deep down in his pores, it seeped into his bones like something toxic that could never be burned out. Jared licked her tempting lips and let his tongue dally with hers as he shared the salty, sweet taste of her love. “I’ve only wanted you since we met,” he confessed in starts and stops between tastes of her mouth.

“What am I going to do now?” she asked. Red had a haunted expression on her face. She was gruesome and beautiful all at once and he wanted so badly to kiss the eye that was closed. Like he wanted to roll her over and run his tongue along the thick, risen scar tissue that wound around her back and ribs.

He knew the answer.

He knew exactly what she should do. “Let me love you,” Jared said in a deeper voice. His bloody hand left a smear of red on her cheek, it was like a beauty mark. “Let me love you,” he guided her small hand to his insistent hard-on and showed her what she had done to him. What she’d always done since the first night to him.

He needed her and that was something completely new.

She warned him with that killer gaze, cold as ice. It was her deadly puma stare and she reminded him, “You know what happened last time, right?”

Jared kissed her throat, right where her pulse strummed. She was all milky, white skin and blue veins and softness. She was all pink, budded blossoming nipples and third degree burns. The head of his cock nestled against her soft, dripping dick. It poked and prodded for her to wake up once more. It was as if his whole body knew she was the one. She was the one he’d been taken by. She was the one who had broken him and now her hips and thighs felt like home.

Yes, he knew what happened last time. He wouldn’t say that Yuri was a dumb truck and vile and coarse. He wouldn’t say that the man had trafficked whores so how could he have possibly had the capacity or the soul to love her? He wouldn’t say it. He also wouldn’t say that Red was an adrenaline junkie, like him, and probably liked the craziness of the gangster life more than she had ever liked the gangster.

Instead he just whispered, “I know but that doesn’t matter to me.”

Her chin shook. When her blue eye filled with tears, it warmed to the color of the ocean. Deep blue and balmy, he could wrap himself around her and lose himself in that eye. “Make love to me,” she whispered. Her soft, little finger brushed the head of his dick. A strand of his clear precum strung between her thumb and second finger and she pointed to the little table beside her old mattress. “Get the lube, please.”

Jared reached for the handle and slid open the drawer. All the way in the back, there was a mostly full bottle of KY. He flipped open the spout and squeezed a dollop into his hand. He propped himself up on his other elbow as his slippery fingers found their target.

Her ass was beautiful, round and high. It was muscular but curvy and feminine. Red gasped as he grazed her rear entry with the pad of his sticky finger. She was like velvet here. Her skin was hot and sticky. She felt feverish and she was so sensitive that just this little forward and back motion made her cock take notice. She nodded and gave him permission. With that look, it was easy to know that she wanted it, she wanted him.

Jared pushed his index finger slowly into her opening and felt the heat inside her. She was tight and small and the expression on her face was every bit a girl’s first time. It was a deep pleasure and a complete surprise. She vibrated under him. Her thighs, her hips and her half hard dick all sprang to life. She was full of sensation as he pulled his finger halfway out and then even deeper inside.

“Yes,” she just mouthed the word and folded her hand over his forearm as Jared pumped deeper in. He gave her two strokes and then almost pulled out. Then he pushed deeper inside quickly and then removed his fingers completely. His breath on her neck and chest made her nipples strain for more friction and Red had goosebumps on her arms. She was such a girl and she bent her legs and pushed her bottom up to give him more access.

Deeper.

All the way in and he was enchanted at the sight of her little puckered asshole as it gave way. Pinker even than her nipples, her juicy back door made a wet sound as he gave her only half of two fingers this time. She shivered and pulled her legs up closer to her body. Then she moaned deeply when he fucked her firmly with both fingers.

As he watched her like this, still so fierce even while she surrendered, it made him want to stare at her and stroke himself. Jared knew that if he were watching her from somewhere, tucked away, out of view, watching her with a lover, he’d be jealous. Even crazy with envy though, he’d cum desperately as he stared and stroked.

But she was his.

Jared rose to his knees and squeezed his erection at the base with his left hand. His dick bulged and strummed, it danced and dripped in anticipation. Red let out a little whelp as his precum slid down her sensitive crack.

Jared pulled his fingers out and guided his cock inside. There was a tremor as the beefy head of his dick pressed passed the ridge. Red put her hand on arm as if she needed him to wait. She was snug and quite virginal and she needed him to wait right there. He had been patient, could be patient, must be patient but he wanted to ravish her body and soul.

She pushed up with a deep breath and gave herself over with a touch of her fingers. Jared knew, he knew by the expression on her face and the quickening of her hips. It was in the way she wrapped her calves around his body and drew him in that he knew that this was something deeper.

She was so tight.

Her asshole was a satin glove around his cock. Jared eased back and then pushed in deeper, firmly and deeper and looked her in the eye until she let out a little cry. “Jared,” she whispered and he couldn’t help but smile.

She’d never called him by name before. He wanted to hear it on her lips a hundred different ways. He wanted her to say it now in pleasure. He wanted to hear her cry it out loud when he wrapped his hands around her hips and buried himself. He was inside her now all the way to his balls. He was deep enough inside her that her blue eye got enormous.

The pleasure was exquisite. He rolled back and his mouth sought hers out. Their lips joined and her breath washed his face as she gasped and thrust her hips. Jared pushed his tongue inside and fucked her slowly and surely, with mouth and cock. He pushed into her with his tongue and dick, one and then the other. He wanted to own everything, all of her, even her breath.

Red cried into his mouth. When she released his kiss, she grabbed his biceps and pushed her ass into him. “Fuck me, fuck me until nothings left,” she bared her teeth and her ass bore down. Red quivered as Jared tore into her.

This wasn’t meant to be gentle, not now. This was two beasts in the jungle, this was a full mating ritual with teeth and claws. The scratches were just love marks. She sunk her nails into him and he threw his head back. He pounded her into the wet mattress. He gasped and his thighs screamed and his dick throbbed in her stretched little hole. His balls were so full for her. They were so hot and overflowing with his pent up need that he knew when he came inside her, he’d just keep fucking it right out of her.

Red bit his chest. It was a full on bite. She sank her teeth in and Jared howled. Fuck, yes, he wanted to be bitten. He wanted her marks. He grasped her cock with his right hand and pulled her ass up with his left. He fucked her hard and fast with deep, relentless strokes and all Red could do was hold on to both arms and squeeze. He jacked her dick off to the same tempo. Red was helpless now. She had completely given herself over to Jared and her mouth was open but no sound came out.

His cock and her cock swelled and thrust together. Her dick in his hand was slippery and weighty. She was hard but her flesh was indescribably silky. He liked the slapping, sticky noises that it made in his hand as he masturbated her. “God yes,” Red’s thighs trembled around his body. The vibration stirred him and brought every nerve to the very edge. Her liquid insides pulled and gripped his cock back.

He was going to cum and bit his lip hard to stop himself until he felt the pulse in his hand. He screamed as her tiny hole shuddered around his cock. Red’s pink dick in his hand spurt and spurt again. Her cum shot up his arm and filled his palm. His cum streamed from her asshole and he buried it back deep inside with a grunt and a yell with each thrust.

They didn’t stop until they were breathless and empty. She held on to him tightly and Jared collapsed on top of her. They were covered in their climax. He smelled their sweat commingle. It was a perfume made of them. It was sweat and sex and blood and yes, that was a tear on her cheek.

He licked it.

Jared hid his face in her hair and their sticky fingers entwined as they melted together. “Oh Red,” he murmured, not sure what to say next. Was it crazy to spill his guts or just completely unnecessary? Could she feel his madness as he pounded into her depths? Hadn’t it erupted inside her along with his essence?

“It’s always the quiet ones,” Red said with a chuckle but she wasn’t going to dismiss this with sarcasm. She knit her fingers around the back of his neck and drew him even closer, in case he wondered. “You’re amazing,” she told him before placing a searing, closed mouth kiss on his lips.

Her cleavage was decorated with droplets of sweat, like a necklace. Jared thought that he needed the morning, at least the morning, just to lick her from head to toe. Although perhaps it would be better after they had slept for hours. If they could just wrap around each other in his bed with their wounds bandaged and hunger sated. Even warriors needed rest.

“I don’t think I can walk,” Red said with a sigh as his dick finally slid from her asshole. With it came a gush of warmth that puddled between them.

Jared tucked the beautiful girl into the crook of his arm and wrapped one leg around both of her thighs. “Why would you go anywhere?” he asked. Should he confess that he had never cuddled afterwards before or was that obvious? Jared knew already that he wanted more. He never wanted to leave this spot.

He felt like he had just closed his eyes and they had just begun to doze when his phone vibrated. Suddenly, Jared remembered that Javi was still in the thick of things and the call could be anything. He released his grip on Red and sat up quickly, dizzy and disoriented. He reached over the side of the bed and his hand led the way to his phone.

“What’s happening?” he asked quietly. He hoped not to disturb his beloved. She needed the rest and then she needed a medical kit. Thankfully everything that was required was at his house.

“It’s not good, Mr. W,” Javi said. His voice was muffled and Jared wondered if he weren’t surrounded by cops. “He died just now.” The pig got what he deserved but that didn’t make it good news.

“Well fuck him,” Jared muttered.

“I couldn’t move the car. The cops made me stay here, had to ask me questions.” Javi sounded bitter about not being able to do his job. “They got a tracking device on it. They’ll probably be at the house in fifteen minutes.”

“Thanks Javi,” Jared whispered and ended the call.

Red’s eyes were closed. He wanted nothing more than to just kiss her face and watch her sleep but now they had to run. “You have to get up,” he was scared, which made his voice a monotone, everything was an instruction.

“Why?” she sounded lazy and sexy and her breasts bounced as she brought her arm up. It seemed like a signal to him to come back to the spot next to her and breathe her breath.

“Cops are on their way.”

“What? How do they even know?” She balled up her small hands into fists and punched the soaked bed.

“He died,” Jared began to explain in a quiet voice. He was sick with nerves. There was no time for this. If they arrived at the house right now, there was enough DNA here to probably nail them both to the wall. He didn’t have a backup plan, which was unlike him.

“Good,” she snarled, “not like he didn’t deserve it.”

“Red,” he said sternly, “get up. Get your clothes on and let’s get out of here before we don’t have a choice.”

“Really?” She crossed her arms over her chest and now she was all angles and hard edges. She stuck her chin out at him like he imagined she’d been doing all her life. “Run? Run away with you and then what? So you can talk to me like that?” she snapped and jumped up from the indentation they had made on her bed.

He set his forehead in his hand and if he were alone, he’d probably hit himself. Snap out of it, say something because this isn’t going the way you want. She’s not just some docile girl that likes a good spanking once in a while. “No, not so I can boss you around. Jesus, as if I could. But let’s get out of here before we fucking get arrested and go to county lockup. Is that how you want to spend the rest of tonight?” He demanded and he sounded imperious and angry. “In the men’s jail?” he added, his voice dripped with an ugly insinuation.

Her blue eye was furious. The combination of the flames that burst from that eye and the swollen, sealed eye was so hideous and purple that she appeared to be more beast than anything else. “Yeah, I’d love that.” She was marked and scented of sex and stomped across the room. Red fumbled with underwear. He watched her tuck her small, soft dick into the girl’s panties and he let his eyes linger over.

God, she was so fucking sexy. “What was I thinking?” she asked through clenched teeth. She seemed to ask herself instead of him.

Jared stormed past her and yanked his pants and underwear off the floor. This wasn’t right. She was infuriated now but if she had a good night’s sleep and woke up somewhere beautiful, then didn’t it have to work out? He bit his knuckles as he watched her pull a dresser drawer out and toss it on the floor. Red huffed and muttered under her breath as she shoved cash into pockets.

Once he was dressed, Jared felt cold and yet there was a trickle of sweat dripped down the back of his neck. Every sound outside sent a wave of panic through him. He had to protect her, hadn’t he just promised her that? And then they had sealed it with a kiss, a wet kiss. And he’d swallowed her essence and she’d taken his deep inside. If that wasn’t a pact, he didn’t know what was.

Red wore cargo pants and a tight tee shirt. She had hidden her breasts away in a hooded jacket that was zipped all the way up to her chin. She had slicked her wild hair into a rubber band and now her hair disappeared into the hood. She was just pale and impossible to discern what she was. With her translucent, almost glowing face and one eye, she could have been something from another world. She shoved cigarettes and a lighter into her jacket pocket and then her hands.

She used the familiar switchblade to slice through the band that kept the ankle monitor on her ankle. He felt that she’d always been able to get it off. Red had only been being polite. She had been keeping up her end of the deal because she thought it was honorable, not because she couldn’t have left at any time.

“Come on, my car is a few blocks over.” Jared put his hand out and hoped that she knit her fingers through his. He wanted her soft and sweet once more. If they had to run away somewhere, there was no one else on earth he’d rather run with.

“Yeah, right,” she glared at him. “It sounded great, all your white knight, rescuing the damsel in distress,” Red shook her head at him. “It really did. But no one has ever been there to help me and I’m not going to start taking some man’s shit now.”

“I don’t think I’m just some man,” he barked. He was furious with her now. They’d just been lost and found and there was too much to say to say it like this.

“No one’s ever taken care of me.” Her voice was small and his heart had never ached so badly as it did when she walked right past him. Even as his seed must be trickling down the back of her legs and she smelled of his body and her mouth tasted of his blood, she was leaving.

There was commotion outside. Cars sped down the street much too fast and every light that shone in a window made him wonder if this was it. “Red, come on, let’s go talk about this,” he reached for her wrist. He wished he had a cuff. He needed some rope so that he could hogtie her and hoist her up on his shoulder while she kicked and screamed.

She touched his arm with two fingers. It was only two fingers and they traced the veins in his arm and sent a chill through him. “I’ll miss you,” she whispered as she passed. She chilled him and then stepped into the dark and then, like a ghost, she was gone.

She was gone. He hadn’t even heard her feet on the stairs.

Jared followed and called out, “Red.” He made it to the bottom of the four flights and twisted around to catch a glimpse of her. If he could just see which direction she had headed. “Red!” he yelled it this time and then whispered it once to himself with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
And just like that, the woman in his life left him.

***

Red

It had only taken three days for the swelling around her eye to go down enough for her to see again. Every time she had caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror she whispered, “pussy motherfucker.” Then she had congratulated herself once more on killing Mueller. That was two unintended murders that she had under her belt and both were totally justifiable. If she wasn’t who she was, someone would probably give her a medal for killing both of them.

It was just a shame that Wolf was part of the wreckage this time. She wouldn’t let herself think about him or she’d go all soft and there wasn’t time for that. She was in pure survival mode now.

All that work, all those hours on her feet and living like a pauper and what did she have to show for it? Red punched her open palm in frustration after she counted what she had managed to bring. She had counted it twice, just to make sure she hadn’t missed a dollar.

Four thousand dollars. Four thousand two hundred and sixty-four dollars and probably two bucks in change. That was it, Red let out a long sigh as she sank into the despair of it. That was everything between her and the street. That was all she had to keep a roof over her head and food in her belly. It wasn’t nearly enough to stay off radar forever, which left her with only shitty choices.

She could work for cash but with all the bureaucracy in place to prevent illegal immigrants from working, there weren’t many of those jobs. Besides, it was all slaves wages too. Red was too fucking smart to waste away washing someone’s dishes 18 hours a day so that she could exist.

She had chosen the Star Inn for its anonymity. It was the cheapest, smelliest hotel she could find that took cash and didn’t ask for identification. It was okay for a few more days, but then what? She couldn’t get an apartment without showing someone a driver’s license. Going legit was impossible like this.

Red wondered if there weren’t already a warrant out for her arrest. She wore the hood down low to cover her face as much as possible when she went to go buy cigarettes. Gas stations had good security, even out here in the sticks near the Indiana border. She didn’t need anyone to find her because they were looking for someone who stole gas.

Dammit, she really couldn’t have planned this to be anymore fucked up. She puffed on the cigarette furiously and decided she’d really need to give these up too. It was money literally going up in smoke.

Without legitimate employment, that left crime. Red had never been caught robbing anyone but it wasn’t without risks. One time was all it would take and Red would be back in jail. This time forever.

She wouldn’t turn tricks. She couldn’t. She’d done it in the past, when it was the difference between eating or not. Now, how could she go back to that life? She had barely been able to stomach sucking off old men long before she’d fallen in love.

Because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? It scared the shit out of her. Handcuff her to a radiator, set her on fire, but love? She had promised herself after Yuri that she’d never fuck with feelings again. It was worse than giving her kerosene.

Still, she went to bed and imagined Wolf’s powerful arms around her.

Sleep hadn’t come quickly or easily since she had bolted and that night, a thump on her room door woke her up out of a sound sleep. She felt something prickly down the back of her neck. It was a warning. It was something she rarely felt except for when she’d been in jail.

Red looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was 3:30 am, too late and too early for anyone on the up and up to be outside her room. She whipped back the thin blanket and the sheet and hugged herself as she thought about the possibilities. If it were Chicago PD, they would just break down the door. Unless it was one of Mueller’s friends looking for a little payback.

She tiptoed to the door, opened it slowly and silently and stared out into the night. There was a duffel bag on the threshold. A big, black duffel bag that looked like it was full. A big, black duffel bag like Yuri used to pack money and weapons in and sometimes cocaine.

Was she being set up? Was it the drug dealer in the room next door? It wasn’t an accident, that much she knew. People kept close tabs on their big, black duffel bags.

She drug it inside and quickly slammed the door shut and put the chain on. Red walked back and forth and nervously twisted her fingers as she paced. Should she just say fuck it and open it? She lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring as she considered her options. She turned on the light by the television. She knelt with the cigarette jammed in her mouth as she tugged the zipper to the bottom.

Holy shit, it had been a long time since she’d seen so much cash. It was stacked and banded neatly, each stack was labeled $5,000. Jesus Christ, just from the quick scan she did, Red counted more than half a million bucks.

Then there was the letter.

It was folded in thirds on crisp, off-white paper and it smelled like him. She inhaled deeply and picked up the waft of scent that Red had memorized already. It was subtle, maybe soap, maybe his cologne. It lingered on his chest and she loved it. His muscular chest with the thicket of black hair. It was the softest hair and she wanted to feel it against her chest as she looked up at him. She wanted to be pressed against him as she melted into his body. Jesus, she could almost feel him inside her if she just closed her eyes.

The letter was handwritten and she smiled as she traced her name.

“Red,

If I can find you, then someone else can. If you won’t be with me, then at least let me help you with what I can do. This is enough money to really start a new life. There’s identification, a passport, etc., in the envelope. Be careful and be free.

Run, Red.

Wolf”

She dropped to her knees and held the paper to her breasts. With one act, he had made her love him even more and now that was the most heartbreaking thing of all.

The least she could do was get away with it.

***

Wolf

It was Spring in Savannah and unlike home, it was warm already. In Chicago, the chilly days of March and April seemed to just be an extension of winter. It was gray and dismal, like his heart. Since he had arrived in Georgia though, he felt renewed. It felt like the warmth had seeped into his bones and perhaps his heart had begun to thaw. He could feel the ocean nearby, he could smell the fertile ground and lose himself in the lushness of it all.

He had spent the last two days getting acquainted with the area. He was just another tourist, a nondescript man that no one would ever pick out of the group. He wore a hat and kept his head down. He had walked the cemetery that was nearby and sat in the square and meandered down Bull Street just to take it in. It seemed important to get to know where she came from; where she had been born.

Addison Riley that is.

Addison Riley was the owner of Ace Security. It was a startup computer security firm in the area. Ace had scored some impressive contracts since opening their office in Savannah. The company ran tight and lean and they were known to be extremely aggressive, just like the owner.

The gossip among the locals was that Addison Riley was known to be as quick and efficient with her speech as she was in her work. There was absolutely no drawl, no slow, drawn out syllables, no friendly twang. For whatever reasons, she never directly answered the question, “You’re not from around here.” The locals just thought she was shy.

She was a woman of few words but so far, from what he’d been told, what little she said was considered important. It didn’t even dilute her intelligence or her intensity that she was so pretty.

Yes, he thought to himself as he watched her from the street. She was truly pretty with her shiny hair and her shiny, barefaced complexion. She smiled at the computer screen occasionally and her bottom lip curled in a way that made his pulse race.

Ace Security had small but tastefully done offices in a building on Oglethorpe. The main advantage to the location was the twelve foot, floor to ceiling windows. Addison left them bare, which kept the entire space on display to anyone casually strolling by. She must like the light and wide open spaces. Perhaps she’d been cooped up for too long, somewhere small and claustrophobic. Whatever the reason, he liked that he could watch her work.

Her hair was almost black, the color of a dark pool. It was a tinge past chestnut and the light reflected in the dark well that was her hair. Now she wore it in a tight, careful knot on the top of her head while she worked. In fact, the way she dressed seemed designed to make her as sexless as possible. With her hair slicked back and tucked away, she also armed herself in oversized jackets and baggy pants. But there were certain attributes that she couldn’t do anything about.

Being in the south had done nothing to change her milk, white skin but then again, she worked too much to be a sun worshipper.

And those eyes.

He had been on the other side of the coffee shop that Addison frequented when he first saw her close up again. Damn, it had been three years but no time at all had passed when he saw the eyes. All it took was one look at the blue eyes and every moment washed over him once more.

He had decided just yesterday that his initial assessment of cold, killer eyes had been wrong. They were ocean eyes. They had unfathomable depths and they had a million colors in them and they were still, after all this time, mysterious.

She walked to and from her office to her condo on 37th street. She strolled, she rambled. It felt odd to watch her amble like she had nothing but time. It was a carefree walk that showed none of her previous guardedness. She dallied, she took in the scenery and never, not once, did she look back over her shoulder.

The last few days, he wondered if she’d forgotten the game entirely. If she didn’t even walk like Red anymore, if she never looked around corners or kept her hands curled into fists, then what would happen? She didn’t seem to have the electric crackle anymore. She was missing the fuse that just might make her explode.

Had Addison swallowed up Red? Had Mirabelle come out to play dress up? Was one too many aliases the straw that broke the camel’s back? He didn’t want to admit that the question that really haunted him was whether or not she’d forgotten all about him.

Fuck, it stung to think that he was walking around with her little R dug into his flesh and that she had moved on. Unscarred and unscathed. If he approached her, would she look at him with a half smile and say, “oh, yeah, now I remember you.”?

She had always been too cool for him.

He’d almost left the night before. He had watched her on what looked to be a date. It had lacerated his heart but then there had been that handshake at the end. Cool and direct, she may be more Addison than he had expected but that move was pure Red.

He was about to find out if she could still feel him at her core. Tonight was the night and it was impossible to keep the current that coursed through his body completely under control. He felt like he might jump out of his skin as he followed her home. Not too close, not too far, he followed the trail of her scent. Twilight closed in around them and he breathed in the dogwood blossoms and azaleas but it was under that. There was the hint of some expensive cologne that she wore, something that Addison would have picked out. She probably just dabbed a dot or two on her pulse points in the morning. Still deeper was the original scent. His inner beast had picked up the trail like they’d never left it.

Cinnamon and cum. Sweaty, vicious sex. Piss and a bloody wound and spit. Red, the woman and the color, inextricably joined, multifaceted, there were layers upon layers.

He twitched on the inside although he walked like a tourist and smiled politely at passerby’s.

He waited. He’d been waiting for so long that it almost seemed like she had happened to someone else. It almost felt like he’d read about her in a book or she was an urban legend. And yet, no, he thought as the deep purple of the sunset turned so a soft gray and finally, around midnight, to black, she was real.

He had watched her unwind her hair and when she tossed it back, the waves cascaded down both shoulders. He thought as he studied the ripples of espresso colored hair that she must have to color twice to blot out her natural crimson.

She began to undress and here she was completely Red. Her nakedness was so familiar. He had memorized every inch and in his mind’s eye, he could recite every curve and every line.

Then there was the tattoo. At the base of her spine, the one that he’d always wanted to know about and he’d never had the chance to ask. The word that seemed to have marked her. The letters that said she belonged to someone else entirely and that thought had made him burn.

He read it tonight and held his breath.

She had put on pajamas, very proper, navy blue button up pajamas, which he found amusing. She had watched fifteen minutes of a show while she heated up her dinner. It was leftovers in a foil tin from an expensive restaurant. She opened a bottle of Cabernet and had a glass. She even had one of those expensive, vacuum sealing wine stoppers. It was something that he could see Red roll her eyes at.

It was all very Addison.

There wasn’t a cigarette in sight but she tapped her fingers impatiently on the glass coffee table when she had finished eating. Like she hadn’t quite killed the urge and she still longed for a smoke, he bet.

How very Red.

Addison went to bed with a noise machine. He thought it was very considerate of her to have turned on the mechanical device that emitted ocean waves or a thunderstorm. It was enough noise to rock her into sleep and never notice the two clicks in the deadbolt that would allow him access to the condo.

He crept through the living room and turned just in time to avoid the squeaky floorboard near the club chair. He made his way slowly down the hall, past the kitchen and then past the half bath. As he turned the corner and entered the bedroom, he realized all at once that Red wasn’t gone at all. She had just gotten so much better at the game.

The bed was empty and even with the noise machine on, he could hear the slicing, metallic click when she flipped the gun’s safety off. She took a step toward him and pressed the barrel between his shoulder blades.

“I was starting to think you lost your balls,” she murmured. She sounded highly amused and not even a trifle alarmed.

He put his hands up. “Not at all, just enjoying myself.” And he was. He was hard as a rock in the front of his pants, aching actually.

Red kept the gun where it was and reached around his body. She must know, must sense his need because her hand went straight to his cock. She fondled him up and down, slowly, torturing him with her hand as she whispered, “oh my god.”

This wasn’t what he had planned but he admitted that the plan was shot to shit. Jared would trade cuffing her to the bed and raping her sweet, pink asshole any day for this. For her sighs and her kisses and her rapturous moans as he went down on her. Maybe without the cuffs, she’d pull his hair and push him down hard on her dick.

He had forgotten long ago if he would rather fuck her or be fucked. There no longer seemed to be any difference or separation. It had all just become making love.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked with a nervous tremor in his voice.

“You can try,” she said like a dare.

He kept his hands up in surrender as he turned around. She was lovely, even with the almost black hair that wasn’t hers. All of it belonged to a woman that Jared had made up for her, just in case. Addison Riley was his gift for Red. She was even more important than the cash but she had come with the price of a broken heart.

He didn’t touch her with his hands, just his lips. Soft, feather soft kisses, closed mouth, tender reverent kisses that made her whimper.

She set down her gun and wrapped her hands around his neck. Red opened her mouth and her breath on his lips made every nerve explode. It had been three years ago and yet there had been absolutely no time at all. All this time, his body had been on the precipice of this since they left her attic bed.

“I was worried that you had forgotten about me,” Red confessed before she licked his bottom lip like a tasty morsel she could hardly wait to bite.

“Never,” he told her before he gave her his mouth entirely. He slipped his hand down the back of her pajama pants and asked, “You changed your tattoo?”

“Yes,” she turned for him and let Jared peel the pants down halfway so that her gorgeous, round bottom burst from its confines. “I thought this was more appropriate.”

It must have been painful, to have a needle pass over and over in such a sensitive area, especially the second time. This one had to be darker, more ink, larger letters to hide the original. He touched it, traced the letters one by one as he dropped to his knees behind her.

W-O-L-F.

“It’s perfect,” he whispered before he gave her his tongue.