Locke 2 (Blackwater Boys #4)

Sixteen

Locke

H e pulled out a number he didn’t often touch.

He spun the piece of paper around, mulling it over.

Every time he made contact with this number, he was putting himself and the contact at risk. But Kali was worth the risk, he reasoned.

She was the fucking pulse beating in his chest.

She was the blood rushing through his being.

She was the addiction he could never shake.

She is worth this risk.

And he didn’t need to think about it again as he typed a message to the man on the other side of the screen.

◆◆◆

She was deep asleep when he returned. He wandered her home, looking over every nook and cranny. The little things, like her keys on the kitchen bench and her neatly packed sandwiches in the fridge. Her roommate was sloppier. He left his socks on the floor beside the shoe rack. His cologne overpowered her soft aroma, and it irked Locke how much he hated the masculine scent in her space.

Her dog followed him around, pitter pattering softly behind him. He stopped several times to look over his shoulder at her. She stared up at him, tail wagging, her big eyes bright even in the darkness.

“I’m bad,” he whispered. “You should know that.”

When spoken to, she drew closer to him, and then she was sniffing his shoes, investigating the stranger in her owner’s home. He frowned, unwilling to let her explore further. He picked her up suddenly and brought her to the bedroom. He plopped her down on the mattress, next to Kali’s sleeping form. He’d not been three steps away when he heard her body landing on the floor, her nails skidding along the hardwood. She followed him out of the bedroom, and this time he ignored her.

Stubborn like her owner.

But he continued to make a maddening loop to the damn bed where Kali lay. He found himself constantly peering down at her still form with nostrils flared. He hadn’t even needed to see her when he entered the house to feel his heart restart. He scented her in the air like a bloodhound. That Kali fucking scent that had lingered in his bed sheets for days and days when he’d let her go the first time.

He should have never let her go.

“You’ve been doing just fine, haven’t you?” he whispered down to her. Raw with rage, he wanted to pin her down again and seethe. He wanted to ask her the trick to forgetting him so that he may do the same to her. If freedom came with a fucking list of ingredients, he wanted to know what they were so that he could walk out of this damn house and not look back.

But he wanted to touch her again. He wanted to kiss her mouth and lick her skin. Even if she didn’t consent to these things, he would have accepted being in the same fucking room as her.

And this was why he feared her so much.

There was no cure to this devastating addiction. He was trapped in this horrible in-between. It didn’t feel permanent and though it felt amazing to touch her and taste her, it hurt worse than ever when it was all over and she couldn’t even look at him.

Was he such a ruthless villain? Did she truly repulse him so much that she couldn’t even look at him after he’d given her pleasure?

“Damn you,” he gritted out, angrily, wanting to lash out at her. To wrap his hand around that damn little throat and just snap it—

He stroked her hair instead…and then retreated.