The Hunt

CHAPTER 15

In the way it is with some dreams, he kept pressing the mental rewind button to watch Theron soar through the sky, flying two hundred miles an hour, his wings beating deep and sure as he homed in on the swift and knocked the prey out of the sky with his sharp talons.

Over and over, he repeated this dream, at will. In the back of his semiconscious mind he worried about where he was, whom he was expecting, but for now he wanted to replay his raptor hunting.

He didn’t wake up until the cold metal handcuff snapped across his wrist.

She was back.

He struggled in the sweat-soaked sheets and she laughed. The low rumble he knew all too well.

“What?” he asked, his voice thick from sleep. Theron disappeared, and he remembered where he was.

Back in Montana.

“I want you.”

“No. I’m tired.”

Silence. He came fully awake.

Never say no to me.

The waxing moon, three-quarters full, shone bright through the large windows, casting gray shadows across his loft. Highlighting his bed, his solitary dresser, his hunting rifle.

And her.

She wore black, her blonde hair pulled back into a tight braid. Her delicate jaw and pale skin lied-there was nothing soft about this woman.

She frowned at his automatic refusal. “I come out here in the middle of the night to give you pleasure and you say no?”

Pleasure? Maybe for her. Always for her. He hated that he reacted. He tried and tried to keep his body from betraying him. But she knew what to do.

Why had he returned? Because the urge was so great, he couldn’t resist. The punishment for giving in to the urge to hunt was having to see The Bitch.

She stripped off his sheet and her frown deepened. “You’re dressed.”

She rolled him onto his stomach and pulled down his boxers. She slapped his buttocks hard. Whack!

Whack! Whack!

“I’m sorry,” she said in a voice that sounded sincere. “You know I hate doing that.” She kissed the hot spot, where she’d hit him.

She loves it. He grimaced as she reached between his legs and grasped his dick. He was already semi-hard. Damn his body. Damn it to hell. Why did it react to her? Always. He should cut it off to spite her. Mail it to her in a pretty package. She liked it so much? She could have it.

Growing in her capable hands, he moaned, trying to bury the sound in his pillow. But she heard, and he felt her cold smile on his back.

“There, there, sweetheart,” she murmured, releasing him and crawling up his back. She turned his body slightly so she could kiss him. “It’s been a long time.”

Not long enough.

“Yes,” he said.

“Did you miss me?”

Hell no.

“Of course I did.”

“I thought so. It’s just been hard for me to get away.”

Yeah, I bet.

For years, her husband suspected she was having an affair. But the stupid fool never imagined it was with him.

“I have a special treat for you.”

No. No.

He turned his head and watched her retrieve a long dildo from her jacket pocket. One end was fat, the other slender. He hadn’t seen it in a long time.

No.

She rolled him over onto his back, then stripped. She had a disciplined body. Though forty was closing in, her figure was trim, firm, and graceful. The body of a dancer, the face of an angel, the soul of a demon.

She straddled him. Not his penis. His face. She ground her damn cunt into him. “Make me come, sweetheart.”

He couldn’t refuse. He remembered what happened when he protested. So he ate her the way she liked. Maybe if she was satisfied she wouldn’t use that damn thing on him.

She pushed so hard into his face he couldn’t breathe. She damn well knew he couldn’t. But if he pushed her away she would really hurt him.

She eased up enough so he could catch his breath, then rode his face hard as she orgasmed, clutching the headboard, moaning out loud.

“Oh, yes,” she said as she slid down his body and licked her juices off his face. “That was nice. You deserve a reward.”

No.

She spread his legs and smiled at his quivering erection, the moonlight casting blue shadows across her body, making her pleasure look sinister. Evil.

She was pure evil.

She caressed his penis almost lovingly. She picked up the dildo from the nightstand and slid the thick end into her wet cunt, moaning in pleasure. It had a strap and she buckled it onto herself.

“No,” he croaked. He hated this and she knew it.

“Did you say no?”

Shit, he hadn’t meant to. It just slipped out.

“I didn’t.”

“Don’t lie.” She slapped his face and he bit his tongue.

Damn bitch.

There was nothing he could do. If he protested-she knew his secrets. Every dark secret he had. She knew about the girls. Knew and mocked him. Enjoyed his rage, his anger.

Fueled it.

She gently touched his face, panting her pleasure. The pleasure she got from hurting him.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. But you should know better than to say no to me.”

She’d had him under her thumb for fifteen years and if he didn’t do exactly what she wanted, when she wanted, she’d take the one thing from him that he valued most.

His freedom.

I hate you.

Did he? Yes! But there was a time… he remembered a time when he could reach out and touch her and she would console him. Lick his wounds. Hold him and murmur sweet words in his ear. Touch him kindly.

That time was long gone, but the past held him in an iron grip, unbreakable. Like her.

So he laid back and did nothing. He was her bitch and there was not a damn thing he could do about it. It hurt, but his dick was rock hard. Pleasure and pain, so entwined. Can’t have one without the other.

She moaned and gyrated, on the verge of orgasm. If she came she’d stop, and he’d get no relief. She never cared about him. It was all about her. Always about her.

He imagined throwing The Bitch onto the floor and sticking the damn dildo up her ass. He imagined slapping her silly until she begged him to stop. He could easily picture tight clamps around her tits, the tits she never let him touch.

The image set him off and he moaned in release.

She reached down and jerked him so hard his moan of pleasure turned to a scream of pain. As she hurt him, she came, her body hot and slick. She collapsed onto him and kissed his tears away. “That, dearest, was for saying no.”

I hate you.

She pulled out abruptly and took off the dildo. She dressed, then kissed him-almost tenderly-and released the handcuff. “I’ll be back,” she said with a sweet smile.

Under that fake sweetness she was an evil bitch. He watched her leave.

He hated her. But he was trapped for life. If he tried to kill her, he would fail. He wanted desperately to hunt her down and slice her throat. Watch her lying smile turn grotesque in pain. Watch her realize that her creation was her demise.

If he left, she’d find him. If she couldn’t find him, she’d spill his secrets. He knew what would happen if she ever went to the sheriff. All tears and sweet softness. All a lie.

“I didn’t know, Sheriff, until I found their driver’s licenses…”

A lie, always lies. But they’d believe The Bitch. Crocodile tears and big eyes.

No one would believe him. They always believed her.

It was too soon, but his rage was building. His fear angered him even more.

Too soon, but what could he do? The Bitch had started it. She always had that air as if she were in charge. As if he had to listen to her and do whatever she said. When she released Penny from their love nest, she’d forced him to hunt. To kill.

He’d never wanted to kill Penny. He only kept her in the cabin to make her understand that he loved her, that the jock she was dating would betray her. He wanted to find out why she’d lied to him.

He’d never wanted to kill her. But sometimes the only way to get the truth was to hurt it out of people. That’s how his mother did it, and he always told the truth.

Penny had almost come around. Everything he’d learned worked. She said what he wanted her to say. Let him touch her without screaming. They would have been happy together forever, if only he had a little more time to work on her.

But The Bitch didn’t want him to be happy. She followed him one night and took away the only woman he’d loved. She let Penny go.

Penny ran. Ran away from him when he begged her to stay. He hadn’t wanted to kill Penny. He just wanted her to stay with him.

When he’d caught up with her, he realized everything she’d said to him was a lie. She didn’t love him, didn’t want to stay with him. Lies, lies, lies!

She died as painlessly as possible. He’d never wanted to hurt her. He just couldn’t help himself. And she’d lied. It was just punishment. But he didn’t want her to suffer.

The Bitch made him kill that first time. But when he looked down at Penny’s lifeless body, he felt emboldened. Powerful. He had a touch of God in him, the ability to take life, or give it.

With the little black-haired woman-he didn’t know her name was Dora until he’d read the newspapers-he developed a taste for it. He fucked her when he wanted, not when she wanted. He fed her when he wanted, not when she was hungry. He released her when he wanted, and she ran.

The thrill of the hunt was secondary to having power over life.

He always won. Except the one who got away…

He rose from bed, taking the sheet and wrapping it around himself. He crossed over to his desk and pulled open the drawer so violently that the contents spilled across the floor. Angry at himself, but mostly at The Bitch, he switched on the desk lamp and knelt on the floor to gather his treasures.

He stacked the driver’s licenses he’d collected-twenty-one in all-and put them aside, Rebecca on top. He fingered her photograph, reflected not on the kill, but the life-the life she gave him when she ran. The life she gave him when she begged him for mercy. For anything. He called the shots. He made all the decisions and she had no say.

He rarely spoke to the women. They were nothing.

He picked up the worn leather notebook that held his life. He breathed in the old leather cover, feeling oddly at peace. Planning did that for him. Planning took time, focus, intelligence.

He had all three. And it was time to plan for the next hunt. The sooner the better.

Theron’s eggs would be hatching soon. He certainly didn’t want to miss it.