Page 81 of Unhinged Cain

“Is this what you want, Sunshine? You want to kill me?” Reaching out, I put two fingers on her wrist and lifted her arm so the blade sat against my throat. “If you’re going to kill me, then slit my throat, make sure it’s deep enough and a clean slice, or I’ll just be angry.”

Her lower lip trembled as I moved my hand away from hers and kept my hands out to the sides. “I don’t know….”

“You don’t know what, Sunshine? You don’t know if you want to kill me? You should want to. Isn’t that what society teaches you? Isn’t that what your school is training you to do? To kill those that threaten the rest? Wouldn’t it make the world safer with one less murdering psychopath destroyed?” Her hand trembled harder, and she backed away from me, tears trailing down her cheeks. I watched her take one step at a time until she reached the front door and fumbled with the lock behind her.

I didn’t move. I didn’t try to stop her. As soon as the door was open, she spun around like she was going to run and then stopped. Her whole body was shaking so hard that I could see her physically fighting off the reaction.

“Are you going to chase me, kill me, find me again,” she asked and looked over her shoulder at me.

“No, Sunshine, I’m not.” I didn’t know if I meant it forever, but I meant it at that moment. I needed her to pick me. I needed to know I was her choice. It was the only way ever truly to trust what we had. It was the last move on the chess board.

“You need to choose what life you want to live. You may not have come to me willingly, but I’ve shown you who I am, what I am, and I’ve never lied to you. With me, there are certain things that you need to accept, but I’ll always be here for you, and I’ll always treat you as the rare piece of art that you are. If you go back, you’re choosing to live a lie and hide who you really are and possibly the ability to feel like you do with me ever again, but it is your choice to make.”

“I don’t understand,” she said and turned around to face me, the knife pointing down to the ground. “You stalked me, practically raped me, and then kidnapped me all for what? Just to make me fall in love with you and then let me go.”

“You truly love me,” I asked, and the same possessiveness I always felt about her flared brighter in my chest with her second declaration of her feelings

A blood-curdling scream ripped through the house as she stomped her feet and slammed the door closed. She looked wild, her hair a mess and her hand shaking with the knife still in it. She looked like she just stepped out of a slasher film, and it was fucking hot. I wanted to sit her on the counter and fuck her until she was screaming my name.

“Yes, of course, I love you. Do you really think anyone else would stay? What have you done to me? I can’t go back, but to stay is crazy.”

Checkmate.

I slowly walked forward and held out my hand, and she looked at it for a long time before finally placing the knife into my palm. With predatory precision, I grabbed the front of her shirt and slammed her up against the wall, the knife now to her throat. Her eyes were wide, and her chest was heaving under my hand. “One day, I’m going to fuck you with a knife to your throat. You look so fucking sexy, all worked up.”

Removing the knife from her tender skin, I dropped my head and kissed her. For a brief moment, she was stiff under my lips, but then like she was made of butter, she melted and wrapped her arms around my neck.

“Do you want to kill me, Kirby?”

“No, never. But we need some ground rules if this is going to work.”

“I love rules that I make,” I said, the corner of my mouth lifting as she glared at me. “We can talk about all the rules you want later,” I said, picking her up so her legs could wrap around my waist. Walking back to the kitchen, I laid the knife down and then laid her out on the table like she was my meal. “Say it again. Tell me how you feel.”

“I love you,” she whispered and pulled gently on my hair.

“I wish I could feel what you feel,” I replied and ran my thumb over her lower lip.

“Tell me what you do feel.”

“I feel like I don’t want to go another day without you in it.”

A smile spread across her cheeks as her eyes glittered under the kitchen light. “That is love, Cain. I don’t want to go a day without you in it either.”

I smirked down at her. “Then, I love you too.”

KIRBY

I didn’t think life could get any better than this, it was the most fucked up of scenarios getting to this point, but I’d never been happier. Cain and I had found a rhythm to our day that felt so right that my body sang with joy. He was a demanding and aggressive lover, but for someone that didn’t have the range of emotions others did, he was also the most thoughtful and considerate person I’d ever met. I was all in on him and trusted him with my life. There was a strange high in knowing that he was as wild as a tiger and could rip me apart at any moment.

It took a great deal of arguing, but I finally convinced him that I could only be with him if he stopped killing random people and only went after specific targets we chose together. I’d settled on targets that the FBI was hunting already. I’d decided it was best to return to school and be our eyes and ears inside the organization. This way, I could assess if the targets were a real threat based on their crimes and have an entire file to hand over to Cain.

That had been the hardest sell-job of my life, but I couldn’t handle another Barbara asking me to help her. I still had limits, even if he didn’t.

In a few days, I would return to school and resume my schoolwork as if all was normal and I’d completed my trip as planned. This was all his idea, almost like he’d been planning on having me turn into his partner. Had I been manipulated? Were my decisions my own? I’d asked myself these two questions a million times and kept coming back to the same answer. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how we got here. The point was I didn’t want to leave.

The days he was out on the road towing vehicles was when the boredom would set in, like today. He was up and gone by six-thirty, and I was left with very little to do. The vacuum roared as I moved into the living room to continue cleaning. We both hated a mess and disorganization, and now we had a schedule to take turns cleaning the entire house. The vacuum was the best part, or it was until it stopped working. I turned around to see if I’d pulled it out of the wall and sucked in a deep breath as my eyes locked onto Abel.

It was easy to tell that he’d been drinking even though it wasn’t close to lunchtime. I could smell it wafting off of him, but his eyes were bloodshot, and his words were slightly slurred when he spoke. I caught the glint of a blade in his hand, and I swallowed hard. He was dangerous at the best of times, but right now, the look in his eyes had a cold sweat trickling down my back. I hadn’t worked out in weeks and flexed my muscles, readying myself for the fight I knew was coming.