Page 166 of Shhh…It’s A Killer Story

That's how devotion grows.

Slowly. Patiently. Like ivy. By the time anyone notices, it's already wrapped itself around the entire house.

I stepped backward until my shoulders met the opposite wall. From here I could see all of him. The board didn't feel frightening. It felt...comforting. Order where my childhood had been chaos. Predictability where life insisted on improvisation. A shrine. No. Shrine implied worship. This wasn't worship. It was preservation. The difference matters.

At least...I think it does.

The room had grown strangely warm or perhaps that warmth belonged to me. My pulse still hadn't settled since the morning in the garden. My skin felt flushed beneath my linen sleeves, every heartbeat reminding me I'd survived another day. My heartbeat had finally slowed, but only enough for the exhaustion to settle into my bones like wet cement.

I rubbed my thumb absentmindedly over the newest photograph one last time before switching off the light. The wall disappeared into darkness. I still knew exactly where every photograph was.

Maybe... a bath would quiet my mind.

Or at least convince my heart to stop behaving like it belonged to somebody else.

Hot water surrounded my overheated skin.

I thought a bath would calm me down after what I’d just witnessed, but the heat only seemed to make my blood burn hotter. My entire body pulsed to the rhythm of my racing heart. I had gone to the tub to cool off, to wash away the absolute delirium of watching Elias out there, playing with Max without a shirt on.

The memory of his bare chest, the sweat glistening on his taut muscles, and the easy way he moved had completely derailed my sanity. I needed to drown out the noise in my head, and a glittery bath bomb with some Baileys for company felt like my only saving grace.

Light from the windows in front of the clawfoot tub gleamed off the marble walls and brass fixtures. Tipping my head back, I inhaled the sweet chamomile scent and let my head wander. Or rather, let it rush right back to him.

He monopolized every single thought, and I didn't want it any other way.

Elias grew inside of me like a beautiful, consuming fixation. The more time I spent watching him, the more desperate I became for his attention. I didn't want to get him out of my system; I wanted him to fill it completely. I was utterly, entirely obsessed, drowning in a magnetic pull that made it hard to breathe. The tension between us was a physical weight, and every time he looked at me, I remembered why I never wanted to break free from his spell.

The lethal combination of his intensity, his sharp edge, and those ridiculous abs had a mind-numbing effect. He was slowly, surely, inking his way permanently into my heart, and I wasn't even trying to deny it anymore. Behind the brick walls of my house, I felt shielded and utterly, unbearably horny.

My pussy had become slicker than an oil field just from the past hour of watching him through the window.

I closed my eyes, and the imagery consumed me. I could picture the exact way his face shifted when he looked at me, and I caught myself imagining him using that dangerous, beautiful mouth to nudge my opening. Imagining his pearly whites scraping along my clit, nibbling and biting just hard enough to make me sob.

I groaned aloud, my blood racing under my skin as the apex of my thighs throbbed, hungering for something solid inside of me. I bit my lip, my hand trailing a desperate path from my belly down to my needy bundle of nerves, circling and rubbing.

There was no trying to think of anyone else. No distractions, no other men. I didn't want them. Elias's dark, blue piercing eyes always came out on top. He was the only one allowed in this space.

My breathing turned laboured as I imagined his electric gaze locked on my wet, soapy breasts while he fucked my cunt with his tongue. In my mind, he reached over, his thick fingers squeezing the pliable flesh of my chest and rolling my pebbled nipples hard between his thumbs.

I gasped. My whimpers echoed across the painfully empty bathroom, and I rubbed harder, faster. I pleasured myself entirely to the idea of him, craving the day I'd find out what the real deal felt like. I wanted more, wanted everything, and the thought of running away never even crossed my mind.

My legs sent violent ripples across the water as they shook on either side of the tub. Liquid swished against my sensitive breasts, and my neck stretched back. I refused to let the scream that crested at my lips out, swallowing down his name like a prayer. Elias. Elias.

Nothing but the taste of him pressed through my skull.

I clenched my core, trying to prolong the sweet torture, but I was far too aroused. The heat low in my belly intensified until I couldn’t hold myself back for another second. Spasms racked my body, my orgasm galloping forth and shattering through my final inhibitions. Moans slipped out into the quiet room, and the shakes were overwhelming, like nothing I’d ever experienced by myself before. I came so hard that liquid gushed out of me.

I squirted.

He made me squirt, and he was still out there, completely oblivious. It was terrifying how much power he held over me, but the terror was intoxicating. Sweat and bathwater pooled together along my collarbone as I tried to catch my breath, my mind spinning. I didn’t even know my body could do that. It had never happened before but of course, it was Elias that got it out of me, the magnificent, devastating detective.

Drowsy from that heavy, post-orgasmic glow, I finally relaxed my tense muscles, submerging my shoulders under the cooling water. I didn't want to absolve him from my bloodstream; I wanted to sink deeper into the fever. I had never been this needy, this beautifully undone by a single person.

As I sat in the complete silence of the bathroom, my eyes drifted toward the door, toward the dark hallway, completely possessed by the heavy, inescapable reality of my fixation. I closed my eyes, letting the aftershocks of the orgasm wash over me, entirely consumed by the weight of my obsession.

The terrifying part wasn't that I was losing control to him. The terrifying part was how much I craved it.

The water had long since turned lukewarm. I stayed there anyway, staring at the ceiling until the silence became heavy enough to wear. Eventually I climbed out, wrapping myself in the oversized white towel hanging beside the radiator. Tiny droplets followed me across the wooden floor as I padded barefoot through the hallway.