Cold Cole Heart Read online

  “Open your pussy and let me see,” he growls.

  I jerk my legs apart, oddly turned on by the blood on his face. He’s so feral and hungry. For me. That should be a terrible, terrible thing. But my body thrums with excitement. He situates himself between my thighs and kisses the inside of one of them. Crimson is smeared along my flesh and I become fixated on it. He kisses the other side, adding his blood there too. Then, with his animal eyes on mine, he runs his bloody tongue up my slit, smearing himself all over my pussy.

  He bares his teeth at me, streaked with blood, and then he nips at my clit. I cry out and reach for his messy hair. Gripping him, I urge him to continue. I’m every bit a player in this fucked up game as he is. He’s not figuring anything out. Neither of us is. We’re getting more and more lost in whatever it is that happens when we’re together.

  “Fuck,” he groans and then sucks on my outer pussy lip. “So sweet, honey.”

  Tears pool in my eyes at his words. I don’t understand how a monster can make me get all jittery and breathless. He continues to devour my pussy like he wants to taste every inch and memorize me. His tongue fucks me. His teeth claim me. His nose inhales me. His lips kiss mine between my thighs. He makes me writhe and beg. I squirm and scream. My pleasure is his until he’s ready to give it. And like the unexpected bag of books from earlier, he gives me the orgasm I crave. Lazily and smug. His tongue teases me right over the cliff of ecstasy until I’m sobbing his name and begging for all of him.

  I expect him to also undress and fuck me, but he does neither. With his brown eyes smoldering with so many emotions, he picks up the knife again. I watch in part fascination, part terror, as he brings the tip of the blade to my lower stomach just near my hipbone. When he digs the tip of the blade into my flesh, I cry out. I expect him to go deeper, but he doesn’t. Instead, he carves something into my skin. Not deep but enough to make me bleed all over the place. Blood oozes from the cut nearly as quickly as the tears roll out. When he finishes his handiwork, he stands. Blood is everywhere on him and I’m a victim to his haunting beauty. I can’t look away. Even psychotic as hell, he’s gorgeous. His blood and mine are smeared on his hands. His face is glistening with my arousal and his own blood. It’s the claiming, predatory look in his eyes I’m so taken by.

  “Don’t leave me,” I beg, my throat closing up.

  He cocks his head to the side, looking crazy as hell, but I don’t let it deter me.

  “Please don’t leave me,” I say softer.

  “I had my knife inside your cunt and I carved you up, honey. When will you see I’m your nightmare, not your friend?”

  “Please,” I try again. I ignore the sting on my hip.

  “No, honey. The answer is always no.”

  MY MIND IS BUZZING AND I’m shaking with so many emotions roaring through me. The biggest one is lust. I’d wanted to be angry and hurt her. I did hurt her. But she fucking liked it. I’d seen the seductress in her gray-eyed stare as she moaned and begged for my deviance. I’d fucked around with my knife on her and dirtied her up with my blood. She loved it. Her sweet pussy was sticky with her honey. So needy and desperate for the same goddamned thing I wanted.

  Crazy.

  She’s crazy.

  Just like me.

  After a shower where I cleaned off all the blood, I still can’t cool off the fire in my stomach or the ache in my cock. I pull on some boxers and shut off all the lights. When I make it past her room where the door is locked, I can hear her frantic crying.

  “Cole,” she sobs. “Come back.”

  It reminds me of one of my sessions with Dr. Jeffries.

  “Cole, come back.” Savannah’s voice is soft and calm, dragging me away from my inner turmoil.

  I blink away the daze and frown at her. “I’m here.”

  “No, you weren’t. Were you thinking about your captivity?”

  A cold, dirty shower of disgust washes over me. “No.”

  “Them?”

  “I’m always thinking about them,” I sneer.

  I’ve told her about them. The things I’ve done. The things I’ll continue to do. How they scream and beg. How ugly they are when they’re in my home and beneath me. She’s always so calm as I detail out the horrors. As though she doesn’t believe me. As though she entertains the thoughts because her job requires her to.

  “What’s the new one’s name?” she asks, her eyes darting to the clock.

  I crack my neck and shrug my shoulders. “Does it matter?”

  “It matters to me.”

  Liar.

  “Anta,” I growl.

  Her lips purse together. They’re all Anta to me. Every goddamn one of them.

  “Anta?” she probes. “This one is Anta too?”

  I fist my hands and stare out the window behind her. Rain. So much rain. Always fucking raining. I blink, blink, blink in tandem with the pattering on the window. She lets out a stifled sigh, drawing my attention back to her.

  “Always Anta.”

  “Cole,” Natalie sobs, dragging me from the past.

  With them, I was vengeance and rage. I was justified in my actions. With her…I don’t know what the fuck I am, but it’s not the same. The guilt turns into a ravenous beast inside me and starts thrashing. Feral and hungry. It eats me up inside. I’m fucking weak to that guilt monster.

  “Coleeeee.”

  I close my eyes and lean my forehead against her door. She cries and cries with no hope for letting up. Eventually, my captive wins. I groan and flip the lock on the door to rescue her. I’ve barely got it opened when she slips through and throws herself at me. My heart flops in my chest and I hug her to me.

  “Don’t leave me,” she chokes out. “You can’t do that to me.”

  I can. I should. I will.

  Fuck, no, I won’t. At least not right this second.

  Gripping her ass, I lift her and carry into the bathroom. I flip on the light and set her on the counter. Her face is red, streaked with tears, and her gray eyes are wild. So fucking pretty.

  “Let me clean you up,” I grunt.

  She hugs her arms to her chest and watches intently as I set to cleaning her bleeding wound I inflicted. Once I have her bandaged up and the blood has all been cleaned away, I pick her up again. Her fingernails that still remain dig deep into my flesh, nearly breaking the skin. As we near her room, her grip tightens.

  “No,” she whimpers.

  I slap her ass with my hand and then squeeze it. “It’s where you belong.”

  “I belong with you.”

  My heart stutters in my chest. Fuck, she’s screwing this shit up. With a resigned sigh, I bypass her room and walk into mine. Her body relaxes once she realizes I’m taking her with me.

  I belong with you.

  HIS ROOM IS DARK AND I can’t see a thing, but he manages to pull back the covers without turning on a light. With me still in his grip, he slides into bed and turns us on our side. The bed is incredibly soft and I nearly burst into tears at how comfortable it is. It reminds me of my bed when I lived with Mom. He draws a heavy blanket up over us.

  I curl up against my nightmarish, serial killer captor.

  God, he’s so warm.

  I suppose when you’re from hell, you would be.

  “Go to sleep, honey.”

  He does my head in when he calls me that. It’s such a sweet, simple name and yet it fragments my mind even further because I like it on his lips. I want to hear it more. Not in some way to get the bad guy to like me so I can escape. But it’s hope that he’ll want to keep me and treasure me.

  “I’m sorry for what they did to you,” I whisper. “Nobody deserves that. Not me. Not you. No one.”

  He’s stiff, but then his nose is nuzzling against me in the dark. His lips run along my cheek and press against the corner of my mouth. He runs his large palm over my naked breast and teases the nipple with his thumb. Then, his lips are parting mine. His tongue is gentle as it whispers along mine. I feel the metallic-tasting g
roove that he cut into it and I tongue it until he growls in warning. I back off and let him kiss me like he wants to. We kiss and kiss in the dark, silently exploring the other. His hand slides south and then he dips a finger inside me.

  “Always so wet, honey. You’re as fucked up as me. I want to fuck you sweet. You,” he murmurs against my mouth. “The woman I’m going to kill.”

  I groan as he teases me with his finger. “You don’t have to kill me. You could keep me.”

  He curves his finger up and grazes my G-spot within. I arch my back up and cry out in pleasure. He fucks me with his finger until I’m whimpering out his name, begging for more. My nightmare come to life crawls on top of me, pushes his boxers down, and then slides inside of me. Like we’re sweet, romantic lovers. In the dark, maybe we are.

  His hips thrust slowly against me as he takes my mouth. When we’re together like this, I almost feel as if I am not dying on the inside. That my life hasn’t been a freak show for years. I feel normal and wanted. Cared for even.

  “I’m scared,” I whisper, my fingers sliding into his hair so I can grip him tight.

  “You should be,” he grunts.

  “I’m scared of who I’ve become.”

  “You and me both.”

  His candid words have me slipping off into an explosive orgasm. He kisses the moans from my mouth and then offers me his own. His heat fills me up and I’m claimed. He may want to kill me, but I think maybe his heart could ultimately be convinced to keep me.

  I wake when I’m elbowed in the chest. At first I think it’s intentional, but then I realize Cole is in the throes of a nightmare. He’s grunting and thrashing.

  “Cole,” I whisper. “Wake up.”

  Gray light from outside, no doubt another rainy day, peeks in through the windows as dawn makes itself known. Cole is still trapped in his head, his features screwed up in pain. He’s evil himself, but something—someone—did this to him. If anyone knows about the monster, it’s me. Alan is my nightmare. Cole thinks he is, but he’s more like a savior.

  “Hey,” I murmur as I wrap my arm over his solid, tattooed chest. “I’m here. Natalie.”

  He’s sweating and anguished. I run my fingers through his damp hair and then along his cheek. His body soon stops struggling as his breathing evens out. I know the moment he wakes because his oppressive stare is on me.

  Hate.

  I feel it so palpable I can almost taste it.

  But when my eyes flicker to his, it evaporates in the air. His hard eyes seem to soften. I smile at him.

  “Bad dream?” I ask.

  His nostrils flare and his jaw clenches. “Always.”

  Pain clenches inside my chest. “At first, my nightmares were of finding my dead mother. So much blood. Over and over again. But then…” I swallow. “The nightmares became him instead.”

  My mind drifts to the past.

  “Mom!” I cry out as I wake from a terrible dream.

  The door creaks open and Alan rushes in. My bed depresses as he slides in beside me. I’m comforted by his presence. He’s been my rock lately. And yesterday, on my birthday, we slept together. It’s wrong and I feel bad about it, but my body thrums to have him again. He put his mouth on places I’d never been touched by another person. It felt good. In my sad, sad life, not much does feel good.

  “Nightmare?” he asks, as he situates the blanket over us and settles his warm body beside mine.

  “Yeah.”

  Many nights he’s come to comfort me. This night feels different. Like it might lead to more of what we did yesterday. When his palm splays over my lower stomach, my breath catches.

  “Want me to make it better?” He turns and his cock is hard against my side.

  “Yes,” I breathe.

  He starts pulling off my panties and I don’t stop him. I want him inside of me again. It hurt at first, but I grew used to the way his body stretched mine. He lifts my gown up, exposing my breasts, and turns me on my side. I can feel him pushing his boxers down and then his cock is rubbing between my thighs. His finger slips to my clit and he works me. So expertly. He brings me close to orgasm but doesn’t let me go over. Arousal drips from me and then he’s wetting the tip of his dick against it. It feels so good.

  “I want you inside me,” I breathe, embarrassed that I’m asking him of such a thing.

  Slowly, ever so gently, he glides into me from behind. Everything feels fuller at having him at this angle. I whimper when he is fully seated. His hips work slowly.

  “Natalie,” he murmurs, his hot breath against my ear. I clench around him.

  “Yes?”

  “I spent all day going over the paperwork. Your mother’s intention for her fortune,” he says, his hips still moving.

  I tense up. “Okay…”

  “And she fucked everything up.” His voice grows cold. “I have to wait years now. Fucking years.” He fucks me harder and it feels like he’s bruising me inside. “I can’t do this…pretend.”

  “What?”

  His arm slides under me. He pulls all the way out and then his strong hand grips my jaw before he slides his palm over my mouth. His other hand goes to his cock.

  “I won’t pretend. You’re mine until you’re twenty-one. When it hurts, I want you to realize your mother committed you to this prison sentence,” he snarls as he begins pushing against the tight hole of my ass.

  I scream and squirm against him, but he’s too strong. Fire bursts from where he enters me in a place I never dared dream to go. His cock is lubed from my arousal, but it still hurts so bad. Tears stream from my eyes as he pushes into me like he doesn’t care if it hurts.

  “She did this to you,” he hisses. “To us.” He pulls almost all the way out and slams hard back inside me. “It should have been eighteen, not twenty-one. Your mother is playing games from the goddamn grave.”

  The dark bedroom glitters white as pain surges through me. This doesn’t feel good at all. His words are cold and cruel. He’s doing this to me over money?

  As he brutalizes me, I mentally check out. I don’t think about Mom or the beach or rainy Sundays curled up by the fireplace reading. I don’t try to understand my cousin or worry about my future. I fade into blackness until his heat rushes into me and then he pulls out.

  “There are new rules now,” he threatens, his voice low and menacing. “You belong to me until I get that fucking money.”

  With those words, he climbs out of the bed and leaves the room. The door slams shut. A few moments later, I can hear the door lock from the outside. I’m confused and devastated. Pain assaults me from the inside and out. Sobbing uncontrollably, I curl into a ball and try to make sense of what just happened.

  My cousin just raped me.

  Alan just raped me over my mother’s will.

  Something tells me the nightmares have only just begun.

  “I looked you up,” Cole says, his gritty voice a warm reprieve from my cold memories.

  I blink away my daze and frown. “Yeah?”

  “Your mother was Sofia Rhett. I’ve seen her movies.”

  Tears burn at my eyes. Alan took away everything from me. Pictures. Television. Anything that I might remember my mother by. I can barely remember what she looks like, my reflection the only hint.

  “I miss her.”

  “I was trying to figure out why you were staying with that bastard if he locked you away and abused you.” He scowls. “I went to his place—”

  “You went to his house?” My voice is shrill as I sit up. “Did he see you? He’ll follow you back here. He’ll find me!”

  He pounces on me, pinning my body with his hard, muscular one. Fire blazes in his brown eyes. “He’d die trying. Nobody fucks with me, honey. Not even your fuckface cousin. I took what’s mine. It’s no longer his. I’ll kill any asshole who even thinks about taking what belongs to me.”

  “You’re going to keep me?” I ask, a smile tugging at my lips.

  “I’m going to kill you.” He blinks at
me, a cold glint in his gaze.

  I peel my stare from his and look out the window. “I don’t want to see him. Do what you will with me but don’t make me go back there.”

  His fingers bite into my jaw as he turns my head to look at him. He runs his thumb along my bottom lip. “I’m the bad guy, remember?”

  “So you keep telling me,” I huff out.

  He grins at me and I’ve never seen anyone so handsome. “It’d do you some good not to forget it either.”

  I simply nod at him, but I don’t believe it. Cole may have killed women like me in the past, but he feels. He claims he’s cold, and sometimes he is, but he’s also hot. Emotion burns through him. Hate and fury. Sadness. Despair. He feels so much.

  Alan was unfeeling. Uncaring. Dead inside. He only cared about money and I was a means to get more of it.

  Cole is different.

  With hate and anger also comes other emotions. Emotions I will try my damnedest to tap into. Cole isn’t a lost cause. I feel it down in my bones. Something burns between us and it’s more than just killer and captive. I’m not having Stockholm syndrome. He was drawn to take me for a reason. I stepped into his vehicle for a reason. All this is for a reason. I feel it.

  Or maybe I read too many romance novels.

  He leans forward and kisses the corner of my mouth. Then, he trails his lips down my throat to my breasts. He makes his way down to the bandage at my hip, then his white teeth flash in the dim light as he grips the corner and pulls. My skin tugs as he strips away the bloodied bandage.

  I stare at the cut he inflicted with a mixture of awe and wonder.

  A heart. Savagely carved into my flesh.

  Cole Heart.