FOX

cw: suggestive language and content, mature language and content, smut, unprotected piv, breeding kinks, cumplay, oral, graphic depictions of violence + gore + murder, depictions of assault and bodily harm, dubcon, obsession, possessiveness, halloween/horror movie vibes (18+)

The one thing that no one can outrun is time.

It's not possible to pause; you cannot escape the path that it moves, the only thing you can do is keep moving with it until your feet catch up. Even when you can't hear the clock ticking, you know it's still moving because everything else moves along with it, at the same pace, always.

No matter who you are or what you do, it's not something you can buy. It's not something you can block with a heavy door or weaken with a solvent. As small as the ant you step on and as large as the wave that pulls you under, time is an inevitable hook.

One day, it will wrap a hand around your ankle and tug; and there will be nothing for you to hold onto to keep you from falling.

You end your podcast right on the hour. You hit the button on your monitor, stopping the stream, and you lift your headphones off and set them down onto their little stand. You sigh as you rest your head in your hands, scrolling through some of the comments. You smile a little at the praise; you just finished your multi-part series about a real-life serial killer that had yet to be caught. It has been your most successful series to date—you had interviewed actual stakeholders in the investigation, including the family of one of the victims and a detective from one of the police departments that hoped your global audience would be able to help them gather clues or information. The new information and your extensive research made your re-telling of events more recent and more exciting.

You prided yourself on discussions about true crime primarily based on factual evidence and little assumption. Of course, there is always room for interpretation sometimes, especially when caught killers don't give reasons or motive for the things they've done, but the evidence is always laid out in a particular way that you've always believed will lead to putting the puzzles pieces of a crime back together. It's all in how you look at the full picture. Sprays of blood have origin points of trajectory. The murder weapon has ownership, fingerprints, sometimes residue from where it came from. The cause of death can tell a lot about what kind of killing has occurred—sixty stab wounds were more personal than a single gun-shot wound.

Crimes of passion. Crimes of vengeance. Crimes of evening the scores, split-second reactions, love and obsession and irritation. It was fascinating and horrifying to you all at once, and you love that your telling of these stories and events could resonate with such a large audience. There is importance in giving victims remembrance and attention. There is significance in talking about how innate systems fail victims, in how the occurrence of violent crimes in certain places can be perpetuated by environments, failing governments, and societal expectations. It gives a platform to discuss mental health and advocacy for different groups.

Your most recent spotlight case is unique; normally, you like to discuss cases that have been solved. You like to poke holes in the investigations and talk about what went right and what went wrong, from beginning to end. This time, however, you discussed a case that hasn't been solved yet. A serial killer that originally seemed to be based in the UK, that seems to have now gone international. United States. Canada. Mexico. Argentina. Italy. Germany. Their hands are in many places, their mark left just subtle enough to identify them as you followed their crimes from one country to the next.

You've nicknamed him Ghost. You discussed in part two extensively about how the signature and manner of the killing can only be done by a man. You don't prefer to reduce killers down to their gender or sex, as the ability to kill is not reduced just to those single factors, but this one in particular makes the most sense to you. A man is the most likely to kill in this way.

There is a particular way he leaves his victims. Some of them have been gutted and carved with great precision and care. Others have been murdered by a great distance with a single gunshot to the head or right through the heart; one of his victims, a giant in the world of human trafficking, was hit straight through the femoral artery and left to bleed out and suffer straight through to the end. A deliberate killing—he had the ability to give him a swift end, but he chose not to.

Sickening. Admirable. Interesting.

You've deduced that he must have a military background and be from the UK. His first few kills were identified around the London, Brighton, and Manchester areas, and all were similarly killed with a precise gunshot wound to the head or heart. From the bullet casing found on the scenes and the angle of the bullet, investigators had placed their killers from at least a thousand yards away.

His more personally-killed victims were outside of the UK. Traffickers gutted in the deserts of Mexico. Child predators run over in the hills of Colorado. Domestic violence perpetrators hung up to bleed out in Capri, Italy. He was traveling the world and cleaning up the streets, overpowering his victims and terrifying them until their very end. Statistically, there were more men in the service than women, and with the size of some of his victims, it was very unlikely that anyone except a man was committing such crimes. Men tend to be more driven by their testosterone as well; anger, violence, the need to release energy in such a terrible and nasty way. You weren't completely omitting the idea of a killer that wasn't a man, but you felt it made more sense to go with statistical and deductive reasoning.

Your Ghost is ruthless. Kills without remorse. Illusive. He leaves no evidence except for a bullet casing that's untraceable or a victim with too much of themselves missing to make any sort of conclusions. No one wanted to believe that all of these murders could be by the same perpetrator, but there were too many similarities in death circumstances to make you think it was anyone except for your Ghost.

My Ghost, my Ghost, my Ghost.

You tried to keep the admiration out of your voice, but it was hard. The people your Ghost killed were illusive themselves; their cases getting thrown out of court, their pockets too deep for any systems to hold them accountable. He strung them up and rung them out, and while you had to condemn him for killing outside of the law, he was a vigilante that you saw as all too redeemable. Maybe you were letting it get too personal. Maybe you were not looking at the cases through an objective lens. Maybe you had reviewed too many cases where murderers and killers slipped through the hands of the law too easily, serving just a couple years for causing nothing but terror and destruction, and you were letting your Ghost's heavy hand be the hammer of God that you wished so badly to wield yourself.

Your Ghost was judge, jury, and executioner, and you liked him that way. You liked him free and anonymous and hiding in dark corners. You liked that when systems worked in favor of wrongdoings, your Ghost kept the balance where he could. He has a Rolodex of people on a hit list, and he was going through them one-by-one.

Every time you read about someone new eating the shit they dealt themselves, you hoped it was your Ghost.

Your cases shift. The next case you discuss mentions the father that murdered his entire family, slipping away from accountability when the evidence brought by the state was thrown out due to the lack of a warrant when the murder weapon was obtained. He was walking free in Cincinnati, Ohio, working a day job and sleeping in the same house he murdered his family in.

When the same man is reported missing a few weeks later, you pretend not to notice. You pretend to be surprised when someone mentions it, how awful it must be that something so tragic has occurred, but at night, in your bed, you dream about your voice being the invisible hand that drives his own. You the brain, he the muscle.

You the judge, he the executioner.

Your favorite day of the entire year is October 31st. Halloween, your favorite holiday, a day filled with festivities and warm lights and cool weather and sweets. There's a party later that you're eager to attend, and you get to host your Halloween special showcase. You usually tell scary stories and host a special guest, and it's always a good stream with an influx of new subscribers and viewers to join in on the spooky theme.

Tonight is no different. You get hundreds of new subscribers, host a paranormal investigator to discuss their upcoming web-show, and a user going by redthread141 donated $1,000.

Your costume is intricate, something you made yourself. An angel costume with heavy wings, a white silk dress with a leather corset around the middle. You've decorated the whole outfit with feathers and pearls and rhinestones so it glitters and moves with every swing of your hips. It's cheesy, sure, but it's Halloween, and you like the contrast of horror and innocence melded into one holiday.

Your friends are terrible pranksters. As soon as you make it to the pub, everyone is dressed as interpretations of a ghost. Some of your friends have draped sheets with holes cut out for their eyes over their heads, others have bought cheap Ghostface masks and swung plastic daggers in your face. It's funny, and it makes you laugh, and it's subtly a celebration of all your success with your recent series. Your show is really resonating with people, and you've got a good thing going on.

It's cool outside when you step out for a breath of fresh air. You take a seat on the curb, digging your heels into the pavement, and when you rest your head on your knees, you smile at the figure you see smoking a cigarette next to the streetlamp. It's a man, a big one, leaning against the pole as he stares at you with a cold gaze. He wears a mask that's pushed up out of the way so he can take another drag of the cigarette, and you smile at him as you meet his eyes.

"I like your interpretation," you say softly. His mask is crudely DIY, with a skull faceplate sewn to the front. He wears all black, a hoodie over his head and windbreaker overtop, dark cargoes tucked into thick boots and skeleton-painted gloves to hide his hands. He licks over his teeth when he realizes you're talking to him. "Of Ghost. It's cool. Creepy. Did you make it yourself?"

He flicks the end of the cigarette, dropping ashes, and when he blows out a breath of smoke, he nods once in your direction.

You stand up a little too fast, stumbling a little. There's a lot of alcohol in your system, but you steady yourself with a few steps before coming towards him to admire his costume a little closer. You smile up at him, shaking out your wings, and when you put your hands on his chest, you coo at the feeling of fat and muscle underneath.

"Mmmm…" You tilt your head back so you can look up at him better. He's much taller than you, big and broad, and you slide your hands boldly down his pecs before settling around his solid middle. He flexes a little under your touch, and you bite your lip. "I think I like your costume the best. Everyone else's is kinda stupid. Yours is the real deal, huh?"

He tilts his head to the side, like a predator studying prey. His eyes rake over your face, splaying you open, and your lips part gently as you stand on your toes to get closer to him.

"W-Will I see you inside?" You hiccup, blinking up at him. He stares for a few more moments, not moving, and then he nods once again. You smile, a little giggle leaving you, and you drop your voice to a whisper. "W-Wait, what's your name? I forget."

He tilts his head to the other side, and you put a hand over your mouth to stop your louder laugh.

"Oh right," you snort. "Ghost."

You're warm and tingly all over back inside the pub. Your leg bounces as you sit at the bar, your lips wrapped around a plastic orange straw as you stare at the door and wait for the mysterious Ghost to come back inside. Your drink is spilling tufts of delicate clouds from the dry ice the bar procured for special Halloween drinks, and you whine when every man that comes up to you isn't the big, giant skeleton-man you met outside. You wonder which one of your friends invited him—maybe it would take your mind off your anonymous admirer if you got your back blown out by a tall bear-man in your very own bed.

You never see him come back inside, which disappoints you. You nearly jump out of your body when you turn around and see he's standing right behind you.

A nervous giggle leaves you. His hood leaves a dark shadow over his face, and you gasp with delight when you see him there. Your hands find his chest again, and you lean forward, chin resting on his chest, staring up at him with sparkly, wet eyes.

"Ghost," you whisper, relaxing when you feel his big paw-hands gripping you by your waist. "I-I didn't see you come in. I thought you were leaving me hanging."

You pout a little, your lashes fluttering, and he leans down towards you, saying nothing but shaking his head. Your pout falls, and a smile comes back, and a little squeak leaves you when he bends down far enough to press the front of his mask against you, his covered lips touching your own. You laugh, giving him a kiss back, and you whine when he grips the back of your seat and tugs you forward. You grip the front of his jacket and hold onto him tight, your feet kicking a little as he moves you so easily with nothing but a flex of his big arms.

"I like calling you Ghost," you murmur. "Is it—" You hiccup, "—okay if I call you Ghost?"

He nods once, and you shiver a little. Maybe you're just too drunk. You're not thinking clearly. You're using this masked stranger to fantasize about the very personification of your anonymous killer. Your Ghost. Your man of mystery, that you think might be listening to you, taking hints from you, taking advantage of your silent offering as if to entice you—serenade you. He notices you, and he wants you to notice him, and now you're staring up at this big, beefy stranger and hoping you can put all of your explicit, terrible thoughts about another man you don't know doing just as you please him to. You're sick. You're twisted.

Horny.

You squeeze your thighs together, biting your lip.

"D-Do you wanna…" You breathe against the front of his mask, gripping the collar of his jacket now, tugging him even further down towards you so you can kiss him again over the mask. Your tongue pokes out to slide against where his lips would be, and he grunts, squeezing your waist a little too hard. "C-Closet—there's a closet—oh!"

It's pitch-black when he closes the door.

You giggle, swaying, and you shriek with delight when he uses those big arms to pick you up from under your thighs. You wrap your arms around his neck, leaning your forehead against his, and you whine as he presses his hips against yours and grinds up into you.

"C-Can—" You hiccup again. "I-I wanna kiss you—"

He grunts, and one of your hand falls so you can touch his masked face.

"P-Please? Please—" You gasp. "Let me kiss you—"

"No."

You whimper when his hand wraps around your throat and shoves you into the wall. You grip his shoulders tight, shivering, and your eyes flutter shut as he keeps rutting his hips against yours. You moan, entirely too loudly, when his cock slots against your cunt and he pushes up against your clit. Delicious, hot pangs of pleasure warm up your spine, and you cling to him for dear life.

You come fast, and you know it's because you're drunk. You grip the edges of his shirt, panting against his mask, and he hums, all satisfied, at the way you cry. You feel like a teenager, getting touched by your crush during a little game of seven minutes in heaven. This is better than heaven, cause it's definitely been less than seven minutes, and you are seeing paradise behind your eyes.

"I-I'm coming—" You whimper. "C-Coming…"

He sets you down onto jelly legs afterwards. You reach between your bodies, feeling under your dress, giggling when you feel how sticky and wet you are between the thighs. He crowds you against the wall, and your head bangs against it as he presses you into it.

"I wanna…" You lean up on your toes and kiss the front of his mask. It's like there's nothing behind his eyes as they look you over, but you think you feel his tongue on the other side of his mask, and the tease of it only makes you drool. "Will you…t-take me home? Pretty, pretty please?"

This role play thing he has going on is really doing it for you. You might be tipsy, but you're lucid enough to know that you would have never had the confidence to bring him home if you were truly sober. You're still so giggly as you open the door to your apartment, grabbing his gloved hands and tugging him inside as you shut and lock the door behind you. You flick on just the lamps, creating a soft, yellow glow in the room, and you light a few candles to set the mood before turning to face him.

You shimmy your angel wings off, tossing them aside, and Ghost just tilts his head to the side and watches you. You kick your heels off, smiling at him, and he puts a big hand on his chest and slides it low as he watches you fit two fingers under the straps of your dress and slip them off, the fabric pooling at your feet.

You think if you weren't drunk, you'd be much too shy to do this, too. This man is big and bulky, and there's a little voice in the back of your head that wonders if you're the kind of girl he would like. Soft, thick around the middle, in your thighs. Your insecurity vanishes the moment the dress falls—his hand grips his bulge, squeezing as he shakes his head and lets out a harsh breath at the sight of you.

You try to climb him like a tree, and he takes the weight easily. Picking you up with barely a sound, crowding you until he can tip over your couch and fall over on top of you. You slide your hands down his back, throwing your head back as he grinds into you, and your mouth falls open at the sound of his belt unbuckling.

"Oh—please—" You gasp. "Please, please, please—" You nudge your nose against his. "Won't you let me kiss you?"

He grips your jaw with a big palm, sitting up on his elbows. He stares down at you, eye-black around his eyes smudged by his sweat. It's now that you realize his lashes are blonde, and you smile up at him all relaxed and gooey under his touch. You close your eyes and stick your tongue out, and you are finally rewarded with the feeling of his lips. His tongue is wet against yours, saliva pooling between your mouths as you kiss all sloppy and hot. You close your arms around his neck tighter, crossing your ankles at the base of his spine so you can force him to lay over you. You moan into his mouth when you realize he's lowered his cargoes just enough, his cock hot and heavy between your bodies.

"Yes, yes, yes—" You pant, arching your back. He chuckles low, one of the first real glimpses of his voice that you get, and you want more of it. You reach between your bodies, wrapping a hand around his cock, and he hisses roughly as you squeeze the leaking tip. "O-Oh…" You lick into his mouth. "S-So…oh, y-you're big."

He growls at that. He falls from one hand, supporting himself on an elbow, and you give his cock a languid stroke as you giggle against his cheek.

"Easy, love," he finally speaks. He's got an accent, something deep and gravelly and English, and your eyes roll back in your head as you drink it in. "Drive a man mad like tha'."

You cup his cheeks, kissing him again, and you breathe all labored and wanting as he uses one hand to push your panties to the side so he can slide his cock between your folds.

"He speaks," you whisper, touching your tongue against his, and he doesn't give you any more words before he slips the tip inside and rocks your whole world. You don't have the kind of head space that asks him to wear a condom. You're so needy, so eager, that you need it, and you need it now. You sink your nails into his shoulders, locking your knees around his hips, and you laugh breathlessly as he hooks his arms under your knees and sinks all the way inside of you. You feel him so deep—he's in your stomach, that's for sure—and you squeeze around him tight. You've never been this wet, and you think that's your only saving grace.

You don't spend the whole night underneath him. You change positions quite often. You let him take you on your tummy, his thighs smacking against your own. You let him flip you over, his back against the couch, and you bounce pathetically on top of him as you try to match the fast pace he set. You close your thighs around his head, cunt grinding along his mouth, with the tip of his cock between your lips as you suck the taste of yourself off of him. You never undress him—he's fully-clothed, the fucking asshole—but you're naked and crying underneath him for most of the night. You don't count the orgasms. You don't count how many times you change positions. All you can do is nod and let him move you and then come again when he touches you like he knows you.

Like he knows me. Like he knows me. Like he knows me.

He's smoking a cigarette on your balcony. He's got his boots still on—the weirdo—even though you fucked him six ways to Sunday. His mask is still there, barely over his lips, and you smile as you pull the blanket over you a little more, tucking your chin under it.

He lingers after he finishes the cigarette. Paces slowly around your living room, gloved hand tracing over the outlines of you that are scattered across the flat. The pictures hanging on the wall, the books along the shelves. He pauses in front of your desk where your setup is.

Expensive, high-quality microphone. Your notebooks filled with your talking points. The streamdeck beside the speakers, the little glowing lights and knickknacks you keep around, the keyboard with the thocky switches that you spent an hour assembling all by yourself. You sit up a little, watching him as he rolls your chair back and admires the standing desk. You giggle when he uses the little buttons, making it rise and fall.

"Neat, right? Ergonomic," you wink at him. He spreads a few of your notebooks out on the desk, and you watch with a curious eye as he picks up a particular one and opens it. The pages crinkle from all the writing, and you swallow. "I…that's my…work."

His gloved hand stops on a particular page. He drags a finger over the words written there, and you clear your throat.

"Uhm…I have a podcast. I do like…" You rub your eyes. "True crime. Investigate cold cases and things…like that."

Ghost looks over at you for a brief moment before looking back down to read. You stand up, holding the blanket over you. He eyes you, squinting, and you point to your bedroom.

"I'm just gonna…get dressed really quick. I'll…be right back."

You smile nervously before padding to your room, dropping the blanket to find some clothes. You slide on a pair of underwear after a trip to the bathroom and slip a pajama shirt on over your head. You look in the mirror as you fix up your hair a bit and wipe the makeup that's smudged, and then you go to open your bedroom door again.

You shriek when you run right into Ghost. He's standing there like a brick wall just on the other side of the doorway, and you put a hand on your chest as you step backwards, your heart thumping.

"Jesus!" You gasp, laughing. "What the fuck?"

He's holding out your notebook to you. It's open on a page, your writing extremely scribbled.

Is he talking to me?

It's been crossed out, but not well enough—you can see it clearly through the strokes you tried to put through the words. You hold your hands close to your chest, cradling them there, and you read the words a couple times over before looking up at him.

"Those are just my work notes. For the stream. It's not…" You shake your head. "Those are private!" You laugh, swiping the notebook from his hands. He tilts his head to the side, narrowing his eyes, and you lean up on your toes. "You are just a nosy Nelly. It's…just research stuff. If you wanna know more, why don't you just watch the episodes, huh?"

He steps forward, and you're forced to step back. You clutch the notebook close, frowning.

"Hey. T-This is my room. I didn't invite you in."

He steps forward again, and you put a hand on his chest.

"Hey. Ghost. It's not funny. I'm serious."

The bedroom door creaks as it shuts behind him. Your hands shake a little, and you step backwards again, putting distance between you. He's intimidating in the dark. He's all bulk, all muscle, all too much for you to take on just by yourself. He could lift you with one arm, the fucking man he is, and you swallow and shake your head.

"I…" You bite your lip. "I-I think you should go. I…had a nice time, b-but I think you should go."

Ghost doesn't move. He tilts his head to the other side, like what you said had no effect on him, and it probably didn't.

"I really." Your voice is small, and it shakes. "I really think you should go."

Your heart sinks straight into your stomach when you see the subtle shake of his head. Your eyes move to the space around him. It would be impossible to maneuver towards the door without him catching you. The window is a no-go—you live on the tenth floor, and you don't have a fire escape. If you want to get out of here, you'll need to improvise.

You'll need to be smart.

For all the fucking podcast episodes you've recorded and streamed, for all the scenarios of people in the same position you stand in just now, you wish you had thought of your game plan when things went to shit.

"You don't want to go," you say softly. Ghost stares still. His eyes drop, looking over you, slow and steady. If you had known you were going to be having sex with a crazed stalker of yours, you would have tried harder to tire him out. You purse your lips, straightening your posture, and he seems amused by that. His gloved hands twitch at his sides. "Then what are you here for?"

He keeps staring. He's still, won't move, and then you look down at the notebook in your hand.

Is he talking to me?

You close it after reading it again. Your fingers tremble as you run them down the cover, thumbing through the pages and pages of notes you have. Quick scribbles, frantic connections you've made, your hunches and your thoughts and your ideas about who your silent killer could be. He's an enigma in your mind but personified by your pen, and you've dreamed about the kind of thing he might be, have had countless different versions played in your head, but you've always thought it was a true stretch that he might be listening.

You picked up the phone constantly, and you never thought there was anyone on the other line—but fuck, you never did hear that dial tone, did you?

"I…" Your eyes sparkle. Tears. He sniffs under the mask when he sees them, and you stiffen when he reaches over and touches just under your chin with his knuckles. You curl into yourself, but you stop yourself from pulling away. You don't know why he's here, but he's obviously fascinated with you. He wants something. He wouldn't have come if he didn't. "I won't tell anyone that…t-that you were here. If you promise to go."

That doesn't satisfy him. He steps forward now that he knows he has you, and your head jerks as he grips you by the jaw and forces you onto your toes. It's frantic, the way he pushes his mask up, and he fists your hair as he kisses you.

You let him.

There was something to be afraid of. There was so much to fear; but as soon as his tongue touches yours, you let your feet shuffle closer, and then your mouth opens wide for him.

You pull away after the first few seconds of bliss, pressing against his chest to keep him a step away. You shake your head, whining, closing your eyes tight to keep yourself from looking at him again. The air around him is intoxicating, and looking at him draws you in.

"I can't do this—we—we can't do this."

You melt when he presses his mouth against your cheek. The hot air from his mouth warms your skin, and the way his hands trail down your back and around your waist is making you dizzy. No one has ever touched you this way; no one has ever made you feel like the object of all their affections, like the center of their gravity. His attention feels stripping, but it feels so good, and as you tighten your fingers around the fabric of his shirt, you know you shouldn't feel this way.

You know him better than most, you'd like to think. There's something about death that is just so intimate. There's something about killing—about its details, all the gory and scary ones—that is just so personal. You may not know his name, but you know where these hands have been. You may not know where he grew up, but you know the places he's been, the corners he lurks in. You know what his cock feels like inside of you, and you know that his face must be scarred to shreds based on the haphazard way they put his lips back together.

These hands have seen war. This body has been used—sold to the highest bidder, turned over in more than one grave, buried alive and then back to the surface. He came for it, for more, because he tasted blood, and he liked it. Fuck, what are you going to do with him?

What are you going to do with the perfection of one man?

Your fingers trace down between his pecs. He's all strength under your palm. He's been molded by time and by things much heavier than you. These hands wield the hammer of God, and those eyes have seen more in his three decades than many have seen in a thousand lifetimes.

"You want something from me," you whisper. With your eyes closed, you can only feel, and the step he takes closer to you envelopes you in warmth. You fall into him, head against his chest. "What is it that you want?"

To want. Do monsters want? This one does. Is he a monster? He can't be. His scars are telltale enough that he is made of flesh and bone. What he does is human because he is human.

You open your eyes. When you touch his face, you notice that his lashes are blonde. Pale.

"Are…" When you blink, a tear makes its way down your cheek, and he watches it fall. "Are you going to kill me?"

That gets a laugh. A deep-bellied, gravelly laugh. When he pinches your chin, your face grows warm, and you feel his kiss through the mask, that press of his lips against the side of your face as he bends to get closer to you.

You wonder if this is what they mean when they call it making love.

His glove hands intertwine with yours. He presses the backs of your hands into the mattress, breath hot as he grinds against your hot cunt. When he lets go to shred your panties out of the way, your hands slide up his sides, digging into his shoulders as he fucks you again.

The kisses feel more raw. His cock is so hard, swelled with blood—like you knowing and letting him have you is his ultimate wet dream. That place in your belly that his cock hits, he touches—he keeps a hand there, pressing down, and your thighs are shaking as you feel him thrusting up into that spot, determined to keep himself there, focused on the illusion that it's possible to carve the shape of his cock into you and keep it there.

"You…You c-came for me?" You whine. You want to cry with it, with the idea. "You knew…about me?"

"Y'r a lot o' things," he rasps. You nearly come just at the sound of his voice, drinking it in, and you reach down to press the heel of his hand hard against your clit. "Stupid…not one of 'em."

Ghost sits up on his haunches, leaning over you. He guides your legs up and over his shoulders, and you rest your hands on his forearms as he stares down at you. You arch your back, wiggling your toes, and he barely can handle a few moments of eye contact before he's coming inside of you.

You cry when he does. You reach down, eyes rolling back as you use your own sticky fingers to get yourself there. His hand falls to squeeze the side of your ass, and with his hard touch, you come, too, eager, wet, creaming. He draws his hands up your thighs, grabbing around your hips, and you pant hard. You lean your head back, eyes fluttering, and you nearly come again when you see Ghost moving his wet gloved fingers under his mask and hearing the sound of his tongue sucking on the fabric.

Ghost drags a blade down the side of your face once your eyes are back on him. His cock softening inside of you, he contemplates it for a moment—what it might look like if he turned the blade over and used the sharp edge against your soft skin. What color your blood might run if he ran it across your throat and let it soak the very cushions he made you come on. When he runs the edge of it over your pebbled nipple, you don't even cower; you giggle, fucking adorable, and he feels you clench around his cock.

Sick. Twisted. Inevitable.

When he runs the hilt of his knife against your bottom lip, his cock hardens all over again when you let your tongue fall out and you suck it into your mouth.

He's gone in the morning. Not even a boot print left behind to tell you he was there. The cigarette he had stamped out on your balcony is gone, and if it wasn't for the feeling between your thighs, you might have thought you imagined him.

You cry when you feel the empty spot in your bed. You cry because it's cold, and you cry because you miss him, and you cry because you know you shouldn't feel this way, but you do—you do.

You don't have the motivation for research. You sulk for hours, ignoring your phone and the way it rings. You're too upset for this week's episode that you were supposed to record tonight, and you're too mad at yourself for not latching onto him and forcing him to stay.

What did you think was going to happen?

Did you really think he was going to stay? Stick around? Admit to all of the horrible, terrible things that you know he's done and wait around for you to turn him in?

Would you have?

You swallow it whole, these awful truths, and you accept them. It's how you feel; you can't change that. You don't want to. He fascinates you, he intrigues you, and he fucks so good, he made you forget about murder, and for a man whose whole persona revolves around killing, you think that's a pretty good sign to keep him in your bed—

You barely blink at the e-mail notification. It's from one of your video editors, sharing a news article with you. You sigh, bored, hovering your mouse over the link before clicking it. Someone's dead—someone knew. Someone right outside the very pub you were at last night, someone found with a pack of roofies in his pocket and a cheap mask. There had been people complaining about him all night, apparently. There's a leaked picture attached to the e-mail.

The man is splayed out on the pavement, throat slit, arms outstretched—and he's wearing angel wings, positioned as if he's making a snow angel in the middle of the sidewalk. You swallow hard as you sit up, looking around your living room. You see the dress you were wearing still on the floor by the couch; your heels are still beside the coffee table.

You look back at the photo, cursing under your breath.

Those are your angel wings.

Is he talking to me?

When the phone rings, there is no caller ID. You stare at the phone buzzing in your hand, heart thudding as you slide your thumb over to answer the call. You put it to your ear, and there is silence on the other end.

"H-Hello?"

Nothing.

Is he talking to me?

The call does not end. When you bring the phone away to look down at it, the timer still goes up—there's someone on the other end. There's someone listening. You smile. So big, it hurts, this kind of smile.

You put the phone back to your ear, and you close your eyes.

"I saw what you did."

You imagine him there. Underneath you. You imagine him as big and imposing as he presents himself, and you imagine him holding you in a spot you can't escape and forcing you to put your eyes on his. You draw your legs together at the thought. Your mouth waters.