BOLTING
Nolan
I’M SITTING IN MY RENTAL car, the blank page of my scrapbook illuminated by the dashboard lights. The darkness beyond the windows settles like a shroud.
But cutting through it, peeking between the leaves of thick foliage, is the light from Harper’s cottage.
I tap my pen on the page, a tick of time as I stare at her house, lost in thought. And then I title the page.
Harper, June 26th.
I know I’ll remember the big things, like the exhumations or the locations she mentioned for Arthur’s other victims. It’s the nuances I’m afraid of losing in the sea of chaos we’re in. Little observations that might tell me more about how to break through her fortified walls. If I map out these details, I can see the bigger picture. And something about it is soothing to me. Like I’m honoring her in these pages that were once meant for her destruction.
Karaoke night at Buoy and Beacon.
Nightfog.
The gym.
BM and McM—something still with her?
I keep my descriptions brief—just enough information that it will jog my memory. I make note of anything that I feel compelled to follow up on, like her mention of karaoke night with Jake Hornell and whether or not she might still have evidence related to McMillan and whoever this Bryce Mahoney guy
is. And I add observations about her from today. Vein on forehead, one note says. Not chewing lip, trying to avoid me noticing her stress.
I think back to the notes I found in Sam’s room when I broke in, the ones written next to printed photographs of Harper. One of which is now in the Sleuthseekers Discord chat. My notes aren’t that dissimilar from his, I guess.
Neither is my goal: to piece together her many layers and connect the Harper I know to the ghosts of her past. And as I close the book and slide it into my backpack, I think about whether it’s invasive to catalog these details and haunt her steps. But I meant what I said. I can’t help her if I’m trapped in the dark.
With a deep sigh, I exit my SUV and head toward the cottage. When I reach the door, I hesitate before sliding the spare key into the lock or grabbing the handle. It feels like too much pressure on her, to just assume I can come and go like it’s my house. For now, anyway. So instead, I fold my hand into a fist and gently rap three times on the door. A few moments later, Harper opens the door with a puzzled expression.
“Hey,” I say.
“Why didn’t you just use your key?”
Maybe I’m overthinking things, judging by the deepening confusion spread across her face. She’s a practical person, after all. “I didn’t want to intrude.”
Harper’s eyes narrow. “But you live here.”
“Temporarily.”
Christ. I don’t know if I’ve just made things better or worse. Her vexation takes on a lethal edge. “Right. Well, for now, you can just come in, Nolan.”
Harper opens the door wider and steps back. “Do you want a beer? I’m just about to make some dinner.”
“Sure,” I say, stopping just long enough to press a kiss to her cheekbone as I pass. Relief dances behind my bones when she leans into my touch. “I’ll give you a hand.”
I take off my boots and trail after her, but she stops abruptly partway through the living room, wheeling to face me. Her mouth opens, then closes, then opens again, as though words are stuck in her throat.
“Something wrong?” I ask.
The question barely passes my lips when she says, “Did you move the black knight on my chessboard?”
I look over at the board, where the white pawn that was two spaces ahead yesterday has been placed back in line, the game reset. Dismay weighs down my shoulders. It must mean more to her than I realized. She probably has a particular way of positioning the pieces, and when I picked up that knight yesterday, I set it back the wrong way. Maybe just a few millimeters too far to one side, or turned a little on the wrong angle. If this board is some way for her to feel a measure of control over a world that seems so chaotic, or if it’s somehow tied to her traumatic past, I could have disrupted her sanctuary with the slightest change.
“Yeah,” I say, “I did. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it had significance.”
Though I was worried she might be angry, surprisingly, she seems relieved. “I thought I was going crazy,” she replies, expelling a long breath.
“It’s okay. It’s just . . . a thing. For me.”
Her smile is faint, her features less pinched by stress as she nods toward the kitchen. I hate to burst her newly found bubble of comfort so soon, but there are still so many obstacles between us that we need to break through. I only wait until she’s cracked two beers and assigned me to chopping vegetables before I say, “I feel like we have a lot to talk about.”
“Yeah,” she says, not looking up from the fish she starts deboning. “Like, did you meet Maxine Yates at the volunteer center? Lukas nearly imploded at the distillery. I’ve never seen him so rattled. He’s had a crush on her since second grade. He’s also got zero game. I tried to be his wingman, but he failed as soon as he flew solo.”
I suppress a smile, not wanting her to catch the slightest hint of it in case she thinks this diversion will work. “I was more thinking about starting with Bryce Mahoney, but we should definitely come back to that.”
A blush creeps up her neck as Harper clears her throat. “That guy. Yeah.”
“Let me guess. He’s made a pass through Cookie Monster, and he’s now composting beneath your award-winning flowers?”
“Yep. Mostly.”
“What do you mean, ‘mostly’?”
Harper lifts a shoulder, still not meeting my eyes. For a moment, I think
she’s not going to answer, or she’ll try to switch gears on me the way she likes to do when the pressure is on. Especially when she says, “Do you remember when we met at the Bean?”
Of course I fucking remember. From the moment I walked into A Shipwrecked Bean, I was magnetically drawn to her. Even though her back was to me, she was all I could see. That glossy, dark hair. Those long legs, the muscles strong and defined. Even those fucking boots. Since when were work boots sexy? I remember trying to think of something witty or funny to say, and what I landed on was “Anything you recommend?”
And the second she turned around, the first seeds of obsession blossomed.
An obsession that’s blown through every plan I’ve spent the last four years carefully crafting. One I never want to end.
I clear my throat. “Yeah, I think I remember that,” I say. “You seemed a bit . . . flustered. Maybe you liked what you saw when you turned around.”
That earns me a slice from her silver eyes, an attempted cover for the fierce blush that rises in her cheeks. “Or maybe it was because I wasn’t
holding a meatball sub—”
“I figured that out pretty quick.”
“—but Bryce Mahoney’s busted-up tibia with a titanium plate. Let’s just say that Cookie Monster wasn’t fond of that particular treat.”
I stare at her blankly, processing the details. A tinfoil-wrapped human bone. That she was carrying around in her bag. And took out of said bag in the middle of a packed café to rummage for change. And then claimed was a sandwich.
“What?” she says, following my trail of unvoiced thoughts. “No one questions you unless you look suspicious.”
“Your ballmeat explanation seemed a little suspicious.”
“And you still didn’t question it. So . . . ” She shrugs and turns to face me, pressing into my space, her eyes dropping to my lips in a way that has my cock instantly hardening. “I think that sounds like a you problem.”
I know what she’s doing, stoking the fire of need that always burns for her. Distracting me from the seriousness of everything that threatens to unravel us. And still I chuckle, leaning into her heat. “And where would that bone be now? Sounds to me like you didn’t want to put it in your flower bed
next to a garden gnome.”
“Garden gnomes are too pedestrian for Arthur Lancaster’s taste.” Harper steps back, refocusing on the fish, which she transfers to a ceramic dish. “It’s in my bag.”
“Your bag. You mean the one that’s over there, by the front door?”
Her gaze tracks to the pegs on the wall where the bag I saw her with that day hangs next to her Arc’teryx rain jacket. She tilts her head, then turns her
back to me to wash her hands. “Yep.”
“That was what . . . three weeks ago?”
“I got a little distracted.” Harper shoots me a sardonic smile over her shoulder. “Some asshole named Nolan Rhodes came to town to kill me and left a decapitated head in my bird feeder. I was too busy kicking his ass at basically everything.”
I wait until her attention is back on the sink before I sneak up to band an arm across her middle and lift her from the floor. Her surprised squeak transforms into a flurry of laughter as I dig my fingers into her side and tickle her.
“Jesus, what do you take me for? Of course it’s not still in the bag. It’s in the freezer behind the pork chops,” she manages between gasps and giggles.
“I’m not amateur-level like some people who are tricked by elderly murderers and wind up handcuffed by wannabe frat boy internet detectives.”
“I’m a methodical killer, I’ll have you know,” I say against her neck as she cackles. “You’re in danger.”
Before I even have time to process what’s happening, she reaches back to grab my earlobe. A shock of pain follows her fierce tug. As I drop her to the floor, she snatches my knife off the counter and whirls on me, pressing the sharpened steel to my throat.
Her satisfied smirk is fucking intoxicating.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” she snarks, cocking her head to one side. “You said I’m in what?”
“Danger,” I say when a lengthy pause stretches between us.
“Oh, right. Danger. Are you sure—”
I whip the blade from her hand and fling it, not taking my eyes from hers as it lands with a twang in the oak door. A sting rises a beat later where it
must have dragged across my skin. I touch my fingers to it and find a drop of blood smeared across their prints.
I level Harper with a predatory glare. Her eyes glitter devilishly in the dim
light.
“Oops,” she says.
In the moment that hangs between us, I think of a thousand things I could do to Harper Starling. But none of my fantasies will ever compare to the reality of her. All her fierce defiance and mischievous danger and masterful deflections that I can’t help but fall for. No one has ever consumed me like she has. I want to push her. Punish her. See how far she’ll let me go. Because with every ounce of pain and fear she revels in, every challenge she rises to and conquers, she destroys me. She dismantles the shell of a man I was when I came here and carves me into something new.
“You have exactly three seconds to leave this kitchen, or you’ll be on your knees, gagging on my cock,” I say.
Harper’s eyes sparkle. I know how much she gets off on my threats, how wet her panties will be with my words. My cock strains against my jeans.
“One . . . ”
Her lips tense as she fails to tamp down a smile.
“Two . . . ”
“It’s already been three seconds. You count exceptionally slowly.”
“Three.”
I step into her space, backing her into the corner as her grin unleashes. She looks wild. Uninhibited. Fucking beautiful. And she’s mine.
I undo the clip of my belt to let it dangle, and then the button of my jeans.
She’s going to do the rest. “On your knees, Harper.”
“I’ll tell you what,” she says as she grabs the two ends of my belt and tugs me closer. A steady ache throbs in my erection. “I’ll choke on your dick like a desperate little slut if you tell me a story.”
My eyes narrow. “If you want me to narrate The Fellowship of the Ring while I fuck your mouth, you’ll be sorely disappointed.”
“No,” she says as she slowly runs her hand down the length of my chest.
Her touch drags down my abs, roving over my pants until she grips my length with sudden, shocking strength. I hiss in a breath that smells like her.
Harper’s quiet laugh fills my head. I swear I can even taste her, just like she was at the river, her arousal branded into my memory. My eyes briefly drift closed as she firms her grasp on my erection. “You know many of my secrets. And I know so few of yours. So I want you to tell me one as I suck you off. Tell me about the first man you killed. I want to hear about Marc Beaumont.”
The darkness in me surely settles into my features at her request. But Harper doesn’t show any fear. She just pushes me back a step and releases my cock to grasp my zipper. But she stills when I grab her wrist.
“Tsk tsk,” I say. There’s a flash of trepidation in her eyes. I think she’s worried I’ll decline her request, because she wants this as much as I do. And maybe I do briefly consider it—even though I know she’ll embrace my darkness, some pieces are harder to give away than others. But what she doesn’t yet realize is that it’s nearly impossible for me to deny her anything.
“On your knees first.”
Harper’s features brighten with a suppressed smile, and she takes my offered hand as I guide her to the floor.
My touch traces her cheek before I straighten to stare down at her. She’s so fucking perfect. Kneeling before me, waiting patiently for instruction, yet still dominating this entire moment. She knows that I’ll give her exactly what she’s asked for. And she also knows that with one word, I would stop. Most of all, she understands that my obsession with her will only dig its claws in even deeper when I confess my darkest sins.
But I’m no fucking saint. She’s going to work for it.
I don’t take my eyes from hers as I pull my belt free of my jeans. “Lean forward. Hands behind your back.”
She assesses me, but does as I ask, laying one hand over the other. I move to her side and loop my belt around her wrists and secure the bind with a tight knot. When I’m done, I return to stand in front of her, and she remains exactly as I left her.
“Snap your fingers three times, and make it loud,” I command, and she does so. “That’s what you’ll do if you want me to stop, got it?”
“Yes.”
“Good girl. Now straighten up,” I say, and my blood surges as she obeys.
She rarely does exactly as I ask, opting for the hint of pain that comes with punishment. But her obedience is equally as exciting as her stubbornness. I take a step back, placing my hands on my hips to keep the waistband of my jeans from slipping. My cock fucking aches with the desperate need to sink into her heat. “Undo my zipper.”
Harper’s brows raise, but she doesn’t question the command. She sets her sights on my jeans and shuffles to me on her knees, going slowly enough to keep her balance. When she finally stops in front of me, she leans closer until she can grip the metal end of my zipper with her teeth. And fuck me, it’s simultaneously the hottest and most infuriating thing I’ve ever seen. She loses her hold on the zipper. Claims it again. Unlocks a few metal teeth. And repeats the cycle again. She brushes my length in her attempts, making little noises of frustration. She clenches her bound hands and focuses all her efforts on this one seemingly simple task that could have taken just a moment, if I let it. But she doesn’t give up, doesn’t stop until it’s done.
When she finishes, she leans back, her silver eyes fixed on mine, her patience unwavering. I let the moment linger. Maybe I like a little punishment too, denying myself something I’ve fantasized about even in the days when I first came to Cape Carnage, intent on strangling Harper Starling with my bare hands. I’ve woken many times from dreams of plunging into the depths of her mouth as my cum filled her throat, and tried to convince myself they were nightmares. Or maybe it’s not masochism. Maybe I’m just afraid of what she’ll think of me if I give up this precious truth and tell her my darkest story.
I grit my teeth. There’s a flicker of awareness in Harper’s face, but she doesn’t voice any questions or concerns. I reach behind my head and pull my shirt off, then let my hands fall to my sides. “Pull my jeans down,” I say.
Harper focuses on the dark denim, leaning closer, her nose and forehead grazing my abdomen. I shudder. I’m sure she notices, but she doesn’t acknowledge the effect she has on me with such a simple, fleeting touch. All her attention is on tugging my jeans down over my hips and down my thighs.
When she gets to my knees, I tell her to stop.
“Now the briefs,” I command. Harper doesn’t delay her compliance. Her teeth grip the waistband of my briefs. I hiss as she pulls out a few hairs from
the trail that leads to my erection. Though I fully expect her to stretch the elastic as far as she can before letting it go to slap me across the dick, surprisingly, she doesn’t. She keeps her teeth clamped on the waistband and pulls them down, freeing my erection. When my briefs are at my knees with my jeans, she leans back to scrutinize me.
I pause, trying to read anything from her expression. And trying to peel myself apart. “Open your mouth,” I finally say.
One of her brows lifts. “We made a deal.”
“I know,” I say as I run a hand through her hair. Slowly, I firm my grip at the back of her head. “I’ll keep my word.”
“And don’t tell me about some hobbit shit or I’ll bite.”
The ghost of a grin sweeps across my lips, but it doesn’t linger. Not when the need coursing through my body is so desperate it’s nearly painful. Harper wets her lips with a leisurely sweep of her tongue. Finally, she opens her mouth.
“Once upon a time . . . ,” I say as I pull her head toward me. Electricity crackles up my spine with the first whisper of her exhalation on the crown of my cock. “There was a boy named Nolan.”
I lay the head on her tongue and push into her mouth. Fuck, it’s so much better than I imagined. Her plush lips. Her wet heat. Her gunmetal eyes latched to mine, waiting to consume my sins.
“Years ago, I had some very dark urges. I wanted to do terrible things to awful people as punishment for their misdeeds. And the person I wanted to hurt the most was named Marcus.”
Harper hums a note of agreement as I glide deeper into her mouth.
“Marcus was the kind of vile person who liked beating people up to steal their money.” I slide out slowly, until the tip is at her lips. “Hurting animals.
Lighting fires. Marcus was a ticking time bomb that no one knew how to defuse.”
I pause, my pulse climbing. When I take a deep breath, the scent of the forgotten lemon and herbs from our stalled meal preparation fills my lungs. A faint crease appears between Harper’s brows as she waits for me to continue.
I push into her mouth again. “His favorite pastime was bullying and intimidating anyone he thought was weak. Making fun of people who were
different. People like my brother, Billy.” This time, I don’t pull back. I keep going, slowly forcing her to take me deeper and deeper until she gags. But she perseveres, adjusting to my length. I’m staring right into the depths of her watering eyes when I say, “Marcus Urkhart.”
Confusion flickers across Harper’s face as I pull back. And then realization. For a moment, I wonder if I should have shared this sooner. How can I expect her to let me in when I haven’t done the same? But her expression smooths, like she’s grateful that I’m opening the door. I think I even catch the flicker of a dark smile in her eyes. “I know you saw the list in my scrapbook of the people I killed to avenge my brother’s death. But Marc Beaumont was not the first man I murdered.” I slide out to the tip of my erection. “Marcus Urkhart was, and he was just eighteen years old.”
I grip tighter to her head and glide in all the way, but it’s not just me pushing. It’s Harper sucking, her cheeks hollowing, saliva glistening on her lips. I start a slow cadence of motion that begins at her lips and ends at the back of her throat. I relish every whimper and moan she makes, every swirl of her tongue over the tip when I nearly pull free of her mouth.
“My little brother, Billy, had a stutter growing up,” I say to the rhythm of my thrusts. “And Marcus tormented him for it. Even long after it was gone.
Though Marcus was a senior like me and they were never in the same class, Marcus found a way to bully my brother. In the hallway. In the bathroom.
Walking home.”
I thrust hard with the confession of one of my biggest regrets—and Harper takes the intrusion with a loud and shameless moan.
“Marcus was particularly cruel to Billy for a few weeks after one of his other favorite people to bully moved to a new town. And I knew that. But I wasn’t thinking about the risks. If I had been, I would’ve walked Billy home that day, and maybe none of this darkness would have consumed me.”
I shudder, but not with the memories, or the guilt. It’s pleasure that overtakes me now, binding around the pain until it dulls. A groan rumbles in my chest as Harper lavishes the crown with attention before taking me deep into her mouth.
“Billy was supposed to go to soccer practice before dinner one day,” I continue, pressing my eyes closed as growing euphoria ripples through me.
“We lived in such a small town, and it’s not like Billy was a little kid—he was fourteen and rode his bike to friends’ houses by himself all the time.”
Harper hums around my flesh. A shiver races across my skin. “My parents were still at work, and I thought I was hot shit with my new driver’s license, so I offered to take him to practice. When he didn’t come home right after school, I just . . . didn’t think anything of it. Not until he was going to be late and didn’t answer his phone.”
The pleasure rolling through me is so discordant with the horror of memory. But somehow, in the embrace of Harper’s warmth, they slot together, as though she soothes the wounds that never heal. “I remember the dread that descended on me when my calls went unanswered. I took the keys to my mom’s car, sat in the driver’s seat, and used the Find My Phone app to locate Billy’s cell. It was only a few blocks away. In an alley. Between a recycling bin and a closed garage. When I got there, it was right beneath Billy’s hand, covered in his blood.”
I pause, Harper’s lips fixed around my erection as I force my rage beneath rapture. “I could tell he’d fought back by the wounds on his knuckles and forearm. But the gushing head wound was severe. Whoever hit him clearly thought he wouldn’t make it and dragged him into the shadows to die.
Except, he didn’t. Billy was still in a coma when I deduced what the police wouldn’t,” I continued. “I saw Marcus two days later at school with a black eye. The way he looked at me . . . I just knew. Marcus was the one who’d attacked my brother. I decided right there in the hallway that I was going to kill him. There wasn’t a single reservation in my mind.”
I close my eyes, and Harper purrs a long note of approval that vibrates through my erection. This is what she wants. What she needs from me. Not just my wretched sins and raw confessions. She wants me to find bliss in
darkness.
And I do.
My pace quickens, just a little. My hand becomes a fist in her long, dark hair. I try to keep my strokes measured as I fuck her mouth, but my restraint is unraveling with every second that passes. Her little whimpers of need and her notes of pleasure—Harper keeps me going, begging without words.
When I open my eyes and look down, her focus is fused to my face even
though tears stream past her lashes and her cheeks are ruddy with effort.
“I went on the state sex offender registry,” I grit out. “I searched our zip code, and brought up the photo and address of the nearest piece of shit pedo I could find. Some guy named Clinton Taff. It was so fucking easy to break into his apartment when he was gone and steal just enough evidence that would link him to my crime.”
And Christ, that surge of adrenaline as I left his unit and ran down the five flights of stairs was intoxicating. It swells in me now, coursing through my body as I glide across Harper’s tongue. I fuck her mouth like she was right there with me. I would have claimed her in the stairwell of Taff’s apartment complex with a bag of his belongings clutched in my hand. I would have put her on her knees and soaked up every ounce of pleasure. She would have consumed me, looking up at me just as she’s doing now. Not with judgment, or terror, or revulsion. But with acceptance.
“It took me only a day to find and steal from Taff. And I killed Marcus the next. He was dead before Billy even woke up in the hospital.”
I tip my head back and moan, pleasure threatening to overtake me, my pace increasing. But Harper must think I’m about to come before I’ve finished my tale, because she closes her mouth just enough over my erection so that her incisors grate on my length in warning. When my eyes snap back to hers, she levels me with a merciless glare. And I can read everything she wants to say in its mercury depths. Don’t fade out on me, Nolan. I need this as much as you do.
I swallow, trying to quell the orgasm that’s ready to break over me. Harper growls a sharp note of reprimand, a warning to not come until the story is done. She tilts her head at just the right angle to take me even deeper then gives the slightest nod. Tell me everything.
A single thought rips through me. I would die for this woman.
My grip tightens on her hair, and I lose control.
“I followed him after school,” I grit out as I piston into her mouth. Her lips firm around my cock and she moans, pleading for more. “I caught him right in the same alley that I found Billy in. Snuck up behind him. Put him in a headlock. He wasn’t so tough then.” Another sound of approval from Harper, this note in a dark tone. “He was crying, begging me to let him go. Promised
he’d never do it again.” Electricity fizzes at the base of my spine. My balls tighten. “I said, ‘I’m here to make sure of that.’ And then I fucking squeezed.”
Euphoria hits my veins as the first ropes of cum spill into her throat. I relive those moments as I pour into her. The sticky heat of Marcus’s straining throat against my arm. The twitch of his muscles. The weakness in his limbs when he slipped into unconsciousness. The last hiss of air when I was sure he was dead and let him drop to the ground. I planted my stolen evidence that would connect Clinton Taff to Marcus Urkhart, took one final look at the justice I’d delivered, and then I walked away.
There was no guilt. No remorse. Only satisfaction. Just like I feel now.
My heartbeat surges in my ears, dampening the sound of Harper’s contented hum as the final drops of cum pulse over her tongue. Her damp lashes clump together, her hair knotted in my loosening grip. Her lips are swollen around my cock. She’s a mess. A fucking beautiful, fierce, otherworldly goddess of a mess.
I pull free, sweat slicked across my skin, my body still shuddering with the aftershocks of my orgasm. And then I drop to my knees, gently bringing my forehead to her shoulder. I feel unburdened by a weight I didn’t realize I’d been carrying. And relieved, when she leans her head against mine.
“I was there when Billy woke up a few days later. I made him promise not to tell anyone that it was Marcus who attacked him and to give them Taff’s description instead. Just like he made me promise to be a better man,” I whisper. A sting builds at the back of my throat. In my eyes. At first, it’s unexpected, and I think maybe I do feel a measure of regret for the things I’ve done. But that’s not it. “I knew something must be wrong with me when I felt no remorse for killing Marcus. But I wanted to be the kind of person Billy could look up to. And for a long time, I tried. I’m just . . . not a good man.”
“You’re right,” Harper says, leaning more pressure against me. “A good man would rely on someone else to deliver punishment. A good man would accept the fate of his loved ones in favor of the rules of society.”
Harper presses a kiss to my neck, then leans away, forcing me to meet her gaze.
“You embrace your sins,” she says, “and you demand that others face theirs. You deliver justice with your own two hands. You break the rules when they trap us. You defy fate. You save the people you love, and when you can’t, you avenge them.”
Harper leans forward, pressing her forehead to mine. And still I see the determination in her eyes, shining in the shadows.
“You are a villain, Nolan Rhodes,” she says. “And I wouldn’t want you any other way.”
