Hours later, I wake with Antoinette curled into me, her red hair draped over my chest and falling like silk over my arms. Her eyes open sleepily when I stir. Outside, the sun has begun to rise on the mountain but is still hidden by the treeline.
I feel so relaxed I could sleep for a million years, but Antoinette has other ideas.
I’d beat her in chess, and it’s time for her to pay her dues.
As she slides to her knees in front of me, her shirt slips down her shoulder, and her hair cascades in rich garnet waves around her. She reaches for my zipper, and her delicate hands slide inside.
Feeling the hardness against her palm, her eyes flare with appreciation.
“I like a man who comes prepared,” she says giving the thick shaft a squeeze.
I let out an appreciative sigh because I know what’s coming. “And I like the way you appreciate it.”
With a wicked gleam in her eyes, she ducks her head and proceeds to show me how good she is with her mouth.
Groaning, I let my head drop back as a small smile plays on my lips.
Next time I’m in town, I’m going to deliberately lose our games, so I can return the favor.
BRONTE
Two Months Ago
The moment I stepped out of the bar, I should have known something was going to happen. I could feel it hanging in the air like a ghostly echo in the darkness, but I was too preoccupied with my shitty day at college to stop and think about the perils of walking home alone after midnight. I should’ve taken a cab. I should’ve accepted Riley’s offer of a lift. Or taken Sebastian up on his “No matter the time, you ring me if you need a lift anywhere. Okay, girlfriend?”
But that’s the thing about hindsight—she’s a bitch.
My first inkling comes when I turn down Pleasant Avenue—an ironic name when you take in its weather-beaten homes, derelict yards, and shadowy footpaths—and I hear footsteps behind me.
Straining in the dark to listen, I stop walking and hold my breath. In the distance, I hear tugboats on the harbor, their foghorns breaking through the darkness as they pass each other in the mist. Now the footsteps have stopped, and I start to wonder if I imagined them.
One thing about the dark, because your vision is impaired by a lack of light, your other senses become heightened. Hearing. Smell. Touch. Fear. They all fizz inside of me like lit flares. However, nothing in the darkness, other than my instinct, tells me I’m being followed. So again, I start down the street. A few steps and once more I hear the ominous thud of footsteps behind me.
I stop again and swing around, this time reaching for the bottle of mace in my handbag.
There’s something you should know about me, I’m not afraid of a confrontation. Abandoned by a junkie mom who never knew who fathered me, I grew up with my grandmama, Pearl, a feisty ex-coal miner’s wife who is as ballsy and quick-witted as she is straight-to-the-point. She’s a strong woman, and she taught me well.
“Who’s there?” I demand, my voice sounding alien in the dark. “I can hear you walking behind me.”
The moment ticks over with excruciating slowness as every nerve and cell inside of me tightens with anticipation. “You should know, I’m armed with mace. I am also in a really bad mood after a really fucked-up day. So, either show yourself or fuck off.”
I shift on my feet, but there is no sound. Just the muted noise of the city far, far away.
My eyes search the shadows while my pulse pounds against my throat. I can’t see anything, but my instincts hum with knowing.
Sucking in a deep breath, I half-notice the faint perfume of clove cigarettes in the night air. “Coward,” I mutter, turning back and starting my walk for home.
That’s when the whistling starts—a lone, high-pitched whine taunting me in the dark.
It’s all I need to get out of there. I quicken my pace, but the whistling grows louder and louder. Whoever they are, they’re right behind me, however, just out of my sight. The urge to confront them is strong, but my survival instincts tell me to keep moving, to get as far away from the sound as possible. Because whatever is behind me isn’t someone playing around, it’s some kind of threat.
A threat of the murdering kind.
“Fuck this,” I whisper, the tingly sense of fear creeping up my spine.
I hurry down the street, my fingers curing tighter around the bottle of mace and my heart hammering. At the end of the road where the shadows grow deeper, I break into a run. It’s less than a block away from home, and I don’t plan on stopping until my lungs burn and my legs are boneless. The whistling has stopped, so have the footsteps, but I can feel him behind me. His presence hangs in the air like a sinister gossamer curtain floating on the cool sea breeze.