The Dark of You by S.M. Shade
Chapter Four
It’s been a quiet and unproductive week. The first few nights after hearing him call my name in the darkness, I obsessively checked to make sure my doors and windows were locked. I’ve never liked the idea of cameras that may invade my privacy more than they protect me, but maybe that deserves some reconsideration.
I’ve felt him watching me off and on lately, but he hasn’t spoken to me again. My walks have been limited to daylight hours. It may have been exciting to hear that voice come out of the night, but it was also terrifying. What I didn’t do for one moment was consider calling the police or reporting it. I like my anonymity here and the last thing I need is for it to get out that Darcy Sharpe is also the horror and true crime writer D.S. Shrike. It’s been my experience that people of authority have no ability to keep their mouths shut.
My doorbell rings, a rare occurrence, and my heart rate jumps until I peek out to see the large delivery truck backing down my driveway. The sex toys I ordered slipped my mind, but I waste no time bringing the box in and opening it up to check them out.
Good god, the thrusting vibrator is bigger than I anticipated. It leaps into action when I turn it on, and I almost drop it. The top half surges forward and back. Another setting adds vibration to the mix. Damn, I might have to work up to this monster.
Curious how well the suction cup will work, I try it on a few surfaces. It sticks better than I expected it to, especially to the oversized chair in the corner of my living room. The rose toy needs to be charged before I can see how it functions, so I take it into my room to plug it in beside my bed. Maybe I’ll try it out tonight.
My laptop taunts me from the table, reminding me of what I should be doing. The frustration of trying to write isn’t something I’m willing to face today. The thought of staring at that white screen while it glares back is unbearable.
Ignoring it, I grab my bag and get ready to walk again. One step out the front door is all I get. Rain falls softly, but the darkening sky in the distance promises a heavier deluge coming. Guess I’m staying home today.
Despite the weather, I open a few windows. It helps me feel less cutoff from the world, plus there’s no better smell than the forest when it first starts to rain. Standing in my living room, I try to decide what to do next. A swim maybe? The indoor pool I had built in my large sunroom was made for days like this, but the thought doesn’t appeal.
Instead, I flip on the TV and try to find a mindless show to binge watch. It’s one of those days when I can’t seem to settle on anything. My concentration is zero, and I’m restless, flittering between tasks until the sun goes down.
Distant thunder echoes overhead and raindrops begin to tap on the roof again. All day I’ve been on edge, anxious, but it’s fading into another familiar feeling. Loneliness. It doesn’t spend as much time with me as the anxiety does but when it surfaces to wrap its heavy arms around me, it’s hard not to lie down and let it.
The deep ache sinking into my chest comes with a desperate yearning that makes it feel like I’m missing something necessary for survival. More demanding than thirst, more persistent than hunger, it never stops calling out. For touch. For comfort and connection. Years of no reply don’t cease its efforts and the pain they inflict.
There’s no real help for it on nights like these. Fighting it is usually futile and frustrating. The two ways I’ve found to cope compete with each other in my head. Do I want to distract myself or put out the lights, turn on the music, and lie in it?
An orgasm can be a good distraction and sometimes pull me out of my head, but it’s a gamble. A post orgasm rush of emotion can go a long way in brightening my mood or smash me into the depression I’m trying to avoid.
The wind throws sheets of water against the house, rattling the windows, and I hear a tree fall somewhere near. The sound is soothing. Chaos cures apathy, I suppose.
I know where I want to be.
The sunroom is warm from the day’s heat as I strip my clothes off beside the pool. It’s a bonus of living surrounded by woods and land. No other houses sit close enough for anyone to look into my windows. The only sight visible through the floor-to-ceiling glass panels is blackness, and a brief outline of treetops when the lightning flashes. It’s more pronounced because I don’t have the lights on overhead. Only the slight glow generated by the underwater lights break the wall of darkness, illuminating the area enough to discern the outlines of the furniture.
Cool water bathes my heated skin when I dive in. The world instantly retreats, muted and distant. Staying below the surface as long as possible, I focus on the sensation of it. The resistance of the water pulled by my hands, the stretch of my muscles, the solitude that doesn’t come attached to loneliness.
When my lungs want to explode, I flip over and float on my back. Deep blue patterns dance on the ceiling, calming as the water settles around me.
This is better.
My fingers slip between my legs, and I close my eyes. My mind takes me to the place it travels to far too often lately. To him. My name uttered in that deep voice, the low chuckle. It was like something out of a horror movie or one of my books. Why does it turn me on? Is it the uncertainty of it? The danger of knowing I have a stalker? That he could be watching right now? Do I care that little about my safety? An image of the generator and gas can waiting in my shed flashes through my head. Still, there’s something different about considering taking myself out of the world. It’d be my choice, and I wouldn’t suffer, unlike getting murdered in my home.
It’s strange. I have no idea what he looks like, only the sensation I get when I feel him watching. He’s never shown himself, not enough for me to recognize him if he stood before me. He’s only a shadow, a voice in the dark, but he affects me in ways I don’t understand.
Water isn’t the best lubricant. I’m worked up now and won’t be satisfied until I’ve come more than once, so I climb out of the pool. Goosebumps line my skin. Eager to dry off and get myself off, I rush over to grab a towel from a lounger.
Searching for it in the dark, my fingers have just brushed the edge of the cotton when a thick arm wraps around my chest. A rough hand clamps over my mouth, turning my scream into a squeak. I’m pulled back against a large, hard body.
How many books have I written where the heroine is attacked or kidnapped? Endless research on the subject said that they react in one of three ways. Panicking and trying to run, fighting back, or freezing up. We all want to think we’re the badass who would bite and scratch and fight to the death.
I froze.
It’s him. The first thought that pierces the cloud of terror almost makes me laugh. Finally. My next realization isn’t as alarming as it should be. I’m probably going to die tonight. After he’s through with me. You don’t stalk a woman then break into her house for any other reason. Judging by the way my heart slams into my ribs, all the suicidal ideation and gas generators in the world don’t turn off the survival instinct, but I’m aware most people would be far more afraid.
His hand slowly leaves my mouth but the urge to scream has passed. Words won’t form either.
His chuckle is as deep as his voice. “Did you think I wouldn’t come for you after that little show you just put on for me?”
It wasn’t for you!The words scream inside my head, unable to reveal themselves. While another thought slams through, unbidden. Wasn’t it, though? Didn’t you suspect he was there, watching?
“From now on, you’ll come for me.” Half command and half threat, his demand makes me tremble. It’s not all fear, and he realizes it too when he slides his right hand down to slip a finger across my clit. I’m growing wetter by the second. What the fuck is wrong with me?
He kicks my foot, spreading my stance, and tightens the arm around my ribs. This man could crush me in two seconds. My brain hasn’t completely caught up with the situation when he runs his fingertip around my clit, but my body doesn’t care what’s going on in my head. I’m struck by an orgasm within seconds that’s so powerful it buckles my knees. He holds me up, his chuckle reaching my ears again.
Shame washes over me, and I manage to find my words. “Let me go!”
“No.”
Just that. One simple word that brokers no argument.
“Please. I won’t…call the police or tell anyone. Just let me go and leave.” Inwardly, I cringe. It’s such a typical thing for the victim to promise isn’t it? And it never works.
Instead of releasing me, he lifts me from my feet like I weigh nothing, sits down on the lounger, and deposits me on his lap. I’m still facing away from him, and I try to get up, but he shoves my legs apart until my feet hit the floor on either side of the chair.
The rain continues to pound the roof, but not one flash of lightning accompanies it to let me get a glimpse of him. He’s fully clothed. I can feel the rough jeans under my bare ass and the buttons of his shirt on my back when he pulls me tighter against him. I try to bring my knees together and a quick slap lands between my legs, making me gasp. It shocks me more than stings, but he has my attention.
“Are you going to kill me?”
“No.”
“Rape me?” I whisper, fear thrumming through me.
“No.”
Adrenaline has dumped into my system now. There’s no reason to believe anything he says when he’s clearly a psychopath but for some reason I do. Shame at the way I came so fast and for how turned on I feel right now melts into anger. He’s making me feel this way, and I hate it.
“Good to know you draw the line at stalking and burglary,” I snap, struggling to pull my legs up.
A sharper slap is delivered right on my clit, and this time I’m horrified to hear a groan from my lips. Stubble rubs against my neck, and his breath heats my ear with his words. “Are you saying you don’t want to come again, Darcy?”
Oh god, the sound of my name in his deep voice is almost as devastating as the feel of his mouth on my neck. My neck has always been my weak spot. Before I can reply, he slides his thick middle finger inside me and presses his thumb to my clit. My breath is stolen when he rubs both spots with an expertise I’ve never encountered.
When I fail to answer him, he rolls one of my nipples between his fingers, and I’m right on the edge again. “Answer me,” he demands, his voice stern. “Do you want me to stop? Do you want me to leave?”
I can’t. My body is in a freefall like it’s never known, and I can’t say the words. No matter how wrong and twisted this is. “Don’t…”
“Don’t?” His hand slows, and I cry out.
“Don’t stop! Please.”
“You want my fingers inside your pussy, don’t you, Darcy?”
Damn him for making me say it. “Y-yes,” I sob, half out of my mind with the torturous anticipation of what I know will be an orgasm like none before.
“I know you do. Because I know you. Inside and out.”
He slips his hand up around my throat, and my heart tries to climb out of my chest. Tightening his hand, he tilts my head back and puts his lips to my ear. “Come.”
It’s not fear that rips the scream from my throat, but a sweeter agony as I’m pulled under by wave after wave of pleasure made stronger because it’s so wrong.
Before I’ve fully recovered enough to function, he stands me up and steadies me for a moment until I find my equilibrium. His hand grips my jaw, tilting my head up and a fortuitous but brief flash of lightning gives me a glimpse of bright green eyes and dark hair.
“Next time, I’m going to fuck you.”
With that, he turns and walks out of the sunroom door into the darkness.
Minutes drag into an hour while I sit, wrapped in a towel on the lounger, struggling to come to grips with what just happened. What he did. What I let him do. It replays in my head, scene by unbelievable scene. Tears run down my face, born of shame, regret, or shock, I’m not sure.
Shouldn’t I be ashamed?
A man broke into my house, put his hands on me in places that haven’t been touched in years, and instead of fighting or running, I begged him not to stop. I came. Twice.
Wrong. It’s so wrong. Yet my body disagrees. Even the memory of the way he handled me, firmly but without hurting me, offering a choice that didn’t feel like a choice, makes my nipples harden again. He could’ve killed me.
Maybe if I say the words aloud, they’ll mean more. “He could’ve killed you.” My voice echoes through the sunroom. “He could’ve raped you, tortured you, murdered you.” The words don’t carry any more weight than the thought did. Because I don’t believe them, I realize. The man has stalked me, broken into my home, and somehow, he doesn’t register as a threat as much as something…dangerous and exciting.
I was the kid who played with snakes, knowing they could strike at a whim. The older I got, the more I dared the world to come at me. It would anyway, so why not try to stare it down?
It makes no sense though. He didn’t fuck me. He didn’t rob me. He risked imprisonment for a home invasion to what? Make me come? Is this his way of screwing with my head?
His parting words sounded more like a promise than a threat, but why warn me? Will he really come back? So many questions churn inside me, but it’s the most disturbing one that keeps me awake the next few nights.
Do I want him to come back and make good on his promise?