LEROI
We sit side by side on a wooden bench watching the ducks circling the lake and I catch a glimpse of Seraphine from my peripheral. The sight of her licking her cone like it’s a cock has mine instantly hard and jealous.
This was definitely a mistake.
No matter where I turn my head, I’m painfully aware of how her tongue swirls around its rounded crown. If my attention strays too far from her ministrations, then her pleasured moans are there to remind my libido that she’s a siren sent to pull me into her allure, torturing me with pleasure and drowning me in desire.
It’s torture.
I clear my throat, shake off my inappropriate thoughts, and shift in my seat. Seraphine is my… charge? protégée? A disturbed young woman I swore to protect?
I can’t become like every man who ever abused her by allowing myself to think about her as a sexual object. Fuck knows she’s suffered enough.
“So good,” she says, her voice breathy.
My mind drifts back to the morning she rocked back and forth on my shaft with one blade pressed to my throat and another at the base of my dick. I hadn’t known where to look with her nipples erect and protruding through her shirt. Had she known what she was doing when she threatened me with castration and death? Or am I just a sick bastard who can’t resist her twisted charms?
“You’re not having any?” she says.
“I don’t like sweet things,” I mutter, my gaze fixed on a swan swimming toward a tight gaggle of ducks.
“You’re missing out.” she hums. “I could lick this cone all day.”
Her words are delivered with an inflection so flirtatious that I tear my gaze away from the impending waterfowl fight to look Seraphine full in the face. She’s no longer licking the ice cream; she sits and stares up at me through half-lidded eyes.
My eyes track the movement over her tongue darting out to lick her bottom lip, and I bite back a moan.
She’s doing this on purpose.
Little vixen.
Despite appearances, Seraphine isn’t a sweet, innocent girl. Anton trained her to become a Lolita assassin, and I’m not sure I can stomach what that entailed.
But one thing is for certain: Seraphine knows exactly what she’s doing. The only question is why. I’m already helping her find Gabriel and the men she needs to kill to erase her demons. I didn’t pull her out of that basement for my own sick pleasure, so there’s no need for the sexualized charade.
Her eyes flutter closed. “Hmmmm.”
“Stop that,” I snap.
“Stop what?” Her eyes open comically wide, confirming my suspicions.
A woman pushing a stroller walks by, accompanied by a gaggle of kids under the age of five. They pause in front of us to watch the swan being chased off by the ducks.
I lean into Seraphine and growl in her ear, “Tease me like this again, and I’ll restrain your arms again and bring you to the brink of orgasm again and again and again until you pass out from frustration.”
The air thickens, despite the breeze blowing in from across the lake. Seraphine shivers, her artificially darkened eyes dilating and she looks me straight in the eye.
“Is that a promise?” She gives the rounded tip of her cone a long, languid lick.
My cock stirs, and I grab a newspaper off the bench and place it on my lap. Thankfully, the family has moved on and can’t see the evidence of my arousal.
Little brat.
“It’s a warning,” I say, my jaw clenching.
She smirks, thinking she’s won this round. I can’t help but wonder if this was a technique she used to lure her targets. Only the most heinous of predators would approach a young girl enjoying her ice cream. I’m determined not to be one of them.
Her soft moan as she takes another lick of her cone makes my balls ache. I clamp a hand on her shoulder and pull her close.
“Don’t mess with me. That bullshit doesn’t work. I still remember what you did to Samson and Billy Blue.”
Her smirk fades, leaving her looking so murderous a shudder travels down my spine.
“They deserved it.”
“I agree.”
Any man who forces his way into the mouth of an unwilling victim is begging to have it bitten off.
Seraphine glances down at her cone and grimaces. “I don’t want it anymore.”
I rise off the bench. “Come. I want to take you somewhere you can get prepared for tonight.”
She tosses the cone into the bank of the lake, attracting the attention of the swan, who races toward the sugary treat with a pair of ducks in hot pursuit.
“Are we scratching off a name from my list?” she asks, sounding hopeful.
“I thought we could alternate between murder and training you out of your murderous impulses.”
She cocks her head. “Huh?”
I steer her down a path that leads to another of the park’s many exits. “One of your triggers is men touching you inappropriately.”
“So?”
“We’re going to work on how to defend yourself against grabby assholes without cutting or gouging body parts.”
She scowls. “They shouldn’t touch me in the first place.”
“No, but unfortunately, the State of New Alderney doesn’t agree with your brand of justice,” I say. “Your task tonight is to survive a night in a club without ending up in jail.”
Seraphine falls silent, although her expression is still mutinous. I glare down at her, and she looks away.
“I can’t do this,” she says.
“How did you keep your urges at bay during missions?”
“That was different.” She shrugs.
“How?”
“The first year and a half, someone was always nearby to activate the chip if I strayed from the plan.” She runs her fingers through her coffee-darkened hair.
My gaze drops to the bandage plastered behind her ear, and I shudder. Anton used to call this schedule of punishments and rewards operant conditioning, except he used it to train dogs. When they learned to perform a task, they would get a treat. When they fucked up, the electric collar.
“And the later years?” I ask.
She dips her head, a curtain of brown hair falling over her face. “Some men harassed me while I was on missions, but I banked the anger.”
My steps slow, and I take her arm. “What does that mean?”
Seraphine jerks her head to the side. “If someone touched me, I just took it. I didn’t react because I would save my rage for their boss or whoever was the target.”
“So, instead of lashing out, you used the anger as fuel to complete your mission?”
Her features harden. “I can control myself, but it’s like turning on the heat to a pressure cooker. My anger will build and build and build until I release everything in a huge explosion.”
Fuck.
This explains why she didn’t stop killing after castrating Billy Blue and why she stabbed that bum in the eye at the gas station.
I release her arm.
Anton would advise me to put Seraphine down as a mad dog, but he was one of the bastards responsible for breaking her psyche.
“What happens when you explode?” I ask.
“It depends on what’s available.” She raises both shoulders. “If there’s a knife, I’ll keep going until I’m satisfied. Sometimes, I like to experiment, like that time with the hair dryer.”
“And afterward?”
“The pressure goes away, and I feel like shit because the twins will either punish me for making a mess or starve Gabriel.”
Which explains why she never ran. Even if she could get out of the range of the remotes that activated her tracker, Seraphine was bound by her imprisoned brother.
“You can bite, kick, scratch, slap and scream to get through the night,” I say, my voice soft. “But you can’t use weapons unless it’s in self-defense.”
“How will I know the difference?” she asks.
“If he inflicts pain, tries to carry you off, threatens your life, or pulls out a weapon of his own, that’s self-defense. Understand?”
She nods. “What if he says something creepy?”
“Then do what you can to get away from him and find me.”
Her lips tighten, presumably with disapproval.
“Try it tonight,” I say. “If you succeed in the exercise, you can choose your reward.”
Her eyes light up, and her lips part, reminding me of when she asked for a kiss.
“Within limits,” I add. At her frown, I ask, “Deal?”
“Whatever,” she huffs, sounding half a decade younger.
I shake my head and continue toward the park’s wrought-iron gates. Seraphine is a deadly little handful, but I’m determined to use every method at my disposal to quench her thirst for blood. For her sake, I hope my training works.
