deep. Her body rocked back and forth as I plowed into her from behind. Ruthlessly taking what was mine.
Pushing my fingers through the wild tangle of her hair, I pulled her head back, forcing her to arch her back, allowing me to press in deeper.
“Say it,” I rasped against her skin before sinking my teeth into the soft flesh of her shoulder, my other hand reaching between her thighs and pinching her clit. “Say it.”
Her mouth opened on a silent scream before I felt the tremors of her own intense release course through her body.
My balls tightened as my cock swelled. With one final thrust, I poured my seed deep into her belly before collapsing onto her. After a moment, feeling breathless and spent, I lifted both our bodies up onto the bed and pulled a corner of the blanket over us before pressing her head against my chest, wanting her to feel the rapid beating of my heart.
As we lay there, her small hand crept up to cover the still healing bullet wound in the center of my chest.
“I love you,” she whispered. Finally, saying what I wanted to hear.
Those three little words made everything I was about to do worth it.
Chapter 24
Lizzie
My eyes opened with a start. There was a figure standing over our bed… with a gun.
It was her.
The blonde.
Looking down at me with disgust, she slowly shook her head. “I warned you. He was mine.” Her voice had a strange, detached singsong quality.
My body trembled. “Please, don’t kill us,” I begged.
“Us?” she screeched. “There is no us!” Gesturing to Richard’s sleeping form with the gun, she said, “There is him and me. There was never a him and you. You’re an imposter. A poser. You don’t belong in his world. It was always supposed to be just him and me.” Pulling back the slide on the automatic handgun, she sneered, “And soon there will only be me.”
Throwing myself in front of Richard’s body, I cried, “You can’t kill him. I love him!”
She pushed out her lower lip in an exaggerated frown as she pretended to cry. “Isn’t that sweet? The little birdie thinks she’s in love.” She wiped imaginary tears off her cheek with the muzzle of the gun.
It was strange; I still couldn’t see her face clearly.
Just that icy blonde hair with long bangs that covered her eyes. I was certain she was the woman who had attacked me on the street that day and at that dressmaker’s shop. She must have been the maid who had handed me my purse with the bloody feather. I couldn’t be certain but the day I had found the dead bird in the car, when I thought I had seen Richard walking away, I had a vague memory of a tall blonde bumping into me and forcing me to drop my portfolio. Perhaps it was her even then?
Had she been stalking me this entire time?
She was obviously completely unhinged. I still didn’t know what she meant to Richard. Why was he refusing to mention her to the police? Was he trying to protect her? Or perhaps he didn’t want the police to know about her because he wanted to handle the situation in his own way, without the authorities interfering? That certainly sounded more like Richard.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that while I might not know why he was protecting her, I knew he didn’t love her. He loved me… and only me.
There was something else I knew with a certainty… she would kill us both.
Why wasn’t Richard waking up? Where was our security? How could she have possibly snuck into the house again? Someone must be helping her get close to us. Harris? I remembered he was nowhere to be found in the crucial moments after Richard got shot. Had Harris been helping her this whole time?
“I saw you at the wedding. You know, kinky whores who play sex games and like to take it up the ass really shouldn’t wear white,” she taunted in an odd conspiratorial whisper.
I could feel Richard stir behind me.
Her face was blurry and contorted as she cocked her head at an odd angle and looked past me to Richard’s shifting form.
“Elizabeth?” His voice was gravelly with sleep as he rolled over to face me.
Raising my arms, I held my hands out, palms up, in a placating gesture. “Please! Please don’t do this!”
“Elizabeth?” Richard’s voice became more insistent.
“You’ve left me no choice,” she said as she leveled the gun straight