Pretty Stolen Dolls (28 page)

“Don’t leave me,” I murmur. “You’re the only thing I have left.”

His cock hardens again and he begins moving inside me, guiding my hips with one strong hand on my waist. “Never, Jade.”

“What if he finds a way to get what he wants? He’s evaded us this long.” The thought is one that will never go away.

He slides a hand to my jaw and grips it to the point of pain. Fire rages in his eyes and my heart pounds in response. His protectiveness ripples from him—scorching me. “I. Will. Never. Let. Him. Hurt. You. Again.”

I sniffle and shake my head. “He always gets what he wants.”

Dillon growls and bucks into me hard. I cry out as he thrusts like a madman, bringing my body down onto him as his hips spike up. His teeth clash with mine as he consumes me with a kiss I feel down to my marrow. My hands rake at the flesh on his back and his fingers bite into my hips, grinding me on him. His mouth devours my hard nipple as his thrusts cause my tits to bounce. Licking, sucking, tasting, consuming. Our pants create a soundtrack to our carnal escape. His cock pushes deeper than ever before and my walls cling to him, squeezing for release.

We’re both swept up in this vortex of sexual bliss and connection until I’m crying out his name over and over again like some fucked up chant. He doesn’t stop until he’s unloaded more of his seed into me and this time when he stops, I’m no longer sobbing.

“I don’t want him to win,” I hiss out, gasping on the heated air.

His jaw clenches and eyes flicker with hate—mutual hate for the monster ruining my life. “Against us, baby,” he tells me fiercely, “that motherfucker doesn’t stand a goddamned chance.”

“How you holdin’ up, Phillips?” Chief Stanton questions, lines of worry crinkling his already aging face.

After Dillon fucked me until I was mentally numb, he let us sleep and as soon as the sun kissed the bed sheet with its morning glow, he dragged me back up to the station because Chief wanted to see us.

I shrug my shoulders and sip the coffee we picked up at Starbucks on the way over here. “Hunky fucking dory, Chief,” I deadpan.

Dillon boldly reaches over and takes my free hand. “She’s dealing about as well as can be expected for someone who saw her parents’ brutally murdered bodies. She’s holding up and that’s all anyone can expect. How do you think she’s doing?”

Stanton glances at our hand holding, but nods. “I’m sorry. I just worry about you. When some psychopath targets one of our own, it gets everyone around here rattled. This fucker has evaded us long enough. We all want justice. Each of us wants to be the one to bring that prick in and throw him behind bars. It will happen, Phillips. We’re working ‘round the clock and checking every lead. He’s not going to hurt you. That’s a promise.”

I swallow down my bitterness. “Benny’s good. Always two steps ahead. He’ll get what he wants.”
Me.

Chief shakes his head in denial. “No. Not this time. I’ve assigned a uniform to stay outside your place—always on duty. And from the looks of it,” he says with an unamused raise of his eyebrow, “Dillon’s taking good care of you. That psychopath isn’t getting anywhere near you.”

I don’t even try to force a fake smile. Chief has no inclination of how determined Benny is. He’ll stop at nothing. The asshole’s made that perfectly clear.

“Any details on the phone?” Dillon questions.

Chief grumbles. “We couldn’t trace his call, but we did lift a partial print from the burner phone. Lab is running it through AFIS. Hopefully we’ll get a hit. Let’s all send a prayer to the man above that the prick is in the system.”

Dillon squeezes my hand and a flutter of hope filters through me. For eight years, I’ve been chasing a ghost. Now, the ghost is very much alive and haunting the fuck out of me. But for the first time, we might be able to close in on him.

Hang in there, Macy.

Mom and Dad may be gone, but I’m still here.

“Scott,” Chief huffs, “take Phillips, and for the love of God, make her eat something. Tomorrow, I’ll brief you on any new details or if we get a hit on AFIS. Look after our girl.”

“I want to work,” I tell them both, and they just stare at me like I said I want to eat babies or some shit.

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen, Phillips. You need to take time off and look after yourself. You have to bury your folks and grieve for your loss.”

Bury them.

Oh God.

He gives me a curt nod before waving us out of the office. Dillon pulls me to my feet and wraps his arm over my shoulder as we exit. All eyes are on us as he parades me through the precinct, showing all of them I’m under his protection. We get a few raised eyebrows and crude remarks along the way, but I’m okay with that. I’ve never felt so accepted. The entire time I’ve worked here, I’ve been regarded as fragile and broken.

Dillon doesn’t care about any of that and holds onto me anyway.

It’s us against them.

It’s us against
him.

“Are you going to stand there until I eat? Shouldn’t you be off finding bad guys?” I snap. “Finding
our
bad guy?”

Dillon lifts a dark brow. “As a matter of fact, I’m not leaving this morning until you eat that waffle I made you. This past week, you’ve barely touched anything. If we’re going to find him, I need you at full strength.”

Dillon brought all the case files home with him and let me go through them while he works each day. My parents’ file, he managed to keep away from me, and I was grateful to him for that. Seeing them in the flesh at their murder scene was bad enough. I couldn’t handle their pictures. We had nothing. Benny is so clean, it’s as if he’s a genius when it comes to this sick shit. He isn’t in the system and didn’t leave DNA on the rape victim. He used and dumped Bo’s vehicle, so we don’t know what it is he drives himself. We have an image, but it’s not the best resolution and could be anyone. I know for a fact Benny is isolated. He hardly ever left us alone, so he must not have friends or family. Posters and appeals went out this week with the image, but nothing that’s led to anything substantial has come back.

“Jade?” Dillon queries at my silence.

With a curled lip of disgust, I stab at my waffle and make a great show of stuffing a piece into my mouth, even going as far as to chew with my mouth open. He chuckles, and for the first time in a week, I find myself fighting a genuine smile.

“You’re a brat,” he says, sipping his coffee.

“I just hate feeling like a prisoner.”

He winces at my words and I instantly hate myself for even remotely comparing him to Benny. Benny held me against my will. Starved and tortured me. Raped me at every turn. His abuse was far from physical, though. He psychologically forced himself against me. Imbedded himself inside my brain and wreaked havoc. They are nothing alike.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, dropping my fork onto my plate. I stand from the chair and walk over to him. “I didn’t mean it.”

When I hug his middle, he sets his coffee down and hugs me back. “I know. You’ve been through a lot. Don’t apologize to me.”

This morning, after our long shower, he got dressed for work, but he smells too good. If I keep inhaling his chest, I might beg him to distract me some more—from the bed. He’s really good at that.

“What if he gets me? I can’t help but think he’s waiting for us to slip up so he can swoop in and haul me back to that house. He’s too quiet, Dillon. A week with no word,” I say with a worried sigh.

On one hand, I’m glad my ghost is in hiding. Bodies aren’t turning up all over the place. I was able to mourn my parents in some fucked up sense of peace…

I’ll never fully be at peace, though. Not until he’s gone.

But on the other hand, I’m worried about Bo. That his body is decomposing somewhere because Benny would never let him live. And what about Macy? What sort of awful things is he making her witness? Do…

No.

The leads running dry are driving me just as crazy as when Benny was terrorizing my world at every turn just one short week ago. The partial print was inconclusive, the phone traces led nowhere, and there wasn’t any forensic evidence that could help us. Each day, Dillon does what he can at the precinct and I scour the county land records for any clues to where that fucker is hiding with my sister and ex-boyfriend.

“He’s not going to get you. Littleton stands guard out there all damn day and I’m here at night. Nobody’s getting in here unless they go through one of us. You think anyone is going to take on Littleton? He was a linebacker in college. Kid’s solid as fuck. You’re safe, baby,” Dillon says, kissing the top of my head.

I tilt my head to look up at him. He’s so cute with his crooked grin and scruffy face. If my world weren’t so fucked, we could truly be happy, I think. Dillon distracts me and makes me feel so alive, worthy and wanted—his.

My palms slide up his hard chest until I start tugging at the knot of his tie. He groans, but doesn’t argue as I tear it away and then work at his buttons. When I reach the last one, he peels it from his body and lays it on the back of the chair. I bite on my bottom lip. He looks totally fuckable in his white undershirt practically painted on his sculpted flesh.

“I don’t have to leave for another twenty minutes,” he says with a growl before ripping his undershirt off. Every muscle on his chest flexes with his movement. “I can do a whole lot in twenty minutes, baby.”

I smile and it reaches my eyes. God, he makes me happy despite this horrific shit happening all around me. “Can I keep you longer than twenty?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he charges for me. Like the caveman he is, he tosses me over his shoulder, making me squeal with delight. His hand pops my ass through my panties and I smack at his ass since it’s right in my face. When we reach my room, he tosses me onto the bed and wrangles out of his slacks and boxers while I peel off my shirt and panties in record speed.

“You’re like a fucking drug, Jade. I can’t seem to get you out of my system,” he admits as he prowls on the bed toward me. “And I don’t want to. I just want fucking more.”

He jerks my knees apart roughly, and then he’s inside me. Dillon hardly goes slow. That’s one of the things I love about him. Most men would want to treat me delicately because of my past. Dillon just devours me.

And I want to be devoured by him.

“God!” I cry out as he slams into me. We haven’t been together long, but our connection is intense and stronger than the one Bo and I had.

“So beautiful and broken and mine,” he murmurs into my neck, his teeth nipping at the flesh. He knows my neck is my weak spot and seems to always drive me crazy there with his mouth.

“Yes,” I hiss, “yours.”

My fingernails rake down the front of his chest, causing him to hiss. When we fuck, neither of us leaves the bed without scratches, teeth marks, bruises, and sometimes the occasional blood.

Like I said.

He devours me.

And I devour him.

“Jade,” he groans against my throat as we both come apart, a mutual shattering of worlds. “I-I-I,” he grunts, “fuck, Jade.”

“What?”

“I love being with you…this thing we have amongst all the chaos, it’s real, right? You feel this growing between us?” He lifts up and stares down at me as if I’m some magical, spell-casting creature.

“I do,” I assure him. I love this. Whatever it is we’re doing, I love it
.

“I’m so infected with this crazy lust and maddening lo—”

“Shhh. I feel it too. I’m yours,” I assure him.

The pad of his thumb strokes under my eyes and then he drags it down along my nose as he regards me with wonder. I grip his wrist and frown. “Macy…” I murmur.

His dark brows furl together. “What about her?”

“She has a scar there. Along her nose. Benny cut her deep enough to scar her badly. If any bodies…if…” Tears well in my eyes and I blink them away. “I can’t see her body too.”

“Hey,” he coos and cradles my face, pressing kisses all over me. “You won’t have to see. Baby, we’ll find her. She’s his collateral—his only bargaining chip. We just have to find that house. We find his house, we find her. Then we’ll bring her home to us.”

To us.

I want to believe him.