Lovely Bad Things: A Dark Romance (Hollow’s Row 1)

HALEN

If you dance with the devil, expect to get burned.

Kallum is fire and brimstone and every salacious dark dream. I’m embraced by the arms of a killer, and this reality should terrify me, his touch should repulse me—and somewhere below the heady rush of wine and intense chemical attraction, a kernel of logic fights for dominance.

Only sometimes, a whisper is louder than a scream. The tendril seductively curls around us, the soft murmur luring us into the flames.

As the slow and seductive music infuses the overcrowded house, every nerve in my body is lit up like a live wire seeking a grounding connection. The feel of Kallum’s hand at the small of my back attacks my nervous system, and just the sweep of his thumb over my jaw sparks across my skin.

His heated gaze holds mine captive as he stares down at me, our movements so subtle we’re barely dancing. His thigh eases between my legs, sending an arousing throb to my core, and I shut my eyes against the sensation.

This is wrong.

I’m wrong.

My obsession to name Kallum the Harbinger killer has mutated into a gross form of transference. It’s the only rational thought I can grasp as I fight to maintain a level of composure over my senses.

As his hands wander my body, exploring me like I’m some precious artifact, an internal alarm flares. He continues to coast upward until he has my face between his palms. His fingers tormentingly sink into my hair past the nape of my neck, his hold preventing me from escaping.

Forced to stare into the void of his beautiful eyes, I sense the floor shift beneath my feet, losing gravity. “How am I supposed to visualize the scene when you’re staring at me like…” I stop myself, unwilling to finish that sentence.

He licks his lips, savoring my unease. “If you starve an animal, that animal will make a mess of its meal.”

“I’m not the meal,” I say, my voice edged in anger to control the tremble.

His smile sinks through me. He doesn’t force the subject, and instead says, “This is your crime scene, Halen.”

He spins me around and brings my back to his chest, hands fastened to my hips. “Look around at all this wild debauchery. This is what you need to visualize, to see, to feel.”

His fingers coast across my pelvis, setting off a riot of tremors. “Kallum—”

“Can you still taste the earthy notes of the wine?” he cuts me off, ignoring the plea in my voice. “The tawny mixture, thick and heady with tannins?”

The taste of the cabernet still lingers on my tongue. I swallow and nod against his chest.

“Close your eyes. Hear only the drums. Envision the reeds. The dark trees. The night. How the moonlight spills over the marsh. It’s all a part of his sacrifice.”

“Dance in my suspect’s footsteps,” I say, suspecting this is a very bad idea.

I have nothing to lose.

“Feel the heat of the fire on your skin,” Kallum encourages as he rocks us, our bodies fused together amid the strobing lights and pulsing music. “Smell the charred reeds. Taste the smoke. Let it infuse your body. The only way to connect with him is to give yourself over to the frenzy.”

I know what he’s trying to do, to make me submit to—and yet, being aware of his tactic doesn’t make it any less effective. It’s so tempting just to give in…to let myself fall away.

I clasp his wrists, my heart drumming so hard in my chest I can barely breathe.

Kallum sways us faster as the tempo increases, the music drowning out the frantic thud of my heartbeat. He overpowers me, his hand snaking across my belly, leaving a searing trail beneath my dress in his wake.

I seal my eyes closed, letting the wave crash over me.

“Tell me about the ritual,” I say, succumbing to the feel of his hands manipulating my body.

His forearm tenses around my waist. He sweeps my hair away from my shoulder, resting his mouth near the curved slope of my neck, his breath hot against my skin.

“How deep to you want to go?”

His question infuses my blood with a shot of panic. I’m wilting for him so I can snare him like a spider in a Venus flytrap. Only, my body makes my betrayal all too believable, even to me.

I force my words bold. “Make me feel it.”

His low groan vibrates against my back, sending a shockwave of arousal through my system. “You wouldn’t be fucking with me, Halen?”

Making Kallum question my intensions bolsters my resolve, and I swivel my hips provocatively, rubbing against him until I feel his stomach tense. Raising my arms, I link my wrists around the back of his neck as I grind against him.

“I want to know what you know,” I tell him. “You know more than any search engine or FBI analyst.”

The press of his erection along my backside ignites a flame in my belly, and a sliver of anxiety slices through the carnal heat—but I push back against the uncertainty.

“Be careful what you ask for, little Halen,” he says, his voice thick with restraint.

Then his hands are touching me, testing me. His thumb skims the bottom of my breast, his fingers probe downward, tracing the seam of my panties along my pelvis.

I swallow the fiery ache, keeping my eyes closed against the flashing room. “Tell me everything,” I demand.

“Pay attention.” He clamps his hands to my hips, his fingers drawing the torn hem of my skirt upward. “To become as wild and uninhibited as the Maenads, one must pass an initiation.”

“So the suspect was testing himself—”

Kallum threads his fingers in my hair and tugs, effectively silencing me. “My job is to regale you. Your job is not to think, to only feel and let the answers come.” His mouth brushes over my neck, and my mind empties, unable to grasp my previous thought.

“They were feared yet envied,” he says, swaying our bodies to the rhythm. “They were the raving ones who lived fearless and donned fawn skin and adorned headdresses of bone and ivy.”

The mutilated stag appears in my mind. I imagine the suspect wearing the skin, his body drenched in blood. He’s standing where the fire pit will be; that’s why he set the fire—to offer the blood and wine in sacrifice. None of it was a countermeasure.

“The Freemasons recorded that this aspect of the rites was passed down to the Dionysian mystery school,” Kallum continues. “Initiates wore a purple robe, and were crowned with ivy.”

I try to think past the distracting feel of his hands roving my thighs, rough fingers grazing too dangerously close to the inside seam of my panties. An uneven breath slips past my lips. “I can google that,” I say, making my voice firm. “Tell me what no one else knows.”

His deep laugh thrums through my chest, digging in with an itch I can’t scratch.

The swarm of bodies infest the energy of the room, and my body hums at a high frequency in response. Kallum curls his fingers beneath the shredded fabric of my dress, his thumb ring scraping my skin and eliciting a shiver.

“Possessed by the god’s frenzy, the initiates gave in to their base, carnal desires,” he says, his voice a husky rumble against my ear. “They danced freely, partook in wild orgies, gorged on wine, and entered a state of madness, where they reached an altered, primeval state of being.” His mouth presses behind my ear. “They went mad with pleasure.”

I mindlessly dance against Kallum, lost in a sensory of images as I visualize the offender in the throes of a passionate ritual. It’s evocative…primal. Like a beast, he let himself go feral.

“Once this state was induced, they hunted. Animals…humans… In their frenzy, they tore apart their prey. They invoked and manifested Dionysus in the bestial form. They became the Horned Hunter, and they devoured and fucked like beasts.”

My core clenches, and I involuntary roll my hips, seeking friction. Each pass of Kallum’s hands over my body stimulates every erogenous zone, wreaking havoc on my nerves. I suppress a whimper as he grips my inner thigh.

“Then the initiates entered into the night journey, descending into the depths of the underworld. When they reemerged, when they ascended, they had been gifted the wisdom of the gods. Above man, above even the gods themselves, they possessed the clarity of the universe, empowered to obtain their every desire.”

Immersed in the scene, the hoard of people disappear, and I no longer care about what they see, or any guilt or judgement. I’m all flesh and craving. I’m a lightning rod seeking the flame of his touch, desperate to sate the throbbing ache between my thighs.

“The frenzy is pure seduction,” he whispers near my ear, and I can feel the lure, the corruption, to be drawn into the hedonistic pleasure.

Wrapped in Kallum’s arms with the hypnotic music and raw, depraved hunger, it’s the temptation to forget—to become something or someone other, with no past or history.

Stepping into the offender’s shoes is always a form of escape.

Isn’t that why I lose myself in the job?

To escape…to feel something other…

Yet, there’s a line I can’t cross.

Kallum is too intelligent not to discern this. He knows the precise buttons to push to entice me right over the line.

My head falls back against his chest, my mind adrift in a lurid haze, my body succumbing to his primal touch.

As his hand coasts higher up my inner thigh, his thumb abrasively grazes the sensitive folds shielded only by the sheer material of my panties, and I suck in a shocked breath. My body pulses in time with the flickering lights.

I clamp my thighs closed, trapping his hand. “Keep going,” I say, my voice shaky and barely registering over the climbing music.

I feel his growl rip from the deep trench of his chest. “You want me to keep going,” he says, a taunt. “Or keep going…” He parts my legs and splays his fingers over my clit and lips. “How the fuck am I supposed to focus when you’re soaking my hand through your fucking panties, Halen?”

His admission does something dangerous to me, and I feed off it, lost in a heated tangle of lust and uninhibited yearning.

Somewhere in the background of my mind, I register a sprig of regret. But the atmosphere is too intoxicating, and Kallum is too persuasive—and the desire for oblivion is too fucking irresistible.

I thrust my hand between my thighs and cup his fingers, undulating my hips to push against his palm with shameless urgency.

“Goddamn.” His growl gathers my muscles tight before he sinks his teeth into the soft junction between my shoulder and neck.

The sharp pain spirals through me, and I moan as it invokes emotions that have lain dormant, dulled by heartache. The piercing of his teeth overrides the blunt ache, and my body flares with the insatiable need to be touched—desperate for the fiery alchemy to meld pain into pleasure.

Kallum teases the frenzy from my soul, like a sorcerer cloaking us in a storm of licentious fury and madness, and as his fingers erotically knead between my thighs, I whimper, pulled under by the salacious feel, my body starved for what I’ve denied it for so long.

His mouth touches the shell of my ear, breaths heavy and sawing over the throbbing bite mark. “I’m going to tear through you like a ravenous animal.”

His dark groan resonates in my chest, urging my hips to heave in the most tawdry taunt as lust burns under my skin. I’m so close to losing control.

Surender the pain.

Feeling pain is a choice.

The realization comes with a stark epiphany, the ability to choose to be lost to my pain, or to surrender to pleasure. The maddening chaos delivers clarity.

“Oh, my god,” I say, shuddering as Kallum’s thumb ring sweeps over my nipple, causing me to almost break. My core clenches, my lower back arches, and I sinfully spread my thighs as the intense pull stealing my breath.

But the fight to maintain clarity burns through the haze. “I know why he’s stalling,” I say, “why he’s not done.”

Kallum’s hand winds into my hair and grasps at the roots, and the feel is so seductive, the pleasure so addictive that I realize…

The offender is lost to pleasure. He seduced himself into a state of perpetual frenzy.

“Why suffer a painful ascension when you can fulfill every desire, experience every pleasure?” I ask aloud. Nietzsche claimed the path to ascension was through pain. That’s why the worthy are so few.

The suspect is questioning his worthiness.

As Kallum rocks our bodies in sync, I mentally comb over my notes. “He’s been seduced by the herd,” I say, following the logic. “He has to overcome his bodily desires, but if he can’t…” I trail off at the sensual feel of Kallum’s hand collaring my neck from behind.

The eyes. The ears. The dissected body parts appearing in the marsh.

He’s working up to his ultimate sacrifice.

Kallum’s violent growl proceeds the stab of his rock-hard cock against my ass. “Save it for your profile,” he says, then he twirls me around, bringing my chest flush against his. His hand captures my face in a commanding grip. “I want to taste your frenzy.”

Desperate to see his eyes, to see something past the bottomless abyss, I lift my gaze to his.

The room vibrates around us. As if in slow motion, our gazes collide. His penetrating eyes ensnare me, and I can’t hide from him—I can’t pretend what’s happening between us isn’t affecting me, changing me.

Kallum tips my face up. The cool press of his thumb ring against my chin clashes with the searing heat beneath my skin, and when he thrusts his hand under my dress and his fingers graze the seam of my panties, my teeth sink into my lip.

The coppery taste touches my tongue, and a growl unleashes from deep within his chest.

He smears his thumb across the blood on my lip, then brings it to his mouth. An uncontrollable tremor attacks my belly as he pushes against the barrier of my panties and licks my blood from his thumb at the same time.

“I knew your pain would taste sweet.”

“You’re a monster,” I say.

His tongue sweeps his lips, and the volatile intensity I glimpse there—the insatiable hunger—nearly levels me as his gaze drops to my mouth.

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it they don’t become one,” he says, paraphrasing Nietzsche’s infamous line. “But in my little Halen’s case, I think you crave the touch of the monster as badly as the fight.”

I push away from him, making it as far as staggering into a dancing couple before he seizes my wrist. I resist making a scene, letting him draw me back into his arms. My breaths tear through my chest as I restrain the urge to claw his skin.

My nails sink into his forearms, but this only brings a devious smile to his face.

His arm binds my lower back and he dips me low. Holding me angled beneath him, his wicked eyes devour me.

Breath trapped in my lungs, the pressure builds until I’m forced to release it, a moan escaping as Kallum’s hungry gaze consumes me. He brings his lips so close to mine, he inhales me right along with my breaths.

His eyes flick over my face, tracing a fiery path over the contours of my neck, then he slips his finger under the pendant resting against my throat.

“Tell me,” he says, staring at the teardrop diamond. “Did he make you feel this alive?”

The air vacates my lungs.

As if falling in a dream, the terrifying sensation prickles my skin, then suddenly I wake up before hitting the ground. The party crashes around me, reality snapping into focus, vivid and clear.

I push against Kallum’s chest. “Let go—”

“I can’t do that.”

I wedge my knee between us and, before I actually hit the floor, Kallum catches me and brings me upright.

With a forceful spin, I windmill my arms and break out of his hold. I shove through the crush of bodies, unsure of which direction I’m going, but I get far enough away from people and music and the panic ripping me apart.

The hallway is dark and lined with locked doors. I try three before I find an open room, where I slam the door and press my back to the cool wood. I’m able to steal two unobstructed breaths before the door drives me forward, and Kallum’s towering form fills the doorway.

He shuts the door, barring me from escape and muffling the music. The snick of the lock sliding into place detonates through the room and my body.

For every step he takes, I retreat a step backward, until my back lands flush against the wall. This is someone’s bedroom. There’s a bed and pillows and a desk—but there is nothing within reach to use as a weapon.

The dark is smothering and complete…except the blinking red light on Kallum’s ankle monitor.

He takes another step forward.

His hands come up on either side of my head, barricading me against the wall. “We’re not done.” His voice is too low, too deceptively calm.

“We’re absolutely done,” I say, instilling strength I don’t feel. “I’m filing the paperwork. My private life is off limits.”

He slams his hands against the wall, making me flinch. My breaths tremble past my lips on a whimper. “We’re not done.”

The dark pits of his eyes shut down any argument.

“When he died,” he says, “did he take you with him?”

“Fuck you.”

“No, sweetness. Fuck you.” He takes hold of my hips and yanks my ass off the wall.

I drive my fists into his arms, but Kallum has my dress ruched up past my belly before I can put up a real fight. He grips the back of my neck and holds me in place as his other hand flattens against my stomach.

“Your fucking pain strangles me every day,” he says, resting his forehead to mine. As the backs of his inked fingers graze my sensitive skin, my stomach seizes with uncontrollable tremors, my whole body succumbing to the violent attack.

“Please…” I try to reason.

“What are you pleading for?” He growls the question, his demand provoking reactive tears to my eyes. “What do you want?”

I don’t know.

Pushing his mouth against my ear, he says, “Before I even saw you, I felt your pain. It called to me like a siren, my muse of heartbreak. I wanted to taste it, to feast on it, your pain is that irresistible. If you had let me that first day, I would have dropped to my knees and devoured every last drop of you, just so you could breathe…so I could fucking breathe.”

My breaths are ragged, choking my voice. “You’re fucking sick if this is what gets you off.” Anger sears my insides, rising through the debilitating fear. “A soulless demon like you could never understand what I feel.”

He slams his hand against the wall, so close to my face I feel the force ricochet through my bones. I shake from the force of it, tears spilling over my eyes. I’m angry and frightened and yet I want to scream.

“There it is,” he whispers over my lips. His frenzied gaze hungrily tracks the tears, then he pushes in against me and drags his tongue up my neck and jaw, tasting my emotions, lapping my tears.

“I can taste your anguish like the spiciest curry,” he says. “It’s so goddamn delectable, it’s driving me fucking crazy. I want to sink inside you and rut out the pain.”

His admission stirs a visceral reaction, and my body responds against my will. I feel the heated wetness pool in my panties, and I press my thighs together to offset the throbbing ache.

Kallum moves aside and leans his forehead against the wall, his body corded tight around me. He plants the heel of his hand to my chest, fingers trapping the solitaire pendant—the diamond from my engagement ring.

On instinct, my hands go to my belly, trying to control the tremors racking my muscles. My knees buckle. The only thing holding me upright is Kallum’s grounding touch as the unwanted memory cruelly breaks through.

The sound of grinding metal. The flashing lights of the ambulance. The doctor’s stoic face as she delivered the news of Jackson’s death and the loss of our unborn baby.

“Stop—” I say the word aloud, but I’m not sure who it’s directed toward; me or Kallum.

He releases a leaden breath as his hand travels to my stomach. He grasps my hand and pins my wrist to the wall with an unspoken command before he skims the backs of his fingers across the sensitive plane of my abdomen, provoking another hard shiver.

“Here’s the truth of your pain, sweetness.” His fingers tease the flesh of my pelvis. “Nietzsche believed the only way to achieve our desires was through suffering. Anything that comes easily is measured as mediocre. Any art, any passion, any great love”—he pushes away from the wall to capture my gaze “—is attained only through pain and struggle. Your beautiful pain is divine, and you still have no idea how much power you possess.”

“You’re not making any sense,” I say, my voice trembling.

His chuckle slips over my flesh in a sensual caress, and he grabs my face in a brutal grip. His thumb swipes the tear tracks from my cheek before he moves to my mouth, clearing away the remnants of blood staining my lips.

“One taste.” His gaze is on my mouth, and fear stabs my chest, knowing I will not survive if his lips touch mine.

Kallum drops to his knees. His mouth delicately brushes my belly, trailing to my pelvis, before his teeth capture the border of my panties.

“Oh, god…”

“I will make you see god for damn sure.” He drags my panties down around my ankles and notches his arm beneath the soft junction of my knee, spreading my thighs.

The feel of his mouth surrounding me, tongue delving between my slick folds, buckles my knees. He pins me to the wall as he tastes me. Fire blazes up my back as his teeth scrape over my clit before he sucks my lips into his mouth.

A broken breath escapes past the aching pressure in my chest and, losing my mind, I fist my hands in his hair. I buck against him, my body detached from all rational thought. I’m so close to falling over the edge…

Then suddenly the feel of him is gone, cool air caressing my bare skin.

I chance a look down to see him staring up at me with those clashing eyes, hellfire and maddening desire swirled within the depths.

He drags my panties up, slowly sliding them in place, then pulls my dress down. He braces his forehead to my belly, feeling the tremble of my body, before he stands. He backs away, his heated gaze still causing havoc to my body.

The red light of his ankle monitor flashes in rhythmic pulses, chasing the acceleration of my heartbeat, then sounds with a beep.

A smug smile pulls at the corner of Kallum’s mouth as he places his hands behind his head. And waits. His eyes never leaving mine.

“We’re far from done, little Halen.” He licks his lips in warning.

The bedroom door breaks open, and three FBI agents tear into the room. Kallum’s gaze stays on me as they apprehend him, cuffing his wrists behind his back. One of them asks if I’m all right, but I can’t take my eyes off him. If I look away, if I let the spell break, whatever transpired between us tonight becomes real, and I can’t face that yet.

Flames engulf me as Kallum is taken into custody and, despite my every attempt to cheat and deceive the devil, I danced with him. I wasn’t just tempted by the flame, I stoked it into a roaring inferno.

Then I begged for the burn.