Sweet Psycho, page 7
“Yes, he appears to be following your direction.”
Yeah, it's the fast way home. To his house.
“Roads clear?”
“No,” MOM responds. “There is a state trooper doing radar on C highway before Montgomery Road.” Of course there is. Shit. It’s coming up too quickly for me to try and lure them somewhere else. I slow down. The last thing I need is to get pulled over.
“It’s a basement,” Ocean whispers, talking more to herself.
“Don’t blow anything up!” He’s got cute little critters all over that place.
“I’m not! I can scan it better now that you’re letting me near the damn house.”
“Oh.”
“But I can.”
“No!” I shout at her.
“I’m not going to blow anything up. I want to see what he’s got. The wall opens to a small room that only leads to the basement.” Ocean is quiet for a long moment. “Wow.”
“Wow? What’s wow?” I pass the state trooper.
“There is nothing. I can’t read it. I know there is a basement, but I can’t get anything from it. Not a temperature or a full size. He’s blocking me somehow.” Now it’s Ocean who growls in frustration.
“Don’t blow it up,” I remind her as I once again speed up. “I’ll go down there myself.”
“I don’t know. You’ll be going in blind. No signals of any kind are coming in or out of there, but there is something there.” Her anger starts to morph into fascination. “If you weren’t cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, I’d make a terrible joke about him having a girl down there.”
“Ocean!”
“What? We live off those crime documentaries.” We do, but there is no way my Owen who has a cute kitten and gives me sweet kisses is one of those monsters.
“It could all be a lie.” It dawns on me. An act he puts on for a cover. I turn down his driveway as worry starts to eat away at me. Have I been duped? “But there’s no way … I mean, he’s not … That’s not Owen. He has no idea who I am or what I’m after.”
“I’m sorry, Maggie, but I have to say it. We never should have gotten close. He has to know who you are if he is tangled with Duffy. If Parks can’t get shit on him.” Was it a lie? The things he told me about his parents?
I should turn around. Get the hell out of here. Instead, I throw my car into park and grab the sledgehammer. To my surprise, when I go to test the lock, the door opens. He really is laying on the country act thick.
My hand tightens on the handle as my mind races with so many scenarios of how the next few minutes of my life are going to play out. It makes me lightheaded.
“Don’t go in!” Ocean shouts at me.
“He’s a mile from his driveaway,” MOM announces. I enter the house and head straight for my target.
“Magic! Mags? You can’t be hammering his wall when he walks in!”
“You said my cover is already blown,” I remind her as I raise the sledgehammer and swing home.
18
OWEN
The front door is wide open as I pull up to the front of the house. As soon as I open the truck door, Alfie sprints away, dashing inside.
“Wait!” I call, but he’s already long gone.
I pocket my phone, then grab the fake eggs and head up the stairs to the porch. A loud splintering sound comes from inside, then I hear a triumphant “Aha!”
Shaking my head, I stride into the house.
“Wait, what is this? Steel?” Maggie yells.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” I say as I turn the corner and find her gawking at the steel door that leads to the basement. “You could hurt yourself.”
She whirls and raises the sledgehammer. “What’s going on here? Are there women down there? Is that what you’re doing? Trafficking women or doing some sort of torture sex thing with them or, or, or–”
“Hey.” I drop the eggs and hold up my hands, palms toward her. “What gave you those wild ideas?” Worry streaks through me when I see she’s dusted with drywall, her knuckles white as she holds the hammer. “You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?”
“Hurt myself? That’s what you’re concerned about?” Her brow wrinkles. “You … you aren’t mad?”
I glance around at the splintered wood and the bits of drywall. “No. I can fix all this.”
“You aren’t even surprised.” She steps closer, the sledgehammer still raised in her grip. “It’s almost like you knew I was here. Like you already knew what I was doing.”
I shrug. “I did.”
Her eyes round. “What?”
“Listen, how about you lower the sledgehammer, let me check your hands, and then we can talk. Okay?”
“My hands are fine.” She brandishes the weapon. “You need to talk. Now. Start by telling me what the hell you have in your basement.”
I cross my arms. “Probably a lot of the same stuff you have in your office at home. Computers, burner computers, lots of hardware to do illegal things, and plenty of toys and gadgets to hide my tracks.”
“Y-you’re a hacker?” The sledgehammer drops a little.
“No.” I smirk. “Not exactly. Not the way you are, anyway.”
She finally lowers the sledgehammer, likely only because it’s heavy, since her expression is still wary. “You know about me?”
“Yes.”
“No you don’t.” She shakes her head. “Not possible. I saw you first. I got the drop on you. You don’t even–”
“I know you, Maggie.” I step closer to her again because I can’t fucking help myself.
“No.” She backs against the shattered wall. “I don’t think so.”
I lift my hand, and to her credit, she doesn’t flinch as I reach past her and open the hidden panel on the wall, then enter my code. The door clicks in three different places, and a slight whoosh of air denotes that the door is free.
“Go ahead.”
“What’s down there?” She turns her head. “I know. No, I know!”
I wait. Ocean must be going crazy in her ear right now.
“I’m not–no.” She keeps her gaze on me as she reaches for the door handle. “You know where I am, okay? So if you don’t hear from me in like, five minutes, then send in the drones. Okay?”
I try to keep myself from smiling. But it’s difficult. She knows she shouldn’t be doing what she’s doing–and Ocean is yelling that same point in her ear–but she’s opening the door and moving down the stairs all the same.
“Tell Ocean you’re safe with me.” I follow her.
She whirls, her eyes even wider than before. “He knows,” she whispers.
I hear the faintest whine of the speaker in her ear. Ocean just screamed. I pull the earpiece away.
“Hey!” Maggie reaches for my hand.
“She might damage your hearing.” I hold it out to her. “Once she calms down, you two can talk all you want.”
She swipes the earpiece, then–with a bitter look at me–continues downward, the overhead lights turning on as she goes.
Alfie runs down and plops to the basement floor, then jumps onto my chair, causing it to spin and all the lights to come on.
Maggie stops. “You …” She looks around. Her face stares back. All my screensavers and wallpapers are images of her. They aren’t always the best photos since I had to take them from covert locations, but I have plenty. My favorite is the one on the biggest screen–it’s her sleeping peacefully, her mouth open just a little. I still remember the way she snored faintly as she hugged a cat stuffie that night.
Every night, really. She’s a creature of habit. She likes things just so. That’s why I’m always careful to leave everything in her place the way she wants it. Even her father doesn’t pay as close attention as I do. Sometimes he leaves the cans turned the wrong way in the pantry or turns the blinds a few degrees in the wrong direction. I fix all that. For her.
I shoo Alfie out of my seat and enter my password, booting up all the screens. One set is an array of images of her house, the businesses she likes to frequent, and the inside of her bedroom.
The other screens are various streams of data, all of it surveilling Agent Duffy and her crew of hackers. I’ve known about her work for the bureau for a long time. After all, that’s how I found Maggie.
“I don’t believe this.” She stares, open-mouthed, at the screens, her brain parsing the data even faster than mine can. I know for a fact she’s the best hacker I’ve ever had the pleasure of coming across.
“You would’ve found my secret eventually on your own. But I suppose it was time to stop the charade.”
She turns and glares at me. “The coffee shop? My car battery getting messed up?”
I shrug. “I knew you’d be there, and I know how to take the power connections on and off a battery. I also knew that you can find your way through a server full of traps and firewalls, but you don’t know the first thing about how cars work. It was simple, really.”
“You set this whole thing up?” The disbelief in her voice is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.
“Of course.” I wave a hand at the screens. “I’ve been following Duffy for quite a while. Her outfit takes down certain criminals and leaves others that she finds too dangerous or too difficult to get to. She doesn’t even tell you about those, which I respect. She wants to keep you safe, and so do I. But those criminals can’t just walk away–especially not when they’ve padded their pockets with someone else’s retirement money or extorted it from innocent people or even did an old-fashioned hack and theft. I find them, and I make them pay.”
“That’s why Duffy wants you.” She backs away toward the stairs.
“She’s guessed about me, yes. But she doesn’t have any evidence, nothing on me. At least, not until now.” I stare at her pointedly. “You know the truth, and you work for her. You’ve done the job she asked you to do by figuring out what I do and why I make sure my steps are untraceable.”
Warring emotions cross her face, and I move toward her again. I can’t help myself.
“Let’s go upstairs. I’ll make you something to eat, and you can ask me anything and everything.”
She holds a hand out to keep me back. My heart cracks a little at her defensive posture.
“No. I need to think. I need to …” She shakes her head. “Everything is all out of order. I have to put it back straight.”
“Maggie, I can help.” I try again, but she climbs the stairs backwards.
“Just let me go.”
“No.” I follow her.
“Owen!” She turns and sprints up the stairs.
I stay close on her heels, and she whirls as she gets to the hall, pressing her back to the wall and keeping her eyes on me. “I’m leaving.”
“No.” I step to her.
She gasps and looks up, her eyes wide. “You can’t keep me here.”
I rest my hand at her throat, and she doesn’t fight me. Doesn’t move away. Instead, her lips part as she looks up at me, her pupils dilating.
“I know you’re confused.” I lean closer to her, our lips only a breath away. “I didn’t want you to find out like this, but you did come to my house with a sledgehammer.” I brush my lips against hers. “Which is extremely reckless and fucking sexy.”
“This is crazy,” she murmurs, her eyelids fluttering. “Totally psycho.”
“I know. That’s why it’s perfect.” I kiss her hard, staking my claim. With Maggie, I’ll never give up, never give in, and never let her go.
19
MAGGIE
My mind races in a thousand different directions as Owen’s mouth devours mine. This man is crazy obsessed with me. So much so that he’s been stalking me for a while based on how many photos he had of me. I mean, most people would probably think he’s psycho, but I find it endearing. I know I should probably be frightened. That’s the exact opposite of what I am. I think I’ve hit the damn jackpot.
“We can’t,” I say between kisses. “I’ve got, like, questions.” Owen’s hands go to my ass, lifting me off my feet. I instinctively wrap my legs around him. I mean, look–I may want some answers, but I’m not going to pass up a chance to cling to him.
“Ask away.” He carries me up the stairs while nibbling at my neck. It’s hard to think when he does that. Owen gently places me onto his bed. “So no questions?” He smirks.
I smack his chest. “Don’t be smug. I’m the smug one here.” I scramble to my knees. Owen pulls his shirt off over his head. My mouth falls open. This man is so distracting. He’s perfection, even with the scar on his left shoulder. “What’s that?” I reach out and run my fingers across it.
“Bullet.” His answer is straight to the point.
“Right,” I mutter. “But you have chickens and a cat.” Owen is gentle and sweet.
“And now I have you.” A deadly glint flashes in his eyes. “Hacking wasn’t always my specialty. I’ve done plenty of ruthless things, bad things.”
“I have no clue who you are.” I think that’s the first time I’ve ever said that to anyone. Usually, I’m able to uncover anything I want about people. A person’s digital trail can tell you so much about who they are.
“Everything I’ve told you about my life is true, Ace. If you ask me to stop, I will.”
“You’d let me leave?” A stab of disappointment fills me. I was kind of into this being kidnapped thing. It was a nice change of pace.
“Never.” He places his rough hand against my throat again. I’m not scared of him. In fact, I find his hand there rather soothing. I think Owen is lethal to the rest of the world, and only I get this side of him. I really love the idea of that. He could easily hurt me, but I know he won’t. “I’ll stop killing if you ask me to.”
“How about the hardware store girl? Would you kill her for me?” I lay my hands against his bare chest. Even on my knees on the bed with him standing beside it, he still towers over me.
“Claire?”
“You know her name!” I hiss. If anyone should worry for their safety, it’s him. I have a bomb shelter I could put him in. That thing might actually come in handy, though I was sure it would never be useful.
“Ace, it’s on her name tag. I notice everything. I remember everything. It can be both a curse and a blessing. I know every freckle you have.”
“I don’t have many freckles.”
“Seventeen.”
“Seventeen? Why does it have to be an odd number?”
He smirks. Not sure what’s so funny. “It’s seventeen, Ace. You want me to show you?”
He pulls my shirt over my head, tossing it away before he pushes me down onto the bed. I don’t fight him. I want this closeness with him more than anything.
“You’re the only one I want.” He pops the button of my jeans.
“One.” He kisses a freckle next to my belly button.
“Two.” His mouth goes to my hip, kissing a tiny freckle that’s barely noticeable. “We’re almost to my favorite ones. Except that one behind your right ear on your neck. That is truly my favorite.”
He’s kissed me there a few times, I recall. Owen pulls my pants off, taking my panties and everything else with them.
“I’m naked.” I don’t know why I feel the need to state the obvious.
Owen’s breathing grows heavy. For someone that knows every freckle on my body, his eyes still continue to trace me up and down.
His big rough hand comes down on my thigh. His touch is firmer now. I didn’t think he could get more possessive. He spreads my legs open before his fingers drift up toward my sex.
“These are my second favorite.” I glance down to see a few freckles on the inside of my thighs. I lick my lips. That’s not where I want him to kiss right now.
“Forget about the freckles,” I say, trying to get him to speed this up. The throb between my thighs becomes more unbearable by the second.
“I could never forget. Not a single detail of you is meant to be forgotten.” I don’t get time to savor his sweet words of devotion, because he strikes. In a flash, his face is buried between my thighs.
His lips wrap around my clit, and he sucks as he thrusts one of his thick fingers inside of me. When he stiffens his tongue and swipes it back and forth on my clit while working his finger in and out of me, I lose it.
“Owen!” I scream his name as the sudden orgasm slams through my body. I’m so lost in it I don’t realize Owen has moved. His cock is pressing into me. My eyes fly open to meet his.
“You’re mine, Ace.” He thrusts the rest of the way inside. I whimper at the sharp twinge of pain, but the orgasm still lingering matched with Owen’s words make it melt away quickly. I wrap my legs around him.
“Prove it,” I challenge. I swear his eyes darken. He looks like a hunter closing in on its prey. He might not want to hurt me, but he does want to catch me. And I want to be caught.
“I’ll more than prove it.” He pulls out and thrusts back in. I’m so full of him it’s almost painful, but I don’t care. I cling to him as he starts to move faster. He pins my hands over my head, holding me down. “You keep touching me and I’ll come.”
“Isn’t that the point?” I moan. I’m going to orgasm again. This build is different. He’s hitting something deep inside of me.
“Need you with me.”
“I’m with you.” My sex clamps down around his cock. I’m so close.
“Ready for me to prove it, Ace?” I open my mouth, but no words can come out. His lips brush against my ear. “I know everything about you,” he whispers into my ear. “You’re ovulating.”
I go off. My whole body tenses as the pleasure explodes. Owen thrusts fully inside of me, holding himself as deep as he can get. His warmth floods into me.
I take every drop of it whether I like it or not.
I don’t like it.
I love it.
