Blood Indulgence: a serial killer thriller (Phineas and Liam Book 3) Read online

  “I’m here because I’m really horny and I want to seduce you,” she told his bed.

  He made a noise in the back of his throat. What had she just said?

  She wasn’t looking at him. She went over to his bed and ran her fingers over the coverlet on it. “You once said that you had never been as attracted to another person as you were to me. You still feel that way?”

  His jaw worked. Okay, yes, he was attracted to Dawson. That hadn’t gone away. But he was operating under the assumption that they were pretending they’d never had that conversation in which he’d admitted that to her. Now, she was throwing it in his face, something he’d done when liquor had been rushing through his veins like a waterfall, and he was currently stone-cold sober, and he didn’t know how to react.

  Was this a joke?

  Maybe she’d turn around and start laughing any second.

  But she didn’t turn around. She stroked her fingers over his bed, and she didn’t look at him, and he found himself moving across the room towards her. His movements weren’t steady. He was shuffling over the carpet, unsure of himself, unsure of everything.

  Finally, he reached her, and he laid a hand on her shoulder, a heavy hand. It was meant to be reassuring. “Listen, Haysle, something’s obviously going on with you, and I don’t think it would be right to take advantage of…”

  She turned to look at him with her big, luminous eyes.

  He lost his train of thought.

  “I think I’d be the one taking advantage of you,” she said. “And I know you’ve been through so much… too much… if I had a shred of human decency, I’d leave you alone.”

  “Is this about him?”

  She nodded. “No.”

  He let out a low, ironic chuckle.

  She squared her shoulders. “I haven’t been with anyone in a long time. Not since before I detransitioned. I’m terrified to let anyone see me. You know, I’m not…” She drew in a shaky breath. “I don’t think I’m particularly enticing?”

  “Haysle.” When had his voice gotten that deep?

  “I trust you, Liam. You make me feel safe.”

  “That’s not what you said to me.” His voice cracked. “That time in that hotel room, you were afraid of me.”

  “No, I was afraid of myself, afraid of how much I was attracted to you.”

  “That’s… I don’t know if that’s different.”

  She licked her lips. “I have a little bit of hair that hasn’t completely gone.” She made a circular gesture around her chest. “I think it might eventually. I used to have a lot more chest hair, and now it’s mostly gone. If I were going to prepare, I’d probably wax or something? But I didn’t know I was going to come over here.”

  His entire body felt too hot. His mouth was dry. His voice came out scoured. “Show me.”

  She raised her eyebrows, as if she was surprised at his acquiescence.

  “Y-you don’t have to,” he said immediately. “If you want to back out of this—”

  She tugged her shirt over her head and his voice died in his throat.

  His gaze skittered over her shoulders and chest and the thin, cotton bra she was wearing. He could see right through it, see the darkness of her nipples.

  The hair was light, almost blond, but maybe a little bit too coarse. It clung to the place where her breasts separated, and he had the urge to gather her up, press her flesh together, to run his mouth over her cleavage, to lick that hair one way and then another.

  “Can I touch you?” he said hoarsely.

  “Yes,” she said.

  He lifted his hand.

  “Take your shirt off, too,” she said.

  He reached back with one hand and tugged it off, baring himself to her.

  She drew in an audible breath of approval.

  He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her.

  She tilted her head back, opening her mouth to him. She put her hands on his stomach.

  He shuddered. He pulled aside one of the cups of her bra—which weren’t cups, not really. There was no structure to them. He thumbed her nipple. She had more hair there, darker hair, coarser hair, little curls surrounding her aureole, and it struck him as the most sensuous thing he had ever seen in his life, those curls around her puckered nipple—such an earthy thing, so deeply secret and affecting.

  She groaned.

  He put his mouth to her skin. “I like it. If it were up to me, you’d never wax this.”

  She threw back her head, pulling him close, tangling her fingers into his hair.

  DAWSON was lying on top of the covers of Liam’s bed. She was naked.

  He was lying next to her, naked too. He was on his stomach, with his face turned sideways to face her. His hand was resting on her bare belly. “You’re not okay,” he murmured.

  She turned her face to look at him, furrowing her brow.

  “This was a mistake,” he said.

  She reached up and ran her fingers over his cheekbone and then lingered on his lips. “Has anyone ever told you what a beautiful man you are?”

  He averted his gaze, bashful. “Seriously? That’s how you respond to that?”

  “Someone must have.” She traced the outline of his bottom lip. “Lots of someones. How many sexual partners have you had, Liam?”

  “Oh, we’re not doing that conversation,” he said. “Definitely not.”

  “I bet you don’t know how many,” she said, smirking. “You forget that I came of age in the gay community, amongst other men, and I don’t shock easy.”

  He lifted his head and thrust it face down in his pillow. “What’s wrong, Haysle? Something’s wrong.”

  What was wrong was that she’d completely forgotten about condoms.

  Maybe she’d forgotten because for most of her sexually active life, she’d been taking testosterone, which had stopped her menstrual cycle, and she’d never really had to worry about anything other than STDs, and she and Carter had been monogamous—well, there had been an experimentation with an open relationship that hadn’t lasted a month—so she hadn’t used condoms all that often. She and Carter were just as likely to engage in other, more mutually orgasmic activities than in penetrating her vagina, anyway.

  She wriggled her hips, wondering if she should lift them, like she’d seen in a movie once, so that gravity would ease his semen deeper inside her, so that…

  Damn it.

  I did not come here and seduce Liam in order to get pregnant. I could not have forgotten the condoms on purpose…. Could I?

  “It’s really fucked up why I came here,” she said.

  He rolled over onto his side. “I knew it.”

  She rolled over onto her side. She put her hand on his chest. “You’re great, and this was great, and you were really sweet to do this for me.”

  “That sounds like the beginning of a speech about how we’re never doing it again?” He ran his forefinger over her shoulder. “Which… I mean, that’s maybe better, because this—you—there’s kind of a complication—”

  “Worth sent me a video of you and Slater and a girl.”

  He pulled his hand back. “What?”

  “You must have been twenty-one?” she said. “You were young. Both of you were really young. I didn’t watch it all. I know it’s like… like a violation of you to have watched… fuck.” Really, she hadn’t thought of that, had she?

  He got up from the bed and fished his boxer shorts off the floor. He yanked them on.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have been aroused by it. I really didn’t watch it all. I turned it off. He confuses me, but you’re Liam, you know, you’re…”

  He turned back around. “I don’t understand. I didn’t make videos of myself.”

  “Slater probably did it,” she said. “That’s his thing. He likes to make videos.” She furrowed her brow again. “But, wait a minute. I thought you said that whatever happened between you and Slater, when he, um, assaulted you, that was the first
time the two of you had been sexual.”

  He sat down on the bed with his back to her. “You don’t get to do that.”

  “Do what?” She sat up. She climbed under the coverlet. Her nakedness was bothersome now.

  “He raped me that night. And if I did consensual things with him later, it doesn’t negate that.”

  “This was after?” She drew back. “You said that you and Slater had a falling out after you thought you killed Worth. You said you moved out of the dorm room with him, and that you were afraid of him, and—”

  “Then one night, I got drunk, and there was a girl, actually, yes, I remember that. Her name was, uh, Cora, I think. Finn wanted there to be a girl, because otherwise it was gay. He filmed it?” Liam got up from the bed and stepped into his pants.

  “I’m very confused right now,” she said.

  “So was I,” said Liam. “He let me fuck him. It was like tit for tat, I guess. To make up for what he did to me, or something. Me and Cora were the bread in the Finn sandwich. I guess if you have the video, you can go and watch.”

  She just stared at him.

  “Don’t look at me like that.” He pointed at her. “You have no right to look at me like that. Not after it was your foreplay, apparently. How much did you watch? I mean, I don’t remember what I did exactly. It was a long time ago, and I was crazy drunk, but I think I went down on him. Did you see that part? Did you enjoy that?”

  She could feel traitorous heat rising to her face. “I’m really sorry, Liam.”

  He left the bedroom, shaking his head.

  She flopped back on the bed.

  She didn’t think she’d ever hated herself more than she did at this precise moment.

  She wished she could disappear into the bed, simply cease to exist.

  But time passed; she still existed. She could hear Liam in the kitchen, banging things around.

  She got out of the bed and pulled her clothes back on.

  She darted through the living room and opened the door. She was going to bolt.

  “Without saying goodbye? Really?”

  She turned.

  He was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, only wearing his pants, his thick forearms folded over his bare chest.

  “I should, um, go,” she mumbled.

  “I don’t know what it is about him.” Liam’s voice was low and rueful. He took a step towards her. “I don’t know how he convinces me to do half of the things he convinces me to do. I swear to you, that was the only time. I never did anything with him again.”

  “You don’t have to make excuses to me,” she said. She thought of all the meals she’d eaten for that man, the times she’d looked at his half-lidded eyes when she’d described how things had tasted. “I know what he’s like.” She put her hand to her chest. “I’m ashamed of myself. This is my fault.”

  “So, someone needs to be at blame if the two of us hook up?”

  “You said it would complicate things for you.” She looked back at the door. “I really want to go. I need to go.”

  “I’m not forcing you to stay, Haysle.”

  “All right, then.” She backed up into the door. She reached back for the handle.

  “I would like to talk about it, though.”

  “Liam—”

  “Maybe not now, if you’re not up for it, but at some point in the future? Can I call you?”

  “I don’t really see what we need to talk about,” she said. Except if I’m carrying your child. That could maybe be something that needs to be addressed eventually.

  Damn it.

  “Of course not,” he said.

  “I really am sorry, Liam,” she said. “I have to go.” And she fled from his apartment as if she was being chased by Phineas Slater himself.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LIAM was met at the door to Ricky Hernandez’s apartment by Hernandez himself, who was holding out a blueberry mojito while waggling his eyebrows.

  “A cocktail,” said Liam, accepting it. “I said I wanted to talk.”

  “We’ll talk with drinks,” said Hernandez, shrugging.

  “I don’t think we should do that, actually. Didn’t I make it clear that it was not a good talk?”

  “You’re overly dramatic, Liam,” said Hernandez, shrugging as he crossed the room to sit down on his couch. Hernandez’s apartment was immaculately decorated, as though Hernandez lived on an HGTV show or something.

  “I slept with Dawson.” He might as well just come out with it.

  Hernandez froze in place, hovering over the couch. He snatched up his own blueberry mojito, half-drunk. “Okay.” He crossed the room and took the mojito from Liam. Taking both drinks, he ducked into the kitchen.

  Liam could just barely see him at the sink as he dumped them both out.

  “I need a garbage disposal for all the mint and blueberries,” said Hernandez.

  “Yeah, you’re always talking about a garbage disposal.”

  Hernandez came back to the doorway. “You are such a slut, Liam.”

  “I told you this when we hooked up the first time,” said Liam. “Look, I’m really sorry, Ricky. I know we had, like, an exclusivity agreement, and—”

  “You introduced me as your boyfriend at that last thing we went to,” said Hernandez. “To your ex-wife.”

  “I was there and remember that,” said Liam.

  Hernandez sighed heavily. “It’s like you’re not even sorry.”

  “Didn’t I just get done saying I was really sorry?”

  “Yes, well, you seem very broken up over the whole thing.”

  “I’m sorry, because I know it was a shitty thing to do, and I know I probably hurt you—”

  “But you, on the other hand, are utterly unaffected.”

  “Well, I mean, I feel bad.” Liam was beginning to wish he had a blueberry mojito after all. He could stand a drink. He scuffed his foot against the floor.

  “Are you helping Dawson with the case again?”

  “No,” said Liam. “She just came over and sort of threw herself at me, and I… well, like, I didn’t think about you.”

  Hernandez’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Shit,” said Liam, cringing. “I did not mean to tell you that.”

  Hernandez shook his head slowly. “I need a drink.”

  “Me too,” said Liam.

  “You don’t get one,” said Hernandez, ducking back into the kitchen.

  “Yeah, that’s fair,” said Liam. “Look, it’s just… I think we both know this was never going to work, because we’re not… I mean, I’m old enough to be your father.”

  “Mmm, if you had me when you were fourteen,” came Hernandez’s voice.

  “It’s a huge age difference.”

  “I’m very mature for my age.” Hernandez reappeared in the doorway with a shot glass. He downed it. “You, on the other hand, don’t act thirty-nine years old. At all.”

  “I mean, I know that,” said Liam.

  “I figure maturity-wise, we’re kind of the same?”

  Liam rubbed his forehead.

  “I think we both know the reason we were never going to work out, Liam, and it’s not the age difference. It’s my penis.”

  Liam glared at him. “That’s not fair. You know, gay men are always trying to accuse bisexual men of not really being bisexual, but—”

  “It’s kind of too bad you’re not working on the case,” said Hernandez. “Because I was actually going to get in touch with Dawson about something I found on YouTube. But now it’s going to be hella awkward.”

  “Something about the case?” Liam found himself interested. “On YouTube? It’s not more fanfiction?”

  “No, it’s MadCad related, but it’s not a fic,” said Hernandez. “I can show you, if you want.” He got out his phone and began to scroll through it. Then, finding what he was looking for, he held out his phone.

  Liam crossed the room to take it from him. His fingers brushed Hernandez’s, and Hernandez recoiled.

  Liam
’s guilt was like acid splashing his face. He grimaced.

  He pulled away, taking the phone with him. He started the video.

  It started off with a cut from one of the Dusk films, Maddox and Cade squaring off, ready to fight each other.

  Then it cut to one shot of Maddox, looking longingly off into the distance.

  And then it cut to Cade, with a similar longing expression.

  The cut made it look as though they were looking at each other.

  The video went on, some sappy bit of music underscoring the whole thing. It was a bunch of shots of the Dusk movie and then some others of other media, cut so that it looked like the men were being intimate.

  It was only maybe a minute long.

  “I’ve seen these things before,” said Liam. “This isn’t even the best I’ve ever seen. There’s this fake trailer that cuts in images from that film that the actor who plays Maddox is in, where he’s gay—”

  “Look at the name of the person who uploaded the video.”

  Liam did. “LolaDust Emerson-Slater,” he breathed. His last name? “Well, she’s not being subtle.”

  “Nope,” said Hernandez. “Plus, here…” He came over and took the phone from Liam. He scrolled through the video and paused it on one screen and handed it back to Liam.

  Liam’s heart stopped. It was him and Finn, shirtless, gazing hungrily at each other, ready to kiss. This was from the video that Destiny had sent to Dawson.

  “Blink and you miss it, but I didn’t,” said Hernandez softly.

  Liam was going to vomit. He lurched past Hernandez and went through the living room. He staggered into the bathroom.

  “Liam?” called Hernandez.

  Liam bent over the toilet and retched.

  “Liam!”

  Nothing came up.

  Hernandez was at the door.

  He straightened, wiping his mouth. “There’s more to that video of me and Finn. She sent it to Dawson.”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Hernandez. “I think you need to just go home. I know you don’t want to be part of this, part of anything when it has to do with Slater.”

  “No, you’re right. It’s going to be awkward for you. I’ll take it to Dawson. I’ll explain to her about you and me.”