I snort, waving a dismissive hand at his pictures. “You’re right. This isn’t the work of someone who leaves presents.”
Stepping towards me, his voice is laced with concern as he asks, “Do you have a stalker?”
“I suppose so…” I shrug, I’d been getting flowers for weeks now. The chocolates were just every now and again, and they were delicious, so I wasn’t concerned. It’s not like anything had been done to me, or I’d noticed anyone threatening. What was the harm in having an admirer?
Exhaling a plume of smoke, he leans back against the doorframe. “I never noticed anyone…”
“When you were stalking me?” I finish for him with a smile. “Is this why you wouldn’t let me get closer to you?”
“I have strange tastes...and you are in college, training to be a doctor. It’s why I neverfollowed you on campus—why I tried to stay away. I can’t bring you into the world I live in.”
His need to protect my innocence makes me chuckle. “You’re worried about corrupting me? That’s laughable. You film me, making money, having sex or getting myself off on camera. I already have two feet firmly planted in your world.”
He glares at me, as if he wants to protest or say something that will piss me off, but I just smile sweetly in response. “Go and shower, I’ll walk you home.”
I unhook my harness, before shimmying my skirt down and leaving it on the floor. “What? As in following me with your camera in the shadows, or like my knight in shining armour protecting me from my real stalker?”
I exaggerate the words ‘real stalker,’ and my stomach knots at the awkward look that flashes on his face. Teasing Carter was my new favourite game. It seemed that Mr. Photographer, too virtuous to touch his girls, was just a big, fat liar. He was filthy, and his hands were bloody, and that didn’t appal me the way it should. In fact, I had expected it.
“Which would you prefer?” His perfect mask had been shattered, and now he was nonchalant. I like it. It makes me want to dig my teeth into him.
“Hey, sadist...Want to play a little game?” I say as I toss my thong at him.
He pockets the scrap of fabric before breathing out another cloud of smoke. “Go on…”
Good boy. I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist. “If I spot you, you have to grant me a wish.”
I want to trace the arch of his raised brow with my tongue, wiping that cocky look from his face. He brushes the corner of his mouth with his thumb, cigarette knocking ash to the floor. “And if you don’t?”
I unhook the bra, and throw it aside, standing before him completely bare. Vulnerable. Exactly how he likes his women. “I’ll let you cut me.” I lock eyes with him, and there’s no mistaking the interest flashing in them, before I hammer the final nail in the coffin. “And you can film it.”
The smirk he gives me makes me curl my toes. “Don’t make deals with the devil.”
“Hardly a devil, just an artist with a kink. Get over yourself.” With a shrug, I step into the shower and turn on the water. “Don’t forget to keep an eye out for my real stalker.”
Things were just getting interesting, and I wasn’t about to let Carter pull away from this. Weird fetishes didn’t deter me, we all have skeletons in our closets. We all have secrets.
Chapter Nine
Carter
I grab my hoodie, my camera and my cigarettes, firing off a quick text to Ruby before leaving my apartment. I love games, but finding someone to play with wasn’t always easy. There had been willing women in the past, until they realised exactly what I wanted to do to them. Not everyone likes pain, or art. And that’s okay, but I’d known who and what I was for a very long time. Sadist. I’d heard it so many times in my life, and yet when it came from Ruby’s lips, it was like hearing it for the first time.
I’d give her until Friday, that was five days, to spot me trailing her, and if she couldn’t, then she was mine. No rules, no restrictions, just me, my cameras and whatever punishment I decide to dole out on her creamy flesh. Christ, I was hard again just thinking about what I’d do to her once Friday rolled around. This was why I never got involved with my cam girls, because once I started it was a downward spiral into my depravity. Another reason why I’d been strict in photographing Ruby, I never intruded on her studies and my work schedule kept me preoccupied most of the time. The occasions when I did follow her…well, they were moments of weakness. The exhibition DIX used to recruit me was much milder than I had intended, originally I wanted to showcase some of the pieces Ruby saw in my apartment, not just come faces but the fear that follows the lust. I wanted it to be a room washed with blood and flesh, skin and bone amongst the visceral pleasure and raw pain. However, I’m not a fool, I know that my passions aren’t exactly public viewing material, but Hugh introduced me to people, and through him, I was able to host very special, elite showcases a few times a year for people who shared my tastes. He never asked for details, only a share of whatever profit I made.
Ruby wasn’t supposed to become one of my muses, but now she was a fly caught in my web, and I was about to devour her. There was no other way to get her out of my system, I had to bleed her out. And I’d make her into a masterpiece as I did it.
I’d learned her route home the first week she’d filmed with me, even though I’d forced myself not to follow her home every time. I’d tried to resist her. I mostly failed, but
