Unholy Night by Candice Gilmer Read Free Book Online Page A

long snout on his face, his whole body darkening, and her hips felt the piercing of sharp nails.
    She blinked at him, then looked again. Neil looked like Neil.
    As he finished his orgasm, he dropped forward on top of her, covered in a sheen of sweat, and he nuzzled her neck and shoulders, panting.
    “Wow,” he whispered.
    Marissa nodded. “Yeah.”

Chapter 6
    Marissa lay next to Neil a little while later, after they both had hopped in the shower and cleaned up; of course, that led to more sex, which made her thank God she lived in a house and not an apartment where some neighbor could have heard her screams.
    Never had anyone taken her to such heights during sex. Neil truly amazed her. And for the first time in a long time, she curled up to him in the bed, glad to have the physical contact. She’d never been a cuddler, and in the last three years she’d really never wanted to touch anyone more than she had to.
    Neil, though, seemed to change that idea. He made her want to curl up to him, to let him hold her, to keep her safe and secure, something she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
    She glanced at the ceiling, and her mind wandered; for a second, she remembered exactly what night it was, and her vow, and she felt herself growing nauseated.
    Neil, who she’d thought was asleep, mumbled at her. “What is it?”
    She faked a smile, though her back was to him. “Nothing,”
    “You have that smell again,” he whispered.
    “What smell?” Marissa asked, sniffing her arm. She didn’t smell anything weird.
    “That mourning smell,” he mumbled, pulling her harder up against him and kissing her neck. “What do you mourn?”
    “There’s a smell to mourning?”
    “Answer my question,” Neil said, nuzzling her shoulder, “and I’ll answer yours.”
    She let a smile flutter across her mouth, his teasing soothing her, if only briefly. The darkness that welled in her chest pounded, and the urge to run started to overpower her, but as if Neil could sense it, he held her tighter.
    “It’s okay,” he said.
    Hot tears burned her cheeks. “I killed my parents.”
    She half expected Neil to pull away, to ask what kind of psycho she must be, killing her parents and all, but he didn’t. His fingers grazed her shoulders, waiting for her to go on.
    In her mind, she wondered if she should. The truth stained her mind; she didn’t want to think about it, she didn’t want to feel it, only to be lost in it. Speaking of it made it so much more real, so much more clinical, and she wasn’t ready for that.
    Yet here, in Neil’s arms, she felt like he’d protect her from anything.
    After all, he’d protected her from Kirk.
    Still, she didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to relive those moments in her mind. She rolled over, facing Neil, placing a kiss on his lips. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
    Neil arched his eyebrow at her, stroking a finger down her cheek. “It torments you,” he said. “Release it. Only releasing it can you find healing.”
    She closed her eyes. “It’s not your burden to bear. You didn’t kill them.” She could hear the squealing of tires, the crunch of metal against concrete in her mind, the sounds, though only what her mind created, held a resonance that made her shudder.
    “And I doubt you did, either,” Neil said, stroking her face, wiping away the rogue tear on her cheek.
    “How do you know?”
    “Because you’d be in an orange jumpsuit behind bars if you’d killed them. And I doubt orange is a good color for you.”
    Her heart shuddered, the pounding so strong, she swore it was an external sound. “I didn’t pull a trigger,” she whispered, her eyes shut. “But I might as well have.”
    “I doubt that.”
    She could see them clearly in her mind, right there, painted in her brain, the image of the last time she’d seen her parents. On Halloween they’d dressed as the odd couple—Dad, a devil, and Mom an angel; Mom’s halo glittering, her face covered in