Abby slammed around her apartment, banging cupboard doors closed and generally making as much noise as she could in order to rid herself of the frustration she felt. How dare he kiss her like that and then just walk away! How dare he show her just a glimpse of what it could be like between them and then cut it off without so much as a by-your-leave. The man was infuriating and now she was left feeling hot and wanting and in desperate need of some relief. Chocolate. She needed chocolate, except she still hadn’t been shopping yet and her apartment was devoid of anything that might smother the persistent need that Mason had awakened.

She heard his shower start and knew exactly what he would be doing in there and she cried out in frustration. She couldn’t stay here and listen to that. She grabbed her bag from where she had dumped it when she walked in and slammed her front door on her way out. She stomped down the stairs and waited impatiently for the lift. By the time she’d gotten outside the building, her mood had further soured and she set off at a quick clip in order to put the uncomfortable feelings swirling around her to good use.

Her foul mood stayed with her as she pushed the trolley around the aisles throwing in all kinds of bags of junk food, hardly taking any notice of what they were. All she could think of was that kiss, the way he had restrained her and how her body had responded. How could he have walked away from that? She knew he had to have felt the chemistry between them too, his hard cock pressed into her soft belly had been a dead giveaway, not to mention the shower.

The question was, why? Why had he kissed her? Why had he walked away? Damn the man! It was the first time in such a long time that she had felt that warm sensual feeling snake through her body and really, if she was honest, no one had ever made her feel it that intensely before. His easy mastery of her, the way he held her, pinned, against the wall so she couldn’t move, she had craved a man who could do that. This was not some rape fantasy that she had, she didn’t want to feel fear, she didn’t want a man to intimidate her, she just wanted someone who would take control, and that someone was Mason.

Not once had she felt ill-at-ease with him. His grip on her hands had been strong, but hadn’t hurt or marked her. The pressure of his body as he pinned her to the wall hadn’t been threatening, Abby had welcomed it and her body had responded by almost melting into a puddle of goo on the floor. And the way he kissed her. Even now, just thinking about it made her panties wet with anticipation. Lips and tongue and teeth…

Damn it! She needed to stop thinking about it, especially while she was in public. Having an orgasm while grocery shopping was poor form and besides, she was angry at him. He’d gotten her all hot and bothered and then he’d walked away, selfish man. Sure, he could rub one out in the shower, but she would need to wait until she was in bed to take care of her problem and that was still hours away yet. Damned infuriating man!

It wasn’t until Abby was standing at the checkout that she realised she had a problem. She had an overflowing trolley full of stuff and no way to get it home. This was one of the reasons she always shopped online, another was that she wasn’t tempted to binge shop as she had just done. She looked at the items in her trolley, deciding whether to put half of it back. Fuck it, she thought, and continued to unload her stash onto the conveyer belt.

“I’m going to need to get most of this home delivered,” she said to the girl behind the register.

“No problem,” the girl replied as she ran each item over the scanner.

Abby sorted them into what bags she would carry home and what could wait for delivery and then paid her bill, which happened to be twice what it normally was.

“Fucking Mason,” she mumbled under her breath as she gathered the bags she would take with her, “This is all his goddamned fault.”

Her anger and frustration had still not subsided and she felt in the mood to do some damage to something so she stopped by the butcher on her way home.

“Abby,” Jim, the owner of the shop called to her as she stepped inside.

“Hey Jim,” she said, “Any chance you have a fresh carcass for me?”

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I got a delivery just this morning. I kept one aside for you, since it’s been a few days since your last one.”

“Thanks Jim, you’re the best.” The anger she felt slowly sloughed off as she contemplated what the night ahead would hold. “Any chance of having it delivered today?”

“I can drop it ‘round when I close up,” he said with a wink, “Only if you promise to put me in your next book.”

She grinned at him, “And what do you want to be this time?” she asked. So far Jim had made an appearance in several of her books, usually as a shady character who got killed off early. He loved it.

“I’m thinking I want to be on the other side for a change, see how the other half live.”

“Oh yes? A cop then?”

He nodded as he thought it over, “But not just any cop, I want to be important. The chief maybe?”

Abby laughed, “I’ll see what I can do.”

She settled up her bill and waved goodbye as she left the shop. Jim was one of the rare few who knew what she really did. He had demanded she tell him before he would let her buy one of his pig carcasses. Most people would be horrified to know that she experimented with different ways to kill a person, but Jim thought it was wonderful and he had demanded she put him in her books. He had even set aside a Sunday afternoon and shown her some butchering tips, like where to cut to successfully remove a limb without having to saw through bone. It had been fascinating and Abby had learned so much from him.

Feeling lighter now that she knew she had a project for the night, Abby walked home with her bags of loot, determined to forget the incident with Mason once and for all.

Mason stood from where he had been slumped on his couch and stretched, feeling his spine straighten with a few cracks. He took off his headphones and headed to the kitchen to refill the coffee pot. After his shower he had thrown himself into work, determined to get the taste and feel and scent of Sweet Abby out of his mind. The only thing more frustrating than knowing how good it had felt to be pressed up against her and knowing that he couldn’t have her was this stupid game and the glitch that he still couldn’t resolve. And it was the only thing that could stop him from marching next door and demanding that they finish what they’d started in the hall.

But he couldn’t do that, not to Abby. She wouldn’t understand, not really. Some women thought they wanted to be dominated but then when it came down to it, they really didn’t understand what it meant. He’d had enough bad experiences to put him off ever trying it with a normal woman again. He’d lost control with Abby this afternoon, that was the only explanation for his lapse in judgement. Somehow, throughout the afternoon they’d spent together, she’d slipped under his skin and he’d had to taste her. The fact that she had submitted so willingly to him had only stoked the fire. It would have been so much better for both of them if she’d resisted him. He wasn’t into forcing a woman to submit and at the first hint of resistance he would have let her go, but she hadn’t resisted him in the slightest and instead of killing his want for her, she had only inflamed it.

A loud thump and a crash from next door pulled him out of his spiralling thoughts. He heard a muttered curse and smiled. He had never realised just how thin these walls were before Abby moved in, but then he’d had no reason to eavesdrop on his neighbours before either. He stepped closer to the common wall, trying to hear more of whatever was going on. He told himself it was just because he wanted to make sure she was okay. It had been a loud thump after all, maybe she had fallen over and hurt herself. Would she yell out to him if she was injured and couldn’t get up?

When he hadn’t heard any more noises for a few moments, he started to fret. Should he go over there and check that she was okay? That was a neighbourly thing to do, wasn’t it, even if it was two o’clock in the morning. And why was she awake at two o’clock in the morning anyway? She said she wrote a blog, but would that keep her up every night? He made a mental note to check out the blog, although he couldn’t remember if she’d actually given him the name of it. He knew her name, of course, but then blogs could be written with all sorts of pseudonyms. He’d just have to ask her.

It was then that he heard her front door opening and he raced to his own door and swung it open just as she was walking past dragging, of all things, one of those plastic covers that they use for suits, only this one didn’t contain a suit, not unless the suit was on a body.

“Abby.”

She jumped at the sound of his voice and dropped her head. He watched as she took a few breaths before turning to look at him.

“Mason,” she said through gritted teeth, “I hope I didn’t disturb your work.”

“I was just taking a break,” Mason replied with a shake of his head, “And I heard something crash next door. I was just coming to see if you were okay.”

“I’m fine.”

Mason quirked an eyebrow. He’d heard that ‘I’m fine’ before, usually from a female who was not fine at all. Was she upset about the kiss? He swore silently, of course she was. He was such an idiot.

“Look, about this afternoon—”

She held up a hand to stop him and he noticed that it was once again stained red. “Don’t say it,” she said.

“But I just wanted to—”

“No,” she said, cutting him off again which was beginning to piss him off. “I don’t want to hear your excuses. Now, if you’re done, I really need to dispose of this.”

“Can I help?”

“No. I think you’ve done quite enough.”

Abby turned her back on him and proceeded to drag the bag behind her, down the stairs. With each stair, the bag made a wet, slapping sound that had Mason once again wondering what the hell it was that Abby did in the dead of night in her apartment.

Curious by nature, he stepped back into his apartment and closed the door, but stood there, waiting. She might not be willing to tell him what she had going on, but there was no reason why he couldn’t find out for himself. He waited for her to return and when he heard her door shut and lock, he quietly opened his and headed downstairs. He assumed whatever it was that she had been dragging, she was taking to the big dumpster that was in the alley behind the building. He took the elevator down to the garage and slipped through the door that opened out onto the alley. Looking around curiously, he walked over to the dumpster and peered inside. The bag she’d been carrying was there. He took another look around before reaching in to grab it. He had to lean a fair way in and would stink of dumpster when he was done, but he managed to snag the edge of the bag with his fingertips and he pulled. The damned thing was bloody heavy. He pulled it out over the edge of the dumpster and dumped it on the ground in front of him. With trepidation, he unzipped it and then stood back and stared. Pig trotters. But as he peered closer, he realised that it wasn’t just pig trotters, but was in fact what looked like nearly a whole pig sliced up. Now he was more confused than ever.

Abby showered, washing away the blood and the pervasive smell of pig flesh all the while cursing Mason and his rotten timing. Why did he have to catch her every single time? The guy must have hearing like a bat. She’d finally been able to get rid of all her earlier frustration as she worked at dismembering the pig - in her best time yet - and then she’d had to run into him in the hallway and all that frustration had risen anew. And then he’d had the gall to try and explain away the kiss, well she’d be damned if she’d let him get away with that.

She sighed as the water sluiced over her. Was he, even now, listening to her shower? She hoped he was. She hoped he was imagining her wet, naked and soaped up and that it got him all hot and bothered. Abby wasn’t usually a tease, but he deserved it after what he’d done to her this afternoon. She hoped he was sporting a very painful set of blue balls.

She finished her shower and dried off before slipping, naked, through the apartment and into her bed. This is what she liked about living alone, being able to be naked whenever she wanted. Abby wouldn’t say that she was a nudist, not by any stretch of the imagination, but she did like to sleep naked and didn’t mind the odd time of walking around without a stitch on. It was a little quirk of hers, a little rebellion. Her aunt had been such a prude that she had been scolded many times for being found naked in bed. Now that she was an adult and her aunt was gone, Abby took full advantage of it.

Abby punched her pillow, trying to get it to just the right shape so she could sleep, but sleep was elusive. Seeing Mason in the hallway, his hair tousled and his long, strong fingers splayed across his hip bones as he stood with his hands on his hips watching her had stirred up all the sexual desire she had been trying to rid herself of. It was worse than the first time she’d fantasised about him, worse because now she knew what he tasted like and what it felt like to be held down by him. She could only imagine before, but now she knew and that made it all the worse.

She wished like hell that she could go back to that moment in the hallway and somehow convince him to finish what he’d started. She desperately wanted to feel the slide of his skin against hers. She wanted him to touch her all over with his long fingers and his lips and his tongue. She wanted him to tweak her nipples, nip them and suck them. She wanted his mouth on her neck and that sensitive spot at the side of her breast, under her arm. She wanted his mouth on her sex, lapping at her as she came screaming his name. And she wanted her mouth on him.

Abby groaned and rolled over. God, she wanted him. What would he look like naked? His body had felt hard under his clothes and his cock had been long and thick. She wanted to taste the skin of his chest, run her hands over his shoulders and back and bite down on the muscle that joined neck and shoulder. The desire to take his cock in her mouth was new to her, she’d never been one for blow jobs, but for Mason she would do it gladly, eagerly. And then of course she wanted to know how it would feel to have him pound into her, filling her over and over again until they were both spent and exhausted.

Beyond frustrated, Abby got out of bed and pulled on her short silky robe. If she couldn’t sleep, then she was going to work. She stomped into her office and slumped down into her chair, bringing her computer to life. The publishers wanted something new? Well, she had just the thing, a Mason shaped serial killer.

Abby worked solidly, first writing out a character profile and then plotting the story. It was dark and there were a lot of murders, but she was in a murderous frame of mind, an odd side effect of being sexually frustrated. She built the plot and the other characters, remembering to put Jim in as a senior officer, and she fleshed it out, channeling her restless energy into the story. By the time she was too exhausted to continue, the sky outside was pinking with the early rays of sunrise and she had finished her pre-production. After she got some sleep, she would be able to start writing with little or no interruptions. She felt good about the story and it seemed to bubble underneath her skin, eager to pour forth through her fingers and onto the screen. But first sleep.

She padded back to her room, switching off lights as she went. She slipped out of her robe and crawled under the sheets with a sigh. Exhaustion won out and she slipped into sleep with no resistance. She didn’t even dream, her brain was too depleted from the flow of words that had come out of her tonight. She relaxed into the mattress and let herself slip away into the abyss.