A Study in Seduction

by Eva Chase

  Did he think I might have prompted the ambush somehow? Or just that I’d suspected it might happen?

  Before I had to answer, Garrett’s phone chimed. He woke up the screen and peered at it. A frustrated sound escaped him.

  “What?” Sherlock said, his attention diverted.

  “I set up alerts for any news about Richter,” he said. “The gallery’s just sent around a press release—he’s pulling the exhibit early. Which means it’s all getting packed up Saturday evening after closing.”

  The bottom of my stomach dropped out. It was Thursday. I didn’t have to ask to know it was already too late for us to put any plan into action tonight.

  Unless the men in front of me were ready and committed to go tomorrow, all this work had been for nothing. My last chance would slip right through my fingers.

  I sank onto the sofa and tipped my face into my hands, not needing much imagination to appear distraught. “He must suspect something’s in the works—how can we be ready in time? He’s beaten us. Outsmarted us.”

  It was a shove more than a nudge, but it hit the mark. Sherlock’s mouth twisted. “He hasn’t. John and I hashed out the final necessary element this afternoon. We have all the pieces we need.”

  I glanced at him through my fingers. “Are you sure? If something goes wrong—”

  “It won’t,” Sherlock said firmly. “We’re bringing down that bastard once and for all.” His gaze twitched toward John, and I realized my shove hadn’t been the only thing that had pushed him. For all his cool composure, he was furious about the attack on his friend.

  Thank you, Richter, for playing right into my hands, even if you had to fuck things up along the way.

  Sherlock’s coolness toward me hadn’t slipped my mind. I had the feeling it would be wise for me to avoid giving him the chance to ask many questions before our pending heist.

  “If we’re going tomorrow, I’m going to practice the swaps some more,” I said, getting up. “The last thing I want is to be the weak link. You know how to get a hold of me if you need anything else—don’t hesitate.”

  Sherlock looked as though he might have protested, but John launched into an eager question about some plan involving a sign, and I ducked out unhindered. On my way down the hall to my room, I sent Bash a quick text.

  We’re a go for tomorrow night, but the situation is already dicey. Keep costume and stay ready.

  Adrenaline quivered through my nerves as I slid the keycard into my door. In a little more than twenty four hours, I’d have achieved either my greatest victory or my most epic failure—and the balance between the two had never felt more precarious.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jemma

  Light was searing into my eyes from everywhere around me, and an icy chill jabbed into my skin. I spun around, my arms flailing, my throat closing against a swell of panic, my pulse thumping so hard the beat shuddered through my whole body. My fingers brushed a delicate shoulder.

  “Jemma!” Olivia’s thin voice wavered through the glaring light. I caught a glimpse of her face, the skin even paler than usual beneath her freckles. Her strawberry blonde hair whirled around her. Then the stark shine yanked her away from me and swallowed her up.

  “No!” I threw myself after her, lashing out at the glow so forcefully the joints in my arms cracked.

  My body jerked forward, my eyes popped open, and I found myself sitting up in the hotel bed in my pitch-black room, sweat-damp and shaking. My pulse raced on through my veins.

  A dream. A horrible fucking dream.

  I dragged in a rough breath, and a stench that was all too real flooded my lungs. Cloying and metallic with a sour undertone, it coated my mouth with the impression that I’d bitten my tongue raw.

  My chest constricted. I groped for the bedside lamp.

  The glazed bulb came on with a click, and all I could see was red.

  Blood drenched the bed from head to foot, punctuated by chunks of gristle and severed bits of human flesh: a finger, an ear, a hunk of hair with scalp still attached. It drenched me. That wasn’t sweat but blood seeping all down the front of my nightshirt, drying cool on my skin from hands to armpits as if I’d dunked them in a barrel of gore.

  The surge of scarlet had washed over the entire room. Blood spattered the floor, the furniture, the mirror, the walls. An arm lay beside the desk, wrist wrapped in a heavy watch I recognized. Over there, a booted foot. And there on the dresser, hair slicked ruddy to the sides of her face and lips parted over crimson-stained teeth, Olivia’s head stared at me with gouged out eyes.

  A scream ripped out of my throat. My arm swung instinctively and smacked into the lamp. The impact sent pain spiking up from my wrist as the lamp flew off the bedside table. It smashed onto the floor, and the light snapped out.

  Everything was dark again. The bloody stench congealed deeper into my lungs.

  What had I done? What could I do? Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck.

  My stomach knotted tight. My mind balked at even thinking about the scene that had been laid out in front of me. I sat there frozen, willing myself to move but not quite managing it.

  Footsteps hustled down the hall outside. A sharp knock rang through the door, and a woman’s voice came with it. “Hello? Is everything all right in there?”

  I choked on a horrified laugh that almost turned into vomit. My head was still numb, but my body finally got the message to get moving. I peeled off the wet covers and crawled out of the bed. Walked across the soaked carpet, tuning out the faint squelching sounds beneath my feet, to the bathroom door where the carnage stopped. Wrenched on the bathrobe to cover myself.

  Was there any blood on my face? I couldn’t tell. I didn’t dare touch it to try to find out, my hands were so smeared. I tucked them inside my sleeves as I eased open the door just a few inches.

  The bright hall light left me blinking. A woman in the hotel uniform of white dress shirt and forest-green vest and slacks was standing just outside, her mouth set in a tight frown.

  One clear thought pierced through the mess of my mind: I had to get her out of here. I couldn’t let her see what I’d done.

  “One of the other guests reported hearing some sounds of distress from your room,” the woman said. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” I said quickly, ducking my head. “I get nightmares every now and then—it’s a PTSD thing—I’m so sorry I disturbed anyone. It shouldn’t happen again. They don’t—they don’t come that often.”

  My halting embarrassment and the mention of a mental condition were enough to diffuse the woman’s inquiry. She backed up a step. “My apologies. You understand, we have to check when there’s a report…”

  “Of course,” I said. “You’re just doing your job. I really thought I was past this.” I let out a weak chuckle.

  She had no idea what to say to that at all. “I hope the rest of your night is more restful,” she managed, and hightailed it out of there.

  I pushed the door shut and flipped the door guard over to prevent any sudden intrusions. Then I turned around, gripping the cuffs of the bathrobe. The numbers on the digital clock gleamed through the darkness—it was just after midnight.

  My night wasn’t going to be restful at all. I had to deal with this, clean it up, something, somehow.

  Bracing myself, I flicked the switch for the main light. It washed over the same gruesome scene I’d been met with before. My bare feet had left bloody footprints across the carpet from the bathroom to the door; my fingers had streaked the doorknob. So much fucking blood. And the bits and pieces—the head on the dresser—

  My stomach clenched. I wasn’t going to let myself look at that again, not yet.

  Where did I even begin?

  I wavered at the edge of the chaos, my mind freezing up again. My eyelids were heavy with exhaustion. This didn’t even make sense, did it? How could I have— These people were—

  Across the room, the window pane I’d left a crack open rasped up. My heart stuttered. I started
forward and then stalled as Bash’s muscular form eased past the blind.

  I’d told him to “keep costume.” He had on his wig with the dreadlocks and those shockingly blue contacts that drew a person’s gaze straight to his eyes. He stepped onto the bloody carpet without any hint of disgust or horror, his gaze fixed on me.

  “Are you okay, Mori?” he asked, worry coloring his tone as he took in my expression. “I saw a light flash and go out—it looked like some kind of struggle.”

  My voice came out hoarse. “I… It’s everywhere. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how to get rid of it.”

  Bash’s forehead furrowed. He glanced around me, and I winced inwardly in anticipation of his reaction. But he only looked confused.

  “What do you have to get rid of?”

  Understanding sank through the muddle of shock and panic in my head.

  He couldn’t see it. It wasn’t really there. None of it—the blood, the body parts. It was a hallucination to outdo any hallucination I’d experienced before.

  Of course it was. That arm and that watch belonged to a Chicago mobster whose death I’d ordered months ago. That booted foot belonged to a deceased loan shark who’d tried to screw me over. And Olivia…

  Bog had collected mementos from my memories and strewn the wreckage around me. The shrouded one had probably provoked that horrible dream too, the asshole.

  I inhaled slowly and deeply, but the butcher-shop stench stayed just as thick. The red splattered all around me didn’t fade.

  Bog had put a hell of a lot of power into this illusion. I’d have taken a little satisfaction knowing the shrouded one must have exhausted itself so much I’d have a temporary reprieve from its presence if I hadn’t wanted so much to erase this evidence of its presence from my senses. I rubbed my eyes, but that didn’t help either.

  “Mori?” Bash said again. What the hell would he be making of his boss apparently losing her mind?

  “It’s okay,” I said, as convincingly as I could manage. Olivia’s gouged face stared at me from the corner of my vision. I took a step forward to put it out of my line of sight, but I could still feel it, even though it wasn’t even there. “There’s no real trouble. I just have to sort this out.”

  “Sort what out?”

  How could I explain it to him when I could hardly explain it to myself? I drew my spine straighter, but I couldn’t quite stop a tremor from running through my limbs.

  This wasn’t how I wanted him seeing me. He couldn’t do anything here anyway.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. You should go.”

  Bash’s mouth twisted. With a jerk and a couple quick flicks of his hands, he’d tossed his wig on the table and popped out the contacts so he looked only like himself. He crossed the room and grasped my shoulders, his natural light green eyes fixed on mine.

  “I’m not leaving you when something’s obviously wrong. It’s my job to protect you, not the other way around.”

  “Bash…”

  I meant to protest, but as I stared back at him, the heat of his hands soaking through the cotton fabric of the bathrobe, the imaginary stink retreated. The scarlet splashes around us hazed.

  He was real. He was pushing the horror back. My hands rose of their own accord to clasp his arms, to increase that contact.

  His grip on my shoulders tightened, his gaze searching my face. “What do you need? Whatever it is, I’ll get it. I’ll tear apart the world if I have to. Just say the word.”

  I believed him. A devotion I’d suspected but never let myself assume thrummed through his voice. It woke up an ache in my chest, an echo of all the moments when I’d wanted but not let myself have, not let myself see, not let myself feel.

  If I had my way, we’d get to tear down the worst horrors in this world together, Bash and me—if my fucked up past didn’t tear him to pieces first. He didn’t even understand what he was up against.

  I closed my eyes, but the image of Olivia’s mutilated head swam up, merging with her frightened face from my dream. I swallowed hard.

  “It’s my fault,” I said. “It was all my fault.”

  Bash’s hands shifted from my shoulders to the sides of my face. The firm but gentle pressure of his fingers drove more of the carnage away, replacing the stench with the smell of gun oil and the tang of his natural musk. When I opened my eyes, all I could see was him.

  “I don’t know what you’re caught up in, Jemma, but I know whatever it is, you’re fighting it as hard as you can,” he said. “Because that’s what you’ve always done for as long as I’ve known you.”

  I couldn’t remember if I’d ever heard my first name in that low smooth voice. It turned the ache inside me into an eager pang that spread low in my belly.

  “You know me,” I said.

  His lips formed a tight but definite smile. “I do.”

  “And you’re still here even though you know what I am. A liar. A villain. A murderer.”

  “Who do you think you’re talking to?” Bash said. “I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

  He sounded so certain, so full of faith in me. The fervent sensation inside me swelled through my chest. In that moment, it felt more powerful than anything I’d ever experienced, stronger than the guilt and the fear that never quite stopped nipping at my heels, stronger than anything the shrouded folk had ever thrown at me.

  I wanted to grab hold of the sensation with both hands and hang on tight. I wanted to wrap it around Bash too to shield us both. But I didn’t know how. I didn’t know what to do with myself or this rush of emotion.

  My fingers curled into the front of his shirt. I brought him to me the only way that seemed right, with my mouth pressing hard against his.

  Bash’s breath caught, and then he kissed me back with so much intensity my head spun. I tugged him even closer, melding my body to his, and kissed him just as fiercely, as if I could conduct the rush of power into him just by touching him.

  There were too many layers of clothing between us. I dislodged the buttons down the front of his shirt and let go of him just long enough to yank the belt of my bathrobe loose. Both shirt and robe fell to the floor without us needing to break the kiss. I trailed my fingers down Bash’s sculpted chest, following every curve of muscle, every dip and ridge of a combat scar.

  “Mori.” Bash’s mouth slid from my lips to brand the corner of my jaw, the side of my neck. He held himself back for a second with an effort that tensed the muscles beneath my hands. “You were upset.”

  “That’s gone,” I said, willing the words to be true. “It’s all right. I needed you.”

  He brought his mouth back to mine, tender and insistent all at once. I jerked open the fly of his jeans. He snatched out his wallet before kicking them off and dropping it onto the bed. Which would be an excellent place for us to find ourselves too.

  I pushed him around and onto his back on the mattress. As he eased himself farther up, I climbed over him and straddled his hips while I reclaimed his lips.

  Bash propped himself up on one elbow to meet my kiss even more avidly. His free hand teased up my thigh and under my sleep shirt. His thumb traced the hem of my panties, and I couldn’t stop myself from grinding into the erection that was stretching his boxer-briefs.

  He growled, his teeth nicking my lower lip with a perfect jolt of painful pleasure. Then he was rolling us over to pin me beneath him. His mouth traveled over my throat.

  “I don’t want to rush this,” he muttered against my skin, “but all I can think about is getting inside you.”

  A breathless laugh escaped me. “So why aren’t you there?”

  He gave another growl and wrenched at my panties. I yanked his boxer-briefs down too. He paused to grab a packet from his wallet, stroking my clit at the same time so I wasn’t left unattended. I squirmed against his touch, wanting more, wanting him everywhere.

  He eased up over me again, slicking the condom over his jutting cock. I took advantage of his mome
ntary distraction to flip us with a strategic heave, landing back on top of him. His sound of protest was lost in a groan as I sank onto his erection.

  His thick length filled me, stretched me, sparking pleasure all through my core. I took him in completely and lifted up with a flex of my hips, leaning forward in search of the best angle. He rocked up to meet me, and bliss quivered through me. Mmm, right there would do fine.

  No amount of training would have put me on par with Bash’s corded soldier’s body. He could have taken back control if he’d wanted to, but he let me set the rhythm, caressing my breasts and my thighs, his mouth curving into that quiet little smile when I gasped.

  I dug my fingers into the bedspread beside him and tugged his head up with my other hand. As I kissed him, pleasure hummed from my core all the way to the top of my head. It raced farther with each pump of my hips until it shot through me in a crackling wave of ecstasy.

  I bowed over Bash as my orgasm crashed through me, and he looped his arm around my waist. With one careful but powerful motion, his cock still hard inside me, he rolled me beneath him again.

  Raising my hips up to meet him, he thrust into me so hard the burn sent my release soaring even higher. My head tipped back against the sheets. A cry of pleasure broke from my lips. Bash’s chest hitched, and his rhythm broke apart with the groan of his own peak.

  In the hazy afterglow, Bash tucked me against him, my back to his front, his breath on my shoulder and his hand on my belly. I tucked my arm over his instinctively. The stress of the horrors before we’d come together and the intensity of our collision had left me drained.

  A vague sense of uneasiness crept up over me, but before it could sink in its claws, exhaustion dragged me down into sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Bash

  I woke to a softer light than I’d been used to the last several nights, the patter of bare feet on carpet, and the swish of Jemma’s hair. She’d pulled the red waves back into a ponytail for her training. Right now she was repeating a kick-cross-hook-roundhouse combo that I could easily imagine toppling her imaginary opponent. Her breath sounded steady enough, but from the gleam of sweat on the back of her neck, she’d been at it for a while.