Slow Burn: A Bad Boy Romance (Assassins Book 1)

by V. J. Chambers

  French nodded. “Exactly.”

  Caldwell uncovered the receiver. “So go back down there, Thorn, and tell him not to kill him, just wipe his memory.”

  Thorn? He was talking to my dad? And it was about Griffin.

  “I don’t care that you want him dead. Do as I say,” said Caldwell. A pause. “What do you mean your daughter’s missing?” He sighed heavily and listened. “Okay, well, I’m going to have to come down there, aren’t I?”

  “I don’t think so,” muttered Griffin. He removed the grate and leaped out of the duck onto Caldwell’s back.

  Caldwell dropped the phone and went sprawling.

  Griffin’s hands encircled Caldwell’s neck, squeezing.

  The woman, French, clapped her hands together. “Oh, Griffin, it’s so good to see you again. I’ve missed you.” She reached into her purse.

  Caldwell’s fingernails scrabbled against the carpet.

  Griffin continued to squeeze. He ignored French.

  French pulled a syringe out of her purse.

  “No,” I yelled, jumping out of the duct and tackling her.

  She shrieked, but she didn’t lose her grip on the syringe. Instead she plunged it into my neck.

  The world went blurry, swirly, and then dark.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I awoke lying on cold stone. I opened my eyes to see that above me were the same fluorescent lights I’d seen elsewhere in Op Wraith. But now I was in a completely empty white room. Griffin was in the corner, his arms around his knees. That woman—Jolene French—was kneeling next to him, talking to him.

  At first, all I could hear was the cadence of her voice, smooth and soft, musical. I couldn’t make out what she was saying. But as I grew more awake, I could understand.

  “I must say it was exciting to see you kill Burt. There you were pressed against him, his face on the floor. That must have been exciting for you too.”

  What was she saying to him?

  “I knew it, Griffin. I knew you thought about Burt that way. What was it like, being behind him, your hands tight around his neck, squeezing him? Was it everything you hoped for?”

  Griffin shied away from her.

  She reached out and touched his face, running perfectly manicured red nails over his cheek. “Oh, Griffin. How many times did I tell you not to repress those feelings? How many times did I tell you that what happened to you in jail was a release for you?”

  He was shaking.

  “What did they make you say, again? Didn’t they make you tell them how much you loved cock? Did you want Burt’s cock?”

  He shut his eyes.

  “Why don’t you say it for me, Griffin? Tell me how much you like to suck big, hard—”

  “Stop it,” I said, pushing myself to my feet.

  She turned to face me. “Oh. Look at you, awake.”

  My legs were unsteady, possibly because of whatever she’d injected me with. I staggered across the room. “Get away from him.”

  She laughed. It sounded like sleigh bells at Christmas. “Oh. You’re really adorable, aren’t you? You have a crush on him, don’t you?”

  I stopped next to Griffin and knelt down next to him. He wouldn’t look at me. He was holding his knees and shuddering. I glared at French. “You bitch.”

  “Must be frustrating, being with a man who catches for the other team.” She smiled at him. “You do like catching best, don’t you, Griffin?”

  Griffin flinched as if he’d been slapped.

  I seized his hand. “Nothing about him is frustrating.” I turned to him. “Don’t listen to her. She’s just messing with your head. She doesn’t know anything about you. She only wants to control you.”

  French lifted her eyebrows a little bit. “How could it not be frustrating? He’s incapable of anything remotely sexual.”

  I shook my head. “No. He’s quite capable. Trust me.”

  She looked surprised. “Impressive.” She drew herself up to her full height. “I hadn’t thought anyone could penetrate the mess I’d made of his brain.”

  I stood up too. “You were wrong.”

  “Capable of everything?” she said.

  “Everything,” I said.

  “Is that true, Griffin?” she smiled down on him. “You manage to keep your little soldier standing tall with her mouth on you?”

  “Shut up,” I said.

  “That’s what I thought,” she said. She shrugged at me. “He’s still mine.”

  There was a creaking noise. I turned to see a large metal door on the far wall. It was slowly opening.

  “French,” yelled a voice from outside. I recognized it. “You let my daughter out of there!” It was my father.

  French laughed her pretty, tinkling laugh again. “Oh, Thorn. You’re so melodramatic. This is simply a secure location. I’m not going to gas them.” She strode across the room to the door. “At least I don’t think so.”

  My father struggled inside. He was sweating. “You let her go, Jolene. I won’t let you—”

  She put one finger on my father’s chest and pushed him back through the door. “Let’s not talk about this here, okay?”

  The door slammed shut after her.

  “Griffin?” I said.

  He didn’t speak. He was still shaking.

  I went to him. I wrapped my arms around him. He didn’t seem to notice I was there. “What did she mean about gassing us?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  I remembered that Griffin had told me about a gas room when we were at Blackwater Falls, when my biggest problem was trying to figure out why Griffin didn’t want to mess around with me. “Are we in that room you told me about?”

  “Doll,” he whispered.

  “Are we?”

  “Yes,” he said. “They’re going to kill us.”

  We sat there, huddled together against the wall, quiet and frightened. Neither of us spoke or moved for a long time.

  “Maybe they aren’t,” I said. “Wasn’t Caldwell saying something about wiping your memory?” I also remembered Griffin telling me about that back at Blackwater Falls—it was something my father had also worked on.

  “It would be the same thing,” he said. “If I lose a year of my memory, I lose all memory of you. It would be like we never met. And that would be like dying—to go back to being the man I was before I knew you.”

  I knew what he meant. Griffin and I had changed each other. I held him tight.

  “Probably, they put us in here to decide what to do with us,” said Griffin. “But either way, once that gas goes on, we’ll be dead to each other.”

  “We should escape,” I said. Then I peered around the room. “Or are they listening to us? Are there cameras?”

  “They can’t see or hear us,” he said. “They’re sick, but not so sick as to enjoy watching people die.”

  “Then, how do we get out of here?”

  “We don’t,” he said.

  I didn’t want us to die. Honestly, when I tried to think about it, it was too big, too much. I couldn’t even really conceive of the idea of just... ending?

  I took Griffin’s hand. “We’re not dying.”

  He touched my face. “Oh, doll.”

  “This isn’t the end.” I kissed him.

  He kissed me fiercely, his tongue claiming my mouth. Then he broke away. “It’s not working.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “I can’t get French’s voice out my head.”

  “Griffin, she was—”

  “She was right, you know. When you tried to go down on me, it didn’t work.”

  “Don’t listen to her.”

  He turned away.

  I thought about being dead again. It made me feel crazy, like there were little needles inside me pushing on the inside of my skin. I needed to get out of here. I needed to live. I was alive. Griffin and I weren’t dead. I wouldn’t let us...

  I moved his knees wider apart, settling in between them. I reached for his zipper.

/>   “What are you doing?” Griffin tried to push me away.

  I didn’t let him. I unzipped his pants. I unbuttoned them. “I’m going down on you. We didn’t get to do it. Not yet. And I don’t want to die until I...” I yanked his clothes out of the way. “Besides she was wrong. You don’t belong to her. You belong to me.”

  Griffin looked at me with terror in his eyes. “Leigh, that’s crazy.”

  He wasn’t hard. He was lying soft against his leg, but he wasn’t covering himself either.

  “You said they couldn’t see us or hear us,” I said.

  “Yeah, but doll...” He swallowed.

  I pulled my shirt over my head. I tugged off my bra. He liked to look at me. “If we’re crazy enough, then we’re alive, Griffin. Dead people don’t do things like this.”

  The sight of my bare flesh was arousing him. I could see him lengthening. I put my hand on him, wrapping my hand around him, stroking him.

  He stopped me. “No. I can’t.”

  “You have to,” I said. “Because if you don’t, she’ll always have this over you. Just let me try.” I reached for him.

  He clenched his teeth together.

  I backed off. “Not like that, baby. Relax.”

  “I can’t.” He glared at me. “You don’t know what it’s like. You touch me, and all I can think about—”

  I put my hand back, loosely holding him. “Shh. You aren’t there. You’re here with me. Don’t let them stop this. Don’t let French stop this.”

  He swallowed.

  I stroked him slowly. Gently, gazing into his eyes. He looked back at me, tense, half-soft in my grasp. I didn’t let go. I didn’t stop.

  His breath began to grow more and more shallow. I could see that he was relaxing at the same time as he was growing stiffer. Finally, he flung his head back, closing his eyes. “Shit.”

  He wasn’t losing his erection. He was growing more and more rigid under my fingers. I lowered my head to him, ran my tongue over the head of him.

  He made a gravely noise in the back of his throat.

  I slipped him between my lips, sheathing him with my mouth.

  He grasped my shoulders, his fingers digging tightly into my skin. I looked up at him, and his gray eyes met mine. I could see it all there, warring—desire and terror, fear and longing. But he was still immense and firm, filling up my mouth. He seemed to be getting even bigger. So I moved against his grip, dipping down to take him deeply, dragging back up. Tasting him thoroughly.

  And his hands loosened. Moved, searchingly, for my breasts.

  He gasped in surrender, in pleasure, and I took him in and out of me, pushing and pulling, over and over. And over.

  I drifted into the rhythm of it, of his groans and sighs, of the power I could feel mounting in him. My body echoed it, building as well. We were one, connected, united, and I wanted his climax to explode within me, taking me with him—

  He stopped me. “Wait.” He was out of breath.

  “I want you to come in my mouth,” I said.

  “No,” he said. “If we live, again and again, but if we’re going to die... I want to be inside you one last time.” He pulled me over him. He clawed at my clothing. I was naked over him. He ran his hands over me, over everywhere, before he pulled me close, arranging me where he wanted.

  I was wet, ready for him. And then he was pushing into me, forcing me open.

  I cried out, pressing back against him, trying to take all of him.

  He grabbed me by the hips, holding me in place.

  It was quick for both of us. He speared me somewhere, deep and dark and thrilling. I moaned. And then there were only a few more strokes before I was convulsing around him, going into spasms, rippling out as he burst into me.

  I collapsed against his chest, breathless.

  He exhaled, tension leaving his body.

  I closed my eyes.

  “Well,” he gasped. “I guess that was a good way to die.”

  * * *

  It must have been hours that passed after that. There wasn’t any way to be sure, but nothing happened for a really long time. We didn’t die. We kept waiting for gas to come furling out of the ceiling, but nothing happened.

  “So, this is what it’s going to be like,” I said. “I’m going to be so bored out of my skull that I’ll want to die just to break up the monotony.”

  “Don’t say stuff like that, doll,” he said. “We don’t know how much longer we have left.”

  “What do you think is happening out there? You think that French and my dad are arguing or something?”

  “Maybe,” he said. He paced the length of the room, rubbing the top of his head.

  I wished I knew more about this place. All I knew about it was what Griffin had told me, and he’d only given me surface details. I remembered the things he told me near the waterfall, about the memory wipes and the gas room.

  Wait. “Griffin, didn’t you say my dad told you something about this room? That he knew the password to get out of it?”

  Griffin stopped pacing. “He did tell me that.”

  We both turned to look at the door. There was a keypad next to it.

  “The password would open the door, right?”

  “Yeah,” he said, coming over to me. “Do you think you know it?”

  I really had no idea. “Well, I used to know the password for his bank account. You think it’s the same?”

  He shrugged. “Let’s try it.”

  I went over to the keypad. There was a screen over it. It read, Input password, followed by the enter key.

  I typed in the password I knew.

  Incorrect, flashed the screen. Nozzles engaged. You have two more tries to enter the correct password or gas will be dispensed.

  I stepped back. “Oops.”

  “Whoever programmed this thing is sick.”

  “Well,” I said. “If we don’t put in another password, everything will be fine, right?”

  The screen blinked. Enter password in thirty seconds or gas will be dispensed.

  “Crap,” I said. I looked at Griffin.

  “You don’t know any of his other passwords?

  “I...” I bit my lip. “No, I do know another one. He used this for all kinds of stuff. He tried to password-protect the internet with it.” I keyed it in.

  Incorrect, blinked the screen.

  “We’ll be okay, though,” I said. “We’ll wake up after we get gassed. Right?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll go dark, that’s for sure.”

  The screen started to count down from ten.

  “Let me try something,” said Griffin.

  Eight. Seven. Six.

  He stepped in front of the console and began to key in something.

  Five. Four. Three. Two.

  The doors opened.

  I gaped at him. “You guessed it. You guessed the password.”

  “It was your name,” said Griffin. “I guess your dad thought about you more than we knew.”

  * * *

  Griffin and I crept through the hallways of Op Wraith, ducking into empty rooms when we heard anyone coming.

  At the end of the hallway, we saw that French and my father were sitting inside one of the rooms. Along the wall were several rows of needles and syringes. One row was labeled, “stage one,” the others labeled, “stage two.”

  “I won’t let you hurt her,” said my father. “Honestly, now that Caldwell is out of the picture, I don’t see why we can’t give her the memory wipe and send her back to her life.”

  “That would never work,” said French. “Everyone would wonder where she’d been. She’d wonder where she’d been for a year.”

  “A full memory wipe then,” said my father. “True amnesia. It can be accomplished with the stage two injection.” He gestured to the needles on the wall.

  “You’d do that to your own daughter?” French sounded amused.

  “I want her alive,” said my father.

  “If alive
is all that matters, then why is it a problem for her to be one of our assassins?” asked French.

  Griffin touched my arm. “We’ve got to get in there. But we can’t underestimate French. She’s—”

  There was a crashing noise from inside the room.

  We turned back to look.

  Knox was leaping out of the duct work, gun in hand. “Hands on your head,” he snarled.

  French and my father both complied, their eyes wide.

  Griffin pulled me into the room.

  Knox tensed, training his gun on us as we entered.

  “It’s us,” said Griffin.

  “Great,” said Knox. “I’ve been having trouble killing French.”

  “We noticed,” said Griffin.

  French turned to Griffin, her voice urgent. “You’re nothing but a cocksucking faggot. Now get the gun from Knox.”

  Griffin sneered. “Yeah, that’s not going to work anymore.”

  She glared at me. “What did you do to him?”

  I smirked.

  French sucked in an audible breath and turned to Knox. “You. You didn’t lift a finger to save the woman you loved.”

  “Shut up,” said Knox. “I’ve got a gun to your head, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  French smiled. “You’re adorable, Knox. Very sweet in your confident act. You think you’ll be able to keep it up, though? You’re just a coward, really, aren’t you? You knew about the order to kill Beth, and you did nothing. And from what I understand, you didn’t manage to save her when you left on your last mission either. You aren’t very reliable, are you?”

  Knox clenched his teeth. “Listen up, you bitch.”

  “Don’t,” said Griffin. “It’s what she wants.”

  “Leigh,” said my father, “tell Knox that I’m not part of this.”

  Knox swung the gun around to face my father. “That’s the thing, Thorn, you are. You helped establish this place. You ran it. You didn’t do anything to make it better.”

  French moved quickly, sweeping Knox’s feet out from under him.

  He stumbled. The gun went off. Knox fell into the wall, scattering “stage two” needles everywhere.

  French wrenched the gun from his hands. “How convenient. A gun.”

  “Damn it,” said Knox, getting to his feet.

  French gestured with the gun. “All of you in that corner, please.”