I was no fool. When I saw him killing Arseny I think my fate was already sealed. Although the need ran hot between us both, he was a killer and now I was likely his prey. He’d talked to me and told me things I shouldn’t know. If I was going to live. But in spite of that, or maybe because of it, I felt an excitement in being alive I’d never experienced before. Dane was like no man I’d ever known and whatever the outcome, I knew I needed this now. My body told me I needed as much of this dangerous man as I could have. Whether I lived or whether I died.
He stepped so close to me I could feel the heat coming off his hard body. I was intensely aware of every inch of my own bared flesh. Holding my eyes deep within his own, he moved one large hand low, slowly toward my body. My breath caught in my chest, anticipating where his touch would fall.
The rough back of his knuckles grazed my throbbing clit like a whisper. It hit me like a million volts and left me gasping. He never took his eyes off mine. He absorbed my reaction to him, my need for more. Then he took a long step back from me, taking the heat of his body away with him. His black eyes roamed the length of me.
I raised my arms deliberately then, watching his eyes swallow me as my tits lifted higher with my movement, thrusting out for him. He reached out a long arm and slipped the shirt from me in one swift movement, dropping it to the ground at our feet. I was naked and in his hands.
5
Dane
Abby dropped slowly to her knees, all luscious naked curves, her huge blue eyes never leaving mine. If she’d looked away, I might have spread her on the ground and pounded my full length into her the way I needed to, claiming what I wanted from her. Taking.
But the look in her eyes… There was fear and arousal that I loved seeing in a woman’s eyes, but with Abby I saw trust too. I had power over her life and her death and we both knew it, but when she obeyed me and kneeled before me she wasn’t defeated. She had looked me straight in the eyes. She was rising to my challenge. And I like nothing better than a challenge…
“You’ll do this Abby, because you know it’s what you need. I’m going to do this because you need to feel it. You need to feel this. You need to feel me, Abby.”
“Hands on the ground and push your hips up high girl. I want that fucking beautiful ass on display,” I said, sliding behind her. I ran my hands from her ankles to her hips, lifting and pulling her so that I could hold her hips up, parting her. She relaxed in my hands, letting me move her body as I chose. I could see her full, wet folds. “I’m going to make everything you’ve ever known dissolve,” I said. I leaned in deep to speak the words against her tender flesh so she could feel my breath, the vibration of my words inside her.
“I need, oh god…” she breathed trembling to her core, her golden hair spilling on the ground. “I need to…”
“You need me to fill you. You’re dripping wet and you want this…” I stroked her clit lightly with the tip of my thumb and her knees went soft. “You need me to touch you here and you need me to touch you inside, deep inside.” I lifted her ass higher with one big hand and pressed the thick, long fingers of the other slowly into her sweet wet pussy. She was totally vulnerable to me like this and I loved the power I had. On her hands and feet with her hot tight sex thrust up into the brisk air, I had her and she was mine to do with as I pleased. It was about fucking time.
“Dane, Dane, oh yes...yes…I need you, I need to…” Her breath was coming faster now and I could feel her slick and lengthening inside to take me.
Her pussy clenched hard on my fingers and I stroked her relentlessly inside and out, slowly at first and gaining speed only as her body begged me to. I pushed my thumb to her swollen clit and pulled long strokes up inside her hot wetness. She rocked and pushed hard into my hand and gasping from the sensation I was giving her. She was so fucking tight. So fucking good. “Yes, my girl, that’s it. Keep your ass up high and work it against my fingers. Take what you need, take it, take what you want. You want to come baby, you need to come in my hands.”
“Oh god Dane, I feel like…I’m going to…oh oh Dane…Dane…” This beautiful girl was desperate now and pounding herself against me, matching the rhythm of my thick fingers inside her.
It was crazy to be doing this to her, crazier still not to be taking what I needed too. My cock was hard as fuck and I want to unzip and slam into her until we both came, slick and hot. And here I was working her, wanting nothing more than to give her a climax so intense there was nothing else in the world for her. I wanted everything she’d been through to be erased and I wanted there to be only me left inside. I lifted her higher, my thumb tight against her slippery clit and my fingers where I wanted my pounding cock to be, so that her throbbing pussy was the apex of her whole world. I slid my thumb aside, making her jolt hard, and dipped my head to rest my cheek against her inner thigh and lap her swollen pearl with my tongue.
“That’s it my girl,” I said against her slick opening, “You will come on me now. Show me how you feel when you come on me.” I said, pushing my fingers in hard against her clenching walls.
“Dane, oh Dane…ohhhhhhh…yesss…” She struggled with the words as her body writhed, coming hard in my hands, her pussy clenching and releasing on my fingers as I held her hips from both inside and out. I worked her on and on, her climax hitting in powerful waves, slowing only as her body began to relax and sink down. I cradled her as she softly slid against my forearms, down to the leafy ground, her eyes closing and her breath beginning to slow.
“What did you… I never… I never felt anything like that before,” she said, looking up at me with those huge eyes of hers, the lids starting to drop. I’d exhausted her, just as I meant to. “What are you doing to me? What will you do to me?” she asked softly, drifting away. I was grateful as hell not to have to give her an answer.
“You’re beautiful, girl,” I whispered into the delicate curl of her ear. “Beautiful when you come, wanting me to fill you. Dream of that Abby. Dream of my cock filling you, making you feel so much more even than this…”
Still so exhausted from what Arseny had put her through and what I had just done, she was asleep in my arms before I finished the words. I looked down at her feeling both lust and regret, a combination I wasn’t used to, and wondered why the fuck I’d chosen to leave myself hard and throbbing in my jeans when I could have so easily taken her.
Because I have a fucking job to do, I told myself, that doesn’t include screwing the victims of the kind of business I’m in. I kill who I’m paid to kill. I do it very, very well and I enjoy it when it’s a deserving asshole. I am not a good man, but I am a just one. And even I have some scruples when it comes to something like this.
I pulled out the same rope I’d removed from her wrists only a day before and deftly bound her, being careful of the wounds Arseny had caused. I covered her without awakening her and left her lying near the warmth of the campfire. It was easy, she was sleeping so deeply.
It was not fucking easy for me. I hated this kind of shit.
I picked up the pack of gear I’d brought into these woods, took one last look at a warm, sleeping Abby, and headed north. Several miles back to the Jeep.
6
Abby
I woke to the sickening awareness of being naked and bound once again, with Dane nowhere in sight. He’d saved and protected me. He’d taken my body, creating a need in me I’d never known before, but he’d held himself back too, leaving me still wanting the feel of his cock buried inside me. The memory pulsed seductively, throbbing between my legs and deep inside where his fingers had worked me. I had put myself in those big hard hands willingly. A deep ache rolled through me.
He had left me here to die.
I leaned with effort onto my side panting, gutted by the realization. I’d felt safe with Dane, though I couldn’t explain why. I knew what he was capable of and I knew all along he really couldn’t let me live. I was too dangerous for him. I was his only witness. In spite of that, I’d chosen to put myself in his h
ands and even now couldn’t regret it. I had wanted him inside me so badly I was still aching with desire. I knew it was crazy and probably a sick reaction to everything I’d been through, but that need still felt nearly overwhelming. He could have just fucked me and killed me outright. Why had he taken care of me and why had he given me that incredible orgasm without taking anything for himself, only to leave me? He confused me as profoundly as he aroused me.
I had no answers, but I was still alive and I was stronger for the food and water he’d given me. I’d survived so far and I wasn’t about to give up now without a fight. Maybe I’d wanted him, but I wanted my life too.
I worked my sore wrists, gingerly at first. Dane had tied me securely, but he hadn’t put the ropes in the same place they’d been before. They were higher on my forearms, on skin that wasn’t already raw. As I worked, the rope slid down creating just enough slack to drag one hand and then the other through the loops. It was slow painful work and I was bleeding when I was done, but I was free. In the wilderness, not knowing which direction might lead to help.
The clothes he’d stripped from me the night before were lying on the ground near the barely smoldering fire. I shook them out and put them on, wrapping the blanket we’d slept in around my shoulders. I found the lumpy knapsack under our tree and rummaged in the bottom.
I let out a breath of pure relief as I pulled out a pair of hiking boots. They were way too big for me and would be clumsy. Still, I could hardly expect to go far in bare feet. My spirits lifted higher as I brought out two thick pairs of socks from a pocket in the sack. I put them both on and tied the boots tight.
Turning from the dying embers of the fire, I walked the short distance to the lake. I drank and washed my face, feeling more alone and afraid than I’d ever felt in my life. I shook myself to clear my head. I needed all the strength I had now to have a chance to make it out of here. He’d left me, but he left me alive and I’d take it. I stood and looked around me. It was time to choose my direction and start moving.
I knew Dane had walked out and was certainly headed toward the Jeep he’d mentioned. That probably meant a road somewhere too and I was going to find it. There would be other cars surely, and someone would stop to help…
I looked carefully at the ground, searching for clues. Crushed leaves, heel prints in the mud, anything that might show me which way Dane had headed. I was a country girl, but I was no tracker. I looked until my empty stomach was rumbling mercilessly. There were no clues that I could find. I simply had to choose a direction and pray it was the right one.
The sun was rapidly sinking. I hated the idea of walking out as night was beginning to fall but I knew I couldn’t wait until morning. To have any chance at all, I needed to leave now. I looked toward the west again and the setting sun. Turning to the right and taking a step I chose my path, praying north really was true.
Dane’s boots, many sizes too large for me, made walking slow and difficult. That and the rapidly failing daylight. The determination I’d started out with was giving way to a growing seed of panic low in my belly. For all I knew I was wandering toward nothing. It would be totally dark soon. What chance could I have then? I could break a leg or be attacked by a bear. My parents, friends at school and at the diner where I worked would know I was missing by now, but would have no idea where to look for me...
Hunger, fear and darkness are a shitty combination, I thought absurdly, feeling a rising wave of hysteria as I pushed on through dark woods. I heard crunching noises around me. Were they from my own footsteps, or something else?
Both time and strength were running out for me. I kicked off the cumbersome boots and started to run then, a frantic release of the energy left inside me, the rough ground tearing through my socks. I ran to get away from the fear and the panic. I ran from the darkness all around me now. I ran from Arseny, the memory of Dane killing and holding my naked body. I ran for the dwindling hope that I would find the road, a car, a hiker. I ran from being lost and alone. I ran from the pain of being left behind.
I ran until something dark and terrifying caught me knocking the air from my lungs, tangling my limbs and lifting me off my feet.
7
Dane
It fucking hurt like hell to walk out on Abby like that. I knew what she’d be thinking of me when she woke up. That I left her to die. But the call to Lazar simply couldn’t wait any longer and I sure as shit couldn’t bring her along with me. Things would be said that she didn’t fucking need to hear.
Lazar had been like a father to me when my own had died and my mother had brought me to live with him in America. I trusted him and I knew he trusted me too, like a son. Lazar needed to know Arseny was done and I also had to tell him about Abby. I knew what he’d fucking say about the girl and I wasn’t looking forward to hearing it.
I walked out fast toward the Jeep, making good time. I tossed the gear pack into the back and took off, heading toward Long Grove. The road flew under the tires. Good fucking thing no one else was on the road. It was pitch black and I was driving far too fast.
I only needed to get close enough for the cell to work…I pulled over after a few hours and punched in Lazar’s numbers. I didn’t fucking like how long this was taking. I wanted it over with.
“What the fuck, Dane?” American profanity always sounded unnatural with Lazar’s heavy accent. “Where the fuck did you disappear to? I don’t appreciate waiting for the call Dane. I had to hear it from Cutter.”
He was pissed. I knew he would be, but shit, this was the first and only time. “I know boss, I know. It won’t happen again,” I said. “It’s done. I just needed to get the hell out of there. I’ve been overdue for this you know. I figured I’d take a couple of days to come down. I’m in my usual place now, but I can be back in the city by Friday if you need me.”
“Sure, sure boy, I know I can trust you. You tell me it’s done and I know it’s done, right? Take your fucking time and get your shit together but get your ass back here no later than Saturday. Macek is giving us shit over Arseny. That fat prick is going to give me another god damned ulcer.”
“Don’t drink so much Lazar, you’ll feel better. I’ll be back Saturday and we’ll deal with Macek. He knew what had to happen if he didn’t control that sick fuck.”
“He knows, he knows, but he doesn’t like. Shit like this makes him look bad. None of us like that,” Lazar said quietly. “So, it was a clean kill? No issues…no problems?”
Lazar knew I was the best there was. He’d never asked me that question before and I didn’t like hearing it now.
“Nothing to report boss. It’s over. The message is sent, loud and fucking clear. Macek has to fucking deal with his own rogues or we will. Stealing and that prostitution shit isn’t going to fucking happen if he wants to work alongside us.”
What the fuck was I thinking? That was the moment to tell him and now it was gone. What the hell was I doing?
“Glad to hear, Dane,” he said, pausing. “I know I can always trust you. See you Saturday. Be ready for some shit.”
The line went dead.
I stared at the phone in my hand, wondering what the fuck I’d just done. I hadn’t really lied to Lazar, but I hadn’t told him the truth either and that wasn’t me. I’d always been as transparent with him as I’d been with my own grandfather and my mother. He was all the family I had now even without the blood tie, and I hadn’t come clean with him. My stomach felt like a fucking lead ball. Why had he asked about problems? Had Cutter seen something and told him before I could…?
Whether Cutter had opened his fucking mouth or I’d told Lazar everything on my own, the result would have been the same and I knew it. Lazar would have ordered me to kill her. And he’d be wondering about my judgement right about now, that I hadn’t taken care of it sooner.
Lazar didn’t go in for offing women any more than I did, but we both knew it was an occasional hazard of the trade. He’d also overlooked an occasional man wetting his dick before he had to k
ill a girl. Hell, so had I. Shit happens in this life. None of us likes every goddamn aspect of the job… But I could still get myself out of this fucking mess if I took care of her, with or without the order. All that mattered was that there was no longer a witness who knew my face and my name. I could admit the whole fucking deal to Lazar after the fact if I had to, and I’d have still done right by him. As long as she was dead.
Abby’s face flashed before me, with the memory of her soft curves in my hands and the desire she radiated. I was instantly hard at the thought of her and of burying myself deep inside her, feeling her tight slippery walls stretching and swallowing me as I plunged my shaft inside her. The intensity of my own need shook me. I’d never before held myself back from taking a woman, and I’d never needed to take one more than I needed Abby. I shifted my aching cock in my jeans.
If you screw her before you kill her, my loudmouth fucking conscience piped up, you deserve no better than Arseny…
I threw the fucking phone so hard I wondered that my shoulder wasn’t out of its socket.
Grinding the Jeep’s engine into a roar and hauling the wheel around, I headed back in the direction I’d come. I’d tied Abby and left her vulnerable in the wilderness. No matter the outcome of all this shit I knew she deserved so much better than that. I knew when I’d left I was coming back for her, but deep down I’d known why too. It was the only possible outcome and it hit me like a punch in the gut. Still, the image of something happening to her while I was gone… If it had to happen, it sure the fuck wasn’t going to go down like that.
It was still dark as shit, but I could find my way back to that spot in the woods on pure instinct. It wasn’t the first time. I drove the long miles like a fucking bat tearing out of hell, flying down the last few miles of rough dirt road, slamming the truck into park and heading back to Abby at a hard run. My heart was pounding and for the first time in my life I realized I was feeling fear and not adrenaline. Fear that she was already dead? Or fear that she was not, and her death must be at my hands?
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