Killing Bliss

by EC Sheedy

  Cade's muscles bunched under his skin, making it feel like a too-tight rubber glove. He let his head fall back to the pillow. Jesus, this woman could do him by looking at him.

  She stroked him again, squeezed, as if she were testing his limits, measuring him, fascinated with a part of his anatomy he took for granted.

  "I like this part of you," she murmured, then lifted her head to look into his eyes. Eyes he had trouble keeping open. "When you think about it, it's a pretty amazing... thing." She wrapped her hand around him, used her thumb to press and play at his tip.

  He groaned. "I'd rather not think right now, if it's okay with you." He took her face in his hands. "Because right now the only amazing thing in this bed is you."

  Addy wanted him so badly, she couldn't think. She wanted him over her, under her, all around her, wanted to have what she couldn't have the last time—Cade inside her, deep inside her.

  After pacing away the last two hours, worrying about what might happen tomorrow—the nightmare she'd created with her insane plan—her thoughts turned to Cade, and when they did, all her smarts and common sense couldn't stop her from going to him.

  What began as a walk to clear her head and unlock Cabin Twelve for Gus, like he'd asked her to, had within seconds taken her rain-damp sneakers and firmly planted them outside Cade's door.

  And here, now, in bed with him, she had no regrets.

  Because if things didn't work out tomorrow, she might never see him again, and the pain of it staggered her.

  She'd burned for him all day. Every time she caught a glimpse of him, she thought about him, the feel of his skin and silky chest hair under the tips of her fingers, his expert hands, his mouth on her body where a mouth had never been before.

  He really was... amazing right down to the slick velvet tip of him.

  Cade stopped her hand, and his breath riffled through her hair. "Why in hell didn't you say you wanted me when you walked in here?"

  Good question, but she was pleased when he let go of her hand, let her go back to exploring his silky length. "I was too embarrassed, I guess."

  He pulled her to him, and even though she couldn't see his expression clearly in the dark, she knew it was serious and unsmiling. "Don't be embarrassed with me. Ever. Okay?"

  "Okay." Easy promise to make in a pitch-black room when you're naked. "But I can't—"

  The words flew into the darkness of the room when his tongue slowly circled a nipple, lapped at it.

  "There are no buts and no can'ts."

  Her breath stopped when he drew the nipple he'd been toying with deep into his mouth. He groaned at her breast, suckled with strong, deep pulls, before lifting his head to give the same service to the other.

  "I love your breasts," he muttered against their flesh. "I can't get enough of them... of you."

  He raised himself and she felt the cool evening air tease her moistened nipples. He braced himself above her, his face close enough for her to feel the rush of his breathing. "What's happening between us, Addy, I want you to know it's... valuable, and when this thing is over we need to talk, figure out where to go from here."

  "Cade, don't." She scrunched her eyelids against an unexpected wash of tears, because if there was one thing she knew for sure, there was nowhere to go from here. This was all there was, sex and stupid hope.

  He brushed some hair off her forehead, kissed her eyelids. "But not now. We won't talk now. Tonight, we make love. I want you to come for me, over and over." He took her mouth in a full, deep kiss that left her gasping, aching for more, then ran his hand down to the damp curls between her legs. "Do you want that?"

  She nodded and mumbled a "Yes."

  "You're already wet for me," he whispered against her hair. He ran a finger along her slick seam, opened her, and probed deeply, one finger, two, then pulled out to play with her hardened nub, circling it with a deft finger until it stood away from her milky flesh, distinct and exposed. He touched it with a sure and gentle finger, then left it to cool, to wait...

  A new rush of moisture pooled and heated at her opening.

  She gasped, rolled her head back, and grasped the sheet on either side of her with trembling hands, clutching the bunched linen as if it were a life raft in a storm.

  Cade played with her body, toyed with it, his hard length only a promise at the juncture of her thighs.

  He kissed her throat, down, over her breasts and stomach, and thrust his fingers into her heat, each motion different than the last, slow now, then faster, then gone.

  Replaced by a mouth that took her hard, fast, and relentlessly.

  She screamed, convulsed, and came in a blinding, seething rush, a wild thing, her mouth dry with breath and fire, her heart a deafening sound in her chest.

  "Oh, my God..." She clutched at him, pulled him to her, wanting him in, wanting him deep.

  There was movement above her, then he entered her in a long, potent plunge. In deep, he raised himself again, and she could see the strain, the tautness in his neck at the effort to still himself. "You feel so damn good. Like tight satin." He flexed, went deeper, pulled back, then drove into her, to her limits, his hard, demanding length pinning her to the bed.

  Man into woman... totally, intensely, gloriously.

  She shuddered, desperate to pull him in deeper, deeper still. Her inner walls closed around him, and every nerve and sinew in her body melded to his, urged him on. A climax of her own hovered, first a flutter, then a demand, and she sank her nails into the taut muscles of his shoulders, hung on so... she could let go.

  She bucked, panted to get her breath, tore at his back, his shoulders, his buttocks. Crazed. She was crazed.

  Cade groaned, lifted her hips, dug his fingers into the plump flesh of her bottom to hold her high, and released into her in one last powerful plunge, his body a thrust of pure steel under her grasping hands, the contractions of her inner walls.

  Exhausted, they clung to each other, sated, their bodies slick from heat and sex.

  When she found her voice, Addy said, "You bought condoms."

  "I'm a quick study," he said. Shifting his weight to her side, he stroked his knuckles along her cheek. She sensed his smile when he leaned to brush his lips across her mouth. "I wanted to be ready in case I was caught in my bed with my pants off."

  She kissed his tempting lips. "Is that the male ego I hear?"

  "Loud and clear." He lifted his head. "And speaking of condoms." He got up, went to the bathroom, and was back in double time.

  "Now, where were we?"

  "I'm not sure. The last thing I remember was me saying I didn't come to you for sex." She tapped his chin. "After that, I think you hit me on the head with a club and took advantage of me."

  He laughed. "I think we started"—he pulled her to his side, put her head on his shoulder—"about here."

  She rested there, calm and quiet, breathed in the scent of the man in the bed with her, and let the darkness and silence of the cabin close around her like a cozy blanket. "Cade?" she finally said, sleep curling the edges of her mind.

  "Uh-huh?"

  "Thank you."

  "For what?"

  Sleep closed in, shutting her eyes and hazing her brain, and she yawned into a soft spot near his shoulder. "For the orgasms and for... loving me a little bit."

  She drifted away, dimly aware Cade's hand had stopped its idle stroking of her hair, that his chest, where she'd rested her open palm, no longer heaved and ebbed with the rhythm of his breathing.

  Sleep, deeper now, became a wall against his whispered words, "More than a little, Addy. Much, much more."

  * * *

  Shortly after midnight, Grover parked his Honda across the street from the Everwood Hotel. Rivers of rain, shimmering under the street lamps, coursed across his windshield.

  His head roared with pain, a blur of shooting images. Jumbled, disconnected thoughts elbowed each other in his aching head, each one ready to explode, force him to action. The painkillers he'd taken hadn't help
ed, had only colored the violence in his mind and given him shaking hands.

  He had to calm down, had to control the fear and wildness in him—the immensity of his power.

  His next thought was about food. He was hungry. A hungry lion, he told himself, ready to feed after a good kill. The headache jumped and banged around inside his skull like an electrical storm crossed with a jungle drum. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. He wanted to shout his victory into the wet night sky, but the emotions fired through him too fast, chaotic and impotent, never still long enough to grasp.

  His hands were sticky, and he lifted them, turned his palms up toward the streetlight to better see the blood. He couldn't get enough of it.

  Sandra's blood.

  In the darkened car, it deepened to black, warming him and giving him strength to stay the path he'd set for himself. In death lay glory, the ultimate power. He'd forgotten... No matter.

  He had begun...

  He would not turn back. Ever again. One murder. Two murders. A dozen murders... It didn't matter.

  Grover pressed his bloodied palms hard to his temples and ordered the headache away; it obeyed, ebbing to a dull, rhythmic throb at the base of his skull.

  His body was his now, from his soft belly to the aching need in his genitals. Never again would he allow it to be violated, degraded, abused, kicked aside ass if it were a bad piece of meat left in the noonday sun. As if he weren't in it. Sandra said he was nothing, no one. Not like Belle. Belle said she loved him every time, after every session.

  A rush of tears blinded him, then he laughed, leaving the dampness to cool on his cheeks.

  He thought of Sandra, lying on their bed, a marble figure, supine on his altar of suffering. Less than a minute. After all the pain, the endless years, it had taken less than a minute to rid himself of her forever.

  She'd be angry if she knew how easy it was.

  At the thought of Sandra's rage, a bolt of pure terror coursed through him... a remembered reflex.

  Sandra was dead, bloodied, twisted, and dead. And dead was forever.

  He calmed himself, his brief wave of fear beaten back by a wild, heart-stopping thrill at what he'd done. He closed his eyes, savored it, and replayed the finale. So simple really. His hands, strong and capable, wrapped around her spindly throat.

  Snap.

  Maybe he shouldn't have cut her first, but it had seemed right, slashing with the blade where she'd so often lashed him with her vicious tongue or the rawhide crop she kept in her bottom drawer. He might have used his new gun if he'd remembered to bring it in the house. No, the knife was a good choice for Sandra. Bullets were too impersonal.

  He again rotated his bloodstained hands. In the light of the windshield, they looked mottled and greasy like the hands of the mechanic who changed the oil in his car. Dirty.

  He reached into the glove compartment, shoved the gun aside, and took out the antiseptic wipes Sandra insisted he use regularly. He wiped his hands and face carefully before picking up his cell and placing his call.

  It was time to set things in motion. Finish his old life and begin his new one with Linda Curl. She'd be so proud of him when she knew what he'd done for her, for them.

  He gave the room number to the front desk operator and waited for Bliss to pick up, his hand stroking the bloodied knife on the seat next to him.

  "Yeah?" The voice was gruff, edged with sleep.

  "Frank?" he said, his voice and mind now filled with a lucid calm. "Grover here, I have some news about Vanelleto." Thanks to his dear friend Susan Moore. She'd promised to keep him informed and she had. He'd always liked Susan. It really was too bad about her grandson. Such a pretty little boy with that mop of curly hair, that smile—

  "What news?"

  The abrupt question pulled him back from his reverie. "He's meeting Addilene in the morning. He intends to be there before you and Beauty arrive." He ran the index finger of his right hand along the knife blade, so soothing.

  "Son of a bitch means to take me out." He followed the statement with a string of curses. "And where the hell are they meeting?"

  Grover smiled. "A place called Star Lake Resort, about a two, maybe three-hour drive northeast of Seattle. No doubt the front desk can give you specific directions. Probably best you move quickly."

  "Yeah." He hung up.

  Grover clicked off, peered through the rain at the brightly lit hotel entry, then rested his head on the car's headrest. His plan was flawless.

  Bliss would take care of Vanelleto, then Grover would take care of... everyone else.

  It was past time to be free of them all.

  * * *

  Beauty woke with her hand clutching an empty wine bottle, trying to make sense of the thumping on her door. When she sat up, the bottle rolled to the floor.

  Thump. Thump.

  She tried to clear her head, make sense of it, stared dumbly at the door to her suite.

  "Beauty," he said, his voice a harsh, commanding whisper against the door. "Get the hell up. We're out of here."

  Bliss.

  She took her head in her hands, made a vise to enclose the ache.

  "I've been phoning you for half an hour," he went on, his voice irritated and low. "You die in there?"

  "Go away." She got out of bed, then sat on its edge, her heart beating wildly, driven by the fear blowing in with Bliss's voice.

  "I am going away, baby, to a place called Star Lake. Ever heard of it?"

  Every nerve in her stilled, then spiked as she digested his words.

  He couldn't know, he couldn't.

  She stumbled toward the door, pressed her ear against it, then said, "How do you know about Star Lake?"

  "I know everything I need to know, whore." His voice dropped, grew even colder. "Like how you've been running me around, setting me up for Vanelleto."

  "I wasn't—"

  "Shut the fuck up," he hissed. "And get out here. We're hitting the road. No way is Vanelleto getting there before me."

  She didn't move, didn't speak, concentrated on clearing her head, getting a grip. Only one thought was clear, she could not let Bliss reach Star Lake before Gus.

  "Open the door."

  She'd die in the damn room before she opened a bedroom door to Bliss in the middle of the night. Being a hooker didn't make her stupid. "No. I don't think so." Her mind whirled, settled on her one chance. "Besides, if you know where you're going, you sure as hell don't need me." She'd let Bliss go—which she had no doubt he'd do if it meant getting the better of Gus—and when the coast was clear, she'd head for Star Lake on her own. She'd use the old road, beat him there, no problem.

  "Now that's where you're wrong, Beauty, I do need you. You're going to be my star, play a big part in some entertainment I've got planned for your boyfriend—a little live sex show where I fuck you stupid before I cut his damn balls off."

  Beauty's bones turned to rubber, and her mouth went so dry she couldn't speak.

  "And think about this, bitch. If you don't get your butt out here now, there's a better than even chance I'll call the boys in blue, tell them there's a street slut working out of the hotel, maybe give them a heads up about a certain unsolved murder sittin' on their books." He paused. "Then again, maybe I'd call a buddy of mine in San Fran, have him look up your friend Lisa. You remember Lisa, don't you?" He rapped twice on the door. Rhythmically. Softly. "Your choice," he whispered.

  Her heart dropped like a stone. "You're a sick pig, Bliss."

  "Ain't I just. Now move that fancy ass of yours."

  "The lobby"—she rubbed her forehead, managed to keep her voice level—"fifteen minutes."

  "Make it ten. And leave that toy gun of yours under the mattress. I picked up one of my own, and—trust me—it's a whole lot bigger than yours."

  When she heard him cross the hall, close his door, she went immediately to the phone beside her bed and dialed.

  It rang, and rang... and rang.

  "Be there, be there." she chanted. She had t
o warn Addy, tell her to get to Gus, tell him about Bliss.

  Beauty looked up at the ceiling. "Answer the phone, Addy. Please. Please." She waited, rocking herself on the edge of the bed, her head pounding, her flesh snow-cold. "Answer the goddamn phone. It's the middle of the night. Where the hell are you?"

  She slammed the receiver down, worked to ease some air into her constricted lungs. Her voice was weak when she murmured, this time in a plaintive whisper, "Dear God, where are you, Wart? I need you. I need Gus."

  She didn't want to think about a three-hour drive with Bliss in the middle of the night, especially now. Now that he knew where Gus was, he didn't need her. Could do what he liked with her...

  After two more fruitless tries to reach Addy, she went to the bathroom, splashed water on her ashen face and pulled herself together as best she could. She'd have to handle this on her own.

  Staring at her image in the mirror, she said, "You're back to Plan A, Beauty girl, which means somewhere along the road to Star Lake, you have to kill Bliss."

  Chapter 22

  Grover didn't have to wait long. Less than twenty minutes after his call, Bliss and the girl came out of the hotel. The parking valet, dozing in a chair inside the double glass doors of the hotel, snapped to attention, and Dianna—he really must remember to call her Beauty—fumbled in her purse, then gave him what he assumed was her parking pass.

  The boy was back in double time, held the driver's side door open, and held out the keys to Beauty, but it was Bliss who took them from his hand.

  When Beauty tried to snatch back the keys, she stumbled and almost fell. Bliss opened the passenger door and forced her in, smiling and shaking his head at the valet as he did so.

  They drove off as the boy watched, shaking his head.

  Good. They were on their way.

  Grover settled in behind them, his innocuous gray Honda a trail of smoke behind the brilliant red Lexus.

  * * *

  Cade woke to rain and darkness outside his window, Addy's head on his biceps, and his arm dead asleep. She groaned when he shifted his position, then her eyes flew open as if he'd prodded her with a hot poker.

  "What time is it?" she demanded, looking as if she still didn't have her bearings but intended to get them—fast. She answered her own question. "It's almost two." She leaped from the bed, wondrously naked, and scrounged the floor for her clothes.