by Edie Harris
“Keep going,” she panted, moving with him now, setting a pace and rhythm with her lower body that told him a race to the end was not only expected, but encouraged. “I...I was right. I knew...that you came...in the shower.”
“I’m going to come now,” he growled through gritted teeth, hips flying as he pounded into her without finesse. “Make yourself come with me.”
Immediately, her hand slipped between her legs, and he reached around to place his fingers over hers, wanting to know what she liked. Needing to know what she needed. Gasping as she thrummed her clit, he felt her tense, then shake, the vise around his thrusting cock suddenly so tight it was almost unbearable. “Toby!” she cried out, muffling her high-pitched moans and whimpers against the pillow, pulling at the cotton with her teeth. Every inch of her body rippled beneath him, her spine liquid with abject pleasure.
He lost it.
Looping his arm around her hips, he gave one final thrust and surrendered to his own orgasm, seizing his muscles and turning his bones to steel and then ash as each jetting pulse wrung greater ecstasy from him. His head fell back with a helpless groan, chanting her name as his eyes closed from the near-pain of his release.
Awareness slowly snuck in, making him realize he still knelt behind her, their bodies intimately locked, his hands running over her sweat-slicked curves in petting strokes until she relaxed with a series of contented little sighs, lashes casting shadows against her cheekbones as he sensed her drift off. With each touch, he soothed. He thanked. He praised.
He claimed.
Mine, said the animal inside. Mine.
Chapter Thirteen
If you had asked her one week ago to guess where she’d wake up the day after Pippa’s wedding, sprawled atop a naked Toby would not have made the list.
Chandler wasn’t the least bit sorry.
Her head rested on the center of his chest, her skin hot where it touched his—which was everywhere, because naked—she listened to the steady thump of his heartbeat beneath her ear.
You stop my heart, Chandler.
Ah, fuck. Those dratted feelings again.
Tugging the quilt higher around her ears, she deliberately kept her eyes closed, not ready to break the sweet spell of morning-after that held them in this could-burst-at-any-moment bubble. They’d burned through four condoms yesterday afternoon and evening, leaving her body aching and sore in the best possible ways.
Sex had never been so...fulfilling. Or filling. She felt her lips curve in a secret smile as she shifted her hips against his. Muttering unintelligibly in his sleep, he flexed and pressed the length of his erection into the softness of her inner thigh. Tobias Faraday filled, all right. He filled just fine.
More meaningless words followed from him, and she frowned, burrowing closer. He’d spoken from his dreams, too, in the dark of night, but then Chandler had understood everything.
I’m sorry, Beth. I’m sorry.
Beth Faraday. The nemesis Chandler 100 percent did not need in her life. She’d only met the tall, stunning brunette once before the shit with Nash went down, years ago on a rescue mission to Colombia. They had barely spoken at the time, but Chandler remembered meeting the assessing gaze of the young assassin—with eyes the same mutable gray shade as Tobias’s, she now realized—and experiencing a strange rush of recognition.
Like recognizing like. Within Chandler had lived the capacity, perhaps even the talent, for death. That talent had already been honed in Beth Faraday; the girl had been working in the family business as a wetwork specialist since age sixteen. When Chandler had been sixteen, she’d still fought to forget what it sounded like when a sharp blade sliced a path through the carotid.
Wet. It sounded wet and...and tearing. A split second of resistance before a predator became victorious.
Seeing Beth again in February, out of the life and working in a bloody art museum, of all places, had been nothing so much as a bucket of ice water tossed in Chandler’s face. Here was this killer, with her fancy stilettos and her expensive flat and her shiny dark hair, going along her merry way, day in and day out sans consequences. Why should she get to live without violence? Why should she get to exist without nightmares?
They were supposed to be alike, goddamn it, but no one was offering Chandler the chance at a new name, new house, new wardrobe. No one was patting Chandler on the shoulder with sympathy and compassion and telling her there was more to her than the soldier, the spy. The murderer.
And perhaps that twisted jealousy had made it easier to go along with John Nash’s scheme, though she’d been privy to only a tiny percentage of that scheme, when all was said and done. She’d embraced pettiness, nurtured a shameful resentment, and when the news came that Nash had taken Beth hostage, Chandler had experienced a momentary rush of glee.
Good fucking riddance.
Until, in her next breath, she had remembered what it was Nash did to the people he “took.” Dread had seeped in, and fear, but all she could think during the confusion that followed—Colleen Yang disavowing her, being remanded into the Faradays’ custody—was to keep her mouth shut. She’d spent too many months in Moscow biting her tongue every time she witnessed Nash’s sickness, or tagged along with the Priest, or was forced to perform Reggie’s old tricks, to the delight of her Russian masters. By the time she found herself in the Underground, she had surrendered to instinct, her verbal and physical responses nothing more than autopilot.
Tobias had shocked her awake, however. In hindsight, she could see the cleverness of what he’d done—a subtle implication that his knowledge of her connection to the Scottish Slasher might be used to halt Pippa’s wedding, without actually ever threatening to do so—but in the moment, Chandler had panicked. Her worst nightmare, Pippa’s worst nightmare, come true.
She had not spent three days in a closet with her hand over her twin’s mouth, knowing that if their father found them they’d be deader than the hooker on the bed, nor toiled through the following months and years of living in fear, to throw away Pippa’s chance at freedom from their family history. Just because Chandler had kept her mouth shut when she ought to have spoken up.
Because of Chandler, Tobias and the others had found the bunker where Nash had held Beth. She didn’t want thanks for that; she didn’t deserve thanks for that. What she did want was to never hear Beth’s name again, because the twinge of bitterness still existed inside her.
Beth had been allowed to wash the blood from her hands and walk away. How could Chandler escape the blood that constituted half of her genetic material? A proper scrubbing wouldn’t get rid of a stain that deep.
Breathing in Tobias’s scent, Chandler was surprised to feel tears stinging the backs of her eyelids. Oh, bugger. That would never do, to have him wake up to a waterpot, but neither could she stay in bed and sniffle away her guilt. A fresh start to a fresh day was the key, given that she knew they’d be discussing the implications of yesterday’s disaster at Val Manor before the day was over.
Not a discussion she looked forward to having.
As carefully as possible, she disentangled her limbs from his, mourning the loss of his heat and scent, the strength that had held her close all night long as though she were too precious to let go of for even the most minuscule of moments. She crept into the bathroom and turned on the shower before stepping beneath the spray with an unhappy gasp.
It was cold. She was cold.
How could she fucking miss him already?
A few short minutes later, her toilette efficiently minimal, she opened the door to find a naked Tobias looming there, waiting for her, his hands gripping the doorframe overhead, the sleek muscle in every line of his beautiful body on prominent display, and his erection standing tall—and deliciously aggressive—against his belly. “Good morning,” she managed, mouth dry as she stared at the part of him she needed inside
her again. As soon as possible, if her clenching thighs and suddenly damp sex were any indicator.
He caught her around the waist in the open doorway. “You ran away,” he accused in a sleepy voice. Brushing his lips over hers, he kissed a path to her ear. “You deprived me of the pleasure I would’ve had waking up with you in my arms.”
Were those buttery knees hers? Why, yes. Yes, they were. “I’d hate to deny you pleasure.” A falsely demure taunt, she knew, but there was a kernel of truth seeded in her statement. She did hate to deny him pleasure.
“In that case, come take a shower with me.”
An image filled her mind of him taking her against the tile wall, her legs wrapped around his waist as she clawed at his shoulders, crying out his name as he brought her to orgasm again.
The man was a quick learner.
With a sultry smile, she reached for the knot between her breasts, but a rumbling noise from the direction of his stomach made her pause, her fist wrapped around the towel. “You’re going to have to prioritize, Toby. Shower sex,” she murmured in a husky voice, “or shower alone. Because alone will get you to breakfast sooner.”
“Shower se—” His stomach growled again, much louder, and he sighed in defeat. “That answers that, I suppose.” His gaze as he took in the sight of her from head to toe, in nothing but the short pink towel, was positively mournful.
Chandler laughed. “Don’t take too long. Remember, I know what you get up to during your showers,” she teased, shocked to realize she was flirting, more shocked to feel herself blushing when he winked at her.
The Ice Man winketh. Go figure.
Snagging a change of clothes and his Dopp kit, he closed the bath door behind him, and she regretfully dropped her towel before an audience of none. After pulling on a comfy pair of black leggings, a heather-gray vest and the stretchy black zip jacket she’d nicked from Pippa’s workout gear at Val Manor earlier in the week, Chandler moved about the room, picking up their discarded clothing from yesterday. The maid-of-honor gown still had damp places on it, and a delicate sniff told her it had already started to mildew. With a scowl, she draped it over the lady’s armchair in front of the window, wishing she’d thought to do so before letting the thing sit in a pile all night long. Lord only knew how much Pippa had spent on it.
Not to mention how much Tobias’s tux cost. Worried, she collected his coat and shirt, managing to find awkward places about the suite to drape them in an effort to hurry along the drying process, then set about locating his trousers. She found them halfway under the bed, and knelt to tug them to her. Digging into the pockets, she withdrew his wallet and the key fob to the Mercedes, along with his mobile phone and what looked to be some sort of memory card.
Setting his belongings on the nightstand, she hung his trousers by a belt loop from the hook on the back of the bedroom door, then returned to squint down at the memory card, which she could see now was a top-of-the-line solid-state drive. Of its own volition, her hand shot out, snatching the SSD between her thumb and forefinger.
Hmm.
She knew he had a tablet somewhere...yes. There it was, right inside his unzipped overnight bag. Aligning the drive with the proper reader slot, she turned on the mobile device and waited for it to load, one ear attuned to the running shower as she sat cross-legged on the floor by his luggage. Whatever was on the SSD had been important enough for Tobias to carry on his person while dressed in his wedding clothes. Snooping was what she did—see also, secret buttons and manila envelopes.
Angry noise suddenly boomed from the tablet’s tinny speakers, and Chandler jumped, frantically searching for the volume control. Propping the tablet between her knees, she curved her upper body protectively around the product of her snooping, and realized what she was looking at. Nash passed into frame, then out, but never moving from the center of the shot, strapped down to what appeared to be a metal gurney, lay Beth Faraday. But not the version of Beth Faraday that Chandler knew.
Oh, Jesus.
A quick tap to the screen showed that the video file had started playing from its most recently watched point. Chandler’s stomach churned as her eyes manically sought to absorb the details swimming before her. Gone was Beth’s beautiful long hair, shaved off to reveal a bloody scalp. Her slim but strong body appeared fragile, covered in various shades of red from the many, many wounds on her limbs and torso. Bruising so vicious it looked nearly black bloomed on her rib cage, and the gurney beneath her was smeared with blood.
So much blood.
As Chandler watched, Beth attempted to lift one arm, the fingers mangled into a twisted fist, but the leather cuff around her wrist prevented her from moving. Her cracked lips parted and closed, her normally caramel-hued skin ashen, and Chandler suddenly needed to know what Beth was saying, or trying to say.
Tentatively, she increased the volume.
Beth wasn’t speaking. Beth was sobbing. Quietly, forlornly. As though she’d given up. Every minute or so, a word that sounded something like “please” rasped out, but the crying continued. No tears tracked down her cheeks. Her lashes didn’t lift to reveal those gorgeous gray irises.
A rattle sounded from somewhere offscreen, metal on metal, like knives dumped onto a tray, and Beth flinched and moaned weakly, fighting against the restraints with what little strength she possessed. Nash’s voice floated up to the camera. “My employer has another question for you, pet.”
Pet. He’d always called his victims pet, male or female. Unlike with Reggie, for Nash, torture—and the eventual killing—wasn’t about sexual excitement. It had been about the power, an outlet for whatever illness it was that made him the man he’d become. Humans were animals, his to experiment upon, and he had been given too much leeway with those experiments, that much was clear.
When Beth croaked out another sob, Chandler thought she might vomit.
“If she hadn’t killed him, I would have.”
Stabbing at the power button, Chandler shoved the tablet back into Tobias’s bag and rose swiftly on unsteady feet. Face burning, she met his gaze, but instead of stone or steel, she saw pride. Rage, yes—and God knew Chandler understood his rage much more clearly upon seeing the video—but more than anything, his lifted chin and blazing eyes spoke to the great pride he took in his sister for what she had done. “But she did kill him,” Chandler stated quietly.
“Six hours after what you just saw. He was careless because he was about to end her life—he’d finished his questioning—and thought all of her fight was gone. He left her unbound. She grabs the knife with her broken hand and cuts his throat.” Tobias swallowed hard. “We arrive approximately five minutes later.”
Inside, Chandler reeled, and before she knew what was happening, words spilled out of her, as though the shoddy dam between her mind and her mouth had been destroyed. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Pressing a hand to her chest, she valiantly tried to keep her heart from punching through her ribs. “You must be...she must be the strongest person in the world, to do what she did.” To survive the deepest circle of hell. “I never saw Nash inflict that much damage before. Never. He usually killed them before they got that bad.” She swiped at her face, hating the tears warming her cheeks.
Bloody hell, she hadn’t earned the right to cry. She took in the sight of Tobias, as casual as she’d ever seen him. Jeans that loosely hugged his lean hips and long legs, a long-sleeved blue thermal clinging to the muscled curves of his biceps and shoulders, his feet bare, his hair shower-damp and tousled, his sharp jaw sporting two days’ growth of dark stubble. And those gray eyes—Beth’s gray eyes—looking back at her with such calm. Such warmth.
Warmth she didn’t deserve.
Ah, fuck. “I need to tell you something.” A bit of digging produced her mobile from the pocket of her drying purple dress. Phone in hand, she turned to face Tobias, her shoulders squared against the storm sh
e knew was coming. “In the video, Nash mentions his employer. He’s—” The knot in her throat made swallowing impossible. “He’s not talking about MI6.”
Tobias said nothing.
With a shuddering sigh, she played the voicemail she’d avoided listening to since Thursday.
Clipped, rasping Russian filtered from the speakerphone. “Kitten. You are being a naughty girl. Come visit me soon, or I will send someone to collect you.”
Stiffly, she deleted the message after translating it for Tobias, needing it off off off her mobile, as though it were a virus threatening to kill her within twenty-four hours of contact. Though perhaps that wasn’t too far from the truth. “That is the voice of Karlin Kedrov.” The former fearsome leader of the Polnoch’ Pulya, a position known as pakhan in bratva terms—and the man who had purportedly died in an explosion in Kabul, Afghanistan, a little more than a year earlier. That explosion had been triggered, in part, by Beth Faraday, who’d been assigned to take out an Iranian terrorist with whom Kedrov was dealing. The Iranian had worn a bomb belt, unbeknownst to both Beth and Kedrov, and the MI6 agent who’d been caught in the blast, Raleigh Vick.
The whole world believed Kedrov died in that explosion. Too late, Chandler had learned better. “He made it out of Kabul somehow, went into hiding on one of his estates while he healed from the worst of his injuries.” Because he hadn’t escaped the bomb unaffected. “Nash had already been considered Kedrov’s most valued interrogator before his ‘death,’ and afterward, I guess Nash was the only one he trusted not to try to take over the Polnoch’ Pulya when there was a power vacuum.” She tossed the phone onto the bed, crossing her arms over her chest and attempting not to tremble as she told Tobias what he needed to know. “I didn’t start my assignment in Moscow until after Kabul, and Nash...he didn’t tell MI6 what he knew about Kedrov, so I have to believe the intel was good—positioning the Accountant to take over the organization, getting him firmly in my pocket. And I’m not sure I was ever supposed to know Kedrov was still alive, because most of the Polnoch’ Pulya is unawares to this day, but he...dropped by.”
