His heart dared to sing as his legs pumped along his new route toward bungalow-town. The case was closed, but Mick felt an inner compulsion, driving him to jog past the homes of the Teddie Killer’s victims, one last time. To recall their faces, to feel their suffering, so he’d never forget.
Past the Connors he ran, noting the child’s tricycle and plastic toys scattered around the front lawn. A new family must have moved in. They had to know about the murders. What must they think tucking their child into bed in a place where so much evil had taken place? It was always the children who suffered most from the ripples of malevolence. He hoped their child didn’t have nightmares.
At the Atkins’ place the grass and shrubs were long and scraggly, brown from lack of watering. A shutter had come loose and hung crooked over the window from one corner. The house looked deserted. As his own house had looked after his mother’s death. They’d taken Mick away, of course, and put him in foster care. But he’d already started running back then, and he’d jogged past that house, too, when he could. To keep the memory of her alive in his mind.
“I did it, Mom,” he whispered into the breeze, allowing himself a short burst of gratification. “For you, I killed him.”
He loped past Caro’s old duplex, waving to the Realtor who was planting a for rent sign in the front yard. Roger was peering out his window, the little weasel. Roger who’d nearly blown Mick’s plan sky high with his damn meddling. He wished he could catch him peeping where he didn’t belong, so he could throw his skinny little butt in jail.
Mick drew in several deep breaths and turned his sneaks toward the Taylor/Slocum bungalow. His legs were burning now, punishing him for his ruthless pace. He’d been lazy lately, staying in bed with Caro rather than facing the dawn on his own two feet, keeping in shape. He’d even begun to wonder what the point of all this discipline was, now that—
A car careened around the corner, nearly clipping him.
He jumped back, jogging in place to watch it speed through the stop sign at the next intersection. Jerk.
The adrenaline still pumping, he powered past the house of the last victims. This was where it had all started with Caro. Where he’d held her in that tiny powder room as she puked her guts out. And felt triumph that he’d chosen right.
Not that there’d ever been any doubt in his mind.
Not since the first time he’d seen her in the PPD lunchroom and she’d given him that shy smile. That shy, sly, dare-you smile. The woman had known exactly what she was doing. And he’d been hooked from that very second. It had only been a matter of time before he took what was his by right.
Now she belonged to him. His father was rotting in hell, and Caroline Palmer was his slave. His beautiful, sexy love slave.
Life was good.
Finally.
Suddenly, he realized he’d arrived at his old apartment building. He’d moved out last week, quietly shifting his things to the new house as soon as escrow had closed, and hadn’t been back since.
He slowed to a stop in his usual spot in front of the dumpster, bending and stretching to keep from cramping up. Then he reached into his shorts pocket and pulled out a tiny envelope.
This was the last thing he had to do. The very last. After that they’d never know. He’d wanted to get rid of the key ages ago, but between the investigation and the press following him, the time hadn’t been right until things died down completely.
It was probably not the smartest thing to dispose of it here. He of all people knew it was always the littlest things that took you down. But some inner compulsion called to him, to bring it all full circle. Probably the same one that made him jog past the victims’ homes.
“Hi there! Nice day for a run!”
He spun at the sound of the youthful, feminine voice, and clutched the envelope guiltily in his fist.
“Hi. Y-yeah,” he stammered, caught by surprise at her sudden appearance. He recognized the woman; she’d lived on one of the floors above him and they’d bumped into each other in the elevator occasionally. She was a runner, too. Pretty. Flirty. And she knew exactly who he was.
“Haven’t seen you around lately,” she said. “Not since—” She halted in consternation. “I mean—”
He gave her his best smile. Never mind. He could work this. “Yeah, I’ve been a little busy.”
She smiled back. “Catching that awful killer. I didn’t go out of the apartment for a whole week after you found those poor people down the hall.” She shuddered dramatically, then looked at him through lowered lashes. “You are so brave. I could never have done...”
Her words trailed off as he pulled his T-shirt over his head and wiped his face and neck with it. Giving her a good view of his sweaty chest.
“Do you happen to know if someone else moved into that apartment yet?” he casually asked.
She nodded, mesmerized. “Yeah. Couple of weeks ago.”
“They change the locks, you think?”
She glanced up. “I would have.”
He widened his smile. “Yeah. Me, too. Guess I can just toss this key, then.” He unfurled his fist, revealing the small envelope containing the carefully cleaned key to the first victims’ apartment. “Meant to give it back to the super after the investigation was over, but it slipped my mind.” He shrugged and tossed the envelope into the dumpster. “Well, I gotta get to work. See you around.”
“Sure,” she said, watching him as he jogged off. “How about coffee sometime?” she called after him.
He lifted his hand and waved without looking back. In five seconds, all she’d remember was his tight ass and broad back. He’d already forgotten her.
His mind was on another woman. One with soft bedroom eyes and mussed blond hair, naked and waiting for him to come home and take her.
How would he do it today? Long and slow, or fast and hard? Or maybe both? Would he lick her first, or make her lick him? Would he fuck her from the front or from the back? Or let her ride his shaft until she screamed with pleasure, making him so hard he could bring her to climax three times without stopping?
By the time he’d run the rest of his circuit, his cock was straining and his balls were so full and tight he could hardly jog. He wanted her now.
He burst through the front door and slammed it behind him, threw his shirt and shed his shorts as he crossed the room to where she was on her knees leaning over a cardboard box. Her head came up. The tip of her tongue touched her lip for the split second it took to fall to his knees behind her, grasp her hips and plunge his cock deep into her.
But she was ready for him.
“Oh, Mick,” she gasped, her slick, hot passage closing around him like a glove.
She fit him perfectly. In all ways.
How had he gotten so lucky?
He pulled out and she gasped again.
“Not here,” he gritted out. “I want you in my bed.”
He swept her up and carried her out of the living room, striding purposefully toward their bedroom. When suddenly, in the hall, he saw something that made the blood drain from his head.
He halted in his tracks in front of a small grouping of photos she’d hung on the wall.
“What’s this?”
“The pictures you took of me. Remember I found them that day in your drawer?”
“I remember.” The three photos he’d enlarged out of the hundreds he’d taken of her over the previous year. While he was deciding what to do about her.
“I found the frames at an antique—”
“And the fourth photo?” he asked, interrupting. He didn’t care about the fucking frames.
They both looked at the remaining picture hanging in the group. The one he’d kept hidden, even from her. Especially from her. Of the woman in the white bathing suit on the beach, with an orange scarf tied around her neck.
Caro’s warm body shifted closer to his chest as she drew her arms tighter around his neck. He suddenly felt like he was suffocating.
“She’s your mothe
r, isn’t she?”
He couldn’t answer. His mouth was glued shut.
“I found it while I was putting some things away in the bedroom,” she murmured. “She’s so beautiful, it’s a shame to hide her picture away like that. Strange how it looks so much like the one you took of me.”
That’s when it hit him square in the gut. She didn’t even have to add, “And the victims.”
Holy fuck.
She knew.
She knew everything.
He lasered in on her gaze in heart-pounding disbelief. Forced his mouth to work. “Not so strange,” he managed. “Does it scare you?”
“No,” she said, the woman he’d enslaved to his every whim, who would never be whole again without him. She touched his cheek with her fingertips. “You loved your mother.”
The part he hadn’t planned on was that he’d become just as enslaved as she. And to his unending surprise, was whole for the first time in his life, too.
“I love you more,” he whispered.
“I know.” She looked up at him and smiled. “Now prove it.”
And he did.
** The End **
Hope you enjoyed SLAVE TO LOVE!
If you did, you may also like CAJUN HOT by Nikita Black.
Turn the page for an excerpt from. . .
CAJUN HOT
by
Nikita Black
Chapter 1
Sahara Jensen glared up at the long, yellow silk thread hanging from the trunk of a slimy cypress tree and swore roundly. Spitting out a few drops of disgusting swamp water, she quickly hoisted herself back into the floating disaster the rental place had optimistically called a boat.
Falling into the swamp hadn't been one of her better moves. Cripes, she was lucky she hadn't been eaten by alligators or attacked by snakes, or leeches, or some other equally hideous creature while floundering in the black water.
Scowling at the accursed thread, Sahara pulled her drenched ponytail forward and attempted to wring it out. Greasy mud, bits of rotting foliage and duckweed clung to her everywhere.
Great. Now, on top of everything else, she'd have to ride the bus back to the hotel in Lafayette looking like the creature from the black lagoon... if she found her way back to the bus.
She rubbed her forehead. The relentless, high-pitched hum of insects ground on her nerves. The cypress tree with its silk thread hung over her boat like a street-hawker, mocking her, one of a multitude of ragged, moss-draped trees closing in from every direction—all identical.
This could not be happening. She couldn't be lost. Not in the smelliest, most alligator-infested swamp in all of South Louisiana. She refused to believe it, even when confronted with the stark evidence of her vanished trail of bread crumbs. Well, yellow ribbons, to be more accurate.
And she'd thought she'd been so clever.
Fucking orchids.
She eyed a suspicious-looking bumpy log that floated several yards from the boat and repressed a shiver. A drop of sweat oozed down between her breasts. Damn, it was hot.
Plucking at her T-shirt, she resettled herself on the plank seat of her small rented motorboat next to her precious bag of cameras—thankfully dry—and took a deep breath. There had to be a way out of this fetid-smelling hellhole of a swamp. There had to be.
She'd been cruising around in circles for hours, searching for the yellow ribbons she'd carefully tied to trees within sight of each other to guide her back to Gerroux, the tiny hamlet where she'd picked up the boat. She hadn't found a single ribbon. Only the bit of thread she was staring at now.
Silently, she cursed the whole ill-fated expedition. First, the guide she'd hired had backed out with no explanation. Then, setting out on her own, she hadn't even located any of the damned orchids she needed to find. And now this.
She couldn't be lost. Hell, it was Monday and she had a deadline to meet.
She'd promised Miles Landau at National Geographic a photo of the rare and illusive orchidus clitorius by Friday. This assignment was her ticket to the big-time, and she'd rather die in this god-forsaken swamp than lose her hard-earned opportunity.
A trickling sound brought her attention to the bottom of the flimsy craft. A good three inches of water sloshed there—about an inch more than an hour ago. Her eyes flicked uneasily to the floating log. Was it her imagination, or was it following her?
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and swallowed the metallic tingle of fear blossoming in her throat, then looked around again desperately. Her attention was snagged by a sudden flash of light, sun on metal.
It was then she saw them.
Watching her.
Two men. Noiselessly floating in a shiny aluminum boat. Big, by the look of them. Dark. Both wearing jeans and T-shirts, one had a slim black mustache and black hair cascading over his shoulders. The other's hair was shorter, neater, no mustache, but he was no less dangerous-looking for that.
Sahara's heartbeat kicked up and she put a protective hand on her cameras. Two pairs of black eyes followed the movement, observing her from similar square-jawed, angular faces. They weren't smiling.
Then again, they didn't look exactly menacing either. More like... appraising.
They glided closer, their motor a nearly silent thrum against the incessant song of the insects. The two men exchanged a glance. One of them nodded.
Her pulse shot up.
"Comment ça va?" the man with short hair said. "You lost?"
She licked her lips, debating whether or not to lie. She was alone, no weapon, and these two strangers were looking at her like she might be their next meal.
A huge black snake swam past her boat. Oh, God. She didn't think she could stay in this swamp much longer and remain sane.
"I don't know how it happened," she said to the men. "I was so careful when I tied the ribbons. I'd be grateful if you could show me—"
"Fall in?" the long-haired man with the mustache interrupted, his gaze lingering on her wet clothes as the two came up alongside.
"What?" Her face flamed, realizing what he must be looking at. She folded her arms over her chest, struggling not to show her nervousness. "'Fraid so. Any chance you could show me the way to Gerroux? I have to make the eight o'clock bus back to Lafayette from there."
"Plen'y of time," Mr. Mustache said in a soft Cajun accent. "Toss me your gear and climb in." He held out his hand expectantly.
Alarm tingled over her scalp. She didn't care how sexy his accent was, climbing in wasn't an option. She'd heard about hot-blooded Cajun men.
She met his black eyes and, suddenly, it hit her how very attractive he was. She glanced at the other man and swallowed. How attractive they both were. Mercy . Her heart stood still, then zinged into double-time.
She didn't move.
"Come on in, chère," the short-haired one said. "'Less you'd rather stay lost?"
"Couldn't I just follow you?" she asked anxiously.
"Dat boat, she looks like she goin' down fast, an' I can't tow it wit' you in it."
Mr. Mustache tipped his head. "You have any idea just how dangerous the swamp is? For someone who don' know it?"
"I—" She followed his gaze to one end of the bumpy log still hovering nearby, and, to her horror, a sinister yellow eye winked back at her. She almost jumped out of her skin.
Oh, Lord. What could she do? She couldn't stay out here by herself. She'd be dead by nightfall for sure—either by some repulsive creature or from a heart attack. She searched the men's faces carefully and still saw no sign of ill intent.
Of course, neither had Jeffrey Dahmer's victims.
As if sensing her hesitation, Mr. Mustache slowly reached for the strap of her camera bag and said, "I'm Jacque Cherchat. Dis here's my brother, Quint. We'd be happy to get you to dat bus."
He smiled then. A smile that was sweet and sultry and guileless all at the same time. And indescribably erotic. The effect dazzled her senses. Eyes the color of black diamonds sparkled back at her, lips that would make a scul
ptor weep curved reassuringly. Lord, he was gorgeous.
Her reluctance foundered.
"Please, call me Jacque."
She'd probably regret this later, but it wasn't like she had a big choice at the moment. "All right," she relented. "Thanks, Jacque. I appreciate your help. My name's Sahara. Sahara Jensen."
She let him take her camera bag. "Careful with that, though." She stood to step into the other boat. "My whole livelihood is inside that bag."
"Don' worry," he said soothingly. "Quint an' me, we'll take good care of you." He grasped her by the waist and easily lifted her over the side, setting her on her feet just in front of him. "Real good care."
It was a good thing he didn't let her go right away, because for some inexplicable reason she couldn't get her knees to work properly. "Thanks," she croaked and collapsed onto the narrow bench crowding the back of her legs. "I need to get back to Gerroux in time to arrange for another guide tonight."
Behind her at the rudder, she heard Quint grab the bow rope from her boat and tie it to the back of theirs. "Could be tough," he remarked. When she threw a worried frown over her shoulder, he added, "Only official guide around, he was suddenly called away today. "He adjusted the throttle and the sleek aluminum craft cut through the water, steered along a sure path by her rescuer.
"Yes, I know," she said wryly, remembering her frustration that morning upon hearing of the man’s precipitous departure—which had gotten her into this predicament. "Surely there must be someone else who can guide me?" She turned from Quint to his brother.
"Now, dat depends on what you're looking for."
Handsome Jacque sat facing her on the forward bench, which was so close it barely left breathing space between them. His broad shoulders stretched a black T-shirt with the sleeves cut out, his biceps, arms and hands rippling with strength. His well-worn jeans covered iron-hard, muscular thighs. Suddenly she realized her legs were pinned firmly between them, her knees practically touching his—
"So, what are you looking for, chère?" The corner of his sexy mouth curled, letting her know he was fully aware of her body's position.
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