In For the Kill

by Shannon McKenna

  He nodded calmly. “So your mom’s got a red dress on in your dream. The guy suggested that image to you, Sveti. Very forcefully.”

  She covered her face. It had felt so clear when the wordless images were fresh in her head. Now it felt garbled and faraway.

  “I just think it’s all connected,” she said. “You don’t see it?”

  Sam smoothed her hair off her forehead. “I don’t know what to think,” he said.

  “It’s connected,” she said stubbornly. “It wasn’t a suicide. She was murdered. I just . . . feel it.”

  He pulled her closer. “Keep on feeling,” he said gently. “We’ll figure it all out, in time. Try not to worry.”

  “Try not to what?” She stared at him for a moment, baffled, and then voiced her growing, horrified realization. “Oh, my God, Sam. You don’t believe me, do you? You think I’m nuts!”

  “Not at all,” he said forcefully. “Nobody’s saying you’re nuts. Nobody’s saying anything. Don’t get uptight. Just breathe. Just rest.”

  His gentleness made her furious. “Do not condescend to me!”

  He rocked back warily. “Hey. Simmer down.”

  “No!” She clambered up on top of him.

  He was bewildered for a second. She kissed him, fiercely.

  She was having none of this shit. She wasn’t some delicate deluded girl, to be treated like fine china. She was a force to be reckoned with, and he needed to know her for what she was. Deal with her, full on.

  They devoured each other with a furious tenderness. She positioned herself on the hot, rigid club of flesh that lay flat against his belly, shifting until her wet folds slid against the whole length of his shaft, painting him in long, lazy strokes with her lube.

  He arched, gasped beneath her. “Oh, God. Sveti.”

  “Now.” She reared up onto her knees and seized him by the base of his phallus. Danced over him, anointing his cockhead with teasing little swirls of contact, like kisses. When he arched, shuddering beneath her, fists clenched in the sheet, she finally maneuvered him inside herself, and sank relentlessly down. A slow, luscious caress.

  They froze, trembling at the intense sensation. Neither dared to move. Wow. A marvel, every time. She could barely move, she felt so filled, but she tried, lifting herself up, sliding down. Working herself on that thick, stiff shaft. So hard. So hot. So good.

  She wanted everything he had. Wanted to devour him. His energy, his strength, his heat—things she could not formulate as thoughts, but only understand with her skin, her heart, her guts, her blood. Her clutching hands, her throbbing sex. The movement of their bodies became phrases of a language she almost understood, but with some exiled, struggling part of herself that she could not quite reach.

  His face was strained and taut, jaw clenched. He clutched her upper arms in a grip just short of bruising. His hips slid up, jolting into her from below, each slick stroke caressing her inside.

  It stung, a little, but she was already swept into the huge surge of a shining crescendo that could not be delayed or denied.

  It tore through her. Took her apart.

  When her eyes fluttered open, she was sprawled limply on top of him. The look on his face squeezed her heart.

  She slid off him. He shifted onto his elbow and looked beneath himself. “I think my bandage got detached. Aw, shit. The sheets.”

  She leaped up. “Oh, my God, Sam!”

  The sheet was spotted with blood. The gauze that had been taped over his hip had ripped loose, revealing the bloody bullet graze.

  She gasped. “I’m so sorry! I forgot all about your wound!”

  “It was worth it,” he assured her. “I didn’t even feel it, swear to God. Those sex endorphins are some serious shit.”

  “Come on. Tam puts first-aid stuff in the bathroom cabinets.”

  She herded him into the bathroom. He perched on the tub while she made a fuss over his wound, dabbing with antibiotic ointment and cotton until it was decently taped up again. Torn loose by wild sex under the greedy, selfish harpy girl. She horrified herself.

  “Does it still hurt?” she asked anxiously. “Are you okay?”

  “What guy wouldn’t be okay with your tits bouncing six inches from his nose?” he asked. “Come here, let me just . . .”

  “No!” She batted his hand down and put the first-aid stuff away, then hurried to strip the sheets and the mattress cover, also stained.

  She dragged them into the bathroom and set herself to scrubbing the marks under cold water with a handful of liquid soap.

  Sam watched quietly. “We’re hard on bed linens,” he commented. “We’ve ruined two sets less than twenty-four hours into our affair.”

  She laughed silently, dumped the sodden, foamy sheet on the floor, and got to work on the mattress cover.

  “I’ll replace them,” he told her gently. “Don’t sweat it.”

  “That’s wasteful,” she said. “And it’s not the issue.”

  “I know the issue,” Sam said glumly. “It’s that Tam Steele hates my guts, and my bodily fluids along with them. This will gross her out.”

  “She can’t say a thing!” Sveti snapped. “You were a goddamn hero! You got that wound in my service! From a fucking bullet!”

  “And leaked blood all over her sheets while being lustfully ridden by a beautiful nymph with bouncing tits,” he said dreamily. “That salacious detail might cost me my manhood. Being in your service is dangerous, but it has some kickass perks.”

  She snorted in derision, but Sam’s face had gone suddenly somber. “In your service,” he repeated. “I like how that sounds, Sveti.”

  Her body tensed. The words sounded formal, antique, and archaic. Something from an epic poem, or a fairy tale. “I’m sorry,” she said. “About, uh, saying . . . my service. I didn’t mean—”

  “I did,” he said. “It’s okay. I like it.”

  “But I . . . but you . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Sam seized her wet hand, gazing intently into her eyes. “Your service,” he repeated softly. “That’s exactly where I want to be.”

  She started shaking. The moment felt fraught with mysterious significance. Something solemn and irreversible was happening. Wonderful and terrifying. And dangerous. “Sam,” she said. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” Sam kissed her knuckles, stroked them against his cheek. He sank down to his knees, looked up at her. “Accept it.”

  She was caught in the hypnotic thrall of his gaze, a heartbeat away from saying yes, of course, anything he wanted, anything in the world. But the familiar drum roll of impending doom froze her in place.

  “Accept, ah . . . what?” she faltered.

  He kissed her hand again. “My service,” he said. “I get that you don’t want my love. How about my service? Does that go down easier?”

  “I . . . I don’t even know what you mean by that.”

  “Sure you do.” His voice was implacable. “It’s never been so clear. I’ll serve you. Protect you, make love to you. Kill for you. Because I can. Because I choose to. Let that be the vibe. Would it work for you?”

  The shaking inside her got worse. She was so afraid of hurting him, failing him. He was skating so close to that gaping abyss, and she had to herd him away from it, quick. Before he fell in and was lost.

  “This is too much. It’s making me nervous.” Her voice was tight with panic. “I can’t do this, Sam. I can’t play this game with you.”

  “You think it’s a game?” He let go of her hand and stood. A graceful, pantherish movement. “Too much responsibility?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Sure you do. Sveti the tough babe, who takes on the world all by herself. This is just about sex. Except when it’s about staying alive, but no worries, when the danger’s past, bada bing bada boom, it’s about sex again. Put me in my place. Don’t let me forget it.”

  “Oh, God.” She covered her face. “Sam. Don’t.”

  “Shit,” he muttere
d. “Forget I said it. Shutting up now. Crisis averted. Give me the bathroom for a few. I need to wash.”

  She stared out at the surf, unsoothed. He emerged a few minutes later, clad in a towel and a cloud of steam. “Your turn,” he said.

  When she finished her shower, he was still there, fully dressed and seated on the bare mattress. “Sorry I’m still in your face,” he said. “I know you could use some time alone, but you have to go down first. So they all know I haven’t done anything unspeakable to you.”

  She snorted as she pulled items out of the drawer and threw them on. Underwear, jeans, a fresh tee, a sweater. She ran her fingers through her damp hair, checked her pale face in the mirror. “I’m ready.”

  “No bra?” He sounded scandalized. “You can’t go down like that!”

  “Get out,” she scoffed. “I’m small, and I have a big, baggy sweater. No one could ever tell that I’m not wearing a—”

  He dragged her toward him and wrapped his arms around her.

  “I can tell,” he announced. “I feel every detail of those tight, suckable, rose-tinted tits. My own nipples are hard now. They’re saying hi to yours. Mmmm. Hello.”

  She dissolved in nervous giggles, wiggling in his grip as he rubbed his chest against hers. “You’re being silly!”

  Sam just hung on, staring into her eyes. She realized, abruptly, that a fight as frivolous as this one was a waste of her precious energy.

  She sighed out the tension. “All right. I’ll put on a bra, if it makes you happy.” She waited. “If you let go of me long enough to do it.”

  His arms dropped. He stepped back.

  She grabbed the first thing she found in the drawer, and was chagrined to find that it was a sexy, peach-toned lace balcony confection. Tam had given it to her for Christmas some time ago, as a joke, and a nudge. She fastened the clasp and propped her boobs to the appropriate height. Which was to say, jacked up and in your face.

  She adjusted her clothes and turned to him. “Better?”

  The hot sparkle in his eye made her hairs rise in a shivery ripple, up her back, to the nape of her neck. He turned her to face the mirror and cupped her breasts, circling his fingertips.

  She caught her breath as her nipples went stiff.

  “A little bit better,” he conceded. “The lace doesn’t provide much coverage, though. I feel every last detail of your nipple hard-on.”

  “My nipple hard-on is entirely your fault to begin with,” she said primly. “And you’re being primeval.”

  “It’s your fault,” he told her. “I was cool, before, and then you come along in that red dress and I turned into a Stone Age maniac.”

  “I didn’t wear a bra with that red dress,” she pointed out. “At all.”

  “I was intensely aware of that fact,” Sam replied. “And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one.”

  “There was nothing inappropriate about that dress! Did you see what the Venus Ensemble wore? Mine was nothing in comparison!”

  “Who knows? I wasn’t staring at their tits. Just at yours.” He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “Tell me something, Sveti. In what universe could you be with me? What impossible things would have to be true before you could say yes to anything other than my dick?”

  She tried to pull away. “Oh, Sam, please don’t. Do we have to?”

  “Yes, we do.” His eyes demanded the truth.

  The halting words hurt her throat as they came out. “The past would have to be different,” she said. “I would have to be different. I couldn’t be me. Who I am, with my history. My bad, weird shit. It won’t let me rest. But it’s not your fault, Sam. It’s not about you, not at all.”

  “That’s not much of a comfort,” he said.

  “I know,” she said fervently. “I’m sorry.”

  He nuzzled her ear. “I wouldn’t want you any different than you are,” he said. “Nothing. Not by a hair.”

  She jerked away from him. “We, ah, should go downstairs now.”

  He stepped back, his hands flexing and clenching. “Yeah, right.”

  She grabbed the tablet that lay on the dresser and marched out the door ahead of him. Roiling inside, with conflicting feelings.

  So he didn’t want her any different? Hah. He didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. She wanted to laugh, snarl, slap him for his presumption. Like he had any right to say that, when she wanted so badly to be the heroine of a different story, with another ending.

  Anything other than what she was.

  CHAPTER 10

  A long, punishing internal monologue ran through his mind as he followed her through the house. Keep a few respectful steps behind your lady fair. Don’t presume. Eyes down.

  God, what an asshole. He never learned. Offering his sword like a samurai warrior, when all she wanted from him was what dangled between his legs.

  Sveti walked like she did everything. Graceful, no wasted movement, down to business. She wanted her sex like that, too. Just jump astride her chosen mount, ride til she was done, then waft away.

  It didn’t matter. She could want what she wanted, and so could he, but the sex had its own agenda. It was not fun, or playful. It was like being sacrificed to the god of fire, stabbed by holy lightning, flung into the heart of the sun and being reduced to smoke and ash. It was a massive, painful shift in consciousness, every damn time. And after only two nights of it, he was totally strung out on that wild intensity.

  The light shone through the loose weave of her entirely inadequate sweater, showing every perfect detail. Every slender curve. Her hair shifted and swung, light catching every wave. Hypnotizing him.

  She shot a nervous glance over her shoulder, giving him a fresh jolt of astonishment at how fucking pretty she was. Even without makeup, her eyes were set off by long, sooty lashes and sharp, winged brows. Her lips were red. Slightly puffy. From lots of hard use last night.

  Oh, shit. Cool it. He could not walk in there with a hard-on.

  Sveti pushed open the door that led into Tam and Val’s kitchen, packed with people whose collective gaze swerved right to them.

  Sveti’s family. The toughest sons of bitches he’d ever met on the right side of the law. Tam held court, seated on a high stool by the bar. Her topaz eyes flicked over Sveti, doing a diagnostic X-ray once-over. She gave Sam an arctic glare. “So nice of you to finally join us.”

  Lara, Miles’ wife, ran for Sveti and hugged her. Lara, more than any of them, could relate to Sveti’s ordeal, having spent months herself in captivity until Miles rescued her. She looked good, nearly two years later. Her pregnancy didn’t show yet, but she had a happy glow. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been as fragile and waiflike as one would expect after her harrowing adventures. She’d been beautiful even then, but she was a knockout now, with some more meat on her bones.

  He kept his eyes locked on Sveti and Lara’s embrace. It was a much safer resting place than any other point in the room.

  “Your timing rots, Petrie,” a voice behind him growled.

  Sam turned to Nick Ward and his wife, Becca, who was waiting her turn for a hug with Sveti. Liv, Sean’s wife, was in line behind her.

  “What timing?” Sam asked. “Being there when they nabbed her? Following her, rescuing her? Is that the timing you’re referring to?”

  “You know exactly what I’m referring to,” Nick said.

  Sam shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  “You think the day she almost gets herself killed is the day to make your big move?”

  “You’re wrong, Nick.” Sveti’s voice rang out. “It was my move! I went to his house uninvited. I seduced him. And a lucky thing, too, or he wouldn’t have seen them take me, and you guys would be getting a very bad telephone call right about now. So back off.”

  Nick thudded back down into his chair. He looked like he was chewing steel wool.

  Sveti swept the room with her gaze. “Sam saved my life. I love you all, and you have been very good to me, but get it through your hea
ds. I’m not a child. In fact, I’ve never been a child, not since you’ve known me. So not another word about me and Sam hooking up. That’s between him and me.”

  Silence followed that blunt announcement, broken by Sean’s soft laughter. “Seduced, hmm? Sveti, you vixen, you.”

  “Shut up, Sean,” Nick said sourly. “I am not entertained.”

  “My, aren’t you masterful today,” Tam said to Sveti. “Getting laid appears to stiffen up your spine. Bow down, bitches.”

  Sveti’s eyes dropped. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, don’t ruin it!” Tam snapped. “I like to hear some proper sass out of you! But we have more important things to talk about right now than your sex life.”

  “Yeah, like breakfast,” Becca chimed in, from the stove. “Rachel, honey, get the toast out of the toaster and butter it, okay? I have a bacon and Swiss omelet coming out of the pan with your name all over it.”

  For a few wonderful minutes, eating occupied them completely. With the McCloud Crowd, the food was always good. Sam inhaled the fluffy omelet with a mountain of toast and washed it down with coffee. Sveti didn’t have much appetite, but she was nagged and poked until she got around a couple of eggs and a slice of toast.

  Then Rachel leaned over the table, her dark eyes magnified by the thick lenses of her glasses. “So? How did you seduce him, anyway?”

  Sveti choked and sputtered on her orange juice.

  Tam made a shushing noise. Nick and Becca’s little daughter Sofia piped up in the silence. “What’s seduced?”

  “Out!” Val roared. “Rachel, take the children up to the playroom!”

  Val seldom raised his voice, but it had a jolting effect. Rachel scooped up Jon, Kev and Edie’s son, and scurried out, herding Sofia and Eamon, Sean and Liv’s son, before her. Eamon had a keen ear for anything that disturbed adult sensibilities, and was crowing “Seduced! Seduced!” at the top of his lungs as they retreated down the corridor.

  The quiet felt ominous. Tam sank onto her stool. Sam swept his eye over the assembled multitudes. There were Kev and Edie, Nick and Becca, Sean and Liv, Miles and Lara, Tam and Val. About half of the entire complement of this crowd and their progeny, and thank God for it, or the place would have been a fucking zoo. Even so, it was way too many eyes. And all of them so damn focused.