Poison Kisses: Part 2

by Lisa Renee Jones

  And what I taste on her lips is accusation. She kisses me like I’m the man who betrayed her. Like I’m the man who would have killed her, and it just pisses me off all the more. I tangle fingers roughly in her hair, pulling her head back, forcing her gaze to mine. “It didn’t have to be this way. I didn’t say I loved you. I did. And you loved me.”

  “Yes,” she whispers. “I did and that kind of emotion is dangerous. I realized that when I heard your name on that recording and didn’t know what was real or fake. And if it was real, if I was wrong to leave, then you are asking the same thing. There’s no coming back. We will never trust each other again.”

  “You’re right. There isn’t. So we focus on the one thing neither of us can fake. Pleasure. Fucking.” I lean back, my legs shackling hers, and reach for my holsters, unhooking them. Shrugging out of both, I set them on the seat around the corner to the left. “No guns. Just us.”

  “Fucking,” she says. “Not fucking each other?”

  “I’m damn sure going to fuck you, sweetheart. And I’m perfectly fine with you fucking me as long as you do it naked.” I snag the hem of her silk tank she’d hidden under a hoodie earlier. “Just remember. Poison me too soon, and my tongue will never get to all the places you like it.”

  “I’m not going to poison you,” she says. “At least, not yet.”

  I believe her. She won’t poison me. Not now. She might try later, but that works for me. And even if it didn’t, I still want to fuck her and I’m going to. I tear her tank over her head, my attention shifting to the swell of her breasts in her lacy black bra, my fingers shoving down the material and teasing her nipples. She pants out a breath that I swallow, brushing my lips over hers. “Now we fuck hard and do it again.”

  “Yes,” she whispers and then we’re kissing, crazy-hot kissing, drinking each other in, like we’re never going to get a drink again. And maybe we won’t. Maybe one of us will die before this night is over. But that’s how we always fucked and loved. Like there would be no tomorrow.

  Her hands shove under my shirt, soft and warm, in that way that I am only warm when this woman touches me, and I tug my shirt over my head, tossing it aside. Her hand comes down on my bandaged arm, her eyes lingering there, the plane shaking around us.

  “Amanda,” I say, her gaze lifting to mine.

  “You aren’t invincible. One day one of those bullets will hit the wrong spot.”

  “Is that another threat?”

  “No. It’s another reason not to love me.”

  “I didn’t think you needed another reason.”

  Her hands move to my shoulders, her eyes darkening, unreadable, as her palms flatten on my shoulders. “Let’s get back to fucking.”

  “Yes. Let’s get back to fucking.”

  I reach up and unhook the front clasp of her bra, and she shrugs out of it, my gaze raking over her high, full breasts, her rose-colored nipples puckering with the cool air and my hot stare. My gaze lifts to hers, the collision of our stares electric, but a sudden jolt comes from turbulence that sends my hands to the wall above her head, and her hands to my waist. It’s then that I feel the rasp at her finger, which I know to be a film of poison she keeps there. From watching her work, I know that she could use it to kill me with one quick move.

  Chapter Two

  I grab Amanda’s hand and hold it up, that poison film now between us. “You wanted me to know it’s there.”

  Her eyes radiate with a mix of challenge and familiar heat. “You already knew it was there,” she says.

  She’s right. I did. Just as she knows that I can kill her before she can ensure I hit the ground, and that idea is darkly arousing. I turn her to face the wall, forcing her hands to its hard surface, my body framing hers. “I can kill you. You can kill me. It was always part of the high that was us, now wasn’t it? It turned us both on.” My hands come down on hers, my lips near her ear. “You’re mine right now,” I say, nipping her ear, and not gently. She sucks in air, her body arching into me, not away from me, refusing to give me any sign of submission. “I could do anything to you and you couldn’t stop me,” I add. “Are you afraid of me, Amanda?”

  “I’ll kill you before I fear you.”

  “But I’m the Assassin, remember? You ran from me.”

  “I left you. That’s different than running.”

  She’s right. It is. And I don’t know which premise I dislike the most. Her running or her simply choosing to live in that shithole of an apartment like the fugitive she became. Like a woman with something to hide, something I may not like. Shoving aside that premise, I focus on exactly what I said I’d focus on: fucking her before she gets the chance to fuck me again.

  Snagging the waist of the sweats she bought in the souvenir shop when we were on the run earlier, I squat down, dragging them down her hips, her thigh-highs from the skirt she’d worn earlier still in place. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I lift her, shoving aside the sweats, and with a little extra effort, I slip off her sneakers with them.

  I set her down, and turn her to face me, my hands bracing her hips. My gaze meets hers as I grip her panties. “I wonder if you still taste like my kind of poison.” I rip away her panties, and I don’t wait for a reply. I lick her clit and she breathes out, her lashes lowering, hips arching. My cock thickens, but I deny her what she wants, what I want, which is my mouth on the most intimate part of her. Instead, I press my lips to her belly, my gaze lifting to hers, and when she offers me a heavy-lidded look of anticipation, I say, “I’m not ready to find out just yet.”

  “That’s evil.”

  “Yes,” I say. “It is.” I stand up, my hands caressing a path up her body, until my palms cup her breasts. “But we both know that’s how you like me.”

  She gives a tiny pant, her hands covering mine. “I really hate that I want you right now.”

  I tangle fingers in her hair, dragging her mouth to mine. “Show me. Show me this hate you feel for me.”

  And I’m not sure who moves then, me or her, or both of us, but our lips collide, our tongues tangling, stroking, but it’s not hate I taste. It’s not anger I feel anymore. It’s that something, that indescribable something, that is what happens between us. Drugging and addictive, it tastes and feels like every sin I should run from, but can’t help but indulge in. And when I tear my mouth from hers, when I pull back to look at her, the impact of our connection is a force like none other in my life. I feel this woman in ways I never wanted to feel another human being. I want to fuck her. I want to protect her. I want to own her. I want to watch her come while she pants out my name.

  I reach down and tease her nipples again. Her lashes lower, her hand going to the back of her neck, in her hair, just one of the sexy, familiar things she does when she’s aroused. I lean in and kiss her neck, tugging her nipples now, and when she moans, that sound tells me a story that is about more than pleasure. It’s about how easily she gives herself to me now, when that wasn’t always the case. It’s about inherent trust she might deny, but it exists. It’s about her daring to surrender to me, us, and whatever comes next is a prelude to me demanding more from her, now and later.

  I pull back, wanting to see that heavy-lidded look again in her eyes, the look that I know follows surrender. Her hands go to my arms, her gaze lifting to mine, a flicker of something sharp in her eyes, here and gone, before she says, “Seth Cage. The Assassin.” And I see that reaction for what it is: She’s trying to pull herself back from that surrender. Reminding herself not to trust me.

  And I’m not going to let that happen.

  I cup the back of her head. “The only assassin you’ll ever know,” I say. “The only one that will ever get the chance to kill you.”

  “You always were a romantic,” she replies, her hand flattening on my chest.

  “Your kind of romantic.”

  “More like my personal poison,” she says, but before she’s ever finished the words, I’m kissing her again, maneuvering us out of that hallway and in
to the lounge area, but we don’t stop kissing. I’m undressed in a few shoves and tugs, and then I mold us together, three years between us, but nothing else. I sit down on the bench as I had that first night we met and fucked on the plane. She straddles me, hands on my shoulders, our foreheads coming together, and for several beats, or a minute, or longer, we linger there, breathing together.

  “I need—” I begin.

  “Me, too,” she whispers.

  We’re not talking about fucking, but about each other, the past, the way we were, but we’re lost and I don’t know if we can be found. I just know that I need to feel her close. I need to be inside her and I wrap my arm around her waist to lift her. My free hand grips my cock, pressing it to her sex, and inside her. Wet heat consumes me until I’m buried in her, and when we look at each other, a world of hate, love, and damage radiates between us, somehow all as right as it is wrong. But then that is how it always was for us. Right. Wrong. So damn right.

  “Deja vu,” I say softly, hands settling on her waist. “The past comes full circle. Right back where we first started fucking each other.” And again, I’m not talking about sex.

  Her lashes lower. “I hate so many things about this moment,” she whispers, her voice tormented, her expression all shadows and secrets.

  I slide my hand under her hair, my hand cupping her neck, her pale green eyes opening, meeting mine as I ask, “But do you hate me?”

  Her answer is no answer. She presses her lips to mine, and what I taste on her tongue is still not that hate she claims. It’s not the accusation of past kisses. It’s that need we’ve both proclaimed. The kind of need that demands satisfaction but can’t be sated. The kind of need that I felt every day since she left, and that every woman I fucked since couldn’t satisfy. The kind of need that feels like it’s a part of you, like your next breath that saves you, but in another moment, steals it away. And so you draw in another and another. And that need, that all-consuming need is what takes hold of us, the pulse behind every touch and kiss, but this is not the wild fucking I thought I’d craved. It is intense, every touch, a collision of my need and want. Hurt and betrayal. Desire and lust that builds and builds, a fire that begins to rage, turning into something that is wild, primal.

  We sway together, rocking and grinding, touching. I pull her down against me, even as my cock thrusts into her, over and over, until she is panting, stiffening, her sex clenching me, dragging me into release with her. I shudder with the impact and she trembles against me, her body collapsing into mine. My hand flattens in the middle of her spine, and I hold her there, not ready to let go. Not ready for us to be back in a world where secrets and lies decide what we do or do not do. But as the seconds tick by, I can feel Amanda withdrawing, returning to the hate she feels she has to claim, even if she would not in the heat of the moment.

  She shifts and leans toward a table at the end of the bench we’re on, grabbing a tissue, but when she would move away, I hold onto her. “We need to talk.”

  “What can either one of us say that the other will believe?”

  “Let me rephrase. We’re going to talk.”

  Julie meows and Amanda’s eyes go wide. “Oh no. I left her in her carrier without food or water.” She shoves away from me and as tempted as I am to hold onto her, now obviously isn’t the time. I stand and take her with me, helping her to her feet. She is quick to twist away from my reach, my consolation prize her gorgeous backside as she grabs her clothes and rushes toward the opposite lounge area and the seat where Julie is buckled into her carrier. Despite our recent fuck, I have three years to make up for with Amanda, and my cock twitches. And since that conversation I’ve demanded needs to be had, preferably while in the air, with her captive to my demands, clothing is now critical.

  Amanda seems to have the same idea as she murmurs sweet things to the cat and starts to dress.

  Tearing my gaze from the view of her tempting backside, I turn away and snatch up my pants, stepping into them. I pull on the 49ers T-shirt she’d grabbed for me at her San Francisco shithole of an apartment, as well as my shoes, and walk into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face, my version of a cold shower. Returning to the double lounge areas, I find a litter box on the floor—because what CIA agent doesn’t travel with a litter box?—and Amanda is placing Julie back in her carrier where it remains strapped to the seat. She then squats down beside Julie, and sticks a bowl of food in front of her, to which Julie attends with about as much eagerness as I could easily show Amanda’s backside, which is no longer naked nor in full view.

  I step into the aisle, and face the lounge area where Amanda is tending the cat, when the plane shudders and shakes, my hands gripping the ceiling. “We need to talk.”

  Amanda drags her fingers through the sexy mess of her blonde hair, which was brown three years ago, and stands up, facing me. “You’re right. We do. I want answers and I don’t want them from the man who just fucked me. I want them from the man they call the Assassin.” She sits down in her chair beside Julie, an action that forces me to join her to have a reasonable conversation. It’s her way of claiming control that she hasn’t claimed at all.

  I walk into the lounge area and sit down across from her as I had during take-off, and I waste no time getting to the point. “What haven’t you told me?”

  “That’s the kind of vague and generic question those at the CIA call ‘fishing.’ You’re connected to the agency. You should have all the answers that I don’t, and didn’t dare look for while hiding.”

  She’s right. I should have answers, but her file, and her parents’ files, are sealed. But I don’t want her to know what I know or don’t know. I want to hear her words, her story, and so I move on. “The ghost protocol you spoke about says to me that you knew you were tempting fate, and expected trouble.”

  “Inferring inaccurately that I was guilty of a crime. My parents trained me on some level of ghost protocol from practically the day I could walk. It was just part of being my parents’ child. What were you told when they placed you with me?”

  “You’re inferring inaccurately, again, that you were my assignment, and therefore I was briefed on your history. I was not briefed. And you were not my assignment. At least not officially.”

  “Not officially? What does that even mean?”

  “I don’t take long-term jobs with partners. Ever. So when they kept us together to chase Ming, I assumed that you were on their radar, and without question, they knew I’d make such an assumption.”

  “And you didn’t question why?”

  “I didn’t have to. I knew it meant they considered you a potential high-risk liability. In other words, they wanted to ensure that, should they decide to issue a kill order, you would really die. And when I decide someone will die, they die. I’m one hundred percent reliable and unemotional about my job.”

  “Until me.”

  “Sweetheart, I never wanted you dead or you’d be dead, but the interesting part of this equation is my hard rule: I don’t kill fellow agents unless I know they’re dirty. Really damn dirty. The agency knows this and they still chose me for you, which means they believed they could convince me to take your kill order.”

  “You literally lived with me for three months. Did you ever find evidence that I was dirty?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Then if I am dirty, that makes you blind and stupid, and we both know that’s not true.”

  “I could say the same to you of me, and yet, you convicted me of a betrayal without so much as a question. Translation: you’re innocent of the charges made by the agency and—”

  “Which are what?”

  “We’ll come back to that. We’re going to work two hypotheses, which is how you like to work. In this first hypothesis, you are innocent of anything and everything, and left because you doubted me or your own instincts. Or maybe both. Which was it?”

  “I left because my mother named you.”

  “Like I said. You either doubted me or y
ou doubted your own instincts.” I don’t give her time to reply. “For now, let’s conclude that we were really in love and that you knew me and I knew you well. And we still do. That means you aren’t dirty and I wasn’t fucking you for the agency’s benefit, but rather because I liked it. I wanted you, and I loved you. And since we’re concluding those things, we can conclude that you were set up. Somewhere along the line, you crossed the wrong person, directly or indirectly, through your parents. And I’d assume you’ve already asked yourself that question, which led you to who?”

  “You and I both could name hundreds of people we’ve crossed. And since I haven’t worked with my parents in years, the only one I know that ties me to my parents is Franklin, and he’s a former CIA agent. He’d have ties to insiders to set us up. Have you looked at a Franklin tie?”

  “I didn’t even hear about Franklin beyond the China incident until forty-eight hours ago. That’s one option. Give me another.”

  “I keep thinking about Ming. Why would they place a kill order on me the night we had him in our sights? What if he had an insider in the agency?”

  “We were paired for Ming. That means you were on the CIA’s radar as a problem before he was involved with you, or us.”

  “Did you look for a connection between him and my parents?”

  “No. I ruled him out as a problem based on timing.”

  “Unless he has contacts inside the CIA and connected us to him in order to get to me.”

  “Then why drag out meeting us for three months? It makes no sense.”

  “Something feels off there. How did Danny get on his radar at all that night?”

  “He got made following Ming, and Ming saw him with us. And Ming didn’t take the trade we planned. He decided it would be Danny’s life for the dirt we had on him. He had me call you and give you an hour to bring it, or he’d kill Danny.”

  “I threw the phone away,” she whispers.