The Darkest Corner

by Liliana Hart

  “There’s always an element of risk,” he said. “Nothing is fail proof. Our real identities were scrapped once we joined the program, and if anyone bothered to look closer at the Last Stop Funeral Home and all of its employees, they’d see exactly what we want them to see. Eve and The Directors spent years building a very careful operation. But all it takes is a breach in our systems. We’re protected from radar seeing our equipment or the underground bunker. But glitches happen. It’s why we have plans B, C, and D.

  “And even if someone does take notice of us here, there’s no reason for them to think you’re involved. You were here long before we set up shop. So there’s no reason to think your family or friends might be in danger. But if it makes you feel better, we can put some added surveillance around your grandmother’s apartment.”

  “It would make me feel better,” she said. “Do I get government health benefits? Because that stuff is ridiculously good, and I’d like to actually be able to afford to go to the doctor when I’m sick.”

  His eyes were sparkling with laughter. “Yeah, good luck with that. You’re basically an off-the-books contract worker until it’s determined your services are no longer needed. You know what we are and what we do, but you’re not exactly privy to classified information.”

  She pouted a little at that bit of news. “Well, that sucks.”

  “It could be worse,” he said.

  “How’s that?”

  “Eve could’ve ordered us to kill you and hide your body.”

  “I don’t think I like Eve very much.”

  He laughed full out at that, and she felt her insides heat at the sound. It was rare he laughed, and she guessed considering what he did for a living he hadn’t had very much reason to laugh. But damn, was it a sexy sight.

  She muscled up some courage and moved to stand directly in front of him, and then she took a deep breath and prayed the words she’d been wanting to say all morning came out clearly. She opened her mouth and nothing came out. And then she tried again, and she could feel the heat rushing to her cheeks.

  “What is it?” he finally asked, curious.

  “I want to seduce you.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  All the blood in Deacon’s head pooled directly into his lap. His eyes blurred for a second and he shook his head to reorient himself.

  “Can you say that again?” he asked, wanting to make sure he heard right.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think I can.”

  “You’ve really got to stop telling me no.”

  She’d consumed his thoughts for the last three days. He’d been drunk with the taste of her on his lips, and all he could think about was having her again.

  “I figure you heard me right the first time,” she said, sounding angry about it now.

  Lord, he loved her prickly temper. Her hair was practically crackling around her head, and all he could think was that he wanted nothing more than to see it spread out across her pillow and his hands tangled in it.

  She was an array of walking contradictions. Sweet and surly. Innocent and experienced. And every facet of her intrigued him.

  “I figure I did,” he said. “But I thought I might’ve had a stroke just now, so I wanted to make sure.”

  “Where are you from? Originally,” she added.

  He hadn’t been expecting that, and he was caught off guard. It had been a long time since he’d thought of home. He hadn’t been there since he’d gone back for his father’s funeral his last year of college.

  “Baton Rouge,” he told her. “Why?”

  She nodded sagely. “You’re too adept at talking like a Southerner. That’s something that’s inbred. Can’t be learned.”

  He laughed and rubbed his hand over the scruff of his beard. “And here I thought I’d learned to cover it up so well after all these years.” He shifted, anxious to get her back on track. “So, how are you going to seduce me?”

  “I’m not sure, but it probably won’t work if you keep sitting there asking me questions. I guess the first question should be whether or not you want to be seduced.”

  He arched a brow at her and then stood to his feet, so she could see the erection straining behind the zipper of his jeans.

  Her eyes widened and she licked her lips. “I guess you do.”

  “Oh, yes. I do.”

  “I babble when I get nervous,” she said. “I just thought I should tell you that up front.”

  “I’ve known you two years. I’m well aware.”

  “Oh. Good. I read a lot, so I’ve got this pretty well planned out in my mind. Knowledge is power.”

  “Fuckin’ A,” he said. “Tess, you could stand there in a paper bag and I’d be seduced. I’m so freaking seduced right now this is probably not going to last very long. You don’t have to worry about me. I’m one hundred percent on board.”

  She smiled and her dimple fluttered at the corner of her mouth. And then her fingers went to the buttons of her shirt and all the spit dried up in his mouth.

  “Wait a second,” she said, and he bit back a groan. “How does this work between us and . . . everything else?” She waved her hands around as if he was supposed to know what the heck she was talking about.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “With Eve and The Gravediggers and all this secretive stuff. You said there were consequences. How much trouble are you going to get in if we go through with this? What will she do to you? Will she let me help you with the translations if she thinks we’re . . . you know . . .” She waved her arms around again and he couldn’t help but grin.

  In Eve’s eyes, he was following orders. But he knew it was much more than that. His plan had been formulating long before Eve issued the words to him, and he knew exactly what he wanted from Tess. He wanted all of her. The consequences didn’t seem to matter so much as long as they were together. But there was always a chance she might not feel the same way.

  “Our relationship is ours alone, no matter what she might tell you. We’re not breaking the rules, and she’ll hate that you’re a distraction for me. But there’s nothing she can do about it as long as we stick together. With that said, if I’m compromised, both of us will be marked for the kill. You have to understand that going in. It’s a lot to ask a person to risk.”

  “My new middle name is risk,” she said softly.

  “I thought it was fun,” he said, remembering she’d said something similar before the motorcycle ride.

  “I changed my mind.” She undid the buttons slowly, one by one, and the shirt parted inch by inch, teasing him with glimpses of pale flesh.

  “How hell-bent are you on seducing me to completion?” he asked, eyeing the lacy camisole beneath her top. Her nipples were rigid peaks, and he realized the camisole was all she was wearing underneath. For some reason that drove him wild.

  “I’m flexible at this stage of the game,” she said. “Why? What do you have in mind?”

  The way she asked him the question—a little bit taunting, a little bit sassy—had him moving closer. He pulled her into his arms and took her mouth—hard. But she was ready and eager for him. There was no slowing down or pulling back. All she’d had to do was tell him she wanted to seduce him, and it had worked like a charm. He was putty in her hands.

  Her hands slid up his shoulders and behind his neck, tugging his hair loose from the leather tie he’d wrapped around it. He tightened his hold on her, his hands molding her, until he gripped her ass and lifted her up against him.

  He pinned her against the half wall and her legs twined around him. Her shirt had fallen off of one shoulder, and his hand closed over her breast. He felt her nipple hard against the palm of his hand, and he rubbed it beneath the cotton of the camisole. Every stroke of his hand had her jerking against him, as if he were rubbing her clit instead of her nipple.

  He pulled his mouth free and they both gasped in air. Her mouth was swollen and red, and her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were closed and her
head tilted back, red hair hanging gloriously down her back like a bounty spread out for his taking.

  He wanted to feast.

  “I want you in that bed,” he growled against her neck. “From the second I saw that thing all I could think about was you laid out across the covers wearing nothing but me.”

  His fingers scissored her nipple, tweaking it slightly, and she whimpered with pleasure. And then he couldn’t help himself. The sound was so sweet he dipped his head and closed his mouth around her, sucking at her through the thin layer of cotton.

  “Ohmigod,” she said. “Deacon. Don’t stop doing that.”

  He chuckled against her and pulled the shirt she was wearing down so her arms were tangled in the sleeves. She tugged against them and made a sound of frustration.

  “I want to touch you.”

  “You’re about to,” he whispered. And then he picked her up and carried her the rest of the way to the bed.

  He laid her on the bed and then stripped off his shirt and toed off his shoes.

  “Have I told you how much I love looking at you?” she panted.

  “I don’t think you’ve mentioned it,” he said, grinning. That look in her eyes made him feel like Superman. He’d known what it was to be desired by women. But he’d never been looked at the way Tess was looking at him. As if he was the best thing she’d ever seen. It made him feel invincible. And he would’ve moved heaven and earth for her to keep looking at him that way.

  He removed her shoes and let them drop to the ground, and then his hands went to the button on her jeans. He pulled them down slowly, taking her underwear down with them. Her arms were still caught in her shirt, but she was stock still as his fingers traced her thighs, moving higher to the soft folds of her mound. But he didn’t linger. The time for foreplay had long passed.

  “I want to see all of you this time,” he rasped.

  He removed her shirt fully and then pulled the camisole over her head, leaving her completely naked on the white comforter. The sight of her took his breath away.

  “More beautiful than I ever imagined,” he said. “Almost too delicate to touch. Like a painting.”

  She was willowy and thin, without many curves. Her arms were resting above her head, and that glorious red hair tumbled around her. She was pale, and a light smattering of freckles dotted her skin. He could see her heart pounding in her chest as his gaze moved down her body. Her nipples were dusky brown and erect, just waiting for his mouth.

  He moved farther down to the plump folds between her thighs. She was wet and ready for him, and he took her long legs and splayed them open, so she was completely bared to him. And then he looked his fill.

  “So fucking beautiful,” he said reverently.

  “Please hurry,” she begged. “This is torture.”

  Deacon unbuttoned his jeans and carefully lowered the zipper. Her eyes followed his every move, and she licked her lips in anticipation. He didn’t prolong it. He pushed his jeans and underwear down to his ankles and stepped out of them.

  “Oh, wow,” she said, her eyes devouring his erection.

  He chuckled at the way she said it and then knelt on the bed between her open thighs.

  “There are forty-eight condoms in the nightstand.”

  He froze and stared at her. “That’s a lot of condoms.”

  “We don’t have to use them all today.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll make a dent in them.”

  He reached over and opened the nightstand drawer, shaking his head at the sight of the small Glock sitting next to the box of condoms. Tess was full of surprises. He pulled a condom out of the box, opened the package, and then rolled it on.

  He used his finger to part her folds, feeling the sweet syrup of her desire, and making sure she was ready for all of him. Then he leaned over her, nipping at her swollen lip, as his cock nudged at her entrance.

  “Look at me, baby,” he said, waiting for her eyes to flutter open.

  He’d always been captivated by her eyes. He watched as the green deepened to jade and her pupils dilated as he pressed forward, filling her, and it was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen. He hooked his arms beneath her knees and leaned forward so they were pressed to the mattress so she was fully open. And then he slid all the way inside of her, touching her at the deepest point, and holding himself there.

  Her breathing hitched and her eyes widened. And then when he didn’t move, her body arched against him, seeking more. Her fingers dug into his shoulders and she bit her lip in concentration. And then he felt it. The gentle pulsing around his cock as she squeezed him, milked him, with her vaginal muscles.

  “Jesus, Tess,” he gasped.

  And then he drew back and plunged into her with a force so great the bed creaked beneath them. He couldn’t stop himself. He felt like an animal in rutting season. The urge to mate with her was stronger than his self-control.

  Her body arched against him, met him thrust for thrust, and he took her mouth in a primal kiss. He felt the texture of her walls change, felt the increase in moisture and heat, and then she moaned, low and long, as she climaxed, pulsing and squeezing around him.

  The feel was too much for him to hold back any longer. His hand tightened in her hair and he buried his face in her neck. And then he drove himself into her over and over again. The climax ripped from him, and his back arched as he came with a forcefulness that stole his breath. Tess wasn’t letting go. She screamed as she came again, and he felt the earth shake as he collapsed on top of her.

  He didn’t know how much time had passed. Seconds or hours. But his heart was still pounding and his breath still came in gasps. He tried rolling to the side, but it took some effort. He was too weak.

  “Wow,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I’ve always read that sex can be an earth-moving experience, but I always thought it was a figure of speech.”

  “Don’t you see how the bed is tilted?” he asked. “We fucked right through the floor. I told you it needed to be replaced. We’re lucky we didn’t end up in slumber room one.”

  She froze against him, but he just pulled her tighter in his arms. “What should we do?”

  “We should probably move very carefully and get the hell out of here.” She was snuggled up warm against him, though, and he wasn’t too inclined to ruin the moment.

  “Why do I have a feeling you’re not going anywhere?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

  He flipped her on the bed, making her squeak as a board creaked beneath them. “We just had a near-death experience. We’ve got to do something with all that adrenaline. Besides, I’ve been wanting to taste you again since the first time.”

  “Oh,” she said as he kissed his way between her thighs. She moaned and her head dropped back as he suckled her clit. “I suppose we can be less vigorous this time.”

  “How much do you want to bet?” he asked.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Two days later, Tess was fully entrenched in a world she’d only seen on the big screen.

  When Deacon had told her they could use her, she wasn’t really sure she believed him. They’d shown her the control room underground, and then promptly sat her at a computer. According to Deacon, they’d been looking for communication between the four men—three now—who were coordinating the attack. They’d finally found it.

  They’d done some of the work for her. The dialects shared common words. But there were large patches of blank space where they hadn’t known what the words were. So for a full day and a good part of the night, she’d been translating the words and short phrases into English. The only problem was the words and phrases didn’t make any sense and seemed to be in no discernible order.

  “It’s code,” Dante said. “See here, the word mat, or ‘mother’ once translated, is used several times throughout each of these paragraphs. It’s more than likely a substitute for and or the.”

  “Oh, cool,” she said, seeing the pattern of several words now that she knew what to look for.r />
  “It’s a different form, but still similar to the coding used during World War II,” Deacon said. “I doubt they were worried about the simplicity of the code. It was more than likely used as a secondary barrier of communication to the intended recipients. The first barrier is the hardest to break, and that’s the language. None of these words,” he said, pointing out several in the documents, “are words that are traditionally used in the Russian language. It’s almost like a slang. It’s as much of a difference as there is between Ukrainian and Russian. Only those deeply rooted in the Russian Mafiya would be able to translate the passages enough to decipher the code.”

  “I’ll start running it through a deciphering program and see what we come up with,” Dante said. “It shouldn’t take too long. It looks like a fairly straightforward pattern.”

  “They’re bouncing a false location through satellite,” Colin said. He sat behind a large radar screen on the wall and used touch screen to zero in on the coordinates. “That’s how we pulled their communication. They had it bouncing all over the place before we pinned it down. They’re doing the same thing with location. Or at least trying to, but I chased it down. That tanker is more than fifty miles north of where they’re supposed to be. They’ve hovering just on the edge of U.S. waters, ready to move when they’re given the orders. If we’d HALO jumped with the coordinates we got from the satellite imaging, we’d have ended up in the middle of the Bering Sea. Even with neoprene suits we would’ve been fighting hypothermia by the time the Zodiac found us.”