Darker Than Desire

by Shiloh Walker

  On the street, glaring at the dickhead Driscoll. She’d sneered at him with nothing but defiance and determination on her face, and David had no doubt that even if he hadn’t intervened Sybil would have put the other man on his back, all but begging for mercy.

  But fury, unlike anything David had known, had splintered inside him when he’d seen the man moving on her.

  He could explain it away, if he wanted to: He’d been a victim. The thought of seeing a man prey on somebody else lit the short fuse of his temper, but even that felt like the lie he knew it was. Yes, predators infuriated him, but when it came to Sybil anything that left a mark on her would piss him off.

  Even when he hadn’t known her.

  She was the one weakness he’d never been able to afford.

  Which was why he needed to move past this. Move past her so he could deal with the nightmares he’d have to face in the coming months. So he wouldn’t have to look at her and see the misery he’d no doubt bring into her life.

  He didn’t want to ever see those lovely eyes fill with disappointment, disgust, disillusion. But it would happen. How could it not?

  “You think so very hard,” Sybil murmured, rising onto her toes and pressing her lips to his. Just that light, soft kiss, barely more than a brush of her mouth against his own.

  And he knew he’d have to deal with thoughts, doubts, regrets later. Much later.

  Her fingers slid under the hem of his shirt, and as she started to stroke up along his spine, control shattered, flying apart like a million shards of glass.

  Hauling her up against him, he boosted her up into his arms. Blind desperate hunger drove him as she twined her legs around his waist. She didn’t say a word. Good. That was good. If she didn’t say anything, then he wouldn’t have to worry about answering, thinking.

  Just then, he barely had the state of mind to get them inside the door. Barely even managed to get them down the hallway. If it had been his home, he wouldn’t have cared, but Max’s home … no. His room, they had to go to his room.

  But once he got there, it was all done. Grabbing the hem of her skirt, he yanked it up and turned her around.

  She groaned as he forced her to bend. There was a chair and she braced her hands on it.

  The sight of her, bent and willing and ready for him, was practically his undoing. Naked under that sorry excuse of a skirt, and when he touched her he found her already wet.

  But that wasn’t enough. He needed to brand her, mark himself on her body in a way she’d never forget. Just as she’d branded him. Sliding a hand up her rump, he teased the dark crevice between her cheeks.

  Brand her …

  Going to his knees, he pressed a kiss to one rounded cheek. Memories—of himself, bound and helpless—tried to work free.

  “David…”

  He trailed his fingers along the seam of her buttocks, seeking her out with the most intimate of touches.

  She made him so weak.

  So vulnerable.

  As he pressed against her, she gasped.

  He needed to see her vulnerable, needed to know he wasn’t the only one weakened and overwhelmed.

  “Did you remember?” he asked, his voice a rasp in his throat.

  Something small and black fell on the chair. Her purse. Everything in it fell out, and there wasn’t much inside, making it easy to see the tube of lubricant there. He grabbed it in one hand, fisted his other one in her hair. “Can I make you scream? Can I make you beg?”

  “You can do whatever you want to do with me.”

  With a harsh groan, he jerked her up and covered her mouth with his. He wanted things from her that should send him screaming into the night, but instead, it was like the need sent him screaming … to her.

  He wanted her in more ways than he could even begin to describe, more ways than he could begin to imagine. All of them had to do with her coming apart for him. All of them had to do with her sobbing out his name—his name. He wanted her to know him. Fuck the secrets, fuck the shadows, fuck the scars.

  He needed to have her in the most intimate way possible and he needed to hear her break for him as he took her. Needed to hear her moaning out his name.

  Sinking his teeth into her lip, he said, “Say my name, Sybil. Say it.”

  “David.”

  Her voice was steady and low, and need bloomed in her eyes.

  The sound of his name on her lips had something clenching in his heart an emotion he couldn’t even begin to look at, and it only grew more painful when she reached up and back, curling an arm around his neck. Her fingers slid through his hair and she murmured his name again, this time on a sigh. “David…”

  Fuck—

  Shoving everything down inside, he urged her forward again and tore at his jeans, his hands half-fumbling with the unfamiliar zipper, the button. The clothes seemed too tight, clinging to him, and just then they pissed him off. Shoving the jeans and shorts down, he freed his cock and tucked the head against her core; he hissed at the slick, naked feel of her.

  “Condom,” he gritted.

  “No.” She rocked back on him.

  David groaned as she closed around his cockhead, clamping his hands tighter to keep her from taking him deeper. “We need a rubber, Syb.”

  “No. We don’t. I’m on the pill. I haven’t been with anybody else since we got together. Have you…?”

  He stared at the elegant line of her spine, wondered what she would say if she knew. “No.” He dragged her farther down, relishing the silky wet. “We shouldn’t do this.”

  “Yes, we should. We absolutely should.” She rolled her hips and he snarled, set his feet and drove deep, deep inside.

  She cried out. The sound was the sweetest he’d ever heard. “Again. Scream for me again,” he demanded as he seated himself inside her again, hard and fast.

  But she didn’t. She wouldn’t. Not until he dragged it out of her. It was a challenge—everything with her was. Lids lowered, he stared at the shadowed crevice just above where he shafted her. Stroking one thumb up along the sensitive skin there, he murmured, “There. If I fuck you there, you’ll scream. You’ll moan. You’ll beg … won’t you, Sybil?”

  Did she need him that much? As much as he needed her? It was a terrifying thought, one that should have him tearing away from her and putting distance between them, but he couldn’t. He’d never been able to turn away from her.

  She shivered, her only answer a low whimper. He’d dropped the lube without noticing, but now he grabbed it, flipped open the cap. It was cool and slick in his hand and he almost welcomed the relief of it as he pulled out and started to slick it over his cock.

  This here, the pleasure, was almost too much. The pleasure of taking her, sliding his cock inside her, of feeling her skin naked against his own. If anybody else touched him, even in the most casual of ways, it was akin to torture. With her, the sweetest of pains and the darkest of pleasures. Every touch of her hand, every brush of her body against his helped smooth away some jagged, rough edge.

  He got more lubricant and smeared it across her entrance, bending over her to murmur in her ear as he pushed first one finger, than a second, inside. “I want to feel you squeezing my dick like that, Sybil,” he whispered.

  Wanted? No. He needed to feel it. Needed to feel her yield to him as the hunger tore them apart.

  She turned her head and caught his mouth. Her teeth nipped his lower lip, hard. Pain flared and the rush of it went straight to his balls, making them ache. “Stop teasing me,” she said.

  “Is it teasing?” He twisted his wrist, felt her shudder.

  A moan caught on her lips.

  “David—”

  That hit him, like a punch in the gut. The sound of his name on her lips was still new, still a delight.

  His name, not the name of the man he’d pretended to be. A man who wasn’t real.

  Swearing, he tossed the lubricant down and straightened. He wrapped his hand around his cock and steadied it. His flesh was darker tha
n hers, all over, and she was pale, smooth and soft, so soft, as he pressed the head against vulnerable flesh.

  Voices, chaos, rose inside him, vying for control, trying to tug him back to the past.

  “David … stay with me,” she said, her voice a rasp.

  His vision narrowed down to nothing, locked on the sight of her flowering open around his shaft as he pressed inside. A whimper escaped as he gave her one inch, then withdrew. Slow and steady, two inches, then back out.

  The shadows fell away and all he could see was her, all he could hear was her. All he could feel was her.

  Sybil was shaking and sobbing, her limbs trembling by the time he seated his length within her and his balls were drawn tight against him.

  He’d never gone skin to skin. Never, and this—the molten, satiny feel of her wrapping around him, tighter and hotter than her pussy—was a pleasure he didn’t think he could stand.

  “Tell me you’re ready,” he said, forcing the words out.

  “Make me scream.”

  He swore and pulled out, drove back in.

  The sound of her voice bouncing off the walls was enough to drag a shaky curse from him. Again, and again, his fingers digging into her hips, holding her steady for each hard, deep thrust. She arched her back, undulating, as broken whimpers and words fell from her lips.

  She came—hard and fast—and still he moved. Couldn’t stop.

  It was there, a brutal climax burning inside, but he couldn’t reach—

  Desperate, he hauled her back against him without breaking their connection and spun them around, taking her to the floor. A breathless gasp came from her, but he barely noticed, locked on the ache in his balls, the need to come, so fucking elusive.

  Her weight shifted and he felt her pressing against him. Letting her shift, he eased back onto his heels, pulling her with him. She took his hand, brought it up.

  Sharp teeth sank into his wrist and pain streaked through him.

  Head falling back, David felt the dam break. And that, too, was another form of pain, jagged and intense, his release ripping out of him like she’d torn it from his soul.

  And maybe she had.

  Sometimes he thought she might own it anyway.

  * * *

  Sybil should be used to it. The raw, guttural power that was David. She’d all but drawn blood when she bit him and he’d called bruises from her skin.

  She’d loved it all.

  But her heart hurt. Even now as he slid into the shower with her, she had to blink back the tears before she could smile at him. She hurt because she needed him, because he needed her. And he wanted to push her away.

  “You still think you can protect me?” she murmured.

  He stood beneath one of the angled showerheads, eyes closed. He slid his hands over his face, through his hair, before he turned his head to look at her. “Sometimes I think I need to protect me from you.”

  “That boat’s long sailed, sugar.” She lifted a brow and moved forward, grabbing a bar of soap. She lathered it up and started to soap up his chest. “I’ve got you in my sights. I don’t plan on letting you get away.”

  He sighed and sagged back against the wall. “You’re thinking the wrong sort of thoughts. This…” He moved a hand back and forth between them. “This is all we have, all we can have.”

  The ache in her heart grew. She thought maybe she heard something crack, a narrow fissure forming in her heart. “This?” she asked, sliding a hand down the hard muscles of his abdomen before she closed her fingers around his cock. He was hard already, heavy in her hand, and as she slicked the soap over his cock, he started to pulse. “You mean sex?”

  “You know that’s what I mean.”

  “Hmmm.” She pumped her hand, using the rhythm that worked for him, her hand tight, her strokes almost brutal. His eyes glittered as he stared at her. Glittered with lust, glittered with need, glittered with emotions she couldn’t describe.

  “This is sex. We have this.” She stepped back and let the water rinse him off and then she went to her knees, taking him in her mouth. When she bit him, he swore and grabbed her head, started to fuck her mouth. It was fast and desperate and he came almost immediately. She rose, stared him in the eyes. “We have that … and that’s trust.”

  She lifted a hand and placed it on his cheek. “You know as well as I do that there’s more between us. You can deny it all you want, but denying it doesn’t make it any less true. I’ll wait until you’re ready to stop fighting it.”

  Then she turned back to the shower to wash up.

  Whether he’d let her stay or not, she didn’t know.

  But she’d put the thoughts in his head and she did know one thing—he’d have to think about it now.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The face in the mirror looked harmless.

  Most people never looked more than once.

  As it should be.

  It was particularly handy now.

  Moving through the hospital was easy. Getting inside Max’s room wasn’t. The cop at the door didn’t move. Waiting for him to take a break proved tedious.

  Patience, though, was a virtue.

  The one who watched knew how to wait. It was, after all, something long practiced. This had started more than twenty years ago. What was a few minutes? A few hours?

  Finally, that patience paid off.

  There was a fight down the hall, between an irate father and a stepfather. When the fight went from verbal to physical the opportunity arose.

  Moving inside the room, the one who watched looked around, eyed Maxwell Shepherd. He was still, looked almost small under the bedclothes, and he was asleep.

  That made it even easier.

  A pillow, held over the face.

  He fought, but in addition to being patient, the one who watched was strong. It took very little time.

  In just under moments, the one who watched returned to the door and checked outside. The cop was still struggling with a man on the floor. People were focused on them.

  It was that easy to slip in, then slip out.

  That easy to take a life.

  * * *

  “Where do we stand?”

  Jensen Bell didn’t sit in the police department with the chief. They also hadn’t met in the coffee shop the way they had more than once in the past.

  They each had a cup of coffee, but they’d picked it up from a nearby gas station, meeting at the little gazebo down on the river. “Missy Sutter came in to talk. Finally.”

  Sorenson didn’t speak. He knew Missy Sutter, the widow to one Charles Sutter, Jr., had been in to see Jensen. Sorenson didn’t know the particulars of that conversation, yet.

  “She still insisting that Charlie was too good, too sweet, to be connected to Cronus?” Sorenson’s voice was sardonic, his lip curling on a sneer.

  Jensen looked down at her feet, her heart twisting as she remembered the battered, bruised look on Missy’s face. “No,” she said on a sigh. Then she reached into her bag and pulled something out, turning it over to Sorenson without a word.

  The evidence bag did nothing to limit his view of the top picture.

  “Her parents apparently left her a cabin down at Rough River in Kentucky. It was still in her name. Missy isn’t from around here, so we didn’t know about it.” Jensen grimaced, the cop in her pissed off that she hadn’t unearthed that detail—yet—but her focus hadn’t really been on Missy but on her dead scumbag, child-molesting husband.

  He hadn’t died hard enough.

  “She found these there?” Sorenson asked, his voice neutral.

  “Yep.” She slanted him a look. That neutral tone was even more dangerous than if he’d been yelling. “She didn’t know, Chief. She really didn’t. She didn’t even drive herself home. She had a friend with her and that friend ended up driving her home. The woman—her name is Denita Albi—is the one who packed up all the pictures, talked her into coming to the police department.”

  “She didn’t want to come?”r />
  “It’s not that.” Jensen thought of the pale, quiet zombie of a woman she’d spoken with earlier that day. “She was almost completely shutdown when we spoke. I asked her questions and she answered in this monotone, but when she looked at me, she was looking through me. That son of a bitch managed to break her, even from his fucking grave.”

  “You really believe she didn’t know?”

  “No.” Jensen took a sip from her coffee, more to wash away the taste of gorge that kept trying to crawl up her throat than anything else. “Look at the pictures, Chief.”

  He blew out a breath and then tugged out a pair of thin gloves from his pocket, donning them before he started to flip through the pictures. When he reached the very last one, he stopped.

  It was a picture of a smiling boy, maybe nine. He had Missy’s eyes. That was the one thing Jensen had noticed on her own, before asking Missy about him.

  Missy hadn’t been able to answer.

  It had been her friend Denita who’d responded.

  That’s her baby brother, Tyler. He lives with her twin, Mitchell. He still lives here, in her parents’ home. He got custody of Ty after her folks died.

  Sorenson stared at the picture for a long, long time before he looked up at Jensen.

  “Who is this?” he asked softly.

  “It’s Missy’s little brother.” Jensen barely managed to resist the impulse to hurl her coffee at something. Resisted, barely, the urge to scream, to pummel something. Violence pumped hard and heavy in her veins. “She didn’t want kids, something they fought about, a lot, but mental illness ran in her side of the family—her mother was bipolar and Missy had issues with depression. Then her parents died, and Charlie started to fixate on her brother.”

  “Fixate.”

  Jensen took another sip from her coffee. “Yes. That’s what she told me. Tyler is what made her really come out of that dazed state. She’s furious now. Charlie and her fought, over and over, about that kid. Now she finally understands why.”

  “That son of a bitch.”

  “Yeah.” She pulled out the other evidence bag and handed it over. “He did one useful thing, though.”