Assassin's Mark

by Ella Sheridan

  I expected him to apologize, get angry that I hadn’t told him I was a virgin, pull out maybe. Not Levi. He did pull back, but only so he could enter me again. The glide this time was smooth and much less painful. I moaned.

  The sound sent a charge through his body, seeming to break the restraint he’d put on himself. The next thrust was hard and fast, the absorbed look in his eyes telling me the pleasure was taking over any conscious decisions he could make. A shiver of fear went through me, but then he thrust again, this time brushing something inside me that changed my moans to guttural groans. I pulled my knees higher, trying to climb him, to get closer to the source of that searing pleasure. “More. God, more, Levi, please!”

  His chuckle was strained, muffled against my shoulder where his teeth clamped down once more, pinning me beneath him. He set up a rough, heavy rhythm that rocked my body hard, nothing I had expected and definitely nothing I could have imagined—a place where pain became pleasure and the hunger for completion took over every thought, every moment until I thought I would scream with the need to climax. The scent of sweat and sex, the weight of Levi’s body above me, the rough rub of coarse hair against my thighs and vagina and nipples, the push of his penis inside me—all of it was too much, yet not nearly enough. And then it was there, that pinnacle I’d so often wondered about and longed for, the feeling of coming outside myself and being bathed in complete sensation. In pleasure. In peace. It went on and on, even through the sudden strained groan Levi released as he climaxed.

  By the time the spasms eased, he was staring down at me, his gaze stealing every intimate detail for his own.

  My mind was blank, unable to cough up a response. In lieu of words, I raised my hand to stroke his stubble-roughened cheek.

  Levi gave me a quick jerk of a smile before rolling slowly to one side. “Let me take care of the condom.”

  “Of course.” Uncertainty tried to rise, but I pushed it down in favor of watching his graceful trek across the room—or, really, watching the beauty of his hard rear as he walked. Only when that sight disappeared into the bathroom did I lay my head back and close my eyes. My body felt…different, foreign. Aches and throbbing abounded. There was no doubt I’d been thoroughly and completely taken. A tired smile tugged at my lips.

  Would he take me again before we slept? I desperately hoped so.

  “Here you go.”

  I opened my eyes to Levi standing above me, an open water bottle in one hand. Scooting up until the headboard met my back, I smiled. “Thank you.”

  He sipped from his own bottle as I took mine. “I figured you’d be thirsty.”

  I was; I drank a good quarter of the bottle in one go. Slipping into the bed beside me, Levi snagged the sheet and pulled it up till it covered our legs, leaving my breasts bare to his gaze. I wanted his body bare too, all of it, so I could trace every inch of his skin with my gaze and my fingers and my tongue. Especially his cock. The memory of it inside me, how big it had felt, made me curious about how much I could take in my mouth, what it would feel like. What his mouth might feel like on me. My body tingled, and above the sheet, my breasts ached, my nipples hardening. I shifted onto my hip, hoping to hide the reaction with my bent arms and the water bottle in my grip.

  Levi’s expression said he hadn’t missed the move or the reason behind it. I blushed.

  A final sip emptied his water. Levi set it on the nightstand, then mimicked my position. “Drink up, Abby. I can’t have you dehydrated, not with all I’ve got planned.”

  Hmm, promising. I hid my relief with a few more swallows.

  A yawn surprised me.

  Levi chuckled. My mostly empty bottle was removed from my hand, his strong fingers replacing it. Levi laced them with mine as he kissed me, his lips softer now, his tongue more curious than demanding. The husky moan that escaped him when I captured his tongue between my lips and sucked hesitantly assured me he enjoyed the gentle foreplay despite the lack of urgency.

  Another yawn forced its way forward.

  I found my head tucked against his broad chest without realizing how it got there, but I didn’t argue. I couldn’t seem to do much but blink sleepily. Maybe my first sexual encounter—or the events leading up to it—had taken more out of me than I’d thought.

  The sprinkle of dark hair on his pecs beckoned; I traced it lazily. Gentle fingers pushed my hair back from my face. “Why don’t you doze off for a few minutes?”

  I shook my head. “I’m okay.”

  He tipped my chin up. “I think you’re tired, and no wonder.” He slid us down in the bed until our bodies were prone, touching, faces close together. “I don’t want you tired; I want you fully awake. I’m not going anywhere. Close your eyes and rest; you’ll need it.”

  In this, just like in everything else, I couldn’t resist him. My eyes closed, and the last thing I remembered was the sound of his steady heartbeat beneath my hand, his arms tight around me.

  Chapter Five

  The sheets were soft, a second skin wrapping around my body. I’d expected arms holding me when I woke, but I must’ve slept longer than I meant to. Levi had probably gone to shower or something.

  Opening my eyes confirmed that the sun sat higher in the sky than I’d anticipated, just peeking over the lip of the high windows I faced. Unfamiliar windows, about twelve feet up, sans curtains. The sunlight spilled in unfettered, gracing smooth walls painted a cool gray, not the generic tan of the hotel room last night.

  Because this wasn’t the hotel room from last night.

  What the—

  I shot up a little too fast. The room, right or not, spun sickeningly around me, and I clenched my hands in the sheets, trying to anchor myself to something solid. A minute, maybe two passed before I could open my eyes and not feel like I would throw up, and a thousand questions whirled in my brain in that time. First and foremost, why did I feel like this?

  Every story I’d ever heard through high school and college about girls partying and being drugged ran through my head, and my heartbeat surged to a gallop. No, I didn’t feel right, but surely Levi…he wouldn’t. He’d been too good to me last night, even tender afterward. I remembered that; I remembered everything. I wouldn’t have those memories if I’d been drugged, would I?

  As if I needed more questions. This room definitely wasn’t the hotel—it was bare of anything but a bed, a chest of drawers in one corner, and two doors in the wall opposite. No lamps, no nightstand, no pictures, nothing. Where the hell was I?

  And where was Levi?

  Gingerly placing my feet on the floor, I discovered that I could, in fact, stand, if shakily. I was dressed in the clothes I’d worn last night, but I’d been naked when I fell asleep. Had Levi dressed me? How had I slept through that? The last thing I remembered was drinking the water he’d given me, then drifting off wrapped in his arms—at the hotel, not here, wherever “here” was. The metallic taste in my mouth wasn’t morning-after breath; it was fear, and before it got the better of me, I needed answers.

  The first door I opened was a bathroom, pristine white, the shower and toilet only accompanied by toilet paper, a packaged toothbrush, and a tube of toothpaste. While I was there, I made use of all three. My body ached in places I didn’t want to acknowledge, not now, not with a lot of crazy things running through my head. I tried to blank it all out, but one look in the mirror made that impossible. The fact that I’d had sex last night stared back at me—wild hair, swollen lips, stubble burn around my mouth and on my neck. I didn’t want to think what my breasts must look like, the aching spots on my hips where Levi’s fingers had dug in as he held me and—

  No, don’t think about that now. There has to be an explanation. After that, then you can think about sex.

  Maybe.

  I ran my fingers through my dark auburn hair, taming it as best I could, made sure my clothes were on straight, then returned to the bedroom. My fingers shook as I reached for the doorknob, but I forced them to function anyway. To grasp, twist, pull.


  And look, damn it! You can’t meet this head-on if your eyes are closed.

  “I know very well where I’m at, Eli. I don’t need you to tell me.”

  The voice checked my step into the room. Levi’s voice, but…not. Last night it had been a low, sexy rumble. Now? The words were all steel and ice. And who was Eli?

  I forced my legs to move. My bare feet chilled, the concrete cold beneath them. The room looked like a warehouse, or what used to be one—the inside had been finished, at least until about twelve feet up, just as it had in the bedroom. Clean gray walls. Long rows of windows up too high to see anything but the sky. A metal roof towered above me, giving a sense of vast openness that made me want to wrap my arms around myself and squeeze down tight. Instead I focused on Levi’s back where he sat at a desk halfway across the space. The sight of his bare skin drew me forward.

  “You’ve always been a bastard, Levi.” The voice sounded small, tinny—was mystery man Eli on speakerphone? “Not this time. Remi needs you, so get your ass down to the hospital. I can’t leave him long enough to force you.”

  “Remi doesn’t need me; he needs you.”

  “Levi, he could’ve died—”

  “I know that!”

  The barked words jerked me to a stop nearly halfway to the desk. A squeak escaped. Levi swung around, his gaze narrowing on me. The lack of emotion there chilled more than my feet; it froze my heart. My foot slid back without conscious thought, driven by a sudden instinctive need to flee.

  Levi stood. My mouth went desert dry.

  “Look, you don’t have to worry, little brother,” Levi said, his tone absent, attention never wavering from me. “You take care of Remi your way. Rest assured I’m taking care of him mine.”

  A long pause. My anxious breath roared in and out, a white-water rush in my ears.

  “What have you done?” Eli finally asked. Levi’s brother, he’d said. Somehow I couldn’t imagine the man standing in front of me, watching me like a panther stalking its prey, having a brother. The Levi from last night, yes, but…

  But the Levi from last night had disappeared, obviously. Or had he? Was I misreading that expression? Surely this was all a misunderstanding. Maybe he was simply upset about whatever had happened to this Remi. Hadn’t Eli mentioned a hospital?

  I needed to know. “Levi?”

  My voice came out as hesitant as my steps forward, too shaky in the massive space, but it was the best I could manage. Loud enough for Eli to hear it over the speaker, though.

  “Who is that? Answer me, Levi!”

  Levi leaned back against the edge of the desk, thick arms crossed over his ink-decorated chest. A smirk that didn’t match his eyes tugged at his lips. Lips I’d kissed. Lips that had caressed and kissed and sucked—

  “That, Eli, is Derrick Roslyn’s daughter.”

  My father’s name rang in my ears, setting off another wave of confusion. Shock. Resignation began a slow crawl up my soul at the satisfaction saturating the words. Levi had targeted me? Because I was my father’s daughter. I shouldn’t be surprised, but that’s exactly what I was.

  This hadn’t been about me at all. So what was it about?

  Eli’s curses filled the air. Levi chuckled. “I told you, I’ll take care of our problem. Abby here is going to help me, one way or another.”

  “No!” Eli’s voice hardened, becoming as frigid as Levi’s had been mere moments ago. “You know the code, brother. We’ve never broken it, and neither have you. Don’t hurt the innocent.”

  What code? What innocent? Why would they hurt anyone, either of them?

  “Oh, she’s not innocent. Not anymore.”

  Tears stung the backs of my eyes at Levi’s tone, at the dismissive way his gaze traveled over my body. I looked down, seeing what he saw—my crossed arms had plumped my breasts above my corselet in a display I’d never intended to put on, but I couldn’t seem to let go, couldn’t relax the only thing holding me together right now.

  “Don’t you hurt her; you hear me?” Eli yelled this time, and I swore I heard a hint of something close to panic in the words. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret later.”

  “I don’t feel regret. I don’t feel anything, not anymore.” Levi reached back toward the phone without looking, his finger hovering over the Off button. “Take care of Remi.”

  Click.

  The sound hit my body like a lash.

  “Good morning.”

  Levi’s words should have been friendly, but no matter which way I turned them in my head, I couldn’t find even a hint. And I didn’t know where to start.

  With the obvious, of course.

  “You know who I am?”

  “Of course I do. I knew before I ever laid eyes on you.”

  I swallowed hard, determined not to give in to the sick churning in my stomach. “And when was that?”

  “Long before you walked into a club and set yourself up as bait.”

  So he’d been following me. Why?

  Does it matter? Only one thing mattered, and that was where I needed to focus. “I want to go home now.”

  Levi shook his head. The sick feeling got stronger. “You’re not going home. You’ll be here a long time, in fact. Until your father gives me exactly what I want, though I plan to drag him through hell first. And rest assured, Abby”—he leaned toward me, one brow raised—“I know hell much, much better than he does. But not for long.”

  It was like a line from a movie, something you’d see on a screen and think, wow, that’s cheesy villain dialogue. Only the villain was standing in front of me, big and terrifying and real, and the dialogue was anything but cheesy. “And—” I had to stop and clear my throat. “What…what is it you want?”

  One dark eyebrow arched. “Him, dead. After he loses everything he ever cared about. Every last thing.”

  “Why? What has my father done to you?” I’d never so much as heard of Levi before; how could he be that closely connected to my father?

  “He put out an order to kill me.”

  I laughed; I couldn’t help it. I was afraid, confused, ashamed—though why I should be ashamed of having sex with someone, I wasn’t sure. But come on, did Levi really expect me to believe my dad was trying to have him killed? “My father isn’t a killer; he’s a politician.” Not a nice one, but that was a far cry from what Levi was accusing him of. My father, a killer. Right.

  Right?

  “Why would Derrick Roslyn, city councilman and future governor, want you dead, Levi?”

  “Because he asked me to do a job for him. A very messy job, and he wants all the evidence of that job to disappear, including me.”

  That was even more ludicrous than believing my father was trying to have someone killed. “What kind of job?”

  “Murder.”

  Chapter Six

  “That’s ridiculous. My father wouldn’t—”

  Levi’s laugh cut me off, dark amusement and knowledge far beyond anything I could comprehend. I was looking at the man in front of me, being told he’d murdered someone, and despite that, I couldn’t imagine him as—what? A hit man?

  This had to be a dream. Any minute I’d wake up and this would all be gone and I would be wrapped in Levi’s arms in the hotel bed, feeling his arousal and seeing wickedly hungry eyes looking down at me with zero malice.

  Yes, I was delusional even considering that. Apparently I was delusional about a lot of things.

  “You’re not…an assassin.”

  “No?”

  I eyed him warily. “Who did you kill, then?”

  His snort hit me like a shot, proving my nerves weren’t taking this as calmly as my mind. Which wasn’t truly calm either, so… “More people than I can count, but I could narrow that down for you. I won’t, though—that would be telling.” His gaze strayed to the computer screen half-obscured by his body. “The point is, your father tried to make sure I was next.”

  Probably a good objective if you looked at it without bias.

&nbs
p; What was I thinking? Dad wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t.

  The deadly gleam in Levi’s eyes said differently.

  Play along. “So my father hired a hit man—you. That’s between you and him. What does it have to do with me? How do I fit into this?” I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer, though I desperately needed it if I was going to figure my way out of this hell. “You said I can’t go home. Are you kidnapping me? Do you plan to kill me?”

  “You’re just the start, but a good one. An enjoyable one.” Remembered pleasure softened his expression. A shudder jerked through me. “I don’t plan to kill you, Abby.” A pause. The tension in my muscles eased. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Why? What have I ever done to you?”

  “Nothing. It’s not about you.”

  “Then what?”

  “It’s about destroying your father’s life.” He stalked forward, stopping far too close for me to be comfortable. “Do you know how you destroy a man’s life? Start with his reputation—or in this case, the reputation of those closest to him.”

  “How?”

  Levi stared me down for a long time. I couldn’t read the look, but then, I couldn’t have trusted anything I read, anyway. He’d proved that far too effectively. And then he stepped aside, allowing me access to the desk behind him. A wave of his hand invited me forward. “See for yourself.”

  Ignoring the warnings screaming through my head, I walked toward the desk. He seemed amused at my wariness, but right now I couldn’t bring myself to care. My head was too full, too confused, my heartbeat too fast, my breath too shallow. I was going to pass out if something didn’t give. And then I reached the desk and moved my gaze from Levi to the computer, and the possibility of fainting grew exponentially.

  Pictures. Of me. There were a dozen open on the screen, a sea of naked skin—my naked skin. I was asleep, my hands and feet tied in leather restraints I’d only seen associated with the little bit of BDSM culture that had leaked into mainstream with the release of Fifty Shades of Grey. My hair was after-sex wild, my skin bearing the faint darkening of raspberries and beard burn and bruises in intimate places.