The Hitman Next Door

by Jackie Ashenden

  Tension coiled in every muscle, making him feel like he was bracing himself for a blow, but he forced himself to go on. “He wanted a guy to take out a drug dealer who was encroaching on some other gang’s turf, and he was willing to pay me good money to do it. I needed the money and the guy that needed taking down was a violent scumbag, who was also abusing a string of prostitutes he pimped out.” Perhaps he should have felt regret over that first kill, but he hadn’t. Life shouldn’t be sacred for those who didn’t respect it or other people, and that included himself. “So I took the job. And I completed it. And then along came another job and then another one, and I took those jobs, too.” He stared at her, not bothering to hide the killer, not this time. “I was good at it and eventually I got a rep. Enough that I could turn it into my own business where I got to pick and choose which contracts I took up, and which ones I didn’t.”

  Vivi was quiet. She had her arms wrapped tightly around herself and her face was white. “But…I thought you were in the army all that time. That’s what you told me.”

  “No.” He kept his voice devoid of any kind of emotion. “I lied to you. I was a hitman.”

  She was staring at him like he’d just punched her in the face. “I…don’t know what to say. I don’t know…. God, Rhys. Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Because you wanted to keep being her friend. Because you wanted to keep being her hero.

  He didn’t want to look at her, see the shock and the horror in her eyes, but he made himself stand there, made himself go on. “Because I didn’t want you to know. You were in college and doing well, and I couldn’t face telling you I’d fucked up the army. And then when I started taking contracts… Jesus, Vivi. How could I tell you that I was killing people for money?” His jaw ached he was holding it so tightly. “You were the only person in my whole fucking life who thought I was worth something, who thought I was a good guy. And I couldn’t face telling you the truth. That I wasn’t.”

  Something crumpled up in her face, the sheen of tears bright in her eyes, and suddenly she was moving and not away like she should have been if she’d had any sense at all, but toward him.

  He stiffened but she was reaching for him, her cool hands cupping his face, touching him like she didn't know what a fucking evil asshole he was, looking at him as if she understood.

  “Rhys.” His name sounded thick and a tear slipped down her cheek. “You’re such a damn idiot. Don’t you know that you can tell me anything? Don’t you know that I would never judge you? Never in a million years.”

  His heart felt tight, everything felt tight, as if the life was slowly being squeezed out of him. He raised his hands, took her wrists, gripped them, wanting to pull them away, because how could she stand to touch him? Knowing what he’d done? Yet he found himself merely holding her, unable to let go, feeling the warmth of her skin and the fragile bones beneath. “I’m a killer, Vivi.” He said the words flat and cold. “You do understand that, don’t you? I killed people for money.”

  But her expression didn’t change and she didn’t tug her hands away. “I know. I heard you.” Another tear slid down her cheek and he couldn’t stop looking at it.

  Why was she crying? Jesus Christ, was it for him? “Vivi—”

  “Tell me why. Was it actually for the money?”

  So many reasons. So many justifications. They’d become twisted over the years, tangled up inside him like old rope. Become so knotted even he couldn’t unravel them all.

  “No.” He moved his thumbs on the inside of her wrists, unconsciously stroking her. “Initially, I was just pissed at pretty much everything and I thought ‘why the hell not’? So I took the guy out and as I stood over him, pumping bullets into his corpse, I realized was out of control. Like…that prick Clayton.” His fingers closed around her wrists all of a sudden, remembering his mother’s boyfriend, loud, drunken, violent. Clayton’s fists smashing into Rhys before turning on the smaller boy Rhys had been trying to protect. Those fists lashing out again and again. “I didn’t want to be like him. I didn’t want be so driven by anger that I was out of control. I’d screwed up being in the army and I had this kill under my belt, so there wasn’t any going back.” He stared down into her eyes. “I had to make a choice and not just a knee-jerk reaction to my whole fucking life. So I chose to keep going. I was going to kill people as a soldier anyway, so it didn’t feel like too much of a leap. But I decided to make it a mission. I’d take out only people who hurt others, who deserved what was coming to them.”

  Her hands were warm against his skin and she kept them there, even though what he was saying must sound like a horror story. Even though, surely, by now, she must want to put as much distance between them as she could.

  Except she didn’t. Instead she searched his face and said quietly, “I can’t imagine what that must have taken out of you.”

  He could feel those fine hairline cracks running through him and his usual detachment, as if he would break apart right here in her hands. That fucking job, of course it took things from you. It took everything. Which was why it was better not to examine your motivations or your fucking soul too closely after a certain number of years, just in case you didn’t like what you were left with.

  His fingers tightened even further on her wrists, but she didn’t flinch, only met his gaze, giving him her usual steady, unwavering support. “That’s the thing,” he heard himself say hoarsely. “After a while, you realize that it’s not just about the mission anymore. After a while, you realize that you like the money and you like the challenge.” He could feel his mouth curve in a horrible, feral smile. “That you like the kill.”

  But even then, at his darkest, she didn’t let go of him and she didn’t pull away.

  She only looked at him the way she always had, as if his soul wasn’t blacker than Texas oil. As if there was a piece of him that was still clean and bright.

  “So now you know.” He tried to make his voice sound hard, but he had a horrible feeling the cracks were running through that as well. “Tell me. How can you be a friend to a stone cold killer like me?”

  But he wasn’t cold. That was the thing about Rhys Fox. He wasn’t and he never had been. Even back in high school, the silent, reserved friend who used to carry her books and help out with her clubs, who helped her with her math homework and provided an ear whenever she needed to talk, hadn’t been as cold and detached as he was now. She’d sensed that heat in him, knew there was a fire burning behind his dark eyes that he struggled to contain. It was anger and she knew that, too. His little brother had been murdered, of course he was angry.

  And he might have tried to keep it locked away and controlled, but she could see that heat burning in his dark eyes still. The anger of a boy who’d tried to protect his little brother and failed. The anger of a man who cared deeply, passionately. Who still carried that failure around with him, and who was still hurt by it.

  Stone cold killers didn’t get angry, because stone cold killers didn’t care. And because they didn’t care, they didn’t get hurt.

  Rhys wasn’t anything like them. He was as far from a stone cold killer as it was possible to get.

  She stared at him for a long moment, taking in everything about him. His familiar, gorgeous face with the dark, dark eyes, so full of heat and understanding and possessiveness. The beautiful mouth that sometimes curved slightly in Rhys’s version of a smile, that she’d found out was hot and demanding and magical when he used it on her body. His strong jaw that could be set and hard when he was giving her orders, telling her to keep still as he touched her…

  But it wasn’t simply the face of her friend anymore. There was that other man, the dangerous one, the hitman. That metallic glint in his eyes she’d seen the night he’d taken out his gun, the predator who’d chased her across the room, then taken her down on the bed the evening before. Dark, sure, but exciting, she couldn’t deny it. Maybe she was sick, but the thought of that man turned her on.

  What does that make yo
u then?

  Something shifted inside her, something she didn’t want to examine too closely, yet had somehow crept to the surface all the same. An echo of the night before, a raw, hungry thing. The part of her that had loved every second of what he’d done to her and more than that, had loved the freedom of it. The freedom of not having to please anyone, of not having to obey the rules. Of not having to stay in control all the damn time.

  Another shiver crept over her.

  His eyes were full of pain and anger, the challenging note in his voice echoing around them.

  Stone cold killer. Hitman. Dangerous. Lawless.

  He didn’t obey the rules. Didn’t seem to give a shit about the law. He was everything she wasn’t. While she tried to please people, tried to work hard and not put a foot wrong, he gave everyone the proverbial middle finger.

  Vivi blinked, her breath catching, unable to tear her gaze away. And it was like she was seeing him for the first time, the friend she knew blurring into the stranger, the hitman. And the dangerous man he was inside, with all that anger and pain, blurring back into the dear friend who meant so much to her.

  Two different men. But they were the same person.

  And she wanted them. Both of them.

  “You’re right,” she said, her voice not quite steady. “I can’t be your friend, Rhys. Not now. Not when I want to be so much more to you than that.”

  His gaze lit up like lightning in a dark sky. “I lied to you. You understand that, don’t you? All that time, all those emails I sent you pretending I was on deployment. They were all fucking lies. So were the postcards. I had a buddy send them to you from wherever he was posted.”

  “Yes, I know.” Maybe she should be angry about that, yet she wasn’t. Sure, he could have trusted her more and told her the truth, but fundamentally the lies didn’t matter. She knew his heart. She knew him. “It doesn’t change anything for me.”

  “It should.” His grip had turned painful, but she didn’t pull away. “I’m not the man you thought I was.”

  Her chest tightened. “You idiot. You were always the man I thought you were and you still are.”

  “Vivi….” Intensity burned in his face, his eyes like hot coals. “Be sure. Be very, very sure. I can’t let you go after this. You’ll be mine.”

  “You seem to think that’s a problem for me.” This time she was the one who tightened her grip, her fingers pressing hard along his jaw, letting him see her own possessiveness. “So here’s a heads-up, scary man. It’s not. Because you’ll be mine, too, don’t forget.”

  For a long second he didn’t move, staring down at her, the expression in his gaze too intense, too complicated for her to read.

  Then she got impatient, reaching for him at the same time as he reached for her, and her fingers were threaded through his short black hair while his tangled in hers, and he kissed her at the exact moment she rose on her toes to kiss him. And then there was nothing but blind, raw intensity. A kiss so hot and demanding and passionate, she burned to ash where she stood.

  Then it got hotter, rawer. Devouring. Desperate.

  Rhys tore his hands from her hair and grabbed her T-shirt, pulling apart the fabric in one hard jerk, ripping it from neckline to hem. She barely noticed, her fingers clawing at the buttons of his shirt, tearing them off so she could get it open and touch his skin. But then his palms were on her hips, sliding around her back and up, crushing her to him as he forced her mouth open even wider, kissing her with the kind of wild desperation that was rising inside of her too.

  She arched against him, forcing her hands between them to touch him, feeling the corrugations of his abs and the way they tensed beneath her searching fingers. God, he felt so good. Hot and strong and so very hard. She tore her mouth from his and kissed down his neck, to his throat, tasting the saltiness of his skin and the fast beat of his pulse beneath her tongue. His muscles tensed again as she ran her palms up his chest, reveling in the feel of warm, satin skin. He was hard and dangerous, all those powerful muscles gathering tight beneath her hands, and it thrilled her right down to her core.

  She pushed his shirt from his shoulders, then reached for the fastening of his jeans, his abdomen tensing against her fingers as she fumbled with the zipper.

  He made a growling sound, deep in his throat, and suddenly she was being picked up and carried a couple of steps to the couch, tossing her onto the cushions on her back. Then he was straddling her, tearing away her sweatpants so she lay naked but for the torn remains of the T-shirt.

  This time, though, she didn’t want to lie there while he took the lead. Something had released in her, that passionate part of herself she hadn’t known was there. A part that wanted wildness and danger, and the thrill of doing something very, very bad.

  Vivi pushed herself up on her hands, then slid her fingers inside his already open jeans and then beneath the waistband of his underwear to touch the long, hard length of his cock.

  “Vivienne.” There was so much darkness in his gaze, so much wild heat. “No.”

  But she ignored him, her heart beating fast, hunger for him turning over and over inside her. Instead she pushed on his chest, hard, so he had to put out a hand behind him on the couch cushions to stop from falling back. She took full advantage, sitting up, working him out of his underwear and holding him tight, stroking him as she pressed kisses over the hard, cut muscles of his chest.

  He made another harsh sound, catching her beneath her arms, hauling her up then pushing her down onto her back, shoving his hips between her thighs. Then he grabbed her leg, lifting it high and up around his waist, holding her open. His hips shifted and she felt his cock press against her, and then he was sliding inside her, the long, thick length of him filling her, stretching her.

  She gasped, locking her leg around his waist, arching up to get the most of the friction, and even if parts of her were a little sore from the night before, that didn’t stop the pleasure from coming on like a head-rush, dizzying and intense. She put her hands on his shoulders, slid them down his back and over the hard, muscular curve of his butt, her fingers digging in as he began to thrust. Fast. Deep. Holding him inside her, keeping them there.

  Vivi put her head back, looking up into his eyes, into the darkness. He’d always had shadows inside him and she’d always known they were there. But knowing what they were didn’t change him. They were only another facet of who he was, like the dark side of a mysterious planet being slowly revealed in all its terrible, beautiful glory.

  He was dark, but there was a lightness in him. In the necklace he’d bought her that she wore even now. In the balloon that was still tied to the chair in her apartment. In the coffee he’d left on the stove that morning. In the blanket he’d wrapped her in as he’d kidnapped her.

  In the way he’d angled his body to shield her from that shot.

  Vivi dug her nails into his buttocks, lifting her hips in time with his thrusts, meeting each one, the sound of them coming together and their panting, harsh breathing loud in the room. He didn’t look away from her, his lips pulled back from his teeth, his expression fierce, savage.

  He was so beautiful like this, when she could see everything he felt written all over his face, not hidden under the expressionless mask he so often wore.

  And it was all for her.

  The rawness of it was indescribable. The pleasure annihilating.

  She slid her hands from his butt up the powerful curve of his back, into his hair, curling into it and holding on tight. “Never…lie to me again,” she ordered, just as fierce, just as savage, rising to each hard thrust, slamming herself against him. “Never keep… anything from me, not ever. You’re not allowed to…deal with it on your own, not while I’m around, you hear me?”

  That look in his eyes blazed. But he didn’t say anything, only lowered his head and took her mouth like it belonged to him. Which was its own kind of answer.

  She sucked his lower lip into her mouth in response and bit him, letting go of his hair
and scratching her nails down his back, clawing at him. Marking him the way he’d marked her the night before. Making him hers. And he must have liked that, because he growled low in his throat, and drove himself into her, changing the angle so his cock ground against her clit. Hot embers of pleasure flew everywhere, making her moan aloud, not caring about the sounds she made.

  “Harder,” she panted, beginning to lose all sense of herself. “More, Rhys. More. Give me everything.”

  So he did, gripping onto the arm of the couch, bracing himself as he fucked her the way she wanted him to, harder, deeper. Faster. More. Giving her everything.

  It became too much eventually, both of them panting, their breathing hoarse and ragged, the raw sounds of flesh against flesh making everything that much more intense, that much more erotic.

  The orgasm smashed into her like a runaway train, making her scream then turn her head against his shoulder and bite down on his salty, slick skin. He shuddered, one hand tangling in her hair, pulling her head away from him so her mouth was there for the taking again. And he kissed her as his cock slammed into her one last time and he stiffened, his hold on her almost painfully tight. His hoarse cry vibrated against her lips, then she felt his teeth and the sharp pain as he bit her in return.

  She floated for a time after that, the aftershocks so intense she couldn’t move. But that was okay, because she actually didn’t want to move. She wanted to stay right here, on the couch, naked under him, slippery wet skin to slippery wet skin, his cock buried deep inside her. It felt right. Like a piece of a puzzle she hadn’t realized was missing until now. A missing piece that had been right in front of her all along.

  Rhys. Her missing puzzle piece.

  10

  Rhys lifted his head and looked down at the woman he’d just fucked into oblivion, carrying himself right along with her.

  Her hazel eyes were smoky with lingering desire and the aftereffects of orgasm, her skin flushed, the light sheen of perspiration on her forehead and glistening at her throat.