Dangerous Lovers (122 page)

It’s not something I drag out.
His statement was more telling than he realized. It was like he was saying he did it quickly to get it over with because it was something he didn’t enjoy.

“But what about the ones like Rosalyn?” I said, my stomach tightening at her name. “The ones you have to spend time with, the ones you get to know. Doesn’t it bother you then? Don’t you feel bad for all the things—all the life—you’re robbing from them?”

“It’s getting to you,” he said softly.

“What?”

“You’ve gone out to lunch and off shopping. You’ve inserted yourself into her life. You’ve made her your friend. And now you feel guilty.”

It didn’t surprise me that he knew I spent a little time with her on my own. I shrugged and picked at the top of a cupcake. “Why don’t you?”

He leaned forward even farther, a snarl curling his lips. “She isn’t my friend. Yes, I smile and make jokes, I pretend to listen to the words that fall from her lips, but I’m not really hearing. She’s not a person to me. She’s a job. A means to an end. It’s her or me.”

“She’s a person,” I said, not knowing what to feel or think about his words.

He shook his head. “She’s an assignment and if I don’t finish my assignment then I’m the one who gets Recalled. Death isn’t a place for a girl like you,” he said, his words taking on an angry tone. “Death is cold. It’s mean and it’s unforgiving. It’s every man for himself in my world and if I don’t do the job, someone else will.”

And that’s when I realized.

He really meant it when he said it wasn’t hard to kill. But the reason it wasn’t hard wasn’t because he’d done it so many times. It was because he wasn’t completely human. Yes, I joked about it before, but I never really considered that it might be true. This was a man who should have been dead. This was a man who walked around in a body that really wasn’t his. The reason he seemed so detached sometimes was because he was… Charming was completely detached from life, from living. All he knew was death.

I stood up from the table abruptly. My chair would have fallen back onto the floor, but I caught it, sliding it beneath the table and gripping the back with both my hands. I didn’t know what to say to him. All sarcastic remarks had completely faded from my brain.

“I have to go,” I said.

And then I rushed out into the night.

Chapter Fifteen

“
Kiss - to engage in mutual touching or caressing with the lips.”

Charming

I finally said something that got to her. Yeah, I said stuff constantly that drove her crazy or made her mad, but I don’t think I ever said something that got this far under her skin so fast.

I watched her go, thinking I finally found the thing that would drive her away.

Maybe now I could finish this job without issue.

Funny, I thought I would be happier. I thought I’d feel lighter without having to worry about what she was up to that might ruin me.

I didn’t feel lighter.

I didn’t feel satisfied at all.

I dropped a five on the table, picked up the huge box, the coffee, and waved good-bye to the girl who let us in. She told me her name, but I wasn’t listening. I pointed to my cup where she’d scrawled her phone number and I grinned, making her think I was eager to call her. I wasn’t ever going to call her.

She blushed and disappeared into the back. I took the opportunity to increase my speed, stopping just behind Frankie who was fumbling to get inside her Jeep.

“You forgot your cupcakes,” I said, shifting the load to one arm and reaching around her with the other to open her door.

She didn’t turn around.

“Why are you here?” Her voice was slightly hoarse and my body tightened.

I set the box and coffee on the hood of her car, not bothering to say a word. I really didn’t have an answer anyway.

When my hands cupped her shoulders, she flinched. I told myself it didn’t bother me. That I knew she didn’t like me. It didn’t matter if she liked me or not. I was used to taking what I wanted.

I turned her around, my grip never leaving her shoulders, and pulled her closer so the space between us was maybe an inch at best. She looked up, her blue eyes confused and slightly hurt. My right hand found its way up to the back of her neck while the left tipped back her chin.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

I had to.

I lowered my lips to hers, wrapping my arm around her back and pulling her so close that there wasn’t even room for air between us. She never appeared short, but when she was up against me like this, she felt it. My body had to hunch itself around her so I could taste her the way I really wanted to.

The last time I kissed her was to prove a point.

This time it was because I couldn’t
not
kiss her.

There was no resistance where I expected. It was almost as if she hadn’t just said, “don’t,” but instead murmured “please.” Her mouth was soft and pliable, warm and adept. She kissed like she had nowhere else to be but right here in my arms. It made me hold her tighter. It made me groan in the back of my throat and when I did, her tongue delved inside my mouth like it was trying to capture that sound, capture it and swallow it away so she would be the only one to have heard it.

Adrenaline poured through my limbs and they began to shake, a fine tremor that I would have denied if she called me on it. But thankfully, she didn’t. Because she was too busy kissing me back. I wanted to tear my mouth from hers, to kiss more than just one place on her body, but her lips were like a drug. A lethal drug that claimed me with a single dose.

I ran my hands down her sides and across her back, dipping lower so they cupped the roundness of her bottom. She made a sound, stretching up on tiptoes, wrapping her arms around my neck, trying to get closer. I kissed her harder, with more intent. My lips finally broke free of hers and blazed a path across her cheekbone toward her ear. Her chin tipped back, giving me greater access, and I sucked her earlobe into my mouth and kneaded it with my tongue. She made a sound that caused me to smile, and I pulled back to look down.

Her cheeks were flushed, her lips were swollen, and her eyes were unfocused like she had one too many drinks.

I kissed her again, a series of four short rapid kisses that blended into one.

This time when I pulled away, she sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and held it there. I told myself it was because she wanted every last taste of my kiss.

“Why did you do that?” she asked, her voice husky and low. “Why are you even here?”

“Do you need a reason for everything I do?” The truth was I didn’t know why I was here. I was out driving and the next thing I knew I was here.

“I think I do.”

I pulled the cupcakes and the coffee off her hood and held them out. When she took them, I lifted my cup off the top. “Because I wanted to.”

“You wanted to kiss me?” she stuttered out.

I wanted to wipe that look off her face—the one of contempt and disdain. The way she looked at me before leaving the bakery… had been like I was a complete and utter stranger. I didn’t want to be a stranger to her. I wanted to know I could make her feel something other than death.

By the look on her face, by the way her body hummed against mine, I would say I was successful. Which really wasn’t a surprise.

What I hadn’t expected was, for the first time in a very long time, I felt something other than death too.

Chapter Sixteen

“
Human - subject to or indicative of the weaknesses, imperfections, and fragility associated with humans: a mistake that shows he's only human; human frailty.”

Frankie

I baked about one hundred cupcakes. My little kitchen had never seen so much icing and batter. When the cupcakes were done, I started on cookies and then moved on to sticky buns with a vanilla glaze.

I called in sick to work. The thought of facing that depressing place was too much to bear. I couldn’t be trapped like that. Not today. Not after.

When the phone rang, I ignored it. When Piper texted, I put my phone on silent. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I didn’t want to think. I had flour in my hair, batter on my apron, and cinnamon under my nails.

But it didn’t matter how filled up my kitchen got with desserts because my mind was still filled up with him.

Damn it.

How dare he kiss me like that? How dare he make me feel something for him other than hatred? His heart might beat like mine. His lungs might fill with air. He might walk and talk like everyone else out on the streets, but he was different. He wasn’t really human.

He was a machine.

A robot.

A killer.

He looked me in the eye and told me it didn’t bother him. He told me that he killed over and over again without regret.

But, really, I guess the problem wasn’t him. The problem was me. Because even knowing all those things, even knowing that he would kill again, I still felt things for him. Things I didn’t want to feel.

Death isn’t a place for a girl like you.

His words haunted me. He was right. And so I was going to stay away from death—from him. I was going to bake until I ran out of flour and move on with my life. I never should have gotten involved with him; it was stupid to think I could stop him, that I could chase him out of town.

No more.

From here on out, Charming could be someone else’s problem.

But what about Rosalyn?
a voice inside me whispered. She deserved some kind of warning that Charming wasn’t who she thought. She’d become my friend and I couldn’t just let her walk right into her own death.

I was going to have to talk with her. But after that I couldn’t be friends with her anymore. It was too complicated and it made me feel guilty. Every time I was around her I felt like a liar. I didn’t like feeling that way.

I glanced at my phone, then away again. Not today. I couldn’t deal with this—with her today. Maybe later this week I would feel less shaky and more like myself. Then I would call her.

Then I would somehow tell her the truth about Charming.

Chapter Seventeen

“
Socialite - a person who is or seeks to be prominent in fashionable society.”

Charming

I liked money. I liked cars and clothes. I liked having nice things and the ability to buy whatever I wanted. But sometimes the things I had to do to earn my money really sucked. And I didn’t mean the killing. Killing didn’t require much talking or much listening.

But spending time with a Target—specifically Rosalyn—required both.

I was starting to think that eventually going to hell wasn’t my punishment for murder—it was spending time with her.

It was a Saturday, a day most socialites would be lounging in bed, playing golf, or sitting by a pool. Not Rosalyn. No, she would rather drag me all over Fairbanks to scout locations for the fundraiser that I offered to help her chair.

What surprised me was that there were so many viable locations for such an event. I didn’t think this town consisted of much more than snow.

“Are you even listening to a word I’m saying?” she said, wrapping her hand around my elbow and looking up.

“I’m sorry, my brain’s starting to shut down from lack of caffeine,” I said and gave her my best smile.

“It has been a long morning. Let’s get some lunch and caffeine,” she said.

“Now you’re talking.”

“It will give us a chance to discuss all the venues and pick one.”

Internally, I groaned.

Her phone rang inside the designer bag she wore over her shoulder and she pulled it out. “Oh, it’s your sister!” she said, smiling.

My sister…

“Frankie, hi!” the Target said enthusiastically when she answered the phone.

Oh, yes. My
sister
.

I hadn’t seen or heard from her in over a week. Since I kissed her. Ever since that night, I went out of my way to avoid her. As much as I hated to admit it to myself, that kiss had shaken me. It made me
feel
things I didn’t want to feel.

After several days, I started to get the feeling I wasn’t the only one avoiding someone. She never showed up when I had plans with the Target, she didn’t show up to snoop around my house, and she never once tried to call.

Frankie was avoiding me too. Her avoidance irritated me for reasons I didn’t understand. I should be happy she was finally backing off. It’s what I wanted.