In For the Kill (8 page)

He was holding her thighs open with his big, hot hands. She tried, without success, to pry them off. “I'm glad you have filter failure,” she said. “I prefer the truth. Even when it makes me angry.”

“That's fortunate,” he said, pushing her legs wider. His gaze narrowed at her resistance. “Relax, Sveti.”

She kept her back straight, her chin high, her gaze steady. “I don't take orders well,” she said. “You sound angry and controlling, and that does not make me want to open my legs.”

Sam ran his fingers through his wild mane of hair. “Goddamnit, Sveti,” he snarled. “Just let me fulfil my function as a disposable sex toy, okay? Just let me make up for hurting you! Give me that, at least!”

“You're not a disposable toy. And you sound so grim about it!”

“Sorry I'm not in a more playful mood, but there's nothing in the world I'd rather do right now than put my face between your legs.”

His raw tone unnerved her. “But you're so angry.”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Angry at myself for wanting you, angry at myself for hurting you—”

“I'm not hurt, goddamnit!”

“Angry that you're leaving,” he went on, as if she had not spoken. “Fucking furious that you waited until now to give it up to me. You needed a plane ticket to Europe in your hand before you dared to touch me. A ready escape route, right? Just in case you actually liked it.”

She wrapped her arms over her chest, shivering. “That's not true.”

“Face it,” he said. “I suck as a casual sex toy, at least for you. I can't help it and I can't hide it. I'm angry that you want so goddamn little from me. And now I've got no place to put all the rest of it.”

She closed her eyes against the pain in his voice. There was no skating over it now. There it was, out on the table.

“It may seem little to you,” she whispered. “But it's huge to me.”

He seized her, pinned her down onto the bed. She fought him, even though she didn't want to. She ached for him, craved him, but the convulsive resistance was a pre-programmed reflex. It made her jittery and crazy and confused. But he did not relent. He pinned her straining, heaving body down, and slid down the length of her, his big hands clamped on her inner thighs. Staring hot-eyed at her pussy.

“Wait.” She was racked by spasms of unreasonable panic. “Don't.”

“I won't hurt you,” he assured her. A quick jerk scooted her body to the edge of the bed, so he could fold her legs up and kneel there. “I swear, I won't touch the sore part. I'll concentrate on your clit. Okay?”

Hah. Sam Petrie licking between her legs was not an event that could be described as “okay.” But that and all other thoughts fizzed into vapor the instant his mouth touched her.

Too much, at first. His tongue slid between her sensitive folds, provoking a jittery explosion that made her cry out. But her body adjusted, reframing the sensation into a lovely swirl of liquid heat.

She rose to meet his caressing tongue. She glowed like moonlight on water, crested like sea waves, surged like froth and foam. Sam followed every cue before she even gave it, lavishing long, lingering licks and swirls over her shivering pussy. He suckled and flirted, teased her with maddening flicks and trills, building the charge with masterful slowness, to a screaming point of intensity—and then letting it drift gently down. Again, and again. Until she was desperate.

When she pitched over the edge, each pulse of the wrenching explosion jolted her deeper into that place inside where she could feel it all. The infinite depths, the heart-breaking sweetness. A fleeting, whirling glimpse of all that ever was beautiful and true, or ever could be.

Her eyes fluttered open sometime later. She blinked at the ceiling. Her eyes were wet. She struggled to remember even who she was. She did not recognize this self, these sensations. She was not even remotely familiar with the place from which she'd just drifted so softly down.

The blankness lasted just long enough to feel a stab of anxiety about it. Then everything came rushing back.

Sam sat cross-legged next to her. His hand cupped her muff, cradling it as if it belonged to him. “You're incredible when you let go.”

She was abashed. “Did I yell?”

“Mmmm.” He scooped her legs up and nudged until she scooted over to make room for him. He twitched the comforter up. It settled over them, soft as a cloud. His body was so long, hot. A bulwark against the night. He pulled her close against him, chest-to-chest, legs entangled.

They stared at each other. The silence felt heavy, and dangerous. Charged with all the things that they didn't dare to say. Afraid to spoil the fragile sweetness of the moment. It made her throat ache.

He smoothed a lock of hair back off her forehead. “You taste amazing,” he said. “I could lick you forever. I think I could live on that alone. Just sweet, juicy Sveti lube. My magical elixir.”

She shook with laughter that could just as quickly turn to tears. Tears lurked around every corner, ready to ambush her. It was very strange. She was not a person who cried easily. Or at all, really.

He was erect again. His penis pressed against her belly. She grasped him. He went rigid, with a sharp, silent gasp. She cupped his balls. His penis jumped and twitched in her hand.

“Jesus,” he muttered. “That wasn't enough for you?”

“You don't seem to need rest,” she observed.

“You do.” He pried her hands off, pinning them against her chest.

She stroked him, long and slow and tight. “Make love to me.”

His eyes narrowed, and he shook his head. “I'm on to you now, babe,” he said. “You want me to fuck all coherent thought out of your head again, right? Felt good, didn't it? To take a little break from the weight of the world, even if it's only a few seconds?”

She yanked at her trapped hands. “I did not expect you to—”

“You don't want any uncomfortable silences, either,” he went on. “You might actually have to talk to me. Oh, the horror.”

“Let go!” She yanked harder. “Now you're just being an asshole !”

“Oh, for fuck's sake, let me have my little tantrum,” he growled.

“It's a problem when the person throwing the tantrum is naked and lying on top of you!”

He rolled his eyes. “You know I would never hurt you.”

Her laugh was bitter. “There's all sorts of different kinds of pain.”

“I guess you'd know, Sveti. You're the big expert.”

Oh, that
bastard.
She struggled, but Sam pinned her flat and kissed her again. He could seduce her so swiftly into a quivering mess, despite his complicated mood. Everything he did made her hot and crazy. He lifted his mouth. She gasped for some badly needed air.

“Make me come again,” he said.

“You're confusing me,” she said. “I thought you just said no.”

“To regular fucking, yes,” he said. “Jack me off.”

That blunt directive made her want to slap him. The arrogant bastard. It also made her want to do exactly as he asked. She only had tonight. No time for pride. No need to worry about establishing dangerous precedents. She still hesitated. “I might not do it right.”

“I'll show you how I like it. Get your hands wet first.”

She gazed at him, perplexed.

He made an impatient sound. “With your lube. Best stuff ever.” He flicked the cover back. Slid his hand up her thigh. “Put your hand in your pussy.” He leaned forward, inhaling hungrily. “Show me the secret pink girl parts. Let me smell you. God, you're so fucking hot and yum.”

Even an hour before, such a thing would have been unthinkable, but his mysterious alchemy had burned away her self-consciousness.

She splayed her legs and slipped her fingers inside herself. The only sound in the dim room was the wet sound of her hands moving on herself. He sat next to her, stroking his cock as he stared intently at the spectacle. She stared at the way he touched himself, too. Aroused by his thick, swollen shaft, the tracery of dark, pulsing veins.

The pleasure that burst from her depths startled her. A shuddering flush of heat pumped up through her chest, down her legs, her arm, all the way to her fingers and toes. Even her face tingled.

“Beautiful,” he muttered. “Wow. Bonus orgasm.” He grabbed her slippery hand and squeezed it around the head of his cock. His slick precome and her own lube blended into a perfect, slippery fluid.

He guided her hand into a tight, twisting yank, up and down the length of his pulsing shaft. “You do that . . . while I do this.” He slid a finger delicately inside her pussy and circled with his fingertip. Her body convulsed, shuddering.

“Does that hurt?” He pulsed it tenderly inside her, finding some mysteriously perfect spot in there that was soft, glowing with molten heat. It did hurt, just a little, but she'd die if he stopped, so she shook her head, unable to speak. Her throat was locked and trembling.

He guided her hand. She clenched and squirmed around his caressing fingers. Their pants turned to gasps. They were a taut, straining knot, making low, guttural sounds. His fingers probed deeper. Her strokes on his cock quickened. They fought their way toward that burning inevitability that beckoned and lured.

Sveti reached it first, pulsing around his hand with a shocked wail. Sam tightened his fist over hers, jerking it over his cock with frenzied intensity. He shouted as he spurted hot jets of creamy white come all over her belly, her breasts.

They stared at each other, drenched and limp, for a long moment.

“It's just so fucking good with you,” Sam muttered. “Why did it have to be so good?”

She responded to the note of accusation in his voice. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. It's my own fault, for getting all intense.”

Sam got up and headed to the bathroom. He came back with a hot wet washcloth, with which he proceeded to wipe the sticky fluid off her body. The slow rasp of hot, wet terrycloth over her belly and her sensitized breasts felt like a big, caressing tongue against her skin. She stretched voluptuously to give him better access. She'd never felt this relaxed, limp, soft. Empty, floating. Strange. Soothing.

It couldn't last. As soon as she realized how much she liked it, it was ending. The heavy cold dragged at the bottom of her insides again.

Sam felt it, human antennae that he was, and the hot towel stopped moving. “Really?” he said, incredulous. “You're sad again? That's all the relief you get? That's one hell of a narrow window, babe.”

“I know,” she admitted. “It really is.”

“Maybe it's a good thing you're leaving the continent,” he said. “Managing your moods with sex would probably kill me.”

She forced herself to smile. “Lucky you. Narrow escape.”

He tossed the washcloth through the bathroom door, where it landed with a wet plop in the sink. He stretched out beside her again, pulling her into his arms, and hugged her, fiercely. Defiantly.

To her utter shock, she dissolved into tears.

“Oh, God. What, Sveti?” He shook her gently. “Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head, hiding her face against his chest.

“Okay, whatever.” He grabbed the tissues, put the box by her pillow.

She groped for them and mopped up the mess. She'd known this would happen. That the sex would knock down barriers that held in a huge mess of inconvenient, inappropriate, dangerous feelings.

Sam held her quietly, kissing the top of her head. So sexy, that he was unfazed by geysers of nonspecific grief. Of course, he'd get sick of it eventually. And it was good that he wouldn't get the chance.

It had to be this way. Because she had oceans of grief inside her.

She might never plumb those depths.

C
HAPTER
6

S
am stared up at the ceiling after Sveti's tears eased off, his jaw clenched so hard, it ached. He rarely allowed himself to descend to this nadir of suck-ass misery. Under normal circumstances, he had a whole arsenal of tricks for jumping tracks, taking his mind elsewhere. He'd gotten good at it, way back, while Mom was dying. He was very deft.

Investigative work had been his drug of choice since he'd discovered it by accident back in college. The games he played with money helped. When that failed, there were video games, excessive exercise, alcohol.

Sex was a favorite, too, but not in this case. Oh, no.

But he was barred from work, and he couldn't pump iron or suck down bourbon with Sveti's perfect body draped over his. Her head rested in the crook of his shoulder, her hand splayed on his chest. Not asleep, barely dozing. Her body was so slim, but charged with power. Lithe and flexible, every curve and hollow a miracle of nature. He sought out the delicate throb of her pulse.

That strong, stubborn heart. Almost stolen. Rescued in the nick of time. His mysterious maiden, with all her tragic airs.

Hell, no one was as entitled as Sveti to put on tragic airs.

It occurred to him that if someone had tried to steal his heart literally right out of his chest, he might guard it a little harder than a normal person, metaphorically speaking. It made sense that she was armored, alarmed, with infrared and motion detectors and chain-link and razor-wire and control towers. Who could blame her.

A virgin, for the love of God. He should have known. She kept the whole world at arm's length. And he'd never been able to resist a challenge. He was hardwired to leap for them, like a trout for a bug.

And he was still ready to mount right up and pound away all night long, staring down into her big, startled eyes. She'd seemed so surprised by pleasure. God, what a rush, those hot, clutching pulses around his finger, pressed to his mouth. If only it had been his cock.

He'd get her comfortable with multiple orgasms. He'd make them her nightly norm. Morning, noon, evening, whenever. It was masochistic, to fantasize about it. She'd have none of it.

Sveti sensed emotion roiling inside him, and stirred, lifting her head. “What's wrong?”

Why even start? There was no finishing that conversation. He'd be haranguing her back as she walked up the Jetway, desperately glad to be rid of him. He shook his head.

She propped herself up onto her elbow and laid her hand over his heart. “You asked before if I wanted to be with you for the two days that I have, until I leave,” she said. “And I do want that. If you still do.”

So he'd passed the audition. The fuck-buddy-til-Thursday scenario. His cock hardened, and his face went red.

“Don't go,” he blurted.

Her hair swung down like a curtain. The long seconds of silence gave him her answer even before she spoke. “I have to go,” she said quietly. “It's what I've dreamed of doing. It's an incredible opportunity.”

“So do it. Just not in London. There's evil to fight wherever you turn. You don't have to fly to another continent to find it. Join a task force, join the police bureau, start a foundation. Whatever.”

She shook her head. “Don't start, Sam.”

He could not shut up. “Give us a chance, before you run away!”

“Give what a chance? You don't even know me! You've hardly ever talked to me, in all these years!”

“You never gave me a fucking opportunity! Give me one now!”

Her back stayed turned. “My decision is made. I won't unmake it because of a one-time hookup.”

Hookup?
He sucked in air. He couldn't even speak, for the rock in his throat.

“So,” she said, still not looking at him. “Do you want to spend the next two days with me or not?”

Two days. Mornings, afternoons, evenings. Every quality of light falling on her naked body. Breakfasts, lunches, dinners, showers. His mind was all over that idea, like a pack of starving wolves. Two days of Sveti Ardova, naked and whimpering beneath him. Oh,
hell,
yeah.

And then? When she walked through the security line? When he drove home from the airport alone? Two days of frantic fucking would not make that easier. It would seal his doom. He was dangerously far from his right mind already, after just hours of Sveti-style sexual mind-melt. Two days of it, and he could totally lose his shit.

He forced the words out, like jagged rocks. “I can't do it.”

There was an awful silence, and she slid to the edge of the bed. “I see,” she said quietly. “This was a mistake. I'm so sorry. I'll just go.”

He pulled her back, flung his leg over hers. Not. Fucking. Yet.

She wiggled. “You're confusing me, Sam. What are you doing?”

His arms tightened. “Making a huge mistake. I'm just not quite done making it yet. Give me til morning. Don't rush me.”

The cutoff point was still an hour or so out. He could do all kinds of catastrophic damage to himself before then.

Sveti laid her hands over his arms, which were still clamped over her chest, and stroked them, very gently. “Until dawn, then?”

He nodded against her neck.

She twisted around to face him. “Make it worth my while, then. Make love to me.”

Fresh lust flooded him. “No,” he said. “It's too soon.”

“I want to feel that, with you,” she said. “If we had more time, I'd say sure, let's wait a day. But as it is, we can't.”

“No,” he resisted stubbornly. “You're sore. It'll hurt you.”

She shrugged. “Big deal. I'm used to things hurting me.”

Her offhand attitude about pain pissed him off. “I don't want to be the one who hurts you! Don't set me up for that ever again!”

“Shhh.” She pressed her silk-and-velvet-textured, honey-scented self against him. “It's not pain I want. It's pleasure. You flood me with it. You fill me with it. Here, feel me.” She took his hand and pressed it against the slick seam of her pussy, gasping as his fingers slipped inside. She was drenched. Plush and soft and yielding. “I'm so ready,” she pleaded. “Let me feel you inside me.”

Her delicious womanly scent made him dizzy, drunk. “My cock,” he said thickly. “Be specific. Say, let me feel your cock inside me.”

She squirmed sexily around his hand and whispered obediently. “Let me feel your cock inside me.”

He looked into her eyes, and the battle was over before it began. She could see straight to forever, in there. Endless distances, horizons upon horizons, whenever she looked at him. He cringed from the pain he knew would follow this suicidal idiocy, but he was dead meat anyway, so why not finish the job? Grind that motherfucker into slop.

Sveti's clear hazel eyes did not waver. “Do it, Sam.”

That uppity empress-of-everything tone just squeezed his nuts. He wanted to throw himself at her feet. Offer her his heart's blood.
Here, take it. It's yours, anyway.
At the same time, he wanted to drag her off that stupid pedestal. Pull her down to his earthly level, for pizza and beer. To grab and touch and hug and kiss and lick and fuck and love.

But no way. She was having none of it. She wanted a little teasing taste, that was all. Then she'd fly off again to her lonesome heights.

“I'll try to be gentle,” he said. “But when I get started with you, I never know what'll happen. I forget my own goddamned name.”

“I know,” she soothed. “That's what makes it so good.” She soothed him with a rain of gentle kisses against his jaw, and his cheek, his lips. He loved it. Though it made the pain infinitely worse.

“You can't fight me,” he warned. “I won't do it if you fight me.”

“I'll be good. Move off me, so I can grab a condom, okay?”

He rolled off reluctantly, as if she would vanish into smoke. She stretched to grab a condom from his stash.

He'd let her deal with the condom, but almost ended up blowing his wad right then, from her tender squeezing and stroking. She tried several times to get the thing rolled on. It kept snapping off, and after minutes of that, he was shaking with silent laughter.

She shot him an irritated glance. “You could help, you know.”

He grabbed his engorged member and held it steady for her, hissing with pleasure as she smoothed the latex down.

“You said you had a contraceptive implant,” he said.

“Yes.” She followed up with a slow twist that made him gasp.

“But you're a virgin,” he said. “Why the implant? What for?”

She shrugged. “I wasn't happy being a virgin. I figured, my life might include sex at some point, but not babies.”

“No babies? Really? Ever? I thought you liked babies.”

“Sure, I like them. I just don't want to have them.”

That surprised him. “But you always seemed so into the little kids,” he said. “Consumed, even. They hung off you. Like ripe fruit.”

“As coping mechanisms go, little kids are better than most,” she said. “You can't feel sorry for yourself when you're with them. You're too busy, and they don't care about your problems, no matter how bad they are. I like who I am with kids better than I like myself with adults.”

“I like who you are with me,” he said rashly.

“Sam,” she said. “I offer you my naked body, and you stall me with questions about how many babies I want. What's wrong with you?”

“The only time you'll really talk to me is when you're offering me your naked body.” He cut off her reply with his mouth and bore her down onto the bed. Her body shuddered, resisting. He lifted his head.

“You promised,” he said. “Don't fight me, Sveti. Relax.”

Her chest jerked as she tried to sigh out tension. “What if I can't?”

“Then we wait until you do.”

“But . . . but what if I never . . .” Her throat bobbed.

“Then you'll miss your plane.” He settled on top of her and resumed kissing. He would have this surrender, if he got nothing else.

It took a long time for him to get her there, but he'd have been happy to wind himself around her body forever. She kept dragging in all the air her lungs could take, releasing it in a shuddering sigh.

He timed his breaths to hers. Rolled onto his side to give her more air, and slid his hand between her thighs. Breathing with her. Hearts in unison. Slow, lazy, plundering kisses, as he played that pearly pink clit delicately with his thumb. Willing to wait, and wait. As long as it took.

He lifted his head later. The candle's flame had burned to a dim glow deep in a waxen cavity. Her hair was spread out on the pillow, her lips parted from his kisses, eyes dazzled and heavy. Soft, relaxed. Ready.

He settled between her legs. Her face looked so different when she relaxed. She glowed, from the inside, with a soft-focus shimmer.

Just a short slide down to those perfect tits, and he made her nipples gleam, teasing them to sharp, shivering points. Her heart thudded against his cheek. Her fingers twisted into his scalp. He loved the delicate bite of her little nails.

The world as he knew it was buckling, shifting into something new. He was going to pay for this, but right now, he didn't give a shit.

He settled on his knees, his cock bobbing against her decorative frill of pussy curls. He wrapped her hands around his cock. “Take me inside,” he said. “Show me how much. I don't want to hurt you again.”

She nodded. He propped her up, shoving pillows behind her back. She shut her eyes, flung her head back, lower lip caught between her teeth. His cockhead slipped between her satiny folds. She rocked forward, forcing him deeper. So tight. Ah, God. It had to sting, but she didn't let on, tough babe that she was.

She raised herself onto her elbows and stared into his eyes. He was balanced on a razor's edge in a motionless, agonized state of
oh-fuck-I'm-going-to-come-right-now.
She surged forward, taking in a little more. Back, a slow, clutching glide. Her body said yes, again and again with each stroke. She reached out to drag him deeper . . .
Yes.
All in.

His heartbeat thudded in his groin, wedged in the tight, fluttering embrace of her body. He braced his hands on either side of her and breathed, struggling desperately not to come. He couldn't lose control, not with a first timer, half his size. He hung on. Teetering.

“Does it hurt?” He got the words out, somehow.

“I'm fine,” she said.

“That's not what I asked,” he said.

“It's all you're getting,” she retorted. “Shut up and move.”

She sprawled back onto the pillows and gripped his chest, bucking her hips beneath him. Heaving, to get him moving.

His body had to obey. Her gaze sliced in so deep, to places uncharted. She could see all his pointless yearning in his eyes. He should flip her over, take her from behind, but that would take a coolness that he did not possess. The next best option was the dark. He reached to snuff the candle's flame, burning his fingers. Barely felt it.

Sveti made a protesting sound as the darkness fell. “Sam?”

“Shhh.” He stifled her objections by kissing her.

The darkness made it harder not to lose himself to the blind, mindless greed. Her pussy squeezed around his pumping cock.

He tried to slow it down, but she was so juicy and hot, and they moved together so perfectly. The frantic momentum built, and when he became conscious of how hard they were fucking, his body would not let him stop. They were locked in that pounding rhythm. Sveti's hips braced to meet his every stroke. Energy gathered in her body, like an animal with its muscles poised to spring.