Into the Fire (14 page)

He was gone then, the door closing behind him, and Jamie lay in the dark, her body leaden, unable to move.

And she shivered.

 

Nate could smell it. The sex, permeating the building, reeking of it. Could ghosts smell? Could ghosts see through walls? He only knew that he could. His hearing was just as acute—he'd listened to Jamie's soft little whimpers, the sound of skin against skin, the slap of flesh, the muffled grunt. He knew when Dillon came. He'd watched him often enough over the years, so that he knew him better than the women he fucked. He knew the sound he made, a growling choke in the back of his throat. And he knew the climax he had inside his cousin's little pussy was one of the best he'd ever had.

It should have annoyed him. He never liked it when Dillon took lovers. Dillon didn't like to hurt them, and sex without pain was boring. It didn't matter. None of them mattered—he didn't care about anyone. He didn't really care about anyone but his best friend Nate.

Until he'd sent him to his death.

Revenge was a bitch. But watching Dillon Gay
nor fuck his sweet little cousin almost made it worthwhile. Especially since he knew he was going to kill Jamie for it.

And the best thing about it was how it was going to make Killer suffer the torments of the damned. Before the ghost of Nate Kincaid killed him, too.

D
illon stood in the shower a long time, so long that his usually abundant supply of hot water turned cold. He pressed his hands up against the wall of the stall and let the water beat down on him, and he closed his eyes, turning his face up to the pelting stream. He didn't feel guilty. There was nothing to feel guilty about. He'd just done what she'd asked, and this time he'd done it well. And he was going to do it again, as soon as he thought she was up to it. Again and again and again, until they'd had enough of each other.

Jamie was absolutely clueless about what was between them, he thought, ducking his head under the rapidly cooling water. The poor fragile semivirgin, whose only experience with sex was at the hands of a punk kid who'd raped her. She didn't realize how unexpected her response to him was. He thought it would take days to get her to come, and in the end it had been simple enough. It shouldn't have surprised him—she'd always had a crush on
him, and getting a teenage fantasy fulfilled went a long way. And he knew more than his share about sex—he knew how to do it, and do it well, and never had any doubt he could bring her off eventually. In the end it hadn't taken much at all.

He was trying to kill some time. She needed sleep, she needed time to recover. Hell, he was hard as a rock just thinking about her, ready to go again, but he knew she'd probably be uncomfortable. If he went back in there there was no way he wouldn't be inside her, and he didn't want to hurt her. He needed her to keep liking it. For as long as he wanted her.

It wouldn't be forever. It never was—sooner or later even the most adept of his lovers began to pall, and he didn't like emotional demands. Jamie used to think she was in love with him—one good orgasm and she'd probably be convinced again. And he'd given her at least two.

She'd be disillusioned after a while. He was still Dillon, still the Killer. A man whose one gift had been for friendship, and he'd turned around and betrayed the man who'd been closest to him for most of his life.

No, there wasn't any future for the two of them—there wasn't any future for him with anyone. But who gave a rat's ass about the future? Right now
was what mattered, and right now a woman lay in his bed. A woman he needed. And in the end, that was the only thing that was important.

He finally turned off the water and dressed. He shaved—he usually didn't bother, but he didn't like the idea of his evening stubble abrading Jamie's face. Or her thighs, he thought with a grin. He didn't meet his eyes in the mirror as he concentrated on shaving. He wasn't a man to lie to himself, and he didn't want to risk seeing something in his face that he didn't want to see.

He dressed quickly, then peeked in the bedroom door before heading downstairs. She was asleep, lying facedown on his bed, her pale hair tangled around her face, his white sheets tangled around her hips. He closed the door silently and headed down to the garage.

He had no idea whether or not she'd try to run again. There was a good chance she would—she'd have a hard time looking him in the face after the last few hours they'd spent. But the snow was piling up, and her venerable Volvo didn't have snow tires, only slightly balding all-season radials, which weren't worth a damn in a Wisconsin winter. He headed out into the snowy night, turning the ignition of the old car and listened to it purr to life. He backed it up, then drove it into the garage, closing
the door behind him. There was a patch of dark in the snow where the Volvo had sat parked, and he paused for a moment. Nothing should be leaking—not the oil or antifreeze or anything else—he'd gone over the engine with his usual obsessive attention to detail. At least, when it came to cars he was obsessive. He couldn't give a damn about the rest of his life.

He parked the car in the middle of the garage and opened the hood. Everything seemed to be fine—no leaking hoses, every reservoir safely filled. He glanced at the back, but if whatever had darkened the snow had come from the Volvo, it was no longer draining.

He'd check the underside in the morning, just to make certain. But in the meantime he had the perfect excuse to keep her longer. Not that he needed an excuse. But she would. She couldn't very well admit that she wanted to blow off her controlling mother, her job and her neatly ordered life for a few days, a few weeks, a few months of hot sex. Even if she did. He'd given her a taste, and she'd want more. But his instincts told him she'd still want to run.

At least the car would give her an excuse to stay. And he could always continue to make it an excuse easily enough. But he didn't think he would. In the
end, she was going to have to admit it. That for some reason, some twisted trick of fate, she wanted him just as much as he wanted her. And it was going to take a hell of a long time to burn that wanting out.

 

Jamie forced herself to relax as she listened to his footsteps outside the bedroom door. Her head was turned away, and she heard the door open. She held her breath, wondering if he was going to come back in there, if he was going to touch her again. And how she was going to say no when saying no was the last thing she wanted.

She had her purse back, with all her money and identification and credit cards. He told her she had her car back, but even if she didn't, she now had the wherewithal to rent a new one and get the hell out of there. He wouldn't try to stop her. Her question was, did she really want to run?

The door closed, and she heard him move down the stairs, and she let out a deep sigh of relief that had nothing to do with disappointment.

There was no hot water in the shower, but she was past caring. It was one way to punish herself for her stupidity, and it should certainly wipe away any lingering, errant lust. That's what it had been, pure and simple, right? Except she never would
have thought herself capable of such a primal emotion.

It sure as hell wasn't love.

She wrapped the towel around her and ran down the darkened hallway to her room, closing the door quietly behind her. If he wanted to keep her old dress she was more than welcome to it, as well as the ill-advised racy underwear. She just needed her clothes and shoes to get the hell out of there.

She dressed quickly, throwing the rest of her clothes in her suitcase and slamming it shut. Her sneakers didn't really go with the sedate dress that her mother had bought for her, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was escape.

She couldn't find her watch. Not that the stupid thing would tell her what time it was—she hadn't wound it since she arrived. But it was an heirloom, given to her by her father when she was sixteen, and she treasured it.

It wasn't in her suitcase, wasn't anywhere around. Had Dillon taken that, as well, and then neglected to return it? It was the most valuable thing she'd brought with her, and if Dillon was the man she'd always thought him to be, he would have made off with it, looking for a fast buck.

But Dillon wasn't the man she'd always thought him to be. And she didn't want to consider exactly
what kind of man he really was. All she wanted to do was escape.

She didn't know why she had to run, just that it was a deep moral imperative. She was over her head here, drowning, and her only hope was to get out before it was too late. She still had enough self-preservation to know that going into his room last night had been the most stupid thing she'd ever done, even worse than getting into the back seat of Dillon's Cadillac with Paul Jameson. In retrospect that had been nothing more than a physical assault. Dillon was fucking her body
and
her soul.

She reached out and grabbed the sleeping bag that covered the thin mattress, pulling it away to see if she'd left the watch in bed. And then she screamed.

She ran full into Dillon as he came racing up the stairs, and she slammed against him, adding to her breathlessness.

“What the hell's going on?”

“Dead…” she gasped. “On the mattress…” She shuddered. “There's blood.”

He pushed past her, heading for her room. “Stay here,” he ordered her.

She leaned against the wall, trying to control the shivers that ran through her body. She hated the hallway—she always felt as if someone was watch
ing her, some pervert with graveyard breath and twisted thoughts. Silly, of course, when the only other person in the building was Dillon, and he was in her room, not watching her.

“It's a dead rat.” He appeared in her doorway, his voice matter-of-fact. “I told you I get them all the time.”

“The other one didn't have so much blood,” she said faintly. “And what was it doing in my bed?”

“If it were a man I could think of any number of reasons, but since it's only a very large dead rat, then I have no idea. It must have gotten into the rat poison I've had lying around, and it dragged itself up to your room to die.”

“Lucky me. Why the blood? The other rat wasn't bleeding. Until I stepped on it,” she added with a reminiscent shudder.

Dillon shrugged, looking down at her. She was suddenly conscious of how very tall he was, how very strong. And they were alone in the hallway, and she'd just had sex with him. “Who knows? I could come up with all sorts of graphic suggestions, but I don't think you really want to hear them. Besides, what does it matter? You aren't going to be sleeping in there anymore.”

“I'm not going to be sleeping here at all,” she said.

His slow grin wasn't exactly the reaction she'd expected. “Well, no, sleeping wasn't what I had in mind, either. I'll stay awake as long as you will.”

“I mean I'm leaving here. Okay? Accounts settled. We've done what we needed to do. You got your revenge for spending a year in prison, I got to fulfill a teenage fantasy and now I can get on with my life. Case closed. I'm leaving.” She waited for him to explode in rage.

Instead he tilted his head to one side, unperturbed. “Oh, really?” he said. “And what makes you think that? Personally I haven't even begun to do what I've needed to do for the last twelve years.”

For once he wasn't standing between her and escape. Her purse and her suitcase were in the room behind him, but as long as she had her shoes and her car she was ahead of the game.

“You can try and catch me,” she said, trying to hide the edge of nervousness in her voice, “but it won't do any good. I'm faster—”

“I'm not going to run after you, Jamie,” he said in a calm voice. “I told you, I'll let you go. If you want to leave, go ahead. I put your car back in the garage, but you won't have any trouble opening the doors. The keys are on the passenger seat.”

She couldn't believe she'd heard him right. “You're letting me go?” she echoed, waiting for a
burst of elation to replace the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Then would you hand me my purse and suitcase? I really don't want to go back into that room.”

“Certainly.” He disappeared into the bedroom, coming back with her possessions. “You want me to carry them down for you?”

Now, why in hell did she want to cry? “I can manage,” she said, yanking them out of his hands. She spun around and started down the stairs, for once grateful for the darkness. She felt an odd stinging in her eyes, and the last thing in the world she wanted was for him to see them.

He followed her, of course, keeping a safe distance. She couldn't even remember if she'd brought a coat, but at least the heater in her car was a powerful one, built for Scandinavian winters. Once she got the car warmed up it would be fine.

The kitchen was as cosy as usual, a deceptively welcoming space, and she set her suitcase down, steeling herself for a polite goodbye. But Dillon walked right past her to the back door onto the alleyway, a red-streaked sheet in his hands, and she knew he carried the dead rat.

He tossed it out into the back alley, sheet and all, then stood there staring for a moment, down at the snow at his feet, at the alleyway that led out to the
main street. And then he turned back, momentarily lost in thought, shutting the door behind him.

“The car's in the garage,” he said absently. “Don't worry about closing the door after you drive out—I'll take care of it.”

It had all taken on a tinge of unreality. She couldn't believe it could be that simple, that after all that had happened he'd simply let her take her car and drive away from here, without a word. It was exactly what she wanted, of course, but it felt almost surreal.

She plastered her best social smile on her face, the one that her mother had drilled into her. “Well…” she said.

“Well,” he said finally, turning his attention back to her. “You've got that Duchess look on your face. Sorry you had to pick that up. Next thing I know you're going to want to shake hands with me and thank me for a lovely time.”

Jamie dropped her hand surreptitiously behind her back. “Of course not,” she said in a frosty voice.

“So what do you want to say?”

“That's easy enough. Goodbye.” She picked up her suitcase and purse before he could and walked into the garage.

Her Volvo was there, all right, parked in a corner,
snow melting off the roof. It also had at least two flat tires.