Villain (2 page)

There was a musky scent to him that faintly tickled her nose, the mingled smell of sweat and danger, and it was strangely exhilarating.

She noticed how his breathing slowly became labored, betraying the stillness of his stance, implying he
was
indeed aware of her scrutiny. She wondered why he even let her continue.

When her eyes rose up to his narrowed black ones, she discovered why.

He was doing the same to her, taking in her clothes, her face. He appeared to be weighing her, measuring how much of a threat she posed, trying to determine the reasons behind her visit.

“Say something,” she said, unnerved by both his gaze and the silence. There was something odd about him, a power, an ancientness, like the town’s, as if he’d been stuck in time for ages.

He took a while in doing so, his voice velvety soft when he spoke. “You’re in the wrong place to be looking for a chat.”

She swallowed, wondering what in the world he was staring at so intently. There was only so much of her to look at, after all. Yet he was doing it again and again, studying her, over and over, his roaming gaze heating her body better than a bonfire would.

What could he possibly find so enthralling?
she reflected. She’d never been looked at in this particular way.

She suddenly wondered if her ankle-length brown skirt had turned sheer. Or did the short-sleeved ivory cotton shirt display too much of her bosom? Or, dear God, did she miss hearing a story, perhaps one about him having X-ray vision?

“Have you spoken to no one all this time?” she finally asked, hoping to draw his attention away from her body.

His laugh came fast and filled with cynicism, the sound so craggy it was surely much more alien to him than his voice. “More than your years,” he said after he recovered.

He resumed his study of her, only this time, he slowly circled her. Things—she prayed they weren’t alive—crunched beneath his boots at each of his steps while his ruthless eyes explored her.

Stella felt like the ugliest fish in the market.

She even had to rein back the impulse to squirm, licking her lips instead, unconsciously fiddling with her fingers in front of her.

“They say you’re a witch. Is that true?” she asked.

Halting before her, he flicked his wrists upward, and with shocking speed, a rope curled up to wind itself around her waist, wrenching a startled gasp out of her.

“You tell me,” he said, his lips stretching into a full smile.

Stella gripped and pushed at the rope. “Let go of me!”

A spark of anger lit his eyes before he narrowed them to slits. “State your business here.”

Her heart began pounding so fast she even feared it would jump out of her throat. The rope wasn’t squeezing her, but it felt alive around her, like a boa constrictor, and she inwardly panicked, wondering what else he could do to her with that slight flick of his wrists. “Let me go,” she said through the little breath she had in her.

“What do you want?” The harsh tone in his voice scraped over Stella’s skin like sandpaper.

“I don’t know.” Her voice quivered as hard as the rest of her.

Without the slightest move on his part, not even the flicker of one eye, the rope suddenly loosened around her, falling heavily at her feet.

“I’m not a monster,” he told her. Stella thought there was a trace of sadness there, in his tone, his eyes.

Striving to catch her breath from the scare, she smoothed her hands over her waist, checking her ribs for bruises, making sure everything was working properly—she suspected something wasn’t, otherwise she couldn’t possibly be feeling so dizzy—and then said, “This woman…Faith Harrison…”

“Don’t.”

His tone was stern, yet not completely discouraging. She drew in a steadying breath. “They speak about you in town,” she began, slowly starting to circle him like he’d done to her only moments ago. He remained utterly still, letting her walk around him at leisure, letting her eyes wander over his body, down his broad back, past his lean waist, across his narrow hips.

Perhaps
he’d
find feeling like a fish up for sale wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

Then she realized she was foolish to even think he’d feel intimidated. A man of his size! His height and breadth alone were enough to make anyone concerned for safety.

Stella had expected someone older, a disfigured troll maybe, but not this man. The Villain shouldn’t be so handsome. Or so young! It was as if he hadn’t aged at all during these years. To even think of what Mrs. Grimwald would give to know the recipe!

“You’re not as old as I thought you’d be.” Stella moved quietly around him now, taking her turn.

He grunted, and although she didn’t know what that primitive sound was supposed to mean, she smiled nonetheless. At least he was communicating. “They say she broke your heart.” She paused a few feet away from him.

He kept his eyes averted, almost giving her the impression he was ashamed. “I have no heart.”

Oh, but he did. A pulse throbbed at the base of his neck, steady and fast. “They say you’re responsible for the fires. They say—”

His head whipped up, his gaze sparking up dangerously. “That I killed the woman I loved, is that what they say?” One second he stood ominously still, and the next he was gripping her jaw so tightly her teeth almost fractured. “Get out of here,” he hissed.

The Villain released Stella in an instant, leaving her completely winded, making her think that it would be marvelous to let the likes of him alone, if only Faith Harrison left
her
alone, too.

“If you know people don’t want you here,” she said tightly, “why don’t you leave?”

Is it because of Faith?
she thought, but dare not ask him.

“Why don’t you?” he countered.

Her shoulders stiffened almost automatically. Was it that obvious, her dissatisfaction with the state of her life? “I can’t leave my mother alone,” she found herself saying, though why she should confess herself to him was just another of what was becoming a long list of unsolved mysteries. “My dad left us years ago. It would break her heart if I left her, too.”

“A classic little martyr,” he said, the contempt in his voice telling her exactly what he thought of those. “I knew one in my days.” He crossed his arms, his face distorting into a sneer. “So tell me, wandering young miss. Has your morbid curiosity been satisfied yet?”

“My name is Stella,” she said. “Stella McKenna.”

And for some reason, he only stared at her with those fathomless eyes, refusing to tell her his. “Answer me,” he said sharply. “Have you seen enough to go back and gossip to your friends and live your boring little life?”

Stella had never cared much for gossip. Ms. Windham’s mysterious affair with the barber didn’t interest her, nor did Doc Hill’s toupee, or Mr. Farmer’s sudden weight loss. But she couldn’t help but be enthralled by the tales about him, tales about the Villain. “Oh I don’t care
all
that much for the local gossip,” she said, then shrugged. “They gossip about me, too.”

He looked doubtful, his brows slightly rising. “Who did
you
kill?”

There was the barest hint of a smile on his face, a trace of the man he must have once been, and strange little things fluttered inside Stella’s stomach.

He looked very attractive when he smiled.

“Look, um, er…Villain. I would like to help you if I can.”
And maybe you could help
me
find some answers
. She finished off her words with a sincere smile, thinking how he should very much appreciate that someone cared enough to do something instead of only gossip. Thinking what a relief it must be for him to realize there was someone willing to do something to help!

Yet he looked affronted not only by her smile, but by her offer, and the way his face reddened left no doubt as to the direction of his temper.

“Would you, Stella?” he asked with unnerving gentleness. He gripped her upper arms, squeezing her flesh with rough, calloused hands. The feel of his filthy flesh against her own shouldn’t have excited even Ginger Thomas—the biggest slut in town—and yet it excited Stella McKenna. A lot.

It sent her heart racing to what would surely result in a coronary, her breath nearly expiring from the experience. His eyes looked even darker up close, turning blacker still when they settled on her breasts, which were so very near his chest she could almost feel her wanton nipples extend out to him. She felt a clenching pain in her belly, her legs, her chest. Something she’d never felt before. Her thighs felt loose and liquid, barely doing their duty of holding her upright.

Jerking his jarring gaze back up to hers, he spoke in a low hiss. “You want to help, and what do you expect from me in return? My heart was given long before your day, my soul has been bartered to the devil, and my body has suffered for so long I’m sure it’s anything but gentle.” He pulled her against him to prove it, letting her feel him, all of him, his strength mocking the way her softer, smaller body molded to his. “Tell me. Do you have fantasies of being seduced by the Villain, of being fucked until your heart stops, of being robbed completely of your innocence?”

Had he not been mocking her, she would have admitted that at this very instant, she did. Images swam inside her mind. Images of his lips, plush and surely warm, gently moving over hers. Of the rough hands on her arms spreading her shirt apart and smoothing over her naked flesh. A wanton shudder coursed through her.

Instead of skimming across her skin, his hands tightened around her arms, squeezing out a reply from her hesitant lips. “Don’t hurt me.”

“I told you to leave. What is there to stop me? Tell me. You?” His seductive whisper spread over her womb like liquid satin while one of his fingers slowly ambled down her shirt. “I don’t live by your laws. Your God forsake me long ago, and I have nothing to live for. Why should I stop, tell me?”

A needy sound quivered up her throat, her eyes heavy as she gazed up at him through a thick fringe of lashes.

He squeezed her arms until she yelped, and then he shook her, almost snapping her neck. “I am not seducing you, you fool! My words are true and meant to scare the breath out of you. If you had any sense at all, you’d leave now!”

Stella didn’t move, and like him wondered why she hadn’t taken herself and her sorry old brown skirt out of here some time ago. Common sense said she should be frightened. She had no doubt some of the stories about him were true, and the man certainly didn’t look like one with much compassion. But rather than someone cruel, she suspected he was merely troubled. Otherwise why would his hands feel tremulous on her? Why would his voice suddenly turn hoarse? And why would her body yearn for his like it had never yearned before?

Hadn’t she determined she was frigid long ago?

Yet not even the merest fraction of her body felt anything even resembling cold. Not even partly cold. She was more than a little warm and…

She was filled with a deep, acute longing. The feeling was too sharp to be altogether pleasant, but it made her feel deliciously alive.

His grip slackened on her arm, his gaze falling to her lips as she nervously licked them.

She felt the brush of his knuckles across her jaw, a touch as gentle as the sigh it produced in her. “Should I be afraid of you?” she asked.

He ran both his hands brazenly down her ribcage, scraping past the sides of her breasts. “Yes,” he said, hauling her against him only to seize her lips with his. Desire raged inside Stella, coursing through her blood and clenching around her womb as hot, forceful lips parted over her own.

Her knees buckled, and she moaned when his mouth slanted over hers, his tongue thrusting wet and sure inside her. His steady arm kept her from falling, one hand over the back of her head, the other shifting to cradle her buttocks and hold her against him.

She yielded to him, responding to the thorough, scorching strokes of his tongue with a fierceness with which she had never been acquainted. Her mouth was ravenous on his, taking everything it could. She felt suddenly so starved, overwhelmed at her first taste of lust. She was sure she could eat him whole and still yearn for more.

He sucked on her tongue, greedily, his lips latching onto it as he drew it into the heated moisture of his mouth. Hot pulses of hunger shot through her; wanton sounds tore from her chest only to die on his mouth.

His grip clenched around her rump, holding her body firmly against his while she gripped his arms and rubbed her body against his with desperation. “Please,” she sobbed against his lips, scraping her nipples against his chest.

He turned rigid, then ripped his mouth away from hers. “Leave.” A hand clamped around her elbow. “Leave now.”

She felt weightless, dazed as he hauled her toward the entrance of the cave, his strides long and determined. “I have nothing to interest a woman of your kind. I never have.” He pushed her out onto the sand, his face both dark and poignant under the moonlight. “Don’t ever come back, ever, or I won’t be held responsible.” He turned to leave, but her quiet words made him turn back to face her.

“Wait, please. I didn’t mean to…I mean, I didn’t…oh,
crap
.” Stella bit her lower lip and put her arms around herself, shivering as a burst of cool wind surrounded her. She had no way of explaining what had happened, and yet she knew she wanted more, wanted to stay here with him. Sensations swam inside her, fast and wild and exhilarating. Now, out in the moonlight, away from the fires of his kiss and the dark cocoon of the cave, she felt cold and lonely and abandoned.

“Trust me. There’s nothing here for you,” he said, his voice gentler now, and though she saw him reach out to her, his touch never came. His hand dropped before she could feel it, and then he stormed back into the cave.

Of all the…!

Yet insults failed to formulate, for all she could feel and think and know was that she ached for this man, for the solitary, mysterious Villain.

It was a long, long way home.

* * *

“Where were you, Stella? I was worried sick! Kevin was here, and I had to reassure him you were already in bed, or else he’d think you’re completely lacking morals!”