by Ana Calin
I straddle him, and when my hands reach for his face I notice – they’re changing into knotty claws coated with thick reptile skin, nails growing out like black iron blades. I stare up at the screen. Big Boss stares right back at me, his mouth open.
“I’m coming for you, son of a bitch,” I spit. The screen buzzes. Big Boss is gone.
While I still focus on the static on the screen, Kalb takes advantage. He squirms to free himself from under me, but I grab his neck and pin him back down.
“Where is Big Boss? Where do I find him?” I snarl.
He hesitates. I wham his head against the floor.
“Where?” My voice sounds inhuman, even demonic, startling me and making me jump up, grabbing Kalb’s shoulders and lifting him off the ground, too.
“Berlin, Germany,” Kalb babbles, his voice squeaky. “Under another name.”
“Berlin, Germany. Under another name,” I repeat, and let him drop to the floor. The second before he hits the ground metal thorns fire up from the tiles and pierce his body in so many places that he’s just a chunk of unrecognizable meat. As if he’d never been any more than that. I stare down at him, blinking in disbelief. The smell of his open flesh makes me oddly hungry. I back up, stunned at my own impulses.
The doors fly open and men with guns and tactical gear flood the room. Andrey Jones is the last to enter, casual in his dark suit. The second I see him I bare my teeth in a hiss and launch at him with arms outstretched, the claws growing out from my fingers. He doesn’t move, his face immobile and calm. I try to scratch him, but he seems made of rock, my claws screeching against his flesh like chalk against blackboard. And when my reptile-monster hands wrap around his neck, his skin feels warm and soothing like salve over wounds. My flesh goes back to normal as the raging power drains from me, and I fall naked and crying in Andrey Jones’ arms.
He presses his cheek to my head and hushes me, his body warm and protective. “I’m sorry, Lila,” he whispers soothingly.
“Why did you put me through all this, you sadistic bastard?” I surge, beating his chest.
“It was the only way to get to Big Boss directly. To bait him from his snake hole back to light. You’ve led us to the big villain, Lila, and for that I’ll be forever grateful.”
I look up at his face. I could slap him, but I refrain. “I didn’t exactly lead you to him. He disappeared, and that asshole,” I throw my thumb over my shoulder in the general direction of Kalb’s corpse, “died before he could betray him. I’m sure Big Boss activated the killing machine in the ground to prevent him from talking.”
“Yes, but Big Boss will never be as well protected as he was before all this. Now we know he’s in Berlin, and even if he moves by the time we get to him, he’ll definitely leave tracks in his haste. Plus that I’m sure at a certain point he’ll expose himself trying to get close to you and to take revenge on me – if we play our cards right.”
“So this doesn’t end here?” I whisper. Andrey looks deep into my eyes, and my body feels ever more human in his arms.
“This is only the beginning,” he mutters.
The beginning.
“What the hell happened with me, Andrey? Did I become this . . . serpent thing because –,” I pause. I can’t believe what I’m trying to bring about my lips.
“Yes,” Andrey says. “My seed carried the germ of a very powerful mutation. After what happened to my mother, I found a way to replicate the experiment on myself. But on me, it worked differently. The effects adjust to every individual human being according to their own natural talents. Being able to transform others is a bonus to what I’ve become.”
Jealousy sends heat to my head, and I take a step away from him. “So you’ve done this to other women before?”
“One woman.” His eyes don’t waver as he admits. “It was a mistake, and I own it. I didn’t know what would happen. She thought she was entitled to marriage afterwards, but I refused, offering her anything else that she might want. She was angry and left, swearing to make me pay one day.”
“What can I say, you’re good at making friends,” I sneer, looking him up and down. “But transforming women into monsters isn’t your only power, is it? Your flesh practically turned to stone while I clawed at you.”
Andrey smiles, cool and a little bitter. “I’m a versatile monster.”
Chapter Seven
I’m sitting on a couch with a fluffy brown blanket wrapped around me, eyes lost on the flames rustling in the fireplace. Their warmth plays on my cheeks, and I surrender to their comfort. This cabin in the mountains is the first place I saw after that doomed bunker where Kalb died, and it’s a cozy haven.
Andrey Jones offers me a mug of mulled wine scented with cinnamon, and sinks in the couch next to me. He’s wearing jeans and a dark blue shirt that hugs his worked-out body, his sleeves rolled up to reveal sinewy forearms. The upper buttons of his shirt are open, hinting at his nicely shaped chest. He just took a shower, and his hair is still wet, the scent of shampoo wafting over.
“It’s been an eternity since I last saw such a beautiful winter,” I whisper, trying to shift my thoughts from how sexy he is.
Andrey leans forward with elbows on his knees, hands clasping his own mug of wine, but he doesn’t say a word. I’m so tired even after twelve hours of sleep that I feel not only relaxed, but also high, which makes any subject seem benign and approachable.
“What now?” I say. “What will you have me do in order to provoke Big Boss?”
The blanket slips back from my shoulder, and I reach behind myself with one hand to pull it back up, balancing the mug of wine in the other and stealing a look at Andrey. He turns his face to me, and our eyes lock. I like his face so much. It’s big-boned and masculine, though refined in expression. Those opaque blue eyes are intense, and his lips beg to be kissed. Never again.
“You told him about us,” he says softly. The way he emphasizes us, it makes my scalp prickle. “The most natural thing would be to, I don’t know, move in together. Show off a relationship. That’ll set him on fire and bait him out of his lair faster.”
My heart jumps. “Andrey, what we had was hardly the beginning of a love story.” Or was it, for me? “I don’t know if I ever want to see you again, let alone share a bed with you. Every time we’re close, it—” My eyes move about the room, searching for the right word. “Hurts.” But it’s so much more than that.
Andrey looks down, guilt shadowing the side of his face that I can still see.
“We don’t have to share a bed, we just have to make it look like we do,” he says. “I’m deeply sorry for what I put you through, Lila. It pains me every time I remember the look in your eyes before I left that doomed hotel room.” His voice breaks and he pauses, squeezing his eyes shut and taking in a deep breath as if composing himself. “I thought that letting you abuse me on the plane would help me feel better,” he continues in a contemplative voice, as if talking to himself. “But it didn’t. It hurt even worse, realizing how badly I’d broken you. That’s why I won’t spare any effort to make it to up to you, Lila.” He looks me in the face, and my heart shrinks at the look on his. “I’ll give you a life of luxury and power. I’ll make you the most influential woman in the city. And I’ll pay you richly for helping me destroy my father.”
The sound of that – destroy my father. It’s so wrong, and yet, since his father is the vilest creature I’ve ever met, so right.
“But what about Monique?” I say. “I doubt she’ll be very happy with her son playing Love Story with his father’s former mistress.” The words drill reality into my brain, and reality is ugly.
“You’d be surprised. My mother is a special kind of woman. Since the hotel room she had a feeling you were innocent, but now that she knows for a fact that you are, she’d be willing to put the world at your feet herself in order to make things right again.” He looks down with an expression of shame. “Remorse is killing me, Lila. I was blinded by hatred.”
Hatred. �
�Do you still hate me?”
His head snaps up, his eyes searching mine. “Did you hear what I just said? How could I still hate you, knowing that you’re innocent, and that I’ve done you wrong?”
I shrug. “These things aren’t always rational. Your subconscious could still blame me.”
He reaches for my hand that emerges ghost-white from under the blanket. He covers it with his palm that’s a warm baseball glove compared to mine. I blink at our hands together in my lap, my heart hammering inside my chest. What do I feel for this man?
“Let me try and make it up to you, Lila,” he says, his voice low, seductive. I can feel his eyes dancing on my face with the flames, bringing heat to my skin. My eyes glide up his torso to the delicious shape of his chest, up his strong neck that still bears the purple mark of the belt, to his beautiful face. And the moment my gaze meets his, I know what to demand of him.
“You’ll give me whatever I desire?” I mutter.
“Whatever is in my power,” he whispers. Then, with a smile, “and a lot is.”
“And what if what I want isn’t material?” I lift my fingers to trace the mark on his neck, my eyes glued to his. The mark feels hot and coarse. His brow furrows, and he looks taken aback as my fingers go up from his neck to his mouth.
“You want to hurt me again, Lila?” he says, his voice dark. The flames dance in his eyes, making them glint dangerously.
“No, Andrey.” I can feel myself creaming down there. “You know, the more I think about it, the more I realize no man is going to want me in the long run, as broken as I am,” I continue, eyes on his lips as I stroke them with my pale index finger. Their ridges are silken on my skin. “Not to mention that the gift you made me with your semen will send men running once they discover it. So you’ll have to see to my needs yourself.”
“Until we get Big Boss, being with another man is out of the question anyway,” he hurries to clarify. The dangerous glint in his eyes intensifies, making it look like he’d take care of such men before Big Boss even got to hear about them.
I smile, holding his gaze. “That’s one more thing that adds to your debt to me.”
Keeping my eyes on his, I set the mug of wine on the low wooden coffee table, then I lean with one forearm on the back of the couch and straddle Andrey Jones. I give the blanket a small push off my shoulders with my hands, and it slips off, leaving me in the satin nightgown I’d put on after the bath.
Andrey watches me with hungry eyes as I untie the cord and let the satin flow off me. It pools on the floor at this feet. I’m naked to my white lace panties over his lap, knees on each side of his thighs, my nipples perking up at contact with his breath. He bites his lower lip as his eyes roam all over my body, his big hands reaching to touch me, but I catch his wrists and push them back down.
“No, Andrey Jones, you don’t get to lay your hands on me,” I purr. “You’ll be my slave, you see. I’ll use you, and you’ll comply with all of my demands.”
He leans his head back, surrendering with a smile. I bow down to his beautiful big-boned face and kiss him deeply, growing passionate, our tongues tangling with each other inside his mouth. He sighs when I break the kiss, his eyebrows knitting, as if the separation hurts him. I grind slowly against the rock hard bulge that grows in his pants until I’m so creamed that my lace panties slide on my cleft like they swim in soap.
Andrey licks his lips in anticipation, his body flexing under me. Though it’s hard to control myself, I keep rocking against his manhood while I unbutton his shirt, slowly. Every loosened button reveals more of his beautiful body, his skin the color of light cappuccino. By God, I could lick him all over! I can’t resist the urge and I bow down to bite into a dark, hard nipple, making him inhale sharply and arch his body. My tongue takes a full taste of the bud as I suck to soften the pain. His fists ball, but he doesn’t try to free his wrists from my clasp.
I kiss and lick his chest, his neck, then nip and kiss his jaw and then his mouth again, the flames burning on my back. His flesh is solid all over him, as if his skin is a film over stone. His hips move slowly under me to meet my own moves, and by his moans I know he’s dying to enter me. But it’s not what I have in store for him. My hand sinks in his wet hair, stirring the waft of shampoo that adds to my turn-on. Rising on my knees and then higher I bring my privy part to his lips, sliding my panties aside with my thumb. Then I touch my slit to Andrey Jones’ lips.
He kisses me down there as he would my mouth, and the pleasure is through the roof. I grind into his mouth, both my hands clawing in his hair, his palms kneading the cheeks of my butt. I scream as the orgasm hits me in waves, my eyes snapping open to spot a big person in black at the snow-smeared window. It’s close enough for me to recognize Mr. Bad and the lecherous lust on his face, but I don’t get to point him out. Andrey Jones grabs me and pins me under him on the couch, keeping my hands above my head in his clasp, the other hand fumbling with his fly. His eyes roam all over my face.
“You’ve brought me to the brink of insanity, Lila,” he slurs, then plunges in a deep kiss that tastes of my juice and lace. “I can’t control myself with you,” he says, breathing hard against my mouth. “I’ll be your slave, I’ll let you use me roughly if that gets you off, but I won’t be able to tame how I want you. I could die making love to you.”
He pierces me with the python in his pants in one smooth, deep push, his groan long and shattering. He looks at me like I’m something to eat, and he grows more demanding with every thrust. He throws his shirt off and looms big over me, a ripped young alpha claiming his wench. Soon I bounce under him as he slams into me, groaning and sucking and biting my lips and my neck and my breasts. I’m completely at the whims of this sex-starved animal, and I’m loving it beyond common sense. His bulging manhood flashes over my G-core again and again, building me up, until we both explode in convulsing pleasure, our hands wandering desperately all over each other.
We’re an entangled, sweaty mess breathing hard and kissing each other with feverish lips as Andrey mutters against my mouth, “Marry me, Lila Banks. Marry me for real.”
It strikes me. I blink and shift to free myself from his arms. He allows me to and sits up, enabling a full view of his cappuccino-skinned, sinewy body in the rustling flames. I swear his face is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and the way fire reflects in his eyes, it makes his beauty devilish. He’s irresistible.
“Yes.” I speak before I think, but the joy that swells my heart assures me I’m doing the right thing. Andrey gives me a broad smile and wraps his arm around me, pulling me to his hard chest that smells of our lovemaking. I glance at the window over his shoulder. Mr. Bad is gone.
Stay tuned for the continuation of this story, and stay informed on the progress of things by subscribing to www.ana-calin.com.
Until then enjoy other books by Ana Calin:
The Executioner Part One:
When a shady corporation that conducts experiments on humans targets Alice Preda, “muscle tank” Damian Novac is secretly assigned with her protection. Alice discovers his true identity and she’s soon love-struck, but Damian keeps a cool reserve, protecting Alice not only from her hunters but also from himself.
A villain who switched sides long ago, Damian is the biggest gun the science mafia ever created. He’s been halfway stable serving the good for years, but when his makers return to the picture and provoke him, he threatens to relapse. The ice breaks, his demons awaken, and the Executioner is unleashed once more. Only the mysterious gift buried in Alice’s psyche can tame him, but for that she’ll have to place herself in the line of fire.
The Executioner Part Two:
Be careful what you wish for –‘cause you just might get it.
Damian “The Executioner” Novac thought his past forever buried. But when he becomes Alice Preda’s protector, it returns to haunt him. His makers, a shady biotech corporation, are here to either get him back or shut him down.
Though aware of his obscure pa
st, Alice crushes hard on Damian. He shields her from her hunters and his own, but he seems to maintain his emotional distance—until she unleashes her unsuspected talents on him. As the saying goes: Be careful what you wish for—for you just might get it. Will Alice be able to handle the demons of a killer?