Honey and the Hitman

by Hannah Murray

  Moving quickly, he climbed into the car, hitting the button to put the top down as he backed out of the space. Traffic was light, and within moments, he was pulling up alongside Honey. He tapped the horn lightly, making her jump.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.” She frowned. “What are you doing?”

  “Hop in. I’ll give you a ride.”

  “That’s okay. Really.” She gave a little shrug and a tense smile. “I’m good.”

  When she turned and kept going, he stared after her for a full ten seconds. “Seriously?” he muttered and pulled up next to her again.

  “Honey.”

  “What?”

  He couldn’t say why, but the bite in her tone somehow unraveled the knot of tension in his gut. “It’s dark. Let me drive you home.”

  “No, thank you,” she said, and he clearly heard the ‘fuck you’ under the veneer of politeness in her tone. “I like to walk.”

  He inched the car forward, keeping pace with her. “You don’t even have shoes on.”

  “I like being barefoot.”

  “You could get hurt.”

  He couldn’t be sure, but he thought she rolled her eyes. “I’ll be fine.”

  His patience straining, he fought to keep his voice reasonable. “It’s not safe.”

  Now he was sure she rolled her eyes. “It’s Sweetwater, not Manhattan. It’s perfectly safe.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Is there some reason you don’t want to get into this car with me?”

  She startled him by stopping, turned her head to look him dead in the eye, and said, “Yes.” Then she turned back around and resumed walking.

  He crept along beside her. “Why?”

  “Because.”

  “Because why?”

  “Because you’re a pain in the ass?” she said sweetly through clenched teeth.

  He knew it was perverse, but Ethan was starting to enjoy himself. “Yeah, but you didn’t know that until after you said no to the ride.”

  “That’s what you think,” she muttered and made him grin despite his irritation.

  “Honey. Get in the car.”

  “Ethan. No.”

  She continued down the sidewalk without giving him a second glance. Hair bouncing on her shoulders, her ass swaying in tight jeans, legs flexing. His gut tightened, arousal coming swift and heavy, as it always seemed to around her.

  Dammit.

  He brought the car to a halt with a squeal, throwing it into neutral and setting the parking brake with a jerk. He was out of the car and standing in front of her on the sidewalk almost before she could blink.

  She stared at him. “What are you doing?”

  “Get in the car.”

  Anger darkened her eyes even as she narrowed them. He found he appreciated that a lot more than the awkward discomfort that had been there earlier. “What part of ‘no’ didn’t you understand?”

  “The part where you’re walking home alone in the dark.” He laid a hand on her upper arm to steer her to the car, and she jerked free.

  “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

  “Yes, I do,” he told her, and her mouth dropped open in shock. “I’m not letting you walk home alone.”

  “You’re not letting me?”

  Since she clearly didn’t want him to touch her, he folded his arms over his chest. “That’s right.”

  She sucked in a breath, fury fairly pumping out of her pores. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes blazing. He supposed it said something about him that he found it appealing as hell.

  “Let’s get something straight,” she ground out and jabbed a finger into his chest. “I’m a grown woman. I don’t need you telling me what to do or how to do it, and I can take care of myself. I’m walking home because I want to walk home, and you don’t have anything to say about it.”

  He wanted to wince—her finger all but drilled into his sternum—but he managed to keep his face sober. “You finished?”

  “No.” The finger jabbed harder. “Go. Away.”

  “You finished now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” In one smooth move, he bent and hoisted her over his shoulder. He clamped his arm around the backs of her thighs, figuring when she got past the shock, he’d have his hands full.

  She didn’t disappoint.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She shrieked it, the volume making his ears ring. Her hands dug into his back as she tried to push herself up, twisting to try to break his grip.

  “I told you.” He manfully swallowed a grunt as she hammered a fist into his back. “I’m giving you a ride home.”

  “Oh, no you are not.” She hammered a fist into his back again, and since she couldn’t see his face, he let the grin come. He liked her this way, and figured since it wasn’t going to go anywhere, he could enjoy the surge of lust brought on by Honey in full temper.

  “Sure I am.” He suffered the flurry of punches she landed to his back as he strode the few feet back to his car. He easily balanced her weight as he reached down and opened the car door, and moving fast, leaned forward, so she slid off his shoulder and into the seat. She landed with a hard thump and a squeak, her hair in her face, one leg draped over the gear shift.

  “Stay put, Honoria,” he told her and straightened to shut the car door.

  “Fuck you, Ethan,” she snarled and punched him dead in the crotch.

  For one brief moment, he froze, then the pain hit and the breath whooshed out of his lungs. His knees buckled and he staggered back, going down on the grass and curling up as his hands automatically went to his abused nuts. Blood roared in his ears as nausea rose sharply in greasy waves. He battled it back, dimly aware that she was climbing out of the car and striding past. He couldn’t push to his feet and keep from throwing up, but he had the presence of mind to throw out a hand and managed to snag her by the ankle.

  Her shriek rang in his ears as he took her down. She let out a sharp cry of pain as she landed half on the grass that bordered the curb and half on the sidewalk, and he figured she’d probably scraped off a layer or two of skin on the textured concrete. He might find it in him to feel bad about that when his balls stopped throbbing.

  A foot flew past his face as she kicked out, forcing him to let go of his aching junk to pin it to the ground. He ignored her twisting and tugging, using his superior size and strength to keep her relatively still as he concentrated on breathing through the pain. When the worst of the nausea passed, and the sharp, stabbing pain faded to a dull throbbing, he looked up.

  Honey was sprawled face down in front of him, her hair a mad tangle as she wriggled and twisted and fought to free her feet. Her muttered curses burned his ears; he’d run into some rough characters in his life, heard a lot of salty language, but he was pretty sure she could’ve given them a run for their money.

  It didn’t surprise him at all to realize he wanted her more than ever.

  Chapter Nine

  Honey was steaming, ripping mad.

  Her cheek throbbed where she’d hit the sidewalk, she’d torn the knee out of her favorite non-skinny, non-stretchy jeans—and since they were over five years old, the odds she’d be able to find another pair were practically nil—and she’d bitten her lip when he’d tossed her in the car.

  The first time, that is. The second time he’d thrown her in she’d landed almost upside down, and she’d wrenched her shoulder righting herself. Adding insult to injury, by the time she’d managed to put herself upright again, he’d already climbed into the driver seat and was roaring down the road. She’d considered throwing herself out of the moving car to make her point, but it seemed like overkill. She’d settled for silently seething all the way home.

  She’d stomped up her front steps with Ethan close on her heels, and when she’d attempted to slam the door in his face, he’d blocked it with his shoulder and followed her inside. He’d petted the dog, ignored her when she’d told him to get out, and when she refused to follow him into
the kitchen, he’d scooped her up and carried her in, football style, and put her where he wanted her, the traitorous Milo trotting happily behind.

  She was past steaming and well on her way to royally pissed.

  More than anything, she wanted an ice pack, a hot bath, and a glass of wine. Instead, she was sitting on her kitchen island, staring at Ethan’s broad back as he ran cold water over a clean dish towel.

  She was thinking about kicking him when he flicked off the water, wrung out the cloth, and turned to face her. His eyes were vividly blue, sharp and focused as he lifted the rag to her face. “This is going to sting.”

  She hissed as he dabbed at the scrape on her cheek. “Ouch.”

  “I told you,” he said mildly, and she wanted to kick him again.

  “I can do this myself,” she ground out as pain bloomed under his hand.

  “Shut up,” he said, shocking her into silence. “If you hadn’t been so stubborn, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  So pissed. “If you could take no for an answer, I wouldn’t have had to be stubborn.”

  “Fair point,” he muttered and gripped her chin in his hand. “You’ve got some grit in this.”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. She sucked in a breath, then let it out slowly as the sting in her cheek threatened to overwhelm her. The deep yoga breathing gave her something to concentrate on as she visualized cool, fresh oxygen going straight to the site of the pain and washing it away with every exhale.

  “Almost done.” he murmured as his fingers gentled on her face.

  Two more deep, cleansing breaths and he stepped back. “All clean, but we should probably put some antiseptic on it. You got a first aid kit?”

  The deep breathing had helped with the pain and had the somewhat regrettable side effect of cooling the worst of her anger. Not willing to let go of it completely, she gave a bad-tempered jerk of her shoulders. “Cabinet next to the sink.”

  His brows lifted as he pulled the small case out. “You keep your first aid kit in the kitchen?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  His blue eyes were steady on hers. “Most people keep it in the bathroom.”

  She shrugged again, her anger fading to irritation. She almost wished he’d start acting like a jerk again, just so she could kick him and feel righteous about it. “I don’t cut or burn myself in the bathroom.”

  He chuckled, warm and rich, as he dug out the antiseptic ointment. “Makes sense.”

  He uncapped the tube and smeared some ointment onto his fingertips. “The tube says this has lidocaine added to it, so it should help with the sting.”

  She sat as still as possible as he stroked his fingertips over her raw cheekbone, so light she barely felt it. She concentrated on the light over the sink, and the moth flitting around the bulb and tried to ignore the fluttering in her belly. He was standing so close, and he smelled really good, and she was forgetting why she was mad.

  He needed to leave before she made a complete fool of herself.

  Finally, he stepped back and examined her face with a critical eye. “I think that should do it.”

  “Thanks.” The second he stepped away she shifted and started to slide down the counter.

  “Whoa, hold on.” Hard hands gripped her upper arms, keeping her in place. “I want to look at your knee.”

  “It’s fine,” she insisted, but she might as well have been talking to herself for all the good it did. His big hands gripped her calf as he bent to frown at the rip in her jeans. She was so busy trying not to notice how warm his hands were on her leg, and how damn big his hands were—his fingers practically wrapped all the way around her calf, for God’s sake—that she didn’t notice what he was doing until it was too late.

  “Oh, don’t—” She swallowed the words with a groan as he gripped the tear in the fabric and yanked, tearing open the jeans to expose the scrape on her knee. “I could’ve patched that, you know.”

  “Sorry,” he murmured and turned his attention to her knee. “Didn’t break the skin here. Just a little red. The jeans probably saved you from worse.”

  She eyed what was left of her favorite jeans with a sigh. “I’m not sure the sacrifice was worth it.”

  He chuckled, and she glanced up in surprise. He was closer than she’d realized, still slightly bent over her leg, so his head was level with hers, his mouth only an inch or two away. She swallowed hard, the gulp audible in the quiet room. His pupils flared, edging into the blue as his eyes narrowed. His gaze dropped to her mouth and she went still, her heart hammering and her breath coming faster. He inhaled sharply, his nostrils flaring slightly as his head lowered. He moved in, his head tilting to the side, and she held her breath, held everything as he slid closer, so close she could feel his breath on her lips...

  Until a shutter came down over his eyes and he stepped back, his face blank. “I think you’ll live. I should get going.”

  She couldn’t help it. Her temper spiked, she saw red, and her foot shot out to connect with his thigh. There wasn’t much behind the kick; he was too far away, and her feet were bare, but he staggered a little and gave a very satisfying grunt.

  He scowled at her. “What the fuck did you do that for?”

  “Why the fuck do you think?” she shot back and slid off the counter. She stalked out of the kitchen with him hot on her heels.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Because you’re crazy?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.” She stalked to the front door with as much dignity as she could muster with a faint limp and half her pant leg drooping around her calf. “I’m fucking nuts. You should probably get out while you still can.”

  She yanked the door open and held it wide. “Bye.”

  He stood, hands on his hips, eyes narrowed. “What’s your problem?”

  “What’s my problem? What’s my problem?” She saw Milo heading for the open front door out of the corner of her eye, and while she’d have liked to leave it open for impact, she didn’t have it in her to chase him down tonight. She flung it shut with a satisfying bang. “My problem is that you’re a jerk.”

  “I’m a jerk.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m a jerk.”

  “Yes.”

  “For trying to make sure you got home safe?”

  She was so incensed she grabbed two fistfuls of her hair and yanked. “No. You’re a jerk because that’s twice you almost kissed me and then stopped. Twice. You don’t like me, you don’t even want to be in the same room with me, but you get this look on your face, and you lean in, and you’re just about to kiss me then you just...” she waved her hands in the air, “turn it off somehow and then you’re gone.”

  She huffed out a breath and glared. “Jerk.”

  He stared at her for a full ten seconds before turning away. “I don’t believe this.” He dragged his hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end as he whirled to face her again. “You’re pissed because I haven’t kissed you?”

  She ground her teeth together so hard it sounded like gravel crunching. “No. I’m pissed because you almost kiss me, then act like I’ve got the plague the rest of the time. And when I try to stay out of your way, you end up following me down the street and tripping me, making me fall and scrape my face on the damn sidewalk!”

  “You cock punched me,” he snarled.

  “Because you threw me over your shoulder and forced me into your car! You deserved it!”

  “Do you have any idea how much it hurts to get punched in the dick?”

  “As I don’t have a dick, no. But I was aiming for blinding agony with debilitating nausea.” She spread her lips in a parody of a smile and batted her lashes. “How’d I do?”

  “It hurt,” he growled, stepping forward so his booted feet nudged her bare toes, towering over her. “A lot. I didn’t puke, but it was a close thing.”

  “Aw,” she said, her tone dripping with exaggerated and completely insincere sympathy.

  “And it hurt a lot more,” he continued, his voice so low it was bare
ly audible, “because I had a hard-on.”

  She opened her mouth to retort, then realized she had no idea what to say to that. “What?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded, his blue eyes blazing with anger and frustration and something else, something that made her pulse begin pounding in a thick, heavy beat. “And do you know why I had a hard-on?”

  “Because you’re a guy?” she ventured.

  “Because every time I get near you—see you, smell you, hear your voice—I want to lay you down on the nearest flat surface and fuck you until neither of us can move.”

  Honey exploded. “Then why do you keep stopping?” she all but screamed, going up on her toes to push into his face, so mad and confused and aroused she wanted to punch him again.

  “Fuck this,” Ethan muttered and reached for her.

  “You—”

  It was all she got out before he yanked her against him, fisted a hand in her hair, and plundered.

  Her mouth was already open in shock, and he took ruthless advantage, his tongue plunging deep as he crushed his mouth to hers. A moan strangled in her throat as the taste of him flooded her senses, spicy and male and just a little dark. Her hands came up, diving into his hair to hold his head where she wanted it, to keep him from pulling back. If he pulled back now, she’d kill him for sure, but he didn’t seem to be going anywhere. His hand tightened in her hair, little pricks of pain stinging her scalp as he tugged, and the other arm came around her waist and lifted her so her toes barely skimmed the floor.

  She pressed aching breasts into the hard planes of his chest, her hips twisting against his, and through the fog of lust, her sluggish brain registered the thrust of his hard cock against her belly.

  He wanted her. The knowledge was almost as heady as the kiss, making her moan again. But it wasn’t enough, wasn’t nearly enough. With the desperate, grinding want inside her, Honey gripped his hair hard and lifted her legs to twine around his waist, bringing the hard ridge of his cock into full and firm contact with the needy flesh between her thighs.

  He ripped his mouth away from hers on a groan, his teeth scraping along the column of her throat until he found the pulse beating a heavy tattoo at the base of her neck. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, his tongue flicking out to taste, to suck as his beard scraped against tender skin, and she writhed in his hold.