“No.”
I whirled around to face him. “Stop me, asshole. Maybe you’ll have to use more than one syllable sentences. Or can’t your simple little mind handle that? Do I need to spell out what I want to you? Is that what you need, someone else to be in control?”
“No.”
I lost it. I leaned forward and screamed in his face. His hand was still gripping my arm. He yanked me forward, and my mouth crashed into his, his lips silencing the shrill noise coming from my throat.
He wrapped his hand in my hair, twisting it tight around his fist and held me there as his mouth nipped at mine, demanding. Plundering. He was such a taker, Blue Halloran. He took what he wanted, consequences be damned. Women, money, lives. He took them all and apologized to no one. I moaned against his mouth as I pressed myself closer to the hard edges of his body.
“I’m always in control.”
I pulled back, ignoring the pain, my eyes defiant. “Not of me.”
He dragged me back, kissing me harder until I was struggling to breathe. “Especially of you, Princess.”
He loosened his grip on my hair, and stepped back, his feet spread wide, his stance completely in control. But he was still. He was giving me an out. If I turned away now, that would be the end of this. But I didn’t want it to be the end.
Blue eyed me like a predator, but I no longer wanted to be prey. I wanted to be a predator too. I wanted to fuck, and fight, and be conquered.
I quirked my eyebrow and grinned. Then I ran.
I feinted around him, running through the apartment, hurtling the couch in one long stride. I could hear Blue’s footsteps as he thundered over the floorboards after me. I spun, eyeing the man on the other side of my couch. His cool eyes were suddenly on fire. Oh, he liked this. A twisted part of me did too.
I should have known he’d be about the chase.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I prodded, my chest heaving with excitement. He dodged left, and I ran right. But instead of following through, he cleared the couch. I let out a squeak, that could have been a laugh, and took off toward the kitchen. Rella had been the sports star in high school, but I was no slouch either. I was fast on my feet. I launched myself over the breakfast bar, expecting him to stop on the other side like he did with the couch. Instead, he slid across with me, landing on me and dragging me to the floor. His body was pressed along mine, his breathing fast. I didn’t think he was out of breath either.
I tried to push him off, but he just grabbed my hands and slammed them down beside my head. Ouch.
“What are you going to do now, Puppy?” I prodded. His eyes alight, his lips crashed down on mine. I bucked him with my hips and he slid down, straddling my hips, his mouth never leaving mine as his tongue plundered. I could feel the hard press of his cock against my stomach.
He dragged his mouth away. “Whatever the fuck I want, Princess.” His body weight pressing down on my arms, he moved downwards, licking my collarbone, biting the upper swell of my breast. Yeah, that was going to leave a mark.
“Do you submit?” His dark voice sent shivers straight to my core.
“No.” I threw his word back at him, grinning like the Cheshire cat. Using his teeth, he pulled down my tank top, exposing my lace bra. He sucked in a breath, the only outward sign that he liked what he saw except the hard press of his dick.
He sucked my nipple through my bra, the sensation hot, wet, rough and completely delicious.
“Do you submit?” he asked again, repeating the gesture on the other side, my aching nipple desperate to be out of the restriction of my bra.
“No,” I said again, but it was more of a moan. He bit my nipple hard, making my body arc off the ground, my brain not able to decide if it liked, or hated the sensation. My lady parts knew though, as my juices coated my thighs. Blue shifted, moving one of his knees between my thighs. He kicked my legs wider, pressing his hard thigh against my aching pussy. I pushed up against the hard muscle, rubbing my wet core against the roughness of his jeans, my yoga pants offering little in the way of resistance. He moved the other thigh in, and shimmied down, until now the bulging seam of his jeans was resting against the apex of my thighs. I arched into him, and the eyes that watched me were wild. He thrust against me hard, making me moan.
“Do you submit?” His voice was a little more strangled. His eyes that were almost devoid of color they were that pale blue. He thrust one more time. Dirty trick.
“Yes,” I moaned.
“Thank the fucking heavens.” He moved his hands from my arms, sitting back on his heels, and flipping me onto my stomach. He pulled my yoga pants down with rough, impatient hands and then sucked in an involuntary gasp as my dripping wet pussy was bared to him. He rubbed his hand along my folds, his finger brushing my clit.
He plunged two fingers inside of me, and I pushed back against his hand, burying them deep in me. He thrust them in hard again, and again, until my moans were echoing around my kitchen. I heard the zip of his jeans, and I turned. I wanted to see. But his fingers were back in my hair, holding it close to my scalp, turning me back around. I felt the head of his hard cock press against my entrance, his hand on my hip keeping me steady, giving him control.
Finally, he pushed into me in one hard thrust, burying himself so deep his balls slapped against me.
“Yes,” I whispered. Or maybe it was a scream. I was beyond caring as he drew all the way out, and buried himself again. He released my hair as he moved both hands to my hips, moving my body like it was made for his own personal enjoyment, slamming into me in a punishing pace. My arms gave out and I dropped my head to the hardwood floor, burying him even deeper.
I was so close to coming, it was just there, waiting to turn me inside out. Blue scraped his nails up my spine, sending shivers through my body, my moans getting more desperate.
“Yes. Yes,” I repeated over and over. He reached around and flicked my clit with his fingers, and I moaned as the sensation rocketed through my body like an atomic bomb.
I was fucking done. My strangled screams were barely muffled by my arms as I came on Blue’s cock, its hard length still buried deep inside me.
Letting me ride out my orgasm, he waited with inhuman control for me to collapse in a heap. Then he pulled out, flipping me over so my shoulder blades hit the floorboards, driving back into me. I let out another involuntary moan and wrapped my legs around his waist, holding him tight against me. Oh damn. He pushed up my shirt until it tucked under my breasts, exposing my stomach, and he slid his hand up my torso, along the creamy whiteness of my skin.
He grunted something unintelligible as he leaned forward, kissing me hard as he pistoned into me like a man dying of thirst, his strokes a little ragged and finally out of control. I tried not to smile in triumph. He pulled out and sat up, his hot cum spurting over my stomach like a branding iron.
Resting on his heels, his jeans around his thighs, he stared at me with an impenetrable look. I’d blocked his emotions, but now I reached out a hand to touch his arm.
So fucking beautiful, like the fucking Madonna. Why does she undo me like this?
He whipped his shirt over his head, and used it to wipe his cum from my body. He stood, tucking the balled shirt under his arm. He reached down a hand to help me to my feet. I wasn't sure I was ready for this little interlude to be done. To go back to incriminations and angst.
Sighing, I took his hand and let him haul me to my feet. I felt oddly exposed, standing in front of him in nothing but my tank top.
Still silent, he brushed a hand down my face. That was...thank you.
His face didn’t even twitch. Still impenetrable. Still stoic. Still in complete control.
He reached out, wrapping his arms around my back and one around my knees, and hoisting me into his arms like I was a freaking princess he was always accusing me of being. I let out a girlish squeal, but didn’t protest as he walked me down to my bedroom as if I weighed nothing. Skipping the bed, he walked me into the ensuite and set me on th
e long marble vanity.
He ran the water, peeled off his clothes and stepped in. He looked at me, a slight rise of his brows the only sign he wanted me to join him.
I slid from the vanity and removed the last remnants of my clothing. Stepping into the shower, I let the hot spray massage my aching muscles. I leaned forward and rested my head against his chest. The rapid beat of his heart was the only physiological indicator that he was as worked up as I was.
“What do we do now?” I asked over the sound of the pounding water.
Blue ran his hands over the tops of my shoulders, and the up further to cup my cheeks. His eyes gave nothing away. If the eyes were the window to the soul, then he’d bricked up the windows, with Blue Halloran trapped inside. His thumb ran over my cheekbone, almost tenderly, as he said, “I think we should go and kill a man.”
He pressed me against the wall and fucked me until my horror at the easy way in which he said those words no longer mattered.
Chapter Twenty-One
Apparently, the trick to being a contract killer was not to be stealthy, but just to pretend to be so ordinary, you are basically like a fire hydrant on the sidewalk. I had my hair wrapped in a low bun and hidden under a baseball cap. Apparently sunglasses and a ball cap was the fedora and trench coat of years gone by. If you pushed a baby stroller and had a tan, you were basically invisible.
Blue and I sat in a cafe across the road from Maximoff-Fucking-Richards’ apartment complex, drinking tea and rocking my imaginary baby. I’d almost swallowed my tongue when Blue had insisted we stop at a thrift store and stepped out looking like a boy scout in beige chinos and pushing a baby carriage. In the crook of his arm was a doll, dressed in bright pink newborn wear. From a distance, it looked pretty lifelike.
I wasn’t going to fool myself, the sight of Blue holding that baby doll made me feel… disconcerted. Yearnings I wasn’t ready to admit to myself, and definitely not to Blue Halloran, crept their way into my chest.
It was all part of our cover. Happily married with a baby was basically an invisibility cloak.
“Smile at me like I’m charming,” Blue said, grinning happily at me. It was the freakiest expression I’d ever seen on his face. I shuddered a little.
“I can’t while you’re making that face. You look like a wax doll or something. Stop.” I rocked the pram, which was draped in a muslin wrap, hiding the pseudo infant from general sight. Beneath the doll was Blue’s gun. I tried not to think too hard about that little fact. I was going to need some serious therapy. If only I didn’t hate therapy. Maybe I just needed to talk to my mom.
I looked at Blue, who was schooling his features into polite attentiveness as if his face was made of putty. I hated the fake expression. He had dark sunglasses, and I knew he was looking past my shoulder at the building behind me, but his head was tilted as if he was the perfect young husband listening to his wife. It made my heart do funny things.
“Do you actually want kids?”
“Beside Blue Junior there?” His lip quirked.
“It’s a girl.”
“Bluella?” he suggested.
I huffed out a laugh. “Stop avoiding the question.”
He looked at me. I still couldn’t see his eyes, but I could feel the weight of his stare on my face. Maybe it was a bad question to ask a man with whom I’d just had kind-of angry sex. He might get the wrong idea that I actually wanted to reproduce with him. Which I didn’t.
I shook my head. No, definitely not.
“Maybe one day. I’m not in the right profession for ties. A family is a weakness in my line of business.”
I sipped my latte. That made sense. When a normal husband brought work home, it meant manila folders and a locked office door. If Blue brought work home, it meant drive-by hits and mortal wounds.
“How about you?”
My attention snapped back to the subject of my thoughts. “What?”
“Do you want kids?”
I thought about Memphis and Gus. They couldn’t have kids. Angels were sterile. If I was Memphis’ fated love, or whatever I was, then I probably wouldn’t have kids. I was too young to mourn the loss of something I’d never considered.
I shrugged. “Maybe one day. I never really thought about it.”
He looked from my face, to my hand that was still rocking the pram. “You’d make a good parent. I think you should. You’ve taken better care of that doll then my own mother took care of me.”
I blinked, not even knowing how to respond to that statement, when his mouth tightened. It was the only outward sign that anything had changed.
“Time to move.” He stood, throwing a few bills on the table to pay for our coffee. “The driver is pulling the car around.” He grabbed the pram and started walking down the sidewalk toward my car. We’d parked right in front of Richards apartment building. Blue popped the boot and folded the pram with practiced ease.
I held the swaddled doll in my arms, opening the back door and placing it into its imaginary car seat. I was really unwrapping Blue’s gun from the swaddling.
I held the heavy weight of it in my hand and felt sick. My lungs began to restrict, and I couldn’t breathe.
No, not now. There were no bullets in it. It was just a hunk of metal. Just for show. It was okay.
Blue’s hand grabbed my hip and pulled me from the backseat. He tucked the gun in my hand behind my back, tucking the weapon into the waistband of my jeans as he spun me to face him. He looked down at me through those dark glasses, but I could imagine the icy intensity of his eyes. Then he leaned forward and kissed me, like he was breathing air back into my oxygen starved lungs. I kissed him back, anchoring myself on his lips.
“We don’t have to do this. There's no shame in getting in this car and going home. I can get him another day. We can wait until your demons return from Hell,” he said, barely shifting his lips from mine to talk.
“They’re angels,” I protested weakly on their behalf.
“Tomato, potato,” he said, his lips feathering across mine.
I kissed him again, tracing his bottom lip with my tongue. “No, I want to do this. He fucked with my world, and I want him to pay.”
He pulled back further, staring down at my face. Then he nodded. “Follow the plan. You just gotta drive.”
In my opinion, the plan was a little lame. I had to pretend to be a ditzy wife who forgot her phone at the cafe. As the crazy driver-slash-bodyguard moved around to open the door for Maximoff Richards, who apparently was too fancy to open his own door, I was going to slip in the driver’s seat while Blue disabled the bodyguard. Then Blue would slide in beside Richards, I’d peel out into traffic, we’d abandon the car two blocks away where we’d get into an untraceable vehicle that Blue had managed to acquire while he was on hiatus from me. Then we’d drive somewhere super secretive and I’d finally get my answers. Or retribution.
Blue bit my bottom lip. Hard! “Focus!” he grumbled. “Ready?”
I nodded, then tilted my head back. I took in the hard curve of his jaw, his high cheekbones. I counted the little scars on his face. Four.
He ran a hand down my hair, and he was looking lovingly into my face. “You’ve got this.” He paused, his face angled toward mine, but his attention on the car the just pulled up beside us.
“Okay, go.”
I laughed, and threw him a saucy look, sashaying toward the street. I stood and waited for the oncoming traffic, all the while keeping an eye on the driver. I tilted my head away, pretending to look to the left, so Maximoff didn’t see my face. As soon as I heard the door slam, I doubled back, opening the driver’s door, and sliding into the seat, the heavy weight of Blue’s empty gun in my hand. I turned in the seat, facing Maximoff Richards for the first time since Geneva, and pointing a gun in his face. We’d see how he liked it.
“Hello, Maxie. Give me one good reason to put a bullet in your face.” I sounded like a badass. I sounded like Rella. It was all fake. I couldn’t kill anyone, but if I could, t
he man staring at me pale faced in the back seat of his state-of-the-art town car would be the top of the list.
“You wouldn’t kill me,” he said, all confidence. I wanted to prove his smarmy ass wrong.
“My sister is dead because of you. Try me.” My voice was ice cold, devoid of emotion. A little like Blue.
I heard grunting, and the unmistakable sound of a fist hitting flesh. The driver fell through the door and into the back seat. Blue stuffed him into the seat, and slid in behind him.
“Go!” he yelled, and I peeled out into traffic. I looked into the rearview mirror, and noticed that Blue had his gun barrel pressed firmly into Maximoff’s temple.
“If I put a bullet into your temple right now, it wouldn’t even break the glass. It’d make a hell of a mess of your car interior though.” He said this pleasantly, like he was making small talk. Eesh.
I pulled into a lot about a block and a half east. Stopping next to a junker Toyota, I lined up the rear passenger door with the boot. Blue pulled two cable ties from his back pocket, and threw one to me. “Tie up the muscle while he’s still out.” He motioned to Maximoff with his gun. “You too.” He held out the loop of cable tie and motioned for him to put his hands in. Maximoff hesitated, and Blue flicked the safety off his gun and pressed the silencer harder into his head, until his face was jammed between the window and the gun.
“I want to kill you right now. End your shit-eating, entitled existence right now. But Hope wants answers. But she doesn’t need answers that bad. Maybe my finger could slip?”
He said it conversationally. It was terrifying to see Blue in his natural habitat, so to speak. Blue wasn’t physically imposing, nor did he swear or generally try and intimidate Maximoff. No, the scary part about Blue was that he seemed completely unperturbed by the circumstances. Like he really could kill Maximoff with the ease that a normal person made a cup of tea.
He was doing a job. Checking off task after task, except it ended with Maximoff dead, a bullet between his eyes.
Hell's Redemption- The Complete Series Boxset Page 73