Hell's Hilltop

by J. A. Dennam

  “We’re going to do it my way this time,” he whispered roughly.

  Rendered speechless, Rena simply nodded. His tongue came out, bathed a pert nipple in warm splendor. Her sharp intake of breath urged him to suckle, which he did with ferocious hunger. Every nerve in her body came alive, took control until she was writhing on his lap.

  Ty ripped his T-shirt overhead, discarded it. His skin was tan, smooth over hard muscle. A light dusting of freckles covered his shoulders and she bent down, tasted them while her hands followed the bulging curves of his biceps. The rough texture of his chest hair felt incredible against her tender breasts. He was everything rugged. Strong. Man. And she wanted to take him inside her so badly she ached.

  The rest of her clothes came off until she was finally, gloriously naked beneath his open perusal. Mere moments ago, she’d convinced herself she hated everything about him. But the need to be touched only by him grew more intense the longer he looked into her eyes. He lowered her down to the carpet; let her go long enough to unsnap his jeans. The zipper made a suggestive sound of it’s own and when it stopped, she reached inside, pulled him out. Between the two of them, they managed to shed the last of his clothing. She allowed him to hold her gaze, knowing he needed that assurance. Yes, she was still there. Yes, she wanted him. No, she wouldn’t push him away.

  Ty positioned himself between her legs and coated the tip of his cock with her desire. The flesh of her entrance bore the tender traces of his last invasion, aiding in the anticipation as he took his time. Until she was panting with need.

  Finally, he thrust forward wringing a gasp from her mouth as he completely, almost painfully filled her. The carpet was new and rough against her back, but every sensation combined brought her swiftly to the explosion she knew was coming.

  Feeding her need to touch, her hands explored the iron peaks and valleys of his body as he moved inside her. Her lips followed the detailed yellow and orange flame tattoo that covered an upper arm, then licked up and over a defined shoulder. No matter the loathing she’d embraced for him before, there was no denying it. Ty Ferguson was a beautiful man. Big. Thick. Made to take… and to be taken.

  And this time he was the one in control. Rena surrendered everything to him, trusted him with her needs as she’d never done before. He pulled out again and stroked her clitoris with the hot, slick ridges of his erection. With the perfect amount of heat and friction, that seed of pleasure between her legs intensified to a fevered pitch. She arched upward. Opened wide for him. Writhed beneath the sensation. He stayed his course, stroking her with such expertise she thought she might cry.

  A sensuous moan began low in her throat. Rena stilled in order to fully capture the dawning ray of warmth building in her center. When the blissful surge peaked and radiated outward, her body drew up, nails dug into flesh, head thrown back. Her moan slid into a desperate cry that unleashed all her pent up anxiety in a way that stopped time.

  Just when the pleasure began to ebb, Ty plunged inside her, forcing it back to life. She cried out again, reached her arms way above her and angled her hips to deepen the fit.

  He burrowed an arm beneath her shoulders. “Open your eyes,” he growled.

  Feeling thoroughly embraced, she did as she was told. He held her attention for a precious moment before he took her mouth in a fierce, soulful kiss. The contact did some-thing to him, sent him over the edge. He pulled out. Warmth bathed her stomach as his release spilled between them. He quietly rode his own climax with his face buried in her hair.

  In the aftermath, they panted, recovered, enjoyed the damp evidence of their exertions. It was getting hot in their empty unit, and sweat coated every inch of bare skin. The scent of their lovemaking swirled around them, rich and wonderfully intoxicating.

  He rose up, rested his forehead against hers. “That was very irresponsible of us.”

  Thoroughly sated, she stretched languidly beneath the pressure of his heavy body. Skin to skin from head to toe. “You mean you don’t normally engage in spontaneous sex during highly volatile situations?”

  “Not without proper equipment.”

  “But you’re incredibly good at it,” she purred matter-of-factly.

  His face split into a crooked smile. “Does that mean I won’t be crucified for this?”

  Still in the moment, Rena reached up, touched his jaw. “You took a big risk trusting me when you had no reason to. But somehow…” she hesitated, “you always seem to know what I need. I don’t get it.”

  “I think you do.” Knowledge softened his tone. “We’ve had this weird thing between us from the start. Something good. It spooked you.”

  She closed her eyes and nodded in agreement. It would explain so much. “Maybe. That doesn’t mean it’s healthy.”

  His forehead lifted from hers. “No, it’s certainly not healthy. But in this case, the benefits outweigh the risks.”

  She angled her head and studied him thoughtfully. His blond hair was thick, sex-tossed, and irresistible. Unable to deny herself, she combed deft fingertips through it and smiled. “Do those benefits include more of this?”

  With a groan of defeat, he bent and kissed her soundly. “I sure as hell hope so.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Ty stepped out of the empty unit fully dressed and ready to move on with the next phase of their day. It was nearing the noon hour and getting hot as hell. He’d forgotten to crack the moon roof, knew his car would be an oven when he and Rena left this place.

  But first he needed to retrieve his dog.

  “He’s sleeping with DJ,” Melanie informed him, jerking her head in the direction of the couch. Her fifteen month-old son blanketed Chewie’s back as the four-legged critter sprawled on the floor. A soft snore tore through the baby’s nose. “Come get him later.”

  Before he could argue, Derek spoke from his place at the table where he messed with a small silver laptop. “How is Rena?”

  People had begun nesting since he and Rena left, hunkering down and circling the wagons in case Rafferty showed up. The shower was going behind the closed bathroom door, Melanie went back to preparing food and Austin came out of the back bedroom with a load of blankets.

  “Better now,” Ty answered, meeting Austin’s perceptive look. “I’m afraid there aren’t enough meds on the planet to help her deal with losing Crystal.”

  Derek’s tone dripped with incredulity. “And you left her alone in that apartment?”

  “She, uh… needed a moment.”

  Austin, who knew damn well he’d interrupted something, plunked the blankets on the couch with raised brows. Ignoring it, Ty pulled out a chair and sat facing Derek. “Rena and I are taking the bullet to the Arkansas border. I’ll ask around, see if we can’t get a lead on Isak Frost.”

  “So, Rena doesn’t know where to find him?”

  Unease seeped beneath Ty’s skin once again. “She said Crystal was the one with that information.”

  Melanie dropped the wooden spoon she held, stood with mouth agape. “No!”

  Derek’s eyes closed and he rubbed them with thumb and forefinger. “Of course we never thought to ask Crystal.”

  “Because Sophie said Rena was our key to finding Frost,” Melanie grumbled, yanking the utensil drawer open with a clank. “I’m so glad I got to watch that lying bitch die.”

  Her words, so uncharacteristic and cruel, reflected the collective angst around the room.

  “Are you sure mobilizing Rena is a good idea?” Derek asked. “Her escape made the news.”

  Ty nodded. “I’ll handle it.”

  “I know you’ve taken it upon yourself to babysit her,” Melanie said over her shoulder as she added macaroni to the now boiling water, “but why don’t you leave her here with Crystal. You can communicate over the phone.”

  Ty’s gaze briefly flicked over to Danny who appeared from the bathroom in fresh clothes and a thick towel wrapped around her hair. “There’s too much overload here,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “She f
ound out the other day her father and stepmother are dead and now with her sister dying…. She’s barely hanging on.”

  Danny’s hands paused for just a moment before unwrapping the towel.

  “Her father is dead?” Austin approached the table. “He was the whole reason she went after IGP in the first place, right? So he could stop running?”

  “According to what she told us the other day, he was the security guard hired to steal the capsule from Lesico’s competition. That’s how she was able to get her hands on it.”

  “Man. She was just a kid,” Melanie murmured from the stove. “I can’t imagine learning years later that you were directly responsible for your family’s suffering.”

  “If anyone was responsible, it was her father,” Ty replied dryly over his shoulder. “He emptied his revolver on the kitchen counter right in front of her when, perhaps, he should have taken the bullet directly to Sophie.”

  “Got no argument here,” Derek said with a grim nod. “It would have ended then. No one would be dead and we wouldn’t be here, facing the same fate, waiting for Rafferty to sneak up on us and take out his revenge.”

  Ty released a heavy breath, rubbed at tired eyes. “Crystal blames Rena. She sprung their father’s death on her in the worst way possible when we ran into her at IGP.”

  Derek leaned back in his chair. “I’ve been waiting to hear how you two hooked up with Crystal.”

  Ty nodded. “Rena’s sole focus was on finding her sister, but Crystal didn’t want any part of her. She wanted Rena to suffer, so she told her all about how Sophie used her near-drowning to make their father think he’d lost both daughters. It worked, and he came out swinging. Sophie dangled Crystal under his nose, forced him to falsely identify Rena’s remains, and then had him killed. Stepmom, too.”

  “And stepmom was Crystal’s biological mom,” Danny said with a solemn twist to her mouth as she brushed out her hair. “No wonder Crystal was bitter.”

  Ty glanced toward the closed bedroom door. “She thought she had no one left and she wanted Rena to feel that same pain. That’s what Rena was processing when Sophie shot Derek.”

  “Which is why she broke and killed Sophie,” Derek surmised with a distant nod. “I knew it wasn’t because her meds were fucked up, she was doing so well.”

  “I knew something awful had happened when you two were alone together,” Melanie said with a scathing look in Ty’s direction. “And that was when you first started lying to me.”

  Sensing the conversation was about to take an unwanted turn, Ty ignored Melanie altogether and turned to Austin. “Didn’t you know her father?”

  Austin crossed his arms, leaned against the kitchen counter. “I saw her parents once when we were kids, then again when they identified her body. She didn’t talk about her family, which I thought was strange. Whenever I asked, she’d veer away from the subject.”

  “Well, we now know why,” Melanie mumbled beside him. “But if Daddy Hellberg was in hiding, why didn’t he keep his daughters hidden, too?”

  It was a good question, one Ty hoped would be answered soon. “Why are you so interested?” he asked her suspiciously.

  Melanie shrugged, gave him a look of wide-eyed innocence. “No reason. Just being a part of the conversation.” When her answer didn’t satisfy, she headed back toward the stove, gave the noodles a stir. “Okay, maybe I think Rena caught a tough break. So what?”

  Danny’s mouth fell open.

  Melanie held the dripping spoon out in a gesture that begged consideration. “Oh, come on, Danny, you and Derek come from a great family. You have no idea what it’s like to deal with a defective one.”

  “Every family is defective in some way, Mel,” Danny responded with attitude.

  “Yeah, but you didn’t get a load of Sophie.” An involuntary shudder shook the petite blonde’s shoulders.

  “It’s still no excuse to kill people,” Danny mumbled grouchily.

  Ty bit back his snide remark. If the woman wanted to hate Rena, there wasn’t a thing he could say to change her mind. He grabbed his keys, hat, and glasses off the table and turned to leave. “We’ll stay in touch.”

  “Hey.” When Derek had Ty’s attention, he shot him a warning. “As much as I’d like to, I still don’t fully trust Rena. You shouldn’t, either.”

  Silence stretched between them. The stove timer went off. With a stubborn set to his shoulders, Ty said, “I’ll decide that for myself.”

  Moments later, he stood in the empty apartment all alone, holding the button-down shirt Rena had left, feeling like the worst kind of fool. She was nowhere to be found.

  Derek stood in the doorway behind him. “Decided yet?”

  Fucking terrific. Ty bunched the shirt in his fist and let out a, “Shit!”

  “She’s not in your car?”

  That was the first place he’d checked. “No.”

  “You should have never left her alone.”

  The only thing worse than being played again was getting lectured by the man who’d warned him. “I thought you could hear everything,” he deflected with rancor.

  Derek threw up his hands, palms out. “I make no promises where Rena’s concerned.”

  A feeling of dread crept into Ty’s soul as they re-entered Mel and Mac’s apartment. As soon as the door closed, he rounded on the group. “What if she didn’t run off? What if she was taken?”

  “She wasn’t,” Melanie answered with confidence.

  “How the hell do you know?”

  She held up a plastic zippered baggie containing two powder-white pills. The pills Rena had handled when Derek explained their deadly properties.

  Derek swore loudly.

  “How many pills were in that bag?” Danny asked.

  “Three,” Derek growled. “She must have taken one earlier. What exactly was her frame of mind when you left her, Ty?”

  Pretty damned satisfied. Or so he’d thought. “She was fine,” Ty growled back.

  Derek put a finger to Ty’s chest. “If we find her dead of tetrodotoxin poisoning, that’s on you.”

  As much as he hated hearing it, Ty knew it was true. But she’d seemed so relaxed. Playful even. It was only for a moment as they’d basked together in the afterglow of great sex, but he could feel her inner calm.

  It had been enough to leave her for a moment to rinse off in the shower. She’d taken him up on his offer, though, and joined him a few minutes later where they’d engaged in another round of intercourse. Something was different. Just a little off, but when she’d wrapped her legs around him, as he took her against the tiled wall, all thoughts of disquiet vanished with his third mind-fuck of a climax that day.

  When Ty snapped out of his reverie, it was to encounter Derek’s censoring scowl. It said: That’s what you get for thinking with the wrong head, asshole.

  _____

  Rena rode the gentle sway of moving vehicle in silence while she thumbed through the photos on Ty’s stolen phone. Most of them were still-shots of the same old toys she’d seen lining the walls at his home. With the evidence of his lovemaking still fresh between her thighs, she knew he was all man. Had found a whole new appreciation for him on a sensual level. But the toys were evidence that perhaps immaturity kept him a bachelor.

  While she desperately sought to rekindle her disgust for him, the guilt wouldn’t allow it. She’d taken advantage of Ty again. The moment he left her alone, she took the phone from his jeans pocket and made a call. Knowing it would be a good thirty minutes before her ride showed up, she bought more time by joining him in the shower. He’d still been recovering from their last round of sex, but it didn’t take long for the magic to begin once again. Way too soon, Rena realized her time was up. In fact, they’d gotten carried away and she was late. The car was already waiting for her when Ty left for Melanie’s apartment. And he’d left with the belief she’d soon follow.

  Damn.

  The landscape grew more mountainous with each passing mile in the southbound direct
ion. Rena was once again in the back seat of a car, surrounded by black leather and tinted windows, which hid her from the persecution of the outside world. It should have offered a sense of security, but any positive notion at this point would be a lie… and she knew it.

  The driver blew smoke and threw the butt of his cigarette out the window. It then closed, pinching off the steady stream of wind that kept it from being too quiet. In the unbearable silence, Rena’s hands began to shake.

  What am I doing?

  You know, the small voice in her head answered.

  With that, she took a fortifying breath and further accepted the life-altering decision she’d already made.

  Sunlight flashed through the leafy canopy overhead as they approached a small house in a heavily wooded neighborhood. When the sedan slowed to take a sharp right into a driveway, Rena hid the phone beneath the seat and studied the log-sided A-frame with apprehension. The engine was cut.

  She remembered this place from before in bits and pieces. The lakefront was just behind it and below it a natural cave, which was utilized as a boathouse.

  Keep your enemies closer.

  Where had that come from? Rena fought the urge to rub the chill from her bare shoulders despite the balmy warmth outside. Her jeans and camisole were all she’d donned before the man she had contacted showed up to silently whisk her away.

  Their footsteps rang hollow on the wooden deck just before he unlocked the front door and pushed her inside. Her eyes followed the peaked lines of the interior as he closed and locked the door behind them. Such a small space, barely enough for one person… who didn’t spend too much time inside, she remembered fondly.

  The flat cap he wore came off, revealing a thick bush of blond-gray curls that brushed the collar of his starched shirt. His pasty-white complexion and weathered nose were pinkened from a long history of tobacco use, but the lower half was concealed behind a full gray beard. The man exhaled loudly and finally whirled on her with an angry blast. “Where the hell did you go?”