She shifted her feet against the bed, trying and failing to lift him, move him, make him do something.
He took pity on her and slid his hand between their bodies, cupping her mound and giving her the desired pressure. She moved her hips, grinding against his palm. He shoved her panties aside, and as she shifted against him he thrust two fingers into her pussy.
She gasped and wrapped her arms around his neck.
He pumped his hand in and out while his mouth worked on her breast. She groaned and scraped her nails over his back. His shoulders tensed as she dug deep tracks, but he didn’t relent in his slow, sensual assault on her body.
Jacob sat up suddenly, his erection tenting the front of his boxers. She could feel his gaze raking over her. The cool air tightened her damp breasts.
He grasped her panties and pulled them off.
Finally! Down to business.
She reached for his boxers, but he intercepted her hands, pushing them up over her head. He wedged his body between her legs, scooting farther down the bed until his face hovered above her mound. The light glinted off his eyes, and it felt as though he saw beyond her exterior. As if he recognized her fear and apprehension and met her, toe-to-toe. Or, face to pussy as the case were.
He lowered, and she shivered as his breath skated over her skin. Last time, she hadn’t had the opportunity to feel nervous. But tonight, it was as if they were each stripped bare.
He wrapped his lips around her clit and sucked. The sensation of it shot straight to her toes. She reached above her and grasped the headboard, needing something to hold onto. He rubbed his tongue over the nub, sparking off a fresh wave of arousal.
Damn him, she didn’t know if she wanted closer, or to get away.
She rubbed her feet back and forth on the mattress. He had her pinned way too well for her to move against him. Her channel clenched as he continued to torment her.
Her toes curled, her body tightened, and she groaned. Her abdomen tightened as pleasure danced over her extremities. The orgasm was sharp, short, and intense, rushing through her at full tilt. She gasped and blinked at the ceiling.
Jacob crawled up her body, dropping kisses on her hip, her stomach, ribs, between her breasts, and along her collar bone. She sucked in deep breaths, her head spinning from how fast that had happened. Despite the release, she wasn’t sated. Not yet. She wanted more of him, as much as she could take.
Emma pointed toward a cardboard box. There were condoms there, but he ignored her and fished his jeans back onto the bed.
“I got my own this time.” He chuckled.
She laughed and stretched, feeling the soreness in her body and loving it. Loving how he drove her crazy. Every brush against the sheets heightened her sensitivity.
Jacob returned to her, sliding between her thighs and hooking her knee over his arm. Their gazes locked and her lungs stopped working. It was as if she could see straight to his soul. He wasn’t keeping her out, at least not now.
He positioned his cock at her entrance and thrust. He sank slowly into her, and it was more intense because she could see the way his features changed, how his nostrils flared and his cheeks sunk in the deeper he delved. Her insides quivered, and she swallowed a whimper.
Was she supposed to feel so emotionally raw?
He invaded her body, her heart, and filled her mind. He was all around her.
Jacob let his forehead drop until their noses bumped. He flexed his hips and sank the last little bit into her. She squeezed her internal muscles around him, and she felt him smile a little against her mouth. How she wanted to see that smile, soak it in.
She kissed him, needing more connection, more of whatever it was he was doing to her. She’d asked him to make her feel.
He shifted, hoisting her leg higher and opening her up to a deeper penetration, robbing her of thought, leaving her adrift in a sea of sensation. He rocked against her, stroking deep inside her channel, rubbing all those nerve endings and coiling her desire tighter.
Jacob levered up and began a slow, purposeful thrusting. She shifted against him, but he had all the power. Her orgasm, her body, and even her heart were at his mercy.
She felt his gaze on her, and she couldn’t help but meet it. Her chest ached and her heart swelled, beating hard against her ribs as he continued pushing her onward.
He didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. He saw her. All her flaws and her sordid history, and yet, he still wanted her. She’d have to trust that. Trust that this man would be there for her where all others had failed her.
She dug her nails into his shoulders and gasped. Her body rippled with orgasm— sharp, sweet and sudden. He continued thrusting, drawing the pleasure out. She raked her nails down his back, and he groaned. His thrusts were rough and short. He thrust once more and froze, features tense, mouth open. He blew out a breath and covered her, crushing her mouth to his.
He rolled them to their sides, pulling her close, and cuddled her without being asked to. He knew she needed the comfort. Neither of them spoke, and that was okay. She’d wanted to feel, but now, maybe she felt too deep. He did things to her, crazy, wonderful things that made no sense.
Rhonda pressed dial again on her cell.
“Come on, already. Pick up the damn phone,” she muttered.
Once more, the phone line went to the answering machine, and she rolled her eyes.
“Hey, it’s me. I guess you left your cell phone at home when you picked Rachel up from work. They didn’t have chocolate chip cookie dough, so since you weren’t answering, I picked something else.”
She ended the call and tossed the phone into the seat next to her. Going a half-hour without contact from her family shouldn’t be a big deal. After all, she’d gone nearly a year without speaking to any of them, thanks to a real gem of an asshole boyfriend who had a degree in manipulation. She’d vowed to never let anyone come between her and her family again.
They’d planned to go out to a movie and have a real girl’s night, but her little sister had been called into work at the local barbecue hangout. Rhonda and her mother had swung by for dinner, but it wasn’t the same without Rachel at the table with them.
She pulled into the drive of their little brick house. Both cars were there, including Rachel’s with the dead-as-a-doornail battery. It was all where it should be, and yet, something seemed off.
If Rachel and Mom were home, why were the lights off? And why weren’t they answering?
She peered at the house.
No, she could see some light from inside. Was that the kitchen?
Her gut clenched and she twisted to survey the street. Had Frank followed her home? Was he here?
Frank said the moment the cops pulled him off her that he’d make her pay. She’d been so scared. One of the officers, a woman with kind eyes and a quick smile, had checked up on her a few times and told her to take martial arts classes. Rhonda had gone mostly to get out of her own head—and found she’d liked the discipline. Maybe it was her imagination, but she felt more confident and capable for working her way through the programs. She’d become something of a dojo junkie.
She wasn’t going to ignore her instincts.
Rhonda left the ice cream in her car and crept to the side of the garage. The door was busted so she couldn’t get in through the laundry room, but that was okay. There was always the glass sliding door to the kitchen. Besides, with her luck Mom and Rachel were in the kitchen pigging out on whatever was leftover from the restaurant and this wasn’t an emergency at all, just her overactive imagination.
She reached the door and peered into the bright country kitchen.
Nothing.
In fact, if she peered through the kitchen over the bar, she could make out their heads resting against the back of the couch as they watched TV.
Well now, didn’t she feel stupid?
Rhonda shook her head and mentally kicked herself. Her paranoia bit hard sometimes. She went back to the car and snagged the ice cream, vowing to ke
ep her delusions to herself.
Frank was not out to get her.
They were safe and sound.
She opened the front door, suppressing her annoyance that it wasn’t locked. Between Frank and the serial killer the news was going on about, you’d think they would exercise a little caution.
“Hey, what’s up with not answering the phone?” she called out as she flicked the locks into place.
Shit, the TV was loud. No wonder they hadn’t heard. They could probably barely hear themselves think.
Rhonda headed toward the kitchen, still unable to shake the sense that something was amiss.
A shadow moved in Rachel’s room on her left. Rhonda stopped as the shadow seemed to peel off the wall and become a person. Fear immobilized her for a second, but then her self-defense training took over.
“Mom, Rachel, call 9-1-1,” she yelled, but they didn’t move.
The man rushed her, something in his hand.
Rhonda didn’t think. She reacted. She threw the gallon of ice cream at her attacker. It hit him square in the face, knocking him off his stride for a second.
A second was all she needed.
She didn’t care if this was Frank, her father come back from whatever hellhole he’d crawled into, or anyone else. No one threatened her or her family. No one.
She rushed the attacker, grabbing the wrist of the hand with the weapon, and kicked his legs out from under him. He went down like a sack of potatoes, and she came down on top of him. She punched with everything she had, aiming for the face, the throat. Her knuckles and hands hurt, but she pushed that aside. Frank had taught her that, at least.
Her attacker thrashed, his arms flailing.
Plastic rattled, and the cold, heavy weight of the ice cream smacked her in the kidney, paralyzing her for a split second.
He pushed her off, kicking and throwing random objects at her. She grabbed the weapon he had—a sledgehammer, by the weight of it—and screamed. For a brief second she glimpsed his face, illuminated by the kitchen light.
Fuck, he was practically a kid.
She hefted the weapon and ran after him, but he was already scrambling to get the locks open. He sprinted down the driveway before she could get her hands on him again. She shoved the door shut and locked it, pulse racing and her body shaking.
Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.
Had that really happened?
The pounding in her hand, the jarred feeling in her elbow and shoulder, they all said yes.
“Mom? Rachel?” She ran into the living room, her heart in her throat.
Both women sat bound and gagged on the sofa, their eyes wide and murmurs drowned out by the TV.
“Oh my God. Oh my God.”
The shaking was bad now. She looked around for something to cut them free. She needed to call 9-1-1. She needed to untie them.
“I’m going to get help. I’ll get you out of that.” Rhonda grabbed her cell phone from her pocket and punched in those three digits. She rushed to the kitchen, yanking open drawers she knew didn’t have knives or scissors in them. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t process. Couldn’t remember which damn drawer they were in.
“9-1-1, what is your emergency?”
“Hi, my name is Rhonda. Someone was in our house when I got home. He had my mom and sister tied up and he attacked me.”
“Is he there now?”
“No, no, I scared him off. I think it was the guy who was on the news. Please, we need help.” She rattled off her address to the woman and answered her questions as best she could.
Ah-ha!
She found the scissors exactly where they should be, in the junk drawer.
Rhonda flipped on all the lights, taking some comfort in chasing away the shadows.
“I’m going to get you out of this,” she said to her mother and sister. The operator was still talking to her in such a frustratingly calm and composed manner. Didn’t the woman understand what was going on here?
She put the phone on speaker and tossed it on the empty cushion next to her mother. The first thing she cut off was the tape over her mouth.
“Oh my God, is he gone?” Her mother gasped, tears running down her cheeks.
“Yeah, he’s gone. Cops are on their way.”
“Rhonda, Rhonda, is your mother okay?” the operator asked.
“I think so,” Rhonda replied.
She cut her sister’s gag off next. If anything, Rachel seemed pissed as hell rather than scared.
“I need to call Emma,” Rachel said, wiggling in her bonds.
“Call her later,” Rhonda said as she started in on the bonds holding her sister’s arms to her sides. Couldn’t she let her little high school friends be for a few minutes? Did she have to update the whole world?
“No, he said he was going after her next. I need to call Emma!”
Emma groaned and snuggled farther into the warmth wrapped around her. She’d just gone to sleep. Couldn’t her alarm wait a little while longer?
“Ems,” Jacob muttered, pushing at her shoulder.
“What?” She buried her face against his shoulder.
“It’s your phone.” From the sound of it, he wasn’t actually awake.
She sighed and rolled over, peering at the clock with one eye.
Midnight.
Whoever was on the other end of this call was dead meat.
The phone flashed Rachel Land’s name.
The teenage hostess at the barbecue place? Emma had given her a ride to work a few times. She hadn’t realized the girl’s number was still in her phone.
“Hello?”
“Emma! Thank God.” The girl on the other end sobbed into the phone.
“Rachel? What’s wrong?” Emma sat up, tossing the covers back.
Jacob’s phone blared like a siren from the pile of clothes still on the floor. She glanced over her shoulder, a sense of dread settling in her stomach.
“He said he was going to come after you. Get out! Get someplace safe.” Rachel continued to sob. There were other voices. Female?
“Rachel? Rachel, where are you? Are you okay? Are you hurt? I’ll come and get you.” Emma got up and started grabbing for her clothes. Jacob retreated to the living room to answer his call. What were the chances this was a coincidence?
“I’m at home. Mom and I got here and there was a man. He hit Mom and knocked her out, and then he tied me up. He kept saying it was for you. It was crazy!” Rachel continued to babble, but she wasn’t making a lot of sense.
Jacob came around the bed, his face half in shadow, but what she could see didn’t make her feel any better.
“Rachel, hold on a second, okay?” She put her hand over the phone. “What?”
“Rachel Land?” he asked.
Emma nodded.
“Looks like Rachel’s sister chased away the TBKiller. They want us to stay put.” He didn’t seem too happy with the decision.
“Hey Rachel?”
“Yeah?” Rachel sniffled.
“Are the cops there?”
“They just got here. Emma, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’ve got cops here with me, too. I’m going to be okay. Will you call me later? Let me know you’re all right?” Emma wanted to go there now, but that wasn’t going to fly. She hung up with Rachel and wrapped her arms around herself.
Was this really all connected to her?
“How’s she doing?” Jacob asked.
“Scared, but I don’t think she’s hurt. What about the rest of them?”
“No idea, patrol was just getting on the scene.”
“What—what are we supposed to do?”
Somehow, this whole thing was her fault. Guilt wrapped around her, nearly suffocating her. What could she have done differently? Anything at all?
“Hey.” Jacob grasped her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Don’t do that. I’m here. You’re safe.”
“But it’s all my fault.”
“No.” He shook his head. “
This is on him, whoever he is. You didn’t ask him to commit these murders.”
“But if it wasn’t for me, Harold, Laura, Derrick, Amanda, they’d all be alive.” She balled her hands into fists. She wanted to punch something. Or more like someone.
“Let’s go back to sleep—”
“No.” She pushed Jacob’s hands away. “No, I can’t go back to sleep. Not now.”
She jerked on a pair of pants and stalked into the living room. He followed her, a silent presence.
“Okay, so let me pitch an idea to you.”
She turned to face him. “Okay. What?”
“I think the unsub is someone you’ve met. Someone you know, but not like a friend. I don’t think you’d even know his name.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I want to bounce some ideas off you, make some lists. Do you think you’re up to that?”
“Hell yeah.” She glanced at the kitchen table and counters covered in papers. “I’ll get the card table from the garage. We can start with that.”
Black Widow closed her laptop and set it on the passenger’s seat. She was relying on Mercy too much. The woman had never stepped out of line, but Black Widow had run Killer Club long enough to know the patterns. People joined, they were over-zealous in their planning, but once the execution stage started... Most of them lost their way. But not Mercy. She was almost a founding member. Her list of kills stretched as long as Black Widow’s.
Mercy was a better actor than others.
Like Iron.
Max Fischer had potential, but he saw himself as too much of an artist to follow rules, and rules kept the club safe. The attention from the press and the notoriety he was getting played into his delusions of rebirth, feeding his obsession. But not her plan. If this was what the boy wanted, then he shouldn’t have come to her. Because her rules were law, and you only got one chance to break the law before it broke you. She’d expelled members for even thinking about deviating from their plans.
It could be that she was simply sentimental. Max was about the age of her brother, had he survived their childhood. Her brother had been her first. He’d screamed about night terrors, which had really been her experimenting. Figuring out her MO. Her ritual. In hindsight, killing her much younger brother hadn’t been a good idea. But that was in the past. She’d escaped unscathed.
Blind: Killer Instincts Page 17