by Celia Aaron
I dried my hands and turned to face her. She wore a white fleece top that was almost too small for her. It hugged her curves, highlighting her full breasts and the dip of her waist. I didn’t want to talk, not about the blood on my hands or the rest of the killing I would have to do to keep her safe. I wanted to live with her, here in this moment. Playing house by the sea with her was my only solace, the only safe place I’d been in the last twenty years. If she saw the monster that lived inside me—the one that had no problem getting paid for taking lives—the tenuous fiction we were living would end. In the small amount of time I’d known her, I realized I never wanted it to end.
Her eyes widened as I advanced on her and pinned her to the wall. “Con—”
“You want to know how evil I am? How many souls I’ve claimed?” I gripped her hair and yanked her head back.
Her pulse quickened, the beat fluttering at her throat, as she dug her nails into my biceps. “Yes.” Her breathy voice told me all I needed to know. She liked my violence, and fuck if that didn’t turn me on. My cock roared to life and demanded I finally make her mine.
I ran my teeth down her throat and bit down on the tender skin above her jugular. “I’ve ripped men’s throats out. Spit their blood on the floor as they writhed and died.”
“Con!” The note of fear mixed with arousal coated my mind with bloody desire.
“I’ve strangled men with my bare hands.” I pushed my thigh between hers and hissed when I felt the wet heat waiting for me. “I’ve shot, stabbed, and beaten my way to the top of the food chain.”
Her breath hitched as I sucked her earlobe between my teeth and bit down.
“I would do it all again. No hesitation.”
She slid her hand down my side and pressed her palm to my erection. My hips surged against her, and I needed to get inside her. But I wouldn’t fully claim her, not until I had her trust.
“Do you know why I’d do it all again?” I pulled back and stared into her eyes.
“Why?” She smoothed her palm up and down, fanning the flames of my need.
“Because it led me to you.” I kissed her, hard and merciless, taking what was mine with everything I had—all the fucked up emotions mixed with the new ones she’d created inside me. She moaned into my mouth, and I yanked her hair even harder, needing her to feel everything right along with me.
Her hands scrabbled at my pants, and when she reached inside and grabbed my cock, I bit her lower lip. Her soft palm stroked me, easing up and down my shaft as I fucked her mouth with my tongue. When she ran her thumb along my tip, my knees almost buckled.
“Please let me?” Her lust-filled plea wasn’t one I was capable of denying.
Keeping my grip on her hair, I lowered her to her knees. She snaked her tongue out and tasted my tip. Fucking hell. Her upturned eyes almost did me in as she slid her pink lips around my cock, taking me as far back as she could.
Her velvet tongue lashed across the underside of my cock. I reached down with my other hand and grabbed another handful of her dark hair, then pulled her forward. Her eyes watered as I eased her off me and back on again.
I stared down at her as she learned me, and when she squeezed the base of my cock with one hand and sucked in tandem, I groaned. My balls were already pulled up tight as I pushed deeper, getting rougher than I should have. She moaned, the hum vibrating along my cock, and I pushed until the back of her head hit the wall. I pinned her there, fucking her mouth as she worked her hand along my base.
“I’m going to come.” I grunted, and she sucked harder, her tongue working faster. My cock stiffened even more as my load crept up my shaft. I began to pull back, but she gripped my shaft and kept me right where I wanted to be. “Oh fuck, Charlie!” I came hard, my cock pulsing in her mouth as she swallowed and licked.
She finally let me go after I was spent. I backed away, then turned and grabbed a hand towel off the sink.
Pulling her to her feet, I wiped along her swollen lips and cradled her face in my palm. “You are a fucking goddess.”
“I suppose we’re a good pair since you’re an angel.” She wrapped her arms around me and stroked my back.
“I hope I wasn’t too rough.” I kissed her forehead, her nose, and then her lips.
“That was probably the hottest moment of my life, so I’d say you were good.” Her smile gave me the oddest sensation in my chest, like my heart was weightless, soaring on her words.
“Thank you.” I kissed her again, couldn’t get enough of her. Would I ever?
20
Charlie
I sat on the covered balcony, far back from the railing so no passing cars would be able to catch sight of me, and watched the angry sea tumble against itself. The sun set behind the house, sending its shadow across the beach road and onto the dunes at the edge of the sand. Conrad sat just inside the door, going through the guns one more time to make sure everything was in perfect working order. He’d taken a screwdriver to a handful of weapons, honing their pieces until every movement was smooth, every piece of metal unified to one purpose.
The ice storm the previous night had left the tops of the dunes covered in a sprinkling of white, and no one ventured out along the shore. The rough sea was best viewed from a distance. I pulled the blanket closer around me and stared out at the gray expanse. I hadn’t seen the ocean since my parents took Jesse and me to the beach when I was ten. My vague memories encompassed finding sea shells and chasing crabs that were far too quick to catch. We’d had fun, though Jesse was too little to even get in the water. Her little yellow sun hat rose in my memory and floated along the surface before disappearing back into the murky depths.
Conrad hummed as he worked. Did he even know he was doing it? I recognized the song. I think it was “I Shot the Sheriff.” Fitting. A smile stole across my lips as some seagulls flew past, floating on the sea breeze as the sunlight faded into a starry twilight.
Once my feet were thoroughly chilled and the pleasant humming had stopped, I returned to the master bedroom and shut the balcony door behind me.
He’d stowed the guns and only left out the ones he kept on him at all times.
“All clean?” I plopped on the rug in front of the fire and put my feet up on the hearth.
“Yeah. A couple of them were banged up.” He shook his head, and I noticed a smudge of grease under his right eye. So devil-may-care. “I need to have a chat with Nate about keeping his shit in good condition. You have to respect your weapons. If you don’t, you can’t rely on them.” He shrugged. “That’s what my dad always taught me, anyway. And I’ve never had a single fucking jam.”
He sat next to me, the smell of gun oil somehow comforting. The fire licked at the fresh logs, the sap popping every so often as my feet began to thaw.
I scooted closer, leaning against him. “I think Nate’s cut from a different cloth.”
He wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “I think you’re right.”
“But he’s funny. So there’s that.”
He stiffened. “I’m funny.”
I laughed and caught his gaze. “Really?”
“I am.” He squeezed my upper arm.
“Are you jealous?”
“Of that pipsqueak?” He made a pfft noise. “Of course not. I was only saying that I make you laugh, too.”
I nodded. “That’s true. I find your humming amusing.”
“My humming?” He pressed his lips to my ear, and I shivered.
“You were humming while you were working on the guns.”
“Was I?” His hand slid to my waist.
“Not so fast.” I leaned away and crawled to the basket. “We need food, and you need a shower.”
He groaned. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”
I peeked over my shoulder, and his gaze was glued to my ass. “I have a general idea.”
“Tease.” He stretched out on the floor, resting on his elbows, and watched me divvy up what was left of our food.
After a q
uick dinner, Con showered, then got on the phone with Nate. Based on the one-sided conversation, I gleaned that Vince was going all-out to find us.
When he hung up, I asked, “Well?”
“Tomorrow, we’re going to need to move.”
“Oh.” I slipped into bed as he ran his towel through his damp hair.
“No one’s heard from Ramone. That shit makes me jumpy. He’s a crafty little fucker.” He eased into bed beside me and pulled me to his chest.
“What’s the plan?”
“I have some ideas.” He ran his fingertips up and down my back.
Small tingles skittered across my skin where he touched me. “Like what?”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” He kissed the crown of my head. “I want to enjoy our last night here.”
I sighed and stared at the coffers along the ceiling as the wind picked up outside, whistling along the eves. “Why so secretive?”
“Not secretive. Just need to sleep on it.” He slid his hand to my waist. “And speaking of secrets. Do you trust me yet?”
Did I? I scooted back a bit and stared into his eyes, then rested my hand along his scruffy cheek. I’d known him for a few days, but in that time he’d saved my life and promised to protect me at every turn. Trust wasn’t an easy thing for me—for anyone, really. But here he was, after opening his heart to me again and again, asking me if I could do the same. He held his breath, everything in him focusing on the next words I uttered.
I leaned up and kissed him, a soft, gentle assent. “I do.”
21
Conrad
I didn’t deserve her trust, didn’t deserve the look in her eyes as she stared at me in the firelight. But I would take it. Her trust was like a small flame, one that flickered and threatened to go out. I would nurture it, give it what it needed to burn bright, and keep it safe.
She rested her head on my chest again, her fingers playing along a particularly brutal scar along my right side. “I already told you more than I’ve told anyone.” Her soft voice crept through my heart and curled up there.
I needed to know everything about her, craved it more than my next breath. “Let’s start with the shiv you made and how you learned to fight. Those don’t seem like your average florist skills.”
“They’re not.” She sighed.
“Do I need to tell you another sob story about my dad to get you to talk?” I smiled when I felt her lips turn up along my chest.
“I take it you have one at the ready?”
“I’ve got a million of them. How about that time when I was nine: he left me at home alone during a snow storm, power was out, and two men came looking for him. They wanted to use me as bait.”
She chewed her lip. “What happened?”
“Dad came home. Not a good day for those guys.” I dragged my thumb across my neck to illustrate.
Her shiver telegraphed through me, and I squeezed her tighter. “I was fine. Don’t worry.”
“Doesn’t sound fine.” She ran her hand along the scar, unknowingly touching one of my souvenirs from that hellish night. “It must have been terrifying.”
I didn’t mention the part where Dad tied them up and did them slow for threatening his son. Some memories left a taint, an indelible mark that forever darkened a man’s heart. That incident was the first of many for me.
“See what you did? Got me talking when you’re supposed to be the one doing the show and tell.” I slapped her ass. “I’m spilling like a virgin at a sleepover before you’ve ponied up anything about yourself.”
She sniggered. “I’d like to see you in pigtails.”
“Anything for you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Her tone changed into mock seriousness. “Well, I suppose we are on the run together.”
“We are.”
“And you don’t seem to have any qualms about leaving loaded weapons around me.”
“You’re the only one.”
“What about Nate?”
I laughed, the first time I’d truly laughed for a long time. “I wouldn’t leave a butter knife around for him to get hold of.”
She smiled and rocked against me, slipping her thigh over mine.
I squeezed her ass. “Quid pro quo, Clarice.”
She burst out laughing. “Not inspiring confidence, Dr. Lecter.”
“Thank god. If you hadn’t gotten that movie reference, I would have had to kick you out into the cold.”
She shook her head against me. “If you’d told me last week that I’d be in bed with a killer talking about Silence of the Lambs while trying to hide from the mafia…”
“You’d what?” I brushed my thumb across her hip.
“I would have offered to make you a soft, non-threatening arrangement for your room in the psych ward.”
“I’m sure it would have been beautiful.”
“I’ve learned a lot since I started, so I think some calming colors would work best. No glass vase, of course.”
“So, you started working with flowers after college?”
“We’re really going to do this?” She closed her eyes.
“Afraid so.”
She took a deep breath, then stayed silent for a long while. I didn’t interrupt. Her mood was changing, as if she were in a theater waiting for a show to start and all the lights were fading down.
“After—” She cleared her throat. “After Jesse, I graduated from high school and enrolled at Penn State. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but college seemed like the way to figure it out. The second semester of my freshman year, my roommate convinced me to sign up for a nature class. The professor was …” She paused. “He was older, charming, kind of odd. Brandon knew a lot about the woods and how to survive.”
The somberness in her voice as she spoke of the professor raised the hackles on the back of my neck. He was a threat; I could feel it. And I didn’t like that they were on a first name basis.
“He took an interest in me. I wasn’t sure at the time why it was me out of a class full of impressionable girls, but he set up office hours to chat with me and took a real interest in my school work. He asked about my home life. I told him about Jesse and how my parents sort of shut off after it. How I blamed myself. Of course, later I realized that he used my sister’s death to manipulate me. I must have had a neon sign that said ‘desperate for love’ on it.” She wrinkled her nose, as if disappointed in her younger self. “Anyway, he was quirky and really into survivalist stuff. Pretty much a doomsday prepper with all these theories about the government. One day, he took me to his farm about an hour outside the city. He said he was going to teach me some things that were a little too advanced for the regular curriculum.”
The bitterness in her voice awoke a rage in me that burned like a brand.
“Anyway, you can imagine what happened.” Her grip tightened on my side and she paused for several minutes, silence filling the space between us.
I would kill Brandon, take my time. The longest I’d kept anyone alive was a few days. An importer who’d done a hit and run while high on product and killed five-year-old twin boys. He’d brought the cops down on all the organizations in Boston. I’d been chosen to make an example of him. I’d make an even bigger example of Brandon.
“After that first time at the farm, Brandon controlled me. What I wore, how I fixed my hair, what classes I took. It lasted for a year and a half. He grew more obsessed with me and with what he called ‘the coming regime.’ He took me to his farm a lot, taught me how to shoot, how to survive on my own. For months, I’d spend every spare moment there. He’d arrange my classes so I’d have a four-day weekend. At the time, I didn’t think about all the bad. I’d been starved for love. He knew what to do, to give me just enough attention to make me happy. So, I stayed obedient and kept it all a secret.”
She snuggled closer to me. Nothing had ever felt so right. The need to protect her, even if it was from her own past, overwhelmed every other instinct I had.
“Anyway,
as the months went by, Brandon became more convinced that the world was on the brink of the coming regime. He made me quit school and live on the farm. After a while, he stopped teaching altogether and spent all his time preparing. He wouldn’t let me leave the farm. If I disobeyed, I was punished.” She shuddered.
Rage like I’d never known raced around inside me like an acid tornado.
“He would leave me in the woods miles from the house—no shoes, no clothes, nothing—in the dead of winter. If I made it back, he’d reward me by letting me survive one more day. He was so fucking sick, but manipulative, too. To the point where he’d convinced me that I deserved to be treated that way. That my disobedience caused him to mistreat me. It was all my fault. Fucked up, I know.”
I could barely lie still and listen. The need to exact vengeance overwhelmed me, and my imagination went to all dark corners, coming up with new ways to inflict pain.
“One night, he got really violent and accused me of being a part of a government conspiracy.” She swallowed thickly. “He broke my arm, two ribs, and did some other damage.”
A growl ripped from my throat. “I’ll fucking kill him.”
“You can’t.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “I already did.”
22
Charlie
He held me, and I held my breath. Trust was a commodity, one that I had very little of. But I’d given my trust to him.
“What happened?”
I clenched my eyes shut. “Do you mean how did I kill him?”
“Yeah.” He stroked my hair.
“He’d chased me upstairs, and I’d locked myself into the guest bedroom. He was at the door, throwing himself against it and screaming that he was going to kill me and bury me in the yard so my government friends would never find me.” I could still hear his voice, the shrill paranoia. “I found a shotgun in the closet—he kept guns stashed all over the house. It was loaded. I stood with my back to the window and waited for him to bust the door open. He did, and when he came in, I pulled the trigger.” I ran my fingers across my chest. “Killed him almost instantly. Shredded his heart with buckshot.” A single tear escaped, though I’d thought I was long past crying over my hellish time with Brandon. “When he fell, he seemed so…surprised.” I craned my head back and looked into Conrad’s eyes. “Like it never occurred to him I would do such a thing.”