by Celia Aaron
“Sit on my face.” The thought of her grinding on my mouth sent a shot of electricity through me.
“Con.” She tried to pull away. “We can’t. Your leg needs to heal.”
I held her in place. “My leg healing has nothing to do with you putting that sweet pussy all over my mouth.” I yanked her shirt up and took her nipple into my mouth, her warm skin like silk on my tongue.
She moaned and gripped the wooden headboard as I nipped at her and switched to her other breast. I needed to feel how wet she was for me, so I slid my hand down her ass and dipped into her pussy from behind. Hot and wet. Perfect.
“Con, please, you can’t recover if you—”
“You said I needed to drink, Charlie.” I gripped the rolled waist of her boxers and yanked them down. “Your pussy has plenty of what I need.”
“Oh my god.” She didn’t fight me as I lifted her and set her knees on either side of my head.
One look at her glistening folds stole my breath, and I grabbed her ass and pulled her down to me. I licked along her slit, and she jolted. Her t-shirt hung loose, blocking my view of her face.
“Shirt off,” I growled and stabbed my tongue inside her tight entrance.
She arched her back and peeled her shirt away. Her tits were perfect tear drops, the tips hard and needy for my tongue. But I was too busy between her legs.
I licked up to her clit. “Keep your eyes on me. I want to see you come.”
She bit her lip and stared down at me with half-lidded eyes. I swirled the tip of my tongue around her hard nub, licking her in earnest. She gripped the headboard as I ran my teeth along her, then flicked, then sucked. Her hips began to move to my rhythm.
I wanted to tell her to grind on my face, but that would require me to stop licking her hot flesh. Not happening. I kept one hand on her ass and palmed one of her tits with the other. A perfect handful. She closed her eyes. I stopped licking.
Her eyes rocketed open, and I went back to work. She focused on me, finally letting herself go as I seized on her clit and didn’t let go. I whipped my tongue back and forth. Her thighs began to shake, her breaths shallowing out. My cock stuck up like the fucking Washington Monument, and my leg was on fire, but I wouldn’t stop. Not until she came.
“Con, I-I’m—” Her hips locked, and she let out a low, keening moan. She didn’t close her eyes, and I watched as ecstasy washed over her. I pressed my tongue inside her, feeling each one of her spasms as she came. I burned her image into my mind, the sway of her tits, the lust in her eyes.
When she took a deep breath and relaxed, I kissed her pussy and planted her on my chest.
She dropped one of her hands from the headboard and ran it through my hair. “You’re a bad man.”
“The worst.” I licked her taste from my lips.
She shook her head slowly, though one corner of her lips lifted into a smile. “Your tongue is a thing of legend.”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet.” I smiled up at her.
She glanced behind her. I hoped it was with ideas of putting it in her mouth or sinking onto it with her soaked pussy.
“Oh no.” She slid off me and turned to inspect my leg. “There’s some fresh blood. We shouldn’t have done that.”
Shit. The concern in her voice meant my dick wouldn’t be getting inside her anytime soon.
“It’s fine.” I ran my hand along her back, enjoying the goose bumps that dotted her skin in my wake.
“I need to check it.” She sat back and rubbed her upper arms. “And get the fire going again.”
I propped up on my elbows. “I’ll handle it.”
She turned around to me and put her small hand on my chest. I let her push me down onto the bed, though I could have had her on her back in a split second.
“Stay here. I can handle myself.”
“I know. I saw.” I trailed my fingers down the valley between her breasts. Would I ever get tired of touching her? “Gave Ricky the shock of his shitty life.”
She shifted, perhaps uncomfortable with Ricky’s messy demise, but then she said, “He had it coming.”
I nodded. “No argument here.”
Over the next half hour, she cleaned my wound again, restarted the fire, and dug around in our food basket to make us a meal of Cheetos, lunch meat, and a spoonful of peanut butter apiece.
My eyelids began to get heavy, but I fought sleep.
“You need to rest.” She examined the tiny closet off the bedroom. “We need more food or we won’t last long out here.”
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t know, but I have an idea.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
She looked at me over her shoulder, a devilish smile on her angel face. “You’re not the only one whose middle name is Danger around here.”
I laughed, actually laughed, and let my eyes drift closed. “Don’t leave the cabin, danger girl.”
“Sure. I’ll stay right here.”
Her lie and the sound of clothes hangers scraping against metal were the last things I heard.
I woke with a start. Late afternoon light filtered through the dirty windows.
“Charlie?”
The crackling fire gave the only response. Unease had me swinging my legs over the side of the bed. The room went dark for a moment as a shock of pain raced through me. My leg was an agonizing explosion. I groaned and blinked away the darkness and the spots, then took a deep breath.
“Charlie?” I called again, louder this time. Nothing.
The need to find her overrode the pain. I looked around for something to help me maneuver to the door and found a walking stick leaning against the foot of the bed. It was a simple tree branch, but it had some sort of stuffing at the very top that was secured in place with several strips of gray duct tape. A makeshift crutch. Thoughtful, but I didn’t like the idea of her leaving the cabin without me.
I grabbed the stick and pulled myself to my feet. The room swam, but I refused to sink back to the bed. I waited for the excruciating rush of blood to my leg to ease. Once it was bearable, I hobbled toward the front door. Nothing. Turning, I saw a pot on the stove simmering on low. Some sort of dark roots sat at the bottom, giving off an earthy smell that wasn’t exactly appetizing. I swiped my cell off the counter to see if I could call Nate. No service, like I figured. I tossed it down.
Peering out the back door, I found Charlie standing at the edge of the stream that ran behind the cabin. About twenty feet wide, it was still as glass in the center, with small rapids along the edges where rounded rocks poked up and leaf litter collected. Her hands were on her hips, the golden afternoon sun hitting her hair and giving it a halo shine that made my chest warm.
All the same, I ripped the door open. “Charlie! Get your ass in here.”
She jumped and turned. “Jesus, you scared the crap out of me.”
“Good. You should be scared.” I scanned the woods on the other side of the stream. Nothing stirred, but that didn’t mean someone wasn’t there watching us. “Now get in here.”
“Hang on.” She bent down and picked up a length of rope attached to something in the water and began pulling.
“What the hell is that?”
She tossed a smile over her shoulder. “Dinner.”
With a few more pulls, the handles of the stolen grocery basket surfaced, though the top was covered with some sort of mesh. She dragged the basket from the water and peeked through a small hole in the top.
I leaned against the door frame, and a bitter wind rustled the trees.
“Bingo.” She lifted the dripping basket by its handles and carried it to the narrow back porch. The black mesh along the top wasn’t familiar, but I suspected it came from a cargo net in the back of the SUV. “See?” She tilted the basket so I could look through the square hole she’d cut in the mesh. Two fish flopped around inside, and a dark orange crayfish waited in a corner.
“How the fuck did you do that?”
“It’s a f
ish trap. I didn’t have enough rocks to make a weir, so I made a trap instead.” She dropped her gaze. “Brandon taught me how to weave a basket for the trap, then weight it down with rocks.” She tapped the plastic shopping basket. “But this is way easier, and the bars are tight enough to keep the fish contained. You bait the trap—I found a frog and squished it up to use.” Her cheeks flamed red, as if embarrassed over her amphibian murder. “Then you leave a hole just large enough for a fish to get inside. Fish aren’t smart enough to figure out how to get back out, and sort of just swim around in a circle. They don’t know to look for the hole. That’s how it works.”
“Brandon taught you?” I wanted to kill the fucker all over again. The thought of him spending time with Charlie, of doing anything with Charlie, set a cyclone of fury spinning in my gut.
She shrugged, but kept her eyes lowered. “He was an insane survivalist asshole. At least I learned a few things along the way.” She leaned next to the door and grabbed a kitchen knife. She’d prepared for a catch.
Unhooking the cords that kept the mesh netting in place, she reached inside the basket and pulled out a small bass. “I hope you like fish.” She placed it on the decking and used the butt of the knife to brain it before slicing it open.
I stared as her delicate hands worked to gut and clean both of the fish.
What a fucking woman.
26
Charlie
After a filling dinner of fish and mashed chicory root, I cleaned his wound again and settled him into bed. His color had improved, and he managed to get around the cabin pretty well on the crutch I’d made for him.
He stared up at me, his dark hair in a sexy mess and his scruff turning into a light beard. I sat down next to him and ran my hand along his cheek.
He pressed his lips to my palm. “I’ll be up and walking tomorrow. No crutch.”
“You aren’t one hundred percent.” I shook my head.
“I don’t have to be.” He ran his teeth along the edge of my palm. “I just need to be on my feet and a few steps ahead.”
“Has no one ever taken care of you before?”
His eyebrows rose and he quirked his lips, thinking about it. “No.”
I traced one of the longer scars along his torso. “Who sewed all these up?”
“I did.”
“You never had…” I swallowed hard at how foolish I was about to sound. “A girlfriend?”
A smile played along his lips as he pressed another kiss to my palm. “Why? Would you be jealous?”
“No.” Yes. “I was just curious.”
He gripped my forearm and pulled me down to him, then dropped kisses along my jaw. “I’ve had plenty of women.”
I stiffened and tried to push away, but he held me close.
“But none of them were you. None of them mattered.” He held my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “The moment I saw you, something inside me—something I thought died a long time ago—clicked. I didn’t realize it then, but I do now. You’re it for me. The first, the last, the only person I want to touch or taste. The only one I want to kill for. The one I’d die for.”
My body tingled, my mind racing. Had the killer just professed his love to me? He didn’t say the word, but I couldn’t imagine a more complete way of conveying the emotion. I gulped in a breath as his hard sapphire eyes gave way to the dark soul within. Like velvet, its inky blackness swallowed all the light. But who needed light when soaring on the Angel of Death’s wings?
“You don’t have to say anything. He kissed to my throat. “I know it’s a lot. And, to be honest, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to feel this way no matter if you tell me to go to hell or that you love me or that you need time to think—or any of those things. Nothing will change what I know is true. You’re mine. You’ve always been mine. I just had to find you.”
I sighed as he ran his strong hands down to my waist and lifted my shirt. His palms against my skin sent tingles shooting along my arms and started an ache low in my stomach.
“That sounds stalkery, yet also sexy, but just because it’s coming from you.” Dark feelings and memories stirred. The last man who’d been obsessed with me tried to kill me.
He pulled my shirt off and drew me closer so we were chest to chest. “I’m not Brandon.” He gazed into my eyes. “I’ll never hurt you. Before I met you, I didn’t have anything to live for. I stayed alive because I’m good at killing. No other reason. I knew I wouldn’t grow old, have a family, or do anything normal people did. I was a weapon, that’s it, and I was fine with it. I stopped being fine with it the second I saw you.”
I’d felt the same. As if I’d been treading water in my flower shop. Going day to day, just trying to make peace with my past and focus on my future. But even with what I’d built, I never felt as if tomorrow was something to look forward to. It was just another day. Until him. Until the days when I would glance out the window every so often to see if the car was there, if he was there. And when he was, I could breathe easier.
“Why? Why you and me?”
He tucked my hair behind my ear and kissed my forehead. “I don’t know. Aren’t some things just meant to be?”
“Tell me something about you.” I snuggled down and tucked my head beneath his chin as he grazed his fingertips up and down my back. “Something no one else knows.”
“I have a raging hard-on for a hot brunette who’d rather talk than get down to business.”
I bit his chest, but he didn’t react, so I gave up before I drew blood. “You’re an ass.”
He made a hmph noise. “That’s common knowledge.”
“Tell me something real.” I kissed the bite mark. “Please? Tell me another story from when you were younger. How old are you, anyway?”
“Thirty-three.”
“Almost eight years older than me. Does this mean I need to call you Daddy?” I smiled against his skin.
“I wouldn’t care if you called me Queen Elizabeth as long as you were on my cock.”
I snorted. “Awful.” Settling down, I said, “Quit stalling. Spill. Tell me something you never wanted anyone else to know.”
“Fine. Let me think.” He went silent for a while, only the sound of the fire and our breathing filling the stillness. “About five years ago, Serge came to me with a job. It was a big paycheck, bigger than anything I’d gotten before, and I’d been paid handsomely. I was supposed to kill a rival heroin importer. Easy work, right?”
I wasn’t sure if I could agree with him on the ease of murder, but he continued without my assent.
“But, of course, there was a catch.” His voice dropped and caught a bitter edge. “Always a catch. For the job to be complete, I had to kill the importer and his daughter. Serge wanted to send a message. Families were generally off limits. But Serge had gotten rich and powerful enough to not care about the rules. He and Vince already had a plan in place to take out the importer’s lower level enforcers and cripple his organization, but my job was the big prize—the boss and the girl.”
“How old was she?”
His hands stopped stroking my back. “Eight.”
My heart slowed, as if my veins were filled with icy slush instead of warm blood. I didn’t know if I wanted him to continue his story, even though I was the one who asked him to tell it.
“She was a beautiful child. Russian. Big blue eyes and yellow hair that curled. Like a doll.”
“What did you do?” My voice was small, barely passing my lips.
“I did my job. I ambushed them at home. Killed four of the father’s men and put a bullet between his eyes as his daughter cried.”
I could barely breathe.
“I went there intending to kill the girl. I walked over to her where she cowered in a corner, a little stuffed bunny in her arms. She shook, her tiny body incapable of holding all the horror and fear it was experiencing.” He gripped me tighter, like I was a life raft and he was trying desperately not to drown. “I pointed the gun at her, my finger on the tr
igger.”
A tear leaked from my eye and landed on his chest.
“She cried, too. Tears rolling down her innocent face as she looked from her dead father to me and back again. She hugged her bunny. I decided I’d bury her with it as a kindness. The money was too good to pass up. Her blood would just add to the ocean I’d already spilled. I forced myself to believe that killing her was no different than snuffing out dirty lives.”
A sob threatened to rise from my throat as his voice tightened with emotion.
“She finally settled her terrified eyes on me and said one word. Pozhaluysta. Please.”
I clenched my eyes shut and imagined it, a child on the floor and Con pointing a gun at her. It shattered me. “What did you do?”
“I fired.”
I froze, my body chilling to the bone, and I tried to push away from him. He held me tight, refusing to give me even an inch of space.
“I didn’t kill her, Charlie. I couldn’t. No matter how evil I thought I was, I couldn’t kill an innocent.”
“Oh my god.” I stopped fighting and relaxed on his chest. “I thought…”
“I know. Thing is, I was so close Charlie. I want you to know how dark it gets inside me. I want you to see it all. Her life was a means to an end for me, and I was going to erase it until her sweet voice cut through to my soul. Pozhaluysta.”
I scooted up and looked into his dark eyes, then kissed his cheeks. “But you didn’t. You’re not that man.”
“I’m not, but I could have been. Almost was.” He stroked my hair.
“What did you do with her?”
He grimaced. “I made a deal with Vince. He was my main contact on the job, and he would have found out that I’d left her alive. Nothing flies under his radar. I told him I’d killed the father, but that the girl was too young to know anything and wasn’t a threat. He’d reminded me that wasn’t the point. Serge wanted people to fear him. Killing the girl was the ticket. He said he’d do it himself, but I told him I’d kill him, but first I’d murder his wife and children in front of him, drain their blood into a tub, and then drown him in it.”