The Killing Game

by Anderson, Toni

  “You ever been married before?” Her voice was soft and a little bit husky.

  He cleared his throat. “No. The army doesn’t go well with marriage and I’ve never met anyone…” He stopped, disconcerted. “Is this difficult for you, pretending to be married to a man like me?” He’d known it might be but had ignored it. He needed to keep her safe, whatever the cost.

  A sad smile curved her lips. “We were only actually married for a year and he was gone for half of that.” The pain was there though, beneath the surface.

  He sat and didn’t break eye contact. “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded. There was nothing he could say that would make up for what she’d lost. Shit happened. People died every day. They died crossing the road, eating unwashed vegetables and sneaking off to the market to meet boyfriends they weren’t supposed to have.

  He lay down and closed his eyes. He could feel her beside him. Her breath soft against his arm. Her knees brushing his as she curled toward him. Trusting him because of what they’d been through together.

  Somehow—inconceivably—he’d bonded with this fiercely independent woman. They’d become partners in survival, and those feelings merged with desire in his head to create something mind-blowingly complex and yet utterly simple. Her hand crept down to meet his and their fingers entwined and locked.

  “Dempsey.” Her voice was soft in his ear.

  She was driving him crazy and she didn’t even know it. “I’m trying to sleep.”

  “I haven’t thanked you, for everything you’ve done since we met.”

  His heart banged like a teenage boy having his first wet dream. “I’m just doing my job.”

  He felt her nod then he felt her hand on his stomach and his heart about stopped.

  “It’s more than that.” Her hand rested lightly on his shirt. She’s trying to get warm, idiot. Then her hand traveled south and he didn’t have to second-guess her intentions any longer.

  “Axelle…” He groaned as she touched him. He’d dreamed about her stroking him there, like that. He lay, afraid to move because he might already be asleep and this could be a hell of a dream, except dreams didn’t feel this hot, and dreams didn’t smell like an exotic mix of honey and silk. Her hand slipped to the waistband of his trousers, and she started undoing buckles and buttons.

  Oh, fuck. Put a gun in his hands, he was fine. Give him this woman and he was lost. Blood pumped. Flesh burned. He was too scared to move. He wanted her so badly, lust crawled over his skin and licked its way over his body in a wanton feast. Her fingers unsnapped his pants and suddenly she was touching him without any barriers, and his eyes flashed open. He grabbed her wrist and twisted her flat onto her back. He drilled his gaze into hers. “You don’t owe me this sort of thanks.”

  “What if I want you?” She blinked away a sudden sparkle of moisture from her eyes. “What if, for the first time since my husband died, I actually want a man?” Her lips trembled as she fought with emotions.

  He couldn’t stand to see the anguish in her gaze. He already knew what she’d lost. And he felt the echo of that loss because it was something he’d never have. He lowered his lips to hers, tracing the outline, memorizing the texture and taste.

  Her lips parted on a sigh. “We don’t need promises or rings. Give me something good to remember.”

  There was no way he could deny her. Who was he kidding? He didn’t want to try.

  “I almost died today and can’t even remember what it feels like to have an orgasm.”

  “Really?” His voice broke. So much for Mr. Macho. She was kissing him, those soft pink lips nibbling his skin, and he was remembering how amazing she’d looked naked through the scope of his rifle. How desperately he wanted to touch her skin. Giving her an orgasm would be his pleasure

  “Do you have a condom?” she asked.

  He reached into one of his zippered pockets and pulled out a foil package. “They’re standard issue.” He would have explained the 101 uses of condoms but she took it from his fingers. She was going too fast and at the same time not fast enough. He wanted to be inside her, but he also wanted this to last more than five seconds.

  She was about to rip it open when he stopped her. “Wait.” Hungry for the sight of her bare skin he started peeling off her shirt and pushed aside the material only to be confounded by another T-shirt.

  “Good God, woman, how many layers are you wearing?” He pushed the shirt off her shoulders, then lifted the T-shirt over her head.

  She sat in the lamplight in her plain black sports bra and baggy trousers. He watched the swell of her breasts rise and fall. Heard the catch in her throat as he touched her smooth skin with his calloused finger—so soft. Her nipples pressed against the cotton and he lowered his head to taste her.

  The press of beaded nipple against his tongue had lust ripping through him. His hands molding her body, he pulled her closer, tasting every inch of skin he could find. She tugged at his shirt, trying to drag it over his back but he wasn’t helping, he was too busy unclipping the fastenings of her bra, his heart pounding like a machinegun.

  This was a mistake.

  He was letting down his guard at a time when he should be on high alert. And his brain felt like he’d been dipped in anesthetic because he was so tired.

  But it might be the best mistake he’d ever made.

  Somehow she wriggled out of her trousers and panties at the same time, and he swallowed as she sat naked in the middle of the bed. He ran his hands reverently over the dusky pink of her nipples, watched fascinated as they budded with his touch. Her lips parted, her eyes black with desire. Need scrambled along his veins. Somehow she’d managed to tug his T-shirt over his head where it got tangled and he threw it off. He clenched his fists. He should say no. This wasn’t a sensible time for her to be making these sorts of decisions, and having sex definitely wasn’t part of his orders.

  But holy shit, how could he say no?

  He’d wanted her from the moment he’d seen her and done his damnedest to keep his hands off her and stay professional. She’d made this decision. She liked to be in charge. Now it was his turn. He eased her down on the bed and crawled between long smooth legs. She cried out in surprise.

  “I don’t think this is a real good”—he widened her thighs as he sank his mouth over her and nuzzled and licked until she bucked in his arms—“idea.”

  She tasted sweet and salty. Her fingers clutched the blanket, and her skin was covered with a damp sheen of perspiration. His hands roamed higher and discovered her breasts, plucking and teasing her nipples until she writhed and twisted. Her long hair came loose of its braid and unraveled at the same moment she did. She came in a rush of high-pitched little groans, both of them mindful to keep the noise down.

  But tasting her release made his own body strain to be inside her.

  She lay panting for a moment and he admired the view, so aroused just by the sight of her he didn’t want to move. Not yet. She hooked him with her foot and flipped him onto his back. He laughed, so surprised he lay still for a whole second. Long enough for her to curl her fingers around him and rip open the condom package. Yeah, he was fighting it all right.

  “I want the whole deal, Dempsey. Not a pity party. If this is my quota of sex for this decade, I want you deep inside me.”

  A weird thrill shot through him as he prepared himself to be dominated, but he wanted this to last. He gripped her thighs as she straddled him, but it just sank her hot wet core closer against him and she rode the ridge of his erection for a few heart-stopping beats. Desire scorched his skin. Blood heated in his veins.

  It somehow seemed wrong, like it should mean more than this—that they should mean more than a quick fuck in a dirt hut. But God help him, he couldn’t stop now. He gripped her hips as he slid slowly inside her. Her back arched, thrusting out those small perfect breasts, her head falling back so that her soft hair brushed his knees. The sensation was so incredible he did it again. And again. Framing her hips with his b
ig hands to hold her exactly where he wanted her, even as she rode him at her own pace—sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but always with that knowing glint in her eyes. He smiled grimly when she raised her hands over her head and twisted her hips and came with a satisfied groan.

  He held on to his own release by a gossamer thread of control, giving her a long moment to enjoy her pleasure. Then it was his turn to flip her onto her back and hook her knee over his elbow and drive back into her slick velvet heat. She cried out, but not in pain. He gripped her hands as he thrust hilt-deep into the cradle of her thighs, so deep his balls ached.

  “Is this what you want?” His voice was guttural. She’d destroyed him. Reduced him to an animal with only one thought in mind. Lust tore through him, and he wanted to take her hard and fast, slow and leisurely, as many different ways as she’d let him.

  Her eyes were laughing as she met each thrust with one of her own. “I’d forgotten how good it could be, but”—she gasped on a thrust and he felt a quiver in his heart—“this is exactly what I want.”

  They held the connection as they both slammed into one another, building to a climax that ripped his world apart. His vision went white and this time Axelle screamed so loud he started laughing and couldn’t stop even as the orgasm rolled through his body and into hers in endless, shuddering ecstasy. When it was over, he collapsed on top of her and she wrapped her legs and arms tight around him, as if savoring the moment. He eased onto his elbows and squeezed her tight, unrecognizable emotions bursting inside him. He didn’t want to let go. He didn’t want to ever let go.

  Christ. That was a problem.

  It took an eternity to find the strength to crawl off her and even then he didn’t want to withdraw. She lay there sprawled against the blankets. Eyes closed. Silent. And he wanted to do it all over again, so they didn’t have to talk, didn’t have to think about never doing it again.

  But things were never that simple, and sacrifice was part of the job.

  He got rid of the condom and pulled on his trousers and T-shirt, finished his cold tea to try to ease the ache in his throat. She got dressed too, her amazing body disappearing from sight, and he knew chances of getting her naked again were close to zero. Frustrated, he pressed his lips together. Get used to that feeling, pal. He was on a mission, for fuck’s sake—he shouldn’t have been having sex in the first place. Especially not incendiary sex that had blown his head off.

  With the exception of their boots they were now both ready to go. Her eyes reflected his sadness. Damn. He hadn’t meant to make her feel sad. He pulled her against him and dragged the blanket across them, feigning self-assurance he was far from feeling. “Now can I go sleep?”

  She elbowed him in the gut, which was answer enough.

  ***

  Nuristan Province, Afghanistan-Pakistan border, October 1980

  A car approached the barren, dusty outpost. The first in two days. Winter was fast approaching and Dmitri wrapped his greatcoat tighter around his waist. The clouds overhead were a bruised angry white that promised imminent snowfall. Only a desperate man would try to cross the Hindu Kush in the face of a winter blizzard, but this was Afghanistan and everybody here was desperate.

  He stood, stretched out his muscles, and walked to the barrier next to a guard box that straddled the road to the Pakistani border in eastern Nuristan province.

  The middle of nowhere.

  Grinding monotony.

  Silent ridicule.

  This was his meteoric fall from grace.

  It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except obediently doing his time and getting back to Magdalena and their young son, Sergei. He had no pride left. No loyalty to the motherland he’d once loved. Bide his time, get out of the Red Army, and settle back on the farm his parents had worked before him. That was all he wanted now.

  The sound of jackboots hit the ground. “Someone must be in a hurry to leave this shithole to risk crossing this late in the year, huh, Dmitri?”

  “Ya, Serzhánt,” Dmitri checked his weapon. A decrepit Kalashnikov that he’d stripped and cleaned and repaired until it was finally reliable. Dmitri’s skill with weapons more than compensated for the gun’s lack of accuracy.

  The car approached, the exhaust rattling like a tin can beneath it. A young man, maybe seventeen, was driving. Dmitri watched the vehicle carefully. A dark head bobbed in the backseat. He stood in the middle of the dusty road and held his weapon on the car as it rolled to a bumpy stop ten feet away. The traveling companion was a woman. A girl. Dmitri took a step forward, but his superior office stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “I’ll deal with this, Yefréytor.”

  From a kapitán in Russia’s premier army division to a common soldier in less than twelve months. The bitterness had diluted. The sourness had receded. He did not care. Not anymore. They couldn’t take anything else from him except his family. He would not risk them for anything.

  Dmitri walked away and leaned against the hut, waiting in case his asshole boss needed help carrying the cash he was about to steal from these poor unfortunates. He lit a cigarette and made toe prints in the dirt.

  “Papers,” the man snapped. The sound of paper rustled in the wind and Dmitri heard them ripped away by a strong gust. Dmitri walked slowly over to where the documents had pressed themselves tight against a rock. He picked them up and straightened.

  There was a reason his companion was manning an almost deserted border outpost. A reason that did not involve the injured ego of a Russian spy.

  “Get out of the car,” the serzhánt barked at the young man.

  Dmitri stood at his boss’s shoulder and handed back the paperwork.

  “Take him and search him.” He snatched the documents and threw them into the car. His eyes flashed with malice. “Search him properly.”

  Dmitri hid his distaste but took the youth by the shoulders and pushed him roughly against the side of the hut and started a slow and thorough investigation of the man’s clothes and hidden crevices. It wasn’t dignified but Dmitri didn’t have much use for dignity. Not anymore.

  He heard the girl scream as she was hauled out of the car, heard the smack of a fist on flesh, felt the young man go rigid beneath his hands. Dmitri pinned him firmly against the wall. For his own sake.

  “My sister. Please, don’t hurt my sister. She’s pregnant,” the young man pleaded. Dmitri tensed even though he kept searching for weapons and drugs and other illegal paraphernalia on the youngster. “We are making our way to her husband’s village in Pakistan so she can have her baby in safety.”

  “I don’t care,” he grated into the young man’s ears. The young woman was screaming louder and louder. Don’t look, Dmitri. Don’t fucking look. A quick glance told him what was about to happen. That and the terror in the girl’s black eyes—as black as Magdalena’s—as she met his gaze from where she was splayed on the bonnet of the car.

  His illustrious serzhánt punched the girl in the mouth again, then held her by the throat as he shoved her skirt over her swollen belly and wedged her thighs apart with his own. The young man bolted away from his grasp and Dmitri grabbed him before he’d gone four paces and slammed the butt of his rifle into his temple to stop him getting killed.

  “Good. You can have the little whore next,” the serzhánt said with a sneer. “If she’s any good I won’t shoot her brother.”

  Her eyes flashed and Dmitri watched a terrified smile try to form on her lips. Because a young woman about to be violated should smile at her attacker.

  “That’s better, devotchka. I’ll even let you lick me clean when we are done.” The serzhánt undid his pants, penis jutting, red and ugly in the wind.

  Bile burned along Dmitri’s throat, acid and disgusting. Patriotic pride withered and died. He was completely ashamed to be Russian.

  The serzhánt ripped her blouse and clamped his hand to her full breast. It hurt her. Dmitri could tell. His heart shriveled as he watched the animal spread her legs wider and open her woman�
��s flesh with his thick fingers—flesh only a husband or a doctor should see or touch. The serzhánt spat on his fingers and forced them inside her, excitement blazing a fierce blush against his cheekbones. “See? She is already wet for me.”

  Dmitri squeezed the trigger of his gun and the man fell dead in the dirt.

  The woman stared at him with shocked eyes and swallowed a huge sob of air. He took a step closer and pulled her skirt down. “Move. You must leave. Now. Hurry.”

  She ran to her brother, who was out cold. Dmitri lifted him—childlike in his arms—and threw him into the back seat. Then he went through the serzhánt’s pockets and removed all the money and cigarettes and ammo he could find.

  “You can drive?” he asked the girl.

  Her eyes wouldn’t leave him. “What will happen to you?”

  “They’ll probably shoot me.” Magdalena would have wanted him to save the girl. He knew it, even though it meant he’d never see her again.

  “Come with us.”

  “What?” he asked.

  She hesitated as if gauging the strength of her trust. “Come with us. My brother and I are going to join relatives in Pakistan. Amir is going to fight with the mujahedeen. You’ll be safe with us.”

  “A Russian safe in Pakistan? You’re crazy.” Despite everything, he almost laughed.

  “Please. I need you. I don’t know how to drive. Amir is unconscious.” She gripped his sleeve with small, strong fingers. “Our family is rich. We can protect you. You will be a hero in my town.”

  The word “hero” bit him like a bullet in the chest. He’d wanted to be a hero once. Now he’d lost everything and the words meant nothing to him anymore. His career, his wife, the son he’d never met, even the cold callous bitch of his homeland were stripped from him now. He opened the passenger door and helped the girl inside.

  What did he have to lose?

  CHAPTER 13

  Axelle woke with a start and her eyes widened as Dmitri Volkov stood with a matte-black pistol pointed straight at Dempsey. Dempsey was thankfully fast asleep. She closed her eyes and opened them again, but it wasn’t her imagination playing tricks. The man actually stood there, tired, grim, and resolved. She blew out a silent breath. He was a determined sonofabitch, that was for sure. Volkov pressed his finger to his lips, pointed his finger at her, then jerked his thumb in the direction of the door.