When he answered, she sounded out of breath. “Rafferty’s gone.”
Mac shot up, the hairs on his bare chest and arms standing on end. “What do you mean gone?”
“Austin went downstairs to check on our prisoners and all he found was River’s body. His throat was cut.”
Dread opened an instant sinkhole deep in his middle. “So… Rafferty escaped.”
“Nobody knows how, but Derek thinks it was Crystal.”
He ran a hand over his freshly shaved head in an attempt to quell that sense of failure. After all, Crystal had slipped away under his watch. “Could Rafferty still be in the house?”
“We’ve pretty much ruled that out, but I wanted to warn you just in case.”
On the off-chance Rafferty knew where he and Mel lived, the man just might carry out one of the many threats he’d spewed earlier. “I’ll keep my eyes open.”
“We want you to come back here. It’s better if we’re all together since Derek is the only one who can tell if Rafferty’s close.”
It took a ghost to sense a ghost.
“I’m not your brother’s favorite person right now,” he said grimly. “I think I’ll take my chances with the half-dead ghost.”
“Don’t do that, Mac. Don’t underestimate Rafferty, he’s a tough bastard.”
Something he’d proven the night before after surviving Austin’s legendary fists of fury. “I won’t. Promise.”
A deep sigh echoed on the other end of the line. “Will you at least call in the morning?”
It was morning. “Sure, Monkey. Be careful.”
“Okay. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Mac disconnected the call and swung his legs to the floor.
“That was so damned beautiful.”
Shock washed down his body as Crystal’s voice reached him from the direction of the kitchen. He slowly got to his feet, rounded the counter that divided the two rooms. There she was, a black heap curled in the corner… a mere shadow in the dim light he’d left on above the stovetop. An empty box of graham crackers lay by her feet, indicating she’d been there a while.
“Do you always wear sweatpants to bed?” she asked softly.
“I sleep in the living room,” he explained, as if her sudden appearance didn’t mean big changes on his horizon.
Crystal slowly rose to a stand. With her hands tucked in her sleeves, hugging her torso, she looked fragile. Vulnerable.
“How long have you been here?” he demanded, unsure of her mood.
“I snuck in when you were in the shower.”
He bent, picked up the empty box and crushed it in his fist. “Why did you leave me in the lurch like that?”
“I had… unfinished business,” she replied wearily.
“Yeah, I heard.”
“I didn’t free Rafferty.”
Of course. With her keen sense of hearing, she’d heard Danny’s side of the conversation as well. “After all the shit you’ve pulled, why should I believe you?”
Her hands came out of her sleeves and she walked toward him. “Because I was busy with other stuff.”
A clear bag of pills landed on the counter. Mac scanned the contents and scoffed, “A year’s worth of prenatal vitamins?”
“You know what it is.”
“I know what you want me to think it is.”
“So, take one and find out for yourself.” She closed the distance between them, turned her face up to look him square in the eye. “Go ahead. If you’re right, you’ll enjoy really strong nails. But, if I’m right… every nerve ending in your body will start to come alive. You’ll be quicker on your feet. Think more clearly. Walk through your apartment with your eyes closed and not run into anything. Hear what the Spanish-speaking couple in apartment 4-C is watching on TV.” She inhaled deeply, cocked her head. “Notice that the smell of garlic never really goes away.”
They’d had spaghetti four days ago. Mac stayed put, stood his ground while she came one intimate step closer.
“And you’ll know how to tell when someone’s lying.” Her fingers skimmed over the same burns on his chest she’d touched before. “Read their body language and sense what move they’ll make next.” She placed a light kiss over one of them. “Stop it if you want to.”
Mac dropped the crushed box and held her away by the shoulders. “You know…the blowjob was a nice distraction, but it won’t work a second time.”
Her brows came down. “Who says I’m offering?”
“I don’t trust you. Not by a long shot. So, if you’re telling the truth about the pills, you won’t mind coming with me.”
“Where?”
“Back to the house. You can explain it all to Derek.”
Her head fell back. “Please. Not yet. I just want to decompress. Sleep a little.”
“And you thought you could do that here?”
“I don’t know where ‘the house’ is, remember?” she reminded him with quoting fingers.
“But you knew where I lived.”
She moved a shoulder. “I followed your scent with my dynamic sense of smell.”
Really? He was this close to giving himself a whiff when her ice-blue eyes rolled beneath the heavy eyeliner.
“I saw it on your driver’s license, Mr. Macon Reed, three-two-nine Baltimore Court, apartment 2-H, Springfield—”
“Alright, already!”
“Did the kids call you bacon when you were little?”
Yes, but he wasn’t about to admit it. “Get your pills, we’re leaving.”
“At least I don’t have to call you Mr. Truck anymore.”
He kind of liked Mr. Truck, but he wouldn’t admit that, either. Mac got behind her and started pushing. “Come with me while I get some shoes on. I’m not letting you…”
His words trailed off when she hissed in pain. Moisture coated his left palm and he turned it over for a closer inspection.
It was covered in blood.
“What the hell is this?” Mac growled.
Crystal tried to wave it away, but the tremble in her voice was poorly masked. “I got scratched back at Lesico. Nothing serious.”
Mac turned, saw the blackened streak against the white painted cabinets she’d been propped against. “It’s dripping!”
Before she could come back with another smartass comment, he lifted her top and inspected the wound more closely. All he saw was red. “Jesus.”
“I’m okay.”
No more jokes. She never really sounded right since their conversation started, but Mac had chalked it up to fatigue. “Come with me.”
An impressive array of toddler toys and bath stickers livened up their small, plain, white-tiled bathroom. When the vanity light flickered on, he got a clearer picture of the blood coating half her back. Some old and crusty, some new and smeared, all coming from the three-inch gash above her shoulder blade.
Nausea began to invade his throat, but he swallowed it back. Blood was becoming a part of everyday life since Crystal had entered it. “Keep your shirt up,” he commanded as he reached into the cabinet below the sink and produced a large first-aid kit. Supplies began to pile up on the countertop: peroxide, butterfly strips, bandages, triple antibiotic cream… it wasn’t enough.
Mac watched the blood ooze from her body and swallowed again. “You need stitches.”
Crystal lowered herself onto the side of the tub. “No, I don’t.”
He moved a plastic tugboat out of the way, added it to the basket of toys on the floor. “You look like you’ve lost too much blood already.”
“It regenerates fast.”
“But you said you gave two pints to Derek Saturday night.”
She moved her head from side to side, popped some joints. “Yeah, and it didn’t help, but I can’t go to a hospital, remember? Just use the butterfly strips, it’ll be good enough.”
Mac agreed a little too quickly, since the thought of digging out Melanie’s sewing kit made the tiled room spin. “I wish Mel
were here,” he mumbled as he uncapped the peroxide.
Crystal made a sound of disgust as she shrugged out of her hoodie. “She’s not near as much fun as you are.”
Again, Mac found himself faced with the boobs. He turned on the bathtub faucet and plugged the drain. “Sit tight, I’ll get you some of her clothes.”
“Nothing you haven’t seen before,” she retorted and pulled down her black athletic pants.
Her small curvy ass was something he hadn’t seen before. “Crystal…”
One foot went into the tub. “Mac, I’ve had your cock in my mouth. Get over it.” The other foot followed. Gingerly, she lowered herself into the hot water and moaned with pleasure. “God, this feels good.”
He had a well-stacked naked woman in his tub, but at the same time she was turning the clear water a ghastly crimson color. It was the strangest thing, fighting nausea and a king-sized woody at the same time. With a cleansing breath, Mac gathered the supplies and moved them to the lid of the toilet. He sat on the edge of the tub while she hugged her knees, gave him easy access to what appeared to be a knife wound.
Everything she’d told him made sense. He believed her, was more than relieved she’d come back. But there were still a lot of questions that needed to be answered. He focused on the washcloth as he squeezed water over the gash and cleaned the blood from her body.
“Where exactly did you go after you ditched me?” he asked levelly.
Crystal closed her eyes, rested her cheek against her knees. “I had to stay a little longer than planned.”
“Why?”
“The pills.”
Right… assuming that’s what they were. “How did you know about them?”
“Did you notice anything strange about the other ghosts you saw tonight?”
Mac uncapped the peroxide and carefully aimed. “Other than the obvious? Not really.”
“Exactly. They weren’t withdrawing.”
Aaah, very clever. It was an important detail only Crystal noticed, because of her own addiction to Nexifen. The entire supply was supposedly in Derek’s possession after a thorough raid on IGP’s pharmacy. No routine dose meant the ghosts should have been worse off than they were, which should have made tonight’s operation an easier task than it was.
“You could have been straight with me,” he grumbled irritably.
“It was hard enough getting you out of there alive, Mac. I knew you’d argue.”
Damn straight he would have. The fact she was stabbed meant it hadn’t been the best move on her part. Just the thought of how close she’d come to dying made him more uncomfortable than he cared to admit. “You’re lucky you weren’t killed.”
“More important than drawing first blood,” she said in a listless tone, “is drawing the last. Rafferty taught us all not to flinch, but he targeted me most because I’m a woman. I got really good at not flinching.”
Mac knew the stories. He’d heard Derek’s accounts of Rafferty’s abuse toward women, and how he’d nearly raped Melanie. The nausea from tending Crystal’s bloody wound disappeared just like that. With deathly calm, he asked, “Did Rafferty hurt you?”
“All the time,” she answered as if it were a stupid question. “He never tried to fuck me, if that’s what you mean. He’s not into brunettes.”
Her blasé attitude seemed to come naturally, emphasizing the nature of the cold world she came from. But, he knew there were emotions in there somewhere that needed to come out.
A dry washcloth blotted the moisture from around the cut and Mac began peeling butterfly strips. “How many ghosts did you have to kill tonight?”
Her lashes fluttered open. “Four.”
Ah, there was the vulnerability. It was the sound of someone who’d killed for the first time. “It was either them or you, Crystal.”
She swallowed hard. “So you say.”
But she was struggling with it nonetheless. “Sit up,” he commanded.
Her back straightened, closing the flaps of skin. Mac applied the first strip. “You upped information back at Lesico that had me convinced you were with them.”
“They needed a reason not to kill you,” she explained, grimacing when the third strip went on. “I gave them one.”
“It could explain Rafferty’s disappearance.”
“If he was freed by other ghosts, Derek would have known. He would have had to fight.” She shifted her head, peered back at him. “Believe me, the only ones I told are dead.”
Still, her actions proved she wasn’t his team player, either. Mac’s expression must have said as much because Crystal pursed her soft pink lips and faced front.
“I tried, Mac,” she said, her voice firm. “But, it didn’t take long to realize Derek’s plan wasn’t going to work. I had to think fast. They all thought I’d died in the explosion last night and I needed a plausible excuse for my absence. When you came looking for me, I figured the truth would work in my favor.”
“Derek would have come after you, if not me.”
“I know.”
“He won’t be as easy to convince when we get back to the house.”
Crystal reached out and turned the knob, cutting off the steady flow of water. The remnants dripped, preventing complete silence. “You believe me?” she asked softly.
Something in her tone touched a cord. Mac found himself staring at the clean contours of her back, wondering if her lightly freckled skin felt as silky as it looked. “I’ve been suckered before,” he murmured as he finished taping the bandage.
Her shoulders relaxed. “That’s what I like about you, Macon Reed. You’re a decent guy. I could tell right away.”
He reached down between her legs and pulled the plug, allowing the crimson water to drain. His face lingered close to hers while a single fingertip grazed her inner thigh. “You’re the reason I’m not in a dumpster, so I guess that warrants some kind of trust.”
Her muscles constricted beneath his touch and she edged closer, her lips curving upward. “If you want the complete truth… I was tempted to stay. I thought about it.”
Mac swallowed hard. A mixture of emotions swirled with the primal urges that continued to plague his body. “Why didn’t you?”
“I’m still not entirely sure,” she said quietly. Her fingers hovered over the knife wound on his shoulder. “The IGP life is a strange one. Dangerous. Unpredictable. You follow orders you don’t always like, but it’s… familiar. You know?”
Her eyes were begging him to understand, which he did. More than she knew. It was a most confusing, most pivotal time in her life and he should say something profound. But, the longer they stared at each other, the thicker the air became and all he could do was nod.
When he tried to pull away, she captured his hand. “Help me wash my hair?”
She was naked, bold, but with a contrasting edge of vulnerability.
Mac was painfully aware that her effect on him was out there, plain to see beneath the flimsy sweatpants. So he allowed himself a slow, smoldering look at her bared curves, watched as her nipples grew dark and distended beneath the weight of his gaze.
The last of the water gurgled down the drain.
While he drank her in, his needs ramped up an agonizing degree. He leaned over again and turned the knob. Water rushed from the faucet. “Get on your hands and knees,” he said thickly, their gazes still locked.
Her brow went up. She assumed the position in a slow, provocative way, heavy breasts dangling above a flat, toned belly. “Get in with me.” A brief wiggle of her ass made it clear where she wanted him. “Wear me out so I can sleep.”
Blood roared in his ears as Mac stood up and flexed his hands. He shouldn’t be doing this. It would mean letting his guard down completely… to a woman who could still be a traitor.
But, that just made him want her more, like a forbidden fruit kind of thing.
“It’s just sex, Mac,” she urged dryly. “We both need to disconnect for a while.”
She was absolutely rig
ht. It was just sex. No hearts and flowers or strings attached. That was how Crystal seemed to operate, so why should he feel guilt of any kind?
With a determined set to his mouth, Mac hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his sweatpants and yanked them down. Her eyes widened on his thick erection as it sprung free. Leaving the pants pooled on the linoleum, he stepped into the tub behind her and lowered himself to his knees.
His dick nestled perfectly in the groove of her ass, and he bent over her, guided her head under the running faucet. A sensuous groan left her throat, reverberated through the air, and reached deep down to his bones.
When he eased off, she backed out and let him shampoo her hair with slow, dexterous fingertips. Soap went down the drain as he thoroughly rinsed, taking care not to get her shoulder wet.
It was so different seeing her this way. Out of necessity, he’d always viewed her as one of the bad guys. This dangerous woman was capable of killing him easily, even if he saw it coming. Now she was bent over, soft and willing, giving him complete control over her body.
A surge of adrenaline caused his veins to rise.
He grabbed a washcloth from the stash beside them, lathered it with the bar of soap, and handed it to her. “Get all that makeup off your face,” he ordered. “I want to see who you really are.”
When she tried to sit up, he held her down. “No. You’ll get your shoulder wet.”
Besides, he liked her that way, with her butt in the air. The slim curves of her back stretched before him and if she moved, he’d blow it. Take her too soon.
“You’re killing me,” she groaned as the washcloth passed over her face.
While she performed her task, he cupped her breasts, something he’d wanted to do since she’d first presented them. They were every bit as soft and heavy as he knew they’d be, and the feel of her hardened nipples against his palms made him downright weak.
One hand skimmed down her stomach, over the vee of curls between her legs and cupped her open sex. He dipped inside her folds, pulled out again and found the firm nub of her clit, stroked it with two slick fingers.
Crystal Mac: A prologue novella to Captive Series Book 3 HELL'S HILLTOP Page 5