by Angel Payne
Psycho Zsycho hadn’t just come out to play. He’d nuked the whole goddamn playground.
He roared at the fucker now. The effort spiked him with enough adrenalin to push from Rayna. He staggered a few steps and fell onto a little bench that Max surely must’ve gotten from Liberace’s estate sale. He would’ve laughed at the gold velvet cushion if he wasn’t so afraid of what might spew from him along with it. Tears or puke; they were equally humiliating.
To be sure he did neither, Z forced words out. “What—the fuck—are you doing here?”
For a long second, she was silent and fidgety. She was so gorgeously out of place in her pink hoodie, white sweats, and cushy winter boots. He didn’t have the strength to go subtle with the stare he swooped over her. Fuck, what he’d give to get her inside those bars, cuffed and stripped, awaiting his pleasure.
Luckily, she grabbed that gist loud and clear, too. Her fingers were tense as they worked her sleeve ends against her palms. “I—I had to talk to you.”
“Now?”
Emerald fire flared in her eyes. “Yes, damn it.”
She darted a glance around the room. Summoning a moment of lucidity, he wondered what her impressions were, of what she must think of the ornate spanking benches with their red wrist cuffs, the round bed with the spreader bars and chains, the small stage that was pre-set with a submissive’s V chair and a St. Andrews cross. All of it was so much his normality, of the planet he lived on. It was so different from hers. Did it horrify her, as it had the few vanilla women he’d dared bring here? He couldn’t remember their names now, let alone the disappointment he’d felt in their disdain, if any. But having to think about Rayna fleeing in shock and disgust…
A barb lodged in the lining of his gut.
Fuck. This was so much easier when he’d been dictating the terms, when he called the shots. When he left her, not when she stood appraising a room in the club that was like his second home, and thinking—
What?
Well, she wasn’t hyperventilating. But a longer scrutiny told him she wasn’t truly seeing everything, either. That was the farthest he dared go in the effort. Staring at her more meant she’d captivate him more. Which would lead to him getting her onto the bed with him. Or better yet, into that cage. Christ, the things he could do with her in that cage…
He clamped his jaw against a groan. Just when he thought his erection had found its manners again the fucker pounded at his pants, cheered by the chemicals left over from the insanity that’d gone down with Luna. Mentally, he was a mess. Physically, he was a machine primed for anything. A goddamn lethal combination.
He breathed hard, trying to summon words again. “Rayna, I’m working at the nice guy thing here, okay? It’s not a good time.”
She twisted the zipper of her jacket. When she took a breath, her breasts strained at the T-shirt beneath, as perfect and round as he remembered. Shit. He closed his eyes. Like that was going to help—especially as she shifted even closer, filling his senses with her warm cinnamon scent.
“Are—are you okay?”
He lurched off the bench. “No, damn it.” Fuck, she smelled so good. “You really need to—” He flung an arm up, muscles coiling, fingers trembling. “Stay there. I mean it!”
Another wrong move. If he was rational right now, he would’ve realized that. The woman gravitated to suffering and a need to eliminate it, like Mother Theresa poured into Aphrodite’s body. Instead of backing off, she picked up speed.
“Zeke—”
“It’s not a goddamn request!”
Desperation was an ugly CO. The bastard guided his arm to the whip rack before he could summon a shred of restraint. An Axel El Diablo ended up in his grip. Under normal circumstances, the whip would’ve felt incredible, a piece of high craftsmanship in his hand. He didn’t waste time on that now. He flicked the thing with vicious speed, making the triple tails singe the air like a blow torch through rice paper.
Finally, finally, she skittered the right direction. Back. At last, her face contorted with the emotions that needed to be there. Shock, confusion, fear. Oh yeah, couldn’t forget the fear, no matter how much it made him feel like spewing his dinner. Maybe it was a good thing that she’d come. That she’d finally seen, touched, and smelled all of this. That she now got how his planet could never share the same galaxy with hers, let alone the same solar system.
Nausea hit him again. A bowling ball of a headache joined it. More dizziness followed. The confusion of seeing her here, followed by the realization she wasn’t an apparition, capped by his free fall from the helicopter of Top space, had him reeling like the end of a three-day op without sleep. No, this was worse. There was no bad guy to show for the ordeal. Only a head full of pain, a cock full of lust, and a gut full of frustration. And yeah, he heard his heart’s screams about its omission from that list. He snarled inwardly at that. Nothing’s changed since yesterday, you bonehead. Where Rayna’s concerned, you don’t get a vote.
He needed some air. He needed some solitude. Goddamnit, he needed a worm hole and clearance for the other side of the universe.
At least he could easily get the first two. After jamming the whip back into the rack, he wheeled and stalked out the door out to the room’s adjoining patio. Not every room in Bastille had one; he’d just gotten lucky to stagger into this one, where Max had erected a walled pavilion that continued the harem theme outside, much to the delight of club members who enjoyed under-the-stars fornication. Nobody “daring to bare” outside tonight. Those fuck-friendly stars were in hiding too, leaving nothing but a black midnight and a chilled October wind to greet him.
Z sucked in the cold with gratitude, dumping himself into a chair fitted in protective plastic for the winter. The covering was damp. It had rained earlier and he smelled more on the air. Thank fuck for that. The scent was a blessed one-eighty from the spiced temptation of Rayna’s essence. He bent his head back, letting the drizzle drench his face, allowing his equilibrium to swim.
“What the hell are you doing? It’s freezing out here.”
Her voice didn’t stun him now. He would’ve been surprised, if not relieved, if she’d left now. That didn’t make the ache in her tone any easier to handle.
“Go home, Rayna,” he growled. “I know you need to talk. I’ll call tomorrow, okay?”
There was a rustle as she sighed. She’d probably folded her arms, getting all gorgeous and huffy on him. Fuck.
“I got the message the first time with the mighty whip stunt, okay? But somebody’s got to keep you from dying. Might as well be me.”
Incredulity prompted one of his eyes open. Oh, yeah. Huffy. Gorgeous. Damn her. “What the—”
“You’ve been sweating. In leather pants and nothing else. Now you’re sitting in midnight rain, shirtless and hatless, all but inviting hypothermia into your bloodstream for a nightcap.”
“Thanks, WebMD.”
“You’re being stupid.”
“I’m a soldier, damn it. I’m used to a little rain.”
“Let me help—”
He stopped her by slamming a fist to the stone table. The glass stones in its fire pit jumped against the cover tarp from the impact. Both his eyes were open now. And shit, so were hers. Those deep green fantasies were even more exotic in her fury, especially when she parted her lips at him, too. He wanted to tame that mouth in at least fifty ways. He was hungry to bite it, growl orders against it, open it wide for the invasion of his. And that would be just the start.
“If you ‘help’ by even one more step, what I’ll do to you would be—”
“What?” she bore down by another step. “What would it be, Zeke?”
He dropped his head. Stared at his curled fists. How easy it would be to just open them up and reach for her. To tangle his fingers into her beautiful strawberry strands and drag her back inside by them. To lay her out on the bed and kiss her senseless while he cuffed her down, yanked those sweats off, freed his cock and—
With a guttura
l moan, he hit the table again.
“It would be what neither of us needs.”
Despite the dictate in his tone, Rayna didn’t budge. Hell. She wasn’t going to let up on this sheet check, was she?
Fine. He knew how to do this. He did it for a living, goddamnit. Inwardly, he streaked his face the color of the jungle and imagined his loaded gat in his arms with a shitload of hostiles on his ass. With that new fortitude, he lifted his face and drilled her with a steeled stare.
“Go home, Rayna. I mean it.”
For a long second, she still didn’t move. For another, she shifted only those incredible lips of hers. Their hopeful defiance vanished, replaced by a bitter twist. They tightened as the depths of her eyes started to glisten silver, though the tears never liquefied. Without another word, she turned on him and disappeared inside the dungeon.
Zeke waited for the relief to come. It didn’t. He dropped his head back and peered into the thickening mist. “Thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen,” he snarled. “That officially concludes the Zeke Hayes fuck-up-alooza for the night. Be sure to buy your T-shirt and keychain on the way out.”
A new flood of light from the building jerked him upright. Rayna appeared again, head aglow with a burnished halo, shoulders set, head high. She let the door close without giving him a passing glance. Instead, she fished her car keys from her purse.
He rose but she still didn’t look at him. Her only movement was a nod at the pavilion’s little side gate. “I assume this alley will get me back out to the street?”
“Affirmative,” he muttered.
“Good.” She paused long enough so he caught a glimpse of her profile—and the tiny wobble of her chin. “I don’t want to see…everyone again.” Even without her pause, he would’ve deciphered her subtext. Everyone meant Luna. “Tell Sage I’ll be in touch.”
He let out a frayed sigh. Pathetic. But it was either that or the command, right on the tip of his tongue, for her to stay. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “Will do.”
The clang of the gate behind her was filled with brutal finality. Thanks to the soaked pavement, he heard every wet thwop of her retreating steps. The high alley walls took care of the rest, pinging back every word she softly railed at herself during that walk.
“Great. Way to go, Rayna. That went about as wrong as it could have, huh? Maybe, girlfriend, you do need to go back to the jungle. Maybe you really are just a stupid little squaw.”
He forgot to breathe again.
Funny how that happened when words acted like arrows in a guy’s chest.
He spun around. His brain whirled too, feeling like an onion peeled by a coked-up chef.
Stupid little squaw.
Rayna was a crazy-smart woman, but even she didn’t have an expression like that laying around for fun. She’d used it on purpose. Because it meant something to her. Because she’d heard it before.
And damn it, so had he.
“Shit.” It was a hoarse punch of sound into the fog. He wagged his head, maddened by his inability to match the trigger to a memory. He only knew his heart suddenly pounded and his body dropped its lethargy like a snake shedding skin. As he turned and stared through the fog, his stomach filled with its special bile for those occasions when something or someone needed protecting. The last time he’d felt all this at once, he’d been carrying Rayna through the jungle, speeding her as fast as he could to the transport back to Bangkok—only minutes after he’d met her for the first time.
Right? Or not?
Christ. Did she know the answer to that? Was that what had brought her here? What wasn’t he remembering? What hadn’t she told him? No, you bastard. You mean, what didn’t you let her tell you?
“Rayna.” Her name barely made it out past his constricting throat. On the second try, he forced out a full bellow. “Rayna?”
The summons rang along the alley walls, but she didn’t answer. He couldn’t hear her boot steps anymore. Thanks to the thickening mist, he couldn’t see her, either.
Another moment went by. No discernible whump of her car door or quiet start-up hum of her hybrid.
Shit. The Triple Crown of dread pounded harder in his gut. Burned deeper in his veins.
He raced for the gate and hurdled it. When her shriek sliced up the alley, he broke into a full run.
Chapter Seven
Rayna shouldn’t have assumed the night wouldn’t get crappier. As she emerged from the alley and crossed the sidewalk to her Jetta, a man emerged from the shadows behind her, proving that assumption wrong.
Really wrong.
Horror spurred her stunned cry. A second later, she choked it short. This couldn’t be real. Her mind had been wrung like putty tonight. This had to be a sick aftereffect of that. Or maybe, please God maybe, she was just dreaming. Maybe all of this—the bizarre session with Sally, the massive mess of a confrontation with Z, and now this—was just a hideous dream. All she had to do was wake up.
Do it. Wake up. This isn’t real. He isn’t real.
But the monster with the tailored suit, proud stance, and slicked black hair curled a very real and disgustingly familiar smirk at her. It spread across a face of smooth sienna skin and part-Asian features that could be considered exotically handsome, if they didn’t mask a soul that was blacker than an adder’s.
How was this possible? She’d wiped that sneer from the bastard’s face three and a half months ago—when she’d fired a bullet into the face that framed it. She’d watched them zip a black body bag over its lifeless pallor before they dragged him away, filling her with a relief that was so complete, she’d been sapped of the energy to even wipe her tears. A couple of FBI guys had stayed with her, murmuring praise for her courage in putting the monster down. She didn’t have the mettle to tell them the truth, about how courage had nothing to do with it. She couldn’t verbalize how she’d become someone else when watching King drive a dagger into Zeke’s gut, her body and thoughts filled so savagely with rage that she’d turned into an unthinking animal.
The agents had assured her King’s torment was part of her past. He’d be great worm food in a week, and they were already transferring his twin, Mua, to the darkest cell they could find inside the max security block of the Clallam Bay Corrections Center. It would be Armageddon before the cockroach saw freedom again.
Apparently, Armageddon had begun.
“Ms. Chestain.” The criminal drawled it in a silky tone as two men materialized and flanked him like security at the elbows of a Fortune 500 CEO. They fixed her with stares that matched their muscles for steely hardness. “You are more lovely than your pictures, my dear. I’ve gazed at so many, you know. Surely you remember my brother’s enthusiasm for photographing his treasures before he parted with them?”
Revulsion knifed her. King’s photo sessions would haunt her forever. The monster would croon at Sage and her like they were in a Parisian fashion studio instead of his jungle warehouse, making them pose in their chains, recording their humiliation beneath flashbulb strobes and oily compliments.
You’re not there anymore. And this isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.
She shook her head. That forced the memories away but the three men in front of her, stepping slowly closer, remained horribly real.
“I’ll scream,” she threatened.
Mua smiled. “Oh, please do.” He stopped but motioned his henchmen to continue. “My fantasies of this moment have been filled with many of your cries, dearest, though I wonder if they’ll touch the real pleasure of hearing your terror on the air. I highly doubt it. Being locked in a stone box does become limiting, even with the dream of avenging one’s brother’s death.” As the hulks approached and backed her against her car, the bastard emitted a silken hum. “So please, my little Rayna, indulge us with a vocalization or two.”
Out of sheer defiance, she only glared. That officially completed the circuit on her stupidity tonight. Terror blazed through her as the hulks moved with speed that defied their size, snaring he
r arms in meat hook grips. Fighting them was an instant lesson in pain. She had no doubt they’d snap her bones if forced. She pulled in a lungful of air, reconsidering the scream, but the taller goon clamped a hand over her mouth. He didn’t let up there. His fingers squeezed into the back of her jaw.
“Shut up, slut.”
Thanks to her freshly-ignited memories of King, it only took those three words to ignite her from dread to rage. The fire exploded into the vicious bite she twisted into the inside of the henchman’s middle finger. The lunk howled and released her, allowing her a full-scale fight against the other guard. She went for the obvious, raising a knee toward his groin, but Mua’s men were better trained than his brother’s ever were. The asshole was ready. He caught her knee before it got anywhere near his family jewels, hooking an elbow beneath it and yanking hard. The ground ceased to exist beneath her feet. In a dizzying sweep, the whole word was upended. Her breath was pounded out of her from behind, and her view consisted of nothing but mist-shrouded street lights.
She blinked, realizing the assailant at her back was actually the hood of her car. The smaller guard now shoved her knee close to his chest. He kept her pinned to the hood with his other hand, his palm shoved between her breasts, his round face consumed by a conquering leer.
“Didn’t King’s notes say she was the docile one?” he drawled. “No wonder he had such a high ticket on the pair of ‘em.” He let his fingers trail over the swell of her breast. “Such a hot package. I bet she’s a fine little ride.”
Her head continued to spin. Her blood was a tribal cry of fear and fury. The docile one? That had probably been true—at one time. When she and Sage were first captured, she’d been the one to calm Sage, to exhort to her friend that compliance would keep them alive. But what kind of living had it been? Shackles and fear, humiliation and dread, the constant unknowingness of what the next minute, let alone the next hour or day, would bring.