by Jo Robertson
Even from this distance, menace and unleashed strength emanated from the dark giant. Although Smith was tall and wiry, he didn’t weigh much, and he wasn’t eager to go up against such a formidable enemy. He’d have to use his superior intellect to get the woman away from the man.
The watcher slumped low behind the wheel of his car. He reached to turn off the car engine as a safety measure against being seen, but he needn’t have bothered. Although nosy, the man seemed preoccupied and never even glanced down the street to the shadows where Smith had parked the van.
It was one-thirty in the morning. Why had the dark giant returned? Slow understanding crept over Smith. Ah, a sleepover with the purple-eyed woman.
A little nookie.
White hot rage flooded through him, threatening to choke off his wind. Stifled by the van’s heater, he rolled down the window and tightened gloved fists on the wheel, forcing his fury to subside. The coolness that seeped into the car felt good against his damp face. He laid his head on the headrest and waited in the dark night of the deserted street.
Smith continued the surveillance until past three o’clock, but no one else entered or left the apartment during that time. Finally, he cut the interior light and slipped from the driver’s side, easing the door shut without a sound. As risky as it was, he had to get closer. Number one apartment was entirely dark now. He crept to the back of the building, observed the lighted parking lot, and returned to the van, thinking furiously.
He had to be sure it was the same woman. It’d be disastrous if he risked exposure for a mistake.
Mistakes are for fools and perverts.
In his mind he saw his grandfather raise the thick wooden spoon and slap it down on his knuckles.
No mistakes are allowed around here, Missy. Mistakes get people killed.
He had to get it right this time. No mistakes allowed. He would make sure it was the same girl turned woman. If it was, the parade of men coming and going from her apartment at all hours of the night made sense. He should’ve guessed she’d be a whore by now, a slut.
He knew he had to finish what he started years ago.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Dressed now, covered from head to foot in a long-sleeved tee, jeans, and socks, Kate walked back into the living room. Her still-damp hair shone like molten gold. She perched on the edge of the sofa beside Slater, fingering the sleeves of his discarded jacket. She sighed. “So.”
“I hope that sigh doesn’t mean you’re going to tell me to go,” he joked.
She frowned, avoided the comment. “You’re soaked. Is it raining?”
“No, I just stood under the sprinklers.”
She gave a small smile and fetched a towel from the linen closet in the hall. “Here, dry off.”
He rubbed the towel over his hair. “It’s just a little rain.”
She looked at him a long moment, seemed to come to a decision. “Why don’t you warm up with a hot shower?”
“Good idea.” Luckily he’d brought fresh clothes. As he headed for the bathroom, part of him hoped she’d join him.
“I’ll make a snack,” she said brightly.
After a hot, rigorous shower, Slater stepped onto the cold tile and toweled off, wiping steam from the bathroom mirror. He noticed the bare room lacked any decorating touches. Very utilitarian as though Kate didn’t intend to live there for long.
When he emerged, dressed in jeans and a loose shirt, Kate stood at the counter, slicing sandwiches. She placed them on daisy-printed plates loaded with potato chips. Two cans of soda rested on the counter.
As her eyes skimmed over him, he sensed the sexual tension crackle between them. She’d bunched her hair on top of her head in a loose knot and wisps of it had dried into curly frizzes at her hairline. Without makeup, her skin was clear and unblemished, her cheeks rosy.
“I thought we’d eat at the bar,” she said, indicating two wrought-iron bar stools pushed up against the living room side of the kitchen bar. The chicken sandwiches were made with finely chopped pieces of celery tossed with the mayonnaise, and they ate in comfortable silence. Afterward Kate cleared away the dishes while Slater watched her.
At last she took his hand and led him into the bedroom. A white coverlet was folded at the bottom of the bed, and the comforter pulled back to reveal tan sheets. The soft light from the table lamp cast a pale glow over the room. What must have been a dozen pillows were propped against the headboard.
“You like to read in bed,” he observed.
“Among other things.”
“Sounds like we have something in common,” he murmured, pulling her gently toward him. He pushed the hair back from her forehead and smoothed his thumbs over her brows and down the sleek smoothness of her cheeks. He slid his hands over her shoulders, feeling the fine bones beneath the shirt.
He heard her quick intake of breath as his hands gripped her bottom, edging their way upward and pushing beneath her shirt. Smoothing his palms over the firm flesh of her back, he pulled the tee over her head.
Her breasts strained against him as she rose on her toes to kiss his neck and jaw. He felt himself grow hard, straining against his jeans as she ground her hips into his groin. He groaned softly and kissed her open lips. Her tongue was an electric shock inside his mouth.
She pushed him away, breathing hard, her hand on his chest as if to hold him off while she caught her breath. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she whispered. “There’s another bathroom at the end of the hall.” Then she fled into the master bath and closed the door.
Slater brushed his teeth and hung his jeans on a hook in the small second bathroom. From his wallet, he retrieved the condom package he’d purchased after he’d dropped Bauer off earlier at his own apartment.
Wearing only his shorts, he returned to the bed-room, climbed into bed, and leaned back against the headboard. A few minutes later, clad in a short, sheer robe over lacy panties, Kate emerged from the bathroom.
She moved to turn off the light, but Slater instructed huskily, “Leave it on. I want to see you.” Candles burned from the bathroom behind her, their scent sweet and heady.
Silhouetted against the door, she was breathtaking. He rose from the bed to meet her, fingered the silky material of the negligee. He brushed tendrils of hair from her face and reached around her neck to pull out the pins, her hair falling in lovely golden strands that draped around her shoulders and over her breasts. He lifted a lock of hair from her shoulder and allowed the back of his hand to graze the top of her breast through the thin material. Her nipple hardened and her body quivered beneath his touch.
“God, Kate, you’re so beautiful.”
She smiled, trailing her fingers over his chest, smoothing her fingers down toward the furrowing at the top of his shorts. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
He lowered his lips to her neck, breathed her in. “I wanted you the moment I saw you.” He brushed the robe from her shoulders, let it fall to the carpet, and scooped her into his arms, carrying her the short distance to the bed.
“No you didn’t,” she argued breathlessly. “You were – cool and – aloof – and so damned – professional.”
“All an act.”
He nuzzled her neck, ran his hands over her thighs. Her breasts felt weighty in his hands, soft beneath his mouth. He reveled in the primitive force behind her lovemaking, at her rhythm that matched his to perfection, the instinctive coupling of their hands and bodies and tongues.
He groaned beneath her touch as she helped remove his shorts. His body sprang alive from the release, and he slipped her panties over her hips. Covering her body with his, he gently nudged her legs apart.
She moaned and then gasped as his mouth fiercely suckled her nipple. “Don’t – stop.”
Her body was silken and smooth, and he relished the slope of her shoulders and the curve of her buttocks beneath his hands. His breath was ragged in his own ears, and he felt the responding thump-thump of her heart beneath his chest.
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sp; He ran his hands and mouth over her flesh, wanting to discover the places that brought her the most pleasure. He ran his tongue between her breasts downward to her navel and kissed the rounded bones of her pelvis. He teased between her legs, the skin smooth and moist beneath his fingers as she cried out and pressed herself against his hand.
When he felt her wet and ready, he drew back and entered her slowly, sliding back and forth until they found their rhythm and rode it, bodies slick with heat and perspiration. He strained to bring her to climax, maintaining control until he felt her reach her peak.
When she uttered tiny, surprised exclamations, the “oh” of wonder and strain and release from each thrust of his body, he shuddered and finally allowed himself to spill into her.
After a few minutes when his arms ached from holding his weight off her, he rolled over and drew her close, pulling the covers over their tangled legs.
#
Breathe in, breathe out. The watcher sat in a daze of confusion, white-knuckling the steering wheel. He couldn’t get at her while the lights blazed behind her apartment windows. While the dark giant slept with her, protected her.
Breathe slowly. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed. He’d hunted before for pragmatic reasons or to get even, not just for pleasure. No reason he couldn’t do that now. He could get the purple-eyed girl alone, unattended by the giant. Breathe in, breathe out.
He could do it, he told himself. He could hunt prey to protect himself. Or for vengeance. If he had to. He’d proved it years ago with the doctor’s daughter. What was her name?
He had a clear visual memory of the arrogant bastard of a doctor who’d taken his medical history at the Boston clinic.
How many years were you on the estrogen and the progesterone? The doctor perused the sheets of paper near the back of the folder. When Smith replied, the man frowned and stared at him over the tops of his glasses. We can’t reverse that kind of hormonal damage, he said, and when Smith pressed him, lying about an impending marriage, the son of a bitch had brushed him off, dismissed him like some common insect not good enough to cure. Or study.
Make an appointment in six months? What did the quack think? That Smith had time to wait around while the doctor put other people ahead of him for the surgery? He stormed out of the clinic and never returned.
Smith sat in the car, clenching and unclenching his fists, surveying the windows in the downstairs apartment of the woman who’d come back to haunt him. He shivered and pulled his jacket tighter.
It turned out okay with the doctor, though.
He stuck around long enough to find out the doctor had a twenty-two-year-old daughter named Melissa and though she wasn’t young and blonde and leggy, she screamed just the same as the others. Maybe with more gusto.
It was the first time he’d hunted a girl for pure revenge, but it was worth every minute even though he’d paid a price for going after her. The night he dumped her body he was attacked by a bunch of gang bangers as he was coming out of the roughest part of the city. They beat the hell out of him, maybe for fun, maybe because they could.
Certainly not because they caught him getting rid of the body. He knew that for sure because the police had never found Melissa’s body. That was the single experience he followed in the news. He had lots of time to watch TV because he spent eleven months in a county hospital, and it was over two years more before he could walk without a limp.
After that, Smith hadn’t tried any more clinics. He thought of other ways to get satisfaction.
Melissa had been an experiment he’d enjoyed. This time he would be rational again. Like he had with Melissa. Now, after seeing the purple-eyed woman, he’d have to act out of self-preservation.
He thought of her lying beside the dark giant in the darkened room and experienced the shock of those purple eyes all over again. One flash of them and fear washed over him like cold rain. His mind raced back to the Idaho cabin and the girl he’d laid to rest there. Had he been wrong when he listened for a heart beat? Was she alive when he left her there? Had someone found her in that isolated cabin and revived her?
Or had she miraculously come back from the dead?
He’d travelled east right after he’d left her body in the cabin. How had she escaped what he’d done to her? He shuddered, disbelieving, but knowing it was true.
The purple-eyed bitch was alive, but she wouldn’t be for long. He clamped his teeth together. He was much more skilled now. This time he’d kill her for sure.
But he’d have a lot of fun first.
The watcher started the van’s engine, shifted into gear, and headed back to New Haven. He thought he’d like combining business with pleasure this time.
The bitch was alive.
Chapter Twenty-Six
When Slater woke up, the bedroom was shadowy. Sometime in the night, they’d turned off the lights and the candles had burned out. The clock on the nightstand read three thirty-five. He hadn’t slept long, but when his eyes adjusted to the sight of Kate’s body, her rounded ass so close, barely covered with lacy panties she’d put back on in the night, he didn’t want to sleep any longer. She snuggled in the crook of his arm, her tangled hair covering her face and spread out over his chest like a rich, golden tapestry. He buried himself in the tender flesh of her neck.
“Kate,” he breathed gently against her shoulder.
He liked the way she woke up, stretching in a single feline movement starting with her shoulders and folding her body up in one fluid, yoga-like motion until she sat facing him, her legs tucked beneath her body. She leaned toward him, nipples taut in the cooling room. She raised her arms straight over her head and stretched.
The sight roused Slater with sudden desire, and he smiled with the familiarity of a man who’d explored the body of a woman he cared for.
Kate caught his look. “Hey, if you keep staring at me like that, you’re going to land in jail. That constitutes lewd and lascivious.”
“It’s worth an arrest,” he answered, tracing a finger down the soft mound of her breast. “I’m tempted to risk incarceration.”
She laughed and pushed at his hand, sat at the edge of the bed and reached for the flimsy robe she’d dropped on the floor. She shivered. “Brrr, it’s cold. Should we start a fire?”
He rubbed his hand over her smooth, bare back and edged downward to her bottom. “Lay back and I’ll warm you.”
“Very persuasive,” she murmured.
He reached the soft lace at her panties’ edge and her body went still as she leaned backwards. The robe fell back to the floor. He could barely see the contours of her face in the dim light.
Turning around to face him, she placed her hands on his shoulders and drew his head fiercely to her chest. “Slater, Slater, what are we doing?”
The thumping of her heart pounded against his ear, and the sibilant whisper of her breath increased with each movement of his hands rubbing against her thighs, rear, belly.
“Tell me what you want, what you like.”
“Oh, you know very well what I like.”
She sank onto his body, tumbling them both backwards against the soft texture of the comforter, and hurriedly reached for him. He ripped her panties and pulled them off her body, tossed them onto the floor. As she straddled him, he impaled her with a single, wet plunge. She threw her head backwards, and the lovely arch of her throat distended with the strain of her muscles as she pushed downward to each of his upward thrusts.
This coupling was uninhibited, driven by manic urgency as if they couldn’t get enough of each other. Somehow the primitiveness fit the dark room and their desperate need to have each other again.
Finally Kate shuddered and collapsed on him. “We should spend the night in jail for that,” she whispered in his ear.
He chuckled. “Well worth it.”
#
The next to the last thought Kate had as she drifted to sleep was that she’d told Slater her deepest secret, but she knew almost nothing about him. Her very last thou
ght was she shouldn’t get entangled with someone when she was just passing through, even if he might have the power to keep the bad dreams at bay.
Early that morning she woke up drenched in a cold sweat. Her body shook so hard she bit down on her lower lip and drew blood.
She was walking Shamus, the family dog, their frisky chocolate Labrador. He tugged at the leash, trying to get at a jack rabbit that hopped near the creek bed. Pulling her coat lapels closer around the thin dress she hadn’t changed out of after church services, she wrapped the leash tighter around her wrist and dug her hands into the down liner.
“Hurry up, Shamus, it’s time to go home.” She gave a hard pull on the leash, but the dog jerked and frisked away from her. She lost her balance, banging her rear end on the hard ground, tearing a rip in her new yellow dress.
“Shamus! Come back here right now, you naughty dog.” “Shamus!” she screamed, but the wind whipped the words out of her mouth, and the dog frolicked off into the night.
Before she could get off the ground, she sensed, rather than saw, the shadow that leached out of the dusk and overpowered her. She breathed in a funny smell that made her queasy and sleepy at the same time. Her muscles felt spongy. She couldn’t make her legs and arms obey her commands to scream, fight, run. Her body drifted down, down until the blackness etched the perimeters of her sight.
And then nothing.
Kate groaned and tossed from side to side in her sleep, but she didn’t wake up. Subconsciously she felt Slater’s huge body next to her and burrowed into his back, her arm around his waist, her face buried in the familiar smell of him.
When the blackness receded, her head felt like someone was pounding a ball-peen hammer on her skull. Her mouth hurt like the dentist had stretched it wide open and worked for hours filling cavities. She forced her heavy eyes open and tried to look around.
The walls of the room were wooden logs and looked like the cabin where her family had stayed when they visited Yellowstone National Park the summer she was twelve. She was lying on a battered wooden bed, the mattress was filthy, and the muscles of her arms burned because her wrists were stretched straight back over her head. She wanted to be brave, but her arms and legs quivered and her mouth was dry.