Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Kill For You
Michele Mills
Contents
Summary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Newsletter
Die For You
Excerpt
About the Author
Also by Michele Mills
Summary
A virus swept the globe killing almost all of humanity and crushing civilization to the ground, leaving Trevor Mason in the enviable position of being able to strut out of his wide-open death row cell, a free man. Now he’s trying to find redemption by helping to rebuild a ruined and empty world.
Rebel Case was a box office phenomenon, but after the apocalypse she’s just a survivor like anyone else. When passion explodes between her and a tattooed, sexy-as-hell bad boy who says he wants forever, will Rebel risk her future, her safety, on a man with an inexcusable past?
But can an ex con really leave his past behind, when it refuses to stay gone?
And how far will Trevor go to keep his woman safe?
Warning: This book contains spanking and voyeurism. Love, in a hopeless place and laughter despite the pain. And as usual, more bad language and violence than are strictly necessary.
Copyright © 2017 by Michele Mills. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email to [email protected]
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Cover design by Kanaxa
Edited by Aquila Editing
Created with Vellum
Chapter One
June 26th, 95 days post outbreak, Casa de Fruta
The classic red Mustang slid neatly into the parking stall…as if life was still normal and the owner planned on stopping at the restaurant for a meal and maybe checking out the gift shop. Which pissed Rebel off, because come on—this routine behavior set against the backdrop of “whole world dead” was just…disrespectful.
This rest stop off the Pacheco Pass Highway, half-way between the central California coast and the San Joaquin Valley, used to be a bustling place to buy snacks, fruit, or whatever a person might need…and stay the night if necessary, on the way to somewhere else. It used to be a destination unto itself. A place people liked to visit.
Before the end of the world, she’d been there tons of times on her way out of Carmel and onto Yosemite.
But now it was a harsh cluster of silent trees, hot asphalt and empty buildings, all intensely quiet because Rebel was certain there were dead bodies everywhere—hidden in the cars, in the buildings and in the motel. All areas she wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
This was nothing new. In this reality, corpses were rotting all over the fucking place. Not just millions of them. Billions of them, worldwide.
The engine cut and the parking lot returned to silence.
Rebel watched the car from her hiding spot with her heart thundering in her chest. She bit her lip as a man she’d never met (fuck, fuck, fuck) stepped out of the Mustang with the slow-moving grace of an action star in a big-budget movie.
A man. Young and healthy-looking.
Wow. This was amazing, considering most of the people on the planet were now dead.
Masculinity, dominance and danger radiated from him in waves so potent and loaded with virility, it nearly burnt her retinas.
Rebel watched him anyway.
And watched him some more.
In fact, she watched him like her life depended upon it. Like stalking him was her job and she worked on commission.
Because holy shit, he was just that handsome.
She sucked in a breath and slumped against the dusty, abandoned minivan she hid behind, her heart continuing to claw in her chest. Her breaths sounded loud and harsh to her own ears.
Who the hell was this guy?
That dark T-shirt he wore stretched so perfectly across his tight abs. And those muscular, veiny forearms…they were fantastic.
She was so affected by his megawatt sex appeal; her hand literally trembled as she wiped sweat from her forehead.
I’m a mess. A total, top-notch, number one mess.
Which was just…embarrassing.
Rebel allowed herself one dreamy sigh (just one).
Jeez. If only…
Could it be? Could he actually be a decent human being? Someone who wasn’t bent on rape, theft and destruction?
She exhaled and rolled her eyes. Oh please. The chances of finding a kind, honorable person with whom to chat with at the end of the world were both slim and none.
The chaotic months since Ruyigi Ebola swept the planet, and the resulting deaths of billions of people worldwide due to the viral outbreak, had taught Rebel one true lesson, a lesson that should be written in stone and handed down from Mt. Sinai:
Trust no one.
It was just…she glanced at him again with longing…what if he wasn’t an asshole?
She bit the inside of her
cheek.
And how long had it been since she’d seen anyone besides Justin? Justin—her companion, her best friend in this hell-hole situation, her Rock of Gibraltar. She hadn’t seen another man alive besides Justin, since, since…damn, she couldn’t remember—obviously not since before the tail end of the time when everyone was sick, chaos reigned, and the world had turned into a shit pile of dead bodies and eerily quiet towns.
Oh fuck.
She needed to think smart and get her head on straight and not let herself be blinded by this stranger’s good looks and her own raging hormones. Really, she should shoot this man first and ask questions later—because being stuck with a stranger in a parking lot on an empty planet in a terrifying post-apocalyptic setting should take on biblical proportions of panic and alarm.
Right?
She wasn’t stupid. She knew being alone with him at the rest stop meant everything in her tentative world could fold like a house of cards.
A slashing knife.
A crashing fist.
A blood-spattered gunshot.
Her life could end in the blink of an eye.
People weren’t the same anymore. She’d learned that the hard way.
Rebel observed with eyes wide as the guy took a few determined steps away from his sports car, his head turning to examine the vacant parking lot dotted with dusty, discarded vehicles.
Now she was able to get a better look at him. Her breath caught in her throat.
Holy crap, he was a tall, cool drink of water. Her shoulders tensed and her stomach took a sickening nose dive. Was this man an angel or a devil?
Long, blond hair fell to his shoulders, and dark jeans cupped his pelvis and ass in all the right places. His jaw was dark with stubble—the beginning of a kick-ass beard. Colored tats sleeved both of his muscled arms, and some flamed up from the collar of his fitted black T-shirt, licking up his magnificent corded neck.
Her traitorous body instantly flooded with white-hot lust.
Dear God, she was a sucker for a man with tats.
Her fingers curled on the gun in the holster at her back, more out of habit than fear. Surviving the outbreak of Ruyigi, which seemed to have killed almost everyone on the planet, and struggling for survival in an “I Am Legend” type of world would turn anyone into a stone-cold killer. It certainly made her jumpy as hell. Feeling indecisive, Rebel fingered her weapon. Her sex-starved brain started to short-circuit with the possibilities before her; should she shoot this potentially dangerous stranger now, or jump him and fuck his brains out?
Rebel knew the survivors she’d made contact with last week had sent someone to meet her and Justin. She just didn’t know it would be today.
Maybe this man was their spokesperson, so therefore a nice guy and he’d just shown up a day early?
Or maybe he was their enforcer, here to shoot Justin, kidnap her and force her into becoming their unwilling group sex toy.
Either way, the timing sucked.
Justin slept inside the RV they’d traveled to the rest stop in—as he should, seeing it was still the butt crack of dawn. Only Rebel and this stranger, and the birds chirping in the trees, were stupid enough to be awake this early.
Leaving their “home” in Carmel, she and Justin had made it across the Pacheco Pass, arrived yesterday afternoon and parked the lumbering RV in the shade of a huge tree at the back of Casa de Fruta, the rest stop she’d chosen as the official meeting place for first contact with the band of survivors she’d communicated with over the radio.
But that was supposed to happen tomorrow.
She and Justin had arrived early to scope out the place. But waking up this morning and feeling restless because Justin was still asleep, Rebel had decided to roam around the relative safety of this corner of the parking lot while it was still cool outside. She hadn’t gone far, because why would she want to explore the buildings or other cars, which would have nothing but rotting corpses ready to scare the hell outta her?
Then the purr of an unknown vehicle had entered the parking lot and she’d about had a freakin’ heart attack. In this new world Rebel lived in, minus all the people—any machine-made sound like car engines, or any sign of human life, were enough to scare her shitless.
She’d whipped around to find the source: a classic red Mustang pulling off the silent freeway. She raced to crouch behind the nearest car, scared out of her fucking mind.
Now here she was, trapped, separated from her partner who was asleep in the RV and blissfully unaware of the danger she was in. And she was stuck meeting this stranger today. Without backup.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
“I know you’re here,” the stranger announced, his speech impossibly deep and sexy as it echoed in the vast, empty space. “I can hear you breathe.”
Her heart stopped. She cupped her hand over her mouth.
Damn. How was that possible?
Boots crunched on asphalt. “I saw you when I pulled in.” His voice inched closer.
Shoot.
Her heart thumped in her chest. A bead of sweat trailed down between her breasts.
She yanked out her gun and clicked the safety off.
“It’s okay,” he said, his intonation both smooth and sultry. “I won’t hurt you. I just want to talk.”
Talk.
Yeah, right. Her jaw clenched. That’s what they all said, right before the raping and beating commenced. No, thank you.
Three months ago, when the virus swept the globe, killing nearly everyone, society had collapsed, turning even her privileged enclave in Malibu into a mob fest. Two men, men she knew, men she’d trusted, broke into her home, tied her up and raped her. One at a time, taking turns. Hot rage rocketed through her blood as she remembered the fear, the physical pain of that betrayal. They’d beaten her and left her for dead, certain the virus would take her, too. But it hadn’t. She’d managed to survive and ended up being one of the lucky few, born with a rare genetic immunity leaving her alive afterwards and completely untouched by the worldwide pandemic.
Her wounds had healed, but her heart and her soul remained damaged. Rebel gripped the gun tighter. No way was she letting that shit happen twice. This time she was ready to do what needed to be done.
The stranger strode around the side of the van. Shit, shit, shit. All six feet something and bad-boy handsome. Up close and personal. Her eyes narrowed and she quickly pointed her gun at the guy’s head, blood and fear pounding through her veins, giving her an additional dose of determination.
“Back off,” she snapped.
Dammit, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
She’d been so excited to meet more survivors, people who were actually alive and not dead. She’d heard their broadcast on the radio Justin had set up in the front room, and spoken to a man named Adam who’d assured her they’d send someone to meet her and Justin at Casa de Fruta. She’d planned the whole thing, even deciding on this meeting point, but Justin was supposed to be here for this meet-up, helping her to scope these people out to make sure this guy was on the up-and-up and not some asshole rapist out for a tap.
The man lifted his hands, palms out, seemingly unconcerned about the Glock she’d shoved in his face.
“Now, darlin’, there’s no need for that,” he drawled. “I’m here to meet you, and anyone else you’re living with, so I can bring you back. You contacted us, remember? You can trust me.”
Who did he think he was kidding? How in the hell could she trust this man?
Her favorite mantra echoed in her head: Never. Trust. Anyone.
Justin was the only man she trusted. Justin, and that was it.
“Maybe you’re not who you say you are,” she shot back, her heart beating like crazy in her ears. Not having Justin with her during this negotiation made this ten times as difficult. It was hard for her to concentrate, what with all the potent virility and manliness standing before her, clouding her judgment.
She watched one blond eyebrow shoot up over the top of h
is sunglasses. “How can that be? I haven’t even said who I am yet.”
“I’m not alone, I’m with someone,” she announced, and cocked her head in the general direction of their hideout. “He’s in our RV and he’s got a gun trained on you, too,” she lied.
He cursed quietly. “Your man?”
“Yes, he’s my man and he’ll kill you if you touch me,” she lied again, thinking of the man who she knew was snoring on the queen-sized bed in the back of the RV. On the bed he’d won the rights to sleep on last night after a determined round of rock, paper, scissors.
Although Justin would try to kill him if he touched her, that part was true. He was very protective.
“That right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
The man tore off his black sunglasses, revealing stunning blue eyes that looked into hers with unholy intensity. Her heart stuttered in her chest. She lowered the gun slightly.
“Jesus Christ,” he exclaimed, his eyes scanning her face. “I just figured out who you are.”
Her jaw clenched.
Oh, God. Here we go.
Back in the day she used to live for this shit; she’d loved being recognized. Well, sometimes it was a bitch, but mainly she’d always loved meeting up with her fans. But now, not so much. Not that it happened anymore anyway, considering her audience was dead.
“You’re Rebel Case, the movie star, aren’t you?”
Rebel snorted. She wasn’t wearing a speck of make-up and her hair had reverted back to its normal, boring shade of light brown, and yet still, at the end of the world, he knew who she was. Bizarre. “Well, yeah. I was Rebel Case…but that’s over with. Now I’m just Rebel, all right?”
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