by Sybil Bartel
Her eyes on my junk, she didn’t move.
“Step aside,” I warned.
“You’re even bigger than—” She stopped herself.
I locked down my expression. “Vega?” I didn’t get attached to women. That was a luxury I couldn’t afford in my line of work. And not getting attached meant not fucking attached, in any goddamn way. I told myself I didn’t give a shit how many ways Vega had taken her. I told myself, if she could take a big dick, even better. But the thought of Vega grinding on her made my jaw clench and my muscles fucking twitch.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Good. I wanted her to fucking look. I wanted her to see every goddamn inch of my cock and think about how I would feel inside her. “You going to move?” Because I was about to say fuck it and find out just how much of me she could take.
She bit her bottom lip.
Goddamn it.
I stepped up to her. My dick an inch from her small body, my chest close to those hard nipples, I reached around her petite frame and rinsed my arms. Low, controlled, I spoke. “You never answered my question.”
Her gaze traveled up my body and stopped at my mouth. She licked her bottom lip. “What question?”
I braced my hands on the wall behind her. “Vega ever make you come?” I knew Alex Vega. He lived for money, not pleasing women. I also knew the rumors about Fedorov. He was a sick fuck. And I knew what I’d seen in my kitchen. This woman had been completely controlled. Fedorov had owned everything about her, including her pleasure.
She dropped her gaze to my chest, but not before I saw the faint blush to her cheeks.
“Answer me,” I demanded.
Her voice turned quiet. “Why are you doing this? Do you think you could possibly humiliate me any more than him?”
I tipped her chin. “You think I’m trying to humiliate you?”
“Doesn’t every man want to break a woman down?”
Fedorov was dead. So motherfucking dead. “No,” I answered. “Only the assholes.” I fought for an even inhale. “I’m not trying to break you. I’m trying to gauge the mixed signals you’re putting off, because I’m not some asshole who’s going to force myself on you.” I pushed off the wall. “You see my desire. You know where I stand.” I stepped around her.
“Where are you going?”
I didn’t look back. “To clean up.”
I grabbed a towel and dry clothes, then my phone. I was so fucking pissed at what that asshole had done to her that I forgot to check the surveillance feeds before I called André Luna.
A sniper in the Marines, Luna now owned his own personal security firm. He answered on the first ring. “It’s been a while, Marek.”
I didn’t deny it. “I need a pick up in thirty.” I worked alone, always, but Luna had been there for me a couple times and I’d always repaid the favor.
“Last time you needed a pick up, you almost bled out on my front seat.”
I pulled off my wet bandages then threw on a T-shirt. “And you upgraded to a new vehicle.” Six of them, actually. I’d bought him the new SUVs because he’d needed them and didn’t have the funds at the time. He’d been pissed as hell and tried to give five of them back, saying he didn’t do handouts. I’d told him six vehicles didn’t make up for saving my life.
“You injured?”
“I’m fine.” I yanked my pants up. I was so fucking pissed at Fedorov, I barely felt my wounds. “I’ll be under the new southern overpass to the port. Thirty minutes.”
“You do know there’s a hurricane making landfall?”
“It’s still tropical force winds and it’s only the outer bands.”
“Regardless, I pulled all my men. Anyone not on a crucial assignment is here on lockdown till it passes.”
I ran through a mental checklist of his employees. “Tyler still working for you?” No family yet, he’d do it.
“You’re not hearing me, Marek. I’m not sending any of my men out in this. Can’t it wait?”
“No.” I needed the cover of the storm.
Luna muttered a curse in Spanish. “You know what my problem is?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “I’m too fucking curious. Every time you call, you make it sound like you need a pick up from some damn picnic in the park, but when I get there, something epically fucked has gone down. So yeah, I’m gonna bite. Where’s the drop-off?”
“My house.”
“That’s it? There gonna be heat?”
“No.” Not if I moved quick.
He chuckled. “Why don’t I believe you?”
I didn’t answer.
“All right, damn it. But hold up, let me check the radar.”
I waited.
“Mierda,” he swore low and quiet. “Thirty minutes out then twenty to your place and twenty, twenty-five back here. That puts us right in the middle of this thing.”
“Weight the vehicle, make it twenty-five minutes and meet me at the southern overpass.”
“Three tours in Afghanistan and I’m gonna get taken out by a fucking hurricane. Your ass is gonna owe me for this.”
“If it gets rough, you can ride it out at my place.” I was inland.
“I’m not locking myself up at your low-lying Fort Knox compound. You’re in the middle of a fucking flood zone. The apocalypse? Yeah, I’m coming to you. But a hurricane? No fucking thanks. Now you have twenty-four minutes. Don’t be late.” He hung up.
I grabbed a tactical vest and two sidearms from the safe in my bedroom closet. Slipping the vest over my head, I adjusted the Velcro straps and holstered the weapons. I felt her presence before I heard her.
“I’m going out.” I turned.
Holding the towel against her chest, she fought to not look alarmed. “There’s a hurricane.”
“The winds haven’t reached category one yet.” I loaded a few extra clips. “You’re staying here. I have a safe room in the barn.” Despite what Luna had said, it was safe as hell in a hurricane.
She bit her lip and averted her gaze.
Her body language gave me pause. “What’s wrong?”
Her shoulders rose with an inhale, but she didn’t look at me. “I told Viktor about the barn. If he shows up and I’m not in the house, he’ll look there first.”
Goddamn it. I pulled a jacket from my closet. “Put this on over your clothes and tie your hair back.” I didn’t need any of her fucking DNA in that SUV. “You’re coming with me.”
She glanced at Hunter as he lay at the end of the bed. “Is it safe to go out?”
“Safer than you being here alone and him knowing about the barn.” I grabbed another jacket for myself. “Get dressed, then meet me in the garage.” I walked out.
I grabbed a gallon of bleach and poured it over the front porch. With the rain already picking up, any visual evidence would be gone before we returned. Back in the garage, I opened the door, put on gloves, then jogged to the SUV and got behind the wheel. The wind gusting like fuck, I backed into the garage just far enough to cover the rear of the vehicle.
I was loading five-gallon gas cans in the back of the SUV next to the body when she came out of the house.
Swimming in my jacket, she was dressed in jeans and she’d pulled her hair back. She looked like a completely different woman than the one I’d found in my kitchen.
She glanced at the SUV. “We’re going in that?”
I nodded once. “We’re dumping it.”
“Peter is in there.”
I grabbed an extra pair of gloves and ignored her statement. “Put these on and get in the front passenger seat.”
“How will we get back?”
“A friend of mine.”
“Someone you trust?”
“We served together.” I closed the back hatch. “Get in.”
Pocketing my garage opener, I waited till she was in the SUV, then I got behind the wheel. “Buckle in but don’t touch anything else.” I checked the gas gauge to make sure we had fuel.
She reached for the seat belt wi
th a gloved hand. “You sound like you’ve done this before.”
“A few times.” More than a few. But the two wounds on my body were evidence that I was losing my edge. I navigated my unpaved driveway. The SUV handled the wind gusts, but we were protected by the woods around us.
She was silent until we pulled onto the county road. “Why do you live out here?” Her eyes trained on the road, she stared straight ahead.
“I don’t like cities.” Four tours had cured me of ever wanting to live in an urban environment. Rain sheeted against the windshield and water filled the runoff ditches on either side of the road.
“You could live on the beach,” she said absently.
I could live a lot of places. “Is that where you want to live?”
A gust of wind made the vehicle swerve, and she gasped.
“We’re fine.” I corrected and stepped on the gas as a huge gust threw a wall of water at the SUV.
She snapped. “We’re in a stolen car with a dead body, enough gas to commit arson and we’re driving through a hurricane. You have stitches and a gunshot wound, and I have an insane husband. That isn’t fine.”
I navigated around a fallen branch in the road and pointed out the obvious. “If you never signed a marriage certificate, you’re not legally married.”
She gripped the shoulder strap of her seat belt. “I told you, he said he took care of that.”
“By forging your name?”
She threw her hands up. “I don’t know! Okay? I don’t know what he did! I just want to live through this and not go to jail!”
“You’re not going to jail.” No one was out on the road, including cops. That’s why I needed to dump the body now instead of later.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen. I wouldn’t be in this situation if Alex hadn’t dumped me at your house!”
I gripped the fucking steering wheel and fought to keep my tone even. “And what situation is that? An abusive relationship with a manipulative arms dealer who loans you out to a male prostitute?” I gunned the SUV around another fallen branch. “Or almost getting killed in the back of a stolen SUV by a hired gun of your husband’s?”
“He wasn’t going to kill me. Viktor would never allow that!”
“Right. He was going to pay you half a million dollars and let you walk.” She had no fucking clue who she’d gotten in bed with.
She turned in her seat. “You’re a male prostitute. You said so yourself.”
I threw her attitude right back on her. “Is that why you said no to me in the shower?”
She crossed her arms. “I didn’t have to say no because you didn’t ask a question.”
Jesus Christ. “Let me spell it out for you, sweetheart. When a naked man with a hard-on asks you what you want, that’s a fucking question.” I pulled under the overpass. Construction on one side, stacked concrete barriers on the other, there were no security cameras and no direct rain. I cut the engine. “Get out.”
I got out of the disgusting SUV that smelled like baby powder and death. I wanted to hate Dane for every single truth he threw in my face, but I had no one to blame for my life or my decisions except myself.
“Wait by the barricades,” Dane ordered.
His command sounded no different than Viktor’s, but nothing about it was anything like Viktor. I hated Viktor. He’d taken my virginity against my will, and everything since had been worse. So much worse that I’d become numb.
I stood watching Dane pour gasoline over every inch of the SUV, including Peter’s body, and I didn’t care. I only wished Peter was still alive to smell the stench and feel the agonizing pain of what was about to happen. The fact that my mind was even going down that road should’ve scared the hell out of me, but it didn’t. All I kept thinking about was the way Dane had looked at me in the shower. My whole life I’d been waiting for a man to look at me like that, but when it’d finally happened, I’d turned my back. I was so screwed up, I didn’t even know how to act around a man.
Dane stepped beside me and pulled a lighter out of his pocket.
“I want to do it.” I wanted to be in control of something.
Careful not to set his glove on fire, Dane lit the lighter. “No.”
“Why not?”
“It makes you an accessory.” He threw the lighter with exact precision.
Seconds later, flames licked up the inside walls of the vehicle and raced across the floor toward Peter’s body. “Maybe I want to be an accessory.”
“You don’t.” His arm landed on my shoulder and he pulled me face-first into his chest. “Don’t watch.”
“I want to see him burn.” I didn’t know if I did or didn’t. In that moment, I just wanted to take back something of myself, but I couldn’t even say what that was because I didn’t know who I was anymore.
“I know.” He didn’t let go of me. “But I don’t want you to.”
He was protecting me. Again. Inhaling the scent of his soap and his musk mixed with gasoline, I regretted the shower all over again. “I’m sorry about the shower.”
His other arm came around me. “It’s okay. Let it go.”
Careful of his staples, my hands went to his sides and I rested my head against his chest. “Is that what you do… when you kill someone?”
“Yes.” He rubbed slow circles on my back.
“I don’t feel anything,” I admitted. “About Peter.”
“Because it was justified.”
“It was self-defense,” I corrected. At least I thought that’s what it was. But burning him? I didn’t know what that was. Maybe karma. Maybe just efficient body disposal. I didn’t know and Dane didn’t respond.
The wind howling, the rain pelting, the flames roaring, I didn’t hear a vehicle pull up next to us until a door slammed shut.
A man stepped up beside us and took in the burning SUV. “Dios mio.”
Tall, muscular, close-cut brown hair, brown eyes, the man rested his right hand on a gun in a holster at his waist as if it were as natural to him as breathing. He was as handsome as Dane, but despite the position of his hand, he didn’t have the edge of danger Dane carried.
He tipped his chin at the burning vehicle, then looked at Dane. “You said there wasn’t going to be any heat.” He glanced at me and smiled like an angel. “And you didn’t mention company.”
“André, this is Irina. Irina, André Luna. Let’s go.” Dane didn’t give his friend my last name.
“Copy that.” The man spun and got behind the wheel of a new black SUV with tinted-out windows.
Dane pulled his gloves off, then took mine off and stuffed both pairs in his back pocket. His gaze intent, he dropped his voice. “One down.”
The acrid stench of the fire filled my nostrils, and I stole a glance at the burning vehicle. Flames hid anything that might have been left of Peter’s body, but a horrible sense of dread still washed over me. I couldn’t do this. I had to give Dane an out. This wasn’t his fight. “You don’t have to do this.”
Dane didn’t hesitate. “I’m already doing it.” His hand landed on the small of my back and he led me to his friend’s SUV, then opened the back door.
God, I wanted to get in and remain silent and let this man take care of all of my problems, but life didn’t work like that. I closed the door and looked up at the striking angles of his face. This wasn’t just about the shower. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I called you a male prostitute. I’m sorry I brought my mess to your house, and I’m sorry you had to kill for me.” I sucked in a breath and said what I should’ve said hours ago, “You can drop me off at my mother’s and I’ll leave you alone.” If I was lucky, Viktor wouldn’t have called her yet and told her I’d run, and she’d still let me in. If not, I could ride out the hurricane in the bathrooms her condo complex had by the pool, then figure out what to do next.
His gaze more intense than any man I’d ever met, Dane stared at me. Then he did what I was only beginning to understand was his superpower. He zeroed in on the truth. “You don�
�t want me to let you go.”
After everything he’d done for me, I couldn’t lie to him. But I was also too embarrassed to tell him the truth. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
For a brief moment, his impenetrable mask fell away and he ran the back of his hand across my cheek. Then just as quick, the mask was back and he opened the door.
He was right, I didn’t want to leave him. So I got in the back of the SUV and he got in the front passenger seat.
The ride back to his house was worse than the ride out. The wind gusted and threw the vehicle around, but Dane and André held a quiet conversation as if they did this all the time. My head spinning, I didn’t listen to what they were saying. Before I could process what I was feeling, we were back at Dane’s house.
André pulled into the garage, then Dane was out of the vehicle opening my door.
André acknowledged me with a polite nod. “Ma’am.” He glanced at Dane. “Stay out of trouble.”
Dane nodded, then André backed out of the garage. Without a word, Dane led me inside, and Hunter practically jumped all over us. Circling, whining, he didn’t calm down until Dane scratched behind his ears. “Good boy.” Dane pointed at his bed. “Go lie down.”
I started to take off my borrowed jacket, but a large hand covered mine.
“You’re quiet. You okay?” Dane slid the jacket off my shoulders.
His body heat at my back, I shivered. “Yes.” I didn’t know what I was.
Gentle hands threaded into my hair and he took my ponytail out. “Let your hair dry.”
I swallowed past the sudden dryness in my throat. “Okay.”
His fingers ran down my arm and he took my hand in his. His breath on my shoulder, his huge, muscular body at my back, he curved his tall frame around me and the room shrunk to just the two of us. “Hi,” he said quietly.
My stomach fluttered, and I couldn’t help myself. I leaned back into him. “Hi.”
He took my palm and bent my fingers toward him, then his thumb ran across my fingernails. “You washed all the blood off.”
His touch was so gentle but so commanding, I wanted to melt into him at the same time I wanted to run from him. “In the shower.”
His other arm curled around my waist and his free hand threaded through mine. “You hungry?”