Skin Game

by Ava Gray

  His hard cock surged against his zipper. Painful, but tolerable. When she’d teased him with the mental image of her naked on the bed, he’d turned to stone from the waist down, just as she intended. Well, he didn’t intend to suffer alone.

  “I think a good night kiss is in order, don’t you? It seems to fit the mood . . . and it’s in keeping with dinner.”

  Her eyes looked huge in the candlelight. “Just one?”

  “Absolutely.” He etched a cross over his heart, which would’ve been laughable if she knew anything about him.

  Kyra tilted her face up, and her trust struck him in the solar plexus. Something was screwy. She didn’t act like the hard-edged, treacherous bitch depicted in Foster’s file. Maybe he should do a little more checking.

  For now, though, he would take the lips she’d offered him. Reyes curled his fingers around the nape of her neck and leaned in with his whole body, bringing her up against the door. Kyra wound her arms around his neck, startling him with the sense of rightness that accompanied the motion. Reyes kissed like he fucked, all possession. In her case, it was more furious than usual; he didn’t want to leave her a spare brain cell for anything else.

  Her mouth opened on a gasp, and he took more, nuzzling deep with each sweep of his tongue. She tasted faintly of celery and spicy mustard, clean flavors that made him want to lick away everything that didn’t come from Kyra. He slid his hands down her body, relearning her curves, and then cupped her ass in his hands, lifting her up against him. He tasted her from lips to jaw and then downward, biting tenderly at the sweet column of her throat. Then he nibbled his way back to her luscious mouth.

  Her nails dug into his shoulders, tiny little bursts of pain that insisted they should be naked. Kyra’s tongue lashed against his, slick and hot. He swore he could feel her heartbeat in the heat of her lips, an echo to his own thundering in his ears. Then he lost his mind as she tried to climb him. His hands came up to drag her hips against his and he couldn’t help but thrust. She pushed back, undulating her hips. Her breath came in sharp little pants; he recognized the sound of her escalating arousal. If he touched her inside her panties, she’d come in a fury of clenched teeth and fierce cries.

  God, she felt good. Reyes remembered that she’d fit him like a glove. With her long legs curled around his hips, he should be canonized for not unzipping them both and sinking into her. For a long moment, it was touch and go.

  Then he opened his hands and stepped back, letting her drop. Kyra swayed for a moment, eyes opening. She pressed two fingers to her bee-stung mouth, seeming to try to figure out what had happened—or what hadn’t.

  “That was more than one kiss,” she accused, breathless.

  Reyes made himself smile. “My bad.”

  He was pleased to see her knees weren’t altogether steady when she tried to open the door. Kyra supported herself on the door frame for a few seconds, still looking dazed. “Well then.” Her gaze slid to his bed. Lingered there, as if awaiting an invitation. “Good night, I guess.”

  You made the rules, sweetheart. No changing them now. Keeping her off-balance would work better than any tactic he’d yet devised.

  “G’night, Kyra.”

  He shut the door in her sweet, sun-kissed face. Reyes stood listening for the click of her door, making sure she’d gotten in safely. Only then did he push away from the wall and allow a muffled groan. As he went, he stripped off his clothes.

  Straight into the shower. Another man might take the high road, but he wasn’t big on self-denial. More importantly, it would undermine his purpose if he couldn’t control himself around her, and there was only one way to make sure of his discipline. He had to be practical about such things, so he stepped into the shower and turned it on.

  The hot water felt tepid against the heat of his flesh, as if it could evaporate to steam just from touching him. Reyes wanted to be businesslike as he wrapped his fingers around his dick, but he couldn’t force Kyra out of his mind’s eye. As he began to stroke, water pouring down on him, he saw her sinking to her knees in the tub, face upturned as it had been for his kiss. To his disgust, he lost it in less than two minutes, as soon as he imagined her lips touching his cock. A shuddering orgasm ripped a cry from his throat, and he slumped against the tile wall, heart still racing. A woman hadn’t gotten to him like this since he was a kid.

  A few minutes later, he staggered out of the bathroom, steam slipping through behind him to coil in the air. After pulling back the covers to reveal thin off-white sheets, Reyes sank onto the bed, slightly dizzy. The worst part—he wasn’t anything like satisfied. He still had a need for her twined like barbwire in his belly. Nothing would do but for him to have her again.

  And he was starting to get chills when he pictured ending her. He didn’t want to be close to her when he did it; that was beyond even his considerable professional acumen. And that ruled out knives and strangulation.

  He told himself to focus. Keep your mind on the job, asshole. And don’t worry about the details. Just get the information. By the time you have it, she’ll show her true colors. They always do.

  Still, he couldn’t help but want to double-check what he’d been told. Maybe he needed to dig deeper. His attention to detail was what made him one of the best—and most princi pled—assassins in the country. Sometimes people were desperate enough to have the job done right that they tried to put one over on him.

  Reyes prided himself on taking on jobs where the target needed killing anyway. The fact that someone’s just deserts and his skill intersected? Serendipity, as Kyra claimed regarding their sexual compatibility. Privately, he considered himself a vigilante for hire, though not for such an altruistic reason as righting a wrong. Nobody he knew wore a white hat, too hard to keep it clean.

  Without further deliberation, he plucked his cell phone from the hidden zipper inside his jacket. He also had a pocket-sized quick charger since his cover didn’t permit for plugging in the phone in his room. Speed dial number four connected him to someone he did business with frequently. Favors begat favors in his line of work. He didn’t like owing people, but he’d done a good turn for this guy recently.

  “Monroe,” he said, when the call completed.

  A rough, disgruntled male voice asked, “Do you know what fucking time it is here?”

  Since he had the man’s cell number, he had no idea where Monroe might be. It was better that way. “No. And I don’t care, either. Can you check someone out for me?”

  A stream of colorful invective followed—seasoned by curses in Chinese, Turkish, and Russian. Reyes waited, listening to the rustling of papers. Finally Monroe said, “Shoot. I’m ready.”

  “Get me everything you can find on Kyra Marie Beckwith. I have three socials here for her, but I’m not sure which is the real one.” He listed the numbers.

  “Ah,” said Monroe. “One of those.”

  “Yep. How soon can you get it?”

  “That depends.”

  A prickle of irritation pierced his calm. “On what?”

  “On whether she’s lived on or off the grid.”

  “Okay,” he acknowledged. “Just do the best you can and get it to me fast. You do this for me, and we’ll call it square over Prague.”

  “Appreciate it,” Monroe said, and Reyes heard the smile in his voice. “I’ll be in touch, patron.”

  They had history, Monroe and him. He never asked anyone else for help.

  Shortly thereafter, he disconnected and lay back in the dark, staring at the ceiling. Outside, he could hear the hum of the fluorescent light in the hallway. Reyes wondered what Kyra was doing on the other side of the wall. Was she a cold-shower sort of woman?

  And then he didn’t have to wonder; he knew.

  Listening to her muffled thumps and moans, he discovered she was a self-sufficient type. It sounded like she was tearing up the bed without him. With her, his plans never seemed to work as anticipated.

  Ah, Jesus.

  He recognized the throat
y cry she made as she came, but her movements didn’t show any signs of slowing. Reyes would give a kidney to kick a hole in the wall and have her, and say to hell with his job, to hell with his reputation. He burned with wanting her.

  It was going to be a long night.

  CHAPTER 10

  “We’ve had a good run,” Kyra said.

  She counted the money a second time and then pushed Rey’s cut across the bed toward him. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t share mattress space with him, even under the most innocuous of circumstances, but this room didn’t even offer the usual café table and rickety chairs. They had to split the take somewhere.

  He’d been the perfect partner ever since they shared that scorching kiss. She had no idea what to make of his withdrawal, but maybe he’d decided not to tempt the chemistry that crackled between them. That was no doubt the prudent course.

  They’d passed from Texas into New Mexico. Back in Louisiana, she’d realized she wanted to escape the heat, so they were wending their way north slowly. Kyra had heard Colorado was nice, and she couldn’t remember ever wintering anywhere cold. That would be the last place anyone looked for her, the next best thing to Canada.

  As an added bonus, Kyra had a friend who would be taking a job soon in North Dakota, and she hoped Mia would be able to tell her what to do with her stash. She couldn’t get out of the country on her own, but she trusted Mia Sauter more than anyone else in the world. When she first fled Vegas, she’d known she needed to kill some time, as Mia was working a contract overseas. She’d tossed her cell phone a few days back, not wanting to take the chance Serrano could track her somehow, even though it was a cheap, prepaid device.

  Just stay one step ahead, that’s all. Just a little longer.

  Frankly, she’d thought Serrano would have had her killed before she got out of town, but she’d had to take the risk. The bastard couldn’t be allowed to kill her father and pay nothing for it. Men like him, men with money and power, thought they could do whatever the hell they wanted without consequence. It had been a stroke of luck that he hadn’t seen the tape for twenty-four hours, giving her a priceless head start.

  She’d been running ever since.

  “If I’d known there was such good money in this, I’d have looked for an apprenticeship years ago,” Rey said lazily.

  A small quirk of conscience pricked her. She really should warn him that it wouldn’t go this smoothly—and the money wouldn’t flow as well—if he didn’t have her help. But that would open the door to things she had no intention of sharing. Worse, it might sound like she was trying to convince him to stay with her indefinitely.

  “It beats honest work,” she agreed.

  “Can we take a night off?”

  Kyra glanced at him in surprise. She could certainly afford to, but she didn’t want to tap into her stash until they got to North Dakota, and she had some idea what to do with the money. Flashing large amounts of cash would get her noticed—and Serrano would have goons on her in no time. It was definitely best that she live and work as she always had. And there was the fun factor as well. Fact was, Kyra liked what she did.

  “Sure,” she said, trying to hide her disappointment. It was natural he’d want a break. “Knock yourself out.”

  She took in the dingy motel room, which was like a thousand others she’d stayed in: tiny, cramped, a polyester, floral bedspread in garish hues, lackluster prints affixed to the wall, and furniture so cheap that it made pasteboard look luxurious. Rooms like this always seemed to hold a faint musty odor, as well, and she’d learned not to peer behind the headboards or beneath end tables for fear of what she might find. This place didn’t even have a coffeemaker, so no ramen for dinner.

  Before she spent those six months with Gerard Serrano, letting him lavish her with expensive things and posh surroundings, she never would’ve thought twice about a place like this. The bastard’s spoiled this for me, too, she thought with a scowl. Though she still enjoyed life on the road, she missed fine jewelry and a Jacuzzi tub to soak away her sorrows. Money might not be able to buy happiness, but it made misery more bearable.

  Kyra remembered how Rey had walked more than a mile, carrying heavy groceries, just to feed her. Nobody had ever done anything like that for her. Until he did it, she hadn’t even known she’d like it. And now, damn him, she found herself searching for hidden meanings in his small kindnesses. He didn’t look like the considerate sort; he looked more like he cut women’s throats and left them for dead. But she’d learned people weren’t always what they seemed. Her father had called himself a professional student of human nature—and she’d taken her lessons from him for many years before he died.

  “What’s wrong?” If the question caught her off-guard, the gesture certainly did. Rey reached over, ignoring the pile of bills between them, his fingers cupping her chin.

  She started to recoil, but there was only a faint, thready echo. It felt oddly as if her ability had short-circuited somehow.

  “Nothing,” she said quickly. How humiliating. If he realized she had a minor thing—okay, a major sexual obsession—for him, she’d wither up and die. Kyra made herself smile. “See? Totally cool.”

  “You think I want to go out in search of snatch.” Statement, not a question.

  She tried to make a joke of it. “Wasn’t that a Larry Flynt show?”

  He sighed then. “I obviously phrased the question wrong, if that’s what you extrapolated from it. I asked if we could take the night off. Together. You and me.”

  His words hit her like a closed fist in the temple, and she felt dizzy, breathless. “I don’t understand. I have no idea what you want from me.”

  “You know exactly what I want.”

  “You already had it,” she protested. “Damn, Rey. I’m not Chinese food . . . men don’t come back in two hours, hungry for more.”

  His actions made no sense and didn’t follow the rules by which she’d lived. In her experience, one warm body was much like another, interchangeable. Sometimes the skill levels varied, but with enough imagination almost anyone could serve the purpose. Hell, given her lifestyle, she often worked in that capacity alone.

  He shook his head, darkly intent. “You’re out of your mind if you think anybody else will do. I could fuck a hundred women, and still go to sleep with this ache in my gut. It has to be you.”

  In that moment, she wanted more than anything to crawl across the bed toward him and give him everything. Feelings she’d never dreamed or imagined surged through her, but sex with him wasn’t simple anymore. Though it galled her to admit it, Rey scared her because he possessed the potential to matter.

  “So what is it you’re offering?”

  And the man surprised her again. “A drive into the mountains. We spend so much time with the dregs that sometimes I start to want something clean and pure.”

  Kyra only considered for a moment. “That sounds great.”

  She snagged her share of the money, aligned the bills, and then she slid them into her wallet. After shouldering her bag, she glanced at him, oddly uncertain. If there were rules for this kind of thing, she didn’t understand them. She’d never been out on a true date. In some respects she was as inexperienced as an Amish girl.

  They locked the door behind them as they left using the analog metal key, and she took a cursory look across the parking lot. No signs of pursuit, but there was always a chance. Kyra found the Marquis right away.

  In contrast to the darkening sky, it gleamed pale blue like the sky at the highest altitudes, all delicacy. It cost a mint to fill the thing up these days, but she’d never considered selling it. Everything she loved had somehow become bound up in the metal.

  “I grew up here,” he said, gazing out over the shared balcony that ran the length of the motel.

  He’d requested a second-floor room because he didn’t trust people. At least here on the corner, they would hear someone coming up the stairs; there would be some warning before disaster struck. Rey had tried to insist t
hat they should share a room—that he didn’t like the feel of this place, but Kyra had stayed in enough fleabags to know this one was much like any other, no better, no worse.

  “Here, as in Taos? Or here, as in New Mexico?”

  “New Mexico,” he answered. “Not far from here, actually.”

  “Did you stay in one place?”

  A flicker of something passed across his dark, sharp face. “More or less.”

  “That must have been . . .” She trailed off, not knowing what to call an experience that differed so vastly from her own.

  Part of her wanted to say boring; another part thought comforting might apply.

  As a kid, she’d thought her life was one big adventure. Most days, she still thought so. Dismissing profundity, Kyra stepped away from the flimsy, rusted railing and headed for the stairs. His tread followed immediately, giving her the ridiculous impression that he had her back—that she could rely on him.

  “It was what it was,” he said, as they reached the car. The look she’d noticed upstairs had winnowed down to something fierce and quiet and sad, like a titanium needle lodged deep.

  Before she could rethink the impulse, she went to the passenger side and tossed him the keys. She told herself the offer didn’t serve to cheer him up or ameliorate emotional baggage she wasn’t equipped to deal with. Rey caught the jingle of metal, blessed with her genuine lucky rabbit’s foot, looking astonished.

  She muttered, “It just makes sense. You know where we’re going and all.”

  “You’re letting me drive?” As if he needed to hear it. “Your Marquis?”

  “Yeah,” she said softly. “Be gentle with her.”

  “As much as I know how to be.” Rey laid his long fingers atop the roof, and she felt it on her skin. “Let’s go.”

  Reyes knew he’d lost all perspective. For a man who had been accused, more than once, of lacking a heart, it was disastrous. The woman had given him the keys to her car, for God’s sake, not the crown jewels. But as he drove, he couldn’t help feel . . . something.