Deadly Intent

by Kylie Brant

  The vise in his chest squeezed painfully. There was a fire in his gut that threatened to devour him. A thirst for revenge for a long-ago crime committed against helpless children. A crime no life sentence could ever pay.

  “We were ransomed after a week. All the diplomats paid for the insurance, because the kidnappings happened too frequently. I never knew Castillo’s name until I saw his face in the newspaper when the story of Raiker’s case broke. I contacted Adam, told him what I knew, and he arranged to have me testify.”

  There was no emotion in her voice. But he felt it in the shudders that still shook her body at occasional intervals. “What was he waiting for? Men like him . . . they aren’t good at overcoming their urges.”

  “I never knew. Never had a clue why those poor girls were savaged night after night and I was spared. But now I think I do. Five million dollars, he said. I don’t think the others knew what he was doing at night. He was probably afraid he’d mess up the payoff if I was . . . damaged.”

  She pulled away then and he let her go. Rolled to his back and tried to beat back the emotion that was teeming and rolling inside him, battling for a way out.

  But it was useless, all of it. There was no way to undo the terror that Macy had gone through. No way to undo the psychological damage, a form of survivor’s guilt that must have ravaged her for years afterward.

  Nothing to do with the rage that frothed and foamed inside him at the thought of the cruel shattering of innocence.

  When she didn’t return to the bed, Kell felt a sense of foreboding. He grabbed his glasses from the bedside table and put them on, getting up to pad to the bathroom door. Listened, and when he heard no sound, pushed it open with the palm of his hand.

  She was leaning her palms on the counter, the fingers clenching the edge so tightly that her knuckles shone white. And when he saw her expression in the mirror, a sense of déjà vu struck him hard.

  He’d seen that look before. She’d worn it after their one night together when she’d told him it would never happen again. Dismissing him, and their time together, with an ease that should have come as a relief.

  He’d spent a lot of time in the intervening months telling himself he felt exactly that. But that lie had been exposed as soon as Macy had walked on that jet a few days ago and sat down at Raiker’s other side. Relief was the last thing he was feeling. Then or now.

  “Don’t do it again.” He’d meant the words as a demand. Had no idea why they sounded so much like a plea. “I know what you’re thinking. That what you revealed leaves you vulnerable, and now it’s time to draw back, rebuild your defenses or whatever.” Hell, he should be familiar with the ploy. He’d invented it. “Don’t.”

  “You should leave. Before any of the others wake up.”

  He hated her flat tone. The deliberately blanked expression. And he’d do about anything to rid her of it.

  Kell started unbuttoning his shirt. Her eyes widened, and she swung around, taking a step back. “Are you crazy? What are you doing?”

  He tore it off to clench it in one fist while he pointed to his scar with the other. “You asked about this, remember? The night we spent together. Didn’t see it because you didn’t want lights, but you felt it and asked me about it.”

  Memory flickered in her eyes, and her expression softened. Her gaze moved over him, lingering on the old injury, and he felt his skin heat. “I lied to you then,” he said bluntly. And watched her gaze flash to his.

  “You said you were shot on the job. When you were working undercover for the BPD.”

  “I got it when I was seventeen. A couple days home after I got out of juvie. Carrie . . . my mother, shot me.” He steeled himself for the horror, the pity, the avid interest. The lie was infinitely easier than dealing with any of them, which is why he’d gotten in the habit of telling it.

  But he wasn’t prepared for her to close the distance between them. Put her soft palm against the old scar as if to heal it all over again.

  He forced himself to continue. The story was ancient history, better off unsaid, but she’d stripped her vulnerabilities bare for him, and he knew she’d hate him for that. So he reciprocated. His story was more pathetic than tragic, so they were hardly equal.

  “Seems she spent the six months of my lockup searching for my stash of money. Pretty damn pissed when she couldn’t get at it, too. I had it in a lockbox at a bank. She’d found the key but had no idea which bank it was.” A corner of his mouth kicked up, and he looked down at her. “I like to think that drove the crazy old bat nuts while I was in juvie.” Although she hadn’t seemed crazy. Drunk or stoned most of the time he spent with her, but not crazy.

  “First time I went home I was going to get that key and find myself a different place to live. But she already had it, along with the gun.” No reason to mention that the gun was his, too. Living that life, in that neighborhood, it had been a necessity. He lifted a shoulder. “She demanded the money; I told her to go to hell.” His hand came up to cover hers as the wound throbbed with a phantom pain. “Close range, I was hard to miss. The bitch nicked my heart. Damn near killed me.” In masterful understatement, he added, “We don’t exchange Christmas cards.”

  His hand tightened around hers, and their eyes met. “The thing is, Macy, I don’t know where she is. I don’t care. And if I knew, I wouldn’t try to find her, wouldn’t stir up that old poison. There’s no point. What’s in our past is the past. It’s a part of us, but it doesn’t define us.”

  Understanding lit her eyes. “Poison,” she murmured. “Yes, that’s what Castillo was after. Taking the chance to spread a little more pain. But if the past has too tight a hold, it’s important to face it, isn’t it? To prove, at least to yourself, that it hasn’t defined you. And that you don’t fear it. Not anymore.”

  He recognized suddenly what had driven her to face Castillo. What it had cost her. And what she’d gained in return.

  “You’re one of the bravest women I’ve ever met.” His throat felt full, so he cleared it. “I thought so on our first case together. Remember when we were chasing down that suspect in Louisville and he turned on us with that knife. Didn’t even have my weapon sited before you’d dropped him with one hard kick to the balls. He never saw it coming.” His eyes dropped to her mouth. Full and gently curved. “Things are always scariest when you don’t see them coming.”

  She moved away then. He’d known she would. So there was no reason to experience that clutch in his heart.

  A heart that stopped in the next moment when she slowly pulled her top over her head.

  Lust fogged his brain. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Here, then, was the vision that had been denied him their one brief night together. As his eyes traced the curves and shadows of her torso, his palms itched to follow.

  Delicate. She looked fragile somehow now that he could see the slim arms and narrow waist topped with the sweet curve of her breasts. Need clenched in his belly like a fist. She hadn’t felt fragile in his arms that night, and he hadn’t been slow and careful. But she deserved that much, to be tasted and touched and savored, every inch of her explored and exploited.

  He closed the distance between them. As if of its own volition, his hand raised and his fingers entangled in her hair. Fine and baby soft, just as he remembered. His face lowered to hers. And then stopped.

  Memory wasn’t necessarily selective. Thoughts of what she’d revealed earlier crowded in and summoned uncomfortably chivalrous urges. Maybe he knew her a little better than he realized. She’d avoided him for months after they’d slept together.

  He wasn’t eager to repeat that.

  Kell rested his forehead against hers, tried to rein in his galloping pulse. “I don’t want you to regret this.”

  “The only regret I’m going to have is if you don’t quit talking.”

  It was the hint of annoyance in her words that had the tension easing and his lips curving. The last thing he wanted to do was add to the lady’s regrets.

&nbs
p; Cupping her nape in both palms, he kissed her then, long and hard. It was crazy to feel this sense of homecoming. She shouldn’t taste so familiar when their time together had been so limited. But her flavor was sprinting through his system, summoning a response that was much too swift, and a bit too desperate.

  He traced the seam of her lips with the tip of his tongue before demanding entrance. There was nothing of the hesitancy he recalled from their first time. Her tongue met his in a long velvet glide that kick-started his pulse and ignited a simmering heat.

  Closer. Unconsciously his arm tightened around her. He could feel her nipples pricking his chest, begging for attention. But he was determined to draw this out, make it last. And this time, if she drew away again, he’d have more of her to remember. Enough to sate his hunger for her, finally.

  The thought restored his fraying restraint. He took his time, deepening the kiss, taking his fill. There was sweetness there, with an underlying wicked heat to entice him to take more. Because if there was one thing that he’d learned their first time together, it was that Macy had layers she kept well hidden. And stripping them away, one at a time, would be primitively satisfying.

  He scored her bottom lip with his teeth, was rewarded by her indrawn breath. One of her hands went to his back, traced his spine in a slow, languorous sweep. Tearing his mouth from hers, he found the pulse at the base of her throat, where it beat madly, and pressed his lips against it before cruising up the slender arch of her neck.

  Her fingers dipped below his waistband, tracing light rhythmic strokes across his lower back. He widened his stance, brought her hips into closer contact with his. And reveled in the sensation as the increased pressure sent sneaky little demons from hell firing through his veins.

  There was a temptation to push too hard, ask for too much, too fast. He knew better now. Knew enough to lure her in, soothe her nerves before pressing for what he needed from her. A demand for everything she’d willingly give him in return. And then more. For everything she sought to hold back.

  Unable to deny himself any longer, he cupped her breasts, relearning their shape and weight. Wedging a breath of space between them, he flicked his thumbs over her nipples, urging them into tighter knots. Urgency licked up his spine, sped through his veins. It was difficult to take it slow when every instinct he had was whipping his need hotter. Faster.

  Giving in to those instincts, he bent to take one nipple in his mouth and was rewarded by her sharply drawn-in breath. Her hands moved to his biceps, nails biting lightly, and the slight sting of pain only fanned the urgency higher. He lashed the taut bud with his tongue, gratified by her low moan.

  It had seemed too easy for her these last months. Simple for her to forget the hours they’d spent wrapped around each other. Which had maddened him, because he hadn’t been able to shrug it off so quickly. He had his share of experiences. Welcomed a woman who didn’t try to throw strings over every roll in the sheets. But it didn’t take a wealth of experience to recognize that Macy wasn’t the sort of woman to take intimacy lightly.

  Maybe that’s why it had burned when she’d seemed to do just that.

  In a hunger for flesh, he drew her nipple more deeply into his mouth, scraped it lightly with his teeth. Any satisfaction he got from her shudder was immediately lost when her hips did a quick grind against his. And he knew then that he’d been fooling himself earlier.

  Slow wasn’t going to be an option.

  He moved one hand to her butt, torturing himself for a few moments at the feel of the soft cotton over warm flesh before greed reared up. With less finesse than normal, he pushed the bottoms down her legs, lingering to stroke the smooth thighs he’d bared, with the whisper of muscle beneath the sleek flesh. He released her breast to raise his head, lifting her a little to kick aside the pajama bottoms, and then walking her backward until the wall was at her back.

  And then he feasted. Her breath was coming rapid and hard, and it mingled with his when he pressed a deep open-mouthed kiss against her mouth. He couldn’t tell which of their hearts was hammering the hardest. Was very much afraid it was his. His lips streaked over her jaw, down the sensitive cord of her neck, where a quick nip made her shudder. Over the rounded curve of her shoulder. Across the delicate angles and hollows made by her collarbone. And then lower.

  Her hands clutched in his hair, but he was only dimly aware of it. He’d never before experienced this primitive greed for flesh. His lips followed the curve of her breast, and he traced the shadowy under curve with his tongue. He wanted to touch her everywhere again. Taste her everywhere. To explore the gentle sweep of curves from breast to hip, the indentation of ribs, the smooth warm curve of her belly.

  Her hands grew a little frantic on his shoulders as he knelt before her and indulged in the sensual exploration. He cupped her bottom in his palms, kneading the smooth flesh as his tongue delved into her navel. The muscles in her belly jumped and quivered beneath his lips, and he felt a measure of control return at the evidence of her desire.

  If he’d been marked by their lovemaking months ago, this time he was intent she would be, too.

  He traced the crease of her thighs with his fingers then repeated the action with his tongue. And when he parted her soft folds to settle his mouth over her moist heat, the only sound he was aware of was the thundering of his blood.

  The sweet musky scent of her went straight to his loins. Whipped his passion to a fever pitch. The taste of her slick flesh had hunger rising again, faster and hotter, snarling and snapping like a caged beast.

  Her hips jerked against his mouth and every movement drove the fire just a little higher. He should have been alarmed by this fever snapping in his blood, fueled by the taste and feel of this woman. His appetite for her couldn’t be assuaged. Refused to be sated. The realization should have set off an inner alarm. He had well-developed instincts for self-preservation. But his mind, his senses, were steeped in her.

  He worked a finger into her dampness, began to stroke. The dual assault had her hips twisting against his mouth in a primal rhythm. And when he heard her cry out brokenly, felt her go boneless against him, the fierce exultation he felt was tempered only by desperation.

  Rising, he took more of her weight, as she leaned heavily against him. With one arm banded around her waist, he used his free hand to stroke and smooth her trembling flesh, all the while attempting to regain his rapidly flagging control.

  When he felt her hands at his zipper, lust rocketed through his veins. Her movements were torturously slow, the descent an inch at a time. Perspiration beaded on his forehead as he battled the overpowering urge to strip himself and end this in a way that lacked restraint or finesse.

  Kell dragged his eyes open and tried to focus. Oxygen seemed to razor in and out of his lungs. And what he saw in her expression had need spiking through his system.

  Her gaze was still a little dazed, a little slumberous with satisfaction, but there was knowledge in her expression. She was purposefully trying to drive him out of his mind. And doing a damn fine job at it.

  Releasing her, he propped his hands on the wall on either side of her, as much for the support as to allow her freedom of movement. He wouldn’t have expected teasing from her. Would have felt a greater appreciation for it if he weren’t so ready to throw his head back to howl.

  He leaned forward to string a trail of kisses along her jaw-line, lingering to worry the sensitive spot behind her ear. Her fingers faltered for a moment, then renewed their maddening pace.

  There was a roaring in his ears, a fever in his blood that would only be quenched by this woman. There was no way to hide his reaction. It was there in his labored breathing, the muscles that jumped and quivered beneath her touch. And when she’d finished the task, and released him from his briefs, there could be no mistaking his response.

  She took him in her hands to stroke, and his vision grayed at the edges. His jaw clenched as he battled back the savage need for completion. Every clever clutch and slide of
her fingers seemed destined to shatter his resolve. To bring him to his knees in a quivering, quaking pool of hormones.

  He reached blindly for his pocket, searched for a condom before she pushed his trousers and briefs over his hips. Kicking out of them, he had just enough reason left to stretch for the controls of the walk-in shower. To sheathe himself and then, with an arm around her waist, move them both inside it with a smoothness that owed more to luck than to dexterity.

  The water was initially cool, and she jerked against him. But the multiple jets felt wondrous on his heated skin. He pressed her against the shower wall, his mouth going in search of hers, the last vestiges of control spiraling away.

  They were seamed together. Mouths. Chests. Hips. And still it wasn’t close enough. He was dimly aware of her remounting desire. The way she lifted one slim leg to glide along his thigh. And the dam of his restraint abruptly crumbled.

  Mouth eating at hers, he lifted her, urging her legs around his hips. And when the position opened her to him, he entered with one deep stroke that had them both groaning.

  The water pounding from the jets around them, above them, had warmed. But he was aware of nothing but her. Of her inner muscles clenching and releasing around his shaft. Her heels digging into his hips. Her mouth under his, frantic and desperate.

  Her hips rocked against his then, and conscious thought fragmented. He withdrew partially to surge against her again in a hunger that wouldn’t be denied. His grip tightened on her hips as he pounded into her, in a brutal greed that was beyond his control. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, one hand clutched in his hair. He heard her moan as she crested again, released her mouth to bury his face in her throat as his hips jackhammered against hers, the need inside him a raging ruthless beast.

  Sensation crashed into sensation. With one last thrust, his climax ripped through him, a violence that shattered everything but thoughts of her.