“True. And Charming was very hot,” I said, running my palm across his stomach. “But Oliver… he’s my guy.”
His eyes darkened to the color of thick moss that grew under a tree. “You know I didn’t leave you behind. I only went to protect you. I don’t want him near you.”
I didn’t bother to point out that it didn’t matter because the Reaper had me in his sights. I liked this conversation far too much to bring that up again. “I know that now.”
“Listen to me,” he said, moving quickly, speaking fiercely. He captured my head between his hands and sat up so he was staring directly into my eyes. “I’m going to get us out of this. Both of us. And when I do, you’re never going to have to worry about me leaving again.”
Yep. There I went. I melted completely into a puddle.
“Are you trying to charm me?” I said, though my voice was too watery to hold the sarcastic tone I meant to have.
“I don’t have to charm you,” he said.
“No?”
He released me and shook his head slowly. “No. Because you’ve already charmed me. Completely.”
“Ahhh, so the charmer has finally been charmed?”
“What can I say? You look good in my shirt.”
I pulled it up over my head and tossed it beside him. “What about when I’m not wearing your shirt?”
His hands were on my chest instantly, cupping it and massaging. It didn’t take him long to see the closure was in the front, and with a single movement of his hand, it burst open, spilling out everything I had for his waiting eyes to see.
“I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you,” he confided. I made a sound in the back of my throat and moved a little closer, inviting his touch.
But he didn’t touch me.
“Tell me, Frankie,” he demanded.
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me you’re mine. Tell me you didn’t bring my heart back from the dead only to make it die all over again.”
And there it was. My choice. But I’d already made it. I made it a long time ago. It just wasn’t until today that I admitted it to myself.
I pushed the hair in his eyes up and away from his face. I wanted him to see me clearly. I wanted him to know without a doubt he was who I chose.
“I’m yours,” I whispered.
I didn’t know what it said about me that I could love someone like him. That I could love a killer. The worst parts of him were really bad. But looking at him now, vulnerability shining from the depths of his eyes and the feeling of him beneath me, I knew—I knew without a doubt—that even his darkest parts could never compare to his best ones.
His kiss started on my lips but didn’t stay there very long. His mouth slid down my neck and across my collarbone where he nipped along the line of it, making me laugh. Finally, I got to do what I’d been imagining since he took off that ugly sweater. I slid both my hands beneath the suspenders, running my hands along the thick muscles in his chest, and then gently pushed them over his shoulders, sliding them all the way down his arms.
His hands caught mine when they drifted over his, but I shook my head and pulled the hem of his button-down out of his pants. It joined the sweater on the floor.
This body was bigger than the one I knew before. This one had a few scars here and there marring its perfection. But to me it was those imperfections that made him perfect.
I traced along the outline of a circular-shaped scar on his chest. “What happened here?”
“I got it in the ring.”
I leaned down and kissed it and ran my tongue over its surface. He groaned and kissed me again. This time it was more demanding and not so slow. His arousal pressed between my legs, making me impatient, turning me into some sex-starved harlot, and I began to make small noises in the back of my throat.
His long fingers found the button of my jeans, releasing it, and then delved down into my waistband, cupping my butt. He tore his mouth from mine. “Your pants are in my way.”
I rocked against him one last time, smiling at his intake of breath, and then climbed off his lap. Before I could do anything, he swiped the jeans and my panties down my legs. The cool air brushed against my skin and I shivered slightly as I stood there completely bare before him. It was a good kind of shiver.
His green eyes heated as they took in my every curve and then his khakis were flying over the back of the couch, disappearing from sight. I thought he would pull me beneath him right there on the couch, but he didn’t. He settled back against the cushions just as he had been before and pulled me back into his lap.
His arousal jutted up between us, his hard length practically begging for my attention, and I was only too happy to oblige. His skin was smooth as satin and I wrapped my hand around him and slid upward, watching his eyes lose all focus. This was something I could definitely get used to—being in the driver’s seat, being the one in control. Olly was such a strong and willful man; he always seemed to be in control, to know exactly what he was doing. But right now, as I stroked him, he was completely under my spell.
Letting go, I rocked forward, bringing our bare chests together, skin touching skin, and teased his arousal with mine. He groaned when my slick warmth slid against him.
His hands splayed around my rib cage, lifting me so I was poised just above him, but I didn’t slide down. I didn’t connect our bodies just yet. Instead, I let the tip of him flirt with my opening as his mouth drew in one of my rock-hard nipples and rolled it around on his tongue. My head fell back at the sheer bliss—the sheer anticipation of being with him—and I moaned.
Never in a million years did I ever think anyone would ever make me feel like this.
When he released my nipple and placed a kiss between my breasts, I looked at him. I watched him as I slowly lowered myself onto him.
His fingers dug into my ribs to the point of almost being painful, but it was the kind of pain I would ask for again and again because there was nothing as sweet as welcoming him inside me.
When I was completely surrounding him, I began to move. At first my movements were slow, but they began to take on a more feverish insistence, and I moved faster and faster, searching for that release just out of reach.
I must have made a sound because he caught my face and looked into my eyes. “What’s the matter, love?”
“Can’t get close enough,” I whispered as I moved.
In one fell swoop he wrapped his arms around me and moved, spinning so I was lying on the couch and he was over me. He did it so fluidly that our bodies never lost contact.
The weight of him pressed me farther into the couch and I wrapped my legs around his waist to pull him even closer. He was in me. Around me. Over me. He was the only thing I could see. He was the only thing I could feel.
It was exactly what I wanted.
He pulled himself out but just as quickly pushed back in, repeating the motion over and over again until the only word I could murmur was his name.
When I thought I couldn’t possibly take anymore and I was surely going to die with need, he pressed his forehead against mine and whispered, “I want you to come with me,” and pushed in deep. So blissfully deep that a tidal wave of pure ecstasy rolled over me. It was so strong my entire body surrendered, going limp and boneless against the couch.
Olly collapsed against me, his chest slick with sweat, as he sucked in lungfuls of air. We didn’t say anything for a long time… The chemistry swirling between us said more than any words ever could. When he finally shifted, removing some of his weight from me, I grabbed on to him, trying to keep him close.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he murmured as he fitted himself between the couch and me, coercing my body to spoon against his, and he wrapped his arm around my waist, securing me firmly beside him.
I turned my head so I was looking up at him. “Olly?”
He made a sound in the back of his throat.
“Everything’s going to be okay, isn’t it?” Even the passion swirling in
side me, the feeling of being safely in his arms, couldn’t keep away all the fear. If anything, those things made the fear worse because I knew how much I had to lose.
I couldn’t lose this. I couldn’t lose him.
But we were up against death and the odds were stacked against us.
He brushed the hair away from my face, his touch so tender that my heart ached anew. “Everything’s going to be fine. I’m not going to let anything take this away from us.”
I nodded, snuggling in even closer. Part of me felt better because I knew he meant what he said. But the other part of me…
The other part of me whispered that Death didn’t care.
Chapter Forty-Five
“Tears - a drop of the clear salty liquid that is secreted by the lachrymal gland of the eye to lubricate the surface between the eyeball and eyelid and to wash away irritants.”
Charming
She was asleep when I slid out from beneath her and went into the bathroom. I flicked on the light and smiled down at the sink. There were bottles of product and hairbrushes scattered everywhere. She was an utter disaster. Clothes all over the floor in her room, her closet looked like it exploded, and her bathroom was clearly no better.
I loved it.
I hoped she never changed.
I looked in the mirror, the first time I actually looked at myself since taking back my body. Frankie never changed, but I sure as hell did.
It was startling to look in the mirror and see someone you didn’t expect to see. Kind of like being out in public and seeing a person you hadn’t seen in a long time. At first glance you don’t recognize them so you do a double take. The second time you look it clicks, and you realize you know who it is.
I knew this face. I knew this body. I was familiar with it. There was a scar on my knee from when I fell off my bike when I was five. I got the blond hair from my grandfather who worked in a factory all his life and brought me a lollipop every time he visited. This was the body I grew up in. I had history here.
And now I had a future here too.
Two arms appeared from behind, wrapping themselves around my waist and hugging tight. Frankie pressed her cheek against my back and let out a small sigh of contentment. “I forgot to mention how much I like that tattoo.”
I turned so I could stare at the black scroll design that stretched across the side of my shoulder. I got it when I turned eighteen.
“I forgot to mention that I like when you don’t wear clothes.”
Her laugh was throaty. “Oh, I think that came up.”
“Want it to come up again?”
“I think you better tell me what’s going on first.”
Reality had a way of getting in the way. “You have any coffee?”
I watched her put on my shirt—and nothing else—and go out to the kitchen to make coffee.
I looked down at the khakis and boxer briefs on the floor. I hated those pants. So I threw on the boxers and went to the living room.
“Do you always hang out in your underwear?” Frankie asked as she was cracking eggs into a large bowl. Coffee was already starting to brew.
“When my only clothes are dorky? Yes.”
She snickered. “I like those suspenders.”
I poured some coffee and sat down at the round table in the small kitchen. “Better than my jeans?”
“I haven’t seen this new body in a pair of jeans.”
I raised an eyebrow over the rim of the mug and looked at her. “Are you saying this body won’t look good in a pair of jeans?”
She smiled slyly. “That remains to be determined.”
I grunted and drank more coffee. She was going to eat those words later.
“So… how bad is it, Olly?” she asked after a few moments of silence.
“Not so bad.”
She gave me a withering look and I shrugged. “He locked me in a room and told me he would let me out the day the time limit on the job runs out. Then he was going to Recall me.”
“How long do you think until he realizes you’re gone?”
“Hopefully a couple months.”
“So what? You’re just going to lurk around Alaska and hope he doesn’t see you?”
“That and kill the Target.”
Her shoulders sagged as she scrambled the eggs over the stove. “You really have to kill her, don’t you?”
“If I want a shot at getting out, yes.”
“Getting out?” She glanced at me. “Like out out?
“Yes.”
She abandoned the spatula to the pan and turned around to look at me. “You’re going to quit being an Escort?”
The look on her face made my insides go hot. “I’m going to try. Don’t get your hopes up. No one’s ever walked away from the Grim Reaper before.”
She squealed and threw herself into my lap and rained kisses over my face. “I can’t believe you’re going to give it all up.”
I caught her chin in my hand. “What I’m walking away from is nothing compared to what I’m walking toward.”
“I love you.”
My heart skipped a beat. Then it skipped some more.
“Say it again.”
“I love you, Oliver.”
If I hadn’t been sure about walking away before, I was now.
“I love you, too.”
Her eyes rounded like she was shocked and then she jumped off my lap. “My eggs!” she cried and ran over to take the pan off the stove.
“That’s what you say to a guy who hasn’t told anyone he loves them in over ninety years? You worry about your eggs?”
She laughed and launched herself at me again. “Well, it’s a good thing you told me before I demonstrated my cooking skills.”
I kissed her nose. “I hear you make some good cupcakes.”
“You don’t eat sugar.”
“Hmmmm. I don’t need sugar. I have you.”
“Olly?” she said. Her smile faded away and she looked at me seriously.
“What?”
“Are you sure? Like, sure about this? You’re going to give up a life of living forever, money, and power.”
“I have enough money to last us both our entire lives and then some. I don’t need power. And living without you isn’t living at all.”
Her eyes softened. “Well, when you put it that way.”
“I need to know what the Reaper said when he came here.”
The softness left her eyes, replaced by wariness.
“It’s okay. I’m going to keep you safe.” I assured her. Even if that was the only thing I did.
“He was looking for the bodies. And a soul?”
I nodded. “I took a soul he had hidden away too.”
“I told him I didn’t know where they were.” She bit her lip and looked at me. “Then he said he was going to start adding women to his collection and he tried to touch me.”
My arms encircled her waist and I pulled her tighter against me. The pain of being touched by him still lingered in my memory, and while he said it wasn’t like that for a person who wasn’t an Escort, I didn’t tend to believe everything he said. If he touched her, if he even so much as thought about killing her again, I was going to find a way to make his life a living hell.
“But Piper grabbed him.” Her eyes filled with unexpected tears. I wasn’t prepared for tears. “I thought she was going to die.”
I pressed her head against my shoulder and brushed my lips over the top of her head. “It’s okay. Piper’s fine.” Which truthfully shocked the shit out of me. She had to be the first person ever that didn’t keel over from coming into contact with G.R.
“She’s the only family I have.” She glanced up. “Well, I guess I have you now too.”
Warmth spread throughout my chest. “Yeah. Yeah, you have me now too.”
“My parents live on the other side of the state. We don’t talk. I wasn’t the kind of daughter they wanted and they weren’t happy when I refused to change. Piper doesn’t have any family eith
er. It’s just us.”
“Shhh,” I told her, wanting the tears to stop. I could feel them falling onto my chest and sliding down my skin.
“You should have seen the Reaper’s face, Olly. He was shocked. Just as shocked as we were. I don’t think something like that ever happened to him before.” She sniffled. “He looked at Piper… like she was some kind of miracle.”
A shiver ran up her spine and she shook in my lap. I stroked her hair and made her a promise. “I won’t let anything happen to Piper, either.”
She nodded against me, the words actually seeming to make her feel better. It amazed me how just months ago I was completely alone and now here I was vowing to take care of these women. It didn’t work out so well the first time I tried to take responsibility for two women. My sister paid the ultimate price. And the guilt from that would haunt me for the rest of my life. I wasn’t going to make those mistakes again. This time was going to be different. This time we were all going to walk away with our lives.
Frankie’s tears turned to hiccups as I held her, rubbing her back while all the coffee went cold before we could drink it.
And as she quieted, I began to plan.
Chapter Forty-Six
“Money - assets and property considered in terms of monetary value; wealth.”
Frankie
Just as suspected, I got fired from my job. I called in to tell them I was better and coming back and the witch cackled and told me not to bother.
I couldn’t really say I was disappointed. In fact, I kind of felt relieved. Okay, not kind of. Totally. I was surprised by how much relief I actually felt. I used to joke that place was sucking away my soul, but now that I didn’t have to go back, I realized it hadn’t really been a joke.
Lost in thought, I wandered over to the window, looking down to the street. Olly’s Porsche was still sitting at the curb where he left it before we went to Los Angeles. He wasn’t going to be able to drive it around for a while; the expensive car wasn’t exactly made for blending in, and since he was supposed to be locked up in a room without a body, taking it for a spin wasn’t on the to-do list.
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