Dabney > Books: read (904) ×

“Now what are we going to do with you?” he asked with a hint of humor in his voice.

Focus, she told herself. You’re a hooker who doesn’t know he’s security. She shrugged her shoulders.

He spread his legs open a little. “Come here.”

“You wanna play?” she asked, heart racing. It had been such a long since she’d been around a guy like this. He didn’t add up as a nerd. He didn’t add up as a member of Borgola’s security team. He didn’t make sense to her in a lot of ways. But she wanted him; that one fact cut through everything.

“I want you to come here,” he said.

She stepped in close. Her girls would grab her if she gave the signal, but she still couldn’t tell if his interest was professional or sexual. A real poker player, this guy.

He hooked a finger over the top of her bodice and pulled her even closer, and she allowed it. His skin felt electric near hers.

“There’re a lot of bad girls at this shindig,” he said, lips too close, filling her with need. But it was his eyes she worried about. He was seeing too much.

“I don’t need no muthafuckin’ memo to tell me there’s bad girls here,” she replied, throwing off her perfect grammar for the role she was playing.

He scrutinized her more. The intense intelligence that radiated off him scared her.

She looked away from his eyes, but that left her gazing at his straight, strong nose, and then his lips. Oh, yeah, his lips.

She knew that he’d kiss her moments before he did it, as though the kiss came from outside of them, pre-ordained by the universe. Wild energy danced in her chest as he drew in; at the last moment, he paused, letting her feel his heat. Then he closed his lips over hers.

His kiss was light and heavy at the same time, like summer fog, rich with mysterious magic. There, then gone.

Evidence suggested they were from Southeast Asia or possibly former Soviet states; he didn’t have that piece of the puzzle yet. One thing he did know: they had five days until they landed, and then they’d be lost. Borgola’s snuff films—violent, disturbing sex films that always ended in death—seemed to be filmed in trucks and shipping containers, mobile studios that could be anywhere.

Cole had originally been planted undercover in the team to develop intelligence on a different operation of Borgola’s, sex slavery out of Myanmar. He’d worked out the details pretty quickly. And then he’d uncovered the snuff film operations. He hadn’t found direct evidence of the films; rather, he’d discerned the operation’s presence via his equations, like a ghost limb. He’d asked Dax to let him stay on and bring it down. Dax was all for it.

Associates sometimes got planted in deep cover for years doing unthinkable little things and sometimes unthinkable big things to keep their credibility. They helped with the small plots and sabotaged the big plots and leaked information and executed people when they had to. Officially, no governments knew about them; unofficially, they were central to the international fight against crime.

“Seriously, can you at least write me notes? Send me emails? I don’t see how this is going to work otherwise.”  

She had a point. He didn’t see how it was going to work, either. How to interview Judah Pratt with Katie as a sidekick and manage not to stutter?  

He’d have to improvise.  

He took his phone out of his pocket and tapped out a text message. Shall we go in?  

Katie’s phone chirped. She checked out the screen. “Very funny.”  

She stomped across the gravel lot toward the building’s entrance, leaving him to trail along behind her, trying to keep his eyes off her ass.

This was what he’d wanted to tell her earlier in the room. This.  

Her energy moved into him where they touched, thighs and mouths and his palm on her bare skin, the other wrapped around the nape of her neck. The pleasure of smelling her, touching her, unhitched something essential he kept reined in, and he felt the sudden rush of it, the terrible freedom of losing control—  

And that made him stop.  

...When he pulled away, she made a sound, a sort of helpless squeak that said she wanted to continue, and hearing it called up a desperate ache in his chest that he immediately locked down.  

Appalling, what she did to him. He wanted her. Right here, right now, with that black dress bunched up around her thighs. He wanted her anywhere, everywhere, any way he could get her.

“What do you read those books for?”  

“Same reason anyone does, I guess.”  

“Are they your ffantasies?”

“Some of them,” she said. “Not all.”  

His hands on the steering wheel drew her eyes. He had such big hands. His nails were blunt and short and unpretty. Rough hands. Hands that had gathered her close and held her in place when he took that kiss.  

“Have you ever been with a man who d-did those things to you?” His voice had turned husky and dark. “Talked dirty to you? Spanked you? Tied you up and sspent hours figuring out how many ways he could make you c-come with his tongue?”  

“No.” She put as much scorn into the word as she could manage. As if scorn could protect her from the way he was turning her on. Or prevent him from knowing he was doing it.  

It was no use. Sean turned to look at her, and he smiled the wickedest smile she’d ever seen. A smile that said he knew exactly what he was doing, and he’d known all along. “Sounds like the guys you’ve been with have been reading all the wrong books.”

Thirty minutes later, Cat still could not catch her breath. Jamie had made the preposterous statement with utmost calm, his face quiet, his gaze steady on hers. As if he’d said “I need a new pair of boots.”

An heir.

Her skin burned with the very word.

It was not the thought of children that unsettled her. Not even the knowledge of how children were created.

It was the memories. Vivid flashes of heat that thrummed under her skin. Jamie in her bed. The shock of his mouth everywhere. His skin impossibly smooth against hers. The places she craved him. Jamie filling her, again and again, the madness between them. Her unimaginable pleasure.

Five years of a cold bed and she had not forgotten a thing.

Over six feet in height and bulging with muscles that gave her the impression he could tear her limb from limb, he emerged through a patch of tall shrubbery, flashing crazy, piercing blue-gray eyes. Unkempt brown hair hung to his shoulders and a scraggly beard covered the bottom half of his face, not quite obscuring the angry scar that slashed its way down one cheek.

But suddenly Duke couldn’t quite remember what he used to think about before Anna had come tripping her way into his little world in the woods here. What had filled his head then?

He thought back and found the answers. Mostly bad stuff. Anger. Painful memories. Helplessness. Emptiness. And he’d calmed himself by trying his damnedest to focus on anything else. Birds in the trees. Fishing. The smell of honeysuckle. One day he’d even taken a honeysuckle blossom and popped the liquid inside into his mouth the way his grandmother had taught him when he was little, the sweet-tasting burst on his tongue taking him back to a time and place when he’d felt loved, and safe. But it had only been a moment. One moment in time in the midst of what otherwise was mostly dark, black, ugly.

Until Anna had come along and filled his head with something better. Even when he’d been annoyed by her, she’d been a hell of a lot more pleasant to think about than other things. But maybe he could only admit that to himself now that some time had passed.

He thought about what to do now that it was dark out. He’d mostly found it easy to go to bed early here, and to rise with the sun—but he wasn’t sleepy yet.

And the truth was—he knew what he wanted to do. What he was itching to do.

The truth was—every time he’d seen her since they’d had sex on her couch and then again in her bed, it had been all he could do not to grab her and kiss her and hope it would happen again.

But he hadn’t. For all the reasons he’d just thought through. She was his best friend’s sister. He didn’t need this kind of complication in his life, especially right now. And even if she’d seemed totally into him when they were doing it—hell, she’d even started it—he still wasn’t sure what that meant, what she saw in him, or how she viewed him. And frankly, he still wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. He knew he was no good for her, not in any way that went beyond sex—surely she knew it, too.

So given all those good reasons for him to just head back to the cabin and call it a day, it was beyond his understanding when his feet began to lead him through the woods toward the big Victorian house.

Something strong and hard went around my waist, stopping my free fall. My bag hit the floor, spilling overpriced books and pens across the shiny floor. My pens! My glorious pens rolled everywhere. A second later I was pressed against the wall.

The wall was strangely warm.

The wall chuckled.

“Whoa,” a deep voice said. “You okay, sweetheart?”

The wall was so not a wall. It was a guy. My heart stopped and for a frightening second, pressure clamped down on my chest and I couldn’t move or think. I was thrown back five years. Stuck. Couldn’t move. Air punched from my lungs in a painful rush as tingles spread up the back of my neck. Every muscle locked up.

“Hey,” the voice softened, edged with concern. “Are you okay?”

I forced myself to take a deep breath—to just breathe. I needed to breathe. Air in. Air out. I had practiced this over and over again for five years. I wasn’t fourteen anymore. I wasn’t there. I was here, halfway across the country.

Two fingers pressed under my chin, forcing my head up. Startling, deep blue eyes framed with thick, black lashes fixed on mine. A blue so vibrant and electric, and such a stark contrast against the black pupils, I wondered if they were real.

And then it hit me.

A guy was holding me. A guy had never held me. I didn’t count that one time, because that time didn’t count for shit, and I was pressed against him, thigh to thigh, my chest to his. Like we were dancing. My senses fried as I inhaled the light scent of cologne. Wow. It smelled good and expensive, like his…

Anger suddenly rushed through me, a sweet and familiar thing, pushing away the old panic and confusion. I latched onto it desperately and found my voice. “Let. Go. Of. Me.”

“Cam, what are you doing? It’s eight in the morning.”

“Thanks for the update on the time.” He headed straight for my kitchen. “It’s one thing I’ve never been able to master: the telling of time.”

I frowned as I padded after him. “Why are you here?”

“Making breakfast.”

“You can’t do that in your own kitchen?” I ask, scrubbing at my eyes. After the astronomy assignment and the phone call, he was the last person I wanted to see at a buttcrack time in the morning.

“My kitchen isn’t as exciting as yours.” He put his stuff on the counter and faced me. His hair was damp and curlier than normal. How was it possible for him to look so good when it was obvious he’d just rolled out of bed and showered? There wasn’t even a dusting of morning scruff on his smooth cheeks. And he made sweats and a plain old tee shirt look damn good. “And Ollie is passed out on the living room floor.”

“On the floor?”

“Yep. Face down, snoring and drooling a little. It’s not an appetizing atmosphere.”

“Well, neither is my apartment.” He needed to go. He had no business being here.

Cam leaned against my counter, folding his arms. “Oh, I don’t know about that…” His gaze moved from the top of my disheveled head and all the way down to the tips of my curled toes. It was like a physical touch, causing my breath to catch. “Your kitchen, right this second, is very appetizing.”

A flush crawled across my cheeks. “I’m not going out with you, Cam.”

“I didn’t ask you at this moment, now did I?” One side of his lips curved up. “But you will eventually.”

My eyes narrowed. “You’re delusional.”

“I’m determined.”

“More like annoying.”

“Most would say amazing.”

I rolled my eyes. “Only in your head.”

‘I do wish you would leave the servants alone,’ said Lydia, Countess of BenRuin, graciously accepting a cup of tea from the footman. She and Kit sat in the upstairs parlour, squares of sunlight fat and warm on the carpet. ‘It makes them so uncomfortable.’

And your house and your friends and this fine dress make me uncomfortable. ‘Yes, my lady.’

Lydia, of the white-blonde hair and perfect figure, looked at Kit like she was a rat who had crept in and sat down for tea. Not scared of rats, Lydia, just deeply disdainful. ‘You only need to call me that in public,’ she said. ‘Lydia will do in private. I grow tired of telling you.’

‘Of course. Lydia.’

‘I suppose “sister” would be too much to manage.’

Kit resisted the urge to throw her hands up at her – a dreadful, base gesture. ‘We’ve not had cause to call each other sister these thirteen years, but the habit could be learned, if you wish it.’

Something interrupted Lydia’s smooth expression, then was gone. ‘Just a passing fancy,’ she said, her vowels as round as a line of marbles. Bored marbles. ‘Is the tea not to your taste? Fetch a new pot,’ she said to the footman. ‘And be sure it is hot when it arrives.’

You wouldn’t know by listening to them, Kit thought, that she was older than Lydia by seven years. The instant you laid eyes on them you’d not be confused, though. The fresh, fair-skinned Countess and her dark hobgoblin sister. Although perhaps she was too tall and strong for a hobgoblin. Perhaps the child of a hobgoblin and a tree.

The Earl fell to his knees before her sister, and though standing he was too large, too much for Kit, seeing him brought so low was awful.

‘I almost killed a man today,’ he said, his hands reaching for Lydia and finding no place they would be welcome. ‘I swear to you, I would have put my knife in his throat. Do not drive me further than this.’

Kit looked at her rough hands. Here was the part that was not so easy. She had given everything so that Lydia could marry well.

Lord BenRuin stood, as though he could no longer bear to be near his wife. ‘Do not see him again,’ he said. ‘I beg of you, do not see him again.’

…he was not engaged at all. He did not feel passion. His expression was calculated. His smiles, his voice, were deliberate. He used his body with as much dispassionate skill as the carpenter at Millcross used his lathe. He pushed her further back still, and then he leaned forward and licked her breasts, first one then the other. Methodical, contained.

…she was the most magnificent woman Kit had ever seen. She wore the rigid dress of the previous generation, but instead of looking outdated she made you long for the gorgeous, riotous colours of another age. Yellow poppies burst across the wine-red silk that bound her torso, chest and shoulders. They trailed down the skirts that waterfalled under their modest table. She was tightly corseted, her trim figure accentuated by the flare of small hoops beneath her skirts. She looked out the window, offering Kit her profile – the fine, straight nose, the smiling, expressive lips and heavy eyes. She wore a black wig, one thick coil falling over her shoulder on to the white linen tucked around her neck.

The woman turned away from the window and the Duke’s difficult blue eyes laughed out of her face.

She heard voices, … and saw things that weren’t there, and screamed of ghosts and cruel talons ripping into her skull.

He’d suspected, early on, that the illness, like his mother’s years earlier, had simply been the beginning of the end.

In January, when the headaches began, his suspicions were confirmed. As the weeks passed, the attacks grew increasingly vicious, as hers had done.

The night before last, he’d wanted to bash his head against the wall.

. . . pain . . . tearing at my skull . . . couldn’t see straight . . . couldn’t think.

He understood now, fully, what his mother had meant. Even so, he would have borne the pain, would not have sent for Kneebones yesterday morning, if not for the shimmering wraith he’d seen. Then Dorian had realized something must be done—before the faint visual illusions blossomed into full-blown phantasms, as they had for his mother, and drove him to violence, as they had done her.

“I do need the money, to build a hospital,” she said. “I have definite ideas about how it should be constructed as well as the principles according to which it must be run. In order to achieve my goals—without negotiation or compromise—I require not only substantial funds, but influence. As Countess of Rawnsley, I should have both. As your widow, I should be able to act independently. Since you are the last of the males of your family, I should have to answer to no one.”