Deadly Fear (Deadly #1)(68)

Her face seemed to pale in the moonlight. “What are you talking about? What did Hyde say?”

“That we can f*ck, but I can’t lose control.” Control? Yeah, what was that? He slammed his fist into the building behind her. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Rage. Pain.

For her.

Christ, her. “Why?” he snarled.

Her eyes were so wide. So deep. They looked black in the moonlight, but they were blue. Such a beautiful blue. That’s right, because he’d had a type and Romeo liked—

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you need to calm down.”

He kissed her. Crushed his mouth to hers and just took.

Because nothing was going to change between them. He still wanted her more than breath. It didn’t matter what had come before or what would come after him. He still wanted her.

Always.

At first, she seemed to freeze beneath his touch. No, no, just—

Then she kissed him back with a fury to match his. Her lips sucked his tongue. She tasted. She took. Her hips rocked against his. His cock was up, swollen and ready, for her.

Monica.

His hands closed over her shoulders. Squeezed. Held tight.

How many times had he seen her roll her shoulders? When she was working a case, when she was pressured at the Academy—

Her shirt had a long, V-necked collar, one that dipped to reveal sweet cleavage. His fingers slipped under the collar, found her soft skin.

His mouth hardened on hers. All these years.

His fingers curved around her right shoulder, pushed the fabric down, yanked it. Heard it rip.

Her mouth tore from his. “Luke, you can’t—”

He’d bared her shoulder. Creamy skin. Soft flesh. Choking back the lust, he spun her around and saw the mark on her right shoulder blade.

Just enough light to see. The raised skin. White. An old scar. In the rough shape of a rose.

The mark of the Romeo Killer. The same f*cking rose that had been in that godforsaken cabin.

His hands were shaking. He was shaking, about to splinter apart. He touched the mark—no, not a mark, a brand—because Romeo had used a homemade brand on his girls. Burned their flesh as they screamed.

As she’d screamed.

“Baby…” His head fell toward her. His lips hovered over the mark. He’d touched the brand in the darkness before. Skimmed his fingers right over it and never realized.

She whirled around and shoved him back a good two feet. “Get your hands off me!” A voice he’d never heard from her. No control. Just fury.

He shook his head and stepped toward her, closing that distance. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Her chin came up fast. “Tell you what? That I have a scar on my back? Big deal, you’ve got—”

Oh, she wasn’t going to bullshit him. Not anymore. “That’s Romeo’s mark.” That bit hadn’t ever made it to the press. The cops and agents had held the detail about the branding out of the briefings to the media. They always held something back in a case like that, something to try and trip up the killer later.

Luke had learned about the brand at Quantico. A profiler, Dr. Mark Brown, had been doing a talk on serials for the Atlanta office.

He’d said some of those killers liked to collect souvenirs from their kills. They’d take out the tokens and relive the murders, over and over.

But some serials preferred to mark their prey. A way of forever claiming the victims.

“Romeo believed he owned his victims. Their bodies were his to do with what he wanted. He cut them, he carved them, but first, he marked them with a brand. A rose on their flesh, a gift from their lover.”

“Get away from me,” Monica told him, her voice shaking.

But he didn’t move back an inch. “That newspaper clipping—the one this freak left—it was about you, wasn’t it?” Sole survivor. Oh, Jesus, how had she survived? He knew what Romeo had done to his girls. The torture that would last for days. “I thought it was about the town, but it was about you.”

She exhaled on a hard breath. “I’m not talking to you here, I’m not—”

“You’ve never f*cking talked to me!” Too loud, he knew it, but he couldn’t help it. “This bastard out there knew. He’s been using this against you all this time.” What scares you? The bastard had been tormenting her. “Monica, he’s coming for you! You needed to tell me. Shit, this is your life!”

Her lips seemed to tremble. “You’re wrong, this mark isn’t what you think.”

“You’ve got his brand.” And he remembered Romeo’s type: Young girls between fifteen and seventeen, dark hair, blue eyes.

Monica. Years ago, she would have been Romeo’s perfect prey. “You were the girl who got away from Romeo.” The girl he’d kept with him for months. While he slaughtered the others.

A tear slid down her cheek.

Fuck. Luke yanked her into his arms, ignoring the push of her hands, and held her close.

But her tears were wetting his shirt, and her body shuddered against him. The unbreakable, broken.

She froze against him. Not fighting now, but not holding him. “I didn’t want you to know,” she whispered. “Not you.”

He raised his head. She wasn’t looking at him. He caught her chin and forced her head back so she had to see him. “You should have told me years ago.”