In For the Kill (McClouds & Friends #11)(32)

What he wanted, she did not have to give. Tension tightened, like a knot of wet rope in her throat. This was so awful. No way to fix it.

“So did it work?” There was a note of belligerence in his voice.

An obvious trap, but she had to walk into it. “Did what work?”

“Banging me. Is it out of your system? Do you feel better now?”

Hurt twisted in her belly, like a claw. “Fuck you, Sam.”

“Ah! That’s my girl! Don’t let anyone inside the superhero armor, Sveti. Don’t get distracted from saving the world. Keep yourself pure.”

“Please, Sam. Stop,” she said. “This is a bad way to end it.”

“There were a lot of alternative endings,” he said. “You didn’t choose any of them. This is all that’s left on the table.”

That was all she could stand. She opened the door. “Good-bye.”

She didn’t dare run, not in the dark, and in those heels. Thank God there was no one in the house to see her come slinking home in an evening gown. Not that they would judge. On the contrary, they would probably congratulate her and tell her it was about f*cking time.

Even so, she preferred to huddle alone and lick her wounds.

She walked on the balls of her feet onto the porch, clutching the banister. Her thighs were sticky, her hip joints ached. Her private parts felt liquid and hot and sore. At least she was well and truly deflowered. She could cross that off her list of things to feel inadequate about—and replace it with a new list of stressors. Big ones.

She was going to pay for this self-indulgence. She would be viciously sleep deprived for God only knew how long, and that was the best-case scenario, if the nightmares were all she had to deal with.

The worst-case scenario saw her heavily medicated, unable to function out in the world. The conference, London, her new job, her amazing opportunity. She might have compromised that.

And to top it all off, there was the stone-cold certainty that nothing in her future sex life, whomever it might be with, could ever measure up to last night’s intensity. She was dead sure of that.

She fought to get the key into the lock. The automatic porch light had not flicked on. Maybe the bulb was burned out. In any case, it was light enough to see, more or less. She finally got inside, closed the door, and reached for the hall light.

Air moved. She whirled, saw a blur—

Wet cloth clamped over her face as she was inhaling to scream.

She was jerked into a bone-crushing, smothering grip. She kicked, connected, heard a muffled grunt. Her wrist was twisted, brutally hard. She fought not to inhale again, but her arms were trapped, her eyes blurred from drug fumes. Her lungs began to heave. Her belly rolled and flopped as her blood pressure plummeted.

“Sweet dreams,” crooned a rasping voice, as she fell into darkness.





CHAPTER 7

Sam’s wrist would not turn to twist the key in the ignition. His fingers would not tighten around the gearshift to take the car out of park. He was paralyzed, watching through the rearview window as Sveti picked her halting way up the porch, fumbling with her key.

His jacket hung down on her to midthigh. He saw that detail by the orange glow of the streetlight that filtered in through the trees.

Why was there no porch light? He wanted to have a sharp talk about security with dreadlocked extreme sports dude. Being a giddy newlywed was no excuse for a landlord to get sloppy when he had tenants to protect.

The door opened to darkness, which he also disliked. Light should spill out when a door was opened for her. The door shut. Gone. Home safe. His cue to go. But he waited for the light go on in her apartment. He knew which would flick on first, which second. He knew her path through her apartment, how her slim shadow wavered against the curtains. Sick, pining, pathetic bastard that he was.

Her light did not turn on. He drummed his fingers against the steering column. Maybe she just felt like sulking in the dark. He did it himself often enough. Hell, he was doing it right now.

But Sveti disliked darkness. Her lights were always on. Someone had told him that was because of the organ trafficking ordeal, which had involved a lot of darkness. He should have walked her to her door, but he probably would have ended up tossing her skirt up and f*cking her again, on whatever flat surface presented itself first.

The night’s events had not taken the edge off of his sexual obsession. It had inflamed the problem into monstrous proportions.

Enough. She was home, choices made, ultimatums laid down. Time to go home, burn those sheets, and get on with whatever his life was going to be now. But his evil twin jerked the steering wheel around at the corner and sent him circling around the block. They said addictive substances eroded the brain’s capacity for impulse control. Sveti being his drug of choice, it followed that a night of boning her would have rendered his brain into slop. No longer capable of executive decisions. He was devolving. Snarling, rattling the bars of his cage.

He cut the lights and jerked to a stop before turning the last corner, as soon as he had a sight line to the house. He turned off the engine and stared at that unlit bay window like a lovesick teenager, scrabbling for his final crumb. Come on, Sveti. Turn that sucker on.

He wasn’t going to be able to leave until he saw that light.

A flicker of movement drew his eye. Two men came out the front door, carrying a cardboard box. Something large, like a dishwasher. Weird time, for a pick-up. They hoisted the thing up into the back of a white van. It was early. Too early. Maybe the landlord was—