In For the Kill (McClouds & Friends #11)(56)

The sudden relief from the tightness was weird, unsettling. She didn’t know herself without it. She didn’t recognize the sensations in this unknown girl’s body at all. She felt lost. Floating in no-man’s land.

Sam was halfway down her second leg before she could gather her wits to speak. “You’re getting totally soaked,” she told him.

“A small price to pay. I give myself up to your service. Mistress.”

She snorted. “Mistress, my ass. You’re a dominating alpha male to the very core of your being, Sam Petrie. Pretend all you want, but you can’t fool me. Not now that we’ve . . . made love.”

His brow tilted up. “Say ‘had sex.’ You’ll feel more in control. ‘Fucked’ would be even better, if you could cough it out.”

She tugged her foot away, stung. “Ouch,” she murmured.

Sam stuck his hand into the water and seized her foot again. “At least the sex works. You did fine, in spite of my dominating alpha vibe. I’ve never seen a girl come so hard.” Sam soaked his sleeve up to the shoulder as he slid his hand up her inner thigh and cupped her muff. Her legs floated apart to give him better access. He slid his finger inside.

She sucked in air. “What are you doing?” she asked inanely.

“Washing your *.” His voice was silky. “You’re full of my come. It’s the least I can do. Mistress.”

She laughed, and he scooped his arm behind her shoulder and jerked her into a fierce kiss, accompanied by a huge slosh of soapy water. His tongue plunged, his hand thrust deeply, hitting spots inside her that made a little sun come out in her body. Shining so bright.

“Would the sex-slave scenario work better if I cleaned you with my tongue?” he asked. “Because I’m all over that idea.”

The words alone detonated her.

The marvelous ripples pulsed and throbbed through her inner universe, dissolving her into liquid light. She clung to the ineffable sweetness, but she felt it start to fade before she opened her eyes. A sad, empty pull, deep inside. As if something was draining away.

Sam looked at her keenly and frowned. “Did that feel good?”

“You know it did,” she said.

“Then why the look?”

He had no right to read her mind so easily. “What look?”

“The look that says something sucks.”

She shook her head. No point in lying. He’d see right through it.

“I don’t feel strong, when we make lo—have sex,” she amended. “It makes me feel . . . soft. Melted out of shape. Scared. And . . . sad.”

He looked perplexed. “So? Scared and sad, those we’ll work on. But melted, soft? Since when are those bad things to feel?”

“It’s dangerous,” she said. “It makes me feel weak. Powerless.”

He was silent for a moment. He drew his hand slowly out of her body and stood up, dripping hot, sudsy water down his jeans.

“I didn’t mean to insult you,” she said miserably. God, this was a minefield, and she couldn’t even lie her way out of it. Not with him.

“I’m not insulted. I’m confused,” he said. “Sex games are for making you hot, making you wet. What the f*ck’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, I guess,” she whispered.

Except that her subconscious mind would punish her for giving in to it by lobbing grenades at her. How to explain something so weird?

“I think you’re incredible,” he said. “I still can’t believe you let me get this close to you. All I want is to please you. Where in all this did I make you feel powerless? Because I am seriously missing something.”

It sucked, hurting him because of that sick feeling in her belly that she could neither control nor hide. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Feeling soft or melted is not bad,” Sam said. “That’s how it feels when the sex is good. You know how good it is by the extent to which it destroys you. Look at me, Sveti. Behold, a broken man.”

“I never said that the feelings were bad,” she hedged. “Just that they were . . . dangerous. For me, at least.”

“They wouldn’t be if you trusted me,” he said. “I’ll give you some space. Sounds like you need it.” He walked out and shut the door.

Sveti lay in the tub and listened to the hollow plop of water dripping from the faucet.

The sound was lonesome and desolate to her ears.



Sam stretched out on the couch, watching the sunset. It was the only spot in the room out of sight of the bed nook. Sveti needed to be alone, but he was not willing to go downstairs to be verbally tased by Tam Steele. Nor was he leaving this house without Sveti. The minute he turned his back, she’d bolt. He was sure of it.

He amused himself by poring over the poetry written on her mother’s photo. They’d had a bad moment when he’d insisted on taking the picture out of its frame again. She had a right to be twitchy, after seeing him take kitchen shears to the picture of her dad.

He’d won that fight, at some cost, and Sveti was pissed with him now. She’d made up the bed and dozed off in it, with her back to him.

He combed through the fragments, using Sveti’s tablet to research each one. First Peter Rodionov, “Darkness from that ragged hole/pulls like a prisoner’s shackling chain/drawing me into Hell’s blind realm.” Then Ruslan Lebedev, “Oh Orpheus, do not turn your head/Love follows only the flame of utter faith.” Then Jean-Michel Laurent, “I am swathed in the breathless hush of night/caressed by fluttering wings of ragged and disreputable bats.” Then Esther Rafael, “Bear witness to this bowl of bones, this yellowed snarl of sticks and twigs.” And finally, Vladimir Lukyenov, “Come, shuffling souls, in rank and file/through the tall, implacable door/to the echoing vault where Death awaits.”