Standing in the Shadows (McClouds & Friends #2)(58)

She covered up her shiver at the mention of Victor's name with a rippling laugh. "Oh, I humored him."

"Did you, my beautiful whore? How? Tell me everything."

She gathered her ragged acting skills together. She'd never felt so alive as during that brief time she had spent in Victor Lazar's bed. He had seen past all her tricks and accepted her for what she was.

And he had wanted her, too, with a searing passion that had shocked emotions to life inside her that she had thought were safely dead. One of the few things she absolutely could not bear would be for her current employer to paw through her memories of Victor.

But then again—her anger and her fear reminded her of why she was doing this in the first place. That was very good. That helped.

"There's not much to tell," she said lightly. "He was more dull and straightforward in bed than one would have thought, to know him. Far less fascinating and challenging than you, for instance."

He kissed her, his long tongue thrusting like a snake into her mouth, and sank his sharp teeth into her lower lip, holding it fast. They sank deeper, almost breaking skin. She went rigid with terror.

He laughed, and released her. "I think you are lying to me."

She rolled onto her back and shook her head. Smiling, smiling, smiling. Like a dog who showed its throat to the head of the pack in hopes of not being ripped to shreds. "I wish that I were," she said. "You know how I hate to be bored. I would make up some kinky stories for you if I didn't know that you prefer the truth, boss. Even if it's less interesting than a juicy lie."

She looked directly into his eyes, projecting with all her considerable strength. Warm, glowing. Oh, so disarmingly sincere.

He stroked her cheek, nodded and smiled. He bought it.

She was so relieved, she had to do something with the rush of emotion, so she rolled up onto her elbow and kissed him, trailing her fingers down the front of his wiry, cruelly strong body. She found him already hard. Good. It was easier for her to cover while f*cking than while talking. Men were so much more stupid when they were f*cking. Her hand tightened, moving in a swirling, expert caress.

He murmured with pleasure. "What a mysterious creature you are, Tamara," he said. "Intriguing. Full of secrets."

"Not to you," she assured him.

"So strong and fearless. A person's greatest strengths and her greatest weaknesses are one and the same, did you know that?"

"Are they really?" She shimmied down his body and replaced her hand with her skillful mouth.

"Yes. I will exploit both your strength and your weakness."

He was quiet for a few minutes, his fingernails digging painfully into her scalp as she did her best to distract him from this dangerous train of thought. She was skillful enough to do it on total autopilot, and lucky for her, because she couldn't control her thoughts. Her thoughts were thinking her. Crazy thoughts, out of place in this room, with this deadly man. Thoughts of love, of all things. She wondered, inside that barricaded part of herself, if what she had felt for Victor was love. She would kill to avenge him. If that wasn't love, what was?

It didn't matter. It was closer to love than she had ever hoped or wished to come. It had been scary. It had hurt. It had made her feel weak and vulnerable, and then he had died, at Novak's hand. She had been so angry, she'd wanted to lob a nuclear bomb at someone.

A woman like her could not afford to have a heart. It could get her killed, and she still wanted to live. She was not yet that far gone.

All too soon he tired of her efforts. He wrenched her head away from his groin. His eyes were lit up with a phosphorescent glow, a look that always portended danger. "I miss him from time to time, you know."

She wiped her mouth, blinked innocently. "Who?"

"Victor. It's sad, to lose a friend. I have so few, the world being what it is. But he crossed the line, Tamara. He crossed me."

She smiled demurely, still pumping his stiff penis with her hands. "And when have I ever crossed you, boss?"

He stroked her cheek with the stubs of his fingers. A surreal parody of tenderness. "Never, I hope."

He wrenched her up by the hair and flung her facedown onto the bed. He shoved her legs open and drove inside her, so hard and so suddenly that she slid up the bed and hit her head against the headboard before she had a chance to brace herself. She saw stars, put her hand out to cushion her head, and thought about killing him.

Usually, it helped. This time it only maddened her. His defenses were so smooth and impenetrable. She was seldom alone with him, only when she was naked in bed, and he was far more physically powerful than she. He always had whoever served him sip his drinks and taste his food before eating. He was always armed. He never slept. Never, as if he had a supernatural font of energy. Like a perpetual coke high, but he never touched drugs. Which was too bad. She was good with drugs. It would have been so much easier to kill him that way.

His arm snaked around in front of her neck, arching it back and cutting off her air. She gasped, hovering on the brink of fainting.

"So fearless," he crooned, his body pounding into hers. "Never cross me, Tamara. I would be so hurt."

"Never," she choked out. "Never."



* * *





Chapter Eleven





Erin's dream was a snarl of erotic images, a volatile mix of pleasure and danger and painful longing. Male voices merged with it, and the click of the door closing pulled her to wakefulness.