Reaper's Stand(71)

“Stop! You have to stop it!”

He stopped, sliding up to cover me with his body, holding my hands prisoner on either side of my head.

“Now give me a kiss and let me know you’re happy to see me,” he said. “You wanna talk about other women, we can do that tomorrow. Right now’s about you and me.”

I lifted my head and met his lips. Despite the tickling and playing, this wasn’t a teasing kiss. It was hard and fast, nipping and dueling until I felt faint from desire.

Or maybe that was lack of air?

He pulled away, and we both gasped.

“Now. What would you like me to do?”

“Um, you could …” I trailed off, squirming. I still wasn’t so great at the explicit talk in front of him. Why I felt so inhibited I couldn’t imagine. I’d always assumed that I’d have things figured out by my thirties. Not even close.

“What did you say? I don’t understand,” he asked. I couldn’t see his smirk in the darkness, but I knew it had to be there.

“You could go down on me,” I said, the sentence ending on a squeak. “I think I need more practice talking about sex. It feels really weird.”

“Yeah, sort of picked up on that,” he whispered into my ear, nuzzling at it. “Kinda hot when you get all embarrassed.”

“I’m not embarrassed,” I insisted. “I just don’t have a potty mouth.”

He stilled.

“Did you seriously just use the phrase ‘potty mouth’?”

I giggled. “I think I did.”

“Okay, let’s try this again. Tell me what you want me to do.”

“Will you suck my clit, Reese?”

“Why, yes, London. I’d be happy to suck your clit for you.”

“Gracious of you,” I muttered, but at least he was moving back down my body. His fingers found my folds again, and then his mouth caught me, hot and wet and completely amazing as he attacked my most sensitive place.

Within minutes I was moaning and squirming under him. When he started thrusting two fingers inside me, sliding up and along my inner wall, I lost the power of speech. Fortunately that didn’t matter, because I didn’t need words to scream when I blew apart into a thousand pieces.

I also didn’t need words to express my approval when he pushed into me hard and fast a minute later. Instead I wrapped my arms and legs around him, savoring the feel of him deep down inside because it was beautiful.

He was beautiful.

And he was wrong about using dirty words, too, because this wasn’t something dirty and it wasn’t f*cking.

We were making love.

Under the circumstances, I’d rather f*ck. The only thing worse than destroying the man you care about is destroying him after he makes heartbreakingly beautiful love to you.

I was still going to do it, though.

I didn’t have a choice.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN


“It’s not good enough,” the man whispered in my ear. “I told you to find me something or I’d cut off another piece of her. Did you think I was joking?”

No. I really, really didn’t think he was joking.

I don’t know which grip was tighter—my hand holding the phone or the one holding the steering wheel. Thankfully I’d been driving when he called, which was the only time I’d gotten any privacy since Saturday. Now it was Monday and Reese’s minion, Puck, was following me everywhere in the name of “extra security.” Fortunately, when I’d very politely told Reese that the minivan was off-limits, Puck quickly volunteered to ride his bike instead.

I could’ve cried with relief.

Puck scared the hell out of me. I knew he was young—probably only nineteen or twenty—but he had the eyes of a killer and that scar across his face wasn’t exactly reassuring. For once I was happy to have Painter around, because Puck was also weirdly sexy and I suspected Melanie would’ve fallen for him in a heartbeat if she weren’t already sighing heavily every time she saw Painter.

God, when had he become the lesser evil?

“There’s nothing else for me to find,” I said to the man on the phone, willing him to believe me. “I’ve looked everywhere I can. There’s always a prospect with me, or Reese. Even at work they follow me.”

“Why?” he asked. “Have you given yourself away? If that’s the case, you aren’t useful to me anymore and neither is this little teenage shit. Might as well kill her now.”

Oh God oh God oh God oh …

“No, please,” I whispered. “I’ll figure something out. There has to be a way.”

“One more day,” he said. “Then it’s over. Want to talk to her one more time? This’ll be the last if you don’t get me something I can use.”

“Please …”

“Stop whining. Nobody likes a whiny cunt.”

I heard a rustling sound, as if he’d put his hands over the mic. Then Jessica came on the line, her voice soft and weak.

“Loni?”

“Jess, how are you?”

“It hurts, Loni,” she said. “It hurts all the time. My hand hurts so bad and I have dreams and I want to come home …”

“I’ll get you home,” I promised, although I had absolutely no idea how I’d pull that one off. Maybe I should just shoot Bolt and raid his office. So what if they killed me? All I needed to do was get Jessica free—after that? Whatever.