Reaper's Stand(83)

Then his eyes caught mine and he snarled.

I screamed when he slammed home, because it hurt and I was scared and it felt incredibly good and my brain just wouldn’t work anymore. Reese wasn’t a gentle lover under the best of circumstances, but this was brutal. He stilled and braced above me with those strong arms of his, smiling.

It wasn’t a friendly or loving smile.

No. This smile was a baring of teeth, and in his eyes I saw rage, pure and simple. Rage and hate and some kind of unholy, twisted desire that cut through both of us, no matter how sick that was. Holding my gaze, he pulled back and thrust again, this time harder. It burned and I cried out, but he didn’t stop. I didn’t want him to, either. I wanted more—I wanted him to pin me and fill me with his come and I didn’t care anymore whether that was wrong or right.

I just needed this terrible tension building between us to break. I needed him.

“That the best you can do?” I demanded, laughing almost hysterically. He growled and my laugh turned into a shriek as he showed me that no, it wasn’t the best he could do. It was just the beginning, because Reese started thrusting into me so hard my body could hardly take it. My legs spread wide and my hips pressed back into the thin mattress and I screamed again. I had never, ever in my entire life felt anything so amazingly good as the sensation of his body tearing into mine.


This wasn’t sex—this was revenge and it was perfect.

He pounded into me without mercy after that, our eyes glued to each other, lips snarling. There were no tender kisses, no playful giggles. Just the raw desire of two people whose lives had crashed together in the worst possible way. My orgasm didn’t build slowly and wash over me. Nope. It slammed through me, ripping apart my existence until I cried out and tears ran down my face.

Reese didn’t even acknowledge that it’d happened.

He just sank deep inside over and over again, driving my body toward another explosion. I think my synapses weren’t firing right, because I knew I’d be raw and bruised after this. I just didn’t care. I wanted to take all of his hate and pain and anger and own it because I deserved it, but instead of suffering he just kept filling me and it felt way, way too good.

Then it hit again. I blew apart, my fragile mind all but shattering with the intensity.

This time he came with me, groaning painfully as his hot seed shot deep inside. His arms quivered and his heavy frame hung over mine as I crumpled, utterly exhausted. I’d used up my adrenaline, lost the edge of fear in favor of lust, and couldn’t even bring myself to think about poor Jessica. My brain had had enough, and my body agreed. Reese pulled away from me without a word, and I realized we hadn’t used a condom. Oh well.

My life span probably wouldn’t be long enough to worry about STDs anyway.

I heard the sound of him zipping up, and then his big hands came down around mine, pulling the belt free but leaving me cuffed. He turned and walked out of the cell, slamming his hand against the wall as he went. The door clanged shut and the bolt slid home with a thunk.

I blinked in the darkness, trying to figure out what had just happened.

Holy. Shit.

I had no place to store this in my head. I didn’t want to think about what we’d done, how much I enjoyed it, or whether it meant anything. Considering this situation too carefully was scary, and I couldn’t afford to be afraid right now. Not if I wanted to survive and save Jessica.

My natural pragmatism kicked in. I was alive. I had no idea how much longer that would last, but I had to make the most of it. I closed my eyes and started taking deep breaths, counting to ten on each inhale and exhale. The relaxation technique had served me well over the years, and it didn’t fail me that night.

Eventually sleep crept in, bringing an entirely different kind of release than what I’d found with Reese.

The cold woke me.

I tried to reach for the covers, to pull them up and over my freezing body. Then I realized there weren’t any, because I was on a cot in a cell in the Armory basement. My shirt and bra were ripped apart, my hands were cuffed together, and my wet jeans were still tucked around my ankles.

Other than that, things were great.

I rolled onto my back, bemused. I hadn’t really expected to make it this far. I sort of assumed that I’d tell them everything and they’d shoot me. The end.

Finding myself alive threw me.

I tried to think, figure out what the next step should be. Nothing came—all of this was so far beyond my ability to process that my brain just spun out.

None of that changed the fact that I was cold. Maybe I could do something to fix that?

It took me a couple of tries to stand up because my legs were cold and rubbery. One of my feet had fallen asleep, too, which wasn’t such a bad thing once I caught my balance. The tingling pins and needles helped me wake up and sharpen my perspective. I set about pulling my pants up, which was harder than you’d think, because they had that cold, wet, clingy thing going on that makes jeans so unpleasant sometimes.

My bra was a lost cause, but I managed to stretch my shirt across my chest. It wasn’t great, but it was better than just sitting around all naked and vulnerable. I walked around the cell, testing the door with my cuffed hands. It didn’t open—big surprise there, right?

By that time I was getting seriously cold. I sat back down on the bed and realized that what I’d thought was the mattress cover was actually a thin, woolen blanket wrapped over the padding—one of those striped army surplus ones from three wars back.