In Too Deep: A Romantic Suspense Novel (47 page)

I giggled when he touched one of my ticklish points, sitting up. "You can take my clothes off too, you know," I said, reaching down and pulling my shirt up. Freed from my shirt, I dangled my breasts in front of Scott's lips, sure he would know what I wanted. He didn't need much more encouragement, kissing my pale pink nipples, and sucking my left one into his mouth. I sighed contentedly, letting him suckle and please my skin, collapsing to the side as my happiness became too much. I could feel tears in the corners of my eyes as Scott rolled with me, pinning me to the bed even as he continued to suck, tenderly biting my nipple and causing me to cry out.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked, looking up at me with concern. I shook my head, stroking my fingers through his hair.

"No, it feels wonderful," I replied. "But you can help me by helping me out of my jeans and panties."

Scott grinned at my suggestion, and nodded. "Well, if I do that, I think it's only fair if I get to take mine off as well."

I nodded hungrily, excited to see what I wanted. Scott smirked at my enthusiasm and scooted back, knee walking backward until he was on the edge of the bed, rolling to his feet in a smooth athletic motion. Unbuttoning his cargo pants, he slid them down his hips, and I was again happily pleased. His cock was nice sized, and very veiny, almost rigid and bumpy. I could already imagine what those ridges and veins would feel like rubbing against my nerves inside my body, and I felt a fresh wave of juices flood me. "You’re a very sexy man."

Scott smiled and got back on the bed, his cock bobbing as he crawled towards my legs, reaching up to unbutton my jeans and slowly, almost tantalizingly, pull my zipper down. I was happy I hadn't worn my tight jeans that day, I didn't want the process to take any longer, and as soon as the jeans were loose enough, I lifted my hips, pushing them down along with Scott's assistance.

Scott came up to kiss me again, his fingers continuing to stroke and tease my hair. The gentle touch set me afire even more, and I pulled him close to me, sweat starting to come out on my forehead. "You're burning me up inside," I said in between kisses. "Why are you burning me up?"

"Because I'm on fire too," Scott replied as he continued to stroke. "You've lit my heart on fire."

His words touched me, and I looked him in the eyes. "I know what you mean," I said, stroking his face. "I feel the same way."

Scott's smile told me everything I needed to know. I grabbed the condom and slid it on for him, adding to the intense anticipation for both us. Then I laid back and I opened my legs more for him. "Make love to me, Scott."

He slid over my outstretched left leg and positioned himself in between, my anticipation growing with every beat of my heart.

He positioned himself at my entrance and pushed forward. The head of his cock slipped easily inside me, and then the most amazing sensations started. Scott's cock was even harder and more ridged than it had looked, and with every millimeter of penetration, the nerve endings inside me were lit off in ways I'd never experienced before. Almost immediately, my hands were clawing at his shoulders, and I was caught up in a wave of sensation that drove all conscious thought from my mind. It was better than any toy or experiment I'd ever had before, and I couldn't believe that this was from a real, breathing man. He was just too perfect, yet there he was, sliding in and out of my body, shockwaves of pleasure coming from every motion of his cock slipping in and out of my body.

I let it go, and trusted in my body's wants and needs. Instead of words, I let my lips and my hands convey my desire on Scott's skin, while his tongue traced erotic runes on my neck. Our bodies moved in a liquid, primal harmony, and I could feel my soul shatter to be reformed in his hands by every unbelievable thrust inside of me.

He knew, without me saying a word, exactly how to please me. When he thrust long and slow, it built a bubble of passion inside me, which slowly expanded and grew bigger, until the size of it was almost a bit scary. Before I could say anything though, his movements changed, into quick little fun motions that brought a smile to both of our faces even as it shaped the orgasm that was inside me, forming it into something that I knew I'd never felt before. When it was ready, like an artist, Scott looked me in the eye and started thrusting hard and fast, his balls slapping against me as he drove himself as deep as he could with each and every movement.

It was the last bit, when he went to long, fast, deep pounding strokes that I felt my body begin to shiver, starting in my toes. I'd heard about orgasms like this before, but I'd never felt one, and I prepared myself as best I could. The trembles continued, starting in my fingers and then working up my legs and down my arms until I could feel the muscles in my chest and stomach quivering, waiting for that last touch I needed to push myself over the edge.

Scott could see the condition I was in, and smiled. He pulled back, until just the head of his cock was inside me, and paused. Looking me in the eye, his lips whispered something I couldn't hear before he drove forward one last time. The white hot sensation exploded out from there, and my entire body sang with pleasure. A high pitched, almost angelic sound came to my ears, and it took me a moment to realize that it was me, and the sound was my cries of release as my orgasm shook me from head to toe.

I hung on, knowing that Scott was there above me, an angel to take care of me, to be there for me. I'd found the man I'd been searching for my entire life, and there was no way I'd ever let him go.

"
H
is name
, at least among the Confederation, is the Knave of Hearts," I told Sophie as we drove away. "I wasn't sure when I saw the brother, but when I saw the materials they have around the shop, I knew for sure."

"What do you mean?" Sophie asked me as she made the turn and we headed back towards downtown. "Did everyone in the Confederation have jolly pirate nicknames or something?"

"There you go with your
Crow
references again," I said with a chuckle. Sophie stuck her tongue out at me and made another turn. "But actually, you'd be surprised. A lot of us had nicknames, used either because we had secret identities that we didn't want the rest of the Confederation to know, or because we needed a way to talk business or discuss people without outsiders knowing who we were talking about. Not that it always worked, of course. Some names became more famous than our real identities."

"So tell me about the Knave of Hearts," Sophie said, making another turn. She was following our standard procedure, which was to never drive directly back from a business meeting, just in case we were being tailed. "Who is he?"

"The family has been a minor set of players in the Confederation for a very long time," I said, going deep into my memory. "You met his father, the so-called King of Hearts. His mother is the Queen, and while I doubt Mike Pressman is fully involved in the family business, I'd suspect he'd be called the Jack. But the Knave is the one who's currently really dangerous. The King and Queen, they became famous in the Confederation for being breaking and entering thieves, although the Queen was quite a beauty in her day. It's what earned her nickname, and her husband became the King after they got married. They both more or less retired before I came on the scene, but I see how they did it now. In their shop they had, in addition to the normal tools you'd expect an HVAC repair facility to have, a lot of carefully disguised other goodies. The one I noticed first was a canister that had no chance to contain coolant, it was totally shaped wrong. Instead, it was a disguised pressure container for a plasma cutting torch. I saw the rest of the setup broken down on the bench, but it was all there. The Pressman’s used their company as a front, doing pretty standard burglaries and thefts until the Knave got involved."

"What did he do differently?”

"He's not into straight burglaries," I told her. "In fact, the Knave steals in a whole different way. He's a bit of a confidence man, a bit of a Lothario, and one hundred percent thief. He gets his way in by seduction normally, and from his reputation, he’s very, very good. From what I know, and I only know him by reputation, he works his way into the woman's heart, and turns her into whatever he wants her to be."

"Damn," Sophie seethed, echoing my own personal feelings. I had always detested the methods employed by the Knave, even during my own days of being a bit of a womanizer. I never used emotions to try and get to my targets, and I never, ever twisted a woman the way the Knave did.

"That's not the worst," I said, as Sophie finally made the last of our misdirection turns and started back towards Mount Zion. "The worst part is, he's married. His reputation is that he looks young, maybe just twenty-three or four, but he's actually pushing thirty or so. It's part of his game, he comes off as this barely out of high school guy, but he's actually got a wife at home."

"How can his wife be cool with that?" Sophie asked, disgusted.

I shook my head. "I don't know. From what the rumors have told me, she's the same as him, a Mata Hari type who left the business when she couldn't pass as a teenager anymore, and wasn't quite old enough for the MILF act yet. But if this guy is the one who I think has been seeing Tabby, your friend is being played."

"So what do we do?"

I clenched my fists, the knuckles cracking as I thought of all I'd like to do to the man. However, he did have a wife, and I don't like killing people with families, if it can be avoided. I know how hypocritical that sounds, and I know I've killed men with wives and even children, but they were jobs I never enjoyed doing. "Let's go to the bell tower," I said, thinking. "I have an idea."

"You going to fill me in on the idea?" Sophie asked as she made the turn towards Mount Zion. "Please tell me it's painful and slow-acting."

"Slow-acting it isn't, but painful? You can say that for sure," I said, thinking of some of the alternative lessons I had gotten from some of my instructors over the years.

There's an old song from the Wu-Tang Clan member Redman that includes the line
six million ways to die
. The line is actually older than that, but he's probably the most famous user of the line. In any case, the truth is there are less than that, but the number is still pretty high. While I doubt there is anyone in the world who knows all of the different ways that the human body can be killed, the really creative methods are actually quite useful. Any idiot can pull a trigger, just look at the gun violence statistics. The same is almost true for bladed weapons as well. Even the most pacifistic person can be pushed to the point they'll bury a knife in someone's guts, especially if you don't give them a chance to think about it first.

But the creative methods are a sort of deadly art, or a deadly science, depending on your point of view. The martial arts are filled with methods of shattering bone, cutting off blood flow to the brain, and potentially stopping the heart with just your bare hands. When you add in hand held weapons, the possibilities increase. When you then add in the use of chemicals, electricity, and other means, well, you understand. You can go slow, you can go quick. You can be painless or mind-breakingly painful. You can affect any of a dozen systems in the body, if you want. Someone could study to a Ph.D. level and still not fully know every way to kill someone. In fact, I studied under a teacher who was called Doctor Death, and he willingly admitted he didn't know everything.

But there was another level underneath just death that was just as large, and sometimes even more useful, that was manipulation of the body. Truth serums, minor poisons, crippling agents, all of them were just the beginning. I had a better idea in mind.

"I learned a few combinations, some things that I keep in the bell tower," I said, running through the list of stuff in one of my cabinets. "He'll be alive, but he's going to be out of the seduction business for the rest of his life. His wife might not like how he ends up either, but at least he'll be alive."

"I can deal with that."

T
he night was
colder than it had been in a long time, fall was coming on again. It wasn't cold enough to snow, we wouldn't get that until mid-winter, but it still was cool enough that I wore my lightweight tactical jacket. I had gone to one of our alternative bases, where I had a nondescript car. While I had been mixing up my little surprise for the Knave, Sophie had tried calling Tabby, using both our normal phones and her old personal phone, which we had reserved only for emergencies. Tabby hadn't picked up either, which told me she was probably either distracted or asleep. Either way, her apartment was the best place to start looking.

I had been waiting about twenty minutes outside Tabby's place when the door opened, and she came out with a man, five foot ten, who was wearing the same sort of polo shirt that Pressman had been wearing earlier that day. He looked a lot like Mike Pressman, but slightly bigger, more filled out. He was definitely Scott Pressman. The Knave of Hearts.

My emotions lurched as I saw the look on Tabby's face when she walked with him towards his Buick, which was pretty nice looking. The kiss she gave him when he went to get in his car told me everything I needed to know. She was so head over heels enamored with him that I wondered how the hell the paint on his car didn't blister from the heat.

He fired up his engine and drove off after the kiss, and I followed him, keeping a decent distance between us. I wanted to get him alone, and try to find a way to implement my plan.

Thankfully, he made a move that I hadn't expected. Instead of going home, he turned towards the industrial district and the Pressman Contractors office. I wondered what he was up to, but decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Instead, I drove past, pulling around a building down the block and shutting off my engine. Getting out, the dome light gave away nothing, I'd turned it off long ago. From the back seat I took out my equipment and checked my load. I was ready.