She started to fight again, just to make it back off enough so she could find her separate self again, but it was like fighting a mountain. His weight pinned her against the squishy couch. His cock pumped, slick and deep into the well of delicious sensation between her legs, twisting and swirling, finding so many madly lit-up sweet spots inside her and stroking over them, and over them, ah, God,
again . . .
Her legs twined around his, trapping him deeper. She bucked and wiggled to get him exactly where she wanted him, and he followed every cue almost before she gave it. More tears slid out, but she no longer cared about the makeup mudslide. She whipped her head from side to side, whimpering with every heavy lunge.
He cupped her head, stared into her eyes, and kissed her. A kiss to draw her soul out of her body, but he gave her his own in return. And the possessive, obsessive chorus of
mine, mine, mine
with each frenzied stroke—it was coming from her now, too. He was hers. All hers.
Things got incoherent after that, yet never had anything seemed so real, so vivid, so clear. They were gasping, yelling. The blanket tumbled with them as they slid off the couch and thudded to the floor, Bruno on the bottom. He slammed his arm into the coffee table, shoving it out of the way. It teetered, tipped.
She clawed the blanket off, wanting no barriers, and rode him hard, clutching his arms, her head flung back in pounding abandon. She was fever hot, glowing like a coal in the dark netherworld of that chilly apartment. He jolted upward against her, his fingers digging into her ass. Every thud of contact sharpened her wild, driving need.
He flipped her, pinned her, and she was on the bottom again, his tongue thrusting, twining with hers, his hips surging, heaving—
Pleasure ripped through them both, violent, relentless.
It left them a wreck of tangled, sweat-soaked limbs, gasping for breath. Flattened and limp. Sweet devastation.
Sometime later, the sweat had cooled. Bruno moved, feebly, to extricate himself. He slid out, leaving her collapsed, abandoed, alone.
And suddenly, horribly sad.
She braced herself for the moment of truth. What the truth was, she didn’t know, but it was sure to be anticlimactic.
Bruno dropped his head into his hands. “Mother of God,” he muttered. “That was . . . what just happened?”
She pushed herself up onto her knees. She’d lost a stocking in the frenzy. The other dangled off her ankle. “I, ah, don’t know.”
“Did I hurt you?” He sounded like he was holding his breath.
“No,” she said hastily. “God, no. Not at all. On the contrary.”
He heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”
She was hit by an unexpected wave of tenderness. Aw. He was an awfully sweet guy, totally apart from the celestial-sex-god thing. She reached to touch his face. He was so warm, the skin so supple, the stubble scraping her fingertips. She pulled away before he had a chance to reject the gesture. Didn’t want to embarrass the man to death.
He caught her hand, yanked her close, and suddenly they were kissing again, like horny teenagers in a backseat. It made something ache and burn in her chest. He clamped her against him, silently demanding intimacy of a magnitude she’d never even known existed.
But she knew it now. Like an eye inside her had opened up, revealing unheard of emotions. Dangers, too. Like she needed new ones.
It didn’t matter. She couldn’t stop kissing him. Her arms were around his neck, strangling him, but he seemed to like it. She could feel his lips smiling as they moved over hers. “So we got rid of one dumb taboo,” he said. “Want to take a run at the other one?”
She giggled, like a silly girl. “Um, ah . . . you mean—”
“Letting me go down on you. You wouldn’t regret it.”
She hid her red face, her out-of-control, shaking giggles against his neck, tasting the salt tang of his sweat. “You better let me catch my breath,” she said. “That was intense.”
His body stiffened. “Too rough, you mean.”
“I didn’t say that,” she said. “Stop putting words in my mouth.”
The silence sagged with the weight of all the things that were still too dangerous to say to him, but she had to find a way.
Her imagination just couldn’t quite get past this wall.
She took a deep breath. All she could do was wait for the right moment. God knows, it would be no chore to stick to him like glue.
“So. Ah. What now?” she asked, hesitantly.
His hand cupped her breast, lazily fondling her. The caress made shimmers of light move through her, sparkling inside her very skin. “I have some ideas,” he said. “It depends on you.”
“What depends on me?”
“Here’s my proposal. I take you to my condo. I call in sick to work. We sit together in the Jacuzzi, you on my lap. Madly tongue kissing.”
She giggled, weakly. “Um. Sounds good so far.”
“Then, stark naked and fully erect, I cook you breakfast. An omelet with everything but the kitchen sink, pan-fried potatoes, sausages, fresh orange juice, cheddar scones, coffee. We eat and go into the bedroom. Then I spend the rest of the day making you come.”
“Ah,” she whispered. “Wow.”
“And we take it from there,” he concluded cheerfully.
She was smiling like an idiot. Happiness was bubbling up inside of her, and it scared her. She had no place to put it. It had nowhere to go, no room to grow. No right to exist in her life, as it currently was.
It would turn to pain soon enough. Everything did. But who the fuck cared right now? This might be the last fabulous time she ever had. Might as well go out on a high note.
“Sounds like a plan.” Her voice a breathless squeak.
They dressed quietly, not looking at each other. Shyness had descended upon them again, and it felt odd, after such intense intimacy. He lifted an eyebrow as she stuffed her hair back up under the black wig and perched the cat-eye glasses back onto her nose.
They walked out onto the landing, and he took her hand.
She fought the warmth unfurling in her chest as she trailed him down the shabby, narrow staircase. This was so wrong, so foolish. She had to sharpen up. Her teeth clenched so hard, pain shot up her jaw.
Bruno sensed it and glanced back at her. “You OK?”
She manufactured a smile for him. “Yeah. Sure.”
He frowned, worried, as he shoved his shoulder against the outside door. He stepped out backward, opening his mouth to speak.
She saw the SUV, door gaping. The dark figures, leaping at them.
8
B
runo was about to ask where her car was parked when she shoved him sharply to one side, and
thunk,
a baton thwacked down on her shoulder instead of his skull. Lily’s leg whipped right up in a quick front kick. The guy swerved to evade it, snagged her leg. Her shoe flew off. She was yanked off her feet. Went down flailing.
Three attackers. Bruno blocked a punch, a kick, snagged an arm that held another baton, wrenching the attacker sideways with an arm twist. Had to let go, stumble back, block rapid-fire blows to his head and neck from the other guy. He got in a kick to the knee, spun to block the baton slashing toward his face from the other direction, but it caught him, a stinging blow that glanced off his temple. He caught the club, twirled, twisted, seized the arm. Pitched the guy forward and accompanied him in his short, hard flight, right into the brick wall.
A wet, nasty crunch, and he lay still.
The other guy was on top of Lily. The baton flashed down. She blocked with her elbow and fought madly, pale bare legs flailing wildly in the air. He dropped his guard to lure the third guy closer in, swerving to avoid a kick. Launched himself and put the first two knuckles of his right hand right through the guy’s larynx. Turned before the prick even hit the ground to lunge for the guy on Lily. Got his arm around the bastard’s neck, whipping his own face to the side to avoid getting popped. Wrench and twist.
Crack.
The man went limp.
Bruno flung him off Lily. The guy landed with a limp, heavy flop. Face toward them, mouth slack. Eyes empty.
Lily stared up, mouth wide, dragging in squeaking gasps. Her eyes glittered with terror. Her face was spattered with blood, which gave him a gut-wrenching scare until he moved and sprayed another shower all over her pale coat. His blood, not hers. He was leaking. His forehead.
He thudded down onto his knees, then onto his ass, legs splayed awkwardly beneath him. Trembln>
Holy fuck. He looked at the throat-smashed guy. At the guy he’d flung into the wall. Skull caved in, wide-open eyes full of blood.
Three dead guys. He had killed them in little over a minute. The shaking deepened, spread. Someone’s bowels had opened. It stank.
He was a good fighter. Kev had seen to that. Lethal, many people had said, and he’d gotten off on the description, swaggering butthead that he was. Like it was a compliment. Lethal. How cool, right? Sexy.
Hah. He’d never considered the real meaning of the word. The description was literal now. It didn’t feel cool or sexy. Holy.
Fuck.
He’d never killed before. Or maybe he had, in that fire fight at Aaro’s lair on the day of the zombie masters massacre. But spraying bullets from an Uzi into the woods was different than feeling bones crunch beneath your hands.
Self-defense
. Not just his own. They would have killed Lily. Or would they? Strange, that they’d used clubs. Guns or knives would have been quicker. If the attackers had meant to kill them.
It hit him, full force. Oh, shit,
no.
He lurched away from Lily, lost the contents of his stomach. Coffee, rice pudding, banana cream pie, spattering all over a couple of fresh corpses. The heaves went on and on.
“. . . have to go! Now!” Lily shook his shoulder. “Bruno!”
He spat the foul taste out of his mouth as best he could, wiped his shaking mouth on his jacket sleeve. He looked up at her, blank. Her words made no sense. “What? Go where?”
“Anywhere!” She grabbed his shoulder, shook it. “Come on!”
He hung on to himself, struggling for clarity. “Lily,” he said, slowly and carefully. “Those guys are dead.”
“Yeah! And we’re not! So come on!”
He lifted his hand. “There are dead guys lying in the alley,” he said. “I killed them. Killing people is frowned upon. It needs to be carefully explained. It’s a crime, remember? Punishable by years in prison, at the very least? You with me here?”
“But it’s not your fault! You were attacked! So let’s—”
“The police will not know that unless I tell them,” he went on grimly. “And you’re going to have to tell them, too. Multiple times, until our brains are fried. And the forensics techs who analyze the scene will tell them. And our teams of lawyers will tell them. It’s a long, tedious process, and it takes months, if not years, but there’s no shortcut.”
“We don’t have time for that!” she wailed. She sank to her knees beside him. “Please, Bruno! We have to run.”
“I’ve got no reason to run.” He dug into his pocket, was almost surprised to find his cell still inside. He started punching numbers.
Lily grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?”
“Calling the cops, of course.”
Lily grabbed his phone, hurled it against the brick wall. It shattered, plastic and metal exploding and joining with the rest of the debris. He stared, mouth agape. “What the fuck . . . ?”
“You can’t call the cops! They are listening to you through that thing! They probably listened to what we just did, upstairs! That’s how they found me! By watching you!”
“Who found you?” Even through the shock, he felt something inside him closing down in flat misery. “Oh, shit. I knew itI fucking knew it, and I did you anyway.”
“Knew what?” she yelled.
He waved his hands wildly. “That this was too good to be true!”
“This?” She gestured at the sprawled bodies. “You call this good?”
“No! Not them! You!” he shouted. “I might have known it! You’re a black hole! You’re a fucking head case!”
Lily clenched her hands into bloodied, shaking fists. Her hair was a wind-tossed lion’s mane, makeup streaked to her chin. She was a fearsome sight, yet so fucking beautiful, she shone like a floodlight.
“I’m not crazy.” She forced the words out, careful and clipped, as if her precision and self-control would prove her claim. “I’m not a black hole, either. I’m just unlucky, I guess you’d call it. I’ve been on the run. For about six weeks. From, ah . . .” She pointed at the bodies. “Them.”
He struggled to his feet. “Ah,” he said. “I see.” Although he didn’t.
“That guy, right there.” She pointed at the one whose neck he had broken. “He tried to stab me in New York.” She pulled up her sleeve, showed him an ugly scar slanting in an angry curve over her forearm.
“And you’ve been on the run since then?” he said.
Her throat bobbed as she tried to speak. She nodded.
Bruno pressed his bleeding forehead, felt blood drip through his fingers. “Did it occur to you to warn me that a squad of hit men were after your ass? You know, like, a gesture of common courtesy?”
Her face tightened. “Talk about a conversation stopper. What a turn-on, huh? Great banana cream pie, and by the way, I’m running for my life from a pack of cold-blooded killers. Way to chat a guy up.”
“Chat me up?” He felt steam start to rise. “Are you for real? On the run for your life is not the best time to pick up a strange man off the street and fuck his brains out! Or is this how you handle stress?”
“No!” She pressed her hand against her mouth. “It wasn’t about picking up any man. It was about picking up you. Specifically you.”
Every moment they’d passed together reshuffled as he sought connections, explanations. “Lily,” he said. “Do I know you?”
She shook her head. “No, but we have something in common.”
“Yeah? What?”
She gestured at the bodies. “Them. For starters.”
Bruno’s teeth ground. “I’ll tell you something about me,” he said. “I’m a straight arrow. I make my money fair and square, I pay my taxes on time, contribute to homeless shelters, soup kitchens, the World Wildlife Fund. I do not lie, steal, or cheat. So whatever these guys were pissed about, it has nothing to do with me!”
“But I . . . but they—”
“I do not like this crap!” he roared. “I don’t like getting punched, or jumped, or clubbed! It makes me tense! I do not like killing people before six
A.M.
, even if they’re hit men! I make a conscious, deliberate effort to steer clear of this kind of bullshit! You get me?”
“Don’t yell. Please.” She looked around, eyes darting nervously.
“Give me a good reason not to, Lily, because I’m not in a good place, and you’re not helping!”
“I think . . . ah . . .” Her voice tightened. “I think it had to do with yr mother.”
The blood drained right out of Bruno’s head.
The world expanded around him, vast and solitary. A wind-whipped wasteland. Lily still stood before him, eyes desperate, lips moving, but he could not hear her. Just cold wind, whistling in the void. The thrum of his heart hurt against his ribs.
That same old fucking pain. Completely intact and fresh, exactly as it had been in the bad old days. Like it had never really gone away, but had just hidden in the dark, waiting for its chance to leap out at him.
She grabbed his wrist, and the weird bubble popped. “. . . got to listen to me! My father was in the—”
He jerked back, sending her stumbling. “Don’t touch me.”
She shrank away. Bruno forced his numb lips to form words again. “Don’t mention her again,” he said hoarsely. “She’s offlimits. Forever.”
“Um, yes. But I—”
“Do not fuck with me,” he said. “I’m right on the edge.”
She twisted her hands together. “I’m not fucking with you,” she whispered. “Please, understand. These people killed my father. The same ones who killed your, um . . .” Her courage failed her, and her voice trailed off.
He fought to keep his voice even. “My mother was killed by her asshole boyfriend. Decades ago. These guys would have been just kids.”
She shook her head. “These guys are just hired muscle.” Her gaze flicked over to the bodies. “Were, I mean.”
This was great. Just great. A lifetime of struggle to create and maintain that precarious sense of normalcy after what had happened to Mamma, and this crazy girl blasted it to rubble with a few words.
“Listen, lady,” he said. “I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in. If you owe those guys money, if you’re trying to get free of your pimp, if this is a drug thing, I do not fucking know or care. But you are bugfuck nuts, and I am having no part of it.” He grabbed her arm and strode toward the diner, hauling her along behind him.
She struggled. “Hey! Where are you taking me?”
“To use the phone at the diner to call the cops,” he said. “Since you killed my smartphone.”
“No!” She twisted like an eel, but his grip was implacable. “Listen to me! Bruno, please, just stop one second and
listen!
”
He cursed himself for being a fucking fool, and stopped. “Make it quick.”
“I have done nothing wrong! I’m not a prostitute, I don’t sell or do drugs, and I’ve never borrowed money in my life except for college!”
The outrage in her voice almost made him smile. He channeled stone-faced Tony. “You could be lying.”
“I don’t lie!” she yelled back.
“No? You sure suck when it comes to omission of relevant truths. Like letting me know you’ve got a contract out on your life before throwing me down and fucking me blind, for instance?”
“Oh, shut up,” she snapped. “I understand that you’d rather stay on the right side of the law. So would I, if I was given the luxury. But if you call the cops now, I’m going to die. And probably you will, too.”
He snorted. “That’s crazy.”
“No, that’s a mathematical certainty. The only way to stay alive is to fall off the map. That’s where I’ve been for the last six weeks!”
He looked pointedly at the bodies strewn behind them. “You weren’t quite as far off that map as you thought you were.”
“I guess not,” she said. “They must have been watching you. Waiting for me to make contact with you. Maybe they bugged your cell. Was it on you when you served me dessert?”
“Oh. So you’ve got this all figured out? A big conspiracy theory?”
Her eyes widened. “Does this look like a conspiracy theory?” She pointed at the bodies, finger shaking. “Those guys were not theoretical!”
“Maybe not, but when you start dragging me and my dead mamma, God rest her soul, into your personal problems with the criminal underworld, I call it a goddamn conspiracy theory!”
As if in answer, they were blinded by headlights as the SUV came to life, roaring toward them, front grill gleaming like a hideous metal grin. Bruno sent Lily flying and leaped. The SUV bounced over the bodies, glancing against the brick wall where they had been standing. Metal screeched, sparks flew. The SUV righted itself, cut the curb, jouncing and rattling. The taillights disappeared around the corner. He hadn’t gotten the plates. Too dark, too fast. Too rattled.
He hadn’t checked the vehicle. Christ, what a sloppy, pinheaded, cretinous asshole he was. He didn’t deserve to still be alive. He ran to Lily, who was hunched, trembling on the ground. She’d acquired even more bloody scrapes on her legs. “You OK?” he asked.