Flash and Burn: First Five (2 page)

He is gone; she is raw and hollow and
strangely satisfied. Her legs shake slightly when she rises from
the bed and walks slowly to the window. She closes it and returns
to bed, smiling and rubbing her wrists. She can't believe her
carefully considerate boyfriend actually came through with the best
birthday fantasy ever.

5. The reluctant assassin

The assassin lurks in the
closet. Dim illumination creeps in from the crack under the door,
turning the silky suits and velvety robes that surround her into
ghosts.
Everything that touches his skin
must be soft,
she
observes
.
The
Captor told her nothing of her target except that he lives alone in
the Hollywood Hills and has a cobra tattoo encircling his
neck."It's supposedly very realistic," he said. And yet that's all
she needs to hate him.

Rich, affected
man
, she thinks.
He
probably takes drugs so his mind is as frictionless as his
wardrobe.
She tells herself that this one
is going to die young of an overdose, that it's just a matter of
time.

The bedroom light turns off
with an audible click.
Finally.
She slips on her night vision goggles and waits
for her target to stop shifting around in his massive king-sized
bed. When she is satisfied by the length and depth of the silence,
she removes a surgical instrument from a slim black case. Then she
unzips her jumpsuit and steps out of it. She always kills in the
nude. It makes the clean up so much easier.

She pads across the room to
the bed. The moon is full and bright, and he didn't close his
curtains. She inhales sharply. He is young and shockingly handsome.
His eyes are fringed with long lashes, and brown curls frame his
innocent face. The arm thrown outside the covers is strong, tan,
and sculpted. She should plunge the instrument into his
heart--she's been trained, she knows how--but she waits a moment
and watches him sleep.
At least his last
moment will be peaceful
, she thinks, as he
grabs her wrist.

"I knew you were coming for
me," he whispers. She tries to slash at him with her instrument,
but his grip is powerful. Irresistible. He pries her fingers from
the weapon and lays it on his nightstand. "My god, you're
beautiful," he murmurs, taking in her sleek, muscular form, heavy
breasts, and dark, generous areolas.
So are
you
, she thinks, letting her eyes wander
from his tender, sculpted face to his taut abdomen.

He shifts the covers,
exposing his thick erection jutting out from a thicket of black
curls. "See what you do to me?" His voice is part supplication,
part moan. She licks her lips. Inexplicably, she wants him.
I've failed
, she
thinks,
what I do doesn't matter
anymore.
He sees the desire plainly writ on
her face and reaches one hand between her legs and explores her
secrets folds, gently at first, and then insistently. "So wet," he
marvels.

Shivering with the abandon of the damned, she
slides onto him and rides this hard-smooth man with the face of a
hungry cherub until pleasurable tension coils deep in her belly. He
watches the sway of her breasts, not her hands. When he closes his
eyes in ecstasy, she strikes. Her eyes well with tears.

Blood and semen. Red and white. My husband
will live for one more day.

Should this series
continue?

Should there be a
Flash and Burn: Second Five
? Or even a
Flash and Burn: Second
Ten?
Send me an email at
[email protected]
and let me know.

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Official-sounding
bio

E.J. Swenson is a business journalist by day
and a writer of quirky, romantic, and downright dirty stories by
night. She writes under a pseudonym because her colleagues and
family would be shocked―SHOCKED!―to see the dark and twisty places
where her imagination likes to roam. When she's not tethered to her
computer, she's avidly reading all kinds of genre fiction, baking
(and resisting the siren call of excess baked goods), and keeping
track of her two small children.

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http://ejswensonwrites.com

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