pink folds again.
“There,” she whispered, her voice shaky. “Now what?”
“What do you think?” He fondled his sac and tried to
remember the last time he and Hallie had been in his
office together. She’d been tentative and hesitant then but
ever so curious. And she’d blown his damn mind. “Lick
your fingers. Get them nice and wet. Touch your clit,
Hallie.”
She brought her fingertips to her mouth and laved them
with her tongue. He could see her hand trembling as it
lowered to her pussy. She spread the delicate petals of her
sex and placed just one fingertip over her clit. Already,
her pink folds glistened as that sweet honey seeped from
her core. The need to bury his tongue in her, to feel her
thighs tightening around his head and to hear her cries of
ecstasy overwhelmed him.
“Like that, Kitten,” he murmured and grasped his cock a
little harder. “Tell me how it feels?”
“Good. Different,” she replied, her voice growing
husky. “Not like when you touch me. Your fingers are
bigger and rougher. You always know exactly what to do.”
He had to admit he liked hearing her brag on him like
that. “Close your eyes. Imagine me there with you. I’m
kneeling in front of you. My hands are on your thighs. It’s
my tongue lapping at your clit.”
“Ah!” Eyes closed, she rubbed faster circles around her
clit. Her nipples were hard now.
“Touch your nipples. Show me what you like.”
He wasn’t the least bit surprised when she pinched the
stiff peaks between her fingertips. It was the reason he
always played with her breasts a little roughly. She
responded so beautifully to the sharp mix of pleasure and
pain. Sometimes, when he had his fingers buried in her
cunt, he could feel her pussy clenching around him as he
pinched and tweaked her nipples. She absolutely loved it.
“Are you wet, Kitten?” He stroked his cock faster now.
“Yes.”
“For me?”
“Only you,” she whispered, her breaths coming in tight
little pants.
“I’m there with you, Hallie. I’m right there. I’m licking
your clit and stabbing my tongue deep inside your cunt.
I’m sucking your clit now. I’m sucking it and rubbing my
tongue over it the way you love so much. The way that
makes you scream.”
“Oh!”
He matched her feverish movements. His balls ached
and buzzed as they started to draw tight. His toes curled
against the floor. He tightened his fingers and raced to the
finish with Hallie. She whimpered his name as she came,
her body undulating in the chair as her fingers slid through
her slick pussy lips and circled her clit. The sight of her
coming undone shattered him. He growled her name as his
orgasm hit. His seed sprayed his chest and abdomen, the
pearly fluid dripping along his rippled abs as he fought to
catch his breath.
Sated and smiling, Hallie closed her legs and caressed
her lower belly. “That was amazing, Vicious.”
“It was pretty damn good on this end.”
“We should do this more—”
The screen blinked red and the connection failed.
Frustration welled inside him. He supposed it was a good
thing it hadn’t failed earlier. He probably would have
stomped the screen to bits if it had. At least they’d been
able to come together and enjoy a little bit of afterglow.
He tapped his screen and put the call on delayed
connect. As soon as a satellite became available, the call
would go through again. He took advantage of the quick
break to rush into the bathroom and clean up.
As he wiped at his belly, he thought of the quick
conversation they’d shared. Just where the hell was
Terror? It wasn’t like him to be unavailable. Something
else bothered him. Hallie had done that twitchy cheek
thing when he’d asked her about Terror. She’d done it a
couple of times before, especially when he’d been
questioning her about her sister. Back then, they’d had the
secret of the Red Feather between them.
But why in the world would she lie to him about
Terror?
The question still niggled at him when he returned to his
office. The screen flashed yellow now, alerting him that a
satellite connection was coming online. He settled into his
chair and waited for the green screen to return. When it
did, he sat forward, fully expecting to see Hallie’s smiling
face waiting for him.
But it was her empty chair that greeted him. He assumed
she’d stepped away from the communication console so he
called out, “Hallie?”
There was no answer. As he listened, he heard the
faintest murmur of voices. Curious, he turned up the
volume on his end, maximizing the feed from her end. He
recognized the voices now as Hallie’s and Terror’s.
“We can’t tell Vicious,” Terror said, his voice low and
tight.
“No,” Hallie agreed. “This will be our secret.”
Vicious went rigid in his chair. A secret? Between his
Hallie and Terror?
“Take off your pants, Terror,” Hallie urged. “Get on the
bed.”
The blood in his veins ran cold. Hallie,
his
Hallie,
asking Terror to remove his pants and get on
her
bed? No.
Terror laughed. “If I’d known this was all it would take
to get you to strip me naked and crawl into bed, I would
have booked this trip weeks ago.”
Vicious slapped at the screen.
He ended the call and fell back into his chair. His
stomach lurched painfully. His chest burned and his heart
felt as if it was being ripped in half.
Hallie and Terror? In bed together? His sweet, beautiful
Hallie was committing adultery with his best friend.
As the shock of his inadvertent discovery faded, rage
gripped him. In all his life, he’d never been so furious.
The pain of this betrayal cut so deep. He couldn’t breathe,
couldn’t think. He balled his fists at his sides and fought
the urge to fly out of his chair and batter the black vid
screen in front of him.
Terror was a dead man.
Chapter Sixteen
Hallie frowned at the red screen. She couldn’t believe
the satellite had dropped their call. Of all the times for it
to happen! They’d just shared an incredibly intimate
moment and she needed a little reassurance that she’d
done it right. It was her first vid-sex, after all.
Annoyed, Hallie got out of her chair, slipped into the
shirt again and ducked into the bathroom. When she came
out, she started toward the desk but stopped at the strange
thudding noise coming from Terror’s room
. What in the
world
?
Hallie grabbed some shorts and hopped into them.
There was a crash and the sound of breaking glass.
Worried, she rushed to the door and flung it open.
It was dark in Terror’s room, so dark her eyes needed a
moment to adjust but once they did, she took in the scene
in a matter of seconds. Movement near the balcony caught
her eye. The gauzy curtains whipped in the night breeze.
The pale light from the moon spilled into the dark room.
She glanced down and spotted Terror on his belly facing
the open double doors.
A man straddled his back and had a belt looped tightly
around Terror’s neck.
Though Terror kicked and twisted, there was no
escaping that stranglehold. He’d lost his weapons. One of
them, a sharp, gnarly looking knife, rested on the floor next
to his bed.
Hallie didn’t think. She simply acted. She snatched up
the knife and flew at the man trying to kill her husband’s
best friend.
She slammed the blade into the man’s neck and jerked
the knife forward through his windpipe, severing the
tissues and blood vessels there. He gurgled and slumped
to the side, his arms waving and clutching at his throat in a
frantic panic. She shoved him aside and grabbed Terror’s
shoulders.
When she rolled him onto his back, he gasped in long
pulls of air. His eyes were bloodshot and his lips tinged
with blue. She tugged on the belt, loosening it from his
neck. “Oh god. Terror! Are you all right?”
He blinked at her and gripped her wrist. She feared he
didn’t recognize her after all that trauma and lack of
oxygen. He couldn’t talk but nodded.
The last death rattle of the man she’d stabbed drew both
their gazes. Her stomach lurched and bile started to rise in
her throat. She’d done that. She’d stabbed a knife in that
man’s throat and killed him.
Terror squeezed her hand. His scarred face showed
such pain. Not physical pain but emotional. It was guilt
that twisted his face now. “Hallie.”
There was no mistaking the anguish in his voice. She
shook her head. “Not now, Terror. We don’t have time.”
Certain Terror was going to live. She hurried to his bed
and grabbed the thin duvet. She tugged on the top sheet and
carried both back to the man she’d just killed. She tried
not to look at his face, his expression frozen in pure
horror. “We need some kind of plastic, Terror. He’s going
to bleed everywhere.”
Terror made a grunting noise as he shoved up on his
feet. Moments later, he returned with a trash bag from the
receptacle in the bathroom. He threw open his suitcase
and retrieved a roll of silver fix-all tape. She glanced
away as he ripped free his knife and covered the dead
man’s face and neck in the bag. He used the tape to hastily
secure it below the fatal wound she’d inflicted.
“That should keep most of the blood in place,” Terror
said, his voice low and scratchy. “Are you all right?”
“It’s not my first dead body.” She started to lay out the
sheet and duvet. “Hurry. We need to move him and wrap
him up.”
Terror stared at her for a second before nodding. They
quickly placed the dead man on the bedcovers and
bundled him tightly. She sat back on her heels when it was
done and stared at the lumpy shape. The memory of her
mother’s lifeless, bloodless body wrapped up like a
mummy assaulted her. Even at that extremely young age,
she’d been forced to help prepare the body and wrap it in
the white death shroud. Bernie had completely broken
down. Kerri had fainted and sat speechless and stupefied
in the kitchen. A female neighbor and the midwife had
shown Hallie how to clean and wrap her mother’s body.
Now she’d used those skills on this man. The reality of
what she’d done slammed into her. Horror struck. “I killed
a man, Terror.”
“Yes, you did.”
It wasn’t his cold reply but the pain in his voice that
made her look at him. He winced and placed a hand to his
bloody thigh. She realized then that he’d been injured.
“Damn it, Terror! Why didn’t you tell me you’d been
hurt?”
“I didn’t realize until just now. Lights!” The room
instantly brightened. He grunted as he surveyed the slash
in his leg. “It must have been the broken glass.”
“You think?” Hallie asked sarcastically as she helped
him stand. “Do you have any medical supplies?”
“In my bag,” he said, panting now. His voice was tight
when next he spoke. “We can’t tell Vicious.”
She eyed him and finally nodded. “No. This will be our
secret.”
It made her ache to even think about keeping this from
Vicious. How could she go back to the
Valiant
and
pretend nothing had happened? She’d just
killed
someone.
The sight of blood staining Terror’s pants brought her
back to the present. This man would die if she didn’t help
him now.
“Take off your pants, Terror,” Hallie urged. “Get on the
bed.”
Terror laughed. “If I’d known this was all it would take
to get you to strip me naked and crawl into bed, I would
have booked this trip weeks ago.”
“Be serious,” she begged. “You’re going to bleed to
death. No jokes.”
He snorted. “It’s a flesh wound. I won’t bleed to death.
And I’ve had worse, Hallie.”
Her gaze followed his gesturing hand to his face. “Yes.
I suppose.”
“We’ll do this in the bathroom. Too much blood,” he
explained. “There’s a full med kit in my bag. Bring it with
us.”
Hallie found the red pouch in his luggage and trailed
him to the bathroom. While she soaped and scrubbed her