Nightfire (23 page)

He kissed her, avidly, sucking, licking, as if her mouth held something vital to him. As if he couldn’t live without her mouth.

He lifted his head for just a second, nose to nose, bright blue eyes blazing into hers. His hands tunneled through her hair and cupped her head. His hands were so huge they almost completely covered her head. He was holding her tightly, holding her still, as if she could somehow want to avoid his kiss.

When, of course, she craved it.

“I know you must be sore,” he whispered. “And I know I just finished talking about using sex as a crutch. This isn’t that.” He shook his head sharply, a lock of dark hair falling like a comma on his forehead. “Though frankly I don’t know what the fuck it is. It’s just that I need this right now, more than I’ve ever needed anything in my life. I need this. I need
you
.”

Chloe watched him. She’d never seen such intensity in a human face before. It was as if he were able to see behind her eyes, walk around inside her brain.

She nodded, throat dry.

Mike let out his breath in a whoosh, wide back moving against her arms.

“Open for me.” The command was low, guttural.

She instinctively looked down, but all she saw was a broad chest, sharply defined pectorals covered with a thick brown pelt and part of his abdominal muscles.

“I’d put myself inside you, but I don’t want to move my hands. Open your thighs wider. Let me in.”

He lifted slightly higher and she saw his penis, so hard it looked waxen, so large it frightened her a little.

This was no time to be frightened, not even a little. Chloe felt she’d been frightened all her life, of things unseen, of things unsaid, of ghosts. She wasn’t going to be frightened now. Not with her man to love.

She shifted her legs, opened herself with one hand and grasped him with the other. Mike let out a huff of air at the touch of her hand on him. He was utterly still, big hands around her head, staring intently into her eyes. He didn’t move, hardly breathed. This powerful man was giving power to her.

And she wanted it. She wanted the power in him, she wanted
him.

She pulled him down, positioned him at her opening, tilted her hips a little so he was already inside her. She lifted her head until her lips brushed his ear. “
Now,
Mike,” she whispered, and bit his earlobe lightly.

With a growl that came up from his belly and gave her goose bumps, he thrust inside her. He filled her completely, almost but not quite to the edge of pain. Almost immediately she could feel her inner muscles start to accommodate him.

“Are you okay?” Mike asked roughly. A drop of sweat fell down his chin onto her breast.

Chloe tugged at his back until he was completely settled on her, bearing his full weight. Her bones stretched a little but it felt wonderful. She lifted her legs, tilting her hips so he moved even more deeply inside her. He had to feel her welcome. Every cell in her body was smiling, just for him.

“Oh yes,” she sighed, grasping him even more tightly. “Love me, Mike.”

He did. He went slowly at first, slow measured thrusts, completely in control. He touched her everywhere, inside and out, tongue echoing his thrusts. Their mouths and their genitals were making wet, sucking noises, the noises of total intimacy.

Chloe let herself go utterly, muscles lax, like water, Mike’s thrusts like gentle oceans waves curling in toward shore, it felt like the very rhythm of life, on and on and on . . .

She was so relaxed, not thinking, just feeling, that the orgasm caught her entirely by surprise. One moment she was enjoying the warmth pulsing in waves throughout her body, verging into heat, enjoying the feel of Mike under her hands, against her chest and groin, feeling the rhythms of his thrusts, and then
wham!

Her body shot into overdrive, just like that. From one second to the next.

No buildup, no increasing sense of warmth in her groin, no rising tension. Just a sudden electric shock so huge she thought it would short her brain and then her body began convulsing. Not just her vagina contracting in strong pulls, but her entire body convulsed, a prickling wash of heat suffusing her. She jerked, feeling completely out of control, like a puppet on strings.

Instinctively, she clutched Mike harder because he was the only stable thing in this red-hot world turned upside down. Her eyes were closed but the insides of her lids turned red, as if a bomb had gone off into the room.

Chloe gasped and Mike muttered, “Yeah.” She was contracting hard around him, deep pulls of her vagina she could feel in her stomach while she went into free fall, holding tightly on to Mike because otherwise it felt like she could fall into some kind of abyss and never come out the other side.

Mike moved in her faster, harder, keeping the contractions going on and on. For a while—and later she would have no concept of how long it lasted—Chloe lost all sense of self, all notions of her being separate from Mike. For a while they were one organism, one body, moving tightly in unison, feeding pleasure to each other like a huge golden ball passing from one to the other.

“Oh God,” Mike breathed. His voice sounded slightly shocked and shaky. A shudder went through him and passed through her.

Finally, some sense of consciousness made its way back into her head, the contractions started slowing, she started coming back into herself when
wham!
Mike started coming in huge hot jets she could feel against the walls of her vagina and she climaxed all over again, pulses of heat sparking through her entire body.

When it was over, she was completely wiped out.

Their bodies were covered in sweat. More his than hers, but still. She was wet around the groin, another his-and-her effort. They smelled, too—of sex. But it was an earthy, pleasing smell, the smell of two bodies that had just joined.

Mike’s head was buried next to hers in the pillow. She turned her head slightly but he kept his face planted in the pillow. He was breathing heavily, panting almost, that big barrel chest bellowing in and out. He didn’t move. He wasn’t getting off her, but he wasn’t looking at her, either.

A thin track of wetness trickled down his cheek.

Another wave of tenderness washed through her, more powerful than the orgasm. Mike had let himself go completely with her. She had no idea how he made love ordinarily, but she couldn’t believe that the powerful thing they’d shared was something he could experience every night with a different sex partner. It just didn’t work that way.

He was as affected as she was, and it came on the heels of telling the story of his family’s slaughter and the terrible shame he’d carried around with him ever since.

He didn’t want to look at her. It was possible he
couldn’t
look at her.

That was fine. Chloe understood very well. His emotions were too much for him and she knew precisely how that felt. She tightened her arms around his shoulders, feeling the absolute strength of him, knowing that now he was as defenseless as a child.

She’d watch over him, protect his feelings. No one but her would ever know these vulnerabilities. She’d watch over them, too, guard them fiercely.

He’d protected her. By God, she would protect him.

Her hand ran through his hair, spiky with sweat, and she cupped his head.

“Sleep, my love,” she whispered. Mike’s breath left him in a whoosh that was taking some of his tension with it.

Chloe thought she would stand guard over him but her own exhaustion and stress caught up with her.

Inside of five minutes, she fell into a deep sleep with a ton of man on top of her.

Chapter 16

C
onsuelo clutched the thumb drive in her damp hand and checked for the tenth time the address she’d scribbled on a scrap of paper and the address on the big brass plaque next to the ornate doorway of the elegant building in downtown San Diego.

She’d never ventured into this part of town. She had no reason to. It was mostly made up of office buildings. The people streaming in and out of the huge glass doors were as remote to her as Martians.

None of them, she was sure, sold their bodies for a living.

She lifted her head, suddenly very determined. That part of her life was over. The people in the office she’d called helped women disappear. They’d helped two women in the shelter disappear, that’s how she got the visiting card.

Consuelo would either be able to convince them to help a whore or she would disappear herself, though she had no tools for that. The only thing she had was the twenty thousand dollars she’d taken from her hiding hole and the thumb drive. She had no documents, none.

She was in the United States illegally, always had been illegal. Even if she could get back across the border, which she couldn’t, she had no documentation in Mexico, either. And no place to go. She was allowed no documents, no passports, no driver’s license, no home to go back to, nothing.

All in all, they’d be crazy to help her. She was going to be more trouble than she was worth.

On the other hand, maybe what she held in her fist might be worth something to them. Something she could barter with for her life.

Sweat trickled down her back, as it often did when she was scared. When she was smilingly escorting a trick back to the room he’d paid for together with the rent of her body, and he looked like he might be violent. Might enjoy hurting. There always was one and the house rule was if no blood was spilled, no harm was done.

That client would simply be charged more the next time.

So Consuelo did now what she did whenever she was scared—pasted a smooth smile on her face and walked through the door, not knowing what was on the other side.

M
ike had been a soldier for much of his adult life. Soldiers do not open their eyes slowly, confident that the world is a wonderful place. They snap awake, instantly alert, ready for action, knowing the world is full of murderous motherfuckers who can’t wait to smoke them.

Soldiering is a Darwinian occupation. Those who can’t shoot from deep sleep to alertness in a second are winnowed out pretty fast. Usually from the end of a barrel.

Old habits die hard, particularly when they are the kind to foster survival. He wasn’t a soldier anymore, but Mike still woke up in a flash, usually trying to figure out how to get out of having to spend time with the woman he’d fucked the night before.

He usually woke up to a flat, exhausted, melancholy feeling, itchy to jump out of whatever bed he was in and get home. Where he’d feel flat, exhausted and melancholy.

Oh man. Not now. No, siree. He felt
great,
though he definitely did not want to jump out of bed and get going. Nope. He had no strength in his muscles at all. Man, he didn’t want to go
anywhere,
not with Chloe’s sleek, soft little body half on, half off his.

Sometimes he had to remember who the babe in the bed was, but not now. Because it wasn’t a babe, it was
Chloe
.

It was a sunny day. He could tell because the inside of his lids were painted golden. And there was a warm breeze coming in off the ocean, fluttering the curtains.

He felt clean. Purified. Purged of some ancient black bile that had been poisoning his system since forever. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so hopeful. The sex last night had almost burned him alive. It had reduced the old Mike to cinders and here was the new version, ready to face a new day with a cheerful smile.

Mike couldn’t remember the last time he’d thought to face a new day with a cheerful smile. Maybe never.

He felt . . . he felt like a virgin must feel after sex for the very first time. He didn’t actually remember much about his very first time, except that it had been standing up in a doorway, because he’d been wasted at the time. But if he’d had a different life, if he hadn’t been so fucking
angry
all the time, he could imagine his first time feeling like this. Like he’d personally discovered an entire new realm of pleasure.

Except instead of discovering sex with some nice bland high schooler at seventeen, he was discovering it with Chloe, who was anything but bland.

She was so wise and so loving.

And so fucking hot.

Man, he was a lucky guy.

“Mike?” Chloe pushed at his shoulder.

“Hmm?”

She wriggled out from under his arm while he groaned at the loss of her slight weight and warmth. He could stop her, anytime. No question. Except, whoa, he didn’t seem to have any control over his body. His muscles had been replaced by cotton. He tried to hold on to her but his hand flopped right back down to the mattress.

“Mike Keillor,” she chided, “you promised twice to feed me last night and yet here I am, still hungry. You should be ashamed of yourself. A girl could starve to death here.”

The words were a light, gentle buzzing sound somewhere off on the horizon. He didn’t pay them much attention. He just liked the sound of Chloe’s voice.

A rustle of sheets, the bed dipped lightly, and he could hear her padding about in bare feet.

Chloe had such pretty feet. His mind went off on a little meditative trance on Chloe’s feet while the pleasant sounds of a shower filled the room with white noise.

“Okay,” she said, back in the bedroom, “I guess I’m going to have to cook something myself. We’ll see what you have. I hope there’s something to work with.”

He could hear her padding off.

A frown formed on his forehead. Chloe. Kitchen.

The buzzing grew louder, darker.

This does not compute
.

His eyes snapped open. Chloe in the kitchen. No, no, no!

Galvanized, he rolled out of bed and pulled on a robe. Chloe and kitchens was not a good combo. Chloe in the kitchen was a disaster in the making. The woman had no feel for cooking at all, but was interested in learning. After one bite of her experiments, no matter how much everyone loved her, they couldn’t choke down the rest. Not even Merry, who adored her, could eat more than a bite or two.

Chloe in the kitchen was not a good thing.

He ran to the kitchen, then stopped in the doorway, watching her moving around in the warm morning sunshine. True, she couldn’t cook. But then again, she was just so fucking pretty.

She had on one of his tees which hung to her knees, billowing around her arms. She was barefoot, one pretty foot over the other as she concentrated on burning the toast. She’d turned the radio on the counter to a classic rock station and swayed that pretty behind to “Hotel California.”

She was like a little fairy princess come down from heaven to burn his coffee and make scrambled eggs with shell bits.

He hadn’t said a thing but she suddenly put down the wooden spoon she was using to push a stringy mass of eggs around his pan and turned.

The counter was a mess and the food smelled awful. But she smiled at him and his heart simply turned over in his chest.

Chloe.

Fuck it. He’d hire a cook.

“Here.” Her smile was blinding. How the hell was a man supposed to resist? She held out a mug. “I made us breakfast.”

“That’s nice, honey.” He took the mug, trying not to gag at the smell of burned rubber, and took a sip. It wasn’t so bad, if you didn’t mind the taste. At least it was hot.

“Sit,” she ordered, and placed a smoking pan on his kitchen table. Burnt toast followed on a dish. But she’d done the table up nicely, scavenging in his cupboards for presentable plates, coming up with tea towels to use as place mats. It looked nice. Mike was glad he’d finally broken down and gone to IKEA to buy every kind of glass there was after Ellen laughed at the jelly jars he used as glasses.

The table looked really pretty. It looked even better when Chloe sat down. Mike gamely scraped some black off his toast and buttered it, slathering it with jam to cover the charcoal taste.

Chloe was cheating. She was sipping a cup of tea—no way to burn tea—and delicately chopping the head off a soft-boiled egg. Mike helped himself to the scrambled eggs, ignoring the shells. When he bit into one, he just swallowed. Hell, it was protein.

It was a gorgeous morning. The sun was rising behind the building but a warm gentle glow off the ocean shimmered from the open French door that gave out onto a little balcony. The sky was that glorious blue only Southern California seemed able to produce, and the sea was calm, with only a few wavelets looking like lacy ruffles.

Mike felt an enormous sense of peace settle over him. He smiled at Chloe and she smiled back. Then schooled her face to a disapproving frown. “You didn’t give me much to work with,” she said, and shot him a reproving look. “I think I used up everything in your fridge. We need to go on a food run, don’t you think?”

Mike froze, the happiness he’d been feeling just a second ago fizzing out of him like air out of a leaky balloon. The world and all its problems, the events of the day before, rushed back into his head on a black tide.

He took her hand and chose his words carefully. “Honey—” He breathed in deeply, bracing himself. Might as well get it over with. “Honey, I don’t like the thought of you out and about right now.” That was putting it mildly. The thought of Chloe out, a target for these unknown scumbags, drove him a little insane. “We don’t have a handle yet on who attacked you yesterday. Until then, I’d be happier if you just . . . stayed here.”

A little line appeared between her eyebrows. “Stay here? In the house? Without ever going out even if I’m with you? Until when?”

Mike clenched his jaws. “Until we know more about who attacked you.”

“But—one is dead and one is in the hospital, apparently not talking. Am I correct?”

He clenched his jaws even harder. He had to focus to unlock them. “Yeah.”

The line between her brows deepened. “But . . . does that mean you think I should stay in here indefinitely?”

This was the hard part, the part that was driving him crazy. If he knew anything about women—and he did—she was not going to like being ordered about. Though to his mind, Chloe was now definitely his, his to protect and to care for, Mike realized he hadn’t actually said the Words. And females liked the Words. Or at least he thought so, because here he was treading in unfamiliar waters. Nothing more than the occasional “honey” in bed when he couldn’t remember the woman’s name had ever passed his lips.

The fact was that Mike felt bound to Chloe by bands of steel, immutable and unbreakable. She was his family now. He’d lost one, and he was not going to lose her. No way.

How to say any of that to her? To propose that she be locked up in his house 24/7 until he was sure it was safe to come out? And who knew when that would be?

Chloe liked moving around, quite natural for someone who’d spent her childhood years basically in a hospital bed. She enjoyed her daily walks along the beach, she enjoyed coming into the office, she liked shopping and going to bookstores and tea shops.

She also liked soft, welcoming surroundings. Her apartment was a delight to be in, as opposed to Mike’s place, which was functional and bare.

He winced as he looked out the kitchen door into the living room area. Spare, unwelcoming, with one huge sofa, one huge coffee table and a humongous TV. Nothing else, not even a rug on the floor. This was so not Chloe, and yet he was proposing to lock her up in here.

She was going to rebel and he was going to put his foot down and he
hated
the thought. Just hated it. As far as he was concerned, Chloe was It. He wanted to love her and pamper her. He wanted to give her whatever she wanted. He wanted to shower her with presents, do what she wanted to do, go where she wanted to go.

He wanted to make her happy. And one day into their being a couple—and that might be entirely in his own head—he was proposing locking her up for an unknown period of time.

Because there was no question. There was no way he was letting her out while there was even a suspicion of a fucking Russian gangster targeting her. No way.

If she got mad at him, screamed at him, he’d take it because
no way
was she stepping into danger.

He might lose her by keeping her safe.

The thought of it—the thought of losing Chloe . . . well, it was unthinkable. Not going to happen.

“Mike?” she repeated softly. “You want me to stay here indefinitely?”

His jaws hurt, he was clenching them so hard. He could actually feel a gritty shard of enamel breaking off. “Yeah.” His voice came out guttural and hard. “That’s what I think.”

He was vibrating with tension, ready to do battle, ready to do what it takes, but sick in his heart at the thought.