Assassin's Haiku (5 page)

After licking and cleaning him thoroughly, Haiku circled the bulbous cockhead, pushed her tongue into his slit, into
him
. Fabric tore in his hands, the rending noise obscenely loud in his soundproof bedroom. She was inside him, and the concept melted his mind, rocked his control.

If he closed his eyes, he might be able to take her teasing, but he couldn’t close his eyes. She was too gorgeous, too… too Haiku, and Diego had to watch her, concerned that if he looked away, she might disappear, a mere fragment of his lonely mind. Her pale skin glowed, and her lips glistened as she licked down his shaft. He willed himself to remain motionless. He could do this. He had survived the brutality of Agency training. He could survive Haiku.

She pumped him with her soft hands as she played with his aching balls, sucking first one and then the other into her hot mouth, giving him the exact right combination of pressure and release. He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached.

“Mmm…”

She hummed against the base of his cock, an appreciative sound, as though she thought him delicious, a taste to be savored.

“Haiku,” he warned. He couldn’t last long, not with her firm grip stroking him and her tongue running over his balls. She freed him from her loving torture with a juicy
pop
and grinned, her saucy smile telling him she knew what she was doing to him. She intended to make him beg, plead, weep with wanting, humbling the man, exposing the monster.

Diego tilted his chin upward, accepting the stripping away of his dignity as what he deserved. Claiming her for his own had been the mark of a selfish man, a weak man, since he couldn’t give her a normal life, and he couldn’t love her the way she should be loved.

He knew that, yet he couldn’t let her go. It was no longer the threat of the Agency linking them together, because overnight, while waiting for Haiku to awaken, he had drafted a plan. By using his extensive resources and calling in some favors, he could fake her death and permanently mask her scent, giving her life and her choice back to her, if he wanted to give it back. Diego didn’t want to, because he didn’t want her to leave. Haiku was everything he had ever dreamed of.

Haiku grazed his cockhead with her teeth, sending shivers along his skin, before wrapping her lips around the engorged flesh. Her blue-eyed gaze met his as she slid down his shaft, sucking him deep into her throat. She felt like heaven, and a shudder rolled through his body, awakening needs and wants he had long thought dead. Allowing her to love him like this was a suicide mission. He would not come out of their encounter in one piece.

Haiku paused, and Diego saw her dilemma. She couldn’t take all of him into her sweet mouth. His genetically enhanced cock was too large. She improvised instead, covering his remaining shaft with her gentle fingers, her fingers squeezing as she bobbed her head, fucking him with a mouth as hot and wet as her pussy.

Having shredded the cotton bedsheets into strips, Diego buried his fingertips into the mattress, digging, digging, digging into the stuffing, while she sucked and moaned and wiggled her bare ass in the air. “Haiku, please…” He begged for her mercy, his chest rumbling with desire. He was past pride, past thinking, aching to touch her, to trace her curved backbone with his fingers, to cup those pale cheeks.

She gave him no relief, however, and increased her fervor, her cheeks indented with the force of her suction. Diego’s fingers clasped the mattress springs, and he held on, his cock under strain, ready to blow, his body wound up as tightly as a primed gun.

“Haiku, I’m going to…” Diego warned her. He expected her to pull back, but she didn’t. She took him fully into her mouth, sucking hard, and her sublime pressure snapped his control.

“Haiku!” He shouted her name, pulled at the mattress springs, straightening the wire, as he struggled not to move. He came hard and fiercely, pouring his seed into her ready mouth, and she swallowed again and again, her throat constricting, her cheeks draining every last drop from him.

Diego went limp, his bones turning to water, his mind as empty and clear as his cock. Haiku collapsed on top of him, her flushed cheeks resting upon his thigh.

“Haiku.” He babbled her name over and over, as he couldn’t say anything more, having no other thought in his head. All he knew was Haiku, and he threaded his fingers through her white angel hair. It was the softest thing he had ever touched. He stroked and petted Haiku while her breath puffed against his skin, and moments stretched, adding memories to his hoard.

“Wow.”

Trust his poetry-loving girl to sum the experience up with one husky word.

“Do you have a pen?”

Haiku’s smile proclaimed her satisfaction. She appeared more blissful than he felt, and he thought that impossible.

“I’m feeling inspired.”

Sucking his cock inspired her? Bemused, Diego reached over to the nightstand. He kept his gaze fixed on Haiku, certain that she would change her mind, that she would wake up from their loving stupor and realize she was lying on top of a genetically enhanced assassin. Diego opened a drawer and blindly fished around in its assorted contents, his fingers closing over a marker. He handed it to her.

Haiku uncapped the marker. “This is permanent,” she pointed out.

She waved it in the air, the chemical scent making Diego’s top lip curl.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” If he could, he’d have her poems tattooed to his flesh; he’d then have an eternal reminder of this perfect time.

Their state of wonder wouldn’t last. Diego flinched as the cold marker touched his stomach. Although he wanted her to stay with him forever, she’d eventually leave him, and he’d have to let her go.

His stomach marked with her words, Haiku scanned the rest of his naked body. “Do you wish to talk about this?” She caressed the wide silver scar over his ribs, her hands warm and loving.

No, he didn’t wish to talk about how he earned that scar. Diego never relived his battles, as each skirmish resulted in pain and death, the horror of war difficult enough to experience the first time.

Blue eyes looked at him expectantly. He’d read her poems, and he knew Haiku wanted him to tell her a romantic story about how he saved a dozen kids, only there weren’t any such stories. He wasn’t a hero, and he wouldn’t hide under a cover of lies.

“I shopped at the same food supply store twice and was ambushed by thirty Agency operatives. I was sloppy.” Diego shrugged off the memory of betrayal and pain. “And that is my reminder not to be sloppy in the future.” He healed, as he always healed, and when properly treated, his wounds left no scars. To ensure this specific lesson stayed with him, Diego intentionally hadn’t used the suture gun to close the wound.

“You killed them.” Haiku’s soft voice held no shock, her tone conveying heartfelt understanding.

She deluded herself, because she couldn’t understand him. She babysat toddlers and wrote poetry, while he was a cold-blooded killer, an assassin without mercy. They were worlds apart. “There was nothing left of them except a pool of blood on the pavement,” he told her with grim determination. He had been ruthless in exacting his revenge, angry at both the Agency and himself.

“You did what you had to do.” She bent her head and gently kissed along his scar, as he imagined she did with her kids’ cuts and scrapes, but she didn’t know that no amount of kisses could make his boo-boo better.

“I did what I was designed to do.” There was a difference, and she had to know that. Instead of human instincts, he had carefully programmed responses. Haiku gave him a smile that shouted forbearance.

“If you only did what you were designed to do, you’d still be killing for the Agency.” She added a line to the poem, finishing it with a swirl. “And you wouldn’t be in this bed with me. You are more than a machine, Diego.” She capped the marker and tapped his skin.

Diego looked down at his stomach. The words were upside down, written so she could easily read it, but he understood them all the same.

A new day will dawn

Haiku will love her Diego

Two truths in this life

Haiku thought she loved him, but how could she love him? She wasn’t aware of what he was capable of, what he was designed for, and she didn’t truly know him.

“Do you like it?”

She nibbled on her bottom lip. She did that when she worried.

“Yeah.” He’d hold the words close to his heart long after she was gone. He pulled Haiku up to kiss her. She tasted like him, and his body stirred. He always had a fast recovery time—that was a side effect of the genetic enhancements—but never this fast. Since that kiss in the club, he was stronger and faster and—he shifted in the bed—hornier. “Haiku, have you noticed anything—”

The perimeter alarms sounded, red strobe lights streaking across the room. An alarm too soft for human ears pulsed out its warning. They were under attack. Diego sat up, bouncing Haiku’s body away from his. “Oh, fuck.” No one had ever found him here. He leaped out of bed and ran naked to the surveillance images, scanning them quickly. There was nothing. No,
there
was something. He focused on the compromised area. There was a brick on the sensor, a piece of paper fluttering under it.

“What is it?” Haiku hurried out of the bedroom wearing one of his shirts. It covered her from neck to knee, she was that tiny.

“A brick was placed on the sensor.” It was deliberately placed. Diego played back the images, pausing at one frame out of the three. Fuck, the culprit was fast. And he was small, smaller than even Haiku. The boy’s grave face stared right into the camera, as though daring Diego to stop him.

“Oh, Jacob,” Haiku murmured, concern raising her pitch. “What are you doing here, sweetheart? I told you to protect the others.”

This Jacob was to protect the others? The child appeared to be eight years old. “You know him?” Knowledge of the enemy might allow them to slip by any traps laid for them, and if they did that, they could, if they were lucky, survive this disaster. Some of the tension eased from Diego’s shoulders.

“Yes, I do.” Haiku’s beautiful face twisted with worry. “He’s one of my kids. I’m sorry, Diego. He shouldn’t be out. He knows I’m okay, and he shouldn’t have come looking for me.”

“How did he find you? This is a secure location.” It was no longer safe. Haiku was no longer safe, and they’d have to move. Diego’s mind spun with the possible alternatives.

“Jacob is special.”

She rubbed his arm, as though she was trying to calm him, but he couldn’t be calmed. Haiku, the woman he loved, wasn’t safe.

“We share a bond, and no matter where I am, he can find me, but he didn’t lead anyone else here. I know that, as he wouldn’t put me at risk.”

“He’s eight!” Diego paced, irate at the situation and frustrated by his failure. He had only one job, and that was to protect her, and he’d failed. “What the fuck does he know? I have to move you.” But where? Nowhere was as secure as his bunker.

“He’s seven, actually, but a very mature seven, and moving me won’t make a difference. If he wants to find me, he will,” Haiku said with an insulting certainty.

Diego was a professional assassin, and he could damn well outsmart a seven-year-old child. Had she no faith in him?

“We should see what he wants. It looks like he left us a message.”

“No.” It could be a trick, since the Agency had used innocent children before, and there were rumors that they were building an army of children. “I’ll go out and see.” Diego stalked back to the bedroom, his bare feet slapping on the tile. He grabbed his clothes. He had to calm down. He was too emotional, and emotions got assassins killed.

“I’m sorry, Diego.” He felt Haiku’s hand on his shoulder. “First you have to deal with the Agency because of me, and now this.”

He’d fight the entire world for her. Didn’t she know that? Diego covered her hand with his. “I’ll keep you safe, Haiku. I promise.” He wouldn’t fail her, not again.

Chapter Six

The hours dragged while Diego was away, and Haiku spent the time tidying up, repairing the mattress, cleaning her clothes, composing poetry, and worrying. She didn’t worry about Jacob, because, through their bond, she would know if the orphan boy was hurt. No, she worried about Diego. She worried that he wasn’t thinking clearly, that he might put himself in danger. She worried that he couldn’t handle that she came with attachments, that she had kids who depended upon her emotionally. She worried that her love for him wouldn’t be enough.

It was evening before the locks on the doors slid open one by one, and relief swept over Haiku. Diego had come back, and they could deal with the other issues together. The door swung wide. She wanted to throw herself into his arms, but she didn’t, as his jerky movements told her he wasn’t pleased. Instead she hovered close to him.

“He had no scent.” Diego tossed his leather gloves on the kitchen counter. “The kid had no scent. How is that possible? Who the hell is he, Haiku?”

“I don’t know.” She didn’t know much about her children, as they came to her so young. They hadn’t the ability to tell her about their backgrounds. Jacob hadn’t even had a name. When Haiku had asked him for it, he’d recited what sounded like a model number.

“Jacob found me one night as I walked back from a poetry reading,” she said, sharing what she could, hoping the information would alleviate some of Diego’s aggravation. “He told me he escaped from bad men.” Many of the orphans would wake up late at night screaming about bad men dressed in white, bright lights, and blood, so much blood. No child should have to see what they had. “He is special.” The children also had unusual abilities.

“He left this.” Diego took a piece of paper from his jacket, carefully unfolding it. “How does he know me?” He laid it flat on the counter.

“He doesn’t know you.” Haiku picked the paper up. She was shown in the picture, her stomach round with child, with her hands protectively cradled around the baby bump. Her image was painstakingly labeled Ku-Ku, as that was what the kids called her. Diego was also depicted, his name printed in block letters above his grim face. Jacob stood between them, smiling one of his rare smiles. Around them were the rest of the children, including the artist. “This is Emily’s work, not Jacob’s. She draws things that haven’t happened.” Sometimes her visions came true, and sometimes they didn’t. Haiku touched her flat stomach, hope warming her insides.