Blood Deep (Blackthorn Book 4) (10 page)

E
den watched
her as she cast a glance in his direction before crossing to the corner of the room to his right.

Blood rushed to his groin at what she was wearing: thigh-high socks and a fitted long-line cardigan as opposed to the chunky oversized one she’d yanked on in her bedroom. It clung alluringly to her slender waist, the curve of her hips, let alone her behind as she strolled past him, reminding him of the feminine outline he had seen that first night.

The door she opened had been invisible behind a stack of crates until she shoved them aside. Sending one more glance in his direction, she stepped inside.

Lowering himself from the crates, taking his bottle of beer – plus one for her – with him, he stepped into the doorway.

Mustiness overwhelmed any other sense as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. There was no exit and no windows. Scattered around the concrete floor were twenty or so candles, their wax spilled on the floor in their half-used state. At least half of them gradually became responsible for the room’s subtle amber glow as she lit one after the other.

Central to the room was a pool table, one that had no doubt become obsolete from the way the missing leg had been replaced with a stack of pieces of wood. To his left, a throw-smothered double sofa flanked the wall he was leaning against. A pile of books was stacked on the nearside of it. An iron shelving unit covered part of the wall adjacent to it, more crates lay further along.

‘You need to close the door behind you,’ she said as she stood, flicking her wrist to extinguish the match she held. ‘No one should see the light from outside but there’s no point taking any chances.’

Stepping inside, Eden closed the door with his foot, the three padlocks hanging loose from their locks catching his attention. Taking a mouthful of beer, he strolled the periphery of the room, checking behind the stacked crates to be totally sure they were alone.

‘Nice playroom,’ he said. He glanced over his shoulder to see her securing each of the padlocks in turn – and he had the feeling it was nothing to do with securing anything from getting in.

‘I like it,’ she said, her tone impressively calm.

He intended to stay the same. ‘I take it Pummel doesn’t know you come here?’

‘Like I said earlier, no one does.’

And now she was revealing it to
him
. Common sense dictated there was one reason for that – she had absolutely no intention of letting him back out again.

Yet for some reason she hadn’t opted to quickly and efficiently snap his neck like the others. Either she had something she wanted to find out first or murder didn’t quite come as easy to her as she wanted him, or herself, to think. Any chance of the latter meant he needed to focus on staying alive long enough to give her reason to believe just how difficult that kill could be.

She lifted the sole cue from the table and held out for him to take as he sauntered over to join her.

‘How do you manage to keep this place under wraps?’ he asked.

‘Being smart, good timing, watching my back. I’ve always managed it well – up until our encounter in the hallway.’

‘Is he off the scent?’

‘We’d both better hope so.’

He’d done the best he could. After leaving Tatum, he’d left the row with the feigned intention of searching for the items on Pummel’s impossible list. He’d skirted around to the lock-ups the long way round, making sure he wasn’t being followed, grateful that he still had an hour of relative darkness before the early light of dawn. Using the route he’d taken on arrival, he’d got there expecting to find her first. He’d already suspected it could have been a trap. Now he knew it was.

He also knew he hadn’t misconstrued the look in her eyes as he’d cornered her in the lock-up the night before, the way she’d flinched when he’d rubbed his thumb along her spine, or the tension in her breathing and the flush in her cheeks when he’d gazed deep into her eyes later in her room. He just needed to make sure he let some of that mutual attraction out, to make her think twice if nothing else. If not, he’d show her exactly what level of skill he had when it came to handling the third species – whatever she was.

He accepted the cue off her, purposely cupping his hand over hers as he did so.

Contrary to her wariness in her bedroom, she didn’t flinch, her cool, feminine hand remaining willingly locked under his for a moment as she reciprocated his lingering gaze. He felt his groin tighten at her subtle confidence. Even when she finally dragged her gaze away, it wasn’t because she was intimidated into it, but because she wanted him to know
she
was the one in control.

He handed her a bottle in return and she accepted it off him. She strolled towards the end of the table, Eden enjoying another glimpse of her shapely behind, the inward curve to her slender waist, the enticing gap between her thighs at the hem of her cardigan.

He knocked back a mouthful of beer, but she opted to leave hers untouched on the side of the table. She was nobody’s fool and that was becoming increasingly obvious.

He placed his bottle next to hers before he leaned over to align his shot, working out how to avoid the damaged spots in the fabric. ‘Do you use this place a lot?’

‘Some weeks more than others,’ she said, leaning her hip against the table.

He pocketed his first, the cue ball returning so he could line up his next shot. The second caught the bumps in the fabric where the cover had once been torn, so he handed the cue across to Jessie.

She bent over, lining up her shot, her cardigan sliding down her shoulder and revealing more of the silky chemise beneath. Despite being partially masked by her dark ringlets pooling on the table, he could see she was braless beneath it. She slid the cue back smoothly between her long and elegant spread fingers before tapping the white ball, pocketing its recipient with precision. For her next shot she moved alongside him.

As she bent over again, this time revealing at least five inches of the bare backs of those shapely upper thighs, he felt himself stiffen. But it was the way she simultaneously flexed her fingers around the shaft of the cue before holding it more tightly that made him wonder if maybe she was a little more proficient in seduction than he had given her credit for.

‘You play well,’ he said.

She shrugged. ‘Not as well as you.’

‘I’ve been playing since I was kid. I grew up around bars.’

After missing her shot, she reached for one of the beers. ‘Where are you from?’ But instead of taking hers, she drank from his – the one she’d already seen him take a few mouthfuls from.

He crouched to check out his next alignment. ‘Just so you know, I’m not a Rohypnol kind of guy.’ Now having worked out where all the weaknesses on the table were, he pocketed another ball.

‘Then what kind of guy are you?’

‘Why did you really invite down here?’

‘Because you can’t take a hint.’

‘And neither can you seemingly.’ He stood upright, turned ninety degrees to face her square-on. Having her less than a foot away again fired every nerve ending. But he kept his control as he gazed down into eyes that were three inches short of being eye level with his. ‘I told you I’m not your enemy. But I guess I wouldn’t trust me either if I were you,’ he said, with a small shrug.

He moved around the table and bent over to take his next shot to ease the escalating tension. ‘If I were you,’ he added, ‘I’d bring me down here, find somewhere to tie me up and
make
me talk. The problem is, you’re not the torturing type, are you, Jessie? I’m also guessing you’re smart enough to know it wouldn’t get you anywhere; that you’d be left with only two options if you failed – let a very angry con go or kill me. But, aside from me being persistent in wanting your attention, we both know I’ve done nothing to warrant being murdered. In fact, I’m thinking you quite like having someone to talk to instead of just being a ghost around here.’ He handed her the cue across the table after he’d sent the cue ball rebounding back to his side. ‘Your shot.’

She let her unreadable gaze linger on his before she strolled around towards him. ‘You seem very sure you have me worked out. Yet you saw me kill those other cons. You know what I’m capable of.’

‘You killed to protect. You saw them as the enemy. You’re not convinced that’s what I am though, are you?’

She leaned over the table, seemingly unperturbed by his blatant admiration of her, the warm amber glow playing on the back of her smooth thighs again. ‘Is that your only lifeline?’

‘You’re not a cold-blooded killer, Jessie.’

‘Takes one to know one, huh?’

‘If I wanted to kill you, I would have. Or at least tried to.’

Taking her shot, she stood back up, moved a little closer, rested her hip against the table again. ‘But, like me, you want information.’

The amber tint of flames reflecting in those unflinching brown eyes reminded him he was dealing with more than just a woman – a female whose skills he still didn’t know the full extent of.

A female who
could
potentially end it all there and then.

‘You can’t blame me for being curious,’ he said.

‘And you can’t blame me for wanting to know who
you
are. Because my problem is,’ she said, closing the gap between them a little more, ‘those numbers tell me
you’re
more than capable of torture and killing, so excuse me not letting my guard down just yet.’

‘I’d think less of you if you did. But like I said, if I wanted to hurt you, I would have.’

‘The only time you’ve had the opportunity, you weren’t exactly up to the job.’

‘But we both know I am now.’

She turned the cue around so the butt was facing him. She guided it to the hem of his T-shirt, sliding it up to reveal his stomach, his side. ‘So it seems. You’ve healed well already,’ she said, glancing into his eyes. She rubbed the butt over the scar tissue. ‘It’s coming along nicely.’

‘Just like you said it would. So tell me, why would I kill you, Jessie? What would be the sense and purpose in it? I’m more than the numbers on my arm. And as we both know, neither wants to kill the other. That’s one step in the right direction, surely?’

‘You think so? Then tell me why you’re
really
here. Don’t make me force it out of you.’

His laugh was light but deep as he took the cue back off her and pulled away. The thought of a tussle with her turned the blood in his groin molten; the temptation to rise to the challenge amidst her slight against his skills, let alone his masculinity, suppressed only by his need to tread carefully.

‘I
can
hurt you,’ she warned as he leaned over to take his next shot.

He glanced up at her with a hint of a smile before he pocketed the ball. ‘Is that a promise?’

‘Is that how you prefer it?’

‘Is it how
you
prefer it? Because we can play as rough as you want,’ he said, lining up his next shot.

‘I know the powers that be have taken away the true purpose behind what you contain in your jeans, but I can just as easily take away the pleasure elements too.’

He raised his eyebrows slightly. ‘
More
castration threats? You’ve got to ease up on this obsession with my balls, darling. People will talk.’

‘If you tell me, I’ll think about letting you go.’

‘
Think
about it?’ He pocketed another ball before standing, making his way around the periphery of the table towards her.

‘I told you – a few more hours and everything in your system will be gone. There will be no evidence that I had anything to do with you at all, which will put me in the clear. Because you’re not stupid enough to claim anything to the contrary to Pummel.’

‘But if I
don’t
tell you anything?’

‘Pummel wants that list of items by dusk,’ she said, with a small shrug. ‘I overheard. And when Pummel tells you to do something, he expects it done. So if you don’t show up on time, or you don’t get him everything he wants, you’re finished here anyway. The next time he sees you, he’ll kill you without hesitation.
If
I don’t kill you before it gets to that.’

Despite being irked by her clever move, he gave her a hint of a smile as he took the fresh bottle from the table. ‘Oh, you’re a smart girl, aren’t you?’

‘It’s called checkmate. You ignored my advice. One way or another, this ends in the next few hours.’

He glanced at the padlocked door, raked her swiftly with his gaze as he moved to stand in front of her, Jessie turning her back to the pool table so that her eyes didn’t flinch from his. ‘I guess it’s too much to expect those padlock keys to be on you?’

It was her turn to flash
him
a hint of a smile. She gave another small shrug before she leaned back against the pool table, her cardigan slipping down her shoulder a little more as she braced her arms. ‘You can check if you like.’

Pulse racing at the prospect, he took a mouthful of beer, lowered his bottle to his side. ‘If you’re going to start playing sex games with me, you need to stretch that imagination a little more.’

Her reciprocal gaze was painfully steady. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my imagination.’

‘Really? Looks to me like you’re treading water in the shallow end. Let’s do a comparison once we’ve finished, shall we?’

She bit into her bottom lip, raked her gaze slowly over him, didn’t bother to adjust her cardigan as it slid down her shoulder a little further, down her breast, revealing the hardness of her nipple through the thin layer of silk. ‘Sounds promising,’ she said, looking back into his eyes.

And suddenly too much made sense.

J
essie’s pulse
kicked up a notch, the look in his eyes sending a flush of heat deep below her belly button. Because, unfortunately, just sharing his company, even that short time,
was
better than being alone, being a ghost, just as he’d said. And it wasn’t helped by knowing he’d barely taken his eyes off her since entering the room, let alone having felt his gaze burn into her as she’d bent forward over the table – a heat that contrasted with the cool air caressing her inner thighs.