Double Impact: Never Say Die\No Way Back (31 page)

The man laughed for a moment, then his expression turned somber. “Your old friend Lofgren, for the good that information will do you. He will bring you down yet. My only regret is that I will not be there to see it.”

The weapon abruptly fired. Fine droplets of crimson spewed from the neat round hole that appeared in the man's forehead. But the spray of blood and matter across the wall behind him was what startled Ami from the shock that had paralyzed her with the first echo of the blast. She braced to run. She couldn't let him catch her spying on him like this.

 

M
ICHAL LOWERED
his weapon.

It was done.

One more name to scratch off the endless list. One more piece of the intelligence puzzle.

Would it never be enough?

The empty abyss that was his soul felt suddenly even more hollow than before. There was nothing left that set him apart from those he executed for the good of the world. He was no better than the dead man now taking up space in his cellar.
He
was a killer.

He stared at the gun in his hand and then at the spray of blood staining his skin before unconsciously tucking the
weapon back into the waistband of his trousers. He had done what he'd had to…what he'd been ordered to do.

A creak on the stairs jerked his attention in that direction. His gaze locked with Amira's wide blue one. The fear in her eyes told him that she'd witnessed everything. She looked ready to bolt.

His last thought evolved into action at the same time that she scrambled to her feet. Michal was charging up the steps before she could reach the door. He grabbed her by the waist and quickly twisted as they went down on the treads, allowing his body to take the brunt of the impact.

“Let me go!” She flailed her arms, banging her fists against him anywhere she could.

He jerked his head first left then right to avoid her panicked attack. Before she could get in a proper blow he'd manacled her wrists.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, his fury mounting at the idea that she'd not only given her guard the slip, but that no one had come looking for her.

She swallowed convulsively, the movement of delicate muscles along the slender length of her throat distracting him for one long moment. “You killed that man.”

The disgust in her voice stabbed deep into his gut. He looked away from her accusing eyes and got to his feet, dragging her upward with him. “This is none of your concern.” He tugged her after him as he headed toward the door.

She stalled, tried to jerk away from his hold. When he glared a warning at her she muttered thinly, “You
are
a murderer.”

In that instant several emotions coalesced at once. The realization that she truly had no memory of their former time together absorbed fully; the depth of her absolute fear
of him slammed into his gut with all the force of a physical blow; the undeniable hurt he suffered as a result.

He yanked her up hard against him. “Unless you want to be the next to die, I would suggest that you obey me.” He snarled the words like a wounded animal. The rage at his own vulnerability—a vulnerability only she had the power to effect—mushroomed inside him with each passing second. The heart of stone that beat in his chest felt strangely fragile.

“Your wish is my command,” she muttered disdainfully, yet her eyes gave her away. She blinked rapidly, but not quickly enough to hide the brightness that glimmered there. However fearless she wanted to appear at the moment, he knew she was terrified.

Terrified of him.

Of what he was.

He burst into the kitchen with her in tow. She tried to wrench away from him, which only fueled his anger. He didn't stop, though he knew she could hardly keep up with him, as he passed through the main room where his obviously inept men loitered like the fools they were.

With his savage glare, a hush fell over the room. He said nothing. No words were necessary. All six of those present understood their error.

Once in his room he slammed and locked his door. She fought his hold, a new kind of fear apparently taking root. As it should. He clenched his jaw against the rage building, but it did no good.

He glowered down at her, stilling her struggles in an instant. But his own inner battle would not so easily be subdued. He longed to shake her until she admitted the rightness of his ways. He wanted to make her see the truth. But to what end? What did it matter? “You would call me a murderer,” he roared, arguing the point in spite of the
stupidity and uselessness of the effort. He slapped his chest with his palm, as angry with himself as he was with her. “The man in the cellar is a victim of my murderous ways, is that it?”

She trembled visibly, but did not turn away as he'd expected. Instead she lifted her chin and countered, “I've heard your men talking. You're not just a murderer,” she threw back at him. “You're a monster.”

White-hot fury blindsided him, obliterating all other emotion, all other thought. He pulled back his hand but caught himself, shaking with the effort of suppressing the reaction that was far too automatic in this tainted world in which he lived.

She cowered in anticipation of the blow, but she did not run from him.

He blinked and dragged in a ragged breath. It took a full ten seconds to master the beast inside him and lower the hand with which he'd intended to punish her. Never once had he laid a hand on her in that manner. Even though she had betrayed him, sentencing herself to death from more sources than one, he could not bring himself to do
this.

He leaned closer to her, using his size and physical strength to intimidate her instead. “You call me a monster,” he growled back at her. “That rotting bastard in the cellar was instrumental in the deaths of dozens of women and children. He cared not who got in his way.” He pressed her with the fiercest glare he could summon. “He will harm no more innocents. His reign of terror is over.”

Still she didn't back down. “What about yours?” she snapped right back at him. “When will your reign end?”

Something shattered inside him…some protective mental barrier that allowed him to ignore what the world thought of him. That made him oblivious to it all. He
snagged her wrist and jerked her close…close enough to feel the heat of his breath on those luscious lips parted by her abrupt, fear-inspired gasp.

“I am fighting a war,” he murmured harshly. “You will treat me with the respect of a warrior or suffer the consequences.”

She tugged at his hold, his threatening words only making her more visibly determined, infuriating him beyond all reason. “What're you going to do,
Michal?
” she demanded consciously, or perhaps not, putting emphasis on his name the way she had before. In a single heartbeat his fury morphed into need, pooling in his loins like a sea of fire.

“Are you going to kill me, too?” she taunted. “You've been tiptoeing around it all week. Why don't you just get it over with?” She moved in on him, eliminating the few centimeters between them. “Just go ahead and kill me and give your men a new subject to speculate about.” She glanced at his chest and then his hands. “You already have blood on your hands, what's a little more?”

Her insolence maddened him so completely he could not form a coherent thought. He looked at his hands and then at her and said from between clenched teeth, “You will honor my victory over my enemy by cleansing this tainted blood from my body.”

Her lips thinned into a grim line, but she said nothing as he hauled her into the bathroom. He waited, impatience pounding inside him, as she turned reluctantly to the sink. Her movements stiff and jerky, she dampened a cloth and waited for him to move nearer. He saw her breath catch as he did so. Was true fear for her life only now sinking in?

A definite tremble in her touch, she smoothed the cloth over his flesh, slowly but surely cleansing away the blood
and, at the same time, somehow converting his fury to something hot and wild, sending it pulsing through his veins, only to reignite the heat still smoldering in his loins.

Over and over she rinsed the delicate white cloth and moved it across his skin, her fingers kneading, gliding, until he was rigid with need. The pulse at the base of her throat fluttered frantically, whether from fear or her own desire, he could not say. Michal only knew that he could not bear her touch a moment longer.

“Enough.” He flung her hand away when she reached for him once more. If she touched him again…

Glaring at him as if she wished the blood had come from his body, she threw the soiled cloth into the sink but said nothing.

Michal closed his eyes and took in a long, deep breath. He brutally squashed the softer emotions that tried to surface. Those feelings had no place in his life now. He set his jaw hard against them. This was his life now. Even if this mission ended today, he wasn't sure he could ever go back to being the man he once was. That man was gone. Lost to the unfeeling monster he had become.

She had been right when she'd called him a monster.

He was that and worse.

“Are you finished with me now?”

Rage renewed inside him ending his moment of self-deprecating reverie. She stood right in front of him, arms folded over her breasts, staring directly at him with utter disgust.

“There is nothing else I will ever need from you.” He hurled the words at her, making her flinch, but to his surprise, she quickly recovered.

“Then why don't you let me go?” she challenged.

He could almost believe the bravado and arrogance she flaunted, but then he saw a flicker of the truth. She was
playing him…trying to trip him up. The momentary glint of fear in those blue eyes gave away her true self.

She was still afraid of him. Didn't trust him. Didn't remember him…

“Answer me, dammit,” she demanded sharply, a definite quiver in her voice now. She knew he'd seen the truth and her frustration made her weak. “Why don't you let me go?”

“Because I cannot bring myself to let you go.”

Her heart slamming mercilessly against her rib cage, Ami saw the truth of his statement in his eyes a fraction of a second before he moved. Those strong arms snaked out and hauled her up against him, pressing her breasts against the solid wall of his chest, rendering any thoughts of escape futile.

“Is that what you wanted to hear?” he growled savagely. “That I cannot bear to exact the revenge you deserve?” The troubling emotions straining his voice swirled and darkened in his deep brown eyes. “That killing you would be like cutting out my own heart—the heart that I had thought dead these two long years?”

Her brain told her to push him away…not to believe the need-filled words he spoke, but her heart wouldn't let her. “Yes,” she whispered instinctively. Some part of her that she either didn't understand or didn't remember wanted to hear exactly that.

His mouth claimed hers before she could take back the solitary word that revealed far too much of the confusion and fear twisting inside her. His kiss was hard and punishing and at the same time incredibly needy. She flattened her palms against his chest to push him away, at that same instant she felt him tremble. Just once. And her internal battle was lost.

She surrendered to the desperate words he'd said…to
the heat of his skin…the feel of his muscular body as he held her closer, tighter in those powerful arms. The last gauzy-thin resistance faded as he deepened the kiss. His tongue invaded her mouth, seeking, teasing, needing. Unable to restrain her own need, her arms went around his neck, pulling him nearer, allowing her the added pleasure of aligning intimately against him. His savage groan sent heat searing through her veins.

He lifted her against him and carried her to the bed. It was too late to resist…too late for her and too late for him. No matter what he'd done or who he was, she needed him right now. Needed him in ways she couldn't explain…needed him to help her forget for just one moment…

His fingers fumbled with the buttons to her blouse, his knuckles scraping her pearled nipples through the thin fabric. Impatient to feel more of his touch, she pushed his hands away and ripped the blouse from her body, bearing her upper torso to him. For a long while he only stood there, staring at her breasts, as if making up for lost time. Then he dropped to his knees and patiently tugged off her jeans, her panties, his eyes devouring every inch he bared.

He kissed her slowly, fully, moving over her thighs, across her abdomen and up her rib cage. He lowered her onto the bed and continued his erotic journey until his mouth covered one aching breast. Her body arched like a bow and she cried out before she could stop herself. She writhed in pleasured agony as he sucked deeply from first one breast and then the other. When she was certain she would simply die of it, he moved on, feathering kisses along her throat, over her chin, until he possessed her mouth once more.

His kiss was slow and deep, tender with a barely restrained ferocity. He dragged out the kiss, laving her with
his full attention and a seemingly endless patience when she wanted nothing more than for him to finish this. To fill her with the hard length she felt pressing against her. He moved between her thighs, cradling himself there so intimately she would have screamed with the unparalleled ecstasy of it had his mouth not been fully sealed over hers. He pumped his hips slowly, erotically, sliding his pulsing length along her throbbing feminine channel. She locked her legs around his, urging him to fill her…to bring her the completion her body sought.

“I can't lose you again,” he murmured against her lips, his gaze seeking and finding hers.

His tender words wound around her heart and tightened like a vise while the insistent nudge of his sex as he positioned for entry sent the tension in her body soaring. She lifted her hips instinctively and whimpered with need when he held back.

His fingers threaded into her hair and twisted to the point of pain at the same instant fury flashed in the dark depths of his eyes. Her body humming with desire, on the very brink of climax, the intensity of the rage suddenly glaring down at her caused her thundering heart to shudder to a near stop.