In For the Kill (11 page)

Kev picked up. “Whom am I speaking with?”

“It's Sam,” he said.

“Jesus! It's about time! Where the hell have you been? Why aren't you answering your phone? We've been calling all day!”

“My phone's AWOL. I left it with Sveti by accident this morning. I've spent the day in an interrogation room, sorting it all out.”

“So I heard,” Kev said.

“Where did they take Sveti?” Sam demanded.

Kev paused, too damn long for Sam's nerves. “Um, listen, Sam—”

“Nick and Becca's? Miles and Lara's? Cray's Cove? Where?”

“I think Tam and Val were the ones who ended up—”

“Later, Kev.”

“Stop! Wait! Don't go racing up there right now. Tempers are high, people are being irrational, so just chill and wait a couple of—”

“They're pissed at
me?
I put my ass on the line today!” he yelled. “I killed three men for her, and they're giving me attitude?”

Kev coughed delicately. “Your ass on the line might have counted for more if she hadn't spent the previous night in your bed.”

Sam stopped in the corridor. People veered sideways to give him a wide berth. “You are fucking kidding me! The only reason I saw them take her was because she'd spent the night with me! She'd have been tortured to death if she'd been home alone!”

“Don't freak. I'm not judging you. Sveti's a big girl. She can do what she wants with any man she wants as far as I'm concerned. I just don't want your ass kicked when you're all wound up. Avoid the scene for a day or so. They're protective of Sveti, and Tam's freaking—”

“I'm not the one who was hurting her!” he shouted.

“I know that, and you know that, so chill,” Kev soothed. “There's no place in the world that's safer for her than Cray's Cove, Sam, so relax. I'm heading up there with Edie tomorrow, and so are a lot of the others, so stay clear of the meeting of the clans if you—”

Sam hung up. Kev called back immediately, but he let the phone buzz unanswered. Enough of this shit. Granted, Sveti, Tam, and Val didn't have the number of his burner phone, but none of them was stupid. They could have called Horvath or Tenly, or even the main switchboard.

He probably wasn't fit to drive, he reflected, as he got on the road. His hands vibrated on the wheel. But he wasn't going to fall asleep. He might never sleep again. His body tissues were marinated in adrenaline.

It was a long drive. He peeled off the interstate onto a series of smaller highways to get to Cray's Cove. He'd been there only once, not long after the bullet wound to the lung, the one he'd gotten following Bruno Ranieri around. Tam had hosted Bruno and Lily's engagement party, and since he'd taken a bullet in their service, he'd scored a pity invite. Tam had a visceral dislike of anyone who represented the law, but he'd been too curious not to check the place out. And anxious to get another glimpse of the remote Svetlana in her lofty tower. Way up there where the air was so thin. Just stars and clouds. The occasional bird.

She'd refused to speak to him that day, of course, being mortally pissed at the way he'd conducted his investigation. Hadn't stopped him from looking. Staring, even, until she blushed and fled the room.

His obsession with detail, underscored by lust, had burned the directions into his brain. He reached the driveway at midnight. There it was. Tamara Steele and Valery Janos, stenciled boldly on the mailbox.

He drove up the long, winding access road, which wended along the crest of a coastal hill. The house was an architectural marvel, parts carved right into the mountainside, parts jutting out over the cliff that overlooked a private beach in an inaccessible cove.

He bypassed the small parking lot below the house and parked next to Val and Tam's cars up in front of the garage.

The door opened as he approached. Tam's slim form was backlit in the entrance. She held a shotgun, though she knew damn well who it was, with all those cameras on her access road.

“Where's Sveti?” he asked.

“What are you doing here now? It's the middle of the night!”

“I'm not in the mood for bullshit,” he said. “Take me to Sveti.”

“That girl is like my daughter, and she's sleeping. It's an indecent hour. Get back in your car. Go to the motel on the highway. Come back in the morning. Maybe I'll find it in myself to be civil to you then.”

“I was there for her when she needed me, Tam, so put down your goddamn shotgun and get out of my way.”

She racked it back. The sound was loud in the gloom.

“Stop,” she warned. “I decide who walks into my house, and when. And I am absolutely capable of filling your ass with buckshot.”

“My ass isn't pointed in your direction,” Sam said. “If you want to shoot me in the face, do it. But I don't think Sveti will thank you for it.”

“He has a point, love.” Val appeared behind Tam.

Sam was close enough now to see Tam's face. Her mouth was tight, her eyes and nose red and swollen.

“Val, would you just back me up for once?” she snapped.

“Of course,” Val said. “Always. Just not when you are wrong.”

Rachel appeared in the hallway, a toddler in her arms. “Mama?”

Tam's eyes did not waver. “I told you to take Irina upstairs.”

“Mama, don't be mad at Sam!” Rachel said earnestly. “He saved her! Sveti said so! She'd be dead if he hadn't gone after her!”

“Go upstairs, Rachel,” Val urged.

Sam pushed past Tam and her gun, and stood there, stymied. It was a large house, and the search would be long and slow and stupid.

He turned to Val. “Where is she?”

Val's eyes flicked to his wife and back, resigned. “East tower.”

“Goddamnit, Val,” Tam hissed.

“Face it,” Val said with a shrug. “If you are not prepared to hurt him, you cannot stop him. He saved her life. You are being foolish.”

“Fine, then,” she snarled. “I'll just hurt you instead.”

“I was afraid of that,” Val said wryly. “I think that tonight will be a very long night.”

“This way,” Rachel said excitedly. “I'll show you.”

The girl scampered on ahead down the corridor. Sam followed, his heart thudding. Tam and Val were on his heels as Rachel led him into a door that revealed an open, metal spiral staircase. Rachel's bare feet flashed at eye level as she spiraled up, light-footed even with Irina in her arms. The toddler twisted to look down over her sister's shoulder at Sam, making inquisitive gabbling sounds.

“Don't wake Sveti, Rachel,” Val called. “She's exhausted.”

Rachel pushed open the door at the top with exaggerated care, and put her finger to her lips. Irina pointed helpfully into the dark room. “Setty,” she announced, her voice shrill. “Setty sweeping.”

He was lucky there were children here. Even the thorny Tam didn't have the stomach to blow him into bloody chunks in front of her daughters. Though she clearly considered Sveti one of those daughters.

But the thought evaporated when he entered that room. Rachel snapped on a desk lamp. Tam hissed a sharp reproof from the door.

The slender figure curled beneath the blanket on the bed stirred at the snap of the light, and turned. Her eyes looked huge and bruised in her face. She jerked up onto her elbow. The blanket fell down. She wore a thin, tight tank top, loose flannel pajama trousers. “Sam?”

His tongue felt thick, taking up too much space in his mouth. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely.

Her face crumpled. “Oh, God. Oh, Sam.”

“Setty cry?” Irina sounded worried.

“Okay. You've seen her,” Tam announced briskly. “Satisfied? We'll take it from here, Sam. She needs rest. Come on. Out.”

Sam ignored her and walked toward the bed. His throat felt hot and tight, like a screw was turning in it. Every step tightened it up, to that last quarter turn that threatened to shatter the whole mechanism.

Her arms lifted up, welcoming him.

He thudded to his knees by the bed, and fell into them. He forgot Tam, the kids, Val, the rest of the world. There was only Sveti, taut and trembling. Her arms, wound around his neck, pulling him hungrily.

He pressed his wet face against her hair. For the first time all day, he could breathe.

“Out, Rachel, Irina. Go. Now.” There was steel in Val's voice. Even Rachel responded to it. Sam barely heard the padding of little bare feet.

“Tamar,” Val urged gently. “My love. Leave them. Come on.”

Tam muttered something bitter and incomprehensible.

“She is grown,” Val soothed. “She can choose. She has chosen. Obviously. Let it go. Come with me.”

“Now? Seriously? Now is an intelligent time for her to make a choice like that?”

“Now is the only time,” Val said.

The door shut, but he heard Tam's acerbic voice receding down the stairs. “Don't you get all zen on me when I'm this pissed.”

“And when are you not pissed?” Val's plaintive voice faded away.

The last strength that had kept him upright drained away. He was boneless, spent. Clinging to her, as much to get comfort as to give it.

With their audience gone, the tears leaked faster, but he didn't want to lay that on her, so he kept his face buried in her silken swirls of hair, inhaling the scent. His ears roared and his body shook, and he was squeezing too hard, but he could not relax. His muscles were locked in that hungry vise grip of
mine, mine, mine.

At some point, he must have kicked off his shoes. He found himself on top of her, entwined. Madly kissing her. He hadn't meant to. It was the wrong time, after what had happened, and he was a prick and a lout to come on to a girl who'd been through an ordeal like hers.

But they were dragged down, as if by the kraken from the deep, into one of those end-of-the-world kisses. Her shirt got shoved over her breasts, her legs twined, pulsing her crotch against the bulge of his cock. She kissed him back like her life depended on it, honey sweet, all open to him, offering herself. So blitzed, she'd forgotten to hold herself back.

Instinctively, he took full advantage of that. How could he not?

She made a protesting sound as he dragged himself from her embrace and got to his feet. He gestured at the door.

“Privacy,” he said.

“They won't burst in on me,” she assured him.

He flicked the knob lock shut as he tossed his shirt away. “You might be willing to bet your life on that, but I won't.”

Sveti smiled. “Tam overreacts,” she said. “But you were the hero today. She knows that.”

“Whatever.” He kicked off jeans and underwear; then he was on that bed, caging her in, with his heat, his bulk.
Mine.

She had goose bumps. She needed to be sucked, licked, squeezed. He jerked her flannel pants down, along with the scrap of underwear.

Oh, God, every damn time, it wiped him out, how beautiful she was. All those dips and curves, strong muscles and delicate bones. Scrapes and bruises, too, marring the porcelain glow of her pale skin.

He started with the hurt places, kissing scraped and scabbed hands and feet, skinned knees, the bruises on her thighs. Then he got waylaid by the warm nest between her legs, those secret pink folds.

But Sveti had ideas of her own, and she grabbed his hair and yanked him up, positioning him right where she wanted him.

Right down to business, no frills, no fuss. Fine with him.

He sank into her, with a choked groan. It was inevitable and amazing and perfect, his cockhead pushing into that tight, moist nest. Loved and squeezed as it forged slowly deeper. The in stroke was a wet, slow, dragging kiss all the way down to his base, and on the outstroke, her pussy squeezed and suckled him. A few of those slow, agonizing thrusts and he was wedged to the max in her plush depths. She squirmed and whimpered, lifting herself for more, more, more.

Easy does it.
He rocked inside her, eyes squeezed shut, feeling for the sweet spots, the strokes, the pace that would take her to shivering pieces. They heaved, surged, rocked. He felt the glow inside her on some inexplicable level of his being, shining like a star about to supernova.

Juicy, scalding. No latex. But the thought had no teeth, not while frantically fucking. Their hands twined, clutching as his hips thudded against hers. Their eyes locked. The contact was charged with power.

Heart-stopping. So beautiful, so painful. So fucking real.

She was right on the edge, so he slowed it down and toyed with her clit, sliding his cockhead relentlessly against that magic place that made her sob and writhe and flop, eyes wild, gasping for air—

Ahhhh,
yes.
Off she went. Long, hard, clutching throbs. She grabbed him, crying out. Nails biting deep.

She lay, splayed and limp after, dragging in shuddering gulps of air. He just rocked, waiting for her eyes to open. Waiting to pounce.

They fluttered open, all unsuspecting. He lit into her without mercy. “You left the hospital without telling me.”

She blinked, nonplussed. “I didn't . . . Tam just organized—”

“You could have called.”

“You didn't have a phone,” she protested. “You were—”

“Bullshit. You had Horvath's number. He gave you a card after he took your statement. He could have passed on a message that you were going to Cray's Cove. I had to go to the hospital and get an adrenaline spike when I found someone else in your bed. I did not deserve that.”

She hid behind her eyelashes. “It was a very intense morning,” she said. “I don't know the etiquette of—”