Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle: Hot Blooded, Cold Blooded, Shiver, Absolute Fear, Lost Souls, Malice, & an Exclusive Extended Excerpt From Devious (204 page)

Scratching at her throat, her nerves stretched as tight as ever, she looked up at the picture of Jesus she had mounted on the wall near the window. She’d once been so religious, so convinced of her own piety, and now…oh, Father…now…she was lost…

Ariel swallowed hard.

Then there was that Bentz girl. Daughter of a cop. Nosing around. Who claimed she’d seen danger in the color of Ariel’s skin or some such crap! What did that mean?

Her skin crawled as she thought perhaps she might be the next one who disappeared, that something was going to happen to her….

“No way.” She crossed to her minifridge and pulled a bottle of vodka from the freezer. Uncapping it, she lifted the mouth to her lips and took a long swig. She just needed to calm down. She was getting rattled.

Kristi Bentz had done this to her. What a freak. Wiping the back of her hand over her lips, Ariel caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. Her skin
was
pale, her fingers tight over the neck of the cold bottle, her eyes round with fear.

Maybe she should just run.

Like the others.

How long would it take to pack a bag and disappear?

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done it before.

Leave now, tonight. Before you change your mind. Hop a bus and get the hell out of here.

Could she just not show up?

She walked to the closet and reached to the upper shelf for her big backpack, the one she camped with, the one that could hold almost all of her pitiful belongings. She was dragging it down when her cell phone rang.

Her heart sank as she plucked the phone from her purse, read the screen, and realized that he was calling.

As if he’d known.

Her heart knocked wildly at the thought of hearing his voice, of knowing that he cared, that he loved her….

She didn’t answer, let the call go to voice mail, and within minutes she heard his steps on the stairs and a rap of his knuckles on the tarnished panels.

“Ariel,” he said, his voice low, melodic, and insistent. “Open the door.”

Shivering, water surrounding her, Kristi tried to swim. She was in the middle of a pool, in a building that was dark as night. A few candles had been placed on the tile rim and their little flames flickered and threatened to die in this cavern.

Where the hell was she?

Gasping, feeling as if she’d been treading water for hours, she glanced around. Was she alone? She looked downward, toward the bottom of the pool, but it was deep and dark, and though she saw no one in the Stygian depths, she felt his presence. As surely as if he were breathing against her skin.

Swim, Kristi, for God’s sake get the hell out of here!

She kicked hard, took a big gulp of the stagnant air, and began stroking. Hard. Toward the nearest edge. She didn’t understand why, but deep in her heart she knew that something, someone evil, was hiding in the water, skulking in the shadows, where a fine mist rose toward a ceiling she couldn’t see.

Don’t think about it, just get the hell out of here. You’re a strong swimmer, you are.

Stroke! Stroke! Stroke!

She forced herself to cut through the water, her legs to kick, but her limbs felt leaden and no matter how hard she tried, she got no closer to the edge. Either it was shrinking away from her or she was just treading water.

Come on, try harder.
Gritting her teeth, she threw herself into her struggles and as she reached over her head to pull herself through the water, the tips of her fingers touched something, got wound in something fibrous, like thread. She tried to pull her hand away, but whatever it was came with it.

There in the dark, nose to nose with her, was a severed head. Tara Atwater’s eyes were open and blank in her bluish face, and from her neck a thick stream of blood invaded the water.

Kristi screamed and tried to disentangle her fingers. Panic constricted her heart. Fear propelled her to swim, dragging the damned head only to bump into something that rose from the bottom of the murky depth.

Another head! Even in the weak light she saw the blond hair as the head bobbed and turned, facing her, Rylee’s wide eyes open and staring. Damning.

Kristi shrieked, stroking away, with Tara’s head still caught in her fingers. But as she shot ahead her crown crashed into something hard. She turned to see Dionne’s face staring at her, blood flowing from her neck, her eyes wide and dead.

No!

Dionne’s eyes blinked and she looked down as if in warning. Then Kristi knew, though she couldn’t see the bottom, that evil lurked in the murky depths.

Swim! Get away!
Her mind screamed.

She turned again and saw another disembodied head. Not Monique’s as she’d expected. The ashen face that floated on the surface was Ariel’s.

God, oh, God, get me out of here!

Panicked, she started flailing, trying to scream, trying to get away. But the harder she struggled to reach the gleaming tile, the further away it appeared.

Her lungs burned, her body was heavy. She knew she was about to drown. In this pool of bloody severed heads, she would die.

Before she had a chance to tell Jay that she loved him, before she saw her father one last time.

She tried to scream, but her throat was thick and she was being pulled down, deeper and deeper, the water becoming dark.

Oh, God, help me.

Panic gripped her.

She flailed, trying to surface.

She gasped.

And then she noticed the water was turning red, a deep scarlet color….

“Kristi!” a deep male voice said, and she felt his hand upon her ankle, pulling her further down. Into the bloody depths!

“Kris! Hey!”

Her eyes flew open and she found Jay, dressed only in boxer shorts, leaning over her. She was on her daybed, in her nearly dark apartment, and he was shaking her out of sleep.

“Jay,” she whispered tremulously, the effects of the dream so real she was certain her skin was damp. She threw her arms around him.

“It’s okay. Nightmare’s over,” he whispered, pulling her close and holding her tight, but she knew in her heart, it wasn’t. Whatever evil had invaded her mind was very real and existed deep in the soul of the campus.

Shivering, trying to talk herself out of the fear that still enveloped her, she clung to him and, for a second, took solace in the pure strength of him.

He kissed her temple and she blinked back tears of relief. She knew that if he hadn’t been here, if she’d been alone, she would have woken up and dealt with the stupid nightmare on her own, but still, it felt so good to sink against him, to accept his strength.

“You all right?”

“Yeah.” That was probably a lie; she was far from okay, but now that the nightmare had receded a bit and she was conscious, she wasn’t going to fall apart on him either.

“Wanna tell me about it?”

“I don’t want to think about it. Not now.” She let out a long breath and stared at him in the thin, bluish illumination coming from the stove. The room was secure, smelling of lingering garlic and tomato sauce from the pizza and jasmine from the scented candles no longer lit. The vial lay on the counter. “I’ll tell you about it later. Maybe in the morning.”

“Good.” He was sitting on the bed, still holding her, but when he moved to get more comfortable, somehow his mouth was only a breath away from hers.

Anticipation slid through her blood.

His scent filled her head, and her body responded to his nearness in traitorous ways. Her limbs turned to wax and she just needed, wanted, him to lie down with her. She struggled with the thought of pushing him aside, but she no longer had the strength or the heart. He’d accused her of wanting him and she’d told him he was crazy, but, of course, he’d been spot on. And now, she wanted him more than ever.

His eyes found hers in the darkness. Whatever he saw gave her away completely. “Kris—” he whispered.

She turned her face to him and he kissed her. Tenderly at first, as if anticipating her rejection.

But she couldn’t turn away.

Here in the sanctity of her apartment with the evils of the night locked outside, she kissed him back, opening her mouth, feeling his tongue glide between her teeth, sensing him shift so that one of his big hands splayed against the dip in her spine, just above her buttocks.

Memories of making love to him years before poured over her as she tasted him. Salty. Familiar. Sexy. So male. How had she ever thought he wasn’t good enough? That he wasn’t intellectual enough? That he wasn’t man enough?

Stupid, stupid, girl.

Her heart was pounding, not from fear now, but desire. Her limbs, which had been so heavy in the nightmare, were strong. Anxiously she embraced him, drawing him closer to her. Her skin, which had seemed so wet from the dream’s red-stained water, was damp again. And hot. With the warm perspiration and excitement of physical need.

He shifted, his body poised above hers, one hand stroking a strand of hair from her face. She watched as he swallowed, his Adam’s apple working as he tried to contain himself, and she felt the stiffness of his erection against the juncture of her legs. Hard, thick and straining. Separated only by a thin barrier of cotton.

“Kris,” he whispered again, and in the half light she saw the desire in his eyes, the darkness of his pupils. “I don’t want to—”

“Sure you do.”

“I mean—”

“You want me,” she said, throwing back the words that he’d taunted her with earlier in the evening.

With a groan he started to roll off her, but she grabbed his arms, held him fast.

“It’s four in the morning, Kristi. I’m not in the mood for word games.”

“What are you in the mood for?”

“Don’t do this,” he said.

“Do what?”

“You know.”

“Yes.”

He warned, “This is dangerous.”

“No, Jay, it’s not,” she said, and lifted her head to kiss him hard on the lips. He didn’t respond, but she felt the heat in him, sensed the tenuous hold he had on his emotions.

“You told me earlier that it wouldn’t work and now, after what I would assume was a very disturbing nightmare, you want to make love?”

“I won’t think less of you in the morning. I promise.”

He half laughed. “Goddamn it, woman, I missed you.” Before she could respond, he kissed her again and this time there was no turning back. She skimmed his boxers off his buttocks and he nearly tore her pajamas from her body.

Her arms wrapped around his neck as they wrestled on the small bed, their limbs straining and entwining.

As they had years before.

It seemed so natural as the old bed creaked and the dog, resting on the rug, snored softly.

Kristi kissed Jay feverishly, warm sensations rushing through her veins, her skin heating as he caressed her. Her breath came short and fast. He kissed her lips, her throat, the hollow between her breasts. His thumbs circled her nipples and deep inside the wanting heated in a liquid spiral and she thought only of making love with him until dawn, maybe later….

Her fingers traced the sinewy muscles of his shoulders and she felt the scrape of springy hair against her smooth flesh as he breathed across her breasts only to take a nipple in his teeth.

She arched and he kissed the tight bud, his tongue teasing her flesh, her body aching with need. The sound that came from her throat was breathy and primal. Blood rushed through her veins in heated spurts.

Lower he descended and her heartbeat quickened as he parted her legs fuller and lifted her up, his hands on her buttocks. Her own fingers clenched in the bedsheets and her back arched.

How long had it been since she’d loved him? How many years had she wasted? She cried out as he kissed and laved her, creating a need so hot she began to writhe, wanting more, aching for all of him.

“Jay,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “Jay—oh, oh, God.”

“Right here, darlin’.” And his warm breath reached the deepest part of her before he lifted her further off the bed, adjusting her legs over his shoulders.

She bit her lip rather than beg for him to come to her and then as she looked at him, he grinned wickedly in the night, pulling her hips downward as he met her. In one slow thrust, he entered her.

She gasped, feeling her eyes round, her heart pound so hard she thought it might burst. He withdrew, and she cried out, only to have him push into her.

“Oh, God.”

Again he thrust and again, his fingers dug into her flesh, his body straining with each hard thrust.

And she met him eagerly, her mind spinning, her eyes open as she watched him moving so easily, pleasuring her while still holding back. Her throat tightened, her entire body heating as he came to her, faster and faster until she could barely breathe, couldn’t think. Though it was dark, she saw him, felt him, smelled the pure musk of him.

Faster and faster, he pushed into her, pulled her against him, and her legs wrapped around his neck as she gave more of herself to him, felt his hand, along with his erection, touching intimate parts of her, sending jolt after jolt through her nerves.

More,
she thought wildly,
more!

Faster! Faster!

She grabbed hold of his arms and arched her back as the first wave jolted through her and the images in her mind flashed behind her eyes. She saw Jay’s face now, the younger, roguish smile, and ropey muscles, and…and…and…She convulsed then, her body jerking as Jay cried out and collapsed upon her.

He bucked several times as she gasped for breath, clinging to him, wrapped in the scent of sex and musk and candles that had burned low.

She kissed him then, on the shoulder, and tasted the salt of his sweat. Turning, he pressed his lips against her neck and then nipped at her with his teeth.

“Hey!”

He laughed, tousling her hair. “Just messin’ with ya.”

“Dangerous,” she said, still struggling for breath as he rolled to the side. “You don’t know what I was dreaming about.”

“Oh, right, sorry.” But he laughed again and she rolled her eyes. “Are you going to throw me back to the chair?”