Masters 02 Master of the Abyss (9 page)

Gustaf filled two glasses and set them on the bar top after swiping up a few miscreant drops with a grimy towel.

After paying, Jake picked up his beer. Unfortunately the icy cold liquid didn’t divert his mind—or body—from Kallie. He was already half-erect from one look. Had he actually worried about his dick’s lack of interest?

He leaned an elbow on the bar and watched as Kallie handed off the beers to the table of women. She said something to Rebecca, laughed at the retort, and headed back to get the two drinks she’d left on the bar.

Jake moved a few steps out to intercept her.

Why’d they decide to sit so far from the bar? Kallie wondered as she headed back to fetch the rest of the drinks. She dodged a staggering tourist, veered too close to Ben’s table, and had to slap the damned lecher’s hand away from her butt. A few steps later, she pulled old Verne to his feet and two-stepped down the middle of the room with him. She’d never seen him sober, but he was a happy drunk. Ten years ago, he’d given her country dance lessons in the parking lot after some jerk whose name she couldn’t remember had made fun of her. By the time Verne had been satisfied with her progress, she could outdance most of the town.

He cackled and patted her shoulder. “Still got the moves, girl.”

“So do you, Verne.” Her kiss on his leathery cheek made him grin so wide that his silver fillings gleamed at her. Laughing, she turned away and ran into a wall. A wall of very hard man.

She heard a low chuckle, and firm hands gripped her arms to steady her. “Careful there, sprite.”

Like snow in the hot sun, every cell in her body turned to slush. Knowing he’d undoubtedly notice his effect on her, she muttered, “Hi, Jake,” to his chest without looking up.

“Kallie.” His voice rumbled across her like a mountain avalanche and had the same effect, knocking down every one of her resolutions. Her heart picked up speed, and even worse, she could feel her breasts contracting, her skin absorbing the heat of his hands. She might tell her mind to forget, but her body well remembered the feel of him against her. Thick inside her. His powerful hands—

She tried to step around him.

He put a finger under her chin and tilted her head up. “Are you not talking to me, Kallie?”

His eyes were too blue in the tavern light, and the warm look in them made her long to burrow closer. But he didn’t want that. She didn’t want that.
Okay, don’t lie
. She
shouldn’t
want that. And she really, really didn’t know how to handle this. She forced a smile. “We’re having a girls’ night out, dude, and you don’t have the proper equipment.”

She yanked away and continued to the bar. If he touched her again, she’d plant a fist in his gut. Maybe that was excessive, but, hey, he was into BDSM, right? What was a little pain between friends?

Next round, she’d send Serena to fetch the drinks.

When she reached the bar, David had an odd expression on his face. “Is he bothering you, Kallie?” He put his arm around her again.

Is this what a chicken between two hungry dogs feels like
? She stepped out of reach. “Nothing I can’t handle.” She lifted the two last drinks so quickly that beer sloshed over the sides. “Well—”

“I had fun at the barbecue,” he interrupted. “How about tomorrow night? There’s a—”

“No.” The word was out before she thought, the bluntness rude enough to make his mouth thin. But she meant it. “I like you, David, but not—Dating isn’t—” Hell, could she be any more tongue-tied?

He scowled. “It’s him, isn’t it? Jake Hunt.”

Kallie glanced over her shoulder and sucked in a breath. Jake stood beside Verne—undoubtedly listening to one of the old guy’s interminable jokes—but his eyes were focused on her. No chill there tonight; his stare was like molten silver, hot enough to burn. She turned to the bar and could still feel his intense gaze on her back.

David caught her arm. “Don’t be with him, Kallie. You’re better with me. We’re good together.”

“Ah…thank you, David.” She pulled away, unsettled at his show of emotion. He had always been reserved. Polite. No fire like Jake—who didn’t want her. The thought sat in her stomach bitterly. “I don’t think I’m right for anyone.”

She headed back to the table, giving Jake a wide berth, and thumped one of the two beers down. “Here you go, Rebecca.”

After dropping ungracefully into her chair, she lifted the last beer and drained half of it in one long pull. A covert glance showed Jake still talking with Verne. Kallie shook her head, remembering Verne’s story of how Jake had jumped into a flooding river to rescue him. Dammit—like she needed to hear glowing tales of the jerk’s bravery?

When David walked past the two men on the way to the restroom, the glare he directed at Jake’s back should have put a smoldering hole in Hunt’s black T-shirt. Well, she felt the same way.

Serena and Gina were chattering about the gorgeous star of a new TV show and—thank you, God—hadn’t noticed the interlude with Jake. Rebecca, however…

“Very interesting.” Rebecca sipped her beer, her gaze on Jake. “You know, I’ve never seen him watch anyone like he does you. He’s always so easygoing; very little upsets him. When he does a scene with a woman, it’s like his emotions are switched off. But not last week at the party, or tonight.” She raised her eyebrows at Kallie.

Kallie kept her back turned to the asshole and her voice low. “Don’t look at me like that. There’s nothing going on.” She drank the rest of her beer and scowled. “We played one night, and he gave me the ‘this is only tonight’ lecture. Repeated it, even.”

“A one-nighter lecture?” Rebecca snorted a laugh. “He’s so honest I can just see him doing that. And it’s true; I’ve never seen him with any woman more than once in a row.” Rebecca tilted her head and regarded Jake. “He isn’t acting like a one-nighter right now. I don’t think he’s taken his eyes off you.”

“I don’t give a damn how he acts.” Dipwad. If he’d wanted to see her, he knew where the phone was. He’d barely said hello in the grocery store. But tonight, yeah, he’d probably had a beer or three and now wanted a quickie as a chaser. And then he’d go back to ignoring her again.

Rebecca tapped a finger on her lips. “Maybe if you flirted a little? Wore something sexy?”

“I don’t know how to flirt or be sexy.”

“No way. How can you grow up without learning the essentials?” The horrified expression on the redhead’s face made Kallie snicker.

“Three older cousins and a conservative uncle. I wanted to fit in, so I dressed like them… And they got so used to that, they’d harass me if I wore something provocative. Or looked at a guy.” Kallie smiled ruefully. “I didn’t even date until I got to college, and then it was too late to change.”

“Girl, it’s never too late to change.” Rebecca tilted her head and assessed Kallie. “I can guess your size. And then maybe a little—”

God help me
. “So how did you meet Logan?”

The diversion worked. Rebecca flushed a light red and leaned closer so only Kallie could hear. “You know how wide-eyed you were last weekend? Well, you should have seen me the night I met Logan. See, my boyfriend had talked me into a holiday at Serenity.” She hesitated and glanced at Serena and Gina, who were now debating whether a man’s size could best be determined by the length of his thumbs or his feet.

Interesting
. Kallie’s gaze slid to Jake and his—
oh, yeah
—big, big boots.

Rebecca’s eyes followed, and she burst out laughing, drawing the attention of every guy in the place, including Logan. The look he gave his fiancée was hot enough to spark a forest fire, and it sent a spike of envy right through Kallie’s heart. No man had
ever
looked at her like that. She took a slow breath and tried to remember what they’d been discussing. “Okay, you went to the lodge with your boyfriend. Go on.”

After checking again that the other two weren’t listening, Rebecca said, “With my boyfriend and his swinger’s club.”

“Swingers…that’s when everybody kinda sorta does everyone else, right?”

“Oh yeah. All out in public.” Rebecca rolled her eyes. “Major mistake on my part. So when my boyfriend brought someone back to our cabin to…enjoy, I couldn’t say anything since—hey, swinger’s club, right? Anyway, I stomped out. Logan found me freezing to death on the front porch…and took me upstairs to his rooms.”

Kallie snorted, remembering the commanding way he’d wrapped his hand around the back of Rebecca’s neck. “I just bet he did.”

“Shy, he’s not.” Rebecca gave Kallie a mischievous look. “He discovered I was submissive, and sucked me right into a whole new kink. I would never have thought I’d do anything out in public, but being watched adds a certain…something.”

Kallie averted her gaze, the words bringing back more than she wanted to remember. Light glinting off muscled arms, calloused hands holding her legs apart, her whimpering, even knowing others could hear the sounds she made… Warmth seared her cheeks. Then she remembered she’d never do that again with Jake. She drained her beer.

He stared at the bitch from across the room. So rude. A ballbuster who would humiliate a man in front of his friends. There she sat, satisfied with herself, probably even gloating. The darkness of her hair and eyes echoed the blackness in her soul.

Laughter spilled across the tavern, ugly, vicious noise, ripping holes in his mind, letting memories ooze into him. The first demon had challenged his manhood. “
Can’t even get it up. Loser. I’ve had it with you
.” Had tossed her dark hair over her shoulder and turned her back.

His fingers clenched, squashing the burger in his hand into nothingness. Catsup dripped onto the table in bloodred splatters.

A woman could get under a man’s skin, stealing his thoughts, his very essence until she owned him. And then he’d return to her over and over, letting her tear pieces of him away until clawing darkness streamed through him. Until he felt that life wasn’t worth living.

He dropped the remains of his food and stared at the redness covering his hand. Drops of red had spattered the long white scar on his wrist where he had sliced so cleanly and watched the blood of his body pour out and soak into the carpet.

He’d been wrong to do that and wrong to blame himself instead of her. The knowledge had come to him as he’d recovered. The doctor who saw him had a voice of an angel as he kept repeating that the failure of the relationship hadn’t been his fault. Not his fault at all.

And then he knew—it must have been hers. Some women were evil.

She’d been evil. He’d hit her, then hit her again and again. He saw that by his actions, he’d destroyed the evil and removed it from the world. The shrieking of the demon inside her had confirmed it, hurting his ears until his head pounded with pain. When the noise stopped, he’d known the foulness had gone, for once again, his manhood had responded to his command.

Dark hair and dark eyes
. Marks of the devil. Some females fought successfully against the encroaching malevolence; some were overcome by the demon. The fallen ones taunted the men—his brothers—ruining their lives and shredding their souls.

Carefully he wiped the redness from his hand. Now he would risk his own life and soul to destroy this demon.

Chapter Four

An hour or so later, Kallie shoved her chair away from the table. Time to go. By now most of the alcohol had to be out of her system.

Logan had bribed Gustaf to give Johnny Cash a rest—thank God—and play a waltz. He’d snatched Rebecca right out of her chair to dance. In one corner, Serena and Gina flirted with the loggers, but none of the men looked interesting. Not with Jake still sitting at the bar.

Jerk.

Aside from talking with Rebecca, the evening had been a crappy one—because of Jake’s presence and the effort it took to ignore him.

Kallie pulled on her flannel shirt and slipped out. The parking lot was wonderfully cool after the stuffiness of the bar and silent after the loud music. Shaking her head, she slid behind the wheel of her Jeep and turned the key.
Rrr-rrr-rrr.

Excuse me
? She tried again.
Rrr-rrr-rrr
. With an exasperated sigh, she thunked her head on the steering wheel a few times, then got out and scanned the area. Nobody in the parking lot to jump-start the car. Didn’t that just figure? She eyed the door of the tavern. Did she want to ask for help…in front of Jake…looking like a wussy girl who couldn’t even get her car to start?

He’d undoubtedly offer her a ride, thinking she’d changed her mind and wanted him, after all.

Nope. It’d be a hot day on the glacier before she accepted help from him. She glanced at the sky. A few clouds. The fat curve of the silvery moon didn’t provide the greatest light, but it would do. She rummaged in the glove compartment for a flashlight. Only half-dead, so it might last long enough.

Oh well. A few miles in the cold air wouldn’t hurt her any. Walking didn’t take that much longer than driving the twisty gravel road. She headed across the parking lot, glancing back as a young man staggered out the back door and bent over in the unmistakable way of someone being sick.

She shook her head. Poor guy. Then again, this wasn’t the way she’d planned to end the evening either. Maybe she should have gone home with David and made new memories to replace the ones of Jake. Like that song, “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair,” she might have screwed that man right out of her thoughts.

She huffed a laugh. Interesting as it sounded, it wouldn’t happen. The thought of having sex right now with anyone—
except Jake
—felt wrong. With
anyone
, dammit, she told herself firmly. She stuffed her hands in her pockets and strolled down Main Street. Past David’s grocery store across from the police station, past the two antique stores, the tiny museum. Clouds floating in front of the moon sent shadows wavering along the clapboard buildings.

Damn her for being an idiot, anyway. Ever since seeing Hunt for the first time, she’d wanted him. Everything about him appealed to her, from his low voice and quick smile to his broad shoulders—even the way a day’s growth of beard shadowed his square jaw. And nothing had changed since then.