Toxic Game (GhostWalkers 15)

ing them one. She didn’t believe that his friends could save them, and she wanted to know what it felt like to make love to someone who was her absolute match. Draden was hers. The one. The only. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she did know that nothing in her life was truer.

Water slashed across the window and the wind hit the little cabin with a force that rocked it, drawing her attention back to the storm. The shower went off abruptly, but she didn’t turn around. She liked the storm and would have gone outside on the porch to witness its approach if she had more clothes. She was traveling light out of necessity. Whitney always arranged for weapons to be waiting at her destination, along with the necessary permits to carry them.

Sometimes she traveled under various identities, but she didn’t care what anyone called her, unless they addressed her as Shylah. That was real to her. Now, Draden had her rethinking her name, Peony. Who wanted to be named Peony? It was a ridiculous name, but Draden made it sound sexy. When he whispered that name in her mind so intimately, she melted inside.

What would be so wrong with having sex, Draden? She poured need into her mind. Hunger. The image of her kneeling at his feet, his cock in her mouth.

He groaned. She almost smirked at his reaction. He wasn’t nearly in as much control as he pretended to be.

Woman, you’re a handful.

She brought her hands up under her breasts, her fingers performing a small massage, thumbs sliding over the twin peaks. Just that light touch sent streaks of fire racing straight to her sex, lighting her up.

I think I’m more than a handful. Can you feel me? This is where your mouth should be. She was taunting him, trying to force his hand. She knew better. She knew she should hear what he had to say before she succumbed to other needs, before she made up her mind, but she didn’t want to chance missing out on him.

My mouth needs to be somewhere else.

At once she had the image of her legs over his shoulders and his mouth feeding at her sex. It was so erotic she squirmed, nearly feeling him there, his tongue lapping and stroking, his teeth teasing. It was too much to think about.

Devouring you, he corrected. Eating you like candy. Claiming what’s mine.

It was a dangerous game the two of them were playing, when he had seemed so determined not to get physical. Claiming what’s mine, she echoed. I like that. I like feeling as if I belong with you.

He came up behind her, his arms sliding around her, tight, under her breasts, holding her while they both stared out at the storm. It was nearly upon them now, lightning forking across the dark, purple sky, lighting up the canopy for a few seconds before it went dark again. The clouds were thick and nearly black, rolling and heaving as if in fury.

Draden’s mouth went to her neck, kissing her, teeth scraping back and forth. She shivered a response, her sex clenching, needing him more than ever. He suckled there for a moment, and then kissed his way to her shoulder.

“I really want you,” she admitted. “We both have the virus. Your friend said so. If we both have it, it doesn’t make any difference what we do. Right?” She wasn’t above asking for what she wanted. She didn’t believe they were miraculously going to be saved, no matter what his friend said. She knew he didn’t believe it either. It wouldn’t matter who asked first, once they both were dead.

He pressed his body tighter against hers, so she could feel the evidence of his desire imprinted in her skin. “Go lie on the bed. We’re going to talk, and I want to look at you while we do.”

Staring at his reflection, she lifted her chin. He didn’t seem to realize that his thumbs were sliding back and forth across her nipples. Each touch sent that sweet, sweet wildfire roaring through her veins to settle between her legs.

“Fine. We’ll talk then.” She moved out of his arms, but she drew the tank over her head and tossed it onto the small kitchen table as she passed by it. He wanted to look at her, then he was going to look at all of her. Every last inch of her.

Deliberately she swayed her hips seductively as she walked away from him to the side of the bed, unzipping her jeans as she went. Keeping her back to him, she shimmied the denim down her long legs, bending at the waist to pull them off, first one leg, and then the other. She’d practiced the move a hundred times, pretending she was dancing for her man. She wasn’t certain what effect it had on him because her back was turned, but the books she’d read and the instructional videos had assured her that her man would love it.

She heard his breath hiss out between his teeth and a small groan escaped. Both made her smile. She was making progress. She flipped her hair over her shoulders as she sank down onto the mattress, leaning back on one elbow, one knee drawn up while her other leg stretched out at an angle.

His gaze dropped from her breasts to her gleaming sex. It was all she could do not to touch herself, but she forced herself to wait for the right moment. She knew one would come. The front of his jeans held a large bulge, thick and definitely long. She kept her gaze fixed there.

“I’m waiting for your explanation of the delay.”

“Can you pull the blanket up?” There was a hint of desperation in his voice.

She smiled and licked her finger. “No, I can’t.” She slid her finger over her right nipple. It was already erect, and the light touch made her shiver.

“I need your complete attention, Shylah.”

“Believe me, honey”—she made her voice purr—“you have my complete attention.”

He was wearing only his jeans. His chest was all muscle, his abs out of a magazine. She licked her lips and then put one hand on top of her knee. Waiting. Eyes on him. Watching him start to sweat. Tiny beads she wanted to lick off of him. As a seductress, so far, she was batting zero. If this didn’t work, it would definitely be okay if she died because she wasn’t certain she could live with the humiliation of rejection.

“Damn it, Shylah, I murdered several people and Whitney knew it. He had video of me killing them. That was what he threatened me with. That’s what I’ve been living with all these years, knowing at any moment he would use it because I refused to be blackmailed.”

There was an abrupt silence with only the sound of the rain hitting the windows and drumming a wild rhythm on the roof. His breath moving in and out of his lungs. Her breath coming slow. Her heart pounding to match the wild wind, not because of his confession, but because she wanted him desperately—even more now that he’d made his revelation.

She could see he expected condemnation from her. Turning away. Rejection. He expected it because everyone he grew to care about left him, just as his mother had. Now he was sure that because he had committed such a heinous crime, she would leave him too.

She tapped her fingers on her knee in a little letter of love to him, of solidarity. She wouldn’t. She loved him. More, and maybe most importantly, she knew him. She knew his character. He was incapable of the cold-blooded murder of an innocent. He could say whatever he wanted to say, but if he killed another human being outside of the enemies he faced in the service of his country, he would only kill for self-preservation or in the defense of others. She knew that as surely as she knew it about herself.

She met Draden’s eyes, willing him to go on. He wanted her to know what he’d done and because that was so important to him, she would listen. But if he thought she would turn from him because he had blood on his hands, he was wrong. Whitney had sent her out before to track an enemy of the United States. She’d done her research and read the files on whomever the target was before she was sent. Ultimately, she’d been the one to make the kill. The responsibility lay with her.

“I don’t feel remorse for what I did,” Draden continued. “I didn’t even care that Whitney had been secretly watching the people and caught me on tape. I was modeling with several others, working my way through college. Some of the girls were young. It was some big private fashion venue with all designer clothes, so a lot of very wealthy clients. We were to go through the rooms in various apparel and the clients could de

cide to purchase if they chose. That was the gig, and I’d been to quite a few of them. At the time I was very popular.”

Shylah didn’t interrupt to say she knew why. He was beautiful. Just watching him talk, watching the passion move across his face made her heart beat harder. He made her go damp with need.

“Afterward, we were paid right there, under the table, all cash. I couldn’t remember where I left my jacket, so I went hunting for it. When I came back to the room where we’d been rounded up to get our money for the night, there were five men standing over the girls, yelling at them in another language. It seems these girls were brought into the country illegally and were used virtually as slaves by these people. They had no rights and were supposed to turn over every bit of their earnings to them.”

Shylah sat up straighter. She was well aware of the way illegals were often treated, but she’d never witnessed it. She took a deep breath and slipped off the bed, reaching for the nearest shirt. It was one thing to try to be seductive when she was working against a virus and a storm. It was another when he was talking about virtual slavery.

“The five of them were very powerful people. I think one was a congressman, and two of them were his brothers. The other two were originally from another country, and the five of them were making a lot of money from their scheme. The girls had been trying to hold on to some money each time to save to leave. They were being beaten severely. I walked in on it.”

She couldn’t imagine what she would have done had she walked in on several grown men beating young girls. She pictured them as teens, maybe early twenties. She would have lost it. Apparently, Draden had.

“I remember running toward them, and one came at me, swinging. I saw he had brass knuckles on. He’d actually hit the girls with them. It made me crazy. I hit him hard, right in the throat and kept going straight at the next one. I went through them all. The girls were screaming, and I told them to get their money back and get the hell out of there. I remember checking pulses and then realizing that I didn’t care if they were dead or not. I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat there, waiting, I think, for the cops to arrive. I’d forgotten I’d arranged a ride back to the university. I didn’t have what others called friends, because I barely talked to anyone, but this one guy was persistent and nearly always picked me up from my gigs.”