AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I turned my head, and our lips met. We kissed slowly at first, sweetly, gently even. Our lips just brushing, our hands just skimming over each other's bodies. I breathed in Owen's scent, that rich, earthy aroma that always made me think of metal, something he had an elemental talent for using. But the connection between us flared too bright, burned too hot, to be contained for long.
The kiss deepened, and our tongues got involved, tasting each other. Owen's hands slid up under my shirt, gliding across my stomach. Mine drifted lower, moving across his hips. Both of us not going any farther with our teasing-at least not yet.
"You know," Owen murmured against my lips. "I think that Eva had an excellent idea about going to bed. Care to join me?"
"Why bother with bed?" I jerked my head. "I see a perfectly serviceable couch right there. "
"Hmm," Owen said, grinning down at me. "Have I ever told you what good ideas you have, Gin?"
I smiled up at him. "No, but you could show me. "
"Oh, I plan to. Don't you worry about that. "
Owen drew me closer. His lips met mine again, and I surrendered to him for the night.
Chapter 4
Since it was less than a week before Christmas, Owen was taking some time off from his various business interests, which meant that he got to sleep in the next morning. But I still had a barbecue restaurant to run, so I slipped out of bed early and took a hot shower.
Owen was still asleep when I finished getting ready. He sprawled face down on the king-size bed, a soft blanket covering his bare back, one strong arm jutting off the mattress into the empty air in front of the nightstand.
I stood there by the bed, staring down at him. Blue-black hair, rough, chiseled features, hard body. Owen Grayson was everything that I'd ever wanted in a lover. Attentive, inventive, skilled, confident. But the strangest thing was that he really seemed to care about me, Gin Blanco. The semiretired assassin known as the Spider.
After we'd finished in the living room, we'd gone into Owen's bedroom to spend the rest of the night together. Owen had wrapped us both in a fleece blanket, and we'd sat there in front of the crackling fire, talking until the orange-red flames died down to glowing embers. We'd discussed everything from my ongoing war with Mab to my weird relationship with Bria to the new Mercedes that he'd decided to give Eva for Christmas. To my surprise, it felt good to talk to Owen, to just be with him, sex or not.
And it scared the hell out of me.
I wasn't sure if I wanted that kind of relationship with him. My former lover, Detective Donovan Caine, had burned me a little more than I'd let on to Owen or anyone else. Donovan had just never been able to accept my past as the Spider and all the bad things that I'd done over the years, all the people that I'd killed for money, survival, or something else. No matter how much he might have wanted to be with me.
I didn't want to look into Owen's violet eyes one day and see the things that I'd seen in Donovan's golden gaze. I didn't want to look at Owen and realize that my bloody past and sharp skills disturbed him the way they had Donovan.
I didn't want Owen to hate me like Donovan had.
Owen murmured something in his sleep and rolled over onto his back. I hesitated, then bent forward and traced my fingers down the side of his face. A hint of dark stubble pricked my skin, but not in an unpleasant way. Owen leaned into my touch and sighed, as though it comforted him.
I quickly withdrew my hand, not wanting to wake him or think too much about the warm softness that flared in my chest whenever I was near him. A dodged, determined, creeping sort of softness that I was struggling more and more to squash-or at least contain before it infected what little was left of my cold, black heart.
Donovan had hurt me when he'd left Ashland. But losing Owen the same way? For the same reasons? I was beginning to think that might just break me completely.
Still, I stared at Owen a moment more before turning and slipping out of the bedroom.
I spent the day cooking at the Pork Pit, the barbecue restaurant that I operated in downtown Ashland. Then I went home to change and get ready for my evening with Vinnie Volga, the Ice elemental who seemed to be part of whatever trap Mab was baiting for me, for the Spider. Just after nine that night, I pulled my Benz into the parking lot of Northern Aggression.
As its name suggested, the nightclub was located in the heart of Northtown, where it catered to some of Ashland's wealthiest citizens-or anyone who had enough cash or plastic to pay for the hedonistic delights offered inside. Blood, drugs, sex, smokes, alcohol, and everything in between. You could get it all at Northern Aggression, in whatever quantities or combinations that you wanted, for the right price.
The outside of the club wasn't much to look at, just another ordinary, warehouse-like building with a sign over the front door, that grayed out and faded into the rest of the immaculate Northtown landscape. If you'd driven by Northern Aggression during the day, you might have thought that the club was some anonymous office full of corporate drones sitting in their tiny cubicles and talking on their headsets.
But at night the place and the people inside it came alive in all sorts of ways.
I parked my Benz in one of the side lots that flanked the building, got out, and headed for the front door. An enormous neon sign hung over the entrance-a giant heart with an arrow through it. Roslyn Phillips's personal rune and the symbol for her decadent nightclub. The sign glowed red, then yellow, then orange in the night, bathing the dozens of people waiting in line below it in its bright, suggestive light.
Xavier, the guy who was Roslyn's main squeeze, stood outside the door, deciding who got into the club and who was left standing out in the cold. The giant bouncer stood roughly seven feet tall, with a strong, muscled body to match. His black eyes and shaved head both gleamed like polished onyx underneath the glare of the neon heart-and-arrow sign. Xavier held a large clipboard in his hands, checking off names on his list and taking the occasional C-note bribe to lift the red velvet rope and allow people to go inside the club.
I strolled to the front of the line, past all the men sporting sharp suits and the women wearing as little as they could bear given the chill in the December air. A few of the women gave me pointed, dirty looks, especially since I wasn't dressed for a night of clubbing.
Instead of a thigh-high miniskirt or a leather bustier, I wore my usual ensemble-dark jeans, heavy boots, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a black fleece jacket. Since it was almost Christmas, I'd donned one of my more festive T-shirts to celebrate-thick crimson cotton with a giant candy cane in the middle of my chest. The fabric was dark enough that Vinnie Volga's blood wouldn't stand out on it-much. Happy holidays.
And, as always, I carried my usual five-point arsenal on me as well. Two silverstone knives up my sleeves, two more in my boots, and one tucked away in the small of my back. Never left home without 'em. Not even if I was supposedly retired these days. So far, this so-called taking it easy had been far more dangerous than being the Spider full-time ever was.
