Page 61 of Ballistic

I did it for her, I told myself. For the girl who couldn’t save herself. The one he’d raped and tortured, before throwing her weakened body into the river.

Tears spilled over onto my cheeks, as I rested my forehead against the cold tiles and sobbed. “I’m not a monster. I’m not like them. I did it for her.”

You enjoyed it, though. Eden’s words bit down into my conscience, and I sobbed harder. Look how easily you took his life.

“I did it for you.” Brow furrowed, I shook my head and sniffed. With fervency, I rubbed his blood off me, blindly scrubbing the sticky substance in the dark. “I killed him for you.”

I never asked you to do that for me, she taunted back.

I refused to let the weight of her guilt crush me. Instead, I washed quickly, ignoring the tears, ignoring her taunts. Dial twisted to a punishing scorch, I gnashed my teeth with every lash of scalding water against my skin.

The visuals of Jasper holding the sprayer in her face while she choked left me clamping my eyes, trapping it inside my head—an image I’d never forget. I set my palms against the shower tiles, curling my fingers, while the flaming water lapped at my skin, as if it could cleanse me. As if any part of me was left redeemable.

I’d killed a man. Deliberately, and with such care for his suffering, perhaps I was a monster.

Hand slapped to my mouth, I pushed through the shower door and fell to my knees, just in time to expel a torrent of fluid from my mouth. It splashed into the toilet, leaving a sour taste on my tongue. I heaved another round, grasping the toilet seat to steady the shakes that’d settled over me.

Once I’d emptied my stomach, I stood to brush my teeth and rinsed the acrid flavor from my mouth.

After switching off the shower, I dried and wrapped a towel around my body, then padded into the room and crawled into bed next to Dax. Staying close to the edge kept distance between us, as I lay watching him sleep. His chest expanded and shrank with evenly spaced breaths, and I reached out to run my fingers over the small patches of coarse black hair covering each of his pecs, down to the happy trail that disappeared into the sheets gathered low at his hips. I liked the rugged landscape of his body, how it gave him a mature and masculine appeal.

It didn’t surprise me that Dax was a womanizer. He had all the physical ingredients to draw women in. But he had something else, too. Something that’d hooked me the first time I’d crawled out of my drugged out stupor to find him gently wiping my forehead.

The corner of my lips lifted with a half-smile, and I dragged my finger over his shuttered eyelids.

Something about his face, his closed eyes, the tense pinch of his brow, even during his slumber, entranced me. A calm settled over me, and I turned away from him, taking a mental snapshot of his sleeping expression, as I willed myself to sleep.

As soon as I tried, though, a scream needled my brain, crushing that image into the memory of Jasper sinking to the bottom of the river. Those accusing eyes staring up at me.

I screwed my eyes tight, tucking my face into the pillow. I’d never killed based on vengeance, in my life. I’d been taught to kill only for self-defense.

You won’t stop. You’ve had a taste. Just like a pig that’s had a taste for blood. You’ll crave more of it. Eden’s voice clanged inside my head. You’re just like them.

I clutched the pillow, breathing through my nose to abate the nausea still churning inside my stomach. “I won’t,” I whispered. “I won’t become like them.”

Trembles wracked my body, while ice-cold branches crept along my bones. I couldn’t get warm, as if my insides had been torn open and exposed to the elements. Every time the visuals relented, and I began to drift, a frigid stab shook me awake, and I heard Jasper’s muffled screams beneath that wet towel.

A blanket of warmth settled over me, as Dax’s arm slid across my hip, and he dragged me backward across the sheets into his big body. I felt small and fragile beside him, while he held me trapped in his embrace, the heat leaching into my skin, calming the storm inside of me. The solid pressure of his chest at my back and his thick arm enveloping me, his powerful thighs curved beneath mine and the heat rolling off his infernal skin, ensured no part of me was left untouched by him.

A deep masculine sound purred in his chest as he slept, like a growl, hypnotically distracting me from my destructive thoughts. The delicious scent of his body watered my mouth for one taste of him—a warm, woodsy amber musk mixed with hints of orange, like bergamot, and that naturally virile undertone that overpowered them all. His heat, his body, his scent, all stamped out the quiet whispers inside my head, and for one moment of bliss, my mind turned silent.

Instinct told me to push him away, but I didn’t. I allowed him to hold me captive against him.

And I fell asleep in his arms.

25

Dax

A dull ache throbbed inside my skull, as I let out a quiet groan and squinted against the pain. Thin rays of sunlight bled through a skinny gap in the curtains, and I blinked against the invading and unwelcomed brightness. The clock across from me flipped to 12:36pm.

Damn. I hadn’t slept past noon since my barhopping days, back when I’d first turned twenty-one.

My whole body tingled, and I reached down into the sheets to adjust the massive hard on sticking up out of my boxers—didn’t even remember taking off my pants. But shit, it’d been a long time since I’d had morning wood so intense. Like every drop of blood in my body had gone straight to my dick.

As I shifted in bed, smooth skin brushed across my forearm, the slight tickle heightening my arousal. With a frown, I lifted my head to see small blonde spikes of hair below my chin.

Nicoleta lay curled against me like a child, arms tucked into her body, her head pressed against my chest.