AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I can’t stop myself from spreading it around, rubbing it into her pelvis and her stomach and up the underside of her breasts. “You look good in my come.”
She barely has the energy to stick her tongue out at me but manages a small snort. Her face is turned to the side of the mattress, and she’s trying to catch her breath. Me too. I fall down beside her, still rubbing my come into her skin.
“You’re an animal,” she whispers, but it’s not an insult. It’s a simple observation and a true one at that.
“No doubt, fighter.” I draw her close to me, and this time our kiss is languid and exploratory instead of a frenzied meeting of mouth and teeth and tongue. Her lips are petal soft, and she tastes like home, better than my mom’s sweet tea and pot roast. I could live on her taste and nothing else.
A pounding on the door interrupts our postcoital make-out session. “Ignore it,” I say, more interested in having Regan’s tongue in my mouth than food in my belly. I figure it is room service—although I don’t remember ordering any. The thought penetrates, and I sit up abruptly. No one should know we are here. Jumping out of bed, I grab my Ruger from the nightstand. “Get under the bed,” I order in a hushed voice. She nods and slides off the bed, but not before she grabs the other gun.
“Don’t shoot me,” I say with a grin, trying to alleviate some of her fear. Standing next to the doorframe, my back against the wall, I tell the persistent knocker to go away. “We don’t need any assistance.”
“Open the door,” a deep voice commands in Russian.
Oh fuck me. Vasily Petrovich. Just what I don’t need. “Hold your horses.” I have no idea if that Western idiom translates, but I figure he’ll get the message.
Crossing the room, I crouch down beside Regan, who is kneeling beside the bed, the gun clutched between both hands. I reach over and push the safety back on.
“What language were you speaking?” She looks at me with suspicion. Cradling her cheek in my hand, I search for the right words to say but before I can get anything out, the door is kicked in.
Regan lifts her gun, disengages the safety, and shoots twice.
“Motherfucker!” yells Petrovich, who dives to the side.
I knock Regan’s hands upward and wrestle the gun away. It’s then I realize we are both nude and she’s probably sticky from my attentions.
“Fuck.” I pick a struggling Regan up in my arms and hustle her into the bathroom. Reaching into the shower, I flick the hot water on and then sit down on the toilet. Her body is shaking—with fear, not desire—but she’s not crying.
“That man out there . . .” She points a trembling arm toward Petrovich, whose moans of pain have stopped.
“You must have winged him, fighter.”
I try to lift her into the shower, but she’s all limbs right now. It’s like trying to handle an octopus. I get her inside the stall, but she fights the whole way. “We don’t have time to shower,” she screams at me. “We’ve got to get out right now.” And then understanding dawns on her as she stares at me under the spray of the water. I can’t tell if there are tears mixing with the shower water, but the expression on her face is killing me.
“You know him.” Her voice is dead. Zero inflection.
“Let me explain.”
She retreats until her back hits the tile wall. Her head is shaking back and forth, as if by sheer force of will she can make this knowledge go away. “No. No, you are one of them.”
Her body is taut, and she looks like she’s about to retch. “I let you touch me. I trusted you.” Her last words are screamed at me, but it’s not the volume that makes me wince, it’s the shredded pain underlying each sound.
“Regan, please.” I drop to my knees, uncaring that water is flooding out onto the bathroom door. “I know him only because he had a lead for me. He sent me to you. To rescue you. I promise.”
“How do I know you’re not part of a whole ring? Are you going to sell me, too?”
“No!” I shuffle closer, but she holds out her hands as if I’m the devil come to steal her soul. “I’m Daniel Hays. I’m a former soldier from Texas. My sister was stolen. I haven’t lied to you. Not once, I swear it.” I raise my hands in the air. Her next words kill me.
“He sold me.”
And my heart breaks. I lean down and kiss her feet.
“I’m sorry, fighter. I’m so sorry.” With my face on the cold tile and my hands on either side of her feet, I wait for her to forgive me. I need for her to forgive me.
