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He came right at them. No wavering or feinting left or right. Abram just lunged, and Christy and Sharon both yelled in surprise at his sudden move.
What they didn’t do was yield and scurry like frightened mice. They parried like fencers in a life-or-death duel—which is what they were. Neither had any doubts about that.
Christy swung wildly with the wicked blade in her hands. Desperation made her crazed, because he had veered toward Sharon when they split. Sharon, who was unarmed and helpless—or so he thought. He managed to grab her flowing skirt then yank her backward with it. Sharon stumbled to a rickety stop but stayed on her feet. She didn’t give her attacker time to adjust or even get a better grip on her. She bent her knees, gathered her energy, and pushed up on one leg while she kicked out with her other in her signature fan kick. Her foot connected with the side of his head, and Christy watched as she followed through with the arc of her move and forced him to the floor, where he landed with a thud. The momentum had her spinning in the finish of it.
Sharon leaped over the moaning man like a gazelle, caught Christy by the arm in two bounding strides, and then they were pelting for escape like a madman was after them. Which he was. Christy could hear the grunting and clatter as he got to his feet and gave chase.
* * *
Max went flying.No other term for it. His brain registered dimly that the supposedly reformed accountant fought like a fucking ninja. He spun, punched, and kicked like a well-oiled machine and moved so fluidly that Max found it impossible to predict where his next swing was coming from.
“Fucking Bruce Lee wannabe,” Max muttered and spat as he grappled with his suspect. Jax spun and swung out with a backhand that Max barely dodged. He ducked just in time and parried with a fist to the other man’s kidney, but the bastard dodged by spinning back the other way and coming at him with a fly kick that Max wasn’t fast enough to evade, and it caught his shoulder with sledgehammer force. He felt his arm go numb and drop to his side. With teeth gritted, he dropped to a crouch and swiped out a leg; he’d get the asshole down for some wrestling and see how his fancy-ass moves helped him there.
But as soon as Jax came down, he was up again. His body just rolled with the fall as soon as he started to topple, and before Max had a chance to take the advantage, the other man was already on his feet again. Jax bounced on his toes, eyeing Max like he was mapping out his next move.
“Fuck this,” Max muttered then landed a punch to the other’s mouth. He was rewarded with a satisfying groan.
* * *
Luke groaned.Andie came against his mouth, and the heady rush intoxicated him. Her delicate folds were like silk gliding along his tongue, and her sheath clenched rhythmically around his marauding fingers. He wanted to feast on her forever. Her cries echoed in his ears and made him hungry for more as he sucked, bit, and licked his way up her sweat-dewed body. She dug her nails into his hair when he reached her mouth and kissed her. His tongue plunged deep, filling her with the taste of herself at the same time he filled her body with his.
She was as exquisite as he remembered. Liquid heat and velvet clenched and engulfed him, and Luke was sure he was going to embarrass himself and come right then. He dropped his head to the pillow next to hers, his elbows braced to support his weight, and he grabbed onto his control by a thread.
“Don’t move,” he groaned into her ear when she flexed under him and all but snapped that thread. “God, Andie, don’t move. Gimme a sec—”
“I can’t help it.” She panted under him, a sultry bundle of need and urgency. “I need… I need to—” And his tenuous grasp on control snapped. Luke’s hands tunneled under her to grab tight to each delectable ass cheek, and the beast within took over. He was need and lust and power. All feeling, all animal instinct, they were purely physical in that moment. There was only the driving hunger to mate, to make them one, and his hips pounded out a brutal tempo against hers that she met beat for ruthless beat while both of them left sanity behind.
* * *
“He’s insane!”Sharon gasped out in a shocked whisper as they reached the barn doors and grabbed hold of the beam that kept them trapped.
“I know.” Christy was crying, not hysterical, but the tears dripped steadily down her face even as she pulled with all her might at the giant slab of wood. “Sharon, it’s stuck.” She took one second to look back and saw not the mild-mannered boyhood friend of her son, but a bloody-nosed and furious madman on their heels. “Run!” She locked one hand around Sharon’s wrist and drug her along as she whirled and streaked to the other side of the barn. They needed to get distance between them and this killer so they could think.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he called out, taunting them with a scoffing huff of a sound. “I’ve locked the only way out. You ladies can’t make it up the ladder and to the windows before I catch you either. Plus, even if you did, the drop would kill you from that high up.”
Against her will, Christy’s eyes followed his words and scanned the loft level in search of an escape route. Little bastard wasn’t kidding; no way they could jump out a window from that high up.
“He’s right,” Christy gasped as they rounded the small stack of hay where they’d sat and had lunch. “He’s blocked the only way out.”
“So, what the hell is your big plan, asshole?” Sharon turned and demanded. Christy jolted at her tone; she had never heard Sharon so pissed. “Just how are you going to explain our deaths? You’re not going to get away with this.”
“Oh, I can.” Abram smiled benevolently. His nose oozed blood down his face like a B-movie prop; it looked fake and overblown. His manic smile was stained red, and Christy knew the flavors of her nightmares would forever be altered by his grotesque image. “God has shown me the way already. The perfect solution. Don’t you see?” His arms waved about the room like he was onThe Price is Rightshowcasing the new car they just won. “This is the perfect resolution. You hold in your hands just one of the many problems that have plagued me. See, this space where I do my penance. All my transgressions are tallied here. My weaknesses.”
He marched to the stall closest to the doors and pulled with sudden viciousness at one of the beams. It gave with a crack, and he threw it to the side. At first, Christy couldn’t tell what tumbled out from inside, but then he picked up a pink and fluffy scarf. “This was from the Jezebel who enticed me to let her into my cart.” His hand shook as he held the stained scrap of cloth in the air between them. “She was so cold, she told me, too cold to walk all the way home in the snow. I relented in good faith. I let her climb in, thinking I was offering help to one in need. And what did she do? She tempted me! With her seductive scent and softness. Still, I resisted, but she would not be denied and was so bold that she even slid under the blanket with me, drew herself close to my side, and shivered. She claimed she only wanted to share my body warmth….” He trailed off, glaring at the scarf as though it were the proxy for the girl who’d warn it. “She screamed and begged when I fell to her temptations. Why? Why are women so eager and desperate until they get what they want from a man, and then they’re all tears and recriminations. She rubbed up against me! She wanted my warmth? Well, I gave it to her! Then that wretched witch changed her mind and begged me to stop, tried to claim she only wanted a ride because of the cold, but I knew her for the whore she was. The she-devil of the ancient one sent to lead me astray. But I overcame and saw the error of my ways. I then honored my God-given duty and did what was necessary. What was right.”
Christy felt the reflexive jerk of Sharon’s hand in hers as the realization of just what they faced hit home. It was one thing to hold a couple suspicious items and have theories. It was quite another to have a bloodied and deranged madman describe his reason for killing.
“Then, there was this slut who ground her backside against me so hard she almost caused my seed to spill in the middle of a crowded room!” Another article of clothing, this time a sequined, sheer blouse he tossed at his feet and stomped on. He pulled a necklace out next and flung it across the barn with a snarl of rage. “I’ve kept them all here. Pieces of them. Remembrances from each one in an effort to atone for my failings. To repent and be the man I was intended to be. Yet still I’ve feared. Feared that if my repentance isn’t equaled to His mercy, then I would be forever in shame and darkness.”
Sharon and Christy flinched; each memento hurled represented a woman. There were far too many.
“In the beginning, I had not shown enough remorse. That’s clear to me now. I was not humble in my failings, but God in His mercy corrected me. Showed me the error of pride, how the stain of sin still lingered in my heart. That’s why He sent Wally in here to catch me basking over my relics instead of gnashing myself over them as was proper. Wally saw my sin. A righteous man saw that I showed reverence for what I’d done instead of shame over it as is proper. The wages of sin is death, and God demanded a high price for my sin that day, for Wally was faultless in my transgressions. His life had been the price God demanded of my transgressions, and it humbled me before the Lord to have to take out a good man because of these fallen women.”
Christy couldn’t even comprehend what she was hearing right now. He killed Wally too? Wally had been the sweetest and kindest man she’d ever known, and the news was like a punch to her midsection.
“You miserable piece of shit!” Sharon was vibrating with rage. “You killed an old man, because he found out you were a murdering bastard. Don’t stand there and try to make it sound like you’re some kind of avenging angel. You’re weak, dickless, and fucking crazy, and we’re not going to stand here and listen to you rant about killing like some kind of comic book villain. You can go fuck yourself.”
Later, Christy would marvel at her lover’s courage in the face of a deranged maniac. Right now, there was too much adrenalin flooding through her system to register anything but fight or flight. Sharon widened her stance and rocked to the balls of her feet. Christy took a deep breath, dropped the bloody jeans, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Sharon. Fingerprints be damned, they would survive, and Christy was prepared to do whatever she had to in order to guarantee that.
