CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AXEL
Plucking my pistol from my waistband, I rush past the bar, slam the intruder against the wall, and jam my gun into their neck, just as the barrel of another is wedged into my ribs.
The fragrance of poisonous cherry blossoms blankets us, and striking green eyes burn into mine.
Zara’s panting breaths cascade over me, seeping beneath my open collar. She doesn’t say a word, but her adrenaline is plainly spiked. And everything about her stance is aggressive and defensive.
“What the fuck are you doing in here?” I growl.
“The door was open,” she grits out, even-keeled but laced with venom.
Fisting her thick hair, I wrench her neck back until our lips are nearly touching. “So, you let yourself in and were roaming around in the dark?”
She seethes, gliding her knee up my thigh in a threat to pummel my balls. “I came for my cherries.”
“I bet you did,” flies out of me as I recall her tantalizing purrs from earlier.
Not missing my meaning, she huffs a quiet laugh as I catch the glint of the glass jar in my peripheral vision. Fuck, that might be the truth. But Ryker’s warning is still so fresh. And Zara always thinks fast.
“Drop your weapon,” I demand, forcing her legs apart with my own.
“Not a chance until you drop yours,” she sneers, digging the barrel deeper into my ribs to emphasize her stance.
It’s not the most comfortable my rib cage has ever felt, but I refuse to even grant her a wince. My veins are pumping with ire. She’s always radiant, but here, with the city lights dancing around her and her fierceness in full swing, I’m in awe. And furious that she messes with my head.
Despite that fury and my precarious position, my restraint begins to crumble, so I press against her, dragging my mouth along her exposed throat and jaw. “We’ve been over this. If I wanted to kill you, Zara, I would’ve already done it.”
Her chest heaves, rising and falling three times before she collects herself, her sweet breaths wetting my ear. “Then there is no reason for you not to drop it.”
I yank on her silky strands again, hard enough to evoke a sting, my stubble scraping her cheek and causing her to shiver. “Except that you have one jammed into my side, darling.”
A sound that is a blend of a chortle and a moan wafts from her. “I guess you’ll have to trust me, sweetheart.”
Christ, that seductive, airy rasp of hers is like a demon luring an angel out of heaven.
Not that I’d ever be afforded a spot behind the pearly gates, but if I were—no matter how blissful it was—one command from Zara would have me diving into eternal damnation.
Just for a fucking glimpse of the siren who had beckoned me there.
“You’re always such a goddamn brat.” There’s no disguising the lust woven into my words.
She disregards the possessive hold I have on her, a winning smile blooming on her cheeks. “And you can’t get enough. Might as well give up.”
She’s right, but lust shrouds her too. We might have loaded weapons pointed at one another, but as time stretches, it’s hard to know why we’re grappling.
We’re at a standstill so long that our heartbeats sync up, her perky breasts tease my chest, and even without allowing my lips to brush hers, she tastes of cherry lemonade. I know with utter certainty; one brief savoring would turn me into a fiend.
“Or,” I contend without a coherent thought in my head, “we could venture into the offer you made in my gym.”
“Remind me,” she purrs. Her gaze frolics all over my face, flicking to my lips, and something like hope brims in her eyes.
If I were in her position, I wouldn’t drop my weapon. I could kill her and call someone to clean it up while I went about my day. If she shot me, she’d die here.
And even though it can’t be more than this moment, the need to be a place she feels safe flares to life inside me. Along with other needs.
So, without releasing her hair, I remove my pistol from her neck and toss it on the bar top. “I could fuck you, or you could kill me.”
Shocked that I relinquished my weapon and possibly by my bringing up her snarky suggestion, she gasps with a slight roll of her hips against my erection, but her gun remains rammed into my rib cage.
Ignoring that, I lift her legs, wrap them around my waist, and bury my face in her neck, breathing her in.
A growl rumbles in my lungs. I want to fucking devour her.
What is this bewitching spell she has on me?
She moves her free hand to my nape, her nails scratching over the hairs there—a simple gesture that feels like more. “Both of those options cross your lines.”
That wakes me up—a little. This can’t happen, but … I sneak my hand beneath her dress, skating over the smooth skin on her thigh until I reach the supple curve of her hip. My dick is painfully hard, spearing her abdomen. It’s impossible to think straight around her.
“Axel,” she whimpers.
“Don’t fucking say my name like that,” I warn, thrusting my hard length against her to deliver a jolt of cautionary friction to her clit and ensure that she rethinks the size doesn’t matter GIF she sent.
“Why?” she pants. She’s either a phenomenal actor or she’s as undone by this as I am.
My eyes latch to hers, savage authenticity ricocheting between us. “Because I put down my gun, like a gentleman, but if you keep making those noises and moaning my name, I’ll split you in two.”
“Sounds like a better way to go,” she warbles in a coquettish taunt.
“Be careful.” My warning is escorted by another rough pump, evoking more amorous moans from her. “I can hear the plea in your voice. You’re close to begging.” I let my breath fan over her neck, my triumph caressing her skin. “My greedy little Thorn.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Mr. Noire? To force me to beg? To punish me because you can’t stop fantasizing about stepping out of bounds with me?” She swivels her hips, scrambling for stronger purchase on my steel length. “The devil can only pose as a gentleman for so long.”
“And which do you crave, Zara? The devil or the gentleman?”
“Both,” she pants, her eyes imploring me with obscene invitations. “A man who can keep me in line and praise me when I take it like a good girl is a devil worthy of shoving me to my knees.”
Christ, this woman. There are so many thrilling elements to be gleaned from that statement, so many things I’d like to explore.
“Are you up to the challenge, Axel?” To punctuate her proposition, she rocks more vehemently against the evidence of my desire for her.
She plays so fucking dirty.
I am the one who brought up fucking. But if there’s one thing I have over anyone else in this world, it’s control. Not that this encounter is compelling evidence to that point. Her goading me to lose it only urges me to resume my composure and keep us on track.
Cherry retrieval or not, she’s an intruder.
I tangle my finger in the string of her satin panties—a thong, I’m guessing. “Were you hired to kill me?”
“I don’t know,” she whispers.
She hasn’t been given a mark yet. But she didn’t lie. Maybe I’m delusional because she’s still got a weapon aimed at me, but that feels like something.
Allowing myself one more divine second of indulging, my mouth sails over her collarbone and up the column of her throat while I trace the seam of her panties with my thumb, just far enough to revel in that sexy indent that leads to her pussy, but not an inch closer.
If I find her wet for me, I’ll lose my mind.
Fuck, I want to taste her.
An untethered groan leaps out of me. I can smell her—erotic cravings and sweet cyanide.
That alone ignites a ravenous yearning to take a little more.
Sliding my hand back to her hip, my fingers grazing the luscious swell of her ass, I pump against her clit again and again, to the chorus of her enchanting feral moans, somehow justifying it.
I’ll get to see her come, but I won’t have touched her.
It hardly counts—even by KORT’s standards.
Having her so worked up, on the brink of coming, could even be considered an interrogation tactic.
Withstanding how dizzy every touch and taste and whimper makes me, I go with that.
“And if I am your mark?” I’m not sure what I’m asking. Would she do it? Could she do it?
Her thighs squeeze my hips, body trembling, breaths puffing out of her with muffled purrs, but she manages to respond. “Have you come up with a solution?”
That’s not an answer, and yet it is.
Ryker’s advisement wallops me. “She doesn’t sound like someone who would willingly stick around. Do you really want to risk it all for someone who won’t reciprocate?”
That’s always been my fear—that my siblings or I would fall for someone who would only use us. It happened to my mother. Twice. She loved two men who never viewed her as more than a commodity. Ultimately, it’s what killed her.
This is different though. There’s no denying how zealously I crave Zara, but I have plenty of willpower.
I piston my hips several more times, my fingers meandering and teasing, but resisting the path of exploration that I most want to pursue, until she’s a quivering mess in my arms—deliriously close to her climax.
Sweat beads my hairline, my dick is painfully hard, and my balls draw up with a threat.
I don’t think I’ve ever dry-humped before, but I am dangerously close to coming in my pants.
She chants my name under her breath like a dare. Cunning, glowing, and manipulative. And, fuck, I want to watch her unravel. But …
Restraint. And punishment.
“That doesn’t deserve an orgasm, Miss West.” Gripping her wrist, I halt my thrusts, feather my lips against hers—the ghost of a connection I won’t bestow—and jerk her gun away from my side.
She doesn’t fight me because I quickly add, “But I have a possible solution that could relieve you of your obligation to the client.”
“I’m listening.” She drops her legs to the ground and holsters her pistol on her inner thigh.
So damn sexy.
And unaffected. What the hell?
Stepping back, I let my solution to her issue swish over my tongue, swallowing the bitterness it evokes. “Marriage.”
Her mouth pops open as she digests that. “Marry? You?”
“No, no. Not me. That would be—”
“Right,” she cuts me off, snatching her coveted cherry jar. “That would definitely be a line.”
I wasn’t anticipating her being insulted—well, I was. But not because I wasn’t willing to marry her. A carnal possessiveness thrums in my chest. Maybe that’s partly why I push forward, to feel her out.
“That’s not what I meant.” I rub my hand over my jaw, searching for a way to explain it. “Your life would be exponentially more complicated if you were to attach yourself to me. But there are some powerful men who owe me favors—”
She throws her palm up to stop me and hisses, like a possessed cat, ready to claw my eyes out. “What you’re suggesting is that you sell me to the highest bidder because that’s the only freedom I could hope for. A suggestion you would not have made to a man.”
I knew this would be her reaction. And the thought of someone touching her makes me want to saw every male in the vicinity into pieces, which is so fucking unreasonable since I know this can’t go anywhere. But …
“You are giving me very little to go on, Zara. And I know you can’t.
I get it. But when my members are in trouble, they trust me.
That’s how I extend valuable solutions. The only detail you’ve offered is the fact that you might’ve been hired to kill me.
Other than keeping you here, under my protection, which you aren’t happy about, this is the only idea that can possibly trump a hit on you for a botched job.
And it will be a botched job because I don’t intend to offer myself as a sacrifice. ”
“How selfish,” she deadpans with a grimace that holds more complexity than her stony sarcasm. But then her chest inflates, and she glances away, trying to hide whatever is plaguing that beautiful mind of hers. “You’re not wrong, and you owe me nothing, but I’m still so fucking disappointed in you.”
That is a cleaver to the chest, more painful than I could’ve imagined. I don’t ever want to be a person who lets her down.
Stripping my tone of its reproach, I try to reassess. “Have you spoken to your handler?”
She heads for the door, but the expression on her face as she passes me sours my stomach. She has spoken to her handler. They know she’s compromised, and they’re fucking leaving her here.
If that’s the case, I will hunt her dad down and finish him the way my deranged father vowed to.
When she reaches the threshold, she clasps the molding and peers back at me, like she did this afternoon. But the mood is decidedly more somber.
“You want to know why I’m an assassin, Axel?
Because I was raised in a world where women were sold, beaten, raped, abused, and murdered.
My mother was one of them. And I knew if I didn’t become as skilled as the monsters doing it, I could become another nameless victim.
You might have the upper hand now, and I might be in some shit with the people I work for, but I trained my whole life for this.
So, mark my words: when you least expect it, the roles will reverse. ”
I don’t doubt it. Toxic fucking cherry blossoms.