Chapter Sixteen Joe Carter
Chapter Sixteen
Joe Carter
Carter had been seventeen when he first killed a man, if you could call the bastard who hit his ma every day that ended in
y a man. Men didn’t hurt women, and certainly Carter wouldn’t allow any of the pricks his ma brought home after his father
bailed on them when he was six to hurt his mother.
Even if she deserved it for drinking too much and sleeping around with every bastard who smiled her way.
He’d done two years in prison. He had a good lawyer, his ma had bruises over half her face, and to her credit, she’d stood
by him.
She was dead before he got out of prison. Because she brought home another abusive asshole and Carter hadn’t been around to
protect her. He didn’t want her dead, but she damn well deserved it.
Carter took some classes at the community college, but school really wasn’t for him. He got a series of jobs and wandered
around aimlessly, picking up work where he could find it, until he ended up working for a bookie before sports betting was
legal in Arizona.
He’d found his calling.
He didn’t kill anyone for the bookie, because dead gamblers could never pay you back, but one jerk seriously harassed the
girls at the club, so Carter killed him on general principles. Word got around. He was still working for the bookie when Raul
Guzman, a regular gambler who was also a drug runner, hired him to kill someone in his gang who was making a move to take
over. The job paid well.
He liked getting paid to kill assholes. He’d probably do it for free, but the money was very, very good.
Guzman hired him for another job, and it became easier, though murder had never been difficult for Carter. Carter became known
as the go-to man to take care of pesky problems quickly and quietly. The bookie got 10 percent. Carter didn’t mind. He liked
his boss.
It was another gambler who came into the shop three and a half years ago who’d hired Carter for a particularly delicate job.
Gambling was legal by this point, but some people preferred the old ways—high stakes, high reward—rewards that didn’t have
to be declared to Uncle Sam.
Carter liked a challenge and took it.
Carter wasn’t a big man, but he was solid muscle. He looked average in every way and had been told by women that he had kind
eyes.
Which made him laugh. He wasn’t a kind person, though he did treat the women he took to bed very well. He liked women. Respected
them, even when they didn’t deserve it. He liked sex. He picked up on unspoken cues, which made him very good at all his jobs—from
bringing women to orgasm to killing a man in cold blood.
Women were for sex. For companionship. To worship and appreciate all the beauty they brought into the world. Carter had never
been in love, he didn’t see the point. But he loved women in general.
Until Liz Swanson, he had never killed a woman.
It wasn’t sitting well with him.
It hadn’t been sitting well with him since the minute he saw her.
He hadn’t thought it would be that difficult. He hadn’t thought twice when he fired two bullets into her husband. But Liz
Swanson had looked at him, her blue eyes wide, and he hesitated. Just for a second, but it had been the only time he had hesitated
the seventeen times he’d killed for money over the last fifteen years.
Because women were to love, not to kill.
“Baby, why you up so late?”
Vanessa walked over to him as he stood against the glass wall on the edge of his property. He’d put in glass so that he could
see the city spread out in front of him whether he was standing or swimming in his pool. He liked things of beauty. Women.
Houses. Views. He was naked, but no one could see him up on his hill, and the only lights on were the pool lights. And if
they could see him? He didn’t care.
He looked at her; she’d put on a robe, the white silk bright against her beautiful, flawless brown skin. It was cold but he
didn’t feel it.
“Come back to bed,” she said, running her hand up his arm to his face, then kissing him.
Vanessa was a regular. They had a good thing. She was married, but her husband traveled more than he was at home and probably
knew she was having an affair. He didn’t care because he was probably screwing around as well. Carter preferred married women
because they never wanted anything permanent. They appreciated his attention to detail, the way he made them feel. He didn’t
have to worry about any of them becoming overly attached.
“No,” he said. “I have things on my mind I need to sort out.”
“Can I help?”
He didn’t say anything, and she went down on her knees. The sight of her in a submissive position turned him on. When she
touched him, he grew hard.
He was always ready for sex.
He let her take him deep into her mouth, even though his mind was elsewhere. Even though his mind couldn’t stop thinking about
those beautiful, terrified blue eyes.
Vanessa rose several minutes later. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself.”
Vanessa was the opposite of Liz Swanson. Liz was innocent. Vanessa was anything but.
“Drop your robe and turn around.”
She hesitated. Maybe because of his tone, maybe because it was chilly outside. He gently untied the sash and pushed the robe
from her shoulders. Ran his hands down her naked body, then he turned her around so they both faced the valley below.
“Carter,” she said, “maybe—” then she gasped when he entered her from behind. She gripped the banister. “Yes,” she said, her
voice quivering with surprise and desire.
He adjusted her feet so that he could go deeper. She held on to the railing, he held on to her hips. He had to forget about
Liz Swanson. He had to put her away, away in a box that he would never open again.
He closed his eyes, focused on his cock, focused on giving Vanessa the most intense orgasm of her life. She screamed when
she came, her voice echoing into the night, chanting his name over and over. And finally, when he felt Vanessa’s legs quake,
he held her up, pushed in deep, and let go, screaming out his pain and rage into the dark with a feral cry that tore through
his body.
He had violated his one code of honor.
He had killed a woman.
He didn’t know if he would be able to keep a lid on that box.