Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Rue
I’m dead.
The thought pounds through my terrified brain as I’m slammed face-first against the closet wall.
The blow is cushioned slightly by the hand over my mouth, but the pressure digs my teeth into my lips until I taste blood.
He—and there’s no mistaking the massive body behind me for anything other than a man’s—has his other arm wrapped around my waist, trapping my elbows against my sides while his lower body pins my legs against the wall.
I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead.
Or maybe not. There’s a reason Fi’s always telling me I’ve got a thick skull.
I fling my head up as hard as I can, bracing for impact and praying I’ll hit this guy square in the fucking nose. But he’s too tall, and with my bag squished between my back and his front, I barely make contact.
He sighs and moves his hand from my mouth to tug the backpack off one shoulder, eliminating the last bit of space between us.
Now I’m flattened against the wall by a body that feels even bigger than it did moments before, and I’m not strong enough to push him back so I can kick or stab or claw my way to freedom.
So physical fighting is out. Time to pivot.
“What the fuck? You’re not Howard Marshall, asshole.” I make my voice a low rasp so I don’t sound as terrified as I am. This is a first for me. I don’t get caught off guard. I catch people off guard.
“What makes you so sure?” he asks in a whisper-growl.
“Gee, where do I start?” My voice creeps into my natural register, so I drop it again. “Marshall’s only a couple of inches taller than me, and from what I can tell, you’re some kind of giant.”
“Okay. That’s one.” The voice in my ear sounds almost amused. “What else?”
“Fuck off,” I snap. “I’m not showing you my work.”
Now he’s openly laughing. “Fair enough. Then do you mind telling me what you’re doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” I shoot back in my lowest register, annoyed.
He presses the tiniest bit harder, squeezing the air from my lungs. “I asked you first.”
Oh, goody. He wants to play games.
I twist as much as I can in his hold, craning my neck to see what I’m up against. My flashlight fell facing the far corner of the closet when he grabbed me, so all I can make out is a hulking figure behind me in this dark, mostly empty closet.
When I whip back around, I use the motion to shift my backpack lower on my arm. If I can just get it close enough to—
“I don’t think so.” He chuckles as he yanks my bag all the way off my shoulder, anchoring me with his other arm so I can’t squirm away. “Are you here to rob the place?”
The suggestion that I’d want to steal a goddamn thing from this shithole is so absurd that it pushes more of my fear away.
“What? No!” Wriggling madly, I focus on freeing a leg so I can stomp on his instep or scrape his shin. But I can’t move him an inch, so I focus on keeping him verbally off balance. “And you? Hoping to make off with Howard’s spank-bank Kleenex?”
His chest quakes with another soft laugh.
“If you’re not a robber,” he says, turning his attention to my backpack, “then what could you possibly have in here?”
“Not your business.”
“And yet.” He sounds unconcerned as he slides open the zipper with one hand.
“Careful,” I snarl. “It’s full of razor blades and uncapped needles. How do you feel about Hep C, motherfucker?”
“The mouth on you, Morticia.” His voice is suddenly right next to my ear again before he pulls away to rummage through my bag.
Goddammit. I hate it when people touch my stuff.
“Duct tape, zip ties, tarp…” He tsks. “You didn’t come to play, did you?”
Think, Rue. The person chuckling at my curses isn’t supposed to be in this closet any more than I am. And if he’s not a thief, his intentions might be as dark as mine are. That, I can work with.
He tosses my backpack behind him and out of my reach, and frustrated tears prick my eyes. Now even if I can get free, I can’t run, not without stopping for my bag. Guess I have to deal with this head-on and hope I can make him see reason.
“Okay, it’s clear that both of us broke in,” I start.
“Appears so,” the man trapping me against the wall of the closet agrees.
“I came to confirm this is the guy who burned down a house two Saturdays ago.” I cross every metaphorical finger I have that this is the right play.
“Funny, me too.” The asshole sounds amused as he crowds me. “Question is, what do you plan to do after that?”
“What’s your plan?” My words come out a little garbled, what with my cheek being squished against the wall and the mask still covering my mouth. “Are you planting evidence so he actually gets charged this time?”
The man scoffs. “Like I trust the police to do a goddamn thing.”
I couldn’t agree more, but in the interest of moving this along, I stick with a simple “Same.”
“Any chance you’re planning to make it so Mr. Marshall isn’t able to set any more fires?” he asks.
There’s caution in his voice for the first time, and I hesitate before answering. I shouldn’t be able to smell anything over the wool of my mask, but in the short silence that follows his question, I catch a trace of something sweet and a little smoky that lingers on him, like a warm, cozy room.
God. Warm, cozy room? Focus, bitch.
Okay, am I better off telling this guy that I’m not here to hurt anybody, or that I’m here to hurt the fuck out of somebody?
For all I know, he’s a cop on some kind of sting operation.
He’s got the build for it. Then again, if he’s a cop, I’m going down for criminal trespass at a minimum, so fuck it.
“Yeah, I am.” Might as well stop pretending this is anything other than exactly what it is. And that’s when I notice that his grip on me has loosened as we’ve been talking. It’s enough that I can slowly, so very slowly, start inching my hand down my leg toward the pocket where my knife’s waiting.
“I’m sure you know this,” I say, hoping to keep him focused on talk, not movement, “but Howard’s shift ends in five-ish hours, and I want to be long gone by then.”
There’s nothing but the sound of our breathing until he says, “If I let you go, will you leave without fucking up my plans?”
I snort, forcing my body to stay relaxed as my fingertips hit the edge of my pocket and brush the handle of the knife. “How about you leave without fucking up my plans?” I pinch the handle between the tips of my fingers. Now I just need to drag it up my leg and into my hand without him noticing.
To cover the motion, I arch my back and bump him hard with my butt, hoping it seems like another escape attempt and not a bid to give myself a few extra centimeters to maneuver.
And holy shit, it works even better than I expected.
Instead of holding me tighter, he shifts backward, loosening his grip on my midsection even more. Why is he…?
Oh my god. He moved so his groin isn’t touching me. I’m actually offended. I mean, he should be so lucky. Then again, if he’s busy worrying about where his precious penis is vis-à-vis my perfect, heart-shaped ass, I may be able to use this to my advantage.
Who’s catching who off guard now, motherfucker?
“If I leave,” I say, bumping him again as I position my thumb on the blade release so I’m ready for my moment, “how do I know you’ll follow through?”
“Do you seriously expect me to give you my murder résumé?” The amusement’s back in his voice, chasing away some of the gravel I’ve been hearing. That rumble must be as much of an act as my husky lower register is.
“Yes. I do.”
He gives me a gentle shake, the growl back. “You’re not exactly in a position to argue.”
It’s the opening I was hoping for, and I spring my blade and rotate my wrist so the tip’s pressed against his thigh.
“Sure about that?” I ask. “Because I’d say our positions are about even.” My angle’s terrible and my palms are sweaty inside my gloves, but I’m good with a knife, and I let that confidence show in my voice.
After the tiniest hesitation, he strikes, but instead of going for my knife, he reaches around my neck to wrap a hand around my throat, giving up the fight to keep any distance between us. His grip isn’t tight enough to cut off my airway, but he’s using enough pressure to remind me who’s stronger.
“Good girl. Not going down without a fight.”
That sexy rasp is almost enough to get me to stop fighting entirely, but I’m no quitter. I wrap my free hand around his wrist and try to pull it away, but that massive, muscular arm won’t budge.
My struggle makes him chuckle, and that’s when I realize three things.
One, he’s not scared of my knife at all.
Two, that’s a very hard cock pressing into my lower back.
And three, the mess of fear and anger that’s been pounding through me since he pulled me into the closet has morphed into something different, and it feels a lot like…
Shit. I’m turned on. All that nervous energy buzzing under my skin is crashing up against the complete control he has over me.
His hand on my throat, his commands in my ear, his easy authority chasing away my terror and replacing it with lust. I bet post-kill sex with him would be incredible—if he doesn’t decide to snap my neck first.
Most women would file that under reasons to run. I file it under foreplay. Still, I haven’t survived this long through luck alone, so I’ll have to give him his own reason to run.
“I didn’t ask for your approval,” I say around the pressure of his hand and the fire heating my blood, pressing my knife harder against his leg. “Want more? Because that’s four inches of carbon steel really close to your junk.”
The chuckle I’m hating less and less rolls through him. “Only four?”
“It’s how you use it, baby.” I increase the pressure on my blade until it pierces fabric and bites into his thigh. He hisses.
“So you’re going to gut me like a fish in this closet and walk away?” he asks, somehow sounding pissed and amused at the same time. “You don’t care if you kill good guys along with the bad ones?”
“I do care, actually. Are you telling me you’re a good guy?”
He’s silent for a beat. “I only kill bad guys, so that makes me…”
My brain fills in the sentence he can’t bring himself to finish.
He’s not exactly a good guy, but then again, neither am I.
I mean, I’m ready to hop on the cock of this guy who wants to kill the person I’m also here to kill.
This stranger, who’s bigger and stronger than me in every way and who still has a possessive hand wrapped around my throat.
And oh yeah, I lightly stabbed him just now.
That’s my cue to wrap this up and get gone. Taking messy risks was Mom’s style, not mine.
“Listen,” I say with way more bravado than I feel, “my wrist’s starting to cramp. If you’re going to kill me as a little appetizer before Howard, can you just get it over with, please?”
I feel the shock run through his body before he blurts, “I’m not going to kill you!”
One of the knots in my stomach loosens at his quick response, but another alarm bell starts jangling.
“Hurt me in some other way, then?” I sink the knife a little deeper into his thigh, keeping my voice strong, not scared. “Do trapped, terrified women get you off?”
“Fuck. No. I’m a murderer, not a rapist.” He releases me so abruptly that I stumble and have to catch myself against the wall. That’s one way to remove a knife from your leg, I guess.
I’m free. I should already be gone. But outrage colors his voice. Outrage and a hint of hurt. How is it that my accusation, not the knife I had stuck in his thigh, is what actually wounded him?
Instead of doing the smart thing and sprinting toward freedom, I turn to face him, tilting my head up to take him in. My eyes have adjusted to the low light, allowing me to see that, like me, he’s dressed in black with a mask covering everything but his eyes.
“Swear?” I point my knife at his groin, not faking the huskiness in my voice this time.
He groans softly in response. “Forgive me for being excited to meet someone like me.”
That fires my lust even higher. I don’t know anyone else with a void inside them that can only be filled with violence.
Someone who understands the rush and the righteousness of removing someone like Howard Marshall from the gene pool.
The thought has me moving toward him even as my rational mind screams that this is not the smart play.
I’ve barely taken two steps forward before he spins me so I’m facing the wall again, his body once again trapping mine. But this time, he’s the one grinding into me, and his arms are a delicious restraint, not a frightening one.
“What’s the plan, then?” I ask, my voice embarrassingly breathy. “Only one of us can do the thing.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, shifting from side to side to rub that hard cock against me, making us both shudder at the contact.
“S-so how do we decide?”
He slides one hand up my body to grip my jaw, and he snakes the other down to rest between my legs.
“You’re burning up,” he murmurs. “I bet I could make you come faster than you could bleed me dry with that little knife of yours.”
Knife. Fuck. I’m so turned on and so shocked by what’s doing the turning on that I forgot I’m still gripping my blade.
“Well?” His mouth is back at my ear, a little muffled through our masks. But his next words are clear enough to make my pussy throb. “How about a little competition? Winner gets to kill Howie.”