The Deadliest Sin Series Complete Collection, page 9
With each thrust of his hips, he cements our future and seals our fates.
He won’t come back to this life. Not when I’m offering him a real one. Not when we can have this.
The head of his cock drags against that perfect spot inside of me, and I moan against his lips, sucking in quick breaths as heat spreads through my limbs and they begin to shake. I dig my nails into the flesh at the back of Konstandin’s strong, tense neck, and he shifts his grip on me slightly, changing the angle of his cock and pelvis so it rubs against my clit.
It’s all it takes to rip me from this world.
I hang amongst the stars, suspended in a haze of pleasure that ripples through and around me, that seizes hold of me and doesn’t let go for what feels like an eternity. But Konstandin roaring my name brings me back to the here and now, and he buries his face against my neck and empties himself into me so deeply, I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to remove himself completely.
And I don’t want him to.
I want to remain like this, in this moment, forever.
That’s a dream, though.
Harsh reality comes the moment Konstandin drags his head back and locks dark eyes with mine. “We have to go. Now.” There isn’t an ounce of uncertainty in his words. “I’m an expert at disappearing, but I can’t use any of the resources I normally would. That would make us too easy to find. We need to stop at my house so I can get some things we’ll need. We’ll leave from there. We’ll have a head start, but not much. Once the men start coming in tomorrow morning, they’ll realize the house is empty, and the hammer will fall.”
Something new deepens his voice. Distress. This man is on the verge of losing everything he’s worked for, everything he’s ever cared about. He’s going to lose his entire family, his twin brother, his job. He’s going to lose everything…because of me.
“What about my mother? Once I’m gone, my father will—”
He captures my face in his palms, tilting it up to his. “I have someone taking care of that. She’ll be safe, protected. But you can’t ever see her or speak to her again. Any contact could expose you and her.”
Tears trickle down my face, but I nod my understanding.
I came here innocent and naïve. I hated this world and the men in it. I longed for the peaceful, simple existence I once had, away from the violence and hate. But then I found sin in the arms of the man who was my jailer. The one charged with keeping me captive and helpless against his monster of a boss was the one who gave me hope.
I found sin.
And it may be what gets me killed.
What gets both of us killed.
Guilt churns my stomach, and he pulls out of me with a wince. Slowly, he lowers my feet to the floor, holding me until I can get steady on wobbly legs, watching me closely. Perhaps searching for regret on my part or fear.
But I’m not afraid of Konstandin. I never could be. He may be a monster, but he isn’t like his brother. And once we leave here, we’ll never look back.
We can’t.
Looking back will get us killed as surely as what we just did will.
LATER…
KONSTANDIN
A torrent batters the car, the sky overhead pitch black except for the occasional flashes of lightning that highlight the billowing storm clouds above. The sound almost drowns out Rea’s tears, but her sobs break through the deluge and tighten my grip on the wheel. Despite all she’s been through, she’s never broken this way. She’s always been so strong. To see her fall apart tears at my chest and makes it hard to breathe.
And I can only imagine how things might get worse.
It didn’t take long for us to get her small bag packed and race away from Tarek’s house into the night and toward our next stop. I should have insisted we leave right away, keep moving, but having her in my home, in the one place where I found respite from the world I lived in, Tarek’s world, made me want her even more.
The few hours we spent at my house, gathering the things I needed quickly gave way to losing ourselves in each other again. I shouldn’t have let it happen, but we both knew it couldn’t last. The memory of being together in my bed—and on or against just about every surface we could find—will have to get us through this trek toward the unknown.
We had to hit the road again, and the adrenaline coursing through her wore off and was quickly replaced by the sheer panic now consuming her.
I should comfort her, tell her everything will be okay, that we’ll be okay. But that would be a lie. I don’t know that. And more than likely, we won’t be.
We’ll never be okay. Things will never settle down. We’ll never be able to stop running. Because Tarek will never stop coming for us, never stop looking, never stop seeking vengeance for the way we’ve betrayed him.
He will go to the ends of the Earth a thousand times over before he admits defeat and sulks back home empty-handed, before he forgets the treachery. Because this will cause a ripple effect through his plans. This isn’t just personal; this is also business.
Another sob rips from between her lips, and I glance over at her, a vise tightening around my chest. I’ve never been good at the whole “emotion” thing. It’s what has always made me good at my job—the best, really. It’s what has earned me the reputation that has helped keep us in power all these years. It’s what scares most grown men.
But it didn’t scare her.
I didn’t scare her.
Even though I share the name and face of her abuser.
I reach out and take her hand in mine, squeezing it gently. It’s all I can offer her in this moment. All I might ever be able to offer her. I can’t give her what she really needs, what she deserves. I can’t be her white picket fence and two kids. I can’t be that man.
It was always out of the realm of possibility—even more so now.
These hands are too dirty, too stained with the blood of all the men I’ve killed. I shouldn’t have touched her with them, shouldn’t have tainted her that way…
I pull my hand from hers, and her sobs increase until she’s sucking in ragged breaths that don’t seem to be helping.
Fuck.
We’re still too close to Philly to be pulling over already, but we can’t keep going like this—with her like this.
I pull the car over to the side of the road and throw it into park. She doesn’t even move her hands away from her face. I open my door and step out into the rain, ignoring the cool sting of it against my exposed skin as the late fall chill in the air turns it almost to ice, and make my way around the car to her side.
Standing out here, soaked, looking through the glass at her, part of me wants to just walk away. To let her drive off alone and pray she makes it away from Tarek and from me. But I’m a selfish bastard, and I don’t think I can let her go even if it might be what’s best for her.
Instead, I jerk open her door, reach over to undo her seatbelt, and freeze. A sound. Something standing out against the rain and the sounds of the woods around us.
I turn my head to side to listen.
“What is it?” Her voice comes weak and shaky. “Why did we stop?”
“Shh…”
I motion for her to be quiet, and the sound comes again. Not the storm this time. Something else. Faint. A whining. From behind me, the ditch along the side of the tight two-lane county highway.
Instinctively, I reach for my gun at my waist, and I rise and turn toward the sound. In the darkness, almost nothing is visible except what the random flashes of lightning illuminate.
Whatever is making the sound, it’s hiding well.
I approach slowly, ready for whatever threat may present itself out of the night, but the closer I move toward the sound, the more familiar it becomes until I re-holster my gun and squat in the thick, muddy, wet grass at the side of the road.
Dreq!
It’s the last thing I need right now. Another mouth to feed. Another thing to have to watch over and take care of. But it might just be exactly what Rea needs.
I return to the car with the culprit and lean into her door.
She narrows her eyes at the wet blob in my arms. “What is that?”
Turning it toward her, the puppy raises its tiny head and lets out a pathetic whimper.
“Looks like we just got a traveling companion.”
Her eyes widen, and a smile plays at her lips for the first time since I’ve known her. It lights up her entire face, bringing a brilliance I always knew was right there, just under the surface. “Oh, my God! The poor thing.”
She reaches out and scoops it from my arms, pulling it close to her chest. I close the door and round the front of the car, keeping my eyes on the road as I do.
I’ll never stop watching, never stop scanning for the threats I know are always lurking in the shadows.
I climb in and buckle my seatbelt, then throw the car into drive and hit the road again as fast as I dare with the violent weather. Rea’s laughter and baby talk at the puppy warms me so much that the fact that I’m soaking the leather seat barely registers.
She’s happy. For the moment.
I’d love to believe that will continue. That finding this stray as we flee from Tarek and Philadelphia is a sign of good things to come.
But I don’t believe in signs, and I certainly don’t believe I’ve earned anything good in this life.
I’ve committed far too many sins to get a glimpse of Heaven with Rea.
Tarek will come.
It’s only a matter of how long we run before he finally catches up to us and we have to pay for our sins…
“Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back--in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”
- Frederick Buechner
GRIFFIN/KONSTANDIN
The thing about having blood on my hands is, I don’t want to wash it off.
Isn’t that what you’re supposed to want to do?
Yet, standing here, over the shredded, unrecognizable body of Tarek, my hands dripping with his blood, there is no regret. No remorse. No nagging conscience screaming at me. Nothing but an overwhelming sense of relief floods my body.
But it doesn’t last. It can’t.
Yelling and the pop of gunshots break my reverie and remind me where I am, and why.
This isn’t over.
Not by a long shot.
Three Weeks Earlier
Jade’s cunt wrapped around my cock is the greatest feeling in the world. It’s better than any drug I’ve ever tried, any booze I’ve ever drank, and any high I’ve ever experienced from killing for a living.
I never thought I’d find solace in a woman.
Women were things that served a purpose. Holes to fill and places to get on and get off. But then, I saw Jade…
“Griffin!”
My name on her lips sends me into overdrive. Thrust after relentless thrust, I pound into her, racing toward a climax I know will steal my breath and vanquish any lingering ghosts from my head. My fingers tighten in her auburn hair, and I jerk her head back and to the side so I can sink my teeth into her neck.
The salty taste of her flesh is my undoing. I empty myself into her, wave after wave of pleasure coursing through my veins.
“JADE!” My roar of her name echoes in the sparse room in a voice that doesn’t even sound like mine.
I collapse on top of her and roll to my side, bringing her with me. I press her back to my chest. My heart thuds against her warm, damp skin, and her heaving chest presses against my palms splayed across her breasts.
Absolute. Total. Bliss.
Something I never thought I’d find after everything I’ve done. You don’t torture, maim, defile, and tear people apart and then get the kind of love Jade has given me. At least, you shouldn’t.
Her hand slides up and around the back of my neck. “You okay, Griff?”
“Mmm…”
It’s not much of a response, but it’s really all I can manage at the moment. Between the explosive orgasm and the sudden rush of memories, I’m physically and mentally spent.
She pulls her arm back and turns to face me. The green eyes I’ve looked into for the last two years still hold the same reverence and love they did the first time we laid like this.
Who the fuck knows why?
Even at the beginning, she knew who I was, what I was, what I did. Yet, she gave herself over to me without question, without even the slightest hesitation.
She is my angel, and I am her demon.
Her fingers slip into my hair, and she scratches my scalp softly. A contented growl rumbles in my chest, and my eyes slip closed.
“Mmm…keep doing that.”
Warm, wet lips find mine. Her tongue probes until I open for her and return the kiss.
My cock stirs between us, and I break away, putting some much-needed distance between her luscious body and my overly eager one.
“You need to stop if we’re going to make it to the party on time.”
The coy bat of her eyelashes should warn me of her intentions, but when her hand wraps around my hard flesh, my body jerks, and my heart races like the first time she ever touched me.
Her wicked tongue snakes out and across her lips. “We can be a few minutes late.”
A few minutes? I should be insulted.
“When have you ever known me to only last a few minutes, e dashur?”
My love.
I capture her grin with my mouth before pushing away and slipping from the bed. If I don’t put considerable distance between us, we won’t make the party, and I know how important it is to her.
Jade gave up everything to be with me—money, power, authority, and, most of all, her safety. She knew it would mean changing our names and disappearing, leaving all her family and friends and the life she always knew. It meant giving up the promise of being royalty in our world, and it meant always running, always looking over her shoulder. But she did it anyway…for me. Because she somehow managed to see beyond what I did, who I was, to my core, to where what I was doing was beginning to eat away at me like a fucking cancer.
So, the fact she has finally found some friends, people she can truly be herself—or at least her new self—with, means everything to her…and me. I’m not going to let my throbbing cock and her tempting pussy derail us from making the party.
“You. Shower. Now. I’m going to let Bruiser out, then spray off, then we are out of here.”
Her eyes glitter with mischief, and she shifts up onto her knees. “Are you going t—”
“No.” I hold up my hand and take another step back from the bed. “I’m not going to join you in the shower, because we would never fucking leave.” My finger directs her toward the bathroom. “Go get wet.”
Her back stiffens, and a mock seriousness overtakes her face. She raises her hand to her forehead and salutes me. “Yes, sir.”
Saucy wench.
I dive for her, but she scrambles off the bed and slams the bathroom door before I can grab her.
She’s getting faster, or I’m slowing in my age. That needs to be remedied. The chase is only fun if I can still catch her.
My boxers somehow made their way across the room to dangle over the lampshade. A hazy memory of her tugging them off and tossing them over her shoulder last night surfaces, and I can’t contain the grin.
That woman is voracious, especially the last month or so. It’s like trying to keep a dog away from a bone. That’s why we haven’t managed to even get off the mattress all day.
Once my still-hard cock is covered, I open the bedroom door and am immediately thrown backward by the force of Bruiser slamming into me.
“Down, boy!”
His massive paws press against my chest, the nails scratching my bare skin. He tilts his head, almost as if considering whether to obey me or not.
“Down.”
With a resigned whimper, he drops onto all fours and then sits at my feet.
Christ, this damn dog. He doesn’t realize he’s a fucking Newfoundland and weighs a hundred and fifty pounds. In his mind, he’s still the tiny puppy we rescued from the side of the road as we were fleeing Philly. Why anyone would leave such a beautiful dog in a ditch is beyond me, but finding him seemed almost destined.
The fear permeated Jade so deeply at that point, she couldn’t stop shaking. I only pulled over briefly to try to comfort her. That’s when I spotted him.
As soon as that wet bundle of matted fur cuddled into her lap in the car, her quaking ceased. It was the first time I’d seen her eyes dry and her body still in almost eight hours.
I pat him on the head. “Come on, boy. Let’s go.”
We don’t have much time before we need to head out, and I am far too tempted to break down that door and join Jade in the shower right now to do something about my aching dick.
It should be a sin to look that good in a dress.
I have to force myself to take my eyes off her and check out the rest of the room.
Old habits die hard. If my eyes aren’t constantly scanning, surveilling the people around us and all the exits, I’m jittery as hell. The heavy weight of my Glock in the holster pressed against my side gives me a modicum of comfort, but I doubt any passage of time will ever eliminate the need to have it there at the ready.
“Griffin!” The slap between my shoulder blades makes me cringe and grit my teeth. “How you doin’, man?”
Forcing a smile, I turn and examine the man standing next to me. Bobby isn’t a bad guy. He just…tries too hard. He’s one of those nerdy computer dudes who has zero social skills, but his wife is Jade’s new best friend, so that makes me his, by default, I guess.
Time to muster up some small talk.
