“Next time you pull a gun on me, little killer,” he growled in a quiet voice, “you better be prepared to use it. Or I will…” He lowered his face until his lips brushed my earlobe, making me shiver. “You like the way I use my gun, though, don’t you?”
Oh fuck, my panties were soaked. I didn’t even remember grabbing onto him, but somehow my fingers were digging into the strong muscles of his lower back, like I was pulling him closer rather than pushing him away like I should.
“I was acting,” I lied, swallowing hard and feeling the warm weight of his hand just above my puffy, bruised garrote wound.
He shifted his stance, crushing one leg between mine and grinding against my already dripping cunt. I thanked my lucky stars for the protection of jeans, even if I couldn’t stop my body from reacting a little.
Kai’s full lips tilted in a sly smile as he peered down at me. “Bullshit,” he whispered. “I bet you’re drenched just thinking about it. You got off on the danger just as hard as I did, Siren.”
I swallowed again. He wasn’t wrong on that, but I was in no mood to let him play my cunt like a little violin again, sending all my common sense out the window. The cold air wasn’t doing a damn thing to quell my libido, so I gritted my teeth and shoved him away.
“I’m late to meet your sister,” I told him in a clipped voice, trying to pull my shell back together. “Come or don’t, it makes no difference to me.”
Not waiting for his response, I popped open my door and slid into the driver’s seat. I yanked it shut quickly, taking a hot second to catch my breath and wet my lips, then he was climbing into the passenger seat and flooding my senses with his sheer energy again.
“Where you’re concerned, Siren,” he murmured as I drove down the long driveway, “I have no issues coming. Every. Damn. Time.”
I choked on a breath at the dirty double entendre and gave him a long look from the side of my eye. “Am I to take that as a compliment?” I asked, despite knowing it was a trap. He wanted me to talk to him. He wanted me to get to know him. Because then I’d be more likely to let him know me.
But… fuck if that hadn’t been a foolproof way to spike my curiosity.
Then a memory clicked in my brain. “That night we met, at the Halloween party, your guys were taking bets on something when you disappeared to screw that chick.” It was phrased as a statement, but he knew what question I was asking.
He ran a hand over his military-buzzed hair. “They think they’re so funny.” His gaze rested on me like a caress, and I fought to keep my eyes on the road ahead. “I should have shot you when I saw that comms device.”
“Probably,” I murmured. “I’m sure it’s what the Guild expected to happen. Don’t tell me that you were ensnared by my magical blow job skills and it fried your brain?”
He huffed a short laugh. “Maybe.” He was quiet a few moments, then gave a small sigh. “A few years ago, I dated a girl…”
I couldn’t help shooting a quick glance over at him, but his gaze had gone distant despite still looking at me. “I’m guessing you don’t date all that often?”
“I don’t,” he confirmed, “none of us do. It’s too risky. Charlotte was different, though. I can’t even explain it now, but she…” He trailed off, swallowing hard. “I trusted her, let her into my family. But we’ve been screwed over before, and there were a few little things that got me second-guessing her. Eventually, we became convinced she was a Guild merc, sent to play a long game and infiltrate our team.”
I could guess how it ended for Charlotte. “You killed her?”
Kai jerked a nod. “She tried to run away, but I couldn’t let her leave. I chased her down, then made her kneel at my feet as I put a gun to her head. She cried and begged, but I shot her anyway. We had only just started building the Ares business, and plenty of people were paying for intel and blood. The Guild needed to learn that there would be no mercy for any mercenaries coming after me and my family. They needed a firm message that we wouldn’t be messed with, so don’t even bother accepting contracts.”
“Understandable,” I commented, pausing at the boom gate at the bottom of the mountain road, keying in my code. It wasn’t nice to kill people on suspicion, but Kai—like me—wasn’t a nice person. We were criminals. Killers. We operated on a different set of morals than ordinary people, and in our world, it was totally justified to kill someone if they’d deceived us. “So… you’ve had issues blowing your load after you killed your Guild girlfriend?”
Kai gave a bitter laugh. “Something like that. Turns out, she wasn’t Guild. I was all torn up about it after I killed her. So Eli and Mo went digging and discovered that she had no mercenary connections at all. She was exactly who she claimed to be, and I’d murdered her out of nothing more than paranoia.”
My brows shot up. “That’s why you hesitated to shoot me?”
“I second-guessed myself,” he admitted with a nod. “But back to the point of the story, I couldn’t seem to shake that night from my head. Every time I was with a woman, I couldn’t stop seeing Charlotte. Seeing how she knelt there on the forest floor, her face streaked with tears and her eyes full of terror.”
Understanding dawned. “You developed a fear kink, huh? And let me guess, when you told women what you needed, they either walked the fuck away or gave a lackluster, unconvincing performance?”
He grunted a sound, and I took that as confirmation. I already guessed at his fear kink with how he was that first night, and it made sense that he’d been struggling to find anyone to fulfill his need.
“Contrary to what it may have seemed,” he murmured, “I’ve never forced anyone.”
I snorted a laugh. “Oh, precious, don’t fucking lie to yourself. You forced me. You just didn’t realize I was into it too.” The force of his scowl bored into the side of my face, and I smirked.
“Fine,” he growled. “Before you, I’d never forced anyone. You flipped a fucking switch in my brain, and I couldn’t stop.”
“Malachi Arden,” I scolded with an edge of mockery, “you’re better than that. Victim blaming? Deflecting responsibility for your actions? You’re not fooling anyone here. You’re an intelligent man in full control of his actions. You didn’t stop, because you didn’t want to. Simple as that. You liked the way I ran from you and how I begged. When you forced me to my knees and made me suck your dick, were you seeing me? Or Charlotte?”
He said nothing, just shifted his gaze out the window. I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know, but maybe he wasn’t used to being forced into honesty.
“Something changed, though, didn’t it?” I pushed, curious enough to dig deeper. “You didn’t need me scared when we had sex on your island. And you sure as fuck had no problems finishing.”
“Evidently,” he agreed with a wry tone, “you cured me. It shocked me enough that I didn’t shoot you, when I should have. But I couldn’t live with another mistake on my conscience. I needed to be sure you were a mercenary.”