“Yeah? But for how long? When are you going to be done running, Salem? When are you going to free yourself of the chains?” Misery crawled out with the grunted hope that kept growing stronger.
Salem itched, fiddled with her fingers as she dropped her gaze. “It’s the only thing I want, Jud. To stop the hiding. The running.” Warily, she glanced at me. “But I don’t know how to make that happen when he’s still out there.”
I had to focus on continuing to dry her hair rather than coming unhinged.
The only thing I wanted right then was a name. Would handle everything else.
“Who is he?”
Distress hitched in her throat. “He was my brother’s friend who’d lived across the street from us growing up. Five years older than me. I started sneaking out to meet him when I was sixteen. My grandmother…Mimi…” Salem peeked up at me with her own shame on her face. “She warned me, Jud, she told me he was no good and that I was only asking for pain. And that’s what I got. So much pain. I fell in love with a man who turned out to be wicked—a man who in turn only showed me wickedness—but I didn’t realize what that really meant until it was too late.”
“How long have you been running?”
“Four years. I don’t stay in one place for longer than a few months. This is the first time I’ve been anywhere near family. Darius believes that he’s given up and moved on, that enough time has passed. That he’s no longer after me, and as long as we stay far away and keep quiet, we’ll be okay.”
Fuck.
“That why you wanted the job off the books?”
Her nod was wary. “Yeah. For years, I’ve paid cash for everything. Stayed at crummy places that I could pay for by the month.”
Her chin trembled. “Juni’s medical care…” Her brow pinched in her own shamed horror. “I’d take her to little clinics in small towns, give a false name so she could get a checkup, and then we’d be on our way.”
My soul shouted. The truth that this was bad, really fuckin’ bad to make her go to such lengths to stay away from him.
I ran my thumb over the scar on her jaw. “What did he do…the last time? When you finally got free?”
Sorrow ripped through her features. “He tried to destroy us, Jud…to take it all.”
Rage twitched my fingers, and vengeance ground my teeth. I held her by both sides of the face, forcing her to look at me, to understand. “Won’t let him get to you. Promise you that.”
Salem leaned forward and placed a kiss right over my heart. “It’s not your war to fight, Jud. I shouldn’t even be here. But I honestly don’t know how to leave.”
Had to force some lightness into the mood before I scared her with the rage that pounded through my system. “Now why would you want to go and leave when you get all of this?” With a quirk of my lips, I rocked my hips between her thighs.
Playing.
A taunt and a tease.
Because the only thing I wanted to do right then was steal any trace of sadness from her being.
Figured I’d shore up the rage for later.
Because if that fucker showed his face? He was dead. Fuck the promise I’d made to myself.
That promise that I’d never kill again.
That I’d live on the straight and narrow.
Be ready for when my life came back.
The one purpose I’d been living for.
And there it went, fading into the distance.
Blasphemy.
Waiting for him to strike suddenly seemed unwise.
I was going to get the name out of Darius, then I was going to put an end to Salem’s pain. Head it off before it found its way to her door.
Salem dug her fingers into my sides and looked up at me with those eyes.
“I don’t want to, Jud…I don’t want to leave.”
Intensity crashed.
A whip in the air.
A fire to my soul.
I dropped the towel I was using to dry her hair and drove my fingers into the locks instead, just as I swooped down to plunder that plush, tempting mouth.
Girl so gorgeous.
So right.
So much better than I should ever ask for.
“Sounds like you should stay then.” I rumbled it at her lips, playfully, though I meant it, one hundred percent.
Felt her grin against my mouth, and she edged me back and slipped off the counter and onto her feet.
“In that case,” she said, glancing at me from over her shoulder as she sauntered out of my bathroom and toward my bedroom.
Well shit.
There she went.
My vixen.
Nothing but a sweet, tempting enchantress.
And I was fuckin’ hypnotized.
Spellbound.
Dropping her towel, she strutted away, nothing but that bare back and perfect round ass, hair falling down her spine, legs curvy and toned.
“Ahh, darlin’， now you are just asking for trouble,” I rumbled from behind.
“I found you, didn’t I?” she teased with a glance back at me.
With a chuckle, I was stalking her way out into the bedroom, catching up to her before she made it to my bed. I hooked an arm around her front, palm coming to her stomach to pull her flush.
Salem laughed and kicked her feet as I pulled her against me. It pulled a rush of laughter out of me, too, and then she was melting into a puddle when I kissed a path down the side of her neck and across her delicious shoulder.
“Fuck, you feel so nice.” Rumbled it as I pressed my nose into her hair and inhaled, and she was sighing out.
“You’re the best thing I’ve ever felt, Jud.” Her admission wisped on the dense air of my room. “I never expected you…to find someone who would make me dream beyond the hope of only surviving.”
I swiveled her around, tipped up her chin. “I’m going to see to it that you have that, Salem. The life that you deserve.”
Her beautiful brow bunched, and I let my fingertips trail down her throat. “Turn back around, baby.”
She exhaled a needy breath as she slowly shifted, eyes watching mine as she turned.
My breath hitched again. “Bend over, darlin’。 Let me get a good look at all that sweetness.”
She shivered, whimpered as she pressed her palms onto my bed.
Shit.
So damned sexy.
Her bottom was round, her slit pink and pretty.
I angled in to lick a path down her spine. I palmed her ass as I did. “Every part of you, Salem. Makes me insane, how bad I want you. How I’ve been dying to get lost in this sweet body, and now that I have, I don’t ever want to stop.”
I kept kissing down as I muttered the words against her silken flesh.
“Then don’t, Jud. Don’t stop.”
And there she was. That storm that had made landfall. A flashflood of chaos that lit in my blood and pulsed greed through my veins.
Her aura everywhere. Toasted coconut and sultry sin and a little bit of me.
That set me off, too.
“You mine, darlin’？” I whispered it as I kept heading south, tongue stroking between her cheeks so I could give a nice little lap to her sweet, puckered hole.
Salem gasped then pushed back.
A chuckle rumbled out as I fully pushed back to standing. Dropping my towel from my waist, I reached over to my nightstand and grabbed a condom. I rolled it on quick. I pressed her chest farther against the mattress so she was completely bent over.