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  She licked her lips.

  I tugged on her hair.

  She flinched.

  “I’m going to fuck you, Shell,” I told her in a quiet voice. I moved my hand from her thigh, unbuttoned my pants, unzipped, and freed my aching cock. I couldn’t wait to be inside her again. It had been too long. “I’m going to fuck you hard. I’m going to fuck all the guilt out of you.”

  Tears formed in her eyes. Possibly because I was pulling her hair. Possibly because…

  “Could you?” she said in a tiny voice. “Could you really make it go away?”

  “Yes,” I said. “You’re mine. You do what I say. You come when I tell you to, you get aroused by whatever I do to you. I can make it go away.”

  She swallowed. She shifted her hips.

  I felt her slippery sex against my erection. I gasped.

  She shifted her hips again, and somehow captured the tip of my cock.

  I groaned, unable to resist sliding all the way into her.

  “Do it, then,” she breathed. “Make it go away.”

  I thrust into her, nice and deep, all the way in as far as I could go. I felt her surround me, hold me in all the right places. I grunted, and I lost it again. Suddenly, I was pounding against her, jamming myself in as deep as I could go, as fast as I could, ramming her tight pussy, throwing everything into it.

  She was moaning, and it sounded half like pleasure and half like pain.

  And I didn’t care. She felt so good, and I needed this, because it suddenly wasn’t me fucking away her guilt, it was her taking all of my guilt. She was restrained, my hand yanking at her hair, her hands behind her back, my other hand clutching her bare ass, keeping her there as I did what I wanted with her. She couldn’t get away. She was here, and I was giving it all to her, and she wasn’t resisting.

  “Ripper,” she moaned. “Yes, Ripper, fuck me.”

  I kissed her neck. “Call me Cade,” I said.

  “Cade,” she whispered.

  “Shell,” I said, my voice raw. I kissed her jaw. Her cheek. I looked at her.

  And her eyes were wide open, staring back at me.

  We held each other’s gaze.

  “I…” I was still going at her like I was dying and this was the last fuck I’d ever have, but everything was building inside me, and it was growing so intense now. I felt like I was getting lost, like there was only my cock and her body, and everything else was falling apart.

  And then there were tremors around me, and her tight little pussy was clenching against me, hungrily sucking at my dick.

  Her breath was unsteady. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. I know you didn’t tell me—”

  I silenced her with a kiss. I didn’t need to control her. I didn’t need… “You feel so good,” I told her. “I like feeling you come around me.” And I wished that her hands weren’t in the cuffs, because I wanted her arms around me.

  I settled for kissing her again, losing myself in her sweetness.

  And surrendering to her, letting free that last bit of all of it, exploding into her body, loosing all my darkness in her light.

  * * *

  Cade

  Afterward, I took her out of the cuffs and we lay on the floor of the weapons room, just holding each other.

  We didn’t talk, not much.

  She clung to me, her face in my chest, and I wrapped my arms tight around her and rested my chin on the top of her head.

  “The guilt is gone,” she whispered into my skin. “It worked.”

  I brushed at her hair. “Of course it did, love. Didn’t I say you were mine?”

  “I am, though.” She snuggled closer. “All yours.”

  I sighed, kissing the top of her head, and I didn’t say that I was hers too.

  I hoped she felt it, felt it in the way that I held her, the way I touched her. But I couldn’t make my lips form the words. I didn’t know how to say them.

  So, I said nothing, and we lay there together, just being close.

  We lay there a long time.

  And then, I got her up, and I led her down the hallway to the showers.

  We got into one of the stalls together and let the hot jets of water surround us, pound into us.

  I scrubbed her hair, gently massaging the places that I’d pulled at her scalp. I rubbed the soap all over her skin, her curves, making her slippery and enticing.

  I couldn’t help but get hard again.

  But I took her carefully and gently this time. I held her close, like she was precious, and I took my time sliding in and out of her, savoring each inch of her tight heat.

  She seemed suddenly so impossibly small and sweet, this miracle thing in my grasp that I’d somehow managed to be lucky enough to get to be this close to.

  She was giving herself to me, and I didn’t really understand why.

  But liked it. I adored it.

  I adored her.

  I knew that I didn’t want her to go anywhere, and I didn’t know how that could possibly work. It terrified me. I couldn’t think about it. So, I just thought about the moment, about her warmth and softness.

  I lost myself in her again, buried myself in her over and over again until I couldn’t handle it anymore.

  I came under the spray of the water, begging her to come with me and feeling her tighten and contract around me just when I wanted her to, and we climaxed together, joined together, moving together… and it was good. So, so good.

  * * *

  Shell

  I pulled on the last of my clean outfits. I hadn’t really packed enough clothes for this little excursion, but then I hadn’t known just how long it would last. I was outside the showers in the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror and dragged a comb through my hair.

  I had shot a man. I had confessed my darkest secret to Cade.

  I had been fucked silly, and I had never felt closer to another human being.

  And yet, I still felt like I couldn’t talk to him, like I couldn’t really tell him how I felt. I had this nagging feeling at the back of my mind that this was all only temporary, no matter how close I felt to him.

  One way or another, Cade was going to take care of Ice, and Ice wasn’t going to be a threat anymore. After that happened, then Cade would take me back to my apartment, and I’d never see him again.

  I looked down at my stomach.

  But he’d come in me so many times. And he’d said that he wanted to knock me up. We hadn’t spoken about that, not once, but I guessed it had something to do with the fact that Angie person had gotten rid of his baby. Still, he never indicated to me…

  How to bring it up?

  I didn’t know.

  It all seemed awkward and strange.

  I glared at myself in the mirror. “Grow up, Shell.” I pointed at myself with the comb. “If you can have sex with that man, you can damned well talk about it.”

  Cade’s voice floated in from out of the room. “Did you say something?”

  “No,” I said. I bit my lip.

  I finished combing my hair and left the bathroom. I’d just bring it up, right now. I’d open my mouth, and I’d talk to him about the fact that we might have made a baby one of the umpteenth times we’d had unprotected sex, and we’d have an adult conversation about it.

  But when I saw him, I didn’t say anything.

  He smiled at me. “You look nice.”

  “My hair is wet. I look like a drowned rat.”

  He laughed, one arm going around me. His lips against my temple. “You look freshly fucked and I like it.”

  I giggled. “Yes, indeed. Dazed by the use of your cock.”

  “My huge cock.”

  “Your enormous cock.” I grinned up at him.

  He kissed my forehead. “I think you always look hot.” He pulled back and picked up a pistol. “Especially with a gun. I don’t know if I told you, but it’s a good look on you. So, take this one.”

  I did. “Thanks.” I turned it over in my hands. “You know, there are th
ings you didn’t really teach me. Like how to load a gun or how to check that it’s loaded. All of that?”

  “Yeah, we can do that.” He started down the hallway, away from me.

  I hoisted my bag, which was now full of dirty clothes, over my shoulder and went after him. “Are you expecting trouble? We going to need these guns right away?”

  “I hope not,” he said.

  I caught up with him. Okay. Okay, now, I needed to bring up being pregnant.

  But I didn’t.

  We walked in silence, and I thought about the idea of a small, tiny little being growing inside my body, and at first it was just a nice thought. I thought of tiny fingers and toes, of cuddling a sweet-smelling little bundle. A baby. My baby.

  But I also felt a rush of terror.

  I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be pregnant. I mean, how was I supposed to support a baby in my life? I was a waitress—maybe I was still a waitress, because I had no idea when I was going to get back to my job, and they weren’t going to hold it forever—and a comic artist. And my comics were in danger of being behind too. I didn’t know when I was going to get to make another strip, but one was due soon. I didn’t have enough money for a baby. And I certainly didn’t have enough money to hire someone to take care of my baby while I went to work and made more money. And…

  But maybe Cade would help?

  He had money.

  But if he didn’t want the baby—

  No, I thought he did, but…

  I needed to talk to him about this.

  But suddenly, I didn’t even want to think about this. I wanted to pretend that none of it was real. Maybe I was putting the cart before the horse, anyway. Until I had a missed period, there was every chance in the world I wasn’t pregnant. After all, it did take people who were trying months or even over a year sometimes to get pregnant. So there was no reason to think, even with as reckless as we’d been, that we really needed to worry.

  So, when I spoke, I didn’t say a word about it. “Where are we going?”

  He shot a glance at me. “Well, we can’t stay here. I’m guessing Ice isn’t watching the place, or he would have already made his presence known, but he’ll probably come back. And I have to admit that I wasn’t sure what we were going to do, because I couldn’t think of anywhere that we could go that Ice didn’t know about.”

  “You guys were close, huh?”

  He nodded. “I told him a lot of things about me. It works both ways, of course. I know things about him too. But it just makes it harder overall.”

  We were at the elevator, but he walked past it and opened up a door.

  Steps ascended up out of the building.

  “Seriously?” I said. “Can’t we take the elevator?”

  “No, I locked it down,” he said. “And once we get up these steps, they’re going too.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “I’ll show you. Come with me.” He climbed up the first level of steps.

  I followed him.

  At that level, he opened a metal box on the wall and typed into a keypad.

  Abruptly, the stairs below us began to fold into themselves, flattening, like bleachers in a gymnasium.

  “No one gets in after we leave,” he said.

  I felt a little nervous, knowing that there was no way back down. What if we fell? Dizziness overtook me, and I grabbed Cade’s arm.

  He put an arm around my shoulders. “Hey,” he whispered, “I… I think we should stick together.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Was there a question of that?”

  “I just…” He looked up at the unfolded stairs above us. “I thought maybe it would be better for you if you were away from me. Because I’m not good for you.”

  “Cade—”

  “But I don’t want to let you go.” He squeezed me tighter. “So, I’m sorry if you want to get away from me—”

  “You know I don’t.” I touched his face.

  He grabbed my fingers and kissed them. “I still think maybe you should.”

  “No,” I said. And my heart started to surge, because maybe I had been worrying about nothing. He wanted to be close to me, and maybe this wouldn’t be over after he took care of Ice. Maybe he felt it too, felt like something was growing between us that was bigger than all of the danger we were in.

  But he let go of me. “It’s just until I can fix this situation with Ice, anyway. I’ll make sure that it’s safe for you to go back home.”

  And it was hard to breathe. I felt cold and alone. I wanted to reach for him. I shoved my hands in my pockets instead. “Right,” I said softly.

  He started back up the steps. “Anyway, about where we’re going. I didn’t know what we were going to do, but then I remembered Sable, and it was because of what Gallo said to me.”

  “Gallo?”

  He looked over his shoulder. “Rafael Gallo. The man that you shot?”

  I grimaced. Maybe I did feel a little twinge of something when I thought about that. But I shoved it aside. Dwelling on it would be stupid. I’d saved Cade. That was the important thing. “I didn’t know his name,” I said.

  “Oh, well, sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s fine.” I pushed past him on the steps. “I did wonder about that. He was talking about someone named Sable, threatening her. Who is she?” Cade must care about her an awful lot if Gallo could threaten him that way with her.

  “She’s an old colleague,” said Cade. “She used to work here, but then she got into a bit of a mess with the Gallo family. A hit went wrong, and she didn’t get the guy she was going after. Instead, he lived, and he identified her, and he started going after her.”

  “A female hitman?” I said. No, that didn’t sound right. “A hitwoman?”

  Cade laughed. “Yeah, there aren’t a lot of women in this business, but she’s pretty good at what she does. Anyway, she needed to go and lie low for a bit. She’s in a very secure location, so despite what Gallo said, they don’t know where she is. We go there, we’ll be safe too.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, okay. Are you sure?”

  “Positive,” he said, flashing me his lopsided grin. “Would I ever steer you wrong, love?”

  * * *

  Cade

  Sable was in a safe house that I’d set up years ago. I had about five or six of them, scattered around the country. I didn’t like to have to use them, but sometimes they were an inevitability. We were in D.C., and the safe house was not close. It was in Florida, and not in the bloated shorelines which were full of people, but the interior, which was a no-man’s land of marshes and heat and the occasional orange farm.

  We could have driven straight through if I’d taken a direct route, but I wanted to do my best to lose anyone who might be following us.

  That meant going a meandering way out of the town, following the Beltway towards Baltimore, splitting off on auxiliary routes of various interstates here and there, and getting as turned around as we could, hopefully shaking off any tails we might have.

  To be sure, once we got deep into Virginia, we switched cars. I had cars stashed in various places in the country as well.

  I agonized over switching the cars. Ice didn’t know the location of the Florida safe house, but he did know the location of the car in Virginia. He knew about one in New York state, one in Kentucky, and one in Texas as well. The one in Virginia was closest to D.C. I worried that maybe, just maybe he was watching it.

  But I hadn’t seen any real indication that we were being followed, and I was fairly sure that I’d have some hint of it if Ice were after us.

  Anyway, I thought switching cars was a good tactic, so we did it.

  We picked up the new car, left the old one there, and continued our trek southward.

  Doing all of that meant it simply took too long to make the trip all in one day, so we stopped at a motel on the way. Not a chain, but an old family-owned place along a road, with faded yellow curtains and a sign that proclaimed they had
Sh wtime.

  We ate a dinner from a nearby drive-through and had snacks from a machine next to the motel office. We curled up on the bed together and munched on chips while watching TV on the crappy old television set in the room.

  And it was nice.

  I liked being with her like that.

  We crawled under the covers for the last bit of a movie, and when it was over, we turned in each other’s arms, like it was as natural as breathing, and we kissed.

  We did it right there on the bed vanilla style. Missionary position, her legs spread for me, her hips grinding against mine, both of us sighing like steam engines.

  I liked that too.

  It seemed so easy and normal and nice. As I drifted to sleep, her naked skin against mine, I thought about having her next to me every night, just like this.

  Her breath was easy and soft, as she slipped off.

  I stroked her hair, trailed my hand over her back.

  She threw her leg over me, shifting in her sleep.

  I felt wetness between her thighs and realized it was because my semen was sliding out of her.

  Which kind of turned me on for a second, and my cock twitched a little bit. I thought of her just overflowing with my come, and I had to admit I kind of liked the thought of that.

  And then… my hand slowly inched its way over her body to settle on her stomach.

  She had a tiny little bit of softness there, the hint of a belly, and I liked it.

  I thought of her huge and pregnant, her belly extended. I thought of stroking her, feeling movement inside her.

  I gulped.

  We needed to fucking talk about this. I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me, but I couldn’t believe that I just kept coming inside her like it wasn’t taking a big risk. I shouldn’t be taking advantage of her like this.

  I didn’t even know if she wanted—

  God, how could she want it? We had nothing together. We barely knew each other. And she might find me exciting now, because I was different than what she’d had before. But she wouldn’t want me around all the time. She definitely wouldn’t want to play house with me.

  I moved my hand from her stomach.

  Yeah, on second thought, maybe I wouldn’t say anything about it. Because once we had it out, really cleared the air and faced the music like adults, we’d realize that there was no way any of this could work. And then, well, we probably wouldn’t even want to touch each other anymore.