Page 103 of Ricochet

Matthew is making pathetic noises, grunts and whimpers. But it’s little more than white noise as images of all his possible deaths flash through my mind.

Before I can settle on one, Stone asks, “Slow? Quick?”

“Um.” I gasp when his teeth scrape over my pulse point. “Quick.”

Even though I love watching Stone in action, it’s the final death I crave the most.

I groan as he grinds his erection against the inside of my thigh, hard as a rock in his jeans. He crushes his mouth to mine again. It’s a burning, impassioned exploration of his hot tongue between the all-consuming touch of his soft lips and brutal kiss.

If I had to choose between this,us, and the world ending, I’d choose the world.

Since the world isn’t ending right now, the kiss must. Stone picks up his knife and steps back. He walks backwards without taking his dark eyes off me.

It’s like he’s still possessing me.

“Please,” Matthew whimpers, blinking past all the tears rolling down his cheeks. “I won’t hurt anyone else.”

Nowhe wants to beg. And lie.

Fortunately, I know that won’t stop Stone. He strolls over, the sexiest fucking reaper I’ve ever seen, and rounds the chair until he’s standing behind it. Without touching the man with anything but the knife, he smoothly and effortlessly glides the blade across the front of the man’s throat. There’s a garbled cry just before a crimson waterfall spills down his neck, soaking the front of his shirt.

I’m hypnotized as I watch each one of his desperate attempts to breathe. More and more blood pours out, dark and viscous and gurgling. His body jerks. His eyes are open, frantic, pupils blown.

I’m entranced, under Death’s spell. Or Stone’s.

Maybe they’re one in the same.

“You’re fucking beautiful.”

Stone’s voice pulls me a little toward the surface of where I’ve been drifting in that sea of calm that could probably carry me so far out I’d never be able to find the shore again. Maybe as long as Stone is there, I won’t lose myself. I won’t drown.

He’s still standing behind the man bleeding out in the chair. But his eyes are fixed on me.

“What?” I ask because I can think of nothing else to say.

My body and mind don’t feel like my own. Every muscle is loose, free of tension and stress and worries. It’s like I’ve never known what it is to be afraid or angry or unhappy. Nothing bad exists.

Stone slowly rounds the chair, dropping the knife on the plastic as my gaze returns to the life fading from Matthew’s eyes. Stone is careful not to get in the way of my line of sight of the gift he’s given me as he approaches. Even as he stops to stand between my legs again, he leans to one side.

With his lips at my ear, he asks, “Do you know what the monarch butterfly symbolizes?”

I’m floating so fucking far away that I don’t even register how random his words are. “As in our team name?”

“Yes. You’re just as beautiful and graceful as one, especially when you’re flying across the ice.” He kisses me below the ear, sending a welcome shiver down my spine. “But they also symbolize rebirth. Transformation. You have that in common too.”

As Stone grips my thighs and kisses along the side of my neck, my head tilts, granting him more access. Meanwhile, Matthew’s head hangs down, blood still flowing from his neck and pooling on the plastic below.

He’s dead.

I know it because I canfeelit.

“What do you mean?” IthinkI say it out loud. My voice kind of echoes inside my own head like my ears are stuffed full of cotton.

“I can see it in you. A metamorphosis. When you witness death, it makes you feel alive. You’re shedding all those bad things. You’re leaving them behind and becoming something even more beautiful than you already were.”

I lean back, looking away from yet another death that’s changed me to peer into Stone’s eyes instead. “I love you.”

He smiles. “I know.”

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