Page 21 of Eyes in the Shadows

Fabric catches my eye, something stuck in between the back of the couch and the bottom cushions. I give it a tug, and see that it’s that flimsy tank top she was wearing when we first met. I lift it to my nose and inhale her, feeling stirrings in my gut and finding that I like the smell even better now that I’ve been deprived of it for several days.

Not really giving it a second thought, I wad it up and stick it in my back pocket. Then I slip out as carefully as I entered.

That night, while she’s sitting on the couch with her e-reader, I send her a text that would look just like spam from an unknown number. I know the exact moment that double buzz sounds—both because it’s fucking loud, even through the muffled listening devices, and because her head whips up. She twists in her seat, looking around, then leaps up and starts frantically digging through the couch, ripping it apart.

When she finds it, she squeals in excitement and hugs it to her chest. Then, after a second, she looks at it and then down at where she was sitting with a slight frown.

“I pulled these cushions off already,”she mutters to herself.

Whoops.

But the next second, she dismisses her totally justified wariness.“Must’ve missed it somehow.”

My pulse cools it as she lets me off the hook. Damn, am I getting sloppy? She scrolls for a while, catching herself up and checking her messages. If she thinks it’s odd that her notification screen didn’t have Harrison’s frantic messages, she doesn’t show it.

I eat dinner with her again and turn out my lights when she does. Before climbing into bed, I go around for a last check on my equipment and to set up the programs that will notify me if there’s movement on the truck. Just as I’m about to turn in, I hear it.

Is she… are those moans? Of pleasure?

I straighten and press the headphones more tightly over my ears.

“Please,”she whimpers.“Please, Mac…”

I go hard as a fucking diamond.

I barely breathe, listening so hard to the soft wet noises of her body and the sighs of pleasure and delight. It’s the “ohh fuck,” that has me scrambling across the room and grabbing the pants I’d worn earlier in the day. Roughly, I yank the pajama top out of the pocket and fall onto my ass on the edge of my bed.

Dirty fuck that I apparently now am, I close my eyes, breathing in her scent and listening to her moans. I palm my cock through the hole in my boxers, holding tight and trying to sync the strokes with her breathing. It’s like she’s right fucking here, writhing under me, tits bouncing, head thrown back in ecstasy. I can almost picture her body jolting as I snap my hips against hers, bury myself deep and feel her cunt spasm around me.

She’d be so tight. It would feel so fucking good. I grip myself harder.

I’d bring her to the edge—that place where pain meets sweet pleasure and they twist around each other almost cruelly. She’d be so pretty tied up, at my mercy, finally admitting to herself how much she wants to do what I say. How much she wants me.

Because now I know. I know what she sounds like. I’ve heard those soft moans and whimpers that prove she likes it just a little rough. I already know what she sounds like when she whispers the word, “please.”

When she says my name again, I come all over my hand, shooting further than normal, managing to actually hit myself in the chest with it. I pant, and wipe at the cum with her pajama shirt, needing our scents to be commingled. And then, like I never even fucking came in the first place, my cock starts to tighten again, hardening in my hand.

I need more. More of her.

As her panting gets faster, I know she’s right there. I want to be there to give her what she needs so badly.

I wish I were a better man. A better man would walk away. She deserves that small, peaceful life she built, if that’s what she wants. I can’t give her that. What kind of stability can a hitman offer? I’ll be putting her in danger.

But the voice of reason is too easy to ignore.

Because I want her. And now I know she wants me too, in spite of everything.

So now… all bets are off.

8

Eleanor

Really fucking creepy.

It takes several days before I’m not looking over my shoulder everywhere I go. A week before I feel like myself again. I never do make it to the police station, not really sure what I’d say. And the longer I wait, the more ridiculous the story starts to sound, even to me.

A man broke in and I think I heard him kill someone. I don’t know anything about him, except that his name might or might not be Mac and that hedoesn’twear glasses. I don’t know anything about who he killed, or even for sure if he did kill someone because I didn’t see it. But he tied me up and applied my psoriasis cream against my will.

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