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GUNN

S ome muffled sound wakes me from a sleep so deep, I don’t recall dreaming.

Fuck me, I must have been out for hours because when I try to open my eyes, they’re dry, my lids like sandpaper. I’m parched too, my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth as if I’ve been walking in a desert for miles.

I roll my head toward the nightstand and finally manage to crack open one eye to search for something to drink. But what I see instead has me frowning in confusion. In place of the water I expect, what I find is a small brown bottle with a rag draped over it and beside that… A pile of pennies?

“What the—” My senses seem to return all at once and I suddenly realize I’m not alone. “You!” I hiss at the sight of the hellcat peering down at me, a large knife in her fist.

“Hello, Dimples. Did you have a good nap?”

I immediately attempt to sit up, but something stops me. “What the…” Ropes. Each of my limbs is tied to one of the iron spindles of the bed. With my black T-shirt torn down the center of my chest, I look like I’m about to be sacrificed.

When I fail to break free, she gives me a pleased smile. Then, as if she has a right to, she throws a leg over my hips and straddles me. And fuck me again because the way she fits on me feels like she definitely has a right to be there.

Cocking my head, I grin at her. “Why, if it isn’t my friend, Peaches. Made yourself at home, I see.” I purposely let my gaze rove over her, from her blond head to the place where I’m nestled so perfectly between her legs. “What brings you ‘round these parts ?” I pump my hips upward.

She glances down at the part she’s on. Her red lips pull upward in that siren smile she wears so well. One brow arched, she looks back at my face. “Are you always so ready to greet friends?”

“Depends on the friend. Or frenemy, in your case.”

Scarlet rests her blade against the skin on my abs and I jerk from the cold of it. She laughs as she runs a finger over my stomach. “It gave you goosebumps.”

“ You give me goosebumps,” I retort. “How the fuck did you get in here?”

“I crawled in through your balcony and hid in your closet. Then I watched until you fell asleep.”

“Fucking creep,” I say. “Did you watch me showering too?”

“Would you have wanted me to?” Her green gaze flicks to mine and my pants get even tighter.

I’m about to tell her that fuck yes, I would have wanted her to, but only if she was going to join me, when it all comes back to me. The last memory I have is of me taking a shower before bed. Did I make it? Yes. I recall slipping under the blankets. Then what? Something smelled funny. But before I could question it, I was waking up to this woman on me.

“You knocked me out,” I accuse.

“You were already out, I just made sure you stayed that way. It’s pretty late and I didn’t want to disturb your neighbors. We do tend to get pretty loud when we’re, you know”—she winks—“having a good time battling it out.”

“How considerate of you.”

She shrugs. “I thought so.”

“So what? You drug me so there aren’t any noise complaints, my shirt has been torn open and there’s a stack of coins I’m willing to bet were all minted in 2009. Were you planning on gutting me?”

“I’d think you’d be grateful to go out in your sleep, all peaceful and sweet.” Her hand twitches around the hilt of her blade and suddenly I’m not so sure she’s not still planning on executing me.

“How long does it take you to do that? A few seconds?”

“You want me to discuss your eminent death?” she questions.

“No. Just curious as to why I’m still alive.”

She rocks on me and I groan from the feeling of her pressing so firmly against my cock. Her smile widens. “Well, I was about to dispatch you to the hereafter, I mean, my knife was on your throat and all, when you poked me.”

“ I poked you ,” I repeat.

“Yup. With that.” She glances between her legs at my crotch. “And I realized that if I killed you, I’d always wonder what it feels like.”

I’m not sure if it’s the ropes forcing the blood away from my arms and legs and into my groin, but it definitely happens. My dick goes from steel to granite even though my brain is screaming at it that this bitch is crazy. Fuck, maybe that’s why it’s so hard.

“Why didn’t you just take what you wanted?” I ask.

“I’m a killer, not a rapist.”

“What you are is a psycho.”

Her mouth quirks up to one side. “Is that a bad thing?”

“So you waited for me to wake up to what? As for my consent?”

“Yes.”

I’m stunned. Truly. “What exactly are you asking for?”

“I want to get off with you. On you. You know what I mean.”

I stare at her in disbelief. It’s not just her strange morals, but my own. Because I’m oddly flattered that she’s asking for my permission. And I want to know what she feels like too. I want to see her getting off on me.

“Do with me what you will,” I say. I’m already in this position, might as well make the best of it.

She bites her bottom lip as lust fills her cat eyes and she bends over me. Her irises glitter in the low light of the lamp, twin emeralds I’ve sworn to shut forever, and what a shame it will be.

“You’re so beautiful,” she whispers before her tongue darts out and she swipes it slowly across my left dimple. She purrs and the sound of it goes straight to my cock. “So yummy.”

Then, her mouth crashes against mine, and the kiss… This fucking kiss is as deadly as she is.

Scarlet has been one of my favorite opponents since that day I met her outside of Raimondo’s. Fighting her always shoots a sort of fun adrenaline through my veins, a high that makes me crave just one more run-in with this evil blonde.

But this kiss… If doing battle with her is an adrenaline rush, kissing her is straight up crack. I’m instantly addicted to the taste of her tongue as it slides across mine and the air I steal from her lungs when she lets out a breath.

Her fingers scrape my scalp through my short cut as she maneuvers my head to the side. Then her hot mouth is on my neck, licking and biting, and farther still to my nipples. She takes one between her teeth and tugs.

“Sweet Jesus!” I hiss.

“Do you like that?”

“Yes,” I groan as she grinds her pelvis against mine, stroking herself on my shaft through our pants, harder and harder each time. It’s not true. I usually don’t like my nipples touched, it feels fucking weird. But like everything else that involves this woman, the more it hurts, the more I want it.

She moans and the sound of it hits a chord in my dick that has me raging against the ropes, desperate to touch her, to take control and make her even crazier than she already is. Damn these well-made antiques!

Sitting up, she wraps her hands around my throat, her thumbs pressing into my Adam’s apple, a wicked gleam in her eye as if she’s imagining what it would be like to strangle me. “Do you like this ?”

“Fuck yeah.”

It must turn her on as much as it does me because she gasps, “Oh God!” as she pumps herself against me faster.

“That’s it, Peaches. Make yourself come on me.”

Her lids screw shut and she cries out again and again before she tenses and comes.

She drops onto my chest, blond hair pooled against my neck, her breathing ragged. When she calms, she pats my chest and says, “Thanks, I needed that.”

I can barely think past the throbbing of my cock, so when she starts to push off me it takes a moment to register that she doesn’t intend to finish the job. “Wait a fucking minute.”

“What?” she asks innocently as she smooths her shirt.

“What about me?”

“What about you?”

Glancing down at my bulge, I arch a brow. “I’m not done.”

She begins to gather her things from the nightstand. “As much as I’d love to leave you with an even bigger grin, I’ve got to go. Raincheck?”

“Raincheck?! The fuck does that mean?”

“It means raincheck, as in, I’ll get you later.”

I yank on the ropes and growl, furious that she’s managed to secure me to the iron bed so well. “If you don’t free me, the next time we meet will be the last thing you see.”

She rolls her eyes. “You’ll be fine.”

“Fuck!” I pull harder, willing to break my own damned wrists and ankles if it means getting to her and wringing her pretty neck. “Let me go.”

Like the psycho I called her, she smiles as she goes to the French doors and opens them wide. “You didn’t kill me when you had the chance, now I’m returning the favor and letting you live. When you’re ready to admit defeat, just scream. Someone will hear you.”

The fucking audacity. She knows perfectly well that my ego will have me shitting my pants before I let anyone rescue me from this.

“Fine,” I give her my fakest smile. “But you’ll still owe me,” I say, and lift my hips so she can see my still raging hard-on.”

“Like I said, raincheck. See ya, Dimples.” She turns on her heel and walks onto the balcony. But before she disappears into the darkness like the villain she is, she says over her shoulder, “I’m leaving tonight. I suggest you do the same if you don’t want to wear out your welcome with Marcone.”

And just like that, she’s gone.

It takes me an hour to free myself. Although I was willing to break my bones to do it, all I had to sacrifice was the flesh on my left hand. Once that was out of the rope, I managed to untie the ropes that bound my other wrist and feet. However, that wasn’t the first thing I did.

I rub the bandages covering my bleeding raw skin and smile. Fucking psycho. The moment I had my hand free, I rubbed one out. And I’m not a leftie, but horny as I was, it didn’t matter. All I needed was to close my eyes and picture her face.

It was only after I found some semblance of release, that I took the time to undo the other knots tying me to the bed.

She told me she’d be leaving, but that doesn’t stop me from searching for her. I wait for her in the same spot on Bourbon Street where I’d seen her earlier. The crowds die down as drunks flee to their rooms and eventually the music dies down too.

When she never shows, I scour the Quarter, scanning every alley I pass for signs of a villainous blonde. I even go back to that dilapidated house we fought in.

Nothing.

As soon as I return to my room, I dial Luca. I tell him about the unfortunate incident that left me all tied up for hours, but left out the things she did. That’s my own little secret.

When he questions why she left me alive, I say, “I don’t know,” also leaving out that I let her live when I had the chance. “Something must have stopped her.” A big thank you to my dick for that. “If she’s still in New Orleans, she’s holed up. I searched all night.”

“She’s gone,” Luca says.

“How are you so sure?” I narrow my eyes suspiciously.

“The bodies of both Sergio Ramos and Jorge Ruiz have just been found. They had pennies over their eyes. Now we know why she was there.”

“Shit.” I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at the ropes still dangling from the footboard. “When?”

“Half an hour ago.”

“News travels fast.”

“Enzo Marcone sent me a message. He wasn’t aware they were in New Orleans, so that’s pissed him off.”

Scarlet’s parting words come back to me, I suggest you do the same if you don’t want to wear out your welcome with Marcone, and they suddenly make sense.

“I thought he didn’t want to be involved,” I say to Luca.

“He doesn’t. What he wants is us out of his city.”

“We’ve worn out our welcome.”

“Exactly.” He lets out a breath. “The last thing I want is to bring war to his territory. Not when I’d like a contract with him in the future.”

“Agreed. I’ll get on the first flight back.” I hang up and stick the phone in my jeans pocket. But it takes me a moment to get up, my gaze affixed on the rope.

A chill crawls up my spine as I reach for it and let it slip through my hand. Did Scarlet come straight from the murder scene? If she did, her adrenaline would have still been high, still pumping through her veins making her even more volatile. Killing me would not have only been easy, but if I know anything about the way shit is run in our world, she was ordered to.

That means I came much closer to being gutted myself than I realized.

Yet, she didn’t. The question is, why? Because getting her kicks on my tied-up ass wouldn’t have been enough.

She’s crazy, that’s why. She’s crazy and she’s driving me to madness too. A demented obsession where all I can think about is killing her, kissing her, fucking her and back to killing.

I can’t live like this.

Standing, I collect all of my belongings and shove them in my leather bag. I’m going back to New York, then I’m going to find that hellcat and finish this once and for all.