Thunderstruck (Ramsey Security #1)

"How does one become a contractor?" she whispers again.

My thumb makes little circles against her nipple. The nub of flesh hardens under my touch. I imagine filling my hands with her full tits. Dreaming of touching and tasting all that flesh confuses my brain.

"Troy," Darla says when I remain silent.

"I took a job as a military contractor. Security jobs like I do now, but I was again following orders. A guy approached me about my skill set and thought I'd do well with jobs that were off the books. Liquidation is what he called it. I ended up going solo a year later and stayed that way until Minka kept showing up at the same jobs. We partnered up and worked on our own terms."

"You said you came to Houston because Rafael was starting the company. How did you meet him?"

"Years ago, Minka and I found ourselves snowed in at the Prague airport. Most people had found hotel rooms or were sleeping in the terminal. Minka and I knew better than to let our guards down on foreign soil especially after a job. So we sat in the airport bar, drinking coffee and watching crappy TV for two days. Rafael showed up and made small talk. After awhile, we knew he was like us. There was an unspoken knowledge that we were all contractors, so we played nice until flights were cleared again."

"And you became life long friends afterwards?" she asks, squirming as I tug at her nipple.

"We ran into him several times over the next few years. Yeah, we got tight. Not a lot of people understand our type of work."

"I don't really."

"I'm glad. It isn't pretty."

"But you didn't kill anyone nice, right?"

"Nice?" I ask, grinning down at her. "No, nice people don't usually cause another person to pay to have them killed."

"You ever feel bad after a job?" she asks, taking my other hand and kissing the palm.

Hearing the rumble of an approaching thunderstorm, I don't answer right away. Darla glances towards the windows. A moment passes before her expression shifts, and I realize she's scared.

"Is it the noise or were you always scared of thunder?"

"Being up so high makes me worry. I know that's stupid, but I don't understand how storms work."

"Do you want me to tell you?"

"No, I want you to tell me if you ever felt bad after a job?"

"If I do, can we go into the bedroom and fool around?"

"Only if I can keep my clothes on."

"Where's the fun in that?"

Darla gives me a fake frown. "I'll lose my panties but everything else stays on. Take it or leave it, stud."

Grinning, I sigh. "Can I take off all my clothes? I like when you get handsy and feel me up."

Darla bites her bottom lip as I continue playing with her still hard nipple.

"Tell me and we'll go to the bedroom."

My dick is too hard for me to sit comfortable, so I adjust on the couch. Darla watches me with an unreadable expression. Does she know how crazy she makes my body? Will my hunger scare her? If my story doesn't impress, will she change her mind about the bedroom?

"The only time I felt bad was when I was hired by a woman named Ananta in India. When she was a teen, a man wanted to marry her sister, but their parents felt he was unworthy of the match. Angered by this rejection, the bastard threw acid on both girls. Her sister died from an infection afterwards, but Ananta survived and eventually became a successful engineer."

Darla watches me with a horrified expression. I stop playing with her now uninterested nipple.

"She hired me to get revenge, but not on the man who hurt her and killed her sister. It'd been twenty years since the day he attacked them. He was now a sickly homeless man. Hurting him would give her no sense of vengeance. Instead, she wanted me to go after the man who did the same thing to a girl a few weeks before she contacted me."

Darla's lower lip trembles, and I wish I hadn't told her this story. Better to have lied and kept her smiling.

"Did you kill him?"

"No. Ananta didn't want him dead. She wanted him to suffer like she and the girl suffered. I tortured the guy and then mutilated him, so he would be an example to others. People knew the girl's family didn't hire the American since they had no money. The locals claimed the government was hiring Americans to eliminate bad seeds like the man. Of course, if the government had just put the asshole in prison, he wouldn't have been around for me to fuck up."

"I'm glad you hurt him."

"Me too. I don't specialize in torture, and I don't normally hack people up. With him though, I didn't mind, and I didn't take the payment from Ananta. I considered hurting him as my good deed for the decade."

A fire burns in Darla's eyes. Hating this man as much as she hates Locke, she hungers for vengeance. Then as quickly as it appears, the anger is gone. She smiles softly at me.

"Let's go to the room," she says, standing up. "I want to clean up first. Will you please wait for me in there?"

"Do you really expect me to say no?"