6
“I’m going be that n-n-nail in your coffin”
JADA
The woman moves through dark streets, thick with fog blown off the sea. Dusk cloaks her in mist and shadow as if she’s a secret the night has sworn an oath to protect. Moonlight illuminates wet cobblestones and rain-streaked windows but glances off her as if deflected by an invisible cloak.
Like the Shades, she’s a smudge in the darkness.
Born of long and unforgettable habit, she avoids the pale yellow pools of streetlamps.
Better to see than be seen.
Being heard is another thing. Sound skitters and reverberates, and unless one is a highly skilled hunter, it’s difficult to secure the target in one’s crosshairs by noise alone.
She can do it. She’s as infamous as the legendary Queen’s Huntsman. She’s never missed her mark.
Her enemy isn’t so skilled. The one she seeks tonight is sloppy, blinded by gluttonous appetite, but to lure it she’s not enough. She needs an attractive, sexually viable man.
Stiletto heels that gleam silver kick gusts of fog into lacy, sharp-edged patterns as she strides through Temple Bar toward Chester’s nightclub, where she will select her bait. She’s dressed to kill, weapons concealed: gun strapped to her thigh, knives flush to her skin, a sexy chain of a belt that distracts the male eye as it swings at her hips, a lethal garrote. The ricochet of her shoes on pavement is loud, deliberate. She knows she’s difficult to see and at the moment desires to be accessible.
Immediacy is efficiency.
Contempt for death is her way of life.
Nothing touches her.
To be touched is weakness.
As she turns down an alley, mist swirls back from long, bare, lightly oiled legs, the edgy hem and neckline of a black spandex dress, the supple body of a dancer, long hair pulled back in a high ponytail, the serene face of a stone-cold killer, before enveloping her again.
She’s beautiful.
It’s a weapon.
She has suffered the worst the world has to offer.
And thrived.
She’s compiled a list of names.
And will hunt them one by one.
When at last the fog parts upon the face of her enemy, she will have no mercy.
This world had none for her.
7
“This night could almost kill you”
LOR
“Who am I?” the blonde kneeling between my legs demands.
I need to come so fucking bad my teeth hurt.
I know the answer she wants. She wants me to call her “mistress.” Like she’s the Dom. She’s already tried to get me to say it twice, sneaking it in like she thinks I won’t notice because of the mind-blowing stuff she’s been doing with her lips and tongue and that flawlessly executed glide of teeth so few women ever master when giving head.
She’s wasting her time. It’s never going to happen. There isn’t a submissive bone in my body. I’m alpha to the motherfucking core.
I pull her head from my groin and grin down at her. Hot, horny blondes are a dime a dozen at Chester’s. Riots may have sacked Dublin last Halloween and a killer freeze might have shut the city down for a while, but it’s rebounding fast. People have been flooding in, resettling both sides of the River Liffey, drawn by the thaw, restored power, and supplies, but most of all by the endless parade of sexually insatiable Fae that pack the bars and dance floors of 939 Rêvemal Street every night of the week, hunting human lovers. The hottest, most deadly nightclub in Dublin is bigger, better, and badder than ever: Chester’s is Sin Central—if you want it, we got it.
“You’re not that good, honey.” I flash her a grin. My comment is guaranteed to spark one of two things: either she’ll get up and walk out pissed or I’ll get even better head.
I know by her confidence—and the hungry way she’s been watching me all night—she’s not walking.
She laughs and runs her tongue over her lips to make them even wetter, shiny with the spit of a pro and pre-ejac. I lean back against Ry’s desk, since he’s off at some meeting for a few hours, looking forward to her amped-up performance, watching her, watching the club through the glass floor beneath my boots, loving life. As long as women walk this earth, I’ll be a happy man. If they ever get wiped out, I’m done. I’ll go in search of K’Vruck.
She slaps the head of my dick then closes her mouth over it in one long perfect slide all the way to the base … does some kind of swirly thing, then an intense suck back out.
I nearly stagger.
Son of a bitch, she’s good.
She has her hands on my ass, face grinding into my groin, my dick is down her throat, and I’m a frigging volcano about to blow. Problem is, I been ready for a good twenty minutes, but whenever I get close she mixes it up and shoves it out of reach. What was initially a turn-on has become a pain in the ass. Not to mention the balls. I’m beginning to think they might rupture. I’m dripping sweat and I’m not even the one doing the work, although I’m looking forward to getting down to it. The woman has one damn fine body.
I take her head in my hands and try to move her mouth on me the way I want.
She resists with a muffled laugh.
I pull her mouth off me and she looks up, smiling. Takes my breath away for a second. Her hair is a hot mess around her face, just the way I like it—bed-head always makes me want to fuck. Then again, pretty much everything does.
“Let me come, honey,” I say. “There’s plenty more after, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Do I look worried? I know exactly what to expect from a man like you. Who am I?” She flicks her tongue over the swollen head of my dick.
I start to hit it, I’m so close, but then she does this twisting thing with her hands and mouth at the same time, and I get needles on my dick.
Pleasure killed by pain.
Velvet of her mouth.
Needles.
It’s starting to chafe more than I like. And I’ve been known to play rough with the right woman. Or three.
“Mistress,” she purrs. “Is it really so much to ask? For what I make you feel?”
I consider. She is blond with big, beautiful tits. Whole world knows I got a weakness for the combo. That’s how I’d ended up in the boss’s office, leaning back against his desk, leather pants around my ankles, buck-naked brick shithouse between my legs while the bass of Rob Zombie’s Pussy Liquor—and when the hell is she ever gonna give that up? It’s one of my finest skills and I haven’t even gotten the chance to dazzle her—rumbles in the desk beneath my ass, pounding up from one of the subclubs below.
I love this place. One of our better investments.
“I’m giving you the best head you’ve ever had,” she says. “Admit it.”
Not a problem. I say so to every woman that sucks me. Women enjoy doing things they excel at, praise guarantees repeat performances, every repeat performance is more practice for the woman, which guarantees the next man even better head. Given how long I’ve been at this, and on how many continents, I’m pretty sure I’ve single-handedly improved the quality of head around the world.
“Sure, babe, you’re the best. Head. Ever.” Damn close anyway.
“Who am I?” she purrs.
I groan. “The bitch sucking my dick.” We agreed on no names. She asked me to call her bitch downstairs when we were doing shots at the bar. Said it turned her on. Later, with a laugh, she switched it to princess. Now she wants mistress. High maintenance. Some women are worth it.
She cups my balls and squeezes, then begins sucking them with exquisite precision. All the muscles in my abdomen clench and I exhale explosively. I’m beginning to think this might be the best orgasm I’ve ever had. If I ever get around to the bloody fucking thing.
“You really don’t get this, do you?” she says. Laughter tinkles and the hair on the back of my neck feels weird all the sudden. There’s a darkness to the sound that might worry me if she wasn’t so frigging hot.
Speaking of hot, I look down to see sweat running down my six-pack, dripping down my legs. I’m practically standing in a puddle of my own sweat. What the hell did Ry do? Crank up the heat in Chester’s to a hundred? I’m burning up. Light-headed, like I have a fever. Which is impossible.
“Don’t care. You’re here. I’m here. Do that thing with your tongue again. The swirly thing.”
“I’ll give you a clue,” she says, and somehow she’s smiling while she’s sucking and for a second I think I see rows of tiny needle-sharp shark teeth. Not what a man wants to hallucinate with a woman’s hot wet mouth on his dick. I blink and wipe sweat from my eyes. Trick of the light. She has perfect teeth, movie-star white, framed to perfection by smears of crimson lipstick, most of which is all over my dick and stomach. Oh, yeah, I’ll take a blonde with cherry red lipstick every day of the week that ends in y. Life is sweet. I laugh.
She cuts me a look then shoves me back on the desk and I’m cold where her mouth was burning, then she’s on top of me, slamming down onto me, and I’m pushing up into her. I’m a grenade, pin out. Feels like my whole body is going to hit it, blow apart, come from head to toe. Bloody hell, sex has never been like this. I’m on fire, so frigging hot I’d swear the desk is burning.
Wait a second, it is.
Orange flames are licking up around us, like my sweat is some kind of gasoline sloshed across the lacquered ebony. We must have spilled some tequila. Must’ve been a candle on the desk. I’m sprawled on my back in fire and can’t even feel it. She leans into me, joins me in the flames, fists her hands in my hair and we kiss.
It’s unfucking real.