Oh. My. God. He did incredible things to her. Anywhere, any time, any place. With a deep breath, she looked at him.
Under her scrutiny, Witt put his fingers in his mouth and sucked them clean. His lids at half-mast, he sighed. It was the sexiest sound ever to trip along her nerve endings. Then he leaned into her, took her mouth, and shared a taste of what he’d done, before muttering “Thank you, sweetheart,” against her lips.
It took her long moments to find her voice. “Why’d you do that?” She really had to know, if it was a power play, a fear-of-flying tension-easer, or a communion.
“Because I love you.”
Je-sus. He robbed her of words. When she finally opened her mouth to speak, he stopped her with his finger.
“Wait until you’re really ready, Max. Until you’re sure you won’t take it back the next minute or the next day.” He’d said much the same thing to her before.
She was almost sure right now. But it was the almost that shut her mouth. When she finally said the words, almost couldn’t enter into them. She owed that to Witt.
Chapter Four
Drained, sated, and curiously blissful, her small hand engulfed in Witt’s big, warm one, Max fell asleep halfway to Chicago. She fell hard, sinking into a dream of Scarface, Tattoo, and Bootman.
His boot slammed into her ribs before her body could curl into a fetal ball. She rolled away, into another vicious kick, pain searing her from chest to abdomen to limbs. She wanted to scream. She wanted to die. She wanted Cameron. Laughter filled her ears and burrowed into her brain. She swallowed dirt and shame until finally she ceased to care, stopped struggling, and lay on the ground at their feet.
“Scream, bitch, scream.”
She would if she could, if it would stop them, but her throat no longer worked. Not even a whimper escaped.
The snake, coiled on Tattoo’s arm, struck her in the face. She didn’t scream.
Scarface flashed his ring, his lips pulled into a mad grin by the scar splitting his cheek down to his mouth. “I’ll cut you, bitch.”
The death’s head ring gleamed bright with malice on his right hand. Skull and cross bones surrounded by four metal prongs, they’d slice and dice her flesh to ribbons. Ghostly bits of flesh and gore clung to the spurs where he’d used it many times before. “Gonna cut you, bitch. Gonna make you prettier than me.”
She tucked her face in her arms, and the blow glanced off the back of her skull, cutting beneath the hairline. The warmth of blood trailed in its wake.
They fell on her like feral dogs, and she was sure then that she’d died, died and gone to hell where there were only snakes, skulls, and steel-toed boots ripping her to pieces.
With nothing left, she prayed to God, then heard Cameron’s whisper in her head. “Don’t go with them. Don’t leave me.”
But he had left her first.
Broken, thighs spread, semen and blood leaking out of her, she felt them step back, gazes stroking her as if they were fingers, admiring their handiwork. Air rushed in through her lips, expanded her chest, bringing with it a fierce, shuddering spasm. Fresh air, blessedly free of the putrid stench of them. She drew in the warm, clean, male scent of Cameron’s white dress shirt.
Her eyes stung, but she didn’t cry just as she hadn’t screamed.
She could open only one eyelid, the other had swollen shut. Staring at the black boots two feet away, she shook, tensing for the next blow. It didn’t come. Her gaze traveled up the jean-clad leg to the knee where it suddenly turned into the hem of a flowing black robe. She rolled to her back, knees to one side despite the pain the movement caused, and stared into the face of a monster.
Dracula. A mask, but no less frightening than the real thing. Her heart stopped against her breast, then thumped hard enough to burst right from her chest.
The monster stared down at her, its face split by a smile, a fine gold platter resting on the tips of its taloned fingers.
She pushed herself to a squat, knees, shins, and thighs trembling with the effort. Then she stood.
Its other hand rested atop the golden cover, fingertips drumming lightly.
“I have a present for you, Max.”
She didn’t want it. Her eyes bulged with the effort to scream, but no sound beat against her ears.
The cover lifted. Something red and viscous oozed from beneath it. Her breath panted between her lips.
“Remember Salome.”
She didn’t.
“Remember John the Baptist.”
She did.
The monster held the golden cover aloft to reveal Cameron’s head. Blood poured from the wound in his forehead, flooded eyes wide and glassy with death. His lips moved. His words were the reason she didn’t scream.
“Take off his mask.”