Elite Metal-ARE-epub (84 page)

As she drove home, her mind turned back to John.

Of course it did.

She couldn’t get him out of her head. He had a name now.

John Thrace.

John Thrace.

John Thrace.

She kept saying it over and over to herself, like it had become some kind of mantra.

It was strange, his name. It was familiar, somehow, but seemed too simple a combination of words to classify a creature like him.

Hazel knew she shouldn’t be thinking about him, shouldn’t be building him up in her head to be something he wasn’t. He was a homeless guy who worked out and had tattoos. It was that simple.

But at the same time, it wasn’t.

If he was really living on the street, hand to mouth, there was no way he’d have a body like that. No matter how much he worked out. And when was the last time she’d seen a guy built like him in the flesh? They didn’t make them like him.

Jesus, just thinking about it.

She inhaled a shaky breath. He’d been so hard everywhere. She’d wanted to run her hands all over him just to make sure he was really a man and not some stone golem come to life.

Hell, it didn’t matter to her if he was. She wanted him just the same.

Hazel parked on the street and made her way up to her third floor apartment. She was so glad her roommate was currently occupied with her stunt cock du jour… meaning, she’d moved in with him but was keeping her place just in case.

Mellie always came back. This would last about three months and she’d be back, bemoaning how she’d never find anyone.

For Hazel’s part, she loved having the space to herself and still only paying half the rent. She was making real strides toward paying off her student loans.

She turned and peered out into the darkness from her window. Hazel had the strangest sensation that someone was watching her. Someone unfamiliar…

She yanked the shade down and kicked off her shoes, her mind once again back to its favorite chew toy.

John.

She couldn’t get his face or his name out of her head. She was sure there was something familiar about him.

Hazel set the kettle on the stove and instead of picking up her novel, she flipped open the laptop and searched his name.

She’d expected to get a few hundred search results for plumbers, comment forums, and those services that swear they can find anyone.

But no.

She got news stories and academic publications for
Dr
. John Thrace. An M.D. and Ph.D. in Chemistry. Graduated with honors from MIT. At the age of twenty. That was insane. Who did that?

Hazel kept scanning. This couldn’t be her John, but some strange knowing nagged at her, a prickle of awareness on the back of her neck pushed her to keep looking, to keep digging.

Then she stopped.

7 Dead in Shadowfain Solutions Lab Explosion

She sucked in a deep lungful of air as she clicked forward to the pictures of those killed. And she exhaled heavily when she saw him.

She was right to think he looked like some kind of fallen angel because in his youth, he was like something holy. Some image that belonged in the paintings of gods and kings. He wore the smooth brow of youth, his hair fell in black ringlets framing his face. His cheeks still had that strange apple of innocence, but his eyes. There was no mistaking those electric baby blues.

So why wasn’t he dead?

She remembered the way he’d been unsure about even sharing his name, and now she knew why. But it raised more questions than it answered.

Hazel pushed the laptop closed and drummed her fingers on the cool metal surface for a few long moments.

He had to know that she’d go digging. Didn’t he?

What kind of life must he have had?

He must be so lonely to reach out to her like this.

She understood the biohazard tattoo now. Whatever had happened must’ve been his fault, or he believed it was.

Her heart ached for him.

So did other parts of her body.

She decided there must be something wrong with her. The more she thought about his pain, his tragedy, the hotter she was for him. And not just because she wanted to take that away, to ease him, but something about what it said about his strength made her so wet.

Who could say they’d endured so much?

Still he watched over her. This man, who’d seen who knew how much horror and he had a soft place inside of him for
her
.

Hazel thought about him watching her—the mad genius, the killer, thought about him as he’d stood in the pale light bloodied and hard, telling her it wasn’t safe. The promise in his words that he would keep her safe.

She thought about all those nights where she’d known he was there. All that time spent watching her. She wondered what it would be like if he were watching now?

Would she be bold, or just content to have his eyes on her?

On all of her?

A naughty thrill tingled through her all the way to her toes.

What would it hurt to pretend?

Unlike Mellie, she didn’t make a connection easily. She’d been alone for a long time and there was no one to see to her needs but herself.

No one would ever know she’d touched herself thinking of the scarred beast of a man she’d met. No one but herself.

She played out the scenario in her head as she stripped out of her clothes—as if he watched her even now. That he’d followed her home because he wanted to protect her, watch over her. Jesus, that alone was almost enough to bring her to a lip-biting orgasm. She was always the one who took care of everyone else, and that was okay, that was what she’d signed up for, but once in a while, it was nice to be the precious cargo. The princess.

Lost in a fairytale with a man who thought himself a beast.

For all she knew, maybe he was. But it didn’t matter.

She pretended that watching her disrobe aroused his lust to a fevered pitch and he’d appeared in her bedroom like the anti-hero of some gothic novel, moving through the shadows like darkness itself. She splayed herself on the bed, naked, bare to him. Her hands roving over her body, her fingers delving deep into her pussy.

It was his rough hands on her breasts now, palming their heavy weight—hands that she knew were tools of life and death. Both things were his to give and to take.

It had been so long since she’d felt the rush of heat between her legs, since such a visceral desire held her within its grip. She’d wanted to take her time, draw out her fantasy, remember what it was to feel alive, to feel wanted. But she wanted it too much.

Just thinking of him touching her, wrapping her legs around his powerful body had her arching up to the thrust of her own fingers and finding a quick culmination all too soon. She wanted more, but she’d need him in the flesh for that.

Even though she’d already finished, she didn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to experience all of him. She rather imagined that he’d both fuck her against the wall like the cheapest of whores and make love to her with all the reverence of something divine.

Yes, she wondered what it would be like to be loved by a man such as him.

Chapter Three

Fucking fuck
.

He shouldn’t have fucking touched her. Spoken to her. Gotten close enough to breathe the same air.

Goddamn it
.

He wasn’t going to follow her home, but he had to make sure she got there okay. Or that’s what he told himself to reconcile the fact that he couldn’t turn away from her. That he was still starved for the sight of her.

And what a sight it was.

He knew he should’ve stopped watching when she began peeling her clothes off, but he couldn’t. She was too damn beautiful. He watched her touch herself, a violation to be sure. John had never been so hard, until he’d heard her whisper his name.

It sent a jolt of pleasure and pain through him.

He wanted it to end, he wanted it to last forever.

John didn’t feel these things, to have her ignite them both, well more was the pity. She’d never be free of him now. He knew he was obsessed. Knew his behaviors were unhealthy for him and for her.

But he couldn’t stop.

Didn’t want to stop.

He thought it would be okay as long as he didn’t touch her, didn’t affect her. But he did. He’d violated those rules and in doing so had violated her. This, now, even though she fantasized about him—and no mistake, he would hear his name on her lips from now until he stood at the gates of hell every time he came—but that didn’t mean it was invitation to watch her. He’d take a man’s head off for doing the same to her.

His cock strained against his fatigues, demanding to be taken in hand. He had to stop this, he couldn’t do this anymore because he knew now that there were no lines he wouldn’t cross when it came to her. He was going to smear his hands all over her pretty wings and he’d break her. Ruin her.

Hurt her.

The sound of another presence distracted him.

He held his position on her balcony, silent and still as he considered his options.

The man above was mostly silent, moved with some skill. He wore combat boots that had been shined so that they glinted in the moonlight. The sign of a professional. What had the pretty little doctor gotten herself into that warranted the attention of whomever jerked this guy’s chain?

He had a choice. Kill this guy now or watch him and see what he would do? He could take the chance that this was just a burglar, but if it wasn’t, they’d soon send someone else. Maybe when Merc wasn’t there.

He edged around to where the balcony opened into her living room and pressed himself against the wall. If he was discovered, he’d just have to kill him.

The man moved quickly, installing surveillance equipment—

Kill him.

No, find out why. Or they’ll just send another.

Kill him, too. Kill them all.

Mercury forced himself to stay still, to wait. This was why he was Mercury—this was why he was poison. His solution was kill first, talk later.

“I see you there, you ugly bastard,” a voice whispered.

Mercury froze.

“I’m not afraid of you. I know who you are, John Thrace. Get your bitch on a leash if you want to keep her safe. We’ll be watching.”

He reached around the corner and grabbed nothing but air. The man leapt from level to level, adept at parkour. Merc would’ve pursued him, if not for the soft voice begging him to stay.

He turned to see her there, the light from inside a nimbus. “Please.” She reached out to him.

“You should fear me.”

“I don’t.”

He closed his eyes and breathed deep to steady himself. “You should let me find out what they want from you.”

“I know what they want from me. Come inside.”

Said the fly to the spider.

He opened his eyes and centered his hard stare on the tiny camera. He yanked it from its perch and crushed it beneath his boot. If they knew who he was, that was a problem that would have to be addressed.

Her small hand on his arm was all it took to fell him. Like a giant redwood, he toppled to her will and stepped inside her apartment. “Why didn’t you ask how I know where you live?”

She’d wrapped a pink silk robe around her delectable body and he couldn’t stop wondering what that silk would feel like. If he’d even be able to feel it.

“I know you watch me always.”

“That’s fucked up, Hazel.”

She looked up at him, her eyes guileless. “I know. But probably no more fucked up that you’re always watching.”

“I don’t just watch you. I stalk you. I’m dangerous.” He couldn’t seem to make her understand.

“I know that, too.” Her hand was still on his arm.

“You should stop touching me.”

“I like touching you.”

“Christ woman, do you have any sense of self-preservation?” His body was already responding to her. Muscles taut, heart racing, and his cock? Rock hard.

“Not when it comes to you. I think I’m just as obsessed. If I knew where you laid your head, I’d want to be there. I’d want to see where you live, the things the matter to you. That make you who you are.”

This was both heaven and hell.

He slammed her hard up against the wall, his fingers branding half moons into her forearms. “This is not what you want. Whatever ideas you have about me—”

Her pupils dilated.

She liked this.

He was oh so fucked. “Fuck it. I’ll show you what a bastard I am.”

His half-ruined mouth crashed into hers, meant to punish and brutalize. But instead, she melted into him. Her lips opened beneath his like the petals of a rosebud—soft, sweet velvet.

She tasted like sugar.

And then everything he
couldn’t
feel slammed into him. Wave after wave of suffocating pain crashed in tsunami-like waves battering him until he broke the kiss and sank to his knees.

This was everything he wanted.

Everything he didn’t.

But it didn’t matter. He couldn’t have it.

Grasping her hips, he leaned his forehead against the softness of her belly and just breathed in the sweet scent of her, gloried in the lush comfort offered by her warmth, the solid presence of her form under his hands.

And in turn, she stroked her hands over his shoulders, his back, his face.

Fuck—she kept touching his face the most, both sides. Like she was trying to tell him something about wanting all of him, or maybe that was just his sick fucking fantasy.

He jerked away from her.

She seemed to melt down into his arms, the same way as when he’d kissed her. That was the only word to describe it, the way she moved in a fluid motion. Her arms were around his neck again.

“Don’t hide from me.”

Suddenly, rage filled him. How dare she tell him not to hide. She didn’t know him. Didn’t know his pain. Even if he told her, she couldn’t fathom it. There was blood on his hands that scarred him deeper than what was on his ugly face. There was blood on top of blood—cold murder he dealt with a smile, and that he’d do again.