Killing Game (20 page)

Lily continued to watch the movie, enjoying the feeling of being so close to Cain and thankful that he seemed to be getting along better with her sister. Losing herself in the film, she let her previous thoughts about Cain disappear and allowed herself to just enjoy how he made her feel.

* * *

Lily woke with a frown when something jabbed her in the side. She fluttered her eyes open and frowned when the television came into focus. The credits were rolling on the film. She looked across at her sister to find her grinning from ear to ear. A soft snoring caught her attention and she smiled when she felt Cain’s head against her shoulder.

“I’m heading off to bed.” Sarah stood up slowly

Lily yawned, her movements waking Cain. She looked at him as he sat up and rubbed his eyes, blinking at the room as though he was trying to remember where he was.

“Night.”
Lily watched her sister disappearing into her bedroom and then slowly sat up.

Cain smacked his lips together, his frown intensifying as pain shot up his side.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, remembering what had happened and tightly holding onto his ribs.

“You okay?” Lily placed her hand lightly over his and frowned, concern shining in her eyes.

“Will be soon enough.
I just need a few days to let them mend.” He tried to smile, but he was gritting his teeth too much to do it.

Lily gave him a sympathetic look and then shifted on the couch so she was facing him. She smiled as their eyes met and nerves bubbled up in her stomach.

They were alone.

No chaperone to stop either of
them making
a move.

Only Cain’s ribs, ribs that Lily wasn’t prepared to hurt in order to take things with him a step further. No matter how much she wanted to.

She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips before drawing back again.

He looked tired, still as pale as he’d been when she’d first seen him in the bathroom and he was clearly in a lot of pain. She looked down at his hand where it was clutching his ribs and frowned slightly. Removing his hand, she lifted his black t-shirt up and didn’t hide her concern when she saw the amount of blood that had seeped into the bandages.

Standing up, she held her hand out to him. “Come with me.”

Cain stared at her outstretched hand for a moment and then slipped his into it. She was surprised that he didn’t question where she was taking him.

Lily led him straight over to her bedroom, her stomach flipping with every step she took and the voice at the back of her head asking her if she was doing the right thing. Was it wise to sleep with a murderer?

Shaking her thoughts away, she ignored the voice and concentrated on the task at hand. She wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t going to do anything but sleep with Cain, with maybe a little kissing. For starters, he was in no condition to make love to her and she didn’t want to hurt him, and she still wasn’t a hundred percent sure about her feelings.

Having said that, if he had been in a fit condition, she probably would have caved with the tiniest amount of encouragement from him.

Cain sat down on the bed as instructed and then frowned as she disappeared out of the room again. He looked around her little room, smiling at the cream-colored walls and the light lilac furnishings that she’d chosen. It was a stark contrast to the black room that he slept in.

When Lily walked back into the room, she was carrying the medical kit that Cain had left strewn across the bathroom. Sitting down next to him on the bed, she gently lifted his shirt up and then bit her lip when he completely removed it. Her eyes were transfixed for a moment, lost in roaming the compact muscles of his chest, before she managed to get them under control and began to undo the bandages he’d placed over the wound.

She grimaced when she saw the deep cut that ran down one side of his ribs.

“Letter opener.”
Cain wasn’t quite sure why he felt the need to say it. Part of him wanted to break the
silence,
part of him felt the need to answer the curiosity he could see in her eyes.

“Oh.” Lily stared at the wound. “He got you with a letter
opener,
you get him with a pen... all very office-like. I thought you carried a gun?”

She mentally chastised herself when dead silence rang through the room and he just stared at her in disbelief.

“I wasn’t planning on killing the guy... carrying a weapon in there might have made it look a little like that,” he said.

Her cheeks blazed and she dropped her eyes back to her hands.

Not knowing how to respond, Lily just dampened some cotton wool with antiseptic and dabbed the cut. She pretended not to notice when Cain flinched, but the moment he drew in a sharp breath through clenched teeth, she couldn’t stop herself from saying something.

“It’s not that bad, you big baby,” Lily teased as she continued to clean the wound.

“Not that bad? Bloody wanker tried to skewer me with a letter opener. I can practically see my bones!”

Lily couldn’t help laughing when he looked mortified that she was treating him as though all he had was a scrape on his knee. Finishing cleaning the cut, she rewarded him with a kiss and smiled as the angry look on his face vanished.

“You big brave boy.” She teased him again, but he just smiled at her, a little smile that he accompanied with a slight tilt of his head, and it made her heart skip a beat.

“Better.” He leaned toward her and lightly brushed his lips against hers.

She got the better of herself and pressed her hands against his chest, pushing him away.

“I’m not done with you yet.”

Cain did his best to pout and then just watched her as she pulled out a fresh bandage. His eyes followed her fingers as she gently wrapped the cream gauze around his ribs.

“Tighter,” he said quietly and she looked up into his eyes, her fingers paused against his skin. “It’s better if it’s tighter.”

Lily just nodded and pulled the bandage
tighter,
ignoring the way Cain winced as she did so. He’d said he wanted it tight so he’d get it tight. She didn’t know what she was doing, but something told her that he did, that this wasn’t new to him. It was the scars that told her. She’d seen them when she was looking at his chest, little intricate scars or gashes that traversed a stretch of his body.

When she tied off the bandage, she smiled at him and ran her fingers over it. “There... all better.”

He smiled back at her and she held his gaze, letting him see all her concern for him.

Running her fingers up his body, she traced them over a deep scar that was just above his left collarbone. She frowned as she looked at it. It was only an inch wide but it looked as though it had been a bad wound.

He looked down at her fingers.

“How?” she asked as she removed her hand and let it rest in her lap with her other one.

Cain considered what to say for a moment and then decided to go with the truth. After all, he knew that she’d figured out he wasn’t as saintly as he had first seemed.

“Knife.”
He shrugged as he looked at it, remembering the fight that had resulted in the stab wound. He’d only been in New York three months. It was the first time someone had got the better of him, and it was the night he’d decided that he would train hard so it never happened again. “I was working on my first job, was barely older than you. I was employed by Mort, your old boss’s competition, to be a negotiator.”

“Negotiator?”
Lily frowned.

“Fancy way of saying that I threatened people into paying up what they owed.”

“And if they didn’t?” Lily gave him a curious look, already aware of what the answer would be.

“Things got physical.” He shrugged.

Lily felt strange that the knowledge that he’d been someone’s heavy hand didn’t bother her. She felt bad for still wanting to be with him, as though it was deeply wrong of her to care about someone like him.

“Like they did the night this happened?” She ran her fingers gently over the scar again and bit her lip slightly as her skin buzzed with delight over touching him.

“Yeah.
Guy didn’t want to pay up, the two men with me weren’t up to much fighting,
so
I did it... they didn’t like the odds. I was too young and stupid.” Cain caught the look in her eyes that said she knew what he meant by that—that he was better
now,
wiser and more dangerous than he’d been back then. “He had a knife, I got a few scars.
Got one on my wrist and this one on my shoulder.
He caught me off balance, drove the knife in as deep as he could and left it there.”

“What happened?” Lily tried to ignore the way her heart had accelerated when he’d been telling the story, the way imagining the fight in her head thrilled
her a
little.

“I passed out... when I woke up I was in some dark little room with some two-bit doc looking down at me. It wasn’t pleasant, and nowhere near sanitary, but I couldn’t go into hospital... too many questions. I was lucky, have always been lucky, it missed everything major. Doc said that if it had gone a few millimeters either left or right, I would have been done for.” He just shrugged and tried not to remember just how frightened he’d been after that. He’d been off work for two months, petrified of getting into any scrapes for fear of ending up dead.

He’d trained like crazy to make sure it never happened.

Not that he’d needed to. When he’d been growing up back in England, his archery and shooting instructors had told him that he was a natural. His parents had been so very proud of their son—the model child for such a rich and pretentious family.

Turns out his instructors had been right. He was born to kill. Christ, they’d die if they knew what he did for a living now.

He tried not to laugh aloud at that thought—die.

Lily stood slowly, bringing him out of his thoughts. She packed the medical kit away, placing it beside her bed when she was done and then walked over to the wardrobe. He watched her grab something and then
walk
out of the room.

He frowned, trying to decipher just what was happening.

When she walked back into the room, he almost choked. She had changed into a little black satin nightdress and was brushing her hair as she smiled at him.

“Got any other stories about your scars?” Lily asked as she moved across the room to him and took hold of his hand, making him stand. Her stomach swirled with nerves as she tried to act calm and confident.

“Plenty,” he said as he looked her over approvingly.

“Care to share?” Lily tried to stop her hands from shaking and swallowed down the nerves that had formed a lump in her throat.

Cain’s heart beat painfully hard against his chest as he watched her little hands undoing his belt. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak as she began to unbutton his jeans.

Clearing his throat, he smiled shakily. “You’ll be up all night... I have a lot of scars.”

Lily giggled.

“Who wants to sleep? I certainly don’t. I want to stay up all night and talk... all day even... whatever it is outside... I want to talk.” She finished undoing his jeans and pushed them down around his ankles, trying not to blush as she did so.

All she was going to do was sleep next to him, nothing dirty,
nothing
to be embarrassed about.

Cain smiled at how nervous she was and removed his jeans for her, taking the hint that she was trying to slap him across the face with.

She crawled across the bed and under the covers, waiting for him to join her.

He gave himself a moment to come to terms with what was happening and then slipped under the covers, telling himself repeatedly that this wasn’t going to get out of control.

They’d talk. They’d sleep. That’s all.
Together.

He smiled as Lily looked over at him, her eyes wide and expectant as he propped himself up on some pillows and tried to remember which stories went with which scars.

She raised her hand and ran her fingertips lightly over the scar that cut across his eyebrow.

“Let’s start with this one.”

Something was ringing.

Cain groaned as he rolled onto his side, his ribs aching under the pressure of his weight and his hand reaching out sleepily as it attempted to locate his mobile phone in the unfamiliar layout of the room. Fumbling about, he finally got hold of his phone and flipped it open as he brought it to his ear.

“Mmm’ hello?” he said sleepily into it as he rubbed his hand over his face to try and wake himself up.

“Cain, where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for hours.” Russ’ panicked voice greeted him.

Cain just frowned and blinked his eyes open slowly as he imagined wringing the little git’s neck. He’d better have a good reason for waking him.

“Around.
Protecting my interests,” he replied and looked over at Lily where she was sound asleep next to him.

Looking down at his watch, he was surprised to see it was only nearing two in the afternoon. He felt as though he’d been talking with Lily for longer than that. He felt as though he’d talked an entire day away.

“What’s up?” he finally asked and waited to hear what had Russ so panicked.

“Sources indicate that the mark is moving.”

A chill washed over him and he immediately sat up, wincing and holding his ribs as he did so. He left the bed and the comfort of Lily as he stepped into his old life, leaving the one he so badly wanted lying under the sheets alone.

“Moving?” he hissed into the phone as he glanced over his shoulder at her, checking that she was still asleep. He walked out of the bedroom and into the living room, putting some distance between himself and anyone that could overhear him.

“There’s indication he’s leaving tomorrow to go back to Los Angeles on personal business. The contract needs to be fulfilled tonight.”

“Tonight?
It’s too soon. I won’t have time to prepare and there’s a certain interfering redhead that will be all over me wherever I go in this city.” He almost growled the words into the phone as he thought about having to go from spending the perfect night with his girl, to killing someone, someone she’d loved.