Without Mercy (16 page)

He licked his lips and told himself to be patient. Careful.

His weakness was sex.

Always had been.

It had started with his mother, he knew now. She’d caught him with his tutor, a high school girl who had the most incredible breasts he’d ever glimpsed. Secretly, from his upstairs window, he’d watched her sunbathe in her backyard.

Lissa Harvey.

She’d oftentimes taken off her bikini top while the sun’s rays had been the most intense and caressed her skin, causing sweat to collect. Dark nipples had pointed upward at the sky. Perfectly round. Making him hard. Chocolate disks that were larger than he had expected. God, how he’d wanted to suckle and lick and bite at them.

Better yet, sometimes, when she was alone and the family minivan wasn’t in the drive, she’d slip her hand under her polka-dot bottoms and, closing her eyes, pleasured herself while baking in the warm summer sun.

He’d touched himself as well, timing his orgasm with hers. And he had fantasized about her in those sultry summer nights when no breeze had stirred the curtains and wasps, trapped inside, had beaten themselves to death on the windows.

She’d turned bronze over the summer, her nipples seeming to fade as her breasts darkened. She’d been a scholar, without a boyfriend, a college-bound student with long dark hair who understood math, algebra in particular.

He hadn’t cared about school at the time, and his mother had been worried, hiring Lissa in late July before she took off for university.

That’s when the affair had started.

In the musty basement with its low ceiling and tiny windows. On a futon reserved for guests, in front of the cold hearth of an unused fireplace with books and notes spread
over the coffee table, they’d first kissed. First touched. First made love.

It had been fast.

Embarrassingly so.

But Lissa had been patient.

Intent on teaching as well as learning.

It hadn’t hurt that he was good-looking, physically mature for his age, developing muscles and shaving before most of the boys in his class. They’d explored every orifice, tried new positions, worked on titillating and turning on. There in the musty old basement, on the futon his grandparents slept on when they’d visited.

And then she’d left.

Gone off to college.

Never written, never called.

Nor had she returned one phone message.

It was as if she’d erased him from her life.

The bitch.

His blood boiled as he thought of her, but then again, she’d gotten hers, hadn’t she? Been found out fucking her professor, a married man with two small children. And her next lover, an engineering student, had one day opened his mail to find photos of Lissa in a compromising position with a kid. Did he realize she could be jailed for what she’d done with a minor?

The engineering student left her and married someone else. The professor had been replaced, and Lissa, poor, poor Lissa, had been exposed for the Jezebel she was. She lost her scholarship and was forced to return home, to attend the local junior college.

He’d never spoken to her again.

Refused eye contact.

After all, he’d been the victim, right?

Oh, Lissa, sexy little seductress, payback stings like a bitch.

Lissa had been his first, and she’d opened so many doors for him. Some portals to ecstasy, others doorways to hell.

He’d made a few mistakes.

He couldn’t afford another, no matter how he was tempted.

He had only to think of Lauren Conway and feel the burn of his own foolishness climb up the back of his neck.

Through the falling snow, he caught a glimpse of movement, a shadow tracking along the wall of the rec building.

What the hell?

Who would be out at this time of night? More importantly, why? He felt a tingle of anticipation sing through his blood.

On silent footsteps he followed.

Nona ducked beneath the frigid leaves of a rhododendron and along the well-trodden path away from the heart of the campus to the barns. Here, it was tricky. She had to be super quiet. Any noise would wake the dogs, and they’d start baying, barking, and raising hell. That could wake all the stupid animals in the sheds—God, those chickens! Squawking, noisy, dirty things. Although she gave the kennels a wide berth, one of the dogs barked sharply and another took up the cause.

No, no, no!

Curling her fists, she waited by a storage shed, mentally counting off the seconds as the dogs growled a bit, then settled back to sleep. She gave them a good ten minutes or more as she shivered in the dark. Maybe they’d heard her … but she’d been so careful.

Not you, Nona. They heard him! He’s never as cautious as you are, you know that. Don’t be a ninny.

She gave the dogs another minute or so, then crept
stealthily to the stable. All the while, she had the odd feeling that she was being watched.

Her scalp crinkled with gooseflesh, and she glanced over her shoulder.

Nothing seemed out of place.

No dark figure was huddled against the cedar walls of the rec room or hiding in the overhang of the garage. It was just her own nervousness getting the better of her.

She reminded herself:
He
was here somewhere, too.

Nothing to worry about.

And yet …

Did she hear footsteps?

Breathing?

Her insides curdled and she froze, ears straining, eyes searching the darkness. There was the tiniest light in the chapel, behind the soaring windows, but that light was always visible, supposed to represent Jesus’s claims of being the “light of the world,” a quote that was similar from the book of John.

She kept walking, her skin freezing, her mind running in circles of anticipation and fear. No one was following her, of course not. She was just anxious because she knew she was breaking the rules.

The kennels remained silent as she reached the stable. Without a second’s hesitation, she opened the creaking door and stepped inside.

Greeted by the warm air smelling of horses and dung, dust, and oiled leather, she turned on her flashlight again, careful to keep the beam away from the windows.

A few of the geldings and mares moved in their stalls, hooves rustling the straw. She heard an occasional disturbed huff from nostrils as she passed, and one soft nicker of disapproval reminded her she wasn’t where she was supposed to be.

She reached the ladder to the hayloft and started climbing. “Hey,” she whispered, pausing on the fifth rung. “Are you here?”

She waited, ears straining.

Nothing. She squinted in the darkness, daring to run her flashlight over the floorboards and around the barrels of feed and slats of the stall rails.

More disgruntled snorting.

“It’s me, Nona,” she hissed.

Damn it, he was always playing games with her. Stretching her patience, making her wait, often jumping out at her to startle her and get a reaction. Tonight, she wasn’t in the mood. She just wanted him to grab her and kiss her hard and rip her clothes off so he could nibble at her breasts. Oh, God, she was getting herself hot just thinking about what he would do to her.

She climbed up the remaining rungs and hoisted herself upward. Hay bales were stacked high, nearly to the rafters. Above the tallest stacks, a single round window was cracked to let in a breath of frigid air and what little light the night sky had to offer. She heard the sudden, wild flap of wings. A barn owl? Or … what? Desperately, she tried to hold on to her cool, to keep herself from freaking out.

Damn it, you ninny, it was just a bird.

But what had made it panic and flutter so crazily?

Who knows, probably you! It’s just an owl, Nona. It’s what they do. For the love of Christ, pull yourself together! He’s not interested in a silly goose of a girl. Take off your clothes. Surprise him. Show him you’re a real woman.

She crawled up to the top of the hay bales, to the false front, behind which he had carved out an impression, like kids did when they made a hay fort. Bales were stacked all around her, creating walls around the old sleeping bag that was tucked over the floor of their little nest. Inside the hideaway, she killed the flashlight and waited. Where was he?

On her knees, she tossed off the cap and sweater. Then she unhooked her hated bra and slithered out of it. Lord, she had to buy something sexier, one of those push-ups from Victoria’s Secret if she could ever get out of this place. They would both leave Blue Rock Academy and be together forever….

She heard his muffled footsteps below as she bit her lip and wiggled out of her jeans, tossing them and her cotton panties onto the heap of clothes.

“Hey.” His voice. So close.

But … how did he get up here so quickly?

“I like this,” he said, and suddenly he was in front of her, completely dressed, his face barely discernible in the darkness. He ran a hand down her side and she trembled.

“Wait,” she whispered.

“Nuh-uh. I’ve waited too long as it is.” He pulled her close, a big hand splaying over her back, fingers digging into the flesh around her spine as his lips found hers, and he kissed her hard.

His tongue pushed past her teeth, and his free hand grabbed her breast, moving it, mashing it, kneading it. She gasped as he pushed her back onto the hay. Down, down, down. They tumbled onto the sleeping bag, and she closed her eyes, reveling in his touch, loving the way he explored her.

“You taste so sweet,” he said, and bit at the corner of her mouth before sliding lower, kissing her breast, sucking on her nipple, teeth scraping her skin.

God, she was ready for him.

Though a virgin, she knew that this was desire; she felt it lick at her very core. Her hands tore at his clothes, stripping him of his shirt, pushing his pants over his hips. Her nails scratched across his buttocks so deep he sucked in his breath.

“You want me.” It was a statement.

“Yes.”

“You want it!”

“Y–yes,” she admitted as he moved his hand across her abdomen and lower, his fingers parting her legs as he toyed with her.

“God, you’re hot!” he whispered.

And he was right. Heat rocketed through her body. Her blood fired through her veins, and she could barely breathe. Here, in this hayloft, she couldn’t wait for him to do it to her, to change her life forever….

And he did. Breathing heavily, rubbing himself on her, he said, “I can’t wait any longer.”

“I know.”

She felt his knees push hers aside. “Oh, baby,” he whispered, his hunger evident in his voice, his first thrust so painful she cried out. But he didn’t stop. Just kept moving inside her, creating friction, making heat, so damned much heat. She heard herself moan over his grunts and rapid, shallow breaths. She clung to him as the world spun out of control.

“You like this, don’t ya?” His voice was low, guttural. He thrust harder. Faster. “Tell me.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, oooohh.” The pain was still there, a burning deep inside, but there was pleasure, too, an ache being salved.

She couldn’t think, could barely catch her breath.

The world centered on his hard, nearly vicious thrusts.

Closing her eyes, Nona moved with him, ignoring the pain, losing herself in the moment.

She felt him stiffen and cry out. In ecstasy?

From the floor below, one of the horses nickered nervously, then stomped a hoof.

“What was that?” he asked breathlessly, turning his head, his body suddenly still. “What the fu—”

Clunk!

What?

Something cracked and Nona blinked beneath him, trying to see. She called out his name as he fell against her. “Ooof,” he moaned, slumping forward, pinning her, a dead weight.

“Hey!” she cried, her face pressed against his neck. “Are you okay?” She reached up to cradle his head, her fingers threading through his hair and coming away wet and warm and sticky.

Blood?

What?

Her insides crawled. She attempted to push him off her. Tried to scream, but suddenly hands were at her throat. Squeezing. Cutting off her air.

What was this?

Panic jettisoned through her. This wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be. But even as denial swept over her, she was fighting. Kicking. Clawing. What the hell … Oh, God, she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t draw a damned breath.

How? Why?
Questions piled with sheer, dark terror assailed her.

She was trapped. Her boyfriend was unmoving. She tried to roll away, squeeze out from under him. As she did, she caught a glimpse of the person whose hands circled her neck, cutting off her air.

Squeezing!

Tighter and tighter!

No!

Thumbs dug deep into the hollow of her throat. Pressing. The world spun, the smells of horses, dust, and dung deep in her nostrils, the fear of death clawing at her brain.

Using all her strength, Nona arched her spine. Tried to roll away.

Her boyfriend slid off of her, or was kicked aside; she didn’t know which, couldn’t think. Her head was exploding, darkness rising before her eyes.

Fight, Nona! Save yourself! Oh, Jesus!

She scrabbled, trying to dig at her attacker’s wrists, force him off her, gain a little room so that she could drag in a breath. Just one. Anything!

But it was no use. The horrid hands tightened.

Help me. Please, someone help me.

Her lungs were on fire. Silently shrieking for air.

No! No! No!

Nona tried to yell, to scream, but no sound escaped, the air in her airway trapped and burning like all hell. She needed to breathe! To gasp. To cough! Anything!

If only someone would hear her, but the noises coming from her throat were only sick, frightening gurgles.

She writhed, frantically trying to buck the maniac off her, the sleeping bag bunching beneath her, bits of hay clinging to her hair. But the more she struggled, the stronger and more determined were the fingers at her throat.

“Die, bitch!” The words, a low growl, reverberated through the hayloft.

Oh, God.