Page 16 of Beautiful Killer

Her eyes flashed then she hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and stormed out the door, firing, “Bitch,” at me on her way past.

I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help immediately worrying about her. That money wouldn’t last long.

Stop it, Sunny.

I tried not to think about it the rest of the day and kept myself busy. When it was time to close, I selected the beads I needed for tonight’s creations, locked up, and headed home to work on restocking my glass bead bracelets.

And later, hopefully, I’d get a visit from Zeke.

* * *

A low groan escaped my lips and I thrust my fingers into Zeke’s hair, fisting, holding him to me. “Yes. God, Zeke . . . don’t stop.” My hips rolled up, wanting more of him, more of his mouth, and he gave it to me. His big hands gripped my ass tighter and he dragged his tongue through the center of me before he wrapped his lips around my clit and sucked gently, like he knew I loved. He’d been inside me, had made me come only a few minutes ago. I’d assumed he was getting ready to leave like he usually did. He climbed out of bed straight after he’d finished fucking me, and went to the bathroom. But instead, he’d walked out with a washcloth, and after throwing back the covers, he’d cleaned me up, dropped back down, and buried his face between my legs.

I wasn’t complaining.

“Let me hear it,” he said in that rough voice that drove me wild. “One more time, Sunshine, want your screams ringing in my ears when I leave tonight.”

An unwanted ache started in my chest at those words, then I was flying, screaming loud enough to shake the walls. Loud enough to drown out, push down, any useless emotions trying to bud and grow inside me. Feelings I didn’t want.

His beard scraped against my inner thigh when he kissed my heated skin, and when he lifted up, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Fierce, sexy, rough, dangerous. I loved how his hair was sticking up from my fingers moving through it. When he left sometimes, I wondered if it had actually happened, or if he was some amazingly real fantasy. Seeing where my hands had been, seeing his hair messed up like that made it real somehow. Proof that this brutally masculine man let me touch him, that he wanted me to touch him.

He climbed off the bed and my gaze moved over his back, like it always did, over that beautiful, terrifying Reaper tattoo, the scars on his skin, his muscular butt and thighs. He was a work of art, beautiful. When he walked out of the bathroom for the second time tonight, his eyes slid to me, moving over my body, and goose bumps lifted, tingling across my flesh. The intensity of that look got to me every time, made my belly quiver and my heart race.

“Gotta go,” he said.

I nodded, because I knew the words were coming, he said them every night, after we did what we did. He dressed and pulled on his boots, then he was heading for the door. I waited, holding my breath for the moment, hoping it would come, that tonight wasn’t the night he said he wasn’t coming back.

He stopped and turned back to me. “See you tomorrow night?”

My breath burst past my lips. I had another night, but instead of just saying, “Yeah,” like I always did, I said, “I want to thank you.”

He stilled, brows rising, waiting for me to elaborate.

“I stood up to my stepsister today, and I think I have you to thank for it.”

He shifted, shoved his hands in his pockets. “How’d you figure that?”

“I think some of your badass has rubbed off on me,” I felt a grin tug at my lips. No, I didn’t know what he did for a job, how he spent his time when he wasn’t with me, but there was no doubting this man was a total badass in every aspect of his life. “Standing up for myself with her, it’s been a long time coming. That was you, Zeke. I just wanted you to know that.”

He didn’t smile, he didn’t do anything, he just stared at me, that intense gaze boring into mine. Finally, he shook his head. “Nah, Sunshine, that was all you.”

Then he turned and left.

I wanted him to come back.

He didn’t, not the next night, or the one after that.