Chapter Three

Nalini

I was dreaming—dreaming of breath, laced with the whisper of mint warming my face. I recalled the subtle hint of citrus blended with the slightly spicy and masculine scent of a man. In my dream, I remembered strong hands sliding against my hips, and the hard cuts of a chiseled chest cradling my body. I floated, unable to resist the sweet surrender.

This had to be the end. My eyelids were too heavy to open. I sighed and surrendered to the blackness blinding me. It didn’t matter. No one would miss me. Not really. Madden would only be pissed that he wasn’t the one who killed me.

“Rest.” A distant gravelly voice slipped under my skin like a dark and forbidden promise.

I didn’t hurt anymore. Cool sheets caressed my naked flesh. A shuddering exhale rippled through me. My mind drifted. Time passed, hours, minutes, or maybe eternity.

But my heart stopped racing, and the gnawing pain in my belly softened with the stiffness of my muscles and joints.

Normally, the crash would hit me hard. I relished the pain. Penance for a fucked up life. I became conscious of my surroundings. My eyes burned as I pried them open.

Lethargy weighed heavy in my limbs. I was alone on a bed in a darkened room. Like shattered glass, memories filtered into my mind. I had pieces, but nothing was clear. Madden had given me too much. I’d begged for death.

No, I’d begged the stranger to fuck me. I slipped my fingers between my thighs, touched my tender flesh, and sucked in a sharp breath.

“Do you want to come?” The voice from my dreams filled the silence. “Or do you need to come?”

The lamp in the corner snapped on. I ripped my hand from between my legs, jerked upright to sitting, and shielded myself with the blanket. Tension stretched between us as we stared at each other. Confusion clouded my mind, and my instincts were to flee. But fear slipped hot and toxic through my blood.

My gaze darted around the room, then lasered onto the man across from me. Oh god, the guy from the club. No, maybe not, or maybe it was. My memories were foggy. At least, he had the build and the voice of the man at the club.

The same brooding aura that had saturated the air in the club and made me want for more than a dance banked just below the surface of this man. He radiated with a tightly controlled energy, a force of intimidation that I’d witnessed against both Madden and Ayla. He had lips that didn’t smile but promised wickedness.

I’d danced with a man with eyes so dark they were nearly black. This man’s ice blue glare sent a shiver over my flesh. “Who are you?”

He leaned forward in the chair and rested his elbows on his knees. “Right now, I’m your doctor.”

“This doesn’t look like a hospital.”

“Good. You’re not prone to hallucinations. You’re in my home.”

“And in your bed?”

“You weren’t complaining about that last night.” He stood from the chair and crossed to the bed. “You shouldn’t be feeling any effects from the drugs in your system.”

As he sat next to me, I leaned away from him, but there was nowhere for me to go. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t masturbating.”

A torrid rush warmed my chest, crawled up my neck, and heated my face. Last night, I’d been insatiable. I would have sold my soul to end the torrent of need, but my soul was as worthless as my life had become.

“You were hitting highs that your body couldn’t process. You’ve been using long enough to know how fucking reckless polydrug use is.”

He was right. I’d been so high. But I also wasn’t crashing. I needed the withdrawal, wanted the pain, because the only way I felt good was if I was high. “Did you give me something?”

I wasn’t going to play the victim. I’d made choices that made my life worthless. It had been my choice to fall for the intoxicating lifestyle of Madden Kyng. Only I hadn’t understood the dark games he played until it was too late.

The doctor lifted my wrist and gently held his fingers to my pulse. Tingles chased over the hairs on my arms. His hands were warm with long, sculpted fingers. “I gave you a blocker. It’s flushing the drugs out of your system.”

“You injected me?” I tried to swallow the scratchiness in my dry throat.

He offered me a bottle of water. “You wouldn’t tell me what you were on.”

I drank several mouthfuls. “I didn’t know.” Madden said I’d have a good time. But it wouldn’t have mattered. Submitting to him was safer than defying him. Was this stranger any safer? “Why am I here?”

He stood. “We’ll get to that.”

My stomach rumbled with a gnawing ache. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. Once at the club, I’d only wanted physical touch. My gaze snapped to the doctor as I remembered the way he’d taken me, the feel of his hands on me, and the way he’d made me come.

I’d been out of my head. In the last three years, Madden had used me in ways that made nightmares look like daydreams. I was a slave to his whims. A sex slave. I fucked him, fucked his friends, and I existed at his mercy, but last night was unlike anything I’d experienced before. With the fragments I had now and knowing Madden would’ve continued to pump me full of drugs, I wouldn’t have remembered any of it.

I stared into the stranger’s eyes. I remembered enough to know he’d touched me, but I’d begged for more. I was mortified. This was my hell. But what kind of twisted menace was he? I was here because he took me. And he’d killed Madden’s guard.

He’d saved me.

“I thought your eyes were brown. And you shaved.”

“The club is under video surveillance.” He ran his hand along the sharp angle of his now smooth jaw.

“Today you’re my doctor, but what were you last night? You said you came to the club to take me.” He had to have planned it for a while if he’d grown a beard, worn colored contact lenses, and knew just how to get me out of the club.

“Get dressed.” He handed me a T-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts with a tie at the waistband.

The disguise was good. I barely recognized him. But Madden had resources. They could track the van. “Madden won’t involve the police.” Even if he did, they’d be cops that worked for him. Madden had men on the inside. Men who could manufacture evidence…and men who made evidence disappear. “He’ll find you.”

“I’m not hiding. I’ve killed his soldiers, I’ve killed his general, and I’ve taken his queen.”

“I’m not his queen, and can I have some privacy?” I was naked beneath the sheet.

“No.” His gaze locked with mine. “You serve a purpose, Nalini. You’re going to give me what I want.” He tugged on the sheet, exposing my breasts. His gaze slipped over my flesh and set off tiny explosions of heat. “You’re not my guest.” He leaned into me. “And I’m not your friend.”

Fear flared in my gut and crawled into my chest to tear at my rampantly beating heart.

“I didn’t bring you here to fuck you, but I am keeping you until you’re no longer useful to me.”

He stared at me as if he owned me. And he did. My memory held the imprint of his hand gripping my hip as his other hand collared my throat. Strong, possessive and wringing orgasms from me one after another. Yet, I was his prisoner.

An invisible thread of need tightened between my hardened nipples and tender clit. An answering spike of terror washed over me. He’d killed to take me.

He slid his hands into the front pockets of his jeans as he watched me dress.

My hands trembled as I pulled the T-shirt over my head. I slid my legs out of the bed, keeping my lap covered with the sheet, and tugged on the shorts. My bare feet touched the plush gray carpeting, but tremors radiated up my legs. I stumbled, catching myself from falling with a hand to the mattress.

His arm snaked around my waist, bracing me against his side. I clutched the soft fabric of his shirt.

A tidal wave of nausea washed over me. “I’m going to throw up.”

The doctor scooped me into his arms and carried me to the en suite bathroom.

As soon as my toes touched the cool tile, I dropped to my knees at the toilet. Tears filled my eyes as my stomach cramped, and I wretched.

“You need another injection,” he said and gathered my hair, holding it away from my face as I gripped the toilet seat with my hands.

Once I’d emptied my stomach, I sat back on my heels. The doctor stroked my head as my hair slipped through his fingers. The moment of kindness was both comforting and disconcerting. Kindness always came with consequences.

I shook my head and wiped spit from my bottom lip. “No more injections.”

He squatted next to me and handed me a small towel. “It’ll block the withdrawal symptoms.”

I wiped my hands and mouth. “I’m used to the withdrawals.” I dropped onto my ass and pulled my knees to my chest. “I don’t have a choice.”

The doctor sat across from me. “You’re a junkie. You can’t be surprised your dealer wants favors in return for his product.”

I didn’t respond. I never asked for drugs, never wanted Madden to touch me, never gave him permission to invade my body or to let anyone else. None of that mattered. I was owned by the cartel.

“Thank you,” I said. “For last night. I don’t know what Madden had planned for me, but you saved me.”

He rested his forearms on his knees with his wrists bent and his hands hanging limp. “I’m not here to save you. I’m going to use you to kill Kyng.”

I lowered my knees. “You can’t.”

“He’ll be happy to learn you care so much.” He chuckled as he stood. “That is, if I let him find you.”

My jaw tightened as I tried to stand. “Maybe I don’t want to be found.”

He closed the space between us, and his breath was warm on my face. “The choice is no longer yours.”

“The choice has never been mine.” I couldn’t escape Madden. I’d made a mistake. At the time, I’d thought Madden was my protection. Instead, he was my destruction. “I don’t know why you think I’m important to Madden because I’m not.”

“I’ve watched you for weeks. You’re at his side, you pimp his product and suck his dick.”

“You’ve watched me?” I hated the idea of him seeing me with Madden.

“Every. Fucking. Day.” His voice was whisper soft. “You learn about a person, what they like or don’t like. I know you like strawberries on your salad and that you pick off the croutons and save them to eat last.”

The rough timbre of his voice pooled warmth in my belly. I should be scared of his intentions. But I was drawn to him in the club in ways that had nothing to do with being high because I was sober now, and inside, I was sinking into the darkness of his tone.

“You learn their triggers, and how to make them snap.” He breathed me in. “I know the scent of your perfume that you spritz between your legs…for him.” His nostrils flared. “And after last night, I know the sweet scent of your arousal.”

I lifted my gaze to his. “I’m sorry.”

He towered over me. Heat from his body radiated into me. Even the air around him was soaked with his citrus scent.

“You’ll need to be more specific. Your list of transgressions is as long as mine, but I’m not apologizing for my sins. I’m not looking for absolution. Just retribution.”

“I haven’t done anything to you,” I whispered, fearing even my words could set him off. He’d stalked me.

His gaze narrowed on me. “Then don’t apologize.”

Both a scorching lust and icy hate swirled in his eyes. Maybe he was feeling as conflicted as I was. I should be afraid, but his possessiveness had a darker craving building within me.

“I’m not responsible for Madden Kyng. I know what I am. And what I’m not. I’m not his queen. I’m just another toy he’ll play with until he tires of me or until I’m broken.” I was already broken. Just the deepest cracks didn’t show.

He touched my face briefly, then let his hand fall away. “Are you breakable?”

A shiver skittered over my flesh. My soul was black, and my body was fueled by poison. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe not by Madden, but maybe you’ll break for me.”

Spade

I’d made us a simple dinner of chicken soup and crackers. The can of Sprite would settle her stomach, and the sugar would help with the withdrawals. Her hand trembled as she lifted the spoon to her lips.

In the weeks I’d been lurking in her shadow, I’d fantasized about her, imagined it was my fingers wrapped around her neck as Madden held her against a wall, pushing his other hand beneath her skirt, touching her.

Always submissive in his embrace, always ready to spread her legs, always high.

Now she was here, and I still wanted my hands on her. I should want to choke her, fill her veins full of poison and punish her, but her haunting brown eyes pleaded with a part of me I’d thought died with Ella.

Her words conflicted with what I’d witnessed of her lifestyle with Kyng. But I’d been fooled before. I’d believed Ella. She’d lied, hiding her addiction until I couldn’t pretend anymore.

“Are you going to tell me your name?” she asked between sips of her soup.

I’d contemplated the possibilities. I was a killer, and I didn’t plan to stop. As long as dealers preyed on the vulnerable, I was going to hunt predators. The more she learned about me, the more of a liability she’d become. “You’re better off not knowing.”

“Because you’re going to kill Madden?”

I set my spoon to the side of my soup. “I am.”

She kept her gaze on her soup and nodded. “How?”

“Morbid curiosity or fear for your lover?”

She dragged her spoon through her soup. “Will he suffer?”

“I’m going to fill him so full of chemicals he’ll be radioactive in the ground for a hundred fucking years.”

She nibbled on a cracker. “I don’t want to upset you, but you won’t be able to get to him. Ayla saw you with Laf. She’ll tell Madden. He knows someone is taking out his lieutenants and distributors.”

“I let her live for a reason, and I left another dead reminder in his bathroom.”

“There isn’t a place where he’s vulnerable. He’s too protected, and his guards are loyal. You wouldn’t get close enough, and you won’t be able to tamper with his supply. Chain of custody is through his family.”

I wiped my mouth on a napkin and took a sip of my water. “I need bait.”

Her gaze lifted. “Then you should’ve taken Ayla. They’ve been fucking since they were teenagers, probably before that. She is the only one he truly trusts, and she worships him. She recruits for him.”

“She was always with his general.” And I’d interrogated him. He’d never given me Nalini’s name, but he’d let me know his weakness. That was the moment I decided to take his queen. “Did Laf know she was keeping her brother company in bed?”

“Maybe. If he did, he wouldn’t have said anything or done anything about it. He wouldn’t challenge Madden. And Madden would’ve slit his throat if he’d said anything about Ayla.”

“Fuck.”

“She was only with Laf to make sure he never betrayed Madden. The soldiers fear her more than they fear Kyng.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I learned early on not to piss her off.”

“Are you telling me this to get revenge on her because she has the man you want?”

She pushed her soup away and folded her hands in her lap. “I do want Madden…dead.” Her gaze met mine. “I want to help you kill him.”

I chuckled and scooted away from the table.

“You need me for bait.” She stood but held onto the edge of the table.

“Yes, but you need to rest for a couple of days.” While Madden simmered with the knowledge that I had his toy.

For whatever reason, Nalini was convinced she wasn’t important to Madden. I knew better. I’d seen the possessive way he looked at her. The way he’d kept her close. But her revelations about Ayla also seemed plausible.

At the club, the guards had been more concerned with Ayla’s safety than Nalini’s. I hadn’t expected it to be easy to isolate her, but she’d been left on the dance floor while the guard had stayed close to the blonde.

“You need to rest.”

“I’m good.” Nalini closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Sweat glistened on her skin, and her lips trembled.

“No, you’re not. You’re crashing again.” Before she passed out, I approached and wrapped my arm around her waist. “Will you let me give you another dose of the blocker?” Before, she’d been unconscious, so I hadn’t given her a choice. But even if she’d protested, I wouldn’t have asked for her permission. Just as she hadn’t given consent for the blood draw.

She gripped my arm and shook her head.

“Why? It’ll stop the pain.”

“If you’re giving me the choice, I’d rather suffer with the withdrawals.” Her soulful eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “People make mistakes. Everything comes with a price, and mine cost me everything.”

She stepped away from me, determined to stand on her own.

“I’m not going to drug you.” I gently banded my fingers around her tender wrists and kept her next to me. “The injection is therapeutic. You don’t have to suffer.” Christ, what was I doing? I didn’t need to negotiate with her. I’d taken her by force. There was no reason for her to believe anything I said to her. “You can trust me.”

“I don’t have to trust you. You can’t kill me. I’m already dead.”

Nalini

The man led me out of the kitchen. His house wasn’t much of a home. There weren’t any family photos or comfortable couches nestled into corners with colorful throw pillows.

The kitchen was white, brushed stainless steel and sterile. A painting of a violent ocean crashing against a lighthouse hung on the wall of a corridor leading to a steel door. He placed his hand on the digital pad. Recognizing his biometrics, the lock slid open.

“Spade,” he finally said as he pulled open the door.

“I don’t know what that means,” I said as I crossed in front of him and entered his medical room. There was an examination table, medical supplies, computers, and machines. I snapped my gaze over my shoulder. “You really are a doctor?”

He followed me in and closed the door behind him. “My name is Eric Spade. And yes, among several others, I do have a medical degree.” He pointed to the exam table.

“I don’t want the injection,” I said. “I hate needles.”

“Sit down before you fall down.” He opened cabinets and gathered supplies on a small metal tray. I’d been in this room last night. I’d been out of my mind, scared of my own body, but I remembered his touch, his scent. My tummy tumbled, sending heat lower as I recalled the way he’d crammed his fingers into me, staving off my torment.

The room swirled. Blackness encroached from my peripheral vision. I tried to suck in a breath.

“Breathe.” Suddenly, his hand was on my neck, feeling my pulse race beneath his fingertips. I lifted my face to his, and those fingers curved around my nape, and his thumb pressed against my rabbiting pulse.

A silent war waged within me. Arousal and withdrawal. Both had me riding the edge of pain. Cramps knotted in my stomach. I doubled over trying to relieve the ache. A low moan ripped from my chest. I embraced the pain even as tears filled my eyes.

“Fuck, you’re stubborn.”

I inhaled fear. “What if I can’t fight this?”

“Trust me.” He caught a tear from my cheek with his thumb.

Giving in wouldn’t mean giving up. This man offered me something I hadn’t felt in a long time. So long I barely recognized the emotion for what it was. A chance for reciprocity. A chance to take down a brutal Kyng.

For the beat of my heart, I waited. Then I decided to trust him. I was worthless high, and he was going to need my help. “I’ll trust you and hope you’ll trust me.”

Eric moved quickly and wiped my shoulder with an alcohol pad. “I’m going to put his into your deltoid muscle.” He uncapped a syringe with his teeth and pierced the skin. “It’ll help increase your dopamine production. It’s not a cure.”

I inhaled a deep breath as the pain of withdrawal softened into a dull ache and then melted into simmering warmth.

“You should rest,” he said as he disposed of the needle.

I took his hand as I slid off the exam table. I wasn’t supposed to feel a surge of heat up my arms. My heart wasn’t supposed to stutter then race as his eyes focused on my lips, then slid down my throat, to stare at my tight and achy nipples pressed against the soft cotton of his T-shirt.

Nothing about the way I was feeling was healthy. I shouldn’t feel safe with a professed killer who took me at gunpoint for the purpose of using me for his crimes. Yet, something sparked between us on the dance floor that had nothing to do with his vendetta against Madden.

His touch still felt like an electrical storm of need, lighting me up with memories of last night.

Even high, the thought of another man’s hands on my body roiled like acid. Yet, I burned for this man. I was no longer high, still my body reacted to him. It didn’t make sense, and I didn’t want it to.

I wanted to feel something besides revulsion. I wanted to feel clean. I wanted to be clean again, both inside and out. “Can I take a shower?”

Eric led me back to the bedroom and into the bathroom.

“I’ll leave the door open in case you need me.”

Tension thickened the air between us. A lump rose in my throat. I didn’t care that everything about this was wrong. Tomorrow might never come. My life hadn’t been my own for three years. This moment was mine.

The choice was mine.

I fingered the hem of his T-shirt. His gaze darkened as I lifted the soft fabric over my head. My arm dropped to my side, and the T-shirt fluttered to the floor.

“Nalini.” My name was a whispered promise of something dark and dangerous.

Madden was a monster. But Eric wasn’t a hero. He’d keep me or he’d kill me. Either way, he wasn’t going to let me go. He was a killer, and I was a witness.

“I need you.” Before I could take a breath, he was on me. His lips crashed against mine, his tongue speared into my mouth, conquering, claiming, devouring. He kissed me as if he sucked my soul from my body.

He gripped my skull, angling my head to plunder my mouth, tasting me with strokes of his tongue. A whimper crawled up my throat and out of my mouth as he gently bit my lip. I wanted more.

I rested my hands on his hips, then slowly trekked higher, dipping my fingers under his shirt and raking my nails along his taut abdominals. He was hard edges, a body sculpted with valleys and ridges of muscles.

He hissed as he broke the kiss and reached between us. With a tug to the drawstring, the basketball shorts slipped past my hips and pooled on the floor. His gaze followed his fingers as his knuckles traced the ridge of my collarbone, dipped into the hollow of my throat, feathered lower to the swell of my breast, and grazed across my nipple.

I sucked in a sharp breath and gripped the edge of the vanity as Eric lifted me onto the counter. He kissed me, glided his mouth along my neck, and sank his teeth into the flesh where my shoulder met my neck.

Last night, I’d been drawn to him. Now, I was on fire in ways I didn’t want to understand. My thighs spread, and he stepped between them. The solid swell of his cock nestled against me. I arched, wanting to feel more of him.

“Are you high?” he asked. “Fuck. Maybe I am.” His lips were on mine again. I kissed him back with the same fierce intensity. I wrapped my legs around his hips, my arms around his neck, and clawed at his shoulders. I couldn’t get close enough.

My breasts crushed against his chest. “I’m not high,” I promised. I wasn’t Madden’s, but I wasn’t innocent either. I was an addict, and I’d lived in a haze. “I need this.”

I needed to choose. If my life was over, I wanted my last thoughts to be of this man and the way he made me feel. For this moment, I was just a woman, not a toy, not property.

Eric shifted, putting a few inches between us, and ripped his shirt over his head. His touch gentled as he traced my trembling lower lip with his thumb. “There’s no out for you.”

“I know.” I flicked my tongue against his skin. “And there’s no saving you. I think you’re just as fucked up as I am.”

“Maybe more.” He caressed my face, then ran his fingers along my throat. “You’re trading one prison for another.”

I swallowed against the pressure. This wasn’t a prison. Eric Spade offered sanctuary. I rested my hand over his heart. Then I took his hand from my throat and dragged his palm to my heart. “I felt nothing but numb until you touched me at the club. I want to feel more.”

He lifted me from the vanity. “Once I’m inside you, you’ll feel me for fucking days.”

My legs locked around his waist, and his hands molded to my ass. I ground my tender pussy against the heat and hardness of his cock through the denim of his jeans.

“I fuck you, you’re mine.” The rough edge of his voice reverberated against my skin.

“You aren’t going to let me go anyway.”

He carried me to the bed, climbed onto the mattress, and hovered over me. His fingers were like manacles on my wrists as he pinned me to the bed, bent his head, and sucked my nipple into his mouth.

“Oh my god.” I sank my teeth into my lower lip. The warmth and wetness of his mouth had my pussy weeping for more. Feral growls rolled from his chest and sent lust coiling through me, surging out to my extremities.

He released my wrists and leveraged onto outstretched arms. “There’s no god here. Nothing redeemable. Nothing worth saving.”

I fumbled with the zipper on his jeans, wedging open the fly, and pushing them over his hips. Not waiting for him to undress, I curled my fingers around his cock and poised him at the entrance to my body. “We’ll burn together.”

With a hard thrust, he speared into me. Deeper, drilling into me until his groin ground against my pubic bone. He soaked his dick in my juices.

I gasped a breath as he stretched me, filled me, and branded me with his possession.

“Fuck, you feel so good squeezing my dick.” Rearing back, he then plunged in again. Heat slipped beneath my skin, and the thin thread I held onto began to fray. I relished the weight of him. My fingers curved onto the hard flex of his buttocks, and my thighs rose higher on his flanks.

“Ah, fuck.” He cursed as he stared into my eyes. His mouth pulled into a taut line, and his jaw clenched as he fucked me into the mattress. Every thrust forced the breath from my lungs. My stomach clenched, and the black hole that had been my heart cracked and snapped in a painful revelation that I’d never been this wrought with pleasure.

A stranger. A killer.

I held tight and let go. A cry ripped from my throat as I twisted and writhed. Violent tremors rolled through me, clamping hard to Eric’s cock as he continued to fuck me through my orgasm.

“Fucking hell.” He ripped from my body, threw his head back, and fisted his cock. Ropes of cum splashed my abdomen, my breasts, and trickled along his fingers. He was savagely beautiful. Full of vengeance and hate.

As he gasped for breath, he sat back on his haunches. The moment stretched between us. He’d more than fucked me, he’d funneled those dangerous desires into me. He’d twisted into something dark and possessive. He wanted what I wanted.

Silence filled the room as he tugged up his jeans, tucked his dick away, and stretched out next to me.

Muscles in my body melted into the bed. I turned to him. “I know how we can kill Madden.”