As Darkness Gathers (Dark Betrayals Book 2) (25 page)

I stared as he ejected the magazine and laid it and the pistol aside. He hit a button beside the booth, and the target carrier system whined into motion and towed the paper from the other side of the room in a ghostly waft. Clay pulled down his target, placed another on the carrier, and sent it back across the room.

I gaped at the target he’d used, a traditional bull’s eye. The pockmarks from the bullets weren’t all dead center, but the ones that weren’t were a tight cluster around it.

“Good grief.”

He shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of practice. Your turn.”

We traded places, and I inserted the second loaded magazine and pulled the slide back until it popped forward and locked into place. I fit my hands around the butt as he’d instructed and sighted down the barrel.
 

“Relax your shoulders,” he said from behind me.
 

I took a deep breath and, as I let it out, I forced my shoulders to fall and loosen. “The recoil’s not going to knock me on my butt?”

“It has a slight kick, but it’s no twelve gauge.”

I closed my left eye so I could see the sights better, adjusted my aim to the center of the target—this one a silhouette—and fired.
 

The noise and jump in my hands startled me, and the shot went wide, not even touching the target.

“What did I do wrong?”

“Don’t pull the trigger, squeeze it. Pulling it makes you jerk the gun.”

“Squeeze, don’t pull.” I focused on the target once again. When I fired this time, I at least hit the paper, even if it was only the bottom right corner and not within the delineation of the target.

After shooting through several magazines, my shoulders burned and my arms felt weighty, but I was consistently hitting the target. There was no central focus of my shots, they were scattered all over, but I imagined if it were an actual attacker rather than a silhouette on paper, it would be enough to stop him. I examined the target with a mixture of chagrin and pride. I wouldn’t be winning any marksman awards, but I could still be effective. And the frustrated energy that had fueled my earlier anger had been burned away.

“That was . . . therapeutic.”

Clay chuckled. “I always find it to be.”
 

“If I come here and shoot often, I’ll get better.”

He dismantled the pistol and cleaned it. “Like anything, it takes practice. The state of Ohio doesn’t require you to have a license for a gun, or a permit to purchase one, but if you want to carry it in your car or purse, you have to take a minimum twelve hours of handgun training.”

I wasn’t certain if he wanted me to get a gun because he knew he’d be leaving soon and wanted me to have a means of protecting myself, or if he thought it was a good idea to have one on hand just in case, but I went ahead and scheduled my first class before we left the range.

Night had fallen while we were shooting, and Clay was silent on the drive back to my apartment. When we arrived, I turned on all the lights. Before I could ask, he checked the closets.

I leaned in the doorway of the bedroom and watched him check the locks on the windows. “I was never afraid as a child, you know. I didn’t think of monsters lurking under the bed or in the closet.” I mulled it over for a moment. “I suppose it was the environment I grew up in. I never doubted I was loved and safe. Protected. I never had a reason to be afraid.” I tucked an errant curl behind my ear. “And now, as an adult, I’m scared. For the first time. And I don’t want to be.”

Clay stared out the window for a long bout of silence before he said, “I knew from the time I was a boy that monsters existed and that they hid themselves, not in shadows or a child’s nightmares, but behind normalcy. They were fathers and grandfathers, those we couldn’t help but love and those we longed to trust and respect.”

He braced his hands against the windowsill, and I went to him and wrapped my arms around him from behind. I pressed my cheek against the hard plane of his back, and the heat of his skin reached me even through the layer of his sweater. He smelled of man and cordite. I tightened my arms around him, hands splayed across his chest.

“There are monsters everywhere,” he said. “But the most dangerous ones wear familiar faces.”

I shivered and pressed closer against him. Without relinquishing my embrace, I ducked under his arm and circled him until we stood facing one another, my back pressed against the chilled pane of glass.

His eyes were haunted when his gaze met mine.
 

I slid my hands up his chest and framed his face, and then I leaned up and kissed him. I poured everything I had into it, expressed every emotion I didn’t have the courage to voice.
 

When we broke apart, we were both breathless.

His hands left the casement and curled around my ribcage. His thumb brushed against the outer curve of my breast, and I sucked in a gulp of air. He moved to pull away, but I grabbed his wrist and placed his hand over my left breast.
 

It was warm and heavy, and a shiver coursed through me when his fingers flexed. I was certain he could feel the rapid pulse of my heart under his palm.

“Finch.” There was a warning, an edge to his voice, and I remembered his amusement when I’d called him gallant. He had been nothing but.
 

“Please,” I whispered, covering his hand with mine.

“Are you sure?”

“Are you going to make me beg?”

He drew me away from the window and walked backward toward the bed until his knees hit the edge of the mattress. “No,” he said as his hands slipped to the small of my back. “Though if you really want to . . .”

His words dispelled the somber pall in the room and, laughing, I shoved against his chest and knocked him off balance. He fell onto the mattress and pulled me with him.
 

My laughter cut off abruptly at the feel of him under me. I moved against him in a subtle, caressing movement that made us both moan, but then he stilled me with his hands on the backs of my thighs under my dress.
 

He wrapped his long fingers around my inner thighs and dragged his hands upward, parting my legs until my knees rested on either side of his hips.
 

The action made my stomach clench, and I sucked in a breath as he traced the edges of my underwear along the crease where my legs met my groin.
 

He squeezed my behind before dragging his hands along my spine. I shuddered, goose bumps left in the wake of his touch.
 

When he encountered the band of my bra, he undid the clasp and then continued until my dress was bunched over his forearms and he cupped the nape of my neck. He lifted his head and stole my breath and thoughts with a kiss.
 

The world seemed to spin on its axis as he reversed our positions, tucking me half under him, his forearm curled around my head. His thumb soothed along my temple, and then he broke the kiss and nipped my chin before pressing a slow succession of kisses down the column of my throat and over my sternum until his lips met the flesh of my stomach where he’d drawn my dress up. He paused there, his mouth slightly open so I could feel his breath, hot and moist, just below my navel.
 

I squeaked when he bit me just hard enough to sting, and then laved the spot with his tongue. “Do you have a kinky side, Clay Gandy?” I asked once I caught my breath.

He chuckled. “Is kinky what you’re wanting?”

I leaned up and kissed him, and when I pulled away, a too-honest confession slipped out. “I just want you.”

He pushed my hair back from my face. “And you have me.” His kiss this time was harder, darker, more demanding.
 

I fell back against the pillows and he followed me down. A rush of air cooled my overheated skin as he dragged my dress over my head and tossed my bra aside.

I laughed. “I still have my boots on.”

His smile was slow and wicked, and then slowly faded as he studied me. I fought the urge to cover myself and instead relished the rapt expression on his face.

His brow furrowed as he took in the dark discoloration of my shoulder, and then his gaze dropped to my hip and the violent bruise that was interrupted by my underwear.

“They’re just bruises,” I said.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. Not any more than you’re already hurting me.”
 

He started to draw back, but I grabbed his hand and placed it in the center of my chest.
 

“By making me wait.”

The heat in his eyes flared, but his finger was gentle as he traced my collarbone. “You’re beautiful.” He didn’t give me a chance to argue as he bent his head to my breast.
 

His teeth and tongue and fingers were instruments of pleasure, and I couldn’t contain the soft sounds that escaped my throat. I buried my fingers in his short hair until, desperate to feel his skin against mine, I reached over his head, caught his sweater where it stretched between his shoulder blades, and pulled at it. He sat up and tossed the sweater aside, and then dragged my underwear down over my hips, pausing to divest me of my boots and socks.

The lamplight didn’t hide the flush that crept over me as Clay followed the lines and curves of my body with his eyes. I studied him, too, taking in the wide breadth of his shoulders, the hard, ridged plane of his torso. He looked perfect to me in that moment, and when my gaze met his, the same emotions that were reflected in his eyes I knew must be evident in mine. Wonder, excitement, desire.
 

I opened my arms to him.
 

He used his knee to coax my thighs apart and then settled between them, lowering himself over me.

I moaned as his bare chest pressed against mine, his skin hot, his weight heavy.
 

He planted his elbows on either side of my head and held himself up. “Okay?” he whispered, dipping his head to nuzzle my neck.

I bit my lip on another groan when his teeth close on my earlobe. “More than just okay.”

His chest rumbled in agreement.
 

Any discomfort I felt from my bruised hip and sprained knee faded away in the onslaught of his heated, drugging kiss. His jeans were pressed intimately against me, and I wanted the barrier gone. I hooked my leg over his lean hips and tucked my foot in the waistband of his pants. I managed to push them only halfway over the taut curve of his backside before he pulled away from my grasp and slid down my body, planting random, openmouthed kisses along the way until he reached his destination.

He’d teased me about begging him, but in the end I did.
 

I cursed when he chuckled and blew a cool breath against my sensitive flesh. “Please,” I whimpered.

He crawled up my body, and my skin felt so overwrought that just the rasp of his chest hair over my stomach and breasts made me shudder. When he kissed me, it further stoked the flame he’d kindled.

“Condom.” His voice was guttural, and he started to pull away.
 

I clung to him and fumbled blindly for the drawer in my nightstand. “Here, I have one.”

He took the packet from me and stood, unsnapping his jeans and pushing them down his legs.
 

I reached out to trace his contours with a gentle finger, and then stared unabashedly as he sheathed himself with the latex. “You’re beautiful.”

He didn’t balk at my compliment, he merely smiled as he settled over me once more. I caught my breath as he fit himself against me.
 

He pressed his lips against my shoulder and whispered, “And you are lovely.”

His knuckles brushed against my inner thighs as he guided himself, and then he pressed into me, stealing my breath entirely and stopping only when he was fully within me, our hips locked together.

“Oh.” I curled my arms under his so I could clutch his shoulders from behind. I shifted, wrapping my legs around his waist, and it altered his angle inside me. I sighed. “That feels so . . .”

“If you say
nice
, I’m going to spank your ass here and now.”

A short, husky breath of laughter escaped me, both at his words and the elation of having him filling me, and he groaned. Cupping the back of his neck, I drew him down to me and licked his ear before murmuring, “I think you do have a kinky side. I like it.” I let my lips caress his skin as I spoke, and he shuddered.
 

He kept his hips still and dipped his head to tease the corner of my lips, to take sipping kisses on my neck, shoulders, and breasts.
 

I stroked the solid sweep of his back, dancing my fingers along the straight furrow of his spine. There soon came a point when neither of us could lie still, and then his movements were sure and strong, long and slow.

The tension within me built as his pace and force increased, coiling higher and tighter until my skin burned, my fingers and toes tingled, and I moaned with every thrust, clutching his backside and knowing my fingernails must have been making half-moons in his flesh.
 

Clay whispered, “Let go. Let go, and I’ll catch you.”