Fury’s Kiss (2 page)

“Everything’s fine,” my new friend said shortly, as I told myself the heat between my legs had nothing to do with Jackson and everything to do with him.

Jackson looked at me with dark eyes, waiting for me to confirm or deny what the other man said, but when I stayed silent, too embarrassed to say anything, he shrugged and went back inside.

I looked down at the stranger’s hands gripping my hips. What had seemed like an exciting, illicit rendezvous at first had taken on the seedy luster of a one-night stand. One that would leave me feeling even worse about myself in the morning.

I stepped away. “I really do have to get going. I have to work in the morning.”

I wasn’t on shift until late afternoon the next day, but I needed an excuse to get away.

“Ah, don’t be like that.” Ignoring my attempt to be polite, my suitor wrapped his fist up in my hair and pulled. Hard. I sucked in a breath through my teeth.

“Yeah, you like that, don’t you?” he said before I could speak. It wasn’t really a question.

“Let me go!” I pushed at him, but he ignored me again and bit my neck.

My pulse pounded and now I felt real fear, a dry-mouthed, gut-clenching sensation that was more than just caution or unease. My neck throbbed where he’d bitten me and I tried to push him away again. He responded by grabbing my wrists with one hand and bringing his knee up between my legs so I was riding high on his thigh.

“Stop it. I don’t want this.” My voice was unfamiliar in my ears, sharp with panic and adrenaline. The bones in my wrist ground together painfully as he tightened his grip.

Then he pressed his mouth to mine again, roughly. I turned my head away and made a move to the left, trying to pull away and get around him. But he pushed me back harder against the brick and my head bounced against the wall. Bright points of light danced in my field of vision. Tears ran in wet streaks down my face as my wrists ached and my skull sang.

He unzipped my shorts with his free hand and shoved them down. I thrashed against his grip on me, but it was no good. He was too strong.

I tried to yell, but nothing came out. I twisted one hand free and tried again to push him off. He slammed my head back into the wall, harder this time, and twisted the arm he still held. I cried out in pain and he sealed his mouth over mine, cutting off the sound. He unzipped his own jeans and I felt him hard against my thigh. I gagged, sure I would be sick. I tried to twist away, but there was nowhere to go with rough, solid brick behind me.

I shut my eyes. This wasn’t happening. This was just some dream I was having. I’d had a few too many, gotten a cab home, and passed out in front of the TV. I would wake up in a minute and be freaked out enough to sleep with the lights on.

The man pressing me up against the wall groaned, and I opened my eyes again. This was no dream. It hurt too much to be a dream. My head and my twisted arm both ached, and I tried again to get away. But exhaustion made my efforts feeble.

“Stop,” I begged. “Please, stop.”

He didn’t listen, just pushed against me.

I heard a dispassionate newscaster in my head, relating the tragic attack on Tara Walker, latest victim of the New England Slasher, and shook my head in an attempt to clear it. Whether this guy really was the Slasher or not, the result would be the same if I didn’t fight him off—I would still be a victim. I thought of how devastated my friends would be if he hurt me, killed me. What it would do to my mother. My father had left us when I was young, and I was all she had left.

At that thought, my pulse pounded in my ears and my field of vision narrowed so all I could see was him. Heat swept through my body and the pain in my arm and my head grew distant. There would be time to feel it later, but right now my world narrowed to this man.

“I said
stop
, asshole.” I shoved as hard as I could with my uninjured right hand, and there was nothing feeble about my efforts this time. My attacker flew across the parking lot and landed in the shadow of Nora’s pickup truck, parked by itself in the corner. I wasn’t sure where I’d found the strength, but it felt good.

Better than good, in fact. It felt great.

I cradled my injured left arm against my chest and clumsily pulled up my shorts before walking over to where my would-be rapist lay in the gravel. I looked down at him and he made a move like he was going to get up, but whatever he saw in my face made him stop. He froze, his eyes wide. I leaned down and grabbed him, one-handed. I felt strong, powerful.

“Who do you think you are?” I asked him. “Haven’t you ever heard ‘no means no’?”

He didn’t answer me. Not surprising, since I’d picked him up by the throat. Acting on instinct, I pulled him closer—close enough to kiss, or maybe bite—and as the thought flitted through my head, I grinned. Maybe I would scare him into thinking I actually
would
bite him. The idea of showing him how it felt to be on the wrong end of unwanted attention was appealing in an eye-for-an-eye sort of way.

I snarled at him as he struggled. “Relax, baby. You’ll like it.”

He gasped, trying to draw in enough air to speak, or maybe scream for help, but nothing came out. I opened my mouth as I leaned closer and bared my teeth like I was auditioning for a role on True Blood. When he began to pant in fear, I pulled back, about to tell him to stop sniveling while I called the cops, but something stopped me before I spoke. Something in my alcohol-and-pain-addled brain zeroed in on his breathing and I was seized by a sudden, wild urge to just make him
stop
.

Stop wheezing, stop trying to speak, stop acting like he
was the victim.

Without giving it any thought, I lunged forward and locked my mouth onto his, smothering the rasping sounds he emitted. Startled by my own instinctive action, I stared into his eyes and sucked in a breath of surprise. He clutched at the hand I held around his throat and kicked for a few seconds before going rigid in my grasp. His skin swelled under my fingers and the moisture inside his mouth heated, nearly boiling.

Shocked, I let go of him and jumped back with an inarticulate cry. My newfound strength abandoned me and I sank to my knees in the gravel as he began to convulse.

I scrambled into a crouch next to him, chest heaving as I tried to breathe through my adrenaline and confusion. What the hell had I done?

I looked around wildly. My rage had disappeared and I tried not to panic now that I was left with the reality of an unconscious—or maybe even dead—body at my feet. Could you kill someone by sucking the air out of his lungs?

I swallowed hard as I wrapped my arms around myself and rocked back and forth. What was I supposed to do now? Go back into the bar and announce that I’d almost been raped, but no need to worry—I’d knocked the guy out? Or maybe even killed him?

Yeah, that was so not gonna happen. Who would believe my story?

I’d been there, and even I didn’t believe what had happened.

“Hey.” I nudged the guy’s shoulder.

No response. He was puffy, like someone had stuck a bicycle pump under his skin, and he had a definite bluish-purple tint. I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not, so I nudged him again.

Still nothing.

I got up and stood over the body for a few minutes, trying to think. I didn’t feel even remotely drunk anymore, but I was exhausted and my head and arm were screaming at me. It was hard to think clearly. The situation was majorly freaky and I just wanted to go home and pretend it had never happened. But how could I?

He got what he deserved
.

The voice came from inside my head, sharp and sibilant, like when I’d hissed at the guy a few minutes ago.

“Oh, God,” I moaned aloud. “What’s happening to me?” Clearly, I was losing my mind.

No one saw what happened
, whispered the freaky-me voice again.
No witnesses
.

It was hard to focus, but the voice had a point. The longer I stuck around, the more likely it was that someone would come out of the bar, see me standing by the body, and accuse me of…something. I didn’t know what had happened, but I knew it looked bad.

He got what he deserved
, freaky-me said again and I propelled myself into action. My split personality—or whatever it was—was right. The unmoving body at my feet was hardly an innocent victim.

I leaned closer to study the…thing lying next to Nora’s truck. It didn’t really resemble a man anymore, and after a few seconds, I had to turn away. Its staring, bulging eyes looked at me accusingly.

Turning my back on it, I walked toward the more brightly lit section of the lot where my car was parked, glancing back over my shoulder every couple of seconds. I half expected the body to lurch up and follow me, but nothing happened. When I reached the car, I debated whether I was sober enough to drive, and finally reached the conclusion that whatever had come over me, it had dissolved the alcohol in my bloodstream.

I let out a desperate laugh—some silver lining. I was panicking, exhausted, and in pain, but at least I didn’t feel drunk anymore.

I got in and put the car in drive, trying not to think about what I’d left behind me. My palms were sweaty on the steering wheel as I drove, fingers curled around it like claws, and I expected to hear the wail of sirens the whole way home. Finally, I pulled into the driveway. After fumbling with my keys for what felt like years, I managed to stagger inside, and made it as far as the couch before I collapsed with my shoes still on.

Before I lost consciousness, I had just enough time to hope I wouldn’t wake to cops banging at the door.

Chapter 2

When I woke up the next morning, there was a smudged imprint of my eye makeup from the night before smeared on the couch cushion I’d been lying on. It looked like someone had smothered a trampy Maybelline clown with it, and my hair was strangling me like an overgrown kudzu vine. I scraped it back off my face and staggered into the bathroom, where my roommates had left a note taped to the mirror.

Gone to the beach, back later. Tried to get you off the couch but you were dead to the world. xo Rach and Alex.

I winced. Dead was a seriously bad word choice this morning.

I thought about the bloated, purple-blue body I’d left in the parking lot at Spyder’s, and the events of the night before came flooding back to me. I felt those rough, greedy hands on me again, pulling, hurting me, and I gagged. I made it to the toilet in time to watch the contents of my stomach come rushing up. After rinsing my mouth, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. My memories had to be wrong—there was no way all that had really happened.

But my aching head and arm said otherwise.

I reached around to feel the back of my skull, and winced when I found a huge bump under my hair. Yep, last night had definitely happened. I had been attacked, and I’d… What exactly had I done to that man?

I wasn’t sure, but my pain was a souvenir of the night’s events and I felt dirtier than I ever had in my whole life. I turned the shower on as hot as I could stand it, then struggled to get out of my clothes without using my left arm.

I scrubbed at my skin until I was red and raw all over, not stopping until I was so clean I squeaked. Then I climbed out and dripped my way to my bedroom, not bothering to pick up the clothes I’d left on the bathroom floor. I planned to throw them out, anyway. Or better yet, burn them. I sure as hell didn’t need any reminders of what that bastard had tried to do to me.

I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a soft, old T-shirt before I climbed into bed, then propped myself up against a small mountain of pillows while I tried to come up with some explanation for the night before. The only thing I could think of was that my temporary super-strength had been a self-defense mechanism, fueled by adrenaline. Like those stories you hear about mothers lifting cars off their kids.

Though I never heard of a supermom sucking the life out of someone and leaving him all puffy, purple, and dead.

I worried my bottom lip with my teeth, longing to call my mother and have her fly home from California to comfort me and look after me. But it had been years since she’d had a vacation, and she’d been looking forward to visiting family out West for months. Besides, if she knew what had happened to me, I’d find myself hauled in to the hospital as soon as her plane landed. Not to mention the argument that would follow when she felt I was up for it.

My mother had never been able to understand why I worked in a restaurant instead of pursuing a university education. She’d blame my assault on my lifestyle. She was convinced the long, late hours I worked were a recipe for disaster, and that my roommate, Alex, was a bad influence with her heavy tattoos, dyed-black hair, and job as an exotic dancer. She considered Rachel, who wore her auburn hair in a librarian’s bun and whose glasses emphasized her bookish nature, a much better role model.

Calling my mother was out of the question. But being alone…so not good. My mind was veering off in a million confusing directions at once. I reached for the phone and dialed Alex. She and Rachel would hear me out, would support me.

At least, I hoped they would.

By the time the girls got home, I was a mess. I’d spent the past hour icing my injured arm and imagining the police figuring out I was responsible for the guy in the parking lot, CSI-style. Every time a car drove past the house, I was sure I was about to be taken away in handcuffs.