Page 22 of At Her Pleasure
“What are you doing?”
“Having a smoke. When I’m done, I’m going to find you. Take you down, light up another and burn a circle on your perfect ass.” The blue eyes gleamed, reminding her of Sy’s tattoo. Let Me Be Your Demon.
“I’ll sign it for you, with my knife,” he added. “No holds barred, Mistress. No rules except what’s inside us.”
She glanced up. “No moon, but there’s the dog star. Better hope he and all his buddies can help you find me.”
She slipped away as he was studying the sky. She knew he purposefully kept his attention there so he wouldn’t see which direction she’d chosen.
So he would have to track her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Mick gazed at the stars around Sirius, listening to her disappear. A quick, purposeful stride that faded.
Walking the line he lived offered him moments of perfect freedom to indulge his most basic instincts. They also taught him what a prison the most vicious ones could create. Long before the door slammed to keep him in an actual cell.
When he’d inhaled the scent of her hair in the motorhome, he’d understood the popularity of shifter fiction. Right now, given the chance to transform into a wolf and hunt her down, he’d take it. He’d like to be able to scent the air and find her fragrance from miles away.
Maybe he had. He was here, wasn’t he?
He drew on the cigarette, listening like a wolf might, all senses tuned to a telltale rustle, the change of frog song, a sudden silence as she passed their way. Then the warbling started again.
With more resources, she could and would have laid traps for him. He’d chosen this place because it held few options except evasion and navigation challenges. The props the high schoolers had used to enhance the experience—scarecrows, pumpkins, a cup of hot chocolate afterward—were gone, leaving a desolate-looking place with the scratchy, sinister sounds of the corn.
He liked traveling the backroads, and had noted the locale on his way into the city, stopping to get a closer look. As he’d used his drone to scope it out from the air, finding it was about the size of a football field, he’d thought about chasing a woman through here. He hadn’t realized how quickly the opportunity would present itself. Especially with one he’d imagined running to ground a million times. One capable of doing him real damage.
A lack of props wouldn’t stop her from seeking out an optimal attack point. She wasn’t a runner.
When she’d touched the scar she’d given him, she’d about driven him to his knees. Had she felt the ripple of nerves under her hand? He wanted her to reopen the wound, deepen it. Reach his heart and the black, trapped soul inside.
Christ, dial back the Irish melodrama, Mick.
He ground out the cigarette and pocketed the butt. He might be a lot of things, but he wasn’t a litterbug. Indifference and cruelty were linked, demon twins in the womb. He’d had to embrace both qualities often enough to know how close the partnership was.
Indifference to someone else’s life, their suffering, their time, their needs.
He would never be indifferent to her. Never.
He chose a path on the left, littered with a fine layer of shed straw. Most bales in the stacks were tied together and staked to keep them vertical. As the twine had broken from weather or wear, some had fallen or were more lopsided, allowing narrow views between the columns. Crushed beer cans and the occasional discarded condom suggested teens hung out here. No cigarette butts. Farm kids also knew how susceptible their surroundings were to flames. Carelessness would lose them their no-parents hangout spot.
Tonight, they were alone. He listened for another moment, a powerful-looking man with still eyes. Then he moved forward, a silent stalk.
Time to hunt.
* * *
Cyn’s blood was humming, and her senses were as sharp as the knife Mick had used to cut the zip ties, in one smooth stroke. She’d been wired after the intense session with Sy, as she always was, but this gave her a new gear.
She noted the frog song, the direction and strength of the breeze. Occasional cracks between the straw bale towers gave her glimpses of other parts of the maze. The taller ones had been anchored so they couldn’t be easily toppled.
When he started hunting, he would be swift, and he’d be paying attention. She needed to find an opportunity to turn the tables and put him on the defensive. The chase was the foreplay. The fight was the main event. When the hunt part was done, she wanted the upper hand.
So she paid attention to any movement in the shadows or changes in sound, ahead or behind her. She discovered a rear exit to the maze. A set of bales had been pushed out of the way, giving her access to the field behind them. She exited, deciding she would circle around and come back through the front or another access point, to give her an advantage.
But the corn field terrain wasn’t tamped down the way the maze was. Uneven and muddy from recent rains, it made her rethink her plan. Knee-high foliage also grew between the maze and the cornstalks and she wasn’t interested in meeting what scuttling creatures might inhabit it, any more than they’d be pleased at being stepped on.
She backtracked, pausing to listen before she slipped into the maze again. When she inhaled, her stomach flipped. A subtle trace of cigarette smoke told her he’d passed this way. She also caught the lingering scent on his clothes and skin. Bergamot, rosemary and cedar. Maybe some vanilla.