Ava Gray - Skin Game

“You didn’t exactly give me a choice.” Her husky voice sent a pleasurable spike along his nervous system straight down to his groin. Reyes shifted, unwilling to let the erection gain full-flag status.

“No, I didn’t. You love your whitewalls too much to gamble with them.”

“I love this car,” she corrected, stroking a hand along the blue dashboard.

Reyes watched her fingers with a clawing hunger that astounded him. He wanted them on his chest, his abdomen . . . lower. He wanted two weeks with her in a hotel room, nothing but bare skin and cool, white sheets. Despite iron discipline, his penis swelled all the way up, straining his zipper.

“I can see that.” His voice rumbled low, even for him.

“Isn’t she a beaut?”

“Sure is.”

So are you. But he didn’t say that out loud. It was too soon. Like a wild thing, she would be skittish, slow to gentle. She still hadn’t told him her name. Such a way she had about her—appearing to give away everything, when in fact, it granted nothing—could’ve come only through years of practice.

All in all, Kyra Marie Beckwith was a lot more intriguing than her dossier let on. Too bad he had to kill her.

The sun rayed from the sky, giving it the look of frayed blue velvet. Night would fall soon, and Lord knew she hated to travel backcountry roads after dark. Lightning bugs might be the brightest light she saw for miles.

They hadn’t been driving quite an hour, but Kyra was ready to get rid of her uninvited guest. He set off alarm bells, and she’d learned to respect her intuition, as it’d saved her ass more than once. So she’d stop for gas and ditch him.

He kept asking the same questions, no matter how many times she dodged, and that made him trouble with a capital T . Too bad, because otherwise she might have enjoyed killing a week in bed with him. The man had the hard, rugged look she found irresistible, but in her line of work, she couldn’t afford to hang around people who showed too much interest in what she did or how she did it.

Thankfully, the flickering white fluorescent of a filling station caught her eyes up ahead. She still felt tough, strong, and didn’t doubt she could deal with him, if he forced the issue. Leaving bodies behind would only get the authorities riled up, however, so she hoped it didn’t come to that.

“You ready to stretch your legs?” She hadn’t spoken in miles. “I could go for a convenience store sausage or maybe some burritos and a slushie. What’d you say?”

For a minute, she thought he was asleep, and then he asked, “You buying?”

She could do that, Kyra decided. Flush from her win at the roadhouse outside Eunice, she could afford to feed the man before she cut him loose. They weren’t far from Lake Charles, so he’d do fine with a meal in his belly.

“Yeah.”

Making the turn without flipping on a blinker, Kyra pulled into the parking lot. Two other cars sat alongside the building, but she didn’t see anybody. It was second nature for her to scan her surroundings, take stock before she made up her mind what to do. Being vigilant always paid off, one way or another.

She hopped out and tried to put some gas in the Marquis, but the lazy son of a bitch inside wouldn’t authorize the pumps. The machine said she could use a card to pay, but she didn’t have a bank account.

“I’ve got to go inside,” she called. “They probably require prepay after dark. Do you need to use the restroom?”

He had to get out of the car. How was she supposed to get rid of him if he stayed right there? The gas in the tank would take her to the next town, so she’d drive off as soon as he disappeared around the side of the building. It was a shitty thing to do, given they were in the middle of nowhere, but her conscience wouldn’t bother her overmuch. A man like him could take care of himself.

“Probably should,” came his laconic response. The guy unfolded from the passenger seat with easy grace. “No onions on my dog, please. Bean and cheese if you go for microwave burritos.”

Kyra stared at him, bemused. She’d intended to give him five bucks to buy his own dinner, but the way he sauntered off said he assumed she’d fetch it for him. He must be used to women waiting on him; that always made a man cocky.

Well, his loss. She wouldn’t be here when he got back and he’d denied himself a few dollars with his big ego. To make it look good, she started across the parking lot, watching him every step of the way, but he slowed as she did, evidently wanting to make sure she went into the shop. Just her luck—she’d picked up a suspicious-minded, knife-wielding stranger.

Dammit.

Well, she’d duck in and out quicker than he could take a leak. A bell jingled as Kyra opened the glass door, squinting at the shift from shadow to light. Instinct slowed her step when she saw nobody behind the counter. The clerk could be crouched down taking inventory, she supposed, so she angled her head to check the security mirror in the far corner of the store. Several cartons of cigarettes lay scattered back there, some smashed or split open.

Two cars, no attendant. Shit. This wasn’t good.

A muffled thump from the back room reinforced that impression. Robbery in progress—the idiot would be trying to get the cashier to open some hidden safe when most people knew convenience stores had drops in the floor that couldn’t be opened except at shift change. If she had a lick of sense, she’d get out and call 911 on her cell.

Since she found herself stealing toward the back of the store, taking cover behind half rows of shelving stocked with Vienna sausages and condoms, she obviously needed her head examined. Her intervention might save a man’s life, though. And while she loved taking money from suckers, she wouldn’t have it said she was a coward.

Her muscles vibrated with readiness. Every stolen instinct screamed for her to kick the office door open and solve the problem with brute force, but that might get the clerk killed. She didn’t want blood on her hands.

Never again.

So she had to marry caution to her martial prowess; they didn’t have to like each other, just coexist long enough for her to save the day. Kyra shook her head over that. Talk about your unlikely heroines.

Her heart thundered in her chest. She’d nearly reached the door when she heard a cry of pain, quickly throttled. What to do, what to do—

Well, going in seemed out of the question so she knocked a can of chili onto the floor and then spun to one side, watching it roll toward the manager’s office. The robber thought he was slick as he poked his head out, gun in hand, to check the situation.

Gotcha! She slammed both fists against his temples and then tangled her fingers in his greasy hair, yanking his head down as her knee came up. His gun went off as he fell, but the bullet only hit a two-liter bottle of grape soda on a distant shelf.

Kyra gave the would-be stickup artist a little one-two kick in the side, so easy it felt like dancing. No, this son of a bitch wasn’t getting up anytime soon. A shiver ran through her when she realized just how tough her passenger was. With his expertise, she could kill, not just easily, but casually.

Damn, she hoped this Natural Born Killer thing wore off soon. The throb had already started in her temples, too much feedback when she stole more than one skill in a single day. That was why, among other reasons, she didn’t like being touched by strangers. But it wasn’t like tall, dark, and scary had given her any choice, threatening her whitewalls like that. She hated not having a choice.

“You can come out now,” she called to the kid cowering in the office. “Might want to open a roll of that duct tape and get this son of a bitch wrapped up.”