Читать книгу Hunting Julian - Jacquelyn Frank - Страница 6

Julian.

Even watching him from a good distance, Asia Callahan could feel the off-the-charts testosterone roiling off the man. It actually had nothing to do with the fact that he was everything “tall, dark and handsome,” like something a lame romance writer might stuff into some dopey story about rakes and swooning or whatever. In truth, it had everything to do with his inherent chemistry, which absolutely reeked of sex, lustfulness, and all things outright carnal. It was as off the charts as a man could get, bordering on inhuman, in Asia’s opinion. The fact that he had good looks to go with it was merely adding insult to injury, and purely coincidental.

Or just lethal.

Asia adjusted her focus slowly, ignoring the ache in her neck as she watched Julian in action through her high-tech night-vision binoculars. He walked with a sinful ease of grace, she noted, for someone so tall and relatively heavy with muscle. Not Mr. Universe heavy, but quite definitively buffed out. Military built, she’d guessed. By now she’d seen him with his shirt off enough times to be pretty familiar with the contours of his upper body. He wasn’t slender or lean or even merely athletic; he was built like a brute…except that in absolute contradiction to his size and body mass, he moved like a god. Smooth, easy, and effortless, and even the slightest casual cock of one hip just oozed a sophisticated style and refinement that a mere brute could never pull off.

Too bad he was a cold-blooded murderer.

Or that was the going theory. One she was highly inclined to believe after spending so much time studying his every move. It had nothing to do with the fact that he kept vampire’s hours, sleeping all day and trolling the night. It wasn’t even because he used women like toilet paper, discarding them just about as fast as he got them to drop their panties for him. After all, Asia was a firm believer in women who owned their sexuality. If these crazy chicks wanted a man like Julian to stick it to them, well, that was their right. If he were any other man, she’d say more power to them…or perhaps even “get out of my way.”

The ones who came crying after a man like that later on—the pathetic ones who thought he was capable of more than a night or two of mind-blowing orgasms—in her opinion, they deserved what they got. Tears and girly emotions had no place in Julian’s scope of interest. And honestly, any time one of them got to walk away with the breath still pushing through their bodies, they ought to consider themselves damn lucky.

Still, she could almost understand their mistakenness. Julian’s smile alone was not only sexy and compelling, it was enough to make anyone on the receiving end of it feel as if she were the only woman in his world. Hell, she was how many yards away? Even she felt like she was the only woman in his world, and he didn’t even know she was there.

Not that Asia was known for being the swooning, sentimental type. No, no, no. No one would ever accuse her of having touchy-feely emotionalism or equally girly crap like that. She’d seen way too much in her life, done too much and been too many places to have even the littlest smidge of a star in either of her eyes. So instead of getting weak in the knees or panting and drooling when she saw Julian pull his smooth routine on the women who seemed to flock to him like vultures to a fresh kill, all she saw was a hell of a lot of masculine sex appeal and a man who knew how to use it to further his own untrustworthy agenda.

Surprise, surprise.

Unfortunately, for about a baker’s dozen of women to date, his “agenda” had ended in highly suspicious and nefarious disappearances. There had even been a pair of bodies along the way, both men who had been closely associated with a couple of the missing women. Just because there had been no female bodies in his wake didn’t mean he wasn’t guilty as the walking sin he was, it just meant he had a really good hiding place for the—

Asia pushed away the finality of that train of thought. She reverted to her analysis of her target. Julian was, among these many other things, a nomad. He’d moved through seven states in as many months, finding large cities and enjoying them with a perverse and obvious relish, rather like the way he enjoyed his women…with the arrogance only a genius criminal mind could attain. He thought he was so clever. He thought he was miles above detection.

Asia, however, had detected him.

Much to the embarrassment of a few police departments across the United States, she alone had made the connection between Julian and the missing women, painstakingly tracking back over an all but trackless trail, making sure she found proof that he was in every single city on every single date of every single disappearance. Once she had established that, she had taken her proof to the FBI, who hadn’t even known the cases from city to city were linked. After all, he didn’t fit any profile any of them had ever heard of. Rarely did a serial killer cross state lines as he had done, and when one did, and subsequently escalated at the rate of Julian’s pace, he usually began to get sloppy. At that point they would be indulging in their own twisted, worked-up emotions, prey to stressors and triggers that would send them spiraling out of control.

Also against the usual profile of a serial killer was Julian’s remarkable sexuality and control. Often sexual dysfunction was key to this sort of mentality; rape was the only way they could find their sadistic pleasure. But Julian lured woman after woman to his lairs again and again, made thorough love to them, and then…he let them go. He didn’t have a type he stuck to; he didn’t have a tried and true lure. He didn’t do anything where anyone could see or hear. He never left as much as a drop of DNA, his or theirs, to guide his hunters back to him.

How was that even possible? How did women simply enter his apartment, never be heard from again, without leaving a trace that their paths had even crossed? How had Kenya simply faded from existence, as if she didn’t have a sister dying in increments every day because she was nowhere to be found?

Asia’s sister had very likely been Julian’s tenth victim. And if Asia hadn’t personally seen Kenya with the bastard the night she’d disappeared, she would never have gotten this close to him. Every time she looked at him, she could see the last image she’d had of her sister as Kenya had stood draped against that gorgeous body, winking at Asia from around his side, so proud of her conquest as she’d brazenly fondled his ass.

It was pure fortune she’d even been there at all. Asia wasn’t the nightclub type. Oh, she had been in more of them than she wanted to count; clubs, bars, and seedy piss-water places trying to pass themselves off as one or the other. People seemed to have a jones for sticky floors, meat-market socialism, and tawdry lighting backed by music that whined, droned, or throbbed. She had never enjoyed it, never wanted to tolerate it, and never had a choice, it seemed, as she ended up in them time after time. But the night of her disappearance, Kenya had begged and pleaded with her to come out and “relax” and “loosen up” and try to have a good time. What her sister had really wanted was a tough-assed bodyguard in the form of a lethal sister to keep the losers off her while she scoped for something rare and fine to take to bed for the night.

She had found Julian.

A rare find indeed. In a club packed with male meat, Asia’s beautiful, rambunctious sister had managed to pick the one and only psychopathic killer in the lot.

But he had a pattern, just like they all had patterns. It had taken some time, but she had figured it out. He picked a city, spent a few weeks getting comfortable and fucking everything in a skirt. Then he picked exactly two women in each city to do…whatever it was he did with them…before moving on to a new location. Asia wanted to be clinical and methodical about what this man had likely done to those girls, but she still cringed and shied away from definitively saying he murdered them. Not because she didn’t believe he was fully capable of such an act, because she did, but because one of those women was her sister, and while she knew in her gut he was responsible for every one of the disappearances, she had no solid proof he had actually killed them. For all she knew and the evidence showed, he could be some kind of collector, keeping them captive and alive somewhere…anywhere.

This was her only hope.

Asia set aside her night-vision goggles and checked her face in her rearview mirror to make certain she hadn’t disturbed the dramatic sweep of color and sparkles decorating her lids and lashes. The cool blue of her eyes was dramatically enhanced by the effect of midnight blue liner and lash coloring, as well as the blue-violet shades of her shadow. Her hair had been twisted back into a simple coif, but shimmering ribbons of silver hung from it in long coils. She got out of her car, the damp Florida air striking her legs as her heels hit the pavement. She then turned toward Pussy Willows, the nightclub where Julian was working as a bouncer, per his usual MO, as well as general eye candy in order to attract the young, beautifully single women the club needed to lure in eager and recently paid males to spend time and drink their money.

Asia had spent the past half hour watching these girls flirt with danger and come on to almost-certain death, all the while knowing that Julian had only taken one victim since arriving in Fort Lauderdale and that, if he stuck to his meticulous schedule, he had only four days remaining before he moved on. He was probably growing a little itchy for his second victim by now.

Asia was determined to be that second and very last victim.

Julian smiled at the buxom blonde with his usual flirtatiousness, one shoulder back against the doorjamb as his gaze drifted down the line of potentials who wanted so badly to gain admittance to the exclusive hot spot. The blonde was cute, but a bit too tawdry for Pussy Willows, which was aiming for just a touch more class than her overtly tits-and-ass approach to her wardrobe. She continued to flirt outrageously with him in hopes he would give her and her girlfriend the nod and let her in, but Julian could tell her patience was wearing thin after twenty minutes of being unsuccessful. The midnight hour was bearing down; he could smell the coke and X lifestyle on her, pressuring her to have fun and get wasted already. She clearly wasn’t used to not getting a response to her “charms,” and it was ticking her off as her ego took a beating from his indifference.

He would have taken pity on her, but the club manager had already been out twice that night to dress Julian down for his choices of admittance. If Vernon arrived a third time with his nasty, derogatory attitude in tow, Julian might end up sacrificing his prime position at the club door in order to belt the shallow, prejudiced bastard so hard his head would snap clean off his neck. Since this would be in antithesis to his goals, it was best if Julian didn’t provoke such an encounter by letting the under-par girl through the door.

Still smiling, he leaned forward toward the girl in question. “Beat it, sweetie,” he drawled. “My boss is a dick and he won’t let me pass anyone who isn’t wearing designer and diamonds.”

Not that Julian was completely certain what that was supposed to mean. From his perspective, clothing and jewelry weren’t the clues that led to an outstanding woman, but it seemed to ring true to the other bouncers and since it was crucial that he fit in, he had to follow their lead. He wasn’t there to make waves and stand out.

He was also aware of the fact that it was only his charm, his looks, and his accent that made the phrase come off as helpful instead of as the insult it really was. The blonde nodded and sighed in resignation, muttered a curse, then grabbed her friend by the arm and walked back down the line away from the club. Vincent, the other bouncer, liked to call the reaction “sour grapes.” It was just another reference that went over his head and, like many others, gave the impression that he was a bit simpler-minded than he actually was. Some put it down to a language barrier due to his heavy accent, just as many liked to think he was as vacuous as he was beautiful, the combination more comforting to them somehow. He let the impression stand, just like he let all the others stand. People could think what they would. He had nothing to prove to anyone and would just as soon be left to himself so he could keep to his own business.

Julian heard her before anyone else would have, the determined click of her heels against the cement walkway drawing his attention almost immediately. There was confidence to the stride, not the mincing steps of a woman wearing heels too high for her to manage. These were high heels, but she managed them very well indeed. When she came around the hedges, he realized it was probably because she was already used to walking on legs that were insanely long and another few inches couldn’t possibly matter. The extent of her legs was imminently obvious because her skirt covered barely more than a scant portion of her upper thighs, the silver fabric shimmering along her amazing body with every single step. She wore no bra, the firmness of her breasts not needing one in the least. Her nipples were slightly erect, obvious under the fabric that ran over her skin with the intimacy of the flow of water against it.

She forwent the line, the action of a woman who knew who and what she was, and ignored the rude complaints and remarks hissed at her as she bypassed those who were waiting like the good little lemmings they were. This woman, Julian realized, waited for no one. Her diamond tennis bracelet and matching anklet satisfied one of Vernon’s requirements, and he was willing to bet that scrap of silver she was pretending to wear as a dress more than fulfilled the other. Either way, he didn’t give a damn what Vernon thought or said.

She was perfect, and she was what he had been looking for.

By the time she made it halfway up the line, he began to catch her fragrance. He caught it all, everything from her shampoo and cosmetics to the clean perfection of light lemon and verbena. Even better than all of that was the sweetness of pure female, everything sexual and exotic to her gender in specific, kept in pristine balance and calling to him in every way. To Julian’s surprise, his body began to react quickly and eagerly, an out-of-control response that was very unlike him and, thereby, all the more exciting for its uniqueness. Maybe it was the beautiful smell of her that enthralled his senses and translated so strongly into his quickly hardening sex, but when those riveting blue eyes roamed over him and just as obviously dismissed him without any impression on her coolly stunning features, that was when he knew it went much deeper than that.

The color around her eyes was striking, but it was also annoying to him. He wondered what she looked like when her face was scrubbed as clean as the rest of her body smelled. She was dusted with sparkles over every inch of her bare skin, of which there was quite a lot. Her ebony hair was also lightly glittering, but in his opinion did not need the artifice. The jet locks picked up the lights outside of the club, turning them holographic with color. He itched with a sharp, insane desire to know how long it was. Long, he guessed, and it would be quite straight. There was a touch of something about her features that hinted at a possible Asian heritage, but it was far too vague for him to be certain.

The woman struck an impatient, autocratic pose when she reached the velvet rope, her eyes sweeping over Vincent just as dismissively as they had Julian. Julian was already there, disengaging the link to let her through, yet standing in her way to prevent her passing.

“ID?” he asked.

She carried no purse that he could see and if she had pockets in her dress he’d be damned. She was obviously of age and he was just as obviously baiting her, his teasing smile meant to charm her into breaking her hardcore attitude.

“Back off, Lurch,” she said dryly, pushing a finger into the center of his chest until her long fingernail dug deep into his flesh. “We both know I’m old enough to be here. I’m not giving some fluffy piece of candy an eyeball at my address. You’ll have to be satisfied with what you see.”

She dropped her hand to indicate her stunning figure with a careless sweep of her fingers.

“Julian,” Vincent warned in a sharp whisper, “let her in.”

Julian frowned at the command and ignored the other bouncer so he could maybe provoke her into touching him again. The contact had been positively electric, charging up every nerve ending in his body and making him rather regretful that he hadn’t tucked in his shirt that night. He would have loved to see how she reacted to knowing he had a hell of an erection just from her approach. She probably wouldn’t appreciate it the way he did for its uniqueness, but it might have gotten a pause from her, or at least a fiery reaction of indignation he would have loved to feel and witness.

“What will you do for me if I let you pass?” he asked archly, definitely risking his job and not caring any more than he had a few minutes earlier. This was what he was there for. She was what he was there for. Now that he had his target, there was no longer any reason to wait around for another.

She placed a hand on a curved hip, the opposite one jutting out as she rested her weight back on her heel and slowly looked him over.

“Look, I realize you are used to that smarmy charm working on the little girls who come in here, but I am neither a girl nor charmed, so back off before I call Vernon out here and get your ass fired.”

“Go ahead. I would rather quit than pass up an opportunity to stand in your path.”

She smiled at that, a slow curving of her lips that very obviously did not reach her beautifully cold blue eyes. “That sounded almost regal and sincere. You practice that one in the mirror?”

“No, actually, it was sincere. Doesn’t majesty deserve regality?”

She tilted her head and studied him, looking briefly perplexed, an expression that finally did make it to her eyes. He realized these American women were not used to men who spoke in such ways without coming off as insincere or obviously…what was the term she had used? Smarmy.

Julian turned aside at last and offered his arm to her.

“At least let me buy you your first drink before the undeserving throng tries to sweep you away?”

“Thanks, but I don’t drink,” she said as she ignored his arm and breezed past him. “I’m just here to get laid.”

The remark set up a cheer from those in the front of the line who had overheard her, and Vincent chuckled into his fist. Julian was barely paying attention to him as he kept his focus on the sway of her behind under that slinky silver fabric while she walked away in bold, sexy strides. “I believe,” he said softly aloud to no one, “I could consider that an invitation.”

Julian dismissed the other bouncer and the line of people outside and instantly followed his target. The club had what Vernon liked to call a “comfortable” crowd. It was just enough to look popular and wildly fun, but not so much that it felt like an icebox jammed full of meat. Julian never took his eyes off her, and it wasn’t difficult at all to track her. The silver of her dress had much less to do with that than the fact that she was wickedly tall for a woman and that every inch of her became a magnet to everything in the room with a penis.

“Shit,” he muttered when he saw the room shift to accommodate and then crowd her arrival. She blew off the first few predators with a cold warning look and a sharp, silent palm to ward them off, but Julian realized she had dressed to attract what she had claimed she wanted, and before long she would have her pick of the room.

He frowned as he thought of all those other men moving aggressively into her sphere. Not that competition worried him, because he hardly considered them as such, but he realized he didn’t think he was going to like watching her play the game of social flirtation and invitation as she searched for someone to invite to her bed.

Julian found himself suppressing a severe vocal reaction at the thought of her offering herself to anyone but him. Even muted, the possessive and feral sound startled a few nearby patrons, and he curled his fingers into fists in an attempt to get control of himself. It was to be expected, he told himself sternly. He had stayed longer than he should and his patience was wearing thin as his next target had eluded him.

But now, he was certain, she was here; a vision in silver looking for a man to mate with. The odd thing was that despite her declaration of such a goal, he sensed no sexual readiness from her. He could smell not a hint of active pheromones spiking in search of a target of their own. Oh, he could scent the rush of her adrenaline well enough, and he heard the excited pounding of her heart, but there was something more akin to fear and anger in that mix than there was of sexual predation. But perhaps that was just a matter of allowing herself time to sit back, relax, and slowly open herself up to the possibilities.

However, Julian was going to be her one and only possibility. He would see to that. He hadn’t come this far and waited this long for his prize only to be turned away by mere attitude or be pushed aside for a simple human male.

Julian walked by her as soon as she sat down on the raised stool at a lone little round table. Surrounded by others, yet alone in the sea of humanity, for a moment she seemed ill-fitted to her surroundings. She was perfectly turned out and confident as hell, but he somehow got the impression she was just there to do what she had to do to get what she wanted, not because she enjoyed very much about it. It baffled him that someone so striking would have to resort to such raw tactics to find physical satisfaction. Men should be spilling out of every crevice to get close to her, just as they were doing now. Julian found it fascinating that she wasn’t already marked by another.

Not that this would have stopped him. It hadn’t before and it wouldn’t now. Especially not now. He just found it curious. He had to assume it wasn’t for lack of trying by others, and taking into consideration her brusque, bold nature he could only conclude that this was the way she wanted it to be. Brief, easy, and detached.

Intriguing.

Such a complex ego and personality would certainly make for some interesting challenges, he made no mistake about that, but he was definitely spoiling for a challenge.

From her. Not from a thousand other male idiots who wouldn’t know what to do with a woman like this if given a map, a guide, and a way to cheat. Besides, she smelled good enough to eat, and he was realizing just how damn hungry he really was.

In all of this time…encountering so many women and experiencing them at their most primal and most vulnerable, and he had never reacted like this. Julian began to realize there was a significant reason for all of it—the possessive urges, the jealousy, and most of all the uncontrolled response of his entire psyche just to her distant presence. The way he had been so juiced up by the simplest touch of her fingertip should have tipped him off instantly, but he’d been caught between his needs for his second target of the month and the press of time. He hadn’t seen it at first. Now he began to understand what he was standing in the shadow of.

If Kine could see him now, he’d make Julian suffer for every moment he had touted how he didn’t need a kindra. But at that time he hadn’t fully appreciated how powerful certain instinctual urges could really be, and he was quite sorry now for not showing them their due respect. He was becoming more regretful by the second as his skin literally began to tighten with the need to get closer to her. She called to him on a visceral level and he knew that although resistance was inconceivable for him at this point, the pull was completely one-sided until he did what he had to do. However, it would require gaining her trust in order to betray it.

Not an easy task for many reasons, her obviously jaded and acerbic personality being the key sticking point.

Julian moved over to the bar across from her and watched very carefully as she took pleasure in blowing off a few more men before deigning to be a little charming to one or two. She was holding a very select court within a half an hour and Julian studied each of her choices carefully. Each one was handsome, carried a fit build, and was obviously full of confidence. A lot like him, if he thought about it, but she had dismissed him for some reason. It occurred to him that her dismissal had been rather purposeful in its way. She had gone out of her way to cut him much more sharply than she did others.

Yet her parting shot had been very leading.

Julian pushed away from the bar and crossed to her. He stepped through her court and held out a hand in invitation although he had yet to see her dance. He didn’t verbalize his request and didn’t back away when she ignored him for a while to finish her current conversation. Then she turned her head and looked up at him. For a moment there was something very hostile flashing in the cold depths of her ice blue eyes, and then she cocked a brow in question.

“Back again?” she asked almost wearily. She leaned back in her chair, liquid silver fabric drawing tight over her fine breasts. He felt every man in range zero in on the detail and it grated harshly on his senses as they reacted with sexual arousal in varying degrees. Each and every one of them was determined to be the one she took home with her. Half of them were already hard in anticipation of it.

He needed to withdraw her from this throng before his temper began to chafe. As well trained as he was in controlling his more volatile emotions, he was in deep and alien waters now. He’d never experienced the brutality of impulsive feelings that he was currently being thrashed with.

“Again?” he echoed softly, meeting the chill beauty of her gaze. “I never left. However, it is time I asked you to dance.”

“Time?” she asked archly.

“Well, yes. You challenged me earlier. I took up the gauntlet. The next step would be to convince you that I am the one you want to take to your bed tonight. I imagine dancing with you, and therefore obtaining time for private discussion, is one of the best ways to secure that in this environment.”

“Hey!” someone protested his forthright supposition.

She held up a hand to stay the protester’s chivalrous intent.

“Dancing will convince me to fuck you?” she queried just as bluntly. “You must be a hell of a dancer.”

“Only one way to find out,” he said.

She contemplated the proposal with amusement on her lips, then got up and walked past him, once again refusing to let him touch her even to guide her to the dance floor. That was okay, though. He would be touching her soon enough.

They reached the floor and he took the choice away from her abruptly, grasping her wrist and tugging her in close and tight along his body. She was tall and incredibly fit beneath her curves, her strength showing itself in a flare of resistance for a moment before she seemed to make herself relax against him. He understood instantly that it wasn’t a real relaxation, the low tension in her spine and legs radiating clearly into his psyche. He had expected her to be uptight, so he didn’t understand why she would try to affect otherwise. Why, he wondered, did she make herself curl against his body when she wasn’t yet ready to do so?

He tested her, dropping a hand into the low, sweeping curve of her spine as it spread out over her sweetly turned bottom. He moved her in tight to the tempo of the music, swaying her sharply and deeply into the bend of his hard body. His very hard body. He made the state of his arousal known, letting her feel the thickness and weight of it through both their clothing, figuring she should share in the state since she’d caused it a good forty minutes ago and it hadn’t eased since. But that was okay, too. He was enjoying the sensation. The deprivation. He wasn’t looking for easy relief; he wanted to drag it to him kicking and screaming, and he knew she would be the perfect resource for the battle he craved.

Julian turned her quickly around in his arms, giving himself the cushion of her rear for his hips as he curved an arm around her ribs under her breasts. He moved them both to the low, pulsing throb of the music almost as reflex. His full attention was elsewhere. His nose drifted down the line of her neck as he drew in that delicious verbena cleanliness. Feminine musk rose from her skin beneath her dress, the heat of the press of so many bodies making her warm considerably and creating the rich aroma in abundance. It was agonizing and gorgeous all at once. He longed to draw her away somewhere alone so he could indulge without all the harsh outside influences of smoke, alcohol, and overused synthetic perfumes worn by others.

“This is quite an argument,” she said with a flirtatious rubbing of her backside against his zipper. Julian’s hands swept down to her hips, holding her there against him as he let her warmth burn into him until he ached. She did not argue in the least, instead taunting him in seductive slides and wriggles.

Julian grabbed her around her slender throat, tipping her head back against his shoulder and engaging her ear with a rough-voiced warning. “Don’t think you will play me like this and then just walk away with a toss of these sweet shoulders and that tart attitude of yours.”

“I can do whatever I want. It’s a free country and I owe you nothing.” She turned in his hold, reaching down to flick a saucy finger up the length of his erection. “I think I’ve given you enough already.”

Then she tossed her shoulders and whirled out of his hold, making as if to walk away. Julian didn’t let her get that far before returning her with an almost elegant catch and spin back against him. He settled her firmly in place, his hand back over her bottom although quite a bit more blatantly this time.

“Tease,” he said gruffly against her ear. “Why are you being so purposely cruel to me? What have I done that so offends you?”

“Why would you think I am offended? Can’t stand some simple hard-to-get? Grow a thicker skin,” she advised. “Toughen up.”

“I am plenty tough enough. Hard as steel, in fact,” he hissed against her cheek. “More so than I have been for a very long time.”

“Mmm. Sure,” she scoffed. “Guy like you? You probably take home some airheaded tart every single night. Maybe I’m just not interested in being one of the crowd. Ever consider that?”

“You wouldn’t be. I can promise you that. You would be the very last woman I would ever bring to my home. There would be you and no other after you.”

Asia couldn’t decide if that was a threat or a deadly promise. Still, she had to force herself past her knowledge of the game he was playing with her. She was pushing him too hard. She needed to be his choice, just as he was promising. She needed him to take her with him, and she prayed he would try to do to her what he had done to Kenya. She didn’t have an exact plan per se because she didn’t know exactly what it was he had done, but she was not going to leave him until he told her where her sister was. He would pay, one way or another, but above all else she had to know what had happened to Kenya.

Large hands slid over her hips and waist, and she shuddered at the sensation. It was horrifying, how a caress could be so logically repulsive and yet physically compelling all at once. In truth, she felt the crawling of her skin because she knew what he had done, but it was almost as if…as if the rest of her body was disavowing that knowledge just so it could respond on a purely molecular level. Without her permission, she felt the draw of him that so many other women must have felt. But that was okay, she told herself. She wanted to feel everything exactly as they had. She wanted to do everything exactly as his other victims had.

She had already made mistakes, like avoidance and cringing when his touch had so sharply reviled her. When he had reached in offer to get her to dance, she had been flooded with the irrepressible rage of wanting to hurt him in an act of vengeance. Asia needed to control that fury. She wouldn’t allow herself to destroy her opportunity with wild emotion.

So now she took slow, even breaths and let him press his prodding erection against her pubic mound as they swayed in a rhythm contrary to the music around them. He seemed oddly out of control, like his patience was worn very thin. Was it because he was off schedule and he was eager for his latest kill? His words promised her he wasn’t just looking to get laid. He wanted to get it all off. Whatever it was, he wanted to use her completely to satisfy his needs—both carnal and homicidal, if that was his goal. She could feel it in the desperation of his touch and the way he wouldn’t let her move away from him again.

“That’s quite an unbelievable promise,” she whispered with a sly grin as she snaked two fingertips down the back of his neck in a meandering path of stimulation. “I could be the worst lay in town.”

His laugh of disbelief was flattering and resounding. He was convinced otherwise and he made no bones about it.

“If this was only about sex, I might be worried,” he conceded, “but it isn’t.”

A stupider girl would have taken that charmingly accented phrase as a promise of depth and romance. Many of them probably had. Thirteen of them at the very least. It disturbed her to think her sister had fallen so foolishly into such candied promises. Kenya was not so naïve to be swept away in such ways.

“Then what is it about?” she dared to ask.

“Oh, much more than the physical. Even beyond the spiritual. Once you learn the truth of that, perhaps you will not be as harsh and jaded as you are.”

“You call it jaded; I call it having my eyes wide open.”

“I call it a shame. The pain you American women suffer at the hands of your foolish men only proves to me how lacking they are as a sex and species.”

“You are of their sex and species,” she reminded him with a laugh.

“I am something very different than you have ever known before. This is another promise I can make. In my culture, you would be quite treasured. I would treasure you.”

Yes, of course you would. You would kill me, stuff me, and mount me, getting off on the memory of my screams and death throes again and again as you treasured some trophy from my body.

Asia smiled in contradiction to her poisoned thoughts. “You haven’t even asked me my name,” she noted.

“Nor have you asked mine. I imagined you would ask when you were interested, and you would give when you were ready. I am in no hurry. I don’t plan on losing track of you anytime soon.”

Asia suppressed a shiver and simply smiled up into his pine green eyes again, rather creeped out by her own morbid thoughts. She wasn’t afraid that she couldn’t handle him, it was just how wretchedly sincere he sounded just then. It made her want to scream inside and out. But Asia Callahan, renowned as one of the very best bounty hunters and martial artists in the biz, always got her man, and this one was the most important catch of her life.

Maybe even her sister’s life.

“Let’s go,” she said quite suddenly, her fingertips trailing slowly down the back of his neck in a sensual invitation. “If we’re going to party, I want to get started. Now.”

Julian raised a brow at her sudden and swift change of gears. There was no denying how genuine the invitation was—she did indeed want to get going—but he also sensed she had a not-so-hidden agenda, and it made him hesitate. Oh, had he been anyone else he would have believed the bold beauty he held against his body and her invitation to play, but he wasn’t just anyone else and she wasn’t just any woman.

The question was—who exactly was she?

It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter, he thought fiercely. He had to have her and he would do everything to see that he made her his.

“My place or yours?” he asked roughly as her touch powered through him in racing spears of energy. It could all sound almost normal. Almost real. Julian craved what she offered so artfully, his heart racing to know her and how she would feel in the throes of lusty, energetic screams. “Never mind. You’ll come with me,” he told her in the very next breath.

She gave him another of those enigmatically simple, shallow smiles that never quite thawed the icy calculation in her eyes. Julian did not pay that any mind. She was voluntarily allowing him to take her somewhere private, and that was all that mattered.

He swept her outside of the club, keeping her tight and close to his body. He ignored Vincent’s leer and thumbs-up and hastened his prize to the rental car he had chosen a month earlier. He knew the racy design earned him status in the eyes of some women, and he also knew it would make no impression on this woman in particular. He rather enjoyed that idea. It was indicative of a woman who, for all her fine embellishments, was not dependent on material things. He thought of how useful that would be as he ushered her into the vehicle and hurried to get behind the wheel.

“I need to stop at my car for my purse,” she informed him quickly, leaning her warmth against the length of his arm and trailing fingertips against his chest. He nodded curtly and threw the metallic beast into gear.

Asia snagged her bag from her car, not bothering to check what she already knew was ready and waiting for her within it. Even if he hadn’t stopped as she had requested, she was prepared for that, too. This was just added insurance.

Julian Sawyer was going to regret the day he’d ever laid a hand on her sister.