Milo relaxed – as much as he ever relaxed – at the small round table that graced the corner of the hotel room. The thing wobbled, and the chair he sat in made his ass hurt after about fifteen minutes, but it was what he had. His weapon was laid out on the table, disassembled for cleaning. He hadn’t fired it since the day he’d gone after Toro and taken Tess as his own, which made it even more necessary to clean. A man’s weapon was what kept him alive; you took care of it, or you ended up dead. Hell, sometimes you took care of it, and you still ended up dead. No need to take extra chances.
Tess was sleeping on the bed, her pretty face relaxed in sleep. She had a tendency to sprawl when she was alone in the queen-size bed, snoring softly. Last night, he’d told her to put on makeup, heavy eyeliner, and bright red lipstick, just so he could wreck it as he fucked her. She’d cleaned up a little before they fell asleep, but she still had faded makeup around her eyes, and a brightness to her lips that was more than just her natural beauty.
And that little thought was exactly the problem that had kept him from sleeping last night, even though he’d fucked her so hard he’d thought he was going to be shooting nothing but sand by the end. She’d fallen asleep hard when he was finally done with her, after she’d come several times, clawing at his forearms and screaming into her pillow. And then, in her sleep, she’d turned towards him, curling up into a little ball that was tucked up against his chest. Before he’d thought about it, he’d pressed a light kiss against her hair, loving the soft, herbal scent that rose from her locks even though he hadn’t bothered buying anything more than the hotel shampoo.
Then he’d recoiled up and out of bed. He’d watched her reach out for the source of heat – for him – and when her questing hands didn’t find it, she’d pulled his pillow in tight against her chest with a sleepy little grumble that reminded him of a kitten.
He’d been fully aware of what was happening, and he’d forced himself to ignore it. When she called him ‘Daddy’, when she begged him to handcuff her to the bed again while they fucked, when she’d fallen so easily into the sort of 24/7 kinky play that made him groan and get hard, even now with his weapon in his hand, he’d told himself that it was all just a way to pass the time until he figured out the next move he was going to make. He’d told himself that all he had to do was figure out where Toro was, and then he’d leave her behind, moving on to the next job, and the one after that, and the one after that. This was his life, and even if it was chosen for him, that did not mean he could just walk away from it. He wouldn’t last a handful of days if he tried to step away from the life. And what would he do? Traveling the world as a top-tier assassin didn’t give a person much in the way of life skills.
His life did not allow for a woman. For softness. For someone who curled up into him and then made sleepy, irritated sounds when he got out of bed. And even though Tess wasn’t a woman who was soft when anyone else could see, she was so very pretty.
Part of him wondered if she might make his life easier. A pretty woman could get access to spaces that rugged men who struggled to hide the chill in their eyes could not. With her on his arm, accessing the places that many of his targets hovered would be easier. And if she wasn’t going to make his life easier, he needed to kill her and move on. Killing her sounded harsher, the longer he knew her, which was a perfect example of why spending time getting to know a target was an amateur move. Murderers in TV shows and movies might be able to slaughter someone without knowing anything about them, but that wasn’t how most people he’d known operated. They killed from a distance, content to let poison or a long-range bullet or anything else take the hit for them. They didn’t need that up close and personal moment of watching the light fade out of the target’s eyes. Bunch of romantic bullshit.
He finished reassembling his weapon, checking the chamber and making sure it was unloaded, just like always. He set it down and went back to the woman asleep in his bed. What the hell was he going to do?
Silk Road had called once a week since the first failed attempt on Toro’s life. The drug lord was getting more and more annoyed at the lack of results from Milo. It didn’t help that Milo hadn’t been able to produce even a general idea of where the target had gone. This was not a thing that happened to him – that Toro had gotten away the first time, and Milo couldn’t track him down now. If Milo’s masters in France had been aware of his poor performance, they would have slit his throat and left him to die alone. This was totally unacceptable.
His thoughts cast back to his unconventional childhood. It was like something out of a comic book super villain’s backstory: a shadowy organization that adopted orphans under false pretenses then trained them in a rat-infested facility that was made up of terrors. Kids died. Some were reborn as the kind of assassins who erased themselves from society and dealt with the darkest elements of society. Some just died. Bastille had been one of the best, better than Milo in a tight corner, though he’d lacked the kind of quiet and deadly calm that their teachers had complimented in Milo. They’d been friends for a while, competitive, comparing kill counts like they were a dwarf and an elf. And then they’d both gotten colder, and friendships had been different. Difficult. And then unnecessary.
Tess stirred on the bed, and despite his pointed reminders to his cock to behave itself, he stiffened noticeably. She stretched languidly, all soft curves and fluid motion as she propped her head up on her elbow. Her fingers went to her belly, tracing patterns there as she cast her gaze in his direction, as if they hadn’t fucked themselves exhausted just a few hours before.
“Hey, Daddy,” she said, her voice a throaty purr roughened by sleep. “You got out of—” Something crossed her face, a look of almost panic. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she swallowed hard once, then twice. And then all grace was gone as she scrambled out of bed, her hand cupped hard over her mouth. Naked, she rushed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her with a kick of her foot. He heard the lid of the toilet slam up, and then the sound of retching into the toilet bowl. His lip curled; he hated vomit. He hated being sick, throwing up, the entire process. They hadn’t eaten anything out of the ordinary yesterday, and he hadn’t felt sick at all. If she had the flu or something, got him sick, he would be furious.