Page 26 of Brought to Light
The silence stretched. “Sometimes it’s fun,” he said at last in a rush, almost under his breath.
I blinked at him. I knew Oskar enjoyed a good fight, and that wasn’t alien to me. But the killing itself? “Fun?”
Callum met my eyes at last. “I had this one job—come on, let’s find a place to sleep, and I’ll tell you on the way.” I nodded and we set off through the trees. “There was this nice suburban housewife who hired me. I still don’t know how she found me. I think her cousin was an ex-con, and he knew someone—anyway. Somehow she got in touch. She offered me fifty thousand dollars to kill her neighbor. Said she’d tried calling the cops over and over again, but they couldn’t do anything, and she was at her wits’ end, because he kept waking up her kids. So, okay, weird, and fifty grand isn’t usually enough, but she—okay, this is really embarrassing.”
I glanced up at him. “More embarrassing than admitting killing people is fun?”
Callum frowned and looked at me too, and for a second our gazes caught and held. His eyes glinted, catching a stray shaft of moonlight. “I’m not embarrassed about that. It’s just the truth. I thought you people were all about telling the truth no matter what.”
“We’re as dishonest as humans,” I said. “We can’t lie directly. But we find ways around it.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed.” He sighed. “All right, so here’s the embarrassing part. She used her mom voice on me.”
“Her—oh, you can’t be serious.” I started to laugh, helpless to stop it. It had taken me a moment to understand the idiom, but…yes, some concepts were universal. I remembered my mother shouting at me from the kitchen door to stop ruining her herb garden playing too roughly with Oskar, and fought off a wave of sadness. My laughter died away.
“Sorry,” Callum said awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to—you know we’ll get there in time, right? She’ll be all right. I promise.”
“You can’t promise that. What happened to telling me the truth?”
Callum was so close, close enough that I could see the slight tic in his jaw as he stared me down. Our heights almost matched. Near enough, anyway, that he could’ve kissed me without having to do more than tilt his head.
Or I could kiss him. I never minded being the instigator, although Callum seemed like a man who’d want to be in control.
And I wouldn’t mind that, either. Far from it.
“I’m promising to do my best, then, I guess,” he said. “That’s all I can offer you.”
“That’s more than I could ask for.” I couldn’t stop looking away from his mouth. That pressure from earlier had returned, more insistently this time. Something had to give way, or I’d run screaming into the woods. I could hardly hold still, even though I was simultaneously tired enough to collapse. My head felt three times its size, filled to bursting with everything I still couldn’t feel properly. “Callum.” It came out a hoarse whisper. “Callum, I need…”
He laughed, quick and harsh. “Yeah. One battle down, another battle tomorrow. I know what you need. That’s the same in every realm.”
Before I could respond, his hands were on my waist, and he pushed, walking me backward until I hit a tree. And then his mouth covered mine, hard and determined.
Chapter Thirteen
Linden
I hadn’t been kissed in a long time, and I couldn’t remember being kissed like this at all. Callum devoured me, his fingers digging into my hips and his mouth claiming mine. I caught fistfuls of his jacket and dragged him closer. He ground his hips against me, his cock hardening as he thrust.
Mine rose desperately to meet it. All that thrumming tension in my body came to the surface, demanding more kisses, more friction,more. Callum might not be much taller, but he outweighed me by enough to have me trapped against the tree, enough that I knew if he was on top of me I’d be pinned and helpless.
I moaned into his mouth, tangling my tongue with his and wrapping my arms around his back. Callum’s stubble scratched against my lips, rubbing them raw and swollen. I wanted more of that. I wanted him to mark me. If I died tomorrow, I wanted to be so well-used and thoroughly fucked that I could think of that, instead of what I faced.
Callum tore his mouth away and bit at my throat, hot and stinging and perfect. I tipped my head back. Tree branches swam above me, blurry in my half-focused vision. Callum panted against my skin. One of his hands held me still at my waist, while the other found its way around my back, sliding down into my jeans, the fingers teasing lower.
“Yes,” I gasped. “Yes,that.”
“We don’t have anything,” he said against my neck. But he didn’t stop working his hand down, his middle finger teasing my crease and the rest of his hand massaging my cheeks.
I let go of him and shoved him back so I could get a hand into my pocket. Callum resisted, pushing me back against the tree. “I have—mmph,” I said as he took my mouth again. My lips parted for him without resistance. I couldn’t help it. “I have—in my pocket.”
Callum pulled back enough to stare at me. He looked surprisingly wrecked, his own lips shiny and his cheeks flushed, his dark eyes a little glazed. “You brought lube. To a forest?”
I finally managed to get the little jar out of my pocket and waved it at him. “Not lube, technically. But it’s slippery. And it’s safe for internal use.”
Callum blinked at me, and then a wide, mischievous grin spread over his face. He had such grim features usually. Smiling like that, he took my breath away—or what I had left after that last spate of kisses.
“We should find somewhere to lie down, then—”
