Michelle Bravo Playing With Fire Chapter 37

Gus Keller stared at Taran Tula. She sat still, quite relaxed and unconcerned, her hands interlaced together casually, one long, gorgeous leg stretched over the other long, gorgeous leg. She looked amused. God…she looked beautiful.

“Is there a problem here, Mr. Largo?” she drawled.

Keller took a deep breath, and then he did something that he hadn’t expected to do. But…hell…he was a dead man anyway.

He stepped forward and grabbed her by the wrist, tugging her to her feet. She rose, unresisting. He clasped her to him and kissed her savagely on the mouth.

She rested her warm hands on his hips and returned his kiss with interest.

Finally he broke the kiss and looked into her eyes…so close to his.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” he said huskily.

Could it be that he isn’t chickening out? Michelle thought. He was just jealous of my flirting with Pretorius this evening?

“I noticed you looked a bit irritated every time you saw me and Pretorius together this evening,” she said. “I thought you were just busy planning his demise.”

He pressed her to him roughly again, kissing her deeper and deeper. She seemed to melt into his arms, giving herself to him, her independence and strength forgotten. He moved her gently toward the bed, and she lay back upon it without resistance.

He grasped her wrists and slid her arms back over her head. Her hands, and his, knocked against the rifle.

He rested his body on hers, taking most of the weight on his elbows, but enjoying the feeling of her warm, submissive body under his.

God, he wanted her so bad. And she seemed to want him…

He took his lips from hers and began to kiss her cheek, then moved down to her neck.

“The thought of death excites you, doesn’t it?” she whispered, even as her hand played with his hair.

Keller froze for a second…God….she was so cold-blooded…did she really get her rocks off by anticipating the murder she was about to commit? She was so warm and… her other hand was caressing his cock through the fabric of his trousers…. Could she really be that cold and heartless?

But then…wasn’t he?

He rolled over onto his side, still keeping one of her wrists locked in his hand. He rested his other hand on her waist, and looked deeply into her eyes.

“We’ve known each other for a long time, haven’t we?” he said softly.

Her forehead creased and she looked a bit puzzled at the question.

“Long enough,” she said.

“And how many people have I killed?” he asked.

Her puzzled look increased.

What the hell? What game’s he playing? Oh…of course….he believes I think that he’s Mr. Largo, the assassin. Not knowing that I know the real Mr. Largo.

“Well, Mr. Largo,” she said softly, “To my knowledge you’ve killed fifteen men.”

Fifteen, he thought. Jesus Christ.

He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling of the bedroom. How could this be? To be able to kill fifteen men…required a certain absence of morality. Now that he’d lost his memory…wouldn’t he still be amoral? And yet the thought of killing a man filled him with revulsion.

Now it was Taran Tula’s turn to roll over so that her side pressed against his arm, and she looked down upon him. She was looking amused.

“Fifteen men, and you’ve had glorious sex before every one of them?” she said, laughingly. “And shall we make it a sixteenth?”

She bent her head and kissed him.

He pushed her away, then once more rolled until he was on top of her. He stared at her…trying to think of something to say…but nothing was coming, so he began to kiss her again, slowly, savoringly, even as he did so his mind was racing.

What could he say to make her stop this madness? He wasn’t going to kill anyone! But how could he get out of this? They weren’t going to kill Pretorius here, thank God, but rather back in Sydney. And so all he’d have to do was accompany her to Sydney, and there, just….go. Get on a plane and get the hell out.

But that would leave Pretorius at the mercy of Taran Tula. If he left, and she killed him, his death would still be laid at his door.

He raised his head and stared down at her.

“Taran,” he said carefully, “You know me…you know what I’ve done and what I can do. But…but everything I do…I have a good feeling about it, you know? And this job…I don’t have a good feeling about it. “

She stared up at him, then brought both her hands together and laced them behind the back of her head. In this position the musculature of her arms was well apparent, and in their kissing her breasts had become loosened from her dress and now, with her arms held the way they were, her breasts beckoned him all the more.

“What are you saying, Mr. Largo? You don’t want to do this job?”

“That’s right. I don’t want to do it.”

For some seconds she stared at him in silence.

“Well,” she said at last, “I’m not one to go against a man’s gut feelings. If you don’t want to be in on it, it’s no problem. I can handle it myself.”

He felt a chill of relief, but that wasn’t good enough.

Now, a bit more sure of his ground, he reached out and cupped her breast, warming it in his hand like a brandy snifter. He bent down and caressed her nipple with his lips, and she continued to do pleasant thing to him with her hands…

Finally he lifted his head again and said, “No.”

She laughed. “What do you mean, no?”

“I mean, no. I don’t want you to do the job, either.”

Instantly he knew he’d made a mistake with his choice of words. Her whole body seemed to freeze, and she shoved him away and sat up.

“Oh, you don’t want me to do the job either, eh?”