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“That doesn’t make me yours,” she whispers. Color stains her cheeks, contrary to her words.

“Pretty admission.” I remove my forearm from her throat. “Isn’t it over if we don’t kill each other this way?”

She hisses at me and bucks beneath me. I sigh and pull out, gripping her hips. Poppy’s sharp cry tells me she didn’t expect me to leave her empty, nor did she want that. Too late now. I smile as I flip her again so that she lies on her stomach as I nudge her knees wide and slide back inside her, lacing our hands together over her head and move slowly inside her.

My girl’s legs tremble, and she pushes back, but she doesn’t try to push me off. I rumble my approval, gliding deeper until she sighs and turns her head to the side, letting me take her.

“Better?” I murmur, kissing her cheek.

She nods, a slight smile on her face as her fingers flex in mine. “I’m thinking of different ways to kill you, Walker.”

That startles a laugh out of me. “I’ve never been woken by being fucked and choked before,” I admit, burying my cock deep inside her and stilling. She clamps down on me hard and closes her legs. I let her and groan when I realize the vice she’s made of her thighs and her ass. Freeing one hand, I slide beneath her to find one of those pretty nipple rings and tug, playing gently while she mewls for me. “How would you kill me?”

Never mind why. People have been trying to kill me for over three decades. Their reasons haven’t always been clear despite the fact I’m sure they had one at the time. But I’m interested to hear what she says. Maybe, if she’s thought it through, I’ll let her orgasm.

“I thought of poison,” she whispers. “But that seemed so impersonal. I didn’t like it,” she admits.

I tweak her nipple until she sobs her refreshed need softly into the filthy pillow. “Good. Make it closer. Stay with your target,” I agree. “What else?”

“I could run you over,” she says thoughtfully. “I have a pickup. That would do the job effectively.”

I start to move again, fucking her at a steady pace. She’s already made me come once, and I can go for a damn long time at this rate. “Maybe. Or maybe I’d get up and chase you. End your life in return,” I say softly.

“Would you?” She twists to look at me. “Would you kill me, Walker?”

I fuck her slowly. “Could I?” I watch her, to see if I scare her, but she only watches me back. Death is no stranger to this woman. She’s seen it in as many incarnations as I have. “Yes,” I say finally. “I could kill you. Would I waste curiosity, your strange sense of how the world works, what you see?” I let that sink in then lean down and kiss the corner of her mouth. “I could wrap my hands around your throat and kill you now, little toy. Prevent your next breath. You wouldn’t be able to stop me.”

Her reality isn’t something she’s considered. What I did when I flipped her was so much more than simply sex. Her eyes widen as her breaths come short.

“Walker—” she whispers. White edges into the corners of her eyes. Fear, for the first time, though not aimed at me. Not exactly.

I stare down at her, unyielding as I release her nipple and glide my hand between her breasts. It doesn’t take much to close my palm hard around her throat, arch her up to me.

Her cunt clamps so hard on my cock I groan right into her upturned mouth. My tongue scrapes along her lips as she opens her legs wide, submitting to me in full.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful.” I whisper, slamming into her as I steal her breaths. All of them. She won’t take another until I come, and that might take a while now.

I stare down at her, then kiss those soft lips. Poppy licks my tongue and sucks on it, working her pretty pussy and willing my cock as I fuck her. She seems to have understood the rules of our game. She sent me down a road I couldn’t come back from without help, though I chose not to throw her off me, let her see how far she’d go.

One slap brought me back, and her pretty mouth.

I’ve got her mouth now, and it will take more than a slap if I steal her life away now. Instead I fuck her slow and long, as though I have all day as she panics and works hard, losing more and more air with every precious second. And as her movements fail, I release her throat and reach down between us, pinching her clit.

Poppy screams softly into the air between us. Her hot little pussy trembles as she gushes for me then falls forward, lost to her orgasm as I hold her to me gently. The girl shaking in my arms is the same one who tried to kill me before. The same one who slapped me and brought me back. Now, she’s falling apart in my arms.

I’m hardly surprised when she slides out from under my body a few minutes later, dresses and lifts the keys to my bike. I roll over and let her, knowing I can track the keys and the bike to within an inch of their locations. She won’t dare damage it or there’ll be more hell to pay than she could possibly afford.

“A gun. Facing you,” she says decisively. That’s all she says, picking up her clothes and pulling them back on as though she doesn’t expect an answer at all.

So, I don’t give her one. But I do watch as she saunters out the door as though I haven’t just fucked her five ways from Sunday, my keys dangling in her hand.

I still have more questions than answers regarding Poppy, but at least she has a ride home. And in a few minutes, I’ll know exactly where that is.

Chapter Five

The Men in My Life

Poppy