Stress Relief Read online

Andi bit back a gasp as he sliced a single neat furrow in his own flesh, neatly bisecting the wolf’s head tattoo above his right pec. As a thick trickle of blood began to flow down his muscular chest, he inserted the sharp tip of the knife and flicked his wrist. Something small and silver flew out of the wound and landed on the bland cream colored carpet at their feet. To Andi, it looked like a bloody dime but when she looked closer, she saw that it was square instead of round and there was some kind of intricate tracing on its surface.

  “What is it?” she asked, eyeing the strange object warily.

  “The implant connected to the indicator back at your office. This way when I go, no one can track me.”

  “Oh.” It made sense suddenly and Andi was filled with a strange mixture of relief that he was neither suicidal nor homicidal and regret that he was leaving just when she had found him. To her embarrassment, she found that her eyes were wet again.

  “Hey, what’s with the waterworks, sweetheart? Why are you crying now?” Matt put down the knife again and cupped her chin.

  Andi shook her head and pulled away. With a quick, jerky motion she wiped the tears from her eyes. “I guess…I guess it’s just that I’m going to miss you. I’ve thought about leaving too but I know I can’t. They—the Agency—has eyes and ears everywhere and I don’t have the skill to get away from them. It’s like living inside some kind of Orwellian novel and you can never leave, never go away and have any kind of a normal life ever again.”

  “Well, I don’t know about having a normal life, but we’re sure as hell leaving tonight.” Matt had grabbed a swatch of fabric—it looked like a plain white t-shirt—and absently pressed it against the wound he had made on his chest.

  Andi looked at him, uncertain if she had heard him correctly. “We? You mean…you mean you’re taking me with you?”

  “You didn’t really think I’d leave you behind, did you?” He grinned at her, his blue eyes flashing. “Not after I finally got to know you…if you wanna call it that.”

  Andi blushed but found herself smiling too. “I guess we can call it that. But I hope we’ll get to know each other a lot better in the future.”

  “You can count on it.” He leaned in and gave her another swift kiss. “Look, it won’t be a normal life, like I said. We’ll be on the run but we’ll be together and I know I can keep them from finding us.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Andi said fervently. “But…but are you sure I won’t just slow you down?”

  “Hell, no, sweetheart. Don’t worry about that.” He barked a short laugh. “I’ll use their own training against them. We’ll just fade into the woodwork, never to be seen again. Probably end up down in Rio or somewhere like that. So what do you say, will you come?”

  Andi thought of it—a real life. Traveling the world instead being stuck in the dark, cramped apartment controlling agents and girls and slowly dying inside because she couldn’t ever have any kind of personal relationship again. Not if she wanted the person she had it with to survive, that was. And spending her life with Matt—a man who looked like the most frightening killer on the outside but was capable of patience and tenderness she’d never known before on the inside.

  “Yes,” she said, smiling at him. “Yes, absolutely, let’s go.”

  “All right then, it’s getting late and we only have…” He looked at a black clock hanging on the plain white wall of the apartment. “Five hours to get a head start. So you’d better get dressed.” His pale blue eyes scanned briefly over her body, and he gave her a slow, lazy smile. “Unless you want to cut that to four hours.”

  Andi felt a warm, sexual flush starting between her bare breasts. In all the excitement with the knife and his offer to take her with him, she had completely overlooked the fact that they were both naked. “No, that’s all right,” she said, reaching for the red silk shirt and black leather mini skirt which had long been discarded. “I think we’d better get moving. But maybe I can get a rain check for later. You know, being on the run might be kind of hectic. So by the time we get wherever we’re going tonight, you might need some stress relief again.”

  Matt laughed. “Absolutely, sweetheart. That’s exactly what I’m gonna need.” Then he pulled her close suddenly and gave her a long, demanding kiss. “I meant what I said, you know. I do love you, Andi, even though we hardly know each other. I’ve been thinking about you for years, wanting to get to know you, to get to love you in person instead of from a distance. I’m glad you came tonight instead of sending one of the girls.”

  “Me too.” Impulsively, Andi kissed him back. “Now let’s get out of here. We have our whole life ahead of us and I want to start living it.”

  End

  Read on for the first chapter of Exiled, book 7 of Evangeline's Brides of the Kindred series.

  Chapter One

  “I can’t wear this! Not out in public where everyone can see me!” Lissa stared down at herself in horror. The gown her new friend Kat had squeezed her into was the complete opposite of the flowing white priestess robes she was used to wearing. It was a rich royal purple and the material was stiff and binding. But it wasn’t the cut or color of the gown that Lissa objected to—it was the fact that it was completely obscene.

  “Lissa—” Kat began in a reasonable tone of voice but Lissa shook her head.

  “Just look at me, Kat! I…I’m exposed.” She pointed down to the stiff molded cups of the gown that cupped her breasts in a tight embrace. The problem was, the gown only cupped the bottoms of them, leaving her nipples bare except for two tiny pieces of pale gold lace that fanned out of the tops of the cups to act as flimsy shields. They covered her—barely—as long as she stood perfectly straight and didn’t shift around too much. But what if I need to move quickly? What if I drop something and need to pick it up? Lissa was sure if that happened, she would fall out of the dress completely, baring herself to anyone watching.

  “You’re fine as long as you don’t bend down,” Kat said, obviously having the same thought. “Just stand up straight and don’t wiggle.”

  “But…but what about the bottom part?” Lissa motioned to the lower half of the gown. The skin tight bodice hugged her waist and hips and flowed out behind her in an elaborate, shimmering, crystal encrusted train. It was the place where the bodice split, a few inches below her belly button, that worried Lissa. The dress showed her crotch in a most provocative manner.

  “I know it’s kind of…revealing,” Kat said, frowning. “But you do have decorative panties to go with it.”

  Decorative was a good word to describe them, Lissa thought, because they really weren’t very practical at all. A tiny triangle of gold lace that matched her nipple shields barely covered the small thatch of blond curls at the apex of her sex. The back of the panties was a string—just one little gold string that ran up the back of her behind. Lissa had never worn undergarments like this before—Kat had called it a “thong.” Lissa called it perverted.

  “Please, Kat,” she begged. “I just can’t. It’s not just that I’m ashamed to be seen in public like this. It’s…it’s that Saber will see me too.” She could barely force her kinsman’s name from her dry throat but she made herself do it anyway. He was the real reason she didn’t want to appear in this obscene get up. Lissa was naturally modest and shy but his was the only opinion she really cared about. And if he saw her looking like this…What will he think of me? Lissa asked herself and was too afraid to contemplate the answer.

  She and Saber were of the same clan—the Sun Clan of the Touch Kindred—and she had been adopted into his family after her parents had died. There was no blood tie between them but according to the strict laws of her people, the two circumstances made Saber her older brother twice over and as such, completely off limits.

  Despite this taboo, Lissa had allowed an illicit love to grow between them—a love she had subsequently ended. But to her lasting shame, she still had feelings for the tall warrior with the hazel eyes. He had comforted her after the death of her famil