“I don’t think so, Tagen,” the lady said, before Janey could get her mouth back in working order. She didn’t look or sound the least bit shocked or scandalized by the question, either. “They might have some synthetic musk, though.”

“I do not think that will help.” The man frowned. “The stimulant is essential.”

“Try sniffing some of them. See if you get a reaction.” The woman turned back to Janey. “Do you have, like, a peppermint based one or something? That opens up the blood vessels pretty good, right?”

“Are you guys fucking with me?” Janey demanded, planting her hands on her hips.

Both man and woman looked at her with unfeigned surprise. “No,” they said, in unison.

Janey stared at both of them. “Okay,” she said at last, and shook her head as she walked around the counter and into the lube aisle. “Takes all kinds, I guess.” And she was going to have to invent some whole new kinds in order to make any damn sense of those two.

Janey and the big man headed into the land ‘o lube, leaving his girl at the counter. She found a few of the best-sellers in synthetic musk and passed them over, but the fella kept his hands in his pockets, obliging her to open the bottles herself and let him sniff them like a Frenchman with a wine cork. Up close, she realized he had to be wearing some fucked-up contact lenses, because he had the eyes of an eagle or a lion, a brilliant shade of burning gold, and practically no whites at all. Looking into those eyes almost made Janey forget just how weird the guy was and only remember how deep his voice was and how broad his chest was.

“You know,” she said, sotto voce in case the lady was listening and really was connected to this guy. “If you’re in the market for a girlfriend, you don’t have to settle for the ones that require batteries.” She winked.

His eagle eyes fixed on her in an instant, although his expression never changed. There was a heat there, a real burning hunger that went way beyond a man’s natural appreciation for the goodies a gal like Janey had to offer and into the realm so purely physical it was almost an abstraction. He didn’t know her, didn’t like her, didn’t not like her, and didn’t need to. He’d just take her. Thoroughly. Repeatedly. Fantastically. Looking up at him, Janey had the dizzying sensation that sex with this man would be a tantric phenomenon. It would be sex for the sake of pure, animal sex.

“I’m off at five,” she heard herself say. “You can meet me here. I’ll take you back to my place and we’ll take turns blowing each other’s minds.”

His nostrils flared. The heat in his amazing eyes smoldered. Still, he did not speak.

“This is a come-on, Jack,” she said, a little curtly. She’d never propositioned a customer before. She couldn’t believe she was doing it now, but here it was and he was giving her no clue at all. “What do you say? I’m covered, so you don’t have to wear a skin. I’ll let you feel the wonders of the modern world. If your girl weren’t here, I’d let you do me right now on the floor.”

He glanced down at the carpet and then up at her again, proving that the barrier wasn’t English, at least. And when he’d broken their mutual stare, however briefly, Janey had clearly seen that her words were having a sizeable impression on the man, so it wasn’t like he needed a pill.

“Come on, sport,” she whispered urgently. “I ain’t embarrassing myself by asking again. If you want to fuck me, say so now.”

He closed his eyes and his face was stone for several seconds. When he opened them again, he was looking past her to the lady still waiting by the counter. He sighed. “I’ll take what you have in your hand,” he said, and walked away.

Janey stared at the open bottle of lube she held and slowly capped it. She could feel her cheeks flaming, but she wasn’t sure exactly why. She was frustrated, yes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d come on so strong to anyone, and God knew, all most guys needed was a wink and a smile and they had their pants flying in the air. But if she was surprised by anything, it was that she’d practically flashed the guy right here in the store, right in front of his girlfriend, without even knowing his name. And he’d turned her down? Naw, really?! God, he probably thought she was some psycho-chick fresh from prison.

She got an unopened bottle of lube and went back behind the counter to ring him up. The lady paid and the fella just stood there, staring into the ceiling tiles with that tight, sizzling look in his eyes. They left. The fella opened and held the door for his girl, and while he did, he glanced back and pinned Janey with his burning eyes just briefly.

The bones went out of her legs and she stared back at him, dry-mouthed with excitement. In his eyes, she could see him taking her. She could goddamn feel it! She could feel the wall at her back and his hands on her thighs, that first phenomenal thrust and then the crush of every thrust that followed. The man didn’t just want, he needed! He needed fucking like he needed air and Janey was there, Janey was willing, Janey was wet and wanting him. He could have her if he so much as snapped his fingers for her.

He left.

Janey sagged into the countertop, breathless, but only for a minute. Then she grabbed Contestant Number Five for the Vibrator Races, flipped the lock on the door and ran into the stock room for yet another first in her illustrious career at Luv-A-Lot’s. And a second. And a third.

His eyes. The burning, brilliant hunger in his eyes…

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Nineteen

Sue-Eye rode in the backseat of the sedan next to the man-shaped thing called Kane. She was calm. She had watched him shoot down sixteen people. She’d watched him butcher twenty more, breaking open their skulls with his bare hands. She knew those people; had rode with them, denned with them, fucked and been fucked by them. She had always known the lives of those in the Pack were short and damned to end badly, but at the same time, she’d never believed the man existed who could put the Dawg down.

But Kane had done it. Not just Dawg, but all of them. Cammy was out there somewhere, probably walking her way back home to find Jesus and forget about the last five years of her life. There were a few dogs in jail (including Johnny Lobo, who had the distinction of putting a collar on Sue-Eye once upon a time, after taking her away from that truck stop in San Diego, after letting her spread her goods for every dick that had the urge, after letting Top Dawg piss in her hair), and maybe one or two more that were sleeping off a drunk in the trash-cluttered campsite that passed for home these days, but for all intents and purposes, Kane had killed them all. He’d wiped the Pack off the face of the Earth like a smear of bug guts off a windshield.

Still, Sue-Eye was calm. She knew her way around pure mean, she knew it blindfold. Every man she’d ever known, from her dad right on down the line, had been bred from that poison stock. She wasn’t afraid of the beatings she was sure would come, any more than she was afraid of the big man’s prick. Kane wasn’t human, but then, neither was anyone else swinging tackle between his legs, strictly speaking. He’d use what he wanted to use, his fists or his dick, it made no difference. She’d take it like a champ and beg for more, and he’d keep her when the check came due. They always did.

The purple-haired pony driving the car could be a problem. The big man had a soft spot for her, and judging by last night’s performance, he only had room enough for one soft spot.

That was fine. Sue-Eye had rode in the Pack six years as no one’s bitch, and she alone of all the girls who had ever come that way could say that. Killers had no loyalty, but they had politics, and Sue-Eye knew all the ins and outs of social climbing in a killer’s world. Before Little Miss Don’t-Touch-Me-I’m-Bleeding finished waving goodbye to her Aunt Flow, Sue-Eye intended to be wearing the big man’s tags.