Hunted (closed to DarkWarrioress)

Kyle Williams
Age 45
6'2", 200 lbs, broad muscular frame, sandy brown hair, deep brown eyes, rugged handsome square-jaw look

Deep in a heavily forested area on the Blue Ridge of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, Kyle Williams unloaded his old Ford pickup truck. The 25 year old version of himself would of laughed at the 45 year old version of himself, but now, all he was interested in was some peace in quiet.

After a short stint in the US Army, Kyle spent the rest of his life as the world's best assassin for hire, working for a mysterious private corporation that has existed since the Dark Ages and changed their name countless times. His services were hired out by politicians, corporations and wealthy individuals. He murdered business rivals, cheating wives, cheating husbands and senators. His tools of choice were guns, syringes, piano wire, explosives and cut brake lines.

In 20 years, he was never caught, and always got his target. By the end of his time with the Corporation, he picked his own assignments and had enough money to buy his own Caribbean island. But, he was done with killing, and wanted to go somewhere he would never be bothered again. A small mountain cabin, high in the Rockies, 30 minutes from the nearest town, was the perfect spot.

With a heavy sigh, he finished unloaded his crate of food from his truck and took it into the cabin. He tended to stock up on food and water for months at a time. A small natural gas generator powered his whole cabin, and satellite TV was his own connection to the outside world (a small creature comfort he granted himself). His cabin consisted of just four small rooms - a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room (complete with yoga mat - the entirety of his workout equipment), his bedroom. A root cellar under the cabin which was built into the naturally cold ground provided a cheap way for him to store cold goods.

He took the goods inside and took off his heavy brown coat, revealing a .45 caliber handgun strapped to his waist. His official story, if any of the locals in town asked, was for protection against bears. Nobody thought anything different of it this far in the middle of nowhere. The true story was, he was never entirely sure that the Corporation was done with him. He knew a lot. He had enough information about their inner workings to sink them. They had congratulated him on his career and even gave him a "retirement bonus" and a gold Breitling watch (currently sitting in the top drawer of his dresser - too flashy for his current lifestyle), but it all seemed too convenient. Still, he had reservations that they might coming looking for him some day.

He spent some time putting the goods away, then grabbed a Coors Light from the root cellar and sat in the living room. He flipped on the TV, the Denver Broncos were playing. He cracked the beer and took a sip, and watch the game for a few minutes, when suddenly, something caught his eye.

He thought he saw something move in the trees, outside, via the living room window. He sat up and carefully set the beer down. He put his hand on his handgun, waiting for a sign of trouble. His eyes carefully scanned the horizon, and he stood still for moments. Finally, a bird flew off, and he assumed that must have been the commotion. He sat back down and took another sip from the beer, but there was something still unsettling about that movement he saw outside.

Out of all the jobs she had ever contracted, this one had to suck the most. God she hated the cold and who knew she had such a small bladder. She blamed it on the lowering temps. Climbing the ladder back up to the deer blind, she huddled inside for a moment, trying to get warm as she removed the baseball cap from her head, letting the coiled thick braid of red hair fall over her shoulder.

Sierra Daniels. Age, 32. Fit. Trim. All five foot six inches of her. Who the hell looks for an assassin in such a small package? Not many, that’s for sure. Weapons of choice? Charm, wit, intelligence to lure them and if that didn’t do the trick, a bullet to the head pretty much did the job.

Sierra yanked off her gloves blowing on her hands to warm them before she leaned over tripod that held her rifle. A really quick adjustment brought the vision of the cabin back into her sights.

Hm. This one wasn’t going to be a cake walk. The target seemed a little jumpy. Had he got whiff somehow that someone was on his trail?

As her mark settled back down, Sierra moved away from her rifle and sat down on the floor of the blind, reaching for the manila folder, flipping it open and began to read again.

Subject: Kyle Williams. Age: 45. (Not bad. An experienced lion. That could prove ….interesting) Height: Six –two. Approximately two hundred pounds. Spent time in the Army. Mustered out and spent time as an assassin for hire. No police record (not surprising)…..

Sierra kept flipping pages and paused only when she reached for the thermos nearby, pouring herself a steaming cup of hot coffee. Setting aside the folder, she sipped at the coffee. Now why in hell did someone want him dead? Leaning forward to look at the open folder in front of her her, Sierra flipped another page. According to her source, Kyle Williams had retired from the community. Her employer, no doubt, felt he was a loose end. Her lips quirked at one corner as she gave a small shake of her head. She had never failed either. Yet. She’d be a fool to think there wouldn’t ever be a first time. There was always a first time. Lifting the mug to her lips, the coffee slid down her throat warmly. She almost wished this would be the first time. Almost. Seemed a pity to kill a man just because he had done his job and done it well. But then, her employer more than likely didn’t feel like looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life. Was it human nature to simply ignore the fact that once you put out a contract on someone, you were always going to be looking over your shoulder? Maybe. Sometimes. Those who were so full of themselves probably didn’t. With a soft sigh, she closed the folder and leaned back against the wooden wall, nursing her cup of coffee. Well, whatever the case may be, she was here to complete a contract. Take out Kyle Williams. Now all she needed was an opportunity and she’d be right there to cash in on it.



She had always been different, even as a child. A girl among four brothers and the youngest to boot. Her father had been a single parent doing his damnest to raise five kids on his own. His wife, Sierra’s mother had died when she was just three years old. In retrospect, what did her father or her brothers for that matter, know about raising a girl child? They hadn’t. They all had treated her like just another boy. She grew up learning to shoot and fight like a boy. Her red hair had been chopped short and kept that way because it was easier to take care of. It wasn’t until she got into high school that her upbringing started to bother her. Sierra had noticed boys, unfortunately, they didn’t notice her. She was everybody’s pal, best friend and no one’s sweetheart. She started to watch the other girls. The cheerleaders. The popular girls. She let her hair grow out and took to wearing dresses and nylons. Still, the boys saw her as their buddy. Until. Until her boobs grew in. Then a few of them changed their tune but not at all in a fashion Sierra liked. They kept trying to get her off alone by herself, pawing at her breasts. Slipping a hand up under her skirts, between her legs. That’s when her skills a fighter came in handy. She broke a guy’s nose. Busted up another’s arm in two different places and let’s just say that she also insured that some girl wasn’t going to get pregnant anytime soon.

Sierra had contemplated a career in the military where her skills as a tomboy would be appreciated but for some odd reason, her daddy discouraged that idea. Instead, she went to college, majored in English and got her credentials to teach but never did. While at the local gym one day, practicing her martial arts and boxing, the petite redhead was approached by a man…..




Slender fingers found the brim of her baseball cap, placing it on her head and tugging it low over her eyes. Even wearing a black turtle-neck shirt under her camos hadn’t kept her sufficiently warm through the night before. Maybe she could catch an hour’s worth of shut eye. Sierra drew her booted feet up close, arms wrapping around her bent knees after draping a sleeping bag over them. If only she didn’t need the money, she would be tempted to find her way down to Williams’ cabin and try to charm her way into the interior warmth. Adam, her older brother, needed a shit ton of cash. His baby girl needed an operation. Dad didn’t have that kind of money. Neither did her other brothers. Her current monies were all tied up. This was the quickest and fastest way to get the money Adam so desperately needed to save his child. It wasn’t her first kill and would hardly be her last.

Now, she just needed an opportunity. Like the one she had missed earlier because nature had called. Sierra hadn’t been too worried. Opportunity always came knocking. She just needed to be there to catch it.

One hour. That’s all she needed. One hour of shut eye. Williams was drinking a beer. Probably watching some football. Typical guy stuff. He was still a bit too jumpy for her liking. Just an hour. That’s all she needed then she’d be back on lookout. Sierra wasn’t too worried about her position. People were always up in deer blinds during hunting season. Her cover was pretty damn good. Lids closed over emerald green eyes as she huddled beneath the sleeping bag draped over her body. It was damn cold. She needed to find some work in Florida or maybe Hawaii. Yeah. Hawaii sounded good.

((OOC: Sorry for the long delay, was busy with the holidays. I didn't know if you wanted him to find her sleeping in the deer stand or not.))

Kyle finished his one beer, and then switched to water. Something fishy was outside. It was sort of an indescribable sixth sense, one that had kept him alive and out of prison over the course of a 20 year career. His paranoia told him it was somebody from The Corporation coming to finish him off, but he wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t something else.

He had heard there were crazy mountain men up here. Ted Kaczynski-types who hated people and society, lived alone and thought the government was out to get them. He chuckled to himself, maybe they weren’t that different than him. They were hiding in the mountains because they thought somebody was after them. Kyle had thought the same thing, but had more reason to think somebody was after him. In some ways, they scared him more than the assassins because they were highly motivated, poorly (if at all) trained and unpredictable.

After some time, he had managed to take his mind off the flutter of activity he thought he saw outside, but it still stuck in his side like an invisible thorn. He stood up and closed the blinds over the living room window. He wouldn’t be able to see anybody coming from outside, but at the same time, nobody would be able to spy on him.

Feeling his stomach growl, he headed down to the root cellar and grabbed a can of microwavable soup. He came back up and cut it open with a can opener and stuck it in his small microwave. The microwave must have been easily 25 years old and used too much of his limited electricity supply, but he didn’t want to draw any attention by driving into Denver or Colorado Springs for a new one.

He quickly downed the heated-up broth and chunks of meat and vegetable. It never tasted as good as the commercials made it seem, he thought to himself. He rinsed out the bowl and put it in his sink before returning to his small living room and the television. Still, after all this time, he couldn’t rest comfortably. He looked over at the snowshoes near the front door and wondered if he should go take a walk around his “back yard”.

Sierra never had a problem falling asleep. Hell, she could fall asleep standing up or with her eyes open. Her professors in college were rather disturbed when she did this in their classes. She had always been able to drop off to sleep on a whim and wake up refreshed no matter how little sleep she had managed. It was an invaluable tool in her trade. She relied on her internal clock to wake her later into the evening, when a good opportunity could present itself. Her other sense were finely tuned. She could hear an ant fart from across the room.




The jungles of Brazil. Damn it was humid and the insects. The neverending array of insects that wanted to feast on your flesh. Fuck, she hated the damn insects. It didn’t help that she was in camo. You couldn’t hide from the freaking bugs. It was a bitch that she couldn’t swat at them either. Here she was in a humid jungle, buzzing in her ears as the insects either crawled along her skin or sampled it and all she could do was stare into her scope. Waiting. Waiting for that exact moment. The perfect shot. Not daring to blink for fear the window of opportunity would be missed. She had never botched a job before. There had never been a failed mission. No black mark on her record. Until now. To this day she didn’t understand how a high velocity bullet had spiraled out of the barrel headed straight for her target…. How was it possible for a person to step between the bullet and her target and fuck up the whole contract? No one was home but her target that day. He never changed his routine. He was single. Powerful. Drug cartel. That woman shouldn’t have been there. Wasn’t suppose to be. In her line of work, you got a single crack at your mark. That’s it. If you failed, your target became aware. Getting the chance at another shot was pretty dismal.

Sierra woke with a start. Blinking, she laid still. Had some noise awaken her? Or was it that dream that always haunted her? She carried a constant reminder of failure. A puckered bullet hole in her right shoulder. She had been damn lucky that was all she got. Getting out of Brazil hadn’t been easy. Luckily she had contacts. That botched job had cost her almost a year out of circulation. A change of identity. A change of hair color and letting it grow long, helped and even though her wound had healed, she had to remain out of the loop until the drug cartels settled down into an uneasy truce. Yeah. That job haunted her. Why? Because she was always looking over her shoulder. Getting up from the floor, Sierra looked into her scope.

Damn. Where was he?

A quick glance at her wrist watch showed it was still too early for him to have settled in for some sleep. Maybe the kitchen. Hm. A quick adjustment of her rifle and the kitchen came into the view from the high powered scope. Nope. Not there either. His earlier tracks leading from his truck to the house were nearly filled in with snow now. So, he was still in the house somewhere. Another glance at her watch and Sierra figured she could get another hour of shut eye. She left the rifle in its stand and retook up her place on the floor, pulling the sleep bag up over her shoulders.

Kyle knew that something was out there, and decided now that he needed to investigate. He had an uneasy feeling, cultivated by years of experience. Something didn’t feel right, and in his former profession, that usually meant it wasn’t. He slipped his work boots into the snowshoes and tied them tight, and then slipped on his heavy brown coat and quietly walked out the front door and back around the cabin.

Part of him had expected something to get him right there, but nothing happened. With one hand on his waist, resting on his handgun, he walked slowly through the snow, looking for any sign of animals that could have caused the very slight motion he saw out the back window. He prayed that it was just an animal that had set off his mental alarms. If it was another assassin, he didn’t know how they found him. He had hid his tracks from everybody, including The Corporation.

After moving slowly through the heavily snowed-in mountain forest, something caught his eye. A body-shaped figure in the tree. It was in a puffy black shape, and it took Kyle a second to figure out what it was. As he approached slowly, he made out that it was a sleeping bag. Somebody was sleeping in a tree, facing his cabin. As he drew closer, a cold wind rustled through the trees and burned his face.


“Comrade Williams, a pinch of vodka?” the thick Russian voice asked. Kyle looked over as the friendly Russian assassin offering him a stainless steel flask. He was in Russia. Siberia. And it was among the coldest he’s ever been. The never ending wind burned his face and turned it bright red.

It was 1994. The Cold War was over. Kyle had barely served in the Army long enough with the US Army Rangers and Delta Force to learn to hate the Russians before it had ended. Now a civilian assassin for hire, he was working a job with an overtly friend Russian assassin who had been sent to make sure Kyle completed the job.

Kyle accepted and took the vodka. He took a sip from the flask and handed it back. “Really warms the bones, eh?” His Russian friend said.

“Yeah,” Kyle offered weekly. They had spent a week camping in this frozen shithole, watching the winter dacha of some Russian oil billionaire. He was supposed to come here on holiday to hunt and ski. He had never showed, leaving Kyle and his new friend to camp out in below zero temperatures for seven days.

“Let me ask you something, Yuri,” Kyle said, putting his rifle down a second.

“Ya?” Yuri replied, finishing his own nip from the flask.

“You guys were all Communists, right? Capitalism bad. And then the Wall comes down, and like fifteen Russian oil billionaires pop up out of nowhere. Where’d all these guys come from?”

Yuri let out a hearty laugh. “Good question, comrade. It’s a brave new world for us all. Lots of money out there to be made for a Russian capitalist. But a soldier of fortune like you knows that, already, ya?”

Kyle let out a smile. He liked Yuri. At first, he had hated being shackled with a partner. The Russian client insisted that another Russian tag-along to make sure the job was done, which led Kyle to wonder why hire an American in the first place. But, Yuri had been friendly and had a few good jokes and stories. It turned out he was the only thing that made this trip in the cold bearable.

A low electronic beeping came from Yuri’s vest. “Damn, my satellite phone. Probably the damn wife. Or the mistress!” Yuri said with a laugh. He yanked out a brickshaped satellite phone, and answered it, and started speaking in hurried Russian. After a brief conversation, he hung up. “That was our employer, Kyle. He is sick of waiting. He wants us to plant explosives in the dacha and leave. We’ll be paid, and a remote bomb on the gas line should be easily activated by whoever is hired to finish the job when this bastard does show up.”

Kyle gave a very slight smile. “Alright, let’s go in.” The two men stowed their sniper rifles over their shoulders and drew their pistols. Both were silenced, but Kyle carried an American-made Colt .45 while Yuri favored a Soviet Makarov. The two men silently stalked through the snow from their hiding spot on top of a hill and approached the winter house. Kyle went to back door and tried to kick it in. The door didn’t budge, and only left a snowy shoeprint on the back door.

“Must be reinforced, I’ll pick it,” Kyle said, slipping his backpack off and leaving it by the back door, he opened it and yanked out his lockpick kit and a small remote. After a few minutes of fumbling with the tension wrench and lockpick, he opened the door. He stowed the lockpick kit in his pocket and entered with his pistol drawn. He was a few steps inside the dacha when he heard a somber Yuri behind him.

“Sorry, comrade.” Yuri said. Kyle turned and saw Yuri standing in the doorway, the silenced gun pointed at his head.

“Yuri?” Kyle asked in a soft, betrayed voice.

“Hands up,” he ordered, “Throw your gun away, over there.” Kyle complied. “Like I said, all sorts of new opportunities for Russian capitalists like me,” Yuri explained.

“That phone call?” Kyle asked.

“Ja, you are smart, just a little too slow. That was the man we were supposed to kill. I called him before we even got here and offered to kill the man who hired us. For an even bigger fee, of course,”

“Then why we’d wait in the snow for a week?”

“I was holding out for more money to kill you. Finally, he met my price. Sorry, Kyle, but I want to buy a plane. You know, one of those small single-engine Cessnas. So, it’s just business.”

Kyle gave him a smirk. “It’s okay, Yuri. This is business, too.” And, he slipped the small remote from inside his wrist to his palm and pressed the button. His backpack, still sitting outside the back door and packed with explosives, blew up, taking Yuri with it.


Kyle approached the figure sleeping in the tree. He still didn’t know who they were, or what they were doing up there, but as he got closer, he could make out the outline of a rifle. His stomach tensed up, as did his grip on his .45, still holstered on his waist.

Once he was just a few feet away from the tree and the sleeping figure, Kyle called out to them. “Hey, what are you doing up there? Pretty strange place to take a nap,” he yelled out.

In a blink of an eye she was wide awake. What had awakened her? Sierra’s breathing became very shallow as she sat there on the cold floor of the blind, huddled under her sleeping blanket. A voice. Male. From outside. She raked her fingers through her hair, tousling it. Kicking off the sleeping bag, she turned, poking her head into the open window.

“How do you know I was napping anyway?”

Her eyes took in his form, including the .45 holstered at his waist. Damn. Her features took on the look of sleepy confusion even while she studied him. Kyle Williams was not going to be an easy mark, not that she expected him to be, at least not according to the dossier she had been studying.

“Look Mister, I don’t know who the sam hell you are, but this is a hunting blind and I’m trying to hunt but you aren’t making that easy with all your yelling and stomping through the woods. So, if you don’t mind, would you please just shut up and go away?”

Sierra stood up on a gamble, reaching for her overcoat and began drawing it on as she kept her eyes fastened on him. She didn’t want him to join her in the blind so she would have to go down to him. If she had a choice, they never would have met face to face but unfortunately, that wasn’t going to be the case and from the looks of him, he was just as wary of her. Either he was extremely cautious, paranoid or he, himself, had been hunted a time or two. In any case, all three were going to make her job all that much harder. Slipping a hand into her coat pocket, she drew out something and began tying her hair up with it as she waited for him to speak again or just go away. Sierra knew she was going to have to scrap this idea for completing her mission. Maybe she’d retreat to the town and hold up in a warm hotel room while she figured out a new angle.

“Look, hang on a sec. I’m coming down. It’s bad enough you’ve probably scared off my target by now and it won’t be coming back this way…..”

Even as she spoke, Sierra was headed for the trap door in the floor of the hunting blind and making her way down to the forest floor.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

Her luck sucked sometimes but she had never failed a mission.

Not ever.

Kyle watched her from the ground, still standing firm in the snowshoes on top of the layer of snow. His brain tingled with excitement as she stood up. It was a woman, young, attractive. Far from the women you usually found this far up alone. When she tied her hair up, Kyle saw she had red hair – something else that usually tripped his trigger. The selfish part of him wondered if he could make a new “friend” but he quickly scolded himself. It had been months since he had seen anything remotely attractive as her. Until he was absolutely certain The Corporation didn’t send her, she was extremely dangerous to him. Maybe her beautiful made it moreso. Femme Fateles were always sexy, weren’t they?

He slide back on his snowshoes and watched her climb down from the hunting blind. He relaxed his gun arm, so he didn’t make her uneasy by looking like he was tensing for his sidearm constantly. “Well, I don’t know who taught you how to hunt, but you’re lined up right at my cabin over there. If you miss what you’re shooting at or if the round ricochets off a tree, it could hit my cabin or truck or something,” he explained, his eyes scrutinizing her for any signs of who she was.

“Did you come here with a man?” Kyle asked, and immediately regretted his question because it made him sound like a sexist jackass. He stuttered as he tried backpedaling. “I-.. I mean, uh, not that you need a man to go hunting or anything. It’s just that we don’t get many women up here who aren’t somebody’s wife or daughter or niece or something,” he said, before giving her a soft chuckle and boyish grin, hoping she took his comment as a joke. Maybe he had been alone too long in a high-altitude, low-oxygen environment. “I was just wondering if I knew anybody you knew around here,” he said. Like The Corporation, he thought to himself.

He glanced up at the tree stand and saw the end of her rifle sticking out from one side. “Looks like some pretty high-powered equipment for hunting, too. You must be pretty serious. We have bull elk up here. They can be hard to drop but with that big gun you should be able to get them.”

Sierra shuffled her feet in the snow, fiddling with the heavy jacket she had on. She was trying not to stare at her target.

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

It wasn’t like any of her previous targets hadn’t been handsome as sin but this one. There was something about him that sent an electrical wave down her spine and made her skin develop goose pimples.

Get a grip, woman. He’s your mark, remember that.

“Well, I don’t know who taught you how to hunt, but you’re lined up right at my cabin over there. If you miss what you’re shooting at or if the round ricochets off a tree, it could hit my cabin or truck or something,"

Her lips suddenly formed a grin. Her green eyes sparkled with amusement.

“Don’t worry, Mister. I know what I’m doing. It may look like my rifle is pointed at your cabin, but it’s really sighted in beyond that.”

It was a lie, of course but he wouldn’t know that. She had tweaked it slightly before she came down out of the blind. She had kept her voice soft and melodious. There was nothing in her eyes to alarm him. All he could see there was humor and a friendly, but cautious look.

“Did you come here with a man?”

Her spine tensed. Her eyes became guarded.

“A man? Why do you ask? Think I need a man to hunt, Mister?”

The tone of her voice changed from soft to challenging. Normally, she wouldn’t have allowed his words to rile her but there was just something about him…..

“I-.. I mean, uh, not that you need a man to go hunting or anything. It’s just that we don’t get many women up here who aren’t somebody’s wife or daughter or niece or something. I was just wondering if I knew anybody you knew around here.”

A mixture of derision and amusement filled her eyes. He was a jumpy piece of work, she had to give him that. Was he naturally cautious or was he expecting a hit? Either way, it made her job harder to accomplish. She was going to have to rethink her strategy for this job.

“Looks like some pretty high-powered equipment for hunting, too. You must be pretty serious. We have bull elk up here. They can be hard to drop but with that big gun you should be able to get them.”

One corner of her lips curled upward in a slight smile. Sierra folded her arms over her chest as she stared up into his face.

“I’m a pretty serious woman. When I go after something, I get it.”

Her chin tilted slightly as her eyes met his directly and she refused to look away.

“You know, it’s mighty cold out here in the snow. If you’re satisfied with who’s out here, would you mind letting me get back up in this blind and under my sleeping bag?”

Let’s see what he does with that one.

Hopefully he'd ask her to join him. Possibly. Maybe.

Kyle watched her as she locked her green eyes directly on his. He immediately knew he was infatuated with her. Fuck you, Kyle, he said to himself. If he had done literally any other line of work, he would take this woman’s sudden apperance as a gift from a higher power. Instead, he knew too much about how The Corporation operated to take this any other way. Something was suspicious about her and that just made it the mental pressure on his chest harder.


Monte Carlo. 1997. A suite at the Hotel de Paris. A balcony overlooking the harbor and the expensive yachts. Everybody spoke French or whatever that language was. Baccarat was the game of choice. He felt like the real James Bond. He has spent the weekend with Gila, the sexy female Israeli Mossage agent. Built like a Greek goddess. Long legs. Big dark eyes. Kyle knew she could kill him fifteen ways barehand with krav maga. Thankfully, she was a lot gentler in bed. She slinked into the bathroom with a bedsheet around her waist while Kyle lay in bed naked and watched her go. He reached over and grabbed a half-finished glass of champagne from the nightstand. Wasn’t sure if it was his or hers originally, but he figured they had exchanged enough bodily fluids over the previous two days.

A soft electronic chirp from his gear bag. He gets up and puts the glass down. Grabs his satellite phone.

“Williams.”

“Williams, this Control. Payment confirmed. Termination authorized.”

Kyle said nothing. Selling your country’s state secrets tended to make them angry. Gila had made a big mistake.

“Is there a problem?” Control asked.

“Negative. Confirming terminate order,” he said.

"Good hunting," was the only reply before Kyle hung up. He dropped the satellite phone in his bag and grabbed his silenced gun instead. Naked, he strutted across the suite to the bathroom door. Walked in without knocking. She was on the toilet. What a way to go.

“Kyle? What are you-…”

Two silenced shots rang out. A uniform splatter of blood against the marble wall behind the toilet.

Fuck, he liked her.

Like really liked her.

She had been on top of him, his manhood filling every inch of her insides, her breasts in his face, he put a hand gently around her neck and mocked squeezing, she whispered something in Hebrew before arching her back and moaning. Her walls grabbed at him. They stared into each other’s eyes as he came inside of her. That had been five minutes ago.

Now she was slumped forward on the toilet. Her beautiful body now a bloody mess.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKK! He swung the end of the pistol at the massive bathroom mirror behind the sink and smashed it into a million pieces.

15 minutes later, he was dressed and carrying his bag through the hotel lobby and headed towards the taxi stand.


Back in the present, in Colorado, he gazed into the eyes of this unknown woman.

“Shit, it’s pretty cold out here,” Kyle said, looking around as another mountain wind picked up and howled through the trees. Even with his heavy jacket on, it sent a shiver up his spine. “Maybe you aught to come in to my place and warm up for a bit. I have some food and beer. Nothing gourmet, of course,” he said, with what he hoped came across as a modest chuckle as he scratched the back of head. Secretly, he watched her hands, his trained body was tense and waited for any sign that she would make a move to harm him.

“I mean, I’m an alright guy and I think you can take care of yourself,” he said, hoping that a little flattery would get her inside so he could truly decipher who she really was.

Dark chocolate. It would be so easy to drown in those eyes. Get lost in them.

Her eyes dropped to his lips. That was a mistake. It took every bit of will power she had not to twitch. Fuck. It was far too easy to imagine those lips on hers. On her body. Fuck.

Get a grip, Sierra. NOW. He was a walking dead man.

Her eyes flashed back to his. Something twitched in her head. He was cautious. Very. Here was a man who knew he had to look over his shoulder. Vaguely, it made her wonder why The Corp wanted him dead so badly.


“Shit, it’s pretty cold out here, maybe you aught to come in to my place and warm up for a bit. I have some food and beer. Nothing gourmet, of course….”



” Maybe you ought to come in to my place and warm up a bit.”

The eyes she looked up into were blue and the wry amusement lurking in them made her smile. Her lips quirked almost unwillingly. She knew way too much about this man but she was still oddly drawn to him, that alone should have silently fired off every warning bell inside her, instead, she let herself be led into his chalet where he promptly and gently removed her coat. Collin led her to a chair by the fire and gently pushed her into it and knelt at her feet to remove her fur-lined boots, setting them aside.

“There. Doesn’t that feel better?”

Sierra smiled down at him and had the sudden impulse to lean closer and ruffle his blonde hair with her fingers. It was an impulse she had no control over. Collin let her do it for a moment or two before reaching for her hand and placing a kiss on the back of it.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Sierra. I’m glad you came.”

Sierra herself had mixed feelings but there was something inside her that longed for this. She wanted nothing more than to forget the world of contracts and death. She wanted simply to live in the moment with this man and share an intimacy with him that only a man and woman could give each other. So when Collin leaned forward and started to unbutton the front of her sweater, she didn’t stop him. Nor did she stop him from kissing the delicate, pale skin he exposed or when he removed her clothing and arranged her legs over the arms of the chair, leaving her exposed to the firelight that flickered in the room and to his eyes and hands. Collin leaned forward, his eyes fastened on hers, his hands closed over her lace covered breasts, giving them a squeeze before his fingers found the fastener in front. A quick twist of his fingers and she felt the lace part. His hands cupped her breasts, his thumbs found the hard buds of her nipples and flicked over them, making her pussy twitch. His blonde head came closer and lowered. Sierra closed her eyes just as his mouth found one nipple. He mouthed it through the lace. She squirmed. One of Collin’s hands cupped the squeezed the breast his mouth had found before he lifted his head and grinned at her.

“Now, now, Sierra. You know how this works.”

Collin’s other hand slid down over her flat belly, his palm finding her slit and finding it wet. His fingers slid over her, finding and teasing the hardened nub hiding in the folds of her womanhood. He took his time, lowering his mouth to her breast again while his fingers swirled over her clit. Rubbing. Teasing. She couldn’t help it. Her lower body arched off the chair to press against his hand.

“Collin….”

His fingers rubbed a while longer before they slid lower. One slid into her wet tunnel. It was soon followed by a second once he ascertained her wetness.

“My, my, my. Someone is horny as hell.”

He murmured, staring into her eyes and daring her to look away. He knew her too well. She wasn’t about to look away. He must have read something in her eyes because he chuckled.

“That’s my girl.”

His lips began to roam and his fingers started to move in and out of her. Slowly. Teasingly. Her internal muscles strained to grip his fingers, to keep him inside her. Of course, that didn’t happen. His fingers were making her wetter. His mouth was trailing fire across her skin. Her fingers threaded through his hair, over and over again. Her body tensed as his lips moved lower. The muscles in her thighs strained against the arms of the chair he had her draped over. Sierra had never wanted a man more in that single, solitary moment they shared. Her belly quivered and tightened as his lips lingered there for a bit. God, she need to cum. So badly.

Lower…. and lower still…. then they stopped again, hovering at the entrance to her vagina. His fingers stopped moving inside her. Instead they moved to part her lower lips as his tongue found her. It flickered over that small tiny bundle of sensitive nerves, making her want to jump out of that chair, throw him onto his back and ram his cock straight up into her, over and over again until they both came but that was not to be tonight. Instead, his lips plucked at her clit before sucking it into his warm mouth where his tongue rubbed over her before his lips sealed around it, sucking. Her hips moved with his sucking.

He tore his mouth away for a moment to look up at her face. His fingers jammed inside of her again.

“That’s it, baby. Cum for me. Cum for me, Sierra.”

His head lowered again. His mouth finding her very aroused clit and sucked it back into his mouth. His fingers fucked her.

Cum for me, Sierra.

And she did cum for him…. Just before she blew pieces of his brain matter out of one side of his head.

Quietly.



”…… “Maybe you aught to come in to my place and warm up for a bit……”

Yeah. She could do that. Easily. Sierra smiled up at him as she held out a hand.

“I’m Sierra Cummings. My mama use to say not to go anywhere with strangers, especially men.”

Her eyes sparkled with merriment.

Kyle carefully examined her. She seemed to stare at him and he stared back at her, gazing into her green eyes as he tried to analyze her. He was pretty sure that something was she was up to something more than she seemed. She seemed to be enamored with him, which could be an act. It wouldn’t be the first time that a woman had feigned interest to get closer to a man they needed to get rid of.

“I’m Sierra Cummings. My mama use to say not to go anywhere with strangers, especially men.”

“I’m Kyle,” he said with a boyish smirk, taking her hand and giving her a firm handshake, then letting his hand linger mingled up with hers for a second than was socially acceptable for a handshake before pulling it away. “Kyle Williams. Your mother sounds like a smart woman,” he said with a grin. “But, I figure we’re not strangers anymore, right?” Kind of a cheesy line. Did that work on anybody?

He gestured towards the cabin. “This way,” he said, walking alongside her. Normally, he probably would have just led her up to the cabin, but he was still wary about turning his back to her. Likewise, he doubted she would let him walk behind her if she was who he thought she was. As they walked towards the cabin, their feet crunching in the heavy snow, Kyle felt like he was playing a chess match with her. They both knew they were playing, but didn’t know if the other knew they were playing, how good the other player is, and when they would press their final gambit.

As they headed back to the house, Kyle made conversation. “I’m recently retired,” he said. “From the Army. Twenty years in as an enlisted grunt,” he explained. It was his go-to story for why a forty-something was retire without attracting too much attention. Besides, regular people had soldier envy, Kyle found, and generally started praising him and didn’t ask too many questions after he said he was a veteran. It was only a small stretch of the truth, he did serve his country for a few years, which only gave him the proper training for his year career.

“Nothing exciting. I fixed helicopters. Crew chief on a UH-60,” he said, wondering if she would believe his story. Probably not, but the charade was fun for the time being. They reached the back of the cabin and headed around the front to the front door. He opened the door for her and led her inside. Once inside, he slammed the heavy door shut behind him and locked it, and immediately the aging mountain cottage and its walls blocked out the cold air.

Kyle leaned against the wall near the front door and started undoing his snowshoes, his eyes carefully trained on her hands still, waiting for any sudden movement. “Make yourself at home. TV is in the living room. I’ll get us some refreshments in a second, after I get these damn things off,” he said, still fumbling with the snowshoes.

“Kyle Williams. Your mother sounds like a smart woman, but, I figure we’re not strangers anymore, right?”

That made her chuckle softly. It was a bit cheesy but cute. He guided her toward the cabin he was staying in. Walking beside her, he talked about himself, all lies she figured or were they? Sierra simply knew what was in his dossier was more than he was telling. A lot more. He was good, exceptionally so. Again, this wasn’t going to be an easy hit.

He opened the cabin door for her and she stepped inside. Sierra looked around her current surroundings and mentally made swift notes. The usual things. Doors. Windows. Making quick mental routes for an easy, quick departure. The shutting of the front door and the turning of a lock made her go still and slowly, easily, turn her head to gaze at her target. He was removing his snow shoes.

“Make yourself at home. TV is in the living room. I’ll get us some refreshments in a second, after I get these damn things off.”

He was watching her. Quietly. However, she could feel his wariness in the air. Slowly she bent down to unlace and remove her own snow shoes.

Nope. Not easy at all.

Leaving her snow shoes against the wall, Sierra slowly made her way to the couch and chose one end to sit at. Her uneasiness at his proximity was only countered by the fact that he was locked in with her too. Unless his natural wariness alerted him to something about her, she should be fine. She hoped so. She had no choice but to leave her rifle in the blind outside. She wasn’t totally unarmed but he had no way of knowing that unless he searched her body and he had no reason to think of doing so. Sierra willed her muscles to relax, to give her body the appearance of social acceptance.

“Something hot to drink would be most welcome, “ Sierra turned her head to regard him with warm eyes that glowed deeper than any emerald ever could.

“So, tell me Kyle, what brings you out to the wilderness this time of year? I figure it’s one of two things, you’re either a hunter like me or you’re a veteran of the military,” she tilted her head and thought for a momen then added, “or you’re a serial killer and you’re plotting your next kill.”

The last was said with a grin so he knew she wasn’t serious. Her mind said something else altogether. They were like opponents, circling each other, wondering who was going to make the first move. He didn’t have a clue about who she really was or why she was here. He didn’t know that she knew why he was so wary around a stranger. They were in the same business. She did the exact same things he did. Had she done so this time? Did he suspect her? Sierra gave her mind a small mental shake. He couldn’t know. He had no idea that the Corporation wanted him dead and the monetary figure for this contract simply proved how badly. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wanted to know why. Why did the Corporation want one of their own dead? What had he gotten himself into?