Текст книги "Fable of Happiness Book One"

Автор книги: Pepper winters

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

Fury didn’t begin to describe her. Disbelief definitely, hate certainly, but something else swam inside that made my heart fist with daggers.

She was hurt.

She’d been stupid enough to believe something had happened between us. Something good. Something that would protect her from her fate.

Then again, I’d known she was stupid from the first moment she’d offered herself to me. This was just further vindication.

Eventually, she’ll learn not to trust me.

Even I learned that lesson.

Her nostrils flared as she tried to get her temper under control, swaying in the rain, naked apart from the colorful rope tight around her wrists. “Why?”

A tiny, three-letter word but one that asked so much.

“Because I have no choice.” Looking down at the keys in my hand, I flinched. They had the power to take her away from me. They could give her back her life and take mine away all in one go.

She can never go back.

She knew too much now.

She could never be trusted.

And...I want to keep her.

I’d lost everything.

Everything I had ever cared about had been snatched from me.

This time will be different.

Her keys had to go. They had to fly far away from here so she could never find them.

She cleared her throat, shifting on the spot as if nervousness siphoned through her. “Don’t...don’t do what I think you’re going to do.”

I looked up.

Her hazel eyes were deep brown to match the darkness around us. No green shone. No light. No sweetness. Once again, she could read me. How that was possible, I didn’t know. But something had alerted her to the fact I hated her keys. I loathed her car. I wanted to shove both off the cliff and watch them burn.

Walking into me, she landed her bound hands on my naked chest. I’d ripped off my shirt halfway through the hunt. It was back on the trail somewhere, wet and abandoned.

“Please, whatever your name is. I beg you. If you’re so concerned that I’ll tell people about you, come with me. Stay locked by my side and censor every word that comes out of my mouth. Just...please let me go home. If you allow me to see my mother and brother, to give them peace of mind that I’m okay...I’ll-I’ll...” She gulped and forced herself onward. “I’ll come back with you. We’ll drive back here together. I’ll come and stay with you for a while. Two lonely people living in one house instead of two.”

I sneered. “You honestly expect me to believe that once you’re back in society you wouldn’t turn on me in a second? That you wouldn’t find some way to have me arrested?”

“You have my word.”

“Your word means nothing.”

Anger fired up her cheeks. “No, your word means nothing. You said I’d survive another day. That you wouldn’t try to kill me.” She glanced at the mud where we’d battled, where body indents scarred the earth, leaving behind a symbol of the sex we’d shared and the misery we’d caused. “That if I did what you asked, I’d live.”

Bending over her, I held her stare and murmured, “I’ll make you a new deal. You were right when you said sex with you felt different. It could’ve been the eleven years of celibacy that made it so fucking intense, or...it could’ve just been you.”

It was definitely you.

She winced as I ran my thumb over her bottom lip. “I won’t lie and say I don’t want more. I fucking loved being inside you. I loved how you fought me back. How you fought for more. How explosive it was between us.”

“You think I’d let you sleep with me again if you continue to hold me captive?”

I shrugged. “It’s not like you’ll have a choice, is it?”

“Fuck you.”

“They’ll be plenty of that, I promise. When we get home, you have my word that you will live. I won’t lay a hand on you in violence unless you deserve it. I won’t try to kill you unless you try to run. You can live.”

Her chest rose and fell with rage. “How very kind of you, you bastard. What a fucking joke! Are you that broken that you can’t be kind to anyone? I’m not just someone you can lock away and screw whenever you have the urge, you know! I have a life. A career. I can’t believe I let you inside—”

“Hush.” I cut off her tirade. “I’m sure, in time, I’ll get used to having a pet around the house. But from now on, you’re pulling your weight. You will help me gather and prepare. You will do what I do to ensure we survive winter together. You will open your damn legs whenever I command. You will get on your knees whenever I’m hard. And, who knows, maybe in a few years, when we’ve come to know everything there is to know about each other and we’ve built up something akin to friendship, our terms of agreement can change.”

“I will never be your friend.”

“You’ve been more friend to me than anyone in over a decade—hating me or not.”

She choked as if that meant something to her. As if that small confession affected her. Her body might be affected but her words were cruel. “You’re insane.”

“Perhaps.” I shrugged. “Or just damaged enough to be immune to whatever charms you’re trying to use against me. How am I supposed to know if sex between us wasn’t a lie? You acted as if you wanted my cock, you moaned as I thrust deep inside you, you kissed me back...but was it real? It could’ve all been an act. You could be lying—”

“I came in your arms, you monster. I’ve never felt anything like that with anyone—”

“Yet you’ve never fought for your life before.” Cupping her cheek with my empty hand, I bent and kissed her softly. “It could’ve just been the adrenaline talking.”

She ripped her face away, hissing, “It wasn’t and you know it! That’s why you’re so afraid of me. Why you don’t want me to go. Admit it. You can’t stomach the thought of saying goodbye!”

I stiffened. “Careful.”

“I’m done being careful. If you don’t have the balls to admit it, I will. I’ll confess it for both of us.” Her eyes shot pure fire. “What happens to you when I touch you, huh? Do you feel it? Does it burn in your blood? Does your stomach cramp and heart fist? Has that happened with anyone else?”

Christ yes, I burn. It hurts more than I can stand.

I bared my teeth. “From what I just told you, you should know the answer to that question.”

“Fine. You were abused. I get it. I won’t belittle what you’ve lived through because that isn’t who I am, even if you are using your past to terrorize my future. But I will do whatever’s necessary to wake you the hell up!”

I scowled. “I suggest you rein in your temper.”

“And I suggest you open your damn eyes. There’s something more between us. We both know it. We both don’t want it. We both wish it didn’t exist, and neither one of us understands how it happened, considering we would rather kill each other than be kind. You need to let me go. You need to admit the real reason you can’t is because you’re starting to feel something.” Her cheeks blazed, and her nipples pebbled as her skin puckered with goosebumps.

She acted as if she was about to put a curse on me. Another one. Curses upon curses, layering me in hexes and damnation.

Clamping a hand over her mouth, I growled, “Shut up. You’re just proving your stupidity. Proving that every word out of your mouth is wrong. I should gag you as well as bind. I don’t have to listen to—”

She bit my palm, tore her face away, and spat at my feet. “Gag me, and next time I attempt to kill you, I’ll succeed. Feelings or no feelings.”

I pressed against her, skin to skin, lust to lust.

That everlasting spark between us switched from a burn to a blaze. The forest became alight with it, the rain glittered with it, my blood hissed with need and want and yearning.

“Your mouth will get you hurt.”

She tried to step back, colliding with the door. “Your stubbornness will get you nothing.”

“I don’t want anything.” I looked deep into her eyes, hoping my words pierced true. “Especially not from you. Bodily gratification is all you’re good for.”

She sniffed and tipped up her chin. “We’ll see.”

“I guess we will.” Stepping away from her, I uncurled my fingers from around her keys.

Instantly, her defiance switched to cajoling. “Wait. Don’t—”

“I look forward to living with you, Gemma Ashford.”

“No—!”

In a whip fast move, I cocked my arm and hurled her keys into the forest. I threw them toward the drop-off where new waterfalls splashed over rocks and debris, falling from sky to valley.

They made no noise as they disappeared.

Not a single sound as they condemned her as mine for evermore.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I COULDN’T MOVE.

He threw them.

He actually threw my keys away!

Eerie emptiness filled me: the iciness of shock and the hollowness of defeat.

Going home was no longer attainable. Escaping this monster had become an unsurmountable problem. A problem that included days’ worth of hiking to find populated areas of the national park. The logistical nightmare of not having enough rations, correct footwear, or emergency beacons to find my way out of this cave labyrinth was a disaster.

If I didn’t die with him, I might very well die running from him.

Him.

God, HIM!

Something snapped back into place within me, blasting away my shock, filling me with scalding brimstone.

How dare he?!

Joshua, my mother, my work, my house. God, my house. My lovely, lavender house that’d been waiting empty and alone since I’d left. Who would water my plants? Who would tell my online fans that I would never post another video, never hunt another climbing route, never be the girl I’d once been?

Rain fell harder, thunder rumbling in the distance, the storm regathering above us, almost as if it sensed me burning up, knowing that if it didn’t extinguish my rage I would self-combust and annihilate everything within my path.

Him.

God, how could I hate someone so much and be so drawn to them at the same time? How could I vibrate with longing and loathing?

It was sick.

It was twisted.

I despise it!

It would be the greatest pleasure to throw him off the cliff after my keys. Yet if he touched me the way he had before, I would melt. I would fight. I would beg. I would come.

Argh!

Oblivious to my inner breakdown, he raised his face to the rainy sky and sighed. “We need to get back to Fables, but I’m done being wet.” Pointing at my Jeep—my trusty, wonderful Jeep that he should never have known existed—he commanded, “Get inside. We’ll wait it out.”

And yeah...that was all I could handle.

Bound hands or not, he would pay for stealing my final chance at freedom.

“You bastard!” Throwing myself at him, I wedged my shoulder into his chest and bulldozed him to the muddy ground.

He crashed into the dirt, flat on his back, gasping as his lungs struggled to drink air.

I stood over him with rope-wrapped wrists.

The temptation to run while he was incapacitated came and went.

There would be no more running. He’d made sure of that. From now on, I had to stay. I was his, whether I liked it or not. But I wouldn’t make it easy for him. I wouldn’t let him keep barriers and shields between us.

He felt what I did when his cock was buried inside me.

I know he did.

He’d felt that punch to the heart, that utter destruction of everything inside, and until he admitted it, we were both as good as dead.

Raising my foot, I stomped directly over his demonic heart. Pressing my toes onto his rib cage, I added all my weight so he felt a fraction of the worry and wrongness that I did. I wanted to crush his heart. To stop its tattered beating until he was reborn a gentler, kinder version of himself.

I stomped harder.

Anger roared through me as the image of him tossing my keys into the darkness replayed over and over again.

“God!” I twisted my foot harder into his skin, needing to hurt him. Needing him to feel as wretched and as horrified as me.

In reflex, his hands latched around my ankle. His biceps bunched with the instinct to jerk and throw me off him. But...the second he touched me, the droplets ceased falling, the forest stopped splashing, and it was just us.

Us in terrifying silence.

Silence full of intimacy, sympathy, and worst of all...need.

His hands on me.

His fingers tightening around the paper-thin skin of my ankle.

I swayed as the chemicals in my blood made me useless and utterly incapable of being rational.

His hips rocked up, seeking. My belly clenched, answering.

Madness.

This is madness!

We were once again infected with madness.

The silence ended as quickly as it’d deafened us, returning to crashing rain and growling thunder. We shivered at the same time, leaving us at the mercy of lust.

His fingers glided up my calf, electricity sizzled from his skin to mine—lightning bolts between us instead of from the sky. My knees threatened to buckle beneath the desire to fight and fornicate.

His eyes turned heavy and hooded; his head shifting in the mud as his fingers crept higher.

A moan crawled up my throat as he traced around my knee.

His bare cock thickened, smeared in mud and rain, looking as if we’d both been animals of the woods for far longer than just a night.

Our gazes locked.

My breath caught.

And I was wrong when I’d thought there was more between us. More was such a lackluster word. More was a pittance to the truth.

What twined around us...what turned our heartbeats into battle songs and bodies into mindless desperation was pure necromancy. Magic that had the power to restore the dead, convene with past lives, and somehow stitch forgotten souls back together again.

His stomach flexed as he slowly sat up, guiding my foot down his chest until my dirty toes pressed against his cock instead of his heart.

His teeth bit into his lower lip as he rocked his hips against my sole, rubbing his hardness against me, uncaring of the filth, turned on by my hate, knowing as well as I did that our connection made no sense.

We couldn’t explain why we embraced violence instead of understanding. Why sex was easier than words. Why a single stare shared agonizing secrets that our lips would never utter.

Sitting in the mud, his long legs spread in front of him, he followed the contours of my calf with his fingers, slipping up and up, tracing from my knee to the back of my thigh.

I shivered.

I showed a weakness.

With a soft groan, he slid higher, grabbing my ass before planting both hands on either side of my hips. His fingers bruised me. His tongue licked where his teeth had indented his bottom lip, and whatever messed-up power between us destroyed everything.

He paused for a second.

A single second when his black eyes turned liquid with passion and pain. A second when he had the power to make my entire womb clench for him.

And then, he yanked me forward.

He jerked me so hard, I fell against him.

My bound hands landed on the top of his head for balance. I struggled in his imprisonment. I fought him, but he just held me firm. He nuzzled into my belly, all while I pulled his hair. He nipped my skin as I reared back.

He grunted as his mouth found my core, and I screamed for the third time.

He wasn’t gentle. He wasn’t shy.

His tongue licked me, then fucked me. Spearing so deep, he hit my clit with his teeth, and his nose buried into my flesh.

I couldn’t stand.

He held me up as I broke.

His arms shook as he held me right where he wanted, plundering my pussy, his head bobbing between my legs, his fingernails digging cruelly into my hips.

He ate me as if he’d been there before. As if he knew our height would match, my pussy would welcome, and that I would come for him even harder than before.

His tongue drove me toward an edge that appeared without warning.

It was sharp and jagged, dangerous and full of warning.

If I fell off it—if I let him push me over the edge—what would happen at the bottom? Would I ever be able to walk again? Would I ever trust myself or believe in my inner compass of right and wrong?

“Christ, you taste good.” His tongue dived deeper, possessing every dark part of me. His teeth nipped, and his noises of need and desire shoved me higher, higher. “You taste like earth and me and every other dirty, delicious thing.”

The fact that we were filthy.

That he’d come inside me and now licked me clean.

It was disgusting. It was mind-blowing. It obliterated every boundary that ought to be maintained.

“Come.” His tongue swiped over my clit. “You owe me another.”

The first spindle of an orgasm sparked.

His tongue swept back to my entrance and fucked me faster, his hips thrusting up from the mud.

Another spool, another ripple, the final crest of something excruciating.

No

No.

The crash of a horrendous wave, the rapid unfurling of bliss.

NO!

“Stop!” I fell backward.

I threw myself at gravity’s mercy and tumbled out of his control.

He grunted as my body tore from his hands and his tongue slipped from my core. I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the fall, quaking with the desperate need to come.

Mud splattered me, my teeth clacked together, and I winced as I landed ungracefully on my ass with my hands bound in front of me.

I opened my eyes.

He sat there, lips glistening, chest pumping, eyes glassy with lust.

In his unguarded surprise, he looked hurt. Hurt that I’d left him at the most critical point. Lost that I’d chosen to stop instead of allowing him to claim more of my pleasure. He looked eager and young, and hell, it would be so easy to crawl over to him.

To kiss him in apology.

To shove him onto his back.

To sit on his cock spearing so hard and hungry between his legs.

To say yes to whatever was between us.

But if I did that, it was all over.

I would be admitting that I was the biggest idiot alive.

That I believed I had feelings for this monster, this kidnapper, this would-be murderer.

No.

No way.

I’m not that girl.

Scrambling to my feet, I turned my back on him and sought solace in the only place I could. Ripping open the door of my Jeep, I crawled inside and slammed it in his face.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I RAIDED HER BELONGINGS.

How could I not?

I hadn’t seen anything new in over a decade. I wasn’t materialistic, but even I got bored with the same fucking mansion all the time. An hour passed while I sat on the tailgate of her vehicle and systemically went through all her belongings.

Fleece blankets that were so much softer than the woolen throws in the games room. Spare set of clothes similar to the ones she’d been wearing when she’d trespassed, and miniature solar panels with cables which I assumed were for charging all the technology tucked safely in a small backpack.

Occasionally, she’d twist in the front passenger seat and peer at me suspiciously. Her eyes would follow where my hands went, and her nostrils would flare when I touched things personal to her. Her stare made my skin prickle. Her judgment made my heart skip a beat, but I didn’t stop.

I didn’t stop invading her space because I was pissed.

Fucking pissed, actually.

If I didn’t keep my mind occupied, I might show her just how pissed. Just how annoyed and angry I was. How deeply frustrated.

My cock was still hard, still wanting her, still ignoring me not to care. It twitched all over again as I relived what it’d felt like to feel her pussy clenching around my tongue. She’d been on the pinnacle of coming.

I knew that.

I’d felt the pressure building inside her.

Yet she’d rather fall on her ass than let me give her pleasure. Frankly, that left a bad taste in my mouth. A shameful kind of whisper that said maybe she didn’t enjoy fucking me, after all. Maybe, when she’d come around my cock, it had been a lie—just like I’d accused her of.

It reminded me of all the guests who’d used me. Who’d grunted as I fucked them and moaned as I did what they commanded. They’d all pretended to care. But when it was over, they’d snapped their fingers to summon my master and have me dragged from their sides without a backward glance.

The similarities between her and the mistresses of my past were starting to slice me apart. In so many ways, she was utterly different. She reminded me of my Fable family. She had the spark of Elise and the bravery of Sarez, but in other ways, she was still my enemy.

It didn’t matter what my stupid heart whispered.

Didn’t matter how much I wanted her.

Didn’t matter that I couldn’t get her out of my goddamn head.

Nothing would change the fact that we were stuck with each other, and it wouldn’t be a pleasant experience. We already hated each other. That hate would only fester deeper the longer we survived in each other’s company.

The rain continued to fall but at a gentler flow than before. The soft pitter-patter on the vehicle’s roof ought to have been soothing, but it only made my temper flare hotter.

I wanted to go home.

I felt...itchy out here.

Too far from the safety of my mansion; too much distance between me and the protection Fables now offered.

Once upon a time, Fables had been my prison. I’d dreamed of running far, far away. I didn’t remember why I wanted to run, and wasn’t brave enough to go digging, but now? Well, now it was my domain. I’d earned it. I’d exterminated the vermin, chased out the ghosts, and I knew that place better than anywhere.

There was also another reason.

A reason I couldn’t recall right now, but it had something to do with protecting those I’d saved. Something...

“No way, Kas. I’ll help. We go together or—”

I shook my head, my hands dripping with warm blood. “Leave, Wes. That wasn’t a suggestion. Tonight is our only chance.”

“But what about Storymaker? You won’t win—”

“I will.”

“You won’t. You just killed my guard. He’ll do far worse to you. He’ll—”

“He won’t lay another goddamn finger on me.”

“Kas...please. Think of Quell. Nyx—”

“I am thinking about them. Tonight everything changes.”

“But—”

“Fuck’s sake, Wes!”

I didn’t have time for this shit. Wes was lucky. Thanks to his torture-cabin out here in the woods, he was one step closer to freedom. The others were still in there. Hurting.

“Fucking go, Wes! Now! The others will find you.”

I ran before he could throw other complications in my face.

Complications like how the hell he was going to go anywhere in his condition.

He couldn’t walk unassisted for long.

Some bastard had gone too far in his blood play last month and not provided aftercare. The wounds on Wes’s leg were infected. He was starting to smell bad. Even if he got out of this place, he would probably die.

I ran harder, smearing the guard’s blood on my trousers. I’d have to wash away his death before reporting to serve. I had to hide what I’d done, for just a little longer.

Storymaker would never see me coming. Would never believe that his toy of almost nine years would break his conditioning.

His guests.

His empire.

They were all about to come crashing down, bled dry by my hand, slaughtered by a broken slave.

I choked and fell forward, snatching my hair with a groan.

Christ.

I could smell Wes’s sickness. I could feel the slipperiness of blood. I could hear the screams as I—

Stop!

Rocking, I dropped my arms to wrap around myself. My fingers found roughed areas of dried mud, followed the silvery tracks of old scars, pressed hard muscles and strong bones that hinted I was still alive.

Still here even if I was alone.

But...I’m not alone.

Shit.

Wrenching my head up, I locked eyes with her.

She’d twisted in her seat, her lips parted, her face a picture of worry. We didn’t say a word as I calmed my breathing, sat up tall, and acted as if I hadn’t just been suffocated by shitty memories that refused to die.

Memories that had no business tormenting me while I was awake.

“Are...are you okay?” she whispered. “You sounded as if something skewered you.”

Something did.

Lots of things, actually.

Toys and instruments. Knives and sadistic apparatus.

Glowering at her, I ignored her concern and shoved aside a bag full of female socks, underwear, and other toiletry items that I’d been rifling through before my minor relapse.

My hands trembled and sickness still swirled, but at least the walls in my head were back in place. Plus, I had an entire car-load of distraction to investigate.

Tearing my attention off her, hating that she’d seen me slip, I spied a clear plastic box full of colorful packets.

Is that—

I fell on the box.

It is!

The creak of a seat sounded as Gemma turned to kneel instead of twist, watching me far too closely as I popped the latches and dragged the stash toward me.

Food.

Packaged food.

Holy shit, chocolate!

Hunger hit me like a cannonball, and I dived my fingers into the treasure, pulling out Snickers bars, M&Ms, Dairy Milk, Caramello, and every other Cadbury confectionery there was.

Choosing a plain bar of Dairy Milk, I tore at the purple wrapper and moaned the instant cocoa and sugar hit my tongue.

Good God, how had I survived so many years without sweets?

I looked up after my third massive bite, catching her eyes as she watched me with disdain, annoyance, and a tiny shred of curiosity. “Those are my emergency rations you’re wolfing down.”

“And they taste fucking brilliant.”

She sniffed, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Oh, then by all means, please...help yourself.”

I narrowed my eyes, not liking her tone. “You ate my food. Fair’s fair.”

“Only difference is, my food has flavor.”

“Least my food comes straight from the ground. This is probably full of preservatives.”

“So stop eating it.”

I took another giant bite. “Can’t.”

Rolling her eyes, she let our little domestic fade before asking reluctantly, “I take it you haven’t had dessert in a while?” Her reluctance came from the same place my own questions did.

Asking me things meant she’d get to know me. She’d probably start to feel pity and sympathy. Already, snippets of compassion glowed beneath her anger at my entrapment.

Right now, she was justified in hating me.

I was the villain.

I liked that role. I’d earned that title.

So why did her reluctance to know me make my heart kick? Why could I read her as well as she seemed to read me?

Chewing slowly, I shoved those thoughts away. This girl was a trickster. A trespasser and I would not fall into whatever new trap she’d set.

“Well?” She huffed. “How long since you’ve had sugar?”

Finishing the chocolate, I swallowed before answering, “Not for seven years or so.”

Her forehead furrowed. “So, you’re telling the truth that you haven’t seen anyone in over a decade?”

I licked my lips and reached for a bottle of water, desperately thirsty now that I’d quenched a sugar-craving I hadn’t even known I had. Once I’d drunk my fill, I replied, “Eleven years or so. I don’t exactly remember.”

You can.

You just choose not to.

She flinched and wrapped her fingers around the headrest as if my answer almost knocked her over. She glanced at the rope I’d tied around her wrists, her face revealing the battle of learning me and cursing me.

Slowly, she exhaled, her shoulders dropping from around her ears. “That must’ve been incredibly hard.”

Snatching a new chocolate bar, I unwrapped it and shrugged. “No harder than the eight years or so before that.”

Her eyebrows shot high, disappearing into her tangled, filthy hair. Hesitation filled her, but she still asked the question I expected and didn’t want. “What happened in those eight years or so before?”

I gave her the only answer that mattered. “We survived.”

“We?”

I shook my head and bit into the chocolate.

That was enough for story time. Enough of straying too close to the edge of then and now. It was still dark outside. I’d already slipped. If I wasn’t careful, I might share too much and encourage the sludge of nightmares to find me again.

In my current state, I remembered a little more than I cared to. The vagueness of knowing crimes had been committed against me, the uneasy notions of beatings, rapes, and punishments were losing their fussy forgetfulness.

Keep your walls. Forget. Ignore.

The past receded a little, feeling less like me and more like someone who I used to know—someone I didn’t even like.

That helped. That distance kept memories devoid of emotion.

It kept my life less like the sum of who I was and more like a sad, poorly directed movie that I’d barely watched and didn’t care at all about the main character.

If she continued to ask, to push me closer into remembering, those walls would crumble, the movie would absorb me, and I would be the main character screaming out his agony with no one around to care.

Stuffing the rest of the chocolate into my mouth, I threw away the wrapper and reached for another.

“You’re having another one? A third and you’ll turn diabetic.”

I scowled. “There’s plenty. For once in my life, I’m not having to conserve.” I gave her a thin smile. “Thanks to your stash, I can be a glutton.”

Her huff of annoyance was loud, followed by the faint rock of the vehicle as she spun in her seat, awkwardly opened the door with the rope still imprisoning her, and leaped out.

I exploded out of the tailgate, planting myself in front of her. “And where do you think you’re going?” Soft rain slicked us, gracing her nakedness with goosebumps.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re hard work?” Pushing me out of the way, she opened the passenger back door. “You’re eating my food, idiot. I’m starving. I’m not exactly going to let you have a car picnic without me.” Scrambling into the back, she crawled with her hands together, unashamedly with her ass in the air and flashes of her pussy making me rock fucking hard until she leaned against the opposite side of the Jeep.

The back seats had been laid flat, leaving the rear with more room for gear and possibly a sleeping space. Her boxes of supplies dotted like life-giving islands in a sea of scratchy carpeting.

Tilting her head at me, still standing in the rain with my cock standing to attention, she asked sickly sweet, “Enjoying your shower, dearest? You’ve had your dinner and now getting ready for bed?”

I gave her the finger, aware chocolate smeared my fingerprints. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a pain in the ass?”

“Yes. Regularly.” She flashed a pained smile. “Joshua.”

Jealousy heaved through me. “And who the hell is Joshua? Boyfriend?” I searched her left hand even though I knew there was no ring there. I’d noticed when she’d been unconscious within a few minutes of meeting her.

She wasn’t bound to another, which made it scarily easy to bind her to me.

Wiping her arms free from the fine haze of rain, she sighed as if my temper grated on her nerves. “You’ve strangled me, hunted me, fucked me, and stolen my food, yet you haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, have you?” Her eyes shot up, locking me in place.