My mouth covers hers again and my hand slides under her backside, cupping her cheek, and molding all her soft, fuckable curves nice and close. We’re fucking. This is us fucking, just fucking.
Her fingers dive into my hair again and tug roughly, and there it is, that side of her that tempts me in all kinds of dirty ways. She thinks she understands me, even knows me, but she hasn’t even begun to see who I am. What I am. And damn it to hell, I want to show her. I want to show her and I want her to be able to handle it, but that’s not what just fucking is about. Fucking is about not caring if she can handle it.
I pinch her nipple a little too hard, and she gasps in my mouth and repays the favor, her fingernails digging erotically into my arm. “You’re afraid of me,” she accuses.
Stunned, I pull back, our lips lingering a breath apart. “You’re the one who should be scared.”
“And yet, I’m not.”
“You will be,” I promise, and I don’t give her time to push for more. I slant my mouth over hers and a wild, hot need erupts between us. I want my tongue all over her, I want to drive her wild, but the absolute physical need to bury myself inside her, to feel her warm and tight around me is just too fierce. My hands slide under her waistband and caress the oversize sweats down her legs, all the way down. I get rid of her shoes and socks as well, and then she is naked, her ivory skin flushed, while my heart is pounding.
Our eyes meet and there’s a punch in my chest I have never known with another woman. She sits up, her arms wrapping my neck, and I lower myself over her. But I don’t kiss her. I lean in and bury my face in her neck, inhaling her scent that is still somehow, impossibly fresh and feminine. She’s naked, while I am not, still proving herself willing to be vulnerable, and at my mercy, and I don’t know why. She is not naïve. She is not even close to naïve.
Suddenly, an urge to push her the way she wants to be pushed, the way I almost pushed her at the cabin overtakes me. I could make her see that darker side of me, but damn it, I’m not ready to let her go.
Her hand is on my face, her fingers in my hair, tugging me to her, and when I draw back, there’s no going slow. Our mouths collide, and I’m cradling her to me.
“Adrian,” she pants, and I know what she wants, what I want.
I don’t even remember shoving my pants down, and then I’m sliding into the warm, snug heat of her body. I drive into her, and she gasps, arching into me. I catch her knee and drag it to my hip and thrust again and again. Low moans and pants fill the cavern until she’s shuddering into release, her body spasming around me, dragging me with her.
When our bodies are calm, I roll off Pri and fix my pants before I grab her a tissue. In silence, she dresses, and damn it, we’re awkward again. I don’t even know how it happened. And I never even fully undressed. Maybe she thinks that’s because I just couldn’t wait to be inside her, which is true. Or that I need to be ready if we’re attacked. Also true. Or maybe she thinks it’s because fucking her just wasn’t that important to me. Not true. Not even close to true. Right now, in this moment, it’s time to admit it: Pri matters to me.
Too.
Damn.
Much.
Offering her privacy, claiming some for myself, trying to shake off whatever the hell this spell is that she’s cast on me, I present her my back, legs cocked in front of me, wrists resting on my knees. Damn it to hell, what am I doing? I need a run. I need a shower. I need her. I need all those bad things I did to just go away.
But they won’t.
“Already you regret that,” she says, her voice a soft quake.
I rotate to face her to find her fully dressed and standing to the side of the mattress. Beautiful Pri. Smart Pri. Insightful Pri, but she’s wrong this time. I stand and face her, the mattress in front of me and beside her. “I don’t regret touching you, Pri. Never.”
“Right,” she says. “Just regret in general. I get it. I know all about regrets.”
She turns away from me and disappears behind the sheet. I don’t think. I just act. I follow her, rounding the barely existing barrier just as she pulls the T-shirt over her head. I catch her elbow and tug her around to face me, her breasts bare, and already I’m hot and hard again.
“What are you doing?” she demands, covering her chest with the tee still in her hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Sometimes a girl feels more in control in a bra, even if it’s a wet bra. I’m trying to put it on.”
And I’d rather she not, I think, but what I say is, “I regret a lot of things, but you are not one of them.”
“You giving me your back says otherwise.”
“I was giving you privacy.”
“Because willingly getting naked on a cavern floor says I need privacy?”
“You’re back here, putting on a bra.”
“I’m right here, half-naked in your arms again, Adrian. But yes, I need and want to put on my clothes.”
“Let them dry.” I grab the T-shirt from her hand and pull it back over her head. “We need to get some rest. Tomorrow will come early.”
“And so will goodbye, right?”
A tic forms in my jaw. “You’re stuck with me at least until after the trial.”
“Stop it,” she snaps. “Stop now.”
“Stop what, Pri?”
“If you want to push me away, do it. If you believe that’s what’s right, do it. Because we both know that’s what you’re doing. Deleon convinced you our day of reckoning is coming, so you decided to rush it along.
“It is coming,” I say. “It’s already here.”
“You mean you’ve already decided what I will think of you, and where my mind, heart, and regrets will be when this is over. You don’t get to make my decision for me or think for me, for that matter. You don’t have that right. Now I’m putting on my bra and pants. Now you can give me that privacy.”
I feel that hard push away, and I don’t like it. My hands gently shackle her waist and I step into her, my forehead lowering to hers. “Don’t do this,” I plead softly. “I know I deserve it, but,” I ease back to look at her, “don’t do this. Don’t push me away.”
She grips the T-shirt a little tighter in front of her and between us. “I don’t know what you want from me, Adrian. And I don’t have the emotional capacity to be this confused while fighting a war.”
“I’m crazy about you,” I confess, “like I have never been for another woman. I just don’t fucking know how we end up together on the other side of this. And don’t read some kind of intent into that.”
“And I’m crazy about you, too, but every man in my life, including you, has tried to make my decisions for me. I’m done letting that happen.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to do.”
“You’ve already decided what I’ll feel about you when you testify. Because you think I can’t handle the truth of your past.”
“I know you can’t.”
Her eyes flash. “I decide what I can handle, and honestly, I don’t know how I’ll handle what you’ve done, I won’t pretend I do. I can’t know, but neither can you.”
“I know,” I insist. “I know.”
“What I know,” she says, poking my chest, “is that lies hurt. Lies I can’t take. Honesty matters to me.”
“I have always been honest with you, Pri.”
“I know. That’s my point. Be honest with yourself and me right here, right now. I know we’re in a cave together, but if you just want us to step back, to be all business—”
My hands come down on her arms. “I don’t want that at all.”
“Want and need are two different things. So maybe you don’t want to step back, but if you need—”
“No. I don’t need to step back. I told you. I’m crazy about you, which is why I’m trying to do right by you.”
“Right by me?” she asks incredulously. “What does that even mean?”
“I know
the fair thing to do, the right thing, is to step back from us and stick to all business until this is over.”
She gives my chest a hard shove and does just that, steps back. I let her when all I want to do is pull her close again. This reaction, this absolute need for her, is new to me and dangerous to her.
“You’re right,” she says. “All business is best. We broke rules. We crossed lines. I know.” But there is a slight tremble to her bottom lip that says she doesn’t know.
I don’t know either.
But today has been a solid reminder that the ones I love end up hurt. Or worse, dead.
There are things I want to say to her, most of which start with “when this is over” but I stop myself. When this is over, she’ll know who I really am, and this, us, will really be over.
I step around the sheet and leave her there, close enough to protect her, but too far away to touch.
Chapter Nine
PRI
The minute Adrian disappears out of sight, I collapse against the cavern wall and squeeze my eyes shut. Adrian just shut me down, pushed me away. And it hurts. Obviously, I fell hard for him.
And that is what I know.
What else explains the thundering of my heart beneath my hand now balled right at that tight spot between my breasts? What else explains the way I hang on his words, and welcome his touch when I have had no other in so very long? What else explains that even with murder and mayhem around me, he brings a smile to my lips without even trying. And what else explains just how affected I am by the way he’s pushed me away?
Nothing, but I fell hard for him.
And now, he’s pushed me away.
Logically, my sane, educated mind knows that’s the smart thing anyway. I do. I completely understand that reality, but I’m back to my pounding heart beneath my fist. Back to how much it hurts. Still, I force my logical mind to take over again. He’s damaged, deeply, perhaps irreparably damaged. He doesn’t believe I can want him. He’s protecting himself, and me. Nothing will change where we are right now, but full exposure, and I’m not even sure an immunity deal will be enough. I believe Adrian will wait as long as he can to talk to me and tell me as little as possible to make our case in court. Considering this is all going public, to be telecast live and in a big way, I can’t blame him.
Bottom line, both of us need the war to be over. Both of us have put everything on the line to take down Waters, and I need to remember that, him more so than me. He will always be “that guy” once he testifies on national television. The best thing I can do for both of us is to convict Waters. That’s my job, and that needs to be my focus. I push off the wall, and I’m remarkably calmer now. I’m focused. We’re alive. We are on the right track to justice. Putting sexual tension aside, for now, is a good thing.
Resolved to focus on my duty, and taking down Waters is my duty, I determine a need to talk through my Deleon strategy with Adrian. With this in mind, I round the sheet, and Adrian’s presence jolts me anew as if I wasn’t just touching him. Just that easily he consumes me. He’s on the floor, leaning on the wall, his long, powerful legs stretched before him, and he looks ruggedly male—so damn good looking. That’s how it works for men. They can be muddy and weary and they just enhance the manly factor. For me, I’m pretty sure I just look like a wet mess.
Adrian’s eyes meet mine, and mine his, no avoidance between us. There is no question the pulse of our attraction is alive and well, and yet that wall Deleon sought to build, stands stronger than ever.
I walk to the mattress and sit down, leaning against the cavern wall, a good two feet between us now that feels like a mile. On some level, I think Deleon won. On another, I decide he lost in a big way. He solidified my need to make the sacrifices so many have made to take him and Waters down, count.
My gaze slides to the gun on Adrian’s left, and the bottle of whiskey in his right hand. “Drinking and a gun doesn’t seem like a good idea,” I dare.
“While in a cave with you,” he says, “it’s a perfect combination. Besides, my weapon is a part of me, an extension of who I am. Booze doesn’t change that.”
I inhale on a punch of emotions I cannot name, and my lashes lower, fingers curling by my sides. This push and pull between us is brutal. There’s no cooling off between us, just different degrees and types of heat. He’s already decided we’re enemies, and I pray that’s not true.
“Right,” I say, and when I open my eyes, he’s tilting back the whiskey.
I realize then that no substantial question I ask will be met with a productive answer, not tonight. “Do you have paper and a pen?” I ask.
He uses the whiskey bottle to indicate the boxes by the wall. “If we have it, it’s in there.”
We.
Well, at least “we” still exist in some way for him. I crawl to the boxes, find a pad and pen, and then return to my spot on the mattress against the wall. It’s time to get focused. Tomorrow, if all goes right, I’ll be pushing Deleon to roll over. Adrian might not think that’s possible, but when someone faces life behind bars, something inside them shifts. In Deleon’s case, we witnessed him stab a man who I pray is still alive.
My mind flashes with an image of Agent Pitt gasping for air, and then the blood, so much blood, pouring from his body. I have to make Deleon and Waters pay. I have a job to do and I am now officially focused on that job. I start prepping for that interview, writing down questions, strategies, angles. I don’t know how much time passes, but my hand has cramped when I’ve finished five pages of notes. At this point, Adrian’s head is resting against the wall, his eyes shut. That’s where he’s going to sleep. That’s how much he wants to avoid me.
With a clench of my gut, I set my work aside and lie down, shivering with the damp cave and pulling a blanket over me. In that moment, I feel alone, which was far more comfortable before I met Adrian. Funny how one soul meets another and everything changes. He did the impossible. He found me and I didn’t even know I was lost.
I’m just not sure I actually found him, or that I ever will.
Chapter Ten
PRI
The drip-drop of water once again echoes through the cold cavern. It’s raining again. Maybe it never stopped.
I lie on the mattress and stare at the ceiling, certain I won’t be able to sleep. Rolling over, I face Adrian and find his eyes are on me, and in the shadows of his stare there is a story to read, one with no happy ending. It’s a story of torment, pain, and brutality and I realize he wants me to understand the latter, the brutality. As if he is done trying to hide it, only I already read this book, at least this dark chapter. I already know he’s lethal and so is the gun next to him. What he doesn’t understand, nor do I, is that it seems to work for me. In fact, I think it’s because of these things, because I know he’s a killer, that I’m able to shut my eyes. And when I do, the heaviness of a long day, a grueling physical and emotional explosion of a day, overtakes me. I shut my eyes and I’m back in the cabin, reliving it all. Pitt falling to the ground. Adrian and Deleon rolling around on the floor. Adrian stabbing Deleon. I was certain he was dead and for just a moment, I wished it were true. That’s why I didn’t immediately hand Adrian the rope. I thought Deleon was dead.
I glance over at Adrian and the bottle of whiskey is still in his hand. No help there to numb the events of the day. Not unless I want to take it from him, and I get the feeling he doesn’t want to be bothered. I force my eyes shut and tell myself I have to sleep. I have to be fresh to interview Deleon. I start counting sheep, literally, for the first time in my life.
I obviously fall asleep because I wake with a start and jolt to a sitting position, scanning my surroundings only to realize I’m still in the cavern and Adrian is kneeling beside me. “Hey, sweetheart. Nothing’s wrong. We’re okay.”
Sweetheart. The endearment is wildly unexpected and remarkably calming. “What’s happening?” I whisper.
“My alarm happened,” he says. “I set i
t for sunrise.”
I throw away the blanket and pull my knees to my chest, my pulse leaping anxiously, the harsh need for more sleep gone in a blink. “That’s when Walker will come for us?”
“If they can. We need to be ready.”
My brows lift. “If they can?”
“Walker moves when it’s safe. We don’t know what’s going on outside the cave.”
Of course, he’s right, I think. We don’t even know if it’s still raining. “Then what?” I ask, my mind instantly on the pages of notes I took last night. “What happens when Walker shows up?”
“We get the hell out of these woods.”
“Right. Of course. Good.” I shift to my knees to get up. “I need to pee, brush my teeth, and get my brain connected before I interview Deleon.” I twist away from him, but he catches my elbow before I can stand.
The touch shocks me and if I wasn’t wide awake before, I am now. Our eyes collide, and Lord help me, heat charges up my arm and across my chest. That is until he says, “Deleon is going to have to wait.”
I blink. “Wait? What does that mean?”
“We’re going to New York City.”
“No,” I say, pushing back. “I’m not going to New York. I have a job to do.”
“And so do I.”
I jerk out of his touch as if burned. “And I’m your job.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Isn’t it?” I challenge.
He scrubs a hand through his tousled hair. “What do you want me to say here, Pri?”
“You got me naked last night and then this morning I’m a job.” My voice is pure contempt as I add, “I think you’ve said enough.”
“You are not just a job.” His voice is low, almost vehement.
“Okay,” I concede. “Then we’re friends, Adrian, but that doesn’t mean—”
“Friends?” he demands, a crack to his tone. “Is that what we are?”
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