by Katee Robert
She’d earned that skillset.
Questions rose from deep inside him, a long-buried curiosity surging to the fore. He wanted to know how a pampered princess ended up on this path, what she thought to accomplish with a favor from Amarante, what she planned to do after the Hunt was over.
More damning, he wanted to know if she ever took off the masks she presented the world. He craved the knowledge of which Cami was the real one—the snarling feral thing in the jungle, the tempting siren on the beach, or the ice queen who’d walked through the doors of the casino? Maybe it was none of them. Or all of them. Luca didn’t know, and it drove him to distraction.
They encountered no one through their forced hike to the destination he’d set, which was just as well. He had a feeling Cami would bolt the second he was distracted, and he couldn’t hold her and fight to protect her at the same time. He needed to convince her that staying with him was her best bet, and the only way to do that was to have a conversation.
You’ve had conversations with this woman. Several. And none of them turn out like you plan.
Luca breathed a silent sigh of relief when he heard the crashing sound of the waterfall. Safe. They were almost safe. At least temporarily. As they walked through the line of close trees, he couldn’t help but look back to catch the expression on Cami’s face. She didn’t disappoint.
Shock and pleasure.
Suspicion.
Luca didn’t give her a chance to demand answers. He just led the way to the hidden ledge that ran behind the waterfall. It was almost invisible until a person was right on top of it, and in the years they’d run this hunt, no one had ever found the cavern behind it. Kenzie used it when she needed somewhere safe to rest, but she never visited it more than once during a Wild Hunt. Too easy for their competitors to cry foul if there wasn’t regular images of her scrambling across their monitors. If she occasionally disappeared for a few hours at a time, no one thought too much of it. The island’s camera network was exhaustive but not infallible.
They’d planned it that way.
He kept a hold of Cami’s arm, ensuring she didn’t fall. Again, he shouldn’t have bothered. She was surefooted as she followed him behind the curtain of water and slipped past him to examine the cavern. If it could be called that. It was a natural space roughly ten by ten feet, with a mostly flat ground and a gap in the ceiling to let in natural light. The rock even broke through the worst of the heat, and the pool of the waterfall edged into this space several feet. Plenty of space for a quick bath.
If he wanted to keep from getting distracted, thinking about a naked Cami rising out of that pool of water was not the way to go.
He released her and moved as far into the cavern as he could. The minuscule distance did nothing to dampen his awareness of her, but at least he wasn’t touching her. Luca shrugged out of his pack and let it drop to the ground. As much as he wasn’t thrilled with the idea of fantasizing about her bathing, he was determined to scrub the sweat and dirt and forest from his skin. Fifteen years, and he hadn’t been dirty like this in all that time.
It was as if his brain had waited until that very moment to register just how filthy he was.
Fuck.
He couldn’t handle it.
He had to get clean.
Now.
Luca yanked his shirt over his head. Not enough. He had to get these clothes off. He dropped to the ground to muscle off his boots.
“What are you doing?”
He couldn’t ignore her. Damn it, but it took more effort to speak than it should have. “I need to get clean,” he ground out.
“Now? Are you serious?”
“Turn around if you don’t want to see.” He kicked off his socks and his hands went to the front of his pants. Luca forced himself to stop, forced himself to breathe past the panic. “Cami, I’m sorry, I just can’t—”
“It’s okay.” Gone was her shock, her anger, replaced by calm. “Is there anything I can do?”
She knows.
It didn’t matter if she understood completely or not. She’d read him well enough to figure out that something was wrong. He’d decide how he felt about that later. Right now, he had to get the rest of his clothes off and get into the goddamn water. Luca stripped in seconds and had enough restraint to slip into the water instead of leaping. The waterfall might hide them from anyone looking, but there was no reason to take stupid risks.
He ducked under the water, sinking as deep as he could, the full three meters to the floor of the pool. He caught the edge of a rock to keep himself in place and exhaled slowly, a tiny stream of bubbles escaping his mouth to join the roar of the waterfall overhead.
Slowly, painfully slowly, his panic abated and his mind cleared. He wasn’t safe, but he wasn’t in the same kind of danger he’d lived with for what had felt like time unknowable as a child. No he knew it was fewer than two years. Such a short time in an everyday life. When a person was in hell? It spanned an entire lifetime.
He waited until his lungs screamed for air and he couldn’t stand it any longer before pushing off the bottom and swimming to the surface. Cami sat a foot back from the edge, a worried expression on her face. It disappeared as soon as his head cleared the water, but he saw it nonetheless.
She was worried about me.
He scrubbed a hand over his face and winced. “Can you bring my pack over?”
“Soap?” She held up a white bar that he hadn’t noticed she held. “It’s unscented.” Cami passed it over and Luca decided not to comment on her anticipating his needs. Of course she knew what he needed. When he’d just stripped like a madman, barely capable of speech and submerged himself until he couldn’t stand holding his breath any longer … It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had bothered him.
He still appreciated it.
“Thanks.” He found a small ledge underwater to stand on and got to work cleaning the feeling of filth from his skin. It wasn’t completely imagined—several days in the heat and humidity was more than enough to make them both a little ripe—but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as his mind tried to convince him. Memory overlaid reality, the dried sweat turning into several days’ worth of mud and worse.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He started to shake his head, but she deserved some kind of explanation. “When I was a kid, there was a period of time when I didn’t have access to … Well, to anything resembling cleanliness. It doesn’t normally bother me, but when it gets triggered, I can’t think until I get clean.” Luca braced himself for questions, for demands for more information.
But Cami just nodded. “Being part of the Hunt must be hard for you.”
He soaped up his hands and scrubbed harder across his face. When he ducked under the water and came up again, he could finally breathe. “Kenzie is usually the one out here, and she doesn’t have the same hang up.” He shuddered before he could stop himself. “My sister is batshit crazy.”
“I’m sure she has her own issues.”
Kenzie had more masks than Cami seemed to, and even though she gave every appearance of casual contact and allowing people close … She didn’t. She kept them at just as much of a distance as Amarante did. She was just less obvious about it, all smiles and flirting and swagger until people didn’t realize they knew next to nothing about her, that she’d never actually let them in. “We all do.”
12
Cami kept every trace of sympathy off her face. Luca wouldn’t recognize it as such. He’d think she pitied him, and he’d hate her for it. She just sat at the edge of the pool and tried to reconcile her vision of this powerful man with the reality of this deep wound he carried.
No matter what he thought, she wasn’t a fool. She knew he’d gone through something unspeakable. People did not steal children for any angelic reason. It had been years before Yael’s people found him, and by then he’d been nearly an adult and evaded all attempts to bring him home.
It still was something entirely different to
see evidence of it on his body.
Scars crisscrossed his torso, his arms, and what little she’d seen of his legs before he’d slipped into the water. Long silver ones from blades, puckered ones that looked like puncture wounds, and several spots had the glossy smooth skin resulting from healed burns.
He looked like he’d been tortured.
Because he was. Whether it was in the most literal sense or through his experiences, he was tortured.
She met his dark gaze, her breath stilling at how haunted he’d become. “Is there anything I can do?” The question slipped free before she could think better of it. She wanted to smack herself. Was there anything she could do? How about not acting as if she knew a thing about what he’d gone through?
“The skeletons in my closet haven’t been put to rest … yet. That’s the only thing that can help.” He gave a wan smile. “Though I appreciate the offer.”
Meaning that the skeletons would be put to rest at some point. She sat back on her heels, understanding settling over her, the knowledge heavy enough she swore she could actually feel it. “That’s what this island is, isn’t it? A carefully designed trap for the ones who hurt you.” No wonder no one from Thalania had been able to pull him out of this place. His motives went beyond money, beyond power.
He wanted justice.
Luca set the soap aside, disappeared under the water for a long moment, and then propped his arms on the ledge next to her. “I’m no saint. We’ve caught a shit ton of people in our nets, and not for altruistic reasons, either. Power is the only god we worship.”
He could say that, but it didn’t change the truth. She would wager every person they trapped led to their ultimate purpose. Power enough to go after those who hurt them.
Except …
She shook her head. “Yael searched for them. Theo searched for them after he took the throne, and his father did before him. No one found any evidence of the people who took you, who kept you. Even when they found you, they never found where you’d been held or any hint of who was responsible.”
Luca shrugged. “They were careful. More than careful. Code names and masks and a secret location in northern British Columbia, far out from anything resembling civilization. Even we don’t know their true identities and we were the ones trapped in that place.”
Not being able to put a name and history to the person victimizing him and the others must have been … She had to look away. She couldn’t control what he’d see in her eyes. “What happens once you find them?”
Luca let loose a hoarse laugh. “You don’t have any doubt that we will.”
“Obviously.” She finally had herself put back together again enough to face him again. “If I didn’t know how carefully you four have cultivated your reputation, I would think you’re fishing for a compliment.”
He studied her, tiny rivulets of water tracing the lines of his face. “What are you really doing here, Cami?” She opened her mouth, but he spoke before she could figure out whether to offer him a lie or something resembling the truth. “We both know you’re not here to use the favor to haul me back to Thalania. And you’ve admitted that the betrothal is bullshit.”
“Did I?” She did—couldn’t—trust him. If she put herself out there and he used it against her …
He would use it against her.
Luca’s loyalties lay with the other Horsemen. It lay with the Island of Ys. Even if by some strange turn of events, he felt loyalty to Thalania, that still wouldn’t put him in Cami’s corner. “It’s private,” she said stiffly.
“Keep your secrets, then.” Only the slightest tensing in his shoulders betrayed that her refusal affected him. If he hadn’t been naked, she never would have seen the small response.
He was naked.
Cami blinked, awareness rolling over her in a wave she didn’t even try to resist. “Luca.” Her breathy tone gave her away.
“Yeah?” He didn’t move, just maintained his position, his eyes darkening even further as he took her in. “You looking to distract me because I’m dancing too close to the truth?”
No. Yes. Maybe. She licked her lips, all too aware of the way he tracked the movement. “I don’t know.”
“What do you know?”
For a man who almost certainly would have tossed her over his shoulder and bodily carried her to a helicopter that would transfer her off the island, her protesting all the while, he was almost cautious when it came to the attraction between them.
She shouldn’t give in to her desire. It would cloud her mind. She wasn’t cold enough to have sex with him without it changing things. They’d barely fooled around, and it had caused her to be unforgivably weak when it came to this man. If he was anyone else, she would have found a trap to trip around him and moved on to the next competitor threatening her win.
And yet …
And yet.
What was the point of all her sacrifice and all her training if she was just going to continue denying herself the things she wanted more than she wanted her next breath?
Mistake or not, it was hers to make.
Cami unlaced her boots and pulled them off, quickly followed by her socks. She pushed to her feet, her hands suddenly clumsy, and pulled her shirt over her head. Pants, bra, panties. They all followed in quick succession, until she stood before him naked.
The temptation rose to jump into the water and avoid his slow perusal, but she planted her feet and met his gaze. Once they crossed this line, there was no going back. More importantly, it couldn’t change anything for either of them. Luca still had his goals, and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were in direct opposition to hers.
Tomorrow it would matter.
Tomorrow she’d find a way to slip away from him and this time she’d make it stick.
But it wasn’t tomorrow yet.
She took Luca’s hand and let him guide her into the pool. The water was colder than she expected, but all the more welcome for it. Cami went under, and even in the darkness she couldn’t shake the awareness of his presence. Almost close enough to touch. She surfaced and reached for the bar of soap.
“Let me.”
She blinked, treading water. “I … okay.” She probably should have put up a fight, but she was so goddamn tired of fighting. Especially when this was something she wanted so desperately.
Cami let him pull her to the ledge where he stood. He lathered up the soap with his big hands and then they were in her hair. Luca weighed her hair as if it were made of gold and then carefully went to work soaping up her scalp, his fingers finding the tension spots where a headache threatened and massaging.
She moaned. She couldn’t help it.
Several long minutes later, he moved down her neck and over her shoulders. “Up,” he murmured, and she rose out of the water enough to allow him access to her breasts and back. He took equal time with both, his thumbs dragging over the lines of her back and then around and up her stomach to cup her breasts. The move brought his chest against her back and she shivered at the feeling of his cock pressing against her ass. “Luca.”
“Not yet.” He lifted her fully out of the water and soaped the rest of her body. His dark eyes traced the path his hands took, his brows furrowed in concentration. As if this was the main event, rather than the prequel to better things.
Finally, she couldn’t take it any longer. Cami nudged him back with her foot on his chest and slid into the water. She submerged fully, running her fingers through her hair, but this time the cool temperature did nothing to dampen her need. She surfaced and he met her there, hauling her into his arms.
Her legs went around his waist in a move as natural as breathing, and he took her mouth, displaying none of the hesitation he had last time they kissed. Why should he? She was his, at least for the moment. He kept an arm between her and the rock wall, cushioning her back, and used the other to tangle in her wet hair, angling her head back for better access.
As if she would deny him anything in this moment.
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Cami ran her hands up his chest and back down, loving the way his muscles flexed against her fingertips. She wanted to take her time, to give him the same treatment he’d lavished on her, but the desire in her blood was too strong to ignore. “Luca, I need you.”
Luca, I need you.
Had he ever heard those words before? Not like this, desperate and full of desire. Luca pressed his forehead to hers, breathing harshly. It wouldn’t take much in their current position. A shift of angle, a thrust of his hips. He’d be inside her with no more waiting.
It wasn’t enough.
He lifted her out of the water and set her on the edge. “Not yet.”
“Please—”
He gripped her thighs and pushed them wide, forcing her to prop her hands behind her in order to steady herself. “Not yet. Not until I’ve tasted you.”
“I need you inside me,” she whispered, but her hands went to tangle in his hair, nudging him between her spread thighs.
He kissed just above her knee and then dragged his cheek along her skin, loving the way she shivered in response. “I need to have you coming on my face.”
Her hands spasmed in his hair. “That’s a compelling argument.”
“Mmm.” He parted her with his thumbs, exploring her pussy with both sight and touch. He’d give an inordinate amount of money for some good lighting right now so he could see her in perfect detail, but the intimacy of the dim cave somehow made this perfect. He exhaled against her clit.
Cami tugged on his hair. “Don’t tease me, Luca. I don’t think I can survive it.”
He moved back, enjoying the tiny sparks of pain from her grip, and kissed her other thigh. “Tell me what you want.”
She spread her thighs wider, only her hold on him keeping her from falling. And fuck if he didn’t like that. An offering without reservations, without conditions. Just this woman and her need for him. Cami’s breath hitched. “I need your mouth on my pussy. Suck my clit. Fuck me with your tongue. Make me come on your face.”