Third Debt

by Pepper Winters

  “I want you.” I bent to kiss her. “I want you forever.” Our lips touched; shockwaves danced down my spine. My cock thickened and Nila once again took me hostage.

  Her breathing caught, rattling in her lungs.

  I pulled back. She’d been sick with no one to help her. How many other fucking secrets had she kept from me? “You were ill?”

  She flushed. “It’s nothing. Just a cold. I’m fine.”

  It wasn’t just a cold and it wasn’t fine. I’d let her down again. But as much as I hated her lying to me, I loved her all the more for being so selfless.

  I don’t deserve this woman.

  Nila’s lips whispered over mine again. “Besides, none of that matters now. You’re back. We can run.”

  I froze.

  Run?

  There was no more running.

  She pulled away, her face slowly sinking into despair. “Wait…you are here for me, aren’t you?” Her voice babbled. “We’re leaving this place. We’re running tonight. We’ll get you better so we can end this when you’re strong enough. You have to take me away, Jethro. I can’t go back. I can’t.”

  My heart fisted. I wanted to carve out my soul to make her understand. “I’m here for you, Nila. A thousand times here for you.”

  She shuffled backward, but I trapped her wrist.

  Tears shone in her eyes. “But you’re not going to save me tonight?”

  I’m going to save more than you. Don’t you see?

  So many lives rested on my shoulders—just like I’d carried all my life.

  “We can’t run. I refuse to run again.”

  She wiped away a tear, refusing to look at me.

  I groaned, tracing the translucent skin of her wrist. “Running isn’t an option anymore. If I run and lick my wounds, he wins again. We have the element of surprise now. They think I’m dead. It gives me the perfect opportunity to end this. To be free. But it has to be now.”

  “But you’re not well enough.”

  Grabbing her hand, I placed it directly on my side. Gritting my teeth against the flare of pain, I growled, “I proved to you I’m alive by fucking you. I’m here to save you; you have my ultimate word. But there are others I need to save, too.”

  She deflated, knowing I spoke the truth but not ready to accept it. Her emotions turned selfish, wanting to keep me for herself. She already agreed we couldn’t run—her thoughts blared it—but it didn’t stop her from indulging in one make-believe moment.

  “But if we ran, we’d be free.” She looked up, speaking words she didn’t mean. “You have money. I have money. We could disappear.” Her conviction and selfishness faded the second she finished.

  She sighed, her heartbeat slowing with resolution.

  I tucked short strands behind her ear, my soul cursing the death of her gorgeous hair all over again. “You already know what I’m going to say and you agree with me, but I’ll say it anyway. Running isn’t an option. Vaughn is still here. Tex. Your family’s company. You’re saying you’d leave it all behind when just a few more days it could be over for good? Why should we be the ones to run when it’s our lives that we’re fighting for? Our future is here. Our families are here. I’m not going anywhere and neither are you.”

  She pursed her lips. “They let Vaughn go. He’ll be back with my father and hopefully be smart enough to hide. We could run.” Her emotions overwhelmed with suffering. “I need to leave, Jethro. I can’t go back. I can’t. I’ll break. I’m so close to breaking. I’m not strong enough. I can’t—”

  I grabbed her, holding her shaking form. “Calm down. I’m not asking you to go back for long.” As much as it killed me, I added, “And do you truly believe they set Vaughn free? They haven’t done anything decent yet; why would they start now?”

  She froze.

  “The only thing we can do to ensure your family’s safety is to fight. You’re the bravest person I know, Nila. You’ve proven I’m strong enough to do what needs to be done. And I will do what needs to be done. But in order to do that I need you by my side. I need you with me which means we aren’t running. We’re staying here and fighting.”

  She shook her head, even though her emotions agreed with me wholeheartedly.

  I kissed her head. “You’re so incredible, Needle. So beautiful and strong. I’ll end this, okay? You just have to believe in me a little longer.”

  She cried quietly, snuggling into my embrace. She couldn’t verbalize it, but she gave me permission. And I fucking loved her for it. For being strong enough to agree. For being with me even when I asked so much.

  I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Nila…I love you. I’m never going to hurt you again. Unequivocally, deeply, totally—you have my heart and soul. I will make this right, I promise.” Taking her hand, I kissed her knuckles. “You trust me still, don’t you?”

  A flicker of a seductive smile crossed her lips even as tears spilled from her eyes.

  Memories of asking her if she trusted me when I’d shared my secrets came back. At the start she’d said yes, even as her heart screamed no. But, by the time I’d shown her intensity with my crop and made love to her, she’d trusted me completely.

  Her skin was the palest cream in the dark. My lips ached to kiss her again. My cock throbbed to be inside her.

  Her eyes tore past my humanness and into the part of me that was eternal. “I trust you.”

  I couldn’t stop myself.

  I pushed her onto her back and climbed on top of her. Her short hair fanned out like a black halo, tangling with hay. She didn’t stop me as I pressed my weight over her. Her legs opened, her hands gathered the material of the nightgown, and she welcomed me to wedge between her delectable thighs.

  I groaned as her body melted. My cock punched against my boxer-briefs wanting to fill her all over again.

  As much as I needed to be inside her, I didn’t want to rush it. My fingers threaded through her hair, keeping her pinned. Nila wriggled, softening beneath me.

  Biting her bottom lip, her fingers moved to my waistband. “If you’re strong enough to fight now, even after being shot, then prove it again.” Her fingers dipped into my briefs, wrapping around my cock. “Prove that I can trust you.”

  My erection leapt in her hand. Her diamond collar sparkled as I kissed the swell of her breast. “You drive me insane.”

  “Good.” Her breathing quickened. “I want you insane. Mad about me. Completely consumed by me.”

  I thrust into her palm. “I already am.”

  A shadow crossed her face, bringing with it a flicker of thought I didn’t catch. Propping myself up on my elbows, I stared at her. What had she been thinking? Did she not trust me? Did she not believe me when I said I’d never let anything happen to her again?

  “What is it?” I asked, my heart thumping out of control. “Tell me what you’re not saying.”

  She sucked in a breath, looking at the ceiling. “Nothing. Everything’s perfect.” Her fingers tightened around my cock. “I want you, Kite.”

  Her voice echoed with love, but I didn’t let her derail me. Not this time.

  “Tell me. Do you hate me? Do you secretly loathe me for what I’ve done?”

  I won’t be able to live if you do.

  “How can I make it up to you?” My voice turned ragged. “How can I prove I mean what I say? That I’m so fucking sorry. That nothing else will ever—”

  She hushed me, pressing a finger over my mouth. “There’s nothing else you can do. I believe you.”

  Her voice said one thing, her thoughts another.

  I hated when people lied. It tangled me into fucking knots trying to figure out their true meaning. That’d been the problem from childhood. Cut would order me to do one thing, but his cold-hearted cruelty guided me to do another. Kestrel learned from a very young age never to lie to me. I needed utmost honesty to survive living in a household with so many conflicting ideals and hierarchies.

  “You can’t lie to me, Nila.” My blood thickened with im
pending doom. What wasn’t she saying? Would it destroy me if she did? I pressed my forehead against hers. “You can’t keep things from me. I know there’s something you’re not saying and until you clear the air that emotion will overcast everything until it drives me mad.”

  Her face tightened. “Your condition can be a real pain, you know that?”

  I laughed wryly. “You’ve only just noticed?” The derisive humour didn’t shred the tension between us. “Spit it out. Now.”

  A single tear escaped.

  Fuck.

  “Nila…don’t.” Ever so gently, I licked the salty drop, taking her sadness and vowing to turn it into endless happiness. She deserved so much happiness. Eternal happiness.

  And I would be the one to give it to her.

  My chest cracked open. “I’m so sorry, Nila.” Burying my face in her hair, I clutched her hard. “So sorry for everything—for what I am, for what I demand of you, for the things I can’t fix.”

  Her arms wrapped around me. “You don’t need fixing, Jethro. You’re bombarded every day with stimuli. You’re so strong to have endured a childhood living here. You put mechanisms in place to protect yourself. Only…”

  “Only?” I traced her cheek with a fingertip. “Go on…”

  She tensed, hesitation and reluctance seeping from her. Sucking in a deep breath, she rushed, “I know I love you. I’ve never known anything so clear, but I can’t help wondering if you love me.”

  I reared back. “What?”

  She couldn’t have hurt me more if she’d tried.

  “How can you even think something like that? What have I just been saying? You think I’ve been lying to you?” I rolled off her, trembling with rage. “What does that fucking mean?”

  She sat up, twisting her fingers together. “I just mean…you feel what others feel. Could you be reflecting what I feel for you? How do you know what’s real and what’s not? It makes me wonder if I forced you to love me. That any woman who cared for you after a lifetime of living with Cut and Bonnie would’ve made you fall—not fall, but mirror her affection.” Her eyes glossed with unfallen tears. “How can I trust that you know what you feel isn’t just me putting those thoughts into your head?”

  I shoved off the hay bale, unable to keep still. “I can’t fucking believe this.”

  How could she be so clueless? So heartless to say I was so lost to not know my own wants and dreams. How could she even ask that after I cut her hair and almost fucking cried at her pain? “I’m a human being, Nila. I have the same thoughts and feelings as the rest of the population.”

  She hung her head, dark hair curtaining her face. “You do, but you also have so much more. Your condition, Jethro…I mean, I had one goal when you took me to Hawksridge: to make you love me so I could use you to free me.” She swallowed, her eyes tight with confession. “What if I succeeded?”

  Of course, you succeeded.

  But I’d fallen for her of my own free will.

  I should be appalled, but really—I’d known all along. I’d felt her conspiring, pushing me to let her in. Thing was…she didn’t need to make me love her. I’d already fallen—long before she started her games. Even before she forced me to kiss her, I’d given her my heart without knowing it.

  “You have no idea what you’re saying.”

  “Don’t I? Ever since you told me what you were, I’ve wondered. When you died, it killed me to think I’d never know the truth. Never know if you felt the depth that I feel for you—or the pain I felt when you were taken from me.”

  Dragging both hands through my hair, my side burned with pain. Her words whipped me like a thousand bullets. As an empath I was subjected to hundreds of emotional pulls and tugs every day. I was whittled down within an inch of sanity every second.

  But that didn’t mean I copied the strongest thoughts. It didn’t mean I was weak and couldn’t think for myself. If anything, my condition made me stronger. Not only did I cross-examine every opinion and sentiment but I also learned how to barricade my own conclusions from being tainted by others.

  My true thoughts were in a fortress, untouched and pure and I knew exactly what I felt toward her—regardless that she’d lied to me.

  She doesn’t trust me.

  I stopped pacing, turning to face her. “Is that what you’ve thought all along? That I’m not truly in love with you?”

  Goosebumps covered her skin; she looked away. “Honestly, I didn’t want to think. I wanted to believe in the fantasy, rather than pick our relationship apart. This past month has been hell; I won’t deny that. Those first few days when I thought you were dead, I really wanted to be, too. But having you back …it all seems too good to be true. How can I trust that you’re here for me? That you’ll save me? End this?”

  Her eyes narrowed on mine. “Do you want to do that for me or for yourself? Because if it’s for me, then how can you pick your family over a girl who made you love her? How can you even consider killing your father—no matter how horrid he’s been to you—when you can’t be sure I didn’t manipulate you the same way Cut did all those years.”

  I backed away.

  She successfully sliced my soul into ribbons, making me doubt that her emotions for me were genuine. Had they all been an act to get me on her side?

  You don’t believe that.

  She confused me—tore apart the only thing that’d been true in my life, and made me doubt.

  Damn her. Damn all of this.

  Deliberately, I dropped my guard and let my condition reach for her, tasting her cocktail of lust and panic.

  I did my utmost to find a thread of lies. To see if her affection for me was bullshit. But unlike my father and his rare moments of comradery and respect, there was no sulking undertones or passive-aggressive control.

  She was honest and true. She loved me. She might not have set out to love me, but it happened anyway.

  Sighing, I dropped to my knees in front of her. “You have it backward, Nila.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t see—”

  “You don’t see because you don’t fully understand.” I looked at the yellow stalks of hay, wishing we were somewhere safe and bright. This conversation had brought shadows between us that had no right to be there. “Yes, I’m more influenced by others’ emotions but I’m still my own person. I still have the right of choice and reflection. I’ve been around women. I’ve been around friends and enemies. I’ve lived a normal life like any man and could’ve found happiness if I chose it.”

  She flinched. Her fingers fiddled with her nightgown.

  Stopping her fidgeting fingers with mine, I smiled. “But, Nila, I’m still governed by my heart. Did I let you influence me? No. I let you in because I saw how strong and brave you were. I let you in because I remembered the girl I met and the way I used to feel around her. I let you in because I saw someone lost and just as controlled as I was when I first messaged you.”

  She gasped, trembling in my hold.

  I wasn’t done.

  “I was envious that a girl destined to die for the sins of her ancestors was more courageous than I could ever be. I fell in love with your tenacity. Your fearlessness. Your flaws. I fell for you because you taught me to trust myself—to trust that I had the power to be better.” Rising off my knees, I cupped her face, my voice throbbing with truth. “You made me a better person by showing me rather than forcing me. I fell in love with you because you’re the one for me. Not because you were a woman in my home and in my bed.”

  I sat beside her. “How low must you think of me, to think I could ever stoop to such a level?”

  My heart stopped beating. Would we ever find happiness, or would we always second-guess and be clouded with conditions and pasts?

  She thinks I’m powerless.

  That I didn’t fight as hard for her as she did for me.

  And she’s right.

  I’d locked away my true wants in favour of obeying my father. I let him control my life when I should’ve taken r
esponsibility for my actions. But I knew that now. I was strong enough now.

  Because of her.

  Gently, I pushed her onto her back, climbing on top of her again, slipping between her thighs. “Do you believe me now?” I kissed her once. “Do you believe that my thoughts are my own? That my heart knows it’s yours through my decision—not your manipulation?” I kissed her again. “I’ll make this right between us. You’ll see. I’ll prove to you that what I feel for you isn’t a by-product of my condition or something I couldn’t control. I’ll show you that I willingly gave you my soul before you even knew me.”

  Her eyes hooded. “Thank you.”

  “What are you thanking me for?”

  “For showing me how stupid I’ve been.”

  I chuckled, growing hard for her again, wanting her so much. “Just trust me.”

  She moaned, her mouth seeking mine. “I do trust you. I will trust you.”

  The instant our lips connected, we lost ourselves.

  We fell into each other, desperate to reaffirm our spoken truth with bodily affection. There were too many misconstrued conclusions between us. I needed to show her I meant every word. And then reality would have to intrude. I’d have to tell her my plans and prepare her for what would happen next.

  “Can I?” I slinked my hand up her nightgown, pushing aside cotton.

  Her thighs quivered beneath my touch. She sucked in a gasp as my fingertips brushed her core. “Yes…”

  Her permission sent my cock jerking with need. I gritted my teeth as I dragged my finger through her folds. “Now we’ve cleared the air, I want to know something very important.”

  She arched as my tattooed NTW fingertip drifted up to press against her clit. “Oh? And what’s that?”

  I nipped her bottom lip. “Did you miss me?” I slipped one finger slowly inside her.

  She opened her mouth, sweeping her tongue into mine. “So much.”