by Wilde, Kati
And put myself into his strong, capable hands. But that can’t be what he’s really offering. I believe Stone wants Papa. But he has no reason to protect me—and has every reason to hate me.
But this is the danger, isn’t it? Feeling safe here. When I shouldn’t.
“So that’s what this really is,” I say, my heart a heavy and aching lump. “You come in here with turkey and pie, and say you’ll be my friend if I’ll just stop lying. But I’m not the only one who is lying here. Because I’m the last person you’d want as a friend.”
“It’s a shame that you’re so fucking smart.” Those eyes go cold. So cold as he sits back again, spreads his hands. “All right. You want the truth? I’ve got nothing left. Nothing but finding Papa, putting him down. And I don’t even care if it kills me. As long as he’s dead first. So there’s nothing, nothing that’ll put me off getting answers from you.”
A clog burns in my throat. Nothing left. Though he does. I’ve seen how much he has. He’s told me how much he has. A family who loves him and friends who will burn down the world to find him.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, because I’m not being facetious,” I tell him thickly. “But you need to get help. A therapist or someone.”
He barks out a laugh. “Yeah. So they can sit me down and tell me where my life went to shit? But I already know that one. It was when I fell for all the lies that a girl with a sad smile was telling me.”
My breath hitches painfully. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry.” Teeth gritted, he sits forward. “That’s the only thing you say that sounds true. And I just don’t get you. Papa locked you up. Would have given you to that sick fuck as a prize. Made you play bait and punished you by making you suck my dick. Aren’t you pissed? Don’t you want him dead, too?”
I do. So much. But I want Matt alive more.
I shake my head.
“I see it, you know,” he says gruffly. “All the rage that peeks out. And I think I’d like some of that for myself. Better than rot. Or nothing.”
But it’s not better. Anger’s only gotten me into trouble, like when I went after Tusk. Or made me hate myself, like when I took it out on Stone.
He’s watching me again, reaches forward to cup my jaw, thumb sliding over my trembling lips. “You’re real scared, aren’t you?”
Not for myself, as he seems to think. But scared for Matt. Scared that another plan will go to shit.
“Yes,” I whisper—then gasp as he hauls me forward out of my chair, then sits me on his lap, straddling his heavy thighs.
Heart thundering, I brace my palms on his chest. His big hands are clamped around my waist, his thumbs slowly rubbing circles on my belly. We’re face to face like this, our eyes and mouths on level. And so close.
“How about we start over one more time?” His voice is a low, gravelly rumble. “Not to where I started asking you questions, but all the way back to that tavern, and the moment I turn around to see a girl staring at me. And I stare right back. Because she’s so damn pretty. Even with that ridiculous hair.”
“The wig?” A surprised little laugh shakes through me. “The Iron Blood said I wasn’t sexy enough to lure someone in.”
“Yeah, you were. Especially in that dress that hid absolutely nothing.” His hands coast up my sides, molding the cotton of my shirt to my skin as closely as the dress did. “But that wasn’t what hit me so damn hard. Instead it was the look in your eyes. Like your whole world was pure shit. Like you were searching for a way out, and maybe I was it.”
“That sounds about right,” I whisper past the unbearable ache in my throat.
“Was it? Then you found the right guy. Because I’ve got a few soft spots.”
None that I can feel. Quietly I ask, “What are they?”
“Dogs. Kids. Girls in trouble.” His hands come up to cup my face. “You were obviously in a hell of a mess, and I decided right there to get you out of it. Hopefully while you were riding my dick,” he adds wryly.
Another laugh shakes through me, but I can hear the thick and watery tears that I’m barely holding back beneath it.
“So I’d already decided to help you. Just because of that sad look in your eyes.” His jaw tightens. “Then you start talking to me. And I’m thinking, ‘Fucking hell. I like this girl.’ Because you’re ticking all my boxes. You’re funny, smart, sexy—and while I’m planning to take care of whatever put that look in your eyes, you are taking care of me. Trying to fix me up, make me stop bleeding. So here’s this girl, obviously needing something from me, but not making a big show of what she’s doing. Like she’s a girl who would take care of anyone who needed it. Not because she wants something but because she’s just…kind. And good.”
His face swims in front of mine, my eyes burning. “No,” I whisper brokenly.
“Yes. So when I first saw you, my plan was to help you out. Get you a ride out of town, maybe some money if you needed it. But it wasn’t long before I realized that I’d be an idiot to let this girl go. That maybe I should take her home and clean up whatever trouble she’s in. Because a girl like that—so sexy and sweet and good—I’d do anything in the world to protect her.”
Chest hitching with silent sobs, I shake my head. Because I sensed this then, too. What he was. What could have been.
What can’t be. Not after what I did.
“But you know when I was sure?” His voice deepens, and I go still when I feel the warmth of his breath against my mouth. “When I kissed her. Because she kissed me as if I was all that she wanted, too. As if she’d never met someone like me before. And as if she wanted more of me so fucking bad.”
So bad. So much. When I feel the gentle press of his mouth to mine, my lips part and I taste cinnamon and sweetness and salt—and Stone. Everything I want, everything I need.
“Just like that,” he says huskily against my mouth. “I’d fucking love to go back to that with you. To where we were before all this rot got into me, before all the lies. You want to start over, too?”
Longing spills through me. My breath shudders as I nod.
He gently lays a string of kisses along the line of my jaw. “So tell me what to call you.”
Grief freezes me in place, ice that immediately cracks into painful sharp pieces. Because nothing is the same. But nothing has changed. And I can’t go back.
“Cherry,” I lie.
His body tenses. His hand fists in my hair, and I gasp when he pulls my head back, forcing to meet his cold, cold gaze.
“That was the wrong fucking answer,” he grits out, and surges up out of the chair. Carrying me with him—and snatching up the fun bag. “Because that girl, I figure she was trapped in a bad situation and in way over her head, but trying to do the best she could. That girl doesn’t owe me a damn thing. But Cherry, she was just saving her own skin. And she owes me everything.”
I do. I know I do. So I’ll pay.
He sets me on my feet in front of the bed, stares down at me. I stare back, chin lifted and jaw set, determined to see this through despite the trembling wracking my body.
His eyes narrow on my shaking fingers. “Sure you don’t want to try again?”
“I’m sure. I’ll pay what I owe. Then you let me go.”
“Let you go?” Lips whitening, he bends closer to snarl into my face, “I’ll let you go when I get answers out of you.”
“Then good luck, because I don’t have any!” I snap, then shove against his chest. “So just get on with it!”
He does, shoving me back—not even hard, but I go sprawling across the bed, my shirt flying up and thighs splayed wide. Oh my god. Getting me right into the perfect position for a fucking. But then he just stands there.
Trying to open the clamshell packaging on the ball gag.
I snort out a laugh, closing my legs, pulling my hem down. “You can’t get answers with that anyway. Remember?”
“Just take off that damn shirt.” Frustration hardens his face as he grips the edge of the package, an
d the plastic tears between his big hands with a horrible screech. He tosses the gag to the bed, pulls off his own shirt. “And spread your legs.”
“Why?” I pick up the red ball, the straps dangling. “Since you need my mouth to make me talk, are you gonna gag my vagina, instead? But how will you fuck me, then? God, I’m starting to think you’re not very good at this ‘making me pay’ thing.”
His hands go still on his belt buckle, head bowed and teeth gritted as if trying not to laugh. The he shakes his head, opens his belt and tears the leather from the loops. “You think you have any fucking idea how I’ll make you pay? You think you know what’s coming?”
I chortle. “Probably not me!”
He lunges toward the bed, eyes feral. I shriek when he’s suddenly on top of me, denim-covered knees planted on either side of my hips, hands cupping my face.
“God fucking damn your fucking mouth.” His chest heaving, he bends his forehead to mine, his eyes closed. “I don’t know what’s worse. You lying with every word, or how you keep making me like you.”
My heart squeezes into nothing. “Probably that you like me,” I whisper, releasing the gag to skim the backs of my fingers down his whisker-roughened jaw. “Or the lying wouldn’t matter.”
“Luckily, I’ve got a solution to both.” Hard fingers grip my wrist. “And don’t touch me.”
With my dead fish hands. Hurt spearing through me, I push at him—then struggle more when I realize what his solution to the problem of my mouth is. Because I’ll pay what I owe but it’s still not easy to let him gag me. I jerk my head to the side when he attempts to fasten it, pushing at the smooth rubber with my tongue, trying to dislodge the ball.
“Fuck yeah, girl,” he groans harshly, pinning me down with his weight. “Keep fighting me.”
Thorny need scores my senses at that rough command. He wants me to fight? I’ll fight. Wildly when he pulls straps out of the fun bag and ties my wrist to the wrought iron bedpost, and I use my left hand to yank at the gag. Then I’m pinned beneath him again while he fastens my left hand. I squirm and buck, his erection a solid rod behind his zipper and lodged right between my thighs, and the fighting feels so good.
Until he backs off the bed, breaths harsh through clenched teeth, his cock a giant bulge straining the front of his jeans. He snatches my ankle and winds another strap around it, my screams muffled by the gag as I kick futilely at him. By the time he’s got my other leg tied, my thighs spread wide, we’re both flushed and sweating, and I’m so, so wet.
Stone stares down at me, eyes burning. “Where’d you get that shirt?”
Which I never took off. Too late now that I’m tied to a bed. My only answer is a laugh into the gag.
“It looks big enough to be Bull’s.” Fiercely he grips the wide neckline. “But all I know is that it’s not mine.”
Cotton shreds, then burns across my skin as he yanks the entire thing away from me. Leaving me naked. Exposed.
His gaze hungrily moves from my wide eyes to my heaving breasts, then lower. “Christ help me,” he mutters. “You’re already soaked.”
So I am. And fuck him. I strain to close my legs even a little. I can’t.
With a rough laugh, he moves in closer to the side of the bed, shucking his jeans down his hips. Oh my god. I’ve seen him so many times without clothes—and have seen him erect before, up close and personal. But on my knees in his stall, with Victor looking on and rage swirling through everything else, Stone’s cock was something that I’d be doing stuff to. It wasn’t doing stuff to me. Not filling me up. Not fucking me. So it looked big then but now it’s just huge, veined and thick and flushed an angry red.
He looks down at me, gaze half-lidded, his big hand stroking. “So you think you know what’s going to happen now, yeah?”
Need clenches my inner muscles. Because I know.
With a soft whimper, I nod.
“Nah. I don’t think you do. Or you’d already be talking.” He licks his bottom lip, gaze between my thighs. “I’m going to use that wet little fuckhole real good. Until you’re either screaming for more, or screaming for me to stop.”
Oh god. Or maybe I’ll be doing both. I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of experience with this.
Probably should have told him.
“And when I’m done using that little hole, I’ll ask you again what you know. If you give me good answers, you’ll get what you want and I’ll let you go. If you lie…then we’ll start all over again. You understand?”
That I’m about to be repeatedly and ruthlessly fucked? That Stone will ram that big cock into me over and over again?
Body trembling with both nervousness and anticipation, I nod. Nervousness starts tipping the scales, tension tightening my muscles when Stone climbs onto the bed, kneeling between my spread thighs, his heavy shaft jutting out and the thick head glistening with pre-cum.
Eyes locked on his dick, I pull desperately against the restraints.
“I’m not fucking you yet.” He bends over me, his powerful arm braced beside my shoulder. “This is just playtime first. You’ll know shit’s about to get real when I grab that box of condoms over there. Because I ain’t ever been in a girl without a rubber, and I’m not about to start with pussy used as bait.”
Fucking pig. I snarl against the gag and his gaze flares hot.
“Hell, yes. Give me that rage. Just fucking burn me with it.” His hand cups my jaw, fingers pressing into my cheeks, his voice hollow. “Spit at me all the hate that I deserve and no one else will give.”
I…can’t. My body shudders again as his teeth graze my neck. He wants to collect what I owe him. And I can give him a fight. I can give him anger.
But I can’t hate him. Because he doesn’t deserve that. No matter what he thinks.
Rage, though. Okay. As his tongue traces a hot, shivery path along my throat, he reaches down between my legs. I can’t stop my moan when his fingers slick through my folds, delving between them to find my entrance.
His voice is a rasp against my ear. “Thought I’d have to play a long time to get this fuckhole ready. A girl tied up and paying what she owes. Figured you’d be dry as a bone. Instead you’re real eager to be used, aren’t you? Just fucking dying to pay up.”
I hiss out a wet, furious breath. Fuck him for saying that. For making my reaction to him sound like something I should be ashamed of, instead of what it is.
He does this to me. The fucking asshole. He does this. From the first damn time I met him, he had me wet and squirming on that barstool. He has me wet and squirming now, then gasping when a blunt finger pushes past my entrance.
His mouth goes still against my neck, a ragged groan ripping from his throat. “Christing hell, you’re so goddamn tight. Fuuuuuuuck.” Harsh breaths burst against my skin as he presses deeper, as I helplessly moan and arch my hips. “I take it back. You aren’t wet enough. Don’t know how I’m going to get my cock into you at all.”
But he will. I know he will. Little sparks flare behind my eyes as my inner walls stretch and burn, adjusting to the thickness slowly working deeper.
And I’ll burn hotter when it’s his cock. I’ll have to.
I want to.
With another groan, he begins pumping his hand, driving into me again and again. “Never felt a pussy this tight. No wonder they used it as bait. Man gets into this, he’d follow you anywhere. Probably why Crash was so damn calm when he decided to go. He’d fucked this tiny hole, so he already knew what heaven felt like.”
The pleasure that was spilling through me sharpens to a painful edge and I spit a muffled fuck you into the gag, my body stiffening, my pussy tightening around the finger fucking into me.
“That’s right.” His voice roughens. “Get real pissed. Then remember it was Papa who decided to put him in that Cage against me, and tell me what I want to hear. You gonna tell me?”
With enraged, sobbing breaths shuddering against the gag, I shake my head—then cry out when he screws his finger deep be
fore withdrawing and lifting his head. His eyes are hot when he licks my arousal from his finger.
“Your anger tastes real good, Cherry. Can’t wait to eat it all up.” Lazily he reaches down to jack his cock, my chest heaving and hollowing between us with every breath. I watch his fist stroke his shaft, entranced as a bead of cum slides from that fat crown and drips onto my belly, then his voice has my gaze flying to meet his again. “But first I’ll go back to that night at the tavern again, do every damn thing I wanted to then. And have a good taste of the rest of you first.”
Beginning with my breasts. Stone bends his head, and he sets my nipples on fire with his mouth, sucking and licking the throbbing tips. Then rubbing his face against the soft mounds, his whiskers rasping my skin, as if not just tasting me but taking in every inch of me with every inch of him. Fingers wrapped around the straps tied to the bed, I try to brace myself against the onslaught of sensation—but there’s no bracing. There’s only being dragged along for the ride.
Then his hand settles between my thighs and his fingers begin teasing my clit, just teasing and teasing while his cheeks hollow and he sucks harder on my nipple. Head thrown back and spine arching, I try to fight this, too. But it’s good. So good. My legs begin shaking uncontrollably. Each slippery pass of his fingertips over the most sensitive part of me seems to pull at every nerve until all I feel is Stone touching me, his tongue and his hands and then he pushes a finger inside my slick channel. The orgasm slams into me with it, and I scream into the gag when my pussy clamps down, my hips bucking wildly as I try to ride it out.
But all I do is ride his hand as I come. Thunder pounds through my head, Stone’s harsh groan echoing with it.
Then his curse as he lifts his head from my breast. Voice sharp with irritation, he calls out, “The fuck is it?”
Over the storm of my heaving breaths, I barely hear the muffled reply. Through the door. Because someone was out there. Knocking. I can’t make out the response, only the hiss of Stone’s breath through clenched teeth. He abandons the bed, snatches up his jeans. But he doesn’t put them on, just pulls the key from the pocket. From the duffle he digs out a pair of sweats and hauls them up to his hips.