by Sam Crescent
He always made sure he had several backup plans. First, his men would put a bullet in Isabella’s head, tear her limb from limb, and display her outside Enrique’s mansion. After that, the hunters would come for the price on his head.
Leaving the building, he watched Enrique depart. Without their men there, they didn’t have to throw fights or insults. They could talk shop without needing to look like the bigger man.
His cell phone had done nothing but buzz throughout it, pissing him off.
Now that he was alone, he opened up his cell phone and saw Rome had been calling. With over fifteen missed calls, he couldn’t put him off much longer.
“What’s up?” he asked, finally answering a call.
“Lawrence is dead, but you got to get over here to the safe house.” The house actually being an apartment.
“Wait? What?”
“He was at the supermarket. He’d clearly tracked us down. She knows, West. She’s freaking out, but you need to come here. I’ve not told her anything.”
“What does she know?”
“About the scholarship, Emily, most of it. You’re needed here.”
“Fuck!” He rushed toward his car. This was not part of his plan. He never wanted Hannah to find out the truth of what he was capable of and what he’d done to put himself in her path.
This was going against everything he’d been planning.
“Piece of fucking shit. Keep her there. Don’t let her move.”
“I won’t.”
Hanging up his cell phone, he put his foot to the gas and started driving fast. He ignored the speed limit, making his way along the busy roads, careful not to kill himself.
Pressing down on the horn, he urged people out of the way. This was not how he expected his plans to go, not even fucking close.
He was so angry.
All they had to do was one job.
To keep her safe.
None of them could even do that right, and now he was going to have to deal with this current fuckup.
Breaking the speed limit and nearly every other traffic law, he arrived at the apartment building within twenty minutes. Pulling up, he didn’t bother to park correctly. Rushing to the door, he typed in the code to enter the building. Once inside, he ran up the flight of stairs to the apartment.
He didn’t knock. Using his own key, he opened the door, and there Rome stood.
As West closed the door, Hannah was suddenly there, her hands folded as she glared at him. Her long, brown hair was a mess from her running her fingers through it repeatedly.
“You’re finally here?” she asked.
He heard the attitude in her voice.
“Rome, you can go and deal with that dead body in the car.”
She shook her head. “Oh, my God, I can’t believe that just happened. What … what do we do? I don’t know what to do. This is too much. Oh, my God. I’m panicking. Think, Hannah, think.”
“You don’t have to worry about a thing,” West said. He saw her panicking. Her hand went to her chest, rubbing at her heart. Fear and shock stared right back at him. “It’s okay, Hannah.”
“He shot someone.”
“Rome was doing his job.”
She nodded. “Like Emily? Like the scholarship company? Like Lawrence? What about you, West? What job did you have?”
He saw the hurt in her eyes.
“You’re overreacting. You don’t know—”
“Don’t even try to pretend this isn’t real. It is. Isn’t it? You have been pulling the strings like some puppet master for a long time now.” She stared at him. The sound of the door closing let him know they were in private once again.
He stepped closer to her.
She shook her head, held a hand out, and took a step back.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Hannah. You should know this by now.”
“What do I know? Really? What exactly can you tell me? I don’t know anything. I don’t know who you are. My best friend. It all makes some weird kind of sense. The scholarship company. No one else would take me. My grades were not the greatest. My parents had died. Out of the blue that scholarship was a lifeline I needed. It’s run by you. One of your shell companies? That same scholarship also paid Emily. She told me that she didn’t need it. Her parents paid it.”
“It was a good investment.”
“You really did,” she said. “You paid people to be part of my life? Emily’s not really my friend. I’m a job to her? My job. Everything. Are my grades even real?”
“Yes. All your grades were you. I never manipulated that. That was all your hard work. I just made sure your professors knew how to guide you.”
“How much of my life did you invade?” she asked. “I don’t want lies. I thought … I thought we met in a random bar.”
“We met a little over five years ago. It was your eighteenth birthday. That’s when we first met.”
“You’re crazy,” she said. “I would have remembered.”
“I thought you might, but it wasn’t that significant an encounter. I was sitting, nursing a wound. No one had come to your birthday party. Your parents still thought it was cool to, erm, for a burger place to have a teenagers’ party.”
He saw her face pale.
She stared at him and shook her head. “Your hair was longer, and you had a beard.”
“That I did.” It had been a rough couple of weeks for him.
“No. I can’t. You decided then?”
“No. That was a few months after. I wanted you. I had fallen in love—”
“No, it can’t be love.”
“Why not?”
“When you love someone you don’t lie like that. You don’t manipulate.”
“I’ve done everything in my power to make your life better.”
“Better? How is it better?”
“You got your college education. You don’t have to pay a cent of that money back. You’re in a job you love. Emily is always there for you.”
“Emily’s a fraud. She can’t stand to be around me.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true.” She placed a hand to her stomach. “These feelings I have for you, are they real? I don’t … I can’t even trust them.”
“You can trust them.”
“How? How can I trust that these are real? How can I trust anything? I have no one. I have nothing. The apartment.” She stopped and looked at him. “You organized the apartment. The killer rent?”
“Yes. I am your landlord.”
She took a step back, and he watched as she collapsed into a chair. He didn’t like to see her like this.
“Was Lawrence part of your plan too? Did you intend for him to attack me?”
“He shouldn’t have fucking touched you. None of that was planned, not even a little bit.”
“I don’t know if I believe you.”
He moved toward her, kneeling down. She flinched as he put his hands on her thighs, and he ignored the action. He got that she was angry, that she was upset, but he wasn’t going to let her go, nor was he going to allow her to try to hide.
Their feelings for each other, that was real. Everything else, that didn’t matter. He loved her more than anything. Had done absolutely everything in his power to make sure she had a good life, a safe life. He’d never let anything happen to her.
“I love you, Hannah.”
“No.”
“Please, don’t say no.”
“How would you feel if I did these things to you? If I lied to you about who I was. About what I’d done. I don’t even know the real you. The one people are afraid of. Lawrence was afraid of you, wasn’t he?”
“Hannah.”
She pressed her hands to her ears. “I need you to stop lying to me. I need the truth. To know who you are. To know everything. Why don’t I remember you? You said we had another meeting after. I don’t remember anything.”
“You won’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I mad
e sure you wouldn’t.” He gripped her thighs.
Even with her whole world turning upside down, he saw the reaction of her body. Her nipples pressing against her shirt. The dilation of her eyes. Running his hands up and down her thighs, he felt her tense up.
“Stop it,” she said.
He stopped moving his hands, but he didn’t let her go.
He refused to let her go.
“You know you want me.”
“I don’t even know the real you.” She bit her lip. Her hands covered his, turning them over so that she placed her palms against his.
Seconds passed, and she finally growled, thrusting his hands away and standing up. “No. I’m not going to do this. I want to go home.”
She got to her feet, and he watched her storm away.
He let her get to the door before he was behind her, his hands on her hips, trapping her.
“You can’t leave.”
“West, you don’t control me. Is that even your real name?”
“Yes.”
Her hand lay flat against the door.
Stroking his hands up the sides of her body, he grazed against her tits. He heard her muffled moan.
“I know right now you’re hating me, and that’s fine. I don’t mind. You can hate me. I accept it, but I’m not going to let you leave.”
“You call this love? West, stalking someone, changing their lives, putting people there, that’s not love. It’s far from love.”
He closed his eyes, hating the words spilling out of her mouth. This was love. She had no idea how he felt about her.
“I never wanted this to happen.”
“You never wanted me to find out.”
He gritted his teeth. “Hannah, I’m not like normal men. I never have been. Everything I’ve ever wanted in life, I’ve had to take.”
“You shouldn’t have to take love, West. It’s given to you or earned. It’s not something you’re supposed to manipulate into getting.”
He heard her sniffle. “Please don’t cry.”
“I’m so confused.”
Slowly, sliding his hand around her body, he cupped her breast. “Your body isn’t confused.” The puckered bud of her nipple pressed against his palm, and she released a little moan. “No, you’re not confused. Your body wants me.”
“My body isn’t the one in charge.”
“It wants to be, Hannah. Your body knows what it wants.” With one hand on her tit, he slid the other between her thighs. The jeans she wore kept him from touching her naked pussy, but rubbing her through the fabric, he felt the heat. Reaching up, he unsnapped the button.
She didn’t fight him.
Her hands clenched on the door, and he kissed her neck.
“You can stop me anytime.”
She whimpered, and he slid a hand inside, going into her panties and finding the warmth of her pussy. She was so wet, so hot, so fucking tempting.
“Right now, you may hate me. You may hate what I’ve done. I’m not going to lie to you, I’ve done some unspeakable things. I’ve killed people. I’ve done what I needed to do to survive. I’m a fucking king in this city. I can have what I want, when I want. The only woman I need, the one I crave, is you. You think I’ve not thought about letting you go. That I’ve not been tempted to let you run. You should run far from me, but here’s the thing—it’ll last a day at best before I need to see your smiling face. I can never let you go.” He sucked on her neck as he teased her clit. Sliding down, he filled her wet pussy. “Tell me to stop, Hannah. If you don’t want my touch, if you don’t crave it, tell me to stop. I will.”
She whimpered, and as he plunged a finger deep inside her cunt, he felt her tighten around him.
She couldn’t ask him to stop because it was simple. She didn’t want him to fucking stop, and neither did he. He wanted to take her, to fuck her, to consume her, to give her everything her heart desired. All he wanted in return was her love.
Tugging down her jeans, he kicked her legs open.
Placing her hands on the wall in front of her, he ran his hands down her hips, over the curve of her ass. Spreading the cheeks wide, he stared down at her asshole. He’d been preparing that for his dick. He wasn’t having her there now, though. He needed to be inside her, had to feel her dripping pussy clutch him, especially after what she’d discovered.
He just had to have her any way that he could get her.
To drown in every single part of her.
Letting go of her hips, he released his belt, sliding down his zipper and pulling out his already rock-hard dick. He needed to be inside her.
To take her.
Running his fingers up and down his length, he gripped her ass, spreading her cheeks, and placed his dick against her slick entrance.
Sliding inside, he heard her moan.
Her pussy squeezed him, trying to milk him dry. When he was more than halfway in, he grabbed her hips once again and slammed to the hilt deep within her, feeling every single pulse as she wrapped around his dick. Closing his eyes, he saw stars as the pleasure rushed through his body.
Pulling out, he saw his length covered in her cream and pounded back inside her. Holding her tightly, he didn’t let up or stop as he took what he wanted.
“Please,” she said.
“What do you want, baby?”
“I need you to touch me.”
“You want my hands on your pussy. Stroking your clit.”
“Yes!” She let out a scream as he wrapped one hand around her hair, pulling her back so that she could see her face.
“Do you love me?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“You’re a fucking liar.”
Sliding one hand between her thighs, he found her clit. His cock was still deep within her. He used his grip on her hair to use as leverage to keep on pounding away inside her pussy. If he thought for a second that he was hurting her and that she wasn’t totally loving every tug and thrust, he’d have stopped.
Her pussy kept getting wetter the more he used her.
He touched her clit and she screamed, the sounds echoing around the room and urging him to continue.
“You can lie to me all you want. You and I know the truth. I know that you want me, that you love me. It’s why you’re so angry. If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be hurt.” He sucked on her neck as he pinched her clit before soothing the bite with his fingers. “I made sure I saved you for myself. All of your dates, I stopped.”
“What?”
“They were pricks because I let them know they were not getting inside your pussy. You belong to me. Always have. No one was having you but me. I stopped you getting your heart broken. None of them deserved you. Only me. You’re mine.”
He felt her orgasm, and it went straight to his balls, setting off his own orgasm. He thrust to the hilt within her, shooting load after load of his cum deep within her.
West hoped it took.
He hoped she was so fucking full of his cum that there was no way she couldn’t be pregnant.
After the orgasm started to ebb away, he pulled out of her and lifted her up in his arms. She didn’t fight him as he carried her through to his bathroom.
Hannah didn’t say a word.
Turning on the shower, he stripped out of his clothes and then helped her out of hers. With them both naked, he tugged her into the stall, moving her so that she was near the hot water.
Tilting her head back so the water cascaded off her shoulders, he stared into her eyes.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” she said.
“What do you want to do?”
“I want you to leave me alone and hug me all at the same time. You never gave me a chance to fall in love with you. You just manipulated everything so that I would, and now I don’t know what to do.”
“Those books that you love so much. Why is this any different?”
“They’re fiction. This is not. You … took away my choice.”
“How did I do that? I’ve not
once taken your feelings away. Everything you feel for me is real. I’ve not lied to you about who I am.”
“You own the streets. You’ve killed people. You admitted it.”
“I’m also a businessman. You just never saw that other side of me. You’ve never had to.”
“Emily knows that side of you.”
“Emily was a whore and an addict who I helped to save. You can try and hate me all you want, but I could have left her in the street to rot.”
“None of it’s real. You don’t seem to grasp that it’s all lies. How can I know for sure if Emily wants to be my friend if I’m always wondering if you’ve given her instruction?”
“It wouldn’t be like that.”
“Then what would it be like?” she asked. “Did you not ask Emily to call me up to stop me going grocery shopping? How about all the times I’ve wanted to go out on a date and she’s convinced me not to go out? Or how about how she always said nothing but nice things about you?”
“I’m a nice guy.”
“You’ve just said that you’re not a good guy. That you’ve killed people.”
“I’ve done what I’ve needed to do to survive.”
“People don’t need to kill others to do that. That’s not survival, West.”
“You’ve never walked in my shoes. Don’t even pretend to know what I’ve been through. I’ve done everything I can to be out on top. Where I come from, if you’re not on top, you’re under someone’s boot. They’re the ones with the power and get to choose who lives and who dies. You think I don’t know what it’s like looking in, seeing the world I’m part of? You think there are not moments I fucking hate what I have to be? I loathe it, but I do it because if I don’t, someone else will, and I can’t live that way. I can’t live knowing there’s someone like you out there and there could be a depraved fucking asshole who’ll do everything to destroy who you are.”
He stopped, and silence rang out between them.
“I know you can’t stand what I am right now, but know this, for all the bad I’ve done, you’re the part of me that makes everything good. You make me good.”
He didn’t have anything more to say. After the night he’d been through, there was nothing more for him to give.
****
The following day, Hannah stared at her empty apartment. The night before was still raw inside her head. West hadn’t allowed her to sleep in the spare bedroom, and the truth was she didn’t want to sleep away from him.