by Vivian Arend
“Yeah?” He arched up, a slow roll that he pulled her down to meet. It didn’t stop, just flowed into another movement, their bodies rising and falling together.
She caught the rhythm. Matched it. Tried to speed it, and groaned when he tightened his fingers, keeping control, forcing her to feel every inch of his advance and withdrawal again and again.
Since she couldn’t match him in physical strength, she fought with words—because calling it that sounded less desperate than begging. “I need your cock. Please, Derek. Please, give it to me. Let me take it.”
“You don’t need it, not yet.” He let her slide down into his next thrust, then eased his hand around to the front of her body. His thumb centered on her clit, tracing slow circles, increasing the pressure with every rock of his hips. “But you will.”
He was right. She didn’t need his cock enough to move away from the dizzying circle his thumb was making. He could control her movements with just that one point of contact, and she didn’t care anymore because she was going to come again, come harder, shaking apart right on top of him while he watched and reveled in it.
“That’s right.” He gritted his teeth as she shuddered. “You know what comes next, don’t you, sweetheart?”
“I do,” she whispered. Maybe she did. She couldn’t hear her own words over her pulse, because she could feel her heartbeat everywhere. In her head, in her fingers and toes, centered at her clit while he rubbed and rubbed.
Her gaze locked onto his, and God, the approval there, the fierce pleasure, as if he’d never seen anything as wonderful as her shaking apart on his cock. He wanted her just like this, a filthy, greedy goddess, one who told him exactly what she wanted, how fast and how deep, how rough and how raw.
He wanted her to come, and she did. Hard, the pleasure so intense she could only moan helplessly as she rode his dick and his hand. And he let her, let her take what she wanted. Let her take what she needed.
Let her take him.
She was as dizzy from that as she was from the shuddering pleasure, which went on and on until she was swaying above him, her nails digging into his skin.
He caught her. Steadied her. His fingers curled tight around her hips, and she felt the balance shift, even though they’d barely moved. She could feel it in his grip, see it in his eyes.
It was Ford’s turn to take.
He dragged her down to his chest and held her there, one huge hand splayed between her shoulder blades. The position pulled her hips up, leaving him to cover the distance between them with a powerful thrust.
She turned her cheek to his neck, nuzzling against him with an approving moan. So many words hung on the tip of her tongue—yes and more and harder—but she set her teeth in his skin instead.
Marking him. Trusting him.
His other hand settled on the curve of her ass, then dipped lower, stroking over her pussy where she stretched wide around his cock. “So wet,” he hissed.
“Because it’s good.” She lifted her head and caught his gaze. “Because I want your cock. Do you like hearing that?”
“I like feeling it.” He moved his hand as he spoke, slicking his fingers up to tease between her ass cheeks. And she knew the practicalities of that, too, all the ways she could prepare herself to handle a man who wanted to put his dick somewhere else, but this was different. Just a tease, stroking untouched nerves.
She wet her lips with a shiver. “You’re getting greedy with my firsts.”
“With you,” he corrected, pressing harder, until one fingertip broached the tight ring of muscle.
Ford was greedy with her, because he wanted her. Her, not a fainting virgin or an obedient whore. So she buried her face against his neck and closed her eyes. “Take all of me.”
“You have no idea.” The words blew hot on her ear, sending a shiver rocketing through her. He held her captive—his hand on her back, his finger inside her—as he drove up into her, over and over, harder and harder.
And she realized she was going to come again.
Not easy this time. Not gentle. It was slow, pure friction and that primal jolt when his cock sank deep. And if she could have gotten a hand between them to rub her clit, she could have sent herself flying.
But she couldn’t. She could only moan against his throat and let him take her there, let him lose them both in the slick slide of skin and the sound of him fucking up into her, until one final slam of his hips broke open the world.
She muffled a scream against his throat, and he gripped her hair and hauled her head back. “Let me hear it, Mia. Let me—”
She couldn’t stop. She shook in his grip, moaning as her pussy clenched tight, giving him everything he wanted. Her relief, her pleasure, her shameless satisfaction.
He took it with a groan, his cock pulsing inside her as he set his teeth in her shoulder and followed her over the edge.
The world floated back to her in bits and pieces. His grip in her hair eased, and she nuzzled her face against his neck, still shivering with the tiny aftershocks. His hand settled at her back again, warm and strong, and her sleepy mind turned it into a symbol of everything Sector Four could be.
Strength. Tenderness. Holding her close without holding her down. That was the promise of Dallas O’Kane, of all the O’Kanes.
She was starting to believe it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mia was flying so high, she didn’t see the danger until she crashed into it.
Into him.
Vaughn was waiting for her when she turned the corner from the baker. He sneered down at her, taking in her mussed hair and clothes wrinkled from the night on Ford’s floor. “Mia.”
Her thoughts skittered in a dozen directions, because it didn’t seem real. Cold, meticulously dressed Vaughn didn’t fit here in the rough edges of Sector Four. He didn’t fit with the person she’d become, and for a horrifying moment that person slipped away, leaving a terrified, wounded girl.
He saw the fear in her. He had always been good at that—Vaughn didn’t have the excuse of obliviousness to explain why he’d hurt her. He understood people and their emotions just fine. He simply didn’t care about them.
He didn’t care about her, and the knowledge made her lips numb as she swallowed hard. “I’m not going back with you.”
He scoffed. “Yes, you are. Cerys is ready to collect her annual payment. I won’t pay for something I no longer possess, and you know what that means.”
It meant Cerys would come for her. Six years of training meant six years of patronage fees before Orchid House would consider its investment repaid—and Mia had barely managed one.
Cerys would come for her, and that was still preferable to taking one step closer to Vaughn. “So don’t pay. You never wanted me in any case.”
“You don’t seem to understand.” He moved, looming over her, his features set in anger. “I’ll not be gossiped about because my whore left me.”
She waited for the fear—for the terror—but something else bubbled up inside her. It filled her, surging higher as his hot breath fell across her forehead. He thought he could smack her into place with cruel words and physical intimidation, but he’d made the mistake of coming to Sector Four.
Her place was wherever the hell she wanted it to be.
Channeling Lex at her most cutting, Mia smiled. “It must be embarrassing, having everyone know you can’t even pay a woman to tolerate you.”
“Very funny.” He grabbed her upper arm, his fingers biting painfully into her flesh. “I should hand you back to Cerys and get a replacement. Her house turns out better than you.”
The alley they were standing in was narrow, empty. But they weren’t far from the market. One scream would bring onlookers. Saying she worked for Dallas would turn gawkers into rescuers. Everyone would jump at the chance to rescue an O’Kane employee and secure Dallas’s favor.
Maybe it wasn’t her power, but she’d use it if she had to.
Clutching at that borrowed confidence, she ignored
his grip on her arm and held Vaughn’s gaze. No fear. No worry. Just bored amusement to match her borrowed smile. “You couldn’t even handle me. One of Cerys’s best students would eat you alive.”
“A touching admission of your own shortcomings.”
“If that’s what you call them,” she agreed easily. “All that training in business, accounting, and tech, and I could swallow a man’s dick. You never deserved me.”
Vaughn’s lip curled. “Poor little Mia’s developed some delusions of grandeur.”
Her confidence cracked. Just a little. A fracture. But it was enough to let doubt creep in, and she jerked against his grip before she could stop herself. “So what if I have. I’m not your problem anymore. Send Cerys after me, I don’t care.”
Vaughn was a shark, and he smelled blood in the water. “You think someone’s going to protect you if a sector leader comes for you, is that it?”
Ford would protect her, even if God himself came for her. After last night, she was sure of it. But she didn’t want Ford tangled up in her past, didn’t want to owe him her independence and spend the next night in his bed wondering if she’d traded one sort of patron for another.
But Ford wasn’t the only person she could turn to. “Lex will. Maybe you’ve heard of her.”
Vaughn snorted. “You’re better off selling yourself on the street than looking to imitate Alexa Parrino’s fairy tale. A gallant, tattooed knight to buy you from Cerys? Please.”
Mia doubted Dallas had ever paid a cent to Cerys, because Lex understood. She knew about choices and freedom, too.
This time she jerked hard enough to break free of his grip. “Then I’ll sell myself on the street. You think that’s a worse fate than being with you?”
He didn’t grab her again. He shoved her against the wall, pinning her there with the bulk of his body. “I don’t give a shit, Mia. But what’s mine is mine.”
The back of her head cracked into the wall, slamming her teeth together on the tip of her tongue. The bag slipped from her suddenly limp fingers. She tasted blood, tasted fear.
Vaughn would take her back to Sector Two. He wouldn’t touch her—he’d never touch her, not with the corruption of Sector Four added to her many sins—but he’d whore her out to every trading partner he had. He’d do it out of spite, to show her her place, to punish her for wanting more.
He’d do all of it...but only if she let him.
He was still smirking down at her when she rammed her knee into his balls.
Mia had been gone too long just to pick up breakfast.
Ford rolled out of bed and dressed quickly, all the while telling himself he was being stupid. There were a dozen ways she could have been delayed—waiting for more coffee to brew or pastries to bake, a conversation, anything. And she’d be offended as hell when he showed up in the market like a possessive, crazy asshole.
He went anyway.
Ford was halfway across the street just outside the border of the O’Kane compound when the kid from the robbery skidded to a stop in front of him. His face still bore the bruises of Ford’s smackdown, but there was nothing but eager concern in his eyes. “Your girl,” he panted, jerking a finger toward the market. “Some slick dude in a suit—”
Ford’s heart shot into his throat. Someone from Sector Two—one of Cerys’s men, maybe even Mia’s former patron himself.
He brushed past the kid and ran, ignoring the dull ache that sparked in his leg. He rounded the corner closest to Lou and Pam’s coffee cart and saw Mia leaning against the wall, ignoring Pam as the older woman dabbed at her lip with a napkin.
She was bruised and bleeding but alive, all of her focus locked on Ike Armstrong as the cage fighter swung a meaty fist into a suited man’s gut.
It had to be Vaughn. Ford rushed in, edging Ike out of the way as fury pounded in his head, blurring his vision. He snatched the man up by his jacket lapels and got in his face. “You think you’re a big man, coming here?”
“Ford—” Mia started.
Vaughn cut her off with a cold, abrupt laugh. “I think I’m a man who doesn’t care to waste money. She stole from me.”
“Cry me a river.” He jerked the man up, close to his face. “Did you do that to her lip?”
Instead of answering, Vaughn turned to Mia. “You idiot girl. You really did try to copy Lex, didn’t you? Does he know how much he’ll owe Cerys—?”
Ford slipped his fingers in the man’s rumpled tie and twisted, cutting off his air while he counted to five. Slowly. “Don’t look at her—look at me. And answer the fucking question.”
“He won’t,” Mia said quietly. “He’s used to negotiating with the illegal farms. He’s cruel and petty, but he’s not easily intimidated.”
Vaughn locked gazes with Ford—and in that moment, Ford knew he’d answer. Not out of fear, or respect, but just to make Mia wrong.
“Too late.” Ford hauled back and punched him, a clean right hook to the jaw.
Vaughn staggered back, swaying violently. “She owes me for a year of soft living,” he spat, eyes wild with hate. “I paid for a lady, and they sent me a whore.”
He just didn’t know when to shut his mouth, did he? Rage boiled up, hazing Ford’s already blurry vision with red, and he jumped on Vaughn, driving him to the ground. He didn’t realize he’d drawn back his fist until it connected with the man’s nose, and then it happened again, and again.
And again.
“Ford!”
Hands locked around his arm. He tried to swing again, and Mia jerked back with a yelp of protest. “Derek, stop. He’s not worth this.”
Her words cut through the insensate fury, bringing the world around him into sharp relief. The blood on his aching hands, the pain jolting through his bad leg, the tension of his clenched teeth. And the man beneath him, who deserved every ounce of the ass-whipping and more.
But Mia had asked him to stop. So he heaved a breath, sat back on his heels, his leg screaming, and looked up at the man standing behind her. “Get him the hell out of here, Ike. Dump him somewhere near the wall, and he can find his way back home.”
Ike Armstrong grunted, hoisted Vaughn’s limp body over one broad shoulder, and headed for the end of the street. The gawking crowd parted in front of him, took one look at Ford, and scattered. Pam glanced between him and Mia, muttered something about a first aid kit, and hurried after them.
“It’s okay.” Mia crouched in front of him and slid a hand over his. “That fighter showed up so fast, Vaughn barely had a chance to touch me. And I kneed him right in his tiny dick.”
She moved fast, edgy like a nervous bird, and the sheer apprehension in her voice kicked Ford’s anger a notch higher. “Bullshit,” he said slowly. Clearly. “You know whatever he said to you was bullshit, right?”
“I know.” But she wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t meet his eyes. “It doesn’t make me any less of a fool for misjudging his pride.”
Pride hadn’t brought him here, arrogance had. The soul-deep conviction that it was his right to waltz into another territory to take back what was his.
Fuck that.
Ford rose. “I should have killed him.”
“No.” Mia reached for her battered bag of pastries before straightening. “I have to stop running. I can deal with Cerys, but it will cost me more if she has to cover up a dead patron.”
“Maybe, if he stayed in his own damn sector. But he came to ours, starting trouble. He deserves whatever he gets.”
The bag crinkled as her fingers clenched tight, and even that couldn’t hide her trembling hands. “I’m sorry.”
He wanted to reach for her, but with his own hands still shaking—not to mention bloody—it seemed wrong, somehow. “Sorry for what? Walking through the market? Minding your own goddamn business?”
“For bringing trouble. For stopping you from killing him. I don’t know if...” She trailed off, pressing her fingertips to her bruised lip. “Was it political? Will you be in trouble for letting him go?”
Mia nodded jerkily before finally meeting his eyes. “What Vaughn said was bullshit. What’s between us has nothing to do with Cerys. I don’t want you to give her anything.”
He was being a jerk, making her feel worse. Ford sighed and took her in his arms. “Are you all right?”
“I think so.” At least she relaxed into him, burying her face against his throat as her arms went around him. “People protected me. Strangers. Because of you.”
His arms locked around her—too tight, but he couldn’t seem to ease his hold. “I should have been here.”
“You didn’t have to be.” She tilted her head back and smiled, even though her split lip made her wince. “Maybe you can’t understand, but that matters. Even if the power isn’t mine, even if he only stepped in to get attention from Dallas—it’s as close to independent as I’ve ever been.”
A heartbreaking admission. Ford dropped a careful kiss to her forehead. “Come on, let’s get back. You might want to talk to Lex.”
She winced again—and hid her face against his shirt with a groan. “She’s going to lecture me. She wouldn’t have stopped you.”
No, she wouldn’t have. Lex got a lot of things when it came to the harsh realities of day-to-day existence—about life in the sectors, about survival and even running away.
And, maybe more than anything else, she understood about protecting people you cared about and taking action when it was warranted.
She would understand what Ford had to do.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ford insisted on first aid, a bath, and breakfast in that order. By the time Mia took a seat in Dallas and Lex’s office, she was wishing she’d skipped that last one. Her cinnamon rolls and coffee formed a tight knot in her stomach as she faced Lex across the massive wooden desk.