by J. S. Scott
We moved so sensually together. I deepened our embrace further, my tongue exploring his mouth covetously, greedily, until I was moaning against his lips.
I rode him hard, desperate for relief as his cock hammered into me, pinning me securely against the wall with every stroke. Every time he slammed back into me, my hips ground against Kane’s incredibly hard body.
Coming up for air, I cried, “Yes. Harder. Please.”
He gave me exactly what I was asking for with a groan. “Come for me, Anna. Come with me.”
I knew that Kane was losing control, but my climax was just a few heartbeats away. As he came into me again, I grinded harder against him, tightening my grip on him with my legs.
My climax was explosive. “Oh, shit. Kane!”
My core clamped down on his cock as the muscular walls of my sheath contracted and released. The spasms were almost painful, but the release was pure bliss.
“Anna,” he grunted as he poured his own hot release deep inside of me. “Fuck.”
He dropped to his knees, taking my body with him as he stretched out on the plush, carpeted floor, with me sprawled out on top of him.
Neither one of us spoke. The only sound I could hear was our panting as Kane and I tried to recover our breath. I felt mindless, my only focus on my galloping heart and breathlessness.
I tried to roll off him moments later so he could get more air without me squashing him, but he snaked a strong arm around my waist, keeping me on top of him.
“Don’t leave right now,” Kane said gruffly. “Are you better?”
It took my befuddled brain a moment to recover. “Yeah. I’m okay. My panic attack is gone.”
Generally, I had to get somewhere open to squash a full-fledged panic attack. But a need more primal than being free had vanquished my demons this time.
He stroked a hand over my hair. “I’ll take you back upstairs if you want. In spite of what you might think, I don’t like seeing you that way.”
My heart skittered at his willingness to do something that actually would put me more at ease. “It’s fine. I’ll get used to it. It was just the initial shock of realizing exactly where we were. I don’t want to be tied up again, and this place looks a hell of lot nicer than the cabin.”
I’d rather become accustomed to this space than to be tied up again. Now that I was in a more rational state of mind, I could recognize the more desirable choice.
“It is,” he confirmed. “I’ll give you a tour shortly. And if I have to fuck you every time you freak out, I have no problem with that.”
I knew he was teasing, but he sounded dead serious. “Like I said, I think I’ll be fine.”
I did it again. I fucked him again.
I sure as hell hadn’t planned on it. It had just…happened. What’s more, I knew he’d done it just to calm me down. What was I supposed to think about that? I was screwing a murderer, and the thought of exactly who he was while he was touching me never even crossed my mind.
Yeah, maybe I had thought about getting close to him, even if it meant I’d have to go to bed with him. But I had to admit, my plan had never crossed my mind during our interlude, either.
All I’d wanted was safety, and it wasn’t like I could go running to Kane for that. He was the one who’d gotten me into this terrifying situation in the first place. And he was a wanted man.
I had just…needed him, and that scared the hell out of me. “This can’t happen again,” I told him flatly. “I’m sorry I freaked out.”
His grip tightened on my hair. “Who are you fucking trying to convince, Anna. Me or yourself? You know you loved every minute of having my head between your thighs, and you came like a woman who really needed to get fucked.”
“I know,” I admitted. “But we can’t keep doing this.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know who you are,” I answered irritably.
“You’ll figure it out eventually,” he answered enigmatically. “Speaking of fucking people you don’t know, we have a problem.”
“What?” I lifted my head off his chest to look at him. We had a ton of problems, so I wanted to know which of the many he was referring to.
“You just had unprotected sex with a murder suspect.”
I gaped at him, realizing he was absolutely right.
CHAPTER 11
Kane
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m clean. Up until now, I’ve always used a condom—always—and also get tested regularly.” Not that it would keep her from getting pregnant, though the thought didn’t have me panicking like it normally would if this was anyone but Anna.
The truth was, there was something about Anna that intrigued me, like no other woman ever had. I felt downright obsessively possessive of her. And fuck knew I had never been the jealous or covetous type. Though I knew our current situation was less than ideal, and she might stick a knife in my back if I wasn’t careful, I was curious to see how this would all play out. She could tell me she hated me, but her body said something completely different. Anna had accepted my protection, and that had me practically beating my fists against my chest in triumph.
“I’m clean, too. But that’s not the only concern, now is it? Or did no one ever explain the birds and bees to you?” She glared at me from where she was laying on my chest, one brow perked up in sarcastic question.
“How does that go again? I think I might need another demonstration. You know…a bit of show and tell, just to make sure I get it right.” I ran my hands down her back and cupped her ass in both my hands, loving that she had such lush curves on her—and loving even more that she’d yet to pull away from me in earnest.
“You’re so funny—but you do not get to fuck me again, let alone without a condom. Because the last thing I need is to end up pregnant by the man who kidnapped me.” This time, when she pushed off of me, I let her go, annoyed that we were back to the whole kidnapping thing.
I was doing my best with the circumstances I was thrust into, and I hated that she’d gotten caught up in the middle of it all. And yet…what choice did I have? “Don’t forget to add murderer to that list.”
“You’re the one who keeps bringing it up.” She glared at me as she tossed on her jeans, and I tucked myself away before I wandered over to the bar in desperate need of a drink.
“I bring it up because it’s clear you still think I’m going to slice your throat while you sleep—and it’s fucking annoying when I’ve never, in my entire fucking life, raised a hand to a woman.” I’d just poured myself a whiskey when she grabbed herself a glass and put it down on the bar next to the bottle. With a sigh, I filled her glass and then took a long sip, savoring the complex smokiness as it burned its way down my throat.
She played with her glass and slipped onto the stool next to me, though she kept her eyes on the amber liquid, swirling it around. “It’s hard for me to trust people, Kane—and it’s not exactly easy to let down my guard and let a complete stranger into my life.”
“Then maybe we need to not be strangers.” I took a long sip from my glass and gave her a sideways glance and a smile that I hoped would ease some of the tension between us. “Tell you what…we’re going to play a little drinking game. We’ll alternate asking each other questions, which we’ll have to answer truthfully. If, however, there’s a question you don’t want to answer, you have to drink.”
“That sounds silly.” Yet her anger and annoyance with me seemed to have eased up a bit.
“Well, it’s not like we have a whole lot else to do—unless you’d rather go back to fucking.” I gave her a sultry smile that had her blushing, and damn, but she was just too easy to tease.
Unfortunately, I was completely out of condoms, and I doubted it was something that my crazy uncle had stored away somewhere.
“Ha ha ha. You’re hysterical. That is not happening.”
>
I tilted my head towards the sofa, knowing we’d be more comfortable there, and grabbed the bottle as we settled in, facing each other. “We’ll start with some easy ones. Where did you grow up?”
“Denver. You?”
“Seattle.” I drank anyway. “Your turn to ask a question.”
“I don’t know what to ask.” She let out a frustrated sigh. “This is stupid. Why can’t we just have a normal conversation to find out about each other?”
I wanted her to feel more comfortable with me, not more frustrated. “Whatever you want, Cupcake.”
“Any brothers or sisters?”
“Yeah…two brothers.” I already knew from what she’d said that she had no living family. “Well…one of them is my half-brother, technically. My mom…she remarried this guy a few years after my dad died in a car accident. Though he bailed soon after she got pregnant. It wasn’t easy for her to make ends meet as a single mom with three kids, but she kept us all in line, and made sure we busted our asses with our schoolwork.”
Deep in thought, she pouted with concern, and it was all I could do not to lean over and kiss her. “I can’t imagine that was easy.”
I thought about the tiny apartment in the crappy neighborhood, and the impossibly long hours my mom worked to make sure we had a roof over our heads and food on the table. “It wasn’t, but…it made us close, and we had each other’s backs, no matter what.”
“Which was why you defended your brother…and ended up in jail?” She wouldn’t even look at me as she asked her questions—and I wanted to fucking know what she was thinking. Because if she thought she was somehow better than me because I protected my brother, then I wanted nothing to fucking do with her.
“Yeah. And it may have landed my ass in jail, but I wasn’t going to abandon my brother when he needed me. Not when those assholes were looking to put him in his grave.” I polished off my drink and poured myself another before topping off her glass.
“It’s good to know someone has your back.” She played with her glass and then took a long sip. “I miss that…you know? I lost my parents, but…after their deaths…I sort of withdrew from the world and though my friends tried to be there for me, I just wasn’t ready. By the time I finally pulled myself out of my dark hole…everyone had sort of moved on.”
I reached over and took her hand, knotting my fingers with hers, and hating that she’d had to go through so much, and on her own, no less. “I know what that’s like—and it fucking sucks. I’m just sorry you had to deal with all that. When I got out of prison…” I just shrugged. What else was there to say really? She was smart enough not to need me to spell it all out for her.
“Yet you turned it all around to become highly successful.” She shifted in her seat to face me, and fuck…but the girl was gorgeous, her freckles dancing across her cheeks. “I can’t imagine it was easy to get your life back on track after it got derailed.”
“It wasn’t easy, but I came out of prison defiant and determined. Besides, what was the alternative? And honestly, it only made me all the more hell-bent on proving everyone wrong.” I changed the subject, wanting to focus on her instead. “How about you and the diner? How did that come about?”
She looked away from me with a shake of her head, her gaze refusing to meet mine as her mood clearly darkened. “I’d rather not talk about it, if that’s okay with you.”
But as her voice cracked and tears slipped down her cheeks, I pulled her into my arms and tried to soothe her, kissing the top of her head as I held her close.
“We don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to.” Though her reluctance to discuss it all made me think it had something to do with her parents. “I swear, I’ll have you back home safe and sound as soon as this mess of mine gets sorted.”
She nodded, though whether or not she truly believed me, I hadn’t a clue. But I sure as hell hoped she was finally learning to trust me, since we were stuck with each other for the foreseeable future. And since I knew better than to lie to myself, the truth was…I liked Anna far more than I’d liked anyone in a very long time.
“When, Kane?” She pulled away just enough to look up at me as I wiped her tears away. “I need to get back to the diner—and I know you’ve said you’ll pay me for my time here, but…I just want to know if we’re any closer to getting off this damned mountain.”
“Soon, Cupcake. Soon.”
I just hoped that I wasn’t wrong.
CHAPTER 12
Anna
We spent the rest of the day and evening playing chess, a game that usually bored me because I’d never had an opponent like my original teacher—my dad. But Kane actually challenged me with his strategies, and I found myself working hard to be the victor. He threw me off my game by making some unexpected moves that made me think harder than I usually did about what tactics I needed to follow.
I’d barely won the first game, which was really surprising.
Kane had insisted on playing one more time, and because he was so damn good, I decided to go for it. I was hoping to knock that cocky smile off his face.
It was his turn, and I marveled at his skill at showing no emotion as he contemplated his next move. Was he really thinking about it, or was his long period of calculation just a ploy?
I had to admit, I couldn’t help but watch him as his sharp eyes moved over the board, an errant lock of dark hair falling onto his forehead, making me want to push it back into place so I had an excuse to touch him again. The kitchen table was small, and all it would take would be to lean forward and stretch just a little to reach him.
Not happening. If I touch him at all, I’ll just want more.
Kane was quickly becoming a gut-wrenching temptation that I shouldn’t have, and I didn’t want to get all hot and bothered by him more than I’d already done just from a simple look or touch.
“Where did you learn to play so well?” he asked, never lifting his eyes from the chess pieces.
“My dad was a Grand Master, and he taught me well,” I answered simply. “You?” Kane was almost as good as my father had been.
He finally reached for a chess piece. “Checkmate,” he announced casually, leaning back in his chair and locking his hand behind his neck with a confident grin. “To answer your question, I’ve been playing since I was a child, too. I am a Grand Master, Cupcake. Our old neighbor used to play, and since he’d watch me and my brothers when my mom was working, he taught us.”
Frantically, I searched for a way out for my king, but I was well and truly trapped. How in the hell had that just happened? I kept looking—just in case—but he really had bested me.
Raising my head, I glared at him. “Why didn’t you tell me? It wasn’t a fair match.”
He shook his head. “It was fair enough. You didn’t tell me that your dad was a Grand Master, either. I haven’t competed for a long time. Hell, I haven’t played for years. That’s why you won the first game. I’m rusty. Not to mention that I can see your gorgeous tits right through my T-shirt you’re wearing. Now that’s unfair—and damn distracting.”
I looked down at the T-shirt I’d swiped from the closet, not realizing it was that thin. But he was right. And my nipples were hard, just like they always were when I was too close to Kane. Dammit! The last thing I wanted him to know was how easily he could turn me on. He didn’t even have to touch me.
I should have been taken aback by the fact that he had played chess competitively, but I actually wasn’t. More and more, I was learning that Kane wasn’t exactly the man I’d suspected in the very beginning. There had already been plenty of unusual qualities he possessed that I hadn’t exactly expected.
I started putting the pieces back in place, unable to look at him. “Funny, I would have taken you for a poker type of guy.”
Since I could never tell what the hell he was thinking, he had the perfect poker face.
/> “Did that, too. It helped me start up some of my businesses in the beginning. People weren’t exactly jumping to invest since I was a former convict. I had to raise some of my own capital somehow, and I didn’t exactly have much to lose. Fortunately, I was damn good at cards.”
My heart melted just a little, imagining how difficult it must have been for him to go from ex-jailbird to a filthy rich business owner. Obviously, there had been a lot of risk and desperate times in-between those two statuses.
“So you won a lot, I take it?” He had to have needed a substantial amount of money to live and start his own empire after getting out of jail.
“Yeah. I won a lot.” He didn’t elaborate.
Feeling uncomfortable, I started to get up from my chair, ready to go find something more substantial to wear than the thin shirt I had on.
“Where are you going? Don’t you want a tiebreaker?” His voice was low and persuasive.
“I need to find another shirt,” I answered.
“Don’t, love…” He reached and grabbed my wrist, making it impossible for me to get all the way up. “I like the way my shirt looks on you.”
I plopped back into my chair and glanced at him as his gaze roamed over me possessively. “You just said you could see my breasts,” I reminded him.
He smirked. “Like that’s a bad thing? Staring at your nipples trying to poke through that cotton is a damn fine view—best I’ve had in a very long time. Don’t ruin it for me now.”
“Pervert,” I accused, my heart beating a little bit faster.
God, he was attractive, even when he was acting depraved. Or maybe it was because he was looking at me like he was on a diet, and I was a decadent dessert that he wanted to devour.
“Guilty,” he agreed readily. “But it’s your fault for looking so damn good in my shirt.”