Bound (Dark Horse #1)

by J. S. Scott

  “Anna!” he exploded in a husky groan, his grip on my hair becoming insistent as he started to fuck my mouth. “Christ!”

  I could hear the loss of control in his graveled voice, and I reveled in it, knowing it took a hell of a lot to make a crack in Kane’s armor. I quickened my pace…or maybe it was him who sped it up. Right at the moment, it didn’t matter. All I wanted was to keep on tasting him.

  “Not. Like. This.” he groaned as he backed up and his dick left my mouth.

  I whined in protest, but he had me on the bed and under him before I could say another word. Heat was emanating from his body like a furnace as he covered me. “No!” I protested. “I want—”

  I missed the taste of him already, and I hadn’t had enough time to make him come.

  His hazel stare drilled into my gaze as I looked up at him, noticing his big body shudder as he fumbled for position. “I’ll give you what you want,” he answered roughly. “What we both fucking need right now.”

  I gasped as he drove himself home, burying himself to the root inside me. “Oh, God. Yes. Yes.”

  “I need to be inside you right now, Anna. It can’t happen any other way. But I’ll be glad to let you give me head any other time. Right now, I have to feel you.”

  Strangely, I understood. Some force made us crave the same thing: our connection. As I savored the sensation of him stretching me, I felt more cared for than I’d experienced in a long time. “Then fuck me,” I demanded, wrapping my legs around his waist as I ground my hips up against him.

  He obliged me, pulling out slowly, then re-entering with a forceful thrust.

  “I can’t get enough of this, Anna. I can’t get enough of you,” he grumbled.

  I couldn’t get enough of him, either. Maybe it was some kind of sickness, but I needed him desperately. Stockholm Syndrome? Was I in some kind of weird mindset that made me believe I really wanted Kane like this?

  He started to pummel into me, and all I could do was wrap my arms around his neck and hold on. I closed my eyes as the intensity of emotion and sensation humming through my body became too much.

  “Don’t you dare, Anna.” Kane insisted. “Open your eyes. See me, dammit.”

  I did as he instructed, our gazes meeting with a ferocity that made me come undone. “I see you,” I panted out, mesmerized by the fiery look in his eyes.

  “I fucking wish you would.”

  Before I could wonder what he meant, I could feel my orgasm building with a slightly frightening burn inside my belly. “Harder. Please.”

  With Kane, it was never enough. I needed more because he demanded more.

  He surged into me so deeply that a satisfied cry left my mouth as our gazes clung and held fast.

  I wanted to close my eyes again, lower the level of heat by looking away from his determined, probing eyes. He wanted me to bare everything to him. Not just my body, but everything I was, everything I’d ever been.

  I couldn’t have held back my climax if I wanted to, and I didn’t. I let it shoot through my entire body as I ground my hips hard against his frenzied strokes, trembling as every nerve ending in my body came alive. “Kane!” I screamed his name and finally lost contact with his stare as my head thrashed against the pillow.

  Fisting my hair, he kept my head still as his mouth slammed down on mine, his tongue conquering and invading my mouth just like his cock was doing to my body.

  I imploded, my body melting down as I forcefully met his tongue with mine, both of us racing toward satisfaction. My body clamped down on his cock, like it was claiming it as mine.

  Kane tore his lips away from our embrace, reared up, and gripped my thighs. His face was contorted, and his body glistening with sweat.

  He was mesmerizing when his head went back and his hips slammed forward, his hot release flowing into my body while every muscle in his body tensed. “Anna. Jesus. What in the fuck are you doing to me?”

  His voice was strangled and confused. Maybe he was more perplexed than I was as my body pulsated with relief.

  Finally, he rolled off of me, taking my body with him so I was sprawled on top of his solid form, trying to catch my breath and slow my galloping heart rate down.

  I laid my head on his chest, listening to his harsh breathing. “I trust you,” I admitted breathlessly.

  “What?”

  “I said I trust you. I don’t believe you killed that woman.”

  As I traced the tattoo on his slick bicep, I felt his muscles tense again. “You’re drunk,” he accused.

  Drunk? Not really. I might be slightly impaired, but I rarely said anything I didn’t mean. “I might not like the way you handled any of this, but I trust you. Maybe you really didn’t have a choice.”

  “Don’t ever trust me, Anna. I’m an asshole,” he rasped in a hoarse voice.

  I nearly laughed at the slight panic in his tone. “Too late. I thought you wanted me to see you.”

  “Not everything,” he denied.

  “You have more skeletons in your closet?” I teased, feeling so much better now that I’d just blurted out the truth.

  “Plenty of them,” he admitted as his arms came around me possessively and he began to stroke my back.

  “You wanted to know why I’m here, why I run some little dive of a restaurant in the foothills?” I couldn’t believe I was actually going to tell him. And yet…it felt right. I wanted Kane to know.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Tell me.”

  “I can’t leave. I can’t go away.” I let out a weary sigh filled with heartache. “I’m stuck, Kane.”

  “Why?” he probed.

  A tear escaped my eye, followed by a few more. “The accident happened last winter. I was injured, so even though they searched for my parents, they were never found. I couldn’t tell them exactly where my parents had been because I wasn’t sure. They’re still here in these mountains somewhere. I can’t leave them alone. Not when I never got to say goodbye. Not when they’re still here and have never been put to rest.”

  Kane’s arms tightened around me protectively, and I let everything go, weeping uncontrollably as he held me in silent comfort. I sobbed out the despair that had been buried so thoroughly, hidden so carefully that I thought I’d never see it again.

  CHAPTER 15

  Kane

  My heart broke for Anna, sparking a protective streak in me again that I didn’t know existed for her—because it sure as hell hadn’t ever been there for any of the other women I’d been with. It’s not that I didn’t care about them or treat them well. But we’d only ever hooked up for a bit of fun, and they sure as hell weren’t giving me their life’s story while we were in the middle of fucking and having a good time.

  But this thing with Anna…it felt completely different. For the first time, this was about a hell of a lot more than just getting laid. I was genuinely starting to care about her—maybe even more so now that I knew that she believed me. Because the people that I truly had on my side…the people I knew I could trust and would have my back…they were few and far between.

  When you had a fortune at your fingertips, it was far too easy for people’s motives to become influenced by greed, which was why I let few people get close to me—and even fewer could be counted as my true friends. Yet with Anna, I was dropping my walls and letting her see who I really was, taking things much further than anywhere I’d ever gone before—and it left me feeling vulnerable.

  But as she wept in my arms, I wished there was some way to take away her pain and soothe her soul, though I knew with that sort of loss, nothing but time could heal it. And worse still was that they’d never recovered the bodies of her loved ones.

  How the hell could she possibly move on without laying them to rest? It was no wonder she was so emotional–and no wonder why she couldn’t leave this place, even if it was the source of her heartache. And she may
not want my pity, but it broke me to see her hurting.

  I ran my hand in soothing circles down her back, murmuring to her any words of comfort I could think of as I held her naked body to mine. She felt so small and fragile all of a sudden, such a remarkable difference to her feisty side. And yet I loved that she could be both strong and vulnerable at the same time, and that just meant that she was a fighter and she’d eventually find a way through this, even if it took time.

  If I could do anything to help, I would. Even if it meant hiring my own team to go out there and find her parents. I’d spare no expense if it meant giving her that little bit of peace and closure that might allow her to start healing so she could move on with her life. Because if she didn’t live her life to its fullest, then it’d be no better than her getting trapped in that avalanche along with her parents. What was the point of surviving if she couldn’t move on and live the life she was supposed to be living?

  I kissed the top of her head and held her tightly to me, covering her with the extra blanket, and feeling far too worried about her. “You have my word. I’ll see you through this, Anna. No matter what it takes—even if I have to hire every expert out there to comb the mountainside and find your parents.”

  She sat up just enough to look at me, propping herself against my chest as I cupped her face and brushed the tears from her cheeks, her eyes searching mine. “You’d do that for me?”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy, Anna.” I found that they weren’t just words, but that I truly meant them—even if that meant sticking around once I got out of this current mess and cleared my name.

  Though there was a huge of part of me that was thinking I’d completely lost it to be entertaining anything serious with Anna, there was an even bigger part of me that was thinking it might be damn nice to be able to share my days with her.

  Her brow furrowed over her blue eyes, her red hair spilling over her shoulders as she looked at me in disbelief. “Why? Why would you do that for me when you don’t even know me?”

  “It’s because I like you—I have from the moment I first set eyes on you. And if you’re worried about us not knowing each other, that can easily be fixed. It’s not like we don’t have time to kill.” I would happily spend every hour of every day fucking her, her tight little body wrapped around my hard cock. “What do want to know about me?”

  Though she’d already opened up to me about her parents, this was more about getting her to not only trust me but be completely at ease around me, which meant if she had questions, then I needed to answer them. Not that I didn’t want to know everything about her. I did. But that could wait until she felt comfortable enough to open up to me.

  “And you’ll be completely honest with me?” Her eyebrows perked up in question, her gaze fierce as if daring me to lie–and fucking hell, she was hot when she looked so feisty.

  “There’s no point to any of this if we’re not honest with each other. And if there is something we’re not comfortable discussing, I’d rather just state that to be the case versus lying to each other—because I fucking hate lies, Anna. Especially when it comes to people that mean something to me.” As difficult a life as I’d had, I needed to know that the people I kept close to me could be trusted. And if I cared about someone, I couldn’t doubt or question every word out of their mouth. Because a relationship built on lies and deceit meant nothing.

  “Fair enough.” She bit her bottom lip, looking like she was mulling something over, no doubt trying to figure out what to ask me, even as I ran a lazy hand down her back, letting my fingers trail over her soft warm skin. “Why were you in prison?”

  I just had to laugh. It figured she’d get right to the heart of the matter, even if we’d already briefly discussed this. “It was my younger brother… We grew up in a real crappy neighborhood, and there were always punks and thugs wandering the streets, staking their claim and trying to intimidate the decent people that lived there. My brother managed to get himself into a bit of trouble—not that he’d gone looking for it. He hadn’t. But this one guy got it in his head that he didn’t like my brother, and proceeded to make his life miserable—day in, day out.”

  That was an understatement since things got bad enough that my brother thought of ending his life.

  I continued, trying to focus on that day, instead of the train wreck it started. “I’d been away at college. But when I found out what my brother was going through, I knew something had to be done. And I swear, I was only going over there to talk to the guy. To make sure he left my brother alone.”

  “And things went bad?” Anna questioned anxiously, as if suddenly understanding that I wasn’t some sort of thug or criminal.

  “The guy pulled a gun on me. Started saying how he would teach me and my brother a lesson for messing with him. When he came at me, I defended myself, and in the struggle, the gun went off.” I could still recall the deafening sound of that gunshot ringing in the small space…the look in the guy’s eyes as they went wide with the realization that he’d been hit. “Even though it was self-defense, they tried me for manslaughter because I’d gone there to deal with the situation on my own instead of calling the cops.”

  “But…what about the jury? They must have seen that it was self-defense.” She shook her head as if trying to clear it, hit with the realization of the injustice that had been done.

  “A man was still dead, and it was hard to prove that my brother had been dealing with ongoing harassment since he hadn’t reported it to the authorities. If they truly thought me guilty of some heinous crime, they could have sent me away for a hell of a lot longer than they did, but in the end, I served just over a year.” I pulled her back into my arms, letting her settle against my shoulder and loving it when she held me tight. “But you know what? Going to jail…suffering through the injustices of that system…the beatings…the rapes… They only made me more determined to succeed. But that’s why I can never go back there. Never again, Anna.”

  I’d die before going to prison again.

  CHAPTER 16

  Anna

  I squeezed his strong body harder, a single tear trickling down my cheek. I believed him, and my heart ached for the injustice of the time he’d spent fearing for his life simply because he loved his brother, and wanted to protect him.

  Maybe that time in prison had made him tough as nails, strong enough to claw his way to the top in the business world. But it just seemed so...unfair. Okay…he kidnapped me in a moment of desperation, but Kane was no murderer. I’d bet every penny I had on that.

  Yeah, it wasn’t like I didn’t know how unfair or how sad life could be. But I’d also never gone to prison because I loved someone. Although, there were some emotional similarities between Kane and me. Maybe that was why I’d been drawn to him almost from the moment he’d walked into my restaurant.

  He had become a hard-ass.

  I’d drawn into myself, drowning in my grief.

  We’d both escaped by changing due to a traumatic event in our lives. We’d just done it in totally different ways.

  Being an only child, I couldn’t relate to the love between siblings. But my parents had been my world. I’d grown up spending a lot of time in the mountains near my diner, even before my parents decided to move from Denver to the mountains when I graduated from high school. Traveling with them had been isolating, but I’d never minded much. I’d had friends, but most of my free time was spent tagging along with my mom and dad, as fascinated by nature and science as they’d been.

  “You’ll never have to go back, Kane,” I assured him. “We’ll figure this out.”

  I wanted him to know that I’d never betray him, never send him back to a place that had been a living hell for him.

  “Don’t cry for me, Cupcake,” he teased in a hoarse voice, swiping the tear from my cheek. “I’m not worth it. Besides, you could still send me back there. I might not have m
urdered that woman, but I did kidnap you.”

  He had. But I wasn’t that angry at him anymore. If I had been in the same situation, I’m not so sure I wouldn’t have done the same thing.

  “Maybe I’ll take your deal. Give me money and I’ll keep my mouth shut,” I answered with a mischievous tone.

  “Bullshit. You couldn’t care less about the money,” he challenged.

  “Then maybe I’ll do it for free.”

  “Would you?”

  The slight vulnerability I heard in his voice had nothing to do with his fear of going back to jail. I could sense it. “Yes.”

  I decided to stop joking. Something told me that he hadn’t had many people who had believed in him in his life.

  “Why? Why would you let me off the hook? I haven’t done shit for you. Not yet anyway.”

  I kept my head on his chest to avoid eye contact, afraid I’d give too much away. Kane was subtly changing me with his willingness to talk about himself and his past. Though his offer of help to find my parents had surprised me, it had touched me even more. Since I’d been withdrawn and so completely alone for the last year, I wasn’t used to someone offering to help. I doubted he was even aware of the fact that he was comforting me, stroking his hand over my hair and my back lazily.

  “Why wouldn’t I sell you out? Hmm…I don’t know. Maybe it’s post-orgasmic bliss? Sometimes it makes me more forgiving.” Sweet Jesus! If he didn’t stop making me come, I’d never get angry at him again.

  “Then by all means, I’m happy to keep you in a good mood all the time,” he answered, his tone low and so sexy that there was nothing I wanted more than to end this conversation and let him get started on his offer.

  His sexual appetite surprised me. I wasn’t exactly the type of woman who made men crazy with lust. I’d seen a picture of the woman who’d been murdered. She’d been beautiful. “I know you didn’t kill her, but did you sleep with her?”

  Kane’s body tensed. “No. Yeah. Hell, I don’t even know for sure what happened that night. I’m fairly certain I slept with her, but the bastards drugged me, so my memories are vague. Maybe I did—maybe I didn’t. But I sure as hell know I’d never hurt a woman.”