by Lili Valente
“Are you getting wet for me again?” he asked, pushing on before she could respond. “I think I should find out.” He dipped lower, sliding his shaft between her lips, fighting a groan as her slick heat coated his skin.
“You want to be inside me so bad,” she said, flexing her thighs, increasing the pressure squeezing in around his erection. “You want to bend me over that rock and fuck me hard from behind. You want my hair in your fist and your cock so deep you—”
Her words ended in a bleat of rage as he pushed her back into the deep end of the pool.
What she’d been describing was one of the many fantasies pulsing through his head, but this wasn’t about fulfilling his fantasies or letting her take the upper hand. This was about driving her to the edge and making her twist there, about bringing her low and breaking her with her own desire.
This time, she came to the surface swinging. She lunged for him, but he captured her wrists, transferring them both to one hand that he lifted over her head. He held her there, thrashing and cursing his name, as he brought his free hand to her breast, pinching her left nipple hard enough to make her cry out.
It was a sound of pain and pleasure, but it wasn’t yet a sound of surrender.
“Fuck you,” she hissed, chest rising and falling faster as he plucked and rolled her other nipple. “I hate you so fucking much.”
“But you want me even more,” he said, his balls beginning to feel bruised with the need for release. “You want me to fuck you against the rocks by the waterfall. You want to feel me moving inside of you, making you take every inch of my cock, making you come so hard you feel like the pleasure is going to rip you apart.”
“I’m not, I don’t—” She cut off with a whimper, her wrists stopping their squirming to get free. “Please stop. Please stop this.”
“Stop touching you?” He trailed his knuckles down her quivering stomach and slipped his fingers back between her legs, teasing through her slick lips. “Stop doing this?” He slid two fingers inside her well of heat, moving in and out as his thumb pulsed on her clit.
“Y-yes,” she panted, her eyes squeezing closed. “No!”
“Which is it, yes or no?” He added a third finger and watched her lips part on a sexy little sigh, the kind that had always driven him wild. “Better speak up fast, Harley. I’m not feeling patient today.”
“Don’t stop,” she said, rocking into his hand. “Please don’t stop. Please let me come. I want to come.”
“You want to come on my hand?” He released control of her wrists, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her close enough that he could whisper in her ear as he continued to work his fingers between her legs. “Or do you want my cock, Harley? Do you want me to fuck you again, to be buried so deep you can’t feel anything but how much I want you?”
“Yes,” she said, adding quickly, “Please. Yes, please. Please fuck me. I want you inside of me.”
She reached down, gripping his cock and stroking him up and down, sending heat surging across his skin and desire pulsing through his veins. But instead of hitching her up around his hips and impaling her on his throbbing shaft, he pulled her hand away and brought his hands to her shoulders, putting her at arm’s length.
“Then you need to beg,” he said, his voice hard. “You need to beg me until I believe that there is nothing you want more than my dick.”
Hatred flickered across her features, but the hunger was still there, burning bright, making Clay smile as he brought one hand to his cock and began to stroke himself up and down. “Or maybe you’d rather I take care of this myself? Spare you the trouble?”
Eyes narrowed, she slipped her fingers between her legs, but he had her wrist in his hand a second later. “Bad girl. You know the rules. It’s me or nothing, sweetheart.” He released her wrist and slipped his fingers back between her legs, curling them this time, beckoning with a come hither motion inside her slick pussy that made her tremble.
Her lips parted and her hands groped for his shoulders, using them to hold herself upright as he massaged her G-spot. He waited until her legs began to shake and the muscles in her arms stiffened, until her hips rocked desperately against his hand and his fingers were drenched with her heat. He waited until soft hungry sounds issued from the back of her throat and her breasts flushed pink as that relief she was so desperate for swung within reach, and then he pulled away, leaving her to sob as she staggered a step forward, nearly losing her balance again.
“Let me know when you’re ready to play by the rules,” he said, turning his back on her, doing his best not to show how desperate he was to get to one of the rocks at the side of the pool.
He needed to jerk off before he lost control and he was going to have to fucking sit down to do it. His knees were already weak because that’s what Harley did to him. She made him weak, made him scattered.
Made him forget that you should never turn your back on a wounded animal, especially one you’ve personally pushed to the edge.
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, warning danger, but it was over before he could turn around. One moment he was focused on putting some distance between him and Harley and jerking himself back into his right mind. The next the world went black.
Chapter Ten
Harley
Everything happened in slow motion.
Harley watched her fingers curling around the heavy rock in half time, lived the moment it took for her to swing the lichen-covered stone over her head for a hundred frantic beats of her heart, and felt the clench of her gut as she reversed direction—slamming her makeshift weapon down at a slight angle—for so long it felt like her abdominal muscles were going to pinch in two and squeeze the life out of her.
And then the rock hit Clay’s head, a gush of blood burst from the pierced skin at the base of his skull, and time jerked back to normal speed.
Harley cried out as he collapsed, splashing into the pool just ahead of her. Water sprayed into her face and the waves caused by his collapse rocked against her thighs, but Clay didn’t jump back to his feet, prepared to take his revenge. He remained facedown in the water, his long arms trailing down to brush the smooth pebbles beneath the surface, his torso rocking gently as the pool rediscovered peace, clearly not overly disturbed by a murder being committed near its banks.
“Shit,” Harley whispered, the stone splashing back into the water as her hands began to shake. “Shit!”
He was going to drown. He was going to drown and die. He might still die—she hadn’t intended to kill him, just knock him out, but clearly she’d hit him harder than she’d intended—but unless she got him out of the water, death was a foregone conclusion.
She probably shouldn’t care that the man who’d tortured her for two weeks was about to die, but his taste was still in her mouth and her body still ached desperately for his touch, and she did care.
Damn her, she did. She didn’t want to be a killer and she especially didn’t want to kill Clay.
She’d already lived with his blood on her hands for years. No matter how demented a bastard he’d become, she didn’t want to live that way anymore.
Bending down, she flipped Clay over onto his back, heart jerking when he coughed and water streamed from his nose and mouth. She froze, ready to drop him and run, but after the coughing had stopped, his eyes remained closed, and after a moment, his breath grew slow and even. Pulse still thready from a dizzying mixture of fear and adrenaline, Harley quickly towed him to the edge of the pool. As the water grew shallow, moving him grew harder, but she managed to hook her arms beneath his armpits and drag his heavy body over the stones and onto the grass at the edge of the pool.
She deposited him as gently as she could and stood staring down at his naked, unconscious form for a shock-numbed moment. And then she turned and ran like hell.
She stopped to scoop her tee shirt and Clay’s boxers off of the ground, but she didn’t bother with the misery-inducing boots or take the time to dress. Now that she’d mad
e sure Clay wasn’t going to drown, she couldn’t afford to waste a second.
Terror fueling her weary muscles, she sprinted back down the hill, away from the cliffs, her bare feet slapping against the hard-packed dirt. At the base of the incline, where the path split in two, she skidded to a stop, keeping one panicked eye on the trail behind her as she shrugged on her shirt and yanked the boxers up and over her hips. The forest was still empty, but she swore she could feel Clay coming for her, rapidly eliminating her head start.
You knocked him unconscious. He’s not going to be able to recover from that quickly. He’ll be slow and unsteady if he’s on his feet at all.
But her thoughts offered no comfort. Clay was out of his mind, stubborn as hell, and in incredible shape. It was a combination that could work miracles—she should know.
After everything she’d been through, most people wouldn’t have the strength left to jog five miles. Harley didn’t jog; she sprinted, flying through the woods, leaping over rocks and tree limbs and other obstacles in her path. Her breath burned in her lungs and her legs cramped, but she didn’t slow her pace or waste another second looking over her shoulder. She ran like the devil was chasing her out of hell, arms pumping at her sides, her thoughts an endless mantra of hold on, hold on, hold on.
She was on her way to Jasper. She just had to hold together long enough to get off this island and everything would be okay. She had a plan in place for emergencies like these. She had passports under three different aliases stored in three different post office boxes throughout Europe, along with enough cash to get her to Prague and Jasper.
She would get to him before Marlowe and then she would figure out what came next. She just had to hold on.
Hold on.
Hold on.
She burst from the woods into the clearing near the cottages and veered left, headed toward the ocean. She hadn’t seen anything but the officer cottages and the main building, but this was a military installation. There had to be a dock nearby.
A dock, and hopefully, a boat.
Please let there be a boat and please let it be easy to hotwire and please let there be water and food on board.
For a split second, she considered turning back toward the brown and white building where she’d been held prisoner, knowing there was water, food, and other supplies stored inside, but then she saw the dock—and the fishing boat rocking gently in one of the five slips—and kept running.
Freedom was so close she could taste it. She couldn’t bear the thought of going back inside that miserable place and surely she wouldn’t die of thirst in the time it took her to get to safety. Clay had transported her here in a day or two. The south Thai islands weren’t that far apart and the boat no doubt had GPS.
She trotted out onto the dock, the sun-warmed boards hot on her bare feet, and jumped over the boat’s railing onto the deck. The small craft was spic and span, and in the cabin, beneath a storage bench, she discovered a flat of bottled water, packages of almonds, tinned meat, a locked shotgun case, and a box of shells.
Hope and gratitude flooded through her, making her hands shake as she twisted the cap off of a water bottle and tipped it up to her lips. She sat down hard on the floor beside the bench, guzzling the water as she pulled the shotgun case out onto the floor beside her. It was a simple lock, the kind likely to pop on its own if you dropped it on the ground enough times. But there were faster ways to get basic mechanisms like this to give.
She looked up, swiping water from her mouth as she scanned the rest of the tidy cabin. All she would need was a paperclip or a straw or—
A pen!
She stood, hurrying to the control console, snatching a ballpoint pen from its place beside a leather bound notebook she guessed was the captain’s log. With any luck, it would list the location and time of departure from the port Clay had left when he’d brought her here. She would look, as soon as she got the gun open and the boat started and the craft headed out into open water.
Dropping back down to the floor, she twisted the pen apart and pulled out the pressure screw, forcing it straight with slick fingers. She was still dripping sweat, her body struggling to cool her down after the long run. Salty drops streamed down her forehead and into her eyes, but she didn’t bother wiping them away. She focused on the lock, jiggling the straightened spring back and forth until the box popped open with a soft snick.
A moment later, she had the shotgun cocked open and slid a shell into each of the barrels. She had just snapped it closed and turned to see about opening the boat’s ignition panel when she heard footsteps on the dock.
Fast, heavy footsteps, making no effort to be silent as they pounded across the wood.
There was only one person it could be. One other person on this godforsaken island.
Clay.
Chapter Eleven
Harley
Heart leaping into her throat, Harley spun around, cursing herself for not getting the boat started first. She might have already been pulling away from the dock right now if she’d hotwired the ignition first.
But she hadn’t. She had armed herself and she meant to use the weapon to make sure she got the hell off this island.
Clenching her jaw, she brought the gun to her shoulder, preparing for Clay to burst through the cabin door. She didn’t have to wait long. Seconds after she steadied her grip on the rifle, the door swung open, revealing a sweat-soaked Clay wearing nothing but his shorts and boots.
His bare torso glistened and water beaded on his face and neck, smearing the blood that streamed from the wound at the back of his head down over his thickly muscled shoulder. His eyes glinted with rage, but he wasn’t out of his mind with it. He still had the sense to freeze when he saw the gun, his gaze darting from Harley to the open storage bench beside her and back again.
“That loaded?” he asked, his breath coming fast.
He must have sprinted the entire way here, too, every bit as eager to recapture her as she was to escape.
“It is. And I’m an excellent shot.” She stepped her right foot back, firming up her stance, not wanting to get knocked off her feet by the recoil if she were forced to shoot him. “Even if I wasn’t, there’s no way I could miss with you this close. The only way you’re waking up to see another sunrise is if you get off this boat right now and let me go.”
“I can’t do that¸” he said, taking a step closer.
Harley took a mirror step back. “I’m serious, Clay! I will shoot you. I don’t want to, but if you give me no other choice, I will. I have to get to Jasper. He’s all that matters. Now get the fuck off the boat!”
He shook his head as he slowly lifted his arms into the air in a gesture of surrender she wasn’t buying for a moment. “You’re right. Okay? You’re right. Jasper is what matters. We need to make sure he’s safe. Then we can work out the rest of the shit between us.”
She tried to laugh, but it got stuck on the way up her throat, emerging as a startled-sounding gurgle. “You know I’m not that stupid.”
“I know you’re not,” he said, edging an inch closer. The movement was so slight most people wouldn’t have noticed it. But Harley noticed and it was enough to make her cock the hammer and squeeze one eye shut, preparing to shoot a hole through Clay’s gut if he took another step.
He froze. “You’re not going to shoot me.”
“Don’t come any closer,” she warned softly.
“If you were going to kill me you would have let me drown,” he continued, holding her gaze with his big hands still held aloft, framing his seemingly earnest face. “We were all the way across the pool when you hit me over the head. There is no way I fell at the edge of the bank onto my back. You pulled me there, didn’t you? And made sure I was breathing before you ran?”
“I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.” She fought the tears pressing at her eyes as he shifted another inch her way, ignoring her order, bringing the moment when she would have to kill him to get to her son a second closer. “Please! I
just want to leave. Don’t make me do this!”
“I’m not going to make you do anything. Not anymore,” he said in a deep voice that would have been soothing if she didn’t know that he was preparing to pounce at any moment. “You have changed. You’ve proven that. Now give me a chance to prove that I’m not out of my mind. And that I can put Jasper’s welfare first. There will be plenty of time for us to fight once we know that he’s as safe as we can possibly make him.”
He eased another micro-step closer. “I had time to think while I was running back here, hoping like hell that I’d get to the boat before you made it off the island. I get it now, okay. I get that I’ve been fighting a losing game and that I shouldn’t have been playing games in the first place. The second I knew that Jasper was in danger, I should have done whatever it took to keep him safe, even if that meant calling a truce between us.”
“You’re lying,” she said, lips pressing together.
“I’m not,” he said. “I swear I’m not, Harley. I swear on my life. On Jasper’s life.”
Harley swallowed against the salt and fire taste rising in her mouth. She tried to clear her head and think rationally, but the moment was too fraught. All she could think about was the gun in her hand and the man who had imprisoned her and tortured her and used her sick desire for him against her—turning her own body into a traitor that couldn’t be trusted—standing in front of her, ready to drag her back to hell.
“I can’t go back into that cage,” she whispered. “I can’t. It will kill me.”
“No, it wouldn’t.” His lips tilted up one side. “You’re made of tougher stuff than that. You’ve proven that, too.”
“Don’t look at me like that.” Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t try to trick me. You don’t admire me, and you don’t want to work together. You just want me to put the gun down.”
“Yes, I would like for you to put the gun down,” he agreed, shoulders shrugging as his hands began to drift back to his sides. “But I don’t—”