Raw Redemption

by Tessa Bailey

  “Were you?”

  “Ailish, this mouth.” He pushed a thumb inside, groaning when she swirled her tongue around it and pulled. “It kisses me so good. Sucks between my legs like it’s trying to win a prize. Huh, baby. It’s all you, isn’t it?”

  Henrik took a fistful of red hair and tugged to the side, laying gentle bites along her exposed neck. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she breathed. “I…your mouth is no s-slouch, either.”

  His lips curled into a smile against her throat. “Ailish, baby?”

  “Yes?”

  “Wrap your hand around my cock”—he rolled his hips against her upper stomach—“and beat me off.”

  Fuck. Henrik loved the way she didn’t even take a second to hesitate or feign surprise that a man would want his dick stroked. Especially by a wet, naked Ailish. She simply fisted his erection and used the water to slip her hand in sleek moves, root to tip. Although there really was nothing simple about it, because she watched his face, moaning at whatever she witnessed there.

  “Tighter grip. Tighter,” he growled into the shower spray, unable to keep his hips from pumping. Unable to stop himself from closing his eyes and imagining he was thrusting into Ailish’s lithe body instead. Ahhh shit, if he didn’t live long enough to see his hard flesh dipping between her thighs, to feel her accepting his girth, he would consider his life incomplete. “God, baby. I’ve never been this horny in my fucking life. If we’re in the same room, I’m thinking of a way to get your hand down the front of my jeans. Remember that. It’s not going to change anytime soon, so I hope like hell you like working my dick.”

  “I love it.” There was a shudder in her voice. “I love watching what it does to you. You look like…you’re dying.”

  His laughter was pained. “And you like watching me die?”

  The pad of her thumb massaged the tip of his arousal, and his groan tore through the shower stall. “Yes,” she whispered. “I think…I think I like this kind of violence. A lot.”

  Her husky tone battered him over the head with lust. That hand slipping up and down his thickness, her expression of awe, the shower spray coasting over her tits. It was everything he’d ever dreamed of, multiplied by a thousand. “This kind of violence is a two-way street,” Henrik rasped against Ailish’s temple, lights starting to wink behind his eyes. I can’t be the only one to finish. Her pointed nipples and harsh breathing told him she needed, too. Need, need. It was a red cloud obscuring everything around them.

  Henrik’s right hand released his balls, eliciting a shock of pleasure/pain deep in his stomach. Worth it. Need to touch her. His touch slipped around the curve of her hip, down between the valley of her ass, stopping to press a thumb to that tempting back entrance. When she jumped at the near-invasion, releasing a feminine gasp, Henrik had to close his eyes against the surge of renewed desire. Depraved desire. A vision assaulted him of Ailish facedown on the bed, her bottom propped higher with a couple pillows, watching him nervously over her shoulder as he worked into that forbidden place. It would be an exercise in self-control, letting her get used to him gradually, being planted inside her without moving.

  God. Don’t think about it or you’ll come.

  When his fingers continued their journey to the heaven between her thighs, Ailish’s body relaxed for only a moment before arching like a spooked kitten. “Is your clit nice and sensitive from my mouth?”

  “Yes,” Ailish moaned, her hand flying up and down his ready-to-burst flesh, driving him insane. “T-touch me there, please.”

  “I’m going to live here. You understand?” His hips started to piston into her closed fist, his middle finger traveling over her nub, back and forth. “I’m this pretty clit’s new favorite person. Same way I want your hand down the front of my pants at all times? I’m going to want a suck of this baby right here. Getting dressed, eating a meal, talking? Yeah, I’ll be thinking of getting my mouth inside your panties to get you off.”

  Ailish’s thighs squeezed together, but since he was touching her from behind, she couldn’t close them around his hand, couldn’t ease the pressure of his torture. And Henrik did nothing to make it easier for her, worrying that tiny bud until she cried out, her head thrashing on the wet wall. “Stop…more.”

  “Which one is it?” he taunted, licking water off the underside of her chin. “Stop or more?”

  “More.”

  Henrik slid two fingers into Ailish’s damp opening, catching her resulting scream with his mouth, mastering her in two places at once. Never having been inside her before with any part of his body, now was a time for gentleness, but Henrik couldn’t pull it off. Not with her whimpering into his mouth, the swells of her ass cheeks flexing against his wrist. “You like that, don’t you? Like being full of me? Get used to it.” He pushed deep and lifted, bringing Ailish onto her tiptoes. His tongue traced the outline of her mouth as he admired her passion-glazed eyes. Those pretty tits were shaking against his chest, making him starved for a suck of her nipples. “That wasn’t a suggestion, Ailish. Get used to having me inside you. Move your hips around…make my fingers feel at home.”

  “I…ohhhh.” Doing as he asked, she worked her hips in a haphazard figure eight, tiny whimpers breaking past her lips to get him even more worked up, if such a thing were possible. “I like it, I like it, I—” She broke off in a moan when Henrik found her G-spot, tickling it with a crooked middle finger. “Oh my God.”

  Henrik was fast losing control, his lust reaching epic proportions, spurred on by her uninhibited behavior. He could feel the blood rushing in his veins, the release kindling in his gut. If they didn’t finish soon, he would drag her out of the shower, throw her down on the floor—wet and buck naked—and come inside her from behind. Without a care or a condom. And dammit, she deserved better than that. Deserved better than to be thrust into by the hungry beast he felt himself turning into. Most of all, he only got one chance for a first time with Ailish.

  Barely able to speak around the need banked in his throat, Henrik pushed a third thick finger into Ailish and went in for the kill, stroking that spot along her inner wall with rough fingers. “I don’t remember asking you to stop hand-fucking me, Lish. Get that hand moving so I can come all over those legs again.”

  As if his treatment inside her body had paralyzed her limbs, it took Ailish a few beats to begin pumping his flesh again. Ohhh, but when she got going, his orgasm built almost immediately, raking down his spine and clawing its way through his abdomen. “Henrik…I’m going to….”

  “Go on.” He licked into her mouth for a wet kiss. “I got you. I always got you.”

  Her body stiffened before starting to shake. The hand that wasn’t busy working his climax free slapped at his chest, her nails digging into him as she cried out. When Ailish hit her peak, she opened her eyes, and it was like looking through two windows into paradise. Henrik wasn’t even sure she could see him, even though her attention was locked on him. God, she gave herself over, as though there were nothing in this world to lose, and it was fucking spectacular. Throw in his name being chanted over and over on her lips like a prayer, and just then, in that shower, Henrik witnessed the sexiest, most breathtaking sight of his lifetime.

  Warmth greeted the palm wedged between her legs—Ailish’s climax—sending him catapulting into a deep ravine he never wanted to climb out of. Henrik pressed his face against the wet shower wall and roared as his hot seed decorated Ailish’s shaking legs. “Next time you get all of me,” he groaned. “I don’t like knowing I haven’t let loose inside you.”

  Henrik felt her bones beginning to liquefy, so he gritted his teeth and held her up, even as his own release racked his body. They stayed locked together for an unknown amount of time, their breathing mingling with the pelting shower spray.

  Ailish’s lips moved on his shoulder as she spoke, her voice sounding throaty from screaming. “Henrik?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t think we’re meant to be friends.”

&n
bsp; He’d thought his heart was done ricocheting around his chest for the moment, but obviously he’d been wrong. Damn, he fell harder for this girl with every passing second. That was saying something, considering he’d already thrown his sanity overboard just to get close to her. “And that upsets you, baby?”

  She gathered the moisture on his shoulder with her lips. “No. I think this is better.” A brief pause. “Don’t you?”

  “Hell yes, Ailish. Don’t ask me things like that with doubt in your voice.”

  Her uneven nod calmed him. “What do we do now?”

  He pulled back to lift her chin. “Now you wait for me here while I make a few calls. Okay?”

  There was no hesitation in her agreement. Looking back later, he would kick himself for not finding that odd. He probably should have included a please.

  Chapter Ten

  Ailish stared at the door that had just closed behind Henrik. He hadn’t shared the identity of who he would be calling. Or what he would say. Trapped between him and the wall of the shower, she’d never trusted anyone more. Then again, she’d been relying on him for pleasure during those stolen moments—and oh boy, he’d delivered. If she allowed herself, she could get lost in the memory of how his fingers had touched her so intimately, the intensity of his breathing. But she couldn’t go there, couldn’t get lost in that winding path. Because Ailish couldn’t shake the sitting duck feeling that made her skin prickle.

  Every time she took a step in the direction of trusting Henrik, he shut her out. It reminded her too much of a childhood being shoved out of rooms while the men talked. Being hushed at the dinner table while her father spoke in a low tone into the receiver of his phone. There was an undeniable urge to put her faith in Henrik. How could anyone be that convincing a liar? When they were touching, she couldn’t tell where Henrik ended and she began. Her troubles slipped down some invisible drain and there were only his capable hands…and that mouth. The one that spoke to her the way no one had ever dared.

  Now however, sitting alone in the quiet cabin, she could only see the road map that detailed her situation in black and white, with none of the gray areas created by Henrik. Two squiggly red lines extended from the You Are Here mark. One led back to Chicago, and one led to more breathtaking freedom. She’d actually told Henrik she was the Bookie Cookie, a position that made her valuable to the police in so many ways. She had enough information to shut her father’s outfit down cold, and Henrik would need some serious motivation not to hand her over.

  She hadn’t been enough motivation for her father to remove himself from a violent, unstable lifestyle. She hadn’t been enough reason for her mother to stick around. What chance was there that this near stranger who had so much to gain would actually see a reason to choose what was best for her? Not a good one.

  Ailish’s gaze strayed to the duffel bag Henrik had brought in from the truck, just before he’d left to make his mysterious phone calls. He’d taken out a fresh T-shirt and she assumed it contained more clothes. She shouldn’t snoop through someone else’s property. No¸ she shouldn’t.

  Whistling under her breath, Ailish slid off the bed and into a cross-legged position, eyeballing the bag a second before dragging it over. She unzipped the top and peered inside. Clothes, just as she’d assumed, but it wouldn’t hurt to look a little deeper. She pushed a hand down the side of the folded garments, freezing when she connected with something cold and metal. After a moment of debate, she pulled out the pair of handcuffs and let them dangle in the air, her stomach seizing as reflected light from the window hit the cuffs, creating shadows on the floor.

  Slammed by a sense of urgency, a driving desire to get away from the cuffs, away from the man who could use them to restrain not only her wrists, but her livelihood, Ailish jumped up from the floor. She had no idea how long Henrik would be gone, but she had a feeling it wouldn’t be long. A glance out the window told Ailish that he’d left Erin to guard the door, another sign that something was wrong, right? If he didn’t trust her to stay in the cabin, that was proof the distrust went both ways. She wasn’t crazy to be paranoid.

  Don’t think about the soft way he speaks to you, asking for your trust. Don’t think about the way he touches you like a man experiencing silk for the first time.

  Ailish swiped a hand under her nose and dived for the plastic bags she’d saved as a makeshift suitcase, shoveling handfuls of clothes into them. Her toothbrush, her wallet. She slid the bag handles up her arms to rest in the crook of her elbows while turning in a circle, looking for anything else that might come in handy. The gun. Still beneath the pillow. After grabbing the weapon and making sure the safety was on, she took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

  Erin turned with a blank expression, as if she already knew what was coming. “Ahhh. Princess Runaway has emerged from her chambers,” Erin said, without even glancing at the gun in Ailish’s hand. “I’m guessing this isn’t about taking another walk.”

  Ailish tossed Erin the handcuffs from Henrik’s bag. “Put one end around your wrist and the other around the porch rail.” Both hands free, she gripped the gun and lifted. “I’m really sorry, but I have to go.”

  The blonde twirled the cuffs around her index finger. “These things are child’s play. I’ll be out of them in fourteen seconds.”

  Confusion eclipsed her urgency. “But Henrik has the key.”

  Erin looked sympathetic. “There’s a lot we don’t know about each other. For instance, I didn’t know you were afraid of heights.”

  “What?” Ailish’s brow wrinkled. “I’m not afraid of heights.”

  “No.” Erin’s nodded at Ailish’s jean shorts. “Your zipper is, though.” The second Ailish dropped her gaze, Erin pulled her own gun, shrugging at Ailish’s outraged gasp. “Whoops.”

  “That was messed up.”

  Erin shifted side to side in her boots. “I don’t respond well when someone threatens to handcuff me. Even for fourteen seconds.”

  A pain started in Ailish’s stomach. Disappointment in herself, regret for threatening Erin, worry that Henrik would return soon. “Look, just give me a head start. Two minutes, that’s all I’m asking.”

  “What am I supposed to say to the Hulk when he returns? Not to mention my boyfriend.” The blonde shook her head. “Neither one of them is going to believe you got the drop on me. I’m too much of a legend.”

  Erin was right, but Ailish could see that the other girl wanted to let her go. It was there in her shadowed eyes. “Look, I have nothing to offer, so I’ll have to owe you one. That’s the best I can do. Just…make it look like I slipped out the side window or something.”

  She let the gun drop and Erin did the same. “Henrik isn’t someone you need to run from.”

  “He hasn’t proved that yet.”

  Erin found something about that statement remarkably funny, but in the end she just sighed. “You’ve got two minutes.”

  Relief swamped Ailish. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me just yet. Henrik will find you and I wouldn’t want to be you when that happens.” Erin pursed her lips. “You better go—he said he’d be back in twenty minutes.”

  Ailish threw another thank-you over her shoulder and stole down the porch. She didn’t slow once she reached the crop of trees surrounding the cabins, but picked up her pace. Her destination was the main road, but when she saw three female campers piling into a Jeep, she drew up short.

  “Hey, are you heading into town?”

  “Yeah.” They eyed her curiously. “You need a ride?”

  An image of Henrik returning to the cabin and finding her gone filled Ailish’s mind. Would he feel betrayed? Resigned? The thing about convictions is they run on faith. Now I need you to have it in me. When he’d said those words to her, she’d come so close to believing them. Even now, there was a voice urging her to go back. But then she thought about being promised college by her father, being promised dance classes as a preteen, promised she could go out and have an honest j
ob outside the confines of her home, the operation. None of those promises had come to fruition. In fact, she couldn’t remember a single time she’d put faith in another human being and had them deliver.

  I would never do anything that could result in you being hurt, baby. Can’t you see that?

  Ailish ignore the pressure in her chest and jogged toward the Jeep. “I would love a ride.”

  ...

  Henrik’s finger rested on the green call button of his cell phone. As soon as he pulled his thoughts together, he would call the captain—and it wasn’t going to be an easy conversation. Not by any stretch.

  The faint, addictive taste of Ailish on his lips made Henrik eager to return to the cabin and replenish his intake of her. More. He wanted more. It was unbelievable how much he craved her with every breath. On his walk to the lake where he’d finally found cell phone reception, he’d wondered if the constant starvation for Ailish would ease a little once he’d been inside her body, but the theory had been laughable. His need would only increase—there was no way around it.

  Stop thinking with your dick and focus.

  Right. He was about to go all in—again—for Ailish, and he couldn’t give any quarter when the captain balked at his demands. If the conversation with Derek didn’t go the way he needed it to go, Henrik was prepared to take Ailish somewhere safe where she couldn’t be tracked. Just remembering the fear in her voice when she’d talked about going back to Chicago made him anxious, a little crazy even. There was only one way he would consider taking Ailish back to Chicago, and both Derek and Ailish needed to be on board.

  Henrik hit call. He didn’t have to wait longer than one single ring before the captain answered, his tone brisk and distracted. “Derek Tyler.”

  “Captain, it’s Henrik.”

  A slight pause. “I hope you’re calling me from the road, with Ms. O’Kelly in your passenger seat.”

  Right to the point, as usual. “Not yet, no.”