by Callie Hart
“Zeth!” The outraged yell finally stays my hands. Julio waits beside Sloane, eyes wide with disbelief. “The woman is fine! You’re fucking gonna kill one of my best men over a fucking bruise?”
“I’ll kill him for daring to breathe the same air as her,” I gasp, my chest heaving. “I’ll kill him just for looking at her wrong.”
Julio just shakes his head, astonished. He gestures one of his other men toward Andreas, still reeling from what I’ve done. “Get him to the basement.” He turns and walks slowly back inside the villa, leaving me and Sloane outside. Alone with fourteen armed and very angry Mexicans.
We didn’t speak with Julio last night. The man seemed totally shell-shocked from my arrival, the gunshots, and then Zeth nearly bludgeoning someone to death with his bare hands. He’d immediately vanished, leaving Zeth to drag me through the sporadically lit hallways of the Spanish-style villa, toward a bedroom that smelled distinctly like him. He’d shoved me inside, followed after, locked the door and then placed a chair beneath the handle like in the movies. Following that he’d ripped off his clothes down to his boxers, angrily throwing them onto the ground, climbed into the huge king-sized bed in the center of the room and promptly fallen straight to sleep.
Turns out he was mad at me.
I’d slept in the wingback chair by the window, although barely, and woken way earlier than Zeth due to the piercing shafts of sunlight spearing over the top of the compound wall and directly into the bedroom. Since then I’ve been waiting, stiff and cold, for the dark shape of a man to wake. Dreading it. With his eyes closed and hand softly flexed inwards as he breathes deeply in and then out, he looks so vulnerable and harmless. The lines of him don’t soften in the slightest with his unconsciousness; his muscles are still strongly carved out of his belly and chest, arms and back, but they aren’t primed to damage anyone right now, which makes him seem less dangerous. I’m too scared to wake him. I just sit, waiting, hoping that he wakes up in a better mood than he fell asleep in.
I’m also hoping Lacey is okay. She knew I wasn’t going to take her with me. God knows how, but she didn’t bat an eyelash when I said she was going stay with my folks for the night. Two at the most. The relief on her face had actually been very obvious when I said it wasn’t safe for her to come. She’d only grown concerned when she’d followed me into my parents’ place and seen the religious paraphernalia all over the walls: crucifixes, icons of the Virgin Mary and cherub-faced depictions of Jesus blessing the masses. Her face had grown pale, although she’d swallowed stiffly and sat herself down, folding her hands in her lap and eyeing my father suspiciously. I don’t know what’s happened to make her react that way, but it’s clearly something very bad. I’m hoping she’s not going to be more traumatized when I pick her up than she was when I left her there.
I’m still thinking about this when, at around seven thirty, Zeth sits bolt upright in the bed, gasping. His eyes scan the room, locate me, and the next thing I know I’m being physically lifted and am being thrown onto the bed on the other side of the room. I let out a small yelp as Zeth’s hand sails, clenched into a scuffed-knuckled fist, down toward my face. He manages to catch himself in time, letting out a choked shout.
“Fuck!” he shouts. He lets me go, rolling away from me on the bed. The only thing I can do is place my hands over my frantically beating heart and try and suck some air into my lungs. My whole body starts shaking, jittering uncontrollably where he leaves me curled on the bed. He hurls himself across the other side of the room and presses his back against the wall, momentarily cupping his hands over his face, drawing in long, uneven breaths of his own.
“Fuck,” he says again, almost too quietly for me to hear this time. I sit silently, trying to figure out what the hell just happened. Eventually Zeth lowers his hands and fixes a darkly unimpressed stare on me. “You’re the worst thing that could have happened,” he growls at me.
The statement is so ironic that I almost choke. “Says you! Fuck you, Zeth.”
“Yeah, fuck me,” he agrees. He pushes away from the wall and prowls forward, approaching the bed. I kick back against the rumpled covers, trying to keep a safe distance between us. “You have no idea how complicated you’ve made things. Why the fuck did you come here?”
I feel ridiculous and more than a little betrayed by my own body when my eyes start to prick. “I didn’t exactly have much choice. Your friends, Charlie’s men, broke into my place and tried to kidnap your—” I stop myself just in time. Zeth’s reached the bed now, and has climbed up on his hands and knees, inching closer. His brows furrow. “They tried to kidnap Lacey,” I tell him. “And there’s no way I’m leading that kind of craziness to my friends or to my workplace. To a job that means more than anything to me. I’ve jeopardized everything I’ve worked so hard for so I can get the girl you dumped on me out of Seattle and you’re mad at me for it!” A single tear of frustration races down my cheek, dripping onto my bent knee.
Zeth sits back on his heels, still only wearing his boxers, tattoos shifting as his muscles flex seemingly without any conscious effort on his part. He’s built like a statue of a man, not the real thing. Some kind of portrayal of what the masculine physique would look like if it were rendered to perfection. I hate him for looking so good right now when I know I look like shit. And I’m fucking crying. He scrubs his hand across his jaw, scowling. He’d looked so intent on coming for me to do God knows what a second ago but now he seems a little torn.
“Don’t do that,” he tells me in a flat voice.
“Do what? Be mad at you? Of course I’m—”
“Cry,” he interrupts. “Don’t cry. That’s a shitty, underhanded trick.”
“Trick?” I can’t believe it. I can’t believe him. I’ve been held up at gunpoint, threatened, driven across three states, shot at and threatened some more, and he thinks I’m crying to make him feel bad. Asshole! I throw myself backward on the bed, pulling a pillow over my face. I scream into it, not even bothering to hold back. Even with the pillow it must sound like I’m being murdered. A large, powerful hand closes around my right ankle and then I’m being dragged through the sheets. The pillow is whipped out of my hands. I pause for a moment, glare at him defiantly, and then carry on screaming. He drops down on top of me, firmly planting a cupped hand over my mouth. He shoves his face into mine, serious and still glaring.
“Shut up,” he hisses. “For the love of all that’s holy, please shut the hell up, Sloane. You’re gonna split my head apart.”
I don’t stop, so he takes further action and digs his knuckles firmly into my ribs. “Ow! Motherfucker!” I slap him so hard the jarring impact rings like a bell up my arm. Zeth’s head kicks to the side. When he turns it back to me, I know I’ve gone and done it again. He’s so mad sparks practically fly from his dark eyes.
“I only trade in those,” he growls. “And with the hangover I have right now, that counts for two.”
Shit. I do my best to wriggle out from underneath him, but I have more chance of shrugging off gravity and floating into outer space. He looks like he’s ready to kill me.
“Zeth.” I try a reasoning voice. Like he’s a reasonable person and might respond like one. He clenches his jaw, the smooth line of his chin turning to steel as he arches up over me and grabs both my hands.
“You should know better by now, Sloane. You’re an angry girl, yeah, but I’m an angry boy, too. And if you plan on doling out punishment, you’d better be prepared to receive some in return.”
The first sparks of real panic begin to light inside me. I buck against him, still trying to get free. A curious smile emerges through the stern expression on Zeth’s face. He’s not bothered by my frantic struggles to escape. If anything it’s making the whole thing more pleasurable for him. From the growing hardness pressing against the inside of my thigh, that much is obvious. And yet he nods once, narrowing sharp eyes at me, and then lets me go. He sits back on his heels again, towering over me. I freeze. I should probably bolt bu
t I know what that will lead to: a chase around the room, broken furniture and potentially broken bones to match. Besides, I think that will only make things worse. I grip my hands together over my chest, trying to keep my eyes firmly fixed on his. Trying desperately not to glance down at the straining hard-on that’s pulling against his grey boxers.
He smirks down at me, leaning back a little. This pushes his cock closer to my hands as he straddles me, and I actually roll my eyes at this, suddenly a little less afraid. “You have got to be joking?”
He shakes his head, still incredibly grave. “Not joking, Sloane. You just woke the whole villa. And at a time when going unnoticed would probably work in our favor, too.” His voice is gravel on gravel, deep and bottomless, filled with clashing desires. He’s mad at me, but he also wants to fuck my brains out. “You’re fucking reckless. You show up here without any idea what you’re getting yourself or me into.” He reaches down and roughly palms one of my breasts through my clothes, squeezing hard enough that I inhale quickly. “I came pretty fucking close to being eighty-sixed yesterday, and the likelihood of it happening today is even higher. You put yourself at risk when I specifically told you not to. And then you go hollering at the top of your lungs at the crack of fucking dawn, reminding everyone that we’re here and we’re a fucking nuisance. So if you’re gonna scream, Sloane, I’m gonna give you a reason.”
Still massaging my breast, kneading it in one hand, he takes his free one and wraps his fingers around his now full erection through his boxers. I swallow, unable to stop myself from watching as he slowly works his hand up and down, squeezing himself just as hard as he squeezes me. I’m slightly worried by all of this. He was raging mad a moment ago; now he’s instantly ready to fuck me? The possibility that those two factors are linked together is just too strong to ignore.
“I’m not having sex with you,” I breathe.
The corner of Zeth’s mouth pulls up at one corner, a knowing, unbearably arrogant smirk. “Sure you are, angry girl.”
“I am not.” I squirm pointlessly, doing my best to shimmy free. No luck. I needn’t bother, though. Zeth does something even more confusing then and relinquishes all hold over me by swinging himself off me and leaning back against the pillows. He let me go? He let me go! I jump up off the bed, spinning to stare at him incredulously. The seriousness hasn’t left his face. And his hand hasn’t left his cock. He only pauses a second to lift his hips, abdominal muscles flexing tightly, as he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his boxers and slowly pulls them down. His cock springs free, resting heavily against his belly as he gets rid of his underwear. The sight of him lying there, naked and completely unashamed—why the hell would he be ashamed? He’s magnificent and he knows it—makes my breath catch in my throat. He picks up where he left off, taking hold of himself in his right hand, drawing it slowly up and down the rigid skin. The whole time he does this, he stares at me intensely. His eyes never waver from mine.
“You’re totally fucked up, you know that?” I tell him. I fold my arms across my chest. “What the hell are you going for here? You expect me to shed my clothes like Bruce Almighty and jump up on that thing, just ’cause you got it out?”
A small smile breaks through the severity of his expression. It tics at the corner of his mouth. “No. I expect you to take your clothes off slow. And then I expect you to climb up on this bed on your hands and knees and I expect you to take this thing”—he squeezes his dick in his hand, making himself shiver slightly—“and put it in your mouth. And then I expect you to suck it until I tell you that you can stop.”
“Ha!” I hurry across to the other side of the room, eyeing the chair jammed effectively under the handle of the only exit from the room. I shove swiftly at the wooden back of it and it comes lose enough for me to remove it. “You’re probably the most delusional man I’ve ever met.”
He shrugs, pouting a little. Maybe. Maybe not. As if I care. “Where d’you think you’re gonna go, angry girl? Forgotten where you are?”
He has a point there. Infuriating. I slap my hand against the closed door, grimacing. “Fine. Okay. I’m not leaving the room, but I’m not gonna obey you just ’cause you told me to.”
“Would you prefer to obey me because you’re frightened for your life?” he asks casually. I can’t work out if this is a threat. He seems genuinely interested.
“I’m opting for not obeying for any reason whatsoever.” I pace back to the chair I slept in and slump down in it, making a point of looking out the window. Anywhere but at him and what he’s doing to himself.
“Fair enough.” He doesn’t even sound bothered. He’s watching me, though; I can feel his focus heavy on my skin. The room falls quiet other than the sounds of his palm working his cock and the increasingly ragged sound of his breathing. How can a guy just blatantly jerk himself off, naked, and not even flinch when the woman he’s trying to excite seems more revolted than interested? What a nutjob. I shoot a glance at him out of the corner of my eye. His body is a fucking work of art. Especially strained the way it is, locked tight against each stroke he glides up and down with his palm. He grips his hand tighter around himself, and sucks in a sharp breath. He chuckles slightly when he sees me watching him. I flick my eyes back out the window, cursing myself. Don’t play this fucking game. Do not play with him.
It’s only a matter of a minute before I’m glancing back, though. He lets out a low, hazy kind of rumble from deep within his chest and it’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard. My legs start to twitch. I’m doing my best to ignore the warm, pooling sensation that’s forming between them. Bastard. How? How the hell does he do this to me? I shift slightly, warring with my body, trying to make it obey me and not him. But it wants to watch him. God, I do want to watch him. He doesn’t laugh when he sees me observing this time. He just looks down at himself, hooded eyes filled with sex and invitation. And then he closes them and tips his head back, and leaves me alone to come to my own decision. His hand works a little faster, making his breathing quicken with it.
I’m left sitting, wondering what the hell I want to do. I’ve had this conversation with myself before, though. He’s unbelievably smart. He continually shows me what he can take from me if he wants to, and then turns the tables on me, making me realize how much I want him to have it anyway. How much I want to give it to him. I hate that. On principle I want to not succumb to the manipulation this time. To show the bastard he’s not as smart as he thinks he is. Only he is. He’s an evil fucking mastermind.
I stand up.
At the sound of movement, a broad smile unfurls across Zeth’s face, but he keeps his eyes closed. Probably to save what’s left of my fragile pride. I can’t believe I’m doing this. Every single time we do this I’m coming to him on his terms, but can I stop myself? No. I’m pathetic. I lose my clothes slowly, even though he can’t see, giving myself time to change my mind. But I don’t. Instead I find myself crawling up the bed just like he wants me to, and then hovering over his hand as he smoothly works his cock up and down. It’s swollen, freaking huge, and kind of beautiful. I exhale and my breath skims across his skin, making him shiver dramatically.
“I wanna feel those lips, Sloane,” he says gruffly.
“Oh, so it’s okay to have them on your dick but not on your mouth?” I snap tersely. He stiffens a little but chooses not to reply. Complete fucker. I have something in mind to teach him a lesson. I bend my neck down to him, feeling my racing heartbeat in my lips before I take him in my mouth. This is different to the one other time I’ve done this to him. That time I was on my back. He’d towered over me like a giant, his presence still somehow looming in the dark hotel room. His hands had been securely fastened in my hair, guiding my head. Not now, though. Zeth doesn’t even touch me. At the first contact from my lips, his digs his fingers into the bed sheets, not gripping hold of them but pressing down against the mattress with all his strength. He’s huge in my mouth, warm and already tasting musky. I bob my head a little lower, taking
more of him inside me.
“Holy shit, Sloane.” His groaned, impossibly deep words have a rather gratifying effect. He likes this. He likes it and technically I’m the one who’s in control right now. Time for a little payback. I duck my head lower, taking more of him into my mouth, until I can’t go any farther. And then I bite down. Not very hard. Just enough to let him know he hasn’t entirely won this round.
The reaction is instant.
He flings me off him so fast I barely catch sight of the ceiling before I’m on my back and then sliding off the bed and onto the floor.
“Oh, no, no, no, Sloane,” he growls, stalking toward me. “Slapping’s one thing. But that—you’re gonna wish you hadn’t done that.” His face is devoid of all emotion, which makes me think he’s way madder than I’ve seen him before. From my concertinaed position on the floor, legs still half on the bed, half over my own head, I should be freaking the fuck out, but I’m not. I’m laughing.
That hysteria lasts all of ten seconds as he gets up and paces to the other side of the room, opening up the walk-in closet beyond. My smile dissolves at the sight of the black bag in his hand. I’m instantly turned on and terrified. Will he let me change my mind right now? I don’t think he will. Fuck!
“Get up onto the bed, Sloane,” he commands. He throws the bag down at the side of the bed and begins to unzip it.