“Tell me you don’t feel this the same way that I do,” he said against her lips, rubbing them softly with his. “Tell me and I’ll leave you alone, Rey.”
“Damn you,” she moaned.
He laughed roughly, the low sound deep and dark and sumptuous, like he was suddenly feeling happy and hungry all at the same time. “That’s what I thought, baby.”
And then, before she could blink or scream or draw her next breath, his mouth covered hers and his hands left her wrists, laying claim to her body. His touch was aggressive, greedy, as if he’d wanted the feel of her under his hands for too damn long to control himself, while his kisses were...mouthwatering. Slow, deep, and deliciously intimate, his tongue stroking and rubbing, while he ate at the shivery, needy sounds that she made. He’d only just started this...this...whatever this was, and she was already lost, sinking into the moment like a weighted body being pulled deeper and deeper into the sea. Drowning...no longer even trying to resist. She only wanted to fall deeper because she’d been just as desperately starved for the feel and touch and taste of him. She didn’t even remember moving her hands when he released her wrists, but they were fisted in his shaggy hair, the silky strands so warm and thick against her fingers. She pulled him tighter against her, lost in the slick, explicit kiss that made her think of his powerful body moving and thrusting into hers. It was that intense. That raw and hungry and achingly erotic.
When he pulled his head back and suddenly buried his face against the side of her throat, Carla gulped at the cool air, her lungs starved. He was rolling his hips against hers, one hand shoved up under her shirt and bra, molding her heavy breast, his thumb and forefinger pinching the throbbing nipple, while his other hand gripped her hip, jerking her against him. She crawled up his hard, rugged body and wrapped her legs around his waist, giving him what he wanted. He notched the thick, heavy ridge of his erection against her jeans-covered sex and thrust against her, stroking her clit at just the right angle, and she cried out as her head shot back, hitting the door, the husky sound of her shout echoing off the room’s dingy walls.
“Need it in my hand,” he growled against her throat, breathing hard, his voice little more than an animal’s primitive snarl. His mouth was directly over the place where he’d started to mark her all those years ago, and she wondered if he even realized. “I need it now, Rey.”
In a distant part of her mind, she knew this was...wrong. Foolish. Dangerous. To her heart and her pride. She wasn’t meant to fall into his arms...or crawl up his body, holding him as if she wanted to crawl right inside of him. Claim him. Keep him. Forever. She knew that, damn it, but it didn’t matter. When he was touching her, the hot, drugging scent of him filling her head, his exquisite taste on her lips, nothing else mattered but him. Needing him. Wanting him. Getting him.
“Please,” she heard herself beg, too desperate to even care that she was pleading with him. With the monster who had broken her heart. “God, Eli. Please!”
His lungs worked hard as he ripped at the buttons on her jeans, his mouth hot against her skin. His tongue stroked across her racing pulse point just as he shoved his hand into the front of her cotton panties, the fabric already drenched with her juices. His fingers delved, separating her slick folds, searching out the small, sensitive opening. He circled it, before pushing inside, working that long finger deep into her tender, clutching tissues while his thumb found the tiny knot of her clit and started playing it...stroking it...faster and faster. He pushed in a second finger, forcing her body to stretch and take it, and her hips rolled, needing them deeper. Needing to be full of him.
“Jesus, Rey. You’re just as tight and soft as I remember,” he groaned, each roughly spoken word laden with something, with some unnamed emotion, that made her want to scream at him for breaking her heart and destroying what they’d had. “I’ve fucking dreamed about this so many times.”
“Eli,” she gasped, sinking her nails into his shoulders, the pain in her heart momentarily forgotten as he used his fingers to drive her wild, thrusting them hard and deep, stretching her in a way that felt so good she could feel tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, her throat shaking. She needed him inside her. Not just his fingers, but the thick, engorged shaft she could feel him grinding against her hip. Needed him on top of her, his body hard and heavy and hot against hers, while he shoved all those brutal inches inside her until she was clenching around him, milking him, lost in the most mind-blowing climax of her life.
Her sex was creamy and swollen and ripe, ready for whatever he wanted to give her. Fingers. Tongue. Cock. She was aching and desperate for every part of him, same as she’d been every night that she’d dreamed of him since he’d left her. Even years before then, when she’d wanted nothing more than for him to make her his, always waiting...and waiting. But he was fighting it. She could tell. Resisting with everything that he had, and it frightened her to think of why. Why she wasn’t enough for him. Why he’d always struggled against their connection with such ferocity.
Fight back! Resist! Damn it, she should be tossing the rejection she could feel coming right back in his face, but she...she couldn’t. As he touched her between her legs, his rough fingers stroking through those slick, plump folds with such perfect skill, making her gasp...arch...shiver, the only thing she was willing to fight for was more.
But as with everything else when it came to this man, she was destined to lose.
One moment his fingers were buried deep, bringing her to the cusp of a shattering orgasm, and in the next she was empty, his palm pressed tight against her sex, cupping her, holding her...and she could feel the smooth, hot slide of his fangs against her vulnerable throat. Ohmygod! Did he want to bite her? What on earth was going on with him?
His body was pressed so rigidly against hers, and she sensed his...pain. A visceral, devastating, burning agony. He cursed hoarsely, and she felt the first tremor that rocked through him, followed quickly by a second, until he was shaking so hard in her arms it made her teeth chatter.
“E-Eli?” she stammered through lips that were salty with her tears.
He quickly set her on her feet and pushed away from her with a choked roar, his eyes hooded and bright as he clenched his teeth. His dark brows were drawn with an emotion she could have sworn was anguish. Something had stopped him, but the bond was too weak and his emotions were too intense for her to read him clearly. Which was perhaps a good thing. Whatever had caused him to pull away from her, she had a feeling she wasn’t going to like it.
“What the hell, Eli? Are you—”
“Don’t! Don’t touch me!” he snarled, stumbling back from her when she started to reach for him. His gaze darted from side to side, reminding her of a trapped wolf desperate for escape.
She crossed her arms over her middle, determined to hold herself together. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he scraped out, sounding as if a brutal set of hands was crushing his throat. “Just...just go to bed, Carla. It’s late.”
“No. I want to know—”
“Just get in the damn bed!” he barked, brushing her aside so he could rip the door open. “And lock this damn thing behind me!”
He slammed out of the room then, and she reached out and slid the lock into place with a shaking hand, her thoughts reeling, and her body... Oh, God. Her body was vibrating...awakened. Misery crashed over her like a cold rain, and she shivered even harder, somehow making it to the bed. For the second night in a row, she crawled onto a lumpy mattress and curled into a ball, trying to block out everything until she was nothing more than molecules of air. Weightless. Floating. No pain or fear or emotions.
Carla tried to reach that feeling of nothingness with every ounce of her will, but it never came. As she lay there in the cold, depressing room, she just kept wanting and longing and aching...for things she would never have.
Chapter 4
Her life since setting off in search of Eli Drake had been the worst kind of hell, and Carla had never b
een so eager to return to the Alley as she was now.
She’d skipped breakfast that morning because, well, rejection apparently killed her appetite. Exhaustion weighed heavily on her shoulders, and while she knew it was unforgivably stupid to have let her body do the thinking instead of her head, she was simply too tired to beat herself up over what had happened with Eli. Learn, regroup, and move on. That needed to be her motto, because if it wasn’t, she’d still be curled up in that crappy motel room bed, wishing for things that were useless. And oh so obviously bad for her.
As far as wake up calls went, the way Eli had walked out on her again had been a bruiser. But she was tough. She could take the hit and keep on going.
What she couldn’t do was let him get too close to her again. Work together? Fine, so long as she wasn’t alone with him. But kissing? Touching? Losing her head over him because her body craved him like he was freaking manna from heaven? Uh, no. That was not a part of her game plan. She would give herself last night as a freak moment of insanity after missing him as badly as she had, but no more. That’d been her last freebie. There wouldn’t be any others.
When they’d climbed into the truck that morning, both of them taking the backseat again, Eli had turned to her and asked, “Are you okay?” At her questioning look, he’d stiffly explained his concern. “I wasn’t thinking about the bullet graze last night. Did I hurt you?”
“My side is fine,” she’d murmured. He’d caused her pain, just not physically.
As if he’d read her mind, he’d said, “I wasn’t rejecting you, Rey. I was—”
“It doesn’t matter,” she’d cut in, watching the clouds through her window as the wind blew them across the sky like puffs of dandelion seeds. “I don’t care.”
“That’s a damn lie. If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be hurt. And I’m sorry as hell that it happened, because I didn’t mean to hurt you. Not last night, and not before. That was the last thing that I... Damn it, I was trying to pro—”
Her head had whipped to the side so quickly her hair smacked her in the face. “If you say you were trying to protect me, I will get out of this truck and I won’t get back in it. Understood?”
“We need to talk about this,” he’d argued.
“No, we don’t need to do anything, because the time for talking was last night. Now you can just forget that anything ever happened.”
He’d muttered something under his breath that she didn’t catch, but didn’t say anything more when Kyle and Lev hopped in the front, the blond merc taking the first stint behind the wheel. She’d balled up a sweatshirt Kyle offered her, using it as a pillow, and slept.
Then, when they’d stopped for lunch a little while ago, she made sure to catch Eli alone before they entered the restaurant, and told him, “I don’t know what your problem is, and I don’t care. I just want you to know that what happened last night—that’s it, Eli. It doesn’t happen again. You don’t get to keep making me feel like a fool.”
She hadn’t waited around to get his reaction, heading inside to join the others. He’d come in a few minutes later, and passed on ordering anything, which had garnered some interested looks from his friends. Lev had lifted his brows at her, as if to say What’d you do to him? She’d shrugged in a I have no idea what his problem is kind of way, but the merc didn’t buy it, his sea-colored gaze filled with curiosity. Too drained to worry about any of it, she’d sucked down a few spoonfuls of soup and resumed her nap once they were all back on the road.
Or at least she’d tried to. Unfortunately, sleep eluded her for the second part of the day, and it wasn’t just Eli’s brooding presence that had her feeling so restless. It was the entire situation.
After so many days like this, cooped up in a vehicle, Carla was thankful her mother had never been the family vacation type. She was ready to chew her own arm off because she was so...so on edge. She felt trapped, like there wasn’t enough air in the cab for her to get a deep enough breath. And what air there was smelled like Eli, which did nothing to help her relax.
Needing to eat more often than human males because of their high metabolisms, the guys decided to stop for a late afternoon snack once they crossed into Maryland. They found a popular diner, and despite her foul mood, she bit back a grin at the reaction the mercs received as they walked to their table. The humans there might not know what the tall, good-looking mercenaries were, but they sensed there was something different about them, the way a vulnerable animal might sense the nearness of a beautiful, mesmerizing predator; the instinct to run battling against the desire to soak up the stunning view.
When they got back in the truck, Kyle said they needed fuel and pulled into a nearby gas station, while Sam pulled in behind him.
“I’m gonna grab some sodas for everyone to have on the road,” Lev said, getting out just as Kyle started pumping the gas.
Sitting in the backseat with Eli again, she knew she needed to make use of their privacy. There were things she needed to tell him before they reached the Alley in a few hours, and now was the perfect time.
Turning toward him, she asked, “Are you nervous about tonight?”
He hadn’t spoken to her since trying to explain himself that morning, remaining silent, his rugged jaw clenched tight, even when she’d stopped him outside the diner at lunch, telling him that last night would never have a repeat. He’d spent the day in a dark, dangerous mood, and now was no different. Keeping his gaze focused out his window, he responded to her question with nothing more than a slight shake of his head.
“I called Wyatt this morning, so they know to be expecting us at the Alley.”
This time, he nodded, still not looking at her.
Carla sighed, forcing herself to just get to the point. “Listen, Eli, there’s something I need to tell you before we get there, and now seems like the best time.”
He must have picked up on something in her tone, because he finally turned toward her, his dark eyes difficult to read as they connected with hers.
Rubbing her damp palms across her jeans, she said, “It’s about Elise, and I think you should know because...well, coming back is going to be hard enough for you as it is. I don’t think you need any more shocking revelations thrown in your face.”
His head cocked a bit to the side, his gaze sharpening. “What are you trying to tell me?”
She wet her lips, then slowly exhaled. “When Wyatt found El in Hawkley, he had a confrontation with Sebastian Claymore before he killed him. Wyatt told me that Sebastian admitted he was one of the wolves who raped Elise the night of her attack. It was him and Harris, and the one you killed—some guy named Danny. He was helping them make the gang rape drugs.”
He was breathing hard by the time she was done, and he lifted one of his big hands, shoving it back through his dark hair as his gaze skittered from one thing to the next—the front window, side window, the inches of leather seat between them that felt more like miles—his thoughts seeming to shift just as rapidly. A flush covered his cheekbones, seeming brighter for the way he’d paled, his tanned skin bleached of color. He worked his jaw a couple of times, cleared his throat, and spoke in a voice so rough, she almost couldn’t make out the quiet, guttural words. “Wyatt killed them?”
“Yeah. Well, he killed Sebastian. I think he said that Cian killed Harris. But there’s more.”
He kept his gaze locked on the back of the driver’s seat as he waited, his profile rigid.
“It was Roy Claymore who planned the whole thing. He used Elise as a test run for the rape drugs, which is why she was conscious during the attack, but couldn’t describe what they looked like to anyone. He, um, was also the last one to rape her.”
His head finally turned her way again, his dark, deadly gaze locking her in its grip as strongly as any physical touch could have held her. “And no one gutted the bastard?”
Understanding his frustration, she said, “They couldn’t get to him that day in Hawkley because of his security detail. But Wyatt put a bull
et in Roy’s head. It didn’t kill him, but it would have caused him a lot of pain. With men like Eric and Wyatt gunning for his blood, he has to know his days are numbered.”
His head went back and he shoved the heels of his hands against his eyes, the muscles in his arms bulging beneath his tight skin as he worked his jaw like he was grinding his anger between his molars. The seconds stretched out, heavy with the tension and fury she could feel pulsing off him. Then he scraped out, “They blame me,” and she realized he was struggling with a hefty amount of guilt in addition to the blistering rage.
Not knowing what to say, she bit her lip, fighting the urge to reach out and stroke the broad, straining shoulder that was closest to her. He didn’t deserve her comfort, damn it. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t dying to give it to him, fool that she was.
“Eric—he hasn’t tried to contact me since the kidnapping.” His expression was anguished when he looked at her, making her chest tighten. “What other reason would he have for that? They blame me for not coming back sooner and helping to keep those sick bastards away from her.”
Unable to stop herself, hating this burning need inside her to try and make him feel better, she said, “They don’t blame you, Eli.”
“Like hell they don’t,” he growled, every ounce of his surly aggression directed at himself.
“I’m sure there’s another explanation. Since Eric knew I was coming after you, I bet he was just afraid of letting it slip if he left you a new message.”
His dark brows pulled together in an even deeper scowl. “Why would that matter?”
“Can’t you guess?” A wry grin tugged at the corner of her mouth. “He was probably afraid you’d run at the sound of my name and never be found again.”
He didn’t smile at her lame attempt to lighten his mood. If anything, he looked even angrier. “Is that what you think I would have done? You think I would have run from you?”
She shrugged as she focused her attention back on the mundane scene outside her window, noticing that Lev and Kyle were finally paying the cashier inside the small convenience store. “It doesn’t matter what I think. I just wanted you to know before we got there.”
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