The Bargain

by Lisa Cardiff

  “Who are you talking about?” Evan yelled, and I jerked in reaction to his harsh tone. I’d almost forgotten he was on the phone.

  “Him.” I shoved my sweaty hair out my eyes. “Oh God, Evan, I don’t understand how he does it. He touches me, and I try to fight it, but he overwhelms me and I cave. I’m weak. Hopelessly pathetic. Something is wrong with me…so wrong.” My voice fractured on the last word.

  “Hattie, you’re scaring me. What are you talking about?”

  “He’s corrupted me. I don’t even know who I am anymore,” I said, my voice sounding dead to my ears. My head dropped to the steering wheel and disjointed sobs streamed out of my mouth one after another.

  “Listen to me, Hattie. I will find you. I promise. I’m sorry I hurt you. I will do whatever it takes to get you home safely, and then we’ll start over. Believe me, I will never let you go again. It’s you and me forever.”

  I wanted to believe him. I wanted my safe, predictable life so much I could practically taste it. Even more, I wanted the life I thought I had before Evan shattered it into a million pieces. “Please, Evan,” I pleaded. “I need to go home. I can’t stand this. I’m so confused.”

  “Listen to me. I’m coming for you. I will find you. I will bring you home, and then we’ll start over. Together we’ll create a new life until we’ve erased all of this shit with bigger, better, and more meaningful memories.”

  “Oh God, Evan, I don’t know if it’s possible. I’m so fucked up. This is so fucked up.”

  “No,” Evan shouted through the phone. “Don’t you dare give up on me or us, not even for a second. You have to believe you’ll make it out of there.”

  “I can’t promise anything. I don’t think he’ll ever let me go home again. I think he’s playing me, breaking me until I’m nothing.”

  “No, Hattie, don’t give up. You’re strong. I’m strong. We’ll get through this. I just need you to promise me one thing.”

  “What?” I whispered, wiping the waterfall of tears from my face with the back of my knuckles.

  “That when I find you, you’ll give me a chance to make things right between us, and we’ll be together again. It’ll be just like old times. You’ll see.”

  My mind screamed at me to reject him. How could I promise him a second chance when my fate dangled from a fraying rope? When my body wanted Ryker? But that’s exactly what I did. “Okay. If I ever find my way back, I’ll try to give you that.” I sniffed, lifting my head from the steering wheel, and that’s when I saw him. Ryker stood next to the open driver’s window with his arms folded across his chest.

  Clumsy from fear, the phone slid out of my hand, and I screamed as the driver’s side door flung open.

  “Get out, now.” It wasn’t his appearance that made him so intimidating. It was the way he carried himself…with the grace of a jaguar. The ancient Mayans, who inhabited this area long before the Europeans arrived, believed their kings and nobles were descended from a jaguar. And when I looked at Ryker, I believed it. He had velvet black hair, flinty predator eyes—watchful yet indifferent—and the sleek grace replicating the legends of the mythical jaguar.

  “Screw you,” I hissed through my locked teeth. I shook my head defiantly, but my strength withered under the intensity of his stony, gray gaze. Evan’s voice echoed through the static-filled phone cradled between my legs, but the frenzied pounding of my heart drowned out his words.

  Ryker picked up the phone and smashed it against the side of the car, then tossed it back into my lap. Before I could complain, he coiled his hand around my arm, yanking me out of the car with ease. My oversized t-shirt slipped from my shoulder, leaving the top of my breast exposed as he pulled me through the open car door. “Fucking hell,” he said, shoving my t-shirt back up my shoulder. “Tell me who you were talking to.”

  “No one.” I refused to make eye contact with him. Eye contact was bad. His eyes had a way of sucking all my hard fought defiance from my tattered soul.

  “Look at me.” He grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. The fine hair on my nape stood on end. “Tell me,” he said with a honeyed menace that chilled me to the bone.

  I closed my eyes. The silence stretched, heavy and judgmental, as he waited for me to obey. Slowly, like a gathering storm, tremors erupted in my legs, moving to my torso and then my arms. Within sixty seconds, my entire body shook with rage, fear, and dread. I fisted my hands in my shirt to regain control over my body, but it didn’t help. My sanity dangled from a gossamer thread, and my chest heaved in hysterical gasps.

  Ryker tightened his grip on my arm until his fingernails bit into the bruises and scratches covering my skin. “Hattie, I can’t protect you unless I know everything.”

  I pried my eyes open, and my lips contorted with disgust. “Protect me? You’re not protecting me. Every time you touch me, you rip me into a thousand pieces that I can never put back together. I’m broken. You broke me.” Panic-stricken sobs tumbled from my mouth. My ears rang with the insanity, pulsing like poison through my veins.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Then, why don’t you share what you think you know? Help me to understand,” I begged incoherently as I pounded my fists repeatedly against his unyielding chest.

  He captured my hands and returned them to my sides. “The less you know, the better,” he said as he stroked his thumbs back and forth over the inside of my wrists.

  “I won’t tell anyone. I promise. If I understand what’s going on, I won’t try to run again. I’ll do whatever you ask. Trust me.”

  “Hattie.” His powerful body crowded me, maneuvering me backward until my tailbone pressed into the car. “Don’t try to play me. You won’t win.” He shook his head. “Your life would be so much easier if you stopped fighting me. Haven’t you learned anything yet?” he added tenderly.

  Tenderness from him was dangerous. I’d seen it over and over. Any time he’d shown me mercy, I tumbled into a deeper, darker hole. Suffocating under his gaze, I wrenched my hand between our bodies and drew several sticky, damp breaths into my heaving lungs. Each molecule of air glued the pieces of my fragmented willpower back together. “Apparently not,” I finally said when the ringing in my ears muted.

  “Nothing is the way it seems. There are layers upon layers of things going on here. This isn’t just about you. Remember that, and you’ll be fine.” The words fell from his mouth—low, malicious, and tainted with muddy secrets.

  Already teetering on the knife-edge of control, his words shoved me over the cliff and into a never-ending abyss. Fury raged through me…hot, wild, and unhinged. A red fog tainted my vision. I wanted to kill Ryker, piece-by-piece, limb-by-limb, until he embodied the physical manifestation of my ragged mental state. I didn’t care if I ever breathed another breath as long as I experienced the satisfaction of wounding him.

  Revenge burned through my veins. I thought I’d spontaneously combust at any second. In one fluid movement, I lifted my knee and rammed it into his groin as my hand propelled toward his face, aiming for his eye. I missed his eye, but his knees buckled when I connected with his groin.

  I didn’t waste one second to study the aftermath of my burst of sudden psychosis. I darted into the jungle, trudging through green undergrowth twisting up my bare legs with every step. I wasn’t stupid. He’d catch me and punish me, or worse, but I refused to become his docile pet until he discarded me however he or Ignacio deemed appropriate. Fuck that. Fuck him and his fucking layers.

  With every hard-fought step, stifling, humid heat coated my skin like a wet shroud. Right then, I promised if I ever made it out of this godforsaken jungle alive, I’d never step foot out of America again. Dirt smeared my legs, and green streaks stained my clothes, but that was the least of my worries.

  Ryker’s footsteps echoed behind me, strong and steady, closing the distance between us with every stride. Branches snapped under my feet, and hundreds of insect legs crawled over my skin, but I didn’t give up. I’d
force him to struggle for every inch he gained in our battle of wills, until bone weary exhaustion haunted both of us.

  Not long had passed and he was less than an arm’s length away. I lunged forward putting all my strength into a singular crowning push, but he moved too quickly. Within seconds, his unyielding arms shackled my waist like thick bands of iron. The front of his body cradled my back in a simulated lover’s embrace, injecting a feverous bolt of lust directly into my heart. Damn him. Damn me. Damn this godforsaken bug infested jungle. Damn my life.

  He pressed his mouth against my ear and shivers cascaded down my damp skin. “Are you done now? How many times are we going to play this game of hide and seek?”

  “Until I win,” I said through panting breaths, heat already spiraling down my body straight to the apex of my thighs.

  He yanked my body even closer to him and his mouth curled into what I imagined would resemble a wickedly sensual smile to the casual observer. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it on the side of my face. “Hattie, baby, it’s not going to happen. Wave the white flag and save both of us some time.” His voice was smoky and dark, and it both tempted and repelled me.

  Seething at him and myself, I opened my mouth and closed it at least two times, before I responded. “I guess we’re destined to keep playing this game, because I won’t give in until I’m dead or free.” The strength of my words stiffened my spine, and I arched away from him.

  “You don’t mean that,” came his velvety response as he wrenched my hips against his pelvis again. His hips rolled against mine in a scandalously erotic movement, and I whimpered, loving and hating the heat percolating between my legs from nothing more than a roll of his hips and the sound of his voice.

  “No. Please don’t.” My control fractured second by second, breath by breath, with every brush of his hands and flex of his hips. “Let me go,” I screamed. My fingers clawed at his arms and my hair whipped around my face as I frantically shook my head from side to side. I needed to get away from him before I did something really stupid like beg him to touch me again. I was one flex of his hips away from becoming his plaything. “You make me sick.” I couldn’t show him how much he affected me. The repercussions were unthinkable.

  “Liar.” In one unexpected movement, he pushed my shorts and panties down my legs and shoved me to my knees. Dirt dug into my scabbed over knees. I tried to stand up or crawl forward, but it was pointless. Ryker had one arm around my waist, imprisoning me.

  “This is my game, Hattie, and until I let you go, I own you.” His hand burrowed under my shirt and dove under the constraints of my suddenly too tight bra. I arched my back and pressed against the erection already straining against his zipper.

  “You’ve ruined my life,” I screamed as lust flowed like lava through my body.

  Manhandling me, he rolled one of my nipples between his thumb and index finger and then pinched the over-sensitized tip. “No, your life was ruined long before you met me.” He growled next to my ear like the predatory jaguar I’d imagined him to be minutes earlier. “I’m the first honest voice in your life.” He clutched my hips tight, rocking them mercilessly against his erection. My anger melted into intoxicated desire.

  “No, you’re a bastard. I don’t want anything to do with you.” As the dishonest words spilled from my mouth, I cursed the traitorous throbbing sensation roaring unchecked through my nerve endings, connecting them in an intricate web of desire. His fingertip glided the entire length of my entrance back and forth and around and around, teasing me, massaging me. Moans and groans tumbled unbidden from my mouth, saying more about my sick, conflicted need for him than words ever could.

  “Your mouth lies even as your body screams the truth.” He slid one finger inside my pulsing sex, and my hips undulated, blooming like a flower under the warm afternoon sun. My body didn’t lie. I wanted him.

  “No,” I said, but the word sounded more like a greedy moan than a protest. My mind had already escaped the confines of my head, flying high on the endorphins pumping through my veins. I pushed my ass against his hands, needing more than his finger. I craved the feel of him inside of me again. I’d only had him once, and alcohol clouded the memory. I needed to know if being with him was as good as I remembered, and if it wasn’t, maybe I’d stop wanting him.

  “You sure about that?” he questioned as he plunged another finger inside of me and then pulled it out, smearing my wetness along the outside of my sex.

  “I can’t—I don’t know,” I stammered, the haze of my desire obscuring my vision, shifting my focus inward.

  “Yes or no? Do you want to feel me inside you again?” He growled, his voice rough and uncultivated. A tremor of unease coiled low in my belly, stopping me from answering, my body already told him everything he needed to know. I couldn’t verbalize the treason splintering my soul.

  His free hand fumbled with his belt buckle. Within seconds, his hard cock slid against my entrance, burning the last dangling thread of my inhibitions. Trembling with desire, I pushed back against him, thirsting for the rapture promised in every taunting twitch and slippery slide of his cock.

  “Answer me.” A cracking sound echoed through my ears as his open palm made contact with my ass. Air exploded out of my lungs and my body shook with disbelief.

  “What the fuck?” I screamed, more from confusion than discomfort, as I dove forward, scrambling on my hands and knees away from him.

  He lurched forward, easily capturing me before I managed to put more than a few inches between us. His fingers bit into the tender skin around my hips, so tight and punishing, he’d probably add more bruises to the black, blue, and red collage on my tattered body.

  “Yes or no?” he repeated, sliding inside of me barely an inch before pulling out again.

  I gasped as a jolt of pure, mind-numbing bliss boomeranged through the walls of my aching sex. Ryker played my body like Evan couldn’t have dreamed of doing, and it simultaneously made me want to kill him and have sex with him. “You can’t make me answer you. This is your fucking game. Play it. Show me what you’ve got. What’s your next move, Ryker?”

  His hand shot under my shirt, and he twisted my nipple, almost as though he wanted to discipline me for my defiance, or tear the words he wanted to hear from my body. Unfortunately, it only made me greedier…wetter.

  “Play your role. I’m playing mine,” he shot back, his voice vibrating like a lover’s caress along my heated, hyper-sensitive skin. He slid the tip of his cock along my sex, never penetrating, just back and forth. With each delicious stroke, my mind buckled under the weight of my mounting desire. Awash in a madness and hunger unlike anything I’d ever experienced, any remaining decency and morality dissolved into nothingness. My future withered like a grape on a vine. I didn’t care what happened to me anymore. I didn’t care if he ever let me go. I just wanted him…inside me, around me, all over me right now. I could debate the consequences later.

  “Then, fuck me. That’s what this is about, right? You want to control me, bend me to your will. Do it.”

  He didn’t move for one strung out second, and my mind tilted with horror. Was this another one of his mind fucks? Make me mindless with need—then walk away? My stomach flipped. White-hot fury tumbled with my desire, creating a whirlwind of rioting emotions.

  “Is that a yes?” he snapped.

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t wait more than a second. He pushed inside, possessing me with one bone-jarring thrust. For a dizzying beat of time, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I tried to catch my breath as my mind wrapped around his invasion.

  “Move,” I hissed through my teeth when I gathered my shattered wits.

  He grunted in acknowledgment, and the vibrations rolled one after another from his body to mine as though I were an extension of him. “I like it when you’re greedy.”

  I didn’t want to answer, because right then he pulled out and thrust into me again. A prism of fireworks erupted behind my eyelids. I bit my lip trying to st
ifle my greedy moan, but it was too loud, and he felt too good. Hiding from reality wasn’t an option.

  “Did you miss this?”

  “I can’t miss something I only had once.” It was a lie. I missed it. I wanted it. I craved it. My hips rocked back to meet his.

  “Is that your way of asking me for more?” he taunted.

  “Fuck you. I still hate you.”

  “That would make everything easier if it were true.” He moved harder, faster, and my control frayed. The crude sound of our grunts and slapping skin bounced off the trees, magnifying them. Small ripples of pleasure danced through my body just out of reach, haunting me, mocking me.

  Wildly seeking my release, I grinded against him. He bent over my back until his breath whispered along the fine hairs of my neck, fanning the flames of my arousal. Moans and whimpers collided, bending and twisting into a coordinated symphony of destruction. With every thrust, he moved deeper and deeper, pounding into me relentlessly. I rode the sharp edge between heaven and hell, and I was sure I’d die if I didn’t come soon. I struggled against the tide of lust, toying with the idea of denying myself, but it was too much. He was too much. Some fucked up twist of fate and chemistry made me hunger for him like no other.

  “Are you ready? Do you want to come?” he whispered next to my ear through heavy pants.

  Instead of answering, I moaned, nodding my head and silently praying it would be enough. He slowed his thrusts until he stopped moving and then he slid out of me. I wanted to rip my hair out. The ripples turned into tremors and then my whole body shook, craving my release like a seasoned junkie on a desperate hunt for my next fix. “Please,” I said, my voice a shattered plea. “You can’t stop yet. I need this. I need you.” Holy shit…it was the truth. I couldn’t lie. Decorum and ethics had long disappeared from the forefront of my mind.

  The instant the plea fell from my perfidious mouth, he slammed inside my weeping sex in one punishing thrust that set my body ablaze as though he had never left.