by Nora Flite
This family . . . they weren’t stupid. They didn’t care if I tried to run away on a damn horse. Their property was fenced in, it kept them . . . me . . . safe.
Dirt spat up, Kain’s horse pulling up near mine. I shot him a look, wondering if my eyes were rolling as madly as my steed’s. I was pushing Rosel too hard.
“Sammy!” he yelled again, his hair dancing over his cheekbones. “Stop this! Stop running from me!”
His words tangled in my chest. Running from him? Is that what he thought? Frantically, I scanned the fields, wishing something would appear—some escape, some rescue. I was part of some insane high-speed horse chase, and there was no way out.
Rosel reared, bucking so suddenly I wasn’t ready for it. My body remembered how to ride, but as a kid, I’d never dealt with a panicked horse. The world spun, all clouds and grass and crisp blue.
The sky? I wondered from far away. No. A different blue.
Kain’s terrified eyes.
Tumbling from the saddle, I rolled hard in the grass. I’d have to thank my mother for her blessed genetics; my thickly padded ass took the brunt of the impact. Gasping, I spun in the dust, landing on my back with my eyes still shaking in my skull.
So this is how I die. Thrown from a horse while wearing another woman’s underwear.
No psychic would have ever guessed that.
“Sammy! Fuck, Sammy.” He dropped down beside me, fingers hovering uncertainly—then catching me by my shoulders. Fear turned his healthy tan a sickly yellow, kissable lips pulled back over a grimace.
Looking at him, I said slowly, “You’re making the ugly cry face, and you still look amazing. That seriously sucks.”
Tension melted from his face. Grabbing me, he pulled me into his lap, his chin rubbing the top of my head. “Idiot,” he growled. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Closing my eyes, I didn’t speak. It was a miracle I had no broken bones, let alone that I wasn’t dead. I’d done something so rash that I didn’t doubt there’d be consequences. If pain wasn’t one of them, it’d be something even worse.
But here . . . just for a little bit . . .
I wanted to forget about all of that.
Kain Badd—and I was starting to question if his last name even fit him—was holding me as if he’d been truly worried he’d almost lost me. Again and again, no matter how frustrated I was with my situation, this man came to the rescue.
He’d helped me at the jail, he’d driven me from my house when I’d been attacked, he’d bandaged my cut-up foot. Why had I been so angry with him this morning? It was hard to remember. So for a little bit, I didn’t try. In ignorance, I could enjoy a moment with the man who kept breaking into my world like he belonged.
He breathed in deeply. “You’re insane for running away.”
The moment broke like a daisy in a storm.
Sitting up, I pulled out of his arms. I saw the horses milling nearby, neither of them seeming to be worse for wear. Gripping the grass by my thighs, I looked at him and smiled sadly. “How did you come after me so fast?”
“The second we pulled in, Matilda ran up and yanked me toward the stables, telling me what had happened.”
My heart sank. “Is she going to get in trouble? It wasn’t her fault, I just—”
“You didn’t need to go this far, Sammy!”
“What else was I supposed to do? Let your father keep me trapped here? Let you keep me trapped here?”
“It’s only temporary until we figure everything out!”
Studying his face—the hard lines that crossed his cheeks, the hollow indents beneath his eyes—I paused. “And did you figure everything out?”
Scraping fingers through his wind-tossed hair, Kain shut his eyes. “I know who did it, yes.”
Prickling with surprise, I leaned toward him. “Please tell me he’ll be taken care of so I can get out of here.” Kain kept his head down, and my spirit joined him. “You’re about to give me bad news.”
“Sammy . . .” Filling his chest, he breathed out, meeting my wary stare. “The people who organized the raid? They’re a gang that goes by the name of the Deep Shots. They’re . . . not as powerful as my family, but they still have pull.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means we confronted them, and they denied everything.”
“So what?” I dug my nails into the dirt. “I saw his face, I know who did it!”
“That’s not enough!”
“Why?” Throwing up my arms, I shouted, “Bring me to them, let me call him out! That’s what they do on TV, right? A lineup, a—”
“It doesn’t work like that!” he snapped, two fingers massaging his temples. “Listen. Please. I want to get this fucker out of the way, to make sure he’ll leave you alone, but it’s your word against his . . . and to them, you’re no one.”
Barking out a sour laugh, I shook my head. “I’m not no one. Dammit, this is stupid. Maybe the cops really do need to take care of this if you guys can’t.”
“I am taking care of it,” he hissed. His intensity made me sit back; he saw me move, and his next words came out so very, very tired. “Sammy, I don’t want anything to happen to you. Not just you, but anyone you care about. I promise that I won’t even sleep until I’m sure everything is under control.”
Baffled, I tuned in to his promise.
Kain said, “The man who attacked you is the son of the Deep Shots’ leader, a guy named Brick. I wanted to bust his face in when I recognized him from the photo, but . . .”
Brick? Not Jameson? Of course he’d use a fake name.
His fist was so tight I heard his tendons creak. That wasn’t what I was focused on. Kain’s exhaustion had felt out of place to me this morning. All day, I’d wondered about what he’d done that had made him so tired.
When he’d said he wouldn’t sleep, it had clicked.
“Last night,” I whispered, “I asked you to check in on my mother. I never got to ask you if you had.” My fingertips swayed forward, gently brushing the bruises under his eyes. “You watched her all night, just to make sure she’d be safe. Didn’t you?”
Kain’s shoulders hunched. “Yes.”
The snow that had started to crust on my heart melted away. I didn’t move my palm from his cheek. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a prince?”
There—that made his eyes flash to me. His surprise shifted, a smirk growing as he chuckled. “Who told you?” Before I answered, he said, “I don’t know. It didn’t come up.”
Hesitating, I said, “I’d heard that you use that line to get girls in bed. You were trying so hard to get me to sleep with you, so why not try that if it worked before?”
His fingers circled my wrist, forcing my hand to remain on his jaw. The core of his voice was hot and smoky. “Because I didn’t want you to care about it. I didn’t want my blood to be what made you want me. Is that what you want to hear?”
Licking my lips, I said, “Yes.”
His smirk vanished. “Fuck, you keep throwing me for such loops. Who would answer that question like that?”
“Someone who wants to be honest . . . because she wants the other person to tell the same truths.” I tugged at my hand on his cheek; he held it firmly where it was. “Your family is royalty. It makes no sense. How are there even royal families anymore?” Laughing without humor, I looked away. “I know so little about you, Kain. So why do I feel like I already get you?”
My knees burned with the cuts from my fall. My stomach was a pile of snakes that wanted to escape. I probably needed to get checked out for a concussion.
And then he kissed me . . . and none of that mattered.
- CHAPTER FOURTEEN -
KAIN
She’d asked me a question, but I didn’t want to answer with words.
How could I even try?
I wasn’t a poet—I didn’t know how to phrase the colliding emotions inside of me that rose to the surface when Sammy was near. Besides, the way she’d been tou
ching me had made me acutely aware of how soft she was.
How warm.
Could I be blamed for wanting to taste that sweet mouth of hers? Especially when her lips were glowing in the sun, her hair tossed by the wind and her fall?
There was a grass stain on her cheek; I kissed that next. Sammy threw her arms around my neck, holding me close as her whole body shivered. We came together, my weight pushing her down into the field.
I’d barely had a taste when she gripped my ears, forcing me back so roughly that I winced. Her pupils sucked me up like black holes. “Wait. Before we do this, I need to know more.”
“More?” I asked, nuzzling her throat. “That’s a nice word. Say that again.” Her knee dug into my side; I gave up, leaning away. “We’re rolling around in a field with no one to stop us, and you want to talk?”
Lying there with her hair swirling around her, she’d never been more beautiful. It made her demand slice even sharper. “I want to mess around with you—”
“Okay, then let’s do that.”
“But I’m not going to do anything with someone who’s keeping secrets.”
Groaning, I sat on my heels. The position exaggerated the shape of my hard-on. “This isn’t exactly a secret, babe.”
“Stop,” she said, her eyes fixated on me.
“I don’t think I can.” Palming my erection, I hissed, “This is all you. It’s not in my control.”
Propping herself on her elbows, she threw a handful of grass at me. “Back at the jail, the detective warned me away from you and your family. Why? And don’t say jealousy.”
It was clear she wasn’t going to give up. “Probably because we’re known to dabble in gray areas of the law.”
“Like?”
“Blackmail. Gambling. Weapons.” I looked her in the eye. “Strip clubs.”
It was amazing that she didn’t flinch. “Do you hurt people?”
“Define ‘people.’”
“Innocent people.”
My head was starting to pound. “No one is innocent, but the folks we deal with definitely aren’t.” Sizing her up, I weighed the outcome of telling her what she wanted to hear versus what she needed to hear. With a great shrug, I went for the latter. “I’m not going to try and spin you some tale about how my family and I are heroes. We aren’t. Never were, never will be.”
“Then what are you?”
“Greedy.” I bit the word off. “Determined. Power crazy.” Sweat had collected under my throat; it fell down my collarbone when I leaned toward her. “We control this whole damn state, and it’s better than it’s ever been. Are we always kind? No. We couldn’t be. But we aren’t peddling drugs, and we aren’t letting girls get pulled into the clubs when they don’t wanna be there.”
“So some girls get a choice about being trapped?” she asked bitterly.
My eyebrows lowered as much as my voice did. “Let it go.”
“How? I don’t want to be here!”
“But you do want to be alive!” I snapped back. A frailty cracked my words; I recovered, hoping she hadn’t noticed. I was just . . . so damn tired. Tired of fighting, tired of having to prove I didn’t want her to end up as a cold corpse. “The guy who attacked you knows we know about it. That makes him more deadly than ever.”
Pushing up, she drew her knees to her chest and hugged them. I was spoiling for an argument, but Sammy was done. Nothing came out of her but gentle breaths that stirred the loose hairs that fell over her chin.
With the horses grazing behind her, she could have been a watercolor painting. No matter how fiercely she resisted me . . . or how she called me out on what I was doing wrong . . .
I couldn’t stop wanting her.
“Your turn.” I nodded at Rosel. “Where did you learn to ride?”
She followed my eyes. “When I was little, my dad used to take me riding. I loved it so much. My best memories are back then . . . with him.” Sammy was far away in the past. I felt awful pulling her back to the present.
“How did he die?”
Her eyes flew wide. “What?”
Gently, I said, “You asked me to go watch your mother because you couldn’t, and that meant no one else could, either. You talk about your father the way people talk about those they’ve lost. It was just a hunch.”
I saw the moment when she debated not telling me anything. Then it passed, her voice steady when she began again. “I’m not entirely sure how he died. They never found his body.” I couldn’t stop my jaw from dropping—she saw. “That came out kind of cryptic, sorry. His car was found at the bottom of the Newport Bay. The police decided he must have drowned—suicide, they called it.” Sammy shook her head, not softening her anger. “He wouldn’t have. I know it. They did their investigation, then they told my mother and me it had to be suicide, body or not. Lots of corpses go missing in the ocean, they said.”
Sammy was knotting up in front of my eyes; the last thing I wanted to do was push her on what was obviously a sensitive issue. I struggled to change the subject. “Where did he take you horseback riding?”
Shaking herself, she looked up at me. “White Rose Farms.”
I did a double take. “You’re kidding. I went there as a kid, too.” Looking at the black stallion—Knight—I said, “It’s just funny to think we might have seen each other years ago and not even realized it.”
“I think I’d remember you.” She chuckled. “Unless you were different as a kid.”
“Weren’t we all?”
“I was pretty much the same.”
My eyebrows went up higher. “You must have been a handful, sugar.”
That got her smiling, the shroud of sadness lifting into the sky. Sammy stuck her foot out, letting it rub almost accidentally on my thigh.
I squinted at her, trailing my fingers to her ankle and digging in. “Guess you really are a local.”
“Did you still doubt that?”
Leaning forward, I brushed my lips on hers. When I pulled back, her eyes were shut, her face expectant for more. Whispering against her mouth, I said, “You still don’t kiss like a local.”
Sighing gently, she put her hands on the back of my head. “You’re right. I kiss better.”
And she did. She really fucking did.
With a wicked smile, I leaned on her until she buckled onto the grass. My knees straddled her, a hand creeping under her spine to encourage her to arch against me. Skating down her torso, I let the smooth cloth of her shirt caress my face.
Grass tickled my elbows as I settled between her thighs. In a great show of patience, I unbuttoned the black pants she had on. Looking up, I could see the high-speed curve of her hips as they led to her navel, the mounds of her breasts where they rose and fell.
Violently, I ripped the trousers down her legs; they caught on her flats, then they took the shoes with them. In front of me was my prize, the perfect triangle of her pussy hidden behind a pair of blue panties.
Kissing her hip, I said, “I’ve been wanting to eat your pussy since I first saw you naked. You smell so fucking good, Sammy. Did you ever think you’d get eaten out by actual royalty?”
“I’m pretty sure every girl writes about that in their diary, Your Majesty,” she said, drawing the word out sarcastically.
Cupping her ass, I breathed along her stomach. “You’re teasing, but I love that.”
“It doesn’t make you uncomfortable?”
I snorted loudly; she jumped as she felt it against her inner thigh. “In what world is it uncomfortable to have a hot woman treat you like the king you are?”
“Prince. You’re not a king,” she said with a weak chuckle. Her composure was cracking, it made it hard for her to joke around.
Flattening my tongue, I slid it along the front of her underwear. Her groan made my cock flood with lust. “And you’re the expert?” Not letting her answer, I started to tug at her panties, pulling them inside of her so that her plump lower lips peeked out the sides.
Sammy grabbed my han
ds abruptly. “Let me get these off.”
“Someone’s in a hurry,” I said, raising an eyebrow.
Biting her lip, she wriggled out of her underwear in a clumsy shift of her weight. Even that—seeing her flopping and grinding without any grace—was intoxicating. “Let’s just say that letting you play with these particular panties would be . . . weird for me.” I frowned with uncertainty. “Don’t ask,” she mumbled.
So I didn’t. My lips had other ways to spend their energy.
I left indents in her soft flesh from gripping her ass so roughly. Sammy squeaked, acting as if my uncontrollable lust for her was out of the blue. There was no way she didn’t realize how fucking horny she made me.
Her scent clouded my thoughts. It was clean and thick and everything in between, I wanted to smell her excitement till the end of my days. Growling, I pushed her knees to the dirt, spreading her out as fully as she could manage.
“Kain! Easy!” Her smile was nervous, the last remnant of her self-control locked inside of it.
Meeting her stare evenly, I lowered my nose to the triangle of hair above her swollen clit and had my first taste of Sammy Sage. She shut her eyes; I spoke into the wet heat of her folds. “Don’t. You’re going to watch me make you come. You’re going to look me in the face as you cream all over my mouth. Got it?”
She trembled, a spasm that rolled through her until her knees twitched in my grip. It caught me off guard, her thighs clamping around my cheeks. “Yeah,” she whispered. “I’ve got it.”
Lapping around the edge of her clit, I pulled her pink lips apart. Every bit of her was slippery, engorged with her arousal. Knowing I’d done this to her was infusing me with a wild sort of power. Sammy was strong, she didn’t give in easily—but she had with me.
Fuck, what a rush to know what I was doing to her.
In my jeans, my cock dug into the fabric. Every time I licked around her hard nub, my dick swelled more. The tension was unbelievable, I was coiled and ready to explode. Her heat was maddening; I could see her clit flex from my breath.
Lifting two of my fingers, I licked them patiently. Sammy stared, unblinking, at my display. I didn’t need lube, I just wanted her to know what I was about to do. I wanted her to think about my fingers inside of her before they even began pushing in.