Hunted: A Criminal Deeds Novel

by Kyle Autumn

  Because I want it.

  It’s a fucked-up thing. Me—I’m fucked up. Adam fucked me up. But I don’t have to stay that way. I see that now that I’m out in the real world, although Zane’s life seems nothing like the normal lives I’ve imagined. I don’t care. I might be able to fit in better in his.

  That thought makes me break away from him to stare him in the face. Could I really fit into his world? Or is that simply the confused thought of a person who has no fucking clue what they’re doing? Does it even matter when Adam still wants me? No. the answer to that is no, so I let that thought float away like an errant balloon. Bye, thought.

  Hello, taking.

  Like a wanton little thing, I throw myself at him. I jump up into his arms and wrap my legs around his waist. It’s testing the waters to see how long it takes his switch to flip, and it’s a dangerous game to play—but I like it. When his hands slide down to grip my ass, he moans. There, his fingers squeeze just as hard as he squeezed my shoulders. Only this time, it doesn’t feel like he’s preparing an escape plan.

  This time, it feels like he’s enjoying it.

  And that spurs me on even more.

  Erotic desire flares to life. Wetness pools in my panties as I glide my uneven fingernails through Zane’s hair and tug. His head pulls back and he nips at my lip, pulling it a good half inch away from my face. The pain smarts—but in a good way. The right way to feel pain. An addicting way.

  I’ve only known pain to be bad. Hurtful. Sadistic.

  Zane’s brand of pain feels like a dose of a powerful drug. The euphoria and brand-newness shoot me up into the clouds, with one foot firmly rooted to the hardwood of his living room once he tosses me onto his couch.

  My bad arm lands on my side—no harm, no foul. Then he prowls over like a lion stalking his prey, snarling like one would too. When he reaches me again, he crushes his lips to mine in a rough, bruising kiss. Our tongues tangle in a war for dominance, but his clearly wins. I take in that instance too: his tongue as it drives into my mouth while we desperately seek control and release at the same time.

  His hands paw at my sweatshirt until they find the bottom. He starts to pull it up, but then his hands slip lower to the waistband of my yoga pants. As a sharp pang of disappointment swirls within me, I decide what to do with it. Put an end to this important mission of pushing my life forward or keep going and deal with the fact that he hates my body later? Everyone else on this planet will hate it too, so I might as well deal with him doing it now.

  Which is why I keep going.

  I take what I can get.

  I take the jagged pulls of my pants down my legs.

  I take the crude way he grips my hips.

  I take the jarring plunge of his cock inside me.

  And I take the ecstasy he gives me with his punishing pace.

  It doesn’t matter how rough he is with me. Taking something other than actual punishment redefines who I am as a human being. It’s revolutionary. Revealing. Liberating. It cuts me down to the true, authentic Hanna Lee—not Willow. Not the billowy, withering creature Adam created. But Hanna Lee, the woman I was always meant to be. The woman I was born as. The woman I’ll be now.

  In and out, he fucks me like a man on a mission. His crazed, wild eyes stare deep into mine as sweat builds in sheens on our skin. Droplets bead near his eyes while he pounds into me on his knees. The couch slides with the power of his thrusts each time, but he doesn’t care. Not until he falls forward, bracing himself with one arm to continue the in-and-out motion that has me racing toward the building euphoria. With every plunge, I fly higher and higher on him. And soon, I tumble right off the edge.

  In a quivering mess on the couch, I come all over him, shaking with my release. It’s powerful, earth shattering—and I take it. I take it all.

  He tries to stop, ready to pull out, but I feel like taking some more. I follow him as he backs up on the couch, and once I’m close enough, I straddle him. He keeps his gaze on me, and I swear I see awe in it. Some kind of wonder. But also this fierceness, the one he doesn’t hide very well. It’s never far below the surface, and I like that about him. I like the way he doesn’t hide his emotions, what he feels. I like that he lets it all out.

  So I coax him to do a little more of that right now and lower myself over his cock.

  “Take it,” I tell him before wrapping my arms around his neck and letting him set the pace. “Take what you want.” Then I grip the back of his head with my rough fingernails and wait for him to have at it.

  He doesn’t disappoint.

  This is our rhythm now. We say a few words, get heated, and then fuck. It’s a change of pace from Adam’s schedule of punish, lock away, and punish some more. I barely had time to heal my wounds before he made more over my skin. All he did was take from me. And all I could take was his evil torture.

  Now, I get to take what I want.

  And even though I shouldn’t, I like it.

  17

  Zane

  So much for the punching bag.

  I honestly don’t know what the fuck gets into me with this woman. She’s so frail, but then she exudes these moments of power. When she gets like that, I’m unable to stop myself. There’s something about her that makes me never want to take my hands off her, and it has nothing to do with those scars anymore.

  It’s just her.

  She’s under my skin.

  Inside my soul.

  When she whispers those things to me about taking what I want, I lose control. I ram into her with abandon, wild and animalistic. And she lets me.

  She doesn’t seem to care about how sore it’ll make her later. About how I might rip her open with the force. It’s like she wants it. And a sick part of me likes that she wants it. That she lets me. That she accepts that part of me that runs wild and free.

  She lets the beast come out to play—and play, he does.

  With her on top of me, I bounce her on my cock until that pace isn’t enough. Then I tighten my bruising grip on her hips and jam her up and down over me, thrusting up with each pull. She squeezes my neck with her arms, holding on for dear life. Her nails dig into my skin, scratching me to the point of breaking it. I might be bleeding, but I definitely don’t care.

  Not with the way she makes me feel flooding my system.

  Everything about this woman—from the way she smells to the velvet of her insides—sucks me right in. She’s like the perfect combination to get me high and make me forget. I might never get enough.

  When we don’t have much longer, I know I’ll never get enough.

  It’s why I can’t help myself. Why I lose control. Why I’m spilling inside her right now, letting out a fierce, predatory roar as I do.

  She grips me tight, accepting the way I am in this moment. With her cheek pressed against my temple, I bite into her shoulder and rock us back and forth through my climax. I’m not trying to hurt her, but her wince makes me loosen my jaw. Then I close my lips around the bite marks and lave the spot with my tongue, trying to soothe the skin. I never want to do anything close to what that asshole did to her.

  Not anymore, anyway.

  That thought makes me linger my lips on her shoulder as I wonder how she’ll react when she finds out. Because there’s no way she won’t. That’s happening whether I want it to or not.

  Unless I can manage to kill Adam before he tells her.

  It’s the best plan I can think of, but it’s the one that takes away what she needs to do herself.

  I take a deep breath and shove Hanna Lee off me. With a scared look on her face, she scoots off to the other side of the couch. Her knees go to her chest and she wraps her arms around them, but then something makes her shoot off the cushions and run down the hall. When the bathroom door closes, I’m not sure if she left to clean up or cry.

  I’m a monster who just came inside her, so it’s probably both.

  Once I’ve tucked myself back into my shorts, I walk over to the bathroom door and knock. “
Hanna Lee,” I say. Then I sigh. I’m not sure what else to tell her. Apologies don’t fall off my tongue so easily. And I’m not even sure I’m sorry. This shit is confusing and it’s got me tied up.

  “Just give me a second,” she says in a high-pitched voice. Then she goes quiet and I can hear rustling on the other side of the door.

  I don’t know what she’s doing, but a sense of pride washes over me.

  She told me what she needed from me. That’s a good start.

  She heats up leftover pasta for lunch. She must have made it yesterday during my perimeter check. While I was making sure we were safe, she was feeding us. I didn’t even notice.

  Which makes me feel like shit.

  Even after rough sex, pushes to the ground, and my general ornery conduct, she’s still trying to please me. I think it’s leftover behavior from her time with her husband, but maybe not. Maybe this is so deep in her DNA. I can’t tell, but I want to get to the bottom of it.

  Instead, I simply say, “Thanks,” when she puts a bowl in front of me.

  Then, before she can go back and get hers, I snag her wrist and drag her back to me. I tug just enough to get her to fall into my lap, and when she does, I hold her hips. All I can do is stare into her eyes. Their depths know no bounds. She hasn’t experienced kindness, and I’m no expert in that field. But her gaze makes me want to learn. Her body makes me want to learn. Not just because her body hasn’t seen kindness, either, but because it deserves it no matter what.

  She’s not the monster I thought she was.

  I’m the monster I’ve always thought I was.

  But maybe there’s still time for me to change.

  I’ve wanted that change, right? Maybe not this specific one, but I’ve been looking for an out. Something new. A different life. Perhaps this is it. This is the universe saying, Here you go. You wanted your life to be flipped upside down. I’ve done that for you now.

  It’s a foreign, uncomfortable feeling that leaves me speechless and acting out. But she’s making me softer in places I didn’t realize I could be soft. I didn’t think I had that left in me, and I don’t know how to tell her that.

  So we silently stare at each other. Then she dips her head and goes back to the stove to retrieve her lunch.

  We eat silently too.

  But then my house phone rings and shatters that silence.

  Her eyes flare wide in a startled way. Her hand grips her fork like she might break the metal into pieces. And her whole body trembles just slightly.

  She’s not ready for Adam if she can’t even handle a phone call.

  Yet, when I answer it and Adam’s voice comes down the line, I wonder if she somehow knew. Is she that tethered to him? Does she already know what I was up to when she found me at the bar? Did she even care?

  I may never get answers if Adam doesn’t give me the seventy-two hours he promised me.

  Only forty-eight of them are left.

  “Time’s a-ticking, Zane,” he says as I head out back and close the door behind me.

  “Yeah, I know,” I gruffly reply. I tip my head toward the sky, where the clouds gather in a gray mask overhead. Lightning flashes in the distance, and a few moments later, thunder claps.

  I flick my gaze inside and see Hanna Lee squeeze her eyes shut at the noise.

  Fuck.

  “Any news? The car she stole is still in the parking lot of the bar, so I hope you’re out there looking for her.”

  “I did go back that way,” I tell him, racking my brain for a plausible lie. “There’s no sign of her yet, but I’m certain she hasn’t gone far.”

  Adam tsks his tongue in what sounds like disappointment. “You better not be lying to me. That woman stole two million dollars from me, and I need it and her returned to me as soon as possible.”

  “I’m on it, sir.” The words are like poison on my tongue, but I have to keep this up. Otherwise, those forty-eight hours will disappear before we can say fuck.

  “Good. Two more days, Zane. That’s all you have before I take matters back into my own hands,” he tells me. Then the line clicks and he’s gone.

  Good. Good fucking riddance.

  I spin back around to go through the door, but something he said sticks in my brain. She stole two million dollars? He mentioned that amount before. It was the biggest reason why I took the job. He said I’d get to keep it. But now, he wants it back.

  Fine. He can have it back, because I want the girl.

  The only problem is she came to me with a duffel bag full of clothes and one other bag that’d never fit two million dollars in it. Plus, with the state she’s been in, she’d never be able to carry that much money anyway.

  So where the fuck is it?

  18

  Hanna Lee

  He gives me one hour before we go back to running drills. I don’t know what that phone call was about, but it spurred him into action like nothing else I’ve seen so far. That’s fine because I need to be prepared, and after punching the bag this morning, I know I’m not. Not even close.

  That gun sounds more and more appealing with every minute that passes.

  When the hour is up, I take a deep breath and head back into the living room. Staring the punching bag down, I wait for Zane to return. He doesn’t though. I check the clock in the kitchen again to make sure I don’t have the time wrong, but I’m positive I don’t. He disappeared out the back again when we finished eating and said he’d show me “proper form and better technique than slapping shit around.” It’s exactly what I need, but he’s not here.

  So I go for it myself.

  Before I met Adam, I’d seen enough action movies with fight scenes. I’d also seen enough movies that should have served as a warning not to accept offers from men like the man I married. But here I am, hoping those action movies will suffice.

  Punch. Jab. Kick.

  Pain shoots up my arm with each stab I take at the bag. My knuckles feel jammed ten minutes later, but I refuse to give up. Adam won’t, so I can’t either. He’ll come after me, and he won’t stop until he gets one of two results: full possession again or my death. One is clearly worse than the other, but I won’t settle for either of them. I’ll fight back. I have to.

  With or without Zane’s help.

  An hour later, my limbs are numb. I can’t feel most of my body and my knuckles are bloody. The torn skin stings something fierce, yet I don’t stop. Adam won’t, so I won’t either.

  Thirty minutes after that, I’ve kicked and punched my little heart out. The X formed by tape on the bag is ready to disintegrate. And skin hangs off each of the joints of my fingers. But I feel oddly vindicated. Like I’ve accomplished something. Like I’m ready to take on the fight that’ll be here when Adam feels ready to snatch me back up.

  Like I can do this.

  A slow clap sounds behind me. I whip around at the noise and find Zane standing there, a smirk on his lips. A sexy one. One that almost shines with pride.

  “My little hellfire,” he says in his deep, sexy voice. The velvet of it washes over me as the compliment in his words unfolds in my head. “Maybe you don’t need this after all.” He pulls the gun from the back of his jeans and sets it on the end table.

  “I told you. That’s too—”

  “Easy. I know.” He stares into my eyes for a few heavy, uneasy moments, but something catches his gaze and he flicks it down. Then his eyes flash wide and he rushes to me in two long strides. “Damn. Your knuckles.”

  My heart squeezes when he picks my hands up. He runs a finger over one and a sting of pain slices through it. When I hiss a breath in, his finger retreats.

  “You should have waited for me.” He drops my hands and turns his back to me to walk away.

  I follow after his retreating form. “You said you’d be back in an hour.”

  “I was back in an hour and fifteen minutes,” he says as he slips into the bathroom on the first floor.

  I stop abruptly in the doorway. “Then how long were you watch
ing me?”

  He reaches into the medicine cabinet above the sink. “The rest of that time.”

  My jaw nearly falls to the floor. “Then why didn’t you stop me?”

  As he removes items from a first aid kit, he glances at me, a gruff look etched on his rugged face. “For what?” he asks, setting the items on the counter. With a hand on a hip, he says, “You were doing just fine without me. You got the hang of it, didn’t you?”

  I scoff, indignant. Getting the hang of it isn’t the goal. I need to find some kind of mastery at this. My husband is an expert at manipulation and getting what he wants. I have to be able to fight back in a way I’ve never been able to before, but this man thinks it’s fine because I got the hang of it.

  I scoff again and try to fold my arms over my chest. But the pain from exposed nerves and bloody, broken skin feels like lightning in my veins and stops me. After I suck in another pained breath, Zane drops the first aid kit in the sink.

  “Stop.” He takes my hands and holds them out. “Leave them there.” Then he finds the peroxide in the cabinet and removes a clean washcloth from a drawer. “Now put them over the sink.”

  With tears in my eyes, I do what he asked me to. Well, told me to. Demanded. That’s his way. And my way is to obey. I wouldn’t like this if I didn’t need to do it. But I do.

  Though I like it too.

  The gentle way he washes my wounds. The careful way he bandages them up. The borderline-sweet way he makes sure they’re covered and secure.

  There’s more to this man than meets the eye. He’s not just the rough-around-the-edges monster he portrays himself as. He has layers, different aspects I’m sure he doesn’t let many other people see. It makes me wonder even more what happened to him, because he has this way about him. He makes me feel safe even when he’s out of control.