I had no notion why, but he’d locked us in together.
CHAPTER FOUR
I took a ragged breath in and an unsteady step back, sitting on the bed.
I pulled her between my legs, pushing her baggy sweatshirt up to expose her taut naval, then up higher, to her ribs just beneath her breasts.
Her sweats hit low on her hips, and one glance at her emaciated torso (and my very precise memory of her body) told me she’d lost some weight.
I was troubled by this, but I didn’t ask about it.
I wasn’t sure I was prepared to hear the answer. I knew it wouldn’t be good.
I buried my face against her warm belly, breathing in her sweet, familiar scent.
I’m not sure exactly what I would have done (likely fallen on her and started fucking like an animal) if she weren’t crying, and trembling so, and clutching me to her like she’d never thought to see me again.
And chanting my name, again and again, like it was her own personal prayer.
Inside of every man existed two natures, and never had my own dual temperaments been more apparent than they were then.
I felt equal parts tenderness and hunger.
Love and base desire.
Relief and frustration.
I pulled her on the bed, spread her out on her back, and got on top of her, head on her chest, hard, of course, ravenous, of course, but I didn’t act on it, not for a long time.
Instead, I held her.
It began slowly, carefully, the touching. Just feather light ones—at first. My hands moved along her hips, up her sides, squeezing lightly, feeling tenderly.
A remembering touch, as it sank into my mind and body that she was here, in my arms again.
I lifted and bent her leg around me, stroking the long length of it, my cheek on her breast, ear to her heart. I stayed glued there while my hands wandered, reacquainting themselves with every lithe, lush bit of her.
She was like a cat; she loved to be touched. She arched into my hands as I stroked her from head to toe.
“Are you okay?” I asked her, one hand rubbing soft circles into the tender skin behind her knee. “Has that bastard . . . hurt you?”
She gasped deeply once, then let out a trembling breath.
I glanced up and watched as she carefully took off her glasses and set them on the nightstand.
Something about those glasses tickled some agitated part of my brain, but I was too distracted just then to pin it down or even focus fully on worrying about it.
“No, Dair,” she sighed. “He hasn’t hurt me. But we cannot talk about him. We can’t talk about any of this, not if you ever want to leave here.”
“Shh. It’s okay now. We’re both leaving here, and soon. I’ll find a way.”
“Oh, Dair,” she whispered, her voice equal parts affectionate and exasperated. “I wish it were that simple.”
“It is. I’m taking you home.”
“Do you even know where we are?”
“No. Do you?”
She shook her head, eyes wide, lips parted in an invitation I was finding harder to resist by the second.
“Don’t worry, honey,” I whispered, leaning down to kiss her. “I’ve got you.”
The kiss was hot and wild, her soft lips giving but somehow that just meant they took more. Like my willpower. They swiped that clean away from me.
I groaned, thrusting my tongue into her mouth, taking, pillaging, seeking what I could get while she was here, with me, before she left again and took yet another piece of me with her.
I pulled back from her, gazing with heavy lids at her mouth. Her lips were swollen.
The sight drove me wild.
I wanted to come inside of her right that instant. I ached with it.
I rubbed my stubble over her pulpy bruised lips, along her jaw, down her straining neck.
I fingered her messy braid, then set to work tugging it loose, running my hands through it, in it, massaging her scalp until she went limp.
I lavished my soft, adoring attention on her, head to toe, still fully clothed, repenting with tenderness for what was to come, because I knew it wouldn’t be, couldn’t be, anything approaching tender when we came together this first time.
After I’d finished kissing each one of her adorable toes, I moved back up her body to fondle her pillowy breasts, skimming my fingertips over her sensitive nipples, filling my palms with her until she was panting as she arched her back.
I pushed her sweatshirt up to her collar, palming her bare, her coral crests swelling into my hands.
I took my mouth to them, rubbing my lips so lightly along her skin that she was begging me to suck her. I tongued a straining nipple, drawing it hard into my mouth, gentling to suckle softly, then sucking hard again.
She began to chant my name.
I may as well have died and gone to heaven.
I moved down her body and pulled her sweats down, taking her panties with them.
I couldn’t help it, as I moved back up, I stopped at her sex and started lapping.
She gripped my hair, digging her heels into the bed to push my tongue deeper. I filled my palms with her ass and went to town.
I wasn’t timing it, but even so, I was certain that she came in less than a minute, the room filling with her loud cries, and I pulled back with a gasp, straightening to loom over her.
I started to lift off her sweatshirt, but she stayed my hands, keeping her arms in the sleeves.
I didn’t care. I had access and a visual on everything I needed. And I was too desperate to take even one more delay.
I gripped the bottom of her thighs, pushing them high as I nudged my cock at her slick entrance.
When my tip was in, I shoved, propelling myself deep, seeking the very center of her with every aching nerve in my body.
It’d been so long. Too long with nothing but my hand and only the thought of her for relief.
Going from so little to everything, every single sinful inch of her, all at once, a squeezing vise around me, was almost too much.
I held onto the most meager ounce of control at first, but only barely and not for long.
Holding her steady, I put her ankles on my shoulders, and pounded deep, deep, deeper until her body was writhing.
I stopped on an upswing. One of her cries had been a touch beyond frantic and into panicked.
“Too much, Iris?”
She didn’t answer. Even her chanting had stopped. She just lay shaking under me.
I could have used an answer.
Without one, I reverted back to a mouth-breather, panting while I held her in place and worked my hard length in and out, rough and steady.
I watched my cock pull out of her, then force back in, my brutal thrusts becoming heavy and jagged in an effort to keep from increasing my pace.
I tried my best, but she wasn’t with me when I bottomed out and spilled deep inside of her.
I pulled out, and she writhed, unfulfilled as though she hadn’t come just minutes before under my tongue.
I didn’t even require recovery time. I was still twitching from the last round, and it already felt like I needed her again.
I flipped her onto her stomach, and held her in place with my open palms, my mouth moving up her back, along her spine.
I tried to push her sweatshirt up out of my way, just below her shoulder blades, but she tucked her arms and kept it in place.
Even in a nearly mindless state, this gave me pause.
What on earth could she be trying to hide from me?
I had no notion what it could be, but I was bound and determined to find out.
“Get on your hands and knees,” I ordered, voice roughened with need.
With trembling gasps she complied.
I came up close behind her, my burgeoning erection digging into her ass.
She bowed her spine, swinging her hips to push her ass back against me.
Without warning, and swiftly, I bent forward, pushing her sweatshir
t up and over her head, so her back was completely bared to me. She didn’t have time to stop me, that time.
I saw it right away, the discoloration of it catching my eye.
It froze me for an endless moment, then my heart started pounding frantically.
Just on the edge of her shoulder, about the size of a dime, was a healed over pink wound. I knew what it was because it matched the one on her shoulder to a tee.
It was a gunshot wound.
Another one, a fresher one. It had to be just a few months old.
My teeth clenched, my pounding heart doing a slow, torturous roll inside my chest.
“You were shot again?” I asked raggedly, though the answer was obvious.
She’d stiffened up, clearly bracing herself for my reaction.
“A flesh wound,” she said quietly, trying and failing to keep her trembling voice calm.
“Who shot you?”
“I didn’t get a good look at the guy.”
That was a frustrating answer, but I moved past it, as something else occurred to me. “That letter . . . did you write that to me before or after this happened?” It seemed like an important piece of the puzzle, my mind racing with all of the possible ramifications.
“Before.”
I covered her back, embracing her firmly from behind, my mouth working at her ear as I spoke, “So you knew it was coming? You knew that someone was actively trying to kill you? And instead of coming to me for help, you wrote me a letter?”
She took a very deep breath that moved both of our bodies. “Yes. I’m sorry, but this is another thing I can’t explain to you.”
“And then you were shot, so now you’re being held here?” Rage filled me as another idea occurred. “Did that blond motherfucker have anything to do with you being shot?”
Her ear moved against my mouth as she shook her head slowly. “No, Dair. Heath has something to do with me being alive right now. You know I can’t give you the details, but trust me when I say that he’s as deep in this mess as I am. I was grazed on the shoulder, but he took two bullets for me that time, or it would have been much worse.”
I didn’t know what to make of that.
It was a kick in the teeth to feel indebted to a guy that you hated on sight.
“Heath, huh,” was all I said, holding still over her for the longest time as I tried to piece together these rare puzzle pieces I’d been made privy to.
Iris started moving against me, working her back against my front in a way that distracted even me at my most focused.
I didn’t budge, didn’t encourage her, but it made no difference. I was already right where she wanted me, braced over her, my fists digging into the hard mattress on either side of her.
She arched and writhed until she’d found my throbbing cock with her slick entrance.
I held perfectly still as she manipulated my hard length inside of her.
She worked me with her swinging hips, until I’d not only forgotten where we were at in our conversation, but also my own name.
Or I would have, if she didn’t keep calling it out, her voice getting more frantic as she got close to the brink.
I was close to the edge myself when she started squeezing me harder and moaning out her release.
With a curse, I reared up, straightening behind her.
I grabbed her hips and started slamming my way home roughly.
She’d collapsed onto her stomach, and I’d followed her down, still inside of her, when she spoke.
“I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to miss a second of this. I know Heath won’t let you stay long.”
I’d been about a second away from passing out cold, but her words woke me right up.
“Fuck Heath,” I growled. “I’m not leaving without you. You’re coming home with me.”
CHAPTER FIVE
It was some time later. We’d showered together, then laid back down on the bed, naked, limbs entangled, when I asked, “Why on earth did he bring me here? It makes no sense. He’s clearly bothered by us being together. What is he to you?”
“I can’t tell you that. Are you upset that he did?”
“No. Of course not. That’s about the only thing I’m not upset about.”
“I’m sorry I can’t give you any answers. I know you don’t understand why.”
“You know what? You telling me that you can’t answer is better than all of the lies.”
She pulled back to look me in the eye, nodding solemnly. “I can understand that. I’ll try my best to level with you from here on out.”
“It’s just that easy, huh?”
“I don’t know. It’s going to be an adjustment for me.”
“Clearly,” I said wryly. “Why don’t we give you a little practice? How about I try asking you a question, and you actually try giving me an honest answer?”
She looked vaguely uncomfortable at the notion, but she replied with, “Okay. I’ll give you one, if it’s something I can answer.”
The perfect one came to mind instantly. “How old are you?”
She grimaced. It was adorable, and alarming. “You won’t be happy when I tell you.”
“Happier than I am right now, with you saying a thing like that. Tell me.”
She took a very deep breath. “Almost nineteen.”
I felt vaguely ill. It was too young, still legal, but way beyond my comfort zone.
“What does almost mean? So you’re eighteen?”
“Yes.”
“And when is your birthday?”
“In around six months.”
“That’s not almost. Wait, do I even want to know . . . how old were you when we first . . . ?”
“Eighteen. I knew you were going to ask that.”
Why was twenty-four so much more palatable than eighteen?
After I must have been sitting quietly for a while, mind reeling, basically beating myself up, she spoke again, sounding troubled. “I knew you’d react like this. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
“Didn’t tell me? Is that what you’re going to call it? You flat out lied about it, even provided proof for the lie.”
She opened her mouth as though to speak, then closed it again, staying silent. She just stared at me while I stewed about how ridiculously, uncomprehendingly young she was.
“You realize I’m more than twice your age,” I pointed out, finally breaking a long silence.
“Barely. And this is why I lied about it. I knew you’d overreact. You’re already making me rethink this not lying idea.”
“Clearly you need more practice at it. Let’s try another one. Am I older than your dad?”
“No. You’re quite a bit younger. Does that make you feel any better?”
“Not particularly.”
“You need to go back with Heath in the morning.” She was blatantly changing the subject.
She knew well how to work me, because it worked.
“No. I won’t leave you here. Not possible.”
“Don’t rile him.” She traced the bruise on my jaw, her eyes troubled. “He’s a very dangerous man. You have to go back without me.”
I studied her, wondering if she really didn’t understand me that well. Sometimes it felt like she knew me better than I knew myself, so it was certainly a new (and demoralizing) notion.
Even as I had the thought, I caught a glint in her eyes, a flash of genuine worry that righted the world back onto its axis and had me breathing easier.
Her understanding me was one of the few things about Iris that I’d always been certain of, and I’d have been crushed if even that were a lie.
Her concern told me it was not.
“You know I can’t do that,” I told her gently.
The concern turned to something akin to panic. “He’s armed, and he has a terrible temper, and he hates you. Also, he has backup. Lots of it. There’s no way you can take him on. You understand that, don’t you?”
I took a very deep breath. I’d never considered mys
elf to be particularly brave. In fact, I’d never much considered it at all, but I knew that I’d do whatever I needed to, regardless of the risk, to get Iris out of this mess.
“Please, Dair, please. I’m begging you here. Please, just do what he says. I’d never be able to live with myself if you got hurt in all of this.”
“You and I have different priorities, but I think you know that. I’m much more concerned about you not getting hurt.”
“There’s nothing you can do about what happens to me. I wish you could see that. But dragging you into it, getting you hurt, that can be prevented. You don’t have to get involved.”
That had my hackles rising. “I don’t have to? How about this: I am involved. What did you think would happen? You pursued me. You gave yourself to me. You made me care about you, and I can’t stand by while you’re in danger, held captive here for God only knows what reason, and do nothing!”
Her jaw was set stubbornly, her eyes growing blank in a way I was beginning to dread.
It set me off.
“It wasn’t a rhetorical question,” I raged. “Answer me. What did you think would happen?”
Her tone was expressionless when she answered, but for once, I felt like she was giving me the truth. “I didn’t mean for it to get this far. For us to get this far. I just wanted a bit of you, enough to keep me going, but I never thought it would turn into this. Despite all of my better sense, I couldn’t keep away from you once I started.”
I focused on the strangest part of what she’d said, the piece that made no sense to me. “A bit of me? How did you ever even notice me, let alone decide to come after me as aggressively as you did.”
She shook her head, the corner of her mouth raising a bit into a wry smile. “You’ll never get it. You don’t see yourself clearly, not at all. I do. You were just too appealing for me to resist, in so many ways.”
“So that’s it, you spotted me at the gym and decided I was just too hot to resist? Does this happen often?”
She flushed. “Don’t. Don’t do that. And I didn’t spot you at the gym. Nothing was random about us. I knew you’d be there and I sought you out.”
I blinked rapidly, hating that every answer she gave me that felt like it could be remotely close to the truth only made me feel like I knew less than I ever had. “Care to explain any of that?”