“Let Angel take care of you, you sexy Beast.”
CHAPTER 7
Annabelle
I pull his dick up, so it’s pointing toward the treetops, then ease it in between my lips and sit down on his cock, taking him so deep, I feel like I’m split open. He groans. I rise up on my knees, dragging him out of me, then sink back down with a little bounce. His hands grab hold of my waist, locking me down atop him as he rocks his hips against me. Until he’s buried so deep inside me, my pussy is kissing his balls.
As I sink down and rise up, he starts to thrust his hips.
He thrusts so hard I’m bouncing on top of him. His gorgeous face is dirty and sweat-slick and perfect. I lean over to kiss his lips, and he pushes me back.
“I want to,” I pout.
“Not unless I tell you.”
I feel a stab of hurt until his fingers find my clit and start rubbing. Then I’m panting harder, my legs shaking as I bob up and down on him. I enjoy the thrust of us together, the way his huge cock makes me ache with fullness; the way I draw him out of me a little, then bounce back down, so the thickness of his head slams deep into me, his mighty shaft stretching me deliciously, and his nimble fingers stroking over my clit. I reach behind me and tickle his balls. They’re rock hard, drawn up and ready.
We find a rhythm. His hands around my waist, my hand cupping his heavy balls and the other clutching his hard hip.
When I rub my fingertips over the taut skin of his balls, his face goes rapt. His fingers on my clit are gentle, unsteady.
I slide him almost all the way out, then slam back down on him.
He comes with a shout and tries to pull me off his dick, but I stay there, loving the way he spurts, warm inside me.
His eyes shut and every part of him except his dick goes limp. So limp, in fact, that at first I fear he might have passed out. I rise up off him and lie in the dirt beside him, so limp and tired I don’t care that I’m lying on dirt where a cow has probably stood.
Beast is moving his arm to pull me to his side when his eyes stretch wide.
“Oh fuck, I didn’t pull out.”
“I didn’t want you to. I’m on the pill.”
His face tightens, but he says nothing, just opens his arm for me so I can lie against him. Our racing hearts slow down together as we lie in silence, listening for the humming of cars and the thomping of helicopter blades. After a few minutes of stillness from him, he squeezes me a little closer still and kisses my cheek.
I put my arm over him and kiss his pec.
“Angel,” he rumbles.
I feel his lips in my hair.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs, “and I love your cunt.”
“My cunt loves your cock. Forever.”
He nods, squeezing me a little, and I hear him mumble something about this being a bad idea. “Keep me awake,” he warns me in a muzzy voice. But when, a couple minutes later, I feel his body jerk, I let him fall asleep.
I hold him while he sleeps, and listen to the road and sky.
Nothing.
We’re locked here in the trees, in a bubble that separates us from the rest of the universe. Maybe that’s the only way the two of us can be together—in the most improbable of times and places. Maybe the universe conspired to give us this moment, and the only way that it could happen was the way it did.
But no.
Because I shot someone today.
The reality of it sinks in slowly as I lie there, until it’s a weight pressed on my chest and I can’t breathe, and I want to stand up but I don’t want to wake Beast—Ricardo. He’s not Beast anymore, because he’s not in prison. Not now, anyway.
I lie there on my back, looking up at the kaleidoscope of leaves and sky, and I want to know how he’s doing. The DA. Even though he’s vile and horrible, I want to know for sure if he’s alive or dead.
I didn’t want to kill him.
If I killed him, he all but goaded me into it. That means he deserved it.
No one deserves that, my conscious protets.
But who cares about ‘deserve’? Ricardo didn’t deserve what went on in solitary, either. It was horrible, and it was Ryan’s fault.
And the fact remains, any way I try to spin it: I shot someone today. As I’m lying here right now, coming down from sex of all things, his family might be mourning his loss.
It’s disgusting, and it’s horrible, and I roll away from Beast and actually gag into the dirt because the thought of me shooting someone—even someone as horrible as Ryan—makes me sick.
The sickness stays with me, and it won’t go. It makes me feel so dirty, so stained.
I tell myself Ryan isn’t dead. He’s only hurt, and that makes me feel better because he hurt Ricardo. He deserves to be hurt. It’s not hard to tell myself he does.
Beast seems to be sleeping off his comedown, so he’s very still. I, on the other hand, can’t stand to be still any longer, so I get up, squeeze myself back into my wet clothes, and walk around for a few minutes, looking at the road and sky. Waiting for another round of torture.
I walk back over to Beast and ease myself to the ground. His breathing is light and steady. I slide back under his arm and lie there, still as a doll, thinking of Ad and Mom, wondering what kind of phone call Beast—Ricardo—wants to make. Wondering more about his gig with the FBI. Wondering if there’s any way we can actually come out of this okay.
I end up thinking about the first time I met him, at the house party the night I had the idea I’d lose my V-card to him. How harshly he tried to warn me off at first. As if he knew, on some mystical, cosmic level that he should avoid me, lest we tie our fates together.
It’s melodramatic, I know, but it still rings a little true.
I lie beside him as he sleeps, listening to every rustle of the leaves, eventually pushing myself up on my elbow so I can look around the field. When he wakes up, and hour or two later, he’s edgy and harsh and strained. He rolls me over on my back, positions me atop what remains of his jumpsuit, strips my pants off, and fucks me hard.
Until I’m aching from his thrusts and creaming all around his dick. Until my ass hurts from the ground and I’m clawing his pecs and twisting his nipples.
Until he’s hard enough to dig through diamonds with that big, beautiful cock. Until he’s shoved so deep inside me, I don’t where he ends and where I start.
I feel him spurt inside me before I see the sweet relief on his face. He comes down on top of me, collapsing with his chest against my breasts. His fingers stroke my face. His eyes are heavy.
He shifts atop me and pulls his dick out, and my pussy feels sore and empty. He’s still half hard, bigger than any man I’ve ever seen. He gets back into his ragged, stained white pants and ties them around his hips.
He dresses me as I lie there, and then he kisses my pussy.
“Thank you.”
I lean up to kiss his cheek, and he ducks his head. “No, Angel.”
I don’t understand.
He says it once more: “No.”
He goes and sits on the other side of the tree as night falls down around us.
CHAPTER 8
Beast
My plan is risky at best.
My plan to get Angel out of this nightmare is risky at motherfucking best.
I drop my head into my hands, because rubbing my forehead and temples is better than pulling my fucking hair out.
Fucking Ryan.
Fucking whatever was in that fucking syringe.
I pretty much know it was some kind of cocaine derivative, because shit, I remember this comedown from my acting days. It’s all I’ve known the last—few weeks? I’m not even fucking sure.
I stand up and start to pace around, hoping Angel won’t come over here to me. I need to think. Need to try to find a way to calm my racing mind.
I’ve felt regret before, but this is different. The night of the wreck, I did something stupid, but I didn’t do it with any sort of premeditation. Uma wanted us to help her get rid of
the blow, so I helped her. I drove fast, but when I did, I didn’t think that I would lose control. It was an accident.
You know what wasn’t a fucking accident? Playing games with Angel to get her to come see me at La Rosa. Scaring her that day I kicked Holt’s ass. Getting her to fuck me in the library. Those things weren’t a fucking accident. That was me being selfish, taking what I wanted, and now— damnit!
My guilty mind screams that I didn’t know I’d be double-crossed by the Agency. How could I have known?
But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything about what’s going on right now, and it does nothing to ease the weight of guilt on my chest.
I rub my hands back through my hair and I can feel Angel coming up beside me.
“Go away,” I tell her.
I’m in a foul ass mood, and she deserves some warning.
Of course, Angel being the angel that she is, she sits down beside me and leans her head against my shoulder. She drapes an arm around my back as if I’m not half an inch from losing my shit and murmurs in my ear, “You all right? Not feeling well?”
I freeze for a second, because no one’s asked me how I feel in a very long ass time.
“I’m fucking fine.”
An asshole. Sick with asshole-itis.
Her hand kneads my shoulder. “You sure?”
I nod. I’m gritting my teeth.
“Can you take some deeper breaths?”
I look up at her. “What?”
There’s an edge to my voice—one that I’m not proud of.
“Like this.” She inhales deeply, sitting straighter. Then she slowly lets it out. “Breathe in through your mouth, hold it in for a second or two, and out through your nose.”
I frown. “What makes you think I need to do that?”
“You sound a little strained.” She presses her lips together. “Whatever he gave you must have been an amphetamine for sure. I’ve never seen someone move as fast as you did, getting us out of there.” She reaches for my face and gives me a small, slight smile. “You look a little rough around the edges so you must be coming down.”
Her gentle hand touches down on my cheek.
I can’t bring myself to tell her not to touch me, so I try my best to smile back at her. “You saying I look like shit, Angel?”
“You could never look like shit. You know it, too. You’re handsome even in prison clothes.”
“It’s called a jumpsuit.”
“Okay, then. Even in a jumpsuit.”
Her hand starts stroking up and down my back. I don’t realize till this second, but my left shoulder, where the bullet went through, hurts pretty fucking bad. Her gentle hand diverts my attention, giving me a little relief.
I let my head hang between my shoulders. I want to say thank you. I want to say a dozen things, but I can’t make my mouth open.
What do you say to someone who’s given you everything? What do you say to someone who’s killed for you?
My throat feels thick, so I do the thing she said, sucking air in through my nose.
“Does this feel good, what I’m doing?” she asks as I let my breath out. “I want to make you feel better.”
I swallow. Clench my jaw.
I lift my head and turn toward her, and all the badness I’ve been holding in comes pouring out. “You understand I fucked you, right? Asking you to come and visit me? Fucking around with you that day and telling you that you had to or I’d fuck with Holt, just because I wanted you? That’s a fucking asshole move, and I’m an asshole, Angel. You should save your fingers the effort.”
“And stop rubbing your back?” Again, that smile. The tired, kind, understanding one. “I’m not doing that. I knew Holt was okay when I came back to La Rosa. It was my choice, because I wanted to get to know you better. Try to quit worrying about things for a second. You said you had a plan.”
Oh, right. My plan.
My immediate overlord at the Agency is Thom Ford. I don’t think he knew about my ouster in advance because he hates Juarez. Tom was always friendly with me. He was a fan of my movies.
So there’s a chance that I could bargain with the Agency. Make a deal with them. If they put Juan Juarez in charge, it was because they realized (or strongly suspected) he wasn’t in charge of his family’s cartel any longer. If Juan isn’t in charge of the cartel, any control I had over him was meaningless. They needed to overthrow the person currently in charge—my guess is Juan’s younger brother, Emanuel—and not only plant Juan back at the helm of things, but endear him to them, too. Giving Juan control of La Rosa puts him in their pocket. And if the whole thing went kaput, if Juan refused to do what they wanted, the Agency could have him killed.
That’s how it works.
When gang leaders are in prison, they’re vulnerable in a way they never would be on the outside, surrounded by their soldiers. They can so easily be bought.
Look at me. They got me to kill in exchange for…what? Creature comforts? A big cell and control of other people’s fates? The assurance that I’d always be on top. The illusion that I’m not a prisoner, but some sort of fucking secret agent?
Even now, after they ousted me via Ryan and my hellish trip to solitary, I’m considering killing for them again.
I would off Emanuel Juarez in a heartbeat if it would win me favor with the Agency. If they could guarantee Angel’s extrication from this mess.
It would probably be a suicide mission, but what do I care? I’ve got no better options. My sentence has been extended. If I’m sent back to La Rosa, which I almost certainly will be if—no, when—the police catch us, I’ll be killed.
The Agency has power. Lots of power. Enough of it to ensure that Angel’s life goes back to normal after this.
The only other option for getting her out of this is much dirtier and riskier, and involves blackmailing the Agency. Using my famous face and my old connections to expose their involvement in the gang wars. Giving some kind of exclusive interview about what I did in prison. How I was sold out.
But that’s a long shot. There’s no guarantee anyone would believe my sordid tale. There’s little chance they’d care. The last time I talked to my old publicist, about a year after my sentence began, she told me I would never have a career again.
“The public won’t forget.”
I killed three friends, and I was amped up when I wrecked.
So I’m relying on the Agency needing my help offing Emanuel Juarez. I think there’s a reasonably good chance that, if I can reach Thom Ford, I can get Angel out of this.
“I do have a plan,” I tell her as she strokes my back. “I’ll take care of you this time, Angel.”
I wrap an arm around her back and hug her close—because she’s being good to me, and I convince myself, for just a moment, that I should pay her back by being good to her as well. My body responds as quickly as it ever has, cock hardening, mouth watering for a taste of her sweet pussy. I kiss her forehead, because I just can’t stop myself, and then I remember looking up at her from the floor of the solitary unit as she held Ryan’s gun out.
She shot someone today because of me.
Haven’t I done enough to damage her?
I get up and walk away from her, vowing to keep my distance until we part.
CHAPTER 9
Annabelle
There are a few more scares just after dusk. Movement on the road from police cars—some driving toward the prison, others away. Movement in the air as the helicopters circle over us a few more times, shining their spotlights into the fields as night starts falling.
Beast is quiet. Ricardo. I need to start thinking of him as Ricardo, because that’s who he is. Beast was a twisted, addictive fantasy of mine. A choice I made that was stupid, brave, and ultimately so compelling, it almost didn’t feel like a conscious choice at all. My obsession with Beast started as obsession with Cal Hammond, movie star. But he’s gone, too. The man I’m with tonight is nothing but Ricardo. Gun-shot, blood-streaked, sweaty, tired, and wo
rried—he’s not a dream I conjured. He’s a real man.
I think that’s what scares me the most. Now that he is real to me, my feelings haven’t ebbed at all.
I want him as much or more than I ever have, even after he walks away from me and starts acting cooler toward me.
He’s quiet and moody even in the times he has to talk to me, and I know some of it is the comedown. And some of it isn’t. I’m convinced he’s acting distant because he cares about me. Every time he touches me, his fingers say it, even though his mouth won’t dare.
I imagine he feels guilty.
What happened today—he would blame himself for it. At least I’m pretty sure he does.
So I try not to let his silence hurt my feelings.
I try not to dwell on how lost and lonely I feel. How much I wish that he would touch me, just to reassure me with his body that things will be okay.
I’m desperate for word of Mom and Ad. Terrified that Mom picked this day to die.
What will happen to Ad if I somehow don’t come home at all? If I’m arrested and held without bail—or, God forbid, worse?
I try hard not to dwell on that, but not thinking about the future means living in the moment, and that’s not a cake walk, either.
My clothes are blood-stained. My hair is dirty and matted. I’m tired enough to pass out, and every time we hear the whoosh of traffic from the road, or the thumping of helicopter blades, I feel like I’m going to hurl.
Just before we leave our little grove, Ricardo tells me again that if we’re caught, we’ll both surrender without a fuss. He explains that he probably wouldn’t be taken directly back to La Rosa; he’d go to a holding facility, where they’d investigate his escape and probably the prison’s (mis)management, too. Before that, though, I bet he’ll go to the hospital for that shoulder wound.
Me—I’m not so sure. He tries to tell me I’ll be free and clear, especially since I didn’t shoot Ryan, he did. But I’m not sure I can let him take the blame for that. Even if I decided that I could, for Adrian’s sake, I’m pretty sure forensics is advanced enough these days that they can tell who fired the shot. Ricardo is a good bit taller than me; that’s just one of many problems with his idea that he can get me off the hook.