Cartel

  He located the sewing kit and struggled to open it with one hand. Mariana stepped forward again, reaching down and snatching it up.

  ‘Allow me,’ she said. ‘Finally, sewing class has a purpose.’

  He watched as she disinfected a sewing needle and threaded it. Bringing it up to his arm, she motioned for him to move the blood-soaked towel from his wound.

  She smiled as she brought the tip of the needle down to his arm.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ she said wickedly, echoing the words he had used when he’d cut out her microchip. ‘This is gonna hurt.’

  He tensed as she began to work on him. Damn, it hurt, but wasn’t that the point? He’d come here specifically after getting the bullet, instead of going home to Celia or to the clubhouse.

  Blood and pain, it was what had brought them together.

  What would keep them together.

  And he liked it.

  After she had finished stitching and spread a huge bandage across his arm, they went out on the balcony. The wind was fierce, but she insisted on standing at the edge and taking in huge breaths, He didn’t try to stop her. She’d been cooped up in the apartment for days, weeks, and she was probably going stir crazy.

  Dornan stood beside her, his good arm brushing against hers. She jumped a little, but didn’t move away.

  Did she — had she moved closer? Or was that his imagination? He couldn’t decide. He’d drunk a fair amount of vodka in a short space of time, and although he wasn’t drunk, he couldn’t call himself sober, either.

  He still held the vodka bottle in his hand, and she took it from him with a tight smile. He leaned back a little, watching the way her graceful neck stretched out as she took a gulp, and then shivered.

  ‘I started to think you weren’t coming back,’ she mused, her eyes locked on the dark water below them.

  As if he could stay away from her. She was like a magnet drawing him in, a magnet that was impossible to leave the more time he spent in her presence.

  He grabbed her shoulder and spun her towards him, her hair flying every which way in the breeze. ‘I will always come back,’ he said gruffly. She nodded, licking her lips and passing him the vodka. He had to let go of her arm to take the bottle back with his good arm, and something about that saddened him. Everything was better when he was touching her. ‘I thought I was going mad,’ she said, bringing her fingers to her lips. ‘I could have sworn you kissed me before you left. But now, I can’t remember if it was real or if I imagined it.’

  His belly tightened as her cheeks flushed. She was getting pale, gaunt. She looked like she hadn’t eaten properly since he’d left. She was still grieving her boyfriend, her old life, but he didn’t like the dark circles under her eyes and the way she seemed defeated. He set the vodka down on the lip of the balcony railing and cupped her chin with his hand. She didn’t move, didn’t speak, just looked up at him with those huge, dark blue eyes.

  ‘You been eatin’?’ he asked. ‘Sleepin’? ’Cause you look pretty fuckin’ skinny to me.’ He ran a finger underneath her eye, where a dark hollow had formed.

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, and his voice demanded an answer.

  Her eyes were wet and glossy in the moonlight. ‘I guess I’m just … sad.’

  He sighed, looking out to the choppy waves below them. Not a soul was outside; even the ferris wheel on the beach below was dark tonight.

  ‘Christ, Ana, I didn’t bring you here so you’d be fuckin’ sad.’

  ‘Why did you bring me here?’ she whispered. Her long hair fanned around her in the wind. She looked like a goddamn angel of death, standing in front of him with her big, sad eyes and her trembling lips.

  He ground his teeth together, searching for the answer. How could he tell her when he didn’t even know himself why he had chosen her? Why she was different from the rest of them? Why she deserved to be saved while others were condemned to hell?

  ‘I don’t know,’ he finally answered.

  ‘You have to give me something!’ she snapped, her eyes wild. ‘I’m like a fucking prisoner here. Talk to me,’ she implored, softer now. ‘Tell me something. Anything.’

  He balled his fists up, the gunshot wound in his arm throbbing when he did so.

  ‘I’ll tell you something,’ he ground out. ‘I’ve seen girls like you. I’ve seen them sold. I’ve seen them killed. Sold and fucking slaughtered, like they were cattle. I knew what they’d do to you. And I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try and stop it.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. She seemed surprised by his sudden admission. And so was he.

  ‘I gotta go,’ he said abruptly.

  She scowled and stepped back, looking at the floor.

  ‘Great,’ she mumbled. ‘See you in two weeks.’

  ‘Jesus, Ana,’ he said. ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. Shaking her head, she snatched up the vodka bottle and stepped inside, making her way up the hallway towards the bedroom that sat just off the front door.

  Women. They were impossible to decipher. And this one was driving him insane. He followed her, grabbing her elbow and pushing her against the wall beside the bedroom door.

  They stared off for a moment. Dornan reached down and tried to take the vodka bottle, but Ana’s fingers were wrapped around it tightly. In the end, he had to use his other hand to prise each finger off and take the bottle from her that way.

  ‘Go to bed,’ he barked, pointing into the bedroom.

  He turned to walk away, stopped by the lightest of touches on his hand.

  She gazed up at him, a peculiar look in her eyes skipping across the space between them. His eyes dipped down to her chest. She was breathing quickly, and as he watched the rise and fall of her breasts under that thin cotton top, he realised he was breathing faster, too.

  He took in the swell of her chest, imagined the light brown nipples underneath pebbling between his fingers. The heat that was pouring off her was a sweet, seductive scent that threatened to overpower everything inside him, every last bit of thinly coiled resolve.

  She licked her lips, but this time he didn’t think she was nervous. No, this time she licked her lips with hunger as she stared at his mouth.

  He placed his hands on either side of her head, the vodka bottle still hanging from his right hand.

  ‘Go to bed,’ he said.

  Her mouth twitched, the ghost of a smile appearing and then disappearing, replaced by wanton need.

  ‘I’m not tired,’ she whispered.

  Goddamn this girl.

  Her cheeks flushed, her chest still moving rapidly, she reached up with one tentative hand. When he didn’t stop her, she ran it through his short, dark brown hair, taking hold of his head.

  Explosive.

  That was the only word that came to him as her lips crashed into his, a fiery embrace that both thrilled and deeply unsettled him.

  He was completely surprised by the aggression in her kiss, the way she threatened to devour him if he let her. Her delicate fists closed around tufts of his hair and gripped him with an urgency that was almost violent. Almost. Together, they skated the thin line between pleasure and pain, between necessity and madness.

  Finally, when he couldn’t take much more before he ground her into the wall and fucked her until she screamed, he pulled away. Finger by finger, he unfurled her grip from his hair, pressing her arms to her sides. When she went to reach for him again he shook his head, reaching down and wrapping one hand around her pretty throat. The vodka bottle rested by his side in his spare hand.

  His grip on her throat wasn’t hard enough to be painful. Just a gesture. Stay still.

  She seemed to understand. She pressed her palms to the wall behind her, watching him, waiting.

  Restraint, Dornan. Restraint.

  With great reluctance, he stepped away until he was backed up on the opposite wall of the hallway. He needed to create space between them. He needed
her to understand that she didn’t have to do anything like this, at least not yet. He wasn’t an animal.

  Well, okay, he was. His straining cock confirmed it. But still. He had a conscience.

  ‘Go to bed,’ he said, for the third time. His voice was deeper this time, more commanding than ever. It said: Don’t fucking disobey me.

  Amusement flitted across her features. She tiptoed across the divide that separated them and placed a gentle hand in the centre of his bare chest. His heart was pumping as if he’d just run a marathon, and it made her smile.

  ‘Aren’t you going to kiss me goodnight?’ she asked.

  She took his hand and teased one finger away from the rest. He watched with fascination and disbelief as she put his index finger to her lips and sucked it into her hot, wet mouth. He felt her tongue swirl around the tip, saw the invitation in her eyes, and his resolve exploded into a million pieces along with the vodka bottle as it slipped out of his grip, smashing onto the tiles at his feet.

  He was going to pay for this.

  But it would be worth it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Mariana

  He had told me to go to bed, and instead, I had crossed the void that existed between us, a symbolic space he’d constructed when he took two steps back and leaned on the opposite wall. He had said he would let me choose, and I was choosing him. Not because I loved him — Jesus, I wasn’t sure I even liked him — but because I saw my out, and I grabbed that out with two hands as I dragged his lips to mine. It didn’t have to be about love. It could just be sex, and he could rid me of this problem. This loneliness, this aching void inside me. He could get rid of that for me.

  And maybe, just maybe, I could make him feel something for me in the process. Yes. Get him wrapped around my finger so tight, he’d do anything for me. I wasn’t stupid — I knew I was a pretty girl, and the tension that sizzled between us was larger than either of us.

  I’d felt the switch inside him flip, in the way he grabbed my arms and squeezed them almost to the point of pain. His mouth on mine tasted too good for me to believe he was my enemy, but therein lay part of the thrill, I suppose. Beating him at his own game. Owning him so he didn’t just own me.

  He’d picked me up with two impossibly strong arms, carrying me into the master bedroom as we continued to kiss each other with a fire that threatened to destroy us both. He was already naked from the waist up, and I wanted to join him sooner rather than later. I dragged my tank top over my head and let it fall to the floor.

  When he leaned me against the bed and unbuttoned the top of my denim shorts, I wasn’t prepared. Before I could catch up, he snaked his hand down the front of my pants and thrust two fingers inside my wet heat.

  I moaned. It was loud, desperate.

  His eyes flew open and he dropped me like I was on fire. I landed on my back on a soft bed, with Dornan above me, my legs trapped in the space between his thighs as he stood over me.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said breathlessly, inexplicably embarrassed.

  He leaned back slightly. ‘You sure you wanna do this?’

  I swallowed. He looked affronted.

  ‘Get dressed,’ he said, picking my tank top up and throwing it at me.

  I caught the top and threw it back at him, just as hard.

  ‘Scared?’ It was a challenge.

  ‘Of hurting you? Yeah,’ he said darkly.

  I moved forward so I was kneeling on the edge of the bed.

  ‘I’m sure,’ I said.

  Before he could move away, I kissed him again. If I could just make him feel something for me, maybe he’d protect me. Este was dead. And I was dying inside, a ghost girl trapped alone in a world Dornan had created for me.

  He held the cure to my suffering.

  I pulled him down again, kissing him with more urgency this time.

  ‘Fuckin’ Christ, woman,’ he said in between hard, furious kisses that scratched my delicate skin with stubble and made me wet with excitement.

  He broke the kiss and pushed me forcefully away. I landed on my elbows and ass, thankful that I had a mattress to break my fall. For a moment, I figured that he would leave me again, unsatisfied and scared, alone in the dark with my nightmares.

  But then he grabbed my ankles and pulled me down the bed towards him, and in that moment I knew.

  I had him. I had him in the palm of my hand.

  ‘Get your fucking panties off before I rip them off,’ he growled, and I quickly obliged, hiking them down my thighs and kicking them off my feet onto the floor.

  I took in a terrified, excited breath as he grabbed my ankles again and ripped them apart, forcing my legs as wide as they would go.

  ‘You better scream real fuckin’ loud if you want me to stop,’ he breathed, lowering his mouth to my leg and kissing a trail up the inside of my thigh. ‘Because unless you scream, I ain’t gonna stop.’

  I gasped, rocking my hips involuntarily as his tongue brushed ever so lightly across my sensitive bundle of nerves. I jerked as he gently pushed one finger inside me and moaned against my pussy. ‘Fuck, you are so wet,’ he groaned, as he fucked me with his finger and his tongue. It felt so damn good, it was worth the blood rising to my cheeks at his mention of how wet I was. I shouldn’t have been so turned on in that moment, and yet, I was.

  Somehow, I knew he was going to make me scream, but I wasn’t going to let him stop until he was well and truly done with me. I writhed beneath him as he used his tongue to drive me to the brink of insanity, bringing me close to the edge.

  My boyfriend was dead. I was a slave. And the man whose head was between my legs was, by association, responsible for my boyfriend getting shot.

  All of these thoughts coursed through my mind as my knees began to tremble violently and I crested towards the precipice, gripping the sheets below me as if I were about to fall. Inside, I knew that once we did this, the last remnants of who I used to be would be washed away with blood and tears.

  I snapped back to the present moment as Dornan added a second finger, moving quickly but gently. I ran a hand through his silky hair, pulling him closer to me as I cried out.

  Just as I was getting close, as that white-hot pleasure threatened to blanket me and steal my breath, he stopped. Stone cold fucking stopped. Withdrew his fingers, took his mouth away from the spot he’d been sucking on so perfectly, and stood up.

  I made a small sound of annoyance at the back of my throat, hoisting myself to my elbows and opening my eyes to get a better idea of what was going on. I heard a zip being opened and the rustle of clothing, and as my eyes were still adjusting to the dark, his figure loomed over me. I still couldn’t see him properly, could only make out his outline, and my brain struggled to catch up.

  Before I knew what he was doing, before I had the chance to brace myself, I felt him position himself at my entrance. I sucked in a breath as he slammed himself inside me, the feeling something I cannot fully describe. Fireworks and fury. The violent end to a violent beginning.

  He groaned.

  I screamed.

  He stopped where he was, still full and almost uncomfortable inside me, as I struggled to catch my breath.

  My whole body continued to tremble, with grief and pleasure and the overwhelming finality of it all.

  I had just invited the enemy inside my body, into my soul. In that moment, I wanted to die. I was so ashamed.

  Because, even through the haze of sorrow, I liked it.

  My eyes adjusted to the dark, finally, and all I could see were two dark brown eyes, so dark I could barely distinguish the pupils from the irises. Black eyes, like the devil. I had just given my soul to the devil.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, and I heard genuine concern in his voice. Odd. He was my enemy and yet he touched me like he was my lover. I couldn’t reconcile the two.

  Tears formed in my eyes and I struggled to find my voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You screamed.’
/>
  ‘I know.’

  ‘Do you want me to stop?’

  Did I want him to stop?

  It terrified me that I didn’t want him to.

  I’d been alone for so long. Mourning Este, mourning our son. Mourning myself. Everything was stark and cold in this harsh new world, and I needed someone to be with me the way Dornan was with me.

  I already knew he wasn’t a good man. I’d suspected that from the first moment I saw him. They say you can tell by a man’s eyes if he’s killed a person, and Dornan’s eyes held the souls of many. I saw them sometimes, dancing around the murky black as he contemplated his next victim.

  I made no excuses for him. I didn’t love him.

  But I needed him.

  I didn’t want to be raped by strange bikers, one after another. I didn’t want them to hold me down while they filled me with themselves. I wanted to be safe.

  I wanted to be with Dornan.

  He had saved me.

  I wrapped my ankles around him and locked them behind his back.

  ‘No,’ I said finally. ‘Don’t stop.’

  He grinned, started to move again, and the pleasure intensified. I gulped at the air, fisting my hands into the sheets beneath me, as a fire began in my womb.

  Every stroke was excruciating. Excruciating because it was so fucking good. We fit together like we were the last two pieces of a forgotten puzzle.

  Physically, we were made for each other.

  But as my nerves began to sizzle and fray, the friction almost unbearable, Dornan reached between us and pressed his thumb to my sensitive bundle of nerves, and I flew over the side of that precipice I’d been coasting, into the dark night.

  My orgasm ripped through me, and it was as painful as it was sweet. I felt myself squeeze around his cock as he continued to pound into me, almost hurting me, over and over, until I stopped shaking and let go of the sheets, panting to catch my breath.

  I whimpered as he pulled out of me, the sudden emptiness more painful than the fullness of having him there. I throbbed and ached. It was the best kind of ache, an ache that said we were something other than strangers in the dark now.