“Guess what,” he said, lowering his voice and releasing me.
I was still embarrassed, but he’d caught my interest. “What?”
“I brought you back a gift.”
My head snapped up. “You did?”
“Yes, but you have to keep it a secret. I’m not supposed to have it, okay?”
A wide grin split my face. I was very rarely given gifts. Angelo and the women came up with small items on my birthday, and Angelo had been pretending to be Santa for the past few years—something I went along with, since I could see it made him happy, too—but an actual gift from the outside world was definitely something new.
“Come to my room in five minutes. It’s in my case.”
I nodded, stupid happiness swelling up inside me. He’d brought me back a gift, and he didn’t seem different at all. I’d been worrying for nothing.
I let him go into the house on his own, and then gave him a few minutes and followed him in. I didn’t bother to knock on his bedroom door, but pushed it open and peered around the corner. He saw me and beckoned me in.
“Sit on the bed, close your eyes, and put out your hands.”
I did as he instructed, feeling silly and excited, all at the same time. Something cool and flat was pressed into my hands.
“You can open your eyes now,” he told me.
“I don’t want to. I want to guess.”
He laughed. “Go for it, though you won’t get the best part unless you look.”
I ran my hands over the top and then the sides. “It’s a book!” I exclaimed.
“Open your eyes!” I could hear the laughter in his voice.
So I did.
It wasn’t just a book. It was a notebook, and not only that, it had my name across the front in gold.
“Oh, Angel, I love it, thank you!” I threw my arms around his waist and hugged him tight.
“That’s not all. Here.” He pushed something else into my hand, and I looked down to see a pen, also with my name in gold down the side. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“One of the boys at school was making them, so I ordered them both for you.”
My eyes filled with tears. “You did?”
“Yes, but I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“I’m happy. I’m not crying, really.”
He ruffled my hair. “It’s only some stationery, silly.”
“It’s not just because of the notebook. I was worried that you’d forget about me while you were away.”
He lowered himself to my level. “I’m not going to forget about you in the space of six weeks, Kitty.”
I pouted my lower lip. “In six months, then.”
He bumped my chin with his fingers. “Not even in six years. I’ll never forget about you, Kitty-cat. I promise.”
Chapter Nineteen
Present Day
I WANTED TO STAY POSITIVE for Catalina, but I was struggling to see any hope in this situation. The only thing we had going for us right now was the gun, and without a single cent to our name, the only option I could see for us being able to make it much farther was to turn ourselves into petty criminals. That wasn’t the life I’d wanted for Catalina. I knew she was upset—I saw her tears and heard her occasional sniff—but I couldn’t bring myself to try to make her feel better. I was angry with myself, going over every step I’d taken over the past twenty-four hours. If only I hadn’t stood in the fucking bear trap. If only I’d insisted that we stay away from the hospital. If only I’d kept the bag done up properly, or I’d seen the wallet on the floor and picked it up, together with the rest of the stuff. There were so many different points where I wished I’d made a different choice, I wanted to batter myself on the sides of my head with my fists.
The flashlight was losing power, the batteries running down. I hit it against the outside of my thigh, and the bulb brightened momentarily before dimming again. I wished we had some spare batteries, because pretty soon we were going to be stumbling around in the dark out here, with only the moon for light.
We’d have to spend the night in the forest again, and then tomorrow try to find another town where we could steal some food, money, or another car. I didn’t want to have to keep on stealing, but I couldn’t see any other way out of this. There was no one I trusted to be able to call for help. Everyone was on my father’s side, and I blamed myself for that, as well. Why hadn’t I ever broken free of his clutches? How could I have reached twenty-four years old and somehow not made a single friend who wasn’t already influenced by my father?
This wasn’t the life I’d planned for Catalina, and it sickened me to think that she might have been better off if I’d left her untouched at the compound, to be taken by Torres. At least he’d have been able to look after her. She’d have had a roof over her head, and good clothes, and would have dined on healthy meals.
Had I made a mistake?
Her voice came from beside me, interrupting my thoughts. “There’s something up ahead.”
She was right. A dark shaped loomed through the trees. I picked up my pace—best I could, considering—lurching through the trees and bushes, feet crunching on fallen leaves and twigs.
“It’s a cabin,” I said when I was close enough to make it out.
“Do you think anyone is using it?”
“I don’t know, but I can’t see any vehicles nearby, and there are no lights on.”
I didn’t want to hope, but I couldn’t help it. After everything we’d been through, we could certainly do with some.
“We should check.”
I walked straight up to the front door.
“What are you doing?” Catalina hissed from behind me.
“It’s the best way to make sure no one is in.” I lifted my fist and banged against the wood. “Hello? Is anyone there? We’re lost, and I’m hurt. We could really use some help.” I paused, listening for any sign of movement inside, and then repeated my actions, calling out again. Once more, there was no response, so I turned to where Catalina anxiously waited.
“I think we’re good.”
She didn’t look convinced. “How are we going to get in?”
I tried the door handle, but it was locked. The front door had four small panes of glass arranged in a square in the top half of the door, so I lifted the stick I’d been using as a crutch and used the end to break the pane closest to the door handle. The sound was horribly loud and sent roosting birds bursting from their perches and flapping around the trees surrounding us, but I was able to reach in and flick the catch that unlocked the door.
The door swung open.
“Bingo.”
I paused for a moment, giving anyone who might be in the building a chance to react to the sound of glass breaking, but nothing happened. We were alone out here, and from the musty, damp aroma on the air and the layer of grime that coated the inside of the window, I didn’t think anyone lived here.
Catalina worried at her lower lip with her teeth, her eyes shifting back and forth, as though she was expecting someone to jump out at us at any moment. I felt confident we weren’t going to be disturbed—not for tonight, at least. People didn’t show up to places like this in the middle of the night.
The door to the right led onto a large open plan sitting room and kitchen area. It was hard to see in the dark, so I went to the kitchen and got to work, searching through drawers and cupboards for candles and matches. Places like this were always well stocked with that kind of thing, and I wasn’t disappointed. There was even wood in the fireplace, and within ten minutes or so, I had the room shimmering with candlelight and a fire sparking to life in the hearth.
“You’re good at this kind of thing,” Catalina said.
I glanced over my shoulder to where she stood with her arms wrapped around her body. “Good at what kind of thing?”
“Survival. And you’d be doing a lot better if I hadn’t messed everything up for you.” Her voice caught on the last word, and she glanced away. A muscle twitched near her eye,
and her chin wobbled.
I let out a sigh and carefully rose from my position crouched in front of the fire. “You didn’t mess everything up.”
Her gaze lifted to mine, darting tentatively, as though testing out my reaction before settling fully on my face. “But you’re angry at me.”
I was suddenly taken back to when she’d been young and had thought she’d upset me in some way or another. Even then, her emotions had relied so strongly on what I was thinking of her, and it seemed nothing had changed. “I’m not angry at you, Kitty. I’m annoyed at myself for not following my instincts. We should never have gone to the hospital.”
“But you only did that because I insisted. You never wanted to go.”
“Maybe, but I could have been firmer. You may be eighteen, but you’ve lived your entire life in one place, and before now you never even needed to think about how life in the real world functioned. This was never supposed to be your future. You were going to be taken care of, and I took that away from you with one action. I need to take responsibility for that.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t take my future away. You gave me the chance of a future. A real one.”
“I don’t know about that. Right now, I can’t help but wonder if you’d have been better off with Torres.”
Her eyes filled with tears. My words had had the exact opposite of what I’d been hoping. Damn. I never seemed to know the right thing to say.
“Please don’t say that,” she begged. “Don’t say you regret what we did.”
I stepped forward and caught her up in my arms, pressing my nose into her hair and kissing the top of her head. “No, of course I don’t. I’m just worried. Worried about you, and us, and our future, and how we’re going to survive day-to-day. I don’t mean to take everything out on you.”
She nodded, her head under my chin, her hands clinging to my back. I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight.
“None of the rest of it matters, Kitty. Okay? All I want is for us to be together. I can handle whatever shit the rest of the world throws at us as long as we have each other.”
She lifted her face to mine. “That’s all I want, too. I don’t care about anyone else.”
I ducked my head and kissed her, deep and slow, long and sweet. She gave a sigh of contentment, her body relaxed against mine. I tasted salt on her lips from her tears, and our tongues danced, sliding across each other and darting back again. I moved my hands up to her hair, tangling my fingers in the soft strands. She let out a faint moan, and the sound did crazy things to my body, my dick instantly growing hard for her. It didn’t take long for the intensity of our kiss to step up a notch, and before I knew what was happening, she was already pulling my shirt over my head.
“Catalina,” I groaned against her mouth.
“Sit,” she instructed, pushing me toward the couch. “You need to be careful of your leg. Let me do the work.”
I wasn’t sure if I was turned on by her taking charge, or insulted by her referring to fucking me as work. She undid the button of my jeans and yanked them from my hips, and I decided I didn’t care.
She crouched and carefully worked my boots from my feet, and then pulled my jeans from my legs and threw them away. My erection jutted out from my body, but she didn’t touch me. Instead, she stood in front of me and pulled her t-shirt up over her head. Her hair caught up in the material and then fell around her shoulders when she dropped it to the floor. Her hands went to her jeans, and she toed of her sneakers then wriggled the pants down from her hips. Watching me, watching her, she reached behind her back to unclip her bra and then rolled her panties down her smooth thighs.
Her naked skin shimmered in the flames of the fire and the candles. I didn’t think she’d ever looked so beautiful. Firm and flawless, her hair tumbling in curls down her back.
She climbed onto me, straddling my lap. I reached around and cupped her ass in my palms, dragging her against my cock. She rocked her hips, using my erection like a pole to grind her pussy against. I grew harder by the second, my balls tingling and pressure building.
“I love the feel of you naked against me,” I told her.
She gave a sexy pout. “It’s a shame we can’t be naked all the time.”
“Two naked runaways. I think we might suffer from exposure.”
She giggled and leaned in to kiss me, grinding harder against me as she did. Both my hands were on her ass, and I slid my finger between the cleft of her buttocks, meaning to head down to her pussy and push my fingers into her from behind. But my fingertip trailed over her asshole, and she twitched then wriggled as though encouraging me back there. I dipped my fingers into her wetness and then moved back up again, making sure I’d judged things right. I applied a little pressure to her back hole, and she groaned and ground against me harder. Dirty minx.
I pushed the tip of my finger into her ass.
She gasped and broke the kiss. “Oh, God, Angel. Is it wrong that I want you there?”
I shook my head, her words exciting me further. “No, baby. I want to fill every hole you have. Do you want my cock or just my fingers?”
“I want your cock. I want to know what it feels like.”
“It takes some preparation. I’m not sure we have what we need.” I wasn’t going to just start fucking her ass. I had no intention of hurting her.
“Wait,” she said, and then leaned to one side and grabbed her bag from where she’d dropped it. I frowned, wondering what she was doing. She rifled inside and pulled out a small bottle, which I recognized as being from the room we’d used back at the compound.
“You have lube?” I said in disbelief. “We were running away, and you brought lube?”
A flush of pink rose from her chest, spreading like wildfire across her cheeks. “Well, it’s not like I didn’t know I was running away with you.”
I grinned. “That’s an excellent point.”
After the lessons I’d put her through in the room back at the compound, and hoping for more of the same, I guessed, she’d thought to pack lube. She’d only just discovered sex properly, and now it seemed she couldn’t get enough.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “It can sting a little at first.”
“I don’t care. I want to feel you back there. I wanted it so badly when you touched me there the last time, when we were still back at the compound, and we couldn’t do it, but now there’s nothing standing in our way.”
She had a beautiful ass, and there was no way I was going to turn her down. I took the small bottle of lube from her. “Turn around.”
I could have reached her ass in the position we were in, but I wanted to be able to see her.
She wriggled around on my lap and sat facing away from me, giving me the perfect view. My cock stood to attention, and I was tempted to push inside her pussy while I got her ready, but I wanted to hold back, desiring the first feel of her hot body to be her behind. I cracked open the cap and tipped the bottle, dribbling some of the cool gel in the valley on her ass.
I loved this view—the long line of her naked back and shoulder, the narrow dip of her waist, the flare of her hips, and the curve of her bottom. And my cock was framed perfectly by the twin globes of her buttocks. I couldn’t wait to be inside her.
I slicked her down with the lube, and then, just as I’d done at the compound, I pushed a finger into her ass. She was tight and hot, and I worked her with more lube and then added a second finger. Catalina groaned, her head hung down, using her hands on my thighs to keep her balance. My dick was far bigger than my fingers, and I hoped I wasn’t going to hurt her.
“How does that feel?” I asked, even as my cock grew painfully hard, the pressure building in my balls.
She glanced over her shoulder at me, her hair swinging with the movement. “Incredible. And dirty. And kind of wrong, but really right.”
“There’s nothing wrong with how I’m going to make you feel.”
I slipped my fingers from her body, hoping I’d done eno
ugh to ready her. “You have all the control, okay? Push back on me, if you can. Give yourself time to relax and stretch.”
I used more lube, slicking it up and down my length. My hand felt good around my dick, but I knew she’d feel a thousand times better.
Taking hold of my cock, I positioned the head at her entrance. She glanced back again to check I was ready and then sank back on me. I heard her suck air in over her teeth as the bell-end of my cock stretched her tight ring, and then the head breached her, and she let out a moan. She paused, panting, and then sank even deeper.
My fingers dug into her hips, my teeth clenched as I watched my cock vanish inside her ass. Pressure built inside my balls, and I did my best to hold back, not wanting to let myself down and come too soon. It wasn’t going to be easy, though, not with her. Not like this.
I slipped my right hand to the front of her body and found her clit. As I rubbed, she simultaneously relaxed and tensed, and in doing so moved even lower. I was almost fully in now, and she started to move, sliding up and down. Our movements grew faster, and though I’d told her she’d control everything, I couldn’t stop my hips from lifting, searching for more, taking that extra inch. I wanted it deeper and harder, and she didn’t tell me to stop.
“That’s it, baby. I’m right inside you now. That feels so good.”
She rode me up and down, my dick vanishing inside her stretched asshole. Faster and harder, the sound of our flesh slapping together and our combined cries and groans filled the room. I was fucking her now, harder than I thought I’d have been able to, and she was taking every inch of me.
The pressure intensified, and while I didn’t want to block out my view of her, I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Oh, God, Angel. Oh, oh...”
Her ass clamped down on me, and I continued to rub her clit, coaxing even more of her orgasm out of her, dragging her on and on. She shuddered and bucked, my cock embedded deep in her ass, riding my lap. I gave in and released my hold on the pressure that had been building. A tingling rush flooded from my cock, accompanied by a pleasure that was so incredibly close to pain. I imagined that was how she’d felt, too, as I’d fucked her in the ass. That same combination of pleasure and pain.
For Him: The Complete Series: A Dark Romance Page 29
