Retaliate

by Kristin Harte

  “Oh. Then maybe that’s what was on mine.” She shrugged and lowered herself to her knees, looking up at me in a way that made my heart slam in my chest. My god, was she pretty. Those curves, that smile, her kneeling in front of me with her lips so close to my cock and her hands on my thighs? A dream come true.

  I didn’t get the chance to respond to her, though. Before I could even move the shower spray so she didn’t end up cold or drowning, she had me in her mouth. Her hot, wet mouth. Sucking hard. Pulling deep. Making me dizzy with lust and the need to fuck that pretty face.

  “Good goddamn.” I rocked my hips, unable to hold back as she sucked my cock deep. No teasing, no tentativeness, no slow start—she went all in from the first swallow. I groaned and growled, thrusting gently into that sensational mouth of hers, loving how her pink lips looked stretched around me. “Perfect. Your mouth is so fucking perfect. Made for sucking my cock, isn’t it?”

  Anabeth groaned, one hand resting on my thigh while the other tugged on my balls. Pushing me to the edge so fast. She enacted an all-out assault on my dick, and I loved every second of it. Not that there were a lot of them. The woman drove me wild, and watching her suck my cock ranked right up there with some sort of fantasy come true. I was ready to blow in an embarrassingly small number of minutes.

  “Gonna come, Firefly. Gonna cover you in my come, mark that wicked body as mine.” I grunted as I fisted her hair, fucking her harder. Stronger. Faster. Until there was nothing but her, nothing but sensation, nothing but her lips and her tongue and that mouth that was made for sin.

  Until I pulled out, shivering and shaking as I groaned her name. As I painted her neck and chest with my come.

  “Have mercy.” I nearly fell backward, my legs too weak to hold me up, as she ran her tongue over the length of me one last time. “That was fucking amazing, but I’m not as young as I once was.”

  “No, you’re not.” She rose to her feet, rubbing her breasts up the length of me, her hand still teasing my cock. “You’re even better.”

  Ah, fuck. My saucy girl. I yanked her against my chest, kissing her deep. Nibbling on her lips and stroking my tongue against hers as I moved us under the spray. Five minutes. If she could just give me five minutes to recover from that mind-blowing orgasm, I’d fuck her good against the shower wall. I’d pin her with my hips and hold her hands above her head so she couldn’t move, and then I’d make sure she saw exactly how much better I was.

  Okay, if my half-hard cock was any indication, I might only need four minutes.

  “You want me to fuck you right here?” I bent down to suck on her nipple as I slipped a hand between her thighs. Soft and wet met my exploring fingers, her thighs spreading to give me room. Wanting and needy, just the way I liked her.

  I popped off her tit and licked the flesh one last time before dragging my tongue back up to her neck. “Fuck, Firefly. I think you liked me fucking your mouth almost as much as I did. You’re so fucking wet.”

  “I did.” She groaned and rode my hand, hips snapping as I pressed a knuckle against her clit. “I want to come so bad.”

  “I’ve got you. I’ll always take care of this pretty pussy.” I slipped two fingers inside her, grunting when I felt how soft and hot she was. Wanting that wrapped around my cock. But first, I needed to tease her. To wind her up. So I fucked her with my fingers, and I kept the heel of my hand against her clit as she rocked and jerked on me. Teased her nipples with my tongue and teeth until she became a writhing, whining, needy mess of girl flesh without words.

  Once I had her exactly where I wanted her, I grabbed my cock and directed him inside her. Slammed home with a thrust so hard, her hips smacked against the wall and she cried out. And then I fucked her. Hard and fast, rough and unyielding, I fucked her against the tile, holding her in place with my body, pinning her hands above her head just as I’d imagined I would.

  “Your mouth is a sweet sort of hell, but there’s nothing like your pussy, Firefly. Nothing feels as good or as right.” I slid almost all the way out, holding myself still with just the tip inside her. “Is this what you want? You want my cock buried deep, splitting you apart as I thrust home? You like me to take control and do what I want to you?”

  She groaned what sounded like a yes, her hips jerking, trying to pull me deeper. I couldn’t say no to her—never could. I plunged back inside, growling as I dropped a hand down to assault that clit the way I knew she liked. The way I knew would get her off.

  And when she came—screaming my name with her head back and her body bowed—I followed, unable to hold back. Pressing deep inside her and filling her up. Good. So fucking good. So fucking mine.

  I kept our bodies pressed together, holding her up as I caught my breath. As the feeling of rightness and bliss and want for more circled through my head. As she dragged her fingers along my spine and gave me goose bumps.

  “I think we exhausted the hot water tank,” Anabeth said, chuckling. I had to join her because yeah, we had. Cold water rained down on us, not that I’d given a single fuck for that. I’d been too busy to care, but now…

  “Let’s get out of here and find some clothes before we freeze.”

  “Good call,” she said. But as soon as I shut off the water, she grabbed me and dragged me back for a long, slow kiss. The kind that would probably lead to us wrapped up in her bed again. The kind that made my exhausted cock stir. But when she broke it, the smile on her face seemed sad almost. Not at all what I’d been expecting.

  “Anabeth?”

  “Just…more that I missed.” She snuggled closer, shivering as I wrapped my arms around her. “I missed how good we always were together.”

  Yeah, so had I. “Me too. Though, the first time wasn’t so good for you. I thought it was amazing, but I think I lasted all of two minutes.”

  Her body shook as she chuckled. “Well…yeah. But that was to be expected. We got better.”

  “We did. And we will again.” That was a promise I’d do anything to keep. I grabbed her hand and kissed her palm before tugging her out of the tub. “Let me get you dressed and warm.”

  She followed me into the bedroom, quiet but pliant. Clinging to me. I helped her into her yoga pants and a soft sweatshirt, even dropping to my knees to slide fluffy gray socks over her feet. And all the while, she stared at me, reaching out to touch as much as she could. Keeping us connected. I understood it too. I didn’t want to be apart from her. Not at all.

  But reality was coming in the form of my best friend, which meant I needed to not be naked when we left Anabeth’s bedroom. I found my jeans from the night before easily enough, choosing to go commando underneath them. A clean, black tee I’d thrown in my jump bag did the rest of the job, then I dragged Anabeth down the stairs and toward the kitchen. She needed a cup of tea—she always needed a cup of tea.

  But when we made our way into the kitchen, her hand squeezed mine almost painfully. Finn sat at the table, drinking a cup of coffee. Gage sat beside him with his long, thick survival knife resting on the table. The blade on that fucker put my Ontario Mark 3 to shame, hard and sharp-looking even from across the room. It was a knife for killing, for gutting and skinning.

  “Morning,” I said, heading for the coffeemaker. Anabeth let me go as she moved to fill her kettle, silent and almost distant all of a sudden. It had to be the knife. She’d just seen those scars on my body the night before—the knife had to be too much too soon.

  Once I had my coffee made, I settled at the table next to Gage, kicking him for good measure. “Why don’t you put that thing away?”

  He grunted, glaring in my direction. “I was going to sharpen it.”

  “She doesn’t need to see that.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s fine,” Anabeth said, waving me off. “I understand it’s a part of the job.”

  I didn’t buy that, though. She still seemed off. Stiff. In fact, so did Finn. Neither of them seemed comfortable in their own skin.

  “So,” Anabeth said as sh
e leaned a hip against the counter, her favorite mug in her hand. “What’s the plan for today?”

  Gage fielded that one. “We need to run recon in the woods. Make sure no one’s hanging around out there. That’s why I brought Finn. Figured he could guard the girl while we scouted.”

  The girl? Aw, fuck no. “She has a name.”

  “I do,” Anabeth chimed in, raising her eyebrows over her mug. “I have a name. But considering I’m the only female in this group at the moment, I understand who the girl is.”

  Gage shot me a sarcastic sort of smirk.

  “Jesus.” I sighed and stretched back in the chair, the idea of roaming around the woods in the rain not exactly the most inviting thought. Especially after how I’d spent the last—I glanced at the clock—forty minutes. Ten minutes longer than I’d planned, but I wouldn’t have traded a second of that time.

  Gage grabbed his knife, flicking along the length of the blade with his thumbnail. “How far out should we go? All the way to the burn site?”

  “What burn site?” Anabeth asked.

  Shit, she still didn’t know. “The Soul Suckers set up a meth lab on your property. We made sure to shut it down.”

  “Here?” She clutched the mug to her chest, her eyes big and round. “They set up a meth lab here?”

  “Down on the eastern slope. There was an old barn Finn found out there. I’d never known—”

  The crash of her mug hitting the wood floors stopped everything, the pings as pieces landed the only break in the silence for three solid seconds. Shards of ceramic flew, chunks of white and tan littering the dark surface beneath our feet. And Anabeth stood in the middle of it, shaking. Trembling.

  Looking more upset and scared than I’d ever seen her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Anabeth

  “Shit.” Bishop jumped to his feet, but I couldn’t focus on him. Couldn’t hear anything but the words reverberating in my head.

  An old barn. Eastern slope. An old barn. Eastern slope.

  I was going to be sick.

  Suddenly, someone grabbed my elbow, tugging me away from the counter. Finn. His eyes the same deep blue-gray they’d been that day at the barn. So many years ago, so many lifetimes it seemed, and yet the same. So much the same. He wasn’t smiling, though. Wasn’t laughing. Not like that day. The one that destroyed my life.

  The moment that took Bishop away from me.

  Finn had his hands on me again, but this time, I was aware enough to yank away from him.

  “Don’t fucking touch me.”

  “Anabeth,” Finn said, leaning forward. Reaching for me. So much like that day, like that moment in the barn when he’d almost killed me. When he’d killed the only good things I’d ever had in my shitty life.

  I jerked away again, hissing as I stepped on a chunk of ceramic.

  “Shit. Finn, back the fuck off.” Bishop picked me right up off my feet, cradling me in his arms as he carried me to the other side of the counter. Away from the hurt and the mess. Away from his brother. But it was too late. The damage had been done. Years and years and years before, I hadn’t paid enough attention. Hadn’t done what I needed to, and there was no coming back from that. Just like the mug—my absolute favorite that I’d had since Miss had made it for me when I’d come to live with her—I was broken beyond repair.

  “Put me down,” I said, pushing Bishop away. Needing space. Needing air to breathe. Needing to get away. He did as I told him, watching me with wary eyes as he set me on my feet.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.” A lie—I was anything but fine. “I need to go take care of my foot.”

  “I’ll help you,” Bishop said, reaching for me. As if to protect me, to shield me. Too late, though. So many years too late.

  “I’ve got this covered. Just…let me go.”

  Bishop did as I asked, looking hurt and confused. But I didn’t have it in me to soothe him, didn’t have the words or the heart to make him feel better when my own emotions had just been laid bare. There was only so much I could do at one time, and dealing with the sudden plunge into memories of the darkest days of my life took priority.

  Finn closed the door behind himself, having stepped out onto the porch. Good. I didn’t want to see him. Couldn’t stand to look into those eyes so much like Bishop’s and remember.

  So I limped up the stairs, and I closed my bedroom door behind me. And I slid down the length of it to the floor, curled up in a ball, and sobbed for all the things I’d done wrong. For all the losses I’d suffered.

  And for all the mistakes I could never, ever repair.

  * * *

  Bishop

  “What the fuck just happened?” Gage stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the door Finn had walked out of. Looking just as lost as I felt.

  “No clue.”

  “That wasn’t about a broken mug.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  He grunted before bending to pick up the chunks of ceramic littering the floor. I should have helped him, but I couldn’t stop watching the hallway Anabeth had disappeared down. Something was very wrong. And I needed to figure out what.

  As if reading my mind, Gage said, “You want to finally tell me your history with that broad so I know what we’re dealing with?”

  Not in the slightest. I groaned, turning away from the hall as he dumped the ceramic pieces into the trash. “I really don’t want to rehash shit.”

  “You haven’t hashed yet. At least, not with me.”

  He was right. He was also my best friend. If anyone should know about Anabeth and me, it was Gage. The thought of telling him made my neck tight, though. “We dated.”

  “No shit.”

  “She was in high school—same grade as Finn and Elijah. She’s older, though. Got held back one year because she couldn’t keep up with all the moves.” I shook my head, catching his questioning gaze. “She grew up in the foster care system. Miss was her grandmother, though she never knew Anabeth existed. Not until the kid was already a preteen and stuck in the system, bouncing from house to house to house.”

  “Fuck. That’s—”

  “Horrible? Yeah.” Worse than horrible. That girl had been an emotionless stone when I first met her. A beautiful, unforgettable stone. “According to the stories, it was just as bad as you can probably imagine. But as soon as Miss found out about Anabeth, she hunted her down and brought her here. Finn and Elijah befriended her pretty easily, so she hung out at our house with them. That’s how I met her.”

  “So you dated what…a couple years?”

  “Almost four, yeah.” A lifetime and yet it went so quick. And then came fourteen years of not having her. A thought that felt like a knife slicing through my chest. “That girl…she was my everything, my world. But I was at school, too fucking busy finishing up my double major in forestry economics and silviculture—”

  “Show-off.” Flat, deadpan, the word left me speechless. Sadly, Gage was not. “Seriously, man. Double major? What, you missed out on the chess club in high school or something?

  Jackass. “Not my fault I’m smart, dude.” I shrugged, huffing a laugh and ducking as he threw a kitchen towel at my head. “Your aim is shit.”

  “And you’re a nerd. Carry on. You were at school, and Legs was here with your brothers.”

  That sounded…not the way it should have. “She had other friends.”

  Gage could pull off a seriously dramatic eyeroll when he wanted to, and apparently, he wanted to. “Fine, she wasn’t with your brothers. So what happened?”

  I’d been asking myself that question for fourteen years. “I have no idea. One day, I got a phone call from her saying we were through and she was moving to Vegas. Done. End of story.”

  Gage looked about as confused as I’d always felt in regards to Anabeth walking away. “But why?”

  “Don’t know. I’m not ashamed to admit I was pretty fucking heartbroken. That girl had been my life for years. And when I went after her—�
��

  “Because there was no way you weren’t going after her.”

  “Exactly. But she was living with some guy. He answered the door.”

  “The fuck?” Gage stood there, staring, looking ready to rage. Ready to back me up.

  Not that he needed to. “I didn’t know it then, but she wasn’t with him. He was a friend of Miss’ and letting her stay at his place while she got settled.”

  “But she let you think he was more.”

  “Yeah.” She had, and that still hurt. I headed for the table, needing to clear my head. To sit. To purge the thoughts dragging me down so I could see clearly. “That happened on a Wednesday. Alder was on leave, so he came to drag my sorry ass home after I found myself at the bottom of a bottle with nowhere to go or stay. I joined the Navy on Monday morning and ended up being accepted into the SEAL training program right away. So I finished my degrees and got the fuck out of town.”

  “And you never talked about her.”

  And admit I’d met—and lost—the woman of my dreams? Fuck no. I shook my head.

  Gage huffed, sitting back in his chair. Balancing it on two legs. “And now she’s a performer out in Vegas.”

  “Yeah. Tarot cards, tea leaf reading, psychic shit that’s more intuition and knowing people than anything else. All the stuff Miss taught her.”

  “When’s she going back?”

  The question burned, the words embedding themselves in my chest like knives. Leave it to Gage to get right to the meat of the issue. “Doesn’t matter.”

  The truth, but I couldn’t deny that she would be going back. And soon. There was nothing for her in Justice. Nothing for her with me. She may have missed me all these years apart, but she’d never tried to get in touch. Never reached out. She’d missed me, just not enough to do anything about it. The only reason she’d come home was for Miss, and even then, she hadn’t sought me out. I’d found her. I’d brought us right back to that place…and she would run again. But this time, I wouldn’t give up chasing her.

  “Rain’s falling harder,” Gage said, yanking me from the death spiral of my thoughts. I looked up, no longer able to see past the edge of the porch. The one where Finn stood, leaning his shoulder against the wall and looking out toward the woods to the east.