by Lili Valente
He groaned as she jerked his jeans roughly down his thighs, freeing his engorged cock before she used her grip on his pants to pull him onto the mattress beside her. Before he could push the jeans down his legs and free himself, she was on top of him, body pinning him to the bed as she licked a hot trail from the base of his cock to the swollen, leaking tip.
“No, not now,” he ground out though his cock leapt with excitement as she closed her mouth around him and sucked him deep.
Fuck, it was amazing to be inside her mouth, to feel her tongue rolling against his throbbing flesh as her head bobbed up and down and her fist tightened around the base of his shaft, but this wasn’t the way he wanted to go over. He wanted to be inside her. He wanted her pussy, not her mouth. He needed her tight around him, her legs locked around his hips and her breath mingling with his as they found their way together.
“Stop,” he grunted, but she didn’t stop, she only sucked him harder, deeper, until it was all he could do not to blow his load down her throat.
“I said, stop.” He reached down, fisting his hand in her hair and pulling her away from his cock.
“Let me go,” she gasped, swiping a hand across her mouth. “Let me finish.”
He maintained his grip on her hair, dragging her up his body until her lips were level with his. “We’re going to finish together.” He shoved his jeans lower and kicked them off as he cupped her breast in his hand again.
He pinched the nipple, rolling it in tight circles until she whimpered and wriggled closer, rubbing her center against the thigh he slipped between her legs. “Then let me come again,” she begged softly. “Don’t torture me, Clay. Not anymore.”
“I won’t.” He rolled on top of her, urging her thighs wide with a nudge of his knee. “I’m going to let you come. And when you do, with me deep inside of you, you’re going to tell me that you’re mine.”
Harley rocked against him, the slick heat of her sex coating his shaft, making him even more desperate to drive inside her, but not yet. Not until all her defenses lay on the ground and there was nothing between them but the truth.
“I love you,” he murmured against the sweet skin of her neck as he continued to rock between her legs, his slick cock sliding through her folds, nudging her clit. “I love you and I’m not going to fuck up again. I swear to you, Harley. I swear it on our son’s life, on—”
“Please,” she breathed, legs locked around his hips. “Inside me. Please! Make love to me, Clay, make love to me.”
“I want to,” he said, his blood rushing so fast the room spun as he pulled back to gaze down into her eyes. “I want it more than anything. I want to love you and make love to you and make you happy. Just let me in. Tell me you believe this can work. That we can work.”
Her teeth bit down on her lower lip as a painful mixture of hunger, hurt, and regret flashed behind her eyes. It was the look an addict gave the needle she was about to plunge into her veins and it broke his heart. It assured him that there was no way back, no way through.
Harley was lost to him. Now and forever.
With a tortured sound, he shoved inside her, burying himself in her heat. But the cry of relief that burst from her lips as she wrapped her arms and legs around him and bucked into his thrust couldn’t banish the pain spreading through his chest, making him feel like he was being torn in two.
Even as he drove in and out of Harley’s welcoming body, his heart writhed behind his ribs. And when she cried out his name, her body clutching at him with fierce, delicious waves that triggered his own release, the sound brought him only pain.
He pulled out, coming on her belly with a blinding, furious intensity even as something inside of him died howling.
Died howling my name.
Howling, howling, never the same.
It seemed fitting that the song he’d used to torture Harley would come to him now as he realized that he would spend the rest of his life alone, wishing he’d come to his senses before it was too late. There would be no shared home, no second child, no future filled with love and fights and makeup sex with the one human being he knew he would never get tired of trying to figure out.
There would be nothing but pain and regret and dreams that didn’t come true.
Long minutes later, as they lay side by side, their sweat slick bodies close but not touching, Clay realized that he had never felt more alone than he did at this moment, when everything he wanted, everything he needed, was so near, but completely beyond his reach. It was even worse than when he’d thought Harley was dead. At least then he’d been able to imagine that wherever she was, whatever came after this life, she still loved him.
To have her lying beside him with her heart locked away, closed to him forever, was a hundred times worse. And he had no one to blame for it but himself.
If left to his own devices, he didn’t know how long he would have lain there, wondering what to say or how to move forward from a defeat like this one. If not for the men who burst into the tent, smelling of whiskey and sweat as they shouted for Lars to get his ass out of bed, he might have stayed there until sunset, waiting for the day to die and take the last of his hope along with it.
Chapter Thirteen
Harley
“Get out of here. I’ll find you later.” Clay shoved her to the far side of the bed as he leapt to his feet, facing down the thugs who had burst into their tent. He was armed with nothing but a pillow he held in front of his hips, but if anyone could hold his own buck naked, it was Clay.
But even if he couldn’t hold his own, it wouldn’t do either of them any good if they were both beaten to a bloody pulp by drunk meatheads.
Grabbing her rumpled dress from the floor, Harley pulled it swiftly over her head as she circled the bed, putting the mattress between her and the men blocking the tent’s exit. She turned, glancing at the place where canvas met the ground, wondering if the fabric was loose enough to pull it up and slide underneath.
In the two seconds it took for her to decide to give it a try, one of the men grabbed her from behind, his thick arms banding around her torso, pinning her arms to her sides as he spun back to face the center of the yurt.
“Just stay quiet,” the man grunted into her ear as she began to struggle. “I don’t want to hurt you, but you’re not leaving until Cutter’s had a talk with your boyfriend. You make that more difficult and he’ll make you sorry.”
The regret in the man’s voice and the relatively gentle way he held her against his muscled chest made Harley go still and the heels she’d been about to kick at his shins drop back to the ground. If there was a chance of getting rid of these guys without the situation escalating, then she would play nice. The sun would set at ten o’clock. There wasn’t much time left. Clay needed to get those drinks to the guards in the next hour or they would lose their shot at Jasper.
“You fucked with the wrong family, Larsen.” The giant man with the handlebar mustache and creepy smile—Cutter, Harley was guessing, since he seemed to be in charge—advanced on Clay, only stopping when they were toe to toe. “My brother isn’t too happy with you, man.”
To his credit, Clay stood his ground, despite the fact that his bare ass was hanging out for the viewing pleasure of the two men circling around to his other side. “I’m not sure what you mean,” he said in lightly accented English. “I’m just trying to enjoy the party like the rest of you.”
Cutter glowered down at him, his thick black brows furrowing into a single line on his forehead. “You enjoy yourself too much. That’s your problem. Anders knows you’ve been moving in on his territory, undercutting his sales. He’s not happy.”
“But Marlowe is,” Clay said, with an easy grin. “That’s all that matters, right?”
“It shouldn’t be.” Cutter’s lips stretched into a smile that was somehow scarier than his scowl. “You’re all alone, Larsen. You should have been looking for boys to back you up, working on fitting in with the established order. That’s the only way to make it in t
he Raposa long term. You’ve been short-sighted, brother, and it’s going to cost you.”
Clay nodded slowly. “How much? What’s it going to take to get you out of my tent? I’ve got four thousand kronor in my bag. If you want more, you’ll have to wait until the party’s over.”
Cutter’s eyes hardened, proving he was clearly not thrilled by Clay’s offer. “Oh no, Lars. That’s not how we play around here. Money is too easy. No one learns a lesson from losing money, do they boys?”
The two men standing just behind Clay murmured their agreement while the man holding Harley let out a tired-sounding sigh. Cutter’s gaze shifted to her a second later, making the hairs on her arms stand on end.
“No, we don’t want your money.” Cutter’s eyes roved slowly from Harley’s face down to her thighs and back again. “We want something that matters, something it will hurt you to lose.”
“You mean the whore?” Clay shrugged before gesturing her way with an exasperated flap of his hand. “Fine, take her. She cost a lot less than four thousand kronor.”
“You’re good, Lars. I would believe you.” Cutter laughed as he moved around the bed, toward where Harley was now debating the wisdom of giving up without a fight. “But I saw your face when we first came inside. All you could look at was her. Her safety was your only concern.”
“Leave her alone,” Clay said in a voice every bit as scary as Cutter’s. But a voice was all he had. Cutter had at least fifty pounds on Clay and three men to back him up.
“No, I don’t think I will, friend.” Cutter stopped in front of her, close enough for her to smell the fermented scent rising from his large body. He’d been drinking—a lot—and was clearly feeling no pain.
Or empathy. When he grabbed her thigh, squeezing until she couldn’t hold back an indignant cry, his eyes remained glassy and cold.
“What do you think, gorgeous?” Cutter asked, his voice rough. “You want to come play with us in the maze tonight? Let some real men show you a good time?”
Harley heard Clay grunt and what sounded like a struggle on the other side of the tent, but she couldn’t see anything but Cutter. Up close, he was even bigger, filling her vision, making her heart race like a frightened rabbit facing down a wolf.
But no matter how frightened she was, she knew one thing—Clay could never win against four men.
Which meant she was going to end up going into the maze with Cutter and his friends. If she were lucky, she would be able to give them the slip in the dark and find a place to hide. If not, she would just have to live through whatever nightmare they had planned and find a way out when the sun rose.
In the end, it didn’t really matter.
Only one thing, one person, mattered—Jasper—and Clay wouldn’t be able to save their son if he’d been beaten and left unconscious on the floor of this tent.
“Stop fighting, Lars,” she said, loud enough to be heard over the grunts and fist falls on the other side of the tent. “I’ll go with your friends. I don’t mind. It sounds like fun.”
“Friends.” Cutter huffed. “Larsen isn’t a friend of ours, doll. But maybe you will be. After tonight. You ever had three men at the same time, sweetness?”
Clay made a strangled sound. “You touch her and I swear I’ll—”
“Leave it, Lars,” Harley said, her voice sharp.
Cutter turned, granting Harley a glimpse of where Clay had been forced to his knees beside the bed.
“Seems pretty clear who wears the pants around here. Even if you weren’t naked,” Cutter said with a laugh. “You don’t have what it takes to show your woman who’s boss, huh, Lars? Well, I’ll fix that for you. She’ll be nice and tame by tomorrow. You should thank me, man. The way I see it, I’m doing you a solid.”
Clay’s face flushed and his lips parted, but Harley cut him off before he could speak. “I’ll be fine.” She glanced over her shoulder at the man holding her captive. “You can let me go, I won’t try to run.”
Cutter nodded and the man holding her released her, letting her stand on her own, shaky, feet. With a deep breath, she met Clay’s tortured gaze across the tent, knowing that this was harder for him than if he were the one being forced into the maze with three violent strangers.
She could see it in his eyes—his fear, his pain.
His love.
He did love her. No matter how many lies they’d told each other, love was the one thing that had never been false. She wished she’d been able to believe that before now when it was too late to thank him for loving her.
Even if it hadn’t always been perfect or gentle or sane, at least he hadn’t given up on her like everyone else in her crazy life.
“Seriously.” She forced a smile, refusing to let the feel of Cutter’s hand squeezing her ass through her dress wipe the grin away. “Have a drink with those friends of yours we met today. Go ahead with your plans for the night. I’ll catch up with you in the morning.”
“If she can still walk by then,” Cutter said, slapping her ass, making her flinch in spite of herself. “If not, don’t worry, we’ll carry her back. Come on, sweet thing, and don’t worry about putting on your panties or shoes. You won’t need them. Sunset is right around the corner.”
Cutter jerked his head at the two men behind Clay, before taking Harley by the upper arm and hauling her across the tent beside him. She held Clay’s gaze for as long as she could—silently willing him to forget her and concentrate on Jasper—and then she was thrust into the rapidly cooling air.
She fought to keep her breath slow and even as the hairs on her arms lifted and her nostrils flared, scenting danger on the breeze. She couldn’t remember being more terrified than she was at this moment, but she refused to let her thoughts race ahead. She couldn’t think about what might happen in the maze or she would try to run and she couldn’t afford to attract attention.
So instead of her terror, she concentrated on her surroundings.
As they moved beyond the tent village toward the heart of the midsummer revel, she watched the party divide itself into two parts. The tamer set drifted toward their yurts or settled into tables beneath the beer tent to drink their way through the rest of the evening. The up-for-anything crowd grabbed torches, bottles of liquor, and masquerade masks from a selection piled on the picnic tables near the now quiet stage and raced, whooping and laughing, around the mansion toward the maze.
Above them, the sky had gone a paler shade of blue while the horizon pulsed gold and red, promising that soon the sun would be gone and the creatures of the night would have their turn to rule. To rip and claw and tear and make the darkness feel like it would never end.
With a deep breath, Harley threaded her shaking hands together and willed herself to keep going, to keep putting one foot quietly in front of the other, walking into a nightmare with her eyes wide open.
Chapter Fourteen
Clay
Jaw clenched and heart slamming in his chest, Clay fought the urge to run after the men who had taken Harley. With the element of surprise and a few of the hypodermic needles in his bag, he could take the four of them.
Or at least keep them busy long enough for Harley to slip away.
But she didn’t want to slip away. She wanted him to save Jasper. She had willingly given herself to four drunk, violent assholes so that Clay could walk away from the encounter in one piece. If she hadn’t, he would have been beaten, maybe even killed.
He knew that.
He also knew that she was going to be raped.
The woman he loved, who he had made love to less than half an hour ago, was going to be assaulted, used, and violated in ways he couldn’t keep from imagining, no matter how hard he tried. As he twisted the sheets from the tent’s bed into a rope that he wound around his waist, images of what Cutter and his men would do to Harley flickered behind his eyes. It was a horror movie, full of blood and screams and Harley’s pretty face contorted in pain.
By the time he had the rope secured around his waist,
hidden beneath the sweatshirt he’d pulled from his bag, his stomach was revolting. He barely made it outside of the tent before he was sick, bringing up the lunch he’d forced down early this afternoon when he and Harley had stopped for sandwiches not far from the turn off to Marlowe’s estate. When she’d been beside him and he’d believed that they were going to get in, get Jasper, and get out without any of them getting hurt.
But he always believed that. He was a marine. No matter what job he held, he would always be a marine, and marines didn’t dwell on the possibility of failure or all the things that could go wrong. They concentrated on hitting the target, going for the enemy’s throat, and getting the job done.
And right now the job was to get Jasper to safety.
Swiping his sleeve across his mouth, Clay stood, glaring at the horizon. The sun was sinking behind the mountains. In half an hour, it would be dark. It was time to move.
He returned to the tent, fetching the sedative vials and slipping them into his pocket before heading back toward the party. The lawn was emptier now. Only a few people remained in the steaming hot tubs or gathered at the café tables inside the open-air beer tent. Clay only had to wait a few minutes for his two draft Narke Kaggens and then he was on his way to the rose garden.
This time, he entered the house through the patio where he and Harley had exited earlier in the day—pausing in a secluded corner to dose each frosty stein with a liberal amount of sedative. It was nearly dark, but he slid his sunglasses on before pushing through the glass door into the portrait gallery near the greenhouse. He rarely had a problem concealing his emotions, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this fucking enraged.
This was all Marlowe’s doing. Marlowe had stolen Jasper away and set all of this in motion. If Jasper or Harley were killed or irrevocably damaged by this series of events, Clay wouldn’t rest until he put a bullet through the man and the thugs who’d taken Harley.
