by Penelope Sky
Since the sun didn’t set until after nine, I lost track of the time.
Carter stepped onto the pool deck in his t-shirt and jeans. With his arms crossed over his chest, he watched me float around in the pool, my drink in the inflatable cup holder. “No dinner tonight, then?”
“What time is it?”
“Eight thirty.”
“Oh…guess not.” I was in the middle of the pool, so he couldn’t get me unless he jumped in. Like a princess in a castle surrounded by a moat, I was safe.
“What am I supposed to eat?”
I shrugged. “You did fine before I came along.”
“Yes. But having a maid has been nice.”
“Well, this maid has taken the day off.” My sunglasses were still on the bridge of my nose even though the sun was about to set.
“You look cute as hell right now.”
“Why, thank you. Good thing you can’t get to me.”
“Can’t get to you?” he asked, amused. “You think water could stop me?”
“It’s pretty cold.”
He accepted my challenge and pulled his shirt over his head.
“You don’t have any swim trunks.”
“Don’t need them.” He pushed his jeans down along with his boxers.
Letting his monster cock hang out.
He took the stairs into the water then walked toward me, his feet hitting the bottom because he was over six feet in height. He grabbed the inflatable swan and dragged me toward the shallow end of the pool. “That was easy.”
“Damn…”
He rested his arms on the raft then leaned over to kiss my shoulder and arm. The affection was meaningless, but it felt nice at the same time. He kept his eyes on me, watching my reaction to his touch.
I was floating across the pool with a beautiful man kissing my shoulder. The landscape was beautiful, and my stomach was full because I could eat whenever I wanted. I’d never been on a vacation before, but this felt like the closest thing to one. “How was work?”
“I’m going to have to head to the offices soon. I’ve got to get started on production for the next line.”
“What will you do with me?”
“Leave you here. Unless you’ll miss me too much.” He smiled playfully, showing a slight, boyish charm to complement his hard masculinity.
I chuckled, knowing I would miss him—just a little. “What if I run for it?”
“You won’t.” His confidence didn’t miss a beat.
“You’re so sure about that?”
“You live in a beautiful mansion with anything you could possibly want, and you have a sexy man to bed you every night. Where exactly are you going to go?”
If I didn’t have someone so important in my life, I would probably stay. “You make a good argument.”
He kissed my shoulder again, his scruff rubbing against my arm. “I’ve changed the security system. It’s activated by my thumbprint now. So unless you cut my finger off, you don’t have a chance.”
I knew he wouldn’t be stupid enough to trust me completely.
“By the way, you probably shouldn’t be in the pool with a cut like that.”
I shrugged. “I’ve been through worse.”
He gave me an affectionate look, as if he admired me. “I’m impressed you cut that tracker out of your ankle. That took balls.”
“I don’t have balls, so it took guts.”
“Yes.” He smiled. “Guts. A lot of them.”
“It hurt like a bitch.”
“If you weren’t careful, that could have been bad.”
“The adrenaline outweighed the fear.” I sipped my drink. “How did you know I was going to escape that night anyway?”
“If the tracker deviates from the average body temperature, I get a notification. The second you carved that thing out of your body, I knew. And my cars are designed with a specific security system, so it’ll only turn on with my thumbprint. You can’t even hot-wire it.”
I never had a chance. The only possibility of getting out of there was by killing him.
He watched my reaction. “Sorry, sweetheart. I feel bad for letting you think you really had a chance.”
“Even if I knew otherwise, I still would have tried.”
His affection only deepened. “I know. For some reason, I admire you more.”
Carter was a regular guy in life, not a psychopath like Egor. When he made comments like that, I could see the goodness behind his eyes. He showed affection instead of hatred, gave sexy caresses instead of slaps across the face. Never was he violent with me. He detained me when he had to, but that was only to get me under control. “Then why don’t you let me go?”
Instantly, the tenderness in his eyes evaporated. He broke eye contact, sighed, and the comfortable companionship was gone. As if he was annoyed by the question, he pulled away from me.
“Did you ever consider letting me go and, you know, asking me out on a date? You know I would say yes.” I watched his expression even though he wouldn’t meet my gaze. This was the part of our relationship that I still didn’t understand. If he didn’t possess the kind of cruelty that Egor did, why didn’t he let me go? He continued to keep me—even though it made no sense.
“I’ll take you out to dinner if that’s what you want.”
“If you pick me up at my house and drop me off when we’re done.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, getting drops of water in his hair.
“Carter.”
He wouldn’t look at me.
“Carter.” I grabbed his chin and pressed a kiss to his lips. Instantly, he softened. He took a breath when he felt me, and the muscles in his neck relaxed as he turned my way. He didn’t give in to my command, but he gave in to my affection. I pulled away, my fingers still on his hard chin. “You aren’t this man. We both know you aren’t. Letting me go isn’t a sign of weakness. Letting me go and bedding me as a free woman is far more impressive.”
He looked at me, his eyes unblinking. “You’d want to still see me?”
Before I’d slept with him, my answer would have been no. But since the sex was so good and our chemistry was so hot, I knew I’d want to keep seeing him. I knew he was kind and compassionate, not a threat to me at all. I could forgive everything in the past if he gave me a new future. “Yes.”
He stared into my gaze, looking for the sincerity of my words.
“You know I’m not lying, Carter.” My hand ran up his chiseled forearm. “I doubt I’d want to see you forever. I doubt I’d want you to be my boyfriend or husband. But I wouldn’t mind hooking up for a while.” That was exactly what he wanted anyway, just hot sex with no strings attached. “So, there’s no reason to keep me. You can have what you want—and I can have what I want.” I hoped I would say the right thing to change his mind, to realize that keeping me as a prisoner wasn’t in his best interest anymore.
I must have said the wrong thing because he pulled away from the float and climbed back up the stairs. His bare ass was fit and tight, and the rest of physique moved like living stone. “I’ll make dinner tonight.” He grabbed the towel off the chair and dried himself off before he walked inside.
I continued to drift in the pool now that he wasn’t keeping me centered anymore. He said he bought me to piss off someone else, but he’d already accomplished what he set out to do. What was the reason he continued to keep me?
I knew I was missing a piece of the story.
I just didn’t know what it was.
Nine
Carter
I hung up the phone then walked back into the dining room where Mia was sitting. I’d made salmon and rice for dinner, something light after all the booze I’d had that day. We hadn’t said much to each other since she asked me to let her go.
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
I didn’t want to keep lying to her.
From her point of view, there was no reason for me to keep her as a prisoner anymore. Sex was consensual, and she
said she would keep sleeping with me if I let her go. I knew she meant it. It wasn’t just a trick to escape.
So I had no reason to keep her.
Now that I knew what Egor did to her, I hated the bastard even more. I had never cared about Mia’s mistreatment because I’d purposely tried not to connect with her. I steered away from personal questions. It was smart not to get attached to her so I could hand her over to that demon without feeling guilty about it. But the second we screwed, all that went out the window.
She came on to me.
She kissed me. Fucked me. Came for me.
The attachment I tried to avoid had already happened.
Egor took away her ability to have children…which was so despicable I wanted to murder him. It was worse than rape and torture. It was just cruel.
Now I had to give her back to him…in just a few days.
Fuck.
She kept asking me to release her, and if she kept this up, she might figure out the real reason I didn’t.
I couldn’t let that happen.
But could I really return this woman to the cruel life she’d just escaped from?
There was so much money on the table, money I’d already collected. If I pulled out of the deal and wired the money back, there would be bloodshed. Egor would never accept that betrayal. He would come after me and my entire family.
I didn’t have a choice anymore.
I would try to enjoy the last days I had with her, fucking her and making her feel good, before I returned her to the master that would never let her go. Now that I was sleeping with her, I understood Egor’s obsession.
She was magnificent.
“Are you alright?” Mia’s pretty voice interrupted my thoughts.
My gaze shifted to her face, her beautiful coffee-colored eyes and her full lips. With long brown hair and a curvy body, she was a fantasy. She deserved to be with a man who would protect her from the world, who would put her on a pedestal and worship her. She was too good for that asshole. “Yeah.”
“Your face is pale.” Her eyes shifted back and forth slightly as she looked at me.
Because I was a terrible person. I bought women from the Underground and returned them to safety. That’s why I didn’t feel bad profiting from the exchange—because I was doing a good thing.
But now, I was doing a bad thing.
I hadn’t known the context of the situation when I’d agreed to do the deal, but that didn’t change anything. I was sending this woman back to a life of horror. She would eventually die in his captivity…or take her own life.
And unfortunately, I was starting to care about her.
Dammit. “That was the doctor. We’re both clean.”
“Oh.” She drank her glass of wine. “Not surprised…”
I should be hard at the thought of fucking her that night without a condom, but I wasn’t. I felt too guilty for what I was about to do. Mia wouldn’t even see it coming. I would slip a syringe into her neck and put her to sleep before I made the exchange. She would have no idea what happened until she woke up with Egor beside her. He would pick up where he left off—and she would know giving her back was part of my plan all along.
And she would hate me.
I’d done terrible things to her before, but she forgave me. She saw the good in me despite the bad situation. I held a whip in my hand and chained her to the bed, but she had the power to talk me out of it. And she’d still wanted to sleep with me anyway. She accepted me for who I was…and my money didn’t seem to impress her.
She still wanted to leave.
She wanted to be free…but keep sleeping with me. That meant she didn’t want anything from me…only me.
“I thought you would be thrilled about that,” she whispered.
“I am. I just have other stuff on my mind.”
After she did the dishes, we went upstairs to my room. She immediately assumed she would be sharing my bed with me for the foreseeable future, and she was right. I wanted to fuck her before I went to sleep. Then I wanted to fuck her again the second I opened my eyes in the morning.
When she stepped into the room, she saw the black lingerie sitting on top of the bed. Black, lacy, and sexy, it was the perfect piece of clothing to place on that beautiful body. She eyed it on the bed before she turned to me, a question in her eyes.
I felt like an asshole for asking her to do anything, not when I was going to betray her in a few days. If she knew what my true intentions were, she wouldn’t stop until she killed me. But since she saw me as harmless, her guard was down. A part of her probably believed I would let her go eventually, just as I changed my mind about whipping her.
She couldn’t be more wrong.
She picked up the black thong and held it between her fingertips. “You want me to put this on?”
I held her gaze, standing in my sweatpants near the foot of the bed. This was wrong on so many levels. Now I was dressing her up for my desire. She wanted to be the recipient of my kisses and thrusts…but not if she knew the truth. “Yes.”
“And this?” She picked up the see-through bra.
Just picturing her wearing that turned me on. “Yes.”
Without a protest, she walked into my bathroom and changed.
I dropped my boxers and sweatpants, my cock already hard thinking about how she would look. I got on the bed with my elbows propping up my body. My hard dick lay against my stomach, eager to feel her bare pussy surround me. With skin-on-skin, I would be able to feel her warm and soft flesh. I would be able to feel her squeeze me even harder. I would be able to drop my come deep inside her, where it would sit until morning.
I moaned to myself because I was horny as hell. All the guilt I felt was muffled by the hardness in my dick. Just like every other asshole on the planet, I stopped caring about morals the second sex was involved. Now that I was about to get laid, I didn’t care that I was screwing her over.
I just cared about screwing her.
She stepped out of the bathroom, the lingerie fitting her hourglass frame perfectly. She fixed her hair with her fingertips, making it frame her face and her shoulders. The bra pushed her plump tits together, and her long legs moved gracefully across the floor. The dark color was sexy against her flawless skin. Her brown eyes were on me, watching my reaction to her.
“Jesus Christ.” I loved a woman in lingerie, but not quite like this.
She crawled onto the bed, on her hands and knees. Her tits filled out the bra, and her back arched as she moved. Her eyes were directed on me as she came closer, the mutual desire in her gaze.
She wanted me as much as I wanted her.
She moved on top of me and straddled my hips, her hair dragging against my chest as she positioned her face over mine.
I watched this beautiful woman sit on me, her tits about to fall out and her sexy thighs parting over my hips. She stared at my lips as she leaned down to place her mouth over mine. My cock twitched against her panties just before I felt her lips.
Fuck.
The second our mouths were combined together, my hand dug into her hair, and I kissed her hard. My lips ached for something deeper, something more intense. My tongue darted into her mouth right away, and I ground against her, my cock eager to feel the arousal that was seeping from between her legs that very moment. If she was as wet as she was last night, my cock would be very happy.
My fingers dug into her panties, and I rubbed her clit, the pads of my fingers becoming soaked in the slickness right away. I forgot to breathe for a second, my body pausing in excitement. Like I was a teenager who treasured every moment of sexual activity, this felt brand-new. I touched her pussy like it was the first time I’d ever gotten any action. Something about this woman made me feel brand-new, like this was the first time sex actually mattered. My fingers slid into her slit, and I explored her, feeling her moan against my mouth. “So fucking wet.” I used two fingers to move inside her, to feel her tight pussy as it prepared for my big dick. Being inside her was heave
n, whether it was my fingers or my dick.
Her fingers dug into my hair as she kept kissing me, her kisses turning just as carnal as mine. When she was with me, she didn’t think about anyone else. She didn’t think about the horrible things Egor did to her. When our bodies moved together, there was no one else.
It was just us.
I would love to watch her ride my dick, but I was so anxious to fuck her that I craved the control. I rolled her onto her back and pulled her wet panties off her legs. She’d barely had them on for fifteen minutes before the lace became soaked with her arousal. She opened her legs for me the second the material was gone, her hands running up my back at the same time. With parted lips and heavy breathing, she was ready to take me, even more eager than she was last night or this morning.
This time, I wasn’t gentle. I pushed my swollen head into her entrance and gave one hard thrust, sliding inside her instantly. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
“God…”
I rested my face against hers as I got used to the sensation between her legs, the wetness and the tightness. It drove me wild, made it impossible for me to think straight. It was so good…so damn good.
“Carter.” She clawed at my back as we lay idle together, getting used to the feeling of our bodies combined. She was insanely wet, and I was harder than I’d ever been my entire life.
“Fuck.” I hadn’t even started to move yet, and I was on the verge of exploding. The idea of filling her pussy with my come was too much to even think about. I’d fucked women without a condom before, but there was something about her cunt that did a number on my dick.
She cupped the back of my head as she looked into my eyes. “You feel so damn good…”
My gaze was locked on to hers, my cock stretching her far apart. I’d never seen a more beautiful woman underneath me, a woman so passionate and erotic. She shouldn’t succumb to this desire, not the same way I did. She deserved better, deserved better than me. But the innate chemistry between us dictated our behavior, controlled our reactions to one another. Neither one of us could fight this; we were both in so deep.
