by Cole McCade
His brows lowered thunderously. A savage stare raked down her body. He leaned over her, bracing one hand to the couch. His heat invaded her, filling her space, sucked into her lungs on every breath. As coarse fingers curled against her thigh, burning into her flesh and igniting something hot and needy in the pit of her stomach, she closed her eyes and turned her face away and told herself it wouldn’t hurt if she wanted it, if she let it be anyone with a hard body and a heavy cock that could sate that endless ache between her thighs.
His fingertips grazed along her leg, tracing toward her knee, and she trembled. The sound of his calluses catching on her fishnets rose loud, too loud, until she felt like she was being chased, hunted, stalked through the brush with the crackle of twigs snapping all around, heart racing.
That touch teased toward her knee—then hooked under her thigh and dragged her onto her back. She yelped, eyes flying open. Before she could think of struggling he’d slung her onto her back and caught her wrists in both hands, pushing them over her head and forcing them down to the couch cushions. She bucked, jerking and pulling against his grip, but his fingers locked hard as manacles, pinning her while he watched her with something mad and wild and bitter lighting a cold white fire behind pale eyes.
“Is this what you want?” he whispered.
His fingers crushed against her wrists, before he transferred both to one hand, freeing the other to skim down her body. Impenetrable eyes watched her coolly, unfazed by her struggles, her snarls. Rough fingertips grazed her breast and her nipples roused, hardening to tight, sweet peaks of sensitized need. Her abdomen clenched on an indrawn breath as a ticklish touch feathered over her stomach, lower. He dragged her skirt up, crumpling it in a large, cruel hand. When she squeezed her legs shut—as if that could hide the wet trickles soaking her panties—he only slid that broad crude hand inside the fabric, his knuckles making stark ridges against her panties as he forced past the clench of her thighs to cup her.
His hand was hot, so hot, and she cried out as coarse fingertips dragged against the soft clenching flutter of wet lips, stroking, only to plunge deep. Two thick fingers curled as they slid into her, invaded her, violated her so intimately and wasted no time before he sought deeper in twisting thrusts. Yet as she arched off the couch and writhed and squirmed and whimpered, as rough sweet sickness clenched through her, rocking in her belly with the rhythm of the boat against the waves…still he looked at her with such dispassion, such clinical detachment, and she hated herself for the way her body responded to him. She burned with a dark primitive fire that sang in her flesh and tore gasping, needy cries from her lips every time his fingers slid past to part her depths.
“Is this what you expect from me?” Aloof, that rough voice quiet and mocking her with its emptiness. “Am I giving you what you want, Leigh?”
She whimpered, words torn away. He wrung her voice from her in inarticulate moans, each one trying to be a curse, a denial, a damnation, until he teased it into a gasp of pleasure with every sinful stroke. She wanted. She wanted, and if he would just be a normal fucking man and do it, she could set her world right again—and hate him the way she hated, loved, despised, needed every little boy who panted at her feet.
Until he stopped.
He stopped, his fingers still buried so deep inside, curled until she could feel the very tips teasing that place inside that shrilled her nerves to pieces and made her scream. Panting, she opened her eyes, staring up at him dazedly, his gracefully harsh face nothing but a collection of severe angles in the overhead light. Desire hazed her vision, yet through the filter of her lashes his expression was strange, almost lost.
“You’d have me be no better than him.” His lips tightened. He withdrew with a suddenness that left her empty with sweet and hungry pain, disappointment throbbing through her and forcing a cry past her lips. “No.”
And while she lay there—struggling to catch her breath, struggling to figure out what had just happened—he stood, wiped glistening fingers on his jeans, and tossed one of the crocheted quilts over her, its weight thudding down on her heavily, its weave scraping against her too-sensitive skin until she shuddered.
“Get some sleep,” he ground out, then turned and walked away.
The chains of shock binding her snapped. She thrust the quilt away and bolted to her feet. “Fucker,” she snarled, and stalked for the exit.
Hart pushed the bathroom door open and stepped inside, flicking the light switch and spilling a square of gold over the dim living area. “Try it,” he called over his shoulder. “You won’t make it out that door.”
Leigh froze, glaring at the edge of his reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Is this some kind of chivalry by kidnapping or something?”
“If that’s what you want to call it, yes. At least until morning.”
She hated him for his calm. Hated that he could do what he’d done to her, and still sound so completely unmoved. “What the hell is your game?”
No answer. Just a faint rattle—pills in a bottle, maybe—and the sound of running water. Then he stepped from the bathroom, killing the light and shutting the door behind him. Across the small space he watched her, his very stillness promising that if she moved, he’d be between her and the door before she could take another breath.
“Is it really so terrible to have somewhere to sleep?”
Leigh grit her teeth, grinding them until they squeaked, and wrapped her arms around herself. As if that could protect her. As if she needed protecting. She didn’t. And she didn’t need men like Hart coming into her life, all high-handed and thinking she needed saving.
But she couldn’t answer, either. Because men like him never understood.
In the silence the boat creaked; the wind sighed against the eaves, and she barely heard the faint thud of his footfalls until he was right in front of her. He gripped her chin, tilting her face up, studying her like she was an insect under glass. She flinched away, jerking free. He was too warm. Too real. Something stark and sharp-edged that would cut into the timeless nothing of her life, and force her to wake up from the dream she’d made for herself.
“Why won’t you answer me?” he rumbled.
Don’t, she wanted to say, but her throat was too thick, too tight. Don’t do this. She backed away, eyed the door, weighed her options. One night on this bastard’s couch to satisfy his need to play hero…or her freedom. Freedom that was never really free, when she’d have to find her way through streets filled with men who thought every lone girl walking past at midnight was just one hey baby away from becoming his personal property. She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t. But she could be practical, just for tonight.
If she changed her mind, she could always run once he’d fallen asleep.
She skirted around him and flung herself down on the couch—the couch that still held the imprint of her body, where he’d pinned her against the soft cushions. She ejected the thought from her mind violently and, glaring at his feet, grabbed the quilt and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“Shut up,” she muttered. “Just shut up and leave me alone.”
A low rumble escaped his lips, almost but not quite a laugh. But when she looked up his face was deadlocked as ever, and he only inclined his head.
“As you wish. Until morning, little mouse.”
Little mouse?
She bit back a curse and watched him prowl across the room, to the bed. A low, large king had been shoved up against the wall, a rumpled mess of dark sheets and piled comforters that looked like the kind of cozy nest she used to make out of her bed as a child, when she’d walled the blankets around her in a fort. The headboard was an enormous block of dark wood, heavy and tall and bolted to the wall, lined with cabinet doors, each with its own little brass keyhole.
But when he curled his fingers in his shirt and lifted it over his head, baring the tight lines of his waist and the dipping groove carving the channel of his spine up the tanned cliffs of his back, she looked away sharply and lay down with her
back to him. Like this he was just the sounds he made, as he settled for bed, yet still his heat practically touched her, crowded too close in the small houseboat.
And as the silence settled over them, as the sway and pitch of the boat rocked her, as he pulled the cord on the bedside lamp and plunged them into a low and quiet darkness…
She thought she just might hate him for it.
* * *
She hadn’t meant to fall asleep.
Leigh had lain in the dark, seething and listening to his breaths as they eased closer and closer to sleep, deepening and lengthening into quiet sighs. How could he just bully her into staying here, then drop off as if nothing had happened? Did he think she was a child who needed him to play Daddy, tuck her into bed, remind her of the rules? Patronizing fucker. Little mouse. Even mice had teeth, and he was lucky she hadn’t bitten him for his troubles.
But as she’d lain there fuming, seething, the slow creak and groan of the boat had lulled her, its sway rocking like a cradle, coaxing the beat of her furious heart to slow and match its rhythm. Her eyes had blurred, gritty and sandy at the edges, every struggling blink itching, until on one last blink her lids had never risen again. Not until what felt like hours later, when she snapped awake with the scent of river brine on her indrawn gasp and the feel of suede under her cheek, warmed by her body heat.
At first she couldn’t remember where she was. She was accustomed to waking up in strange places, but normally—even when she didn’t wake with a heavy arm draped over her, coarse hairs scratching against her skin—she came to with that soreness that told her where she’d been before falling asleep. Without that feeling she woke disoriented, unsteady. But as waves slapped hollowly against the hull, memory sank heavy and dank in her gut, livid with the hot crush of fingers on her wrists. In the murky dark, she pushed the quilt down and stared at her arms. Bracelets ringed her arms, light purple-green, pockmarked patterns like animal markings. A leopard’s spots, and maybe she really couldn’t change them when she sought love through brutality and writhed like a wanton when men with cold-steel eyes hurt her and touched her and left her gasping and wanting with a hate so deep it could almost be passion.
She risked a glance over her shoulder. In the faint gray light of predawn through threadbare curtains, Gabriel Hart sprawled on his side like a tumble of sand dunes, a rolling desert under the night sky. Hard muscle poured in dips and rises until the sinuous flow of him became pure hypnotism. His hair fell across his face, tangling in the feathery dark curves of his lashes, teasing the corner of his mouth, licking the cruel line of his jaw. Even in his sleep he made her think of a coiled viper, ready to strike.
A grating, rusty mewl dragged her gaze from him. She peered over the edge of the couch cushion. Acid-yellow eyes met hers, set in a grizzled, battle-scarred face tipped by pointed ears chewed ragged about the edges. The ugliest damned cat she’d ever seen looked up at her piteously, scraggly orange fur sticking up in ratty tufts, her tail a crooked kinked mess that had probably been broken a dozen times. She looked like a child’s much-loved and abandoned toy, fished out of a dumpster. Leigh would think the cat was a stray if not for the full swell of her belly, her fat, swaying haunches, and the expectant demand in that mewl.
Tentatively, Leigh offered her fingers. The cat sniffed them, then propped its forepaws on the edge of the couch and butted into her palm. She couldn’t help smiling as a grating purr shook her hand. The poor thing’s fur felt like a Brillo pad, but she obligingly scratched behind twitching ears and stroked down the bony ridges of the cat’s spine.
“Hey,” she whispered. “Hey, sweetheart. Where’ve you been hiding, hm?” At another imperious mewl, she glanced toward the kitchenette built into the far wall. Two bowls sat near the refrigerator, one half-full of water, the other empty of all but crumbs. “You’re hungry, huh? Let’s see where he keeps your food.”
She slipped off the couch and crept toward the kitchenette, one eye on the slow rise and fall of Hart’s sleeping breaths, one on her own feet while the slow sway of the boat conspired with the orange ball of fuzz twining around her ankles to pitch her to the floor. With stealthy movements, she peeked inside the cabinets. The last thing she wanted was to wake Hart. Even asleep his presence smothered; awake, that skewering silver gaze would cut into her lungs until she had nothing left but ribbons that couldn’t hold a single breath.
God, she didn’t understand him. This boat. The cat. Everything. He didn’t fit into the quiet niches of this place, this warm and cozy life that seemed like it belonged to someone else, a painting with just one color washed out and splattered over with his jagged black slashes.
She closed her eyes, grinding her teeth. She didn’t care. She didn’t care, and she shouldn’t be obsessing over this.
One calming breath later, she found a box of cat food under the sink. She shook a heap into the bowl, and bit back another smile when the cat buried its face in the mound of kibble. For long moments there was no sound but raspy breathing and snorting and the crunch and clack of teeth, filling the houseboat. Leigh ran her fingers down the cat’s back one more time, barely earning a grunt of acknowledgment, then pulled away. She should go. This early in the morning, anyone who’d bother her back of the Nests would have gone to ground, sleeping off a drunk. She could take her last few bucks and hit up a McDonald’s for a dollar menu breakfast, and find her way somewhere quiet to dream along with her iPod until Gary woke up to let her in.
A faint snort of laughter escaped her lips. Dishes and dicks. That was what she’d traded her life for; dishes and dicks, and still she was happier than she’d been with a minivan and an investment account.
She turned away from the kitchen, but her gaze caught on the glint of colored beads, swaying over the bed. She tilted her head back. A dreamcatcher swung over Hart’s head, wrapped leather and intricate spiderings of string dotted with beads in radial patterns of alternating orange and white. She’d seen patterns and colors like those before, graffiti-painted on walls and even in shop windows in the Ravens; many of the Arapaho-owned shops displayed art with similar circles of concentric orange and white cut into fours by a black X, or framing a sharply stylized black crow much like the one whose wings curved over Hart’s naked shoulder.
She didn’t realize she was drifting closer until her hip bumped the nightstand. She caught it quickly, then grabbed for the bottle of pills that nearly toppled over, the little white discs inside rattling against the plastic. She darted a glance at Hart, but he remained motionless save for his sleeping breaths. Leigh started to set the bottle down, but curiosity got the better of her. She turned it to read the label.
Vicodin. Hart’s name stamped on the label, and a pretty strong dosage recommendation. Four times a day. She stole another glance at him, remembering that subtle, tightly-restrained limp. War injury?
Damn it, she didn’t care.
She reached out to set the bottle back down—then sucked in a breath that was almost a scream when thick fingers snapped around her wrist, immobilizing her, cutting into the dull throbbing ache of her bruises. Just a flash of glinting eyes, and then her world skewed sideways. He jerked her off balance, pulling her toward him as he rolled across the bed. Hard wild masculine musk and the vicious cut of an unyielding body crashed over her. He dragged her atop him. His fingers dug into her wrist until her hand went numb, and she dropped the pills into the sheets with a cry. She clawed at his grip, but he caught her other wrist and trapped her again. The thick heat of his body forced her legs apart; they ached, straining and stretching to fit around his bulk. The rough denim of his jeans scraped her skin and dragged against her panties. Gasping in little butterfly-breaths, she held perfectly still, staring down into those mercury wildfire eyes.
“Looking for something to steal, little mouse?”
Leigh swallowed hard, wetting her dry throat. “I was just curious.”
“Were you?” His grip gentled, no longer gouging but still too firm, too tight, for her to escape. “Wh
at were you hoping to find?”
“Nothing. Let me go.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Leigh snarled and pulled at her wrists—then froze when the motion rocked her back against him, her ass dragging against his hips, the zipper of his jeans digging into her panties. She didn’t want to be like this with him. Didn’t want his body between her thighs, spreading her open until the folds of her panties creased against her flesh and parted slick lips and left her too exposed, too vulnerable, that hot empty throb starting inside her.
“I wasn’t trying to steal your drugs, if that’s what you think.” She hissed. She kept herself carefully still, struggling to brace her knees enough to lift off him while the thick plush mattress only sank her deeper. “Let me go. All I want is to leave.”
“I don’t think that’s all you want.”
“Then you don’t know me as well as you seem to think.”
He said nothing, watching her in a silence that felt like a bottled scream building up in her chest and begging to be let out. It pulsed inside her to the rhythm of her pounding heart, her throbbing cunt. She refused to let him stare her down, even if every moment she glared into those flat, cold eyes she grew more and more certain she was looking into the eyes of a man who had killed people. Far too many people, and every last one had emptied out another piece of his soul to leave this chill and hollow vessel, terrifying in his emptiness.
Her breaths came shorter. Her skin prickled. And she despised the weakness of the whimper that escaped when he jerked her closer, pulling her body against his until the hard ridges of his stomach pressed against hers, sharp enough to nearly cut, taut bare skin that smelled like a burning desert wind and filled her mouth with the taste of something that made her lips tingle and ache.
“What do you want, Leigh?” he whispered, and every word shot up through her in deep rumbling quivers.
“Nothing.” She licked her lips. “I don’t want anything.”
“I don’t believe you.”
