He let it all go, and embraced his instincts. He would own this wee lass. Completely.
I’d never wanted to cry of happiness from a single touch until that moment. But each fingertip that met my skin, each hungry tug and pull, each press of his palms and crush of his lips made me want to weep with joy. These were touches born of true desire. These were touches I’d chosen, and he’d chosen, despite how difficult I know it’d been for him.
He was too noble for his own good, and to see him let loose lit me on fire.
This is what I wanted and needed. This man and his firm grip of ownership on my body. Maybe in the eyes of Agent MacDonald our relationship wasn’t healthy, but I didn’t care. Nothing had ever felt more right.
He walked me backward to the bed, pushing me down and standing over me. I grabbed the waistband of his underwear and pulled them out and down, reaching for his thick shaft with greedy urgency. He moaned as my fingers curled around him. His own hand dipped down and cursed with lust when his fingers found my wetness. I pushed my hips toward his hand, and he shoved me back on the bed, covering my body with his, kissing me hard.
His lips were firm and his tongue was soft as it flicked mine, then rubbed it in a smooth, methodical way that sent a zap down through my belly. God, I wanted that tongue all over me. But mostly I needed to feel that perfect cock inside me. I reached down and took him in my hand again, loving how his whole body tightened and he hissed in response.
He reached for both my hands, grasping my wrists and thrusting them over my head. “Not yet,” he said, moving his mouth down the dip of my throat to my chest. “You’re gunna make me come too fast, like a lad.”
I arched my back, loving the light scrape of his five o’clock shadow on my sensitive skin, and when his warm mouth covered my breast I cried out in ecstasy. His tongue circled and flicked, his teeth gently biting as he sucked and pulled, causing just enough mild pain to make me groan wildly. His mouth ventured to the other side and I was panting. My hands tried to tug from his grip, needing to touch him, but he pulled them higher and tighter, pressing my wrists into the mattress.
He leaned on his elbow and reached down to hike my knee, putting his thickness right where I needed him. Then he lifted himself just enough to hover over me, staring deep into my eyes. My breaths were ragged as his hips circled, his head at my entrance. I expected a plunge, but he pushed himself slowly into me, forcing me to feel each inch of his hardness as it filled me, stretching me to a glorious fullness until his pelvis was against mine and we were both fighting for breaths.
“Yes,” I whispered. I was so primed for this. Any amount of friction would put me over the edge.
I waited for him to begin fucking me with fast abandon, but he was full of surprises. He pushed his hips harder, pressing me into the bed and forcing me to feel him deeper. I moaned loudly. He never pulled out an inch, only began rocking his hips in hard motions, pressing my clit against his pelvis with jarring firmness.
“Yes, oh God, Mr. Douglas, I’m gonna come.”
“Aye, come for me. I want to hear you call me Colin.”
His hips rocked into me again, harder, detonating an explosion in my clitoris that shot outward, making my whole body convulse. I pressed my hips up, rubbing against him and screamed.
“Colin! Yeah…oh, God, yes…”
As my crotch continued to constrict and pulse around him, he brought his mouth down on mine, tasting the last of my moans.
I sucked in a shuddering breath as he released my wrists and pulled out of me. He took me by the hips and flipped me to my stomach, positioning me on my hands and knees before him. He gripped both of my ass cheeks in a tight squeeze and buried his face between my legs. My clit was still so sensitive that I nearly flew out of my skin. He steadied me, ignoring my whimpers as he suckled and rubbed until my nerve-endings were worked into another frenzy. Just as I thought I might come again, he sat up.
In a swift plunge he was inside of me, and the pounding I’d been waiting for began. I didn’t try to be quiet. I vocalized with each thrust—each smack of his hips against my ass—each swing of his tight balls against me. I turned my head and watched as this beautiful man pulled back my hips with each forward movement of his own. His eyes met mine and I wanted to melt at the intensity in them.
“Is this what you want?” he ground out. “You want more?”
“Yes. I want it.” I used my knees and palms to rock myself back into him, meeting his rhythm, slamming our bodies together as hard as possible. I felt one of his hands release my hip, and seconds later a wet thumbtip was at the entrance of my ass, gently pressing in. I groaned as he pressed it all the way in and began to fuck me with smooth swipes in and out, his thumb matching the strokes.
So good.
His free hand reached around and slipped up and down my still-wet slit.
“Yes, Colin,” I breathed. I loved saying his name.
Pushing with all his hard weight, he pressed my body flat against the bed and brought my arms up, holding them in place tightly above me as my cheek hit the sheets. I lifted my ass as high as it would go, to take him as deep as I could, and we rocked back and forth together. Usually I was not able to come from behind, but I was so worked up, and the tightness of the position was enough to arouse an orgasm when I squeezed my thighs together.
Colin lightly bit my shoulder, his pace and breaths quickening.
“Give it to me, Colin.”
“Och, lass, fuck…”
He shoved deeper and held himself there, grunting a masculine shout that sparked against my clitoris and lit up my world. Together our bodies found their pleasure, and earthquake of joined throbbing that had us both sucking air and moaning for minutes.
He lay on top of me, placing kisses across my upper back and shoulders as we caught our breath. I felt bold and alive.
“Come with me to The Netherlands,” I whispered.
I thought I heard a grin in his voice when he responded, “Aye, then. You couldn’t keep me away.”
I smiled, keeping it partially hidden by my arm, but he took me by the shoulder and turned me to face him.
“I saw that,” he said. His thumb brushed over my lips. “You smiled.”
Feeling shy, but unbelievably happy, I let the smile return. He stared down at me, his eyes lighting, and then a grin graced his own lips, making mine stretch wider.
The smile transformed his face, turning him into a handsome younger man without a care. It made my soul take flight. I reached up and touched his face. I felt so many things. I couldn’t put it all into words, but I needed him to know.
“There was always something different about you,” I said. “I never understood why, but I couldn’t think of you as one of them. I think I felt you, the real you, all along.”
He closed his eyes and leaned into my hand. After a moment he leaned down, resting his elbows above my shoulders and his forehead against mine.
“I love you, Angela. And until you tell me to leave, I will be at your side.”
“Then you’ll be there forever.”
He kissed me, tender and sweet.
This is what Marco could never offer to his patrons. True paradise.
As he held me, I traced my fingers over the tattoo inside his left arm—a Celtic knot in the shape of a wicked tree, the roots branching out just below his elbow. The jagged lines curved and weaved, but all were connected—no beginning and no end. Then I looked at the beautiful Gaelic script up the inside of his right arm.
“It is better to try than to hope,” he whispered.
For some reason that phrase made me sad. “It’s okay to hope, though,” I said. “Hope is necessary. Without it, you feel dead.”
His eyes met mine, and my words seemed to cause him pain, as if he were imagining me without hope. I kissed the words inside his arm, and he kissed my bare shoulder.
“What about the one on your back?” I asked.
“Freedom.”
I smiled up at him and he grinned i
n return, making my tummy flop. “Now that one, I like.”
We lay together well into the night until an alarm blared, followed by the sound of an engine revving and gravel kicking up outside by the gate. Colin moved so fast. He leapt from the bed, tugging on his pants and shirt with serious eyes. My heart pounded. He held his gun in a trained arm by his side.
“Stay here,” he said.
I jumped down as he left and quickly got dressed. I pressed my ear to the door, listening to the sounds of Colin opening the door, then closing it again, the rustling of paper followed by a low curse. I couldn’t take the worry and suspense anymore. I slipped out of the room and tiptoed down the hall to the corner. What I saw made my stomach plummet as if I’d fallen from a cliff.
My world spun.
Ripped paper was on the floor, and in Colin’s hand was a painting of a girl bathed in gold, surrounded by hellish surroundings. The painting he’d done of me at the villa.
“Oh, my God,” I said. Colin’s head snapped up, terror swimming in his steel eyes.
“He’s alive,” Colin hissed, disbelief coloring each word.
I went to his side, shaking. The front of the painting had a loose paper taped on that simply said: You left something. ~M.
Fight or flight instincts kicked in. I wanted to run like hell.
“We have to get out of here!” I said.
Colin turned the painting over and there was an envelope. He ripped it off and set the painting down. Inside was a photograph, but I could only see the back. Colin’s face drained of blood. I’d never seen him look like that—defeated, at a total loss.“What is it?” I asked, but a horrible sinking feeling had already taken me over. Somehow, I knew.
He pulled off the note from the front of the picture and crumpled the photo in his hand. The note said: Now we are even.
Shit. What had Marco done? Dread ripped at me, shredding my soul.
Colin’s hand went to his head.
“Your parents,” he whispered, pain obvious in each word. “They’re gone, Angela.”
“No,” I whispered. His words cascaded over me like blazing acid, each word punctuating with a sickening burn. “No!”
I slid to the floor, swallowed by a fire of anguish.
He should have killed Marco Ruiz when he had the chance. He should have watched him take his last breath—made certain he was dead, as Colin had done with Fernando.
He bent and grasped Angela by the shoulders. “We have to go! Now!” But she was an inconsolable puddle of grief. He scooped her into his arms and ran with her to Graham’s room, kicking the door with his foot until his brother opened the door, disheveled and wide-eyed.
“What the fuck?” Graham grumbled.
Colin ran in and lay his sobbing Angela on the bed, where she curled up in a ball and moaned, “Mama, I’m sorry.” Colin felt his own eyes prick with emotion, but there was no time for it.
He pulled out his phone and dialed Abernathy while speaking to Graham. “You have one minute to pack your shite. The man who held Angela killed her parents. We’re getting the fuck out of here.”
Graham’s stricken eyes went to Angela as her keening wail rose up and filled the room.
Abernathy answered and Colin rattled off their information, telling him to meet them in the field behind the forest of Graham’s house.
Colin didn’t bother packing anything for himself or Angela. He took her by the hand and made her sit up. Her chest heaved and her eyes were far away. Lost. He took her face in his hands.
“You need to run with me. I can’t carry you in case I need to fight. Here.”
He pressed a small handgun into her palm and though her whole body shook uncontrollably, her fingers curled around it.
“Good girl,” Colin whispered, relieved.
The three of them moved to the back of the house, where Colin peered through the windows. He saw nothing, so he ushered them outside, and they sprinted through the lush yard and into the forest, dodging trees and underbrush. Graham and Angela kept up, both breathing hard. It was a quarter mile of land before they hit the open clearing where Abernathy pulled up moments later, tires uprooting a line of grass.
Colin yanked the backdoor open, pushed the other two in, and Abernathy was laying on the gas before Colin’s legs were even in the door.
“They’re gassing up a plane,” the Agent said. “Decide where to go, pal.”
“Fuck.” Colin scrubbed his palms over his face and looked to Angela, who sat like a pale stone next to him, her arms circling her waist and holding tight. “What languages do you know?” he asked her.
She looked at him blankly for a moment before her eyes semi-cleared. “Russian. Spanish. German. French. A little Dutch.”
Colin nodded. They’d go to Russia. He’d been on several missions, and knew which areas to avoid.
“I want to see the picture,” she said.
Colin hesitated. “I dropped it back at the house.” He’d tossed it on purpose. He would have never, ever let her see that picture. No matter how much she begged and how much closure it might have brought. It would have also brought nightmares.
“Was it my Mom and Dad?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
A sound escaped Angela and she covered her mouth, bending at the waist and hiding her face. “This is my fault. I shouldn’t have stopped you. I should have let you kill him!”
“Nae, lassie, nae. It’s not your fault. We both thought he was as good as dead.”
Colin placed a hand on her back, feeling helpless and wanting to kill Marco ten times over. He couldn’t believe the man had survived the fatal injuries. He met Graham’s aching gaze, and their eyes stuck as they shared the realization that all three of them were united in similar horror. They’d all lost their parents to the criminal underworld. They’d all been involved in sexual slavery, and would all carry scars on their souls for life.
He couldn’t let this cycle continue. Couldn’t allow Marco to terrorize them for life. He envisioned himself finding safety for Angela and his brother, then flying to Spain.
Graham shook his head. “Ya can’t go after them. Not this time.”
Even Abernathy shook his head. “Nae, son.”
Angela sat up and looked at Colin, panic in her bloodshot eyes. She grabbed his hand.
“Don’t even think about it!”
“Angela—”
“No! If he says we’re even, then we are. He always has to have the last word, and I know it sounds crazy, but he has this strange sense of fucked up honor. He means what he says.”
Colin’s jaw clenched. He didn’t want that fucker having the last word this time or ever again. And he hated that Angela knew that bastard well enough to say that.
“Please,” Angela begged. The sadness in her thick voice killed him. “He’s taken enough from me. I can’t lose you too.” Her sobbing renewed, but this time her head went to his lap, her tears soaking the fabric at his thighs, and he pulled her up to his chest, holding her tight.
“You can’t save the fucking world,” Graham said. “You can’t fight them all. What’s the use if it gets you killed? You’ve done enough!”
Graham had never vocalized that he wanted Colin to stop what he did for a living. Hearing it took a bit of the angry wind out of Colin’s sails.
Angela gripped his shirt. “Swear to me. Say you’ll never go back there. Swear you’ll never try to get revenge.” When he said nothing, she began to punch his chest with fury. “Swear it!”
Colin wouldn’t lie to her. From what he knew of Marco, he believed what Angela said was true, but it didn’t make him feel any better. Still, he took her hands firmly and made the most difficult promise of his life.
“I won’t go back. I swear it.”
She collapsed into him, and even Graham let his head fall back and his eyes close, as if consoled by the sound of his brother’s promise.
It was hard to imagine a life that didn’t consist of hunting down criminals and trying to erase them.
He’d done a lot, but it didn’t feel like enough. It was never enough. He wanted to destroy them all, burn the entire underworld of slavery, but that’s not what Angela or Graham would have him do. They were all he had. They were his life now. Could he dedicate himself solely to keeping them safe and happy?
Staring down at Angela’s sweet, tear stained face, and the familiar slope of his little brother’s nose, the answer was clear.
Yes. Yes, he could make a life out of being there for them. A life fueled by love instead of hate—hope instead of fear. He would do that for them. For himself. He would attempt to rebuild for them a tiny piece of what’d been stolen.
At the airport Abernathy flashed a badge and sped to the terminals, slamming on the brakes next to the private jet.
“Get in touch someday when you’re settled,” Abernathy said, turning to hold out his hand.
Colin slapped his hand into the older gentleman’s and shook it, holding on longer than normal as they spoke many thanks through their eyes. Abernathy nodded and pulled his hand away.
“Go, and try to find yourself some happiness, aye? Off with ya.”
They slid out of the car and up the steps of the plane.
Colin allowed himself one last look over the Scottish landscape before saying good-bye to his homeland, likely forever.
People in our Russian community called us Nico and Eliska, but at home we were still Colin and Angela. Graham left us two years ago for New York City to chase his dreams, something that made Colin and I happy despite missing him. He left the day after Colin became my husband.
The doves on the fire escape outside our apartment window were loud that early morning. The sun was barely awake. When I stirred, Colin’s hand went around my waist, spooning me from behind and pressing his morning erection against my ass. His warm, steady breaths at the back of my neck signaled he was still half asleep.
He usually woke earlier than me to work out, so we didn’t often get to have morning sex. I fully planned to take advantage of it now.
I slid my underwear down, letting my backside wiggle against him. He pushed my hair aside and kissed the back of my neck.
Escape From Paradise Page 28
