Prey (Primal #1)

32

L et me give you a ride home,” that man with his high cheekbones and soothing voice. Torture in a hot package. I ran out of the staff exit and down the alleyway to catch the bus, hoping I’d miss him. Nope. He found me.

“Um, no, thank you,” I replied bluntly. Hopefully, he’ll get the message and back off. The last thing I needed in my life was a man whose moods swung like a pendulum after he used me. “I’m late for my bus.”

“Okay, so, let me give you a ride then,” he insisted as those long strides followed behind me. “It’ll be quicker.”

I stalled and turned back to look at him, wiggling my finger between that damn body and me. “This is not a good idea.”

“Who said?” he strode right to me, our feet touching, his scent filling my senses. Unfortunately, he smelt good. Ronan would’ve been easier to forget if he had rotten breath and foul body odor, but no, he was perfect. Very annoying.

“You don’t understand,” I sighed. “He watches me constantly. He could be watching me now for all I know.”

“Oh, we’re talking about Rourke again. Odd name that,” he said, unaffected by what I just said.

“Rourke is a perfectly normal name,” I argued.

“He doesn’t sound like a perfectly normal guy, though, by what you’ve told me. Wait. Is he real?”

“What do you mean real? Of course, he’s real.”

“Not a figment of your imagination, then?”

“No, why would I make that up.”

“Your” air quotations, “’ friend’ Rourke might need to go to anger management,” he mocked me, which wasn’t funny.

“Look, what you don’t understand is he is very dangerous,” I tried to explain.

“How dangerous?”

I leaned in, “He found out I slept with someone and sent me their tooth.”

“You sleep with a lot of men?”

“That’s the worst thing you got out of what I said. Not the tooth part, but the sleeping part.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“The tooth had blood on it,” I added so he’d get the message.

“Really? Fascinating. Does he need a job?”

“What?” was he joking?

“We could use a heavy around here. We pay well. Tell,” air quotes again, “’ Rourke’ that we could use a security officer.”

“Oh, no, no, no, that would be the worst scenario ever. He already stalks me and turns up in my room. I don’t want to work with him as well.”

“So, if I wanted you all to myself, I’d have to kill Rourke?” he offered with a straight face.

“I’m sorry. What?” I was a little stunned by that loaded question.

“Nothing. Listen, if this guy is real-”

“He’s real,” I state firmly. I had sex with the man, and I had his cock in my mouth, hitting the back of my throat. I tasted his salty cum. I felt his warm hands caress the back of my neck and run over my naked skin. The man is real.

“If he is real, he sounds nuts, so maybe I could help you sort him out.”

“Sort him out?”

“Is there an echo here?”

The bright lights of the bus coming this way caught my eye. If I missed this bus, the next one wasn’t for another twenty minutes, so I had to go now. “I have to go,” I rushed away from him.

“I’ll walk you across the road,” he offered. “It’s dark. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Rourke’s text circled in my mind: Good men don’t let nice girls walk home in the dark.

True. Ronan seemed like a good man, but if he got too close to me, I’d worried what Rourke would do to him. Rourke was crazy as heck, and in a way, I was reluctant to see how badly he beat him. But worse, I was shocked at how much I loved Rourke doing that. Pitting revenge on a man who hurt me was the ultimate compliment, and Annika relished the vigilante trope. On the other hand, Riley worried about the consequences as it might smack Rourke and me back in the face, particularly if Shaun had friends who might gang up on Rourke in retaliation.

Once I boarded the bus, I found a window seat and waved goodbye to Ronan, who stood on the pavement, hands in his pockets, watching me go. That body in a white buttoned shirt tucked into black dress pants—a physique of slender, hard muscle—was divine.

Naturally, I scanned the area street for that distinctive shiny black Mustang and hoped like hell that he didn’t see me talking to Ronan. As the bus pulled further away from Savile and Ronan, my muscles relaxed, and I closed my eyes, sinking into a half-sleep. I was aware of the noises around me as dreams floated behind my eyes.

The bus pulled up to my stop outside Gotland University, and several people climbed off and quickly dispersed into the night. Plenty of streetlights lit up the college entrance and throughout the main areas of the campus, but many corners and pockets were starved of light.

Keeping under the yellow glow of the lights, I threw my bag over my shoulder and started running. Annika loved to run, Riley loved to swim, and Petra loved to wash dishes. I snorted in laughter at the ridiculousness of my situation and wished it wasn’t this way, but it’s impossible to go back now.

Nerves curled in my stomach as I approached a greenspace surrounded by flowering brushes cast in shadow. The nearest security lights were several feet away, and normally, I’d avoid this area and take an alternative route, but it took another five minutes.

If I were smart, I’d go that way, but I didn’t want to stop my rhythm, so I propelled forward through the dark patch. Under my breath, I heard a twig snap and foliage rustle, and the bright side of the road was in sight.

Foliage rustled again, and vehicle headlights, beaming through a line of trees, blinded me momentarily. Once my night sight was normalized, I moved out of the shadows toward the road that led to my dorm, Hallen Hall, but noticed that the sedan was parked on the side of the road.

As I approached the road, two doors opened on the parked sedan, and alarm bells went off in my head. I stalled and turned back toward where I came because that car looked suspiciously like the one I’d seen follow me.

I decided to go back through the greenspace and take the alternative route I should’ve used in the first place if I wasn’t in such a hurry to climb into bed. The car doors banged behind me and I swiftly spun around to see if they were coming this way.

A figure emerged quickly from the bushes, and I screamed as their arms wrapped around my body, and we fell to the soft grass.

“Get off me,” I screamed as a hand clamped over my mouth and muffled my cries.

“Shhh, Riley, it’s me, Rourke,” he stated calmly, rolling on top of me so I couldn’t get away under his solid, heavy body.

My eyes adjusted to the man in a black ski mask, crazy fucking nutjob, Rourke. “Is it impossible for you to approach me like a normal person?” I snarled under his warm hand over my mouth, doubting he had heard what I said.

“Don’t scream, Riley,” he stated evenly with a hint of a warning tone. “Don’t scream when I remove my hand, or I’ll cover your mouth again. Okay?”

I nodded.

“Do you promise you won’t scream?” he persisted, annoying me, but I had to remind myself what he was capable of.

“Yes,” I snarled.

He removed his hand, took my wrists, and held them above my head. “Tell me where you work?”

“No, because I don’t want you to turn up and knock the teeth out of people,” I explained as I could hear voices in the distance.

“Fair argument,” he replied, glancing behind him in the direction of the voices.

“I think they were following me,” I told him. “I’ve seen that car before.”

“Huh,” he grunted and climbed off me, leaping to his feet. “Stay here.”

“Don’t start a fight or do anything stupid,” I whisper-shouted.

“Define stupid,” he called back, stooping low and picking up his pace toward the voices.

I kept my eyes on his dark frame as he vanished from view, and I climbed to my feet and brushed myself down, rolling my eyes at Rourke being Rourke. Annika would love him if she met him, probably gazing up at his covered face with blue doe eyes and tipping her world upside down to accommodate him. Crazy fucking Rourke.

Whereas Ronan was more Riley’s taste, calm, mature, responsible, clean shaven, ambitious, the list goes on. Ronan was marriage material, whereas Rourke was material for therapists.

Thudding footsteps headed my way as Rourke reappeared in my view. Headlights flooded through the trees behind him, and the sound of a starting engine followed.

“Cops,” he said a little breathless, and at first, I thought I heard wrong.

“Did you say cops? Really? Did you talk to them? How can you tell?” I asked, wondering if it was a hunch or perhaps he saw their uniforms.

“I’d recognize a cop and cop car anywhere, even in plain clothes and unmarked vehicles.” He shrugged as my head spun. “It’s pretty obvious. Are you sure they were following you?”

“No,” I answered, a little stunned, and I wondered if they were part of the Witness Protection Program, but why didn’t they contact me if they wanted to talk to me? They could access my number from Judith or Tindale. Maybe Rourke was incorrect. “I must be mistaken. Why are cops skulking about at night acting creepy?”

“Best way to catch a thief,” he answered, then I snorted when I realized that the man before me had a habit of skulking about at night acting creepy too.

“Do you think they thought I was a thief?” I whispered, hugging his arm fondly as he pressed his masked-covered mouth against my forehead.

“Well, you do look shifty,” he joked, smacking my backside, “with that little ass and cute smile.”

“Take your mask off, Rourke,” I beseeched, desperately wanting to see his features and smile. I didn’t care if he had horrible scars, if it was true because I did have doubts. I wasn’t so superficial that I’d dump a man just because of some scars that he had no control over. “Please.”

He hesitated as if considering it, but then his head cocked as if a little irritated. “I’m not ready yet. Don’t ask me again.”

“Well…I won’t take my clothes off for you then,” I threatened, unsure how far I could go.

“What?” he snapped, sounding a little stunned.

“Ha. See, I can bargain with the devil. You take your mask off, and I’ll take my clothes off,” I taunted, pushing his buttons, hoping he didn’t snap. “Deal?”

“C’mon, Riley,” his arm hooked around the small of my back and pulled me in tight, my body pressing against his.

“What? Can you handle a trade-off?” I teased, wary that this man could snap my neck and being so close to a man who danced on the fine line between sane and insane.

His hand traveled to the place between my legs and cupped my mound as exhalation coiled in my lungs, spurring him on even more. His covered head lowered as he pressed his mouth against my ear. Warm breath tingled my skin. “I have a knife in my jeans, Riley. I could…say…cut a hole in your jeans and slide inside you. No need to remove your clothes, is there?”

I swallowed over a lump in my throat, but I refused to back down and show my fear. “I don’t believe you.”

He reached behind him under his black hooded sweater and revealed a long instrument. He then titled the blade to catch the light. I suppressed my gasp. The light bounced off the blade and lit up the whites of his eyes.

“Where do you work, Riley?” he whispered in that scary, steely tone when considering doing something sinister. That heat radiated off him, and as a natural reaction, I stepped away from his sweltering aura and inhaled air into my lungs.

His hand claimed the waistband of my jeans and yanked me back to him. “You won’t do it,” I challenged him. Annika was rearing her blond head now and was eager to see how far he’d go.

“Where do you work, Riley?” he pushed, running the blade down my zipper to my abdomen, and when I moved away from the blade, the hand on the small of my back kept me in place.

“Don’t hurt me,” I breathed as the flat of the blade reached my clit, and he began massaging, and my knees grew weak as my inner thighs pulsated and shivered.

His broad chest heaves in and out as the light caught the whites of his eyes again. “I won’t hurt you, Riley Laws,” he spoke slowly, grinding his teeth. “I promise I will not hurt you.”

I couldn’t see what he was doing with the knife but felt the blade turn and gently cut the fabric. Then, he poked his finger in the tear and ripped it open more as I gasped and panted in both fear and exhilaration. Rourke was Annika’s type, and Riley borrowed him for the night.

I was surprised at how much this was turning me on, and instead of wrestling him away from me so I didn’t get cut, I placed my hand over his crotch to find that he was hard as a rock. An animal emerged as soon as I touched him, and he ripped my jeans some more, then pushed my panties aside, “So fucking wet,” he moaned in that deep, sexy voice.

As he worked my clit with those dirty fingers, I unzipped him and pulled out his cock, straight as a rod, and started pumping him.

“Fuck,” he croaked, dropping the knife on the grass, placing his hands on my butt cheeks, and my feet left the ground.

Wrapping my legs around his waist, he drove into me, and I cried out as I rolled my hips, moving over him, as I leaned back on, thrust his abdomen forward, and fell into a rhythm.

His strength was impressive, holding me up like this, and with every inward and outward movement, my pants grew louder. I could hear a group of students nearby, jeering and laughing, but it was too dark to see where they were and if they could see us. But I was so entranced by this man’s dangerous liaison that I didn’t care if they peeked, and I didn’t care if they heard me being pleasured by a masked man.

“You fucking drive me insane,” he muttered as he swayed his hips, driving into me.

“You…are…already…insane,” I reminded him as he felt so damn good inside me due to the angle. His penis pounded my inner walls adding to the visceral sensation, filling me up.

“No,” his reply was blunt and definite as he grunted with every thrust. “The day I first saw you was when I turned insane.”

“I’ll take that…” An elongated sigh poured from my mouth as the orgasm began to ripple down my legs to my shins that were clenching his firm body. “As a compliment.”

He increased the pace, bouncing me off his abdomen as we drew closer to the finale as his arm muscles bulged and gripped my body tightly. Shoulders leaned back, hands guiding our stride, pushing me up and down and up and down until…

“I’m coming,” I cried out, and without warning, he dropped me onto the soft grass, strapped my legs over his shoulders, and finished me off by ramming into me so hard that my body jolted along the grass a few inches.

I arched my back as the orgasm claimed my body, rippling over my skin as my scream loudly escaped my throat.