Chapter Five
Killian
Shane isn’t fucking here yet.
I knew he might not be. He hasn’t had long enough to get here from Silvan’s family mansion, but if there’s a night to disobey traffic laws, this is it.
My car is parked at an abandoned building several blocks in the opposite direction. We could start heading that way and I could just text Shane our updated location when he gets closer, but I don’t want to walk down the road with the girl out in plain sight, either.
If I were one of those guys and the girl I just tried to rape and murder took off into the woods, I wouldn’t run for a minute and then say, “Well, damn, I guess she got away.”
I wouldn’t stop until I’d finished it, and while I realize none of the knuckleheads in the piggyback society are made of the same stuff we’re made of, they are spoiled little bitches who aren’t used to getting in trouble for the bad shit they’ve done. They have wealthy families and enough connections that they can usually get out of whatever shit they’ve stepped in. Nearly all the trust fund babies that go here do.
They will expect to get away with this.
If at least one of them has enough sense to solve his own problems without daddy’s help, they’re going to come after her.
Walking down the road where they can see us if someone is driving around looking for us is just fucking stupid. Especially when they have a gun. We’d be sitting ducks, and I’m not trying to die tonight.
I turn back to the girl to tell her we need to keep moving but stay out of sight, but when I do, I see a wild glint in her eyes.
Fear, mistrust, confusion.
Before I can process what it means, she darts across the road, the long lacy white train of her costume flying out behind her. The dark forest on the other side seems to swallow her whole.
What the fuck?
I don’t know why I chase her.
It’s instinct.
One second, I’m standing here gaping as this girl runs from me; the next, a surge of adrenaline is roaring through my veins and I’m taking off after her into the woods.
Even though it’s dark, she’s easier to spot since she’s dressed in white. That’s why I told her to get in front of me when Kyle started shooting at us. I’m wearing all black. Harder to spot.
She’s also more afraid, and like a wild fucking animal, I can smell it on her as I follow the path she took through the woods. I don’t know why she’s afraid of me all of a sudden, but that fear escalates when she looks back over her shoulder and realizes I’m already halfway to catching up to her.
A cry escapes her, and she runs faster.
Her long lacy robe catches on a branch that rips right through it. For some inexplicable reason, I grab the scrap of lace on my way past and shove it in my pocket.
Belatedly, I rationalize that I grabbed it so if Kyle and his guys come this way, they won’t see it and know they’re on the right track, but I know it’s a lie. I don’t know why I needed to claim that little artifact of hers.
I don’t know why I need to grab her anymore, either. I start to lose sight of the why. Chasing her doesn’t make sense. I got her foolish little ass out of danger. If she wanted to run off without so much as a thank you, that’s her business.
Realizing that doesn’t halt my pursuit.
She’s not far ahead of me now. She’s out of breath as she runs like hell in her pretty costume, fleeing like a princess on the run from a vicious beast. The lace catches on another twig and she rips it free, bunching the material up around her thighs so it doesn’t slow her down again.
That just bares more of her body to my greedy gaze.
The lacy material has fallen down to bare her shoulders, and now, with her robe clutched around her hips as she runs and her virginal white stockings falling, it’s easy to imagine her in even less.
The sight of her bare skin injects a rush of excitement into the blood thundering through my veins.
My desire to catch her ramps up. The distance between us closes. She looks back, sees how close I am. The fear in her eyes should snap me out of it, but it doesn’t.
I tackle her. She cries out in my arms as I take her down. She gasps at the impact but recovers enough to turn and fight me as soon as we crash to the ground.
“Get off me!”
Her cries fall on deaf ears. My hands are all over her, trying to restrain her as she fights me off, and that flimsy robe has practically fallen off. One good tear and it would just be a blanket beneath us on the forest floor.
My hands squeeze her hips, and my cock is like steel in my pants as she fights and claws at me.
Christ.
It’s a cold fucking night, but my blood is on fire. The harder she fights, the more I want to conquer her.
I want to turn her over and rip off this bodice. I want to pin her to the ground and drive my cock into her. I want to hear her cries and pants as her nails dig into the forest floor, as she tries to crawl away, but she’s forced to take my cock. I want to squeeze her tits and pump into her body. I want to feel her pussy squeezing me, fighting to keep me out as I force my way in. I want her to submit to me.
“Please.”
Her fearful cry breaks through the fog of lust clouding my senses. She’s on her back looking up at me now. Her brown eyes glisten with tears, and she looks so afraid.
I realize I’m pinning her down, planted between her legs with my cock flush against her pussy.
She can feel how hard I am.
Fuck.
I snap out of it and release her wrists. I push off her and get to my feet first, then I offer my hand for some fucking reason.
Her gaze darts to it with more mistrust than before, but she must realize she can’t outrun me when I’m this close and she doesn’t have a head start. If she runs again, I’ll just tackle her little ass again, and as much as I enjoyed it last time… she probably shouldn’t tempt me to indulge my darker impulses.
I was only playing at being a hero tonight; I’m not one.
She swallows, then reluctantly takes my hand.
I pull her to her feet, then let go so she can brush off her robe, then pull it back on. She brushes tears from her cheeks hastily with her face turned away, as if hoping I won’t notice.
“What the fuck was that?” I demand.
She shoots me a wounded sort of glare that tells me she doesn’t even want to talk to me, but she does anyway. “If you aren’t one of them, how did you know I’d be in that basement?”
That…
That’s a fair question.
I push out a breath and check our surroundings since I got so caught up in chasing her pretty little ass, I forgot to give a fuck about the shitheads chasing after us with a gun. “It’s a long story. I’m not one of them, all right? I know you have no reason to trust me, but I need you to do it anyway so I can get us the fuck out of here.”
“And what happens to me if you’re lying?”
I know she’s just trying to make me see her side of things here, but I don’t need her to. I can see it. It just doesn’t matter. I know my intentions, and I don’t have time to reassure her until she believes them, too.
So, I’m a little meaner than I probably need to be when I look her directly in the eyes and say, “Nothing worse than what’s gonna happen if you run from me again and I catch you.”
Her eyes widen.
I don’t wait for a response.
I turn and head back the way we just came, and a second later, I hear her reluctantly following after me.
I still have enough of a hard-on that it pisses me off. I don’t know what the fuck happened back there. I’ve never lost control like that before. I’m smarter than that.
That’s how fucking idiots operate, acting first and thinking later.
I’m no better than fucking Kyle, probably back at his clubhouse with his idiot friends sulking while the girl who could put their asses behind bars runs free.
The disdain I feel for those fuckers neutralizes the arousal pretty quickly.
By the time we make it back to the mouth of the forest, Shane’s here. His black BMW slows to a stop. I open the back door and grab the girl’s arm, making her get in.
She slides across the seat without objection and drops her shoes on the floor. I can tell she’s guarded and probably still doesn’t trust me, but even if I do intend to hurt her, she’s aware of her chances of escape—and her chances are even slimmer now that I have a friend with me.
Shane is behind the wheel, but he has a ski mask pulled over his face as I instructed. Realizing both of the men currently in possession of her still have their faces covered, she crosses her arms protectively and sits as close to the door as she can.
I don’t think she’s foolish enough to open it and try running again, but I get the sense that she wants to.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” I warn her.
“Too late,” she mutters.
“Take us back to my car,” I tell Shane.
The car needs to start moving before the girl gives in to her reckless impulses.
He locks the doors first, his gaze flickering to the girl in his rearview mirror, then over to me. He’s picking up on her hostage vibes as well, and since I sold this as a rescue mission, he’s probably a little thrown.
He pulls away anyway, though.
Even if I were kidnapping this girl, he’d pull away.
That’s why he’s a Blue Blood.
We show up for each other, no questions asked.
Even though it’s doubtful they’re still in the woods or that they would emerge this long after we did, I look back as we drive away.
Then I look up ahead.
If they’re smart, they split up. Maybe some guys were chasing us through the woods, but someone else should be out looking for us on the other side.
“Keep an eye out up ahead. There were enough guys, they might have spread out. Someone could cut us off up here at the next street.”
Shane glances at me in the rearview mirror. “You know, I didn’t sign up for a fucking car chase tonight. If I’d known you’d need me, I would have brought the other car.”
“You weren’t my first pick either,” I assure him. “I should’ve called Dare. That fucker doesn’t feel fear. I bet he’s great at driving in high-stress situations.”
“Well, if I’m so fucking bad at it, you can feel free to get out and walk.”
“Just keep your eyes open.”
I’m tense driving past the next couple of roads, but in no time at all, we’re clear of the immediate area and near my car.
Now that the immediate danger seems to have passed, my fight-or-flight instincts settle enough that I start feeling the aftermath of what went down back there.
I couldn’t feel it when we were on the run with all that adrenaline coursing through me, but now, the pain in the center of my back toward my left shoulder pulses and radiates heat. I can feel something foreign sticking out of my back in a few places, so I don’t sit back against the seat.
I can feel the girl looking at me, too. I look over at her, and her gaze darts away like she got caught looking at a boy in class. “What’s your name?”
“Brynn Blakely.”
She answers like a schoolgirl, too. Like she’d give her name ten out of ten times to someone who asked for it, and maybe offer a report about what she did over summer vacation, too.
She doesn’t ask mine. I don’t know if it’s because she figures if we’re both wearing masks, we probably aren’t going to offer our names and she doesn’t want to put us in the position of saying no, or…
Actually, no.
That’s what it is.
I’d put money on it.
There’s something absurdly proper about her as she sits there trying to straighten the see-through white lace to cover her smooth, exposed thigh. Her hand freezes when she spots something she must not have noticed before, though.
Blood.
Not hers, but the blood of that asshat who was on top of her when I slid my blade between his fucking ribs.
I didn’t like that guy. Probably didn’t need to stab him, but I wanted to, so I did.
He’ll be fine. I shouldn’t have pierced anything vital, but it was an unnecessary risk to take.
I didn’t like that he kissed her.
I don’t know why, I just didn’t.
Doing damage like that leaves me open to potential trouble, though, so I shouldn’t have done it. I don’t know if they’ll take him to a hospital to get him stitched up, but assuming they do, someone’s going to ask how he got that injury.
“We’re gonna need to get a tail on the RKs,” I tell Shane. “I need to know what their next moves are so I can figure mine out.”
“Our next moves,” Shane says without having to think about it. His gaze flickers to me in the mirror, but since the girl’s here, he doesn’t say anything else.
I know what he means, though. I may have been the one to step in some shit tonight, but every one of my brothers will go to bat for me if they need to.
“Speaking of next moves, could someone drop me back at my car so I can go home?” Brynn asks.
“No,” I say simply.
She frowns at me, but doesn’t argue. Instead, arms crossed and annoyed, she mutters, “I thought you said you were a good guy.”
From the front seat, Shane snickers.
I smirk faintly. “That is not what I said.”