36. Change the Game
SOUNDTRACK: Chokehold by Allistair
~ CAIN ~
Wrong. It was all wrong.
She gasped and startled like she should.
She dropped her wine, and tried to turn to look at me, but I caught her too fast.
But as I dragged her off that table and over towards the shadow of the trees, well-outside the cone of light from the streetlights that had flickered on as the sun went down, she didn’t fight.
I growled, tightening my grip around her so she couldn’t budge, until I had her deep in the shadows and no one was going to see us from the road.
If she screamed, there were dozens of houses where they’d hear if they were outside. But the moment I took her, I could tell she wasn’t going to.
Something was wrong.
When I got her under the trees, I leaned her forward, hunching over her, checking the street, listening beyond my own panting to make sure that no one had seen me take her.
But except for a dog barking down the street, and the rush of cars on nearby roads, there was nothing.
“Thank God,” she breathed, bent forward over my arms. “Thank God you came. I was losing my mind.”
My chest tightened at those words. I blinked, uncertain how to respond to that. But she just sagged in my grip so I was taking all of her weight, and sighed like it was a welcome hug.
“Bridget,” I rasped. Except, I didn’t know what I was going to say.
“My friend died,” she said in a very small voice. “And my mom died when I was little. And I think it’s just hitting me and that’s making me want—”
It was instinct, because she couldn’t say those words. I clapped a hand over her mouth and pulled her upright so her feet dangled, but her ear was next to my lips. “Shut. Your fucking. Mouth.”
She tensed and that predator in my chest went on alert.
“Now… run,” I snarled and threw her away from me with such force that her arms pinwheeled and she stumbled when her feet found the ground, falling almost completely to her knees.
But even though she caught her weight and got her feet under her, she didn’t do as I’d instructed and flee.
She just stayed there, crouching like a runner about to start a race, her shoulders rising and falling quickly.
And she didn’t look at me.
“Fucking run, Bridget,” I spat.
“But—”
I stepped forward, furious, and grabbed her hips, throwing her forward again with a snarled curse. “I said run. That is the game. That’s why I’m here—that’s what you asked for—”
To my relief, when she caught her balance, she looked back once over her shoulder, then took off like a hare, and I was surprised again at how quick she was on her feet. But the rush of the hunt was on me, and as she darted along the line of trees, staying in the shadows, the monster inside me came alive and I took off after her with a stifled roar of joy.
I got lost in the strawberry scent of her, the blood pulsing in my veins, and the delicious sound of her panting breaths tearing through the falling night.
She almost reached the back of the grounds before I caught her—cackling as she sidestepped my swipe, then squeaking when I caught her around the middle and took her to the ground. My shoulder was grateful for the soft-earth and grass, but I would have taken her anyway, even if it was cement.
I curled one arm around her head as we went down, making sure she didn’t get beaned by the force of my tackle, rolling us until we were on the ground and she was hissing like a cat and trying to keep her arm free because I’d only managed to pin one of them to her side in the tackle.
There was an awkward struggle when she planted that hand on the ground and tried to push me back at the same time I reached for that wrist and we struggled.
But then I had her… on her belly with one of my arms around her and my weight pressing her down hard so she couldn’t get her right arm loose. Her other wrist was in my grip and I held it almost at her shoulder so she couldn’t get any leverage with that elbow.
“You’ll never win, Bridget,” I growled as I braced and then rolled us over so I could get to my feet without losing my grip on her.
She struggled again, cursing under her breath as I kept her to my chest and got us up, pulling her right to the back of that little park where a six-foot, solid-wood fence rose behind the trees, offering both darkness, and a place to pin her.
She called me every name under the sun as I carried her, even getting a couple good shots at my shins with her heels, but we both knew her heart wasn’t really in it.
And it was pissing me off.
When I passed the trunks of the thick cedars, under the shelter of their branches, to the fence behind, I whipped her around and shoved her up against the fence so hard her head thunked back and she blinked a couple of times.
But I had both her wrists gripped in one fist, and used my body—one knee between her thighs and my hips against hers—to keep her pinned to that fence.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I snarled, my heart pounding. “Fight!”
“I am!”
“No, you aren’t.”
“I’m just glad you’re here—”
Furious , I slammed that hand to her throat, gripping her hard enough that her words cut off in a strangled squeak.
And as she hung there from my fist, clawing at my forearm, her mouth opening and closing like a fish, I leaned into her ear.
“What the fuck is going on with you?”
I loosened my grip on her throat just enough to let her wheeze a few words. Words that I expected to be pleas for me to change the rules, or garbled explanations for what the fuck was going on in her head. But instead…
“Keep going.”
I blinked and stared at her, so off-balance that I cut off her air again for a second, just so I could think.
But now it was my heart that wasn’t in it. I released her almost immediately because it suddenly felt like her skin burned my palm.
She dropped to her feet, wheezing, sucking at the air, while I stood in front of her, gaping behind my mask.
“What. The. Fuck?”
She’d leaned forward slightly and I would have sworn she rested her forehead on my chest for a second as she gathered her breath, but before I could flinch, her head snapped up and she looked up at me.
“We’re the same. You and me.”
I stared at her, every alarm in my head screaming.
She swallowed and continued, her voice hoarse. “The others scare me. But you don’t.”
“What the fuck are you doing, Bridget?” I was frozen. My feet nailed to the dirt and scraggly grass. The monster in me roaring that she would fear me, but the other side of me suddenly desperate to hold her and keep her close and put myself between her and the world that scared her so much and— fuck!
I tensed, about to run, when she caught my arm and shook her head. She was still panting and had to swallow before she could speak.
“I’m not… I’m not going to give you the safe word. Ever. ”
“Then, what—”
“I just want more,” she whispered, then stood to her full height—which was still below my shoulder—and took the half-step to stand between my feet.
I couldn’t move as her pretty little hands slid up my chest to the top of the zipper on my hoodie and drew it down in one quick swipe—and then she was tugging my shirt out of my jeans, and reaching for my belt—
I caught both her hands with a snarl and pushed her back.
“No, Cain, please—”
I shoved her back up against that fence and she hissed like I’d hurt her, but her eyes never left my mask—I knew she couldn’t see my face through it, but it still made adrenaline pulse through me like I’d been shot up.
Catching both her wrists in one hand and pulling them up above her head, I had her arched back and her nose only an inch from my mask.
“What are you doing, Bridget?”
“I’m not scared of you. You’re like me.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I want to play a new game.”
“No.”
She stared at me, her brows pinching over her nose, her eyes trying to search mine, but she couldn’t see anything.
But having her like this, so close, her body not tense, but liquid… it was intoxicating. And so dangerous.
Her throat bobbed and I wanted to bite it.
And then I realized… she wasn’t fighting me at all. The wall behind her forced her to arch, but her body was loose and her hips… she was pressing her hips against me.
I growled and she sucked in a breath as I rocked my hips, thrusting hard. Her eyes widened and her jaw went a little slack, but she didn’t say anything. And that was fucked up.
“I’m not scared of you, Cain. I want you. I want to know you. I want you to know me. I’m—”
I exhaled on a shudder and snarled at her to shut up, but I wasn’t even thinking. The twang of desire jolted through me at her words, and if I’d let go of her wrists, my hand would be shaking.
She tried to roll her hips against me again, but I had her pinned too tight, too close, no room to move.
It hit me that I wasn’t shaking because I was afraid. And I wasn’t shaking because I was mad. I was shaking because I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted a woman in my life. And it was not the way this was supposed to go.
Yet, I was already in too deep to say no. To either of us.
“One move and I’m gone,” I snarled at her, then pressed my free hand firmly over her eyes and the bridge of her nose, making absolutely certain that she couldn’t see anything before I released her hands.
She obviously thought I meant she had to keep her arms up, because they didn’t drop to her sides when I let them go with the other hand so I could reach for my mask.
Deep in the back of my skull a small voice was screaming, snarling, shoving at me that this was too dangerous.
But she was right there , and I was quivering with need, and…
Pushing the mesh frame back so it sat on top of my head like a catcher’s mask, I waited, unbreathing, to see if she’d try to break free. But she didn’t. And I didn’t move. Just stared at her lips, that lower pillow slack as she stood there, unable to see, but her breath rushing in and out of her throat.
Pink lips, sweet, warm breath, breasts pressing against my chest with every expansion of her lungs.
It was too much.
“Bridget—”
“I want you, Cain,” she whispered, tipping up her chin.
And I broke.
I took that mouth, devoured it, entwined my tongue with hers, sucked in a breath so deep and rough it seared my throat because she kissed me back. Her arms fell, one hooking around my neck, the other sliding under my hoodie to grip my back and I didn’t stop her.
I didn’t fucking stop her.
I just kissed her harder, deeper. Tilting my head because I couldn’t get deep enough, couldn’t eat those lips, couldn’t swallow that tongue, had to suck at her soul instead.
And then I realized what I was doing.
I had my mask off. I was holding her, only one palm between me and a police artist’s sketch of the masked man. And I was kissing her like she was fucking crack.
I tore out of the kiss, pressing her back so hard on the fence, she gasped, but she was smiling.
I was panting and so was she, so I took a moment to catch my breath and sear the memory of her body willingly pressed against mine, the sweet taste of her tongue, and the song of her heavy breathing deep into my memories.
Then I took hold of myself, closed my eyes because I thought it would help with the temptation—it didn’t, I still wanted her like I wanted oxygen—then leaned in, inhaling her scent, before I rasped in her ear.
“Bridget… do you want to live?”
She tensed for the first time and didn’t answer immediately. Then she swallowed and I growled, almost unable to resist leaning down to taste that delicate throat.
“Yes,” she breathed.
Every muscle in my body turned to stone.
This is over. It has to be over. She’s done.
Soul screaming in protest, I grabbed my mask with trembling fingers and pulled it back down over my face before removing my hand from her eyes and taking one step back.
But the moment I moved, she reached for me, even before she blinked and opened her eyes that were wide with alarm.
“Cain, you have to understand, I want to live with you in my—”
“Goodbye, Bridget.”
“No! Cain—!”
I turned and ran, letting her increasingly desperate calls fuel my feet until I was flying across the ground, teeth gritted, arms pumping, and my heart shivering.
“Cain! Please!”
But I tore across the grass, past the playground, over the neighboring fence and through one property after another, praying that I’d be able to find my car, because all I could do was flee. I wasn’t even thinking.
I had to get away. Had to make myself keep running. Because if I stopped I’d go back and she’d reveal me.
I’d let her.
And that just wasn’t possible.
Goodbye, Bridget.
Goodbye.
Good-fucking-bye, beautiful.
I wish it didn’t have to be this way. But we had an agreement, and you broke it.
I’d never forgive myself if I broke you.