Chapter 14
14
ELLIE
H oly hellfire.
The struggle to play it cool was real. My entire body buzzed with energy similar to the live wire of an electric fence. I forced my breathing to slow; hyperventilating right now would be terrible. I was on fire. My skin itched, heat built beneath my skin, and my center wouldn’t stop throbbing. I had no clue he’d respond that way when I boldly whispered in his ear. Who said shit like that? Hot profilers with a dirty mind and mouth, that’s who.
Devil’s balls, he controlled my arousal with a simple heated glance or naughty word. My breathing sped up again as I pictured his head dipped between my thighs, licking me in a way I’d only seen being done on Netflix. What would it feel like?
“What’s this big secret you were about to tell me? The one I couldn’t reveal even if Swann is being a witch’s tit.”
Rotating from staring out the window I shot him a nod at his “Ellie approved” curse. “Good one.” The corner of his lip twitched, but he smothered the hint of a smile to cast me an impatient expression. “Oh, right, sorry. Brett, um, you know, can’t do that.” I pointed a finger at Chandler’s obvious erection. Unable to stop staring blatantly at the length pressing against his slacks, a hot ache built in my lower belly. The urge to touch him there turned unbearable.
In a trance—was being put in a trance by a man’s large penis a normal thing?—I stretched a searching hand over the console and placed it high on his thick thigh. Same as earlier when I touched him, that muscle twitched beneath my palm, delighting the part of me that wanted him to be as affected by me as I was him. The smooth material of his slacks caught beneath a short, jagged nail as I trailed a single finger higher.
My lips parted, releasing soft puffs of breath. I needed him more than I needed air in that moment. Maybe ever again.
“Ellie,” Chandler groaned but didn’t lift a hand to pause my exploration.
“What? I’m curious.” Using the sharp edge of a nail, I traced the outline of his erection. At the hiss of air through clenched teeth, I dared a look, peering through my dark lashes to his handsome face. “We haven’t even done anything. I’m fully clothed,” I whispered. “I thought that just happened on TV shows and movies.”
“What?” His voice was strained, facial features tight with concentration—or was that pain?
Daring a handful, I gripped what I could over his slacks and gave his thick, steel dick a squeeze.
“Ellie, you’re fucking killing me slowly.” His eyes left the road and met mine, lust and heat making the bright blue shine brighter than ever before. “I fucking love it.” A honk snapped his attention back to the road. He muttered a few curses before letting out a heavy breath. “You touching me is the best kind of torture a man could ask for, baby, but if we want to survive the drive to Waco, I need you to ease back to your side of the truck.”
Biting my lip, I gave him one more squeeze, which earned me a hard, chastising glare, before relaxing back to my side. Our matching heavy breaths sounded over the heater and clinks of ice against the glass.
“I’m nervous to continue this conversation,” Chandler said after a few minutes of us collecting ourselves.
The reminder of why I was so curious was like a bucket of ice water to my overheated skin and lusty thoughts. Well, not really ice water; I was still drenched and would hop on his lap if he said the word, so more like warm water. Like shower water. I bet he looked amazing naked in a shower, the water sliding down his lean, muscular body.
Wonder if he has any tattoos.
My breathing increased. Squeezing my thighs together in an attempt to quell the throb, I grimaced when it only made the ache worse.
“Ellie.” His tone was full of warning.
“You did something to me,” I whimpered like I was in physical pain. Shoving my hand between my squeezed thighs, I pressed the heel of my palm against my throbbing clit, hoping the extra pressure would help ease me. “What did you do to me last night? It’s like I can’t turn this off,” I complained and nodded to where I rubbed between my thighs. “Especially when I’m thinking about you all sexy in the shower.”
“Take care of it, then.” Chandler’s voice dropped an octave, a low rumble adding to the clear order to pleasure myself right here in the truck.
I moaned at the eruption of tingles his dirty idea sent cascading through me.
“But I want you to do it. I want your hands, not mine.”
“Pretend it’s my hand, my fingers slipping inside that pussy I can’t wait to devour.”
“Devil’s balls,” I mumbled. “Please, Chandler. I’m dying over here.”
“I can’t right now, baby. Either wait until I can pull over or take care of it on your own right here with me watching.” Every half second, his eyes flicked from the road to where I grinded my hand against my core. “How about some direction?”
“No,” I panted before realizing what he offered. “Wait, yes. Devil’s balls, yes.”
“Please stop bringing Satan into this conversation. I have a feeling he’d be better than me, being the king of sin and all.”
“Chandler,” I whined and begged with the single word. “This isn’t funny. What did you do to me?”
“Made you horny with my wit and dazzling good looks?”
“Exactly. Now, those directions?” I was possessed. That had to be it. No longer was this body my own but some horny-as-hell devil spawn’s. And the words coming out of my mouth couldn’t be my own, even though I fully agreed with everything the demon in me was saying.
“Pop that top button.” He gave a pointed look to the top button of my jeans. “This would be easier with those leggings you wore last night.”
Somehow even more heat flooded my face, this time from embarrassment rather than lust. “Ah, yeah, they were a bit… dirty.”
“I bet they were,” he responded with a deep, throaty chuckle full of male satisfaction. “Zipper next.”
I did as I was told, fingers trembling with excitement instead of fear. How many times had I been instructed to remove my clothing, the commands striking fear and hate through my body, drying up any desire, unlike now, where a damn lake currently pooled in my boy shorts. Chandler had a way with me, turning what I thought I’d hate or not respond to into something I was on the verge of craving more than candy.
And that was saying something. Hell, that was saying a whole lot if I put my current urges above the addiction.
“Where did you go, Ellie?”
I shook my head, dislodging my thoughts. “I was thinking I might be more addicted to you than my Blow Pops.”
“I’ll let you have a good suck of me for comparison, how’s that sound?” A throaty hum rumbled in my chest, shocking us both. “I’m guessing that’s a good sound.”
“Another first with you. What next, Chandler? I’m dying here.”
“Nothing.” I gaped at him, my core throbbing with such an intensity that I wondered if it had its own tiny heart down there. “Those jeans have a little give to them, right?”
“What—oh.” My eyes slammed shut at his fingers slipping beneath the elastic band of my underwear. “Yes,” I hissed, lifting my hips to allow more room to move.
His hand slid lower, fingers hovering right over my swollen nub. He gave it a quick flick that I felt from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. “I couldn’t let you have all the fun, now could I?”
My moan turned into a gasp and then back into a moan when he thrust two fingers past my entrance, pushing deep.
“Fucking hell, you’re drenched. You weren’t kidding when you said you couldn’t wait.”
In and out he fucked me with his fingers, adding another thick digit and making the fit deliciously tight. I rode on the sensations exploding in every cell, climbing higher and closer to the peak. Using the heel of his hand, he pressed hard against my swollen clit and circled. Every muscle contracted. Both heels dug into the floorboard to raise my hips high off the seat as I crested and plunged into the deep void of pleasure.
The truck swerved, sending me flying against the door, and a long, loud honk quickly followed. Chandler’s fingers tugged out of my pants at the same time my heavy lids blinked open. The rear end of an eighteen-wheeler nearly filling the windshield had a small scream of terror rising up my throat. A string of curses filled the cab as the truck jerked with sudden deceleration. The seat belt snapped tight, keeping me safely against the seat. Another loud honk had me turning to see a huge Dodge Ram speeding past, the driver’s middle finger stuck out the window.
Both of us panted, me from the fear of dying and lasting effects of my orgasm, and him, well, I didn’t know why he was so worked up. Silence filled the awkward void as we picked up speed once more, merging back onto the highway. Until the most random thing happened.
He laughed. Hard. A full wide-smile, chest-shaking laugh.
Then the next most random thing happened.
I laughed too.
“This is the most amazing thing I’ve eaten in my life.” It was unladylike to talk with my mouth full, but he had to know how much I enjoyed the delicious concoction of egg, cheese, and potato. “We need one of these in Orin.”
Chandler nodded his agreement as he shoved the last of his taquito into his mouth. After a long sip of coffee, he leaned against the door and adjusted in the seat until his knee was propped up against the console. “Whataburger is a Texas staple. Every time I’m here, I eat nearly every meal at one. Breakfast is their best though.” Taking a long hash brown from the tiny paper sack, he tapped it against the fancy ketchup container. “Why don’t you eat meat?”
I cringed, hating that I’d have to tell him the truth. “How’d you guess?”
“When I listed off the different breakfast tacos, your little nose scrunched when I said the ones with meat.” Reaching over, he bopped the nose in question and smiled. “And in your fridge, there was jelly, bread, carrots, and peanut butter. You do know peanut butter can stay on the shelf right?”
“Mice,” I replied like that said it all. “And your observations are correct once again. It’s a combination of things, really. We raised our own chickens, cows, sheep, and a few goats inside the compound, even grew our own vegetables, to make our community as self-sustaining as possible. There were only a few things the men went into town or drove all the way to Waco for. Anyway, long story short, I witnessed them slaughter the animals for our food. It was cruel, and gross, and so, so sad.” I huffed and took a small bite of a crispy hash brown. “Which doesn’t make sense. I can watch shows that highlight the worst crimes, have seen every true crime documentary out there, but witnessing them killing the animals left a lasting effect on me.”
“That makes a lot of sense, Ellie.”
“And,” I said slowly, knowing he wouldn’t like the next reason, “then there’s the fact that I was forced to eat raw red meat twice a day that last year before I left.”
Chandler blinked at me, then turned and blinked at the shopping center we’d parked in front of. Whispering to himself, he massaged his brows in either concentration or annoyance. Giving him a second to process that oddity that was forced upon me, I unwrapped the still warm taquito and raised it toward my mouth.
“I should stop being stunned by what you reveal, but I can’t. I really thought I’d heard it all before meeting you.” And he’d seen a lot of shit was what he clearly left off that statement for my benefit. “Do tell, what was the fucking purpose of forcing you to eat raw meat?”
I chewed, giving me a second to debate how to word the honest answer. “Someone in the community told Jacob it would help my menstrual cycle.”
His brows furrowed, lips parted like he wanted to say something but was at a loss.
Me too, buddy. Me too.
“It’s why I left.” I took another bite of taquito and set the uneaten half on my lap before taking a long sip of Coke. “Or why I was kicked out, I guess. After years of doing everything he could to get me pregnant, to give him a perfect heir, I still wasn’t. Not even a miscarriage or false positive. Jacob grew more and more frustrated, took… various measures, but still nothing. Between me being defective and my ‘insubordination’—” I snorted at the word. I smiled when not even a flicker of fear hit me, and I knew it had everything to do with Chandler’s close presence. If he was here, I was safe. I felt that truth in the depth of my wounded soul. “I never stopped wanting more, asking to leave the compound. I’d never left, not once, but I knew there was a different, better life outside the fence.” I pressed a hand to my heart. “In here, I knew there was more out there for me than fear, hate, and boredom. Finally one day he snapped. I’d stopped faking orgasms for a long while, stopped being the dutiful wife. That on top of me not giving him a child….” My hand shook as I reached for the orange and white striped Styrofoam cup. “I was publicly punished. The whole community was there watching him list my atrocities against The Church, against him. He told me when I realized who I belonged to that I could come back home, but until then I was to be cast out of the gates and forced to figure out life on my own. Each member got a shot at me. When I woke up, I was tossed outside the gate like I was no one, barely breathing from the punishment I’d received. I haven’t been back since.”
I raised a lone shoulder like the memory wasn’t still a raw, gaping wound. I rubbed at my sternum.
“That’s how Janice found me. Dazed with a concussion, bloody, walking alongside the road. Jacob is like Brett in a lot of ways. The more he took that anger out on me, the more excited he became, until soon that was the only way he’d even get hard enough to… well, you know. I think that’s why pain turns me on now. It hurt, but I also knew it would hurt worse if I didn’t find some pleasure in it to make what came next bearable.”
A single tear slipped free. Why did I tell him all that? Surely he wouldn’t want me knowing I wasn’t just broken, I was unrepairable. But for some reason, just voicing all that lifted a sliver of the darkness that had consumed me since, well, forever.
I startled when the door whipped open, a gust of bitter air rushing inside the warm cab. Wide-eyed, I watched as Chandler leapt out, slamming the door shut so hard the truck rocked. Devastated tears threatened, building in my lower lids, but I willed them back. I couldn’t let him see how his rejection wounded me. If he saw how much his acceptance meant, he’d find a way to use it against me.
After steeling my emotions, I twisted to look out the back window. Chandler leaned against the tailgate, forearms pressed to the metal, head hanging between his shoulders. As if he sensed my stare, his head lifted. The emotion on his slack features hit me like a smack to the face. There wasn’t anger or disgust when he met my gaze.
Devastation.
That was written across his face. Sheer devastation—for me.
Shoving the uneaten food into the trash sack, I hurried out of the truck, tugging the lightweight windbreaker tighter around my chest as I stepped into the cold. The black asphalt was slightly gray with the dusting of snow and ice, some of it crunching beneath my steps. I stopped beside him and pressed my forehead against his bicep, closing my eyes to soak in the minimal contact.
He shifted, and warmth engulfed me as he wrapped me in a lung-constricting bear hug. Soft, dry lips pressed to my temple and lingered. The strength behind his hold made breathing difficult, but I didn’t dare say a word, not wanting to disrupt the moment.
“Don’t feel bad for me,” I whispered, the words swept away on a gust of wind. “Don’t let me see pity in your eyes now that you know. Not when, for the first time in my life, someone saw me for me, not my past. Don’t you dare take that from me, Chandler.”
His solid chest rose and fell with heavy breaths.
“Pity isn’t anywhere close to what I feel, Ellie. I don’t think I could ever feel that for a fighter like yourself. Understanding, guilt, and wrath war inside me right now, and I don’t know… I don’t know how to process it. I want to erase everything that was done to you at the hand of that bastard and fucked-up community.” At that small confession, he squeezed me tight before releasing his hold and grabbing my hand.
Leading me back around the truck, he opened the passenger side door and lifted me onto the seat with a solid yet gentle grip on my waist. My thighs slid along the leather as I parted my knees, allowing him to settle between my spread legs. A hint of a snowflake fell onto his cheek, immediately melting to a tiny dot of water. I glanced up to the gray sky. Pockets of sunshine now broke through the clouds, suggesting the winter storm would be gone by noon.
“Tell me what to do,” Chandler said, drawing my focus back to him. “Tell me you want him dead, or arrested, or missing without a trace.” His voice broke at the end. Glancing away, he cleared his throat before trying to speak again. “Tell me to do it so I can make him pay for what he did to you, so I can get all this”—he slammed a fist against his chest—“all this rage out of me. I can’t fucking breathe with this anger.”
The rough stubble along his jaw scraped beneath the pads of my fingertips as I brushed them along his face, committing each inch to memory. I wanted to remember this, his face in this exact moment. Scooting to the edge of the seat, I pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his lips.
“Don’t let his actions destroy you too,” I said, letting my lips move across the unblemished skin of his cheekbone. “Breathe for me, Chandler.” He sucked in deep, rattling breaths. The grip on my knees tightened, but I didn’t flinch. “What’s done is done. I’m not holding on to the past, and neither should you. Because you know what today is?”
I leaned back and cupped his face between my hands, forcing his gaze to meet mine.
“What?” he croaked.
“The best day I’ve ever had.”
“It’s ten.” An almost smile tugged at his lips. The deep line between his brows slowly eased, and the flush reddening his neck faded.
“Exactly. That’s what you’ve given me. The best day ever by being you. Don’t let your thoughts of premeditated murder ruin the rest of the fun you have planned.” I gave him a wide grin and patted his cheek. “I do appreciate the gesture. But if anyone gets to kill Jacob, I’d like it to be me. So get in line.”
Shaking his head, he grasped the back of my neck and tugged me close.
“You amaze me,” he said against my lips. “You haven’t seen the world or met many people, but I have, and Ellie?” He pressed his hot forehead against mine. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”
Before I could deny his claim, he kissed me. Soft and sweet, full of the emotions we both felt in that moment.
Our moment.
It was then that it happened, right there in the middle of the shopping center’s parking lot.
I fell for a man I hardly knew.