Chapter 11 Emil
EMIL
Finally kissing Sadie was the rush I wanted to ride. The high of feeling her clutch me closer was the only cue I needed.
But when she lifted her hands to haul me against her and slam us to the ground, I snapped into focus.
I caught her in my arms, rolling so I wouldn’t crush her on the slippery ground.
In the drop, the roar of gunfire reached my ears.
The thunder of ammunition flying our way yanked me out of any idea of desire.
It chased away the excitement of this one woman kissing me back.
Sober in a flash, I moved with the momentum of her pushing me out of the way.
Everything smeared through time as it always did at hectic moments of peril. In a blur, we were down. Gunfire pelted out as we both crouched down and tensed behind thick fronds of bushes and vines.
I held her close, keeping her secure as I chanced one look up.
The wall of the house was littered with bullet holes. Since I had been blocking her, pinning her to the surface, it was clear that they’d been aiming at me.
And she’d pushed me to safety.
What the fuck?
She pushed at me, not to break away and use this as a ploy to escape, but for us to move it. Now.
“Get up. Go. Go. Go!” She shoved at me, urging me to snap into action.
I didn’t need her encouragement to move.
All I had to manage was keeping her safe and with me.
Without another word, I grabbed her with my arm banded around her waist. Hauling her up as she scrambled to her hands and knees, I twisted to stay on her right, giving her cover from the direction of the gunfire that had paused for a second.
“Go,” she urged, not moving without me as we hunched over and crawled away.
Whoever was ambushing us didn’t quit. The second we got on our feet, running like hell, they fired again.
I put my hand at her head, urging her to crouch. I was taller than her, so that alone would hide her from a bullet, but she wasn’t having it. Twisting in an awkward run, both her hands in front of her, she struggled to get a good gait.
While she wasn’t straining to keep up, she wasn’t free to move like she needed to.
We ducked. We wove around trees. We plowed through draping vines.
No matter where we ran, in a blind, zig-zagging sprint into the jungle, we couldn’t lose those assholes.
She slammed her back against a fat tree while I skirted over with her, waiting for a moment to gauge which way would be safest to go.
“Cartel,” she guessed, breathing hard.
I nodded, thinking the same as I grabbed her hands.
“If you stayed near Cozumel, then—”
“Yeah,” I replied, strangely glad that we were on the same page again. Like partners operating on a similar bandwidth. Not adversaries. After taking my knife out, I slashed at the ropes that prevented her from getting a decent stride.
“Where’s my gun?” she asked sharply.
I narrowed my eyes at her, still focusing on detecting movement in the brush behind her.
“Are you kidding me?” She shoved at my chest. “Two of us being armed is better than—”
I reached into my pocket and handed her the second gun on me. Nothing was left behind in that house, one we definitely couldn’t return to now.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I warned as I slapped it into her hand.
“Only away from here,” she bit back, taking the safety off and jerking her head to the side when gunfire returned.
I nodded my head in the other direction, ordering her to go first.
If she tried to outrun me, I’d catch her.
If she attempted to hide from me, I’d find her.
She didn’t do either. We ran together, forced on the run like this. Making sure she stayed with me took half of my energy, but it wasn’t only because I wasn’t ready to release her. Her captivity wasn’t done yet, not by my standards.
As we sprinted like a pair, both of us turning to fire at the Cartel thugs chasing us through the jungle, I realized my concern was due to something much deeper than not wanting to lose my captive.
It was because I wanted her.
So fucking badly.
I wanted her more now, seeing how athletic and skilled she was in action, unafraid to fight back and stay alive.
I needed to know she was safe. I had to see that she was unharmed.
It was the changing point of my control over her. In this precipice of a moment, the tides had shifted. I no longer had to prioritize keeping her here with me. I had to ensure she was not hurt. Not injured and suffering.
Because she had gotten to me.
She had really fucking gotten under my skin, pushing me into another sub-level of possessiveness to want to burn the damn world down for her.
“Head to the water,” I told her as the distant sound of a river reached us.
“No. They’d be able to find us better.” She dug in her heels and ran harder up a slight incline.
I gritted my teeth and followed her.
When it seemed like we were surrounded by the gunmen, I pulled her back to my chest. “Stay low and I’ll cover for you while we go near that clearing.”
She shook her head, bumping her ass against me as I tried to haul her closer. “No. I’m harder to see and I can cover for you while you go.”
Bickering all the while, we still worked as a team to evade every last one of the Cartel men rushing after us. Despite our differences, our joint goal remained the same.
To get away.
At last, when it seemed like we’d lost them all and the sun began to set, darkening the already obscure depths of the jungle, we slowed to a jog.
Then a walk.
“You weren’t hit, were you?” she asked, catching her breath as she glanced at me. Without waiting for me to reply, she resumed scoping our surroundings.
Fuck, she’s perfect.
A real badass. Determined to survive. Ready to go, no matter the danger.
“No,” I replied. Watching her as I realized we were near an abandoned strip of homes off a rugged road, I licked my lips and tried to tamp down this thrill of why I hadn’t been hit. “I wasn’t hit because you pushed me to safety.”
She met my gaze again, stubborn and almost cocky. “Don’t bother reading too much into it,” she quipped.
Goddamn.
I couldn’t resist her a single second longer.
Grabbing her hand made the cut length of rope still around her wrist sway against my fingers. I didn’t care. I had her in my grip again, and I wasn’t ready to let her go.
She furrowed her brow at my taking charge, holding on to her, but before she could protest, I retrieved her gun and stuck it in my waistband at my back.
“Hey, I—”
“Don’t read too much into it,” I parroted.
Reaching the door of an abandoned and mostly dilapidated house, I shoved the old wooden panel in.
Darkness and dust swirling in the air greeted us.
“If I wanted to shoot you, I wouldn’t have spent so much time trying to cover your back and stop them from hitting you,” she protested, clearly off-kilter from having her gun again and then my retrieval of it.
I slammed the door shut, too riled up with gratitude, surprise, affection, and desire.
Lust won out.
Before she could backpedal into the house any further, staggering her steps clumsily with me holding her hand behind her back as I marched her inside, I lifted my other hand. My gun was still wrapped in a secure clutch of my fingers around it, but I used it to push on the back of her head.
Urging her toward me, I walked her in as I reclaimed those succulent lips I hadn’t wanted to be interrupted from kissing to begin with.
She grunted softly at the impact, fueling the beast of desire to make her cry out in pleasure instead.
Blindly entering the house, I sped up, pushing her and holding her to me so we’d move as one.
With her lips parting in shock, she kissed me back without pause. She clawed at me, clutching at me to hold on. Her body smacked against mine, faint rubs of friction with her breasts pushed up against my chest and her legs twining and stumbling between mine.
She was too short. Too slow to move it.
I ripped my mouth from hers to stare down at the sparkling need shining in her bright eyes. Moisture showed on her lips, plump and swollen from how I’d nipped and sucked on them.
“Emil—”
I growled, ducking down to kiss her hard again as I picked her up and carried her.
Even though she clung to me, wrapping her arms around me as if she feared being dropped, she turned her head to the side to evade me. “Emil, this isn’t—”
I grabbed the back of her head, wrenching her toward me so I could kiss her.
There wasn’t a fucking chance of her telling me no. Not when she whimpered with need and ground her pussy against me as I hurried to find the first flat surface within reach.
“I don’t want to hear another word from your mouth, little agent.” I lowered her to a bed. Dust motes flew up, but I didn’t blink or tear my focus from her. “Unless you wanna talk about what you feel again.” I ground down on her, letting her feel the hardness tenting under my shorts.
“I…” She furrowed her brow, struggling to get up. “You—”
I hadn’t counted on her being this slow to submit after letting me finger her before. After kissing me back before saving my life.
“Don’t deny it. Don’t deny us, Sadie.” I leaned over, pinning her to the bed until I could reach up and use the free lengths of the rope dangling from her wrists to tie her to the bedframe.
“I don’t want to deny…” She paused, pulling on her hands. I’d distracted her so much with those kisses and pushing my erection against her that she was slow to realize I’d tied her up again. “Emil!” She yanked on the rope. “Let me go.”
I shook my head, grinning down at her panting.
Her breasts pushed up with every heave of her chest, daring me to dive down and take those beaded nipples between my lips.
The peaks showed beneath the layers of her thin bra and shirt.
And I just knew that if I reached lower and slid my hand under her shorts, I’d find her soaking wet too.
Verbally, she wouldn’t submit.
But with her body, she was just as revved up and primed to fuck hard like I wanted to.
“Be a good girl for me,” I growled, dropping closer to kiss her deeply. “And you won’t want me to ever let you go.”