NINE
Cain
“Say I buy a ticket to your megalomania show. Explain to me in short words what drugs you’re on that you believe, in this world or any other, that I would willingly betray my family for anyone. Least of all, for a man I don’t even know, and right now, I despise him.”
Was a woman made more fucking magnificent than Harper Alena Marinos?
She confronted him, unyielding, her gaze fierce. He smirked to himself, wondering if she’d stab him in the heart if she had access to a knife.
It might be worth it to find out as a surge of arousal powered through his stomach lining.
“That’s an easy one.” He replied. “The world you’re in, Harper, do you believe in an eye for an eye? If someone wrongs you and yours, do you reciprocate to teach them a lesson? To punish them?”
She got the cutest little frown between her eyes as she squinted at him.
“That’s right, isn’t it? It’s what your people would do. So you understand retribution and why it has to happen. It’s all about checks and balances.”
“Let’s say you’re right about what my dad did. That was before you were born. How can you hold a grudge for something he didn’t do to you?”
Na?ve, little princess.
“He took something from me,” he gritted out through his teeth. “He changed my whole fucking life. Him and the Souls. They not only wiped out the Raging Rebels, they killed my father.”
She visibly swallowed, and his admiration spiraled when she didn’t throw a hissy fit.
“If that’s your basis, then you should expect me to exact revenge on you for what you’re doing to my family.”
Smart and beautiful. It was a heady cocktail, and Cain nearly licked his lips as his gaze dropped to her sweet mouth. He avoided kissing her during their meetings to maintain professional boundaries. But it didn’t stop the pounding through his temples to know what she tasted like.
What would all of her hate taste like?
“We’ll be going around and around in a war forever until there aren’t any connected people left to take up the mantel.” She said. And then. “Have you talked to my dad? He’s a reasonable man; he’d listen.”
She thought he was going to have tea and a chat with the fucking murderer?
Na?ve, little idiot. Cain shot to his feet and strode to the desk, pulling out several sheets of legal documents. He’d paid enough for them to be legitimate.
His signature had been scrawled on the bottom for weeks. All it needed to make it a complete set was Harper’s name.
“Enough talking. This is happening.”
He caught her gusty sigh. “Or you’ll hurt my family?”
He’d fucking destroy them. But he wanted to watch them bleed out, to know their little girl belonged to him first.
“Get over here, Harper, and sign.”
“You know this isn’t legal, right? You can force me to scribble my name all over the walls, you can make me say vows in front of fifteen priests, and it still wouldn’t be legal.”
He shot her a smirk and watched her face blanch as if she dreaded what he’d say next. She was so attuned to his moves he could suspect she was made for him.
“That’s where you’re wrong, sweet baby. It’s all very legal. You’ll be my wife in every sense of the law once you sign.”
She blinked, and her perfectly bowed lips gaped open. “But… but this is madness. It’s fucking crazy.”
“I know it is. Come over here, sweetheart, and sign your name for me. Then I’ll have a car take you home.”
“And then what? We live happily ever after? You know I’ll go right to my family about this. They’ll hunt you down until you’re dead.”
Cain smiled, the heat rolling down his back. Was she worried about him?
“You won’t tell them.”
She scoffed in response.
“If they live or die, it is now on your shoulders. Tell them, and they’re dead. Is that what you want?”
Tears welled in her eyes, and her lip trembled—the only outward display of her feelings. “You’re a fucking deranged monster.”
Maybe he was. He could accept that for the things he’d done and would do.
She stood without further prompting and came toward him, snatching the pen out of his hand. He loved her being so near that he could smell the scent she wore.
She was a casualty of his war. He didn’t want to hurt her and would do all he could to make sure that didn’t happen.
A decent man would have left her out of his diabolical plans altogether.
But Cain wasn’t decent.
He’d seen her and wanted her thread tangled around his legacy, if only for a while. To taste the innocent fire in her eyes.
He would soon confront the Souls president, revealing his identity and that his daughter was Cain’s. Rider’s realization, as it sank into his dark heart, would be retribution.
Rider took from him.
And now Cain was stealing from him.
Fair was fair.
Maybe he was genuinely deranged.
He’d never forced a woman to do anything in his life, and here he was, forcing one to marry him in the most despicable way.
And Cain didn’t care.
He couldn’t muster up an ounce of doubt, of compassion, not when he was getting what he wanted. What kept him tangled up for months when the idea had manifested one night. It felt like a compulsion running rampant through his blood.
Where did his revenge start, and the desire to own Harper end?
He could no longer tell.
The noises sounded identical to Cain.
As she muttered expletives and invented ways for him to kill himself, he heard nothing over the roar in his blood; his eyes roamed over her face as she bent over the edge of the desk to sign the papers.
So close now.
The taste of vengeance was in his throat.
The energy snapped like a living thing in the air.
The thunder in the organ keeping him alive rumbled.
The ringing in his ears elevated to a deafening level.
Cain could feel the restlessness diminishing into the background, his possessiveness locking her in metaphorical chains. The red seeped from his vision as euphoric relief returned his breath, watching how she wrote her name in fast cursive, all neat and feminine. Then he breathed in like he’d won something.
Harper was his wife.
His most expensive weapon.
He’d won.
She threw down the gold pen, and it rolled off the desk and onto the floor.
“Can I go now?”
“Of course, my word is my oath.”
“Pft. I doubt a man like you knows what that means.” She rolled her pretty eyes and straightened to her shorter height, though she was barely taller than a dandelion and scarcely reached his shoulder.
She was still a feisty, defiant little thing. And he admired the woman.
Anyone else would have fallen to pieces with the shit he’d thrown at her, but she’d kept herself in check.
“If you hurt my dad, my family, or my club, I will kill you, Cain. This is my promise. I also keep my word.”
He tipped his chin down to smile at his wife. “Will you now?”
His blood stirred syrupy because the immediate lust was so surprising. She was such a small thing, hardly bigger than a pet, yet she stood like a goddess, threatening to end him.
And he was turned the fuck on over it. She’d see how badly those words had worked his body up if she let her eyes go down.
But marrying Harper wasn’t about fucking her.
He silently pressed a button on a keypad in his pocket, summoning the town car. In minutes, it would be outside. He doubted she wanted to ride his bike again.
“Yes, I will. It’s a promise, and I will never break my promise. If it takes me my entire life, I’ll make it my whole personality to destroy you if you hurt my family. I get it. You think he wronged you. Maybe he did. So fucking what. That’s your dad’s problem, not yours. Grow the fuck up and live in the present, not pouting in the past. If my dad killed yours, if he destroyed your dad’s MC, then I am a million percent certain he deserved it. From the looks of you, you haven’t had a terrible life, yet here you are, raking in the mud, coating yourself in a trauma that isn’t yours.” She hissed and then pulled in a breath.
Such a brave little speech. Cain felt his lip curl at the edges, his jaw tightened. Grains of the truth slipped past his gray muscle, but that didn’t matter now.
She looked toward the door. “If I walk through that, is there a stupid goon on the other side waiting to shoot me?”
Cain shook his head, and she flung the door open. Her steps were steady yet fast. He followed slowly, and she was already at the front door.
“Wait.” He issued. And she sighed, turning around.
“I should have known. Is this where you bury me in a shallow grave?”
“No.” he came closer. “There is a small important detail we forgot about.”
“What?”
“I didn’t seal the deal by kissing my bride.”
Her head snapped back, and she shot him a look of terror and disbelief like he’d told her she was going to wrestle a rattlesnake.
His beautiful wife didn’t want to kiss him? Now he was insulted.
“Don’t.”
“It’s not legal if we don’t.” He rasped, bending his head closer as she pressed her spine to the back of the door. There was nowhere she could escape. Not from Cain.
“It’s already not legal, you insane bastard.”
Cain chuckled. “Come on, little girl, give your husband a kiss, and then you never have to see me again.”
Her eyes widened. “Ever again? How do I know you’re not lying?”
“You don’t. Kiss me, Harper.”
She didn’t want to kiss him. Why was he forcing her?
Because he couldn’t fucking help himself. He needed to taste her just once.
“I thought you were a nice guy.” Her voice cracked, her lower lip wobbled again, her eyes all round and glassy. “I wish I’d never met you. And now I’ll never get a moment of peace wondering when you’re going to attack people I love with all my heart.”
Something cracked in his chest, hearing her delicious pain, but he didn’t stop advancing with his head dropped another inch.
“Don’t hurt them. Please, Cain. Let this vendetta go. Please .”
For the first time all night, her brave mask slipped, and Cain stared at Harper, just a defenseless little girl begging for the lives of those who didn’t deserve protecting.
The frown cut across his forehead as he inched closer, their bodies nearly touching. He placed a hand above Harper’s head on the door.
A madness chewed through his skull.
Stick to the plan , part of him screamed.
But another part of him was curious by the look in Harper’s eyes.
He was hurting her, and he could see that. It registered somewhere in his mind, and he wanted to rewind and do things differently, but he’d put them on this path now.
“What will you give me to leave them alone?” he asked, giving in to curiosity.
“You can have anything you want. Just leave them alone. Let this go, Cain. It’s not right. You were a nice guy. It can’t have all been an act. This is wickedness.”
She was wrong. He had no redeeming qualities.
But he arched a brow at her offer.
“I’ll consider it. But don’t forget what you said, Harper.”
She shook her head. “I won’t forget.”
“Now, kiss me.”
“Wait.” She pushed him back, but this only fueled his excitement. “You still want to?”
He didn’t let her finish; he took her lips mid-sentence while they were wet and open, like he’d been dying to do.
Her shocked gasp tasted like heaven, and Cain wasn’t gentle about the kiss that followed. Kissing his wife. The woman he fucking owned, blood and soul.
He cuffed a hand underneath Harper’s chin to lift her mouth into his.
“Kiss me back, or this will go on all fucking night, sweet baby.” He growled into her mouth, going in with a slant to taste the wetness inside.
Cain would have bet his life a kiss wouldn’t have any life-altering effect on him. As soon as he kissed Harper and felt her response, his brain went on vacation, letting him focus solely on the physical sensations without his usual analytical thinking. Kissing was usually a means to get to the next part.
She kissed him like she hated him.
Roughly like they were in a battle, Cain groaned, lust bursting out of his skin all over as he pushed his stiff pelvis into her stomach.
Tasting her.
Putting his mark inside her, like he could fuse their bodies as one.
She was a tasty little morsel, and when she pushed at his chest to get him to move back, Cain reluctantly pulled his mouth away from hers and took a step back.
She was just as breathless as he was.
But her snarl said if he tried that again, she’d break his cock off, and he suspected it wouldn’t be pleasurable. That was a pity. He wouldn’t mind her hands wrapped around his throbbing dick.
To show him she hadn’t been wholly in that tongue fuck, he watched as she stared hate and wiped his kiss from her mouth with the back of her hand.
He smirked and licked her taste from his mouth. Delicious little girl.
He promised himself it wouldn’t be the last time he kissed Harper Emerson.
“I’ll find a way to cut ties with you, Cain. I know resourceful people who would be happy to drag your ass through the courts for what you’ve done here tonight.”
“I know every person in your life, sweet baby,” he smirked. “No one could take you from me now. I own you . You better remember that. And keep in mind I have eyes everywhere.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means remember you’re married to a deranged man. Didn’t you accuse me of that how many times? Deranged men have no conscience for the shit they’ll do.”
He noticed her throat twitch as she swallowed. He was sincere. He’d react violently to anyone messing with his things.
She turned her back on him and pulled open the door, surprised to find it unlocked. He hadn’t held her hostage; she could have walked out at any point, but she’d chosen not even to try.
He winked, and she scowled deeper.
“The car will take you home.”
“Fuck you, Cain.” She offered her parting, and he nearly laughed with delight as he watched her fast stride, and then she disappeared into the back seat. He waited until the car left, then closed the door to find Damon on the stairs.
He was grinning.
“I didn’t want to interrupt. But I didn’t get to kiss the wifey. Should we call her back?”
It was apparent the asshat was trying to push his buttons and doing it efficiently when Cain unfurled his fingers.
“If you tried it, my friend, you know what would happen. I’d send your mom a monthly check while you recovered from your lengthy coma.”
Damon burst out laughing. “And he says he’s only using the chick. I want it on record, mark the date, because that’s bullshit, and one day soon, I’ll be the best man at your proper wedding to her.”
“Fuck off.” Cain scoffed.
What was he going to do, kill her entire family and then keep her for real?
The idea stirred in his mind and took root nice and deep, his cock rousing in his pants.
He didn’t sleep that night. Too much to think about.
Mostly about his angry little wife.