FOURTEEN
Cain
All Cain was sure of was that he had to remain indifferent toward his little wife and remember why he’d married her.
It wasn’t a romantic match. It wasn’t obsessive love.
His reasons were purely malevolent.
And Harper hated him for it.
What was the alternative if he focused on how she made him feel instead of the carefully crafted plans he’d worked on for years?
Did he so easily forget his cautiously constructed plot to screw over Rider Marinos? Let him get away with murder?
All because Cain wanted Harper’s golden pussy in his mouth.
All Cain had left was a sense of honor. And even that was threadbare.
This wasn’t how things were meant to unfold. The moment he laid eyes on her, he lost his footing—his focus reshaped. In that instant, his plans realigned; she became the center of his universe, and he’d do whatever it took to pull her into his filthy orbit.
It hadn’t felt like revenge when he had her pussy gushing with pleasure around his fingers.
While he’d waited in her girlie bedroom for her to return home, he’d intended to fuck the screams out of Rider’s baby girl and cement his revenge to the max. But then she’d given him sass and climbed into her bed with little prompting. And from there, his fucking brain shut down.
Giving her one orgasm hadn’t been enough. He’d gone for the triple. After that, everything went wrong. Cain slept little that night, not when he kept a hand cupped against Harper’s little wet pussy, feeling how she ground against him in her sleep. But he made sure to leave before she woke up.
It had been nearly two months since he’d been face-to-face with his wife, and he still thought about the night of her birthday more than he should have.
Not that he hadn’t seen her.
She just hadn’t known he was around. Watching her.
Like he was now, high on a rooftop, he folded his arms while Harper threw her head back, laughing. She was hastily forming snowballs and pelting them at two boys. Cain was impressed by her swing and aim.
It was only because those boys chasing her were her two brothers that they were still alive.
No one touched his things.
But she’d been a good little girl since he’d left her in bed on her birthday.
Cain had made sure of it. He would have loved to have taught her a lesson if men were sniffing around.
Each time he came to town to spy on his wife, he hoped to see someone flirting with her so that he could shoot a motherfucker in the face, and then spank her ass for disobeying his rules before coming over his handprint.
After playing in the snow, Cain climbed down from the fire escape and hopped in his truck.
The next time he saw his wife, he meant for her to see him because he was sitting sideways on his motorbike, waiting for her to exit the college building.
Her feet froze when she noticed him.
He ignored the girls she was with, fixated on Harper with his leering gaze. Smirking because she was so angry already.
Raising two fingers, he motioned her over and watched her lips pull into a tight scowl. It only made him happier.
As she approached, he overheard her arranging to meet the others the following day before she came to him.
Such a good little wife he had.
“I hoped someone had pushed you into a bottomless ravine.” She stated in a bored tone. He fucking loved it, and he shot out an arm and roped her in until she smashed up against his chest.
Though she resisted, Cain refused to release her; her warmth and softness enthralled him. Why would he let her go?
She was his thing. His toy. She belonged solely to him.
“Someone will see,” she hissed, pushing at his chest.
“Ask me if I care.” He replied and rolled his cold nose along the column of her throat.
“Cain, don’t. Not out here.”
Ah fuck, hearing his name was heroin to his bloodstream, and he gave her what she wanted and released the hold.
“Did you miss me?”
She snorted. “No.” Then her eyes darted around the quad to check if people were looking at them. Was his bratty wife embarrassed to be seen with him? He curled a smirk, not offended by her honesty.
“Why are you here? Do you have someone new to torture?”
“Just you today.” He answered.
“You’ve wasted your journey. I’m busy tonight.”
“Yeah, I know. You’re busy with your husband, sweet baby.” He told her. And then held out the half-bucket helmet bought especially for her. “Climb on.”
She blinked, and then some of her tough girl hardness returned to her eyes. He loved seeing her fire; he had the urge to lean in and lick her flames until she burned his tongue.
Ruin her and send her back to Rider, a broken doll.
That was his original plan.
And yet, at every turn, the plan shifted like it was on a fucking frequency he couldn’t hear.
“Cain, I can’t just drop things because you want to be nefarious and try to torture me.”
“I never try. I succeed, wife. Climb on, or I’ll put you on the seat.”
While he started the engine, he let her buckle her helmet. Huffing, she glared at him, flinging her messenger bag over her head and letting it fall down her back. She then climbed on behind him.
“Closer.” He issued, and she snuggled into his hips. “Arms around me, Harper.”
“Kidnapping me is so inconvenient right now, Cain. I had plans!”
“You have better plans now.”
He shot off campus, and she clung to him the entire way until he pulled up outside of his grandfather’s—now his—mansion.
She looked up at the brightly lit building and frowned after scrambling off the back of his bike. “I thought this was about to sell months ago?”
“I changed my mind.”
She frowned deeper and then stared at him.
“Are you the one messing with my father’s construction sites?”
“Yes.” He answered honestly. Not sure why he was telling her other than it would hurt her. But as soon as he saw that hurt hit the target, he felt a hot poker in his chest.
What was that?
It couldn’t be regret, because he didn’t deal with that.
“You promised.”
“I said I wouldn’t hurt him or the other Souls.”
“So, you’re playing around with words. I should have known a fucking monster couldn’t be trusted with his promises.”
He swallowed his immediate reaction to reassure her. He wasn’t about that, and he hooked up her wrist when she tried walking off toward the main gate.
“Get inside, wife.”
“If you can break your promises, so can I.”
“I can easily ride over to the Souls compound. I bet I’d find several of the brothers there, wouldn’t I?”
Her eyes went flat and dark. Full of loathing. And it stirred Cain’s blood like a fucking tidal wave. His dick went hard like granite, and he roped her in until she bounced against his chest.
“I hate your guts.” She mumbled as though she were in pain, like the words hurt her little girl’s heart.
Cain frowned but dropped his head, putting his forehead on Harper’s.
“I know one part of me you like,” He shared. Despite her attempts to push him away, Cain guided her to the door, his arm around her hips.
Though Harper made a haughty noise as she strode inside in front of him, Cain proved his point by plastering her to the back of the door and fixing his mouth on hers, forcing her sweet lips to submit to his tongue.
He couldn’t get enough of her taste, so he kissed her even more intensely. Harper’s mouth fought him like she hated him, and he fed on it like a savage starved of heat.
It was a duel of mouths until he slid a hand down into her jeans and went beneath her panties to tease the wet slit of her. That’s when Harper’s fight dissolved, and she mewled right into his mouth, keeping his head anchored to hers with her fingers driven into his hair.
He made her shatter with an orgasm in record time like her little pussy had been hungering so badly for him, and because he was a cruel bastard, he made his wife come a second time without lifting away from her mouth, kissing her moans the whole time.
Just like the last time, she looked devastated that her body was capable of it under his touch. She was breathing wildly, avoiding his stare.
Cain thought she was spectacular when she came for him.
If he gave up on ruining the Souls, getting Harper to come repeatedly would be his reward.
Even when she hated him, her hunger for it was a siren singing in his skull.
“Is that it? Can I go now?” she said breathily, and Cain took her chin to guide her head up.
The spark in her eyes reached into his chest and squeezed. It made his mouth water, so when he smirked, he meant every word he said next.
“That was just the start, sweet baby.”
Cat and mouse games were his favorite appetizers, and Cain slaked his tongue over his bottom lip, enjoying how hard Harper was staring. Probably hoping she could will his head to explode. She was such a cute little thing.
It was unfortunate for her he intended on living a long life.
Taking the coat from her, he went down to his haunches and unlaced her boots, getting her to step out of them. He then hooked up her hand and walked them through to the kitchen.
Just having her near heightened his senses.
His focus was razor sharp, and he noticed her taking in the large rectangular room with all the modern appliances and marble countertops.
His hired chef left lasagna, so he warmed up two pieces and brought them to her at the table, adding a prepared side salad to the plates.
“I’m not eating.”
“It’s not poisoned.”
She must know he got off on her little indignant chuffs of air.
“You wouldn’t kill me so quickly. You’re like a beast playing with its food.”
“Thank you, sweet baby.” He grinned at her obvious compliment, sitting opposite her. He pushed the fork in front of Harper. “Eat.”
And while she ate, obviously enjoying the rich Italian meal, he enjoyed watching her.
Most figured Cain was heartless.
He functioned on a level many didn’t understand.
But he had emotions. Far too many of them, sometimes.
He could hate with his entire soul.
That was an emotion. Possibly the strongest emotion of all.
And because he was a dutiful son, he loved his mother. That was another emotion.
That was two whole emotions. How many did a person need?
But while working, he felt nothing. He could hunt like an animal, not giving up for a moment. He was persistent in every task he undertook. Some might accuse him of being too focused, hyper-obsessive, even.
While they ate quietly, Cain observed Harper as if she were his latest obsession. He’d been unfaltering for years, pursuing the truth. With the Raging Rebels, there wasn’t much info to find anymore. But there’d been a lot about the Souls to wade through. So much had been hearsay and rumors that couldn’t be verified. With enemies everywhere, getting people to spill the beans didn’t take much.
Revenge was what he’d thirsted for all this time.
Yet, making Harper look at him like she could put the fork through his throat because he’d made the little girl shudder around his fingers again felt more important than revenge.
A man’s reckoning came in so many forms.
He was sure his reckoning would come one day, and it wouldn’t be pretty. He expected it for the things he’d done.
What he was doing wasn’t logical. How far he’d veered from his goal to fit Harper into his strategies. Damon didn’t understand Cain’s methods.
How could he explain he was being led by the pounding blood in his veins and the darkness urging him to own this woman in every cruel and obsessive way?
He didn’t understand his motives, either.
Once finished, he cleared the plates, and Harper gasped when he carried her through to the warming library, where he sat her across his lap in a high-back chair.
“Will you stop ruining the construction sites?”
“Are you asking me nicely, wife?”
She sighed, her icy hair wound around his fingers as he angled her head back, exposing the hard pulse in her throat, just calling for his fucking teeth to mark her porcelain skin.
“You’re being a petty bastard.”
Oh, that much he knew.
When he hit a man, he didn’t do dumb shit. He made sure they knew who was hitting them and why.
Making the Souls scramble to figure out who was breaking into their construction sites and fucking it up hadn’t even touched the edges of his disgruntled anger. It was done to piss them off. To watch as Hawk stormed through the place with a confused, angry face.
She surprised him by touching his chin when he only continued to play his fingers through her hair.
Fire blazed through his limbs, making his cock harden against her ass.
With his free hand, he roamed it over her belly and up between her breasts, he pinched her nipple to see how she’d react, and he wasn’t disappointed when the pinch elicited such a surprised wet sound from her mouth that his cock was stone in seconds.
“Will you please stop it?”
They stared at each other.
The battle was evident in her eyes, but so was the submission, and Cain nearly growled with need.
“Make it worth it,” he issued.
Harper’s reactions were so fucking sugary. They tasted like candy in his throat as he watched the thoughts flit through her features, and then he saw how resigned she was. Cain was smiling when Harper kissed him first.
She made it so good he lost his train of thought.
He could almost forget he was an evil bastard when his wife was playing her tongue in his mouth, moaning like she loved nothing else in this world besides kissing him.
And by the end of the night, when he had Harper sopping wet all over his jeans, sobbing her orgasms into his mouth, clawing up the side of his neck, begging him with little pants of his name, he didn’t have a thought of revenge left in his head.
Just pounding arousal and a deviant obsession for his wife’s pleasure soaking him.
“I don’t understand you,” she said quietly, curled up on his lap long afterward. Sated and tasting of expelled tears, he’d licked from her cheeks, taking them into his tainted soul.
Stroking the side of her neck, Cain rocked her with the backdrop of the cracking fireplace.
“It’s better that you don’t,” he replied, kissing the tip of Harper’s nose. “Happy Valentine’s Day, sweet baby.”
When he got her home an hour later, she remained silent. Dismounting the bike, she walked to the door and closed it softly. Only after she locked up did he speed out of Colorado.