SIXTEEN
Harper
Could hearts stop beating while a person kept functioning?
Harper reread the text, fighting back her shock—a flickering bonfire was the perfect backdrop for her internal meltdown.
Was he here in Texas? At the gathering of thousands of bikers and their clubs and families?
No. He couldn’t be. Not even psychos would be so reckless.
But this was Cain she was talking about.
To her left, the leather jacket-wearing Diablos prospect was still talking, and Harper didn’t hear a word. She was busily searching through the darkness for a sight of Cain.
She thought one of his goons, maybe Damon, was tailing her but tried to put it out of her mind.
Her heart dipped, and she swiped open the screen to reread the message.
HARPER : You are not here.
CAIN : Try again, wife. And he’s still too close to you. Move him. Or I will.
Oh, my god. He’d lost his fucking mind to be here.
Was he planning a hit?
Now, her fear tripled and caused a ringing in her ears as she popped to her feet.
“I need to grab water.” She told the group, not waiting for a reply. She started fast walking through the crowd, searching.
There was never a better place for Harper to feel safe than at a biker rally.
Most everyone was family, or they knew her as the RSMC princess. She was protected automatically. If she screamed right now, fifty people would come running. But there was no air in her lungs, and her once relaxed state was shot to hell because of him.
She’d gone about half a mile from the bonfire, intent on walking back, when an arm shot out and pulled Harper behind a double-wide trailer. The scream locked in her throat as a hand covered her mouth and a tall, warm body pressed her into the wall.
“You made the right decision, sweet baby. I was about to break his neck for touching what’s mine.”
Once the fear diluted in her bloodstream, the anger spurted out of her eyes as she knocked Cain’s hand away from her mouth.
“You can’t be here.” She hissed, keeping her voice low. The very last thing she needed was someone to overhear them. There was no way she could explain Cain to anyone.
How would she describe a psychopath, anyway?
She saw the gleam of his white teeth in the darkness. “But I am here. And I was in time to watch the little punk trying to put the moves on my property.”
She nearly choked to death on her spit. “I am not property.”
Tyler hadn’t even been flirting, so she had no idea what version of reality Cain was in, but it wasn’t hers.
“And what I do is none of your business. I sold you the use of my body, nothing more.” Harper refreshed his old man’s memory and watched those teeth gleam again, reminding her of the big bad wolf from her childhood fairytales.
He pressed in deeper, aligning their bodies, and she hated how the heavy feel of him was arousing as she took stuttered breath after stuttered breath. Cain wasn’t a gentleman; she wondered if he was even human sometimes, but when he curled a hand around the front of her neck, she fought against enjoying it.
“That’s where you’re wrong. Did you read the contract, little girl? I fucking own every inch of you. Page two, sub-section four B states that if another man even looks at you in a way that I don’t like, his death will be imminent.”
Harper stopped breathing. Again .
He could not be taken seriously.
“I could have slaughtered a hundred men in ten minutes for looking at you. You didn’t even notice, did you? How they lapped you up with their nasty eyes, wanting to put their fucking hands on my wife . All of them with their pathetic hope slobbering on the floor, just waiting for you to turn their way.”
Harper’s heart skipped beats, part fear, yet a secret part of her got wet at his threat.
Her belly swooped, and for a wild second, she thought about pushing her throat into his hand.
“You need to stop spying on me.” she felt pathetic even saying it.
He wouldn’t listen.
What little she knew about Cain, he walked to his own death march.
“Ask me nicely.” He rasped, rolling his nose up the side of her cheek, inhaling her when he buried his face in her hair.
An all-over body shudder racked her. “Is that what you’re going to make me do to stop you from doing stuff?”
“You could always try.”
Was he being serious? The man could not be believed.
He’d already taken everything else from her. What could it hurt to try his stupid little tactic? Putting her head back, his hand still necklaced around her throat.
“Will you please stop spying on me?”
His two brows folded inward as though not expecting her to go through with it. When his thumb brushed her cheek, she swallowed.
“Ask me for something else,” He rasped.
“I knew you were full of shit.” She snapped in return, knocking his hand away, but he kept her in the cage of his arms, and she felt like a trapped bird. “Will you please go away and leave me alone?”
“Ask me for something else,” he repeated. That meant no, too.
He was intent on ruining her life, and for what reason? Some vendetta he’d made up in his mind? She’d go to any lengths for her family but just wanted it to end.
Not least because she couldn’t have any feelings for Cain crawling in, it would be the biggest mistake of all. And she said that while knowing she’d signed her life away to her forced husband.
“Please leave my dad alone.” And because he was slippery like a greased-up seal pup, she added. “And everyone else who you hold a grudge against.”
“That’s a long list, baby.” He smirked, roaming his mouth against her cheek. Harper hated the affection, yet couldn’t stop the thrilling buzz along the surface of her skin. As evil as he was, there were pheromones all over Cain that appealed to her senses.
She might consider herself a smart cookie, but no one said she had to be sane.
“I’ve complied with everything, Cain. I need some reassurance. I’m too afraid of what you might do someday.”
His head reared back, and the blackness of his eyes penetrated right down to her shaking soul. If she didn’t semi-know him now, that thunderous look would have burned her kneecaps off.
“I scare you?”
Harper chuffed a noise. “Shall I catalog everything you’ve done to me so far? None of it is good, buddy.”
“Husband.” He husked, once again nuzzling the side of her face. “You used the word husband wrong.”
“I won’t ever call you that.”
His smirk replaced Harper’s dread with something else. That one facial expression was pure heat, and she swallowed reflexively around the shot of lust rushing up her throat.
“You shouldn’t challenge me, Harper.”
There went another zip of heat right through the middle of her.
“Now open your mouth for your husband.”
“Oh my god, not this again. I don’t want to kiss—” Cain’s mouth crushed hers, stopping her from further words.
And then she didn’t think at all.
The kisses weren’t hurried or forced. Cain coaxed Harper’s mouth open until he could dip inside and bury his grunts of pleasure.
Although terrible to admit it, she’d missed the focused way he kissed her.
How his overpowering presence controlled her motor skills, and everything else, was strange. It felt profound, and Harper tried to fight it—to deny it was even happening, but her skin was sizzling from that one point of contact, and she felt herself leaning toward him as if drawn by a powerful force of evil corrupting her body.
“Still hate me?” he asked against her lips.
“More than ever.”
It was the truth.
But it was also complicated .
She wanted him. And it got worse each time he appeared in her life because she hated herself for being drawn to him.
The focus should only be on ways to bury him in a shallow grave, not craving his mouth on hers or his fingers between her legs.
“Good.” He smiled, but it didn’t hold the venom he’d displayed previously. That confused her until he stepped back and unbuckled his belt.
Harper’s veins expanded.
“On your knees, my sweet baby.”
She was unable to measure the intensity of the nerves building up inside her or how tightly her pussy clenched.
Plenty of nobody men had tried to get Harper on her knees like they thought it was a privilege for her. But no man had ever ordered her down there.
Harper didn’t know what she’d do in ordinary circumstances, but knowing the deal between her and Cain, she slowly lowered herself to the ground.
A lot of things went through her mind all at once.
Harper was a thinker. Sometimes, she was a hothead and let her mouth run amok, but mostly, she stewed over things, especially if she was searching for a solution. And when Cain looked down at her and placed a fingertip under her chin to bring her face up, she realized that amid all the questions, she’d been antsy for months, waiting for him to call on their contract because she’d wanted him to.
The deepest, darkest depths of Harper’s truth was she wanted to experience everything with this evil man who made her heart thud and her sexual organs howl.
And in that place where she’d compartmentalized Cain in her brain, she knew she could have those experiences and still blame it on him.
He was making her do them.
It was weak, yeah; she knew that, but as he stroked her chin and held it high to stare at her, the sense of powerlessness was almost freeing.
She’d had a spoiled, privileged life.
Loved and protected. Too protected . Because it meant it was only ever weak-ass boys who approached her, and they were soon scared off by the motley crew of over-protectors.
Cain was here, forcing her into things she told herself she didn’t want, yet her body was buzzing alive, aching under that command.
“What now?” she asked, her voice trembling, and she only wished it was fear she was feeling. But her tongue was wet, and arousal was sharp in her limbs.
She’d never guessed hate would feel so good.
With a crude yet gentle thumb, Cain rolled it over her lips, dragging the bottom one down until he touched the row of teeth. “How many dicks have breached these sweet-as-fuck lips?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yeah, it matters.” The sound of his zipper, though they weren’t anywhere quiet, almost deafened her with the finality of what was going to happen. What he wanted her to do to him. She couldn’t help sucking on her lower lip once he released it. “It matters how many names you give me and how many men die tonight.”
A hot pulse went down her spine.
“Don’t make it seem like we’re something, Cain. This is sexual extortion.”
“You are my wife ,” he growled heatedly. “And my wife is going to wrap those fuckable lips around my cock, finally. Now answer my fucking question.”
“None.” She snapped the answer. “None, okay? Are you happy now?”
Cain exhaled. “I’m about to be.”
Anyone could walk around the corner and see Rider Marinos’ daughter on her knees, about to give a blowjob. The danger of it caused Harper’s head to swim.
It made her feel wild and reckless—unlike herself. And just a touch unhinged that she was letting this happen. And wanted it to.
She licked her lips and heard him groan, and when he brought out his cock, all the air was knocked out of Harper’s lungs. Seeing how big he was so close to her face, some of that curiousness was downgraded into cock terror.
Cain touched the crown of himself, bringing a drop of wetness to her lips, and without waiting, he pushed that finger inside. “Get used to how it tastes, sweet baby. I’ll be fucking this mouth every chance I get.”
“We shouldn’t… here.” She said weakly.
“Yes, we fucking should.” He rasped, grasping Harper’s neck, “Let me worry about everything else. I’ll spoon out anyone’s eyes who sees you like this.”
Why did it have to be him? When he said things like that to set her panties on fire, she prayed this was all a bad dream and she’d wake up soon because all of her life, she’d wanted someone so magnetic and demanding to sweep her off her feet.
And here he was.
But he was so the wrong man. He was far beyond wrong. He was dangerous. Evil, more unhinged than any other man.
And he stirred her up more than anything.
“All you have to do is open your mouth, and I’ll talk you through how to handle the rest.”
Nervous, every inch of her skin was burning from lust, from trepidation, from eagerness. To satisfy Cain? Hell no. She couldn’t think that way. Not about him.
The first tentative touch of her tongue to his cock, the masculine taste of him, burst in her mouth. And when Cain grunted from low in his chest, it was the only warning she got before he pulled her neck forward and pushed halfway in before rolling out again.
“All you need to do is keep me on your tongue, little girl, no teeth, and remember to breathe through your nose. Go on, give me the best virgin suck of a lifetime. Make me wish my dick lived in my wife’s throat.”
Pops of white danced behind her closed eyelids, and Harper went into a dreamlike state as she gave her first blowjob to her mortal enemy.
And she wished she could have said she hated it, and hated him more than ever for forcing this on her yet again. Not entirely nonconsensual, but not far off it, but that would have been a giant fat lie. Her lungs burned from lack of oxygen as Cain took over and fucked her mouth, making her take those thick inches until her throat tried to reject the intrusion. There was also a massive thrill of sucking him off. And hearing the way, he grunted with pleasure, praising her for having the sweetest mouth.
“That’s right, so fucking good, baby. I can’t believe it’s your first time, it’s the best.” He stroked her cheeks and her hair, inflating her confidence with an affirmation that he’d never had better in a hoarse tone.
Oral sex hadn’t been on her rally to-do list tonight.
And nor was having her enemy whip out his phone while she enjoyed that oral. Seeing what he was doing, she’d tried to pull her head back, but his other hand held her fast.
“Shh,” he appeased, running a finger over her cheek, holding the phone close as it recorded her fast suctioning. “I want you to see how pretty you look with your lips stretched around my cock.”
She was a dumb girl, being turned on by his obvious enjoyment of her as her arousal climbed higher.
His orgasm came like a bolt out of the blue, and he fisted the hair at her nape, lodging his cock too deep for her to be comfortable and spilled warm and fast into her mouth.
“Swallow your husband down,” he groaned, and Harper did it automatically, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, overwhelming emotions coming at her from all angles. With his hands under her armpits, she was lifted from the floor, and Cain’s tongue flicked out, savoring her surprised tears.
“You’ve undone me, my deviant little wife.”
Ugh, why did she like hearing that?
She didn’t expect the kiss he slammed on her lips or for his tongue to slide inside, tasting himself on her tongue. But the moment their mouths connected, it was lights off for Harper, and her body took over. She was so embarrassingly wet by the time he popped open her jeans and angled his hand into the denim. If not for his mouth devouring hers, she was sure everyone would have heard her howl of ecstasy.
Disregarding their surroundings where anyone could find her with him, he casually pushed her underwear to the side and started lazily stroking her dripping opening. “Press your mouth deeper into mine while I finger this little pussy I own.”
His words should make her hate him, but they didn’t. They made Harper pant and whine through the absolute bliss.
Her orgasm came as fast as Cain’s had, and she shuddered into his driving fingers, digging her nails into the back of his neck, keeping his head angled down so her mouth could keep eating his kisses.
It was so world-shaking that even when Harper was back in her skin, she couldn’t separate her mind from her body. It was an all-out war between the two.
“Sucking my cock got you soaking wet.” He boasted against her mouth, and she tried to push him away, some semblance of her logical side returning at his crass timing.
“Shut up.” She lashed back, and he only laughed and nibbled on her top lip.
“For someone so adorably innocent looking, you love it when I do filthy things to you.”
She refused to acknowledge it because it would mean Cain owned another piece of her, and she couldn’t let that happen. As feeble as he made her feel, she still had some dignity.
The relief was palpable when Cain told her he had to leave to do something. He assured her it had nothing to do with her family, but there was no way she trusted him.
He disappeared into the night like a shadow, and if not for her tender throat and sore lips, she could almost pretend nothing happened tonight.
She stuck close to her family for the rest of the night around the bonfire. And when the Diablos prospect stumbled into camp looking like he’d been through World War Three, his wrist broken and sporting a puffy black eye, Harper didn’t have to ask him what had happened.
She listened in as he told the others. “Some fucking lunatic jumped me, warned me off from getting cozy with his wife. I haven’t been fucking around with anyone’s wife.”
Three more boys had similar painful stories to tell the following morning. All boys Harper had shared innocent conversations with the night before.
It wasn’t a warning to them.
It was a warning for Harper.
To let her know wherever she went, whatever she did, he had eyes on her. And people would get punished for existing around her.
She puffed out a breath and looked at the crystal blue sky.
The swaggering guy was an utter maniac.
But tell that to her racing heart and fluttering belly as pulsing pleasure stole a little more of her sanity.
When she’d thought she’d always wanted an intense man in her life one day, she didn’t quite mean this fiercely. Or this insane.