22. Anastasia
Anastasia
I sit in the chair next to Nina’s hospital bed, so glad she’s beginning to laugh again. It’s been some weeks, but it’s taken all this time for her to start believing she’s truly safe, and my heart is broken for her.
“They want to discharge me soon, but I’m not sure where I’ll go,” Nina says, frightened.
I take her hand. “You’ve never accepted my help before, but this time I’m not giving you a choice. There’s a safe house set up for you with surveillance, and police will be keeping watch. We need to find out who is responsible for this and if there might be others.”
“There was ... every now and then,” she admits. “I don’t know why he kept me.”
Just then Rhett opens the door, but he doesn’t come in fully.
“Just to let you know, there’s a delay with the jet. We can spare another hour before we need to leave,” he says gently.
I nod with a smile and he leaves again. Despite me saying he can be in here, he always waits outside no matter how many hours I visit for.
“I’m heading to New York for a few days. I’ve always wanted to go,” I say to Nina.
When I turn back to her, she has a frown fixed on the door.
“He was there,” she says.
My skin chills at that haunting statement. “Where?”
“At the house. He ... he found me.”
I shake my head. “That’s not possible. He’s my guard—he’s always with me.”
Nina remains adamant. “His voice. I’ll never forget it, Ana. It was the first of any real kindness I heard in five years.”
She has to be mistaken. Someone else could have a similar low, smooth tone and she’s just confused. I can’t imagine the adrenaline of such an ordeal. Details are bound to be hazy.
Nina holds my eyes and her face begins to drop, perhaps reading that I don’t believe her. Don’t want to believe her, because denial is easier for me. It’s selfish, and my heart speeds up as I try to think about the possibility.
He’s always been with me ... except the night of the fair.
Oh god. He was in some kind of fight. His arm ... was it from a bullet? An altercation trying to get Nina out of that house and it went wrong. Almost so horribly wrong.
I stand suddenly, trembling, as the conclusion won’t erase itself from my mind. It’s too much of a coincidence, but Nina won’t be able to confirm the date.
“I have to go,” I say vacantly. “I’ll visit you when I’m back. Riley will be here to take you to the safe house.”
Halfway to the door, Nina calls. “Can you tell him thank-you? I guess he doesn’t want anyone to know, but I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.”
I nod, pushing back the nausea rolling in my stomach. Because why would Rhett have been there in the first place? And what else could he be hiding? Information starts to batter the forefront of my mind. Everything about him since the day he became my guard.
My heart is speeding too fast and I’m shaking. I can’t face him here. Not right now.
I take a different route that will evade the waiting room he’s sitting in.
When I find another exit, the wintry air spears my throat with the panic rising in me.
I don’t have a spare key to the jeep this time, so I take off in a fast walk, nearly jogging, down the street.
I can’t escape him—I know this. Somehow he’ll find me, and my eyes begin to prick with the fear that it isn’t safety I should feel but terror.
I’ve been stalked by some sinister person and become content in their presence all this time like a lamb up for slaughter.
I find a park that’s deserted with evening starting to fall. Through it is some woodland, and maybe I can hide in there. I don’t know for how long. I could call my father or the police. But my chest aches, so damn tight, at the thought of turning Rhett in even if I don’t know what for yet.
When I turn around my scream doesn’t escape because a hand immediately clamps over my mouth and a strong arm encircles my waist. Rhett’s icy eyes are furious, bearing down on me.
I do the only thing I can think of and bite his hand.
It doesn’t achieve anything except bringing a mild wince to his face.
“Get the fuck off of me,” I hiss when he uncovers my mouth.
Rhett lets me go and I stumble back.
“No matter what’s going on, don’t ever leave without me,” he says seriously.
He has to be fucking joking.
“Where were you the night of the fair?” I demand. I back up slowly, my adrenaline sharp and ready to run. “Nina recognizes you. You were at that house, weren’t you?”
His eyes narrow a fraction, and while I’m prepared to fight with him if he denies it, he doesn’t bother.
Now my chest is racing. I can hardly breathe right.
“You’ve always been able to find me so fast. Every time there’s a security camera you notice it, like you already know exactly where they are in every new place, and you know who’s watching.
Your watch costs far more than someone on your supposed salary would spend.
You’re always on your phone, always in contact with people you don’t want anyone to notice with the earpiece you wear.
You were never supposed to be my guard, and something happened to Victor conveniently right before he was due to start, giving you the perfect opening, and you were right there .
.. waiting.” I tie everything together with one final missing piece, though I’m terrified to know his answer. “Did you kill him to take his place?”
My breath clouds the air and I can’t draw it fast enough.
“Yes.”
I don’t expect his honesty. So I don’t know what to do with it when it slams into me so hard.
“Stay back,” I warn as his steps keep advancing, ready to chase me the moment I run.
“Ana, there are things you don’t know.”
“I know enough,” I snap. “You’re a murderer.”
“Yes, I am. Because sometimes to fight a monster you have to become one.”
“Please let me go,” I whimper, almost at the tree line of the woods.
“Not going to happen, little bird.”
With nothing left to lose, I spin on my heel and break into the fastest run of my life.
I’m quite a good runner—the treadmill is a favorite of mine to train with in the gym—and I push harder than I ever have before.
But this isn’t a stationary piece of equipment.
This is real, and it comes with the obstacles of snapping branches and loose forest debris.
It comes with the threat of a beast on my heels, the weight of unsuitable clothing, and the freezing night cutting my cheeks.
It’s practically over before it has begun. Rhett’s powerful arm hooks around my waist as I manage to get deep into the woods, and perhaps that’s my biggest mistake since no one will hear me now.
I become caged between a thick tree and his unmoving, tall body no matter how much I thrash and cry. When I don’t give up he restrains my hands above my head.
“Please stop,” he begs softly, such a contrast to my frantic struggle.
Exhaustion sweeps in when I accept my attempts are futile. He’s caught me. He will always catch me, and I was doomed from the moment I stepped into the spider’s web the day we met.
“What do you want from me?” I whisper in scared defeat.
“Everything. I want absolutely everything you are and all that you’re willing to give me.
I tried not to want you. So fucking hard, and still I wish I could stop.
You weren’t supposed to find out about me, certainly not like this—at least not until I’d found the threat against your life and the evil I’ve been hunting for all these years. ”
I start to calm, only so I can process what he’s saying. “You’re the threat to my life,” I say, though it cracks in my chest.
“I am. But there is something worse after you. Worse because they’re still anonymous, but not for long. I promise you’ll be safe. You’re safe with me.”
I want to believe him, and it’s so fucking wrong and ironic. My na?ve side is too soft to his words. His touch.
“How can I believe that?” I ask.
“I’ll tell you everything. Then you can decide what you want to do with the information.”
What I want ... Maybe I’m the fucked-up one, because all I start to think of is his firm body pinning me to this tree.
How he’s looking at me with pained blue eyes, both of us straining with the need to unleash something raw and furious.
It’s like he can read my thoughts. I’m in so much shit I can practically feel a tether forming from me to his anchor heading straight to hell.
Rhett kisses me. Hard.
He releases me and my hands fall around his neck when he pulls my waist to crush us together. I come alive. So sinfully for this man I should be fighting. Running from. Yet the space between my thighs only grows hotter with the fact.
Rhett’s hand climbs the inside of my thigh and I moan, hooking my leg around his waist to give him better access.
He groans, passing his fingers over my tights and panties. “You’re fucking soaked through for me. Did that turn you on, little bird? Running from me, knowing there’s nowhere you can go I wouldn’t find you.”
“Yes,” I pant. It’s the truth. And I need him so badly it’s shameful.
“Such a bad girl.” He tuts. “But now you’re going to take my cock like a good fucking girl, aren’t you?”
He rips my tights between my legs, and it’s so damn sexy I surge toward a climax the moment he pushes my panties to the side and slides a finger into me.
“Rhett, please.”
“This is going to be quick, baby. We have a flight to catch,” he growls. “Take out my cock.”
I fumble with his belt until it comes undone, pulling his zipper and dragging the heel of my palm down the silken length of him.
My breath catches when he bends enough to hook my other thigh and his dick lines up with my entrance. I can’t help myself, using the tip to rub my folds a few times, moaning at the sparks shooting through me with every knock of it against my clit.
“You’re such a fucking tease,” he growls into my neck. “Let me sink into that pretty little cunt before I drop you, spin you around, and I won’t be nice.”
His words are so daring and promising that they make me so wet it’s unreal. As soon as his tip passes down to where he wants Rhett plunges into me all at once, and I cry out with the sudden fullness, pulling his hair so tight he makes a sound of pain, but it only encourages him.
Rhett slams into me mercilessly, like he’s punishing me for running. Hating himself for chasing. Both of us are angry for being unable to resist this thing between us.
“Come for me, baby,” Rhett says between thrusts, kissing and sucking along my neck, which only amplifies my pleasure.
I reach between us, circling my clit, and it doesn’t take much when I’m already sprinting toward my orgasm that crashes over me in waves.
I cry out his name, clawing the back of his neck, and his grip on my thighs tightens with pleasurable pain as he slams in once more with his climax, jerking as he spends himself inside me.
He lets me go and my knees almost buckle trying to take my own weight as he pulls my skirt back down and tucks himself away.
“We don’t want to be late,” he says, voice raspy from sex, and my mind is still clouded with it as he takes my hand and leads us out of the woods. “Your punishment for running is dealing with the mess of us between your legs until we get on the jet.”