Chapter 32
Aiden
“If it wasn’t you, then could it have been Dagger?” She sounds so defeated.
Anger still courses through me at how easily she thought I had something to do with her sister’s rape.
“W-would you help me? Please?” she whispers so vulnerably, it nearly knocks the fucking wind out of me. Another sob escapes her throat. “I know she wasn’t crazy. I need to know who else was there so I can end them. I’ve already let her down so much.”
I can tell how hard it is for her to ask. I know enough about her already to know she doesn’t turn to people for help ever, and my chest tightens. I fucking hate that I care. I fight the pull I feel to her, the need to protect her.
“You lied to me,” I spit out. “And then you have the fucking audacity to ask me for help? If you were anyone else, you wouldn’t still be breathing.”
This fucking shit makes me talk too much.
“I don’t have anyone else to ask. You’re my best option to find the truth, and I have no idea why, but I think I fucking trust you.”
I study her closely, not knowing how to respond to that kind of honesty, because fuck me if I don’t also trust her in a way I can’t comprehend.
“I left her, Aiden. The night she was raped. We were supposed to be together, and I left her for a stupid boy. One I couldn’t even fucking get wet for because”—she scoffs, pacing in front of me—“apparently my type is deranged fucking psychopath.”
Don’t hate that confession.
“And then I left her again, the night she OD’d. I didn’t think she had any drugs. It didn’t seem like she was using.” Her eyes are lost in a memory, and when I see her screw them shut, I know it’s a bad one. “I was only gone for half an hour, and when I came back, she was…gone.”
She chokes on another sob, and I understand her better now. Her grief. Her guilt. She’s been lost in it, and I know how that feels. I lived with the guilt of not being able to save my mother for twelve fucking years. Hell, I still live with it.
“And…” She comes to a stop in front of me. “I wish this wasn’t true, but I wasn’t faking anything with you. I want you. Every fucking time I look at you. And I hate it but”—her jaw is clenched as she fights the words she can’t hold in—“I want you to want me too.”
Her pale thick hair falls in a tangled mass around her shoulders, and her ruby-red lips are so fucking sinful looking.
I make up my mind as her blue eyes burn into mine. Now with the truth finally out in the open, I’m going to bring a fucking reckoning down on Emilia Tyler. The kind of reckoning that her body has begged me for since the moment I met her.
“Want you?” I chuckle darkly. “I’m going to fucking own you. And you’re going to pay for making me think for one goddamn second you belonged to another man.”
* * *
Aiden
“What will you do to me?” she asks bravely.
I stroke her cheek with my thumb. She’s warm from the drug, her eyes bright and vivid. I slide my hand down and circle her slender throat. This time she doesn’t try to fight me as I hover over her.
“I’m going to keep you, Emilia.” I let my gaze move over her face. “I’m going to use you.” She’s an utter mess, but she’s so fucking beautiful I can hardly stand it.
“I’m going to fucking break you.” I graze my thumb lower, under her ear. “The broken pieces of you will fall at my feet”—I can feel her pulse fluttering under my thumb—“and that’s exactly where I should fucking leave them.”
“I would ask you to reconsider,” she says boldly, gripping the counter tight, her eyes locked on my mouth and her pupils blown wide.
“Infiltrating my club, lying about your identity, your affiliation with a rival club, trying to prove I was something I’m not, all from the inside…” I slide my fingers into all that fucking hair. Before I can stop myself, I grip it tight, pulling her head back, and those ruby lips pop open.
My cock stands at attention as I whisper, “My men would tell me to end you…but you already know that.”
She shudders and nods as best she can, but she holds her chin high. Even now, she’s defiant.
“I don’t fucking give anyone second chances, Mia.”
She reaches up and grips my T-shirt tight, pulling me close, challenging me as she always does.
“Just fucking get it over with then,” she bluffs, clinging to me.
“I can’t,” I admit. “You also know that.” I look down at her already begging for more of my touch. So responsive and eager.
“Why?” she asks, obliterating that line between us.
“Because however soulless and dark the pieces of me were made, you were cut from the same blood-soaked cloth, Rhiannon.” I let go of her hair, bringing my thumb over her red lips, further smearing what’s left of the stain across her cheek.
My cock is fucking steel, leaking for her behind my zipper, and I imagine shoving it to the back of her throat as she looks up at me like this.
“You like the chase.” I watch the pretty pink flush creep up her neck as I lean into her and whisper at the base of her ear, “The violence.”
I bring my thumb to the pulse point at her throat. Her heart beats wildly from the Pentothal still, only now it’s mixed with lust, the very same lust coursing through me.
“And even if you won’t admit it, there’s a very strong part of you that liked the idea of being caught, the risk of it.
Coming into my club, my home, gambling the entire time with your life.
” My hand squeezes her throat lightly before I drag my forefinger down her chest and between the valley of her full breasts.
“With the danger of wanting a man like me.”
A single tear slides down her cheek, and I know I’m bang on. It takes everything in me to hold it together instead of taking her right here and now in this filthy fucking death cabin.
But I know she craves fear, and the adrenaline from that will make her tight little cunt even wetter, even tighter.
“You knew full well, somewhere deep down, that I would find out who you were. You’re a smart woman, Mia.” I flip my first finger and ghost the back of my knuckle over her pebbled nipple, and she whimpers.
“You knew we’d learn you were lying.” She’s so fucking needy already.
“You knew it was inevitable, yet you stayed anyway.”
“Yes…” Her eyes flutter closed as she gives in.
I grip her waist tight and pull her close, pressing my solid cock against her abdomen, and another sinful whimper escapes.
“You stayed because you want something only I can offer you.” I lower my voice. “Your starved little cunt is desperate for it.”
Letting all rational thought disappear from my head, I release her and step back.
Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t move as I make my way to the door at the back of the cabin.
I unlock the dead bolt. A rush of warm summer air flows through the musty cabin as the door swings open wide, and I face her, stepping aside.
“So, you’re going to take your chances again, Mia. You’re going to run.”