Chapter 31 #2
“Goddammit!” I fly out of the car, the engine still purring as I run to free her. She can escape into the woods, making it home.
But someone lands on my back, taking me to the ground.
I push up, lifting my eyes to my sister. The short one holds her while the bearded one pulls me up, gripping the insides of my elbows and keeping my arms secure as Milo jabs a punch into my stomach.
My throat fills with bile, and I tighten my muscles against the next hit.
He backs up. “I think I’ll dump you on his lawn,” he pants. “He can get his revenge, too.”
I launch out, kicking his face and watching his head snap back. Blood spills from his nose, and his friend throws me on the ground, pressing my face into the gravel. Milo charges in and rears his foot back to kick me, but I scrape up some pebbles and dirt in my hand and throw them at his face.
He twists his head away, stumbling back and squeezing his eyes shut. Snarling, he swipes his hand across his face, his eyes watering and red.
“You broke my hand!” he growls. “I’m going to break your fucking teeth!”
He starts for me again, and I tense, ready for the kick, but someone catches him.
I watch as Dallas throws him against the car and rams my door shut on Milo’s good hand.
My former friend cries out, and the scene explodes in a flurry of activity as others fly in and kick ass.
Anna-Katherine falls to the ground as Army points his firearm, badge around his neck since he’s out of uniform, the man holding her slowly raising his hands.
Dallas fists Milo by the collar, kneeing him in the gut, and I scramble to my feet, crashing my shoulder into the bearded guy’s stomach. He tumbles to the ground, scurrying backward, then climbs to his feet and runs down the small ravine, hopping the narrow canal and disappearing into the brush.
“Milo,” the short one calls, backing away slowly to test if Army will stop him.
Milo shoves Dallas back and bolts, both of them following their friend.
Rain spills down my face, my skin stinging. I whip my hand across my cheek, flinging off little rocks as I try to catch my breath.
But Dallas turns to me, and my lungs empty, taking in the sight of him.
My God…
His black pants glimmer with rain, molded to his thighs, and water drips down his chest and the ridges of his hard stomach. Green eyes are just visible behind the drenched locks of hair, and my groin starts to fill with heat.
Fuck.
I dart my eyes to my sister, pissed at myself for getting distracted when she was in danger.
She stands up, and I take a quick inventory, seeing she’s not bleeding anywhere.
I move to the front of my car, putting myself between her on one side and the Jaegers on the other. “You okay?” I ask her.
She nods, and I comb my hair back over the top of my head.
Milo’s car sits stalled just behind mine, and I try to see if he dented my rear fender. I need to get Anna-Katherine and myself out of here.
But I swallow, looking around at Macon, Army, Iron, Trace, and Liv. I blink twice, my heart picking up speed. I should’ve known she’d get her payback at some point.
“Where’s our shit?” Dallas asks.
I wipe my hands together, trying to wash off the dirt under the rain. “Not at the police station.”
“Where’s your security?”
My heart skips a beat. Why is he asking that?
Would he really hurt me? Or worse?
Not with Anna-Katherine here. They wouldn’t want witnesses, and I’m the only one who knows where the treasure is.
I pause, though, realizing he might not care. They’re used to doing without and have survived worse, and he might be willing to do anything to be free of me. Finally.
If he can’t have the treasure, at least he can have that.
Raising my eyes, I watch his siblings stand like marble columns in the background, his head tilting to the side.
He came looking for me.
They’re all here for me.
I try to steel my voice, but it comes out strained. “How much pain do you think I can take?” I ask. “Wanna see?”
He brutalized my heart years ago. I can survive anything now.
He steps closer. “I won’t hurt you.”
“Perfect night,” I go on, looking around at the empty road I just drove down, most of the homes vacated for the season. “Have to hand it to you. Lockdown. Cops are occupied. No cameras out here.”
“I won’t hurt you,” he says again.
“So I can leave?”
“No.”
Motherfucker.
I glance at Anna-Katherine, seeing she’s returned to her seat in the car, out of the rain. She’s not worried about Dallas. She loves his family.
She doesn’t know that they hate me and aren’t going to let me leave in one piece unless I give them back their shit.
I smile snidely. “You couldn’t just behave, could you?” I spit out. “You were always too dumb for your own good. You don’t understand that I’m the only ally you have. You’ll never get the treasure back, but at least you were dealing with me instead of my father.”
I walk up to him, rubbing my groin for him. “And you like dealing with me, don’t you, Swamp Rat?”
I shove his face to the side, wiping that fucking smirk off it, but a full-on smile appears as he stares at the ground.
“Dallas, are you really sure you want this guy?” Iron Jaeger gripes.
Dallas rubs his jaw. “Oh, yeah.”
He turns to face me, and I whip around, pulling open my dented door.
“I’m leaving.”
He hits the door, and it flies out of my hand. “You’re never leaving,” he growls. “You’re not leaving when I have the treasure or in the morning when we’re in my bed. You’re not leaving.”
What the fuck?
I spin around, ramming my hands into his chest, but he doesn’t even break his stance. “Get away from me!”
He grabs me, clenching my neck in one hand and pinning one of my wrists as he presses me to the car.
What the hell does he want from me?
He can go fuck himself, because I call the shots now, and if he’s not going to kill me, then he better watch his back.
Two sets of headlights appear down the road, and Dallas yells at his family, “Head them off!”
In a flurry, they jump into the two trucks they drove here and race back down the road, toward town, blocking both lanes.
Dallas bears down on me, his features spilling with rain two inches away from my face. “Anna-Katherine?” he calls. “Stay in the car for me, okay? I won’t hurt him.”
I should tell her to call the cops.
“Maybe if you fuck me really good,” I coo, “I’ll turn your house into a bed-and-breakfast.”
Fire lights in his eyes, a mixture of amusement and anticipation gleaming behind them.
“You can live and work there,” I go on, “and I’ll come visit you. I’ll climb into bed to get my payment off you once in a while.”
“Or maybe…” he says, gazing at my mouth, “I come home from working late to find you naked in the sheets, and I climb into our bed, so hard for you”—he locks eyes with me—“always so hard for you, and I wake you up for a nice late-night fucking before we fall asleep wrapped around each other and wake up in the morning to do it all over again.”
My dick fills with heat, his image instantly possessing my mind.
“In our shower.” He opens his mouth, looking like he’s dying to eat my lips. “In our pool, on your desk…”
Is he serious?
What the fuck?!
“You think that’s what I want?” I push him away. “I stopped wanting that years ago! You don’t impress me!”
“I will.”
I almost laugh. Son of a bitch.
He thinks he has power over me. I can imagine how the conversation at their house went down. He only stole from us to get your attention. Just string him along…
I push him away. “Did you really think this would work?” I growl. “That I’m in love with you, and I’ll fold and just give it back?”
“I think you love me,” he says.
Arrogant piece of shit.
“I think you never stopped,” he continues, moving in for me again. “And you want to be with me all the time and you think about me all the time, and nothing holds a candle to how it feels when I touch you. That’s what I think.”
“Bullshit!”
“Because that’s how I feel, too.”
My throat closes, and I struggle to swallow, watching his chest rise and fall as he gazes at me, unfaltering.
I don’t want to hear his lies. I don’t think about him all the time, and I don’t want a life with him. I’ll never trust him again. There’s nothing he can say.
“You talk shit, that’s all you do!” I yell.
“I’m sorry for everything I did to hurt you.”
“You’re a liar!” My chest fills with fire, and we’re back in the parking lot on that rainy morning so long ago when he threw me away. “You think everyone revolves around you and that I’ve been obsessing this whole time? I’m done with you!”
Now it’s my turn to walk away.
But he reaches out and grabs my face. “Like hell you are!” he bites out.
“Nothing feels like you do, and I knew it years ago, but I was prideful, okay? I didn’t like myself, and I was absorbed in my own bullshit.
So I drowned it out, so I wouldn’t have to feel it, and that’s what you were supposed to be—something to numb me—”
He searches my eyes, and my hands ache to hold him back.