Chapter 17
RHETT
Am I going to say no?
To that thick, perfect ass raised in the air for me, her beautiful eyes wide and coaxing, hair spilling over her shoulder as she turns to look at me? Am I going to fucking say no when her juicy thighs are glistening with her own release?
I stumble to the edge of the bed, yank my jeans and underwear down. My cock springs forward, veins bulging, head purple and hungry. Precome clings to my tip as I stare down at her.
I know why she’s moving fast. Why she’s racing toward the finish line. It’s her past and the complications. And perhaps I should give her more time, be the mature one.
But when I stare down at her round, creamy ass, I lose it. Especially when she whisper-moans, “What are you waiting for?”
I guide myself to her entrance, both hands sinking into the plushness of her ass. She moans and shifts against me.
“You’re big,” she whispers.
“Too big?” I growl, watching as she parts around me, her curvy body letting me in tightly.
“Just push all the way in, Rhett,” she moans.
My cock twitches as animalistic desire burns inside me. I can feel how tight she is. It can’t be comfortable. But she wants me buried deep, wants it hard. I hold back, just about, as visions of her body bouncing against mine flood my head.
“Wait until your pussy relaxes for me,” I growl.
She bites down on her lip as I inch deeper, then deeper. Her tunnel is a tight wall of fire, causing come to burn up my shaft. She caresses me with each inch I thrust inside of her.
Finally, I feel her inner muscles relax. “Oh,” she moans, her eyebrows going up in shock. “Fu-fuck.”
“Feel your pussy relaxing for me?” I growl.
“Yeah.”
“Now you can get it, savage,” I tell her.
She gasps, nodding.
And I unleash.
I’ve been barely holding on this entire time. Now, I sink my hands into her hips, beautiful handholds, and pull her against me as I drive in to the hilt. She whimpers when my balls slap against her clit.
I pull all the way out, then hammer in again, watching her thick ass jiggle with the impact. Each reverberation causes more come to climb up my stalk, gathering almost painfully at my head, trying to explode.
Again, I focus on the way her head bucks and her cheeks flush red as she bites down like she’s trying with every atom not to scream. When she bites down, it’s like the tension travels to her core and she clenches even tighter around me.
I pull out, thrust in, pounding her. Her body makes wet, squelching noises, and turns her head away as if she’s ashamed. I fist her hair, using it to make her turn and face me. She whimpers, wide-eyed, staring, as her pussy tells me how well I’m working her body.
“Don’t—fucking—be—ashamed,” I snarl. “I want to come so hard when your body does that.” She whimpers for me again. “Your horny—fucking—body—talking to me.”
“Hmm, hmm.” She nods urgently, like she’s trying to coax a waterfall of come out of my throbbing dick.
I shift into berserk mode, rocking the whole bed. She buries her face in the sheets and sticks her creamy ass in the air. I’m making her gorgeous globes turn red just from the impact of my abs slamming into her. She pushes back, and then I feel it, and it fucking breaks me.
She comes all over my dick. A pulsation clenches then unclenches her teasing tunnel. Her hands claw at the sheets as if trying to hold on. She bounces and grinds against me, gasping.
I collapse atop her, laying against her back, and let myself come.
Let it all pour out. My balls tighten and ache as wave after wave of come explodes out of me.
My hands find her breasts under her shirt, pinching her nipples softly.
She brings her hands up to push my hands against herself as we both melt.
When it’s over, I fall onto my side, breathing hard. My mind is clouded and alive at the same time. She steps into the en-suite, then returns, still bottomless. Her expression is dazed as she climbs onto the bed.
“Whoa,” she murmurs.
I reach over the bed, gently brush her shoulder, then her hair and cheek. “Whoa, is damn right,” I say.
She shuffles closer to me, gently tracing the bite mark on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually—well, not usually… but I’m not a biter. I haven’t, not since… you know what I’m saying, don’t you?”
“You haven’t been intimate with anyone since it happened.”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t even think about apologizing for that, Sunshine. You rocked my world.”
“Really?”
“One thousand percent. But one of these days, I’m going to take you slow and loving.”
“We’ll see about that,” she murmurs, then stands, giving me a perfect view of her ass.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to check on Mira.”
I climb to my feet and quickly pull on my jeans, then walk around the bed. I wrap my arms around her as she finishes pulling on her pants, holding her to my chest and stroking my hand through her hair.
“I know this is a mess,” I murmur.
More than a mess, killer.
“But I like being with you, Elle. And Mira. And that’s more than I can say about anyone for a long, long time.”
She smiles, looking up at me. “I like being with you too.”
We kiss, then she leaves the room, and I watch her go. I sit on the edge of the bed, trying to blot out that voice. Killer, killer, killer.
I must be a bad, bad man. Elle has no idea who she just really slept with.
I step into the en-suite and splash cold water on my face, staring at my reflection. I look lazily satisfied and anxious at the same damn time somehow.
Usually, I can think of all my very real, acceptable justifications. These people deserve it. They’re worse than lowlifes. They kill innocents, women, and children. I don’t feel remorse. I am fucking vengeance.
But now I’m picturing the look on Elle’s face if she learned I’m a criminal too.
Elle bursts into the room, breaking me out of my morbid thoughts. “Mira’s missing!”
“She must be close to the property. The sensors would’ve tripped.”
“We have to find her.”
She runs from the room. I follow, jogging down the hallway, out onto the porch.
No one is at the front of the property, and I don’t see anyone at the back either.
She must be hiding under the bed or something.
Back inside, Elle is clutching the counter with one hand, the other squeezing a handful of her shirt.
“We need to check the cameras,” she says, voice desperate.
“Did you check everywhere?”
She glares at me. Shit. That probably wasn’t the best thing to say. But it’s not like this boyfriend stuff comes easy to me.
I grab her laptop, still unlocked from when I signed in earlier. I go to the security website and log in, then check the footage. “Fuck,” I whisper, pieces clattering together in my head. Things I should’ve thought about, anticipated.
“What?” Elle says, walking up next to me.
“Someone looped the feed,” I say, gesturing at the screen. “See how it blinks every fifteen seconds or so? Watch.” The forest remains still, then slightly shifts. “You’d have to know to look for it.”
“What does that mean?” Elle demands.
“It means that this sick bastard hacked your WiFi before I used this laptop. Or he installed key-tracking software on your laptop. It doesn’t matter how. What matters is that this property is compromised. I’m finding Mira, then we’re leaving. Wait in the bedroom.”
“No way.”
I spin on her, practically hyperventilating. “Elle, please. I need to focus on this.”
“I am not hiding like some scared little bird when my sister is out there. We’re wasting time. I was here before you, Rhett, and I’ll be here after!”
She glares at me, red-faced. My first instinct is rage. Absurd and unfair. She’s right. I can’t control her. And we are wasting time.
“Dammit,” I snap, grabbing my gun from the holster. “Mira! If you’re in here, come out right now! Mira! Search the house again. Carefully. Every inch. Triple check. I’ll be right back.”
I turn and stride away, hoping she listens. The house does need to be checked… and I’d also rather keep her inside. Goddamn Conti, hounding her like a dog. I raise my pistol and stalk through the trees at the edge of the property.
I step closer, push my foot through the sensor. Immediately, my phone starts ringing in my pocket. I answer it, type in the security code, then step out. So the sensors are working. Which means Mira has to be either in the house or hiding in a goddamn…
I look up. And there she is. Clinging onto the upper branches of a pine, trembling as she stares down at me with big red eyes.
“Mira? It’s okay. I’m here.”
She just keeps staring.
“Are you stuck up there?”
She doesn’t respond, just stares. It cracks my heart right down the middle.
“Elle!” I call, scanning the forest.
She rushes from the house. “I’ve looked everywhere—”
“I need you to watch the forest for me,” I cut in. “She’s right here. In this tree. I’m going to have to climb up, but I need eyes on the forest too.”
I should’ve just taken them to my place the second he pulled the gallery stunt. That was a warning. He was cleverer than I’ve given him credit for.
Elle rushes, gasping when she sees Mira. “Honey? Mira? Why did you climb the tree, baby?”
Mira keeps shaking but doesn’t answer.
Elle swallows and looks at me desperately. “I’m not saying it’s your fault, angel.”
Mira just keeps shaking.
“Just get her, please, Rhett,” Elle pleads.
“I will,” I say. “Keep watch. Carefully.”
She nods, turning in a slow circle.
Holstering my gun, I walk to the base of the tree, assessing. Some of these branches are perfect for a girl like Mira, but will snap under my weight. I jump and hook the lowest one that’s thick enough, grunting as I haul myself up. I haul myself onto the first branch, then start to properly climb.
Don’t look down, killer.
I wish that voice would go to hell.
“Mira, I’m here,” I murmur, as soon as I reach her. “What I need you to do is to simply fall backward so that I can wrap my arm around you. Can you do that?”
I position myself so my body is pressed against hers, my hand ready as I balance with my other arm hooked around a branch. She doesn’t respond, but she does as I ask, leaning against me.
I wrap my arm around her, then begin our descent as she hugs me, resting her cheek against my chest. It’s a long process, climbing down, takes more effort than going up with Mira attached to me.
At the bottom, I say, “Mira, it would be really helpful if you could climb these last few. Can you do that for me? They won’t hold my weight.”
“You can do it, angel,” Elle says, a croak in her voice.
Mira clambers from my arms, then moves in a flighty, almost squirrel-like way down the tree. At the bottom, she doesn’t rush into Elle’s arms. She just stands there, her arms at her sides, staring off into space.
I’ve seen her like this before. The night it all happened.
Elle rushes to her and clutches her to her chest, looking at me. She doesn’t have to say it. We’re both thinking the same thing. She saw something that terrified her into silence again.
“I’m taking her inside,” Elle murmurs, lifting her up and rushing toward the house.
I follow close behind, scanning, praying that Lucian shows up. Tries this man to man, sees how far he gets. He’ll get nowhere except in the ground with a bullet in his skull for this shit.
In the house, Elle sits Mira on the couch. “Let me get you some water.”
I sit carefully on the chair, keeping my gun holstered and out of her sight. We need to pack and get moving. The sensors are working, at least. They work on a different system, via my cellphone. That’s what makes me think the prick somehow got into the WiFi or her laptop specifically.
Mira stares blankly at the table.
“Can you nod or shake your head, Mira?” I ask gently. “Or are you… too far away?”
I’ve been far away before. In battle. Dissociated, but somehow the body keeps moving, keeps pulling the trigger.
She shakes her head slowly.
“Did you see somebody in the woods?” I ask.
Elle hovers nearby, glass of water in her hand. She glares at me like she’s annoyed that I’m pushing Mira, but she also looks like she wants to know too.
Mira nods slowly.
“Who?” I say.
Mira turns her head to me, then slowly lifts her hand and covers her own face with it.
“He was wearing a mask,” Elle whispers.
Mira lowers her hand and nods.
“Did he say anything?” I ask.
Mira nods, but then her eyes fill with tears, and her shoulders shake. Elle puts the water down and rushes to her, pulling her into her arms. I chew the inside of my cheek as my fingers twitch for my gun.
A few minutes pass like that, then Mira sniffles and pushes away from Elle. She nods again. When I don’t get it, she nods at me, insistently.
I think. “He… talked? The man in the mask?”
A nod.
“Okay, Mira. But I know you can’t tell me what he said. And that’s okay.”
She shakes her head stubbornly, then points at me.
“Me…” She nods and points at Elle. “And Elle…” Another nod, then she makes a big X with her arms.
Elle whispers, “Can’t be together?”
Mira nods, staring at me with tears glistening in her eyes.
“Did he threaten you? From beyond the sensors? Did he have a weapon?”
Mira nods.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “But now, we’re going to my place. You’ll be safe there.”