Chapter Two #4
Torpedo Ink didn’t play games. They went after traffickers and pedophiles, but that didn’t mean they were pure as driven snow.
They didn’t even try to be. They were tough; they played for keeps.
If they needed information, they knew how to extract it.
Every member of their club was skilled in the art of killing.
Keys inhaled, taking in the odor of blood mixed with sweat, and a much fainter scent of strawberries. Lyric. He’d gotten her into a hell of a mess. They weren’t out of the woods yet. And if he convinced her to come home with him…There it was again, on repeat.
What the hell was he thinking? He wasn’t a one-woman man.
He didn’t have it in him to tie himself to a woman.
He didn’t do relationships. His fingers found Lyric’s hair again.
He had no idea what to do with her. If they got out of this alive and he went home to Caspar, he couldn’t keep coming back on the pretense of a haircut.
Not to mention, he’d pretty much gone through all the available women in town and the surrounding county.
If anything, his pussy count had been higher than average, mostly because Lyric had him tied in knots.
The thought of never seeing her again was unacceptable.
He found himself swearing, wondering what the fuck he’d gotten himself into.
Keys wasn’t a dreamer. He wasn’t a man who had fantasies, yet he had them about Lyric.
All the fuckin’ time. He dreamt of her at night and woke up so hard he thought he’d shatter.
He wanted her every way he could have her.
He’d even acknowledged that to himself a few times and then quickly shut that part of his brain down.
Lyric wasn’t a onetime fuck. He didn’t want that for her. More importantly, if he ever really lost control and took what he wanted from her, every instinct he had told him it would never be enough. She’d ruin his life. Ruin him. Destroy him.
He slid his hand down the slope of her back, memorizing the feel of her.
Like silk. His palm cupped her right butt cheek.
She had very firm muscles, a strong core from all the hiking and climbing she did, but there was that smooth, silky layer his rough palms stroked and caressed.
Already, he thought of her as belonging to him; therefore, her body was his. If only it could be that simple.
“Stop grabbing my butt.”
He smiled at the slight indignation in her voice. She should have been angry with him, but she didn’t have any sense when it came to him.
“What else is there to do? We have to get warm, which means we need to stay here for a little while longer. Since I don’t want you to get bored, I’m entertaining you. You could show me a little gratitude.”
“I want to be annoyed with you. You’re kind of a jerk.” Her head didn’t move. She lay over his chest, her ear over his heart as if she were listening to every beat. He hoped the steady sound comforted her.
“Kind of a jerk? Woman, why would you insult me like that? I work on being a first-class bastard. Jerks are tame. There isn’t anything tame about me.”
“That much is true. Thank you for getting me warm. I thought my bones were going to break, I was shaking so hard. I’m still cold inside, but at least I’m not shaking apart.”
That was so unexpected and so like Lyric. Thanking him. She tore him apart and didn’t even see she was doing it. Which was a good thing. He didn’t need her knowing she turned him inside out. She already ran wild, just smiling at him and then doing whatever the fuck she wanted.
Not his kind of woman. If he ever took a woman as his own, he would expect her to follow his lead.
To trust him enough to do what he told her to do.
What was the point if she ran off doing her own thing and getting into trouble?
His entire life had been one of conflict.
He wasn’t having that in his home. His woman didn’t do as she was told, he would see to it that she learned that particular lesson fast.
“We’re drying out shoes and jeans before we leave here.
I don’t have another tee, but I can dry out mine and you can wear that.
It isn’t as warm as the flannel, but if you have an aversion to that one…
” He’d expected her to have a hysterical meltdown now that she perceived they were safe, but as always Lyric didn’t react the way he expected her to.
“We really can’t stay here in the truck and wait to be rescued?”
“Someone is waiting for a report. They expect a rape-and-murder video. When their buddies don’t deliver and don’t return, they’ll be sending a hunting party.”
She winced when he mentioned the video. “That disgusting toad Hank had the camera on me when Chester was ripping off my clothes and slapping me. At least he was dumb enough to take the cuffs off. I started rubbing my arms and hands in the dirt to try to bring sensation back.”
His woman. “Maybe we’re more like Batman and Robin than Bonnie and Clyde.”
“I suppose you think you get to be Batman and I have to be Robin.”
“Way of the world, baby, at least my world.”
She sighed but didn’t protest. That bothered him. She was recovering, but she was still in bad shape.