56. Wentworth
FIFTY-SIX
Wentworth
I’m not supposed to even be here.
If not for the fact that the car I called from the Hawthorne in Helena got caught behind some sort of accident involving a cattle hauler, I wouldn’t have been. As a matter of fact, I was upstairs, throwing the last of my shit into my duffle and getting ready to put my shoes on to make the hike down the mountain in the dark when I heard the crunch of tires against the gravel drive out front. A few seconds later I heard the quiet close of a car door at the back of the house, the sound of it pushing me to the window.
Flicking the curtains open, I saw Kait rounding the back of an old SUV, a moment before she disappeared beneath the eaves of the back porch.
I came downstairs, just in time to watch her find the drawing I left for her. I had no intention of fucking her. Not now. Not yet… but I recently learned that intentions mean absolutely nothing when it comes to Kaitlyn Barrett.
After it was over, I pulled my pants back up before gathering her clothes and carrying her upstairs to the bedroom. Tossing her clothes on the bed, I take her into the bathroom. Setting her down on the counter, I move away from her just long enough to turn on the shower before I’m back.
Stepping into the space between her thighs, I lift my hands to push the tangle of dark hair away from her face. “Are you okay?” Looking down at her, I feel my eyebrows pull together into a frown. “Did I hurt you? Are you—” I was rough with her. I left marks. Light pink shadows ringing her neck, shaped like my hand, the tips of them slightly darker than the rest. Looking at them, I feel my cock start to swell so I squeeze my eyes shut so I can’t see them but that’s the wrong thing to do because with them closed, all I can see is Kait laid out on that fucking desk. My hand wrapped around her throat while I pound her into it with my cock. Her perfect tits bouncing with every hard—
“I’m fine…” I feel her hands skate across my chest. Her fingers trace the tattoos inked into my collarbone. “Better than fine.” When she says it, my eyes open to find her looking up at me, lower lip ca ught between her teeth while her hands slide lower, over my pecs and down my torso to brush against the waistband of my track pants.
“Sunshine…” I meant for it to be warning but that’s not how it sounds. It sounds rough and heavy. Like I’m a heartbeat away from losing it completely.
“I drank eight whole glasses of water…” She tilts her head, her mouth brushing against the underside of my chin while her hands push past my waistband to skim their fingers against the base of my already rigid shaft. “I’m fully hydrated… scout’s honor.”
“ Fuck .” Like her name, it comes out rough and heavy, my hands falling to the curve of her hips, lifting and angling them against mine, even as she’s moving to jerk my pants down just far enough to free my cock. Her arms and legs wrapping themselves around me, a sharp gasp ripping self up her throat when I bury myself inside her on a hard, deep thrust that nearly blinds me. Lifting her off the counter, I walk us both into the shower. Her legs wrapped around my hips, I pin her against the tiled wall, my cock working and pumping inside her. Fingers teasing and circling her swollen clit. Hanging on to my own release, I feel her pussy begin to grip and flex around me like a fist and she moans my name before I finally give in. Fucking myself into her hard and deep, I bury my face in her neck while I come on a rough shout when I feel her teeth sink into the firm muscle of my shoulder and her short, blunt nails claw across my back.
Not for the first time, I’m positive that she’s trying to kill us both.
Setting her down, I make short work of getting us both cleaned up because if I don’t get some clothes on her, fast, neither one of us is going to be leaving this room any time soon.
Wrapping her in a towel, I pick her up again and she doesn’t protest. Doesn’t tell me to put her down or that she can walk on her own. Walking her into the bedroom, I set her on the edge of the bed before ducking back into the bathroom to towel off and put my track pants back on. Coming back out, I find her exactly where I left her, her gaze aimed at something across the room. Stopping short, I aim my gaze in the same direction, even though I know what I’m going to see.
My packed duffle.
“Sunshine—” Starting toward her, I shake my head. “I wasn’t—”
“I came up here to tell you that I figured it out.” She shifts her gaze, letting it settle on me with a sigh. “Well, I didn’t figure it out—Abbey did.”
The back of my neck goes hot and my chest tightens because I know what she means. I know why she’s here. Shaking my head again, I ask anyway. “Figured what out?”
“Who you are.” She looks away, toward my duffle again. “Why you’re here. What they’re saying you did.”
Shit.
“I should’ve know,” she says before scoffing softly. Not like she’s mad. Like she can’t believe how stupid she’s been. “When you asked me if I knew who you were—down by the lake the other day. I should’ve known you were someone .”
“I’m not…” Shaking my head, I want to go to her but I can’t. It’s like my feet are nailed to the floor. “I’m not someone. I’m just—”
“You’re the heir and CEO of a multi-billion-dollar hotel empire, Went.” She gives me a smile that looks more like a grimace. “Sorry to have to tell you this, but you’re definitely someone .”
I open my mouth, hoping to God some sort of explanation finds its way out but before I can even try, she looks at me again. “It’s okay—I understand why you didn’t say anything. You came up here to hide—the last thing you should be doing is telling some girl you just met who you are and why .”
Some girl you just met.
“That’s not what you are,” I tell her, the heat pressing against the back of my neck going cold. “ Sun—”
“I also came up here to tell you that you need to leave.” Turning away from me, she shrugs the towel I wrapped her in off her shoulders while she digs through her pile of clothes. Finding her bra, she puts it on.
Even though leaving is exactly what I planned on doing, hearing her say it makes me angry. “Why the fuck would I need to leave?”
“Because—” Panties in hand, Kait stands up. “Brock was at the house when I got home.” Stooping she steps into them before straightening to pull them. “He saw me come down the mountain. He knows I was up here.” Finding her shirt—my shirt—she gathers it up before dropping it over her head. “And he knows I wasn’t alone.”
Hearing her say it, something washes over me. Something dark and heavy. Something that’ll drive me crazy if I let it. I recognize it for what it is now—have felt it plenty since the day I met her.
Jealousy.
Possessiveness.
“Good.” Crossing my arms over my chest, I shake my head even though I know that what I did to him the night he attacked Kait could spell disaster for us both. “I hope he—”
“Not good .” She shakes her head at me. “He doesn’t know you’re here.” Pants in hand, Kait sits on the edge of the bed to pull them on. “But he saw Damien coming down the mountain about fifteen minutes after I did.”
She doesn’t have to say anything else. Doesn’t have to give me any more of an explanation than that.
Brock thinks it’s my brother Kait’s been sneaking off to see—probably even that it was Damien in the woods that night who beat the shit out of him and took Kait away before he could hurt her.
Pants on, Kait stands on a sigh. “So, it actually works out that you’re leaving early because—”
“You’re right.” Advancing on her, I stop less than a foot from where she’s standing. “I am leaving early—as a matter of fact, I should already be gone.” Reaching for her, I wrap a hand around the back of her neck. Pressing the pad of my thumb into the underside of her chin, I tilt her face up so I can see it when I say what comes next. “ We should already be gone.”
She jerks back like I took a swing at her when I say it. “Excuse me?”
“You really think I’m leaving here without you?” tightening my grip, I glare down at her, suddenly angry because I’m sure she’s going to tell me yes. That she fully expected me to sling my duffle over my shoulder and say so long, Sunshine without so much as a backward glance. “The only way I’m leaving is if you leave with me, so, actually what works out is that you showed up here when you did because it saved me the trouble of hiking down the mountain in the dark to bang on your front door.”
“You’re leaving.” She says it carefully like I might not understand what I’m saying. “And you want me to come with you?”
“That’s what I said.”
I can see it on her face before she even opens her mouth— no . She can’t leave. Can’t defy her father. Can’t walk away from her life, even if it’s a life she hates.
Not for me.
“I can’t—” Blue eyes yanked wide by the shock of the sudden turn of events. “I can’t just leave. I can’t—”
“Why?” Dropping my hand away from her face on a sigh, I shake my head. “Why can’t you?”
“Because…” Still shellshocked, she stares up at me. “Because my father—”
“Fuck your father.” I bite each word in half and spit them at her.
“You don’t understand…” Still shaking her head, Kait presses a hand to her stomach. “He’ll come for me. He won’t just let me go. He’ll find a way to make me come back.”
I don’t know which he she’s talking about—Brock or her father—but it doesn’ t matter. “You don’t have to marry him, Sunshine. Not if you marry me first.”
“ Marry you ?” She stands there, mouth slightly open like she can’t catch her breath, staring at me like she has no idea what I’m saying. “I—”
“If you marry me, there’s nothing either one of them can do about it,” I reason with her. When she doesn’t answer me, I shake my head. “Your father can’t force you to get married twice—it’ll be done before he even knows you’re gone.”
“Went—”
“You’ll be free. Hell—you don’t even have to stay married to me if you don’t want to. We can just get a divorce.” Saying it out loud nearly kills me because it’s not what I want but I say it anyway because this isn’t about me. It’s about Kait. What she wants.
“ Went —”
“What do you want, Kait?” I ask her, almost desperate because she’s going to tell me no again and this time, it’s going to stick. “You—not me. Not Brock. Not your father— you . What do you want?”
She doesn’t answer me.
She just stands there and stares at me like she still can’t make sense of it, for so long that I realize that’s my answer. That unless I want to tie her up and kidnap her, I’m going to have to leave this valley without her because no matter how much I want to be, I can’t be just another asshole who forces her to bend to his will. If Kait wants me, if she wants to be with me, she’s going to have to make that decision on her own.
Fuck.
“Okay.” Giving her a stiff nod, I take a step back, away from her before I start trying to figure out where I can find some rope. “Okay, Kait…” Turning my back on her, I frog march myself across the room. “I get it. I understand.”
It’s a lie.
I don’t get it.
I’ll never understand.
Reaching down, I snag the strap of my duffle to swing it onto my shoulders. “Can you tell Damien that I’m sorry. He’s pretty pissed—”
“You.”
She whispers it, the tone of it so soft and quiet, I’m sure I didn’t actually hear it. That I imagined it.
Turning around, I look at her.
“What?”
“You… I want you.” She says it louder this time, still staring up at me, her face pale, entire body shaking with fear, but she said it. Said it out loud.
She wants me.
Dropping my duffle, I rush forward, stopping only inches from where she’s standing. “You’ll come with me?”
“Yes.” She nods, tears welling up in her eyes. “I’ll come with you.”
“And you’ll marry me?” When I say it, my heart begins to pound. My ears begin to ring. There are a million reasons why I shouldn’t ask. A million reasons why she should say no. Why this will never work. Why we’re doomed—have been doomed since the moment we met but I don’t care about any of that.
I can’t—not right now.
All I care about is getting Kait out of here.
Keeping her with me for as long as she’ll let me.
The rest of it can fall apart later.
“Yes.” Still shaking, still pale, Kait nods and smiles up at me. “I’ll marry you.”
THE END