“I don’t think you’re dumb,” she said. “Honestly, I’m too tired to run anymore. I haven’t had any food since lunch yesterday and I—”
“Speaking of dumb,” he interrupted, quickening his pace, hoping physical exertion would help banish the carnal hunger pumping through his veins. “I can’t believe you would rather take your chances with a king cobra than do what I told you to do.”
“You shouldn’t be surprised,” she said in a weary voice. “You already proved that you might kill me. The cobra’s intentions were still up in the air.”
“If I hadn’t grabbed you, you would be dead right now,” he said, but her words sent a fresh burst of self-hatred rushing through him.
He had lost control and then lost his focus, forgetting that leaving someone like Harley tied to a bed wasn’t nearly enough to ensure she would stay put. He had to pull his shit together and treat her the way he would treat any dangerous suspect during an interrogation. She wasn’t a pretty, helpless, petite woman; she was a sociopath, and he’d been a fool to forget it, even for an hour.
Harley’s breath rushed out in a sound that was almost a laugh. “So you want me to thank you? Is that it?”
“Of course not,” he said as he stepped back onto the trail and the cottages came into sight. “I know you’re incapable of gratitude. Or any other normal human emotion.”
“Fuck you,” she growled, her fist slamming into his ass. “You don’t know what I’m capable of. You don’t know me anymore!”
Rage rushing through him, Clay flipped her back onto her feet, grabbing her around the upper arms and leaning down to whisper his next words into her flushed face. “And you don’t know me, and don’t you forget it.”
“I won’t,” she said, eyes glittering as she held his gaze. “I’ve got plenty of bruises to remember the new you by.”
“You can always have more,” he snapped.
Her lips stretched in a mean smile. “Lovely. That’s just what Jasper needs, a father in his life to teach him how to abuse women.”
“You’re not a woman, you’re a criminal.”
“So are you!” she shouted, standing up straighter, her arm muscles flexing beneath his hands. “You kidnapped me and nearly strangled me to death.”
“Keep talking,” he said through gritted teeth, fighting the insane urge to shove his tongue between her lips and silence her with a kiss, “and I’ll rethink the pain reliever I was going to give you.”
“Fuck your pain reliever. And fuck you.” Her breath rushed out as her gaze flicked from his eyes to his lips and back again.
That hint of awareness was all it took to send him over the edge.
Fisting his hand in her hair, he crushed his mouth to hers, making a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl as she opened for him and her tongue darted out to wage war with his own. Their tongues writhed against each other, fighting for supremacy, as their lips pressed so tight together he could feel her teeth bruising his lips as they fell to the grass. He rolled on top of her, grinding his erection between her legs as she bucked into him, both of them making animalistic sounds of rage and lust that drove him even wilder.
Her fingernails clawed into his bare skin, leaving scratch marks behind as he gripped her breast through her shirt and squeezed hard enough to make her gasp into his mouth.
“No, fuck you,” he mumbled before pulling her bottom lip between his teeth and biting down, summoning a pained, pleasured sound from low in her throat as he released it. “I’m going to fuck you, you evil bitch. And you’re going to come on my cock knowing you spread your legs for the man who is going to ruin your life.”
Chapter Ten
Clay
Clay pulled back, reaching for the top of her shirt, fisting his hands in the gauzy fabric and ripping it in two. She was wearing some sort of tank top underneath, but before he could rip it free, she slapped him—hard, her hand connecting with his jaw with enough force to make it ache.
“You don’t get to do this,” she hissed. “You don’t get to decide how I pay for what I’ve done!”
She reached clawed hands for his eyes, but he captured her wrists, pinning them above her head. He slammed his mouth over hers, fucking her with his tongue as he kneed her legs apart and settled between them, riding her hard through their clothes. He shifted control of both of her wrists to his left hand and used his right to pull her tank top down, freeing her breasts.
He continued to ravage her mouth, refusing to give her any spare breath to use against him, as he pinched and rolled her tight little nipples. He waited until he felt her begin to grind against him, seeking relief from the maddening tension building between them, before he reached for the close of her shorts with both hands. He ripped the fabric in two, popping the button and tearing the zipper, not caring that he was destroying the only thing she had to wear.
He didn’t care about anything but getting his cock inside her and fucking her until she knew that he owned her—body and soul.
He shoved his hand down the front of her shorts and panties and drove two fingers in and up, pulse spiking as he felt how wet she was. “Fuck, Harley.”
She cried out, arching into his hand, her body gushing fresh heat onto his fingers even as she raked her nails down his chest. “Get off of me!”
“You don’t want me to get off.” He captured one of her dangerous hands and pinned it to the ground, holding her gaze as he fucked her with his fingers. “You want to get off. You’re about to come on my hand. You’re hot and wet and dripping for me because you know this is how you deserve to get fucked. You deserve to get taken here in the dirt.”
With an incoherent sound of rage, she slapped him again. But it was her left hand this time and she was too distracted to put much force behind the blow. Her breath was coming so fast her breasts were rocking on her chest, her tight nipples pinching even tighter in the breeze blowing in from the ocean.
She was going to come any second and it was going to make her furious. The knowledge was enough to make Clay’s cock throb.
“Come,” he said, smiling at her as he brought his thumb to her clit, rubbing her as he continued to fuck her with his hand. “Come you worthless bitch.”
Crying out in what sounded like agony, she came, her pussy squeezing his fingers tight. She came gasping for air, sobbing and cursing as her cream gushed out to coat his hand until he could smell her salty sweetness on the air and the last of his capacity for rational thought left him in a rush of raw hunger. He needed to be inside her, needed to replace his fingers with his cock and ride her until she screamed.
“Stop,” she shouted as he pulled her shorts and panties down her legs. “We don’t have protection!”
She rolled over, trying to crawl away, but he was on her in a second, pinning her, belly down on the grass, as he shoved his shorts down far enough to free his cock.
“Pull out before you come,” she snapped. “Do you hear me?”
He growled low in his throat in response. He was beyond words or compassion. He needed his dick in her, needed it like he’d never needed anything in his life. He was wild with it, bestial, ravenous.
He was drowning in his own lust and there was only one thing that could bring him back to the surface.