Their Cartel Princess: The Complete Series: A Dark Reverse Harem Box Set Page 26

  How long he’d given her CPR, he didn’t know. It had felt like hours — logically, couldn’t have been more than a few minutes — but when he’d crashed down over her, too tired to carry on, too weak to try to get himself to safety…she’d coughed.

  He’d bundled her up and carried her away. Walked until he couldn’t feel his legs anymore, and then walked some more.

  Eventually, he’d seen the peaked roof of a barn. Full night had fallen by then — no one had seen them slip inside.

  He wouldn’t have been able to do anything if they had.

  Exhausted, he’d barely had enough energy to get them both up the ladder into the hayloft, strip them of their wet clothes, and bundle hay around them before falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Now he couldn’t stop touching her.

  Her eyes flickered open. There was life in them, but faint. Nothing like the enthusiastic gleam he’d been expecting. She didn’t look like she’d drowned and been resurrected. More as if she’d just woken up from a too-long nap — eyes a little shadowed, a crease embedded in her cheek.

  He reached for her, smoothed a thumb over the crease. She started at the touch, eyes wide.

  Of course; she hadn’t heard the things he’d told her in the forest. She’d been dead at the time. He drew away his hand, feeling like he’d invaded her personal space. Realized he was holding her against him, and shifted back.

  “What happened?” she asked, her voice rough.

  “You went under. Almost drowned.”

  It was better than telling someone they had drowned. Who wanted to know shit like that? It would mean there was nothing else but this world. People preferred living in denial.

  “I don’t remember…” she trailed off, scanning their hayloft as the morning sun painted it yellow. “Just the farmhouse.”

  Pity. It would have been better if she hadn’t remembered anything. The man. What he’d done. What he’d wanted to do.

  Finn had tried to forget it. He couldn’t.

  “How do you feel?”

  She bowed her head, considering. Her eyes flickered over the hay that barely covered her. Finn reached behind him, taking down her clothes from where he’d hung them over the hayloft’s edge to dry. They were still damp in some places. Cora sat up, bundling the clothes to her chest.

  “I had to…” he broke off, cleared his throat. “You were soaked through. We both were. This was the only thing—”

  “Thank you.” Her quiet voice did a surprisingly good job of cutting him off.

  He nodded, cleared his throat again. “Can you stand? We have to leave—”

  “Finn.” She caught a hold of his arm, urged it down.

  He looked up at her, gaze snagging on her eyes. Her fingertips were still cold. He wrapped her hand in his, squeezing it, willing warmth into her flesh like he had air into her lungs. She closed her eyes, swallowed, looked at him again.

  “You’re so warm.” A smile arrived, but it was fleeting and never touched her eyes.

  Nothing touched those eyes. He wanted to see them shine with laughter. Even tears. Anything but this. This dullness that spoke of recurring memories flashing through her mind.

  She remembers what the man in the farmhouse did to her.

  No. He didn’t deserve another second of Cora’s life. He’d already stolen so much.

  She made a soft sound when he grabbed her hips and pulled her close. Soft, but not in protest. She was stiff at first, but then melted against him, wrapped her legs around his, latched on like a barnacle.

  He closed his eyes and held her against him, breathing in the sweet smell of her with his nose against her hair.

  It was almost enough.

  2

  His Mistake

  Cora writhed against Finn, trying to press every inch of her cold body against him. It was delicious, the heat he radiated. She wanted more, all of it, for him to envelop her. For long seconds, he just held her. Tight, but as if he would never move again. And her eyes became heavy. Her breathing long. She nearly slipped away again. But then he began stroking her hair.

  Each touch brought a wave of warmth, and she ached for his caress every time he lifted his fingers.

  She nestled against his chest, hugging him until she felt him tense. Felt him harden. Her breath faltered, came back faster. It buffeted back against her, hot and damp.

  The fingers in her hair descended to her neck, tracing down its length, pausing in the crook where it met her shoulder. Then up again.

  She broke out in goosebumps. Writhed a little harder against him until he grunted and squeezed her, as if warning her to stop.

  But she couldn’t. She wanted his hands all over her, not just on her neck and her hair.

  She slid her leg between his, pressing herself against his thigh. His muscles were hard and warm. She moved against him, stirring a deep ache inside herself.

  “Stop,” he murmured into her hair. “I’m just here to keep you warm.”

  But he wasn’t. She knew it. He knew it. Why the hell did he have to keep denying it? She pressed her lips to his chest, kissing an ancient scar running past his nipple. Kissed his nipple. His collarbone.

  He groaned and shifted as if he wanted to get up. But she’d tangled her legs between his, and it seemed enough to keep him at bay.

  Enough to keep him close and warm.

  Enough to let Finn enjoy this one thing, just once, as fleeting as it was.

  She made it impossible to leave. Her skin sung under his fingertips, the touch thrilling up his arm and all the way down his body. His cock ached to be inside her, but he couldn’t let himself be this weak. He couldn’t hurt her again. But it was as if Cora had no memory of that night. She squirmed against him, soft and cool and sweet enough to make his mouth water for her.

  He grabbed her ass, forcing her hard against his thigh. There was nothing between them except his trunks. He could feel her sex against him, damp and warm. Her thighs squeezed him, and she slid her hip over his dick. He wrapped his arm around the back of her neck, holding her in place so he could find her lips with his.

  She moaned against his mouth and fumbled down his chest. His stomach. Touching him. Squeezing him. Making him quiver with those slender hands of hers.

  Their kiss deepened, slowed.

  He forced his tongue between her teeth. She fought back but lost.

  She’ll always lose. She’s not strong enough to fight you.

  He grabbed her hair in a fist, jerked back her head so he could run his teeth down her throat. Her distorted groan made his cock throb and harden even more.

  What if she runs again? Best you remind her who she belongs to.

  His throat vibrated with a growl. For a brief second, fear scattered stars in her eyes. He was close enough to feel her breath on his lips when she exhaled. The coolness of air moving as she inhaled. His hand went around her throat, pushing her back into the hay. Fear pulsed in her neck. It transformed her breath into uneven bursts of air that warmed his cheeks.

  He wanted nothing more than to be inside her right then. To feel her heart pounding against his chest. To have her nails in his flesh. Her thigh bumped against his waist. She opened her legs for him, lips parted in some kind of hushed anticipation. He drew back, sickened at himself, but she caught his wrist before he could take his fingers from her throat.

  “Please, Finn.” He hated how her quiet voice trembled. “Please…I need this.”

  I need you.

  She’d come back from the dead for him.

  He sank down on top of her. Kissed her long and hard until she sounded breathless and frantic from it. Her long legs flashed in the sun-soaked light. Was she fighting him, or the discarded clothes twisting between them?

  He trapped her either way. Using his legs, his arms. Making a cage from his body from which she couldn’t escape. Tugged away anything that could get between them. He dove down to kiss her again, but her arm snaked out, fingers trembling against his skin as she ran a hand over the scar o
n his throat. He stiffened, body going rigid. Her mouth parted, a question budding on those pink lips.

  A question which, if he answered, he’d know in an instant she would look at him with pity.

  She doesn’t get to pity you.

  He grabbed her chin, pressing his thumb against her lips, stopping her before she could voice anything. She arched against him, but he couldn’t stand the alternate flickers of fear and want in her eyes. So he twisted a hand in her hair, grabbed her hip, and turned her over. She fought him, but briefly, and then came onto her knees.

  He dragged his dick from his underwear and ran a thumb over her pussy.

  She’d soaked herself through.

  Ducking his head, Finn swiped his tongue over her folds. Cora gasped, fumbled, scraped her nails over the hayloft’s wooden floor, and found his thigh. Dug in. Those pinpricks of pain were delicious, but they had nothing on her pussy. If his dick hadn’t been throbbing so hard, he would have spent longer licking at her, sucking her, pressing his tongue inside her.

  But she called to him, and he had to end his own suffering. Hers. She moaned when he pressed the tip of his dick against her, so he sealed her mouth with a hand. Her breath was hot against his palm, his fingers.

  A panting; bestial and urgent.

  She cried out when he forced his way inside her. Too tight for him to go fast, too wet for him to hold back. When he was as deep inside her as he could be, he folded over her back and urged her hips against him.

  Her head sank down to the hay, and his hand fell away from her mouth, gripping her neck, holding her down. She writhed and shook under him, her muscles clenching around him.

  Her heat made him sweat. She was an inferno inside, but he welcomed the warmth. Drew it into himself. He pulled her up, rested back on his heels, and forced her legs apart with his thighs.

  One hand on her throat, the other now free to slide between her legs.

  She jerked, groaned, writhed like a rabbit in a snare to get free. His lips found hers, soothed her, urged moan after moan from her lips. Her body stuttered, her back trying to arch away from him as she came.

  He bit his lip and emptied himself inside her. Forced her hips down and ground against her until she mewled for him to stop.

  There were tears in her lashes, but he kissed them away. He held her cupped in a hand, massaging her as he pulled out. She shuddered and went limp, letting him kiss her nose and her lips and her chin.

  Weak, spent.

  But the smile she gave him as she slid bonelessly to the floor was the first to reach her eyes since he’d pulled her from the water. He sank down beside her and wrapped his fingers around her slender throat. Her pulse flickered against his thumb.

  “This isn’t what you want,” he murmured. “You think you do, but—”

  Cora’s eyes flickered as she scanned his face.

  “If it’s a mistake,” she whispered, “Then let me make it, Finn.”

  3

  Her Protector

  She ached where Finn had been inside her. Stung a little, too. And she could smell him on her, radiating up. He was already halfway down the ladder, moving stiffly, not making eye contact with her.

  This isn’t what you want.

  Cora shivered and hurriedly pulled on her clothes. They itched where they were still damp, and the fabric was much colder than the warm pocket of hay had been. She walked to the edge of the hayloft and sat down, turning around to start down the ladder.

  “Hey! What are you doing?”

  She fumbled, barely catching a hold of a rung before plummeting to the barn floor. When she twisted to look over her shoulder, a boy no older than fourteen stood at the entrance of the barn, hair wild and a deep frown on his face.

  Finn paused in the act of sliding back her Taurus’s magazine and turned to face the boy.

  He lifted the gun.

  “Finn, no!”

  The boy fell back with a strangled gasp, scrambling on hands and knees to try and run away. Finn pulled the trigger, and the world froze.

  Click.

  The boy howled in sheer terror as he fled.

  Finn turned and looked up at her where she clung to the ladder as he shoved her Taurus back behind his belt.

  “Coming?”

  Her legs shuddered under her as she made her way down the last few steps. Bits of straw crunched under her bare feet when she followed Finn from the barn.

  Dawn painted the field outside the barn in the hues of an acid dream. Cora had come to a stop at his words but hurried up after him again. She hobbled a little on her bare feet.

  “Why’d you want to shoot him? He’s just a little kid.”

  “Knew you were out,” Finn said.

  “So? You scared him.”

  “That was the point. Now he’ll be more careful.”

  “He’s just some kid in the middle of nowhere, Finn. He doesn’t have to walk around with a gun, always wondering if someone’s going to attack him. He’s not us.”

  Us.

  “So the cartel’s given up looking for you? They’ll scour this area for anyone with intel. Think they’d let that boy live?”

  “A lot of people have seen us. Are you going to go back and kill Jimmy too? The guy who owns the inn? The waitress at the diner?”

  He made a noise in the back of his throat but stayed silent. It would be like arguing with a rock. He’d only meant to scare the kid, and they both knew it.

  “My job is to keep you safe. I’m doing my fucking job.”

  She spun to him, jaw stuck out. “So this has only ever been a job to you? Is that all you’ve thought about this whole time? The money? Were you waiting for this to be over so you could—”

  He grabbed her arm, cutting her off. She gasped, and he loosened his grip instantly.

  The anger surging through him dissipated when he looked into her eyes. Strange, how one person could make him so furious, yet prove so capable of soothing him a second later.

  Like a snake charmer. Or a lion tamer.

  Sunlight glittered white on her raven hair.

  His mouth twisted. He’d broken her like a fucking piñata — the goddamn candy lay everywhere now, exposed to greedy fingers and sticky mouths. They were far beyond this being ‘just a job’. He’d pledged his ink-black soul to her, for what good it did. She’d never know it, but she didn’t have to.

  He started forward again, and she caught up with him a few seconds later. “So, what…we just keep running?”

  “No. We’re going someplace safe. Somewhere we can regroup.”

  “And then?”

  He shot her a frustrated look, but she just blinked innocently at him. He looked away, grinding his teeth. “I don’t know, Cora. I’ve never had to protect a fucking cartel princess before.” He gave her a quick scan, narrowing his eyes. “And you’ve been a far from exemplary soft target.”

  Despite everything — every—fucking—thing — she’d been through, more in a week than most people lived through in a lifetime, a smile painted that wide, plump mouth of hers. “I thought that’s what you liked about me.”

  Finn grabbed her arm, drew her close, and crushed his mouth against hers. She stiffened in surprise and then leaned into him. The kiss softened and became as gentle as the brush of silk against skin. He cupped her cheeks in his hands, wiping hair out of her face and staring down into her eyes.

  Her irises were as gold as the dawn and glittering with dust motes.

  The earlier darkness he’d seen in her eyes had just been a passing cloud blocking out the light. The world glowed again, more vivid after the darkness had retreated.

  He hadn’t stolen her sunshine after all.

  4

  A whole lot colder

  “So, this is how I die,” Cora said in a deadpan voice.

  “Been through worse,” Finn said.

  He glanced at her but his eyes swept immediately back to the road. The Jeep rattled alarmingly as he slowly accelerated up an incline. Snowflakes pattered against the w
indshield, gray and dirty against the purple backdrop of a premature twilight. The wind howled as it threw snow against the Jeep, as if trying to push them back down the mountain.

  Before her comment, Cora had been deathly silent beside him the entire way up the mountain. She gripped the seat beneath her in white-knuckled hands, jaw tight and eyes wide.

  Ahead, the pine trees thickened as if huddling for heat. The passage they created tunneled the storm, directing its fury straight into the Jeep’s grill.

  Finn gave more gas, but the Jeep was struggling. It was an older model—it was near impossible to hot wire new cars these days without the right tools—and it hadn’t been kept in the best state of repair. He’d checked the tires though. The last thing he wanted was a blow out on the side of Black Peak mountain.

  In this weather, they’d die of hypothermia.

  Another thick volley of snow blocked his line of sight. Finn slowed reluctantly, but not enough so he would lose momentum. They were a few minutes from the cabin, but if they got stuck now…

  “I thought this was supposed to be a safehouse.”

  “It is.” He gave a conceding shrug. “Once we get there, we’ll be pretty fucking safe.”

  “’Cos no one will ever be able to track us through this,” Cora added, voice still devoid of emotion.

  “Exactly.”

  “So how will they find our bodies?”

  He snorted. “You’d have preferred to stay out there where a rival cartel could find you?”

  “At least I’d be warm.” She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering theatrically. Then again, the temperature inside the Jeep had dropped several degrees as they’d wound their way up the mountain, so maybe she wasn’t really putting on airs.

  Finn’s lips wanted to quirk in a smile, but he smothered them into a thin line. This wasn’t the time for frivolity. Cora’s life—and his too—was at stake. They’d be safe at the cabin. Off grid. No eyes and ears—