“Lose the damned mask and stop hiding from me.” He raked his throbbing hands through his hair. “Scream, cry, hit something. Hit me. But for God’s sake, let it out.”
The shadowy lines of her body wavered. The gun lowered, returned to her boot.
He stretched out his arms, savoring the cool breeze brushing over his unrestrained skin. “I stand here without rope or chains, Liv, tethered to you by my own will.” His blood beat with the ferocity of his words. “I won’t be free until you are.”
Her head jerked back, her body rigid. Then she walked straight to him and unleashed her fists on his chest. She clobbered him over and over, her gasps accelerating with each fall of her hand.
The lashing didn’t hurt. Not like the whimpers rising from her chest. She was hurting, lashing out for the wrongs that had been done to her. A sharp pain swelled in his throat. The only thing he could do was take it in, try to bear some of it for her.
He held his arms out and his body open. When her hits ebbed into weak slaps, she stumbled back, hugging herself and clutching her elbows.
His heartbeat slogged through the ache in his chest. He kept his arms outstretched and whispered, “I’m here.”
Disbelief widened the whites of her eyes, and her breath caught. He waited.
In two running steps, she launched at him, climbed up his chest, and curled her hands in his hair. He lifted her, pinning the curves of her thighs around his hips, and took her mouth. His knuckles burned with fever, but the heat from her lips was overriding. She whispered kisses over his jaw, around his mouth, caressing, assuring.
He angled his head, deepening the reach of his tongue and drinking her in lick by lick. Her hands in his hair, the sweetness of her breath filling his mouth, there will never be another kiss like hers. She knew how to suck his lips and trap his tongue in a way that stroked every nerve ending in his body. More than that, she knew how to reach inside him. She found him, her ferocity defying the odds and pivoting them into place, perfectly interlocked.
Her thighs squeezed around his waist, her breasts soft against his chest. He palmed her backside with a cautious gentleness, and chased her tongue, spiraling, stretching deeper, falling heart-first into an existence where only she mattered.
When their mouths separated, gasping for air, she cupped his cheeks and pressed their foreheads together. “I’m so sorry.”
He knew she was referring to the atrocities of the meeting, and she had nothing to be sorry about. “You should be sorry. Getting a blow job from you was a real hardship.”
She rested her lips on the corner of his mouth and sighed. “We need to go.”
“I’m driving.” He shifted her, hooking an arm beneath her knees, and carried her to the driver’s side door.
The way she curled against his chest and hugged his neck produced an obscene amount of pleasure for his emasculated ego. She was finally turning to him for comfort. Though, the fact that she didn’t protest him driving was a testament to her physical and mental state. She trusted him not to cause a wreck or drive to a police station. He kissed her head, let his lips linger there, branding her peppermint scent in memory.
He scooted behind the wheel, sliding back the seat to accommodate his longer legs, and found the keys in the ignition. She snuggled into his chest, settling in, exactly where he wanted her. Her knees folded under his arm and allowed him plenty of room to see and steer. Holding her like this, her soft body half the size of his, she didn’t seem so tough and intimidating. In fact, the quiet tremor shaking her breaths made his muscles heat with the need to avenge her.
He veered onto the main road, the tires kicking gravel into vacant fields. No cars. No buildings. Only a black dome of sky and a thousand questions beating against his skull. He stretched his hands on the steering wheel, igniting a burn through the gashes. “What happens now?”
Her lips moved against his throat. “The intro meetings are always strained with tension, but I’ve never walked away from one without securing the delivery.” Her voice wavered. She cleared her throat. “Mr. E will try to sell you to another. Though, the next buyer wants a girl.”
“And Van captures the girls?”
She nodded, fingers curling against his chest. “He’ll be gone a few days. Maybe a week. Scouting only. Watching. We hunt as far from home as possible. You were an exception.”
She’d already explained her reason for choosing him, one he’d accepted with ease. Better him than someone else. He hated to ask, but they needed to talk about the ramifications of the meeting. “Does Traquero’s referral safeguard your family?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice was desolate, tearing the lining around his heart.
“We need to know.” He tried to choose his next words carefully, but there was no way to soften what she needed to hear. “If they’re dead, you will be, too.” Mr. E would no longer have a means to control her. “We can’t go back there.”
She stiffened. “I have to go back for Kate.”
Kate. She’d never used her name, and doing so now was monumental. And terrifying. Was she giving up? Or giving in? “Then we’ll go back, wait for Van to leave, and make our escape.”
“Her delivery to the buyer is in two days. If Mom and Mattie are still alive, I have to deliver her.”
He slammed a hand on the steering wheel, and she didn’t even flinch. For the love of God, this was so jacked up. “How is delivering her better than not returning for her?”
The passing fields illuminated with the flickering lights of the emerging town. She slid out of his lap, dragged the cooler to the front, and perched in the passenger seat. “When I deliver her, I’ll kill the buyer.” She held a forkful of salad to his mouth and looked at him as if she were talking about football stats.
He accepted a few bites and tried to consider her suggestion with an open mind, but he couldn’t be moved from the conviction engrained him. Murder must always be a last resort. “You’re not killing anyone. Murder is a big sin, Liv.”
She stuffed another bite in his mouth with more force than necessary. “So if it had come down to leaving you with Traquero or pulling the trigger, you would’ve preferred the former.”
“Yes.” He would’ve found another way out, God willing.
“You’re an idiot.” Her tone was scolding, at odds with the weariness sagging her eyes.
“Repay no one evil for evil. We will overcome evil with good.”
“Ugh. Shut up.” She threw the salad container into the cooler. “I am evil. Destined for hell. What the fuck am I saying? I’m already there.”
“I’m not even going to respond to that.” Her self-perception punched him in the chest, but he wasn’t helping her, either. She needed a solution, not a bible study session. “Contact Traquero and request another meeting.”
“We only get one-time-use numbers. A number for initial contact. And a number to make the delivery. Outside of that, the buyers call Van. Mr. E’s rules. He prides himself on buyer confidentiality.” She leaned back in the seat and stared out the windshield. “Traquero will have a change of heart and call Van again.”
She seemed confident, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. His self-preservation objected to the notion of Traquero making that phone call, but his trust in her was unremitting. If it had come down to leaving him with Traquero, she would’ve pulled the trigger, damning herself to hell.
They passed through San Antonio and Austin, and the conversation circled around ideas that wouldn’t form into a plan. She put holes in every suggestion until there was only one option left. One he couldn’t accept. Premeditated murder was not a solution. Nor would it save her family and return him to his.
As he drove, he evaluated his feelings about resuming his old life. Returning home meant exchanging twelve requirements for a hundred more. Did he really want to go back to their rules? Mom and Dad’s restrictions were morally acceptable but no less confining.
When he exited the interstate at Temple, edginess stretched between
them. Her mask fell in place, and her posture gathered into that unnerving stillness.
He pulled off into the same vacant lot she’d used ten hours earlier and climbed into the back. They were no closer to a solution, but they were together, bound by a connection that was deeper and stronger than keypads and shackles. He lowered his head, and the chains went back on.