Wicked and True (Wicked & Devoted 4)

Laila had no idea he even chased her until he was practically on top of her.

She whipped her gaze over her shoulder just as he hooked an arm around her waist and lifted her from the ground. He yanked her kicking, writhing form into his arms and against his body. Her flip-flops went flying.

“Let me go!”

“Nope.” He retrieved her shoes and shoved them in his pocket, despite her struggles.

She did her best to punch and kick him, even bit him once. But, as his mother would have said, bless her heart. Every attempt to get free was both ineffectual and pointless.

“You cannot keep me here against my will.”

That’s where she was wrong. EM Security Management was paying him for just that.

“I can,” he said as he headed back toward his house.

“My sister needs me.”

“Your sister has her own protection. We’ve ensured that, and you know it. That’s not why you’re trying to run, and you know I’m right.”

Laila went stubbornly mute—a response he was well used to.

She didn’t want to talk? Fine by him.

Trees contained her still-wriggling form, bypassed the front door, then headed around to the back, before flipping on his chipper shredder.

“No!” she screamed in terror, scratching and clawing, scrambling to get away from him as if her life depended on it.

What the hell did she think he intended to do, feed her into it?

One look at her face told him she did.

Fuck.

“Hey, calm down, honey. It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you.”

She looked at him with wary eyes. “Then what?”

He didn’t need words to explain. Instead, he took her flip-flops from his pocket and fed them into the machine, watching a pile of pink rubber emerge on the ground, then he turned it off.

“Are you crazy? Those are my only shoes!”

“Were. They’re not shoes anymore. Let’s go.” He hiked her up against his body, thick arm around her middle.

Instinct won out, and she wrapped her legs around him to ensure she didn’t fall. “Why would you do this?”

Trees didn’t answer until he climbed the front porch, made his way inside, and set her on her feet. By the ambient security lights—most would call them nightlights—he watched the fear and anger war across that face of hers, which still had the power to take his breath away. It didn’t matter that he terrified her or that he hadn’t touched her in days. He hated the fact that she hated him. They were a fucked-up tangle, but he refused to let anyone hurt her.

“Because now you can’t go anywhere,” he pointed out.

Laila fumed. Oh, she tried to hide it, but he was learning her tells. She might be a gorgeous Latina, but she didn’t have the stereotypical spicy temper to go with it. Nope. Laila wasn’t the sort of woman to get mad. She got even.

Trees was pretty sure she was plotting some really shitty revenge right now. That didn’t worry him half so much as her insistence on escaping.

He took her by the arm, hauled her to the kitchen table, and thrust her into the first chair, then wrapped his hands around her shoulders. It didn’t escape his notice that his grip covered most of her upper arms. “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

“I understand your English. Though it may shock you as a man, I have my own thoughts and I disagree with you.”

“I’m not shocked at all. I’m just making it incredibly clear that you’re not getting your way. You and your sister are under our protection. As long as either faction warring for control of the Tierra Caliente cartel is after you, it’s my responsibility to keep you alive. You can’t fight them alone and you’ve got to know that. But since you don’t seem to and I’m not getting through to you, we’re going to make some changes around here until you grasp the concept.”

Without waiting for a response, he began patting her down. It was fucking hard not to notice her soft, lush breasts when he had to cup them. Impossible not to remember having them in his mouth or watching them bounce when he’d gripped her hips and she’d ridden him hard and fast. But now wasn’t the time for this trip down memory lane—or his erection. He needed to find her phone.

Laila pushed at his hands and turned her body away protectively, but he finally felt his way from her chest to her ass—and pulled the phone from her back pocket.

He saw three messages from her sister, which was no surprise. And one from Hunter Edgington.

That shocked the hell out of him.

“What are you up to?”

Stubbornly, she pressed her lips together, crossed her arms over her chest in a way that made her tits look even more luscious, and jerked her stare out the window.

Damn it. How the fuck could he get her to talk? Turning her ass red and stripping the starch from her attitude sounded great. But she’d made it clear she never wanted him touching her again, and she didn’t trust him even a bit, so she’d never volunteer for any sort of consensual spanking. Even if she needed it.