Tate (Mountain Men 3)

“Y’alright, love?”

She looks away from me, as if unable to meet my eyes.

“C’mere,” I say reaching for her, but she shies away from my hand.

I don’t push it. I get up and walk to the small toilet we’ve got here and go to wash my hands. The blood’s still fresh and washes almost everything away. I look at myself in the mirror. No blood, not this time.

When I return, she looks at me. Her gaze haunted.

Right then. Shock.

I take my place beside her and put my arm around her shoulders. “You cold, love?”

She shakes her head. Her silence scares me.

“C’mere,” I say, but when I reach for her, she pushes me away.

I gentle my voice. “Fran. I had to do it. He used you. He’d just as soon kill you as he would look at you.”

She shakes her head from side to side, but I continue.

“He grabbed you by the hair, lassie, and he would have—”

“You don’t know,” she interrupts, still shaking her head. “You don’t know what he would have done. You’re only assuming because of things that you’ve seen.”

I take her hand, and this time she lets me. Though I still keep my voice gentle, I speak with conviction, because I know this to be true. “No, lassie. I’m not assuming. I’ve seen men like him before. I’ve worked with men like him before. First, they use you, because you’re disposable to them.” She shivers. “Then after they get what they want, they’ll try to barter, try to pit you against whomever they can. In this case, it was me.”

She doesn’t respond.

“And then when he has no further use for you…” My voice hardens. “He either ends your life or gives you to someone who does have a use for you.”

She blinks, then blinks again. “Do you have a use for me, Tate?”

This time, I don’t let her push me away. This time, I don’t let her hole up in herself. I don’t let her use her fear or shock to drive a wedge between us. I lift her bodily, my hands wrapped around her waist, and plunk her straight onto my lap, facing me.

I clamp my hands around her waist, none too gently, so she can’t move out of my grip.

“Do I have a fuckin’ use for you?” I repeat her question, unable to keep the disdain out of my voice. “Are you out of your mind?”

I grab the back of her head and yank her mouth to mine, the kiss hard and punishing, brutal and painful, and when I taste blood, I don’t know if it’s mine or hers. I suckle her lip, my hands tightening around her, and her body slowly, ever so slowly, begins to melt against me.

I kiss her with promise and insistence as we rise. Her legs wrap around my torso instinctively, as I start to walk us to the bedroom with a large bed that waits for us. Clouds whisk below the windows as we gain altitude, but our pilot keeps us steady. I shut the door behind us, walk with her to the bed and lay her down, my mouth still on hers.

“I don’t have a fucking use for you, Fran,” I grate against her ear, as I tug on her clothes. They fall away like so much wrapping. “I love you.”

She blinks at me, then shakes her head. “I can’t keep up with these emotions,” she mutters. “Terror and hope, fear and excitement, my heart squeezes then drops then stutters into a rhythm like a bloody Irish step dancer.”

“There she is. There’s my snarky, witty girl.”

She grins at me.

In one fluid motion, I whip off my T-shirt, and I don’t miss the way her eyes take in my body in unadulterated pleasure.

I kneel beside her, bracing myself on one arm as I lean in to speak to her. “I hurt him because I had to.” I brush a stray curl from her eyes with my free hand. “I hurt him because he would have hurt you.” I lean down and kiss her cheek. “And no one will ever hurt you again. Now take the rest of those clothes off, sweetheart. We only have sixty-two minutes left, and that’s not nearly enough time for what I have planned for you.”

Chapter 14

Fran

The time passes so quickly, I’m shocked when there’s a knock on the door. It’s our stewardess telling us we’re landing and it’s time to buckle up.

Tate helps me dress, a wicked gleam in his eye when he takes in everything, and I know what he sees—the teeth marks around my neck, the pink handprints from when he got carried away with my arse, the glisten of sweat along my brow from having come three times in the space of one hour—on his mouth, from his fingers, and the most glorious of all, a full body climax when he came in me.