The Bargain (10 page)

Revenge burned through my veins. I thought I’d spontaneously combust at any second. In one fluid movement, I lifted my knee and rammed it into his groin as my hand propelled toward his face, aiming for his eye. I missed his eye, but his knees buckled when I connected with his groin.

I didn’t waste one second to study the aftermath of my burst of sudden psychosis. I darted into the jungle, trudging through green undergrowth twisting up my bare legs with every step. I wasn’t stupid. He’d catch me and punish me, or worse, but I refused to become his docile pet until he discarded me however he or Ignacio deemed appropriate. Fuck that. Fuck him and his fucking layers.

With every hard-fought step, stifling, humid heat coated my skin like a wet shroud. Right then, I promised if I ever made it out of this godforsaken jungle alive, I’d never step foot out of America again. Dirt smeared my legs, and green streaks stained my clothes, but that was the least of my worries.

Ryker’s footsteps echoed behind me, strong and steady, closing the distance between us with every stride. Branches snapped under my feet, and hundreds of insect legs crawled over my skin, but I didn’t give up. I’d force him to struggle for every inch he gained in our battle of wills, until bone weary exhaustion haunted both of us.

Not long had passed and he was less than an arm’s length away. I lunged forward putting all my strength into a singular crowning push, but he moved too quickly. Within seconds, his unyielding arms shackled my waist like thick bands of iron. The front of his body cradled my back in a simulated lover’s embrace, injecting a feverous bolt of lust directly into my heart.
Damn him. Damn me. Damn this godforsaken bug infested jungle. Damn my life.

He pressed his mouth against my ear and shivers cascaded down my damp skin. “Are you done now? How many times are we going to play this game of hide and seek?”

“Until I win,” I said through panting breaths, heat already spiraling down my body straight to the apex of my thighs.

He yanked my body even closer to him and his mouth curled into what I imagined would resemble a wickedly sensual smile to the casual observer. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it on the side of my face. “Hattie, baby, it’s not going to happen. Wave the white flag and save both of us some time.” His voice was smoky and dark, and it both tempted and repelled me.

Seething at him and myself, I opened my mouth and closed it at least two times, before I responded. “I guess we’re destined to keep playing this game, because I won’t give in until I’m dead or free.” The strength of my words stiffened my spine, and I arched away from him.

“You don’t mean that,” came his velvety response as he wrenched my hips against his pelvis again. His hips rolled against mine in a scandalously erotic movement, and I whimpered, loving and hating the heat percolating between my legs from nothing more than a roll of his hips and the sound of his voice.

“No. Please don’t.” My control fractured second by second, breath by breath, with every brush of his hands and flex of his hips. “Let me go,” I screamed. My fingers clawed at his arms and my hair whipped around my face as I frantically shook my head from side to side. I needed to get away from him before I did something really stupid like beg him to touch me again. I was one flex of his hips away from becoming his plaything. “You make me sick.” I couldn’t show him how much he affected me. The repercussions were unthinkable.

“Liar.” In one unexpected movement, he pushed my shorts and panties down my legs and shoved me to my knees. Dirt dug into my scabbed over knees. I tried to stand up or crawl forward, but it was pointless. Ryker had one arm around my waist, imprisoning me.

“This is my game, Hattie, and until I let you go, I own you.” His hand burrowed under my shirt and dove under the constraints of my suddenly too tight bra. I arched my back and pressed against the erection already straining against his zipper.

“You’ve ruined my life,” I screamed as lust flowed like lava through my body.

Manhandling me, he rolled one of my nipples between his thumb and index finger and then pinched the over-sensitized tip. “No, your life was ruined long before you met me.” He growled next to my ear like the predatory jaguar I’d imagined him to be minutes earlier. “I’m the first honest voice in your life.” He clutched my hips tight, rocking them mercilessly against his erection. My anger melted into intoxicated desire.

“No, you’re a bastard. I don’t want anything to do with you.” As the dishonest words spilled from my mouth, I cursed the traitorous throbbing sensation roaring unchecked through my nerve endings, connecting them in an intricate web of desire. His fingertip glided the entire length of my entrance back and forth and around and around, teasing me, massaging me. Moans and groans tumbled unbidden from my mouth, saying more about my sick, conflicted need for him than words ever could.

“Your mouth lies even as your body screams the truth.” He slid one finger inside my pulsing sex, and my hips undulated, blooming like a flower under the warm afternoon sun. My body didn’t lie. I wanted him.

“No,” I said, but the word sounded more like a greedy moan than a protest. My mind had already escaped the confines of my head, flying high on the endorphins pumping through my veins. I pushed my ass against his hands, needing more than his finger. I craved the feel of him inside of me again. I’d only had him once, and alcohol clouded the memory. I needed to know if being with him was as good as I remembered, and if it wasn’t, maybe I’d stop wanting him.

“You sure about that?” he questioned as he plunged another finger inside of me and then pulled it out, smearing my wetness along the outside of my sex.

“I can’t—I don’t know,” I stammered, the haze of my desire obscuring my vision, shifting my focus inward.

“Yes or no? Do you want to feel me inside you again?” He growled, his voice rough and uncultivated. A tremor of unease coiled low in my belly, stopping me from answering, my body already told him everything he needed to know. I couldn’t verbalize the treason splintering my soul.

His free hand fumbled with his belt buckle. Within seconds, his hard cock slid against my entrance, burning the last dangling thread of my inhibitions. Trembling with desire, I pushed back against him, thirsting for the rapture promised in every taunting twitch and slippery slide of his cock.

“Answer me.” A cracking sound echoed through my ears as his open palm made contact with my ass. Air exploded out of my lungs and my body shook with disbelief.

“What the fuck?” I screamed, more from confusion than discomfort, as I dove forward, scrambling on my hands and knees away from him.

He lurched forward, easily capturing me before I managed to put more than a few inches between us. His fingers bit into the tender skin around my hips, so tight and punishing, he’d probably add more bruises to the black, blue, and red collage on my tattered body.

“Yes or no?” he repeated, sliding inside of me barely an inch before pulling out again.

I gasped as a jolt of pure, mind-numbing bliss boomeranged through the walls of my aching sex. Ryker played my body like Evan couldn’t have dreamed of doing, and it simultaneously made me want to kill him and have sex with him. “You can’t make me answer you. This is your fucking game. Play it. Show me what you’ve got. What’s your next move, Ryker?”

His hand shot under my shirt, and he twisted my nipple, almost as though he wanted to discipline me for my defiance, or tear the words he wanted to hear from my body. Unfortunately, it only made me greedier…wetter.

“Play your role. I’m playing mine,” he shot back, his voice vibrating like a lover’s caress along my heated, hyper-sensitive skin. He slid the tip of his cock along my sex, never penetrating, just back and forth. With each delicious stroke, my mind buckled under the weight of my mounting desire. Awash in a madness and hunger unlike anything I’d ever experienced, any remaining decency and morality dissolved into nothingness. My future withered like a grape on a vine. I didn’t care what happened to me anymore. I didn’t care if he ever let me go. I just wanted him…inside me, around me, all over me right now. I could debate the consequences later.

“Then, fuck me. That’s what this is about, right? You want to control me, bend me to your will. Do it.”

He didn’t move for one strung out second, and my mind tilted with horror. Was this another one of his mind fucks? Make me mindless with need—then walk away? My stomach flipped. White-hot fury tumbled with my desire, creating a whirlwind of rioting emotions.

“Is that a yes?” he snapped.

“Yes.”

He didn’t wait more than a second. He pushed inside, possessing me with one bone-jarring thrust. For a dizzying beat of time, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I tried to catch my breath as my mind wrapped around his invasion.

“Move,” I hissed through my teeth when I gathered my shattered wits.

He grunted in acknowledgment, and the vibrations rolled one after another from his body to mine as though I were an extension of him. “I like it when you’re greedy.”

I didn’t want to answer, because right then he pulled out and thrust into me again. A prism of fireworks erupted behind my eyelids. I bit my lip trying to stifle my greedy moan, but it was too loud, and he felt too good. Hiding from reality wasn’t an option.

“Did you miss this?”

“I can’t miss something I only had once.” It was a lie. I missed it. I wanted it. I craved it. My hips rocked back to meet his.

“Is that your way of asking me for more?” he taunted.

“Fuck you. I still hate you.”

“That would make everything easier if it were true.” He moved harder, faster, and my control frayed. The crude sound of our grunts and slapping skin bounced off the trees, magnifying them. Small ripples of pleasure danced through my body just out of reach, haunting me, mocking me.

Wildly seeking my release, I grinded against him. He bent over my back until his breath whispered along the fine hairs of my neck, fanning the flames of my arousal. Moans and whimpers collided, bending and twisting into a coordinated symphony of destruction. With every thrust, he moved deeper and deeper, pounding into me relentlessly. I rode the sharp edge between heaven and hell, and I was sure I’d die if I didn’t come soon. I struggled against the tide of lust, toying with the idea of denying myself, but it was too much. He was too much. Some fucked up twist of fate and chemistry made me hunger for him like no other.

“Are you ready? Do you want to come?” he whispered next to my ear through heavy pants.

Instead of answering, I moaned, nodding my head and silently praying it would be enough. He slowed his thrusts until he stopped moving and then he slid out of me. I wanted to rip my hair out. The ripples turned into tremors and then my whole body shook, craving my release like a seasoned junkie on a desperate hunt for my next fix. “Please,” I said, my voice a shattered plea. “You can’t stop yet. I need this. I need you.” Holy shit…it was the truth. I couldn’t lie. Decorum and ethics had long disappeared from the forefront of my mind.

The instant the plea fell from my perfidious mouth, he slammed inside my weeping sex in one punishing thrust that set my body ablaze as though he had never left.

“Move...damn you,” I said, the endorphins clouding my brain and making it impossible to think clearly.

He chuckled, and if I didn’t need him so badly, I would’ve clawed his eyes out.

Without missing a beat, he angled his hips, hitting the perfect spot repeatedly in a wickedly flawless rhythm. Fire and ice, love and hate, whipped through my veins. I shattered into a million unrecognizable pieces with his name bleeding from my lips and soul. Within seconds, I felt him come, wet and hard inside me, igniting another round of soul-stealing mini shocks in my core.

Angry, sated, and depleted, I collapsed onto my stomach, not even bothering to put on my shorts. Ryker won, and I lost…again. Tears stung the corner of my eyes, but I refused to set them free. They were pointless. An hour ago, I promised I’d give Evan another chance, and now I lay on the decomposing jungle floor with Ryker’s come leaking from my body, staining the earth with my pathetic surrender. I didn’t have a clue how to move forward. My mind plummeted into oblivion.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” I screamed, stupidity knotting my stomach when I realized I hadn’t taken my birth control pill since the night I met Ryker—not that I had the opportunity. Disgust and self-loathing slithered down my spine, swallowing me in its murky embrace. I welcomed it.

Ryker didn’t say a word. Not that I expected anything else. I heard the shuffle and slide of his clothes as he dressed. Distantly, I wished it was as easy for me to put myself back together again. I felt weak. Defeated. I wanted to die. Maybe he’d leave me to rot in the underbrush. I didn’t think I’d care. I closed my eyes and silently prayed everything would disappear. My promise to fight Ryker had gone up in flames. The rational part of my brain told me to scrape my body off the ground and move on…persevere. I cursed my rational brain to hell. Unfortunately, Ryker sided with my brain.

Chapter Sixteen

“Hattie.” Ryker’s hushed voice raked like hot coals over my skin.

“Hattie,” he repeated. “Get up. We need to go.”

I shook my head, leaves tangling in the strands of my hair, the smell of dirt coating my nose hairs and my chapped lips. “Leave me here,” I moaned. “Just go away. I’m done.”

He dragged me up by my shoulders, clamped his hand over my mouth and shoved my jean shorts into my gut. “Put on your shorts and don’t say a word. Now is not the time,” he hissed, scarcely a breath of air.

“Fuck you,” I screamed through the confines of his hand.

“Shut up. Do you want to be killed?”

“Do it. Kill me. I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do.” He slowly hauled me backward, his fingers cutting into my skin. I dug my heels into the dirt and strained for a nearby tree branch. He snatched my hand from the air, twisting it behind my back. “The Chechen tree is poisonous,” he whispered. “Unless you want to spend the next few days in bed with a rash, I wouldn’t recommend touching it.”

He pulled a gun from the holster on his belt, aiming it in front of our fused bodies. Then, I spotted them…four men moving in the shadows of the trees like the four horseman of the apocalypse. They were dressed in black with red handkerchiefs concealing the lower half of their faces. AK-47-type assault weapons hung over their shoulders, and bullets draped across their bodies like morbid jewelry. Step by step, they closed in on us from every angle, strangling any possibility of escape.

“Well, if it isn’t the prodigal son. I heard you were back, but I didn’t believe it,” one man said in a thick accent.

“Dario, long time, no see.” Ryker shoved me behind his back. I clutched his black leather belt, refusing to let go of him. “Can’t say I missed you.”

“She’s a pretty one. That was a nice performance the two of you put on,” Dario said, waving his gun at me, his mercenary eyes sliding over my body. “Maybe we could pass her around. Take turns.” I closed my eyes, burying my head in the middle of Ryker’s back. Numb with impending horror, blood roared through my ears and my breath came in quick, short pants. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t have enough air in my lungs to do anything but whimper.

“What do you want?” Ryker said.

“I’m here to take care of unfinished business.”

“What unfinished business are we talking about?” Ryker sounded cool and undaunted, and not even vaguely curious, but his muscles coiled into knots next to my hands.

Dario chuckled and shook his head. “Rever’s out of the picture, but even if he wasn’t, it wouldn’t change the future. With all his addiction problems, he can’t lead the Vargas Cartel.”

“Not my problem.” Ryker said.

“Maybe not, but the cartel is dying. Somebody needs to take control. I’m going to be that person.”

“And you think a coup is the answer?”

Dario cocked his head to the side. “It doesn’t have to be a coup. I’m going to take control of the cartel assets and territories, and consolidate the power behind me. I will systematically force Ignacio to accept me as the future of the cartel.”

“It’ll never happen. You’re a second rate hack. You don’t have what it takes to run a fruit stand much less the Vargas Cartel.”

Dario scoffed. “You’re wrong. Unlike Rever, I’ve moved steadily up the ranks, working as a lookout, record keeper, plaza boss…and now it’s my turn to be the head of the cartel. Do you think you can swoop in and take control like you didn’t abandon us years ago to sell your soul to the highest bidder?” Dario took a half a step forward, his gun pointed at the dead center of Ryker’s chest.

“I had my reasons for leaving, none of which are your business.”

Dario shrugged. “You’re right. As long as you’re a good boy and disappear again, I don’t give a shit about your reasons.” Dario held out his hand. “It’s four to one. You’re outnumbered. You won’t win this time. Hand me the gun and make this easy. I don’t want to kill you. Ignacio won’t like that, but I will.”

Ryker paused. Tension buzzed in the air, swirling around us like a category five hurricane. “No. Not happening.”

Dario took another step forward. “You can hand me the gun and live another day, or you can die now, and the animals can pick at your carcass until you’re unrecognizable. It’s your choice.”

“Back the fuck up and leave. You’re involving yourself in things you don’t understand.” With his gun trained on Dario, Ryker wrapped his arm around my neck and pulled my ear next to his face. “Gun. Ankle,” he whispered before shoving me by the top of my head to the ground.

Dario laughed coldly, and ice crystallized inside of my veins, freezing my hand on Ryker’s ankle. “No, you’re the one who doesn’t understand what’s going on here.”

Ryker pressed his leg into my hand, and I inched my hand up the inside of his pant leg never taking my eyes off Dario. I didn’t understand why Ryker trusted me with a gun, but the mere fact that he did told me we were in a world of shit.

Ryker waved his gun. “Dario, what do you want? What’s really going on here?”

“This is my territory now,” Dario spat, waving his gun from side to side.

“Oh really? When did that happen?” Ryker’s voice sounded deceivingly nonchalant, but from the short time I’d spent with Ryker, I knew he was waiting for the right instant to strike.

When I had the heavy metal grip of the gun in my hand, I released it from Ryker’s ankle holster. For a split second, I considered injuring Ryker, but then I’d be left with Dario and his murderous crew. Something told me they were infinitely worse than Ryker.

“I’m staking a claim on this territory. It should have been mine from the beginning anyway,” Dario said, his dark eyebrows slashing downward, his eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. “Rever’s gone, and everyone realizes Ignacio won’t be around for long. I’m next in line, not you.”

“Don’t you think you’re getting ahead of yourself?”

Dario pulled the grungy handkerchief from his mouth, exposing the lower half of his face. A sinister scar ran the length of his jaw line. “All the more reason to strike while Ignacio is down,” Dario taunted.

In one fluid movement, Ryker raised his gun and pulled the trigger. A small burst of air raced over my skin. Almost instantly, Dario’s body fell to the ground right next to me—his dead, lifeless eyes staring back at me, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.

Ryker charged forward, kicking one man in the knee, and a sickening crack vibrated through my ears as the man tumbled to the ground wailing in agony. Without pausing, Ryker swung his gun to the right, sending a volley of shots into the chest of another man. By the time he turned, the remaining gunman had a gun pressed to Ryker’s temple.

“No,” I screamed, surging to my feet. My entire body trembled, and the gun nearly slipped from my clammy hands. I managed to hold it in front of me—my legs spread wide, two hands cupping the grip, and one finger hovering over the trigger.

The gunman’s eyes blazed like the fires of hell as he studied me. He wasn’t a tall or heavy man, maybe five foot six and a hundred and sixty pounds, but evil rolled off of him in dark, ominous waves, scorching my skin with their intensity.

Time froze in a dreamlike haze as sweat trickled down the side of my face and dripped from my chin. My heart galloped erratically in my chest. It was now or never. If I didn’t shoot first, the gunman would kill Ryker, and I’d be next. I sucked in a deep breath, and an unnatural calm settled through my body, infecting my mind with lethal focus.

I can do this.

I can do this.

I can do this.

My gun safety class freeze-framed in my mind. I pulled the gun slide back until I heard a bullet click inside the chamber. I aimed my gun at his chest. I inhaled and squeezed the trigger. The shot exploded from my gun, and I stumbled backward, tripping over a rock and tumbling to the ground. The bone-rattling impact caused the gun to fall out of my hand and skitter across the dirt.

When I opened my eyes, I saw the clear blue sky with a dusting of white, fluffy clouds. My muscles aching with lactic acid and the toxic remnants of my adrenaline surge, I strained my neck to the side as vomit rushed from my mouth in a sickening swell.

“Hattie?” Ryker crouched down next to me, an assault weapon dangling from his shoulder.

“Is he dead?” I whispered, as tiny, unrestrained tremors tore through my muscles one after another. The world around me moved in waves…in and out and back again.

“He will be in a few minutes.”

I nodded instead of answering.

“I don’t know if they were alone. We need to move.”

“I don’t feel good,” I moaned, rolling to my side.

He brushed the hair off my forehead, studying my face. “I know.” He held out his hand. “Ready?” No, I was too lightheaded to move, but staying put wasn’t a viable option. Besides, I’d walk for days to get away from the mass murder scene in front of me.

I placed my hand in his. I didn’t have a choice. Ryker was a known quantity. I knew what he wanted, or at least I thought I did. On the other hand, the other men who might or might not be lying in wait in the shadows of the trees…I didn’t have a clue how they fit into the puzzle.

“Don’t look,” he warned, forcibly redirecting my face when my eyes darted toward the man I’d shot. He acted a second too late. The gunman was sprawled out on the ground on his back, a perfectly circular pool of blood staining his shirt, slowly spilling onto the ground mixing with dirt. The tree behind him was splattered with blood, and his eyes were fixed open, glassy with the emptiness of death.

“Walk with me,” he murmured as he threaded his fingers through mine.

He led me out of the jungle and toward the dirt road where I abandoned the car I’d stolen from the bed and breakfast. With each stride, ice settled inside my bones, and I squeezed Ryker’s hand tighter and tighter, strangling the circulation in his hand, but he didn’t complain.

A tiny moan of despair escaped from my lips, and I shoved my fist into my mouth, digging my teeth into my flesh, trying to stop the fear from leaking out of me and draining all my strength. My reality kept turning and twisting until my old life faded from memory like a discolored, worn out photo.

Two hours ago, I hated Ryker, and I would have done anything to escape him. Now, I had tethered myself to him, never wanting to let go. He’d have to pry my cold, dead hand out of his clasp, because I refused to let him leave me anytime in the foreseeable future. He was my new obsession, my one remaining link to sanity in the insane world that had become my reality, and maybe that’s what he wanted all along. I didn’t care.