Kelli had cleaned and baked cookies trying to ease her mind. The cleaning she wasn’t really used to, and the cookies didn’t taste as delicious as when her mother made them, but she knew that Carson would appreciate them and they were keeping her from going crazy. She knew she should have spent more time in the kitchen with her mother and less time running around with Argo and her dad. What did it really matter? She could buy fabulous cookies anywhere. The real reason for the spirt of activity was that she was nervous about Carson and what he was going through. She didn’t want to call him. This wasn’t like he was on a conference call. There were dangerous men out there that he was dealing with. She knew because she was related to most of them.

 

Should it take this long to return the bracelet and talk? Maybe they went out for a drink… that seemed unlikely. Argo was a good natured guy, but she didn’t think he’d want to imbibe himself with drinks when he was with a man he didn’t trust very well. She also didn’t want to think about how it was going. No one had called her, so everything must be alright. That’s what she would tell herself as long as she could.

 

She paced around the two story cabin and tried to enjoy the décor and the solitude. That was one of the reasons she’d picked this place. Her mother had brought her here when she was younger, and she remembered how quiet and peaceful it was. Looking back on it, her mother had probably been thinking about leaving her father and had taken a few days to sort out her issues and look at the grand scheme of her life… or maybe she just wanted her father to think that is what she was doing because years later she was still fussing about her father, but she was still with him.

 

Kelli heard the key in the front door, and she ran down to meet Carson. It was hard to believe that it had only been a few hours, but it felt like she could breathe again. She’d wanted to do so many more things with him when he left. She wanted to say things and spend more time with him learning about him and his childhood. What she’d learned growing up with her father was that people you loved could be here today and dead tomorrow. Distancing herself away from her family, even in such small increments, had made her forget the lessons she’d learned as a child. They only came back when she saw Carson pull away on his motorcycle and thoughts flashed through her mind that she may never see him again.

 

When she greeted him at the door, his expression looked a little dull, and she wondered what had happened. Before she grilled him about the arrangements they’d made and the exchange of her jewelry, she wanted to show him how much she missed him and how happy she was he’d returned.

 

“Kelli…” Carson started, but she cut him off. She didn’t know when she’d been this happy to see another person in her whole life.

 

“We can talk about what happened later, but now I want to tell you what I was thinking about when you were gone.” She noticed that he wasn’t acting normally, but sometimes when you were around criminals and criminal activity it shut your emotions down. That’s what always happened to her, so she just moved forward with what had been on her mind since he’d left.

 

“I need to tell you what happened in there,” he grabbed both of her hands and stared into her face.

 

“We’ll talk afterwards. When you left, I was so terrified that I’d never see you again. I wanted so badly to lay in your arms and have you kiss me. When you left, I wanted to call you back and tell you to just forget about it. Let them search for me. That’s crazy right?” She took his keys and threw them on the counter before helping him with his jacket. He seemed like he was just moving along like a robot allowing her to do whatever she wanted with him.

 

Carson looked almost pained, and she wanted to take all that away from him. He’d done so much for her and her happiness it would only be proper to help him when he was not as perky as she’d like him to be.

 

“Can I have you? Is this body mine to play with as I see fit?” She didn’t know where these words were coming from, but she liked that there was a small spark in his eye as she said them. Flirting and teasing were her stomping ground, and sometimes she went to it when she was feeling anxious. Working out her stress on Carson was something she would hopefully be able to do for a good long while.

 

“You can always have me to play with, but I still think we should talk before getting into anything else. There are some things that I want to say before we do anything else.” He put his hand in her hair, and she loved it like she always did. It made her feel like a treasured pet, not that she would admit to anyone that she adored being stroked and loved upon this way.

 

“Shhhh…” she hushed as she took off his shirt and kissed up his chest. This is what he liked. She liked to be petted, and he liked to be stroked and kissed. Should she be happy that she knew that? Kelli knew that she enjoyed finding out what worked for him, and it was payback because he knew how to hit all her hot buttons.

 

“Kelli, please,” he whispered, and she figured he needed her more than he was willing to admit. She sat him on the couch as she stripped off her clothes slowly, and as each piece fell from her body, she could see that he relaxed just a touch more.

 

She had on only her pink lace panties, and now that she had him under her spell, she would have to admit that she’d put on this particular pair because she knew he liked them. Walking to the steps, she waited for a second to amp up the anticipation. “Are you coming?”

 

He inhaled a long deep breath and released it on a sigh, but he got up and followed her up the stairs until she stopped mid stairway and turned around.

 

“I want you to know what I was thinking when you left. I was sorry that there was no evidence that you’d ever touched my body. No love bites, no hand prints from your taps on my ass or around my wrists when you held my hands above my head… I wanted that. I want to know that you were here and now that you’re back, I want you to give that to me.” She looked into his eyes and wanted to see more than what she was seeing. He had held her when he thought she’d needed it and how she was going to return the favor.

 

He stood there looking as dazed as he did when he opened the front door, but there was a little understanding that went with the expression. “You want me to fuck you on the stairs?” He asked with his face scrunched up in a puzzled look.

 

“I want you to fuck me any and everywhere in this house. I want love bites and hand prints. I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted to be marked. Have the world know that something had changed and there is someone special claiming my body.” It felt like she was rambling, and he just looked confused by either what she was saying or how she was acting, but he didn’t stop her.

 

“Turn around.” His gruff voice still didn’t sound like the man she’d damned near fell in love with, but it was sexy none the less. It was almost like he was a stranger, and that little piece of pretend gave her a bit of a thrill.

 

“Whatever you say.” She turned around and heard his zipper right before the woosh of his jeans heavy with his belt hit the floor.

 

“Bend over, Kelli.”

 

She did so happily wondering what was in the air that was causing this level of excitement to cause goose bumps on her skin and her hair to raise. He entered her quickly, and she almost climaxed on the spot. She’d been ready since he’d left, but she tried to hold it back so he wouldn’t stop so soon. This decadently sexy feeling of being in front of a massive window where they could potentially be seen was one of the items on her sexual bucket list.

 

The darkness outside made the large window look like her mirrors at home, and she almost felt comforted. She could see Carson in his power thrusting mode and lost it. Doubling over the rail, her body convulsed and shook with pleasure, but Carson still went full throttle. She tried to press her back to his chest to make her entrance tighter around the powerful tool that was hammering away at her. He grabbed the back of her hair and moved her head to the side exposing her neck before he ravaged the area with his mouth.

 

“Yessss!” She screamed as her body tightened up again and the small ripples of pleasure made her push her ass back to Carson like a wild cat in heat.

 

He let go of her hair and brought his hand down to squeeze her breast and pull her nipple. This is what she loved about him… his ability to turn her on and bring her to the edge of madness. His grunts got louder and more animalistic. This was a man out of control, and she reveled in this moment. It was like this was what she was after the whole time. He was with her in his passion 1000 percent.

 

He was silent after his loud climax, and he withdrew from her body. She turned around hoping to see that his face was less intense than it was when they started, but if anything he was worse.

 

She put her hands on his face and pulled him down for a kiss. Maybe she should have been more receptive to his needs. It was true that she wanted to be sexed up rough and hard, but she’d totally misread his mood, or maybe it was just that she was too focused on herself.

 

“What’s the matter, Carson?” It was like a cloud had disappeared, and she saw Carson for how he really was. He wasn’t robotic; he was sullen. Something had happened, and she knew he had been trying to tell her something, but she wanted what she wanted first. How selfish and when she had been telling herself she was doing it for him… that made her doubly selfish.

 

When he looked up at her, she knew he was going to tell her something horrible. She backed up, and she could barely breathe.

 

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this…” He started talking, but she didn’t want to hear it.

 

Walking up the stairs it seemed like she was in a dream. She didn’t want to hear it, but she knew she was going to have to. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she thought it was. She wanted to be the calm intelligent person that she prided herself on, and she did something that her father would do. Walk away from what was the truth? No.

 

She got to the bedroom, sat on the couch, and waited for Carson to come into the room. He was going to come in there, of that, she had no doubt, but would she be crazy out of her mind by then? Maybe.

 

He entered the room slowly, and he’d picked up her clothes and put his pants back on. Did he think having his chest out was going to soften the blow? She hoped he didn’t think she was that shallow.

 

“I’m ready to listen, Carson. What happened?”

 

“I got to the warehouse ready to give your cousin the bracelet he requested when a guy named Crowbar—”

 

“Who the hell is that?” She couldn’t help but interrupt.

 

“He’s the guy they sent as a backup when my company didn’t think I was doing my job fast enough.”

 

Carson was looking into her eyes, and she knew that he wanted her to believe what he was saying.

 

“Then what, Carson, I am trying to hold it together, but I can’t pull this shit out of you. Open your fucking mouth and tell me what happened.” It felt like there wasn’t enough air in the room, but she kept trying to control her breathing so she could remain in control and not lose herself. She prayed that he was not going to tell her anything too crazy.

 

“Crowbar found me because they have a tracker on my motorcycle that I didn’t know about, and after a few words…” He looked like he wanted to stop there, and she realized that she was so tense that her jaw was clenched. She tried to relax herself, but it just wasn’t working.

 

“What!!!! Damn it!” She stood up, and he stood with her. He gathered her in his arms and took a deep breath with his face against her hair.

 

“Argo’s gone.” He said it so softly she wondered if she heard him wrong or maybe he meant something else. Something other than what she was thinking.

 

“Gone?”

 

“Argo and Crowbar shot each other, and they’re both dead.” He pulled away from her and looked her in the eye.

 

She pushed him so hard he fell back on the chair. “You killed Argo?” It sounded like there was an ocean in her ears, and she could only see his mouth moving, but she knew that life as she knew it had changed. She had to get away from him, but she didn’t know where to go. Time to think… that’s what she needed but the way he was following her talking she didn’t think she was going to have that time. Zeroing in on the bathroom, she went in and slammed the door locking it.

 

The beautiful bathroom was something that she raved about in her mind every time she entered, but it all seemed dull and drab now. The Jacuzzi sized tub was empty and looked like a good place to sit and think. She pulled her knees into her chest and tried not to come apart. How could she not have known that Argo was dead? There should have been something in the atmosphere that would have changed that would have alerted her that something so deeply meaningful to her was gone. GONE.

 

Her Argo was gone. She had three younger brothers, and they were great but no one looked out for her like Argo. There were times she knew that he didn’t understand her or the way she hated violence, the way she tried to avoid her family and the tales she told so no one would know who she was, but he loved her anyway… protected her anyway. He was the one constant that she could count on in her life, and now he was gone. It felt like the moon should have stopped shining and the stars should have shut off. Nothing was right… nothing and the guy she’d been sleeping with and giving her heart and soul to had taken him from her.

 

She heard the knock on the door, and she didn’t know how she would ever face him again. Violence beget violence, and she never understood why… until now. Her father would be proud of the hatred and brimstone that seemed to be bubbling in her veins. She didn’t know what she should do, but getting away from this love haven she’d set up with the devil would have to be the first thing she changed.

 

There was a phone in the bathroom, and she knew it was a secure line. To think she thought it was humorous when they described this feature to her. Who the hell needed a phone with private access in the damn bathroom? Who needed it? She did… right now.