Finn splashed cold water on his face in the hotel’s bathroom, and gave his reflection a critical stare. He was badly in need of a shave and his hair a trim. His face was more lined than he remembered, and the set of his mouth decidedly grim. He almost bumped into Cora, who’d been waiting outside. She gave him a strange look from under her lashes and charged into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

Lars was at the drinks station. The smell of brewing coffee filled the sitting room. “I’ll take first watch, ten to two.”

Finn made a non-committal sound and took the cup of coffee Lars handed him. Lars set another two cups down on the coffee table and sank with a sigh into the closest armchair.

“So…tomorrow’s the big day.” Lars sipped at his coffee and gave Finn a solid stare.

“Big day?”

“We hand Cora over, the gig’s up. By the way, how’s payment working now that Swan’s MIA?”

“He said Javier Martin would do a wire transfer soon as he had Cora.”

“If you can’t trust a drug kingpin, who can you trust, amiright?”

Finn shook his head and grabbed the remote off the coffee table. He navigated through the menu without reading. It was something to look at that wasn’t the closed bathroom door. Something to direct his attention to that wasn’t Cora goddamn Swan.

He took another swig of coffee, but it couldn’t rid him of the memory of her taste. As if he’d just kissed her.

What the hell was wrong with him? He’d never been this hung up on a girl his entire life. There was just something about her. Something as intoxicating as—

He cut off the thought, but his beast stirred somewhere deep in his mind and whispered, Heroin?

“Are you planning on watching something, or just wearing down the buttons?”

Finn started and put the remote on the coffee table again with a clatter. Lars snatched it up, taking a swallow of his coffee and giving Finn a blatantly cocked eyebrow over the rim of his coffee cup.

“What you in the mood for? Action? Thriller? Comedy?” Lars began scrolling through the list of movies. “Hey, you seen this one?”

Finn forced his eyes away from the bathroom door. Lars was watching him, a tight smile on his mouth. He looked at the flat screen and shrugged. “Sure.”

“Sure you’ve seen it, or sure you’d like to?”

“Sure I don’t give a shit,” Finn muttered.

“Figured.” Lars set down his mug and selected a movie.

Finn hadn’t seen it. He didn’t make a habit of watching movies. He didn’t really have that much free time on his hands. The only time he watched movies was when he spent time with his sister, Heather. Those few months of the year when she wasn’t in rehab, of course.

He stood and went to check the windows. He closed them all, drawing back the curtains and glancing down into the street. Marfa was a ghost town—even the hotel’s parking lot only had a few cars in it. He walked past the bathroom door on his way to the bedroom to check those windows.

The door opened. He barely stepped back in time before Cora barreled out. Her shoulder caught against his, and her momentum spun her to face him. They stared at each other.

Shampoo and body lotion scented the air with a strange mix of roses and lavender. She’d changed into a hotel bathrobe—thick and fluffy—but it did little to hide her curves.

“Made you some coffee,” Lars called out. “And there’s a movie on if—”

“No, thanks,” she said, spinning away from Finn and making for the bedroom. “I’m going to sleep.”

“You both on a fucking diet or something?” Lars said, sounding sour. “Well I’m getting something. We’ll see what you say when this place starts smelling like take out.” Lars made for the telephone on a table against the far wall. He put his hand on the receiver and then froze when Finn spoke.

“You know what? Take out sounds good.” Finn paused. “Why don’t you go fetch us some?”

Lars gave Finn a long, considering look. His hand twitched as his eyes flashed to the bedroom door and then back to Finn. “We could have it delivered,” he said carefully.

“Thought you’d need the fresh air.”

In the background, the movie Lars had put on clamored through an action scene involving explosions, breaking glass, and the screech of tires.

Lars’s expression hardened. He gave his head a hard shake. “Yeah? I don’t.”

“What were you thinking? Pizza? Chinese?”

“Don’t do this, Milo,” Lars said, his voice deadpan.

“And a cherry soda.” Finn put his hand on the bedroom door’s handle. “Get Cora a cherry soda too.”

Lars’s lips turned up in a brittle smile. “Cherry soda,” he muttered as he swept to the door. “Sure, I’ll get bunny a fucking cherry soda.”

The front door slammed, neatly coinciding with a Hollywood scream from the television set.

The bedroom door was unlocked. Cora stood by the dressing table, running a brush through her hair. It didn’t need it—the wet locks were straight and clung to her scalp and down the nape of her neck. Her eyes flickered to him when he entered the mirror’s reflection, but then turned back to her own.

“You can have the one on the left,” she said, pointing behind her to the bed closest to the window.

“I don’t want the one on the left. I want you.”

Her eyes widened. Apprehension, or disbelief? She made to turn to him, but then he was against her, pressing her against the edge of the dressing table.

“What are you doing?” she whispered furiously, struggling.

“You come out of the bathroom in nothing but a robe,” Finn murmured, staring at her panicked reflection. “I know you’re naked under it. You say you’re going to sleep. So I start wondering what you’re going to sleep in. You only have one pair of clothes. So, naked then?” The string of words poured from him as he bent to the side and slid his fingers up the outside of her leg. She shied away from his touch like a nervous horse new to being shod. So he grabbed the back of her neck with his other hand, holding her still.

Her eyelids fluttered, and she let out a hard breath.

His fingers reached her hipbone. He traced the curve of it where her skin stretched taut over it.

She stiffened when he came closer to her clit, but he didn’t touch her. Instead, he changed direction and headed for her breasts. Cupped one and let it lay heavy in his palm. When he squeezed her, she moaned and bucked her ass into his hard on.

The robe had fallen partly open. All that held her modesty in check was the knot dangling over the slit of her belly button. He tugged it away, and drew the two halves of her robe open, baring her slender body to the mirror. She looked at herself, and then at him where he loomed behind her.

“One last hit,” he said quietly, releasing her neck so he could gather both her breasts in his hands. His skin was darker than hers, tanned from the sun. She was the color of creamy coffee, her nipples dark russet circles that puckered and turned into dark buds when he ran his palms over her aureoles.

“Finn—”

He pinched her nipples, one in each hand. So hard that her mouth gaped open. “Just one last hit.”

“But I didn’t—”

He kicked her legs open. She fell forward, crying out before she caught herself on the dressing table’s surface. Her face flickered with lust, mouth open and eyes sparkling when she glanced at him over her shoulder.

She fought him when he grabbed her wrists and twisted them behind her but she couldn’t stop him pinning them to the small of her back. He grabbed her between the legs and squeezed until she stopped fighting.

He was so hard for her that his dick ached. Finn tugged down his zipper, barely giving Cora enough time for a surprised gasp before he was inside her. Filling her. Making her squirm against him.

Her nails bit into the back of his hands, but he held her fixed. When she tried to close her legs, he wedged himself between them.

He thrust into her, growling with half-pleasure, half-disgust. The pleasure at how tightly her muscles milked him, disgust at how much he’d enjoyed forcing his way inside her.

“Oh, god,” Cora whispered, eyes fluttering closed as he drew out.

She moaned, bucking her hips to meet his every thrust.

“Harder,” she murmured.

The dressing table rattled as he slammed into her. She reached around to caress his balls, to feel where his cock met her slick skin. She grabbed the base of his dick, squeezing him, pumping him as if she was trying to jerk him off while he was inside her.

“Finn, please. Hard—” and then she cut off with a strangled cry.

He curved against her ass, going as deep inside her as he could. His hand went around the back of her neck, keeping her pinned against the dressing table as he fucked her from behind.

His other hand slid around her hip, found her clit, and began to circle it.

Her struggles abated abruptly. She let out a guttural moan. Pushed against him, whimpered, and spread her legs for him.

Fuck, that single gesture, how she so readily opened herself for him, it almost made him come. The sight of her arched back with the trough of her spinal column…that sound she kept making that made it impossible to decipher if it was pleasure or pain…

He stroked her to orgasm, his fingers slowing until she begged him to end her and then swore at him when he didn’t. Her climax was silent, but powerful. She clamped around his dick like a vice, making movement impossible. Which was fine, because he emptied himself inside her while she was still trying to find her way back to the light.

Massaging her ass, he leaned into her as a last throb tore through him. He could have stayed inside her until he was soft. Until he’d grown hard again and could take her again.

But the front door of their hotel room slammed.

Finn jerked, half coming out of her. She made an unhappy sound when he tugged himself out the rest of the way, and then slumped against him as if her legs had turned to water. He lifted her, carrying her over to the bed as his eyes flashed to the door. The movie was still playing, but there weren’t any car crashes to hide whatever noises they or Lars made.

He could hear the man moving around behind that thin door.

Of course Lars had known what would happen the moment he’d left. But he’d still left.

He set Cora down on the bed, and she rolled onto her stomach and stretched like a sun-lazy cat.

“Oh my god,” she murmured, voice partly muffled by the sheets. “That was fucking amazing.”

She pushed herself up, rolled onto her back, and looked at him as if he’d single-handedly parted the clouds and shown her what heaven looked like. Maybe he had.

Laying there, she looked so delicate. Like a toy, easily snapped in two with a casual twist of the hand. Like the new bruises on her hips—stripes where his fingers had gripped her.

Next time, we’ll break her, his beast purred to itself in the back of his mind.

But for now it had been sated…for now.

Shame burned in his chest at the thought that when it woke again, when it became hungry, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself taking her again. How much punishment could her body still take?

Christ, let her be long gone before that happened. For his sake…and hers.