He’d leaned forward to cup his hands under the running water when he sucked in a sharp breath and stiffened suddenly.

Something about the way he moved told Riana something she should have known before. “Are you hurt?”

He didn’t answer. Didn’t even acknowledge the question as he leaned down toward the water again.

Instinctively, Riana got up and walked over to him. “Seriously, are you hurt? I should have asked before. Was it from the fight yesterday?”

“I’m not hurt,” he gritted out, reaching for a towel.

While he was distracted by drying his face, Riana pulled up the side of his T-shirt to expose the side he’d seem to favor a moment before.

His entire side was a mass of ugly, purple bruises.

“My God. Cain. My God!”

He jerked away. “They’re bruises. Nothing to whine about.”

“They look horrible,” she said, trying to get his T-shirt pushed up more so she could see the extent of the damage. “Why didn’t you say anything? And you did all those exercises this morning. It must have hurt like hell.”

He gave her an unpleasant look. “Are you through?”

“No,” she said, too upset to even consider whether she was being wise to press her attention on him in this matter. “Can I see how bad it is?”

“Why?”

“I know some first aid. If you broke a rib or something—”

“I didn’t break a rib.”

But he didn’t object when she’d pushed his T-shirt up and then carefully pulled it off over his head. The bruising went from his left shoulder blade all the way down his side and forward toward his lower belly.

Riana brushed her fingers along the damage, wishing she could remember more of her medical training. “This must be why you didn’t want to fight just now.”

He tensed palpably. “I could have taken them easily.”

“I’m sure you could,” she assured him quickly. “I didn’t mean to imply you couldn’t.” She winced as she noticed a particularly dark bruise on his lower side. “But this looks terrible. Thorn did a number on you.”

Her voice had been gentle, but it was clearly the wrong thing to say—yet again. Cain stiffened and pulled away. “I promise he looks worse.”

She blinked up at his closed-off face, and she realized he was still bristling with a wounded masculine ego.

What the fuck was wrong with men anyway? No matter how tough and rugged they were, they still managed to be sensitive about the slightest hint they weren’t invulnerable.

“I’m sure he does,” she said lightly instead of following her urge to complain about his acting like a baby. “He must look so bad he’s been afraid to show his face all day.”

This apparently was the right thing to say. Cain relaxed and gave a snort of what almost sounded like amusement. “I’m pretty sure I broke his nose.”

“Good.” She smiled and continued inspecting the damage on his body, making instinctive note of the rippling muscles of his back and the scattering of course dark hair on his chest. “I hope it heals crooked.”

He didn’t respond, but she saw the corner of his lips quirk up. This time it was longer than a moment. It wasn’t a full-fledged smile, but it was closer than anything she’d seen.

She ran her fingers down his back—pretending to check for damage but mostly because she found the smooth, strong planes irresistible. “I wish you’d told me about your bruises before,” she murmured. “Last night I mean. When we were… I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

He turned on his heel, so sharply she didn’t expect it. Facing her, he reached out to grab her by the hips. “Nothing about last night hurt,” he said, his voice as thick and rough as gravel. “I’m not that injured.”

Then, as if to prove his point, he slid his big hands back until they were spanning the curve of her ass. He lifted her up to a position where she automatically wrapped her legs around his waist.

“Your bruises,” she gasped, squirming as she tried not to put any pressure on his damaged side.

He started to walk, his grip so strong there was no sense in fighting it. “I told you. I’m not that injured.”

He carried her over to the bed, his size and strength making her feel unexpectedly small and feminine. When he reached the bed, he lowered her onto the thin mattress and moved over her, the muscles of his arms bulging as he supported himself above her.

His eyes were so intense they seemed to devour her, and Riana felt naked despite her grungy shirt. She also felt a thrill of excitement. Anticipation.

Despite the bleakness of her situation—or perhaps because of it—her body responded to the sight of him above her. He was an attractive, virile man. Different from any man she’d ever known. She was going to have to fuck him if she wanted to stay alive.

She might as well enjoy it.

He leaned down, and her eyes widened as his face lowered toward hers—their gazes never breaking. For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her.

But instead he shifted direction just slightly to run his lips in a line down her throat.

She tilted her head back, sucking in her breath as she felt his mouth on the sensitive skin at her pulse. He smelled strongly, but it wasn’t unpleasant—it was almost a relief after the vague nastiness of the mingled odor of the Hold—and the scent of him surrounded her, intensifying her carnal response.

When he nipped at her neck slightly, she gasped at the resulting jolt of pleasure. Then she jerked her shoulders up so she could pull off her shirt. When she tossed it away, his mouth lowered even more until he mouthed her right breast through the fabric of her camisole.

She squirmed beneath him as tugs of arousal multiplied in her pussy. Her fingers groped at the back of his neck, then slid up to feel the delicious texture of the close-cropped hair on his scalp.

He adjusted his position until he was kneeling on the floor as his mouth lowered down to her middle. He pushed up her camisole to bare her flat belly, and she moaned when she felt him press hard kisses onto the sensitive skin there.

He must have unfastened her pants while she was distracted by his mouth on her belly because he pulled them off with a quick yank, taking her panties with them.

She gave a little squeal of surprise and excitement at the rough move and felt an ache of desire between her legs when he stood up beside the bed—big, primal, and powerful. She was wet. Really wet. And she was glad to see the bulge at his groin—proof that he was aroused as well.

“Turn over,” he said in a thick voice, kneeling on the bed beside her.

She wasn’t sure if his words had been a request or an order, and she didn’t really care. Doggy style sounded pretty good to her.

She arranged herself on her hands and knees, pointing her head and shoulders away from him.

He covered her exposed bottom with both of his big hands and gave it a possessive squeeze. “Damn, you have a great ass,” he muttered.

It was the first compliment he’d ever given her. And despite its crudeness, it gave her a ridiculous little thrill. She looked over her shoulder at him and felt another thrill at the smolder she saw in his eyes as he stared down at her half-naked body.

Then she saw him move one of his hands and felt two of his fingers in her slick pussy. The penetration made her gasp.

He pumped his fingers a few time, hitting her G-spot and rubbing her inner walls.

Riana gave a breathless grunt and started to pant at the delicious stimulation. Still looking back at him, she bumped her hips back toward him, trying to accelerate the rhythm.

“Fuck.” Cain’s voice was faint, and she couldn’t tell if he was pleased, surprised, or baffled by her obvious eagerness. But before she could start to feel self-conscious, he added, “So hot.”

That was okay then. So she kept pumping her ass against the penetration of his fingers, beginning to huff out little grunts that sounded almost childish as an orgasm developed more quickly than she could have expected.

Her breasts jiggled in her top, and it took some effort to keep looking over her shoulder at him kneeling behind her. But she couldn’t seem to turn away from the expression on his face—hungry and intense, like he wanted to swallow her whole.

He stared down at her eager bouncing and skillfully moved his fingers in her wet pussy until her grunts turned to whimpers and then to wordless mews as he took her to the edge.

He was pushing hard against her G-spot as she came, her body jerking in clumsy spasms as the waves of release washed over her and her pussy clamped down hard around his fingers.

He sustained the contractions by pumping his fingers against the spasms, and her entire body flushed hotly as her urgency relaxed into satisfaction.

She was a little embarrassed as she darted one last look at his face, hoping he didn’t think she was too easy or desperate for succumbing so easily to his advances.

For coming from nothing more than a few pumps of his fingers.

But he was already unfastening his trousers, and he looked just as eager as she had been as he aligned himself behind her, grabbing her bottom cheeks and pulling them apart so he could sink his cock into her.

She made a silly sound as the hard substance of his erection penetrated her, stretching and filling her deeply. She adjusted her hands, bracing herself on her arms so she could rock her bottom back against his pelvis.

He began to thrust immediately, his cock moving easily inside her slick pussy, and each thrust hit her in just the right way.

She couldn’t look away from his expression—it was tense now, and ravenous, and so hot. At the twist in his features every time she tightened her pussy around him. She could tell he was enjoying how it felt to be buried inside her.

They were both breathing loudly, and the cot was starting to shake, squeaking shamelessly in response to their motion. The rest of the sound in the Hold blurred into a background murmur, fading against the stark urgency of their coupling.

Riana felt another orgasm beginning to build, and she gasped in both surprise and pleasure. Her neck was starting to ache, and she was losing her concentration, so she finally let her head fall forward again.

And realized they had an audience.

It wasn’t the offensive onlookers of the night before. She didn’t even recognize the two men who were staring in through the bars of the cell, openly gawking at their fucking.

She stifled a whimper, not wanting Cain to tell her to toughen up again. There was no privacy in this hellhole. She would need to get used to that.

Cain hadn’t even seemed to notice them—the others were so insignificant to him. She needed to learn to ignore them in the same way.

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t stop thinking about what they must see. She was on her hands and knees on the bed, naked except for her disarranged camisole. Her tangled hair was falling into her flushed face. Her breasts and the flesh of her ass were jiggling as she pumped her hips back toward Cain’s pelvis, eagerly meeting each of his thrusts. Their skin was slapping together, and Cain gripped possessive handfuls of her bottom.

And she was going to come again.

These strangers on the other side of the bars were going to see her. Coming hard from being fucked like this by a man she barely knew.

The pressure at her center tightened like a fist, sending shockwaves of pleasure into her building orgasm. “Oh God,” she gasped, her vision blurring over as she bumped her bottom back against his hard strokes as rapidly as she could.

He let go of her ass and reached forward, pushing gently on her upper back until she folded her arms and lowered her shoulders to the mattress, leaving just her bottom in the air. He didn’t pull back. Instead, he planted one of his hands next to her shoulder, giving him better leverage to thrust.

He wasn’t pulling out much now, but his hips were pistoning against her ass, pushing into her in fast, animalistic strokes. The only sounds he made were low grunts and fast, wet breathing.

She tried to keep her eyes on the bedding just before her eyes, but she couldn’t resist turning her head to look out the bars again.

The two men were still watching. One of them had his mouth hanging open. Then she heard the other one say, “Fuck. Look at her take it.”

Riana whimpered and hid her face in the mattress, burning with heat that was as much shameless desire as it was mortification.

“Ignore them.” The voice was low, gruff, right in her ear. Cain.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Take it?” That voice was from outside the cell. The other man. “She wants it bad.”

Riana tried to smother another whimper in the bedding as her whole body began to shake with intensifying need and urgency.

She did want it. She wanted it bad. And the feel of Cain’s cock driving into her deep and hard was threatening to make her scream with an inexplicable pleasure.

Part of her wished that Cain would lash out at the men—making them leave the way he’d made the men leave last night.

But she somehow knew he wouldn’t do that. It would make him weak. It would give the other prisoners power over him.

Over both of them.

It was a gift that he’d done so for her last night.

So she did as he said and tried to ignore the onlookers. Instead, she fought through her physical responses to find the concentration to turn back to look at Cain again.

His expression was almost twisted with what he was feeling, and there was something mesmerizing about the primitive fire in his eyes.

She felt another clench of sharp pleasure. “Oh yeah.”

“Yeah?” he gritted out, his face only inches from hers.

She wasn’t sure exactly what he was asking, but she answered him anyway. Her whole body was shaking—from the force of his motion now since she couldn’t do much pumping in her present position—and her vision was starting to glaze over again. “Yeah,” she gasped. “Gonna come. Again. Oh God!”

His thrusting intensified even more—so hard now the bed squeaked even more loudly. His grunts grew even more animalistic, guttural sounds that turned her on more than she could begin to understand.

She huffed out choppy little sounds as the agonizing pressure in her pussy finally peaked.

She buried her face in the bedding to smother her scream of release as her pussy clenched around his cock.

She was conscious of his pelvis jerking clumsily against her bottom, and she heard a rough sound as he came as well. But she couldn’t think of anything except the pulsing waves of pleasure radiating from her center to saturate her body.

They left her feeling drained, exhausted, hot, and deliciously satisfied.

And really, really embarrassed.

She could feel Cain panting above her, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn her head to meet his eyes immediately.

After a minute, he asked, “Okay?”

The gruff question made her able to unbury her head and look up at him. He was pulling his cock out of her pussy with a sloppy, wet sound.

“Yeah,” she said with a faint smile. It was nice of him to ask—even in such an abrupt way. “That was pretty good.”

The corner of his mouth twitched up. “Yeah. Pretty good.”

***

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