Chapter Twelve
Awareness prickled along Ailish’s skin when Henrik opened the passenger-side door. His gaze fell to her bare legs, that throat of his working in a way that was now comforting. Familiar. But when she thought he might reach out and caress her skin, he popped the glove box instead and removed a set of handcuffs.
“What are you doing?”
His stoic expression was carved in stone. “I can’t risk you running again. We only have another day to get back to Chicago, and there’s no room for setbacks at this point.” He dipped his chin once. “Get out of the truck and turn around.”
It was on the tip of Ailish’s tongue to claim she wouldn’t run, but it was obvious Henrik wouldn’t believe her. Rightly so. But her running now would have had less to do with not trusting Henrik—especially now that he’d relayed his plan—and more to do with keeping them both alive. Caine wouldn’t let either of them live once he realized he’d been crossed. No one understood but her, and Henrik was beyond listening.
Seeing no choice but to obey him for now, Ailish turned and very slowly slipped off the passenger seat, noting the way his nostrils flared when her shirt rode up and exposed her stomach, the underside of her breasts. Lord, she was far from unaffected, too, a fact that obviously didn’t go unnoticed as their breath mingled between them. The cuffs dangled at Henrik’s side, his head tipped forward so their foreheads were in danger of touching. “Turn around,” Henrik ordered, his voice rasping like two pieces of brittle sandpaper.
Something in Ailish’s chest kicked up a brutal rebellion at the suffering in Henrik’s voice, surprising her in its intensity. For just a second, she shut down the dread threatening to run amok in her gut and looked at Henrik. Really looked. And listened to the heart knocking against her ribs. This beautiful, protective man had shown up on her doorstep, and while he’d been secretive, he’d put himself at risk to keep her safe. Kissed her, touched her, with such passion, her legs trembled at the sweltering memories of those stolen moments. “Who are you, Henrik?”
If possible, his big body went even more still. “Excuse me?”
“How did you get here? With me?” Her mouth opened, closed, opened again. “Why were we in this together from the moment you showed up? I don’t understand it even though—”
He snagged her around the waist with a powerful forearm, jerking her into the warmth of his body. But instead of kissing her as she’d anticipated—and yeah, kind of needed to go on living—he simply closed the car door and spun her around to face the vehicle. “Even though what, Ailish?”
“I don’t understand why we’re a team…even though it feels like that’s how it’s supposed to be.” She stared up at Henrik’s reflection in the passenger-side window, saw his eyes close and wondered at that response. “Why did we feel like a foregone conclusion when you walked into my cabin?”
“What is this?” Henrik breathed into her ear. “Another attempt to seduce me so you can get away? I won’t let it work. I can’t.”
Ailish’s hands were drawn to the small of her back. When she felt the metal closing around her wrists, heard the metallic clink, her fate was sealed. So why was she more focused on the man standing so close, breathing into her hair like he’d just run a marathon? Her loins pulsated, body crying out for more contact. Craving it. As if she’d made the plea out loud, Henrik’s lap fit against her bottom and they both released pent-up exhales of air. God, she could actually feel their connection, like a spinning, golden flame in her belly that only he knew how to extinguish. She had no idea where the words she said next came from, only knew they’d been unveiled from their hiding place in the back of her mind. “Did you want me that day in the park, Henrik?”
“Yes.” He stumbled forward, forcing Ailish up against the side of the truck. “I wanted to undress you, right fucking there. Rip the dress off your tight body. You don’t know, baby. You don’t know.”
A moan ripped through her vocal cords, fogging up the car window. She made no secret of being turned on when a man desired her to the point of pain—but the confession from Henrik was utopia. This sexual giant of a man could barely stand under the weight of his need, and it hypnotized Ailish, flushed her head to toe. She reached back into her memory bank and remembered that day…how exhausted and downtrodden she’d been, unable to attempt garnering notice in her usual manner. And he’d wanted her anyway. He wanted her now, a fact made unshakable by him pushing his erection into her restrained hands.
“I’m so hot,” she whimpered. “I need to have you.”
His groan was agonized, but the sound was followed by his tongue licking up the side of her neck. A bite of her earlobe. “We can’t. We—you’re handcuffed.” His palms slapped down on the passenger-side door, caging in her body. “Fuck, you’re my prisoner, Ailish. Everything is different now.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said huskily, massaging the bulge of his manhood with what little mobility she could muster. God, she wanted all of him. Needed to touch everywhere. Right now. “We both know the handcuffs don’t mean anything.”
Where was this conviction coming from? Ailish couldn’t pinpoint the location, only knew it was deep down, where nothing could shake it. She could feel Henrik teetering on an imaginary fence behind her, so close to being pushed to one side, but she couldn’t tell which. “We need to walk,” Henrik growled, negating that desire a split second later by wedging her more firmly against the truck.
“You really think—” Ailish broke off when his right hand cupped her breast and squeezed. God yes. Touch me. I forgot how to live without your hands on me. “You really think we can turn this off?”
“Not in this lifetime.” Henrik’s other hand found her left breast, his thumb strumming over her nipple like she was an instrument to be played. “But you were wrong. The cuffs do mean something. They mean we don’t trust each other. They mean you want to get away from me. I can’t fuck you when you’d rather be running away.” His hands released her breasts, sliding down her belly to cup the juncture of her thighs in a double grip—roughly—ripping a ragged moan from Ailish. “That would be wrong, baby. So goddamn wrong.”
Her legs wobbled, threatening to give out. “I don’t want to run. I don’t want to run. Please, Henrik. I’m hurting.”
Was that her voice? Her face? The reflection staring back at Ailish was more sexed-up porn star than almost-virgin. Warmth pooled beneath Henrik’s possessive touch, her skin so sensitized that a passing breeze whispering across her cleavage aroused her even more. Oh God, this is torture. How to convince Henrik her need was real and urgent? Not a ploy or a bad thing, like he thought.
It took every iota of Ailish’s willpower to struggle away from Henrik and shuffle past the front bumper. She immediately mourned the loss of his touch to the point that walking was painful. The tops of her thighs were slick with moisture, her bound position forcing her to walk with breasts thrust forward. Everything about the situation provoked her live-wire senses, but she managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other. “If you want to walk, we’ll walk.” When her voice wavered, she lifted her chin to compensate. “I’m not going to beg you.”
Please, please, come get me.
Ailish heard the crunch of leaves behind her, knew Henrik was fast approaching, and her hormones started to spin in mad circles. “You think you’re calling my bluff?” His tone evoked the image of smoking coals. Only a few yards on her trail now. Closer. Come closer. “This isn’t a game we’re playing. I could…” Two big hands grasped her hips, pulling her to a stop. With a crude oath gritted into her ear, one masculine hand slid around and flipped open the button of her jean shorts. His touch descended slowly, delving into the front of her panties. “I could lose the only job I’m qualified for…could compromise the case.”
When his index and middle fingers rubbed over her clit, Ailish’s thighs shot together, her moan echoing among the trees. “You don’t seem that concerned about it,” she managed.
“You don’t think so?” Having found her atrociously wet, Henrik pushed those two fingers inside her with a satisfied grunt. “I am concerned, Ailish. But right now, I’d let the world burn to get my cock inside this tight hole. I’d let it go to fucking ashes, that’s how hot I am to come inside of it.” He shoved his fingers deeper without warning, putting Ailish so off balance he had to steady her with his body. “Christ, I don’t even have a condom to protect you with.” His tone was agonized, but aroused. So aroused. “How can I do this?”
“I’m on the pill,” she gasped, her head tossing on his muscular shoulder as her inner walls clenched around his touch. “OhhhGodsogood.”
Her permission made something inside him give way. She could feel it happen in real time, answering deep in her middle. “I’m clean for you, baby. Tell me you know that,” Henrik muttered thickly, his fingers working in and out, jostling her clit in the process.
“Yes.”
His groan shook her. “It’s going to be my dick this time. And I’m going to be mean about it, you understand? I wanted to go slow, but you ran. You ran.” Henrik exhaled in a rush above her head. “I must be one of the bad men, baby, because now that I’ve caught you, I just want to please that pussy until you’re docile enough to stay the hell put. Next time I say I’m handling shit, I want you to part your thighs, smile, and ask me if I want a quick fuck first.”
Ailish’s mouth dropped open on a gasp. No one had ever spoken to her in such a base, sexual manner…and she loved it. Being the key to this giant man’s gratification, to the point he didn’t spare a thought for the world going up in flames around them, sent her on a high so glorious she never wanted to come down. Even though her body was still fully clothed, she felt naked and bathed in blistering sunshine, pressure building between her legs where Henrik’s fingers milked in and out, the heel of his hand beginning to grind on her sensitive nub between drives. “Tell me,” she husked. “Tell me you’re handling—”
“I’m handling shit,” Henrik growled right up against her ear.
She didn’t know whether Henrik spun her around or if she turned to face him in dire need of seeing his face, but when they locked gazes, pockets of lust seemed to explode in the atmosphere, landing on their skin with a sizzle. “If my hands were free right now, I would rip your stupid shirt off,” she breathed, shocking herself. Henrik, too, if his lifted eyebrow was any indication. He sauntered the last remaining step between them, took hold of the T-shirt’s hem and lifted it over his head, giving her an up close view of squeezing abdomen muscles, the sexy, shifting patterns they made beneath his skin.
“Thank y-you.”
“Stop being so goddamn adorable, Ailish.” He twisted both hands in the sides of her shorts and yanked them down to the forest floor, along with her underwear, his gaze devouring the sight of her exposed center. “I said you were getting it mean. Being cute won’t save you.”
Her pulse clamored through her veins, antsy for more touching. More of his hands. His mouth. Anything she could get. When Henrik lifted Ailish’s shirt to expose her breasts, his fingertips grazed the swell of her cleavage, nearly buckling her knees. “More, please. Touch me.”
“I’ll remind you about asking for more”—he tugged her bra down, allowing her breasts to bounce free—“when you’re screaming for me to pull out.”
“I can’t wait that long.”
Looking suddenly agonized, Henrik slapped a hand over her mouth. “Cute.”
She kissed his palm. Then licked it, side to side.
With a low curse, Henrik pulled his hand away, but held it in the air while working the button and zipper of his pants, shoving the garment to his ankles, along with his boxers. Then he took the hand she’d licked and used it to lubricate his erection, watching her as he stroked. Hunger for his taste flared to life in Ailish’s belly, so intense she started to kneel, but Henrik caught her under the arm, hauling her body upright. “Oh no. That mouth might be the only thing in the world that could make me forget how badly I need to fuck you.”
Ailish had no time to prepare for Henrik wrapping an arm around her hips and lifting her body up against his bulk, flattening her breasts against his pecs. Her body moving on instinct to get as close to its pleasure source as possible, Ailish’s legs shot up around his waist, granting her the first experience of his plump arousal slipping through her naked female flesh. “Oh my God,” she whimpered, head falling back on her shoulders. “I need you.”
She felt Henrik’s hand moving beneath her backside, then his erection was being guided back and forth, dragging over her clit, teasing, testing. “You need this, Ailish?” He took a drag of her mouth, pulling her bottom lip away with him before freeing it. “Tell me how I’m going to give it to you.”
“Mean,” she whispered, hyperaware of her bound hands, not being able to touch him when he was so beautiful. Unfair.
“That’s right.” Henrik pushed his hard flesh up against Ailish’s entrance and loosened his grip on her body, allowing her to slide down and take a portion of his arousal. “There you go,” he grated, his breath accelerating. “Take a couple inches and earn the rest.”
Ailish barely heard the command because she was too busy marveling over his thickness, the leashed power between her legs. As if her hips were operating on their own, they flicked back and ground forward, the friction against her clit sending a moan flying past her lips. With his erection lodged inside Ailish, his available hand was free to knead her bottom in a hypnotic rhythm, moving in tandem with her undulations.
“There’s a good little earner.” His palm cracked down on her backside. “Moving like she wants more.”
“Yes. Please.”
Confusion crept in when Henrik covered her mouth with a big hand, but it cleared a second later—everything cleared from her mind—when Henrik seated himself completely inside her with a savage upthrust. Ailish screamed into the meat of his palm, her legs scrambling on either side of Henrik’s waist to climb higher…or climb down. Away. She didn’t know. Only could process the full breadth of him, pushing against her walls, his unrecognizable voice chanting into her hair. So much. Too much. And yet a sense of completion, of rightness, was there in the background, fighting for attention.
“Calm down, Ailish.” Henrik’s voice shook, his body riddled with tension. “Fuck, I knew you were tight, but…did you lie to me? You a virgin?”
She couldn’t speak with his hand covering her mouth, so she simply shook her head. The movement made her nipples slide sideways against his chest, sparking lust in her middle. Against his palm, she moaned, shifting her legs higher. “Feels better.” Her words were muffled. “Ohhh. That feels better.”
Henrik’s jaw looked ready to shatter. “Goddammit, I could break you like this. I have to lay you down somewhere—”
“No.” Ailish shook her head to dislodge his hand, pride making her brave. No way would she be found too weak for this man. In that moment, he was hers and she would satisfy him. “You said mean,” she murmured before going in for the kill, pushing his lips apart with her own and mingling their tongues together. The hand on her bottom tightened with bruising strength as he joined the dance…then started to lead. A broken sound split from his throat a second before he started to devastate Ailish, angling his head and deepening the kiss. She breathed through her nose, refusing to give up his mouth and its perfection. His erection beat inside her, even that subtle pumping of blood creating enough friction to arouse her even further. But it was nothing compared to when Henrik slid out a couple inches and pushed back in. Deeeeep.
“Motherfucker,” he growled. “Stop squeezing me. I already need to come.”
Unaware that she’d been doing anything but kissing him, Ailish focused on where their bodies joined, relieved that the discomfort had subsided. Pleasure replaced it with every passing second, until she was frantic to buck her hips, which she did, ripping a string of curses from Henrik’s mouth. “You feel so good,” she whimpered.
“Me?” With both hands gripping her bottom now, Henrik lifted Ailish to the tip of his erection and slid her back down, baring his teeth when her body prevented him from going any further. He leaned in and pressed their mouths together, not kissing her, just breathing, breathing, as he walked them backward. Over Ailish’s head, Henrik braced one hand on a tree, his hips beginning to move in slow pumps. “I feel good, Ailish?” Their lips were flush when he groaned, so she could feel the sound on her tongue. “Men fight wars over pussy like this.”
If Ailish’s feet weren’t already dangling off the ground, they would have lifted all on their own, carried by the knowledge that she could undo this man. This man who caged such incredible strength, it vibrated beneath his skin with the effort to hold it back. He was thick and demanding between her legs, pushing into her wetness again and again with heavy thrusts, but the rest of him was marble. “You won’t break me,” she said, wrapping her legs more firmly around his waist. “But you’re welcome to try.”
“Stop.” He ground their foreheads together. “Stop talking.”
“N-no.” Behind her back, Ailish jangled her cuffed wrists, turned on by her own boldness. Thrills raced and snapped along her nerve endings, brought on by the illicitness of their position. Captive and captor, yes, but simply also woman and man. Two people who couldn’t stop touching any more than the sun could stop rising. “I’m your prisoner—now what are you going to do with me?”
A shift of intention took place inside Henrik. Ailish could sense it. Where he’d been thrown off by her inexperience in the beginning…she could see the very same thing made him want. Need. His hand slapped down on her backside, the other raking down the tree bark above her head, dislodging wood in its path. Moving on feminine instinct, Ailish arched her back a little more and presented her breasts, an offering Henrik didn’t hesitate to take. His mouth moved greedily from one nipple to the other, leaving dampness in its path. And God, although the sensations wrought by his mouth were tantalizing and perfect, they were nothing compared to the new, hurried slams of his hips. “Do I need to cover your mouth again? Huh?” His question alerted Ailish to the fact that words in some unknown language were being moaned through her lips. “Are you the kind of girl who helps men beat off through the thin walls in apartment buildings? Yeah, I think you would be. The little screamer on the third floor.”
Another brisk sting of Henrik’s palm on her backside had Ailish pressing her lips together to keep from crying out. His drives were coming at a punishing pace now, her teeth being jarred in her head from the force of being bounced high and slammed back down. “Henrik, Henrik, Henrik…”
“Yeah. That’s me. I’d be the big man who gets to fuck the little screamer.” Henrik’s powerful arms banded around her hips, all of his strength now going into riding her body up his unforgiving flesh and grinding her back down. “Lucky man, they’d say. Wouldn’t they, baby? You’d be getting the whole building off, but I’d be the only one who gets this tight prize between your legs.”
“Yes,” she wailed. The desire to touch him rose to a fever pitch at the agony twisting his handsome features. So much pain. All because of her. And that’s what facilitated the quickening at her core. The repeated fullness of Henrik’s thrusts, hitting some undiscovered promised land over and over without cease—slapslapslap—his strangled grunts, the possession in his gaze…those addictive things joined forces to ruin her. The orgasm came on so strong, her body’s fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, her legs moving restlessly around his hips, as if she could run away in midair. Her hands strained for release inside the handcuffs; frustration and lust and sweet agony rose in her throat and left in a scream. She came, she came in such brutal fashion, no air would find her lungs. Henrik chanted words against her mouth and somehow they provided enough focus to suck in air, but the thrusting wouldn’t stop, and neither would her climax. It poured and poured over her like oil from an upturned jug, washing her in heat until she was burning up, on fire. “Oh God, I can’t take it…don’t stop.”
“Fuck, Ailish,” he growled into her ear. “Don’t make me live without this. Feel how you take me, baby? Like a hot glove, three sizes too small?” He moved in a frenzy, a man fighting for his sanity, which would only come with release. “Keep your legs up while I finish. High and tight. Let me get it so goddamn deep, my come seeps out of you for a week.”
His final word was cut off by the shaking of his enormous body, his flesh jerking between her legs one final time before warmth flooded where their bodies joined. Ailish watched through the haze of euphoria as Henrik was brought to his knees—literally. He fell into a kneeling position, Ailish still impaled on his erection. He dragged her up and back on his lap in uneven motions that slowed, slowed, along with the quieting of his bone-rattling growls.
Ailish stared at Henrik’s heaving chest, his sweat-dappled face, and felt like she’d been through a hurricane. She was in a similar state, her shirt a damp, twisted mess around her collarbone, moisture slicking every inch of her legs and stomach. “I don’t want to live without this either,” Ailish blurted, horrified to feel pressure welling behind her eyes, an uncomfortable buildup in her tummy. “Oh no. Oh God,” she panted, still trying to catch her breath. “I’m one of those women who cries after sex. I have a fifth fault now and you seem to be the one bringing them out of me.”
A moment passed where she couldn’t pinpoint Henrik’s expression. It was awe and amusement…but there was dread, too. Like he could see the future and it was so far from inside that forest, he never wanted to leave. No. No, wait, that was her. She wanted to stay right there until someone commanded them to leave. Panic over what was to come in Chicago bubbled up in her middle, spilled over into the perfection they’d created together.
Henrik seemed to sense her worry and cut it off with a long, slow kiss that blurred the edges of her apprehension. His hands slid over her hair, gathered some of it in his fists without tugging, just holding the strands, as if for safekeeping.
When he finally pulled away, the edges of her vision sparkled like firecrackers in the night sky. “Ailish, I’m going to take the cuffs off.” Another thorough kiss that felt like…good-bye? So much that she whimpered into his mouth. “I’ll get you somewhere safe and leave, if that’s what you want. I’m not going to force you back to Chicago, baby. I won’t do it. I won’t see you scared.”
This was it. He was offering her freedom. The one thing she’d always wanted, but it would be without him. Was she brave enough to go back to Chicago and face her demons if it meant being with Henrik when it was all over?
Yes. Yes…she’d always been brave enough. But now she had something to fight for. Something bigger than just her. This unseen force pushing her toward Henrik seemed almost detrimental to ignore. This man saw through her, and saw what she could be. It was there in his eyes when they looked at each other. Connection and understanding, heaped with the crazy lust she’d never thought to experience. And yeah, she’d never felt capable of righting her wrongs—and those of her father—before. But going back to Chicago and aiding the undercover squad, it would give her that power. It would ease the guilt of what she’d done, bookmaking for the mob while saving her sanity by pretending the consequences of calling in debts didn’t exist beyond the desk in her room.
Henrik scrutinized her, holding his breath while waiting for an answer.
“Take off the cuffs,” she murmured.
A heavy beat passed as Henrik reached down and tugged the keys out of his jeans pocket. As he wrapped both arms around her and undid the cuffs blind, he laid kisses on her forehead. Good-bye kisses that made her want to cry again, dammit, so as soon as the metal was no longer encumbering her hands, Ailish threw her arms around Henrik, tight as they would go. He dropped the cuffs to the forest floor and pulled her close, close as Ailish could get without climbing inside his barrel chest.
“I told you I didn’t want to live without this and then you give me the option of leaving?” She pressed her lips to his shoulder. “That’s very rude, you know.”
His body deflated in degrees, but his arms turned to steel. “What should I have said instead?”
This is trust. The weight of the metal cuffs had only been transferred to her heart. She never wanted to be separated from the man holding her so tightly. And she knew—without a single doubt—letting her go would hurt him just as much as leaving would pain her. But he’d do it. Because he wanted her to be happy, more than keeping his job. Or proving himself.
It felt as though the hours spent in interrogation had taken place years ago, but she still recalled the resignation she’d felt. The certainty that she’d be a prisoner soon enough. And yes, there’d been massive relief. She would finally be paying for what she’d done. The guilt would no longer be a daily burden she carted around like a pack mule. She’d been blinded by freedom and forgotten about her past deeds. The ones her father continued to commit. Henrik could give her the chance to banish the guilt, stop the violence, once and for all. And he’d be right beside her while they accomplished it together.
“I would want you to say that we’re a team. And where you go, I go.”
Henrik’s gusty exhale blew back her hair. “I want that to be true. I don’t think you realize…exactly how goddamn much.” He ran open lips up the side of her neck. “But you can’t come with me where I’m going. Your father’s house. Especially now that I know what you went through there.”
She leaned back and met his gaze. “You don’t understand. I need to go with you. Going to prison…that was my chance to make up for my role in so many—” Saying the word “murders” or “beatings” out loud was too much, but Henrik’s eyes told her he understood. “I’ve survived my father before. I can do it again. We can do it together. I’ve been sheltered my entire life and I hated it. Don’t you sideline me, too. Please. Promise me.”
His voice was hollow when he answered. “Promise.”