I wake with a start. My body goes into automatic panic mode and I thrash. It takes me only a moment to realize I’m handcuffed. I blink rapidly, and my entire body hurts, like someone has taken me for a few rounds in the ring. It takes me another moment to gather my bearings and realize I’m at the cabin again—handcuffed to Raide’s bed.
Raide is sitting on a chair at the end of the bed, head in his hands, looking utterly broken.
My heart tears in two.
“All those times,” he says, knowing I’m awake even though he hasn’t looked up. “You were following me, I wasn’t wrong.”
“Raide,” I croak.
He lifts his head and pins me with a glare so intense, I flinch and shut my mouth. “You were fuckin’ playing me.”
“Raide,” I whisper. “It’s my job.”
He laughs bitterly. “Wonder what your boss would think about you being in my bed?”
I close my eyes and turn my head to the side.
“You’re a good player, Grace. You had me good.”
“Raide, that wasn’t pretend.… What we had—”
“Don’t you fuckin’ lie to me,” he spits. “You’ve done enough of that.”
“I’m not lying!” I cry. “You meant— You mean something to me. Raide, I…”
“You what?” he bellows.
“I’m falling in love with you.”
His entire body jerks and his eyes grow wide and almost terrified. “You liar,” he whispers.
“I’m not lying,” I croak. “It wasn’t meant to happen, but … it did.”
He laughs so coldly, my heart skitters. “Yet you were still going to bring me in.”
I swallow back my tears and rasp, “I was doing that for you.”
He laughs again, but there’s absolutely no humor in the broken sound. “For me? Tell me, Grace. How much was I worth?”
I flinch and hurt boils angrily in my belly. “Raide—”
“How much?” he hisses.
“Thirty thousand.”
He lets out a long, pained breath. “So tell me again how you’re doing it for me?”
“You can go in, you can plead your case, and you might get free. If you kill him, Raide, you’ll go away forever.”
“Do you think I give a shit?” he barks.
Tears trickle down my cheeks.
“Don’t you cry, your tears mean nothing to me.”
My body starts to heave and I manage, “Your sister wouldn’t have wanted this for you.”
“Don’t you dare”—he bellows, leaping up and sending the chair launching across the room.—“talk to me about my sister! Don’t you ever, fuckin’ ever, talk about her. You know nothing about her. You know nothing about me.”
“I know you’re wanted for a crime you didn’t commit!” I yell. “I know you’re a good man.”
“Yet you’re still willing to put a big fuckin’ knife in my back.”
I choke on my breath and close my eyes again. “I wasn’t meant to care about you.”
He says nothing.
I let my eyes open and see he’s staring down at me. The murderous expression on his face is killing me.
“You say I used you,” he whispers so low, it’s frightening. “I didn’t do fuck-all. You used me. Now I am going to use you, and I’m going to leave you with the fuckin’ emptiness you’ve left me with.”
Oh God. “Please,” I whisper. “I can help you.”
“There ain’t nothin’ I want from you.”
“Raide, please.”
He leans over me, bringing his lips down until they’re millimeters off my lips. “Did any of it mean a damned thing to you?”
“Of course it did,” I whisper, trembling. “It all meant something to me.”
“Beautiful fuckin’ liar.”
Then he presses his lips to mine. His kiss isn’t gentle, it’s rough and it’s punishing, but I want it. I want it so badly, it burns. I kiss him back, hard and deep, tongues tangling, teeth clashing. He moves his body over mine, and his lips crush mine as he uses his hands to pull my shorts down. I don’t stop him. I don’t want to stop him. He has me naked in a matter of seconds, and then he’s between my legs, hands fisting in my hair.
“You left me with a fuckin’ hole—” He thumps his chest over his heart. “—right here.”
God.
“You fuckin’ broke me.”
No.
“’Cause I was fallin’ in love with you, you selfish, coldhearted woman.”
No.
He slides inside me and I cry out, muffled and broken. His fingers move down my face as he starts pumping his cock in and out of me—not hard, not soft, just so damned deep. He trails his finger over my bottom lip, and I whimper, wanting to taste him, wanting to hold him, wanting to tell him I’m so sorry. He rocks his hips, causing my whimpers to become desperate moans as I feel pressure building deep inside my body.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Your words mean nothing to me,” he growls into my ear. “You mean nothing to me. I’m going to break you to pieces, then I’m going to walk out, Grace. I’m going to leave you with the same pain I’m feeling right now.”
“Please,” I sob.
“You want me to stop?” he growls.
I know he will. I know that. Raide won’t hurt me, no matter how angry he is. But no matter what, some desperate part of me doesn’t want him to stop. I need him. I want him. No matter how pathetic that might seem right now. “No,” I croak.
Tears are streaming down my face, and his eyes follow them down my cheek. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”
“Please.”
“Please what?” he hisses. “Please fucking what?”
He thinks I’m begging him to let me go, but that’s not what I want. What I need from Raide is to know that he doesn’t hate me. I couldn’t bear it if he hated me.
“Please don’t hate me.”
He doesn’t say anything, he just crushes his lips back over mine. I wrap my legs around him and I close my eyes, feeling him, loving every single second that he’s inside me. I come with a pained, ragged cry, and less than a minute later, he releases an equally pained grunt. Then his weight is gone and desperation fills my chest. I open my eyes and cry out his name.
He’s pulling his jeans up, and when he hears my pathetic plea, he stares at me.
“Raide, please.”
God, his eyes. So broken. So haunted. “It’s too late, Grace,” he says in a cracked rasp.
“Too late for what?” I wail.
“To ask me not to hate you,” he whispers, then lifts his bag and walks to the door. “I already do.”
Then he comes back to throw a blanket over me, steps out, and leaves me.
And everything inside me breaks, too, and I scream.