I growled as I squeezed my cock through my pants. It’d be so easy, but then, I wasn’t that man. Fuck, I’d never been that man, and I sure as fuck wasn’t going to start now.
But shit did I want her. Badly. There was something so fucking innocent about her that made my cock pulse rock hard between my muscled thighs. There was something so sweet about her that I’d almost forgot about — a pureness I’d forgotten existed in the world.
My hand reached out for her, my jaw clenching tight, my fingers stopping just shy of running over her skin and touching that sweet little body.
Nyet. No, not like that.
I’d rescued her, and I’d brought her here to my lodge. But no one could know I was there. If, when I sent her on her way, she made mention of “the Russian guy with the tattoos up Blackthorn Mountain,” word would get out, and word would get to Boris.
…I couldn’t have that.
I’d patch her up and treat her injuries. But after that, she’d stay. After that, she’d never leave. After that, she’d be mine.
And then, I’d have all of her, and claim her as mine.
My cock throbbed as I looked down at my gorgeous, sleeping prisoner. My tantalizing, tempting captive.
My angel.
3
Chloe
My eyes shot open, and I blinked.
What happened?
Above me, sunlight gleamed through a glass skylight set into the huge wooden rafters of the ceiling. I blinked again, feeling a pounding in my head and a not-so-pleasant heat tingling on my skin. I tried to sit up, but I winced at the shooting pain in my left arm, glancing down to see it was wrapped in bandages. I groaned, sinking my head back onto pillows,
Where the hell was I?
“You’ll feel better if you stop trying to move.”
I gasped, my head whirling to the side despite the throbbing pain, and my eyes going wide.
He was sitting in a big chair across the large, rustic but elegant room. Him. In a flash, I remembered the last moments before I’d blacked out — this man, running towards me through the flames and throwing me over his shoulder, and I shivered.
The man was gorgeous — haunting, piercing blue eyes, dark hair, and a chiseled jaw covered in dark scruff. I swallowed, realizing he was shirtless — his grooved, defined muscles covered in gorgeous tattoos. I blinked, my gaze dropping and realizing he was pushing a needle and thread through a wound on his arm.
“Where…” My voice broke, my throat hoarse and dry. The man studied me for a second before he brought his arm up, ripped the thread off with his teeth, and stood. He moved towards me, and I gasped at the fierceness in his eyes, pushing away from him until my back hit the headboard of the huge bed.
“Drink.”
There was an accent to his deep, haunting, baritone voice — something eastern European, Russian or something. His eyes burned hotly into me as he handed me a glass of what looked like water from the bedside table.
I narrowed my eyes at it and then him suspiciously.
“If I wanted to do that, do you think I’d wait until you woke up to drug you?”
I swallowed, blushing at his words like he’d read my mind. I chewed on my lip, and I started to reach for the water when I was suddenly very aware that the only thing I had on was a pair of panties.
“Why the hell am I naked!?”
He looked at me with almost an amused look on his face. “Because your clothes were on fire. I’ll be sure to let you burn next time. And you’re not naked.” A small, hungry smile crept across his jaw. “I left your panties on.”
I blushed fiercely, the fact sinking in that he’d been the one to take my clothes off and see me in nothing but my underwear burning through me.
“You took my clothes off.”
He raised a brow, like he was amused that I was so flustered by this.
“Not all of them,” he purred, turning and moving towards the door. “Yet.”
The last word hit me in a sizzling little tease through my body as he tossed it over his bare shoulder, stepping from the room.
I shook my head, studying and then taking a big gulp of the water he’d given me. Something sparked inside of me at the way he’d said it, like this little teasing promise that burned something fierce inside of me.
I scowled at myself. What was I, blushing at the way this complete stranger who’d taken my clothes off was half flirting with me? Was I that starved for male attention?
Slowly, I stood, gathering up the comforter off the big bed and wrapping it around myself.
“Can I have my clothes back?” I yelled out the bedroom door.
“Nope.”
I shivered, hugging the comforter tighter and shuffling towards the door. I gasped as I stepped through it, taken aback at how big the place was. I was in some sort of huge, cathedral-ceilinged lodge — bit wooden beams stretching across the ceiling joists, a huge stone fireplace, and enormous windows taking up one whole wall that looked out over the ridge-line of the mountains. The place was breathtaking, like something out of an Eddie Bauer or LL Bean photoshoot.
My insanely good-looking rescuer was sitting leaning against a big wooden dining room table, grimacing as he wrapped a bandage around the wound he’d been sewing up when I woke. Suddenly, I felt like an asshole for waking and just accusing him of things, without even thanking him for having saved my life.
I blushed, looking at the floor.
“Thank you,” I said quietly. “For, you know, for saving me back there.”
I looked up to see him looking at me with this burning intensity, his eyes flashing fire as they locked onto me. The heat in his beautiful blue eyes crossed the divide between us, and it felt as though he was looking right through the comforter wrapped around me. I shivered, a very inappropriate spark teasing it’s way through my body.
“You’re welcome,” he growled in that same accented voice.
“Can I please have my clothes back now?”
He grinned as he shook his head, his gorgeous eyes locked right on me.
My brow furrowed. “Excuse me?”
“No, you can’t. Because they literally burned off of you.”
I pursed my lips. “Okay, well can I have something to wear? I can’t exactly walk out of here in just a bed-sheet—”
“You’re not walking out of here.”
I froze, my eyes snapping to his.
“Excuse me?”
The man sighed, his muscles rippling as he stepped away from the counter, moving towards me. I swallowed, backing away until my back hit the wall behind me.
“I said you’re not walking out of here, beautiful,” he growled, slinking towards me like some sort of jungle cat. “I brought you here because you would have died otherwise, but...” He slowly shook his head. “I can’t allow you to leave here.”
My jaw dropped as I started at him. “You can’t just keep me here!”
“Watch me.”
He grinned at me again, sending a flicker of wicked heat through my body as I hugged the comforter closer.
“I’ll scream,” I hissed.
“Be my guest. No one’s going to hear you.”
He shrugged, still grinning at me as he turned and started to head back to the table. My eyes darted around the room wildly, landing on the iron fire poker laying against the big stone fireplace. I lunged, my bare feet slipping on the wide-board wooden floor as I scrambled for the weapon. I turned, letting out some sort of battle cry as I brandished it at him.
“Alright, asshole, I’m—”
I gasped as a corner of the comforter caught on something behind me and slipped from my body as I lunged for my captor. He whirled, his eyes suddenly going from furious to downright hungry as they dragged over my near-naked body.
I shrieked, forgetting my attack, dropping the fire poker and lunging for my blanket.
But he was faster. I screamed as big, powerful bare arms caught me from behind. He wrapped his muscled arms around me, lifting me easily as I bicyc
le kicked at the air and tried to squirm out of his grip.
“Let go of me!”
I shrieked again, my heart racing and jumping into my throat as he marched us right back into the big bedroom and tossed me down across the huge bed. I whirled, kicking back away from him as he stood over me, his eyes burning into mine and his muscles rippling.
“What—” I swallowed, panting heavily. “What are you going to do to me?” I whispered, my voice breaking.
“I’m going to treat your wounds, if you stop trying to fucking hit me with things,” he growled. “Now take your fucking panties off.”
My eyes went wide, and I stiffened.
“What?”
“Take. Your. Fucking. Panties. Off,” he growled again, over-pronouncing each word like maybe I’d somehow not heard him the first time.
I shook my head back and forth, pushing away from him. “No.”
“Yes,” he muttered, sighing. “You’re bleeding, and I need to take care of that.”
He nodded at my hip, and I glanced down, realizing he was right. A cut across my hip, half hidden behind the waist of my panties that I hadn’t noticed or felt before was starting to bleed.
“So, princess, either take them off, or I’m going to tear them off. Understand?”
The raw, masculine roughness in his voice sent a shiver through me, as horribly inappropriate as I knew the feeling was. But I couldn’t help it. I’d never been around a man like this — one that just oozed masculinity and power. He was like some sort of gorgeous caveman or something — this brusque, rough, captivating stranger.
“Are you a doctor?”
I felt silly saying it the moment it left my lips.
“No.” He said it without even blinking, reaching over to a medical kit on the bedside table and pulling out bandages and a pair of scissors. “But I know what I’m doing. So, pretty please,” he growled, looking at me sarcastically but with this hint of barely contained heat behind it.
“Take those little panties off before I do.” He grinned. “Unless you’d prefer I do it.”
I blushed fiercely, swallowing as I eyed him heatedly. Suddenly, I made a break for it, lunging from the bed and darting for the door. But he was fast, jumping back and blocking my path. I veered, darting into the corner of the room and whirling towards him with the lamp from the side table brandished in my hand.
“Don’t you come near me,” I hissed.
The man grinned, not even making an attempt to stop as he slowly moved towards me. “Trust me, beautiful. Nothing will stop me from coming for you.”
4
I liked the sass, and the way she fought back. I liked a woman who could fight — one with fire in her veins. And this one was one that burned fiercely.
I growled, watching her try and threaten me with a damn lamp shade. Truth be told, I actually looked past that though, at her sweet, tempting, practically naked body, shivering under my gaze. She had one arm wrapped across her cute little tits, but I let my eyes burn into her, like I was tasting every inch of that skin with my gaze.
I looked lower, growling at the way her little white cotton panties hugged the lips of her pussy so fucking exquisitely. My cock lurched in my pants, my balls swelling with cum, and the beast inside of me roaring to break free. I wanted her. I wanted to smash that lamp aside, pin her to the wall, shove those panties to her knees and fuck her until he begged me for more. I wanted to feel her slick little cunt dripping her honey down my balls as she came for me.
Something in me snapped, and I moved with a quickness she never saw coming. She gasped as I lunged for her, knocking the lamp away and letting it smash into the corner of the room before I slammed into her. She screamed as I pinned her little body to the wall, my hands slamming her wrists back. She writhed against me, trying to push me away with her body but really only making my cock all the harder for her.
She twisted, trying to get her knee up between my legs, but I shoved her back, slamming her into the wall with my body as we both winced from our wounds.
“Enough!” I growled fiercely. She slashed out, making me hiss as one of her nails slashed along my neck.
Goddamnit.
She shrieked as I snatched her up, my strong arms wrapped around her thighs so she couldn’t fucking kick me. I ignored her fists raining down on my back as I turned, strode for the bed and then tossed her across it again.
“Enough!” I bellowed again, making her gasp and go still. I glared down art her, matching her wild look with my own fierce one.
“I am trying to help you, princess,” I growled.
“Oh really?” she snapped. “You just told me I was your prisoner.”
“I said you couldn’t leave.”
She barked out a laugh, her hands still trying to cover her tempting, naked body.
“Right, so, prisoner.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Not really,” she spat back.
Fuck, I liked that fight in her. It made my blood run hot like fire, and my my cock ache to tame and claim her. I let my eyes drag over her, my jaw tightening as I really took in how fucking beautiful she was. That wild, fierce look in her eyes. The way her body coiled like she might spring at me again. The softness of her sweet, plump lips and the swell of her breasts under her crossed arms. Her smooth skin, the curve of her hips, and those long, lean legs, with my prize nestled tight between them.
I groaned, wondering if her little peach tasted as sweet as it looked with those little panties hugging it so tightly.
“I know what you are, you know,” she whispered, glaring back at me, her face flushing red. “I know what Russian gang tattoos look like.”
“You watch a too many movies, princess.”
Fuck. She’d just confirmed everything I was worried about. Letting her leave here meant word would get out of the “Russian guy with the Russian mob tattoos living up on Blackthorn.” Boris would be kicking in my front door in less than a day once he heard.
I paused, my blood blazing hot through my body. The killer in me knew I should just bury her. The calculating, cold-hearted hitman in me knew the score, and I knew what I should be doing with her.
…But then, everything about this little angel made want to do everything I shouldn’t be doing with her. And no fucking way was I going to do that.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
I shook my head. “Best if you don’t know.”
“Fine,” she sassed back. “Then you can’t know my name either.”
“It’s Chloe.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“I looked through your wallet.”
I moved towards her.
“You’ve got something in the cut — a piece of wood or something. It’s going to keep bleeding, and it’s going to get fucking infected. So, I’m going to clean it out, get the piece of wood out of you, and patch you up.”
“You’re not going to touch—”
I gave her a sharp look a I moved towards her, and her mouth snapped shut.
“And then are we going to have a discussion about me leaving here?”
“No, we aren’t.”
She swallowed.
“Because you’re staying here.”
“Fine,” she muttered.
“Fine?”
“Fine you can clean the cut.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “Oh, can I?”
She shifted, and then grimaced as the waist of her panties rubbed against the cut in her hip.
“Take them off. I’ll get the bath going.”
“I can run my own bath.”
“Are you always this fucking difficult when people are trying to help you?”
“Do you always capture girls in the woods and lock them up in your house?”
I almost mentioned how I could have just let her die, but I didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to even say those words about her. My gaze drank her in, my head spinning and trying to make sense of the emotions running through me. This wasn’t just lust
, though I wanted her more than I’d ever craved any woman. There was something about that raw heat and that fire inside of her that sucked me into her — something that made me not just want to posses her, but to protect her as well, from everything.
“Stay put,” I growled. “The door to the place is locked anyways, but if you run, I will catch up to you. That’s a promise.”
She glared at me for a second, but then her look softened.
“Thank you, for helping me.”
I nodded before I stepped through the door into the large master bath attached to my bedroom. The huge porcelain tub sat into an alcove in the wall, surrounded on three sides by a cedar plank sitting bench and large windows that looked out over the mountains. Yeah, the blood money I’d made working for the mob had afforded me quite a nice place to escape to.
I ran the water, adding in the oils and herbs from local plants that I knew would help soothe the burns and ease her pain from that cut. When I was done I stepped back into the bedroom, half expecting to find her gone. But, there she was, wrapped back up in a bed sheet.
Shit, a man could get used to seeing her like that, curled up naked in my bed. My cock ached at the thought of joining her — of sliding under those sheets next to her, spreading her legs wide, and running my lips over every inch of her.
I bit back the growl, held my hand out, and beckoned. “Come.”
Chloe looked at me for a second, chewing on her lip and eyeing me suspiciously before she slowly nodded.
“Okay.”
She slid off the bed, still trying to cover her tits as she dropped the comforter. Fuck her little body made my cock throb so fucking hard.
“Panties,” I growled, raising a brow at them. “Off. Now.”
“They’re staying on,” she said, her breath catching as she saw the hunger in my eyes.