Dirty Twisted Love (4 page)

C
lay forced
his hand from Harley’s throat and stumbled away from the bed, his arms shaking at his sides.

What the fuck?

What the fuck had he almost done?

He’d brought Harley here to force her to tell him where Jasper was and facilitate the handoff between whoever had the boy and Clay’s people. This wasn’t about hurting her—at least not any more than he had to—let alone killing her.

But hearing the self-righteous note in her voice and seeing her cry as if
she
were the one who deserved pity and compassion, he’d just…lost it.

She was still breathing—she was unconscious, but he could see her chest rising and falling—but if he had kept his hand at her throat for another minute, maybe two…

However long he’d had left before he strangled a woman to death with his bare hands, it had been too fucking close. He never should have let himself lose control. He had to get out of here, away from her, and pull his shit together. As much as he hated to admit it, she was right—if he stooped to her level, he would be no better than she was.

Grabbing his hat off the dining table in the corner, he pushed through the screen door and out into the increasingly hot morning. Shoving the hat on his head—no need to make it easy for any drones cruising the area to see his face; he would have his ass handed to him if his superiors learned he was here without permission—he headed for the trees behind the officer bungalows.

Once he was in the shade, concealed by the thick leaves of the rainforest that covered most of this island, he braced his hands against a thick, softly peeling trunk and dropped his head. He closed his eyes but opened them again almost immediately. When he closed his eyes, all he saw was Harley’s tear-stained face and the way the veins had stood out on her forehead just before she’d lost consciousness.

He had killed before—in combat and in more shadowy ways in his work for the CIA—but those people had been strangers. Strangers who had signed up to fight for an opposing military force, or who had a dossier of crimes a mile long. He had never killed someone he knew personally, let alone someone he’d fucked so many times he could still remember the little sounds she made when she was about to go over, her pussy squeezing his cock until he thought he’d die from how right it felt to be inside of her.

You didn’t fuck her; you made love to her.

You made love to her and asked her to marry you, and if that truck hadn’t come out of nowhere, she would have been your wife.

Clay pulled in a deep breath and let it out through clenched teeth, hating how wild he still felt. He couldn’t dwell on the way things had been with Harley—how she could make him laugh until his stomach cramped, or the way her smell had swirled around him as they moved together, making love all night with the windows open and the sea breeze blowing across their sweat-slick skin.

She still smelled the same. Even with the sour scent of sweat and fear rising from her body, he could catch the notes of citrus, sea salt, and eternal summer lingering in her hair. For a moment, when he’d been holding the glass for her to drink and the breeze had blown through the window, the smell of her had tugged at something low in his body.

He hadn’t gotten hard, but he’d definitely gotten thicker. And that was enough to scare the shit out of him.

He couldn’t believe she still had the power to make him respond. After all he’d been through, after all the pain and rage and having six years with his son stolen away from him, he should be immune. But he wasn’t. He still wanted her as much as he hated her. He could still look at her long legs and imagine them wrapped around him while he sank into her softness.

But it would be different now. Now, he wouldn’t make love to her. Now, he would get off on taking something she didn’t care to give, from taking what he wanted and not giving a shit if it brought her pain.

In fact, pain would be good. He wanted her to hurt.

He had never touched a woman in anger and until this moment the thought of taking a woman against her will had sickened him. Rape was for useless, pathetic bullies who needed to violate weaker people in order to feel powerful. But the thought of Harley beneath him, tears streaming down her cheeks as he fucked her hard enough to make her breasts bounce wildly on her chest didn’t repulse him. It made his balls tighten and heat spread through his pelvis.

Before he could push the sickening mental image from his mind he was rock hard, his cock straining the khaki shorts he’d changed into on the ferry.

With a groan, Clay turned and leaned back against the tree, staring up at the tiny black birds dancing through the canopy. He tried to clear his mind of the twisted shit—to think of how physically exhausted he was after almost twenty-four hours without sleep or how many things could go wrong before he had Jasper in a plane with him headed back to Maryland—but his thoughts were a pit bull straining against a leash.

They kept coming back to Harley, to her smell and her arms bound to the headboard and how much he wanted to rip the filmy white shirt she was wearing in two and get his mouth on her tits.

Fuck.
Now he was even harder, his balls aching and his swollen shaft desperate for relief.

With a soft curse, he loosened the drawstring on his shorts and reached inside. He took himself in hand, wrapping his fingers around his feverish cock and squeezing. He let his eyes slide closed as he began to work himself up and down, using the pre-come welling at his tip for lubrication. He had to get off—preferably to something other than the ugliness swirling through his head—and get his focus back in the right place.

Head falling back against the tree, he thought of Adeleh, the Persian woman he’d lived with for a few months in the Gostan Valley. Adeleh was one of the loveliest women he’d ever seen, a beauty with full breasts that overflowed his hands, plush, rounded hips, and dark eyes so sexy just a glance across a darkened room was almost enough to make him come. She was the opposite of Harley: dark to her light, curvy to Harley’s boyish figure, and as kind and generous as Harley was intense and demanding.

Fucking Adeleh had been nothing but a pleasure, a way to ease the loneliness he felt being stationed in a foreign country and for her to begin to overcome her grief over losing her husband. Love had never been in the cards—his heart was a wasteland and hers too broken to allow that depth of emotion—but they’d had passion in spades.

As Clay’s hand moved faster, he thought of their last night together, the way Adeleh had straddled him, positioning his cock at her entrance and slowly lowering her hips until he was encased in her heat. He remembered the way her long black hair had formed a curtain around their faces as she leaned down to kiss him and the feel of her breasts heavy in his hands, seeming to grow even heavier as he squeezed and rolled her nipples. He remembered the way her breath had rushed out across his lips as she moved faster, riding his cock with her hands braced on his chest.

He was thrusting into his hand, imagining that it was Adeleh’s slick body, when the images flickering behind his closed lids shifted. Suddenly it wasn’t black hair spilling around him, but silken brown curls.

Adeleh’s solid weight vanished, replaced by Harley’s lighter frame.

“You know this is what you want,” Harley said, the muscles in her arms flexing as she gripped the headboard above him. “You want to be so deep inside of me I’ll feel you for days.”

“Shut your mouth.” He rolled them over, taking control with a sharp thrust into her heat, drawing a moan from low in her throat as the head of his cock butted against the end of her channel.

Fuck, she felt so good, so tight and wet, her inner walls fitting around him like a glove.

“I don’t want to shut my mouth.” She locked her ankles behind his back and clenched her thigh muscles, pulling him impossibly deeper. “You know I like to talk.”

“I’m not in the mood to listen,” he snapped, grabbing her legs behind the knees and forcing them up and out, until she was spread wide, completely vulnerable to him as he withdrew and slammed his cock back inside her, sending pain flickering across her features. “So keep quiet. Or I’ll find something to shut you up.”

“God, Clay.” Harley arched beneath him, grimacing as he fucked her so hard the flesh of her thighs rippled as he drove home again and again, the tension in his body building until the base of his spine burned and every nerve in his body was crackling with electricity. “Yes. Fuck me. Use me. Hurt me.”

With a growl of frustration he pulled out and flipped her over onto her stomach, roughly kneeing her thighs apart before shoving into her from behind. As soon as he was back inside her tight cunt, he wrapped his hand around her neck, covering her mouth as he brought his lips to her ear.

“You don’t speak,” he whispered, his free arm banding around her waist, holding her captive as he thrust into her, hard and deep. “You don’t deserve a voice.”

She moaned, her breath warm on his hand as she spread her thighs wider. Clenching his jaw, Clay accepted the silent invitation. He rode her hard, pounding into her until she whimpered and his balls ached from slamming into her pussy at the end of each thrust. But he didn’t pull back; he held her tighter and fucked her harder.

Harder, harder, until she screamed into his hand.

She screamed and bucked beneath him, her cunt clutching at his dick, coating him with a gush of slickness as she tumbled over. He joined her with a guttural sound, his cock jerking as he came so hard his chest felt like it was turning inside out.

Clay opened his eyes to see his cock thrusting through his own fist, the thick length pulsing as his come splashed out to coat the leaves at his feet. He bit his lip, fighting to stay silent as he jerked and pulsed, riding out the last waves of the best orgasm he’d had in years.

In
years
.

Fantasizing about fucking Harley had gotten him off harder than being with a beautiful, sweet woman who he considered a real friend, the kind he would drop everything and fly back to Iran to help if she were ever in trouble. He hadn’t raped Harley in his fantasy, but he wasn’t messed up enough to consider that a victory. At least not yet.

No, he wasn’t a monster, but if he stayed on this island alone with Harley Mason long enough, he would become one.

The real Harley hated him for trying to take her son away. She wouldn’t give consent, let alone spread her legs and silently ask for more. If he gave in to his twisted longing for her, she would fight him. And then he would find out if he was the kind of man who would take a woman against her will.

He swallowed hard as he tucked himself back into his boxer briefs. He didn’t want to find out if that kind of evil lived inside of him. He didn’t want to be that man and he refused to let Harley bring more misery into his life.

Which meant he had to get what he needed from her and get rid of her as quickly as possible, no lingering on this island, no taking his time coaxing the truth from her.

As much as he hated to bargain with the devil, it might be best to make a deal. Better to offer her a reward in exchange for her cooperation than to spend a month or more here alone with her, slowly losing his mind from a mix of wanting and hating.

A plan forming, Clay made his way through the forest to a hidden beach surrounded by thick foliage where he stripped to the skin and dove into the cool waves.

As his body sank below the surface and the ocean swept by overhead, Clay let the salt water wash away the evidence of his release, wishing the sea could wash away his sick longing for Harley as easily.

H
arley woke up in a rush
, her heart pounding and her body electrified by fear. Her eyes flew open, blinking fast as an unfamiliar ceiling and ceiling fan swam into view. She swallowed hard, wincing at the aching in her throat, wondering what had awoken her and why she was so terrified.

As the bruised flesh around her windpipe contracted, it all came rushing back.

Clay.

His hand at her throat.

The world going black and the certainty that she was about to die.

To die without seeing Jasper again, without being able to tell him she loved him, or without having the chance to write that letter she’d always meant to write: the one that thanked him for transforming her heart and giving her the most beautiful years of her life. She’d started the letter a hundred times, but it seemed dangerous to write words meant only to be read if she died before her son was old enough to have the conversation in person. It was like writing a will. She’d never done that either, not wanting to tempt fate by preparing for the worst.

It was magical thinking at its worst and she suddenly wished she’d put it in writing that she wanted Hannah to take Jasper, on the off chance that Dominic decided not to honor her wishes or if he were intercepted by her father before he could reach Hannah in Samoa. If she got out of here alive, the first thing on the agenda was finding Jasper and finding a place to hide. The second would be getting a will drawn up and arrangements made to protect Jasper from the madman his biological father had become.

Her head rolled to one side and then the other, searching for signs of life, relaxing only slightly when she saw that she was alone.

Clay wasn’t here, but he would be back, she had no doubt about that. And when he returned he might decide to finish the job he’d started. She had to think and think fast. It didn’t matter that a part of her would always be in love with the man she’d known; Clay wasn’t that person anymore. He was her enemy and had to be treated as such.

In the old days, that would have meant total destruction, annihilation from the inside out, and maybe a few bombs planted in his everyday life for him to stumble across later. Now, it meant running as far and as fast as she was able and being prepared to hide so well Clay would never find her again.

But she wasn’t going anywhere as long as she was tied to this bed.

First things first. Even in times like these, it was important to attack obstacles one at a time.

Flexing her arms, she pulled herself as close to upright as she could get with her hands bound to the top of the headboard. The bed was constructed of cheap-looking wood, but it was strong enough that she wouldn’t have a chance of breaking the slat she was secured to with muscle power alone. But Clay hadn’t bound her feet. If she could find something to use to cut through the rope, she might be able to drag the twin bed across the room to reach it.

She let her eyes sweep the small space. To her left were a large window and a screen door leading outside. In the corner was a table for two, and directly in front of the bed sat a large bureau that took up most of the wall. In the opposite corner was a closed door she suspected led to the bathroom and to her right a small couch. Behind it was a kitchenette with two cabinets up top, an electric range, and a sink all crammed together.

It was a tiny efficiency situation, but meals were clearly intended to be cooked there. And where meals were prepared there would be silverware—and most importantly for her, knives.

She let her tongue slip out to dampen her lips, deciding if she were caught in the middle of her escape attempt, she could tell Clay that she was just trying to make it to the bathroom. She should have to go by now. It was only dehydration that was preventing her from being in serious discomfort.

Glancing back toward the door, making sure there was still no sign of Clay, she scooted to the edge of the bed and twisted to the left, sliding her feet onto the floor. Her knees trembled, unsteady after so many hours of disuse, but after a moment her bones found their centers and her bare feet adjusted to the cool temperature of the tile. She didn’t know where her sandals had gone, but she didn’t need shoes to escape. She’d spent half her life on the island barefoot anyway. All she needed was to get her arms free and get out of this cottage. From there she would find a way to get to help.

Strengthened by the thought, she gave an experimental tug, heart lifting when the bed slid toward her. It wasn’t secured to the floor. It was heavy, but it wasn’t far to the kitchen and there was only the small couch in her way. She would be able to make it across the room in a few minutes.

She leaned over, taking a long drink of the water by the bed, wincing as her throat muscles protested the work she was forcing them to do. But she was still dying of thirst and as soon as she was free, she wanted to be ready to run.

After her drink, she tugged the bed away from the wall and around the bedside table. A few minutes later she had dragged it past the couch and into the tiny kitchen. She stopped a few feet from the drawers, heart racing as she reached out with one bare foot and gripped the drawer pull with her toes. She fumbled the first time, but the second time she managed to slide the drawer open and was rewarded with the rattle of silverware inside.

Biting back a cry of celebration, she pulled the bed frame closer to the open drawer. She glanced down, spirits sinking when she saw only a few rusted forks, spoons, and butter knives, and one dented steak knife that looked like it had seen sharper days. But it was all she had and thankfully the rope Clay had used looked like it would be easy to cut. It was soft, silky rope, not anything course or covered with a protective coating.

She bent low, straining against her bonds as she reached for the knife with her mouth. It took a few tries and she banged her forehead on the counter once when she dropped the knife halfway to standing, but finally she had the wooden handle of the steak knife between her teeth.

Glancing back toward the door, silently thanking whatever force was keeping Clay away from the cottage, she crawled back onto the mattress on her knees, facing her hands. The rope was twisted now that she’d reversed her position—her right wrist pinned beneath her left and the rope cutting deeper into her flesh—but she could reach her left wrist easily. All she had to do was get through the rope and she would be able to free her other hand.

Using her tongue to flip the knife over, she positioned the blade and clenched her jaw, teeth digging into the handle as she bent over, bringing the blade to the rope. She sawed back and forth with short, sharp jerks of her head. Almost immediately, she was rewarded with frayed, fuzzy strands of white fluffing around her mouth.

She got through most of the first loop and moved on to the second, hoping that if she hacked far enough through all three lengths of rope she would be able to squirm her hand free without risking cutting herself with the rusty knife. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a tetanus shot and it might be a long time before she was able to get to a doctor.

She didn’t even know if she was still on Ko Tao. She’d been unconscious for at least one night, maybe more. Clay could have taken her all the way to Bangkok in that amount of time, but judging by the smell of the breeze rushing in from outside, she would bet she was still on the islands.

But it might be a different island, one without a large local population and no medical clinic. Still, there had to be a way back to civilization. Clay had brought her here somehow. With a little luck, she would be able to use that same method to get herself out. She could hotwire a car, drive a boat, and fly a plane. She was uniquely equipped to survive something like this, a fact she kept repeating to herself as she hacked through the second length of rope and started on the third.

Whatever knot Clay had used, it was elaborate. Each length of rope encircled her wrist separately and was secured before being joined to a more intricate knot between her wrists. She was halfway through the third rope and already planning her dash to the front door when she heard footsteps on the gravel path outside.

For a panicked second, she froze before clenching her teeth and sawing more frantically. She cut through the last rope and into her skin, leaving a deep gash that immediately began to fill with red. But if she could get out of here before Clay got inside it would be worth risking a case of lockjaw.

Grabbing the knife in her now free hand, ignoring the blood running down her arm, she quickly sawed her way through the ropes binding her right wrist. By the time she saw a flash of movement outside the screen door, she was already running for the bathroom, praying there was a window she could crawl out of.

“Harley!” Clay’s shout came from behind her. “Stop!”

Yeah right.

How about I run like hell instead?