The room fills with her moans and the rough slap of skin, the sound turning the air thick around us. I’m thrusting inside her ass like a beast unleashed, my own brain betraying me again.
I promised myself I wouldn’t touch her until the right moment. Promised I’d wait until it meant something worse. But the feel of her ass around my cock drags me straight into madness, hot and tight enough that instinct takes over completely.
One final thrust and I empty inside her, pulse after pulse, while Cain drives up into her at the same time and spills into her cunt. For one filthy second, she belongs to the mess we made of her.
I ease back from them, giving them room to drown in the last wave of pleasure. Letting them have one brief second to enjoy the orgasm still shaking through their bodies before reality closes its hand around their throats again.
Then I hear it—the faint scrape of weight shifting behind me, careful and measured in the way desperate men try to disguise fear as courage.
I turn just as Cain moves. The chair comes at me hard, swung with both hands and every ounce of strength he has left. It lands clean across the side of my head as pain cracks bright through my skull, splitting warmth down my temple and making my jaw tighten for one sharp second.
I raise a hand a second too late, making the reaction look real before I let the impact take me down exactly the way he needs. My body crashes onto the floor, heavy and useless, the chair clattering beside me like punctuation to his little act of heroism.
I stay there, breathing shallowly, limbs limp, blood spreading warm across my skin. And while their attention stays locked on the body at their feet, I give them exactly what they want most—a lie they’re desperate enough to believe.
Chapter 19
Cain
I watch him sprawled across the ground, body twisted where it fell, blood creeping along the edge of the balaclava, and for one useless second, my brain refuses to catch up with what I’m seeing.
Then, it does.
Now!
I move fast, dragging my jeans up my legs with shaking hands, barely managing the zip before I lunge for the silk robe abandoned on the lounger beside the pool. I throw it at Sierra, and it hits her chest before sliding into her hands.
“Put it on. Right now.” The words leave me sharp and rushed, tension bleeding through every syllable. “Come on, Sierra.”
She doesn’t move. She stands there trembling, soaked skin shining under the low lights, staring at the man on the floor asif something about him has hooked into her mind and won’t let go. Her breathing is still ragged, chest rising and falling too fast, eyes wide and fixed on him with something tangled between fear and curiosity.
“Wait,” she whispers, almost to herself.
My jaw tightens as she takes two small steps toward him, the robe hanging loose in one hand while the other lifts slowly, fingers already reaching for the balaclava.
Of course she does. Even terrified, even visibly shaken, she still wants answers badly enough to walk straight into danger for them.
“Not now.” I catch her wrist and pull her back abruptly, her body colliding with mine in a shaky gasp while violent tremors keep running through her. “We don’t have time for this,” I snap, lowering my voice when I see her flinch. I lean closer, making it sound like warning instead of anger. “I don’t know how long before he wakes up, so you need to get dressed and move.”
Her hands fumble with the robe, missing the sleeve once, then again, fingers useless from shock. I swear under my breath and yank it around her shoulders myself, dragging the silk closed over her naked body and knotting the belt tight at her waist.
“Run!” I snap, the word tearing out harsher than I intend while my pulse hammers high and fast, every nerve screaming at me to move before this chance disappears.
I drag her through the hallway, wet footprints trailing behind us across marble floors, the house still carrying the smell of chlorine and sex and violence. My heartbeat slams against my ribs with terrifying force, almost convincing me this panic is real too.
At the entrance table, I grab her keys, nearly knocking over a crystal bowl in the process, before yanking the front door open hard enough for it to slam against the wall.
The night air hits us both like ice. She stumbles down the front steps beside me, clutching the robe shut at her throat while trying not to trip over. Her hair is still dripping down her back, sticking to her cheeks, her lips parted around breaths she can’t seem to catch.
“What do we do now?” she asks, her voice thin and fraying at the edges as I drag her toward the car, every word shaking with the kind of fear that settles deep in the bones.
“Cain… what do we do?”
“We leave.” I unlock her car and yank the passenger door open before forcing her inside, making it clear immediately that this isn’t optional.
She starts to get in but hesitates at the last second, turning back toward the house like some part of her still needs to see the danger with her own eyes before she can fully believe it. Bad instinct.
My eyes follow hers just in time to catch movement inside the doorway, a black figure shifting behind the frame before stepping fully into the light.
