I walk out of the pantry, my face perfectly calm, my smile firmly back in place.
The young guard looks at me, his eyes dropping to the jar in my hand. "Find them, ma'am?"
"I did," I say, offering him a bright, cheerful smile. "Salted and perfect. Let's go back to my prison wing, shall we? I have a puzzle to finish."
As we walk back, my skin is still tingling, my body still aching for Lorcan’s touch, but my mind is a cold, sharp machine.
He wants to teach me a lesson about rules?
Fine. I’m going to teach him a lesson as well.
Let the game begin.
12
Lorcan
I woke up at four in the morning with my dick so hard it was throbbing painfully against my thigh, my sheets tangled around my waist, and my skin slick with a sweat that had nothing to do with the desert heat.
I was dreaming about her. Again.
In the dream, I didn’t stop at the bookshelf. I didn't let her walk out of the study. I ripped those tight white shorts down to her ankles, shoved her face against the wood, and buried myself inside her from behind without a single shred of mercy. I could still feel the phantom sensation of her tight, soaking wet walls clamping down around my cock, the desperate, high-pitched moans she was making into the leather-bound books as Ipounded into her, my fingers digging bruising grips into her soft, round hips. I had woken up right as I was about to come, my fist tightly gripping my own erection in the dark, my mouth tasting like the musky, sweet scent of her skin.
It’s six hours later, and the sour taste of that unfulfilled hunger is still sitting under my tongue. I’m in a piss-poor, aggressive mood, and having her sitting exactly three feet away from me in the back of the armored Suburban isn't doing a goddamn thing for my blood pressure.
"This is completely ridiculous," Atara says, her voice cutting through the heavy silence of the cabin. She’s wearing a soft cream sundress today, her bare shoulders looking entirely too soft against the black leather of the interior. "I am not a briefcase, Lorcan. You don't just take me to work because you’re worried I’ll figure out how to open the electronic gates. I had a whole day planned. I was going to finish the sky part of the puzzle with Maeve."
"The puzzle can wait," I growl, not looking at her. I keep my eyes on the side mirror, watching the trailing SUV under Miller's command. "You don't stay in the house alone when I’m off-compound. You don't have the sense to stay behind locked doors."
"I have plenty of sense! What I don't have is a patience for your prehistoric, alpha-male control issues," she snaps back. She shifts in her seat, and the friction of her thighs against the leather makes a soft sound that immediately images the dream right back into my head. My jaw clenches until the bone aches. "Where are we even going? Is this like those mafia movies whereyou do a neutral-ground handshake and look menacingly at old men?"
"It's a routine sit-down," I say, my voice clipped. "A secured location. A vetted route. Shut up and let me look at the road."
"Oh, the classic 'shut up.' You really need to expand your vocabulary, Don O’Shea. Maybe if you spent less time lifting weights and breaking people's joints, you could read a dictionary."
I turn my head slowly, all the while trying to calm my anger. She’s leaning back, her arms crossed over her chest, pushing her breasts up. Her nipples are tight little points against the cream fabric, and the sight of them makes a heavy, visceral ache thud straight into my groin. I want to lean across the console, yank her into my lap, and tear that dress down to her waist. I want to see if she talks this much trash with my tongue down her throat.
"Keep testing me, Atara," I whisper, "We have a solid twenty minutes before we hit the city limits. I can easily have Kieran pull over onto the shoulder and show you exactly what happens to girls who don't know when to keep their mouths closed."
Atara’s breath hitches, her chest freezing mid-rise. Her eyes widen, the gold in her whiskey-colored pupils darkening with a sudden, heavy flash of the same desperate lust that’s currently eating me alive. She swallows, her lower lip trembling just a fraction before she bites it. She knows I’m not joking. She knows how close I am to the edge. Any sane person can see the tension oozing off me from a fucking mile away.
"You wouldn't…" she whispers, but her voice lacks its previous sting. It’s breathy.
"Try me," I mutter, turning my gaze back to the windshield.
The route is the North Pass—a winding, two-lane asphalt strip cut through the jagged red rock of the canyon. It’s the fastest way to the Senator's private estate without hitting the strip traffic. It’s a route we’ve cleared a hundred times.
A massive, deafening BOOM rattles the chassis of the Suburban. In the rearview mirror, the trailing SUV, Miller’s car, is suddenly engulfed in a ball of orange fire and black smoke. A heavy-duty dump truck had pulled out from a blind canyon cutout, ramming them broadside at sixty miles an hour.
"Ambush!" Kieran roars, his hands throwing the steering wheel hard to the left as automatic gunfire begins to chew through the rear glass.
Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.
The specialized armor plating holds, but the heavy lead rounds leave white, spiderweb craters across the reinforced glass.
"Get down!" I roar at Atara.
She doesn't move. She’s completely frozen, her face stark white, her eyes locked on the shattered glass behind us. Her brain has flatlined under the sheer terror of the noise.
