Aria Ruso
I didn’t know how to react as Cade told me to make sure the men stayed here, and I certainly had no idea how to react as he sealed himself in another room, leaving me alone with these men.
I took a step away and leaned into the wall beside the door, avoiding eye contact with any of them. I knew how these kinds of men worked, and the last thing I wanted was to be on their radar. If I didn’t acknowledge them or the silence that coated every part of the room, Cade would finish up quickly, and we’d leave.
It didn’t take long for one of them to stand and stride forward, despite the silence in the room. It was almost like he had forgotten his buddy lying dead in the chair a few feet from him as he approached with sure footing.
“Boss hasn’t brought you around here yet. You work for him?”
I clenched my jaw. He slurred his words as he spoke, and I wondered if he realized how high he was before coming over here. “I am new, and I don’t work for him,” I said tersely, hoping that my clear disinterest would sway the man from pursuing me further.
“Chris, don’t fuck with the boss’s things,” another man said. “Unless you want to end up just as dead as Tank.”
The man in front of me didn’t look at all deterred, despite his friend looking out for his best interests. My mind went to what Cade had done to the man who had tried to kill me at that event. Cade certainly didn’t take well to people touching me, and I didn’t want to be a part of that situation again.
“Man, I’m only interested in doing what Cade tells me to do here. When he’s done, I’m leaving, and you’re never going to see me again. Go and sit down.”
What I’d said didn’t seem to sit well with his ego as he puffed his chest, looking more closely at me. A tight feeling pressed into my chest as my heart sped up. Flashbacks of what had almost happened at the event a few weeks ago tore through me and brought a bead of sweat to my forehead. This was a completely different situation, and I had to remember that. Cade was in the room next door, and it wouldn’t get that far. Not this time.
“So you’re interested in being told what to do?” he mused, stepping closer.
He was too close. “Get away from me,” I demanded, and the fear in my chest came out through my voice.
It didn’t deter him, though. He only stepped closer.
“Stop being stupid,” one of the men said to him, just as horrified by his actions as me. “Do you have a death wish?”
But he didn’t look away from me for even a moment.
“Boss usually takes a half hour or more when he comes here, and that’s more than enough time to get to know one another.”
I couldn’t hear him past the roaring in my ears, and I shook my head, going to step away from him and create some distance. Instead, he placed a hand on my chest and pressed me back into the wall where I’d been leaning.
“I’m not interested,” I said firmly, but he only shook his head. Were the drugs messing with him enough that he thought this was a good idea?
“You will be.”
That was all I needed to hear. I pushed hard on his chest, and he didn’t budge. I balled my fist, and he chuckled as he brought it between our bodies. Shit. Shit. I could yell for Cade, but it felt like my lungs had completely constricted. I could hardly breathe through my panic, let alone shout for help. How was I expected to get away from someone so much larger than me?
A small, fleeting thought filled my mind.
Carter is larger than this man, and I’d taken him to the mats plenty of times.
Cade had made sure I was prepared for situations like this. Carter had taught me too many things to be afraid of a man who could hardly stand straight and steady. He might have been large, but he was too high to fight me properly. I had the upper hand, despite his size and persistence.
I took a deep breath to clear the panicked fog from my mind, and then I struck.
I lifted a knee and caught his groin before balling my exposed fist the proper way and slamming it into his cheek. He toppled to the ground harder than Carter ever had, and I knew it was because of the drug use. Still, it gave me more confidence as I stood over him, breathing deeply.
“I said that I’m not interested,” I shouted down at him, standing a little taller.
Cade stormed into the room, his gun in his hand as he looked at the man on the floor. Not an ounce of surprise rested in his eyes as he took in the scene. Only approval. I didn’t know why that rubbed me the wrong way for a long moment as he came forward and stared down at the man on the floor, groaning and clutching his groin.
“We told him not to touch her,” the man across the room defended. “We tried, boss.”
Cade only continued forward until he stood directly in front of me. He looked me up and down. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, and it finally clicked why I felt uneasy about this entire situation. For weeks, Cade hadn’t let me leave his side once. He’d been overly protective in ensuring that nothing happened to me, but something had changed today. He’d brought me here, picked a fight, and then left the room without looking back.
He’d been all but asking for something to happen.
He’d done this shit on purpose.
My fear and adrenaline gave way to a simmering rage as I clenched my jaw and stared into his eyes. He must have seen me seething as he turned to the man who had tried to touch me, pointed his gun, and pulled the trigger.
Nobody in the room flinched as Cade looked at them. “You’d better spread the word not to touch my girl,” he said. “Because if one more man tries something, I’m liable to kill the whole fucking room.”
He placed a hand on the small of my back and led me from the room.
Two bodies remained, and he didn’t seem to care at all.
He’d likely anticipated that something like that would happen.
I waited until we were all the way to his sleek SUV before turning, grabbing the front of his shirt, and using all of my body weight to shove him into the vehicle. “What the hell are you thinking?” I shouted at him. “You brought me in there knowing that something was going to happen, and you didn’t bother warning me.”
His eyes blazed, and I could tell that it wasn’t anger that flashed there. It was another heated emotion, and I became instantly aware of the way I pressed my entire body against his. It didn’t bother me, though, so I continued.
“That was reckless and stupid of you,” I shouted, pressing my finger into his chest. “You realize how this could have ended terribly, right? You understand that you were stupid?”
He didn’t say anything as he continued staring heatedly into my eyes.
“Are you even listening to me?” I shouted.
“Aria,” he said, his voice deeper than it had been moments before. “What you’re doing right now is not having the effect you wanted it to have, and I guarantee that if I tell you what I’m thinking, you’ll be more pissed off than you already are.”
“I want you to explain why you did something so fucking stupid,” I shouted at him.
In an instant, I no longer stood in front of him, pinning him to the car. A burst of air left me as he gripped me by the hips and reversed our positions, pressing me into the cool metal of it. “I did it,” he said, leaning down until his face hovered a mere inch from mine. “Because I needed to be sure you could defend yourself in a dangerous situation, but I wasn’t going to put you in a situation like that without being close. I needed to know you could overcome your fear and defend yourself, and you did.”
My breath caught, and I understood immediately why he felt the opposite of what I’d wanted him to feel as I pinned him to the car, as I felt that way now.
“I could have been hurt,” I told him.
“No, I was listening the whole time.”
I exhaled deeply and leaned the back of my head into the car, shaking it quickly. “You don’t understand,” I told him. “After what happened the last time, I can’t do that again. Please don’t make me endure something like that a third time. I-I can’t handle it.”
He leaned back slightly, examining me closely as a tinge of rage filled his eyes. “I should have made him suffer more than I did,” he finally said.
The slight growl in his voice as he said it sent shivers down my spine, and I leaned closer to him, knowing how much he meant those words. I moved my lips until they hovered just in front of his. “Please, just don’t make me do that again.”
He closed the distance between us. His lips met mine hard, and I sank into his touch as he entirely consumed me. I knew I shouldn’t like this as much as I did. I should have pushed him away and yelled at him for what he’d done, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that when the feelings he brought from me were so intense. Why was I not terrified of this man who had just killed two people? I should have been running, but instead, I sank into him and knew with every fiber of my being that he wouldn’t hurt me.
It didn’t matter how many people he’d killed, and it didn’t matter that he was supposed to hate me and I was supposed to hate him.
Nothing mattered as he opened the back door to the SUV and shoved me into it, climbing atop me and closing the door behind him.
Only we mattered. Only the way he slid a hand beneath my shirt and unhooked my bra with a single flick of his fingers. The way he devoured my lips and neck and chest.
“I want to be mad at you,” I told him.
“But you’re not,” he whispered, sliding a hand between my thighs.
“Because you know that I would never let anything happen to you.”
I nodded without thinking, grinding into his fingers. How did I know that?
“I would kill someone for looking at you wrong,” he continued. I gasped and bucked into him. “Only I will touch you, Aria. Do you understand?”
I met his eyes as I unbuttoned my shirt and allowed it to fall open for him.
“I don’t know,” I teased, breathing heavily. He paused his fingers between my thighs. “If I wanted another man to touch me, it wouldn’t be so difficult to find one who’s interested.” “Aria,” he growled.
“Now that I have experience, plenty of men would line up for me, and
-”
He gripped my chin roughly between his fingers and forced me to stop speaking. “I’m not a good man. I don’t care if you want someone else to touch you or not. He’ll die the same way.”
I gasped as he slid his pants down his legs and pulled free his bulging cock.
“I want you to fuck me, Cade,” I told him, gripping the front of his shirt. He moved, burying his face between my breasts as he thrust himself into me. I cried out, taking him in fully. “Show me why I only need you to touch me.”
He grinned wildly and showed me precisely what I’d asked for. His lips and teeth came down on the sides of my throat, scraping and sucking in a way that had my hips thrusting more powerfully into his. He moved a hand to my cheek, looking deeply into my eyes as he slid it up and through my loose hair. He lifted my head slightly, slowing his thrusting.
“As long as we’re married, princess, you won’t have another person in your bed.” He shook his head to cement the point. “I don’t share.”
“Me either,” I told him, winding both arms around his neck and pulling him infinitely closer. As he continued thrusting and touching me, my climax built within me. I trembled in his arms and gasped against his lips as he took me in all the ways I could have ever wanted. I may have never been with another man, but I couldn’t even imagine it being this intense. I breathed through the sensitivity as he worked me so thoroughly that I cried out, biting his shoulder.
“Fuck,” he shouted, thrusting harder and tightening his hold on my hair.
I closed my eyes tightly as I fell apart in his arms, clinging to him in a way I never thought I would yearn to do. I thought I hated him, but as we fell over the edge together, I realized how thin the line between hatred and yearning truly was.