The instant the plea fell from my perfidious mouth, he slammed inside my weeping sex in one punishing thrust that set my body ablaze as though he had never left.
“Move...damn you,” I said, the endorphins clouding my brain and making it impossible to think clearly.
He chuckled, and if I didn’t need him so badly, I would’ve clawed his eyes out.
Without missing a beat, he angled his hips, hitting the perfect spot repeatedly in a wickedly flawless rhythm. Fire and ice, love and hate, whipped through my veins. I shattered into a million unrecognizable pieces with his name bleeding from my lips and soul. Within seconds, I felt him come, wet and hard inside me, igniting another round of soul-stealing mini shocks in my core.
Angry, sated, and depleted, I collapsed onto my stomach, not even bothering to put on my shorts. Ryker won, and I lost…again. Tears stung the corner of my eyes, but I refused to set them free. They were pointless. An hour ago, I promised I’d give Evan another chance, and now I lay on the decomposing jungle floor with Ryker’s come leaking from my body, staining the earth with my pathetic surrender. I didn’t have a clue how to move forward. My mind plummeted into oblivion.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” I screamed, stupidity knotting my stomach when I realized I hadn’t taken my birth control pill since the night I met Ryker—not that I had the opportunity. Disgust and self-loathing slithered down my spine, swallowing me in its murky embrace. I welcomed it.
Ryker didn’t say a word. Not that I expected anything else. I heard the shuffle and slide of his clothes as he dressed. Distantly, I wished it was as easy for me to put myself back together again. I felt weak. Defeated. I wanted to die. Maybe he’d leave me to rot in the underbrush. I didn’t think I’d care. I closed my eyes and silently prayed everything would disappear. My promise to fight Ryker had gone up in flames. The rational part of my brain told me to scrape my body off the ground and move on…persevere. I cursed my rational brain to hell. Unfortunately, Ryker sided with my brain.
Chapter Sixteen
“Hattie.” Ryker’s hushed voice raked like hot coals over my skin.
“Hattie,” he repeated. “Get up. We need to go.”
I shook my head, leaves tangling in the strands of my hair, the smell of dirt coating my nose hairs and my chapped lips. “Leave me here,” I moaned. “Just go away. I’m done.”
He dragged me up by my shoulders, clamped his hand over my mouth and shoved my jean shorts into my gut. “Put on your shorts and don’t say a word. Now is not the time,” he hissed, scarcely a breath of air.
“Fuck you,” I screamed through the confines of his hand.
“Shut up. Do you want to be killed?”
“Do it. Kill me. I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do.” He slowly hauled me backward, his fingers cutting into my skin. I dug my heels into the dirt and strained for a nearby tree branch. He snatched my hand from the air, twisting it behind my back. “The Chechen tree is poisonous,” he whispered. “Unless you want to spend the next few days in bed with a rash, I wouldn’t recommend touching it.”
He pulled a gun from the holster on his belt, aiming it in front of our fused bodies. Then, I spotted them…four men moving in the shadows of the trees like the four horseman of the apocalypse. They were dressed in black with red handkerchiefs concealing the lower half of their faces. AK-47-type assault weapons hung over their shoulders, and bullets draped across their bodies like morbid jewelry. Step by step, they closed in on us from every angle, strangling any possibility of escape.
“Well, if it isn’t the prodigal son. I heard you were back, but I didn’t believe it,” one man said in a thick accent.
“Dario, long time, no see.” Ryker shoved me behind his back. I clutched his black leather belt, refusing to let go of him. “Can’t say I missed you.”
“She’s a pretty one. That was a nice performance the two of you put on,” Dario said, waving his gun at me, his mercenary eyes sliding over my body. “Maybe we could pass her around. Take turns.” I closed my eyes, burying my head in the middle of Ryker’s back. Numb with impending horror, blood roared through my ears and my breath came in quick, short pants. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t have enough air in my lungs to do anything but whimper.
“What do you want?” Ryker said.
“I’m here to take care of unfinished business.”
“What unfinished business are we talking about?” Ryker sounded cool and undaunted, and not even vaguely curious, but his muscles coiled into knots next to my hands.
Dario chuckled and shook his head. “Rever’s out of the picture, but even if he wasn’t, it wouldn’t change the future. With all his addiction problems, he can’t lead the Vargas Cartel.”
“Not my problem.” Ryker said.
“Maybe not, but the cartel is dying. Somebody needs to take control. I’m going to be that person.”
“And you think a coup is the answer?”
Dario cocked his head to the side. “It doesn’t have to be a coup. I’m going to take control of the cartel assets and territories, and consolidate the power behind me. I will systematically force Ignacio to accept me as the future of the cartel.”
“It’ll never happen. You’re a second rate hack. You don’t have what it takes to run a fruit stand much less the Vargas Cartel.”
Dario scoffed. “You’re wrong. Unlike Rever, I’ve moved steadily up the ranks, working as a lookout, record keeper, plaza boss…and now it’s my turn to be the head of the cartel. Do you think you can swoop in and take control like you didn’t abandon us years ago to sell your soul to the highest bidder?” Dario took a half a step forward, his gun pointed at the dead center of Ryker’s chest.
“I had my reasons for leaving, none of which are your business.”
Dario shrugged. “You’re right. As long as you’re a good boy and disappear again, I don’t give a shit about your reasons.” Dario held out his hand. “It’s four to one. You’re outnumbered. You won’t win this time. Hand me the gun and make this easy. I don’t want to kill you. Ignacio won’t like that, but I will.”
Ryker paused. Tension buzzed in the air, swirling around us like a category five hurricane. “No. Not happening.”
Dario took another step forward. “You can hand me the gun and live another day, or you can die now, and the animals can pick at your carcass until you’re unrecognizable. It’s your choice.”
“Back the fuck up and leave. You’re involving yourself in things you don’t understand.” With his gun trained on Dario, Ryker wrapped his arm around my neck and pulled my ear next to his face. “Gun. Ankle,” he whispered before shoving me by the top of my head to the ground.
Dario laughed coldly, and ice crystallized inside of my veins, freezing my hand on Ryker’s ankle. “No, you’re the one who doesn’t understand what’s going on here.”
Ryker pressed his leg into my hand, and I inched my hand up the inside of his pant leg never taking my eyes off Dario. I didn’t understand why Ryker trusted me with a gun, but the mere fact that he did told me we were in a world of shit.