“Did you catch him?” she demanded, lowering the weapon as she spotted me.
I shook my head as I threw the door closed behind us and locked it again. She’d pulled my jersey back on over her underwear, the mud stains splattered all over it contrasting with her clean skin.
“No. But the others are still out there. They won’t stop hunting until they find him and tear him limb from limb.”
“I want to cut his fucking balls off myself for scaring me like this,” she hissed.
“You will, sweetheart,” I promised. “And you can make a tasteful necklace out of them too.”
She released a noise that was half laugh, half sob and she moved into me as I reached out to wrap her in my arms.
“Don’t even give him a minute of your fear,” I growled. “The Night Keepers were made to protect people from guys like this. And we were made to protect you most of all.”
“I can look after myself,” she protested in a ferocious growl.
“So can I,” I replied. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t like knowing my family has got my back. Always. And we’ve got yours too, Tate. Don’t think for a second that we don’t.”
She looked up at me with fire in her eyes and I fucking loved that look on her. She wasn’t afraid. She was fucking angry. She wanted blood as much as I did and if that wasn’t the hottest damn thing about her then I didn’t know what was.
I leaned down and captured her lips with mine before I could overthink it and she melted into my kiss with a hungry moan.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured against her lips. “For all the fucked up shit we’ve done. For it being my fault. For blaming you even though it wasn’t you. And for the gun…the fucking gun-”
“That’s not good enough,” she growled, kissing me again and tugging me towards my room.
“I know,” I replied, shoving her up against the door and palming her breasts through the filthy material that covered her. “Let me try and make it up to you.”
“It still won’t be enough.”
“I know.”
She caught the door handle behind her and twisted it so that we stumbled inside. Her lips were hot and needy against mine, her hands pushing into my hair and her nails biting into my skin as she gripped me roughly.
All of the passion that we’d had the first time we’d been together was still there between us, but it was lined with something rougher now. A wall that she’d erected between us which I knew I had no chance of breaching any time soon. The emotions she’d felt for me before were locked down now. Maybe gone altogether. And I didn’t know if I stood any chance of reclaiming them.
But if she wanted any part of me then I was willing to let her have it. Because sometimes she felt like one of the only things keeping me afloat in the maelstrom of my fucked up life and I just wanted to cling to her until I drowned.
I kicked my bedroom door closed behind me and walked her back to the bed, devouring her kisses as she dug her fingernails in harder.
“Do you like hurting me?” I asked her, not really minding it, but wanting to know if there was any chance of redemption for me. “Do you feel anything for me other than hatred now?”
“I don’t know,” she panted. “I hate seeing you suffer. And I want you to suffer more at my hands.”
I hooked my fingers under the hem of my football jersey and caught the edge of her panties, dragging them down her thighs before dropping them to the floor.
“Punish me then,” I agreed. “Do your worst. As much and as often as you want. Until you decide I’ve paid enough.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible.”
I pushed her back so her ass hit the bed and kept her sitting on the edge of it as I dropped to my knees before her.
Her hands fisted in the blankets either side of her ass as I pushed her thighs apart, making the jersey ride up so that I could see everything that was waiting for me.
I dragged my gaze back up to her blue eyes as I slid my hand between her legs, groaning as I found her hot and wet for me. A gasp escaped her lips and I continued to watch her as I slid my fingers back and forth, teasing her opening and circling her clit until she was panting for me.
I kept going as she began to moan, biting my lip as she ground her hips forward in a silent demand for more.
When she growled my name in frustration, I gave in, pushing two fingers inside her and savouring that delicious moan as it left her lips.
I curled my fingers inside of her as I began to pump them in and out, reaching out with my other hand to rub my thumb over her hardened nipple beneath my filthy jersey.
I pushed my fingers in harder and she gasped as I curled them again, driving them in as deep as they’d go and pulling more pleasure from her body.
My cellphone buzzed on the nightstand and we fell still for a moment.
“It might be important,” I said and she nodded in agreement.
With a grunt of frustration, I leaned forward to hook it into my grasp, keeping the fingers of my left hand buried deep inside her and making her cry out as the movement made the heel of my palm grind against her clit.
I glanced at the message
