Page 53

CHAPTER 53

REDLEY

The jacket I got from the trading post goes first, then he’s pulling off the long johns. I can’t see him well in the dying light, but I feel him all around me. His fingers dig into my thighs as he pulls my ass against him, ready to penetrate me. I wonder if he’s been this turned on every time I’ve chased him through the forest, and if so, why he waited so long to force himself on me. Is Wolf a better man than I think he is, or do I just enjoy fucking him more than I ever thought I would?

Before he does, he leans down and kisses me so hard it’s like fighting, like a tangling of wills and pain. He bites my lip, and I moan into his mouth before snapping his top lip in my teeth. He lets go, and I let go of him too, but if I was hoping he was yielding to me, he proves me wrong by moving to my neck and biting the tender skin there instead.

The emotions are messing with my head, and his lips and teeth on me are destroying whatever chances I had left for fighting him off. His hand slides up and over my breast, and he grazes my sensitive nipple, and with that, a flood of wetness follows but also a flash of sanity.

“Stop,” I tell him, my back rising and slumping against the forest floor repeatedly. He doesn’t listen, fingers digging into my pussy lips so he can spread me open and better get at the contents.

“Stop, Wolf,” I repeat. “I won’t do this with you anymore. I don’t love you. I hate you.”

He pulls off his shirt before he holds my arms to the ground above my head, and when I struggle against him, it’s more like a hot writhing of naked skin.

“You do love me, Redley, and I’m going to make love to you whether you want to accept me or not.”

“Never,” I promise him.

“Right now.”

He’s so impossibly large above me I can hardly believe a man’s shoulders can span this wide. I hate to admit that I feel incredibly fragile in his arms, and that’s part of what turns me on so much about Wolf. The uneven ground digs into my back, and with the last light of the dying sun, his expression is ferocious.

He could kill me so easily if he wanted to. Hell, he has killed so many people, including my own granny. There’s no good reason for him not to kill me except for those deeds, but even I don’t know where those are, so fucking me wouldn’t help him anyway.

What was his plan if I said yes to marrying him? Yes, I may be the last Little, but I don’t technically own a damn thing if I can’t find the proof, and people have proven time and time again they don’t care what happens in Grimm Groves.

He laughs above me, like this is the funniest thing he’s ever been a party to. He’s insane. He and his family have ruined everything. Hell, he and his dad burned my cabin down last night, and now he’s on top of me laughing.

“You know how I know you’re lying about loving me, Redley?”

He uses my full name so infrequently my entire body pulses beneath his. I don’t ask him how he supposedly knows. As far as I’m concerned, he’s wrong. He has to be.

“For all the times you’ve shot at me, hit me, done anything against me, this is the best chance you’ve ever had of actually hurting me, of getting away.”

“Shut the fuck up!” I shout as he releases my hands and starts to pull his cock out of his pants.

“You don’t love me?” he taunts. “It’s so easy for you to hurt me? Well, do it, do it right now. There are chunks of glass sticking out of me!”

“How could I do that to you when you pulled the glass out of my face in the same damn situation?” I know it was his dad. It had to be.

“It’s more than that, and you know it! You know damn well I deserve to pay far more than that for my sins.”

He pulls me closer to him, lines his cock up with my entrance, and spares no time shoving himself deep inside, yet I don’t stop him. I make no move against him. For the first time, I have a real chance to fight him and get the advantage.

He’s probably got a concussion, and he spent so much energy chasing me. He’s supposed to be resting, someone sitting with him to make sure he doesn’t fall asleep and not wake up. That would never be me, and it would be so easy to reach back and grab the wounds. Even after everything I’ve learned tonight, I just don’t have it in me. My stomach turns at the thought of hurting him.

He stares into my eyes as he says, “Redley Little, I am so fucking sorry for everything I’ve taken from you—your time, your home, and maybe even your choices—but I love you.”

“When did you decide all that?” I ask.

He grits his teeth as he shoves deeper inside me, but he doesn’t answer.

“I said when did you decide that, Wolf?” His hands roam my body while his tempo picks up, and he starts to fuck me in earnest. It’s like he’s daring me to strike him, trying to piss me off as much as possible to prove his point. He grips my hips, pumping into me as hard as he can, but he refuses to answer.

“Was it when you burned everything I have?” I shout at him as he keeps fucking. “Did you love me when you stuck your dick in me the first time, or were you still just working for your daddy?”

His silence tells me everything I need to know. He may enjoy me, he may love the chase, but I am nothing but a game to Wolf, and one he plans on winning.

I reach above my head, fingers digging around tree roots for leverage. I pull myself hard, up and off his cock, but he’s back on top of me, shoving even deeper than he was before, but this time, he doesn’t hold me still. He uses all of the force in his hips to fuck me across the forest floor, my ass scraping on the rocks and twigs as he uses me.

“You don’t love me, Wolf, and you haven’t suddenly realigned your loyalties. You’re mad that he would dare to beat you the same way I was beaten. You just don’t wanna be as low as me.” I can’t help but point at the scars on my face. Scars I’ve felt uncomfortable about since the day I got them. They remind me of everything wrong with me and all of my failings.

“I’ve been lower than you since the day I met you because there’s nothing I value more than loyalty, and you’ve split mine,” he shouts in my face, the depth of his rage surprising me and making me shake. “ I might be a criminal, a murderer, a thief. I might be destined to burn in hell with a long line of my forefathers, but I have never been disloyal until the day I met you.”

His lips sit an inch from mine as he quiets. My ears ring, and I can’t breathe. I can’t think. If he was trying to confuse me enough to get deeper inside me and into my heart, he succeeded, and I can’t tell if I hate him or love him for it right now. All I know is that if he keeps fucking me like that, I’m going to come.

And so what if I do love him? Doesn’t that make all of this more sad anyway? How many times have I needed something and not had it, and they’ve been living like kings on what rolls out in the stream?

“It doesn’t matter,” I say.

He seems to understand what I mean without actually taking my refusal seriously. Maybe I do love him, but there’s no chance I’ll be with him, no chance I’ll let him and his miserable father profit any more than they already have. I open my mouth to tell him that I’ll never be with him, I won’t give him a pass to mine my mountain and rob me dry, but before I can speak, he kisses me.

Who on earth does he think he is to kiss me like this after all that?

It’s passionate and intense but sweeter than I expected, and my heart clenches again at the idea that Wolf wants to be loved. Has anyone ever loved him? I need to stop thinking like this, looking for excuses for him to be better than he is so I can feel better about how badly I want him.

A constant unintelligible stream of grunts and growls leaves his mouth as he fucks me, and he continues the kiss. I know he’s hurting, but instead of fighting him, I lie beneath him, waiting for my inevitable orgasm.

A few more strokes, and I let go, my pussy wringing him hard as my orgasm rips through me. He follows right behind, and he roars as he empties inside me and quickly slumps against me. He doesn’t move, and his weight becomes too much to bear.

“Oh shit, you’re not dead, are you? Wolf, come on.” I try to push him, but he’s so heavy. “Wolf, what the hell?” I ask, but I realize he’s not conscious.