Page 31 of When Hearts Unravel (The Orchid #6)

Olivia stills at my words.

Then I feel it. Her fury.

Her body stiffens, her fists knot, her nostrils flare.

A tickle gathers in my chest and my blood heats. She’s going to let me have it. I can’t wait to see this.

I grin and my dick jumps in my pants.

“Put me down now.” Her voice is a seething whisper, but no, I don’t underestimate her. She’s an atomic bomb seconds from exploding.

“What, Olive? You don’t want me?”

I knead her shapely ass and inwardly groan. So supple and soft. I can’t wait to spank it and bite it. I’m wide awake now—from the adrenaline, the surrounding chaos, the turbulent storm, the goddess in my arms, or a combination of everything. I don’t care what’s right or wrong. I’m flying high.

“You were the one who leaped into my arms like you’d die without me.”

“Now, Mr. Anderson. Put me down.” Her voice is strangely calm, but I feel it, that enticing little quiver in her thighs. “I won’t ask twice.”

Chuckling, I set her down just to see what she’ll do.

She stares at the floor, her shoulders rigid, chest heaving, then I see her draw in one slow inhale.

Boom.

But Olivia looks up and smiles. Serenely. Fighting chaos with chaos.

I recoil, my pulse sprinting in my ears.

“I’m glad you’re okay. Please excuse my unprofessional behavior just now.” She spins around and stalks toward the elevators.

Panic sweeps through me—even more than before I dove into the water after the guard spotted the woman.

I didn’t think about myself then. I only thought of Mom and Raya and how I cradled their dead bodies in my arms. It was an automatic instinct to jump in, to save another family from experiencing the grief I went through.

But now, as I watch Olivia walk away from me, very much done with my nonsense, I finally feel it.

Fear. Panic. Desperation. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking she’d do. Praise me for a job well done? For nearly killing myself in the process?

Of course she’s pissed. She probably thinks I’m beyond saving.

I can’t let her get away. She’s done with me. She’s giving up.

She’s the only person who’s seen me. The only person who can make me forget everything.

Ignoring the camera flashes and people hurling questions at me—Greg Masters and his cronies apparently having caught a whiff of my daring rescue—I chase after the maddening woman.

“Olivia, wait!”

She ignores me. If anything, her strides quicken.

But I’m faster. I reach her in seconds, grab her wrist, and drag her to the nearest door I can find.

I wrench it open, tug her inside, and the metal door bangs shut as darkness falls over us.

“What the hell, Rex? What do you want? To gloat about how you won another woman over? Your doctor, no less?”

I won her over? A thrill shoots up my spine. I quash it. She’s pissed. I need to focus on that.

I grapple at the wall until I find a light switch and flick it on.

A dim lightbulb illuminates the tight space we’re in—a supply closet, apparently. Olivia crosses her arms over her chest and tilts her chin up, glaring at me.

“Well? If you have nothing to say, I’m going back to my room to get out of these damn wet clothes.”

She whirls around and twists the doorknob. The same fear from moments ago jolts my senses.

“Wait! I-I’m sorry.” The words tumble out of me.

Don’t go. Don’t leave me. Hold me in your arms again. Worry about me. Love me. Thoughts swirl inside my mind, more chaotic than the storm outside, but somehow they make sense.

I need her more than I need my next heartbeat.

She stills, her hair half-loosened from her usual bun. Her shoulders rise and fall, and I hear our heavy breathing. She doesn’t answer me.

“Look, I know I’m a fucking screwup. I disappointed you again. I joke around all the time and, frankly, have no business leading this cruise. Look what happened. People fell overboard because I couldn’t manage shit—”

Olivia spins around, her dark eyes flashing. “You think I’m disappointed in you because idiots fell overboard doing shit they weren’t supposed to be doing?”

She steps forward and jabs her finger at my chest. “You think I think you’re a screwup and that’s why I’m angry?”

Another hard jab. Her voice rises in volume.

“I-I was scared shitless, Rex. Terrified!” Jab. “Y-You just jumped in with complete disregard for your life!”

Renewed heat surges through my chest, spreading to my extremities as I take in this bewitching woman, this siren, making her wrath known.

Jab. Jab. Jab.

“If something happened to you, do you know how your family would feel? How devastated they would be?”

Her eyes flash with anger, her words javelins to my heart. There’s anguish, fear, and grief in her voice. Pain from personal experience.

She jabs her finger at my chest again. “Do you know how terrified I was? I thought I lost you. I-If I lost y-you—”

She rakes in a sharp inhale, then freezes, as if realizing she’s spiraling out of control.

I grab her hand—the one that was inflicting pain seconds ago but is now limp.

“What would you do?” I rasp. “Why were you terrified, Olive? Don’t you hate me? I drive you crazy. I don’t listen to you. I make you do things you don’t want to do, like leap off a cliff.”

Her throat ripples. She trembles and shakes her head. “S-Sorry, Mr. Anderson. It’s been an intense night. I-I’m not myself. I need to go.”

Blowing out a breath, she tugs her hand loose and turns around.

No.

I don’t think, I just react.

I grab her wrist and haul her against me, then I crush my lips against hers.

Nirvana. She tastes like nirvana.

Pleasure explodes as I get my first hit of the woman of my dreams.

That’s who she is—somewhere along the way, she’s become the light to my darkness, light I don’t deserve, but I don’t fucking care anymore.

Hauling her up, I grip her thighs and slam her against the door. Fists hit my chest and back as anger and lust roll off her tiny frame in waves. My skin burns, every inch of me on fire, and I kiss her and kiss her, my body taking her punches, her scratches, my mouth swallowing her cries and moans.

“No. You can’t do this to me, you can’t—” she whimpers and I pull away because I might be halfway to deranged, but I won’t force myself on a woman. But she grabs my hair and seals her mouth over mine again.

Lava surges through my veins as we tear at each other. I suck those luscious lips into my mouth, needing to get any part of her inside me.

She cares about me. Too much. That’s why she’s fleeing. She didn’t escape after seeing my scars or glimpsing my monsters.

She sees me and still cares. And she’s mad at herself because of it.

I bite her plump bottom lip and she flinches, then returns the favor with a sharp nip of her teeth. Pain scores through me and I taste it.

The warm, salty metallic liquid on my tongue.

Blood. She’s drawn blood. My Olive’s sharp claws.

I fucking love it.

The thought throws me into a frenzy and I plunder her mouth with my tongue, fighting, dancing, mating with hers as I grind the throbbing shaft between my legs against her pussy.

“Oh my God, yes,” she moans, her head dropping back, hitting the door and baring her neck.

Like a monster, I zero in on the fluttering pulse, needing to chase it, to bite it, to mark it as mine.

We’re violence and chaos, thunder and lightning. Exhilaration and destruction.

I drag my lips over her cheeks, her nose, her jaw, my teeth scoring the slender column of her neck. Then I reach my target—that rapid fluttering in her throat.

Wrapping my lips over it, I suck. Hard.

She cries out, her sensuous body arching back, her curvy tits thrusted at my face.

Our bodies move in unison as I pin her tightly against the door. There are too many clothes between us. Too many layers. It’s too hot. Too wet. Too stifling.

I’m on fire.

I grab her heaving breast and pinch her hard nipple poking through her shirt. She trembles, her hips gyrating in a tormenting rhythm, moving that delectable pussy over my aching shaft. I can feel her heat through my pants.

“Fuck yes, Olive. Fuck my cock. Grind that pussy. Feel how hard I am for you.” I draw her fluttering pulse into my mouth again, laving, sucking, then I bite it.

Olivia screams, her muscles tensing. I’m so hard I’m leaking all over the place.

“Shit. You like your pleasure with pain, huh? Just like me.” I nibble and suck, my wildcat thrashing in my arms. “You need me, don’t you? Desperate for my cock. Well, come get it. It’s all yours.”

She shakes, her hips moving up and down, up and down, each slide hitting my cock perfectly, my leaking tip digging, dipping slightly into her pants-covered, tight, wet notch before dragging up to her clit.

“Yes, oh my God, yes,” she cries, her sweet voice hoarse. So that’s how she sounds like—she’s a screamer, my Olive will be a screamer.

My balls draw up and a scorching burn begins at the base of my spine, ricocheting through my body, the pinpricks of pleasure gathering, sharpening, distilling into a distinct beam. Pleasure moves up my shaft, and blinding light appears behind my eyelids.

“Come on my cock. I want to feel you explode. You’re a good girl, right? Be my good girl.”

She freezes, her fingernails digging into my back.

Our panting breaths reverberate in the room and suddenly, she goes limp in my arms.

“What am I doing?” she rasps. Horror. That’s what I’m hearing in her voice.

I set her down, my hands trembling, my fingers clenching and releasing, desperate to touch her silky skin, to pull her against me once more.

To burn us both alive.

She looks up, her face blanching. She shakes her head harder.

“W-We can’t do this. I-I can’t do this.”

Then she opens the door and dashes out.

This time, I don’t stop her.