Raw Redemption Read online

  “Motherfucker.” The shield of her skirt was gone, leaving only the barrier of his jeans…and almost nothing to the imagination. A warm pussy and taut thighs that looked flexible enough to spread with ease. She was curved to take a man the roughest way possible, and his body responded with rampant enthusiasm. Because of the innate sweetness she cloaked herself in, Henrik had never allowed himself to fantasize about taking Ailish in this position. He was a large man and was well used to holding back half his strength during sex. But Christ, presented with a stance that would be so easy to maintain with two steps forward, where he could push her facedown onto the bed and take, take…his composure tilted and swayed.

  After an eternity Ailish straightened, a move that slid her cheeks down his erection. Instead of stepping away, she pushed up on her toes and arched her back, fitting into the notch of his lap, but in a standing position this time. And if he’d been wearing handcuffs, he would have broken straight through them. Nothing could keep his right arm from wrapping around her waist, lifting her higher, using her body to place pressure on his throbbing cock. Ailish made a little mewling noise that sounded like his name, and he lost it. He fucking lost it.

  Henrik kicked the door shut and walked Ailish farther into the cabin. “Hands on the dresser.” As she followed his instructions, Henrik pulled her hair aside to attack her neck with bites. “You want to tease me, you do it right.”

  He could see her reflection in the bathroom mirror, just a couple yards away. There was no trepidation or indecision on her face, just the fading of relief…the beginnings of bliss. This girl really did love acting the temptation, and maybe that should have irritated him. Or made him worry for the future of his sanity. Right now, it only turned him the fuck on. She was his naughty girl to endure. Bring it on.

  “Tell me how it feels when you come,” he breathed into her ear. “It’ll make me so fucking hard.”

  Ailish’s body dipped on a moan, but he caught her, instructing her with a growl to get her hands back on the dresser. “It can get harder than it is now?”

  “It gets so damn hard, Lish.” His mouth moved in her hair, harassing the back of her neck, her shoulders. “That few minutes before I let it bust, you would be screaming for me to stop into your pillow. But you’d be spreading your legs wider for it. You wouldn’t want to let all that hard go to waste. I wouldn’t let you, either.”

  “Oh…oh wow.” Their bodies breathed together—in and out in heavy gulps—for long moments before she spoke. “I…it always starts in my knees. I don’t know if that’s right or not, but it does. Like a ticklish feeling.”

  “Mmm.” Henrik’s left hand slipped down the back of Ailish’s thigh, massaging the back of her knee, savoring the shaking whimper his touch produced. “Keep going.”

  Her head fell to the side as Henrik licked across her shoulder. “H’ohhh. That feels…” He watched her hands flex on the dresser, would have smiled if he wasn’t in pain. “Um. I-I squeeze my thighs really tight around my hand…”

  Fuck me. “You always use fingers on that pussy, Ailish? Nothing else?”

  “Nothing else.”

  A growl broke free without warning. Henrik slid his middle finger up the back of her thigh, slowly, so slowly, and felt Ailish hold her breath. Until finally his palm curved around the left side of her ass, rubbing the flesh beneath her skirt in circles. “My fingers are a lot bigger than yours. It would be more of a fucking than a fingering if I put my middle one down the front of your underwear. You could ride it just like a dick.”

  Ailish pushed her backside into his hand on a moan and he squeezed, hard enough that she shot back onto her toes. With the depraved half of him rising to the surface, Henrik leaned back and lifted Ailish’s skirt, getting his first full look at her almost-bare backside. Shit. The girl was beyond fine. Not that her attractiveness was breaking news, but the cheap white cotton panties almost killed him. They covered everything, but hid exactly nothing. Those pretty palm-sized cheeks that had probably never been smacked, never been propped up in the air. God he wanted to be the first everything for that ass.

  And hell, that was before she started to dance. She tossed that red hair back and started rocking her hips side to side, muscles flexing in her thighs and calves. For just a moment, Henrik was able to tear his rapt gaze from the temptation of her bottom to seek her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Jesus. Eyes glazed over, lips held prisoner by white teeth, she was the razor’s edge of temptation. Her expression of ecstasy alone would be enough to get Henrik off for a lifetime’s worth of showers, but combined with the standing lap dance she was treating him to? He’d be lucky to make it out of this situation alive.

  Need just a few more minutes of this…then I’ll stop…

  Henrik smoothed his hand down one side of her butt. “Giving me a private show, Lish? That’s real nice.” He had no control over the slap his hand delivered, or the groan that sailed past his lips when her flesh shook a little in response. “I’m going to put my cock up against it again. You ready for that?”

  He watched a shudder run down her back. “Yes. Please.”

  There was no help for him. Ailish was begging for contact with those swaying hips, that blissed-out look on her face. And dammit, if his erection grew any more, he’d bust through the zipper of his jeans. Friction equaled survival for him at this point. Maybe one last reminder to keep his fucking head was futile, but Henrik’s common sense issued the warning anyway as he stepped forward and—

  “Ahhh. Christ.” When their lower bodies connected, Henrik reached past either side of Ailish to grip the dresser. She worked her tight ass on his lap, giving him the dirty kind of treatment a man gets in a private room at a strip club. The difference being, she wasn’t going through the motions. Her goal was to coax him into coming, draining right into his jeans. A little more of her dance and it would happen, too. He’d been dreaming of coming for Ailish since that day in the park. A significant part of him wanted to show her, too. This is what you do to me. But her parting shot in the car chose that moment to reverberate in his skull.

  You haven’t given me enough yet.

  The girl might get her kicks out of teasing, but he had a feeling she just hadn’t gotten something better yet. It was time someone fixed that oversight.

  Henrik fisted a section of Ailish’s hair and tugged her head to one side, traveling up the side of her neck with bared teeth. “Feel how big you made me?”

  Her nod was vigorous. “Yes,” she breathed. “I feel it.”

  He openmouth-kissed the spot between neck and shoulder. “You’re a hot little tease, aren’t you? You like knowing I could unzip my jeans, give myself a couple pumps and spill all over that pretty ass. Huh?” His palm connected with her upper thigh. Crack. “But I told you last night. I told you you’re not the only one who can tease. Didn’t I?”

  Without giving her a chance to answer, Henrik turned Ailish around, and seeing her dazed expression up close almost made him lose his train of thought. And it became imperative that he replace that confused arousal with satisfaction.

  My responsibility. Mine.

  Henrik maneuvered her toward the bed, using his body to guide her down onto the mattress, wasting no time fitting his dick into the notch of her thighs. Just for a few seconds. Just a few. Ailish was all wide eyes and shallow inhales of breath as she looked up at him, innocence so at odds with her seductress side.

  Braced on his elbows, Henrik leaned down to kiss her mouth, rocking his hips forward just as their tongues met. Goddamn. Starbursts went off behind his eyelids, the lower planes of his stomach shaking. Somehow he found the will to end the kiss, to stop simulating the act he wanted to commit with her. “The difference when I tease, Alish?” Henrik eased down her body, lifting the hem of her T-shirt as he moved lower. “There’s a reward at the end.”

  “What?” Her legs moved restlessly beneath him. “I—”

  She broke off on a cry when Henrik bit down just inside her hip bone, nearly jackknif
ing off the bed. He pressed her back down onto the mattress with a palm to the chest and soothed the fading bite mark with his tongue. Then he sucked. He sucked the spot until it turned red, until the opposite leg tried to hook behind his neck and he was forced to pin her knee. “Breathe, Ailish,” he rasped. “I’m just getting started.”

  Henrik moved across her body, giving the other hip the same treatment, before licking his way to the middle. Her belly button. It lifted and fell beneath his mouth, as if every part of her body had been programmed to tempt. To tease. So he gripped her hips to keep her still, noting that she stopped breathing above him.

  Eyes trained on her face, Henrik hardened his tongue and stabbed it into Ailish’s belly button, savoring the surprised whimper she let fly.

  “Oh, we can do better than that.” He slipped a hand up her rib cage to knead her breast. “Who has you on your back?”

  “You. H-Henrik.”

  “That’s right.” He pushed his chin into her pelvis and moved it side to side, holding her down when she tried to fly off the bed again. When she calmed a little, he scraped his stubble against her right hip. “We’re going to make sure everyone in the park knows it, too. Hold on to the sheets while you get a full body fucking from my mouth.”

  Chapter Six

  Flames were engulfing Ailish’s body. Impossible, right? It seemed impossible when he’d only put his tongue in her belly button. But God…God. There was an electric current underneath that tiny hollow corresponding to the female flesh between her legs. The first drive of his tongue had elicited arousal that usually took Ailish ten minutes to achieve. It felt like the beginnings of an orgasm. Her stomach tightened like a fist; the insides of her thighs quivered. More, she wanted more.

  But this was her opportunity to get away. She’d more or less orchestrated this moment. Or at least, she’d planned to get Henrik distracted so she could make her move. Now, though? Now—

  Henrik pushed his tongue into her belly button again, a slow slide of wet pressure that sent liquid to the juncture of her thighs. In preparation for a man. The harder he pushed, the more gravity built at her center. Ailish’s fingers dug into the bedspread, twisting the rough material. “Oh my God. What are you d-doing?”

  He shushed against the soft skin above her panty line before scooping two hands beneath Ailish’s body to cradle her bottom, massaging both sides in tandem. “The only thing that matters,” he grated, running his tongue around her navel, “is it’s getting your pussy wet as fuck. I can feel the wet against my chest. Making me want to yank down these panties and give you my dick. What matters, baby, is you want more.”

  It hadn’t been a question, but she answered anyway, her brain scrambling to remember the plan. The plan, Ailish. “Yes, I want more.”

  She did, too. Maybe more than getting away. And that realization is what jolted Ailish. Henrik looked so massive, so sexy, covering the bottom half of her body. A formidable male packed with shifting muscles. His hands were spread on her skin, the tips digging into her flesh and creating indentations. Their desperation felt equal. Heavy and immediate. They were in this together.

  No. No…she needed to separate herself.

  Henrik flexed one of his pectoral muscles and it ground against her core, hardness against soft. Hearing her own scream, Ailish slapped a hand over her mouth. Oh Lord, she’d never experienced a buildup like this on her way to an orgasm. What would it feel like? If it felt anything like the lead-up, she would implode. Henrik moved his chest muscles in tight up-and-down movements between her legs, his tongue making repeated advances into her belly button. Each stab into that shallow valley made her vision grow bleary, turned up the intensity of her stomach’s quickening.

  “Oh. Oh. You have to stop. It…I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  His only response was a tighter grip on her bottom, his thumbs digging into the underside in what resulted in—shocker—another newly discovered erogenous zone. Arousal rushed in from all sides, like a car sinking into a river with all four windows open. It scared her. Shame followed that mental confession. After being such a tease, she couldn’t even handle the tables being flipped.

  Henrik’s teeth sank into her hip. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen.” His lips skimmed their way back to the center of her belly, starting those torturous drives into the hollow once more. “You’re going to get off while I fuck the bed, pretending I’m giving it to you doggy-style. And between now and the next time we touch, baby? You’re going to wonder what I can do when I actually let myself attack that pussy. That’s what’s going to happen.”

  His blunt speech made her nipples tighten, sent her heels burrowing into the bed. So close. So close. But worry held her body back. Henrik would own her afterward. Ailish could sense it. She couldn’t allow him to overwhelm her like this—to know he could do it whenever a situation arose where she needed placating. He’d lied to her. His intentions weren’t clear. If she dropped her guard too much, she could end up imprisoned again, whether it be with her father or the police.

  Dammit, this is going to hurt.

  Ailish kept her attention trained on Henrik as she slipped a hand across the bed to feel around beneath her pillow. Cool metal greeted her knuckles, and she turned her hand over to grip the gun. Her resolve wavered when Henrik laid a kiss on the white material of her panties, pulling at the waistband with his teeth. If she just lay back, she would hit her climax in seconds. A climax she craved. But the fear of returning to Chicago, the possibility of a future planned by others, propelled her into action.

  In one fluid motion, Ailish pulled the gun from beneath her pillow and pointed it at Henrik. With the opposite elbow, she scooted back on the bed to get outside of reaching distance. An ex-cop—especially one as large as Henrik—would be well capable of disarming her, and then the real trouble would begin. “Don’t move,” she said, sounding embarrassingly out of breath.

  Still poised on his stomach, Henrik watched her through narrowed eyes. “Ailish, put the gun down. Now.”

  Was there a please in there? She knew better than to ask that out loud—and it made her throat ache at the reminder of their running joke. How many people could you have a running joke with in less than twenty-four hours? Probably not many, but speculation did her no good, since she’d already pointed a gun at him. For the second time. Very slowly, Ailish placed one foot on the floor, then the other, careful to keep the gun lifted and level. “I have to go now, Henrik. Just let me—” He pushed off the bed and stood at his full height, which muddled her thoughts for a beat. “I’m not going back to Chicago. Just let me leave.”

  They were facing off across the bed, but Henrik took a few steps toward the end, as if he would round the furniture in her direction.

  “Stop,” she ordered, wishing away the panic in her voice. “You didn’t learn anything from the first time I shot you?”

  “The first time was an accident.” His tone was forged in steel, but did she detect a note of…hurt? “You don’t want to run from me. I’m here to keep you safe. Just let me do that. Please.”

  His please made her hand droop, just a little, before she jerked the weapon back up. “That’s exactly what I would say to someone I wanted to keep in line. I have a lot of experience being spoken to like that, you know? Twenty-one years.” She retreated a step when he took one forward, sand granules shifting in her belly. “You know, I got caught on purpose. By the police. I wanted to go to prison.”

  Henrik became a statue, his mouth the only part of him that moved. “What did you say?”

  Good question. She’d never told anyone. Had barely acknowledged it to herself. But there was something intimate and permissive about holding a gun on the man who’d just had his mouth all over you. And nothing would stay behind the dam anymore, truth needing to flow. Be gone. “I gave the police what they needed to put me away. I couldn’t be a witness anymore to my father’s actions. Every day, I felt sick. Even prison was better than my father’s house. But they just
let me go. I still don’t understand it. I needed that chance to atone.” It felt incredible, letting go of her misery. She’d kept it inside so long. “I was trading one cell for another, but I never thought I’d be free. I am, though. I’m going to make up for my wrongs by being a good person. Someone who’s nothing like my father. And if there’s even a chance you’ll take me back to a cell, I have to get away from you. It’s…it’s nothing personal.”

  He finally shook himself out of his eerily still state. “It’s been personal since I walked in here last night. Like it or not.” His gaze raked down her body, snagging on her bare thighs. “You just had your ankle hooked around my neck. Was that an act?”

  “No,” Ailish answered without hesitation. “I like you, Growler. I wish you hadn’t lied to me, because now I have to question everything you’ve said.”

  His expression reminded her of an athlete who’d just lost a game at the buzzer. “I didn’t want you to know I’d been kicked off the force.”

  “Why not?”

  He moved a few steps closer, his big barrel chest heaving in and out. “Because I like you, too, baby.”

  Ailish wanted to shout at her heart for having the nerve to lift, at her gun hand for starting to tremble. How could she feel anything but nerves? She was running out of space, and she was on the wrong side of the bed. They needed to reverse sides if she wanted to make it to the door. Only she could barely see the door around Henrik’s wide shoulders, his tight jaw.

  Loathing the whimper that passed her lips, Ailish cocked the gun. “Stop coming toward me or I’ll shoot you.”

  “No, you won’t,” Henrik murmured. “You know you can trust me, even though I fucked up. You can feel it.”