Locke 2 (Blackwater Boys #4)

Thirteen

Kali

M inutes passed.

Maybe an hour.

He was making himself busy. With what, I had yet to know. I didn’t even care. Everything was already a mess.

My lips slackened, the bottom lip aching. Blood still coated my tongue. The blood he’d practically sucked into his mouth, like he wanted to taste my very essence. I ran my tongue along my bruised lips, pushing out through a shaky whisper, “What took you so long?”

No response.

Not even Dahlia raised her head from the other side of the bed. Little traitor should have been barking at the intruder. She should be defending me. Then again, she’d probably witnessed my surrender, getting dicked down by this man. She probably couldn’t even look at my hussy ass.

I had to do this alone then.

I let out a slow breath and very slowly shifted my body, resting my back against the hard mattress. I stared up at the dark ceiling and saw his moving form from my peripheral. I felt both defeated and relieved. I felt dread and excitement. These clashes of emotions were irritating.

Finally, I turned my head, and even though I knew I would find him—the man who’d already held his gun to my head as he fucked me—it didn’t prepare me for him. His presence was all consuming, even in the darkness. He stood over my dresser, his giant back to me, the gun put away, grabbing and flipping through papers I’d had on there. I watched him, barely breathing now as he shined a little flashlight over the pages. Beside the countless papers he must have collected throughout the house was my purse, opened and empty, the contents spilled out over the dresser. My wallet’s cards were emptied. The loose change scattered across the surface; the little bills crumpled in a tiny little pile. He was rifling through everything.

“What are you doing?” I asked, but I knew what he was doing. He was going through my little life I’d built, collecting all the information he could get.

“You dare question me,” he returned, his tone dark and merciless. “It would be wise you kept your mouth shut, Kali, until I calm down.”

He was still angry, even after he’d fucked me. It wasn’t the reaction I expected from him. I had imagined him strutting around me, oozing cockiness as he goaded me like I was a passing amusement. Wasn’t that what I was, after all? And yet when he used my name, caressing it with his tongue even while he was angry, I felt an involuntary quiver in my being. The same feeling I felt when he’d said it as he fucked me.

He still remembered my name.

Why did I think he wouldn’t?

He opened one of my drawers, his hand roaming inside it. I slowly sat up, wincing at the aches in my body, and rested my back against the headboard, watching him intently. My pulse hadn’t slowed. Nor the feeling of genuine surprise that he was actually here.

“Hello to you, too,” I retorted, sarcastically, if only to cut through the tightly wound tension between us.

He slammed the drawer so loud, the dresser rattled. Exactly the opposite reaction I hoped for. I stilled, my eyes widening as he slowly turned to look at me. The light flashed in my eyes, and I squinted, looking away. I didn’t get to have a look at him, and that sort of horrified me. I wondered if he did that on purpose. He didn’t want me to see him, which was a shame. You could know a lot about a man when you looked into his angry eyes.

And, deep inside, I wanted to see him.

“Eighteen months,” he quietly uttered, that rage I wasn’t familiar with dripping out of him. “Five hundred and forty-eight days.”

I looked down, feeling the heat rush to my cheeks as he took a step toward me, closing the gap between us. The light was still on me, like he was peering at my reaction closely. The light shook, though, another indication that he was pissed.

I swallowed, whispering, “I told you that you wouldn’t find me—”

“Shut up,” he growled.

And I did.

I sensed the danger approaching. I closed my eyes, telling myself to calm down. He had never actually hurt me when we were together. God, I made that sound like we had a relationship. When he kidnapped me, he had never actually harmed me without my permission. It had been pretty fucked up. I should have spent the last eighteen months decompressing from it all, and analysing how sort of sick it had been. If I had, I might have explored the possibility that he could hurt me without my permission. This was Max fucking Locke. He was corrupt and dangerous and a total serial killer.

Abruptly, the light disappeared from my face as he climbed over the bed so quickly, I didn’t have time to think. A hand shot out to my throat, and I went deathly still, gaping up at the dark figure that was now astride me.

Was he going to fuck me again?

No, this felt different.

It felt like he was everywhere. My entire vision was filled with him, and the weight of his body—of his thighs clenched around my outer thighs—caging me. His grip was tight as he leaned down, his nose bumping mine.

“You’re playing house in a nice little town under a nice little name, but you’re getting bored, aren’t you?” he gritted out, coldly. “You’re calling me back like I’m at your beck and call, like nothing’s changed since the last time you saw me.”

“Believe me, I know everything’s changed,” I retorted.

“How so?”

“You said you’d find me.” I smiled flatly. “You didn’t because you got bored.”

He squeezed my throat a little tighter—tiny fireworks burst through my body—and then abruptly he let go, climbing back off the bed. His touch still seared my throat. It seared my fucking soul. I swallowed hard, feeling the heat rush to my cheeks, the scent of him, his cologne, his essence, clung in the air around me, making my chest tighten painfully. I licked my lips again, hoping to draw his taste back in, but it was clearing and that troubled me.

His hands clenched at his sides as he turned his back to me. I felt my heart spike at his response. I was right then. And why did that hurt? Why did it feel like being here—running—was for nothing all along? It would have been nice if the chase had kept going. If being here, building a life, felt like it was something I needed to do because I had run out of options.

I climbed off the bed, unwilling to let him skirt this.

“Admit it,” I demanded, standing my ground. “You said there was nowhere I could go that you wouldn’t find me, but you were just pretending all along. Pretending I was something special to you—”

“My network doesn’t extend to cute little towns,” he cut in, blandly. “Bet your help knew that, didn’t they?”

“So, then you gave up,” I pressed.

“I didn’t give up.”

“No, you did, because you would have found me. The Almighty Locke with all the power and control to rip through cities and mine the rich and philanthropic perverts out couldn’t find a loner woman on the run? Just say it. Say you gave up!”

He turned around and looked down at me. My heart was racing as I felt his eyes on my body. Even in the dark, I felt he could see every part of me.

“You want to know that I gave up on you,” he spoke, and it was all ice and toneless. “But you’re the one that didn’t play fair, Kali.”

“I did exactly what you demanded of me,” I growled back, pointing my finger at the floor, my chest heaving as I retorted, “I ran, and you didn’t find me, and I continued to run, even beyond what my help had offered me. I kept going, but you weren’t there. You didn’t follow. I played your fucking game, Locke. In fact, I’ve been playing your fucking game right up to this point—”

“You cheated,” he bit back, and this time the anger seeped out of him. “You let Conor and Charlotte help you.”

“Let?” I returned, huffing. “As if I had a fucking choice? You were hunting me down—”

“That’s what we agreed on.”

“It’s not what I wanted.”

Now he stepped closer to me, pointing his finger at me, growling, “It was exactly what you wanted. What we wanted.”

“What do you think we wanted?”

“Your surrender.”

I didn’t speak.

There was too much to absorb in those two little words. My response was important. Whether I expressed my profuse denial or admitted my fear of that outcome—both made me look weak.

“Your stubbornness cost us eighteen months,” he bitterly said when the opportunity for me to respond ticked on by. “You chose to run, and you played me dirty, because this wasn’t a fair chase from the start.”

I let out a bitter breath. “Your idea of fair is just to hunt me down and then beat me around—”

“Beat you around?”

“It’s true.”

“I beat you?”

“You were rough on me.”

“You weren’t exactly gentle on me.”

“Because I was fighting you!”

“We wanted it rough.”

“And then you threw me away.” I backed away from him because he made the room feel so small. “I surrendered to you the first time, remember?”

He watched me, unmoving, his stare heavy. “When I kidnapped you.”

I smiled coldly. “At least you’re calling it what it was.”

Why didn’t he respond to that? Why was he so quiet? The back of my knees hit the bed, and I stopped moving. I heard Dahlia digging around in the bed behind me, uncaring of the tense argument transpiring in front of her.

I continued to wait for Locke to make the next move. When nothing happened, I started to have a mini freak out. His response eighteen months ago would have been gruff. He’d have pressed me up against the wall, told me he’d steal me—he’d have been wrecking my life and making me run.

He wasn’t making me run right now.

He didn’t even attempt to give me the urge to run.

I longed for that feeling, and so I squirmed, unsure of what to do.

“You didn’t run,” he finally spoke, calmly but coldly. “Running would mean I was giving chase to you. You didn’t run, Kali.”

I didn’t run?

“What do you think I’ve been doing?” I returned angrily.

“Hiding.”

Tell her to run.

Run.

Run.

“Hide.”

The past singed me abruptly. I stilled and the breath sat in my lungs as he eyed me. I blinked and saw my little sister sitting on the floor by the door, her fluffy dress skirt all around her, her fingers wrapped around the teacup with the pink swirls. Her big eyes looked up at me, and for once not even she spoke.

“You bastard,” I whispered, brokenly, angrily. “I should tell you to go away…”

“So then tell me,” he threatened.

“Would you go?”

His voice was steel. “You called for me. I’m back, and the only way I’m leaving is with you by my side.”

“What if I don’t want to go with you?”

He ignored my question, turning back around to flick on his little light and leaf through my papers. I was tired of this darkness. I reached over to the lamp on the nightstand and turned it on. The light was dim, but it was enough to see him in all his glory. This giant man in his tailored black suit and raven black hair.

I looked over my shoulder, catching Dahlia’s head poke out from the covers. Her tail flicked under the covers. She was still having a grand old time. Didn’t she sense the evil feet from her? Not a bark escaped her lips, she was so relaxed.

I looked back at Locke, still preoccupied in his snooping. “If you need to know something, just ask it.”

His response was quick. “Where’s your diary?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Why not?” He tried to make it sound like a bored question, but I caught the way his breath caught at the end.

I studied his back, his every movement. “I didn’t have an audience anymore.”

Caught off guard by that response, he fumbled and one of the papers fell from his hand. He turned his head and watched it float to the floor. I quickly glimpsed his profile, his lips were pressed tight, his nostrils flaring. Had I stunned him into silence?

He recalibrated fast and turned around, forgetting all about my bills and useless mail. I stiffened now because I could see him entirely. All that the year and a half had done to him. And, to be honest, it wasn’t much. He looked the same, except there was more of a hardness. More of an emptiness. More of a nothing in his gaze as his dark eyes bore into mine.

He looked utterly soulless.

His brutal fuck spoke of it, but I needed to see it for myself.

“Does that bother you?” I wondered.

“It flays me,” he returned.

“Why?”

“You know why.”

His past words ignited me. “ If I could split your head wide open to listen to your thoughts, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

I swallowed, fighting to find words. The silence said more than our words did, and I didn’t like it.

“I’m a teacher’s assistant,” I said, trying to sound blase, like I was simply offering him the information he was looking for. I was panicking though. Trying to strike up a normal conversation, if that was even possible. I’d never had a single normal conversation with this man. I continued, “I enjoy it. I also take in animals that are sick—”

“I already know all that,” he cut in, mildly annoyed. “I knew it the second I learned where you were.”

I huffed. “You could have waited until after I filled you in to tell me that, instead of interrupting me.”

“Then it’s pointless banter and makes this take longer.”

“What’s this ?”

“This process.”

I furrowed my brows. “I don’t understand.”

His eyes didn’t leave mine. “You called for me.”

He said that like it was all I needed to know. I felt heat in my face again and took a breath, trying to settle my heart. “You’re going through my papers like you didn’t know what was happening—”

“I’m looking for something else.”

“Like what? Just ask and I’ll tell you.”

“You share this house with a man.” A cold statement.

I nodded, carefully. “His name is Hal.”

“Actually, his name is Harvey.”

I fought to keep my eyes from rolling. “Hal suits him better.”

“How friendly are you with Hal?”

I swallowed a scoff. “He’s gay, Locke.”

His tone remained cold. “Yes, that’s why he’s still breathing.”

I raised a brow. “Are you asking how close I am with him?”

“How much does he know about you?”

“Very little.”

“Keep it that way.”

I wanted to ask why and maybe even refuse out of old defiant habits, but he was so fucking intimidating suddenly, I swallowed down my words.

“Don’t be a journalist’s next big break,” he said, once again turning his back to me.

“How on earth could I be his next big break?” I asked, taking a step closer to him, but then chickening out and moving in the opposite direction. I watched as he folded a few papers and stuffed them in his pocket. Why was he doing that too?

“You’re a survivor,” he simply answered.

My eyes lost focus. “How can you say that in that way?”

“What way?”

“Like bringing up my past isn’t triggering. It’s mean.”

“I’m not trying to be mean.”

I knew that, but now my mind was racing, and I kept glancing at Aurora in the corner. I shut my eyes again. “This is too much, Locke. Too fast.”

“Have you fucked anyone?” he barrelled through, and the question sucked whatever warmth there was out of the room.

Too gobsmacked to respond, I opened my eyes. He was facing me again, watching me with those empty eyes. Suddenly so unfeeling. What happened to the man that whispered my name in the darkness, worshipping it?

“That’s personal,” I hissed.

“Yes,” he agreed. “It’s very fucking personal.”

“I mean personal to me, and it’s none of your business.”

“It’s definitely my business, now answer,” he demanded. “Have you fucked anyone?”

He was trying to contain himself. This one thing might unravel him the most.

“Eighteen months is a long time,” I whispered, boldly. “Didn’t you?”

His jaw clenched. His entire body tightened, and he seemed to stop breathing. Then he took small, calculating steps to me, that crack in his empty expression turning vicious. “Who was he?” he demanded in a low voice.

My heart raced as I countered, “Who was she ?”

I had to admit, the thought soured my soul. I’d thought about it a time or ten thousand. Of him with another woman, doing what he did to me. I might have bitten my clenched fist a time or ten thousand until I’d broken through the skin when the sourness turned to rage.

He was all around me again, his body pressing against mine, and he didn’t stop moving. He shoved me down on the bed, and my breath left my lungs in a whoosh as he climbed over me very slowly. His hand went for my chin this time, though I would have offered him to wrap it around my throat because I was already under his spell.

This damn man and his allure.

And this time I was on my back, and he was on top of me. Exactly what I’d wanted.

He buried his fingers into my chin, forcing my face to look at him. His evil—oh, my god, there was so much of it—was all I could see as he gritted his teeth and stared down at me, unforgiving.

“She was poison,” he answered coldly. “Pure venom, the things she made me do to her. But I knew she would be. It’s why I stole her and then let her go.”

My words almost didn’t reach my mouth when I realised who he was referring to. “Why did you let her go?”

“Because I was trying to do the right thing. But I craved her every single day.” His lips brushed mine again and I let out a soft moan, eager for more pressure. “I wanted her back in my room, in my bed.” He let out a defeated breath. “I just wanted to please her.”

“Was she satisfied before you let her go?”

“She must have been because she hid from me and then forgot all about me.”

I searched his eyes, shaking my head. “I didn’t forget you, Locke—”

His lips brushed mine, and I closed my eyes, sucking in a sharp breath at the light contact. My entire body centred around him. Hyper aware of every inch of him pressed against mine. Jesus, this man had already been inside me, and yet I was empty all over again, wanting and lusting. This powerful man came back to me, was now draped over me, his need brushing against my core, contradicting the cold expression he seemed so good at donning.

Straightaway, I was back there again. In his apartment. In his bedroom. And it was just us, locked in each other, the world forgotten. It was so easy to do—forget the world and everything in it. Had I felt misery in that bedroom with him? I had been locked in there with him, but I had felt more freedom in it than I did outside it.

And he dared to call me poison? When it was he who chased after me , who declared he was going to have me. If I was a poison pill, he chose to take it. Whereas when he forced his poison upon me, I hadn’t been given a choice.

His gaze hardened. “Who got to have you?”

I had no desire to torture him. “Nobody.”

He squeezed my chin tighter. “If I find you’ve lied to me, Kali, I will cut him up in front of you—”

“You’re being stupid—”

“I will kill him.” There was finality in his voice, and I believed him. I knew deep inside that he would murder any man who had touched me after him.

Emotion built behind my eyes. Denial sharp as a blade when I said, “Just say you gave up. Please, Locke.”

“If I gave up, I would not be here.” He raised my shirt up, running his warm hand over my stomach. “And now that you know this, you’re going to want to hide from me again. But no one is going to help you this time, little lion, and I won’t let you out of my sight. Never again.”

“Locke—”

“No more talking.”

He kissed me again, and I was pulled back under. I accepted his mouth, his tongue, all of it. When his hands roamed my body, they shook and groped at my flesh, squeezing and kneading me. My legs fell away again, accepting his pressure between my thighs. The weight of him settled there, where it pulsed and ached.

“Greedy,” he whispered. “So fucking needy. You missed me.”

A statement. A fact he wanted me to confirm.

“A little bit,” was all I said.

“Your body betrays you.”

“My body is stupid.”

He grabbed at my breast again and lowered his face. He sucked at my nipple through the shirt as my fingers found his hair, clenching at the thick black strands. We were getting carried away, weren’t we? What was it I needed to do again? I blinked hazily at the ceiling, trying to remember my purpose, but it was like time was rewound, and I was stuck in his web again.

He raised my shirt, exposing my breasts, giving them adequate attention. From one breast to the other, he sucked and tasted me and then he ventured back down my belly, nipping at my hips. It didn’t occur to me until he was bringing my pants down again, slowly like he was savouring it, that he was still entirely clothed.

“Locke…”

“Hush.”

I gulped in air. “I think…I think I need to talk to you about something…”

“Later.”

“Locke—” He licked at my core again and I couldn’t think. “Damn you…”

When he tasted me this time, I didn’t feel the same rage as before. He licked me like he just wanted to taste me and please me. I just wanted to please her. Isn’t that what he just said? My eyes ached from unshed tears. He spread my legs apart and devoured me, sucking and prodding and studying my sounds. When he told me, “Come on my mouth, little lion,” I felt my world flip upside down. Sparks ran through me, the pleasure toe curling. I squeezed at the strands of his air, whispering, “Max…”

He stilled at the use of his name, and I stilled because I hadn’t intended on using it. He suddenly climbed back over me, and his lips smashed mine. He groaned in my mouth. I barely kissed him, still dazed.

“Was that good?” he asked as he released his cock again and brushed the thick tip against my damp folds.

“I came, didn’t I?” I answered, though my focus was centred on his length hardening and prodding into me.

“My mouth is still covered in it.” He licked my lips. “Have a taste of your pleasure, prey.”

I did, and he didn’t expect it; his eyes narrowed on my mouth as his breathing stilled. “Fuck,” he whispered, and then he surged back inside me, wrecking me. His movements were less chaotic. The strokes more controlled but equally vicious. I dug my heels into the mattress, accepting every inch of him, even as it hurt and made me yelp, the intrusion almost too much to take.

He was impossibly thick, and I was so small. I was raw, my fingers digging into his suited back. I braced myself, breathing through his harsh strokes, trying to will my body to accept him. The pleasure and pain clashed inside me. I must have cried out, must have said something along those lines because he simply growled, “You’ll take it. You’ll fucking take it.” A demand. A punishment. I accepted both because it was intoxicating and made my chest feel full. I’d been so empty before…so cold…and he was vicious, but he felt warm and he wanted me, desperately. I felt it sharply, even as I tried to shake my head, tell myself it wasn’t true. There was no hiding it in him, though. Locke gripped my hair and smashed his mouth against mine and came so deep, I was all he felt and tasted, and I still sensed it wasn’t enough.

What were we doing?

What was going to become of us?

I wondered about that for a couple moments, feeling his heart thump against my chest.

“There’ll be more of that. Much more, Kali,” he vowed, pulling back to look at me.

“Kari,” I corrected him, my lips turning into a lazy smile. “That’s also my name now.”

“Not very original.”

“I know, but I needed a name I could easily remember.”

“It’s Kali,” he told me, stubbornly. “I won’t use any other.”

“Not while you’re here.”

“That won’t be for long.”

My eyes held his steady gaze, my high fading. “What?”

His stare was solemn and resolute. “You called. I’m here. You’re mine now. I’m taking you back to Blackwater.”

His words sent a spike of terror through me. No, I needed to talk to him, and it wasn’t about me, or him.

It was about a boy.

I tried to move beneath him, but he didn’t allow it. He forced me still, accepting my fight, looking almost delighted by it.

“Locke, no,” I rushed out. “Please. No.”

“No?” he repeated, astonished. “You dare say no to me?”

“I have said no to you in the past.”

“This is different.”

“Locke.”

“ You’re mine now .”

“Listen to me first.”

His teeth clenched as he glared at me now. “We made a deal. I’ve come to collect.”

“I’m aware, but you need to stop for a moment.”

“I can’t wait anymore.” He inhaled sharply, like this was killing him. “Kali, I can’t.”

Panic shot through me. I gripped his suit jacket tightly and shook him, but he remained still, remained buried inside me, his cock even flicking to life at my resistance. “Stop and listen.”

He gripped my hand to stop my shaking. “You made your whereabouts known—”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ve called for me—”

“Not for the reasons you think.”

His glare mixed with confusion and then…another feeling. A wretched feeling.

He was hurt.

Immediately, he pulled out of me and got off me again. I didn’t move this time. My heart was threatening to break out of my chest. My whole body was hot to the touch. I heard him pacing the room. I could feel the rage—there was so much rage in him now. I was afraid to look at him.

Slowly, I sat up and gathered my pants. I slid them back on, my gaze trapped to the floor. Then I wrung my hands together. I hated that I knew I was doing the right thing, but that it was going to disappoint him. Crush him even.

I stood up on shaky legs and finally peered up at him. “I didn’t call for you because I wanted you to find me.”

He stopped mid step and looked at me, his gaze dark and dangerous.

“I called for you because I need your help.”