Raw Redemption (Crossing the Line #4)(27)

“I’m not expecting shit from you. You haven’t earned that privilege yet.” Caine rubbed a thumb along his jawline. “But you were still one of the boys in blue when my daughter went missing, weren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Henrik responded in a flat voice, using all his willpower to avoid strangling the old man. “I heard she split.”

Caine eyeballed him for a heavy moment. “Use whatever connections you’ve maintained. Prove you’ve got some value by finding my daughter and bringing her back here—alive. Then we’ll talk about that job.” He started to exit the bathroom, but paused. “I’d hurry. You’re not the only one I’ve got looking for her.”





Chapter Eight


Ailish stared out the window of their cabin, willing Henrik’s truck to appear. Having been allowed to take another walk this morning, she felt far less stir-crazy, but as eleven o’clock came and went, her nerves began to whir, anxiousness taking up residence in her stomach. Had Henrik met her father? Oh God, she hoped not. Nothing good could come from an association with Caine. Only pain and loss.

With a heaved breath, Ailish turned from the window to find Erin and Connor facing off across the bed, much like she’d done with Henrik yesterday afternoon, before he’d left. It appeared her two temporary protectors were equally ready for Henrik to return so they could be alone.

Yes, sexual frustration was alive and well in cabin nine.

Ever since Ailish and Erin had returned from their walk last night, Connor had been pacing, splitting his glowering attention between the cabin’s perimeter and his smiling girlfriend. Knowing a thing or two about teasing men, Ailish could see the effect of Erin leaving Connor unfulfilled. This was different, though. Her own teasing had never ended in the men touching Ailish, merely with Ailish touching herself. She’d seen Henrik with the same starved expression just yesterday when she’d been beneath him on the bed, his mouth doing wicked things to her body. Actually, she couldn’t stop seeing it.

This unrelenting yearn to feel Henrik’s weight press her down into the bed again had combined with her fear he wouldn’t return…and created resolution. No more teasing, no more trying to get away. She had to trust her gut where Henrik was concerned. If he would only—

Wheels crunched along the dirt outside and Ailish rushed back to the window. Behind her, Connor muttered halle-f*cking-lujah and Erin laughed, but after that Ailish could only hear the rushing in her own ears. As Henrik climbed from the truck and strode toward the cabin, her mouth ran dry. She absorbed every detail of him, some heating her blood, others adding fuel to her worry. The jeans riding low on his hips, the way his thin white T-shirt conformed to his muscular abdomen and thick upper arms…yeah, those details made her fingers itch to touch. Made her want to sit on his lap and tempt his erection. Conversely, she hated the tape around his knuckles, his sliced lower lip. The puffiness surrounding his right eye.

Without any prompting, her palm slapped the windowpane, making Henrik’s head lift. She frowned at him, and although she couldn’t hear him through the glass, she knew he sighed. Actually had the nerve to look disappointed at her choice of welcome. Well, too bad.

As soon as Henrik opened the door, Connor grabbed Erin’s hand and vanished through the exit, obviously headed back to their own cabin. Ailish couldn’t be more grateful. She had a few things to get off her mind, and all of them were directed at the man who had the nerve to look better in a T-shirt than any fitness model she’d seen on the cover of a health magazine.

Henrik closed the door and leaned back against it, thumbs slipping into his belt loops, the picture of resignation. “Hey, Lish.”

Oh no. Was it possible for a man to make you wet in just two words? Yes. Because Henrik had just done it. Heaviness descended between her thighs, even more powerful than yesterday, because she’d just had a full night of creating scenarios where he didn’t come back. Relief bisected desire and she couldn’t get across the room fast enough.

A second before she reached Henrik, his resignation transformed with surprise, but then…God. Then there was just a man wanting to f*ck. Needing to f*ck her. Ailish’s knees almost gave out before he snatched her off the ground. Her stomach remained quivering in the air as he lifted her, turned, and rammed them both against the door. They moved as one unit, her thighs hugging his waist, bodies interlocking like two sides of a broken heart.

“Jesus,” he groaned, lifting two fingers to her mouth, his eyes riveted as he pushed them deep past her lips. “I missed this little mouth. You got something to say, huh? Too bad. I can’t watch your lips move right now without wanting to get some part of myself between them. You understand what I’m talking about?”

Ailish nodded, whimpering when he thrust against her mound. As if her body started to operate on pure, erotic instinct, she sucked on his fingers and was rewarding with a grind of his hips.

“You think I won’t put you on your knees in that Disney Princess T-shirt, baby?” he breathed in her ear before licking along the rim. “You’re wrong. I’ll even use it to wipe your chin afterward.”

A sensation she could only equate with lightning drilled Ailish in her midsection. The force of it made her eyelids fall, her head list to one side as if she’d been struck by the ball of electricity. But at the apex of her thighs, she’d never been more alive. More awake. The walls of her core clenched together, missing a part of Henrik she’d never even felt there. A part so huge and hot behind the fly of his jeans, she couldn’t help writhing up and down on it, sucking, sucking his fingers like she’d been born for that sole purpose.