Hell Breaks Loose (Devil's Rock #2)(17)

She tried to speak but choked out a strangled sound. She nodded as much as she could manage.

“You think you need to use this as a bargaining chip, Grace?” The question was biting. He didn’t wait for her answer. “Well, you can keep it.” He pulled his hand away and clambered off her. “I told you I’d keep you safe. You don’t need to bribe me with a f*ck.”

She flinched. He shrugged into his clothes, leaving her gasping on the bed, her body humming and aching, unfulfilled. Shame washed over her. She’d watched plenty of Lifetime movies in a lonely hotel room. It was too soon for Stockholm syndrome to kick in, so there was no excuse for her reaction. There should only be terror. She shouldn’t feel this aroused.

She sat up on the bed and buried her face in her hands, pretty certain this was what rock bottom looked like.



She was hotter than fire.

He never would have thought such a thing possible. He never thought anything about her exceptional the few times he’d seen her on the TV. She’d just been . . . wallpaper.

But he’d seen the fire tonight. He felt it.

And he wanted to dive straight into those flames and finish where he left off. He blamed it on his years in prison. Eleven years in a cage. Eleven years without a woman. That would cloud any man’s judgment.

He snatched up his clothes. With a muttered curse, he struggled into them, less than graceful. He turned for the door, but halfway there her soft voice stopped him.

“Reid?”

She said his name as though testing it . . . testing herself maybe.

With a sigh, he peered through the gloom of the room. He could see she was sitting up in bed now. He inhaled a ragged breath. He had no doubt he could do every filthy thing his long-denied body craved. She’d let him. As though she had no choice. A sick little feeling wormed through him.

Maybe she would even enjoy it, but she would still count it as a necessary sacrifice. She’d still hate that it happened . . . and later hate him for it.

Silence stretched between them until he finally answered. “Stay in the room if you know what’s good for you.”

He wasn’t sure that she did know what was good for her. She let him put his hands on her, after all. Somehow, in her mind, she had thought that was a good idea. That such a thing might work out to her benefit.

She didn’t know who . . . what she was dealing with. She had no clue.

With another foul curse, he yanked open the door and stepped out into the hall. Shutting the door behind him, he stood there for a moment, breathing in and out of his nose until he felt a measure of calm. Until his raging erection subsided.

Satisfied, he advanced into the kitchen and living room area. Bodies were strewn everywhere, passed out in positions that didn’t look comfortable. One guy near the door was sleeping beside a pool of vomit that was already stinking up the room. They would all be hurting when they woke up. That is, until they drowned their aches in booze and drugs again.

Not everyone was asleep, however. His brother sat at the kitchen table nursing a longneck, with Rowdy sitting across from him. Dirty dishes littered the table, and Rowdy picked at the scraps, stabbing at various bits of food with the end of his knife.

Zane’s eyes lighted on him. “Up early, bro.”

Rowdy leered. “Have you even slept? Figure you put her to good use. Still not up for sharing?”

Everything inside him tensed, but he trained his face into a neutral expression. “Sorry. Not quite done with her.”

Zane grinned, momentarily looking like the boy Reid remembered. “Well, you might want to go back in there and get her out of your system. We got plans for her.”

“What would those be?” he asked, trying to sound casual. The food they had cooked earlier sat out on the counter. Rather than eat anything that had spoiled hours ago, he reached for a bag of potato chips.

“Sullivan wants us to keep her alive for a while and make her suffer. Really stick it to Reeves, you know?”

Reid bit into a chip, struggling to show no reaction to this information.

“I think we need to move her,” Zane said. “Too many people know about this place and come in and out of here for business.” He gestured around them. Business as in drug deals. “FBI, local law enforcement . . . Texas Rangers. They’re crawling everywhere.”

“We should just hurry it up and get rid of her,” Rowdy supplied. “Been saying it from the start. Sullivan wants her dead in the end. We should just do it and be done with her.”

Reid stopped chewing for a moment. It was the only outward sign he gave that Rowdy’s words affected him. He knew his brother. He knew these men. At least he thought he did. He’d known them eleven years ago. Granted, a lot could change over the years—he certainly had—but he never thought they were killers. He never thought his brother could become that.

“I told you,” Zane grumbled, as though he could read Reid’s mind, “I ain’t a woman killer.”

That was good to hear. He knew what kind of man Sullivan was. He was without a code. Nothing was off-limits for him. But Reid had thought his brother was better than that. Their grandfather had been a good man. Reid had thought they spent enough time with him for some of his goodness to rub off on Zane.

Rowdy kicked his boots up on the seat of a neighboring chair. “Man, you need to grow up. What did you think was going to happen? You were standing right next to me when Sullivan said what he wanted done to her. Besides, she’s seen all of our faces. We just gonna hand her back at the end of this and call it good?”