Page 149 of Carnal Wagers

“Stop fucking around. You don’t want me.”

“Are you certain of that? I quite like you like this. Actually, I think we can do even better.”

Her mouth gaped open in silent confusion. I let her stew on my words. Part of me believed it was all nothing but a game to her. The rest of me rejected that. It had been too real. She’d made me feel too much for it to be faked. She’d shoved me down the rabbit hole, and I’d be damned if I didn’t drag her down with me. I’d play the game and twist it in my favor until she fell for me as much as I’d fallen for her. No matter what it took, there was no escaping us, not anymore.

No more of her plans. No more lies. No more divorce papers.

“What does that mean?”

“You’re coming with me.”

Before she could protest, I tossed aside my helmet and folded her legs into a fetal position with her back against my chest. With the skydiving center off to our far right, past the airstrips, I carried her off the field and toward the tree line to our left. The parachute dragged behind us over the cleanly cut lawn. She twisted and turned in my grip, screeching and cursing in French.

“There’s no one to hear you. But if by chance there is, they won’t listen.”

She kicked her legs out and flailed against my hold. Her fists lashed against my arms, but I held her tight, lest she escape. She and I had some business to tend to.

“Let me go.” She was starting to sound desperate, but it was better than panicked and catatonic. “Let me go, and you’ll never have to see me again. I promise.”

“Who said that’s what I want?”

“Now who is toying with who?” she spat.

“Oh, I haven’t even begun to toy with you, síbhean. You’ll know the moment I do.” I squeezed the top of her inner thigh. Her squeal was the icing on the cake. “I’ll make sure of it.”

We crossed the first trees. Underbrush crackled underfoot amid loose rocks and unearthed roots. Sparse, colored leafage remained on the deciduous trees among scattered evergreens.

“What are you going to do to me?”

“No more than you deserve.”

I trudged through the woodlands, her weight and thrashing lugging my steps through dense soil and leaf litter.

“I don’t deserve any of this. It was a name.”

“No, it wasn’t.” The parachute caught on a loose twig and tugged at the suspension lines on my harness. I gathered the backs of her knees under one arm and bundled up the parachute with the other. “You made me fucking love you. Do you know how vicious that is?”

“Vicious? Why? Because you don’t find love easy? Newsflash, it never is. Otherwise, I would have found it after you left me at the altar and never would have come back into your life,” she snarled.

I tugged her head back and glared straight down into her eyes.

“Let me make this clear. You will never find love elsewhere. I forbid it.”

She scoffed. “That’s not how love works. Did you not hear? It’s vicious, just like me.”

With my thumb, I smudged her lipstick over the edges of her mouth as she struggled to free her chin from my hold.

“Aye, you’re a vicious little thing, spinning me into your web when you had no intention for us to last.”

“You made it very clear there never was an us.”

“So you turned the tables on me and made us into a little game to settle the score.”

“Like you’re about to do? You have no place to talk.”

“Oh, síbhean, this will definitely be a game. The difference is, I’m not hiding it.”

I dropped her legs, and her shoes hit the ground. We’d gone in far enough that no one could see us through the remaining foliage and underbrush, but not too far in case we needed a quick exit. Oak and maple trees populated the area, their branches mostly bare. One thick branch with very few shoots crossed out in front of us at my shoulder height. It was perfectly placed.