Cadillac Payback: Rising Tide by AJ Elmore (grave mercy .TXT) 📗

eye and tell me you're going to kill me,” I growl. “You better pull the fucking trigger yourself.”

I drop a low laugh into the mix, one that I hope she'll interpret as condescending.

Then I say, “You really think I'm so damn stupid. You fly me to my old home and my old crew with a starter packet of numbers, and you think I won't even notice the holes in your story.”

The silence that follows this time feels different, and I think I've finally gotten around her guard. I've managed to get some footing against her relentless denial of me. She squares her shoulders and lifts her nose so that our lips are only inches apart. She does look me in the eye, and I swear there's a trace of fear – uncertainty, even – in her gaze.

A bitter smirk curls my lips. I guess there will never be a time when she's not playing some game, at some angle. I can think of an angle or two that I could work on her, just to remind her of how I could always get her off. How I always cared to enough to make sure she did.

No. That's the wrong answer, Isaiah.

At last she recovers, and says, “Cut the shit, Isaiah. What are you saying?”

I take a step forward, so that she has to move back or make contact. It works, she back peddles.

I say, “You claim you kept tabs on me all these years, but I say you're full of shit. I would have been a dead man long ago if that were true. So how did you find me?”

She stares back for a loaded moment. She doesn't look so sure now. No, she kind of reminds me of a cornered cat. She's searching me for a weakness, a hole for her claws. She's not gonna find it.

“Tell the truth, Mona. You owe me that much for not taking you down when you sacrificed me to save your own ass.”

Another step forward sends her back again. She glances down at my bare chest. She's forming a reply, I think. I can't give her time to raise a defense now that I've knocked her off her pedestal. Another step puts her against the door. I press as close as I can without actually touching her, and her breath snags in her throat.

“We didn't find you,” she says, quick and breathy.

My eyes narrow. Anger and pent up sexual tension make equal bids for attention.

“What?”

I don't recognize my own voice, it comes out so low and menacing. I hardly recognize myself being so confrontational.

“They found you,” she says. She's scared. Good.

They? She couldn't mean -

“Abuela.”

She nods as much as the space allows. She's barely breathing, and she's frozen in place. Gone are all her pompous airs.

I'm so mad I'm afraid that if I move, I'll do something drastic. All this time I thought I was free, I was just a mouse in the scope of a rifle.

“The first time we approached them, they nearly killed the negotiator. They sent him back with a message: that if we brought you in, they would talk. They told us where you were,” she says, the rasp in her voice doing nothing to kill my raging hard-on. Apparently, seeing her fear me is sexier than all the times she ordered me around.

Her words chug through my intoxicated brain at a snail's pace. Maybe because I don't want to believe them. How? How did Abuela know about my ties to Carlo? Had she always known, even when she had me in her ranks?

This is it. The leverage I've been waiting for. They can't kill me if they want the deal. Abuela won't kill me if she's the one who wants me in. Never mind the resounding why she wants me back. That's a question better left to a moment of more clarity.

Arousal and the high of winning are ebbing out the anger. Another slow smile possesses me, and I push forward so that my cock brushes her thighs through my boxers. The contact almost makes me shudder. I hope she regrets choosing that little pale blue dress this morning.

“Was that so hard?” I ask, soft and smooth.

Her cheeks flush, and a hot if tiny sigh escapes her pretty red lips.

“What are you doing?” she whispers, far from the scathing first time she asked me that.

It's been a long, dry year of no physical contact, and it takes everything in me to restrain myself.

I say, “I saw the way you looked at me. Could it be that your new boy toy doesn't measure up?”

Her breath has quickened, and those blue eyes are heavy-lidded. Her lips part like she's going to speak. If she said to stop I would, but she doesn't say anything.

I lean my lips to her ear, and say, “Doesn't he get you off like I used to do?”

I ghost my fingers up the back of her leg, and she trembles. She wants it, of that I'm sure, even if she's fighting herself. Still, she doesn't tell me to stop.

Her skin is milk and honey, smooth and soft, and of course I'm not surprised when I cup her ass that she's wearing a thong. I pull her to me so that my dick fits snug against her. A tiny moan leaks from her.

This time I've really gone too far. I'm too far gone to give a shit. I run my free hand up her side, over her perfect breast. When my fingers wrap around her throat, her eyes go wide. I squeeze just a little. With my other hand, I trace the strap of her panties around, and slip my fingers beneath them.

It takes everything in me not to buck my hips like a frantic teenager, especially when she makes another moan. It's not surprising that she's as smooth there as the rest of her. It's also not surprising that she's so fucking wet when I slide my fingers inside her. My thumb traces circles around her