Page 11 of The Enforcer's Redemption

"Let me go!" My screech is met with a smack across the face, but it isn't Declan. It's the older man with grey sideburns and tattoos.

"Jaysus, Rian, did you have to?" Declan spins me around, anchored to his hip, then barks, "Get the car parked. You eejits deserve a smack." Then he starts toward the house. I'm his helpless victim again, though this time, he's not as rough as he drags me from the driveway into the house.

Inside, he sets me down and gives me a push. I feel the muzzle of his gun in my back as he grumbles, "Move," and I obey him.

"You can't keep me here. I'm a free woman. I need to get home." I feel the weight of the phone still tucked into my skirt and pray he doesn't know I have it. That he doesn’t search me.

"Your Da says otherwise," he snips and gives me another push with the tip of his gun.

At the room, I stomp in, still feeling the squishy mud between my toes. I reel around on him ready to scream, and he's so close to me, I barely have time to think. My hand shoots out and smacks him across the face. I'm angry and scared. I'm supposed to be on a train to nowhere right now, free from this life, this marriage, him. And I'm stuck.

Declan catches my wrist and backs me across the room until my back is pressed into the hard wood of the mantel. I grit my teeth and look him in the eye, unable to turn away. There is more than just anger in his gaze. There's concern there too, as if he might be scared that I could've escaped. Would he be punished? Is that why he's intimidated by that idea? Or is there something more?

"I am trying to keep you safe, Isla."

"Then let me go to my father and leave. I have a plan, Declan." My tone sounds a little too much like pleading, whimpering foolishness. I want to be strong, but the idea of being a prisoner is gutting.

"I am the only one who can protect you now." I'm not sure what his words mean, and I don't want to hear them. I bring my other hand up, away from the phone dangerously tucked away in my skirt, and attempt to slap him again, but he blocks me with the side of his gun as he leans forward, pinning me harder against the mantel.

"The only one," he repeats before his lips cover mine.

The kiss is deep and hungry, the way I imagine we'd have kissed the other day when he walked in on my gown fitting. He's hard against me, chest hammering, breathing ragged as he devours my lips. I'm desperate for breath, but the way his mouth moves against mine is hypnotizing me. He's good at this—really good. He doesn't need to pin my wrists. The way his kiss makes my body feel, I'm glued.

"Christ," I breathe out, and suddenly, I don't want to run from him. Suddenly, I want to go back to that moment when I saw him draped over the back of that chair getting his back stitched up when he was undressing me with his eyes and let him do it for real.

"You're mine," he whispers and then claims my lips again, and I almost believe him.

Almost…

9

DECLAN

Isla doesn't even resist me. She's so pliable in my hands, I set my gun on the mantel and loose her wrists so I can pull her against my body.

When I saw her running, the fright in her eyes, and my arm caught her to my side, my heart nearly exploded. For a split second, I thought I’d lost her, that she'd be off in the streets where the O’Reillys could hunt and kill her. That my chance at redemption was gone, or almost gone, but more than that… that Isla would be gone.

Arranged to marry her, I'd already grown attached to the idea of taking those vows, putting babies in her belly, learning to love her and teaching her to love me. In that moment, everything flashed in front of me and I felt like I lost control, but not now. Not while my lips are on hers, caressing the moans out of her mouth. My hands tug her against my body which is solid and throbbing for her.

The slap didn't even hurt. I see in her eyes the same longing for something more that I've felt not once, but twice in my life. I nearly stole it for myself when I was young, but my cousinoffered me a way out, a path to freedom, and I almost took it. I've since had a change of heart, but the longing for more still hovers just below the surface. And Isla's desperation tugs at my heart. I want to show her the things she's missing, the things I missed.

"You're mine, do you hear me? You can't leave this place." I kiss her harder, swallowing the whimper of rebuttal, the way she resists me with her words. But her hands frame in my face and she pulls me closer to herself. She's desperate for me too, her chest heaving.

"Mother of God," she moans as my lips glide across her jawline down to her neck and collarbone. I slide my hands around her back to the zip of her skirt and undo it. It slides to the floor and puddles at her feet, leaving her hips and thighs bare.

"This is mine too," I tell her, rubbing my thumb over the moisture gathering under her silky panties.

"I don't belong to you," she heaves, but she whines when I pinch her clit through the fabric, then she shudders.

"Tell me you don't want me, Isla. Tell me right now that you don't feel this." I push her against the wall, my eyes meeting hers. "Tell me you don't want me as much as I want you." My urge to protect her is overpowered by my need to have her wrapped around my dick, to feel her and experience her warmth as mine and no one else’s.

"I… I…" she stutters, her eyes wide with desire and disbelief. "I… I don't… don't want this." Her mouth says she doesn’t want me, but the moisture under my touch betrays her.

“If you mean that, I’ll turn you out—let Sebastian have his way with you. Is that what you want?” I stroke her through the soggyfabric, and she whimpers. She can’t respond because it isn’t what she wants.

“I…” She moans again, her eyes squeezing shut. Does she really want to deny us both this? My cock aches for her, as it has done since the night I first laid eyes on her.

"Say it, Isla. Tell me you don't want me and I'll let you go. But if you don't… I'll take what's mine." I lean in closer, my lips brushing hers, inhaling the sweet scent of her arousal.

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