Mountain Captive by Cassie Mint

Four

Carver

The Volkov princess is plotting against me. Who can blame her? I’d do exactly the same thing. I am doing the same thing—that’s how we both found ourselves here. She may not know it yet, but we have a lot in common.

We both have a thirst for revenge.

Her eyes dart around my cabin, cataloguing her surroundings. She’s been here for several hours now, but she shows no sign of tiring. Her gaze keeps drifting back to the same things: the poker beside the fire; the knife block in the kitchen; the photos of her pinned to my cork board. Seeing it now with fresh eyes, I can understand the raw fear freezing her features—there are five photos of her for every one of someone else. Though her father has always been my main target for revenge, she’s become a separate obsession.

It’s the gold flecks in her hazel eyes. The delicate purse of her lips. The soft smile that plays over her mouth when she reads her favorite books.

I glance over at her flushed, angry face.

I will never see that smile. Not directed at me. And it’s ridiculous to feel such deep sorrow at that—to feel such painful loss that it’s like I’m in mourning.

A thought strikes me, hot and sudden.

If she weren’t Natalia Volkova, tied to her poisonous family, I would want her. Not just for a date or a single night, but with an all-consuming hunger. To claim her, to spoil her, to possess her. It prowls inside me now as I watch her, soaking in the sight of her draped over my bed. Her hair splays over my pillow; her scent mingles with mine in the sheets. And her wrists…

It makes me a monster and I know it, but I love the sight of her tied.

Her breath hitches and I look back at her face. She’s watching me, chest heaving beneath the twisted sleeping bag, but her pupils are so dilated her eyes are nearly black.

Fuck. Little Natalia likes this too.

Oh, her fear is real. The violence she promises me with every glance—that is real. But so is the arousal which wets her lips and makes her squirm like that on my mattress. She tugs again at the rope, but not like she wants to escape.

Like she’s testing the bond. Relishing the sensation of being caught.

Caught by me.

A muffled groan sounds behind the strip of fabric between her teeth. My cock pulses, growing hard in response. I rub a hand over my jaw, then step closer.

She freezes as I approach the bed. Her eyes gaze up at me as I tower above her.

“Are you needy, Natalia?” My voice rumbles through the quiet cabin. “Are you aching between your legs?”

I wait, pulse thrumming, as her eyes widen. Then finally, finally, she tips her chin in a tiny nod.

“Do you want me to fix that for you?” I rasp. Behind my back, I clench my fists so tight my knuckles creak.

She watches me for what feels like an age, her eyes darting to the cabin walls and then back. Her breaths come quick and shallow, the movement dipping the sleeping bag. I’m about to turn away, to take her silence as refusal, but she makes a small, urgent sound.

She nods once, short and firm.

Hunger roars through my chest.

* * *

This wasn’t part of the plan. I never intended to touch her. To feel myself slipping deeper and deeper into her thrall. But when I step close to the bed, leaning down to drag the sleeping bag zipper open, suddenly I am the one who is trapped.

The smooth skin beneath her vest top. The perky mounds of her tits. The points of her nipples prodding the fabric.

I’m lost, I’m fucking drowning in her, and I can’t help but duck my head and breathe in the scent of her neck. She makes a muffled noise, but she doesn’t squirm away. If anything, she tilts her head to give me better access.

And god, she smells good. Like the wind through the leaves, like mountain springs, and the faint musk of sweat that comes from hiking for hours each day. It’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever smelled, and I want to lick her from head to toe. I want to rub my face in her bare stomach.

I grit my teeth and straighten up. Wait until she meets my eye.

“Are you sure?”

A nod.

“You want me to touch you? Touch your pussy? Final warning.”

She rolls her eyes. Nods again. And she can pretend to be distant and unaffected, but she’s squirming below me, pressing her thighs together. Looking for the friction she needs.

I can give that to her.

“This changes nothing,” I tell her, tugging the sleeping bag down her body. She lifts her hips to help. “I’m still going to ruin your father.”

She glares at me but doesn’t shake her head. Doesn’t tell me to stop. No; the second the sleeping bag frees her feet, she spreads her thighs wide. Her hiking socks are bunched around her ankles, and dried dirt crusts one knee.

“Now there’s a sight.” I scrub a hand down my throat. A drumbeat starts in my chest. There’s a damp patch shadowed on the seam of her leggings. It’s warm beneath the pads of my fingers as I ghost them over the fabric.

Soft. Teasing. Feather-light touches meant to drive her as insane as she’s made me feel. She turns me on so much that I’m vicious with it, a wounded animal, and I want to share that pain around.

Let her see how it feels.

Natalia whimpers, lifting her hips to chase my touch. I draw my hand back with a dark chuckle.

“Oh, no. That’s not how this works, princess. You’re at my mercy. I’m going to torment you, deny you the way you’ve never been denied in your whole spoiled life, and when I finally let you come, you’ll beg for relief.”

She watches me, eyes glassy as I sit beside her. The mattress dips under my weight and she rolls against my hip. She doesn’t try to move away. I’m talking a big game, spilling the words I know will make her wet, but the truth is I’m so hard my teeth ache.

It’s a battle. A test of my will. Every atom of me screams to just take her. To cover her body with my own; to press her down into the creaky bed springs; to fuck and taste and bite.

But despite her family name, I can’t bring myself to hate her. Not for a moment since I laid eyes on her in the forest. And maybe I’m delusional, but I want her to crave me the same way.

So I’ll make it good for her. I’ll make her weep tears of frustration, of pent up need, and then sweet, sweet relief.

And when I send the Volkov princess back home, she’ll never forget the man in the mountains.