Page 2 of Untamed Sinner

I'm sexually fucked up.

That's what happens when you’re trafficked and your body becomes a commodity instead of your own. Desire and danger stop being opposites. They become besties, always hand in hand, one following the other.

Which is why I'm standing over Richard Pemberton's body, bloody knife in my hand, turned on, thinking about a man I shouldn't want instead of what I've got going on right in front of me.

Okay, I'm not just thinking about Hendricks. I'm fantasizing about him bending me over the counter in this kitchen and fucking me until I can't remember my own name—until the only thing in my head is him and the way he'd make me feel like something other than what I’ve become.

Numb.

Exhaling, I wipe the blood off my knife with a rag I'll burn later and focus on Pemberton. No point in crying over spilled milk. I am what I am, and I have a job to do here. No regrets. Besides, a girl’s life is at stake.

Pemberton’s face is a mess—swollen, split open in places, one eye completely shut. The other stares at nothing. He stopped screaming about twenty minutes ago, which was a relief. The soundproofing in his house is decent, but his voice had started to grate.

He was about to talk. He knew something—I could tell by the way his eyes widened when I showed him the notebook. But then he seized up and died. Heart attack I think.

Too easy a death for a fucker like him. If I could, I’d bring him back and start all over again. His victims certainly deserve that much justice.

Shaking my head, I glance at the notebook on the kitchen counter. It’s open to the last page, with the picture of that smiling young woman I haven’t identified yet. Just like each girl on the previous pages, there’s only a picture, age, measurements, and a date—no name, no location. What’s different from the other girls is that the date under the photo is coming up in eight days and there’s no red stamp next to it that says SOLD.

I’m not a genius, but I can put two and two together.

I swallow thickly. I have to get to her before she’s taken and the bright soul that shines from her eyes is destroyed.

Like mine was when I was taken thirteen years ago.

I kick Pemberton. He didn’t have anything to do with me and my sister Lily being kidnapped, but he’s here and he participated in the trafficking. I tracked one of the other girls to him, but if he knew about the girl on the last page, he didn't—or wouldn't—say. Not even when I took three of his fingers and made it clear I'd take more.

“Asshole,” I mutter, kicking him again for good measure. Men like him should be fed to pigs. I look at his body, in a puddle of various fluids on the Italian tile floor. “You know where the closest pig farm is? This is Montana. There must be one somewhere in this state.”

He doesn’t answer, of course.

“Fine.” I sigh. It’d be too much trouble hauling him anyway. Besides, I want information and sometimes leaving a body or two behind makes people talk.

Eight days to find a girl I can’t identify, and I can’t bring myself to contact the one man who can help me.

And just like that, Hendricks is on my mind again.

Not just on my mind—in my mind. Under my skin. For the past five weeks, he’s been haunting me, creeping up on me when I least expect it.

Like when I’m standing over a corpse and should be making sure all trace of me is cleaned up. I imagine what he'd look like stripped down and vulnerable, and the thought makes my pulse quicken in ways it shouldn't.

I shake my head, trying to dislodge the image, but he's still naked in my mind.

It’s a good image. His broad shoulders and hard muscle under expensive suits, that cold expression he wears like armor.

“He's probably got a small dick,” I say to Pemberton. Hendricks is probably overcompensating with all that tactical precision and those dead eyes. “He probably needs GPS to find a clit.”

I snort and continue my list as I clean my knife. Hendricks probably does that weird motorboat thing some men do with their mouths when they're going down on a woman, thinking it's sexy when really it just makes them look like idiots. He probably grunts like a pig when he's getting it on. Jackhammer action, no finesse, thinking speed equals skill. Hell—he probably doesn't even care if a woman gets off.

Kicking Pemberton’s leg out of the way, I drop the knife into my bag. "Men suck."

But damn it, thinking about Hendricks has made me wet. I can feel my panties clinging to my pussy, damp and uncomfortable, and it annoys the fuck out of me. He shouldn’t affect me this way. I’ve barely spent any time with him.

I don't have time for this. I don't have time to be distracted by some cold-eyed, ex-CIA killer with good bone structure and hands that probably know exactly how to break someone apart—in more ways than one.

I need to focus. I need to think about the notebook and the girl whose life is measured in days instead of years.

I stand, rolling my shoulders to work out the tension. My hands are steady, but my mind isn't. It keeps circling back to Hendricks. To the way he moves—efficient, controlled, like violence is just another task on a checklist. To the way he looked at me when we’d been planning the Turner raid—not with hunger or pity, but like he was trying to solve me instead of own me.