SHE GODDAMN BEGGED.

Throwing the SUV into drive, hoping like fuck I didn’t go over the cliff again, I slowly gave the beast gas.

The tires spun like I knew they would, but a blue-eyed teenager had begged me to try, so here I was, fucking trying when I should’ve had her halfway up to the cabin by now.

“Goddamn it,” I muttered, throwing the engine in Reverse and glancing in the rearview mirror to make sure she was standing out of range. “Here’s goes nothing.”

Not able to see how far off the road the rear tires were because of the depth of the snow, I took a chance on being able to rock the Escalade out of its current position. Jackknifed across the road, I needed to get the damn vehicle facing one way or another. Preferably toward the cabin.

I gave it gas in Reverse, and the wheels spun but then gripped. The SUV moved a few inches back, and I hit the brakes. Quickly throwing it in Drive before I drifted, I gave it gas again. “Come on, fucking traction control. Move this beast.”

The four-wheel drive gripped, and I moved forward until the front bumper hit the face of the mountain. “That’s it.” Putting it back in Reverse, I turned the wheel.

Taking the Escalade all the way to the edge of the drop-off, then easing forward again, I repeated the process until I finally had the beast not perpendicular on the road but facing toward the cabin.

I put the window down to call to her, but she was already pulling open the passenger door.

“You did it!” Swamped in my jacket, shaking the snow off her hair and shoulders, she got in. “I knew you could.”

“We’re not there yet.” I hated to burst her fucking bubble, but getting the SUV back on the road was the easy part. Getting up the mountain the rest of the way was another story.

“You’ll manage it,” she said confidently.

Who the fuck was this chick? “Says the woman who got close and personal with the Oh Jesus handle.”

“That was before I knew you could drive a Cadillac backward off a mountain.” She put her seat belt on.

Snow dumping, the wipers barely able to keep up, I eased us forward. “That wasn’t driving. That was Escalade skiing.”

She laughed.

Lighthearted and delicate, it reminded me of the way she’d walked out of the restaurant. Some women wore heels like they were born in them, others like their feet were being stabbed, but she’d moved with the kind of grace you couldn’t teach. Ten years on her, and she’d be more sophisticated than any woman I’d ever met.

“I like that, princess,” I admitted.

“What?”

“Your laugh.” The Escalade made the first turn in the switchback we’d lost ground on.

“Yeah, well, I’m just glad not to be out in that.” Rubbing her thighs, she nodded toward her window. “Although it was much more tolerable with your jacket.” She glanced at me. “Thanks for the loaner.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her to keep it.

But I was a thirty-fucking-six-year-old former Force Recon Marine. I didn’t give women articles of clothing like I was a goddamn teen offering up his letter jacket. And I sure as shit didn’t need to give Leo Amherst’s daughter a fucking jacket. She was probably one of the richest trust fund brats on the planet.

“You’re frowning.” Leaning forward, she slid her arms out of my jacket.

“Keep it on,” I snapped, suddenly irrational about her taking it off.

Quietly slipping my jacket back on, she didn’t say anything.

Goddamn it. “It’s for your safety,” I explained.

“Got it.”

No, she didn’t. Not even I got it. Except that I was a fucking sick bastard for thinking about sinking my cock inside her. I’d destroy her teenage cunt. I didn’t care how many men she’d slept with, I’d still destroy her. She was small as fuck, and I knew just from looking at her she wasn’t like the type of women I normally played with.

I didn’t do relationships, but I also didn’t fuck casually.

I couldn’t.

Not with the shit I had going on.

“Were you scared?” she asked, pulling me the hell out of my head.

Navigating the turn that gave me problems last time, I watched the side mirrors. “Scared of what?”

“Going over the cliff.”

I snorted. “Woman, I’ve been shot, stabbed, fragged, blown up, and I survived two helicopter crashes. A short sleigh ride in a hundred-thousand-dollar armored Caddy isn’t gonna kill me.”

“That’s not what I asked,” she quietly admonished.

Fuck. Was I really going to say it? Screw it. “I wasn’t concerned for myself.”

She turned to face me. Then, like a goddamn truth ninja, she stared at me and waited.

I caved. “I was concerned about you making it to the cabin without fucking freezing to death.”

“You said I would be fine.”

I wracked my brain, going over our past conversations. “I didn’t say that.” Not when I told her to get up to the cabin on her own if she needed to.

“You implied it,” she argued.

The snow coming down harder, the wipers not keeping up, I strained to see the road ahead. “Your point?”

Her voice got quiet. “Would I have… you know, died out there, if I had to make my own way to the cabin?”

I spared her a glance. “No.” My gaze cut back to the road. “Not if you kept moving.” She probably would’ve had frostbite by the time she got to the cabin, and it would’ve hurt like hell, but she would’ve been alive.

She leaned back in her seat. “I almost died once.” She let out a small laugh that was nothing like the one she’d given me before. “Which seems really selfish to say to someone like you.”

“Why?”

“Because you served.”

“I chose to serve. Did you choose to almost die?” I wondered what the hell had happened to her, but asking would’ve given her the impression I cared. As a rule, I didn’t care about women, but goddamn, this one was getting under my skin.

“No. Well, maybe. I mean, I don’t know.” Shifting in her seat, she reached for the handle above the door but then dropped her arm. “I asked for it, I suppose. By my actions, I mean. The choices I made.”

Fuck it. “What happened?”

“I was shot at the Ultimate Music Festival.” She shrugged like it was nothing, but her voice had hitched.

Anger surged. “Vos and Knight didn’t tell me that part.” Not that I listened to any of the bullshit gossip about clients around the office on the rare occasion I was there, nor were either of those two fucks talkers, but both of them had dealt with her. I should’ve known if she’d been shot. Luna ran a tight ship. Clients at L&A didn’t usually take lead. “What the hell happened?”

She shrugged again. “My dealer thought he owned me. I disagreed. He tried to, I don’t know, contain me. He’d been acting like a dick all day. He dragged me to the festival with him and his stupid entourage. I decided to take off when he wasn’t looking. He sent his asshole runners after me, and they fired into the crowd. I got shot twice, but if I hadn’t accidentally run into Preston, it would’ve been a lot worse.”

The Escalade made the last sharp turn in the road before the cabin. “Where’d you get hit?”

“Lower back and my upper arm. But my arm was only grazed.” She glanced at the drop-off on her side of the road.

“Hurts like hell, doesn’t it?” Outside the military, I’d never met a woman who’d been shot.

“It burned too, but it really hurt when André’s friend Talon dug the bullet out.”

“Talerco, huh?” Goddamn. Was there any of Luna’s circle she hadn’t met?

“Yeah, I guess he was some sort of medic or something in the Marines.”

“I know who he is.” Fucking golden boy wonder. “I served with him.” Best damn SARC I’d ever met, but that fucker nicknamed everyone, and he was still on my shit list for what he’d called me after the last deployment I was on with him.

“Oh.” She flinched as two of the tires spun and the SUV drifted.

“We’re good,” I reassured as I kept my foot on the gas steady.

She glanced behind us. “We made it farther than last time.”

Thank fuck, because it was dumping snow now. “We’re close.”

“Good. I guess that means no one’s coming after us tonight. Not up here at least.”

Not unless they were out of their mind, and Antonio Vincenzo was exactly that. His psycho wife was a close second. The only thing I could ever count on when I worked for Vincenzo was that he was unpredictable. I had no idea what the hell would happen over the next few days. All I knew was, with every passing second I spent with a teenage trust fund brat, I regretted sticking my dick in my last conquest that much more.

I tipped my chin at the barely visible break in the trees. “Cabin’s up ahead.”