Vaughn

“I’ll answer as many of your questions as I can, but first—” I lowered my head and captured her lips with mine, driving her towards the couch as I kissed her. Pressing her down against the cushions, I quickly followed. Raising her arms above her head, I trapped them in one fist as I pressed a leg between hers. The heat from her pussy burned through her jeans and mine, scorching my thigh. I couldn’t wait to feel her wrapped around my cock. Over and over again, for the rest of our lives if I had my way. And I damn well intended to.

The kiss turned wild, my tongue invading her mouth between nibbles at her lips. Carissa pushed against my hold, making me tighten my grip as a deep growl crept up my throat before I tore my mouth from hers.

“Three days,” I breathed against her throat. “It’s too long for me to go without tasting your lips. Without hearing your voice. Feeling your body underneath mine. It only took me one night, and I’m completely addicted to you.”

“Phones go both ways,” she panted. “You could have called me anytime you wanted. Or returned my text and asked me out again.”

“I did call, Carissa. More than once. Your phone went straight to voicemail each time, after only one ring. You sure you kept it charged?”

“Yes.” She pushed against my chest, and I reluctantly let her go. The thing with her phone could be a potential complication which needed to be resolved right away, as much as I’d prefer to take her to my room and fuck the hell out of her.

“Let me see your phone,” I asked her, digging mine out of my pocket to pull up my outbound calls so she could see the ones I made to her. She looked as confused as I was when she looked down at my phone. “The phone rang exactly once, and then there was an automated message telling me that the number called wasn't available. The call went to voicemail, and I left you a message each time.”

“I didn’t get a voicemail notification.”

I pulled up my texts and showed her the screen again. “Just like I didn’t get your messages. Someone didn’t want us talking to each other.”

“Probably my parents,” she sighed as she got up to cross the room and pull her phone out of her bag to hand it to me. “They’re trying to fix me up with a business associate of my father’s. The morning after our date, I made it clear I wasn’t interested in him. I needed a reason they’d understand, and you were it. Although, even if you weren’t in the picture, I wouldn’t want to be with him because there’s just something about him that creeps me out.”

“Your instincts are good. Alexander Bellamy isn’t a good guy.” I was distracted by my search of her voicemail box and didn’t realize what my response gave away. “Aha! Found ‘em. My voicemails are in your blocked messages folder. Your parents must have used a parental control of some kind to block my number from incoming and outgoing calls and messages.”

“I didn’t mention his name.” Her voice was shaky and had my head coming up quickly, only to find her staring at me in shock. She backed away a step, but I snagged her wrist to prevent her from going far.

“Don’t,” I whispered. The fear shining from her dark eyes tore me up inside. I knew I could be a scary motherfucker, but I never wanted to do anything to destroy the trust which had shone from them earlier. “I’m not the bad guy here, Carissa. Alexander Bellamy is. He’s the reason I’m in town. He’s the head of a human trafficking ring I’m hunting down.”

“Wait. What? No! That’s not possible.”

“It took me a while to find the trail to him because he’s good at hiding his tracks, but I have irrefutable proof. Payments, travel dates, communication with his lackeys.”

“But my parents—”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell her about the lump sum payments Bellamy had made to her father over the last year and a half, the last one on the day she’d returned home. It was enough that she was safely out of their reach for the time-being. She’d been put through enough already; I didn’t want to add to her troubles when I didn’t even know what the payments meant, yet. “Bellamy managed to fool everyone. He’s been tied to the trafficking ring for years, and there hasn’t been the tiniest whisper about it.”

“The night we met,” she whispered softly. “You said you were there on business. Which means you were there for him, doesn’t it? He had the winning bid for me in the bachelorette auction, right up until the moment you placed yours. Is that why you bid so high? To get his attention?”

She tried to yank her arm away from me, but I refused to let go. Not when she was looking so devastated.

“Carissa, no.”

She shook her head wildly, tears streaming down her face. “It could have been any other girl up there, and you would have done the same thing. It had nothing to do with me,” she cried. “I’m such an idiot. And a horrible person because I’m not sure what bothers me the most—knowing my parents were trying to marry me off to a human trafficker or realizing you’ve been pretending with me the whole time.”

She was standing right in front of me, but she wasn’t listening to what I was saying. I needed to do something to pull her out of her mental tailspin. To get her to hear me when I explained how much she’d come to mean to me in such a short amount of time. So I tossed her over my shoulder and carried her into my bedroom, tossing her on my mattress and falling on top of her.

Resting most of my weight on my forearms, which were braced on either side of her head, I stared down at her gorgeous face. Her eyes were rimmed with red and her cheeks wet from her tears, but she was no less beautiful to me.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Carissa. Bellamy’s interest in you is what first caught my attention.” Her body flinched beneath mine, and she squeezed her eyes shut. “But it’s not why I bid as high as I did. That was all you.” Her eyes popped back open, and there was a spark of hope in her gaze. “My reaction to you was completely unexpected. For the first time in my life, I experienced a flash of jealousy when you spun around and all the men in that room got to see exactly how low your dress dipped—all the way down your spine to just above your tight ass.”

Her hands, which had been pushing against my chest, flexed into my muscles so she was holding me instead. I had her complete attention, and I wasn’t going to waste it.

“If it had been any other girl up on that stage, anyone but you, I might have outbid Bellamy by the smallest of margins to try to keep her safe. But I wouldn’t have dragged her behind those curtains to hide her from other men’s gazes. I wouldn’t have tossed the date provided by the charity out the window to plan the perfect one myself.”

“It really was perfect,” she agreed softly.

“Only because it was our date, Carissa. Because it was you and me together.” I dropped my forehead down against hers. “As dark as my reason was for being at that gala, it brought me to you. And I’m grateful as fuck for it because you were meant to be mine. When you left here three nights ago, I told you I was giving you time to decide what you want because once you gave yourself to me, you’d be mine. But I was wrong—you’re already mine. You’ve been mine all along.”

“Then show me I’m yours.”

The husky sound of her voice was the only invitation I needed. I tunneled my hands under her shirt, shoving it up over her head and tossing it on the floor. When I popped the catch of her bra, her tits popped out. They were fucking perfect. I couldn’t resist the temptation and sucked one of the hard, pink peaks into my mouth while my hand palmed the other side, clenching the round and creamy swell of her tit. I nibbled and sucked, while she moaned and shivered beneath me.

I wanted another taste of her pussy more than I needed my next breath, so I slid down her body. I made quick work of the button and zipper on her jeans, yanking them down her legs until she was able to kick them off. Once they were on the floor, she was laying beneath me in the tiniest pair of black lace panties which were soaked clear through with the proof of her arousal. They ripped away easily when I tugged at the seams. With nothing in my way anymore, I opened her pussy lips wide and licked up the center.

“This pussy is mine,” I moaned.

I went after her like a starving man—licking and sucking, plunging my tongue inside her, and stretching out her tight, little pussy with one of my fingertips. With her fingers clenched against my scalp and her hips jerking up and down, I stiffened my tongue and drove it inside her until her orgasm ripped through her. I kept at it, leisurely licking her as her body melted bonelessly into my mattress.

My cock was as hard as a spike, but it didn’t matter. I’d already gotten what I needed tonight. Carissa safe and sound, in my bed—right where she belonged. Forever.