Chapter Seven
“You’re avoiding me.”
Raine cringed and tried to disappear into the shelves of the pantry in the big kitchen in the main building.
“No, I’m not.” Bold-faced lie. She’d been avoiding him since after her run with Annie the day before. Trying to duck around him to escape the ever-shrinking room proved fruitless when he blocked her exit.
“Lying? Really?”
She glared at him. “I’d like to pass. Please.” Amazing how rude a nice word could sound through gritted teeth.
“Sorry ‘bout your luck then.” His hand went to his chest where his brand was beneath his shirt. “I’ve been looking for you since yesterday and you’ve been AWOL. We need to talk. You didn’t even sleep in your bed last night. Why?”
“I think we said quite enough yesterday.”
“Well obviously not, since you’re pissed and I have no clue why. Is this one of those times I’m supposed to give a blanket apology and bring flowers?” His genuinely perplexed expression was endearing as hell, which upset her more.
“No. No apology needed. Since you don’t need anything else either. So, are we good now?” Pushing past him proved somewhat productive, since he sort of moved.
“Wait, what?”
Raine dumped random stuff from the pantry on the counter and thought about bolting. Maybe I can outrun him?
Placing his hands on the counter on either side of her hips, penned her in. “Talk to me.”
His scent reached her and her mouth watered. She whirled around and snapped at him. “Talking isn’t what I want to do right now.”
“Which means that’s probably exactly what you need to do.”
“Stop being so… So…”
“Logical?”
“Yes!” she yelled at him. “You’re standing all close and smelling good and making me want you and your eyes are so pretty and I know you don’t want me anymore and I get—”
“What are you talking about? Of course, I want you.”
She kept talking because she was on a roll, with lots of caffeine and not much sleep. “I get it you don’t need me anymore and I—”
His lips on her mouth jacked her off the nonsense express.
He kept kissing her until she relaxed into his arms and kissed him back. His taste hit her veins, proving he was way better than caffeine.
The kiss went on until he kissed her jaw, her throat and to her lips again. “You’re totally adorable dazed and confused like this.”
Blinking up at him she took in his smile and the way he watched her face.
He really and truly smiled at her and she couldn’t stop before melting a little bit. “Is kissing me the plan every time we argue?”
“Yes.” Straight up owned it. No pause. No thinking. Merely a yes. “And if I can, I’ll strip you naked and lick between your thighs until you’re screaming my name.”
Blip.
Mental processes took a minute to come online again but then they snapped in place as if it were a two by four to her cranium. “Purely because I disagree with you doesn’t mean you can manipulate me into changing my mind.” She puffed up all self-righteous about it ready for him to agree with her completely.
He kissed her again instead.
Sweet. With emotion. “Agreed. I’m an asshole some days.”
She cocked an eyebrow.
“Fine. Most days. And we’re bound to argue and disagree. I’d much rather discuss things with the taste of your pussy on my lips.”
“Oh.” She melted against him and he took advantage of her guard being down.
Tucking his body closer to hers, he stared down at her. “Now, care to tell me what you’re freaked out about so we can move past it and take advantage of this amazingly sturdy island I’ve pictured you spread out over many times?” Following his movement, he pushed on the granite surface next to her side and she chewed the inside of her cheek.
“Fine. Only so you’ll leave me alone and I can get over you.” Sort of. “Yesterday after I took off your bandages.”
“And we had amazing sex.”
Her pussy clenched on the reminder as if she could have forgotten him knocking her off kilter. “Yes. After that.”
“You got a call and had to go stich Lithium up.”
“I thought I was supposed to be talking.”
His charming grin stopped her heart. It kicked on with a vengeance as he zipped his mouth again and threw away the key. Fuck she loved it when he did that. Smitten, for $300. “I was worried about leaving you, but you said…” She actually couldn’t say it.
“I didn’t need you.”
Ugh. Wasn’t any easier hearing it the second time. “Yeah.”
“I didn’t. I could see. I had Annie with me. I’d expended my last ounce of everything when I came inside you, knew I was crashing so you definitely didn’t need to stay and babysit me.” He acted as if it were no big thing and she wondered if she’d been worrying for no good reason for more than twenty-four hours.
“It can’t be so simple.”
“Of course, it can.”
“But that’s not how it works.”
“For most guys it sure does.” He held her cheeks and kissed her softly. “I’ve been dependent on you for quite some time. More than I ever expected to be. I don’t want to need you like I have anymore.”
“Like what anymore?”
“Needing you to take care of me was not working for me. I need to be independent. I can’t survive long-term any other way.”
“You’ve been independent for a long time. Blindness never stopped you from doing anything. You can take care of yourself and with Annie’s help you could go anywhere you wanted. Well, and someone to drive you wherever. You’re a good cook. Better than I am. And you can clean, if you ever actually choose to, and…” She died off unable to finish.
“And?”
Big girl panties and all. “And—I want you to need me.”
There it was in a nutshell. If he didn’t need her any more than where did it leave her?
He brushed hair from her forehead and ran her braid through his fingers. “I don’t want to need you like before. Not anymore. Needing you to help me like you have made me feel handicapped. I—”
“You’re not handicapped. Not at all. You’re amazing and wonderful and—”
He kissed her again and this time she smiled.
“I know you didn’t think I was. Doesn’t alter how I felt about myself. Been a hard one to own the last few days waiting to take the bandages off. If my eyes didn’t take I didn’t know how I could handle it.”
“Together. We would have handled it together.” His thumb across her lips made her hands tingle as she smoothed the fabric of his T-shirt at his waist.
“Agreed. With my sight again I need you, too. In a different way. And I want to need you. And I want you to need me.”
“I need you. Trust me. I need you.” Heat filled her cheeks at her forward comment and there’s no way he could have missed it.
So maybe she’d been wrong? It happened occasionally. If that was the case… Her hands grew a bit bolder as she moved them up his chest, his shoulders, his neck. She wanted him and she was ready to convince him they needed to make up for lost time.
“You’re what I need. Right there. Those are the right reasons. Lust and sex and all of whatever the look on your face means.”
Her blush did things to him he couldn’t wrap his sex-crazed head around.
“It’s been a long time since yesterday,” she mumbled as her hands moved beneath his shirt to touch his flesh.
“Forever.”
“We had a fight.”
“No. You fought and I was the voice of reason.”
Her laugh was what he needed to hear so the last vestiges of tightness in his chest finally let go. Her not being with him last night threw him off in ways he wasn’t ready to own yet. Made him feel a bit like a hypocrite but he had a lot on his plate at the moment.
“—can’t have make-up sex?”
“What?” His inner monologue shut the hell up when he caught the tail-end of her question.
“You said we didn’t fight. So does that mean we can’t have make-up sex?”
Fuck. If she threw him many more curveballs like the last one he’d need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Hmm. Mouth-to-cock resuscitation? Better.
“Well, it’s been a while since I’ve been in a relationship, so I’m not certain of all the rules.” He slowly turned her around to face the island and he groaned as she pushed against him. “I think we should cover all of our bases.”
“Are we in a relationship?” Her small hopeful voice knocked him senseless. She was too good for him. It was a fact. But he would do his damnedest to change it.
“Yes. We are most definitely in a relationship.”
She smiled and dipped her head to the side. “Are you sure? Maybe you should show me what you’re talking about. Make sure we’re on the same page and all.”
“I’d be quite happy to show you a few things I have in mind to make sure you know what you’re signing up for.”
He slipped her scrubs and thong panties over the curve of her rear. “We need a new rule. No panties on you. Like ever.” Her shirt covered most of her backside and he loved seeing a hint of what he would feel in less than a minute. “Fuck, your ass.” It was a thing of beauty.
“Umm…not without lube.”
His mind kicked up a few…blips…but nothing else. Took him a second to get it on line with a shake of his head. “Are you serious?”
“Absolutely. You’re not fucking my ass without lube. I’m pretty sure when you’re in a relationship it’s considered rude.” Then she laughed so hard she had to put her head down on the island. “Oh my gawd, it’s cold.”
“I should take your shirt off after the grenade you lobbed at me.”
“No, no no! I’ll be good. I’ll be good. The anal joke was way too good to pass up.”
“Well, if that’s how you want to play it, you still didn’t tell me where you slept last night. Clearly a violation of relationship code nineteen part A. Which is a punishable offense.” He palmed the lower curve of her cheek where it met her thigh.
“Don’t you mean penal,” she snickered, “code nineteen part A?”
“And you earned yourself a few more swats.” He shifted to the side and smacked her once, not real hard, but it jolted through him landing in his soul.
“What?” She tried to wiggle around and flip over, but his plate-sized hand between her shoulder blades kept her exactly where he wanted her.
“Don’t tell me the idea hasn’t ever crossed your mind? I know you watch porn. And I’ve distinctly heard the sound of spanking coming from your laptop on several occasions.”
She buried her face in her hands. “I’ll die of embarrassment. No way I won’t croak right here.”
“Well before you go…” He folded her shirt up onto her back. “Let me give you the proper send off.” He moved his hand where he’d been stroking her flesh.
“You have an American flag tattooed on your ass. Ink sure wasn’t in your dossier.” Sure made him love being an American a little more.
“After.”
“After what?” He dragged his fingernails up one thigh, across her ass and down the other thigh.
Her breath hitched, making his cock jerk. “I got it after I took this job. I’d always wanted something, you know? Something special. Then when I met you and your father, I wanted something under my skin to remind me.”
“Remind you of what?”
“Everything you gave up for your country and the fact you still believed in it. It told me everything I needed to know about you. I didn’t wondered whether I was making the right decision. I knew I was.”
The connection between them he’d felt a few moments ago morphed into something intensely personal.
He didn’t know if he was ready to own it so he tried to crack a joke. “Got any more ink I need to know about?” He lifted her shirt a bit more and saw nothing.
“Maybe.” Her soft voice told him he most definitely needed to know about it. “It’s really special to me.”
“Where is it?”
Another pause. “My left shoulder.”
“What is it?”
She seemed to chew the inside of her mouth for a second. “Promise not to get mad?”
“What is it?” A sneaking suspicion weaseled its way into his head.
One more pause. “A motorcycle engine and a pair of Titanium wings.”
He pulled the neckline of her scrubs over so he could see. He couldn’t see it all. A piece of the right wing and part of the engine.
It was most definitely the Elite logo.
“I wanted to be tied to you. To the group. These men and women so courageous fear itself quakes when it hears your names.”
He adjusted her shirt again and kissed the material over her ink.
If he wasn’t already in love with the beautiful woman laid almost bare beneath him, that would have sent him over the edge.
Words.
He had none adequate to tell her how she affected him.
How she took his needs and gave them to him. Made them fly. Even needs he knew nothing about, she filled them all.
His hand went between her thighs. Thank fuck she was wet. He couldn’t wait to take her. He had to be inside her and show her what she meant to him even if he didn’t have the words to tell her.
Over her shoulder, she watched him with a curious look on her face. He undid the button and zipper on his pants and freed his erection. It bobbed free and pointed at her, seeking his true North.
“What about my spanking?”
“Later. Make us a to-do list for later. Right now I need inside you.” He pushed in, feeling her stretch around him. Taking him. Keeping him safe, like she had for the past few years. “You wreck me.”
He adjusted his stance and filled her, grabbing onto her hips so he could rock against her.
“You fit inside me so perfectly.” Her face was laid on her hands, her eyes closed as she arched up to meet him the tiniest bit. As if she couldn’t get close enough to him.
There was no more beautiful woman on the plane than her. None existed.
“As do you, my lover. As do you.” He thrust inside, sliding along her slick sex as he rode her G-spot.
“I’m not gonna last,” she muttered as she splayed her fingers out on the island.
“Good.” He moved faster, thrusting harder. “I should have protected your hips. Put a towel between you so you didn’t get bruised.”
“Wearing your marks totally does it for me. Fuuuccckkkkkkk…”
Her pussy fluttered as the first jet of cum exited his cock. How could he not come in her when she said things like that?
She jerked beneath him and he grabbed a handful of her hair to hold her in place.
“You’re not done coming yet. Take my cock.”
“Charles.” She moaned his name as they came together.
Talk about the best sex of his life.
Who knew love really did make a difference to sex?
Being with her. It was simply… Epic.
And what they’d done so far was only the beginning.