CHAPTER TWENTY
Grace
Men were at their weakest after sex. I should never have forgotten this. Ten minutes after he’d fucked me, Matt disentangled our limbs and got off the bed. I pretended to be groggy. Surprisingly, he didn’t leave, but went to the bathroom. I heard the water run, and he returned with a warm towel to wipe his cum between my legs.
That was new. After cleaning me up, he rolled me under the comforter. I continued pretending to be too tired to care and grumbled in protest at all the appropriate times.
I could feel him staring at me in the darkness. I had the covers pulled up past my chin in a show of total oblivion. My heart was beating wildly though. Would he get into bed with me?
The rustling of clothes answered my question. He was leaving. At least it wasn’t as bad as the last time when I was naked and he was spewing humiliating words at me. Still, unbidden tears prickled my eyes. I heard the door open and close and his footsteps receded.
With my memories back in force, followed by soul-shattering orgasms, I had trouble keeping my eyes open despite the ache in my heart. I didn’t know how to face Matt the next day. And with that thought I gave myself up to sleep.
I awakened feeling extremely hot as if my body had slept next to a furnace. I recognized the bare chest of solid lean muscle. It was Matt. And judging from the rough hairs of a leg brushing against mine, he wasn’t wearing any pajama bottoms either. The question was if he was totally naked. I felt my face heat up.
“Don’t worry. I’m not naked,” Matt murmured as if reading my thoughts. He propped up on an elbow and gazed down at me. “And don’t give me grief about sleeping in bed with you. I think we’re past that in this stage of our relationship, don’t you think?”
My eyes widened. “R… relationship?”
“Yeah, babe. Keep up, will you?” Matt teased.
Who knew this man could be so charming?
“And,” he added. “There’s nothing more I’d love than a morning fuck, but we have a doctor’s appointment, and then we’re heading to Edington to get a marriage license.”
My head was spinning. “Marriage license?”
“Gypsy,” he said in a chiding, indulgent tone. “I know you’re blinded by my devastating good looks, but I didn’t think I was capable of rendering you speechless.”
The smirk on his face did it. My temper shot to my hairline as I scrambled out of bed, heedless of my nudity.
“Okay, if your eyes were daggers right now, I’d be a dead man,” Matt sighed. “Why are you so pissed?”
“Why? Why?” I sputtered. “Did you, at any time, ask me to marry you?”
Matt’s eyes squinted. “You’re pregnant.”
I let out a short, sarcastic laugh. “Last I checked, we’re in the twenty-first century. Marriage is not a solution to pregnancy.” I noticed his distracted eyes on my chest.
“Stop looking at my boobs!”
“Babe, pacing around and gesturing in all your naked glory is damned distracting,” he muttered. “Your tits are begging to be sucked.” In an instant, he was off the bed and prowling toward me. “The doctor can wait. I need to fuck you now.”
“Don’t you dare touch me,” I yelled as I backed away. “We need to discuss this.”
I hit the dresser a few seconds before Matt’s body flattened against mine. He dragged me up against him, lowered his head and captured a nipple and sucked. I gasped as my treacherous body immediately spasmed and I felt wet and needy. Thick fingers plunged into my pussy, thrusting and seeking, curling and touching my sweet spot.
He flipped me over and bent me over the dresser. It was too narrow to lay me fully across.
“Hold on to the edge,” he growled, as a forearm banded over my boobs. “Watch me fuck you in the mirror. I’m leaving no doubt in your mind, Grace, who owns this pussy.”
I looked up and was turned on beyond belief to see Matt’s big frame covering my back, his hand working between us, stroking his cock against my drenched folds. His fingers tweaked my clit, and I cried out just as he slammed inside me.
“I can’t leave you alone,” he groaned. “I want to stay inside you all day.” He drew out and thrust back as he pounded into me. He was careful not to slam me against the dresser, his other arm protecting my belly at the same time working my clit with his fingers. And as another orgasm built low in my pelvis, I marveled at his skill as a lover.
“We’re getting married,” he whispered into my ear. “Say yes.”
“That’s not even a proposal,” I gasped, gripping the edge of the dresser as I teetered at the precipice of my release. His fingers stopped moving and kept deliberate pressure on my pubic bone.
“You’re right.” He withdrew his cock to the edge of my pussy lips. “You will marry me.”
“Still not a proposal,” I gritted through my teeth. “Finish me off or you’ll never get another blow job from me again.”
I felt him shake with laughter over me. “Damn, you drive a hard bargain, gypsy.”
“You bet your ass I … Ahhh!” I moaned loudly as he increased pressure above my pubis and rubbed in circling motions. He drove inside me again, and I quickly shattered into a million pleasurable pulses.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” His guttural groan vibrated against my back as he shot his cum inside me. He momentarily collapsed on top of me as he emptied, but he quickly released me and staggered away.
His eyes dropped to my ass and my exposed pussy. Smugness crossed his face. “My cum dripping down your legs? Fucking sexy.”
Damn Neanderthal. I straightened and rolled my eyes at him in the mirror. “I’m still not marrying you.”
“Argue all you want, Grace,” he said confidently. “You’ll be my wife by the end of this week.”
*****
“Do not call Elliot until we’ve discussed this.”
We were driving toward Montgomery Ranch in Matt’s pickup, and we’d been locked in a stalemate over calling my boss. He argued that I wasn’t ready to have another entity potentially after me.
“I’m not a fan of procrastinating,” I countered.
“Neither am I,” he shot back. “Can you give me a few days to sort this out?”
“Oh, I dunno. According to you, I’m going to be married to you in a few days,” I answered sarcastically. “Wait a minute, is that part of your plan of sorting this out?”
“No,” he cast me an annoyed side-glance. “You’re just trouble, woman, and I seem to be forever trying to dig you out of it.”
“Might I remind you, Foster, that it takes two to make a baby.”
Matt burst out laughing. “Touché, gypsy eyes.”
“I just want my access back into the DEA database,” I said, rubbing my upper arms as if suddenly chilled. “No one really knows what El Segador looks like except maybe some of his victims. Rumor is that even Hector Vargas has not met his own hitman face to face.”
“That makes him a total ghost,” Matt acknowledged. “I could believe that. Assassins usually receive their assignments via clandestine methods. That way they could maintain absolute anonymity.”
“Yes, but absoluteness is a myth. He’s not infallible and somewhere, somehow, someone had seen his face.”
“Probably, but not long enough to live to tell anyone.”
“You really think he’s that good?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I’ve never given him a second thought until he came after you.” Matt’s face hardened perceptively.
“I’m sorry for dragging you back into that life.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The assassin life,” I said softly. “This deal with The Reaper must bring back those memories when you were one.”
Matt shook his head. “I’ve grown up with death and destruction, Grace. It’s always going to be with me. I’ve seen all kinds of shit. Done all kinds of shit. I’m your best bet, unfortunately, because I know how an assassin thinks. What I’ve never been is obsess over my mark like he is with you. You’re going to be his downfall.”
“We should use me as bait.”
“Fuck, no.”
“If you think about it, it’s a great idea.”
His knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. “We are never going to use you as bait. As obsessed as he is with you, what do you think he’s gonna do if he finds out you’re pregnant with another man’s child?”
My blood chilled as Matt glared at me briefly but didn’t say anything, letting the import of his words do the talking.
The Reaper, if he did harbor any dark twisted romantic notions about me, wouldn’t want me to keep a reminder of another man. We didn’t need a profiler to tell us that obsessions frequently involved deadly jealousy.
“Maybe getting married isn’t a good idea,” I said in a small voice. “It might piss him off, don’t you think?”
“We’re here,” Matt pointedly ignored my question as we came up to a double-gate. He leaned in and punched in a code. After a series of beeps, the gates swung inward. I had never been to the ranch before, but I knew this was more than a horse farm, and Colt Montgomery was anything but a horse breeder. Not that the man riding up to us on the most gorgeous stallion didn’t look fine in a Stetson and chaps. I’d met the dark-haired, former Navy SEAL a couple of times. There was a story between him and Matt’s sister, but I’d never gotten around asking Matt about it.
“Y’all are late.” Colt stopped his horse right beside Matt’s side. “Dr. Ryan’s been in The Annex for more than half an hour.”
“Blame the pregnant lady,” Matt quipped.
“Excuse me?” I exclaimed. It was he who wanted to have sex first.
Colt chuckled. “I still can’t believe you’re going to be a father.”
“Me neither,” I said sarcastically.
“I don’t get any respect around here,” Matt said in an aggrieved tone.
“You guys head on to The Annex. I need to help Mac with the horses,” Colt nodded to the smaller of two houses up the driveway.
“Isn’t foaling season not until May?”
“Yup, but I might head to DC tomorrow.”
Matt let the pickup roll slowly down the driveway so he and Colt could keep conversation.
“Porter?”
“Yeah, and the Feds and Homeland Security are anxious to establish the training camp, what with the latest terrorist attack on Atlanta.”
“Damn, I need Trent to be around,” Matt muttered, as though meaning those words for himself.
“I heard you’re having trouble with a cartel hitman, Grace,” Colt leaned slightly over his horse so he could look at me.
“Unfortunately,” I said nonchalantly. “I’ve had such luck lately.”
“Well, yeah, look how you’re stuck with Matt,” Colt winked at me.
Though Matt was facing Colt, I could hear the scowl in his voice. “Don’t you have some work to do, Montgomery?”
Colt laughed and tipped his hat. “I sure do. Later.”