I look at my father, who is looking at Sierra and I don’t like it. “Why are you here?” I demand.
He cuts his gaze to me. “Right to business,” he says. “A chip off the old block. The company is doing a Wounded Warrior Project black tie fundraiser just before Thanksgiving. We’ve sent you two invitations and left you four messages. It would be appropriate, as my son and a veteran, as well as a distinguished SEAL, to attend.”
“Distinguished,” I say. “Now I’m a distinguished SEAL? Is that what you’re feeding the stockholders when you explain why I’m not working for you?”
“They’re impressed, as they should be.”
I laugh without humor. “Should we tell them that you disinherited me for becoming a distinguished SEAL?”
“Is that what you want? The money? I’ll write you a damn check if you’ll put an end to this silliness. Take your seat at the table where you belong.”
“Yes,” I say. “Please write the check. Then I’ll show up at the event, where I’ll re-write the check to the Wounded Warrior Project charity. Then all will be well in my world.”
He reaches into his pocket and sets the invitation on the counter. “Be there. It would look like shit to your fellow servicemen if a distinguished SEAL couldn’t spare a few hours on their behalf. And bring your plus one, if you can afford to buy her a dress. She’s a hell of a lot prettier than you these days.”
He turns to leave and Sierra calls out, “Because what woman could afford to buy her own dress, right?”
And there it is. Every nerve my father can hit for Sierra, which her ex must have hit, too, already surfacing. I know my father and I know exactly what comes next. Words are weapons, he used to tell me. They can be used against you. Speak less and listen more. And that piece of advice is what he uses against Sierra now. He stops and turns to look at her, giving her an amused, arrogant look, before he simply says nothing and leaves. Translation: You poor pathetic little girl are simply beneath a reply.
I don’t pursue him. I don’t look at Sierra, not yet. I stand there, hands pressed to the counter, and listen to his footsteps, waiting for the door to shut. The minute it does, I push off the counter, and walk across the room and lock the door. Fucker. He’s smart enough to assume Sierra matters to me or she wouldn’t be here. He was jockeying for a way to use her against me and he did. He messed with her head. I cross the room and Sierra is now at the end cap of the island waiting on me, leaning on the counter. She watches my every step, her expression unreadable.
I stop in front of her, and before I can speak, she says, “I’m sorry.”
“Why would you be sorry? He’s the ass.”
“I know what just happened,” she says. “He used me against me and me against you. I can see it now, but I still let it happen.”
“That’s not on you, Sierra.”
“Yes, it is. Because Dev—The Beast, that’s what I call him in my head—my ex—my fucking husband I can’t get rid of, is just like your father. And I know, I know so well, how he watched me from the moment he got here and looked for a trigger. And I let it happen.”
She almost said his name. Dev. That has to stand for Devlin or Devin, or hell, maybe the devil, but right now he isn’t the issue. Right now, I need her to see me, not my father. Not The Beast, as she apparently calls him. I pull her to me, my hand sliding under her hair. “I’m not him. I’m not my father.”
“I know that.”
“You can’t know that, Sierra. You don’t know me well enough to know that, but you will. I promise you, you will.” I close my mouth over hers, tongue stroking hers, and there is no resistance in her. She gives a soft little moan, and melts into me, her soft curves pressed against me, ensuring I’m hard all over. And holy hell, I could get lost in her, I could forget everything I hate about my father right now, and I want to, but I don’t let that happen. I don’t make her an escape fuck. Not Sierra. Not the first time. “We don’t have time to do this right and I want to do it right,” I say, tearing my mouth from hers.
“We both have anger issues right now we need to deal with,” she says, “and you said, we needed to just fuck and get past it. So, let’s just fuck and forget and then—”
I don’t need to be told twice. I kiss her and this time when my hands slide up her shirt, I don’t stop and she doesn’t stop me. I pull it up and over her head and follow with mine again. Her hands are on my chest before I finish tossing it away. “I really do like your ink,” she says, her hands traveling down my arms.
“Show me,” I say, removing a money clip just below her bra and tossing it aside.
“I will,” she promises, as I reach up and unclip the front clasp of her bra. I part the silk cups and my gaze lowers to her high breasts and tight little pink nipples. Her body is perfect. Everything about her is perfect. My eyes lift to hers, and caress the straps from her shoulder, and then flatten my hand between her shoulder blades, and mold her naked breasts to my naked chest. “Show me now.”
“I will,” she says, her voice a raspy, sexy, desire-laden turn on that makes me want to kiss her and fuck, even more than I wanted to kiss her and fuck her before. I kiss her again, drinking in the taste of her, all sweet honey and passion, my lips to her lips. My tongue to her tongue. My hand on her backside.
“Asher I need—”
“I need,” I say, scooping her up and her legs wrap my hips, which is exactly where I want them. Where I want her. Next to me, pressed to me…riding me. She clings to my shoulders, and I carry her into the living room on the opposite side of the stairwell, a room hugged by red brick with high-arched, deep windows that don’t quite reach the floor or ceiling. I set her down on the thick pile of the brown rug in front of a leather couch.
Her hands caress over my arms, tracing the colorful designs in my ink, one of her palms flattening on my stomach, just above my jeans, fingers slipping into the very top of my waistband, then down over my zipper. I inhale as she strokes the thick ridge of my erection through my pants, the image of her soft little hand wrapping on my cock, a perfect fantasy, she will no doubt make real, and yet I want something indefinably more with this woman. I slip my hand under her hair and pull her to me. “More,” I say, voicing that thought, my free hand unzipping her pants. “Give me more.” I kiss her, a fast, deep, passionate kiss that ends with me setting her away from me. “Undress,” I say, planning to do the same. I sit down on the couch and she sits down on the ottoman just behind her. She takes off her shoes.
I remove my ankle holster and show it to her. “The hidden weapon.”
“And I didn’t even have to look for it,” she says.
“Next time,” I say, setting it on the couch and pulling off my boots.
I stand then, digging my phone from my pocket and tossing it on the couch. She’s still sitting, watching me and I let her. “I’ll go first again,” I say, and she doesn’t argue. She just watches me with big blue eyes while I watch her, looking for any signs she feels she’s in over her head, or moving too fast, but I find none.
I strip my jeans and my underwear away in a fast, swift move. My hands out to my sides, my cock hard between us. “I’m all yours, Sierra.”
She doesn’t look away. She’s bold with her inspection, her gaze traveling my body before reaching my eyes. “Am I allowed to say you’re beautiful, or is there some other word I’m supposed to say?”
“For a guy, you get naked and you show him with your hands and your mouth.”
She laughs, just like I hoped. “The things you say.”
“I say it how I see it, and I’m not seeing it, not all of it.” I step to her, and take her hand, pulling her to her feet. “Come on, sweetheart. I want time we don’t have, and I need those pants of yours off.”
She reaches for her pants and I consider sitting down, watching her like she watched me. And I would any other time, but not when I am aware of anything that might make her feel she’s performing for me, aware that The Beast demanded much of her. Threatened her. Controlled her and I have zero doubt that extended to sex. No. The time for me to sit and watch Sierra is not now. It’s when she makes that decision or gives me some signal that she’s ready for more and she’s not now. Not this first time. Not until she really does trust me.
She slips her pants and panties down her long legs and then off, and I’m left with creamy white skin and perfect curves. I mold her to me, my cock at her hip, one of her breasts in my hand, my fingers tweaking her nipple. I’m rewarded with her arched back, and a tiny, sexy pant. “I’m going to make him hurt the way he made you afraid.”
Her hands grip my arms. “You can’t—”
“I can,” I say, “and one day you’ll understand that the good guys aren’t less brutal or deadly than the bad guys. We’re still killers. We’re just the killers who do it for the right side of the law. Maybe that will give you peace. Maybe that will make you hate me, too, but I can’t change it. And neither can he.”
I don’t give her a chance to reply, and I don’t let myself think about how ultimately, a killer to her might really be the enemy no matter what. Because I have killed. Because I’ll kill again. And so, I kiss her again, long and deep, and then I sit down, pulling her between my legs, looking up at her, searching her face, and looking for the answer to what it is I feel with her, why I feel anything but lust, when lust is all I ever feel. Looking for the answer to the question I just kissed her to avoid asking: While I fall for her, and she gets to know the killer in me, will she hate me?”
She reaches down and cups my cheek. I lean into the touch, and then take her hand and kiss her palm. I release it and my attention goes to her scar again, and I trace the deep and brutal edges of it, before glancing up at her again. “I can’t tell you that the scar is sexy, Sierra, because nothing that hurt you is ever going to be sexy to me. But you are. So fucking sexy.” I press my lips to her belly and caress my hand over her hip and then down between her legs, until my finger teases her clit. She gasps and arches into me and I press into the wet heat of her sex. And while I want to just think about how wet and hot she is, I noticed that she’s shaved, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s hiding her real hair color. I don’t even want to think why she fears anyone would get that close.
She grabs my shoulders, and just when I would slip two fingers inside her, she pants out, “We have no time, remember? We’re supposed to just fuck and—”
I pull her into my lap, straddling me, my erection between us, and I am hit with how much it must have taken for her to trust me, to be here like this with me right now. Nine months of trusting no one. Years of what he did to her. “I won’t ever hurt you.”
“I know that,” she says, “and don’t tell me I don’t. I do. I see who you are. I feel who you are. And I—I just know.”
She doesn’t, but that’s okay. She wants to believe she does, but I want her to know it. I want what she knows to be real and that’s a contradiction to how much I need her to know that I’m the killer that can kill him. Those things fall to the side now though. Now I just want inside her. Now I just want to fuck her. I drag her mouth to mine and lift her, pressing my cock inside of her. She grabs my shoulders and does this slow, driving-me-wild slide down my cock, until I’m buried inside her, all her wet, tight heat, clamping down on me.
“And now we did it,” she whispers. “We’re past it.”
“No,” I say, pulling her down while thrusting into her, “now we’re just getting started.”
She pants out a breath, her lashes fluttering, and I want to kiss her, but I want to watch even more. “Ride me, sweetheart,” I say. “Show me you know I’m here.”
She laughs. “Like I could not know that fact right now, Asher.”
“I’m not sure you do,” I say, thrusting into her, making sure she damn well does know. She leans into me and holds onto my shoulders, and we start this slow bump and grind that I could savor for a long damn time, but we really don’t have time. I pull her mouth to mine and the minute our tongues touch, we snap. We start a frenzied thrust and ride, and I wrap my arm around her waist, dragging her down against me, pumping into her, until she stiffens on the edge of release, and tries to bury her head in my neck.
“No,” I say, pulling her forehead to mine. “Stay right here with me.” I pause, and remembering my promise, I add, “Sierra.”
“Asher,” she pants out in a raspy laugh before sucking in a breath as she starts trembling and quaking, her sex clenching around my cock. And oh yeah. That’s just what I need. I am there with her, holding onto her, and pulling her down on top of me one last time as I thrust into release. We go up together and we come down together, and I know the moment we’re present, outside those moments of intense pleasure, again, our foreheads still melded together.
“Now we did it,” she says and we both laugh.
“Yes,” I say. “Now we did it.”
She cups my face and leans back to look at me. “Any regrets?”
“Regrets? Sweetheart, I’m ready to go again. Okay. Well. In a few minutes.”
She laughs and my phone rings on the couch where I’d set it. I groan and reach for it. At least they waited until afterward.”
She tries to get up and I hold onto her. “I’ll carry you to the bathroom,” I say.
“But your call—”
I answer the line. “Yeah, Blake,” I say, standing up with Sierra in my arms, me still inside her, as I walk toward the downstairs bathroom, under the stairs.
“I pulled Kyle off the job,” he says.
“Why?” I ask settling Sierra on the stone countertop in the spare bathroom and flipping on the light before handing her a hand towel.
“Just get to the office.” He hangs up and I set the phone down next to Sierra. “I need to get to the office.”
“I cannot believe you were talking to whoever that was while inside me.”
“I like being inside you,” I say, but I pull out of her and she presses the towel between her legs. “We need to go, though,” I add. “Hurry and dress. My bedroom and bathroom are at the top of the stairs.” I set her on the floor.
“We need to go?”
“I told you. I want you to get to know my inner circle and so yes. We need to go.”
“Asher, I don’t know about this.”
“Do you trust, Luke?”
“I have a good feeling about Luke, yes.”
“You’ll feel the same about the rest of the team. Scout’s honor. Okay, SEAL’s honor. I was never a fucking scout. That uniform was ridiculous.” I kiss her. “Hurry up.”
I exit the bathroom and walk back into the living room, pulling on my pants. Sierra joins me and picks up her clothes. “I’m going to grab my bags, and go dress upstairs.”
I nod and she hurries away. I’m pulling on my shirt when I hear her walking up the stairs. Normally I would follow her to my bedroom, but my mind is on Blake’s odd behavior and his secrecy over pulling Kyle off the job. There’s more of a problem going on here than the anniversary of Whitney’s murder. And problems with the Walker clan are dangerous.