Narcos…

Her voice was light, breathless with wanting me, and so musical to my ear. She went from wood nymph to sexy siren in the span of that one breathy syllable and I couldn’t deny her. Hell, bastard that I was, I couldn’t deny myself. I needed her like plants needed sun or rain to grow. She’d become food for my battered and weary soul and her forgiveness… Jesus, there was nothing else like it in the world.

I held her close, her fingers tangling in my hair, her body rising as she stood on tiptoe to press her mouth to mine. I kissed her back, my tongue exploring the sweetness of her mouth, my hands sliding along the hourglass curve of her ribs, the flare of her hips, my fingertips rucking up the skirt of her dress.

She moaned into my mouth as the material slid up her shapely legs and I groaned into hers in return. She did everything for me. She was beautiful, she was sweet, she was kind and gentle and forgiving – all of these things I wasn’t.

That’s what they meant, though, wasn’t it? When men introduced their woman to you as their better half? I think I finally understood it like I never had before, because if she were my other half, she was certainly the better one.

She gave a little leap and I wasn’t quite ready for it. I compensated quickly, though. Her long legs twined around my hips, her arms around my shoulders, her lips finding mine once more. I slid my arms around her back and felt her sex press against my thickening, hardening cock imprisoned in my jeans.

I had to fix that. I had to fix that, like, right then. I laid her across my bed and dry-humped her like a teenage boy. All the while, I worked at my belt and fly, trying to get my damn pants off. It wasn’t helping me that her hands were first pulling at my tee, then warm and soft against the skin of my flanks. She sent them stroking over my ribs and my back, delving beneath my waistband, against my ass. She was pulling me into her, her hips rising and falling of their own accord as she let out these little moans into my mouth which I devoured like a starving man.

I had reached ‒and exceeded‒ my limits when it came to her and maintaining a professional boundary, and I couldn’t help myself. I could and would throw my entire career away for her because I knew, deep in the bottom of my very existence, it was the right thing to do. That she was worth it.

“Tell me you want me,” I growled, after tearing my mouth from hers.

“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes, please, now.”

It wasn’t the most graceful or sexy move ever, flopping my cock out of my pants, smacking her pussy with it through the thin cotton of her panties, but she either didn’t notice or didn’t care, her voice like an angel’s choir when she cried out in need. I slipped her panties off, whisking them down her legs and dropping them to the floor, and just managed to drag my shirt off over my head before I collapsed over her again, nothing between my dick and her hot, wet, velvet heat except my quickly fraying patience. I pressed hard with my hands against the mattress and let my gaze sweep over her.

“Oh, God, Everleigh. You’re so fucking perfect.”

She smiled up at me, and reached for me and I lowered myself over her once more, only this time, I rocked my hips against hers, trying to find purchase. The third time was the charm as I slid into her, too quickly at first, her body jerking beneath mine as she sucked in a sharp breath. I stilled and asked, “Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head and dragged my mouth back to hers and I eased into her body with mine, further.

She moaned and arched beneath me and my hands found her hips, pulling her onto me as much as I thrust into her. She pressed her hands to her mouth to stifle her next moan, and I shook my head.

“Don’t do that, don’t ever hide that perfect angel’s voice from me, babe.”

She arched beneath me, provocatively, and cried out a little as I found that spot inside her and started working it with slow, measured, angled thrusts, the head of my cock tingling, my balls tightening, that slow build I was used to moving instead with the speed and ferocity of a freight train.

I was so used to having more control than this, but this woman, this beautiful creature of fable and fantasy… she disarmed me in so many ways with those luminous green eyes. I cried out as she tightened up around me and drove myself deeper, bringing an echoing cry from her.

She touched every part of me she could reach, her hands stroking over my skin in light, butterfly touches, as if she was trying to convince herself this was real.

I had every intention of making her believe.

I hooked an arm behind her knee and placed one of her shapely calves against my shoulder, turning my lips to her leg, nipping her soft skin lightly with my teeth. She gasped, her even panting a seductive song as I kept a slow, even rolling rhythm with my hips, the head of my cock brushing against that slightly-roughened patch on the roof of her pussy.

Those luminous green eyes of hers were shuttered, her eyes closed as she surrendered to my touch completely. Her head falling back against the sheets, her long auburn hair a corona of deep fire around her face, she was an angel fallen to earth, and I didn’t know how she’d found her way to my bed, but if she’d let me, I would keep her here forever.

It was getting harder and harder for me to keep myself in check. I wanted to come so badly, but I wasn’t about to come first. I tried, I mean I really tried, but in the end I thought sure I’d failed. I drove into her deeply and both of us cried out. Her arms went around me, pulling me atop her body and I went willingly, caging her within my arms, cocooning her protectively.

Pleasure throbbed through my body, echoing my heartbeat and my ragged breathing, coursing through me thoroughly. I was about to apologize for coming first, for coming without her, but then she gripped me again in a gentle little aftershock and I realized we’d both pitched over the edge at the same time, had taken the plunge together, holding on to one another, in a perfect harmony that I don’t think I’d ever experienced before, nor was I really certain I would again.

She put her hands on my bearded cheeks and turned my face to hers. I looked into her eyes from inches away and she gave me the sweetest, most tremulous smile and drew me down for another kiss, and I just lost myself in her. I was so completely under her spell that I would do anything I needed to become her knight, her champion. I would spend the rest of my life making up to her the evil, the terror I’d put her through, and nothing, I mean nothing, would so much as come near her again. Any harm that came her way would have to go through me first… whether she told me to get the fuck out of her life later on or not.

I pulled back from the kiss and searched her face, and fear slid through her eyes at the serious look on mine. I caressed her cheek and shook my head gently and said, “Nothing’s ever going to hurt you again, babe. If it does, it will literally be over my dead fuckin’ body.”

She sucked in a sharp breath and placed one hand on my shoulder; the other she rested lightly in the center of my sweat-dewed chest, over my heart. She shook her head gently and whispered, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“Oh, I’m keeping this one.”

She shook her head and her eyes became dewy with unshed tears, her chin trembling slightly. I cocked my head slightly in question, and she murmured, “I don’t want you to die because of me.”

“I’m not going to let that happen, either, babe. My brothers won’t. You’re safe,” I smoothed a stray lock of her long hair off of her forehead. “Life is going to be different for you after this chapter of it comes to a close. It’s going to be better.”

“You really think so?” she asked and her voice was so frail, the hope as delicate as a snowflake freshly landed on a blade of grass. Everything about her felt so fragile right that moment, but I wasn’t making any promises I had no intention of keeping. I wasn’t that guy. I would never be that guy again.

As soon as this case was done, I needed the fuck out of Narcotics; I needed to slow my roll. I couldn’t do it to her, go back undercover, leave her wondering and going weeks without seeing me, not being able to tell her about my day or my time away from her. She needed full transparency and I couldn’t give that to her as a Narcotics detective and I wouldn’t.

“I really think so,” I told her.

“You really mean it, don’t you?” she whispered. “All of it.”

“Yeah, Everleigh. I really mean it. All of it.”

She wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her face in the side of my neck. I held her as best I could while also trying to hold myself off of her, but it was awkward and hard to keep up. Just as I was about to say something, she relinquished her hold on me and murmured she was sorry.

“For what?” I asked.

She shook her head and pressed her lips together and wouldn’t be budged. I moved off of her and out of her and to her side. We lay next to each other, staring into each other’s eyes, and even though she’d found her voice with me somehow, the silence that stretched between us was so full that no words needed to be spoken.

I loved that about her, like I loved a lot of things that I’d learned about her the last few days. She’d been through some awful shit. Trying shit, that would have broken a lesser woman to pieces, but she somehow stayed whole. Not only that, she somehow managed to still hold a sense of wonder in everything around her. She was resourceful, intelligent, beautiful, thoughtful, and just my type of perfect but I knew if I tried to tell her any of hat, she’d refute my claims, because she was also so very humble.

“Sleep with me tonight,” I asked her, and she smiled and nodded.

“Outside?” she asked.

“Sure, I’m happy to do it at your place,” I said and winked and she laughed. It was a good laugh, high and clear and sounding so free.

I laughed with her and drew her forehead to my lips and kissed her softly there. I was sure her eyes drifted shut and she just melted into me in the sweetest way.

God, I would die to protect her, and fuck any motherfucker who would try to stand against me.