A DOOR SLAMMED UPSTAIRS, AND I rubbed my hand over my face. “Dios mio.”
My cell lit up with an incoming call from Talon, and I stupidly answered. “What’s up?”
“I was just ’bout to ask you the same thing, Patrol.”
“Meaning?” I hedged.
“You fuckin’ with me right now?” he asked, incredulous.
I heard water turn on upstairs. “Believe me, if I had time to fuck with you, you’d know it.”
“Oh, you’re fuckin’ with me all right. I ask a simple favor, send one of your men to check on my former employee, and next thing I know, you’re on Roark’s plane with your dick in your hand.”
Jesucristo. “You didn’t ask me to check on her, you said, and I quote, if she ain’t dead, fuckin’ fire her. And my dick’s not in my hand, asshole.”
“’Cause your gettin’ it wet instead? Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Patrol. What the fuck?”
“You got a point to this conversation, because I’m busy.”
“Yeah, I got a fuckin’ point. My point is that a few hours later, after you don’t call me and tell me what the fuck’s up, I get a call from Vikin’. Know why?”
Fuck me. “He wants to come over and suck your dick?”
Talon didn’t miss a beat. “My dick’s too big for his pretty little mouth, but apparently he’s not interested in the size of my cock, only how fast I can help him load sixty crates.”
“Stop talking.” I didn’t know who the fuck was listening, and I wasn’t going to risk another fucking word.
“I’ll fuckin’ stop talkin’ when you start talkin’.”
“Talerco,” I warned.
“Here’s the funny thing ’bout Vikin’.” He kept talking like I hadn’t said shit. “He’s honest as fuck with me. So, when I told him I had his back, he said it wasn’t his back I’d be coverin’.”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I shut my eyes. “You say one more name on this call, you’ll be risking more than your ass.”
“No fuckin’ kiddin’. Yours, mine, Vikin’s, your new fuckin’ biker friend’s, his woman’s and your men’s. I miss anyone?” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, that’s right, every fuckin’ family member in any of our families.” He dropped the amicable façade. “What the fuckin’ fuck?”
My head a damn mess, I extracted the incorrect detail in his statement and honed in on it. “She’s not his woman.”
“What?”
I didn’t respond. He’d figure it out.
“Christ,” he muttered after a second. “She’s yours now? Candle just decided he was done tappin’ that?”
“She was never his. And fuck you.”
“Goddamn, Patrol.” Talon half chuckled. “I knew this had to be more than you playin’ hero.”
I glanced upstairs, but the water was still running. “I gotta go. I’ll call Neil and tell him to get Tyler to help.” Talon didn’t need to be caught up in this. Neither did Neil for that matter, but he had the damn guns.
“Fuck that. How many times have you saved my ass? Not even a question. I’m in, but Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Patrol, you stepped in it.”
I didn’t bother arguing either point, Talon was stubborn as hell. “Call Tyler to help load the crates, or Marek.” Dane Marek was the reason we had the fucking guns in the first place. He was in a different unit than me and Talon, but we’d all been deployed together.
“Ink? That crazy fuck, he’s involved in this?”
Talon nicknamed everyone. Dane was Ink because he had a massive tattoo, and I was Patrol because that’s what I’d done downrange with my sniper rifle. “Yeah.” Sort of.
“Damn.” He drew the word out. “He still fuckin’ for money?”
Dane and two other guys in his unit, Alex Vega and Jared Brandt, had become paid escorts after we’d gotten out. They made bank off Miami’s richest and horniest women, but that wasn’t Dane’s primary source of income. Talon was right, Dane was crazy as hell. He’d been a mercenary for three years. Two years ago, he’d called me in the middle of the night, asking for a ride. I drove my ass to a hanger at a municipal airport only to find him shot twice. Someone had removed the bullets—fuck, he’d probably done it himself—but he was still bleeding all over the place. I’d done what I could, but when he insisted on no hospitals, I’d called Talon. Talon had been a corpsman in the Marines, and he’d walked me through what to do, but I didn’t want to ever fucking repeat field triage. My place was behind the scope, not on the other end of a bullet’s path.
“Just call him if you need help.” Dane owed us.
“Gotcha covered.”
“Thanks. Later.” I started to hang up.
“So,” Talon stopped me. “You and Ke—”
“Stop,” I barked.
Talon burst out laughing. “Damn, Patrol, hope you got Teflon balls, brother. That woman scares the fuck outta me.”
“You’re an asshole.”
He laughed harder. “No denyin’ that.” He hung up.
I glanced at the stairs then at the backpack on the coffee table.
Christ.
I grabbed the backpack and took the stairs two at a time. Despite her slamming the bedroom door to the master suite, she hadn’t locked it. Not that it would’ve stopped me. I kept replaying her one-eighty, and I was a fucking idiot to not have picked up on it immediately.
I took ten seconds to step out of my boots, dump the backpack on the bed and strip my pants and boxers. Then I strode into the bathroom, mission focused.
In the glass shower with her back to me, she was fucking gorgeous, but her scarred skin stood out. I stared at her branding. The flesh raised, the lines of the letters a quarter-inch thick, I couldn’t imagine how much it’d hurt. I didn’t want to. It enraged me.
Inhaling, then letting my breath out slow, I stepped into the shower.
She turned under the hot spray and jumped when she saw me. “What the fuck?” she snapped. “Get out.”
Careful not to touch her, I reached around her sexy-as-hell curves and grabbed a bar of soap. “You know what I think?”
“I don’t give a flying fuck. Get. Out.” She crossed her arms.
It was a simple gesture, but it validated everything I’d been thinking. “You’re scared.” I soaped my arms.
Her nostrils flared as she glared at me. “You think this is cute? Invading my privacy?”
“You weren’t thinking about privacy when you stripped in front of me in the living room.” I took my time soaping my chest.
Her gaze strayed to my pecs for a second. Then she looked back up and sneered. “You’re such an asshole.” Despite her mouth, with her hair slicked back, she looked like a different woman, younger, softer.
I ignored her insult. “But you’re not scared for you. In fact, I’m pretty sure you honestly want someone to dump your head on Stephen’s lap. I think you want him to have to cough up two million. Which is shortsighted, because he’ll never pay out. He’ll just shoot whoever shows up with your head.” I stepped toward the hot spray, and she moved out of my way. “But like I said, that’s not what scares you.” I held her angry glare. “You’re scared something’s gonna happen to me.”
“You sealed your own fate when you knocked on Candle’s door.”
“Did I?” I rinsed my arms. “Because I was thinking this was set in motion the first time I laid eyes on you.”
She turned to walk out of the shower.
“Don’t make me grab you from behind, chica,” I warned. “Because I will.” I was done prancing around her.
She took a step.
I dropped the soap and moved. One arm caught her around the waist, the other across her chest, and I swung us around and stepped under the water. She had two choices. Fight or keep her mouth shut.
Thank fuck, she did the latter.
I moved a hand up to her neck and grasped her jaw. My other one dropped to her pussy and I cupped her. Angling her head out of the water, I put my lips against her neck. “I chose to be here, chica. I can take care of myself, and I’m going to protect you. Nothing’s gonna happen to me or you. You hear me?”
Her body stiffened in my arms, but she didn’t say anything.
“I chose to be here,” I repeated. “I chose you.” I brushed my thumb across her cheek.
“You’re suicidal,” she whispered.
I rubbed three fingers across her wet folds, and my dick pulsed against her back. “You’re not taking on any guilt over this.”
Her hips arched into my hand. “Just fuck me.”
“Tell me you know what I want.” I slid my middle finger through her wetness.
She shivered and pushed back into my cock. “You don’t want to be my fuck toy. You want feelings and bullshit, and the goddamn baggage that comes with it. You want your dick wet and your ego stroked. You want everything. All at once.”
Because I’d lost my damn mind, I fucking smiled. “That’s a good start.” I shoved a finger inside her and bit her neck. “I also want you to know you’re safe with me.” I shoved a second finger inside her tight heat. “And I want you to say my name when you come.”
She growled, at me, at my invasion, and she arched her back. “Give me your goddamn cock.”
I stroked into her went cunt twice, then I pulled my fingers out and barked a command. “Hands on the wall.”
Her palms slapped against the tile.
I grabbed her hips, but I didn’t have to pull them back. She was already shoving her sexy ass toward me. “That’s it, chica.” Fuck, she was gorgeous. Dropping to one knee, I spread her glorious ass and licked the length of her sweet cunt.
“Fuuuuck.” Her half growl, half moan filled the shower.
I sank two fingers back inside her and took her clit between my teeth.
Water falling, her cunt dripping, her whole body shook as I rotated my fingers and rubbed deep inside her. Hitting her G-spot, tonguing her clit between my teeth, she stared to go off.
I backed off her clit and stood. “Not yet, chica.” I stroked into her once more then pulled out and fisted myself. Rubbing the head of my dick through her desire, I kicked her legs further apart. “You on the pill, baby girl?”
“No,” she panted. “Fuck me, now.”
I shoved into her.
Dios fucking mio.
My head fell back, my eyes closed, and I sucked in a breath as my dick almost exploded. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Seated all the way to hilt, her sweet, tight pussy clenching around me, I bottomed out. “You okay, chica?”
“Oh my God,” she panted. “You’re so big.”
Her body, her cunt, her voice, every damn thing about her had me ready to mark her as mine. “Jesucristo. You’re fucking perfect.” Palming one hard nipple, then twisting the other, I reared back then shoved into her one slow, torturous inch at a time. Her wet pussy pulsed around my cock like she was made for me. Pulling almost all the way out, I drove back into her all at once.
We both groaned.
I wrapped an arm around her and dragged my lips across her ear. “I’m not wearing a condom, chica.”
She melted into me. “I’m clean.”
“Ditto.” I stupidly hadn’t been thinking about that. I wanted her so damn bad, all I could think about was taking her. I thrust in and out, forcing myself to temper my pace. “Fuck, I wanna come inside you.” I’d fucked a lot of women, some more than once, but never had I wanted to leave my mark on a woman as bad as I wanted to with this woman. It didn’t make sense, and I didn’t fucking care. I just wanted more.
“Oh God,” she whimpered.
I sucked in a breath through my teeth and reared back. Slamming into her, I grabbed a handful of her hair. “You know what that would feel like, beautiful?” Mierda, she was tight.
“No,” she grunted on a deep thrust. “Because no one’s ever come inside me.”
Like a shockwave hitting, a tremor shook me, then I forced myself to go still. One breath, two, guilt hit me square in the chest. I shut the water off and pulled out.
“What are you doing?”
“Come here, beautiful.” I scooped her up.
“Put me down!” The barked order was more out of shock than protest, because she didn’t struggle in my arms.
“I’m taking you to bed.” I wasn’t gonna be like every other asshole who’d ever taken advantage of her. “Put your arms around me, chica.” I wasn’t fucking her in the shower.
Shockingly, she didn’t tell me to fuck off. But she also didn’t touch me. “I don’t need a damn bed.”
“You’re getting one.” I should’ve been fucking ecstatic no man had ever left his mark in her, but I wasn’t. I was incomprehensibly pissed.
“Why?” she bit out. “Because your scruples suddenly mandate it? You should be glad I’m not some slut letting every Tom, cock and Harry pump his load inside my cunt.”
“Jesucristo, chica.” I carried her into the bedroom.
“It doesn’t make it any fucking holier to take the Lord’s name in vain in Spanish.”
She looked so damn vulnerable in my arms, I couldn’t fucking reconcile her small frame with her mouth. “First of all, it’s Tom, Dick, and Harry, not cock.” I reluctantly set her on the bed. “Second, since when are you worried about taking his name in vain? You got a mouth that’d put any marine to shame.” I half expected her to kick me, but she didn’t even dish out a comment. Before I could get a knee on the bed, she was pushing herself back against the headboard.
“I changed my mind.” She brought her legs up.
I paused. “What?”
She turned to look out the window. “Leave.”
For half a second, I studied her. Her head turned, her voice suddenly quiet, her arms protectively around herself, she didn’t look like she wanted me to leave. She looked like she was steeling herself.
Fuck this. I crawled over her. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.” I cupped her cheek and made her look at me. “Don’t be defensive with me.”
She pulled out of my grasp. “I’m not some special flower you need to coax into fucking. There’s no psychological bullshit behind it. You had me. Now you don’t.”
I studied her. “You saying no?”
With feigned disinterest, she answered my question with a question. “What do you want from me?”
I wasn’t buying her sudden indifference. “I want honesty.” The scent of her desire all around me, my dick pulsed, but I forced myself to ignore it. “Telling me to leave isn’t gonna work. I’m not leaving you alone, chica. But if you want me to stop, just say the word.”
She didn’t respond.
I leaned into her personal space and caught her gaze. “If you don’t answer me, I’m gonna read into every single thing you don’t say.” I gave her three seconds to respond, and when she didn’t, I grasped her ankles. One swift pull, and her sexy legs were on either side of me as she slid to her back.
She didn’t fight me, but she crossed her arms over her chest. “How’s this for honest? Quit being an asshole.”
Madre de Dios, I’d dreamed about having her under me. “You want me to stop?”
A look of defiance was her only answer.
I lost my fucking temper. “Words,” I barked.
“No!” she barked back.
My dick fucking rejoiced, and I pushed her thighs wide. Leaning over her, my weight on my forearms, I kissed the side of her face. “Was that so hard?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll work on it.” I kissed the other side. “You think I’m an asshole?”
She turned her head away.
I gently tugged one of her wrists and brought her arm over her head. Threading my fingers through hers, I kissed her cheek, but I didn’t give her my mouth or my cock yet. “It’s a simple question, chica.”
Her voice turned quiet. “Why are you doing this?”
Losing my resolve, I fisted myself and dragged the head of my cock through her heat. “I don’t want you afraid of us.” Or afraid of hoping for a fucking future.
She sucked in a breath, and her legs opened wider, but she didn’t say anything.
“I need words, beautiful.” She was so fucking gorgeous, but her eyes haunted me. They radiated a pain I didn’t know how to fix, and Dios mio, I wanted to fucking fix it. But I wasn’t fool enough to think she’d simply let me. Her pain wasn’t the only thing I saw when I looked into her eyes. She was determined. So damn determined that I saw the resilience that’d kept her alive this long. And it was sexy as hell.
“You seem to have plenty of words.”
Jesus, I wanted to sink inside her. “I can’t speak for you, chica.” Slow and measured, I forced myself to hold back and only stroke against her.
“You want my permission?” Her body bent toward my touch, but she still wasn’t looking at me.
I used our combined hands to tilt her chin, then I gave her answers she didn’t fucking ask for. “I want your honesty and your trust, and I want you to be fucking hopeful.” My thumb brushed against her bottom lip. “I want you looking at me when I sink inside you.”
She stared up at me, no defiance, no barriers, and for a second, I’d thought I’d broken through. Then her expression shut down and she spoke with zero emotion. “Fuck me.”
Using every ounce of training that’d been drilled into me, I didn’t react. I stroked against her once and lowered my voice. “Tell me how this feels.”
Her lungs drew air, her face twisted and she unleashed. “Like a goddamn dream, is that what you want to hear?” She mocked me. “You want me to tell you I like you? You want reassurance that I’ve never felt like this before? You want me to beg you to make love to me?” Anger bled into her tone. “Or do you want me to tell you I’m pissed off and a part of me hates your fucking guts?” Her nostrils flared on an inhale. “Why don’t you tell me, marine, what you so desperately want to hear? Because that’s what this is about, isn’t it? It’s all about what you want.”
Shocked, I stared at her.
Then I thought about shoving into her and fucking her. Hard.
But I wasn’t a damn animal. I wasn’t raised to disrespect women, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to fuck her in anger.
I also wasn’t gonna take her shit. “You know the difference between a man and a boy?”
“Chest hair?”
My jaw ticked. “A man knows when to walk away.” The second the ultimatum left my mouth, I realized my mistake.
Her legs fell away from me. “Then walk.”
Inhaling, I let go of my dick and grabbed her other hand. Except I didn’t thread my fingers through hers. I wrapped them around her wrist and shoved her arm above her head. “You push every man away or am I special?”
“If you’d wanted to be special, fucking me in the shower wasn’t the way to go.”
Jesucristo, a knife to my ribs would’ve stung less, but there it was. The fucking thread I was waiting to unravel. “Why the hell do you think I brought you in here?”
“Score one for you.” She tipped her chin toward the windows. “Great view.”
It took every fucking ounce of self-control I had not to yell. “I’m not gonna hurt you,” I ground out.
Her chest rose, her body stilled and she stared at me. Then the anger disappeared completely from her voice. “One of us will get hurt,” she said quietly. “That’s how this ends.”
Ten words. Two sentences. Six and four.
I digested every nuance.
Then, because it was the first real thing she’d said to me, I gave her honesty in return. “If I knew how to guarantee it’d be me, chica, I’d do it.” Madre de Dios, I’d make her that promise. “But I don’t.”