Do you have pants on?”

I am a heavy sleeper on my best day, I could snore through a natural disaster, but for some reason, hearing those words whispered from the side of my bed had my eyes snapping open and my heart rate rising. I don’t want to say I was scared exactly, but waking up from a dead sleep to find Angel standing next to my bed holding her pillow against her chest was not a thing that was on my mind when I had turned in for the night.

I was feeling marginally calmer after Dino and I had gone a few rounds. It wasn’t his fault Angel got hurt, I knew that, but I was furious, and I think Dino knew I needed to get that out. Fist fighting in the front yard was archaic, yet somehow still effective. Dino could have taken me down too, but he let me get in a few swings before knocking me on my ass and asking, “Do you feel better yet?”

Better, no. But able to look at the swelling on Angel’s cheek and the dirt smeared on her face without taking my rage out on someone, yes. Dino and I had gone back in the house to find Angel asleep sitting up, cradling my secret candy stash in her lap like a baby with her hand still inside. Her long blonde hair all in disarray, obscuring her face and the injury that I knew lurked underneath. Jeannette sat on the sofa beside her, looking not really at Angel, but more through her. She was miles away, lost in thought. I knew this had to have triggered something in her as well, knowing Jeannette’s history like I did.

Jeannette and Dino hung out as I picked Angel up and carried her to the spare room. I could have woken her up and gave her a change of clothes, but if she was tired enough to pass out on my couch while eating candy mid-conversation, then I shouldn’t wake her. Scooping her straight off the couch, I carried her princess-style down the hall to the room directly opposite mine. The actual guest room she could have slept in the first time she spent the night in my house, but at the time, she’d taken a left instead of a right and ended up in my bed. I had woken up mostly still asleep on the couch and hadn’t even paid attention when I crawled in bed with her that first time. I was wide-awake now, and I wouldn’t do that to her again.

Poor Angel, she’d been through so damn much in just a few short days. She’d asked me for help, and I thought I’d taken care of it. Having Dino keep an eye on her had been more for my peace of mind than anything. Chaz Malone had gotten his money, and even though he was a stone-cold dick head, he was also a sound businessman. You don’t get to have the kind of power he has without having your head in the game. We had made a transaction, a profitable one for Chaz, since I actually paid him more than what he was asking, so it didn’t make sense he would send one of his goons, his most volatile one, in fact, after Angel. It was bad for business.

I would have to look into it further, maybe I would have Dino do some checking for me and I could keep a closer eye on Angel. Running Anderson Investments didn’t keep me as busy as people would like to think. I wasn’t kidding when I told Angel I was a figurehead. The company was my inheritance, but I didn’t actually do any of the work. We had a board of trustees for that. I think it just made everyone feel better after Dad was gone, to have an Anderson in the building, and not just a name on the outside.

My real skills were not in investments anyway. I was a mercenary, that’s what I was good at. You could put me in a suit, but that was just another disguise for me, just another part I played. I could do so many things. One of the things I was good at was protection, and I was going to protect Angel whether she wanted it or not.

It was a quarter after two when I finally crawled into my own bed. I’d tasked Dino and Jeannette with picking up Angel’s car and bringing it back to my house. I also told them to stop into the bar and smooth things over with the manager. I didn’t want there to be any lingering issues for Angel after tonight. I wanted her to be able to wake up and leave if she wanted, and not have to worry about backtracking her steps, or having to go back to the scene of her attack if she didn’t want to. Fuck that—let her sleep it off. That’s what I would want to do.

That’s why I was shocked as shit to wake up to her standing next to my bed, looking down on me wide-eyed and awake.

“Are you wearing pants?” I had to check to make sure, but yes, I was wearing pants.

“You are not wearing pants.” I don’t know why I felt the need to point it out, but she was standing in her shirt and panties and that was not what I had put her to bed in. She had also taken a shower, I could tell by the way her hair was hanging damp and curly down around her shoulders, leaving little dark spots on her shirt where the water drops had soaked through.

“Can I sleep with you?”

That was a fully loaded question that I didn’t know how to answer, although my dick became very interested and I had to twist a little under the blanket so my erection didn’t cause a dome in the comforter.

“I gave you the guest room this time so you wouldn’t yell at me,” I told her with a sleepy grin. “You lonely without me? Need a snuggle?” The joke died on my lips as I looked into her eyes. They were void of any emotion, empty.

“I can’t wash them off.” She rubbed her wrists together and held them out as a visual explanation, they were red and agitated. The skin all the way up her arms was red and angry looking. “I took a shower and I scrubbed and scrubbed but I can’t wash his hands off. All of the places he touched. They won’t come clean.”

Oh shit. Okay.

Completely at a loss I slid over in the bed and pulled the blankets back, gesturing for her to join me. What was the right thing to do? I didn’t know, but I wasn’t going to tell her to go back to the guest room. Not with her standing there, vulnerable and needing something to make her feel better. I realized my mistake shortly thereafter when instead of laying down with her back to me and falling asleep, she crawled as close to me as she could get and snuggled her face into my neck. I froze in place, not sure what she was up to but not sure if I should stop her either. It wasn’t until I felt her hand trail down my bare chest and start flirting with the waistband of my sweatpants that I found my voice.

“Angel, what are you doing?” I’m surprised I was able to get the words out, my lungs had been locked up since I felt her fingers dip into the waistband of my boxer shorts and she was about two seconds away from shaking hands with my dick.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed the words against my neck, not sounding sorry in the least bit. “I just need…something.” She pressed her breasts against my bare chest and I felt her nipples through the cotton of her shirt, scraping against my skin. Fffuuuck that felt good. My self-control was slipping by the second, but I had to stay in my right mind with her. She was too fragile, too affected right now to know what she was doing.

“Angel, I’m not a magic eraser. I can’t fix that for you.” I thought that would do it, and she did pause, her palm cupping my balls through the thin layers of clothing, but she didn’t move away.

I felt her breath, soft against my neck as she said, “Gabe, I’ve loved you since I was fourteen, and never once have I ever labored under the delusion that I could keep you for myself. But I need you right now—please.” Then the hand that had been on the outside of my pants made its way to the inside, and I was a goner. I would pick apart her words tomorrow. There was something about them that sounded so sad, so lonely. But I couldn’t spend the time thinking about them right now because she was kissing on my jawline and her hand was stroking my already painfully hard cock in just the right places.

Okay. Okay, I’ll play. If that’s what you need, I’ll give it to you.

“Do you want to touch me, or do you want me to touch you?” Ground rules, I thought while I still had my brain intact. It’s important to establish ground rules.

“Yes,” was all she said before her mouth left my jaw and softly met mine. I only hesitated for an instant, giving her that last chance to change her mind, but she only increased the pressure, opening her mouth further, inviting me in. Well, if she was going to open the door, I wasn’t going to refuse the invitation. She wanted me to touch her? Well, I would. I would touch all of her, and may she not fucking kill me in the morning.

Gently rolling her onto her back I grabbed the hem of her shirt, pausing briefly to admire the soft swell of stomach that showed between the bottom of her shirt and the pink lace top of her panties. It looked too sweet so I stopped short of taking her shirt off and I bit there. Gently, just enough to leave a little red mark.

“Not there,” she said, embarrassed. I remembered back to the last time I grabbed her in this exact spot. She’d said something about not touching her chub. She had nothing to be embarrassed about. She was beautiful. I know she knew it too, and stupid teenage hang-ups had no place in this room, in this bed.

“Sorry not sorry, Angel,” I murmured against her skin, nipping her in the exact same spot again. “You wanted me to touch you, and I will. I’ll touch you wherever I want. No takebacks.” Her breath caught in her throat as I pulled the shirt up and over her head, freeing her bare breasts from their cotton restraint.

Holy shit, her tits were magnificent.

They looked even bigger naked than clothed, and completely out of the blue I remembered a phrase I had heard jokingly in the locker room back when I was a teenager.

More than a mouthful’s a waste.

What a load of bullshit. Anyone who could say that had clearly never had more than a mouthful. Even one was much more than my mouth could handle, but I tried anyway, sucking her nipples deep into my mouth and tonguing them until she arced off the bed, moaning and grabbing fistfuls of my hair. Her cries were an aphrodisiac, spurring me on, and she pulled my head closer until I was so full of her I could barely breathe. I didn’t care. She tasted like sugar and I had a craving for sweets. And if just me touching her breasts made her cry out like this, what would she do if I buried my dick inside of her?

We were falling down a rabbit hole here, but Goddamn it, she started it.

Her legs were squirming underneath me, her knees tapping against my hips as I continued to knead handfuls of her breasts in my hands. I could stay there all night. I didn’t think I would ever be tired of being smothered in that plump, smooth flesh, but she was getting antsy, and I knew what she wanted. I had a list going in my head, 1001 things I want to do with Angel’s naked body, that started compiling the second I took her shirt off and got a view of her spectacular rack. But this wasn’t about me and my needs. This was about Angel, and her lower body grinding against me was telling me more than any words could. Regretfully, I let go of her chest and moved my hand farther down her body, checking to see if she was ready to take me.

Holy shit she was more than ready, she was on fire.

Groaning, tamping down my own desire, I moved back a bit, spread her knees open slowly, waiting for her to stop me. I hoped she wouldn’t, but if there was ever a last chance to change her mind, this was it.

“Angel,” I said, trying hard not to moan the words at her, this was important. “Are you sure about this?” I was kneeling on the bed, looking down her body and could barely see her face above the pale mountain of her breasts. Mouth parted in desire and eyes half open, she reached up and stroked me again. I would stop if she said no, but my dick might fall off if I did.

“It’s okay if it’s you, Gabe,” she said as she wiggled, shimmied a bit to get her silky panties down and off. One hand reached to slide up my neck, fingers scraping against the short hairs there. The other hand reached back down to my hip, guiding me to the heat of her entrance.

I should have thought more about what she said. About the meaning behind those words, but I didn’t.

She was so soft and warm my brain slipped from raring to go to almost losing my load. She moaned low in her throat as she took me deep inside of her, and as she hooked her ankles behind my back, effectively locking us in place, I knew we had passed the point where we could go back to how we were, whatever tenuous place that had been.

Grabbing her by the hips, I sunk my fingertips into the softness there and began to move, slowly at first, lifting her ass off the bed to meet me. As I slid in and out of her, building up pressure between the both of us, gathering speed until there was no sound in the room beside our ragged breathing and the slap of flesh against flesh, I knew, she was going to hate us both in the morning. But she felt so good underneath me, I couldn’t even begin to care.