The door was wide open, and the room dark. She poked her head in and saw the bed was made up perfectly and with precision.
Figures.
But he was not in that bed.
There was no way he left the house, no way he’d leave her alone. He was too dedicated to his job. Too hungry for his “bonus,” which she still had no idea just what it was. Just how much her life was worth.
However, going on a run in the daylight around the gated community was one thing, just leaving was another. Plus, it was the middle of the night in an undeveloped neighborhood. So, he didn’t go out for a run.
She quietly descended the stairs. She could never be as quiet as him, though. She winced when one of the steps creaked under her weight.
Once she hit the foot of the staircase, she glanced down the hall toward the kitchen, finding it dark.
She moved to the entrance of the living room and froze.
Did he fall asleep sitting up?
He was on the couch. The room was in shadows since the only light came from a small lamp in a far corner that didn’t reach the whole room.
He faced straight ahead, staring at the empty, cold brick fireplace. His hands where curled into fists as they rested on his bent knees, his feet were propped on the edge of the coffee table.
A black handgun sat in between his bare feet on the table. Within reach.
Why did he have his gun unholstered?
Was there a threat?
Or was the threat him?
Was he tortured enough that he’d thought about turning that gun on himself?
What had he seen? What the hell had he done?
His scars told one story. His mind held another.
Shutting down and shutting people out was common among soldiers who’d seen action. For military personnel who’d been front and center in war, death and destruction.
She might be a sex therapist—a career some might scoff at—but she’d seen how PTSD affected relationships. How it had torn couples and families apart. How it could even destroy intimacy with the one they loved.
PTSD affected everyone differently, every person handled it in a different way. There was no simple or easy way to deal with it.
Some went searching for a “fix,” but more often than not, an easy solution was impossible. Either way, it had to be dealt with or it could destroy a person from the inside out.
Chapter Nine
He sensed her there. Hell, he heard her footsteps coming down the stairs, even though she was barefooted and trying to be quiet.
When he sat in the dark, when he tried to turn the rest of the noise off in his brain, his senses were amplified.
He was trained to hold still for hours. Keep total control of his body. When needed, he could lie in wait.
In the desert heat, under the blistering sun, in frigid temps, during torrential downpours, whatever the conditions, he’d done it all. No matter how harsh the environment, he could remain silent. Still.
Waiting for his target.
His prey.
He knew how to disable a threat just as quietly. To take out a target without anyone else aware of what was happening until it was all over, and he was gone.
Ghosted.
Being a part of a Delta Force team had taught him to blend in wherever he was. Whatever country he was in. Whatever culture. Whatever terrain.
Now, with a big fucking scar crossing his face, he was too recognizable. He caught just about everyone’s attention.
While the scar was good for intimidation, that was about it. And to use it as such you had to be exposed, out in the open, facing your threat or target head on.
That was not how he liked shit to play out.
But now, he didn’t have much of a choice. Disguises didn’t help much since his face attracted so much unwanted attention. Unfortunately the scar tissue was thick, so even using any kind of makeup or cover-up was usually ineffective.
His career had been over before he was ready to give it up. He didn’t fucking like it, but he had to accept it.
Shit happens.
But that’s where that fucking sentence should stop.
“Shit happens for a reason” made him want to throat punch anyone who said that to him.
Her soft question, her throaty voice twisted something inside him. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Hell, he didn’t even try. He knew laying in his bed with his eyes closed wouldn’t have brought sleep. Fuck no. There was something about Rissa that was pulling shit he’d buried so deeply long ago, to the surface. And how could he sleep when he was feeling so restless?
He’d only known the woman for two days and was now worried that if this job went for any length of time, things would only get worse for him. For her, too.
If things got worse, he’d end up being the bigger threat when it came to the job—the woman—he was supposed to protect. Not some highly paid goons belonging to a powerful, ruthless sex trafficker. One who was going head to head with her Michael.
How the fuck did she ever get tangled up with Paranzino in the first place?
“Why are you up?” His voice was rough, and he wondered why he even bothered to ask. Did he really care why she was awake in the middle of the night? Or was he more bothered she had come downstairs to find him?
To poke and prod at him. Until he lost his shit again.
Hell, she was a therapist. Had a fucking Master’s in Psychology, which she announced when she offered to help Kelsea, Diesel’s train wreck of a cousin.
If he had known all of that before he took the job, he would have said no.
A million “fuck no’s” to be more exact.
He could still demand that D swap him out with one of the other guys. Not Brick, though. Fuck that.
Fucking motherfucker. Not any of them, because not one of those assholes would say no to lying between her soft thighs. Fucking her against the wall. On a kitchen table. On a center island counter.
Or on the living room floor in front of a cold fireplace in the middle of the night.
Fuck.
Just thinking of Brick or Steel, or any of them, sticking their dick in her made him want to smash shit.
He shouldn’t care. He really fucking shouldn’t.
And it irritated the fuck out of him that he did.
Women were trouble. And a woman who was also a therapist? Double fucking whammy.
He had a perfectly good reason to fuck a woman only once. He was not a project. He was not a broken fucking vase they needed to glue back together.
Sex needed to remain just that, sex. An activity tied to a bodily function that relieved the load in his balls when he got sick of his own fist.
However, earlier, after pulling out before either of them finished, he hadn’t even resorted to self-help. Not like Rissa had.
As he listened to her taking care of business upstairs without him, it took everything he had not to take those steps two at a time and finish what they’d started on the table.
Or what he’d started.
When he realized what he was doing, how he had manhandled her, he stopped immediately. He already had hurt her once when he bit her the first time they fucked.
He didn’t hurt women. He fucking disposed of people who hurt women.
While she hadn’t mentioned the bruise and she didn’t tell him to stop when he took her forcefully on the table...
It wasn’t fucking right.
This woman shouldn’t be taken like some street whore in a back alley. She might be close friends with a man who didn’t deserve her, but she was no trick like he originally thought.
She was intelligent and successful, and she was well-off because she’d built all of that herself. She was no gold digger. That was clear when he dug deeper into her background once he found out about her occupation.
She didn’t need a man.
Not for money. And apparently, from what he heard earlier, not to orgasm.
The woman was self-sufficient. And while he like
d that, he didn’t like the idea of getting involved with her and going down that long, dark rabbit hole.
She was a job.
Only a job.
“Shouldn’t hafta say it but keep your dick outta ‘er, too. Got me?”
He’d already broken his own rule, as well as Diesel’s.
Why was she just standing there in the middle of the living room now, staring at him?
Fuck. He had asked her a question.
She probably answered and then asked him a question and was waiting for his reply. Because that’s what women did, asked too many fucking questions.
“Yeah,” he grunted, because that usually covered most questions they asked favorably. If you agreed with them they were usually good with that.
She put her hands on her hips and... Jesus fucking Christ, he just realized she was only wearing that about-ready-to-split-its-seams camisole and panties!
“Yeah what?” She wrinkled her nose. And, fuck him, if that wasn’t cute, too. He was never into cute. But she made cute sexy as fuck.
“If the question was if you need to put on some pants, then, yeah, you need to put on some fucking pants.”
She shook her head. “That wasn’t the question.”
“Then, yeah, you need to go back upstairs to bed and leave me the fuck alone.”
“That wasn’t the question, either.”
“Don’t matter what the question was, that’s my answer.”
There was a long pause filled with awkward silence.
“You owe me.”
His nostrils flared as she stepped closer. His heart began to thump as he sat up straighter and dropped his feet to the floor when she pushed the coffee table out of the way.
What the fuck. He watched his loaded weapon slide out of reach.
However, that wasn’t the only fucking loaded weapon in the room.
His dick was now on the rise once more. Especially when she took one more step forward to stand in between his spread thighs. She even kneed them open a little farther to make room for herself. The fuck if she didn’t.
He would have to tilt his head up to look at her. But he kind of liked staring straight ahead at her panties. In the limited light, he guessed they could be nylon. They weren’t a sexy, expensive kind, either. Just plain ol’ panties she must’ve pulled on after pulling one off. Or two. Or however many orgasms she had when she was howling like an injured cat upstairs.
She probably had a lot of practice with that toy she called BOB.
“What do I owe you?” he stupidly asked in a murmur, curling his fingers tighter into his palms to fight from touching her. To fight from checking whether those panties were made out of nylon.
She had showered after the earlier table sex SNAFU. But she hadn’t showered again after the date with her vibrator, which meant he could pick up the resulting musky scent of a woman’s orgasm.
It wouldn’t take much effort to lean forward and press his nose to the soft mound that was covered by that thin fabric.
It wouldn’t take much to yank those panties down and put his mouth to her there. To taste what remained after she came at least twice.
It wouldn’t take much to slide his fingers through her soft, plump folds and check to see if she was still wet and responsive.
He only had sex with women once. Then he was done.
He had Rissa once. Almost twice.
There should be no third time.
Fucking her again would be like quicksand. He’d get stuck and slowly get pulled under until he couldn’t escape. Until he suffocated. Drowned.
This job shouldn’t last long. With a little willpower, he could resist her for another night or two. At least until he could break free and go on the hunt for some nameless, random snatch in a bar somewhere. Hell, at a fucking grocery store. A single mother just looking to blow off some steam in the backseat of her minivan in a dark parking lot.
Fuck the freak for a thrill, then go home and feed the kids.
That was fine with him.
When Rissa reached out, he didn’t catch his flinch in time.
His lungs seized, and he stopped breathing when she slowly traced his facial scar with the tip of her finger. From the top edge at his hairline to the very bottom, ending at the corner of his lip.
He didn’t know why he allowed her to do it.
He shouldn’t.
Especially with the expression she was wearing. Full of care and concern. The soft look to her eyes unmistakable. Her lips slightly parted. Her breath smelled faintly like mint toothpaste.
Fuck.
He snagged her wrist and pulled it away from what she did next, which was running her thumb across his lips. By her doing so, it allowed her to gauge his reaction to her touch since his breathing had become ragged.
Whatever she wanted from him, whatever he “owed” her, he couldn’t give her.
Nor did he want to.
Because to give her anything opened himself up. She was looking for a way in, the slightest crack. And once she found that crack, she was going to pick at it until he was cut wide open and his guts spilled out of that gaping wound.
That could never happen.
He could easily snap her wrist within his fingers, so he released her abruptly. “Step back.”
She shook her head again. She no longer looked cute. No, now she looked fucking determined. “No. You owe me.”
“Don’t owe you shit.”
“Sex shouldn’t scare you.”
“It’s not the sex...” he trailed off. It wasn’t the sex that worried him, it was all that went along with it. For a woman, it tended to be more than just about the act.
“Tonight it would only be sex. Nothing more.”
“Bullshit,” he growled.
She lifted a bare shoulder. “How about if I promise you that?”
“Not sure I would believe you.”
“You said you had sex with a woman a couple days before you went out to Vegas. Were you planning on seeing her again?”
For fuck’s sake, she was good. She knew how to ask an obvious question to get the hidden answer she really wanted.
He wasn’t falling for that, either. “No.”
“Why?”
He gritted his teeth. When you can’t sneak in the back door, just walk through the front. Fucking goddamn.
“Because you probably don’t want to make a deep connection with anyone and seeing someone on a regular basis, or even more than once or twice, would threaten that, right?”
He needed to push her away, get the fuck off that couch, head upstairs into the master bedroom and lock her the fuck out.
He needed to get her out of his view, out of his head, out of his life. She could easily destroy him. “Don’t need my sex life analyzed.”
“I’m just making an observation.”
Yeah, right. Sure she was. “You’re a fucking sex therapist. When my dick can’t stand up, then help me fix it. But anything else? I don’t want fixed.”
“I might be a sex therapist, but, like I told you, I have a master’s degree in psychology, Ryan.”
Fuck me. He never should have slipped and told her his name. He already fucked up one too many times on this job. He was slipping. This was supposed to be a simple and quick job for a boatload of cash.
The curvy, outspoken woman standing in between his thighs in just panties and a camisole was not making this simple.
Not at fucking all.
He needed to shut this shit down now.
“And I’m a master at fucking death and dying.”
Her brows knitted together. “Are you trying to scare me?”
“Fuck yes.” He met her gaze directly. “Are you scared?”
“No.” Her eyes steadily held his and she now looked more determined than ever. That did not bode well for him.
“You should be.”
“Why?”
Because you don’t want to peel away the layers, woman. You don’t. You might have nightmares for the rest of
your fucking life if you do.
He had done shit, seen shit, the rest of the Shadows didn’t even know about. Shit that would never pass his lips, and not because it was classified information, either.
“Rissa, you need to go back upstairs.”
“No, I’m not going upstairs because you said so. I’m staying right here until I get what you owe me.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered under his breath. “What do I owe you?”
“Two orgasms. Two.” She emphasized the number by lifting two fingers up. “Normally, I’d say one would suffice. But no, after you left me hanging earlier, I want two. I’m sure you can muster through paying me what you owe me.”
This woman was bat-shit crazy. He should’ve let Brick have her.
He kept his expression blank when he asked, “Is there any particular way you want payment made?”
“Whatever you’re good at.”
He flattened his lips because he almost smiled at that. Almost. It was a close call. He finally let himself touch her by pressing his palms to her hips then sliding them around to grab her ass. He ran a finger over the nylon (he was right) fabric at her ass crack. “Anything?”
“Not that. You’d have to be really skilled at that to make me orgasm that way and I doubt you’re that good. In fact, from what I’ve experienced so far, I know you’re not good enough to make that worth my while.”
His head snapped back, and he stared up at her. Say what?
With a growl, he surged up, was on his feet, and not a second later all the oxygen whooshed out of her lungs as she landed on her back on the couch.
He had her panties ripped down her thighs, her knees shoved into her chest and his mouth on her clit before she probably knew what hit her.
Her hips shot off the couch and she cried out as he sucked her hard. With two fingers in a V, he spread her open and tasted the results of her earlier orgasms.
Fuck, that shit could be addicting.
Whatever you’re good at.
He would show her how good he was with his mouth on her pussy. For once, he cared more about the woman coming than his own release.
She wanted two? She was getting at least four.
She didn’t think he could make her orgasm when he fucked her ass?
Guts & Glory: Mercy (In the Shadows Security Book 1) Page 10