Bryce (Steele Protectors 3)

by Carole Mortimer

  Bella’s cheeks flushed with temper. “Don’t start that alpha bullshit with me again, because I’m really not in the mood— Bryce!” she shouted in protest as she suddenly found herself hoisted up over his shoulder before being carried back up the stairs. “You can’t—” She broke off again as a painful slap landed on her backside. “That hurt, damn you!”

  “I warned you it was going to,” Bryce stated without apology, lowering her back to her feet once they were in her bedroom. “There won’t be any denim between my hand and your flesh this time.” His expression remained grim as he unbuttoned and then unzipped her jeans.

  Bella stumbled and had to reach out to grasp onto Bryce’s shoulders when she lost her balance as he pulled her jeans, along with her panties, roughly down her thighs to just above her knees. “Bryce, it doesn’t have to be this way,” she appealed as she found herself thrown over his thighs for the second time today.

  He landed a painful smack on her bare bottom cheeks. “I think it does. In fact, I think you deliberately provoked me into spanking you this time.” He landed three more smacks, one on each cheek before making her gasp as he administered the third one across the tops of her thighs just below the now-stinging globes of her bottom. “What is it you really want from me, Bella?” Long fingers caressed between her thighs, gathering up the juices of her arousal and swirling them over her swollen clit. “If you want the two of us to have sex, then just say so—”

  “I don’t,” she protested as she struggled to be free.

  Bryce easily held her in place. “No?” he challenged. “I think you do. I think that’s exactly what you want from me.” Those long fingers stroked farther back, lightly playing with the sensitivity of her dusky rose rosette. “Has anyone ever taken you here?”

  “No!” Bella bucked against his hold of her wrists, only for his fingers to tighten rather than release her.

  “Not Wilton?” His voice hardened.

  She glared at him over her shoulder “I already told you we did not have sex!”

  Bryce shrugged. “Some women, because they physically retain their virginity, don’t consider anal to be sex.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” Bella thought trusting a man enough to have anal sex with them sounded even more intimate than vaginal sex. “Bryce, you really don’t want to do this,” she persuaded.

  “You have no idea the things I want to do to and with you.” Things Bryce had thought of daily, constantly, since the two of them first met five weeks ago.

  “We only met again this morning,” Bella reminded.

  And the moment Bryce had seen her again, he’d been beset with the need to touch Bella. Caress her. Suck her nipples. Lick her pussy. Push his fingers up inside her and stroke her G spot until she came and came. To thrust his cock inside her wet and welcoming channel until they came together.

  Bella claimed they had only met again this morning, but Bryce had hours, days, weeks of fantasies of this woman that he knew could take years to fulfill.

  Bella snorted. “I forgot for a moment that once you’ve taken what you want, there’s never a second meeting.”

  “Today is our second meeting,” he growled.

  She shrugged. “I don’t think a brief conversation in a hospital corridor when you asked for my mobile number and then didn’t bother to use it can be called a first meeting.”

  This wasn’t the first time Bella had mentioned that omission. Telling Bryce how hurt she’d been that he hadn’t called her five weeks ago?

  Damn it, he couldn’t call her. Daren’t call her. Because he had known if he did that within minutes, they would be exactly where they were now.

  To him, this woman was perfection.

  Beautiful.

  Intelligent.

  Everything about Bella pulled him in like a magnet—

  Well, maybe not the stalker element.

  Or the fact her brother was Matteo Zalotti.

  “I haven’t taken anywhere near what I want from you,” Bryce assured her, his hand moving to pull off her jeans and panties completely before tipping her up and around so that she now sat up with a leg placed on either side of his muscular thighs, her hands on his bare shoulders for balance.

  Bella’s cheeks flared with color. She felt so exposed with her pussy completely bared and the heady perfume of her arousal between them.

  Her eyes widened with alarm when Bryce’s hand moved to slowly unfasten the zip on his jeans, his cock springing free seconds later.

  Bella moistened her suddenly dry lips, unable to stop herself from staring at that eight inches of rampant arousal. The deep red mushroomed top was already slick with pre-cum, blood vessels thick and pulsing along its length.

  She had barely been able to take half that length into her mouth earlier and couldn’t imagine how Bryce expected her to take that monster inside her. Anywhere.

  Bryce lost no time in removing her sweater and bra before bending to suckle one of the engorged nipples tipping the heavy fullness of her breasts, at the same time as one of his hands squeezed and his fingers pulled on its twin.

  Bella felt as if she could come from this stimulation alone as Bryce continued to lick, suck, and bite her nipples in turn, his fingers always pulling and squeezing the nipple not in his mouth.

  As if sensing her imminent release Bryce lifted his head, his eyes hot and heavy. “Scoot closer,” he instructed huskily, his hands on her hips now guiding her until her slit was pressed against the throbbing length of his cock. He gave a low groan. “You’re so fucking wet and hot.”

  Bella’s groans joined Bryce’s as his hands on her hips lifted her to meet the stroking of his cock along her slit and the swollen clit above. A fiery pleasure coursed through her veins, her breathing shaky and erratic as she felt the need for release growing stronger and deeper. “Bryce!” she finally pleaded, her back arching, fingers digging into the flesh of his bare shoulders.

  “Come for me,” he instructed harshly. “Fucking do it now,” he growled.

  It was as if Bella had only been waiting for his permission before allowing herself to let go completely, the pleasure centering from her clit and into her channel to her core before radiating out to the rest of her body. Wave after wave of explosive pleasure.

  “Dear God…” Bryce’s control was shot to hell at the feel of Bella’s clit against and caressing his cock. Juices gushed and pulsed hotly from her channel as she came, wetting his shaft as he continued to lift and stroke her along his length. “Bella!” he shouted, fingers digging into her flesh as he felt his cum surge along his cock with the force of a volcano erupting—burning, molten, unstoppable—before releasing between them in jet after jet of thick hot cum.

  Bryce groaned and leaned back on the bed to allow Bella greater access when she lowered her head and began to lick up that release from his chest and throat, a low groan in her throat revealing the pleasure she found in the act.

  Chapter Nine

  Addicted.

  Bella knew that was what she was becoming. To Bryce’s touch. To the taste of his release; a warm sweet-and-sour musk she couldn’t resist lapping from the hardness of his flesh as if it were a rare and exclusive champagne.

  She didn’t stop until she had licked up and swallowed every delicious drop.

  Bryce groaned as he fell completely back on the bed, one of his arms raised and placed across his eyes. “Bloody hell.”

  Bella scooted forward until she straddled his waist rather than his thighs, no longer in the least concerned with her nakedness after Bryce’s reassurances and reaction to her. “Are you okay?”

  “More than okay.” He lifted his arm to scowl at her. “Could you put a robe on or something?”

  Her frown was quizzical. “Why?”

  “You’re too distracting like that.”

  “I don’t know what you— Oh.” Her lips parted in a wide oh as she felt Bryce’s newly engorging cock nudge against her bottom. “I didn’t know that was possible quite so soon…”

  H
e breathed deeply. “And I knew you were going to be trouble for me the first time I saw you.”

  Bella grinned widely. “You did?”

  He nodded. “I already told you that.”

  She nodded. “You said it was the reason you decided to take Atticus’s place in New Orleans.”

  “One of the reasons,” he corrected.

  Her brows rose. “What’s the other one?”

  “Steele Protectors signed a contract to retrieve a woman and return her to her family.”

  “Successfully?”

  His mouth twisted. “We always fulfill our contracts.”

  “Were you in any danger?”

  “What sort of danger?”

  Bella wasn’t fooled for a moment by his unconcerned tone. “The getting-shot-or-killed sort.” Policemen carrying guns, usually at airports, was the one thing Bella didn’t like. Possibly because she had grown up surrounded by men who carried guns, and not necessarily of the legal variety.

  “Bella, I don’t need to carry a weapon to defend myself or to disarm someone who is,” Bryce drawled.

  She nodded, knowing from his closed expression he wasn’t about to reveal any more details to her concerning that. Also accepting, again from Bryce’s expression, that he wasn’t about to discuss the New Orleans contract with her in any more detail than he already had either. “I believe you said Atticus wanted to stay in England and protect the woman he loves who is connected to the Irish mob?”

  His mouth twisted. “You like saying that, don’t you.”

  She shrugged. “It makes me feel less…conspicuous at being the sister of Matteo Zalotti.”

  Bryce shrugged. “We can choose our friends but not our family.”

  “True,” she conceded. “Did going to New Orleans stop you from wanting me?”

  His jaw tightened. “We both know it didn’t,” he muttered. “I’ve been continually hard since you walked into the coffee shop this morning, wanting—aching, to be buried balls-deep inside you.”

  Bella’s grin widened. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  Unfortunately, Bryce knew Bella’s situation right now was too volatile for his reaction to her and hers to him to be allowed to take precedence.

  Bryce still had no idea exactly what was going on or who was responsible for doing what. He needed the help of Haydn, to have his brother do some background checks on Sean Wilton and Matteo Zalotti, before he even considered making his next move.

  Sean Wilton’s behavior was unstable, to say the least.

  And Bella was right, something had felt off about her brother during their visit to the other man’s estate earlier.

  There was also the puzzle of who the man was in the coffee shop earlier today.

  Also who was responsible for the SUV that followed them from Zalotti’s estate and then parked outside Bella’s house for several hours until Bryce approached them and they decided to drive off rather than have the confrontation.

  Some of those things would be connected, if not all of them, but Bryce was sure he could fit all the puzzle pieces together if he could only get the right intel. If anyone could get that information for him, it was Haydn.

  In the meantime Bryce had a very naked Bella straddling his waist, the smell of their mingled musk permeating the air, along with a rapidly hardening cock that just didn’t want to quit. Didn’t know how to quit when it came to Bella. It knew what it wanted, and that was to be inside Bella’s rippling heat.

  Exactly the obsession Bryce had known Bella would be for him from the first moment he set eyes on her all those weeks ago.

  His hands tightly gripped her hips to hold her in place and prevent him from giving in to that need to be inside her. “Bella, I—” He broke off as the doorbell rang.

  Bella looked stricken by the interruption as she hurriedly clambered off Bryce and the bed to pull on a red silk robe that had been draped over the stool in front of the dressing-table. “Who can that be at this time of night?” She tied the belt of the robe tightly about her waist.

  “Fuck,” Bryce murmured, unable to take his eyes off her. He hadn’t thought this woman could look any more beautiful, but the red silk of the robe looked incredible against her ivory skin and the black swathe of hair loose about her shoulders. He could also clearly see her puckered nipples pressing against the thin material. “You aren’t answering the door dressed like that,” he snapped.

  “I’m perfectly decent.”

  “Perfect, maybe,” Bryce conceded. “Decent? Definitely not.”

  Bella looked down at herself before shooting him an irritated frown. “I’m covered from neck to ankle.”

  “And that silk material clings to all the dips and curves of your body in between. You aren’t leaving this bedroom dressed like that,” he insisted, reaching out to grasp hold of one of her wrists as he stood up.

  Bella gave him a mocking glance. “I’m not the one with a lethal weapon hanging out of my jeans.”

  Bryce scowled his frustration as he released her to straighten his jeans and try to pull the zip up over his erection. “You’re a fucking menace, is what you are.” Bryce gave a pained wince as he finally managed to squash his cock inside his refastened jeans.

  She gave an unconcerned grin. “One of us needs to answer the door,” she reminded as the doorbell rang a second time.

  “Well, it isn’t going to be you until you’ve put some more clothes on—” He broke off to take his cell phone from his jeans pocket after feeling it vibrate with a call.

  The caller ID told him it was Haydn, the message I’m downstairs explaining the ringing, twice, of Bella’s doorbell. It didn’t explain how Haydn knew they were upstairs, but Bryce found it easier not to question how his brother knew all the shit he did. Most of the time, Bryce was just grateful he did.

  He gave Bella a scowl. “It’s my brother Haydn at the door. Don’t come down until you’ve put those other clothes on.” He picked up the T-shirt he’d discarded earlier, pulling it on over his head as he left the bedroom.

  Bella heard him descending the stairs seconds later, followed by the opening and closing of her front door and the murmur of male voices downstairs in the sitting room.

  It had been a traumatic day, one way or another.

  Meeting Bryce again.

  The slightly familiar guy in the coffee shop; she still had no idea who he was or why he seemed familiar.

  The visit to her brother.

  Sean basically breaking into her house. She didn’t care what he said, she had never given him a key.

  Making love with Bryce for the second time today.

  Now one of his five brothers, Haydn, was also in her house.

  But if Bryce thought any of those things gave him the right to tell her what to do and when to do it, then he was sadly mistaken.

  * * *

  “Am I interrupting something?” Haydn eyed Bryce speculatively as the brothers walked down the hallway to the sitting room.

  “No,” Bryce answered decisively as he switched the light on as the two men entered the room where he and Bella had confronted Sean Wilton a short time ago. “What can I do for you?” he prompted briskly.

  Haydn’s mouth twitched as he obviously held back a smile. “Well, you can get that arrogant stick from up your arse for a start,” he scoffed. “I’m here to help, not put up with your ‘I can do this alone’ bullshit. Because, take my word for it, this time, you can’t.”

  Bryce let out a deep breath, shoulders slumping. “Sorry.” He winced. “This situation has me more than a little tense.”

  “Oh, definitely more than a little.” Haydn’s gaze moved pointedly down to the bulge in Bryce’s jeans before moving back to his face.

  Bryce scowled. “I’m drowning in this woman’s magnetism and sensuality, and all you can do is take the piss!”

  His brother gave an unapologetic chuckle. “Well, no—I’m also enjoying watching another of my big brothers bite the dust.”

  Bryce’s scowl darkened. “I
am not biting the dust.”

  Haydn shrugged. “Well, I don’t want to know if you’re biting the pillows to stop yourself from screaming with pleasure.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I never scream.”

  “No, he shouts,” Bella confirmed lightly as she strolled into the room. “Rather loudly, as I recall. Hi, I’m Bella. I believe we met briefly at the hospital a few weeks ago.” She shook Haydn’s hand before giving Bryce a sideways glance. “Obviously, your brother is too rude to reintroduce us.”

  Bryce had taken one look at Bella, still wearing only the red silk robe, and was unable to do anything more than try to control the tide of rage rising inside him. “Bryce is still digesting the fact you’ve ignored my having told you not to come downstairs until you were suitably dressed,” he reminded through gritted teeth.

  Bella gave him a pitying glance. “I think the sooner you realize, and accept, I don’t ask how high when you tell me to jump, the happier you will be,” she advised sweetly. “And you told me to put on other clothes,” she added before he could answer her. “For your information, I am now wearing a black bra and panties beneath the robe.” Her eyes were wide and innocent as she dropped down into one of the armchairs, crossing one silky leg over the other as she looked up at him in challenge.

  Jesus…

  Just imagining Bella in a black bra and panties was enough to cause Bryce’s cock to harden to a degree it threatened to burst the zip of his jeans. For sure, when he took his jeans off later tonight, he was going to have a painful imprint of his zip down its length.

  His discomfort wasn’t helped by the smirk he could see Haydn was trying to hide behind his raised hand. “We’ll talk about this again later,” he warned Bella.

  “I don’t think so,” she scoffed before turning to Haydn. “Do you have more information for us?”

  Haydn instantly sobered. “There’s something odd going on with your brother.”

  Bella’s cheeks paled, and she rose restlessly to her feet. “Such as…?”

  Haydn grimaced. “I’ve checked a dozen bank accounts connected to Matteo Zalotti, both personal and business, legal and…not.” He shrugged. “The numbers aren’t adding up.”