Protecting What's Mine: A Security Romance Collection

by Apryl Baker

  “Want a glass, Ben?”

  I approach the counter. “Sure.”

  “Dad?”

  Marco shakes his head. “Your dress is torn at the hem.”

  Sera plays dumb and she does it well. Maybe the girl isn’t such a bad actress. “Hm?”

  “Your dress.” He points to her thigh. “It’s torn.”

  She shrugs her slender shoulders, dipping low into a cupboard for some glass cups. “I danced. Must’ve happened then.”

  “What kind of dancing?”

  Snorting, Sera tucks hair behind her ear and pours O.J. into the cups. “Normal dancing.”

  Marco watches her closely as he continues to cut bread with his large knife, wearing a black polo that makes the crumbs on it stand out, like dandruff.

  She returns the orange juice to the fridge, grabs her handbag, her cup, and waves her father off before retiring for the night. When she’s out of sight, Marco turns his black, soulless stare on me.

  “I’m impressed you brought her back before curfew—without her annoying friends too.”

  I shrug. “I’m sure she’s not happy about it.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Vegas is no place for a girl after midnight.” He pinches a large crumb of bread and puts it between his lips. “You got kids?”

  I grimace. Is he asking because I look old enough to have children? Perhaps to him, I look old enough to have children around Sera’s age. The thought turns my stomach and I shake my head as I grab my glass of orange juice.

  “Why give her a two a.m. curfew if you don’t want her out so late?” I ask, eager to change the conversation.

  “It was her mother’s idea. She thinks I’m too strict with Seraphina, but she’s naïve. She doesn’t know Vegas like I do.”

  I sip my juice and put it down. “I don’t think handling your daughter will be a problem for me.”

  He nods, dropping the knife. “Good. Listen.” He rounds the counter and I try not to look at his gray sweatpants as his chubby body comes into view. “We’re having an event here tomorrow evening. This place will be swarming with unsavory characters. I’ll have my men here, but I want a set of eyes only on Sera. Understand?”

  I nod. “Okay.”

  “Some of the men coming are slimeballs who’ve had an eye for my daughter since she was young.”

  I frown. “And you allow them into your house?”

  “I don’t fucking allow anything when it comes to my little girl,” he snaps. “But despite the business, I can’t go around slaughtering important people. You get what I’m saying?”

  I nod. “So, I keep an eye on her. No problem.”

  “No.” He jabs me in the chest with his index finger. “You keep two eyes on her.”

  I swallow. Obviously, that’s what I meant.

  Marco pushes past me. “All of your shit is in the guest house. I suggest you rest.”

  I stand in the kitchen, staring into my orange juice. All of my shit is in the guest house? Talk about invasive. Luckily, I’m a minimalist and I don’t own much in my little apartment on Vegas’s west side. Most of my expensive and sentimental belongings are stored at my mother’s house.

  I place my glass of orange juice down on the counter and make my way out of the kitchen and into the wide-open backyard. The only sounds to be heard come from the fountain in the pool and a set of sprinklers along the far-right fence.

  I shrug out of my jacket and unbutton my shirt. The manor and its grounds have a different feel at night. It’s less threatening, less daunting, when it’s not littered with criminals standing around waiting for a call. It’s serene. A true resting place.

  I tug on the front door of the guest house and slip inside. A few handfuls of medium sized boxes litter the vast sitting space. Inside them holds nothing of extreme importance or sentimental value…my uniform, medals, and weapons being the exception. I’m almost too ashamed to look at them now.

  The glow through the front windows and door fades as the lights of the house are turned off. Working only with the glow of the moon, I cross the sitting room to a lamp by a bookshelf and I fumble with it until it flicks on, almost blinding me.

  I shrug out of my shirt and toss it to the floor. From where I stand, I see the sitting room and a kitchen. Branching off from those is a small hallway that I can only assume leads to the bedroom. My exhaustion draws me to the hallway like a moth to a flame, and I don’t fight it. I let it guide me, moving on auto-pilot, until I’m face down on one of the firmest mattresses I’ve ever laid on. Which is perfect. Most beds are too soft. Unless I’m wasted, I can only sleep on the floor.

  I groan, pushing my hands under the pillows to feel the cool fabric as I kick my shoes off. One hits the floor and one doesn’t, but I’m dead to the world before I can even think about investigating.

  ***

  I’ve never been much of a dreamer, but I’ve dreamt of Sera and the night we spent together on and off since it happened. It’s nothing to write home about. We kiss, we touch, we fuck, and I wake up with a raging boner. That’s the usual sequence…

  …but tonight is different.

  Tonight my subconscious clashes with my reality in the strangest of ways. I attempt to open my eyes, but I’m sucked back into dreamland by the most vivid dream I’ve ever experienced.

  Pleasure rolls over my body in powerful waves and all I can see behind my lids are her full glossy lips against my shaft, tracing the vein that runs along the back with her wet, warm tongue.

  Reality swiftly interrupts and I shudder, wanting to clench the sheets beneath me in my fists as a groan—my groan—vibrates my chest. But I can’t move. My body is still paralyzed from sleep.

  Whatever is happening, whatever my brain, my hormones, and that fucking girl is doing to me, I don’t want it to stop. I don’t want to wake up from this.

  Warmth flows from between my legs and my eyes finally flutter open. The wonderful sensation draws me from my sleep, forcing me to feel everything—in real time.

  I clench the bed sheets and flex my hips until I’m stopped by the back of a throat. I moan, loudly, and a gentle gag noise pulls me from whatever fragments of sleep remain.

  I pause—I fucking freeze—as the sleep-induced haze begins to wear off. There’s no mistaking it. I shudder against the urge to spill my come. There’s a very warm, very wet mouth on my cock.

  She sucks the tip between her lips while squeezing the thick shaft in her small hands.

  “Shit.” I squeeze my eyes shut. This is happening…it shouldn’t be, but it is. She works me over flawlessly, the perfect combination of slow and fast. Slick, but not sloppy enough to mask the friction of her skin on mine. “Sera?”

  I spread my palms against the cool sheets and crane my neck, peering down my naked torso. It’s dark, so dark I can’t see her face, but I know those lips. I could pick them out of a Goddamn line up. My black slacks are open, the underside of the base of my cock rubs where the zipper’s teeth meet at the bottom. How’d she get my pants open without waking me up? I’m the lightest sleeper I know—or was. It’s a title I’ll have to revisit after this.

  “Stop,” I pant, dropping my head back against the mattress.

  I beg her again, but it’s pathetic. A rush of air that only increases her assault as she takes me into her mouth and goes deep, until my cock squeezes into her throat. She gags, I clench, crunching my body to place a hand on her head.

  “Fucking stop,” I grind out between my clenched teeth, but my hand betrays me.

  I push and pull her head, coaxing her to keep going deep, until I feel her saliva roll down my shaft and onto my balls. I should stop her. I mean, did she not see the size of the knife her father used to cut bread tonight? I’m willing to bet it’s not the biggest—or the sharpest—he owns.

  But it just feels…so…damn…good. I’m so close to—no.

  I grab a fistful of her hair and pull her off my cock with a ‘pop.’

  “I said stop.”

  She takes a large gas
p of air before diving on me, straddling my waist. I feel it immediately, the wetness on my skin, the warmth radiating from between her legs. “You want me to stop?”

  “We can’t do this.”

  I release her hair and she snatches my wrists, pinning them beside my head. My chest rises and falls faster than I want it to and she simpers at the sight.

  “You don’t want it?” she whispers, brushing her lips against mine. “You don’t want me?”

  I become hyperaware of my surroundings, straining my ears to hear the slightest sound of someone’s approach.

  “What if someone saw you come in? What if they check the surveillance?”

  “Don’t you worry your pretty little head.” She kisses the corner of my mouth, softly biting my bottom lip. “This has been my prison since I was little. I know it like the back of my hand. No one will catch us.”

  I try to protest again, but it ends on her lips as she slides her tongue into my mouth, overpowering me in the strangest of ways. I’ve never seen myself as a weak man. In my military career, I’ve undergone various interrogation simulations and haven’t failed a single one. Not when I was starving, not when I was in pain, not even when I was freezing my ass off, the tips of my hair frozen into sharp spurs of ice, but here I am, caving to the pressure of a tiny woman who wants nothing more than to fuck me into oblivion. My superiors would be disappointed.

  “If I let go of your wrists, do you promise to touch me?” she whispers against my lips. “Just one more time, Ben. I want to remember it. All of it.”

  “And afterwards? When I make you come so hard no one else could possibly measure up? I can’t have you staring at me from across the room like a lost puppy. Not in front of your father.”

  “I’m appalled you think a simple fling has the power to make me so obsessed with you and your—”

  “You snuck into my bed, at risk of us both getting murdered, just to put my cock in your mouth. Who’s to say you’re not already obsessed?”

  Straightening her spine, she releases my wrists. Her long, black hair curls around her covered breasts and she glares down at me. “I can leave anytime I want.”

  My lips twitch at the threatening tone in her voice. I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge.

  “So leave.”

  She remains still, and I know she’s analyzing me as best she can in the dark. I hear her lips part with a sigh and she lifts her hips off of me, muttering under her breath as she swings her legs over and turns her back to me. “Suit yourself.”

  I contemplate letting her go, but my cock throbs painfully. I can’t fix this kind of pressure with my hand. It’d take days and countless bottles of lube before it settles.

  Sera barely makes it to the edge of the bed when I snatch her by the waist and pin her face down on the bed. Air leaves her lungs, her hands fisting the blankets as I pull her hips up and she holds herself there on her knees. Whatever she was wearing, her white nighty, bunches at her ribs, exposing her complete lower half to me. A tight, wet pussy and an even tighter asshole.

  “You can’t leave me like this,” I tell her, shoving my pants down my thighs. Grabbing my cock, I rub it against her inner thigh and she shivers. “You expect me to walk around with this tomorrow? In front of everyone?”

  “That sounds like a Ben problem,” she says on exhale. “I’d love to help, but I’m leaving.”

  I smooth my palm over her ass, relishing in the way it moves and jiggles. “Doesn’t look like you’re going anywhere.”

  “I can leave any time I want.”

  I withdraw my palm a few inches from her flesh before letting it loose and slapping her hard.

  She helps, flexing her hips away from me. “Fuck, Ben. What was that for?”

  “Maybe you’d listen to me better if I slapped you around a little bit.” With my free hand, I touch the slit of her pussy. It’s wet, so fucking wet, and pulsating. “Holy shit. That turns you on?”

  “No.”

  I simper. Even she doesn’t sound convinced. I slap her ass again and she hisses, curving her spine more, making her pussy open up to me.

  I’m weak at the sight, faint but noticeable in the darkness. All of a sudden my mouth is parched, my lips dry with urge to moisten them in her perfect pussy. Shuffling back, I hunch and press my mouth to her opening. She bucks against me, spreading her legs wider, giving me access to everything I want.

  I lick her over and over, sucking all of her between my lips. She tastes better than I remember, better than I could ever imagine.

  “I don’t want to come like this,” Sera pants, her legs quivering as she fights an orgasm. “I wanna come like I did that first night. On you. With you.”

  I pull back, squeezing her ass in my hand. “I thought you didn’t remember anything?”

  “I remember that.”

  I pause for the briefest moment, listening for any other sound besides our labored breathing…nothing. Normally, I’d start with some kissing, an hour of nice foreplay, and then dive into the fucking, but I don’t have a second to waste here.

  I grab my cock at the base of my shaft and press it against her opening, making her breath hitch in her throat.

  Fuck. “I don’t have a condom.”

  She presses back on me and her lips surround the head of my cock, begging me to push inside her. “Just pull out.”

  Pull out? I’ve never risked it…but shit. I’m too wound up not to try, at least.

  For no reason at all, the guy from earlier tonight pops into my head…and the way he touched her. The way she let him touch her…

  I drop my body against her, flattening her against the mattress, and grab a fistful of her hair. “How many guys do you leave a club with on a regular basis?”

  “What?”

  I tighten my grip. “You heard me.”

  “That question doesn’t make me feel like a whore at all.” Sarcasm drips from her tone.

  “That’s not what I was implying.”

  “That’s exactly what you were implying.”

  I plant a gentle kiss on her temple, to let her know I’m not judging. “How many?”

  “Zero.” She gasps against the blankets. “You’re the only one.”

  “The only one?”

  “Yes…yes, I promise.”

  Shifting my legs, I push her thighs open and align my cock with her pussy. This is how I’ll fuck her first. She’s completely dominated by me and it leaves out any possibility of developing a romantic connection.

  When we first had sex together, she was on me, her chest to mine, her nose and forehead sliding against my own. In that moment, it was easy to pretend it wasn’t a fling, that our session had meaning.

  This time it can’t have meaning. I can’t give it meaning if I want to keep my head on my shoulders where it belongs.

  In one swift thrust, I push my cock inside her body and she moans, loudly, just about making me come on the spot. I shush her and she tries her hardest to bite back her pleasure, but the more I move, the more I massage her from the inside, the more reckless she becomes.

  “More,” she begs, her voice a husky whisper. “More, Ben, more.”

  I give her more. I give her as much as I can from this position, but her bubbly little ass prevents me from getting all of my cock inside her.

  Cursing, I pull out of her and lift my body up on my arms.

  “Turn over.”

  Sera rolls over underneath me, her eyes locking with mine, as I lower myself against her body once more. Her warm, uneven breath blows along my face and she wraps her legs around my waist.

  I line myself up and push into her body with a deep groan, burying myself to the hilt, making her breathless.

  “I want to come,” she whispers, touching my face.

  She traces her soft fingers along my jaw, gently guiding my face to hers. I slow my hips as our lips meet and she slides her tongue into my mouth. I don’t pull away. I allow it, allow myself to take part in a kiss that shouldn’t be shared bet
ween two people like us.

  Not while I’m inside her like this.

  Sera

  My thigh muscles burn as they stretch to accommodate his large body between them. I shouldn’t be here, not with him, and at my home of all places. I’ve always been reckless and rebellious, always, but this is over the top, even for me.

  When I went back to my room, I showered and I climbed into bed. I tried reading for a little while, but not even the great Nora Roberts could hold my attention. As I skimmed through pages, pretending to read, I took a call from Naomi, who arrived safely at some random guy’s pad.

  From there, as I stewed on her carefree social and sex life, I couldn’t stop thinking about Ben and our kiss in the car. He made my entire body come to life. How can a young woman like me, twenty and stupid, not obsess over it? Over him?

  I went downstairs to see him only for answers about the kiss, but when I saw him lying on his bed, shirtless, his wide, muscular back exposed to me, I couldn’t turn away.

  He rolled over the moment I approached the bed and my gaze flew to his taught and toned stomach. The sight of a man in such peak condition had me forgetting why I’d come to see him, but it was the tent in his pants that was my undoing.

  Ben breaks the kiss with a groan, pulling me from my thoughts. “You feel so damn good.”

  He lifts his hips until his cock is completely out of me. I exhale, disappointed at how empty I feel without him inside me. Reaching between us, he grazes the head of his dick against my clit. It slides so effortlessly, stirring my arousal to new heights. “Do you like how that feels?”

  “I love it,” I breathe. “I love you inside me more.”

  He kisses me quickly on the lips and I feel his smirk right before he thrusts his hips forward, filling me once again.

  “Oh God!”

  Rearing back, he pushes my bunched nighty over my tits, exposing them as they bounce with every thrust. “Your tits are going to make me come,” he groans. “Grab ’em for me, fucking play with them like I asked you to that night in the hotel “

  I do as I’m told and I grab as much of my breasts as I can in my small hands. Ben hunches over me, gripping my hair and bringing his mouth to mine.