She pushes at my hands. “I’m fine. Liam, I’m fine.”
I hold myself back long enough to study her face. Her brown eyes are wide with worry. Tear tracks glisten down her cheeks. “I’m not,” I say hoarsely. “I’m not fucking fine.”
Then I clutch her to my chest, trying in vain to control the wild beat of my heart. I feel like some kind of feral creature. I want to beat the earth and howl at the moon. I want to find the fuckers who sent an assassin after Samantha and rip them apart with my bare hands.
All I can do is stand here and hold her—and hold her. And hold her. It’s woefully inadequate, but the alternative is to lose my fucking mind, and she needs me right now.
It feels like an eternity, the perfect clock in my head gone haywire. Three Explorers pull up, my brothers descending with harsh efficiency to handle the body, to check on Laney and Cody, to get the local law enforcement involved. That last one is a courtesy. We all know with grim and silent communication that we’ll find the fuckers behind this and dispose of them ourselves.
Josh tries to take her from me. “I’m not sure she can breathe,” he says.
Of course she can breathe. I have my hand on her back, feeling her lungs move. I’ve touched her pulse. Even the tears that dampen her lashes. I need to feel those signs of life.
Elijah shows up with a grim face. “No ID on the body. The tags are cut off his clothes. The VIN number filed off the car. The sheriff’s going to call in the FBI on this.”
Christ, this place was going to be a circus in a matter of minutes.
“I’m taking her back to the house. They can question us there once they’ve processed the scene.”
“They aren’t going to like the shooter leaving,” Josh says, rueful.
“Wait,” Samantha says, struggling to step back. “I’m not going to leave Laney and Cody here.”
“They’ll be safe,” I say, lifting her body into the air and hauling her to the nearest company car. She gasps in shock, fighting me before I click the seat belt into place and shut the door. Her loyalty to her friends is admirable, but they have a goddamn army to protect them in case there are any more mercenaries lurking in these woods.
And I’m not going to leave Samantha exposed out here for one more second, not for anything, not when I feel her trembling in my arms.
When we get home, I carry her upstairs, even though she protests she can walk. I consider taking her to my room—I want her in my bed, where she’ll be safe. And never leave.
Instead I force myself to carry her to her bedroom. I set her down on the warm tile of her bathroom floor as I turn the water to hot and fill the tub.
She works at the hem of her shirt, getting herself caught in the fabric. She’s too worked up to undress herself—and so I’ll do it for her. I unveil each inch of skin with undue care, mindful of bruises that might form in the next few hours, even days. Small quivers take her muscles, a reminder that she isn’t as composed as she wants me to think.
This is the first time I’ve ever seen her fully naked.
Even with danger so nearby, my body reacts to hers with intense arousal. As I pull her panties down her legs, exposing her slender thighs and the dark curls between them, my cock reacts with a throb. I want the ultimate sign of life, her cunt pulsing around me, slick and warm and soft. She looks like a dream, full of rosy peach hues and creamy vanilla. There is no end to the places I want to taste her. I could make her stand in the foyer as a living statue. It’s sick, the ways I want to see her, use her, the ideas her bare body gives me. Depraved.
Instead I help her into the bathtub, where I wash her with soap. Everywhere. Even when she blushes and murmurs in embarrassment, I slide the soap over her nipples and between her legs. Between the firm cheeks of her ass. There is a primal need inside me, to serve her, to care for her, and I’m as helpless to the urge as she is. She’s Venus with her upturned breasts and demure pose. Her hair falling around her in erotic abandon. There’s never been anything more beautiful than this. Enough to bring a man to his knees. Enough to make me wish I was anything other than her former guardian.
I use the peach-scented bottles to wash and shampoo her hair, my rough hands working carefully through the strands, making them lather and then cream and then clean again.
When she’s dry, I tuck her into bed with its pale pink sheets and white lace coverlet, with the cream-colored throw pillow with a brown violin embroidered on it. God, she looks so vulnerable in that bed. So vulnerable and impossibly strong. The urge to hold her runs through me, a physical sensation that makes me tremble.
I turn to leave her, forcing myself to let her rest. She deserves that much.
“Don’t go,” she whispers.
The bed is twin-size, which isn’t enough for the both of us. And it highlights how young she is, how wrong I was to ever let her climb into my king-size bed down the hall.
Shivers run through her, and I climb in behind her, pulling her close into the fortress of my body. My eyes are wide. Sleep will be impossible tonight. Tomorrow. Maybe ever. All I can do is watch over her. No one will touch her.
She drifts into a restless slumber, her body warm but still shivering.
SAMANTHA
Liam wakes me up just before midnight, nudging me gently out of the hazy, dark sinkhole of dreams. It takes me a moment to remember that the crash wasn’t only in my imagination. New twinges wake up throughout my body as I move to stand, and I can’t hide a wince.
“Dr. Foster’s downstairs,” he says, a knowing sympathy in his eyes. “And the police want to ask some questions. I’ve given them fifteen minutes. They know you need to sleep.”
I manage a wry smile. “If a question gets too personal, you’ll step in?”
He raises an eyebrow, bemused by my mood. I’m bemused, too. It’s a strange thing to realize I miss his overprotective tendencies. Maybe that’s how I truly know I’ve grown up—that I can long for the relative safety of my childhood with Liam North.
But the detectives are courteous and professional. Unlike the reporter, they haven’t been digging into my personal background before they show up. They aren’t aware there’s any connection between my father and what happened tonight. Did the driver interact with you before he rammed from behind? Do you know why he was chasing you?
They show me a photo of him, leaning back in the driver’s seat, a neat hole in the center of his forehead. I shiver, and Liam rubs slow circles on my back. Have you seen him before?
No, no, and no.
The doctor looks me over and declares me healthy—some bruising, he says, offering a prescription that is guaranteed to numb the pain.
“No,” I say because I think the nightmares may be worse.
Liam accepts the bottle with a grim nod, keeping it safe in case I need it.
Then he takes me back upstairs and tucks me into bed. “What about Laney?” I ask, pain and adrenaline making me jittery. “What about Cody’s truck? His dad—”
“I know,” Liam says, his green eyes fathomless. “I’ll take care of them.”
“You said he’s not your business.”
“I was wrong, Samantha.”
I clasp his wrist in a wordless plea, feeling the interplay of tendon and muscle, a silent string instrument in the form of a man.
He climbs into the bed behind me, his warmth an immediate comfort.
“You don’t have to stay.” I close my hand around his arm, pressing my fingers along the strings as if it were the neck of a violin—G4, D4, A4, E5.
He doesn’t move, but I feel his gentle amusement ripple the air. “Let me,” he murmurs. “After seeing the truck go off the road, I’m definitely going to have nightmares.”
And I sink back into the murky sleep, the one with my father shouting, pleading, cursing.
Chapter Twenty-Five
In addition to being a composer and talented violinist, Vivaldi was ordained by the Catholic Church. He was given the nickname The Red Priest in reference to his hair color.<
br />
LIAM
In my dream there are soft hands exploring me.
These are the hands of a violinist, incredibly swift and strong and sure. I suck in a breath when they find a decades-old cut on my side. It feels like a lance, the gentle fingertip tracing the scar. They move lower, lower, lower. The backs of delicate knuckles brush against stiff denim, a butterfly beating its wings against a boulder—and breaking it apart.
I roll the warm weight of her beneath me, determined to extract payment. My dick throbs with years of unspent desire. My hands aren’t nearly so soft. I’m going to rip her silk-flutter skin the way I’m grabbing her, holding her, using her, but I can’t make myself stop.
It’s a dream; I don’t have to stop.
I press my face into her hair, breathing in the sun-drenched strands. Her skin feels impossibly smooth against my cheek, beneath my lips. I lick her to see if she tastes as sweet. Like the velvet skin of a peach, holding such treasure inside.
The curve of her neck and the place it joins her shoulder. That’s where I bite down, reveling in the squeak of sound she makes, the way she stiffens beneath my thighs. Afraid. Afraid. Afraid. She should be scared of me. It would take so little force to break the skin. I must be careful. Even in my dream, I can’t hurt her.
I turn my attention lower, to the slope of her breast. The faint memory of black ruffles threatens the edges of my mind… but there is no silk here. There’s only a thin T-shirt, and the warning bells recede. My tongue finds her nipple, teasing until it becomes hard enough to bite through the fabric. I’ve never been tame.
Even when I stand in a suit, in a roomful of a hundred other people, I’m a wild animal wearing clothes. The fact that I choose not to rage and rip and roar does not change who I am.
During sex my base nature reveals fully.
I close my lips around her breast, sucking her through the cotton. My hand plays with her other nipple, which is already hard; it wants my attention there, my mouth.
“Oh God,” someone moans, but I must have imagined that.
I find the hem of her shirt and lift until her breasts are exposed to the cool night air. I nuzzle them from underneath, where a deep warmth permeates her skin. And then higher, to her nipple. This is her punishment for touching me, from waking me from hibernation.
She tastes so goddamn sweet. Like sunshine made flesh.
One of my knees nudges her legs apart. My hips settle against hers in an ages-old formation. There’s a warm notch for my cock. Even through her panties and my jeans, I can feel the cradle of her body. It’s the perfect place to settle while I kiss her breasts.
Forever. That’s how long I could remain here, feeling her warmth, petting her softness while she writhes in helpless welcome. While she makes little sounds.
Her hips move against me, hesitant and hungry.
“That’s right,” I mutter against her nipple, licking in approval. “Make yourself ready for me. I’m so fucking hard right now. I need you soft and ready.”
If she isn’t, I could hurt her—bruise her secret muscles or tear her tender folds. I clasp her hip and hitch her against me to show her the rhythm. When she comes, her tight little body will clench and release liquid that will ease the way.
She isn’t a hot shower and the jerk of my fist. Once I get my cock inside her, I’m going to stay there for a long time. Even when I break her little hymen, I’m going to slide through the blood and the arousal. When I come, I’m going to keep fucking her, the salt enough to sting any break in her skin. Even that wouldn’t be enough to make me stop.
Those inquisitive little hands grasp my side, my back, struggling to hold on as the climax rises up. My cock throbs in desperation, feeling the gush of liquid heat. She cries out, and I capture the sound in my mouth, sliding my tongue against hers.
She comes in exquisite little pulses, legs clamping around my body, moaning into my mouth, vibrations I can feel down to my soul. Her body collapses back against the sheets, legs splayed open, arms beside her head. She’s never been more beautiful.
“Don’t stop now,” Dream Samantha says.
Why does she think I would stop? My cock is hard enough to split in half, made of marble, brought to the breaking point. She’s soft and ready for me.
I reach to shove down my jeans. There’s no time for anything else; I push aside the wet fabric of her panties. A small pile of curls and slick flesh. Heat races chills along my spine. I press the head of my cock to her—and push push push.
A short, muffled scream of pain pierces the air.
SAMANTHA
Liam stops moving, but it does not quiet the chaos. The pulse beating in my ears, the ache in my breasts. The throbbing between my legs. I shouldn’t have made a sound. I tried to be quiet. Everyone knows the first time will hurt, but it took me by surprise—both the flash of pain and the fullness. God, the fullness. It’s like having a club inside me. Or maybe the curved head of a violin. Something that most definitely does not fit.
“You’re not a dream,” Liam says, his voice thick as honey.
“A dream?” I say faintly. My legs are spread wide, his body shoving inside me, and he thinks I might not be real. I have the sudden wild urge to giggle—wholly inappropriate. The words a condom is mandatory float through my mind. Preposterous, things like practicality, in the face of his wild animal need.
This is nothing planned or careful. This is two animals mating in the jungle. There is no place for latex here.
“I thought—” He makes a low sound of grief. “You’re so beautiful and warm. And wet. Samantha, you need to stop clenching like that. It makes me—”
“I’m sorry,” I say on a breathless laugh. I’m on the other side of the looking glass now, my old life strange and boring in light of the terrifying wonder before me. “I’m not doing it on purpose.”
One thrust of his hips and he pushes in another inch.
I won’t survive it. “How much more?”
“I’m not fucking you,” he says, unsteady, but there’s no conviction in his voice. How can there be when he forces himself another inch?
He’s a large man, but I never worried that he wouldn’t fit inside me. Men and women perform this act every day. Surely I can figure it out. The theory is nothing more than a smooth water’s surface—a mirage replaced with sudden violence by the reality of him. His shoulders loom above me. His muscular thighs hold mine open as wide as they can go. And his cock burrows deeper into my body.
This is everything I’ve ever wanted, and now that it’s here, I can’t take it. My body refuses. I wriggle instinctively, trying to get away, to find relief, and he clasps my shoulders in an impossible grip. “No, don’t,” he gasps, green eyes hazy. “Don’t move. Not like that.”
“Hurts,” I say, barely able to squeeze out the word.
“Sorry. Sorry.” He drops his head to taste my shoulder in an openmouthed kiss. “I need to get off you, to stop touching you. To stop fucking you. I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t stop.
His hips pull away only long enough to let cool air soothe my tender skin. Then he pushes back inside with a grunt. I might as well try to stop a boulder rolling down a mountain, picking up speed as it goes. And I don’t want him to stop, not really. It’s only that I want this terrible pressure to ease. It makes me pant and writhe.
I don’t know whether he’s exceptionally large or I’m exceptionally small. Maybe both. It would be only right that we would be mismatched this way, when everything else about us is also wrong. We are not meant to be together; it’s only the force of our wills that makes it work.
“No, no,” he mutters to himself, fighting it even as he fucks me, thrusting deep inside me, going slow enough that I feel every ounce of friction against my intimate walls. His eyes are wild and angry and somehow frightened. “Make me stop,” he says.
I press a kiss to the only part of him I can reach—the bulge of his pecs.
He flinches beneath my lips.
My ches
t aches with something that has nothing to do with his cock. I’m hurting for the man who thought I’d leave for my tour with a cheerful goodbye and never come back. For the man who thought that would be best for me, as if he’s been nothing but a vending machine, a place where I got safety and comfort without ever caring about him in return.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “I want this. I want you.”
With a groan he thrusts hard inside me. I can only close my eyes, tears leaking down my cheeks. Thank God it’s too dark for him to see. He’s not looking anyway; his head is down, hips moving swift and fierce. His shout is both masculine power and utter surrender. His body turns taut, straining against me, pushing me into the mattress so hard I can’t breathe.
A sense of victory expands in my chest. It’s like we climbed the tallest mountain or fought an entire army. That’s what we did together, and I stroke his head, feeling the impossible softness as his muscled body weighs me down.
He stirs in slow degrees, his hips moving experimentally, his cock nudging me in an intimate place. I wait for him to pull away. He’ll probably leave the bed now. I have no illusions about his reaction to this. I’m the one who started touching him, knowing it would lead to sex. I’m the one who made the overture. He’s the one who will retreat.
Except he doesn’t leave my body. Instead he thrusts back inside, as if we’re still having sex. As if he didn’t just flex and spurt warm liquid into my body.
“What are you doing?” I whisper.
“Losing,” he says.
“But didn’t we just—”
“One time isn’t enough,” he says, his tone dark with promise.
It sounds like a threat, except the large pulses of cum smooth the way for his cock. They give me a sense of warmth that wasn’t there before. Then he shifts his angle slightly, and his cock finds a place inside me that makes me arch and cry out.
“Wait,” I say, but he doesn’t wait. He does it again, finding the place with a carnal knowledge. How can he know my body better than I do? My secret muscles clench helplessly around him, and he answers with a flex of his cock.
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