by Kym Roberts
“I won’t hurt you.”
“I know.” Did she?
“Do you?”
“Yes.” No.
“But do you believe it?” The concern on his face showed he didn’t think she had faith in him.
She wanted to. If she could trust any man, she knew it would be this man in front of her. With his tussled hair curling at his brow, he held an innocence she lacked. Despite his career and his knowledge of the seedy side of life, he wasn’t damaged. He was whole; untouched in a way she could never be.
She wanted to be like that. The girl she was, however, died a painful and tragic death when a knife cut her mother’s neck. When she screamed and cried as Marco wrapped his fist in her hair and forced her to watch her mother bleed out. Life had begun to fade from her mother’s eyes as soon as the blade sliced through her skin. The joyous sparkle that had always been there, dimmed as her mom’s futile attempts to hold her throat together failed. The last words she’d mouthed, “I love you,” between gasps for air, lived in a memory of blood and gore.
Téa wasn’t sure how she knew what her mother had been trying to say to her. The men laughing around her certainly hadn’t been able to as they mocked her mother’s attempt to speak, but Téa had. She’d understood each word until the last two. In her mind, her mother had said, “Be strong.” In reality, Téa wasn’t sure.
She’d screamed and begged to be released. To be so close and watch her mother die had been excruciating. Everything that had happened after that didn’t matter. She’d traveled through Hell in two minutes time. Nothing could ever touch her the way her mother’s murder had. Her mother’s lifeless body collapsed to the ground and still she’d fought. Crying and pleading until the man holding her hair had released Téa. Then she’d scrambled to her mother’s side, but she was too late. Too damned late. She’d rocked her mother in her arms and prayed for the miracle of life to return.
It didn’t. It was then that she received her first kiss—
A hand brushed her cheek and she startled. Scurrying back, she stared in horror at the man in front of her. He was cautiously holding his hand out as if to calm the wild animal within her. It wasn’t the first time he’d shown the patience and care of an animal rescuer. Her rescuer.
“Hey. Where’d you go?”
She let her gaze focus and her mind come back to the present. This was why it would never work. Why she could never stand to have a man touch her. She laughed as she rolled away from him and stood up. Without looking back she said, “Where I always go. To Hell and back.” She walked into the bathroom and closed the door.
Chapter Eleven
“Stay in the room. I’ll be back at lunch with food.”
“You know I heard you the first time. And the second. The third time I ignored you. Hoping you’d get the hint.”
Khaos stopped, adjusted his shoulder holster and stared at her. “Are you going to acknowledge what I said this time? If you do, I won’t repeat myself for a fifth time.”
“I will,” her voice lowered as she mimicked his earlier instructions, “stay in the room and wait for my return with lunch.” By the tightening of his lips, she was pretty sure a part of him appreciated her imitation. He just chose to ignore it, in order to enforce his authority.
“And if you need me for anything?”
Again she lowered her voice. “Call my cell phone if it’s not an emergency. Contact the agent in the hall if it is.”
“You know I’m trying to keep you safe, right?”
She sighed and nodded her head, because after almost a week of sharing a room with this man, touching him and being touched, she was beginning to believe the man in front of her slipping on his suit jacket cared about her safety. It was mind boggling and reassuring. “Sure.”
He approached her slowly and her whole body tensed. Was he going to kiss her goodbye? She never knew if he would, or wouldn’t. Spontaneity was the name of the game with Khaos.
When he plucked the hotel pen she’d been using to draw out of her hand, she found herself somewhat disappointed until he raised her knuckles to his lips. Then he brushed several kisses across her flesh and she felt her pulse increase as he gazed into her eyes.
“You are an extraordinary woman, Téa.”
When he did things like that, and said things like that, she almost believed he was pursuing Téa Bello the woman he wanted, not Téa Bello the prostitute who’d bribed him into it. “You mean extra ordinary or an extraordinary pain in your ass?”
He didn’t grin as she’d expected. His eyes scoured her face and Khaos said the unexpected. “My dad used to warn me that I’d meet a woman like you.” He turned and headed for the door. “Put the latch on when I leave.”
The door closed behind him and she stared at the door, wondering what exactly his dad had said about her. Had he told Khaos to expect to be blackmailed? Had he said she would be difficult?
A knock on the door brought her to her feet. She ran to the door and looked out the peephole. Khaos was still there, glancing at the watch on his wrist.
She’d made him late. Damn. “Who is it?” She asked, knowing exactly who stood on the other side of the door.
He scowled and pulled his key card out of his inside coat pocket. She stepped back in the nick of time before he came through the doorway and let it slam closed behind him. Before she could ask what was wrong, he backed her against the wall and caged her in. A thread of panic coursed through her.
“I’m sorry.” She cowered.
The silence was overwhelming. She could sense his anger and smell his scent that was part cologne and part pure male testosterone. It scared her more than she cared to admit.
“Fuck.” He said it under his breath and then his hand gently lifted her chin, but she couldn’t bring her eyes to meet his. She just couldn’t. She didn’t want to see the anger she knew he felt. She’d screwed up. Pissed him off and he would punish her for it, of that she was certain.
“Look at me, Téa.”
She did as she was told, because to not obey meant a much worse punishment. Her eyes traveled from her feet, to his, up to his waist, to his stomach she knew to be hard, and to his chest that seemed to expand and contract as he prepared himself for this encounter. Her journey hesitated at his throat, where his heartbeat thrummed at his pulse point with a beat she hadn’t seen there before. Steady, but fast, he was preparing himself. Knowing that her delay would only make her punishment worse, she brought her gaze to his lips, which slowly parted, and finally up to his shark like grey eyes that were filled with…anger? No, sorrow.
Téa blinked. Then blinked again because there was no way he was sorry for her mistake. She was the one who screwed up. She was the one who deserved punishment. She was the one who needed to apologize.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. You were supposed to latch the door closed. I didn’t want the agent in the hall to overhear our conversation and then when you opened the door the need to kiss you, overwhelmed me.”
“The ne—need?”
“Don’t you know how much I want to kiss you? I’ve dreamt of kissing you since the day we met last winter and every moment of the past five days, since the first time my lips touched yours. I can’t get enough of you.”
Had he said winter? Did that mean he’d wanted her before he knew she was Téa Bello the whore? And again a few days ago, before she’d bribed him? He wanted her then, and now despite everything he knew her to be?
As if sensing her confusion, he asked, “As a man who’s dreamt about you in every possible way for the past eight months, may I kiss you, Téa?”
The pounding in her chest had nothing to do with fear, and everything to do with this man, his words, and his proximity. Unable to say anything, Téa nodded in agreement and his body closed the distance between them. One minute she was staring into his heated gaze and the next hard planes met her soft curves as her palms flattened against the back of the door. His lips brushed
hers softly, gently and she found herself leaning into the kiss. Into the solid core of his abs as a passion ignited so hot between them, she was certain they’d exploded in spontaneous combustion. Gone was the hesitancy of every other kiss they’d shared for the past several days. It was as if Khaos had lost a battle with his control, and with his unbridled restraint he’d somehow gained even more of her trust. That was the only explanation for the way his body reigned over hers.
He devoured and she acquiesced in a way she’d never believed possible. She didn’t flinch away or sink inside memories of better times. Nor did she block everything out and let darkness prevail. She reveled in the play of his tongue. Savored his taste and the nip of his teeth on her bottom lip. She delighted in the way his fingers skimmed down her throat and onto her chest. His slow caress as he skimmed the top of her breasts, pushing out from her white satin bra, made her want to surrender to him completely.
The noise, which escaped her lips when his thumb brushed over her nipple, was real and throaty without an ounce of practice. Never, in all her experience, had such carnality coursed through her body. He’d done this to her. Somehow, Daniel Khaos Artino had unlocked something within her that demanded satisfaction.
Her hands left the door and slid up the chiseled muscles of his stomach. If she’d been more coherent she would’ve counted each ripple, but she was too obsessed with obtaining skin to skin contact. She tried to unbutton his shirt, she could do this with ease on any other man. With Khaos she fumbled and grappled with buttons that felt too big for the buttonholes in his shirt. Her frustration mounting, Téa pulled and yanked at the shirt until it was loose, and her fingers found the soft cotton of his t-shirt underneath. With one tug it was free from his pants and her hands were trailing up the smooth expanse of his chest.
His tongue slipped through her lips in a sultry exploration of her mouth. Seeking more of her passion, he exposed her want and desire. Their tongues tangled, his firm and strong to her soft and unmistakably fragile. Before him, she’d been broken. With him she didn’t know who she was. This creature demanding more, wasn’t her. Téa couldn’t recognize the woman in his arms, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She just wanted this feeling to go on forever.
He should stop.
He didn’t. His lips left hers and he pulled her t-shirt over her head and let it drop to the floor. Then he let his lips trail down her neck, and still, he couldn’t stop. He blazed a trail lower still, to the curve of her breast and Téa moaned.
Holy hell, her responses had him on fire. Her fingers curled into his hair and as he made his way to the edge of her bra, his hands led the way to where his mouth wanted to follow and he caressed her hardened nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She momentarily stilled in his arms and he knew he’d pushed her too far, too fast. Sleeping with her every night had been torture. Each night he went to sleep hard. Every morning he woke up harder, only to become painfully hard when he’d kiss her good morning as the sun rose in the sky.
Waking up next to a beautiful woman every day should be a wet dream. His reality was a certain kind of hellish torture he wasn’t sure he could withstand much longer. He’d kept their kisses light and carefree. He kept his gaze on her face; forcing her hair behind her ear each morning so that she couldn’t hide her scar from his view. She was self-conscious about it and he understood why when the young man with room service had stared at her perfect mouth the entire time he’d set up their dinner the previous night.
He’d wanted to yell, hit, and punish him for making her feel less than beautiful. Nothing could take away from her beauty, especially not something as minor as a scar. As far as he was concerned, it was proof of her strength and courage in the face of the vicious man who’d tried to break her and failed.
She was in his bed every night to make that man disappear, and he was damned well going to do everything in his power to help her leave the past behind her. She was in his arms at this very moment because she wanted to be. The small delicate moans she was making were because she sought connection to life and arousal…with him. It was the most beautiful gift he’d ever received.
He stopped and took a deep breath to gaze into her sensitive sable eyes. “Do you want me to stop?” Jeezus, please say no.
“Why do you ask? Did I do something wrong?” Her brow crinkled and the wounded expression on her face tore at something deep within his chest.
“God, no.” He assured her.
Her nails dug into his shoulders. “I’m clean. I’ve always used condoms and I’ve had multiple tests since I’ve been in Rome. I’m not ready for sex, but would you make me—please make me—”
He filled in the word he hoped she was asking for. “Come?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“With pleasure.” He reached behind her and unclasped her bra, and she let it fall to the floor to expose perfectly round breasts to fit the palm of his hand. Fuuuck. A lump formed in his throat as he admired the rosy tips reaching for his mouth, and as he ducked down to capture one firm bud, her back arched with trust. Her hands moved from his shoulders to his hair once more, and she clutched him to her with a vigor he adored. With each gentle swirl of his tongue, she clung to him more desperately. He licked and tempted as his hand pushed down her shorts, and they slid to the floor.
Her skin was as smooth as satin and as he moved from one breast to the other, her back bowed in delight. With a greed he’d never known before, he enticed the ragged breaths from her chest as his fingers skimmed her supple, rounded ass and he pulled her against his aching cock. She was lean, yet so soft and sensual; Khaos couldn’t imagine a more perfect woman.
He kneaded the flesh on her ass and was shocked to realize his fingers grazed the thickening tissue of scars. He nearly stopped what he was doing to twirl her around and examine the inflicted flaws, but he couldn’t. If he hesitated in the least, she would cower in shame that wasn’t hers to bear. Yet he couldn’t stop exploring, mapping, imprinting on his brain every mark she’d suffered. His passion faded as bile began to form in his throat for the pain that had been inflicted upon her. But this wasn’t about his desire. It was about hers.
He let his fingers wander between her cheeks as his mouth trailed down her belly. He would make her come and he would never let her know the effect another man’s marks had on him. It was one thing to leave a temporary hickey or a love bite, but it was quite another to gouge one’s brutality on the body of another. Khaos admired her strength more than ever in that moment and his finger delved between her silken folds. Her breath hitched and he nearly stopped, until a wondrous sigh passed over her lips. It was all the permission he needed to dip one finger inside her.
Holy hell. She was warm and wet and tighter than he would’ve thought imaginable. He needed more.
He moved down to the floor and knelt before her, ready to worship every inch of her sumptuous body. Her scent was intoxicating, and the need to taste her wet heat became undeniable. Yet he couldn’t help but take in the whole picture in front of him. He’d touched every last inch of her painted toenails and firm calves in the past several days, and still marveled at their allure. The bare lush curves of Téa's thighs were mesmerizing, and the view only got better from there. Her supple, rounded hips made a man want to drive his cock deep within her. Her trim, taut stomach accentuated her firm, full tits. With her back arched and her head thrown back, she truly was the goddess Andromeda—the brightest, most beautiful ruler of men he’d ever seen.
“Look at me, Téa.”
It was torture to wait, but he had to make sure she was with him. Watching him bring her pleasure. She couldn’t escape what was between them any more than he could. Her hooded gaze met his.
“This is only for your pleasure, Téa. Stay with me. Watch me. Come for me.”
His eyes never left hers as he tasted her on his finger, sucking every last bit of her ecstasy from the digit that had been deep within her, and her dark gaze became molten with desire. He in
haled her scent, the most potent aphrodisiac he’d ever experienced and brought his lips to her sweet, wet entrance. Tasting her juices was beyond heavenly and he couldn’t stifle the growl that grew in his chest. In that moment, she was his and he became hers.
He lapped at her arousal as her fingers clenched his hair and her nails scraped his skull. Never once did her heated gaze stray as he enticed her with his tongue, circling her small, hard clit over and over. Nipping, sucking, probing deep within her as her inner muscles clenched.
“Oh, God,” she whispered.
Her legs began to tremble and he hooked one leg over his shoulder, opening her up wider for him to dominate her sweetness and bring her to ecstasy. He slid one finger inside her soft, pink mound to fill her, stroke her, strip down the walls she’d erected around herself.
Her breathing became erratic, and her hips began to sway into him. He plunged a second finger inside her and flicked deft strokes against her clit as he curled his fingers against her core. She was so wet and wild, her back bowed and her eyes closed and he let them. Let the pleasure of his touch take her off the ground as he fucked her with his fingers the way he wanted to with his cock.
She lost every ounce of her control. She begged and pleaded, “Oh God, oh God,” until shattered around him. Her arousal tipping over the edge as she screamed, “Khaos!”
His name on her lips nearly made him come in his slacks as her inner walls gripped and squeezed his fingers like a vise. Pumping with his fingers and flicking with his tongue, he could imagine the feel of her coming against the length of him as he stroked inside her and she rung every last drip of cum from his cock.