Retribution and all that.
I pull Felicity’s bags from the back as she gets out of the car, her line of sight barely flicking to where her car sits.
“Won’t start.” I wheel her bags toward the door leading into the house.
“You can’t hold me hostage here.”
“Not holding you hostage.” I open the door and go inside, leaving her to follow behind me.
“You have my car, my bike,” she waves in the general direction of her bags, “all my stuff. How is that not holding me hostage?”
I drop the handle on the suitcase and walk toward her, the slide of her eyes down my body pulling me closer. The flush of her cheeks making me bold. “Have I tied you to the bed, Felicity?”
Her pupils barely dilate. “You wouldn’t.”
“I will.” I step in until I’m against her. The fact that she doesn’t back away is telling. “And you will fucking love it.”
I press one finger under her chin, lifting it until her lips are directly under mine. “But it won’t be tonight.”
I’m happy to see Felicity is back to her old self.
It gives me the opportunity to test out a theory.
I wrap one arm around her waist and pull her body flush against mine, legs, hips, stomach—
Lips.
This time I don’t have the threat of an attack by The Horsemen breathing down my neck. The worry that the man who broke into Felicity’s apartment is waiting to strike.
That means I can take all the fucking time I want to learn about what Felicity likes.
So I can use it against her.
I grab the elastic barely holding its own at the tail of her braid, sliding it off before working the wildness of her thick hair completely loose so I can feel it the way I want. As the strands fall free the scent of her shampoo lifts around me, the smell reminding me of the debaucherous things I did with that same shampoo in her shower.
Felicity gasps into my mouth as I pull her tighter against me, fitting her body to mine as I suck the fullness of her lower lip between my teeth before letting it slide free. “I love the way you smell, Beanie.”
I shouldn’t call her that. Other people don’t understand.
But Felicity does. She pretended not to at first, but I know the truth.
And I know I’m the only one to ever call her that. There’s not a doubt in my mind she’s been sweetheart, and sugar, and anything else a man calls a woman he wants.
I’m not calling her any of those. Not ever. Names are important, I know that better than anyone.
What I call her will always belong only to me.
I move my lips over her skin, following the line of her jaw until I reach the spot just below her ear. “Love the way you taste.” When I nip at the sensitive spot then soothe it with my tongue, the soft whimper she makes is not a moan and not quite a gasp. “Love the way you sound.”
Her hands are in the fabric of my shirt, twisting tight as she pushes against me, like she can’t decide whether to hold me tight or push me away. Makes sense.
It’s what she’s been doing this whole time and I’m done letting her.
I tried to be calm. Let her work it out on her own.
She’s not working fast enough. Not for me. Not for the situation we’re in.
And I think I know how to speed her up.
“I couldn’t stand being away from you.” I suck the lobe of her ear, raking my teeth over it. “Laid in my bed every night wishing I could hear you snoring in the room next to me.”
She lets out a sharp scoff. “I don’t fucking snore.”
Good. She’s listening to me. “You do and I love that too.” I move down the column of her neck. It’s long and slim like the rest of her. Felicity is lean and narrow. Long, graceful limbs. Eyes so wide they might see everything.
She looks fragile and delicate. Innocent and harmless.
But this woman is none of those things.
“Do you know how hard it was to lay in that room beside yours every fucking night, wishing I could touch you?” I spread one palm over the cage of her ribs, thumb resting on her sternum. “Wishing I could taste you?”
“Why didn’t you?”
I smile. She’s still listening and it’s playing right into my hand. “Would you have let me?”
She stills, the truth of our time together settling in.
“No.”
“Why not, Beanie? Why did you try to shut me out?” I run my thumb over the slight swell of her breast, the tight pucker of her nipple under my touch satisfying me in a way few things ever have. “I know you want me like I want you.”
The sound that comes from her is different this time. If pleasure and sadness are ever found together, I would expect that to be the noise they made. She pushes my hands away and steps back.
Her eyes are closed as she takes a deep breath. When they open and slowly move to mine I see so much more of what I’ve been looking for.
A tiny window to the truth she doesn’t want me to see.
“I’m tired.” She starts to say something else, barely shaking her head instead, then rushes up the stairs, leaving me standing alone.
But not lonely.
Because I’m finally getting somewhere.
Finally figuring out what stands between us.
Cook wanders in from one of the first-floor bedrooms. “You good?”
“Yup.” I glance back up the stairs where Felicity disappeared.
“Need anything?”
“I’ve got to find some shit out if you want to help.” I make my way toward the large table set up in what will eventually be the dining room.
“I love finding shit out.” Cook follows me to the table but keeps moving toward the kitchen when I stop. “Coffee?”
I open my laptop and settle into the chair in front of it. “Definitely.”
I’ve got a lot to accomplish before the morning.
“Make it strong.”
9
I STARE STRAIGHT ahead.
I was not expecting this.
Not that I know what in the hell I was expecting to wake up to this morning.
But Gypsy’s body pressed up against the back of mine, one arm wrapped tight around my waist, was not it.
“What’s wrong, Beanie?”
Shit. He’s awake.
I snap my eyes shut and pretend to be asleep.
Maybe he’ll go away.
Gypsy chuckles low in his chest. The sound is warm and deep and way too nice of a way to wake up.
“Pretend all you want, Beanie.” He pulls me closer. “I know the truth.” His breathing is slow and even. His hold strong and solid.
And terrifying as hell.
Because all I want to do is stay exactly where I am. Pretend this could be all I’ve wanted and fought for.
But I’ve made that mistake too many times to count.
Thought a man holding me close meant more than it apparently does.
“Stop it, Felicity.”
The sharpness of his tone stops me just as I’m gearing up to make myself get as far from him as I can. “I’m not doing anything.”
He buries his face in my hair and breathes deep. “I knew you were awake.”
Damn it.
Gypsy’s arm tightens around me. “Stop talking yourself out of me.”
“I’ve never been inside you.” I smile at the way he stills behind me. Nothing like the suggestion of butt play to knock a man down a peg or two.
Especially when it’s his butt in play.
“Is that on the table?” His voice is a low growl in my ear.
“What?” It squeaks out at an embarrassingly high pitch.
He lets out a breath that carries a low rumble with it. “Are you testing my limits, or are you throwing around empty promises thinking you might shock me?” Gypsy presses tighter against me, and I can’t miss his definite interest in what might have been more empty promise than limit test. “Because I don’t shock easy, Beanie. I’m not one o
f your suit-wearing pansy boys, scared of a little finger in their ass.” His lips run along my neck. “But remember, turnabout is fair play.”
“You want to—”
“I want what you want, Felicity. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“I never said I wanted that.”
“Do you?”
How did I get here?
How did we get here?
It’s like one minute I was throwing all Gypsy’s shit on the sidewalk in front of my house, and the next I’m in his bed discussing butt stuff.
“I need to go somewhere.” I grab the edge of the mattress with one hand as I hook one leg over, trying to get enough leverage to get loose.
“Would you like me to let you go?”
“I would.”
“Then tell me that.”
It can’t really be that easy. Not with a man. “I would like for you to let me go.”
His arm immediately slides from around my waist.
And fuck it all I’m pissed about it.
All that damn work not to let the man under my skin and he’s still there.
Like a pimple just waiting to erupt.
An attractive pimple.
With a nice body.
A very nice body.
And a large penis.
I just fucking considered Gypsy an attractive pimple with a big dick.
I need a drink.
I march out of the room and stomp down the stairs, nearly tripping halfway when I notice the sea of faces staring up at me.
“Jesus Christ.” I turn, for a second thinking the problem at the top of the steps might be easier to deal with.
But then I get a good look at that problem standing in the doorway to his room.
“Were you naked all night?” I should look away, pretend I’m not the least bit interested in the full-frontal staring me down.
But I can’t look away.
Mostly because Gypsy is missing one important thing every other man I’ve been with has had.
A circumcision.
“Uhh.”
Gypsy smirks at me as he pulls on his jeans.
The bastard did that on purpose.
Worst of all I feel like it worked. That I did exactly what he wanted.
His slow swagger toward me should send me racing the rest of the way down the steps in search of the drink I know has to be here, but I refuse to give him any more of whatever it is he wants from me. So I square my shoulders and stand tall as he comes to the top of the steps and skips down them toward me. “What’s wrong, Beanie?” He grabs my face with one hand, his fingers gently holding my jaw as he quickly presses his lips against mine. He breaks the kiss but doesn’t move away. “Never seen a man in a turtleneck before?”
God bless it. I spin away, pressing my lips together.
He was trying to make me laugh and I’m not in the laughing mood.
I’m in a drinking mood.
I scan the crowd watching us with amused eyes, finding Cook. “You got any bourbon?”
His brows lift. “It’s seven in the morning.”
“Then I’ll drink it in coffee.” I rush down the stairs, head high as I move past him. I give Kerri a small smile as I pass her and Tracker.
I’m still on shaky ground with her. Understandable. Panties on laps and all that.
I hope I’m right about the back room of the house being the kitchen. I also hope that’s where they keep the booze. Otherwise I’m jumping out the window and taking my chances with The Horsemen. Pretty sure I can hold my own against them way better than I have with Gypsy.
I start opening the few cabinets remaining in the space. As luck would have it, one of them is full of liquor. I pull a bottle of Knob Creek free and twist out the cork.
I tip it back and take a swig straight from the bottle, wiping my forearm across my mouth like a savage when I’m done.
And now I have an audience. The group has moved along with me to watch through the studded wall of the dining room. I lift the bottle. “I’ll replace this for whoever it belongs to.”
All the eyes turn to Gypsy.
“Fucking figures.” I take another drink, appreciating the burn for the distraction it is. I shove the cork back into the neck and put the bottle where I found it. “I’m guessing you don’t mind that I drank out of the bottle since your naked dick was up against me all night.”
His naked, uncircumcised dick.
What in the hell do you do with one of those anyway? There must be extra steps involved. Some sort of additional retracting wrist flick required.
“There were at least two layers of clothing between us, Beanie.” His eyes drag down my body. “Unfortunately.”
My attention snaps to the faces around us.
Did he just insinuate he wished we were naked in bed together?
In front of all his friends?
I should have had more bourbon.
I glance down at the cabinet.
“No more drinking.” Gypsy comes close. “We need to talk and I want your mind clear.”
“I don’t want to talk. I want to go home.” I back away, my immediate reaction to the words ‘we need to talk’ is to put distance between us.
Because that’s what it usually means. Extreme distance is coming.
“You can’t go home. Not to your townhouse anyway. Not right now.” Gypsy’s tone is soft. “I think we should go to Cookeville.”
“I don’t—”
Wait.
“We?”
Gypsy nods to the large table dominating the dining room area. “Let’s all sit down.”
Everyone else immediately starts sitting. Gypsy slips his hand into mine and pulls me toward the table. I start to pull out a chair, but he sits and tugs me down onto his lap instead, resting one palm across my thigh.
In front of all his friends.
Like he doesn’t care if they know he slept in bed with me last night.
Tracker leans back in his seat, draping one arm across the chair beside his where Kerri sits. “King is pissed about how well the warehouse is doing.” His thumb slides across the skin of her shoulder, slow and steady. “He blames Gypsy.”
I lift my shoulders. “So why wouldn’t he just go after Gypsy?”
Tracker’s eyes slide to the man sitting under me looking as relaxed as ever. As if he didn’t just hear that a crazy man is after him. Gypsy barely nods.
“He probably knows that wouldn’t be the worst thing he could do to him.” Tracker stares at me like that should mean something.
“So why wouldn’t he just do the worst thing then?” I start to get up. It feels ridiculous sitting here while everyone else has their own chairs.
Gypsy’s hands grip my body and pull me right back down. “He is.” His hazel eyes are on mine with the same look Tracker just gave me.
“I don’t—”
Gypsy watches me a second longer. His eyes stay on mine as he speaks to everyone else in the room. “Can we get a second?”
Chairs drag across the floor and feet scuff as Cook, Tracker, Kerri and Preacher walk out. Gypsy stays silent until the door clicks shut behind them.
“There’s something you should know, Beanie.”
I wait. This is different from any other ‘we need to talk’ scenario I’ve been involved in, and I’m not sure what in the hell is going on.
“You’re mine.”
I lean forward a little. I was hoping for something more sensical than that. “Your what?”
“Just mine.” One finger comes to trail down my neck, tracing a path over the dip in my collarbone and down the center of my body. “Mine.”
I stare at him a second.
Then I start to laugh, because honestly it’s either that or cry. “Yeah. Okay.” I try to get up again, only to be pulled back with a little more force than last time.
“It’s true, Beanie.”
I snort. “Whatever.”
Gypsy’s brows come together. “Whatever?”
Of course, whateve
r. I’ve never had a man claim me as being his. Not in private and certainly not publicly.
Especially a man I haven’t fucked.
“Look. If you want me to do something, just say it, but don’t blow smoke up my fucking skirt. It’s not nice.” My voice gives more away than I wish it did. I don’t want Gypsy to know how much I’ve longed to have a man want me to be theirs. Don’t want him to know the desperate measures I went to trying to get it.
“I’m not blowing smoke, Felicity.” He leans forward in his seat, bringing our faces close together. For the first time I see a flash of anger in his eyes “You. Are. Mine.”
“But you’ve barely touched me.” The words are a little too low. Giving him even more of me.
More of my secrets.
My shame.
“Is that what you want, Felicity? Me to touch you?”
“This isn’t about what I want.”
“It’s always about what you want.”
God I wish that was fucking true. But if it was, I wouldn’t be here, right now.
With him.
I would be somewhere else, with some looser who pretended to like me for a minute, then cut me loose like I meant nothing.
Because I didn’t.
Gypsy’s hand catches mine, lifting it until the center of my palm is pressed against his lips. He kisses it softly before wrapping my arm around his neck. “I’m not sure what happened before me, and I probably should never know.” His arm pulls me closer. “But I need you to understand that I don’t have to fuck a woman to know she’s mine.” His lips quirk. “But if it would make you feel better.”
“I can’t fuck you, Gypsy.”
“Then I’ll be happy to fuck you.” He laces one hand into my hair and leans his forehead against mine, eyes shut. “But first we need to get you someplace safe, okay?”
I can see the tension I missed before lining his face. A tightness that bothers me. Makes me want to believe all of this is true.
That maybe he does want me. Of course there’s no way he thinks I’m really his. That’s ridiculous.
Gypsy Soul: A Bad Boy Protector Romance (Lost Boys Book 3) Page 8