Shameless

by Sybil Bartel

My mouth suddenly dry, I watched him toss his shirt at a chair without looking. It landed perfectly as he stepped out of one boot, then the other.

  If I thought he was striking dressed, he was a fucking masterpiece shirtless.

  Covered in ink, ripped, abs for days, shoulders that were a mile wide, he wasn’t beautiful, he was unreal.

  My hand went to my throat. “What are you doing?”

  He smirked as he set his gun and phone on the nightstand before reaching for his belt. “What does it look like?”

  “I’m not asking to get fucked,” I blurted, my mind confused by his flip in attitude but my traitorous body giving a standing ovation.

  He didn’t laugh. “I’m not offering.” He dropped his pants and tossed them on the same chair. “Move over.”

  Holy shit, his thighs, his fitted black boxers, oh my fucking God, he was huge everywhere. “You’re going to… sleep here?” Heat hitting my cheeks, I forced myself to keep my eyes on his face even though he didn’t seem the least bit self-conscious—and why would he? He was fricking Greek mythology come to life.

  As if knowing my thoughts, he lifted one sexy eyebrow in challenge. “You change your mind, princess?”

  “No.” Yes. Definitely yes. “What changed your mind?”

  “Only bed in the house.” He reached for the light but then he paused. His eyes on mine, he studied me for a second. Then he did the last thing I expected. Mr. Dominance gave me a choice. “Last chance. You sure?” Deep and commanding, but also laced with something I couldn’t read, his voice sank into every crack and crevice of doubt I had.

  My breath short, my core pulsing, I bit my bottom lip and took one more look at his ink and the sheer size of him. Then I did what I’d probably regret.

  I moved over.

  Holding my gaze, he kept still. “I need words, babe.”

  “I’m sure.” I wasn’t.

  He turned off the light.

  The instant darkness was so complete, air got caught in my lungs. My nerves spiked, and stupid insecurity flew out of my mouth. “Did you check outside?”

  “Relax, sweetheart.” He pulled the covers back. “You’re safe.”

  Moving to the very edge of the bed, my unfaithful nerves turned on me and my thoughts bled out. “You know, it’s better to find someone you want to wake up next to than someone you want to sleep with.”

  The mattress dipped, and the room filled with his laugh. Short, but deep and rich like his voice when he was being suggestive, it made goose bumps race across my skin.

  Reaching for me like it was the most natural thing in the world, he slid one arm under my head and another around my waist, and as sure as if I were his, he pulled me toward him. “Sweetheart, the only kind of woman who says bullshit like that is one who’s never had a decent orgasm.”

  All at once, my entire world became him. Shade without a last name. Bodyguard. Protector. Muscled. Inked. Shooter. Sandwich maker. Fire starter. Everything about him scared me, and my body stiffened. But at the same time, something down deep took a breath and inhaled his scent like this was exactly the place I’d been yearning to be my whole life. And that was one thousand percent scarier than the events that led me to rehab.

  Forcing myself to concentrate on his last brazen statement instead of his rock-hard arm under my head or his warm, rough hand resting on my hip, I gave him a piece of my vulnerability. “Not everything is about sex.”

  Not that I knew the first thing about relationships, or orgasms for that matter. I’d never had a boyfriend. Hookups with a few asshole guys my age and some one-night stands with older men—none of the encounters when I was straight. My experience with men wasn’t exactly legendary. But that didn’t mean I hadn’t thought about everything I never had and yearned for something better.

  His breath hot on my shoulder, Shade settled behind me with pure dominance. “That’s because you haven’t had great sex.” Pulling me even closer into him like we’d shared a bed a thousand times before and this was as natural as breathing, he swept his hand down my thigh before gently pushing it forward to make room for his leg to tuck into me. “Relax, woman. I told you, I’m not going to fuck you.”

  “Gee, how reassuring.” Desperately trying to put some indignation into my tone instead of letting out a desire-laced moan, I held my body stiff even though all I wanted to do was melt into him. I’d never slept next to someone as muscular as him. His sheer size alone was making me salivate to both taste his spicy musk-scented skin and bury my head into the crook of his neck until his heartbeat soothed me to sleep.

  And I never slept.

  Well, not very much.

  Every time I lay down, my brain waged a mutiny, sending thoughts faster than I could process. Everything became magnified, and I all I wanted was morning to come. The counselors at rehab said it was anxiety. Whatever. I hated sleeping. I also hated those racing thoughts. Which was why cocaine and downers had become my best friends. Speed made my thoughts too scrambled to hold on to, and valium made me not give a shit about them.

  “Never doubt an Italian, princess.” He brushed my hair off my shoulder. “Now go to sleep.”

  The intimate gesture throwing me, I almost wanted to laugh at his command. “If only it were that simple.”

  “It’s exactly that simple.” His deep voice rumbled up from his chest and tickled my back. “Close your eyes.”

  “And what then? I’ll magically fall asleep?” With him next to me, maybe I would.

  “Nothing magic about it. I ran you, fed you, and you had an adrenaline rush back in Jacksonville and on the road coming up here. You’re tired. I saw the exhaustion in your eyes in the kitchen. Now you’re safe, and you’ve got a warm body at your back. Close your eyes. Sleep will come.”

  He was right, eventually it would come, except if history was any indication it’d be fleeting and short-lived and I’d be left feeling groggy until I mainlined caffeine, but I still liked the dominant way he put everything. I foolishly let myself feel special that I was center of his attention right now, but that didn’t change the one thing that he couldn’t do for me, that no shrink in the entire state had been able to cure me of. “Sleep.” Or rather, sleeplessness. “The elusive equalizer.”

  His hand absently brushed over my hip. “You normally have trouble sleeping?”

  I liked this.

  Me and him. In the dark. Our bodies intertwined like we knew each other. He was right, he did make me feel safe, and his body was definitely warm. Warm enough that I’d forgotten about the snow falling outside that made me feel trapped. But despite all that, I didn’t want to talk to him about why I’d always had trouble falling asleep.

  It seemed selfish to mention I always felt alone. That despite all the partying, I had no one I confided in. No one I thought I could rely on. No one I could call in the middle of the night if I wanted to feel sorry for myself. I didn’t even think anyone would truly mourn my loss if I died, except maybe my stepmother, but only because she’d probably feel like she’d failed. And my father? What a joke. He’d turn the whole thing into a media storm for company exposure.

  Whatever.

  I didn’t want to think about this.

  Inhaling to clear my thoughts, brushing off Shade’s question even though I’d started us down this path, I shrugged.

  Taking it as confirmation, Shade pushed. “That why you turned to drugs?”

  If I didn’t want to talk to him about sleep, then I sure as hell didn’t want to wax poetic about the joys of cocaine. “Why does anyone do drugs?”

  “No fucking clue. Whiskey’s where it’s at.”

  I smiled in the dark. “I would’ve pegged you as a beer man.”

  “You got me pegged, woman?”

  Not even a little. “Yep.”

  He chuckled. “You’re a shit liar.”

  Quickly becoming addicted to his voice and his presence, I ticked off what I knew about him. What anyone would know if they spent two seconds with him. “You’re dominating, contr
olling, and impatient. You do this job not because you have to but because protecting comes naturally to you. Probably because you had to protect someone before you even joined the Marines—your mother, sisters, someone you care about. I don’t know who exactly, but that protective trait’s like, ingrained in you. You also check the magazine on your gun like a regular person would have a nervous tic, and you don’t suffer fools. You always like to be the alpha on top, not because you’re that controlling, but because you trust people even less than I do.” I turned slightly to look at him. In the sliver of moonlight peeking through the falling snow, his features looked even more austere. “How am I doing so far?” Fighting the urge to touch him like he was touching me, my fingers ached to brush over the two-day growth covering his strong jaw.

  For two heartbeats, he didn’t say anything.

  Then, as I was only just beginning to learn about him, he did the unexpected.

  Shade, the bodyguard with a thousand layers, kissed me.

  RENDERED FUCKING SPEECHLESS, I STARED at her.

  Goddamn.

  No one had ever pegged me like that. Not that I gave any woman the chance, because the shit suddenly crawling around inside my head wasn’t a mission objective I ever dealt with. My chest tight, the urge to fuck her consuming, I laid stock still and stared.

  Five and half feet of trust fund princess who was all tits, and she’s the one who finally brings me down?

  Jesus fucking Christ.

  I needed to get my ass in gear and go back downstairs. I should’ve been checking the surveillance cameras, calling Ronan for a sitrep. I needed to do any damn thing except lay here and think about my tongue in her mouth and my cock in her cunt, because nothing good was gonna come of this. Nothing.

  But goddamn.

  She inhaled and her tits swelled.

  Fuck this bullshit.

  No remorse, I slammed my mouth over hers and did what I’d been jonesing to do all damn night.

  I fucking kissed her.

  Controlled, pacing myself, I showed the woman restraint, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to strip the clothes off her full hips and lush tits and taste every damn inch of her body before I sunk inside her. I wanted to make her come so many damn times, she’d be begging me to stop.

  Which is exactly what she’d do if I didn’t prep her first.

  Stroking through her mouth, tasting victory when her tongue met mine, I refrained from grinding my hard as fuck cock into her ass and scaring the hell out of her. Forcing myself to pull back, I addressed the spot-on bullshit she’d said about me. “You may have hit the mark on some of the shit you said about me.” How she fucking pegged me, I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. “But the only thing you need to know about me right now, princess, is that I’m going to make you come.”

  Sucking in a sharp breath, she licked her lips, but her expression took a nosedive. “You can’t.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want me to touch you?”

  “I didn’t say that,” she hedged.

  I frowned. “You on your period?” Because I was past caring.

  “No.”

  I stared at her.

  She stared back.

  “Spit it out,” I demanded.

  “I…” She looked away and her voice dropped. “Sex doesn’t make me come.”

  Grasping her chin, bringing her eyes back to me, I forgot about my oath not to fuck her and asked the hard question. “Why not?”

  Still avoiding eye contact, she shrugged. “Just…because.” She shifted in my grasp. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Instinct hit like an IED blast wave. “You been hurt before?”

  She shrugged again.

  “Summer,” I warned.

  Her gaze cut to mine. “It’s not a big deal, okay. I don’t care. Yes, I’m attracted to you.” She tried to push away from me. “It’s just not going to happen. Been there, done that. My body’s hard wired to get off on drugs instead of sex, I guess.”

  I saw right through her. “Who was he?”

  She turned her head as far away from me as possible. “Who was who?’

  My jaw fucking ticked and my teeth ground. “The asshole who raped you?”

  She flinched. “I didn’t say—”

  “Am I wrong?” I wasn’t. It was written all over her face. And her attitude, hot and cold, cavalier and innocent, scared and bold as fuck, it all made sense now.

  She didn’t answer.

  Because I was an asshole, and because she was in my head, I pushed. “Tell me his name.” I was going to kill the asshole.

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Now,” I barked.

  She looked back at me and threw her hands up. “I was high, okay? It was my fault. I don’t know if I said no, I don’t know what I said. He did what he wanted, what all asshole guys do, and then he gave me more drugs.” Her eyes welled.” What was I supposed to do?” Tears slid down her cheeks, but her tone got angrier. “Say I didn’t want him to force himself on me when I was too fucking high to say no?” She swiped roughly at her face. “Yeah, that would’ve gone over real well.”

  Rage like I hadn’t experienced since my last deployment consumed me. “Name,” I gritted out.

  “Why?” She barked out a laugh void of humor. “It was my dealer. You already killed him.”

  Rolling to my back, I shoved my hands through my hair.

  “See? Now you know, and it doesn’t make any fucking difference except you’re disgusted by me, I’m disgusted in myself, and the whole thing was better left untouched.” She made to get up.

  My hand around her arm, I caught her. “I’d dig the motherfucker up and shoot him again if I knew where he was.”

  She snorted out a humorless laugh. “You can’t kill a dead man.”

  A full magazine in his corpse would make me feel better though. “First of all, that shit wasn’t your fault. Second, giving drugs to a minor is a fucking felony. Third, you shouldn’t have to say no. Only a piece-of-shit fucks a woman too high to be coherent.” I rolled to my side to face her. “Understand?”

  She looked away.

  I fought from grasping her chin and instead did what I should’ve done before I kissed her. “I want permission to touch you.”

  Her eyes met mine and her words came out with attitude, but the vulnerability in her expression about killed me. “You’re already touching me.” She moved her leg against mine to prove her point.

  I kept stock fucking still. “I’m asking if I can put my hands on you. Intimately,” I clarified.

  Her pulse jumped and her breathing picked up. She nodded.

  “Use words, woman.”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  I took her face with both hands. “You shouldn’t have had to say no. That piece of shit knew better. It wasn’t your fault. Understand me?”

  Letting out a sound of frustration, she pulled out of my grasp. “I get it, but this conversation is pointless, and I’m done having it. The past is the past.”

  For a split second I didn’t know if I was more impressed by her ability to compartmentalize or pissed off at her dismissal. I didn’t talk shit out with women. I didn’t lay in bed at night with them and rehash bullshit pasts or old wounds. And I never told anyone about myself. Except here I was, in a cabin I never imagined bringing a woman to, wanting to both kill the fucker who hurt her all over again, and give her words that’d mean something more than a useless platitude, but I couldn’t do either.

  I could only make her come.

  It wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when. Her and I, we had chemistry. Since the moment she and her dark hair, big tits and sober self told me to fuck off, I wanted a taste of her.

  Her age, my job, the fucked-up reason why we were here—everything about this was wrong. Which only made me want her more. Then she threw down with her little proclamation and I was done holding back.

  “You know what I think?” It wasn’t a question. It was a challenge
.

  “That you’re God’s gift to women, you shoot better than anyone you know, and you’re invincible?”

  Fighting a smile, I dragged a finger down her arm. “In addition to that.”

  Her attention turned to my hand. “Gee, I couldn’t hazard a guess.”

  “First clue, I’m not talking about myself.” Slow, steady, I brought my finger back up her arm.

  “In a shocking twist of events, the invincible, humble bodyguard relinquishes the conversation to a subject matter not about himself.”

  Fuck, I liked this. Yeah, I wanted to fuck her and prove her wrong about coming. I wanted to erase all her bad memories more than I wanted my next fucking breath, but this right here, the back and forth, no hidden agenda in her words, this shit was better than foreplay.

  I smiled at her. “Name one thing you know about me that came from my mouth.”

  “You don’t let a woman pay for a meal.”

  Smirking, I dragged the back of my fingers along the side of her breast. “Something real, sweetheart.”

  Her nipple hardened though her shirt. “That’s not real?”

  I coasted my hand over it. “Not as real as these.” I palmed her huge tit.

  Holding back a moan, she bit her bottom lip. “You’re an ass.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” I winked. “You ready to come?”

  She let out a laugh. “Because Mr. Invincible Bodyguard touched my breast and rubbed my arm?”

  “No, because I’m about to show you how a real man takes care of a woman.” I pinched her nipple hard and she sucked in a sharp breath. “But just so you know, princess.” I leaned down to her ear and brushed my lips across the sensitive skin as I pinched her other nipple. “I’m not invincible.” First an IED in Afghanistan proved it, and now her.

  Her eyes fluttered shut, her lips parted, and her sexy exhale told me all I needed to know before her fingers wrapped around my wrist. “I’m pretty sure going over the side of a mountain in an Escalade and living to tell about it makes you somewhat invincible.”

  I smiled. “Still hung up on that?” I coasted my hand down her stomach and over her hip.

  “I’m hung up on a lot of things in case you hadn’t noticed.”