by Sybil Bartel
My eyes landed on her and I almost dropped to my knees, but I was so goddamn angry at her for breaking her promise to me that I barked words at her. “Why aren’t you speaking?”
Still wearing that black dress from the club that I now hated because of everything it represented, she stood from the couch, but she didn’t say shit.
“Speak,” I ordered.
“About?” she quietly asked.
A brick ton of weight lifted off my chest, and I stopped myself a pace in front of her. “Goddamn it, woman. Don’t you ever fucking do that to me again.”
“Do what?” she asked, monotone.
“You know what,” I accused.
“I do not.”
“You made me a promise,” I reminded her.
Her chest rose with a sharp inhale as her stoic façade started to crack. “I did not.”
I called her on her bullshit. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”
Beautiful, poised, her throat moved with a swallow, and her voice dropped. “You.”
“Me,” I reiterated. “The man you promised to give your words too.”
Her face fell and her eyes welled. “This hurts,” she whispered.
Reaching for her, I sank my hands into her hair and tried like hell to be honorable. “Say no.”
“Yes,” she barely whispered as a tear slid down her cheek.
“Say no to me,” I growled, no longer strong enough to walk away from her. “Two letters, Ludeviene. Fucking say it. N-O.”
Beaten, kidnapped and thrown over the side of a boat, she still held my crazed gaze and defied me. “Yes.”
I slammed my mouth over hers.
Insane, unrelenting impotent rage, ten years in the Marines, and the goddamn loop of her body lying on the floor of the SUV deadly still—all that noise stopped, and it was just her.
Only her.
This woman stole what was left of my sanity and turned it inside out. Ten seconds ago, I couldn’t fucking breathe. Dante was dead. Addis was dead. They all were fucking dead. I’d pulled that trigger over and over, and I was covered in the goddamn victory of their blood, but I still hadn’t been able to fucking breathe.
But the second my tongue sank in to her mouth, I was high. So goddamn high it didn’t touch a single one of my revenge kills.
For years I’d been pulling that trigger, trying to right every wrong for every one of my fallen brothers. Their lives had been ripped away from them, but I was still standing, and I thought that was my goddamn purpose. But every shot I’d fired only fueled a beast I couldn’t fucking beat. Insatiable and relentless, haunting my every waking moment, my only peace had been the one ounce of control I’d had over that trigger.
Now that control was gone.
It’d been gone the second I’d laid eyes on her.
I swept my tongue deeper into my new drug and pressed my hard cock against her sweet body. Then I tried, one last time, to be fucking honorable.
Pulling back, I warned her. “I’ll fucking destroy you. Tell me no while you still have a chance.”
“You saved me.”
“I’ll ruin you,” I roared. “You don’t understand who I am.” Not by a long shot.
“I am aware.”
“Are you?” I snapped. “Do you fucking know I kill for sport because it’s the only goddamn thing that quiets the shit in my head?”
She didn’t flinch.
I upped the ante.
“Do you know that taking a life no longer brings the fucking air to my lungs that I need to goddamn breathe?” Gutting myself, I laid it all at her feet, every vile, crude word. “I’m a strung-out junkie, and my new fix is your tight cunt.”
She didn’t even blink.
Impotent rage lit the fuse of my goddamn vulnerability, and I was dangerously close to going over the edge, but I still kept going. I still fucking tried. For her I goddamn tried. “You don’t want me,” I growled. “Save yourself and fucking say it. Tell me to walk away.” Motherfucking say it. “I’m no good for you.”
She didn’t
She goddamn didn’t.
She turned around, bent over the fucking kitchen table like she was made for me, then she looked over her shoulder and decimated my heart. “Stay.”
A roar, half defeat, half relief and all fucking fear split from my chest, and I was on her.
I didn’t remember getting my dick in my hand. I wasn’t conscious of ripping my own damn boxers down her ass. I wasn’t even a man.
I was a goddamn animal.
Until I shoved into her body and took my first full breath since Collins had carried her limp body away from me.
“Ludeviene,” I rasped.
OH MY GOD. “TY.”
Stretching, hurting, aching, relief, I had no other words. Just his name.
He was everything.
And I was an addict.
Exactly as he’d said I was a drug to him, he was mine. Every breath since we’d left that house in Key West had been a struggle. I no longer cared if I was addicted to him because he’d saved me. I didn’t give a damn if everything fell apart tomorrow. He was here and this was now, and oh my God, I needed him.
I needed him so bad.
Thrusting deep, hitting the very core inside of me, he growled, “Goddamn.” His huge, rough hands gripped my hips harder as he drove into me again. “Goddamn.”
“More,” I begged, grasping the edge of the table.
His back covered mine and his mouth found my neck. Biting my flesh, then swirling his tongue, he gave me fair warning. “Don’t push me, woman. You can’t handle me rough.”
He was wrong. I could handle it and I needed it. I needed every ounce of roughness he was willing to give me. “Don’t stop.”
His hands ran up my sides and one sank into my hair as he fisted a handful. “I’m not going to.” He tightened his grip. “Not now, not tomorrow, not next week.” He thrust so hard, my feet left the floor. “You feel me?”
Every inch. “Yes,” I panted, my fingers curling into the wood.
“I don’t think you do.” Pulling back until my feet touched tile, he only gave a split-second’s reprieve before he blessedly thrust deep again. “I’m asking again.” His hand slid around my thigh and landed between my legs. He circled my clit. “Do. You. Feel me?”
“Yes.” Oh my God, yes.
“Which part?” he demanded.
My throat, my body, they hummed with need as the moan crawled out from deep inside my chest. “All of you.”
“My words,” he growled, throwing his response down like a gauntlet. “Do you fucking feel me, Ludeviene?”
He didn’t say my name.
He devoured every syllable. The deep rasp of his voice dominated the first half the same way he was dominating my body, before he purred through the last syllable like saying my name was the air he needed to breathe.
I felt it everywhere.
But nowhere more than my heart. “Not now, not tomorrow, not next week,” I repeated, giving him his words back.
“Fuck, woman.” He shuddered.
I said it again. “Not now, not tomorrow, not next week.” Then I begged. “Promise me.”
His mouth, his lips, they found my ear as his heat covered me in assurance. But then his words tested me again. “You should tell me to leave you alone.”
I made my own promise. “Never.”
Letting out a sound that was half roar, half growl and all man, he pulled out and spun me around. Lifting my leg and capturing me around my back, he cradled my head and sunk inside me as he gently laid me on the table.
His gaze bored into me, but when he spoke, he took every last piece of my heart. “You look at me when I come inside you, beautiful.”
My hands tangled into his hair, and I fought tears. “Okay.”
His stroke long and slow, he cupped my face. “Those tears brewing—are they for me or because of me?”
Fear, hurt and insecurity I didn’t know I was still harboring let loose, and a tea
r slid down my cheek. “You walked away from this.” From me.
“I’m not walking now.” He pushed deep inside me and ground his hips.
I had to ask. “What changed?”
His eyes wary, his expression holding a thousand pounds of grief I may never understand, he stared at me for a single heartbeat. “I decided to be selfish.”
Nothing about what he’d done for me was selfish. “You saved me.”
His entire body stilled. “Return the favor.”
Not a question, not a statement, not a demand, he laid the three words out.
This man, this warrior, strong and fearless, he laid his vulnerability in my hands.
And he waited.
Silent, stoic, but unguarded and unprotected and completely exposed, he was giving me a choice. I’d never felt closer to another person in my entire life.
“With honor,” I whispered as tears washed away all doubt.
Surging forward, his mouth slammed over mine and he didn’t hold back.
He took me, he fucked me, he made love to me. Over and over, he thrust into my body with his hard length and his tongue, leaving a piece of himself I was sure he’d never given to any woman.
I got lost in it.
I reveled in it.
I came alive in it.
My back arched, my legs shook and a tidal wave of physical need and emotional trust burst from my core.
Gripping two handfuls of my hair, pulling back from my mouth, his fierce, dominant gaze met mine and I came.
And came and came and came.
His nostrils flared and his lips parted and he thrust hard one more time. Hot and deep, his seed pulsed in to me and his eyes, oh my God his eyes, they held me captive. Staring, no words, no smile, he came inside me.
And I fell in love.
I CAME INSIDE HER AND I lost my shit.
Her legs around my waist, her body shaking, her pussy clamped down on my dick and I fucking lost it.
I couldn’t even think of a single damn thing to say to her.
I just fucking stared. A part of me didn’t even want to believe the possessive, twisted shit going through my head. I wasn’t this guy. I didn’t keep women. I didn’t fall at their feet. I wasn’t beholden to a damn thing except the memory of my brothers, but this woman…. Jesus Christ, I didn’t have the words.
All I knew was, I was going to do my damndest to keep her. Which meant I had to fucking say something after taking her like a damn animal on the kitchen table in a client apartment at work. She was too classy for this shit.
I stroked her soft cheek with my thumb. “You okay?”
“Yes.” She grasped my wrist. “Are you?”
“Never better,” I lied, touching my lips to hers once. “Pulling out, sweetheart.”
“Okay,” she breathed, her voice going soft as her cheeks flushed.
Jesus. “You’re beautiful, you know that?” Reluctantly I slid out.
Sucking in a sharp breath, she bit her bottom lip.
Fuck. Fuck. Pulling her up, I took her face in both hands. “I should apologize, but I’m not sorry for being inside you.”
“You don’t have to apologize for something I asked for.”
“Is that right?” I let the corner of my mouth tip up. “You were asking for it?”
No smile, her tone serious as fuck, she didn’t hesitate. “From you.”
Damn. I didn’t lie. “I like the sound of that.” But I wasn’t letting anything go between us that wasn’t crystal fucking clear. “As long as it’s only me, sweetheart. That’s how this is gonna work. You feel me?”
Her head ducked, but she didn’t say shit.
I tipped her chin. “Words, baby.”
Her sexy as hell dark eyes found mine, then she threw me. “Why couldn’t I talk after…” She inhaled. “After you came for me?”
“Trauma affects everyone differently.” I’d seen that shit enough times downrange to know it was never predictable, and it sure as fuck wasn’t selective. “The mind will protect itself however it can.”
“You didn’t seem… fazed by it.”
“I’ve seen it before, babe. It wasn’t permanent and I wasn’t gonna call you out on something you had no control over. You just gotta ride that shit out when it happens.”
Her voice quieted. “Is that what you do?”
Suddenly uncomfortable as fuck, I changed the subject. “You ready to get out of here?”
Her backbone, unassuming and classy, came out. “Yes, when you answer my question.”
Fuck. Dropping my hold on her and rubbing a hand over my face, I sighed. “No, I don’t ride shit out. I get angry and I shoot my fucking way out.”
“I don’t think that’s a long-term solution.”
No fucking kidding. “I know.”
“Okay.”
I eyed her. “Okay, what?”
“I feel you,” she said simply.
Jesus fucking Christ, this woman. “Took you a while to get there,” I challenged, fighting a smile.
“I was already there. I had questions.”
“So do I, plenty, but you’re still not giving me the goods.” She needed to tell me I was it for her. For now, for as long as this lasted, for as long as she was going to put up with me, whatever fucking path, she needed to tell me she understood.
She gave me her shy smile. “I thought you already had the goods?”
My dick got hard again. “Watch it.”
“Or?” she challenged like a goddamn goddess.
“We’ll break in the counter in about two point five seconds.”
The smile wiped clean from her face. “I get it. Only you. But I’ll only agree to that if the same applies in reverse.”
I gave her the truest fucking words I’d said in a decade. “You’re it for me, sweetheart.”
A smile, bright and pure, spread across her face. “Okay.” But then her small-as-hell hand tightened on my wrist. “Can I go home?”
“Yes.” I nodded once, but I didn’t want her to go home. I wanted her with me.
“It’s safe?” she asked tentatively.
“You’re safe,” I clarified.
She stared at me for a long moment, then braved a question I saw coming a mile away. “Did you do what you said you were going to do?”
I gave her the truth. “I did.”
“Thank you.” Immediate and full of relief, she gave me two words that didn’t hold a single fucking ounce of judgment.
“You’re welcome.” I opened my mouth to tell her I wanted to take her to my place, but a loud knock sounded on the door.
“Asher,” Luna boomed. “Open up.”
Ludeviene flinched, and irrational anger at Luna flared. “Hold the fuck up,” I yelled over my shoulder, before grabbing my boxers off the floor and handing them to her. “Go clean up, sweetheart. I’ll handle this, then we’ll get you out of here.”
She took my boxers. “Where?”
I didn’t hesitate. “You’re coming home with me.”
Luna knocked again, louder this time. “Now, Asher.”
She looked between me and the door and she shivered.
“It’s okay,” I promised. “Go. I’ll handle Luna.”
Voices erupted in the hall and Luna pounded on the door. “Asher!”
She double-timed to the bathroom.
STARTING TO SHIVER, MY HEAD spinning, I rushed to the bathroom and shut the door.
I could hear Ty and André’s muffled voices, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
I glanced at the shower.
Longing to stand under the hot spray, but not wanting to take the time or get undressed with a bunch of bodyguards standing just outside, I opted for helping myself to one of the fluffy washcloths and clean-smelling soap.
As quick as I could, I first washed my face, then I ran the washcloth between my legs. As I was rinsing it out, I heard his voice.
My father’s.
“What is the meaning of this?” my father bel
lowed.
Oh God.
“Mr. Loic,” André Luna said. “As I told you on the phone, she’s requested her privacy for now.”
“I know she’s here!” my father yelled, ignoring André. “Ludeviene, Ludeviene!”
I dropped the washcloth and quickly put on Ty’s boxers.
“Take it down,” André warned. “We have other clients in residence.”
“Who the hell let him up here?” Ty asked.
“Sorry about that,” a fourth man who sounded like Tyler from the club replied. “He said Luna authorized it.”
“Dios mio,” André muttered. “I didn’t.”
“I need to see my daughter, right now!” my father yelled.
Straightening my dress, I smoothed my hair as best I could.
“Hey,” Ty snapped. “Until you calm the fuck down, you’re not going to see anyone, especially not your daughter.”
“Who the hell are you?” my father demanded.
“I’m the one who rescued your daughter from twenty armed cartel hitmen because you were too fucking stupid to put a qualified security detail on her.”
Oh. My God.
“Asher!” André yelled at the same time my father roared, “Don’t you dare speak to me that way!”
“Am I wrong?” Ty asked.
I opened the bathroom door.
All four men turned to look at me.
André tipped his chin, Ty looked furious, Tyler smiled apologetically at me, but my father’s face fell.
“Ludeviene.” He took a step toward me.
I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t stand there and pretend that he hadn’t invited that monster into our lives and into my childhood home.
I held my hand up. “Stop.”
Ty and André immediately moved. As if choreographed, Ty came to my right and André to my left. Both men stared my father down.
The anger I’d heard in my father’s voice only a moment ago returned, and his expression flashed from shock to outrage. “What is the meaning of this, Ludeviene?”
I’d only seen my father angry a handful of times growing up, and it’d never been directed at me. I’d even wondered how the mild-mannered father I knew was capable of running a successful bank. But right now, seeing him so angry, seeing him stand his ground against three bodyguards who were practically half his age and almost twice his weight, I understood how my father had become successful.