He doesn’t address his injuries, choosing to continue to pry. “You seem to think you aren’t my business.”
“Probably because I’m not. I’m not sure what makes you think you have the right to interfere, but I don’t need to be saved. I don’t need anything from you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I think I’m exactly what you need.”
I don’t speak for a few long minutes, unsure of where he’s going with this. It was stupid of me to indulge in those long glances at him. Stupid of me to admit anything to him about my personal life. I knew I’d be paying for it at some point, and this new familiarity with him must be the price.
“How can you be what I need when I don’t even know your name?” I find myself saying as I apply numbing cream to the bruises.
He reclines underneath my ministrations as though he enjoys my touch and smiles. The corners of his eyes crinkle and I wonder how old he is. Old enough to have made some incredibly bad decision that landed him in prison as a VIP guest courtesy of the United States government.
Then again, I’m only twenty-seven and have done a bang-up job of fucking up my own life, so what do I know?
My heart leaps inside the confines of my ribs when he says, “Is that you askin’ for my name, sweetheart?”
My hands flex on his skin, but he's so intent on my response he either doesn't notice or doesn't care. Beneath my touch, he turns to granite and a part of me wants to take back my question, but I can’t.
“What's wrong?” I ask, and I hope it deflects from this line of conversation. “Did I hurt you?”
He breaks eye contact and looks down to where my hands are touching his skin. The moment his eyes land on where our bodies connect, it makes me want to drop my hand. How close he always manages to get to me whenever I let curiosity—or stupidity—get the better of me is astounding.
"Would take more than that to hurt me, little mouse."
I feel his words like dark secrets. They unfurl inside me, a molten mixture of pleasure and shame, a heady combination that invites me to ask for more. He's a craving I can't quite shake. A disease slowly spreading through me. My head tells me I should walk away, but my greedy heart begs for more of his illicit attention.
"Little mouse?" I keep my focus on my fingers. Otherwise, they'll betray my nerves. I swipe antibacterial cream over his skin and realize resistance is practically impossible. Not when I can feel his muscles flexing underneath my hands, the heat coming off him in waves, and my body's answering thrum.
It has been so long since I’ve felt anything other than violence and fear. The two have become so tightly intertwined that I was certain until now I'd never feel this again. Never feel warmth pooling low in my belly and radiating through my core or the answering wetness slicking between my legs.
Horror accompanies the rush of pleasure, and I want to fling myself backward, but I know I can't let this dangerous man see my reaction. I can't let him know the effect he has on me. Can't let him have that kind of power over me.
"Yes,” he finally says. “Because you always look like you want to scurry away into a corner and hide."
His words make me want to do exactly that. My eyes dance to the door and then back to my hand as I swipe away another smear of blood from his skin. It would be so easy to escape him and his all-too-knowing stare. The reaction I can't deny. The yearning. Ten steps would bring me right back to my dreary life where I can drown in the day-to-day misery and the pain that blots out my unfortunate reality.
They are ten steps I don’t take. I refuse to let King get the better of me again and return to doctoring his wounds, trading the wipes for clean, white bandages. Unlike Vic, when this man pressures me, tests my boundaries, I find myself wanting to fight back, wanting to go at him with teeth bared and fists balled.
He lays a big, scratched-up hand over mine, pinning it to the heated flesh of his well-muscled chest. I peer up through my lashes and find the corner of his mouth tipped up in a half smile that would look pleasant on any other man.
On King, it's a warning.
Or a threat.
My heart thumps in my chest, a rabbit trying to escape the pursuit of a predator. I take deep breaths to try to calm its frenetic pace, but it's futile while in his presence. I finish the bandage on his chest without taking the bait. Despite how alive he makes me feel, or maybe because of it, I won't encourage him. I won't go down that road. I did it once before, and it cost me everything.
I'm waiting for him to throw out another challenge as I finish with his chest and arms, dump the trash into a bag, and set it by the door.
"Can you stand for me?" I gesture with a roll of gauze I grabbed from my bag of supplies. "I need to wrap your ribs until they can get you in for an X-ray."
He obliges, reminding me of a half-tame animal submitting to human attention only to turn around and rip the person’s throat out seconds later. His abdomen ripples, and the low hum of desire that I've steadily been trying to ignore roars back to life made sharper by the edge of danger.
Like fucking in public.
It's wrong and dirty and you sort of hate yourself for enjoying it so much, but you come harder than you ever have in your life. It makes my breathing grow ragged, and I'm afraid he can hear me but can't find the willpower to back away.
I have to lean close to wrap the bandage around his chest, which doesn't help. His scent fills my nose like a drug. My fingers brush against his stomach, and I'd give anything for five minutes to explore the line of muscles that disappears into his waistband.
The fact that I manage to finish binding his ribs is a small miracle. He doesn't make a move to touch me the entire time, even though I spend it wishing he would. When I’m done, I can feel his eyes on me, patient and predatory as I pack up the rest of my supplies.
"Stop doing that!" I bite out, revealing just how badly he has my nerves frayed.
He gives me that half-grin again. "Doing what?"
"Staring at me like that. Are you trying to piss me off? Do you want me to have you reassigned?"
As though daring me, he takes a step forward. "You won't do that," he challenges.
"No?" I retort though I can hear the flimsy note to my voice.
His grin widens. "No."
I shake my head and feel my body drift closer to his. "I don’t know what you want from me, I don’t know what you think we’re doing here, but we shouldn’t. Let’s just get that clear right now. Also, I appreciate your concern for my safety, but there isn’t anything you can do to help me, and this sort of attention is only going to make my situation worse."
He shifts, and my whole body stiffens as he brings his lips to my cheek where the memory of the bruise throbs.
"Don't," I protest, but it comes out sounding more breathy than firm.
"I'll make you a deal," he says as he closes a bit more of the distance between us. I nearly whimper from frustration, fear, and need. "One kiss. One kiss and I won't bother you again. No one will have to know."
"You can't be serious," I whisper, but I know from the determined look in his eyes he's serious. “Why?”
His lips return to my cheek, surprising me with his gentleness, and I'm almost ashamed that my initial instinct is to flinch away from him. He seems to recognize it, and he sighs, pausing long enough to meet my eyes. We wait . . . watching each other. But when he doesn’t follow through with a slap or a biting comment, my traitorous body relaxes.
My body is clearly an idiot.
"C’mon," he coaxes as his lips grow bolder. "Let me give you this. One kiss. I promise you'll enjoy it. Let me show you a little something sweet to take away from the sour. One kiss, and if you want me to walk away after I will."
He's the devil incarnate, the snake that tempted Eve. Though, I'm sure as hell not in paradise. I hate myself for even considering it. Loathe the way my body shouts at me to say yes.
"You won't bother me again?" The responding triumphant gleam in his eyes screams that I've taken a step off a pre
cipice. There will be no going back after this.
"Scouts honor." I snort, causing him to grin. "So, is that a yes?"
"You asked me earlier if I wanted to know your name."
He nods, but it's a quick, jerky movement. For the first time, he's the one caught off guard.
"I think I'd like that." It'll be like saying goodbye, or at least that's what I tell myself. Goodbye to the rush of desire, the feeling of being alive. It was fun while it lasted but this level of craziness leads nowhere good.
For a moment, I think my ears are tricking me, but no. King makes a deep, satisfied groan in the back of his throat. I'm so distracted I don't notice he's been slowly moving closer until his body is pressed fully against mine. My hands go to his shoulders, and I'm grateful for the bandages separating us. Too much contact with his skin and my brain would surely short circuit.
"Gracin," he says, his lips so close they graze the shell of my ear. "My name is Gracin."
Then his mouth covers mine.
I am undone.
The kiss is unlike any other I’ve had in my life. I’d never known such a delicate touch could come from such a big, brutal man.
It’s like realizing I have been doing it wrong for years. Like all the touches and fumbling backseat trysts and Vic’s brutal lovemaking have been . . . wrong, and this is what a kiss is supposed to be.
Soft.
God, his lips are soft. Surprisingly so considering how cruel and ferocious he seems on the outside.
I’m learning he is nothing like he seems.
It makes me crave more, need more, and he must sense my growing, clawing desperation, because his lips part and his tongue sweeps forward, dominating me in the most welcome way. I open underneath the first stroke and moan with the second.
The gauze and implements I’m holding tumble to the floor with a clatter that I ignore. The nurses next door are too far away to hear the sound. In that second, I couldn’t care less if they were standing there watching. All my mental capacity focuses on the tender play of his mouth over mine. The hot, wet heat of him that is more explicit than anything I’ve ever seen or done before. It lights me from the inside out, turning everything molten and loose.
After a moment or an eternity, he pulls back. My eyes blink dazedly open, and I tremble against him as need roars up in a relentless rogue wave tinged with guilt and shame. Still, my breath catches in my throat when I study his face. It’s the first time I’ve been close enough to see the gold ring of color around his vivid green eyes.
I wish he would bend and put his lips to mine again.
What kind of person wants more from a man like him? What kind of woman aches for another kiss from a criminal?
Me.
I want more.
I want it all.
I want it right here.
Again. And again. And again.
I think of all the nights I’ve spent underneath Vic’s pumping body, all the times my pleasure was used as a weapon, all the times pleasure turned to pain and then numbness. I remember what he made me do only hours before and how my power, my agency was torn from me against my will. I think of all of that, and now I want more of Gracin’s brand of forbidden. I want it for the way it makes me feel alive for the first time in years. For the way pleasure is my own again. The way my body feels my own again.
So, I twine my hands around his neck, and I kiss him.
It must have surprised him because he makes a sound against my mouth, and it takes a few seconds for his body to catch up with mine. I like that I’ve thrown him off balance. I like that I have the power to shock him, make him want me. Me.
His hungry hands are no longer gentle, no longer hesitant. They constrict around my waist until there isn’t a breath of room between our two bodies. Until there’s no denying the hot, hard length of him against my stomach or the wet heat pooling between my legs, scenting the air around us.
My fingers move over the buzzed length of his hair. The soft, silken rasp of it against my palms causes gooseflesh to cover my arms, and a deep, rumbling sound reverberates in the back of his throat. I’ve never heard anything so sexy in my life. I repeat the movement with my hands and scrape my nails along his scalp, and something in him snaps. I almost swear I can hear his control breaking.
Then he’s shoving me against the wall, and the nonexistent space between us folds in on itself, a black hole of heat and want. He’s so close it’s as if he's trying to make himself a part of me, which sends a fresh set of shivers dancing along my spine, spider soft.
The prison jumpsuit and my nurse’s scrubs are practically a whisper of material combined, making it so I can feel everything. When I don’t protest the move, he nudges a leg between mine and then knocks them open. Arms free because his weight is holding me against the wall, he grips my knees and hoists me up, aligning his hardness against my softness, causing me to cry out against his lips.
He replaces his lips with his hands to stifle the sounds I can’t control. His eyes on mine, ever watchful, he uses the hand covering my lips to guide my face to the side, then his mouth does things to my neck and ear that make the hand covering my mouth absolutely necessary. Even so, my moans and cries echo throughout the small room.
As though he’s reading my mind, Gracin’s lips come to the shell of my ear. He whispers, “They could walk in at any second and see just what a dirty girl you are.” He emphasizes his words with a slow thrust of his hips. I swear I can feel every ridge, every vein in his cock as it drags along the seam of me.
I don’t respond—it’d be pointless with the hand covering my mouth, but I do respond in other ways. The scent of my arousal grows stronger, and I know my scrubs must be wet. Shame burns my cheeks a violent red at the thought of my arousal being there for Gracin to see. To feel if he can’t already. Breathy, choked cries emanate from my throat no matter how hard I try to swallow them back. My mind oscillates between the thought of the officers walking in and the hard cock between my legs, the combination a volatile, erotic stimulant.
I should push him away.
A good person would.
A good person wouldn’t have let him kiss them in the first place.
His tongue finds my ear again with startling precision. I’ve always had very sensitive ears, and one hot, harsh breath undoes any of the ragged reasoning I was piecing together. Shocks dance along my nerve endings as the sound of his harsh breathing surrounds me, envelops me. My hands cling to his shoulders with a bruising grip that he doesn’t even seem to mind. I give a passing thought to his injuries, to asking if they’re okay—not that his hand over my mouth would let me—and then he shifts, angling his hips upward in such a way that the bulbous head of his cock hits my clit at just the right angle, making my world burst apart.
I forget convention, forget the rules, forget expectations. I even ignore the law. The laws that say I shouldn’t touch this man. Shouldn’t encourage his attention. Forget that he’s my patient. That he’s a convicted felon.
A dark and dirty side of me emerges, and instead of pushing him away, I use my legs to pull him closer. He grunts in my ear, a harsh, sexy sound, and I arch my back, spreading my legs as far as they’ll go to accommodate his hips. My thighs burn, and my hips ache at the wide angle, but none of that matters as the warmth grows inside me. I become a wild, mindless thing, and all I know is I want more.
More pressure.
More closeness.
More aching, filthy, rawness.
His teeth leave marks where they bite into my shoulder to contain his sounds of satisfaction, his fingers are near-bruising on my mouth. I taste blood from where my teeth gouge my lower lip.
Then he’s whispering into my ear, his voice like the devil himself. “You want it. You want it so fucking bad I can almost taste it.”
Needy, animal sounds are my only answer.
“I wanna give it to you, Tessa.” The tempo of his hips slows, and I nearly scream. “Let me give it to you.”
I would have if he ha
dn’t pulled his hand away from my mouth and replaced it with his own. Then his tongue becomes a metaphor for his cock as they thrust in tandem.
I forget how to breathe. How to speak. How to think. How to care about anything but the steady drive of Gracin's length against me, his mouth against mine.
I didn’t know anything could feel so good.
Then he wedges a hand behind my back, forcing my hips to tilt at the same moment one of the nurses laughs outside, just outside the unlocked door . . .
All the bad and all the wrong floods back in, and then his hand is at my throat, causing sparks to dance in front of my eyes. The hard, keen edge of pleasure cuts through me, and my head kicks back, slamming into the wall right before he swallows my long, silent scream.
I come down in waves and awareness flickers—hyper-focused on his hard length still pulsing against me. That’s a feeling I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget. He’s thick and long, and the hollowness inside me calls out for him to fill it. My mouth waters with it, even as the come down from the orgasm cools my lust. Following that, his arms are now around my waist, holding me to him—almost . . . tenderly, or what tenderly would be like for him.
Then, I hear the nurses again.
Their voices are low but discernible; their conversation is about some television show or another—an ordinary conversation, as if the world hasn’t just shifted on its axis.
Gracin is watching me with those attentive eyes, and I have no doubt he’s seen the progression of emotions flash across my face. He sees too much. Understands too much.
My body, which had just been red-hot, cools and with it comes the horror.
Oh, God, what did I just do?
I’ve had exactly two one-night stands in my life, and this is almost exactly how I felt after them, only infinitely worse. The high from the illicit edge is delicious on the rise and mortifying on the fall. Like the man himself, it’s both horrifying and addictive. He’s a drug personified. A deadly one.
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