She didn’t answer me, just flicked her eyes up and down before looking back at me with that same intense look and the innocence she was trying so hard to hide.
“Did they tell you what this shit would mean Ariel?”
She bit her lip but still said nothing. “I know they’ve been filling your head but did they tell you what belonging to me would mean? You just left one prison baby you don’t want to exchange it for another.”
“You don’t have to say these things Devon, I know you don’t want me.”
“Really, you know that? Well you know wrong. I want you so fucking bad I can’t think straight, but this isn’t right, I’m not right.”
She didn’t blink, didn’t look away. Just stared at me with that look that burnt a hole in my gut with need. “I’m trying to protect you here baby, can’t you see?”
She bit her lip and I saw the hurt come into her eyes just then and knew that I was only fooling myself. It was too late the second I met her.
That niggling voice in the back of my head warned me that it was too dangerous and once again I found myself battling my need.
“Oh fuck this!” I dragged her against my chest and covered her mouth with mine, holding her head back by her ponytail with one hand while cupping her ass with the other so I could dive into her.
She was soft and sweet and so fucking perfect in my arms. I ate at her lips as she accepted my tongue, her innocence awakening something in me that I’d thought long dead.
I pulled our lips apart when it became hard to breathe, but didn’t relax my hold on her.
“I want to have babies with you, lots and lots of babies.”
Oh for fuck sake! I only meant to give her room to breathe before going back for more but those words slipped out before I could reel them back in.
I didn’t give her a chance to answer, just took her lips again giving my hunger free rein. My heart beat out of time as I held her closer, so close I could feel the hard points of her nipples as they brushed against my chest.
I loved the way she clung to me, like she would be lost if I let her go. “What’re you doing to be Ariel?” There were so many reasons why we shouldn’t be doing this, most of all the fact that she doesn’t even know who she is.
What if she wants that life when the truth comes out? Something inside me revolted at the idea and it was then I realized the truth of what I’d been doing since I brought her back with me.
I’ve been running from myself. Putting up roadblocks and finding excuses. Fear, it was fear plain and simple.
Fear of losing again, something so precious. The last time had almost destroyed me. When I lost my parents and endured all that had followed, I’d made a vow to myself that I would never open myself to that kind of hurt again.
But so much has happened in my life since then. And I know without a doubt that there’s none of my uncle in me. I could never look at her little face and take a fist to it.
Tonight when I’d been so mad at her for dancing in a roomful of strangers it never entered my mind to harm her.
I lifted that face to mine now and took her lips again. This time I let my hand trail gently along her shoulder and down her arm.
She shivered and got closer and I crushed her body to mine, letting my fingers find their way to her nipple.
Something inside me shifted when she moaned into my mouth and I knew that I would never let her go, not now not ever and not for any reason.
“Are you sure you want this Ariel? There’s still a lot that you don’t know…” She put her fingers over my lips and looked into my eyes.
“I feel you here.” She took my hand and placed it over her heart, which beat wildly under my hand. “Well fuck!”
This time when I covered her lips with mine I didn’t hold back but let myself go. I’ll protect her heart come what may.
As I fed on her tongue I let myself believe for the first time that this could be real, that I could really have this. Her tongue shyly played with mine only deepening the hole that I’d fallen into.
How could someone so soft, so innocently sweet be mine? If the others are right and this love shit was fate, then how could I deserve her?
I didn’t know but I no longer cared. I let myself fall into her, let myself believe that I could have her, for the rest of my life.
“We’ve got to stop baby.” My dick was too hard and I was just at the point of no return. Wrong fucking place and time.
“Just one more Devon please.” She kissed like someone who’d never done it before and her naivety just drew me in even more.
But the strange thing was, as much as I wanted her, I wanted to take my time with her. I want to show her all the ways I can love her.
The idea gave me such a rush. Days spent teaching her all about lovemaking, holding hands as we walked on the beach.
And when we get back home, my home, which she’d never seen, we’d spend all our nights together, wrapped in each other’s arms.
I was weaving dreams in my head like one of Tyler’s bitch made skells but didn’t care. From the very first time I saw her I knew need and want.
She was the first woman to ever make me want more with her and somehow I knew she would be the last.
The fact that she was willing to give herself to me only heightened my senses and I put all other thoughts out of my head as I gave myself over to the rising lust.
I heard footsteps coming and moaned into her mouth, hating to release her. Taking one last nibble of her soft lips I released my hold on her before taking a step back.
Please don’t look down baby. If she did she would see the python straining against the tab of my zipper to get at her and I was sure she wasn’t ready for that no matter what my sisters had put in her head.
Her lips were swollen and red and her eyes bright as she looked up at me. I didn’t turn to see who was standing there, but instead shielded her body from view. I didn’t want anyone else seeing her swollen nipples.
“We’ll be there in five Devon.” I looked over sharply at Mancini’s words. There was something in his voice and the slight shake of his head was all the answer I needed to know that something was up.
“Okay, come on baby let’s get you back inside.” I shielded her body with mine and led her back inside without letting on that there was anything wrong.
I sat her with the women who weren’t even subtle about the fact that they were about to stick their nose in my shit and moved across the room to join the guys.
“What is it?” I kept my voice low so it didn’t carry, but I could tell from the looks on my brothers’ faces that something was wrong.
“Khalil is on the move.” My head whipped around to her and my body went into fight and protect mode. “Where is he?”
“We don’t know. My people were lucky enough to catch his movements once he left his place in the hills. All we know for sure is that he’s not in the states as yet if this is even where he’s heading.”
“Oh he’s coming here alright, the sick fuck. If he comes anywhere near her…”
“He’s not Dev. Not in this fucking lifetime.” Quinn’s hand on my shoulder helped to calm me but not by much.
This shit can’t be happening. I wanted it over, but now that I’d made up my mind to keep her I wanted more time with her. Time to show her and me, what we could be together.
I want to take her out on the cliffs and sit with her doing nothing but holding hands and sharing a few kisses while we look at the sea. Take long walks on the beach; build more castles.
All the things that would make Ty’s ass rabid and send him into a frenzy because he thinks I’m getting soft like the others, bitch made as he puts it.
I could see us, she’s always smiling and happy and I’m never too far. I could see a baby, my baby in her arms, feeding.
I saw my body covering hers and my dick sprung into action from just that little glimpse of the future and my heart damn near beat me to death.
Oh shit, I’m in love with her.
Like really deeply forever and a day kinda shit. “I’m in love with her.”
“Uh yeah we know. Wipe the drool off your damn chin McClueless we got shit to do.”
“Fuck you Tyler. Did I just say that shit out loud?” The last was directed at Quinn who just grinned and nodded his head.
This little development had proven one thing to me at least. Whatever doubts and hang-ups I had before were now gone. No one else is going to have her, not ever. I’ll find a way to get around the king, but she’s mine.
48
Ariel
I know something’s coming I can feel it. I’ve had years of practice reading people. When you’ve been locked away from the world your whole life, you find interest in a lot of things people take for granted. Like how to use all your senses to read a situation.
It’s how I know that I can trust these men and women, even though I’ve never been exposed to this many people at once before in my life.
It’s like being dumped out of my familiar fishbowl and into the real world without gills. And though the fear threatens to overtake me at times, there’s one thing here that keeps me grounded. Devon.
I see in him a mixture of the two men in my life. My brother and my dad. There’s something gentle and kind in his eyes when he looks at me, but more than that, there’s something inside me that comes alive whenever he’s near.
My life has been a very sheltered one. I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve met in my whole life until now, that’s including my father, mother and brother.
As a very young child I was happy. I had all the things any little girl could ever wish for. Because I knew no other way, I found joy in the things dad brought to me.
My dad was my whole world. When he wasn’t working or off somewhere he spent most of his time with me teaching me. By the age of three or four I could read and so I got all my knowledge of the outside world from books before my first computer at twelve.
When my brother came along and I learned that it wasn’t normal for little girls to be shut away from the world it had broken my heart. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t do the things my brother was allowed to do.
Until a few days ago, my father would only tell me that it was for my own protection. All the secrecy, the seclusion. Having to travel in the dead of night when we moved between houses. Until that too became too dangerous.
I figured out for myself when I was very young that I was adopted. Not only because I look nothing like my family, but I just didn’t feel connected.
Don’t get me wrong it was nothing they did. In fact they went above and beyond to make my life as comfortable and happy as they could given the circumstances.
But there was always something missing. Except with my brother Track. From a very young age he’s been my little protector. He’s the first human being I loved unconditionally, until now.
He never understood, never accepted the way my life was. Until him, I didn’t know to question, because I knew no other way.
The story I told Devon earlier is just one of the many ways in which my little brother had tried to change my life.
While I stayed home all day getting my lessons through the computer, from disembodied voices of the men and women who taught me, he got to go off to school and meet people.
He’s the one who started bringing the outside world to me. My parents did their bit there too, but Track was the one who brought me video clips of real people, the kids he went to school with, his friends.
He let me into his life in the most invasive way, sharing everything he could with the sister he loved and did not resent for making his life the disaster it was.
I knew he’d lost out on a lot because of me, only because he refused to take part in anything that I couldn’t be a part of, which was pretty much everything.
By the time he was in high school and I was taking college level courses online, I had come to accept my life while living vicariously through him. But he never did.
He made the days less lonely and gave me hope that someday things will change. My dad for all his love was more reserved. His only interest was in spoiling me to make up for the fact that I couldn’t have a normal life.
My rooms were always the most beautiful, and the clothes I never got to wear anywhere were the latest in fashion. I know, because I got to choose them myself from the many magazines dad brought for me to choose from.
I knew from television and later the limited access I had to the Internet that normal people didn’t live this way.
By then I’d stopped asking dad about my real parents and this danger that he was protecting me from once I realized that it was stressing him.
Each time I’d bring it up he’d get this pained look on his face and age ten lifetimes. I knew whatever it was it must be pretty bad and as I grew older I learned to be content, somewhat.
Then Track met Valerie, the girl he ran home and gushed to me about. I saw love for the first time. Not the aged comfortable love of my parents, but love in its first blush.
I’ve read stories, I know all the mechanics of love and where it leads, but I had never seen that fire, that light that shone in my little brother’s eyes that day.
That night we talked and talked about his newfound love and when tears rolled down my cheeks, he’d wrapped his arms around me and sworn a solemn oath that he was going to get me out of there. That one day I too will find love.
He’d never come to terms with my situation and for some reason this new development seemed to galvanize him into action.
Dad had never told him any more than he’d told me, but unlike me, the docile obedient daughter, Track never took no for an answer.
From the time he was old enough, he kept pushing and prodding to get to the truth, but to no avail. And then something changed.
Track had always been good with computers, he even taught me how to do some of the stuff he did. It was fun, a new way to alleviate the boredom.
There was only one thing he refused to teach me until I nagged him. He was never able to refuse me anything and soon he was teaching me the secrets of hacking.
I found a new hobby after that and though we never did anything to harm others, it was fun figuring out the intricacies. I was pretty good at it in no time, but never as good as he.
Like everything else, I knew he was going to marry his teenage girlfriend before anyone else did. He’d told me about her being sick and her dad’s neglect. I knew he saw me in her and wanted to save her, and wondered if anyone would ever feel that way about me.
It was not long after that that he started disappearing only to return weeks later looking more and more morose. For the first time he didn’t share a part of his life with me.
Then a little over a month ago I noticed a new tension in the air at home. I spend so much time with my dad that I know his every mood, same with Track.
I’d walk into a room and they’d stop talking right away. Whenever we were in a room together the focus was always on me, but that’s nothing new, it’s always been that way.
But this time was different, this time I was afraid. It was the way they were acting, especially Track this last time he came home from one of his many absences of late.
Then dad sat me down and without telling me much more than I already knew, explained that things were coming to a head and soon I will have all the answers.
I was so afraid after he told me this. Afraid that I’d finally learn the truth and it would change my life. Suddenly I wanted my life to remain just the way it was.
I’d grown used to the way things were. It’s not like I never got to see the outside world. My family owns homes in other places around the world, and though I was kept hidden in all of them when we did visit, it was at least a change of scenery and I was allowed more freedom in some of them than at home.
My whole life has been lived through a computer. It’s where I was taught, where I did my shopping, where I learned social graces and all the things a young lady should kno
w according to dad.
I lacked for nothing in my life, except my freedom. Yet I didn’t feel like a prisoner, and there were times I thought my dad must love me very much to go to these lengths to keep me safe, even though I wasn’t his blood.
Now here I am and my life seems to have gone into overdrive in a matter of days. Dad hadn’t had time to prepare me for this, it seems things were out of his control. But he trusted these men that much was obvious.
Poor Track, the look on his face when I left. My poor baby brother, my guardian warrior. I remember the first time I held him, the unbridled feelings and emotions that enveloped me then and I knew that he was mine.
Now all these years later I have those same feelings again, but in a whole new way. It happened the first time I saw Devon.
As someone who relies on her senses to tell her what’s what, I knew from the first moment that he was mine too, I just didn’t quite understand how. Until now!
Now the fear isn’t as strong because of him. I like the others too. I’ve learned what sort of men they are through the women.
I also know they’re very secretive because their women know nothing of my situation. I shared what I could with them without putting myself in danger, but in the end I don’t know that much either.
They didn’t treat me like a freak the way I half expected, but instead drew me into their circle, like I was one of them, with one glaring difference. They each belonged to one of the men here, whereas I was…what am I?
It was them who got the truth of my feelings for Devon out in the open because it was just that easy to talk to them, what with all their prodding.
I tested out all the things I’d learned over the years on them and was never more excited than when I was able to come up with an answer for one of their issues, of which they seemed to have plenty and all surrounding their men.
They’re brave these women, brave and strong though I don’t think they know it. And it was hard to believe that they hadn’t always known each other.
SEAL Team Seven Books 6&7 Quinn and Devon Page 31