Gripping her hips firmly, he slowly entered her from behind. “Hold on. Tilt up, baby.”
After she tilted the perfect way with her ass closer to the ceiling, he was able to fully seat himself. He pulled out and slammed into her, causing her to squeal. Again, and again, in and out, he pummeled her slick folds with his hard cock, reveling in this woman’s body, how perfect she was for him. He held her hard and fucked her harder, his balls smacking between her legs with each hard thrust. His loud groans mixed with her higher pitched mewls, and the sounds of raw sex filled the room. Every few thrusts, he smacked her on the thigh or ass, wherever he could get his fingers to make contact. Loving every fucking moment of it. Smacks, slaps, groans, wet thrusts, the bed creaking, his heart beating a million miles, and she was the one who succumbed first.
Her gorgeous body tensed beneath him, and she sucked in a loud hissing breath, right before her pussy tightened its grip on his cock. She came hard and fast with a loud wail that led him into his own finish. When he came only a few seconds later, he saw stars. It was like his whole body went into overdrive as he surged into her as he came and came and came. Like he never had before. He thought it would never end, didn’t want the amazing moment to end; it was as close to heaven as he had ever felt. And when he finally shuddered out his last bellowing cry and pumped the last several hard times into her, he fell, exhausted, onto her.
Their bodies still entwined, he rolled them onto their sides and stroked the hair from her forehead as he kept her pinned tightly against his hot, sweaty body. He didn’t ever want to let this woman go. How could he have fallen in love with someone so quickly? It wasn’t just the amazing sex. It was everything about her. She could handle every part of him. He held her tightly against his chest, and caught his breath, loving the smell of her sex permeating his nostrils. She was hot and wet and still shivering a bit from her own climax, so he pulled the blanket up. It didn’t quite make it past her hips. Damn. He was torn between the desire to see to his woman’s needs, warm her, clean her freshly spent body and feed her, and his desire to not let her go. Clingy much, asshole? Okay. With a soft groan, he got her out from the tangle of his arms and legs, pulled the other side of the blanket over her, and kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll be right back. You stay put.”
She nodded and smiled, curling up into the blanket as he left. He discarded his condom, cleaned up as quickly as possible, and got a hot, wet washcloth ready for his Cherry. Yeah, she was his now. His best friend was going to kill him, and he’d probably deserve it. But you couldn’t force yourself not to love someone, right? So he’d let Chance kick his ass. Then he would marry the woman of his dreams. He wasn’t letting her go. He strode back into the bedroom, excited at the prospect of caring for his woman, kissing her—on the lips this time, and then taking her back down to her bakery. Maybe he’d even let her boss him around again for a bit, so he could spank her again. They both seemed to enjoy that.
When he got back into the bedroom, the bed was made. And empty. Where was she?
He narrowed his gaze on the small sheet of paper on the bedside table.
Saw your text from Chance. Headed back down to make a cranberry pie. Sorry. I need to process. Please give me some space.
Picking up his cell phone, he cringed when he saw the already viewed message.
Any luck finding out about the stalker? Keep up the cover, and stay longer if need to.
Shit. Cherry probably thought he was using her for a quick roll in the hay. And now, even worse, she thought he was a liar. It’d kill him to wait, but he’d give her some time to cool off. Then he would fix things. By any means necessary.
He grabbed his truck keys and went for a drive. His point of contact had called with the results about the wine. At least it would give him something productive to do for a few hours instead of pacing back and forth waiting for Cherry to calm down enough to listen to him.
Cherry kneaded her hands through the dough for the latest recipe she was trying. The deep red of the smashed cranberries reminded her of blood, and her anger toward Jacob. She grabbed a piece of dough and made it into a ball before slamming it down on the counter. Baking was the perfect way for her to work out her frustrations. She’d loved being spanked by her strong soldier man. What the heck was wrong with her? She yanked some more dough out of the ball and pummeled it into submission. Submission? Gah! She couldn’t even work in her beloved kitchen without her embarrassingly kinky thoughts coming to rise. Dough rises—just like Jacob’s thick cock. She furrowed her brow and growled at the broken pieces of dough lattice in front of her.
Great, now they were both vying for her attention. Bake or kinky thoughts? This never would have happened if she hadn’t brought up the whole spanking thing to her ex. She pounded and rolled out her dough again. No, that was a disaster in the making without her wanting her butt to be red. It was her stupid brother’s fault! If Chance hadn’t overreacted and had his buddy come into town—to freaking protect her from nothing—she wouldn’t have done that whole drugged, Please spank me, soldier boy routine.
She wiped her hands a little too forcefully on her apron, and ripped the neck ties loose, causing it to fall and bunch around her waist. Then she sat down on the floor with a tired groan, and leaned her back against the island.
It wasn’t about the hot spankings or the amazing sex—make that the best sex ever in her life. It was her. She was falling for a hunky, sexy, muscular soldier who made her feel like a goddess and a sex-crazed maniac at the same time. One who she actually had enjoyed calling Daddy while they were playing that kinky game. And that would all be well and good if she was, well, anyone but her. Cherry Donovan, bakery owner, independent woman and tech-ditz.
Number one, a man like Jacob would never want more than a booty call from a woman like her. Number two, um, her booty? Yeah, maybe make that two and three since it was so large. Number four, Jacob and Chance were soldiers. She’d never see him again. And even if he was falling in lust with her right now, a few rotations with hard-muscled warrior chicks who loved taking orders would surely get her out of Jacob’s mind. And your name isn’t Shirley.
She groaned. Her mind wouldn’t stop with the lame jokes long enough to let her have a poor Cherry party. Okay, where was she? Number five. She looked up at her bowl of prep goods for her next project. Oil and water. They didn’t belong together. If you put them into a bowl, they would just separate. She was the water to Jacob’s oil. They didn’t belong together. He was amazing, and she was just plain her. With a heavy sigh, she lifted herself back up. She had to finish this pie before 5:00 pm. Maybe some heavy duty baking would take her mind off number six. She was already hopelessly and utterly head over heels in love with Jacob. The man she had flung herself at, practically begging him to have sex with her. How many times had he held off? No wonder. He was just there as a secret mission for her brother.
Her phone starting playing that dreadful Boom song. “Hey.” She put as much energy into sounding as happy as she could, so her brother wouldn’t get worried. Chance could always tell, and the last thing she needed was an interrogation about her love life. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just whipping up a cranberry pie and a batch of snickerdoodles.” She cringed at her use of the term. What would it be like for Jacob to use his belt to whip her bare bottom? Trying to clear her head, she retreated into the office and closed her eyes while leaning against the door.
Chance barked out questions like some sort of drill sergeant. And she dutifully answered each one. No, Jacob wasn’t there at the moment. No more weird packages or phone calls, well, except for the dead roses, but she wasn’t telling Jacob about them. Yes, she was baking a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting when Chance got back into town next month. Yes, she was getting enough sleep. No, she was not upset. Yes, she was falling for a man who was completely out of her league.
The line went silent.
Oh my God, did she say that last part out loud?
“You’re what?” Chance’s voice was low a
nd deadly calm.
Okay, she had said that out loud. She gulped and locked her little office door when she heard the footsteps in the kitchen and the sound of her favorite stool being moved along the floor. She didn’t want to talk to Jacob or even see him right now, so she closed her eyes. An added layer of protection from him. Not so much from her increasingly irate, older brother.
“Did he hit on you?”
She stifled the inappropriate giggle. Not necessarily on her. But he had hit and whacked her bottom until she had orgasmed. She prayed she hadn’t said that out loud too. Since Chance was still on the line and not blowing up her phone through some telekinetic explosion of tempers, she felt safe that this time her inner monologue had actually worked.
“It’s nothing, I just—”
“You just what?”
“I love him, and I know I’m not supposed to. And he’ll leave and find a fit woman who likes being told what to do and knows how to diffuse bombs or at the very least how to program a cell phone with a funny song, and then I’ll just gain twenty more pounds and be alone with my plants that keep dying. And I’ll never have someone who likes what I like.” Oops! Inner Monologue had left the building.
Chance’s loud chuckle surprised her. “Jacob isn’t a small guy. He wants someone he can hold onto without worrying about hurting them. Holy shit, I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. I’ll talk to him, and see what his intentions are with you.”
“No!” Her shriek echoed through the whole bakery. “This is not the eighteenth century. I do not need my brother asking my, um, my,” she swallowed, “the man I slept with, if he wants my hand in marriage. And you do not need a sheep or any cattle, so you’re not giving away my nonexistent dowry.” She calmed her breathing. “What we had was, magical and beautiful and amazing, and I’ll never forget it. But I know he doesn’t want anything more from me. We’re like oil and water. So just let it go. Okay?”
Chance sighed. “Okay, I’ll let it go. You’re a big girl.”
She winced.
“I didn’t mean it like that, and you know it, peanut.”
“Yeah.”
“If you don’t want me to talk to him, I won’t. I would prefer to forget this whole conversation happened.”
“Yeah, just let it go. I’m not his type.”
“All right.” Chance’s disappointed sigh came over the line. “But for the record, I think you two could have been perfect together. You’re my two favorite people in the world, and I would have loved it if you had fallen in love.”
It didn’t sound too bad to her either.
“I’m still going to have to kill him.”
“What?” She could hear him wincing at the shrill pitch of her shout. “You wouldn’t really kill him, would you?”
After a moment, he came back on, and she could hear him grinning. “Nah. He’s my best friend, and the leader of my unit. But I’ll make him wish he was dead for a few days. Or months.”
Well, she was used to that from her brother. “Could you just let it go? It’s my fault anyway. I kind of pressed an issue.”
“No, kiddo, it’s my fault. I’ll keep that in mind when I start pummeling him. Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah. I’ll be fine. I can’t wait to see you next month. Love you.”
He told her he loved her too, and reminded her again to be safe and lock all the doors, especially if Jacob wasn’t around to look out for her.
“It’s okay, thanks. I heard him in the kitchen a few minutes ago.” She shrugged, knowing she’d have to go out and confront him sooner or later. She couldn’t hide in here all day.
After one last promise to lock all the doors, she hung up and went back into the kitchen. She needed to finish the lattice for the cranberry pie, get it into the oven, and figure out what to say to Jacob. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Her ex, Brandon, stood in front of the door, brandishing a quite large, very scary knife with a crazy grin on his face. She pressed the small, red circle on her cell phone discreetly before setting it on the counter.
“Sit on the stool, bitch,” he said, waving the knife at her.
He tied her left wrist loosely to the drawer on the island, and then started pacing with his huge, wicked knife. Why did she push Jacob away? She should have just talked to him. Told him how angry and hurt she was. How used she felt. And how much it scared her that she loved him, and he didn’t think of her as anything more than a mission. Yeah, that’s what she’d say to him. When he got back. And he was coming back to save her. She knew that with every fiber of her being.
Jacob would come, and as much as she hated to think it, she wasn’t quite able to protect herself this time.
Dang it. “I hate it when Chance is right.”
“What?” Brandon asked.
“Nothing.”
Chapter 7
Jacob turned back onto Main Street after his third circle around the city, still agonizing over what to do about Cherry. He couldn’t force her to forgive him. If she needed time to figure out what she really wanted, he would give it to her. But the thought of her luscious lips kissing another man brought a growl from his throat. Her amazing curves and emotion filled eyes, hilarious wit, open to another man’s loving? His grip threatened to pull the steering wheel out of its base. Damn, he had screwed up. He should have told her why he was there as soon as he’d had an opportunity. Definitely before having sex with her.
He would kill any other man who dared try to take her as his own. No one deserved her. Not even him. He had fallen in love their first morning together, when she had fallen to pieces on his lap, and then in a display of strength, awesome enough to fill the boots of any of his soldiers in his squad, had shaken it off and moved on. And the way she had stood up to him about the sleeping arrangements. She had also talked him into opening up a bit more with his doctor and accepting the help the man offered instead of trying to force his way past all of it. She was so perfect for him. He also loved the way they connected over old movies. Cherry was the woman for him, and he was the man for her. He just had to get her to see it too.
He grabbed his cell phone when it rang. Shit. Things were about to get a bit more complicated. It was Chance.
“I love her, man,” he growled into the phone, not giving his best friend a chance to speak. “And there’s not a fucking thing you can do about it. I’ll give you the first three punches when I get back to base, but after that, you stand down.”
Chance laughed into the receiver. “It’s about fucking time, and I’ll only take one. So did you talk to her yet?”
“No. I’m still giving her some space. She bolted down to her kitchen this morning, and I’ve been driving around like an idiot. I just got the results back from a test I had done the morning after I arrived. Someone put Rohypnol in her wine bottle. Luckily, I was there that night. The only prints on the bottle besides hers, were her asshole ex-boyfriend, Brandon Mason. And I just got back the results from a few of the letters and boxes she received. All had his fingerprints. I already called the state police. I’m not trusting the knuckleheads in this town. They’re meeting us at the bakery soon. And as soon as they are gone, I’m taking her out of town for a few days. I don’t like where this is leading.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, I don’t know how he got into her apartment, though. Did she ever give him a key?”
“No, but she mentioned losing them for a while last week. Did she also tell you about the dead roses and the note?”
“No, dammit.”
“Wait. You haven’t been back since this morning?” Chance’s voice took on a more urgent pitch.
“I told you I was giving her a few hours to settle before I spooked her again.”
“Someone’s in the kitchen with her.”
“What?”
“We were talking a few minutes ago, and she said that you had just come into the kitchen. She was hiding out from you in her office, and heard someone come in. I’ve got a real
ly bad feeling about this.”
“Fuck!” Jacob turned the truck down the first side street he saw and turned around, racing for her little bakery on the other end of Main. “I’m two minutes out. I’ll call you back.”
“J.” Chance’s voice was low and calm, much calmer than the panic he felt at the moment about his sister being in danger. “Ground yourself, Sergeant. I know how angry you are still about losing two men, but you forgot something huge.”
“What?” Now wasn’t the time. He pressed down the accelerator and willed the truck to go faster.
“You saved the rest of our squad and the ten hostages in that infirmary. You did what you had to do. Now get a grip on your emotions, and take charge of the situation. Don’t let it cloud you. She’s going to be okay,” Chance said.
She had to be. He nodded, then gave Chance a quick affirmative, before hanging up. He parked his truck on the side lot and took a deep breath to center his energy. His woman could be in danger right now, so he wasn’t going to go in guns blazing. He was going to do what he was trained to do. Assess the situation, then take control and diffuse the matter. He would do this by the book and would not chance hurting Cherry in the process.
He heard the voice of another male and was relieved to hear her higher-pitched murmurs. He entered quietly through the back door and propped it open with the brick she used on delivery days. The damn door always clunked when it hit the door frame, and he didn’t want to alert them to his presence. He would get in place and use only the minimal amount of force necessary to take down this threat, but if it came down to it in the end, Jacob would kill the other man if he had to. Anything to protect the woman he loved. Cherry sat perched on top of her bar chair while the greasy-haired, gaunt-looking man paced back and forth in front of her, his hunting knife glowing in the sunlight. Shit. Why wasn’t she leaving her spot? Jacob needed to get the weapon away from the man and figure out what was holding her still. He made eye-contact with her through the doorway, and she gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Hero Undercover: 25 Breathtaking Bad Boys Page 14