by April Zyon
“That’s my plan.” Megan kissed Levi’s cheek and breathed in the sweet scents that were all baby. All innocence. “For now I think that we should spread a blanket onto the floor and see if we can help Levi with his crawling. From what I last heard, he was crawling backwards but hasn’t gotten the hang of going forward yet.”
“Hey, movement is movement,” Simon told her. Laughing, he waved her toward the living room. “I’m sure Brant will find us in here. Did you want the throw, or the comforter Mercy keeps in here for his impromptu naps?”
“The throw. That way we will be able to wrap him in the comforter when he falls asleep and we won’t have to try to unwrap him from it later.” She walked toward the living room where they would have lots of space for the baby to move around.
“Copy that,” he said. Setting her water on the coffee table after moving it a little, he grabbed the throw, and shaking it out, he laid it on the ground. “After you,” he said, waving her to sit down.
Megan got down onto the floor with Levi and put him onto his belly. She giggled when the boy immediately began to crawl. Backwards.
Chapter Four
After Brant had come into the living room, and assured her that he’d gotten protection for Elizabeth, they’d discussed what to do about the mayor and his cronies. Brant was going to pull in a few others to help keep an eye on the mayor, and to cover more of the bases. He was worried about the “shipments,” and the fact this was the first they were learning of them.
The net would begin to tighten around Massey. They had to figure out who all the players were, what their parts were, and where the women were being shipped to before distribution. All of it was required to ensure the players got the longest jail sentences possible when the shit hit the fan and it all went to trial.
Once they’d come up with a loose plan that would need refinement once Brant knew what resources they could pull in, she and Simon had left. They’d headed for her family’s farm, and the day was starting to catch up to her again now that the adrenaline rush from remembering a key piece of information was wearing off.
“Come on, sleepy. Let’s get you inside, showered, and then I will treat you to something very few have experienced. You can even wear pajamas if you’re so inclined, though I’d prefer to have you actually naked,” he told her when they entered the house.
“So what is it that you do that so few have experienced? And naked would be good. I would be even happier if you were naked with me. Just so you know,” she teased him with a grin. “And I look forward to whatever it is. Even more than that, I look forward to being able to sleep.”
“It will definitely help you to sleep,” he said. Giving her a nudge toward the stairs, he shut and locked the main door behind them. “First things first, you need a shower so you do not smell like forty different people and their various perfumes and colognes. Then I will share with you the experience.”
“I couldn’t agree more. I also want to wash off the feeling of those assholes that touched me tonight as well.” She started toward her bedroom and looked over her shoulder at him. “Come on. If you want, you can join me, or you can get the bedroom ready while I take a quick shower.”
“You go ahead. I do need to do a couple of things. I’ll be right up, but you jump in the shower. When you come out, wrap yourself up in a towel only, and flop down on the bed face down. Get comfy, and ditch the towel.”
“Sounds good to me. Oh God, please tell me that you are going to give me a massage.” She stated rather than asked. “Because I could so use one right now. Really would love one.” Simon smiled at her, and blinked with a wide-eyed expression. “Go, you will see soon enough,” he told her. He then shooed her off, and turned toward her kitchen with his duffel bag still in hand. “You’d better not still be standing there when I get back.”
“I won’t be.” She watched him another moment and added, “But I had to watch your ass. Seriously, you are spectacular when walking away, but I hope that you aren’t walking away from me often.”
“Only with the promise of walking right back toward you,” he called out. “I think you might enjoy the view from the front even more. I also don’t hear the sound of water running in the shower. Move it, woman,” he said.
Megan was laughing, she couldn’t help herself. God, she adored Simon already. She waited another moment and then walked away. Once she was in the bathroom, she pulled off her clothes, tossed them into her laundry basket, and stepped into the shower with the water as hot as she could get it.
When she came out of the shower, she noticed the lights in the bedroom were lower than when she’d come into the bathroom. In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, it looked like it was candle light.
Megan was wrapped in just a towel. She went to the bed and lay down on the center of it just as she had been told to do. She pulled the towel off, laid her head on her hands, and closed her eyes. “Come on, Si,” she called out to him, grinning as she did so. “I’m all nice and naked and waiting on the bed for you, mister.”
“Damn, woman, now that’s a pair of legs a man would kill to have wrapped around his waist.” He let out a wolf whistle moments before she felt the bed dip. “You were right about something, though. You are getting a massage. You don’t have any issues with oils, unscented, I should mention, do you?”
“As long as they are unscented, I’m good. I have issue with ones with any sort of fragrance.” She turned so she could look at him and grinned. “You don’t have to kill to have my legs wrapped around you, Si. All you have to do is get naked with me.” She had called him Si from the first moment she met him. Not because of his name being Simon, but because, honestly, every time she looked at him, she sighed.
“I’ll get undressed once I’ve given you the massage. It’s easier if I have clothing on while doing this. There was an incident once, it’s best not to discuss it. Get comfortable,” he said. She watched as he lifted a towel and unwrapped a glass bottle, which he carefully pulled the stopper from. He drizzled a little on her back, and she took note that it was quite warm, not hot, but definitely above room temperature.
Megan shivered and closed her eyes. “Oh God, that feels good.” When he began to rub his hands over her back, she felt her whole body relaxing. A low moan escaped her lips as she practically melted under his ministrations.
Slowly, he spread the oil out over her skin, adding a little more. Then he seemed to get serious, and using his thumbs, he worked up the sides of her spine to her shoulders. When he got up there, he worked out all the kinks, aches, and tension slowly. He worked deep into her muscles, yet kept his touch quite gentle.
“Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph you are talented.” Oh, he was more than talented. He was perfect, and his hands… Holy shit, his hands were incredible. “More.” She shivered. “I think you should go just a bit lower because I have this place on my lower back that is in serious need of your hands.”
He chuckled, a deep and rich sound that rolled over her senses. “Patience. I need to work all your tension down until it’s trapped in one place where I can then slide it out of your body for good. I’ll work my way down in a bit. For now, relax and focus on your breathing.”
“Good point.” She would let him work his magic on her. “You are the master, so I will let you do what you do and make me feel better. So far, I have to say, I feel a hundred times better than I have in years.”
“That’s the idea, Megan. To help prove you’ve been missing so much by avoiding me these last months. Contemplate this while you enjoy. I could have been doing this each and every night for you. Among other enjoyable endeavors, of course.”
“This is true. I wish that I would have not avoided you all that time as well. It was hard. Very hard to avoid you. All I wanted to do was run to you instead of run from you. I wish now that I would have listened to my inner voice.”
“Not sure I want to know why you were avoiding me,” he said quietly. He was starting to work down her arms one at a time. “Will you tell me
anyway? Why you didn’t listen to your gut, and ran away from me any time I came around?”
“Because you could have had me breaking my cover. You could have had me wishing for things that I couldn’t have. Not for a long time at least,” she admitted with her eyes still closed. “The second that I met you, I wanted you. The second that I heard your voice, you did something to me inside. So, I ran from you as fast as I could.”
“Hmm.” He set the hand he’d finished down, and picked up the other to massage her palm and each of her fingers. “Well, I’m glad you’ve finally decided to stop running from me. It was becoming quite exhausting, and I was about to resort to less than honorable methods to gain your attention.”
“I think that we both need to thank Brant for sending you to watch over me.” Her eyes were still closed and she moaned when he finally hit her lower back after a time. “There.” She gasped when he hit the knot that was hurting her so much. “So good.”
“Damn, woman, what the fuck have you been doing to get a knot this big?” he asked. More oil slid onto her skin, then he began to spread it around and worked it in. Putting some pressure on the knot, he held the spot, and using his other hand, worked around the area until she started to loosen up. “That’s better,” he muttered. He kept working the area until the knot was truly good and gone.
“It’s the damn dancing,” she grumbled. “I seriously hate that freaking pole. I do not understand how women do this for years and years without complaint. I have been doing it for several years and I hate it.” Then again, she had never wanted to be one anyway. “With having you in my life now, though, I might have to do it more just to be able to have this sort of treatment.”
“Babe, you don’t have to keep abusing your body to get a massage. All you have to do is ask,” he said. “I’m all for every opportunity to get my hands on your sexy body. You have very lovely skin.” His hands were on her ass now, massaging out the muscles there, and kinks she hadn’t even realized she had.
“Oh sweet heavens.” Megan wanted to lift her ass and push toward his hands, but she kept from doing that. “I didn’t know that having someone rub my ass like that would feel so good.” And get her so wet. She felt her pussy wetting just for Simon, damn the man. “I’m thinking you should get naked with me, Si,” she said when she finally opened her eyes.
“Not until I’m done with your legs and feet,” he said. He was grinning, and he shot her a heated look. He was apparently as affected as she was by the massage. Slowly, he moved his hands down to start on her thighs, more oil dripping onto her skin before he continued down. “How are you feeling? Looser, I hope.”
“Yes, looser and horny,” she grumbled, and watched him as he moved his hands over her body. “I’ve been running for far too long. I want to have you. I need to have you. I can’t wait to have you showing me just how good it would be between us.”
“It’s going to be explosive,” he said. “That much you can believe in. Whether we’ll be able to survive it and still walk straight is an entirely different matter. You don’t mind walking around like you got off a very long ride, do you?”
“I’m good with it as long as I have a smile on my face, and you do as well. I think that being able to have you looking at me with that hot look would be good too.” He wasn’t kidding, it was going to be spectacular between them. She just knew it.
Lifting one foot, he began to work the arch slowly. “Oh, you’ll definitely have a smile on your face.” He seemed completely sincere, not bragging in any way, just saying how it would be and nothing more. “I might work up a grin or two. Depends on how much I want to have to tell everyone I know.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t share my men and I don’t share what we have in our private quarters either. I think that we will be able to leave that between us. If you are good with that. Whatever we explore together, I would like to have between just us, please.”
“I’m all for keeping what we do together between us. Especially if you get rid of the plural in your damn vocabulary. It should be singular, woman—one man—and only one will be sharing your bed for a damn long fucking time. Unless of course there’s even more you haven’t told me yet.” Gently setting her one leg down, he picked up her other foot and got to work on it.
“Nope.” She did feel a little melty inside, though. “I only want one man in my bed.” For the rest of forever. Damn, that was so not like her, but with him, that’s how she felt. “One man, one woman, that’s what I want. I want to have that for the rest of time. One particular man in question.” Holy shit, she didn’t know when she’d gone from ignoring him to thinking of him as her forever man, but she had.
“Anyone I might know who’s caught your eye?” he asked. He was working her toes, giving each their own little massage. When he was done, he set her foot back on the bed and smoothed his hands up and down her legs a few times. “All done, feeling better?”
“I’m feeling wonderful. I really think that you should kiss me, though.” She turned so that she was on her side looking up at him. “And yeah, there is someone that you might know who’s caught my eye. He gives the most spectacular massages too.”
“Oh really?” he asked. Giving a laugh, he slid off the bed, wiping his hands on the towel. He put the oil on her dresser, on top of a towel, she noted, and then tugged his shirt off over his head. Crouching down, he went to work on his boots, straightening to kick them off. Then he bent over, pushing his jeans off, and remained bent over as he removed his socks.
She had her head propped on her hand and watched him. “What inspired the tattoos?” Come on, stand up, she thought to herself. She wanted to see every inch of his cafe mocha-colored skin. She wanted to see if he was as impressive visually as he had felt.
Straightening, he folded up his jeans and tossed them onto the chair. In the midst of it all, she got her first full on look at him. “They’re mostly images I liked, phrases that seemed to mirror a moment in my life, and other things that really made sense. So I had them put on in a design that worked. I’d had the Corps portion already on my arm, pretty much from the time I got through basic, if I remember right. Then I started to gather other little bits and pieces. Eventually, I went to an artist in LA when I was Stateside on one of my leaves and had the work done in bits and pieces. I couldn’t have it all done at once, otherwise I’d have ended up stuck on medical leave, and likely on a desk. It’s a tricky thing when you know what you’re returning to. You have to be careful of what you might end up exposing yourself to. But each time I came back Stateside, I’d head out to LA and get a bit more done until it was finished.” He rejoined her on the bed, flopping onto his side so the arm with the tattoos was up where she could get a good look at the piece.
“Damn, you look even better than I had imagined,” she whispered honestly, moving in closer to him so that she could put her hands on him. She leaned up, brushed her lips over his tattoos, and smiled. “I like your ink. A lot. I have tattoos as well, but nothing as nice as yours.” Hers were hidden, a note behind her ear, a couple other small ones on her hip.
“I noticed that,” he said. “They are quite lovely, though, dainty too. Very fitting for you and who you are.” He lifted a hand and brushed his fingers up behind her ear to land right on the spot where the one rested.
She shivered at his touch, her lower lip held by her teeth as she watched him. “I could become addicted to your touch, Si,” she admitted, and stroked her fingers over his full lower lip, down his jaw, and back to his tattoos. She didn’t dare touch lower, not when all she wanted to do was cup him, stroke him, hold him, and give him pleasure before she joined him.
“Good,” he told her. “I want you to be addicted to me like I’m addicted to you. Hell, I was addicted to you before the first touch. Your scent got me, pulled me in, and made me want even more. I’ve actually been plotting various ways to get you to notice me, and to give me a half a chance.”
Megan laughed. “Oh God. You are too funny.” She had been hooked on hi
m from the moment she met him. That was why she had run fast and hard from him, because all she had wanted to do was run to him and that scared the shit out of her. “Honestly, Simon, I’ve wanted to be near you since I met you. That’s why I ran. That’s why I tried to stay away from you because you could make me change everything. You could make me forget that I had a job to do.” And that was scary. “So, yeah. But no more running. For either of us, right?”
“Damn straight you’re not running anymore,” he said. “You do, and I will hunt your ass down, drag you back, and tie you up until you understand you’re stuck with me. We clear?” he asked, tapping the end of her nose lightly.
“Can you tie me down anyway?” she asked with a grin, and let her fingers move up and down his chest. “So, what happens now?”
“I’ll tie you down any time you want,” he said softly. Leaning in, he pressed his lips to hers, drawing her into a slow, deep kiss. He pressed her back to the bed, some of his weight holding her down while he squeezed her hip. “Now we do whatever you’d like,” he said against her mouth.
“I would really like to make love with you, Simon. I would love to feel your body moving against mine, to know just how good we would work together. Please.”
“I do love a woman that knows her mind,” he told her. “Let me grab a condom or two, and then we will work on relaxing you even more. You do need to get some sleep tonight, sweetheart,” he said.
“Oh, I will sleep later,” she assured him. “And yes, two condoms would be even better because I’m in a deep need for you.” As he rolled out of the bed, she propped her head on her hand and watched him. “Goodness, you are seriously hot, by the way.”