“How does someone like me get you and Leo? Even one of you even for one night, that would be more than I have any right to expect.”
“You have every right. Do I need to show you?” I said, torn between passion and anger that she’d been taught she didn’t get to have love or devotion in her life.
“Show me, please,” she whispered into my neck, her voice small and lost.
I moved back from her long enough to peel off my shirt just to get her skin-to-skin with me. She took off her tank top, pressed her chest to mine, her soft stomach against mine, her hard nipples rubbing sensuously against my chest. They were almost sharp, and I wanted to devour one, but she needed reassurance, comfort, a romantic kiss, not my greedy mouth on her gorgeous little tits.
I ran my hands up her sides, stroking the curve under her breasts with my thumbs. I dipped my face to hers and our lips met. The soft sweetness, the tender cling of her lips ran through me like fire. It was so delicate, so restrained that it drove me wild. It was all I could do to keep kissing her like that, to touch my tongue to hers and slide my hands up her naked back like a man making love and not a starving man at a feast.
She moved against me rhythmically, the same way my tongue was stroking the roof of her mouth, soft and sinuous, like the sexiest dance. I loved the wet strands of her hair brushing my fingers as my hands gripped her back, loved the way her hands were on my face, as if she couldn’t bear the thought of my moving away from her mouth.
“I want you bare,” I said. “Nothing between us. I’ve never had a woman that way, and I want it to be you. I want you to feel how deep I am inside you skin on skin.”
“Yes,” she said into my mouth, almost a whimper. “I can’t stand it, Rafe. I need that.”
Lexi was trembling under my hands. If I moved away from her, I knew she’d collapse onto the mattress because the only thing holding her up was me. I cupped her head in my palm and wrapped my other arm around her waist, taking her down, lowering her onto the bed. She was spread bare for me, and I wanted her every way imaginable in that moment. I could see her sex, plump and glistening with wetness between her creamy thighs, her curls damp from the flood of moisture her arousal had let loose. I wanted to lick it all up, wanted to curl my fingers inside her until she creamed all over my hand. I wanted to flip her over and fuck her face down on the bed and make her sob with pleasure as I filled her with my aching cock. I wanted to sit her in my lap and pump her up and down on my dick until she fell apart and admitted that my dick was the best she’d ever had. No matter what I said about not being jealous of Leo, in the heat of the moment, I wanted to make her all mine. Taking her bare would be a mark on her sure as a tattoo, and he might make her come but she’d never be his, some primal caveman voice in my brain insisted.
Most of all, I was proud that I was the first man to love her. I knew Leo was falling for her, that he’d say it, too, and she’d love him soon if she didn’t already. Now this was just the two of us. If I felt more possessive toward Lexi than I ever had in my life, I had a chance to show her that.
She didn’t just lie there like some centerfold, like a doll I had posed so I could look at her. Lexi sat up, kissed my cheek and my lips, leaned her forehead against mine. It made me shake all over, just her hand so tender on my face, her thumb stroking the corner of my mouth.
“I’m cold,” she said softly, “please.”
I could’ve pulled a blanket over her. I could have done that, but I knew what she meant, the kind of cold that loneliness makes you, the kind where you feel like you’ll never get warm again. So I took her in my arms and lay down beside her, our legs tangling up together in a way that was somehow sweet and hot at the same time.
“I want you to be ready. I won’t rush you,” I told her. I needed her to know she was safe with me, that I’d always keep her safe, even if it meant protecting her from the wild lust coursing through me.
“I know,” she said. “But I think I’m ready. Didn’t I feel ready to you?”
I kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her chin. “God, yes. But you’re too much. There’s no way a woman can be that wet after so little.”
“You kissing me and touching me isn’t so little. It’s amazing. Do you realize how it feels when you just stroke my neck like that? It’s crazy, but I feel it all the way down my body, see,” she trailed her fingers lightly down the side of my neck and my cock clenched and jerked in response. She smiled wickedly at me.
I tried to unbutton my jeans, but hand to God, I was shaking too hard. She pushed my fingers aside and unfastened the pants herself, pushed them down. We were naked together on the bed. I felt the strangest mix of thrilled and terrified. This was Lexi. This mattered. If this ended up being a mistake, I was risking someone precious to me. If it was as good as I thought it would be, neither of us would live through it. I actually wondered if I could survive making love to Lexi after wanting her so fiercely. I’d never been this aroused, this painfully hard before. I worried that I would be too much for her, that no matter how she tried, she’d never be able to stretch to accommodate me. I’d had girls before panic when they saw it, freak out and say it would never fit. I wanted to get Lexi as wet as possible. I didn’t want to hurt her. I wouldn’t risk that.
I kneaded her ass, her back as I kissed her neck. I tried to slide my hand to her breast, to flick that tiny, diamond hard nipple, but she caught my hand.
“Rafe, please. I’m gonna go crazy if you don’t give it to me already. Stop playing around. I need you.”
“I want to make sure,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“If you’re hurting me, I’ll tell you,” she said, sounding exasperated. I kissed her chin and her bottom lip.
“Don’t be scared, I’m right here,” I told her.
“I think I should be saying that to you. Trust me, Rafe. I want you. If going bare makes you nervous, you don’t have to.”
“It’s not that. I’m having trouble holding it together here. I don’t want to take you too roughly.”
“Come here,” she said, “you’re always saying that to me, and I always listen. Even when I’m sure I don’t deserve it, I believe you. So come here, Rafe, come here and let me feel you inside me.”
I stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. Then I shoved my boxers down and ran the slick head of my cock between her thighs. I just moved around, tracing her slit and her folds, bumping the tender head of my dick against her clit. She shuddered, her mouth dropped open, her hand trying to cover mine, trying to grip my cock. I shook my head, “Let me,” I said.
She held my shoulders, her body still and yielding as I pressed in, just at the rim of her sex. The head of my cock flared with the contact, at the feel of her damp, hot pussy consuming it.
“Talk to me,” she whispered, gathering me close. I teased her, every fold, every curve, every sensitive spot, I found. I was jerking hard, unable to hold back. I thrust into her about halfway. She was so tight, so small around me that I stopped, dragging in a breath.
“More,” she whispered.
“What?’
“I want more of you. All of you,” she said. “Rafe, you’re my man. The one who saved me. Don’t hold back now.”
Her words released me from the tight hold I’d had on myself. I plunged into her, going balls-deep, filling her to the hilt. She cried out ‘yes’ again and again, her arms around me. I had her pressed on her back into the mattress, her legs around me, her arms holding me tightly against her.
It was all I could do to pull out of her again. I would’ve stayed there forever, her tight seam so inviting, so perfect around me. She was wet, easing the way, and it was so incredibly hot to be inside of her without a condom. I was afraid for a minute that I’d romanticized it, or that she wouldn’t be willing to take it at the last second. But she had been. I was seated deep inside of her, no regrets, no tears, A dance of her hips, a shift. I lifted her hips by one hand on her ass and thrust in and out again. That time, she keened. She gave a high s
hrill sound as I pumped rhythmically into her yielding body. The sounds she made were invoking heaven, not thanking him for sending her a man like me but begging like she was coming apart. Then she did. She clenched hard around me, her inner muscles seeming to strangle me as she clamped down on my cock. I spilled out into her then, hard pulses of thick fluid shooting into her body. I cradled her and kissed her then, my mouth in her hair. She wrapped her arms around my back and kissed me.
“Thank God,” she said. “You have me. I couldn’t have lived another day, not with just hugging and kissing you, not having you completely.”
“I’ve needed you like this for so long,” I said, feeling the closeness, the intimacy that she gave me.
“It was perfect,” she murmured.
“Was it the same as with Leo?” I asked, even though the answer could kill me. “It’s not even that I want a five-star review. I just want to know you’re taken care of always.”
“I know I am, Rafe. And no, it was nothing like Leo. We were intimate in a different way, kind of a sultry and affectionate way, but he’s not like you. You’re different. I don’t want you comparing yourselves or stressing out over who did what with me. Otherwise this isn’t going to work.”
“Then we’ll do what it takes to make it work because I know neither of us is willing to let you go.”
“Come here,” she said to me again. I shook my head and let her hands play in my hair, let her gather me to her. She was asleep in five minutes. I turned her over and spooned up behind her. She felt amazing in my arms, like her body was the thing I’d been missing every time I slept.
10
Leo
I wasn’t surprised when I got home to find Rafe and Lexi giggling over breakfast in the kitchen. They leaned their heads together as Rafe kissed her cheek and fed her a bite of pancakes. I wasn’t jealous. I just felt left out perhaps. I came up and rubbed her shoulders. She turned around, happy to see me and hugged me.
“I missed you,” she said. “How was your shift?”
“Eh, we only went out on one call. I slept most of the night. How was your evening?”
She smiled, looked at Rafe and back again.
“I think we need to talk, you and me,” she said, taking my hand and leading me to her room.
I was a bit hesitant to follow, a sudden fear that she was going to tell me she really only wanted Rafe. But I let her lead me anyway.
“Here’s the thing,” she said. “I know you two said there wouldn’t be jealousy or competition or anything, but I think it’s still difficult for you. Even if you don’t resent it exactly, that I was with Rafe last night, you probably feel left out or like we shared something you can’t be part of. I told him I’m falling for him. But I want you to know for certain that I’m falling for you too Leo. You are just as special to me as he is. Never doubt that.”
My heart almost burst out of my chest as I hauled her against me, kissing her.
“I wasn’t jealous, but it damn near killed me to know he was with you last night, and I had to stay at work. I could’ve—”
“Been with us. I know. That’s what I want, but I need to know if you’re okay with it.”
“I’m not screwing Rafe. Ever,” I said, a smile on my lips.
“I know that,” she laughed, kissing me again. “I just want to be with both of you, and not have you trying to be so polite and give me space and time with him and vice versa. If you don’t think it would bother you to see me with him then I want to try it.”
“I don’t think bother is the right word. I had to count backward from a thousand last night to keep from having to go jerk off at work, just thinking of the two of you together. It was like a porn reel in my mind.”
“Okay. So you’re not threatened by the idea?”
“I’m thinking we should all call in sick today so I can show you how unthreatened I am,” I said, my mouth on her neck. I felt the satisfying shiver of her body as her fingers caught the front of my shirt.
“I have to work today.”
“Tonight then?”
“We’ll talk to Rafe and see if he’s up for it. If so, then tonight. We lock the door and make our own rules.”
I heard Rafe call out from the kitchen and the door slammed.
“I’m going to go finish my makeup. I have to get to work myself,” Lexi said.
I kissed her cheek and went to take my shower and sleep for a few more hours. I met her at the grocery store when she got off of work. We were buying ingredients to make my grandma’s empanadas. I teased her about the way she pronounced it wrong. She teased me because I’d had the recipe for ten years and never tried to make them.
On our way out, loaded down with the reusable grocery bags she insisted on, she stopped so suddenly in the parking lot that I nearly bumped into her.
“What is it?” I said.
“Him,” she said, her voice barely above a breath.
Some guy was coming toward the entrance of the building. He had dark hair in a ponytail. He was skinny but wiry, mean looking and he was on his phone.
“Watts?” I said, my eyes going right to his hands. The hands he’d had been around Lexi’s throat the day he’d hurt her. I dropped my bags just like that, crossed the distance between us in four long strides and got him by the arm. His phone clattered to the concrete because of where I’d grabbed him, the nerve I’d pressed on. I marched him to the side of the store, pushed him up against the wall. I had his other arm by the wrist and pressed it against the wall by his head so he couldn’t knife me while I was talking.
“Listen, you fucking punk,” I hissed at him, “Do you see that girl over there?” I pointed to Lexi where she was gathering up the bags I’d dropped. She was in a crouch, but her eyes were on us, wary.
“What about the bitch? She yours?”
“You will never lay another hand on her, do you hear me?” I hissed. He was mean, but I was bigger and mad as hell. “If she calls about your case and tells you to do something, you do it all polite like I’ve got a knife to your balls. Don’t touch her, don’t threaten her, don’t look her in the eyes. I will know and I will come for you.”
“Pretty boy like you?” he scoffed. “Gimme my fuckin’ phone back.”
“Be a shame if I stepped on it after I was done with you. You hurt her once. I let you live. That’s a gift, because she told me not to kill you. I won’t be generous a second time no matter what she says. She may want you to have another chance to turn your life around. You better take it while you have the chance because as far as I’m concerned, my hands are already filthy and one more piece of trash like you isn’t going to do much more harm to my immortal soul.”
I picked him up and just threw him down, wiped my hands. I crushed his phone as I went by, picked up my bags and took Lexi home. I drove her in her car because she was too shaken to drive separately. I’d pick up my car later, once she was okay. I got her home. I wanted to hold her and talk to her, but she shook her head, went to lie down.
I wondered if she was mad at me, but I didn’t really care if she was. Somebody had to warn him off, and I knew he’d keep clear of her now. He would’ve been an idiot to do otherwise, and from what I’d seen in his face, he wasn’t an idiot, just a bully, a mean son of a bitch who wouldn’t want to go up against me.
I had to go back into the station right after Rafe got home and drove me to pick up my truck. When I checked on Lexi, she was asleep. I told Rafe to keep an eye on her because she might be upset after we ran into Watts and I got my alpha on.
“She’s not big on macho displays of dominance you realize,” he had said.
“Yeah, but this asshole didn’t seem to understand the situation. I made it clear for him.”
“Better you than me. I would’ve beat the hell out of him and possibly lost my license as a self-defense trainer.”
“Right. Still would’ve been worth it.”
I went to work and had an uneventful shift. I filled out some reports, worked on a grant for some
training. I was getting my stuff together to leave the next morning when my phone rang. It was Rafe who had probably only called me five times in the last decade. He was a hardcore texter so I answered it immediately.
“Hey,” I said.
“Get to St. Vincent’s now, Leo, come in at emergency,” he said.
“Shit, what’s wrong?”
“We don’t know yet. We’re waiting on the toxicology report. It looks like—somebody drugged Lexi or poisoned her or something. You need to be here.”
“I’m on my way,” I said.
I don’t remember how I got there, only that it was incredibly fast but seemed to take forever. I didn’t even bother to try and charm the admissions receptionist at ER. I just barked Lexi’s name at her in a voice that sounded choked. I couldn’t even focus on the woman’s face or what she said to me. All I could see was the bruises on Lexi’s neck when he’d choked her, the arrogant expression on Watts’s face when I’d left him at the grocery store, when I’d stupidly believed he wouldn’t bother her again.
What he had done this time was worse. When I got to see her, she’d be hooked up to monitors and have wires and tubing coming out of her. It made me sick to think about it. She’d said to me once that I’d made it worse—she’d said it in the sexiest most romantic way, like she needed me. But it was true in the literal sense now. I had made everything worse, and she had paid the price. I sat in a plastic chair, rubbing my hands over my face. My phone buzzed and I stared at it, Rafe’s name not even registering in my mind when I looked at the caller ID.
“Where the fuck are you, man?” he demanded.
“What? I’m here. I’m in the ER,” I stammered.
“You’re not back here. I’m in cubicle six. I thought you stopped for a goddamn pancake breakfast it took you so long.”
“The woman, the lady at the desk, she told me to wait,” I said lamely.
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