by Jessa Kane
“Let me determine that.” Seeming agonized, he pulls my chair closer, like he can’t help it. I’m pressed up against his huge body. Close enough to feel the throb of that hard part of him against my high inner thigh. “Not allowed to touch you unless you’re eighteen. God help us both if you’re not.”
Relief filters into my stomach. “I’m eighteen and a half.”
“That might have been good news if you didn’t say ‘and a half.’” He drops his head forward. “Goddamn, baby. I’m in trouble here.”
“Doesn’t my age mean you can kiss me?”
“Technically, yeah.” On an agonized groan, he yanks my chair forward another inch closer. “These bloodstained hands have no place on an angel…but Jesus Christ, I don’t think I can keep them off you.”
CHAPTER TWO
Mick
I’m well and truly screwed.
In addition to the Bureau and the endless stream of cases they send me on, I’ve been focused on starting my horse breeding business these last few years. Not exactly a typical path for a guy from South Boston, which is what drove me to Montana looking for a new enterprise in the first place. Open spaces. Nature. Quiet. There’s something about walking out into a haze of morning mist and hearing nothing but wind. I can’t keep chasing down criminals forever, and I found my next act. Now if I only had time to cultivate it.
Between my law enforcement work and the ranch, I’ve had no time for romantic entanglements. There’s an occasional faceless hookup, but never the same woman twice. I’ve haven’t been in love—not even that adolescent shit most guys experience when their balls drop and they fixate on the closest pair of tits. If you’d asked me this morning, I would have told you love is for suckers. People who want a picket fence and have no ambition beyond a desk job and beige slacks.
Well, joke is on me, because I fell for this girl at first glance. Might have taken me ten minutes to admit it to myself—I’m a hardened bastard after all—but when her lower lip trembled and she told me her father keeps her locked up her in a room…I very seriously glimpsed my own personal hell. That’s right. My personal hell is suddenly Hailey being unhappy for a single second. Like I said, well and truly screwed.
And she’s a virgin.
I probably should have known when her eyebrows wrinkled in confusion when my cock pressed itself against her leg. She’s never been fucked. Never even seen a dick, if I’m not mistaken. If I didn’t happen to be sitting here when she waltzed in, someone else might have taken away the privilege of being her first. I’m extremely not cool with that. I’m ready to go headbutt every window in this bar over it, actually. Right before I slaughter every man breathing a thousand miles within her sweet, little pussy. It’s mine.
It’s. Mine.
She’s mine.
Hailey gags on a sip of beer. “Mick, can I have a Sprite?”
I don’t take my eyes off her when I bellow at the bartender. “Sprite.”
She beams up at me, and my heart starts to gallop. Damn. She’s so pretty. No, beautiful. And petite. Way too petite for this meat hanging between my legs. I’ve had trouble getting a seasoned woman to take it. She’s going to scream when I get my pants unzipped. Hello again, personal hell. The idea of scaring Hailey makes me want to jump off a bridge. Has to be done. Have to have her.
The bartender sets down her Sprite on the bar. I pick it up and hold the straw to her angel lips, my cock throbbing as she sucks the liquid into her mouth. “Thank you. Are we going to kiss now?”
“Yeah,” I rasp, lowering my mouth to hers. Even though it wasn’t the plan. And the second my tongue slides into her mouth and she gasps, I know Hailey has never even been kissed. Jesus. Sweet Jesus. She tastes like crisp lemon—like from the soda, but there’s an underlying flavor of cool mint. I can’t lick at her enough, absorbing and experiencing. Her thighs go limp on either side of my hips, as if her body can’t help softening for mine. Nature is taking over. When a man wants a girl as bad as I need this one, does chemistry prepare her body out of necessity? Or is it just wishful thinking that her pussy is getting wet for me?
Shouldn’t be touching her. I’m too old and jaded for somebody so perfect.
Even with those admonishments ringing in my ears, I turn my head to the side and tug down on her chin, so I can slant my mouth over her smaller one, listening to the rasp of my beard on her soft skin. She tries to close her legs, but my hips block them, and she whimpers, beginning to writhe. “M-Mick…”
I skim my teeth in a circle behind her ear. “What’s wrong?”
She arches her back, her fingers clutching and unclutching the sides of my shirt. “I don’t know.”
After making sure none of the other bar patrons can see what I’m doing, I slide my hand between her thighs, not stopping until her cunt is sitting right on top of my cupped palm. Until she can’t move without grinding that virgin flesh down on my hand. “Does your pussy get excited when I have my tongue in your mouth, baby?”
“Is that what it is? Excited?” I curl my middle finger, pressing against the thin cotton covering her hole. This gorgeous virgin is wet as fuck, enjoying my touch even though being with a man is new to her. With all of her weight on top of my hand, Hailey has no choice but to bear down on the near-intrusion, soft mewls breaking past her lips, her hips rocking. “What i-is it excited for?”
Fuck, her total lack of knowledge where men are concerned really shouldn’t be turning me on. I’ve never begrudged a woman’s past experiences before. They’re entitled to pleasure as any man. But hell if my dick isn’t trying to rip through the seams of my jeans with the need to sink into uncharted territory. So I can call this girl mine in the basest sense of the word. “What do you know about sex, Hailey?”
Pink paints her cheeks. “I know men and women touch each other in bed. I know it’s how babies are made.”
“But you don’t know the mechanics.”
She shakes her head.
I can’t scare the hell out of this girl by telling her where I’d like to put ten inches of hard cock. My wish is to keep her safe, and she’ll feel the furthest thing from it if I’m brutally honest. No, I can’t. I’d rather gnaw off my own arm before making her afraid.
In the meantime, though, there’s a sweet, horny girl humping my hand like she can’t help it and doesn’t know why she’s even compelled to do it. And there’s a ten-mile-wide streak of responsibility inside me to relieve her ache. Not in here, though. I’m not letting down my guard in this place for a second. It could put Hailey in jeopardy, and that is flat-out unacceptable.
I lean in and kiss her mouth hard, twisting those bee-stung lips with mine and delivering tongue deep, rubbing it against hers. When she seems poised to lose herself, I ease back an inch. “Tell Mick how your pussy feels now.”
“Wet,” she whispers, sounding embarrassed. “Ticklish, I think?”
“That’s good, Goldie. That’s how it should feel.” Her visible relief makes my throat hurt. “I can make it feel even better. In a way that will stop the ticklish feeling and make you relax again.”
She nods, her hands sliding up and back on my shoulders, her legs restless. “That’s what I want. It’s like a balloon and I’m filling up…”
“And you want to be popped.”
“Yes.”
“Good girl.” I lift her off the stool, pleased when her ankles lock behind my back. After making sure the coat is covering her ass, I stride for the exit.
“Hey!” The bartender yells. “You haven’t paid for her drinks.”
“I’ll be back.”
No sooner have I kicked open the bar door than we’re in front of my Mercedes. I unlock the door and settle Hailey on her feet, then duck into the backseat and bring her with me, tucking her sideways on my lap and slamming the door. With a press of a button, I hear the lock engage, and knowing she’s safe, I discard my keys in the foot well.
She tucks her face into my neck, her finger drawing an invisible heart on my chest. “Can we d
o more kissing?”
Oh my God. Every time I think her spell has pulled me in deep as possible, I sink further. If there were a twenty-four-hour wedding chapel within view, I’d kick the door down and demand they make her my wife. Mine. She’s just…mine. My fucking pulse is going crazy and my stomach is permanently flipped as proof. “We can kiss as much as you want. But I’m going to touch you more while we do it.” I untie the belt of her coat and push the sides apart. Despite the dark interior of the car, I see her perked nipples, the swell of her tits over the top of her sports bra, the slim taper of her belly. “You want my hands on you, don’t you, baby?”
The pull of her gaze sucks me in and I go willingly, letting her see everything inside me, hoping she sees a man worthy of her trust. “Yes.”
Hailey
With one simple word, I’ve handed this man my faith.
I haven’t been given the opportunity to trust anyone in a long time and I’m rusty at it. No, I haven’t tried believing in anyone since four years ago when my mother was killed by a rival organization, my father moving us from New York to Hollywood and immediately putting me in the tower. You remind me too much of her. I can’t look at you. Get out of my sight.
Every year on my birthday, my father lets me out of the room and takes me to a movie, but his jaw remains clenched the whole time. You’re looking more and more like her all the time. You do it on purpose. To torment me.
Bad things happen downstairs in our house. Not that I’ve ever been allowed to confirm with my eyes. There is one heating vent that connects to my father’s office, so I hear snippets of plans, locations, dates. But as far as the revelry I suspect takes place well below my tower, I know nothing about it. Only that women and men arrive in giant groups in the evening and leave looking wilted. Tired.
Or carrying boxes.
Boxes that contain my paintings.
“Goldie,” Mick groans, his right hand landing on my belly, rough and hot. It slides up higher, higher. And just when I think Mick will stop, those fingers travel on beneath my bra, lifting the material and…he’s actually touching my breasts. I bite back a whimper and watch him cup my left breast, then the right. Molding the small globes in his giant hands. “Ah, Jesus. You beautiful little thing.”
There’s a flutter in my belly. “I…am I?”
His touch pauses. “You have no idea you’re an angel, do you? Look like you fell right out of the fucking sky.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. “You look like a bear.”
A masculine laugh bursts out of him and the sound makes me so happy, I can’t do anything but kiss him. I pull his face down to mine and go for it, twining my fingers in his hair for leverage. Mick’s mouth meets mine and he rips the coat off me, his hands seemingly everywhere at once. Kneading my breasts, stroking my thighs, tugging down my chin so he can give me more tongue. There’s a thick ridge beneath my backside and I feel silly for not realizing before that it’s a penis. I’ve seen all sorts of penises on the statues in art books, but I didn’t expect them to come so large. Still, instinct makes my hips move on top of it, round and round until Mick is growling into our kiss.
“I love the way that feels, but you’re going to have to quit it for now.” He struggles to breathe while laying tender kisses on my cheeks and forehead. I try to catch his mouth in another kiss, but I stop to gasp when his fingers slide down the front of my panties. There’s no barrier now. A man’s hand is touching me between my legs. Mick’s hand. “Have you given yourself an orgasm before, baby?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“That’s a no.” He watches me closely, his blunt middle finger pushing apart my wet folds and grazing a magical spot. Magical. Oh Lord. Oh Lord. My eyes roll to the back of my head, electricity curling and twisting in my stomach. “There it is.” He grazes the spot gently with the pad of his finger. “You like when Mick touches you here?”
I barely manage a nod, words getting mangled in my throat. “Y’huh.”
“Good,” he groans, licking at another magical wonderland of nerves behind my ear. “That’s your clit, baby. Might earn me a spot in hell, but this little part of you is my new reason for getting out of bed in the morning.”
“Don’t y-you mean…getting into bed?” I’m confused when he laughs, since I wasn’t joking, but the sound is so wonderful to me, I decide not to question him. And then after a few seconds, I’m not sure I can. There are knobs twisting in my tummy, way down low. and my ears are starting to ring. “Mick.”
“It’s okay, Hailey. Got you riled up in the bar, so it’s coming on a little fast. You’re going to get your first orgasm. And now that you’re with me, it’s going to be far from your last, so let’s get you used to them.” He traps my mouth in a kiss, weaving his tongue slowly with mine. I can hardly concentrate on kissing him back, though, because my clit is sending out these incredible pulsing sensations to my thighs, my nipples. Everywhere. I don’t know if I want to push away Mick’s fingers or beg him to rub me faster. “Goddamn, how’d a man like me get this lucky?” he grinds out. “It’s taking everything I’ve got not to…”
Through the onslaught of sensations, I sense he’s suffering. The beads of sweat forming on his forehead confirm it. “It’s taking everything for you not to what?”
“Nothing, Goldie. Not now.”
He leans down to kiss me again, but I speak first, my words hitching as the pleasure swells and swells, my flesh beginning to clench beneath his fingers. Where does this buildup end? “Tell me.”
“I don’t want to scare you, but it’s going to happen sooner or later.” Mick’s tongue skates across his lower lip. “That part of me you feel under your ass, baby? That’s my cock. It’s the part of a man that gets a woman pregnant, but it’s there for fucking, too. Sex. There’s a tight, little hole between your legs that was put there to take that part of me inside of it. Right down deep until you’re pinned with nowhere to go until I’m finished. And it’s taking everything not to rip these shorts off your body and make you a woman right now.”
So many things Mick says are surprising, but I know they probably shouldn’t be. I should know what men and women do together. My parents kept me sheltered and homeschooled until I was fourteen, though. After that, I was confined to my room. In so many ways, I’m unprepared for this world and in this moment, I resent it. I resent it so much, I want to be defiant and jump in feet first. “Do it.”
“No,” Mick growls, kissing me hard. “Don’t tempt me, baby. Please.”
“I want it,” I insist between assaults from his mouth. “I want you to put your cock in my tight little hole.”
“Hailey. Fuck.” Mick’s middle finger ends its torture of my clit and I whine in protest, searching his hand out with my own to put it back. I’m totally unprepared for his middle finger to sink inside me, filling me so suddenly that I cry out his name. “Look at you. You’re barely ready to be fingered.”
He’s wrong. But I can’t tell him that because the pressure inside me is building to a fever pitch. There’s a twinge of discomfort, but it’s miniscule compared to the enjoyment I get when Mick tickles a mysterious spot inside of me, his thumb beginning a rough fondle of my clit. Oh my Lord. My legs begin to shake, blood rushing to my head as if through a broken dam. What is happening to me?
“Mick. Mick.”
Ink-blue eyes crawl over me in wonder and lust. “No fucking way,” he breathes. “Got a cunt so tight I can’t even twist my finger, but she’s dripping wet and bucking against me for another one. There’s nothing like you, Hailey. Nothing.”
His head drops to take one of my nipples into his mouth, pulling long and hard…and I leave the planet. I just leave it. Something inside me gives way and I thrash on Mick’s lap, my thighs sliding together and apart while the flesh between them squeezes. Squeezes. Mick continues to draw his finger in and out of me slowly, his tongue curling around my nipples in turn, tugging and sucking them. It’s the most incredible moment of my life, this absolute high. I�
��m flying. But I’m also grounded by this man who touches me with such reverence and care.
Underneath my bottom, Mick’s hips are restless and his breathing is shallow, but he doesn’t rip off my shorts, like he said he wanted. No, his lips move in a slow count to ten, his nostrils flaring. And all the while, he holds me close and rocks me. Minutes later, my limbs are hanging like limp noodles, but my heartbeat has finally gone back to normal. I open my eyes to find Mick studying me with an intense expression.
“No one will ever lock you up again. I’m going to give you everything you could ever want in this life, Goldie.” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “That starts by getting you home safe. Getting you warm and fed…and right back on my lap where you belong. Okay?”
I know he’s not going to accept any other answer from me besides yes. I want so badly to have the freedom to say yes and mean it. To stay with this man. But it’s fantasy, to think I could live openly with my father’s neighbor. Ivan Stepanov would find us in the farthest reaches of Siberia, let alone right across the canyon. Maybe I can go home with Mick just for one night, though? My father is out of town, so he won’t know I’m missing. I could be back in my tower before he arrives home tomorrow. Mick will never know I’m behind the tinted window a football field away. And I’ll have a whole night with Mick to remember. To keep me company in my solitude.
I’ve taken so long to answer, Mick’s eyebrows are drawing together. “Hailey.”
“Yes,” I blurt, wings flapping in my chest. “Bring me home.”
Mick smiles and shakes his head, like he can’t believe it. “Crawl into the front seat and stay there.” He kisses me hard on the mouth. Twice. A third time. “I’ll run back in and pay for the drinks.”
“Okay.”
We fix my clothing and with one last, long look, Mick leaves the car—engaging the lock before closing the door behind him—and disappears into the bar. I climb into the front passenger seat, the black leather cool and inviting on my flushed skin. I’m not sure why I pop open the glove compartment. Maybe I’m just curious what a man like Mick finds important enough to keep with him when he leaves the house. Turns out, the answer is…a badge and a gun.