Knight in Tattooed Armor: International Billionaires XII: The Latinos

by Caro LaFever

  He looked flustered for a second, as if he weren’t sure he’d said those words and wasn’t confident about where he should go from here.

  Her legs swung around him, pulling him in, deciding for him. “Come to me, big boy.”

  Again, that flash of self-doubt slid into his eyes mixing with the bewilderment. “Are you sure?”

  With an immediate knowledge that stunned her, she understood. “Didn’t I tell you before I liked your weight?”

  “Yeah.” He still hovered above her, his arms taut from keeping himself off her.

  “Come here and come into me.”

  Her command softened his expression into a dreamy gaze that made her heart seize in her chest.

  “I’m coming,” he said with sweet simplicity. “In more ways than one.”

  Her laugh bounced between them, bringing with it a charming chemistry she knew would never die. His body landed on hers, like he was at home, at peace. But his cock told her he was also alive, in need.

  With one thrust, he was in her.

  Because these daft and dewy-eyed dopes

  Keep building up impossible hopes…

  The Fairy Godmother

  Chapter 31

  “Another shower?” She trailed behind him, her small, callused hand lying in his with a trust he couldn’t quite take in. “Haven’t we had enough of water for awhile?”

  “It’s morning. A person showers in the morning.” Riq headed down the wooden path toward the outdoor shower.

  When he’d had this installed, after he’d spotted this perfect glen close to the tree house, he’d thought of a variety of women. Some of them he’d dated, some of them were in his imagination. There hadn’t been one doubt in his head that one or many would stand here with him, and he’d have some fun.

  None of them had ever made it onto his island.

  None of them had ever seemed right.

  “Is that another rule of yours, caveman?” The woman who was right gave him a gentle push on his back. “One must take a shower every morning without fail?”

  He chuckled at her try at copying his deep voice. “Something like that.”

  They were both nude, and the beginning light of the morning sun dappled across their skin. A balmy, quiet hello to a new day. Tugging her to a stop in the center of the circular stone, Riq reached around the tall wooden pole and turned on the water.

  “Oh!” she yelped. “Cold.”

  Swiveling to face her, he gathered her into his embrace. “I’ll warm you, my pretty.”

  “Mmm.” She snuggled close, like a piece of himself he’d been missing all his life. “Nice.”

  “Only nice?”

  Last night had been more than nice. Last night he’d fallen into the stars of her eyes and the succor of her acceptance and found himself. Found a peace he hadn’t experience in his entire life.

  His heart shook in the knowledge.

  His soul did, too.

  But he couldn’t escape what he felt. Couldn’t escape her.

  She lifted her head, her Marine-blue eyes clear and shiny, her rounded chin and curved cheeks blushing with happiness. With an effortless elegance he’d come to realize was only hers, she sunk her body into his. “More than nice with you here instead of showering on my own.”

  The water sprayed down, going from cold to warm to hot. He let himself stand in the moment, trusting.

  Lusting.

  His cock didn’t seem to care that it had vigorous sex three times last night, and only a scant hour ago. It rose to bump against her.

  A giggle floated up.

  “I can’t help it around you.” Grabbing her butt, he wiggled on her. “It’s your fault.”

  “Mmm.” Her response was to grab his ass, too.

  They stood, nestled together. Something inside him quieted, like a long-hungry growl finally satisfied. He didn’t want to disturb this time, this second. Instinct told him it was entirely too precious to try and change.

  A sniff came from her. “Will the water go cold again?”

  “Not for a long time.” He left one hand drift along her delicate spine. “I have a larger tank that gathers rainwater and the sun heats it.”

  “Wow.” She leaned away from him, her face filled with the usual curiosity. “Can I see it?”

  “Yeah, yeah. After our shower.” He tugged her back into the hug. “So many questions.”

  She snuffled into his chest. “How about you tell me about your tattoos.”

  Remembering when she asked before on the beach, he stilled. Yet, unlike previously, this time he didn’t mind. Risa was his lover now in truth, not just in body. She was also his friend. The realization settled into him like a piece of a riddle he hadn’t understood he needed to solve.

  “Butterflies.”

  “What?” Her head popped up again so she could stare at him.

  “They’re all some kind of butterfly.” Willing to share, he let her go and turned, showing his back. “If you look closely at the tribal designs, you can tell.”

  The soft touch of one finger trailing across his skin made him shiver.

  “I can see them now.” Her voice rose in excitement as the touch continued down his spine. “Why butterflies?”

  “It’s Cuba’s state flower.” He still felt silly saying it. But it had struck him the first time he entered a tattoo parlor with a bunch of his Marine buddies and saw the Butterfly Jasmine in one of the displays. What had struck him, he hadn’t been able to articulate, only that he wanted the design on his skin.

  “A butterfly is a flower?”

  He stiffened, his muscles growing taut. Maybe he’d been right. It was silly and stupid. Since he hadn’t cared to share this information with any other woman he’d been with and his buddies had been too drunk to care what he’d chosen, he’d never faced this moment. “Never mind.”

  “No, I won’t.” With a surprisingly tight grip, she swung him around to face her. “Don’t get all uptight on me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are.” Her fingers clenched on his arms and her expression turned wistful. “Tell me, Riq. Trust me.”

  The plea echoed inside him, breaking down the cocooned wall he’d built without even realizing it. With a sigh, he gave in and gave her his trust. “The flower’s called a butterfly jasmine. I thought it fit somehow. I’m not sure why.”

  Her gaze narrowed, though not in judgment. He could tell her brain was merely clicking all his pieces into place. In a sweet, welcoming way that eased something inside him. “Okay.”

  He arched his brows, amusement flooding past the mix of relief and wariness. “Just okay?”

  “Yes, just okay.” Her fingers slid down his arms to grasp his hands. “Now I must ask the question again that strikes fear into your heart.”

  She’d flipped back to his deep, commanding voice, intoning her command in order to make him laugh.

  Riq did. A light sort of happiness soared into him, a touch of heaven mixed with joy. “Ask away.”

  “Oh, goodie.” Her face went bright with responding joy. “The gym. Tell me about the gym.”

  With a gusty sigh, he grabbed the bottle of soap and squirted some into his hand. “Wouldn’t you rather have some fun?”

  “I want fun, too. I also want to know about the lack of a gym.”

  His princesa wasn’t the type to let go. She wasn’t the type to stop asking questions. He knew that, loved it even.

  His princesa.

  He glanced up, trying to block the recognition of what he’d told himself. But she stood beneath the water, her blond hair dripping into strands of gold, her blue eyes so cheerful, her body quite delicious. She gave herself to him with the soft expression on her face, one of acceptance, one of shared joy. There wasn’t any way he could hide from this charmer.

  “I hated gym class as a kid,” he admitted.

  She grabbed his hand filled with soap and pressed it against her heart, showing she understood the gift. “Did you?”

  “Yeah,
I did.” With an absent-minded gesture, he swished the soap across her skin, watching the bubbles dribble down her plump breasts. “I was a scrawny, angry dude who hated school.”

  “Scrawny?” Her eyes widened, taking him in as he was now.

  “Hard to believe, I know.” He cupped one of her breasts in a gentle hold, letting the comfort of her fill him as he traveled into his past. “Still, I hated gym class right through high school.”

  “When did you get big?”

  His fingers dabbled with a nipple, watching it with fascination as it tightened.

  “Riq?”

  He swung his gaze back to her quizzical eyes. “Marines. I was barely large enough to qualify, but I grew quickly.”

  “Which made you happy.”

  “Sure.” He shrugged as if it were self-evident. “Of course.”

  “So then did you go to the gym?”

  Sì, he had. Often. It was something of a tribal practice for SEALs to congregate in the gym. The clanking of metal on metal, the grunts and groans as weights were lifted, the camaraderie had become part of his life.

  Until it was not.

  “Um.” He paused, letting the memories of how desperate and depressed he’d been flood back. “As a Marine, you go to the gym.”

  “All right,” she said with a hushed voice. “But you’re not a Marine anymore, and that’s why you don’t have a gym?”

  “Once a Marine,” he barked, “always a Marine.”

  A hard silence fell between them.

  The water’s gliding whoosh slowly brought him back to her. She stood quiet, accepting, almost stoic.

  He huffed out a breath. “Sorry.”

  “No worries.” Her gaze never left him, like a sweet sword penetrating into his heart. He let her come into him. With her curious questions and her pretty looks and her sunshine spirit. “When I got hurt…”

  “Your knee.”

  “Yeah, my knee.” He looked down at the offending leg that had deprived him of his destiny, of his reason for being on the planet. Or so he’d thought up until this moment. “I couldn’t go to the gym anymore. Not for a long time.”

  “And then, when you could,” she inserted, wisdom and understanding filling the words, “you didn’t want to.”

  Lifting his head, he stared at her. Astonished and yet, not astonished at all. Because for all her youth and inexperience, there was a central core of her that constantly took him by surprise. A core of an old soul who understood. “You’re right. I didn’t. I didn’t want another gym, either.”

  “Because it wouldn’t be filled with your Marines.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.”

  They stood staring at each other. And he felt as if he’d broken through a web of lies and pain and hurt that had encircled him for years. Driving away his friends and his families, tightening around him like a steel armour of hopelessness he couldn’t cut through.

  But this princesa had.

  Reaching out, she took his hand and gave him a smile of infinite love. He knew it was that emotion and no other. He knew it right to the center of him.

  “Thanks for telling me, Riq,” she said. “Thanks for trusting me.”

  He felt naked. And he was.

  In so many ways.

  There was a vulnerability about him Risa had never seen before. A fragility that tugged at her heart like nothing else he’d ever done or said. She knew it in the way he held himself, as if he were a soldier marching off to war, certain he was going to be hit with a bullet or a bomb. Moving in slow motion, she stepped into his body, sliding into his chest and torso, his hips and sex. Though his erection bobbed in greeting, his arms didn’t come up to bind her to him.

  But she’d learned so many things about herself. And one of them was she had courage.

  “It’s okay,” she crooned. “Relax.”

  He didn’t. Not an iota. Instead, he seemed to grow taller and tougher. Like a banyan tree determined to stand against the mightiest hurricane. Except she wasn’t a storm, she wasn’t sweeping into his life to destroy. She wanted to heal, to love, to console. Lifting her hands, she wrapped them around his neck and let her body talk to his. In an age-old womanly way, she brushed herself against him, asking him to shut down his pain and his brain and focus on her, instead.

  A grunt was her only encouragement.

  It was enough. Taking her courage by one hand and her newfound wisdom by the other, she leaned in on tiptoe and licked his neck, and then, his collarbone. He shifted on his feet, his hands fisted at his side, yet the move was one of acceptance. He arched into her.

  Humming, she placed a line of kisses on his shoulder.

  “Condom,” he croaked above her. “I didn’t bring a condom.”

  “Shh. Just enjoy.” Risa whispered a touch along his spine, feeling the gasp of his breath. She spread her palms on the tight, compact male ass and pressed him closer to her warmth.

  This time, she got a groan.

  She wanted to give to this man. Give him relief and happiness. Though she considered herself good at sex, not until Riq did she understand the true significance of the act. It wasn’t two bodies coming together. And it wasn’t two people enjoying each other for a time.

  It was a profound giving.

  Balancing herself by keeping a firm grip on him, she kneeled. The pool of water on the stone was warm from the sun’s rays and although it was still early morning, she felt a simmering heat surround them.

  “What are you doing?” he said, his voice growing husky.

  “You know.” Glancing up, she met his gaze. The fire in those eyes had burned away any mist, leaving only a cerulean inferno. She gave him a teasing grin. “Don’t you?”

  He sucked in a deep breath. “You don’t have to do this. I’m fine.”

  No, he wasn’t. He’d obscured himself behind a wall of surly confidence. He’d hid his wealth from his family, hid himself from his pain. She felt as sure of that as she’d felt about anything. But she aimed to change that for him. By any way possible.

  Before he could obfuscate or distract, she leaned in and took him into her mouth.

  His hips and thighs went taut. “ Jesús.”

  The taste of him was like his scent. Unique and utterly Riq. Salty, she’d expected. Sweetness mixed with spice, she had not. He tasted like hot candy, like a mouthful of dark, tart chocolate laden with delicious salted caramel.

  She hummed her pleasure, letting the sound roll around his cock.

  A string of Spanish came from above, and one big hand landed on the top of her head. “Risa, you don’t—”

  It was simple to cut him off. She sucked. Hard.

  The hand fell away, and his words ended in a loud groan. Taking control of him, she swept her hands to his inner thighs, massaging his balls as she played her tongue on his heated flesh. His cock grew impossibly hard in her mouth, and by the sounds he made, and the way he shifted on his feet, she could tell he was close.

  His hips arched into the pleasure, but he tried one more time to escape. “Come up here.”

  She ignored the beseeching hand on her hair and sucked again.

  “We’ll go back to bed.” His words were garbled, as if he couldn’t quite put the vowels and consonants together. “We’ll—”

  Her tongue pressed right at the slit where the slickness of his excitement spilled and he went silent. At the same time, she squeezed him at his base, already knowing he enjoyed that.

  “Risa,” he gasped and arched into her mouth again. His fingers tightened in her hair, a harsh hold which she loved. Within seconds, he lost the battle with himself and gave to her. Gave his passion and his vulnerability, his fragility and his body.

  A gift.

  He was her gift.

  She licked him, letting him settle on his feet, feeling him as he eased into satisfaction. Kissing his hipbone, she stood and looked at his face. Behind the sweet solace she’d just given him, she saw the confusion. Her heart melted all over again.

  “Hey.” She
stepped into his arms, and this time, he wrapped himself around her. “I’m here.”

  “Yeah,” he huffed into her wet hair. “You certainly are.”

  Chapter 32

  A week had passed. A week of happiness and joy, of lovemaking and trusting.

  She hoped. She dreamed.

  With only a touch of bewilderment entering those misty male eyes once or twice, her confidence grew every day.

  Risa lifted her head from the blanket to stare at her lover as he strode from the waves. He was naked, as they’d both been for most of these last seven days. Although they brought robes to the beach when they swam, they never used them. Riq joked that they were each hoping some boat would come along, so they’d have to dress in order to be rescued.

  Neither of them were hoping for that. She knew it for sure.

  Yet, it had been ten days since the hurricane, and there was bound to be some ocean traffic soon. Plus, she had her company to return to, to rescue. Life and its responsibilities were going to intrude at any moment. Using Riq’s computer, she’d emailed back and forth with her worried mother, and had successfully pushed off any attempts to come and rescue her. To her relief, her daddy’s boat had minor damages that didn’t allow him to set sail. At least, not right away.

  But soon. Soon her parents or someone else would come.

  A shiver of bittersweet emotion went through her.

  “Cold?” He came to a stop, standing above her like a male god. His olive skin had grown darker during these days in the sun, appearing now like minted gold. With his dark curls, growing long, and his black lashes and hard jaw, she imagined him marching up this beach with a conquering flag to lay claim to all before him.

  “Not cold.” Stretching her arms about her, she let him look his fill.

  To her delight, his cock started to rise. After the time in the outdoor shower, he’d withdrawn from her. Withdrawn into his game room, and then to the village to work. However, that night, he’d pulled her into his bedroom and made love to her with a fiery passion. Ever since, he seemed to take their growing relationship in stride.