Protected: A Masters and Mercenaries Novella

by Lexi Blake

  “Which is precisely why I shouldn’t put him in a situation that’s on shaky ground.”

  “Are you going to cut me out of your life if you leave?”

  “No. I like my job. I don’t want to leave it and you work there, too.” She hadn’t considered it. “I don’t know, but I think Ash needs stability.”

  “I’m stable and I’m not going anywhere. That won’t change if you decide to send me back to the office tonight. I’m going to be here for you and Ash. We don’t have to live together or get married for me to be willing to parent that kid with you if you’ll let me. He needs a man in his life and I want to be that man. I want you and I want Ash in my life. I’ll take you any way I can, even if it’s only to be your friend, but you should know that I’ll vet every single man you…”

  She cut him off because he’d said everything she needed to hear. For a man of few words, he knew which ones to say when he needed to. She went on her toes and planted her mouth on his, loving the way she caught him mid speech and he stood there like he couldn’t quite believe what was happening.

  Then his hands found her waist and his lips were moving against hers. His tongue came out, rubbing and tempting as their bodies seemed to mesh. This was what she’d missed this afternoon—the feel of his body pressed against hers, the knowledge that they didn’t have to hurry. They had all the time in the world to explore and enjoy.

  To rediscover and relearn.

  She let her hands run along the sides of his chest, dragging the tank top with them. She wanted to see him, every inch of him this time. His arms came up, helping her get rid of the shirt. He moved them inside, the door closing behind them. He only briefly stopped kissing her. It was a mere moment, but she missed him in that second. It flared inside her like something newly born. She would miss him if she left, if he left. Something precious would be lost if she didn’t take a chance with him. She couldn’t promise anything, but she needed to be in the now with him.

  He was right. There was no reason they couldn’t have this.

  She was free. She’d taken herself back tonight and this was her reward. She could have him for as long as they lasted. She got to make her choices this time around and she chose him.

  Of course she’d chosen him the first time around, but she’d made a terrible mistake.

  “I should have been honest with you.”

  He shook his head, lowering his forehead to hers. “You were trying to do something right and good. But, baby, if something like this happens again, you have to treat me like I’m stupid. You have to come to me and tell me what’s happening because if you walk away, I’m going to assume you’ve been taken and I’ll fight like hell to get you back. If you really want to go, you better make sure I understand.”

  Because this time he would fight for her. Because this time he wouldn’t let her go because of pride.

  He was so beautiful. When he’d been younger, he’d been lovely. He’d played football and worked on the ranch. He’d been fit, but now his body bore the scars of his Army days, and she found it even more attractive than it had been before. It was because he’d survived. Like she had. They were older now, harder and more careworn, and still beautiful.

  She placed her palms on his chest, connecting them again. His scars were old, merely pieces of the landscape now, but they told the tale. “You were wounded in combat. Is this from the firefight outside of Mosul?”

  He nodded solemnly. “I’m surprised you know that.”

  “Your brother told me all about you. I would pretend I didn’t care, but I also wouldn’t let him stop.”

  His fingertips reached up, brushing across her cheeks and smoothing back her hair. “I couldn’t stand to hear about you. Now I wish I had. You have to know that no matter how I felt about you, what I thought you’d done, I would have killed him had I known he was hurting you.”

  She did believe that.

  He wasn’t finished. “Which is why I may never be able to forgive Clint.”

  “I don’t want any more anger. Please. Not tonight.” She couldn’t think about this now. She would have to find a way to mend that fence. After everything she’d gone through she wasn’t about to let it wreck the very family she’d been trying to save.

  “Not tonight.” He leaned over and kissed her again. She never got tired of his mouth moving over hers. He dragged her up against his bare chest and she could feel her nipples getting hard and ready. She’d taken off her bra an hour before and now she hated the T-shirt between them. “Nothing but us tonight.”

  His hands went down to her waist and she took in a deep breath. There was no putting this off. Either he would accept her body as it was or he would reject her and she could get on with her life. He drew her T-shirt up and she could feel cool air on her breasts.

  “I want to know what you do with the things in that bag of yours.” She’d been thinking about it for days. Her first instinct had been to shrink back, like she’d opened Pandora’s box or something. Her second had been to think about how those items she’d found—the flogger and ropes and oddly shaped plastic things she was fairly sure were supposed to go up her butt—they were tools, not bad in and of themselves. They were whatever the person using them chose. Brock would have used them to inflict pain and humiliation. How would Wade use them?

  He stared down at her breasts. “We don’t have to ever play like that. It’s okay. I can be perfectly vanilla. I can be gentle with you.”

  And that was all he would ever be if she let him. His guilt would lead him to cut off part of his personality, and that wasn’t what she wanted at all. She didn’t want to cut herself off from exploring. “I don’t need that. I want to know. Besides, what happens if I can’t be gentle with you? What if I’m the one using that flogger on you? And the plug thing. I know what that is. I read, you know.”

  He flushed the sweetest shade of red, and suddenly she was in his arms. He hauled her up and started toward the bed. “First of all, you’re not trained on that flogger so you won’t be using it on anyone. Secondly, that plug is getting tossed out. If you want to play, I’ll buy all new toys for you. Just for you. To answer your question, they’re all sex toys. I like to play and my preferred mode of play is called Dominance and submission.”

  She winced. She couldn’t help it. “I don’t like that word.”

  He lowered her to the bed. “Precisely why you never have to try it.”

  “Stop putting words in my mouth.”

  “That’s not what I want to put in your mouth, baby.”

  She rolled over, getting up on her knees. “I’m serious. I never got to experiment. I got six months of you getting on top of me as often as you could and then, well, let’s simply say my sex life hasn’t been fun. I want to know what other women know. What do you like about Dominance and submission?”

  “D/s. You can call it that,” he offered. “We talk about it being a lifestyle, but I’m more of a bedroom player, though I’m quite well trained. I have a second job. When I first came here, there wasn’t much of a bodyguard unit. I ran Sanctum for Big Tag. Technically I’m still the Dom in residence.”

  That didn’t surprise her. She’d been joking when she’d talked about Wade taking the flogger. It was obvious he would be the one wielding it. Even when he was eighteen, he’d been outrageously dominant when it came to sex. He would take control and she’d never regretted it. He’d never brought her anything but pleasure, which was precisely why she wanted to explore this with him. “What do you do as the Dom in residence?”

  “Take off your undies and I’ll tell you. I don’t mind talking, but I want something pretty to look at. And I’m sad that you found underwear.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like panty lines, but I wear undies most of the time. I’m getting used to wearing fashionable clothes. I’ll have to get acquainted with thongs.” She felt the need to warn him. “I have a C-section scar. I don’t look the way I used to.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re far more beautif
ul.”

  She would have to believe he meant that. She wasn’t going to let her insecurities hold her back. She hooked her thumbs under the waistband of her undies and drew them down before tossing them away.

  “Like I said, far more beautiful.” Wade stared at her and there was no way to miss the bulge in his pants. His cock was long and thick and hard. His cock didn’t seem to have a problem with the changes in her body. “Lie back and put your hands over your head. You want to play? I want to play. Anything that scares you, anything that doesn’t turn you on, you let me know.”

  He disappeared inside the closet for the briefest of moments and was back with that bag she’d been thinking about. He unzipped the top and pulled out a length of rope. “I’d like to tie you up. The reason I want to do this is to help you focus on what I’m doing to you. You won’t be able to move. You’ll only be able to lie there and take the pleasure I’m giving you. Also, I think you’ll look incredibly hot. It’ll make me feel like I’m in control, and that does something for me.”

  Control. She always had to be in control. Not of her life. She hadn’t had any of that, but she’d had to be in control of her emotions, of the expressions on her face, of every word that came from her mouth. She hadn’t been able to let go in years. She allowed her arms to drift over her head, deeply aware of the fact that she was naked. Her skin felt sensitized, as though she could feel everything—the softness of the comforter under her, the cool air above. Her nipples peaked, hardening under his gaze as arousal started to wind through her system like a river that had been dammed up for far too long.

  He took her wrists in his hands and started to bind her hands together. “If I scare you, tell me and I’ll stop.”

  “I’m not afraid of you.” Not physically. That was for certain, but she was scared of how much she felt for him. She didn’t have to make a decision now. She could let them be for a while, but down the line they would have to figure out if they worked. They would have to find a connection that went beyond their past, beyond his guilt and her need to feel safe. They had to figure out if they could love each other in the real world.

  “I don’t ever want to hurt you again. I think you might like this. I think this might help you focus. When we’re playing, I’m in control. When we’re playing, you’re all mine and your only role is to take what I give you.” He tied off her hands and then bound them to the headboard of the bed.

  She was caught, trapped, but it was all right. She knew she didn’t have to be tied up to be helpless. This wasn’t something Brock had ever done to her.

  Wade stared at her. “Don’t think about him.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I watch you. I study you. I want to know how to read your every mood so I can be a better partner to you. Sometimes you don’t talk to me. I have to find other ways to know how you’re feeling, what you need.” He placed a hand on her chest, right between her breasts. “I know the look you get when you think about him. He has no place here. I won’t let him come between us again.”

  She took a deep breath and let the thought go. There was only Wade tonight. “All right. You’re in control.”

  Except she could stop him whenever she liked. His control was an illusion, “play” as he called it. She relaxed and let herself feel. His hand moved down her body, leaving a trail of heat everywhere he touched.

  “The key to D/s is communication, but we can communicate in different ways. I can watch your body to see how you react, to know how a touch affects you.” He palmed her breast, cupping it. She’d missed this during their afternoon quickie. She’d missed his touch. “You like this.”

  She let her eyes drift closed in order to concentrate on the feeling. Heat pulsed through her system. “I do. I love it when you touch me.”

  “If you would let me, I would never stop. I don’t like sitting apart from you. I want to sit next to you, where I can touch you and feel you against me. And I was jealous of Hutch today.”

  That was ridiculous. “He’s a child.”

  “He’s not really,” Wade replied thoughtfully. “He’s been through a lot and I bet he’s hiding a ton of pain under all that candy, but he’s also smart and he never hurt you the way I did.”

  “I think you should make it up to me with sexual favors.”

  “I can start there. How do you like this?”

  She gasped as something soft stroked over her. The feather. She’d wondered why he had a feather wrapped in plastic in the bag. It had seemed out of place with all the leather and hard plastic, but now she sighed as it floated over her skin, the soft tendrils making her shiver with pleasure. The feather trailed down her torso, making its way to her pelvis. He let it lightly stroke her. Her breath deepened as she felt her skin heat, all her focus on the sensations he was giving her.

  The feather teased around her pussy and then moved on to her left leg, and then came back up her right. Frustration welled and she remembered this game well. “You did this to me before you even knew what D/s was. You’re the world’s worst tease, Wade Rycroft.”

  He chuckled as he kept up the slow play against her skin. “It’s not a tease if you eventually get what you want. And even back then I knew what I had to do to keep you focused on me. I wanted to make sex last because it was the only thing I could truly give you. I would take you right to the edge and then pull back because I didn’t want it to be over. For that time you were all mine and when it was done, I had to share you, and I knew I always would.”

  “Share me?”

  “With your friends and your family. With your job at the factory. With the kids you tutored. With that big brain of yours. You were incredibly smart, and like most incredibly smart people it can take a lot to get you to turn off your brain and focus on the now. Even when I was younger I knew that. I wanted your full attention the way I do now. I didn’t know what to call it then, but I was already practicing a form of D/s. Then, like now, I kept it to the bedroom. I was more than willing to follow your lead in most things, but when my mouth was on you, my cock inside you, I wasn’t going to share you with anyone. Not even yourself.”

  She did exactly what he accused her of. Her brain was always working, had been even back then. If he hadn’t forced her to concentrate, she would have thought about anything except what he was doing to her. She might have found some pleasure, but they wouldn’t have connected the way they needed to. If there was one thing she remembered about Wade, it was the way he’d always looked into her eyes and pulled her into a world meant only for the two of them.

  Did he look at all his lovers that way?

  She forced the thought away. It was the past and she lived in the now. No past. No future. It was the only way she could be. The feather brushed against her pussy and she could barely breathe. He teased her clit, brushing it over her bare flesh, and thanked the universe one of the things she’d done the week before had been a full spa day with Wade’s friend’s wife, Talia, who she was already getting close to. While Shane and Wade had watched a game, she and Talia had facials and massages and a full Brazilian. At the time she’d simply done it because she’d never had one before and it seemed rebellious. Now she understood. The skin was far more sensitive than she’d imagined. There was nothing between her and the sensation her lover was trying to give her.

  “Do you have any idea how much I love looking at you?”

  She kept her eyes closed, concentrating on him, on the sound of his voice, the feel of his touch. “I was worried you wouldn’t like the changes. I’ve had a baby since the last time you saw me.”

  “Here?”

  She opened her eyes because she could barely feel what he was doing. She looked down and he was running the feather along her C-section scar. “It’s not sensitive.”

  “No, but it’s strong. It’s holding you together and I honor it.” He bent over and kissed the scar, moved his mouth across it so he didn’t miss an inch.

  She couldn’t feel it, but tears pierced her eyes from the sweetness of the
gesture. “I love your scars, too. I love them because they mean you’re alive.”

  He stopped for a moment. “For a while I didn’t want to be. I know you think I breezed through what happened, but I shut down. I know I went a little crazy. God, Genny, I don’t know how to move on. I don’t know how to forgive myself.”

  “I forgive you. That means you have to forgive yourself. It isn’t up to you. It’s up to me. I want your passion. I want your need. I don’t want your guilt. Let it go. Shove it out. Like my ex, it has no place here.”

  The last thing she wanted was to have him make love to her out of anything but passion.

  Wade’s eyes were steady on her. “It’s going to take time. Right now I need to hear that you want me. I need to know that this is about more than protection. I’ll give that to you for free. I’ll give you a place to stay and safe harbor. You don’t owe me your body or your love. I wasted that. I want it more than I want my next breath, but I have to know I can give you something beyond saving you.”

  “I think I mentioned you owed me orgasms.”

  “I want to do more than owe you. I want this exchange between us to be something that never ends, that you simply expect because I’m your man.”

  She couldn’t think that way. “Please don’t make me choose now.”

  He went still, as though contemplating what she’d said.

  “I can’t think about the future yet,” she explained. Even after everything that had happened today, she couldn’t commit. She might never be able to again. The idea of getting married, taking that chance…no, she wasn’t ready, and she knew that was what he was talking about. He would want to marry her because in his head it was the only way to get back what they’d lost. The problem was a piece of paper couldn’t give them back time. It couldn’t move them back fifteen years and let them start over.

  “Then we should make the best use we can of the here and now.” He placed the feather on the nightstand and dropped his pajama bottoms. He was gorgeous without his clothes, every line and plane of his body masculine and muscled. There was a dark look in his eyes, predatory and lustful. It did something to her, heightening her arousal and making her squirm.