“Yes, Daddy.” She kept her voice soft.
He disappeared into the bathroom. She unpacked his bag and set out frozen hamburger to thaw. She eyed his boots sitting outside the bathroom door. He’d never asked her to clean them before. They’d arrived at an unspoken agreement to never discuss what he did, and Bull always cleaned his clothes and shoes after a mission. Inhaling deeply, she pushed away somber thoughts of what he did when he was away from her. She concentrated on who he was when he was with her—the kindly, gruff man who’d saved her life and who had extended the umbrella of his protection to her.
When she heard the shower shut off, she went into the bathroom.
Bull jerked the shower curtain over his lower half, and confusion gouged wrinkles into his forehead. “Firebrand, what are you doing in here?”
Before she lost her nerve, she rose to her tiptoes and placed her hands on either side of his head. Because he was crouched to keep the shower curtain in place, he was low enough for her lips to reach his.
Brandy didn’t bother with a tentative foray for their first kiss. She swept her tongue along his lower lip. He froze, and she massaged her lips against his full, firm ones. A heartbeat passed. Then another. Twinges of electricity raced through her body and curled her toes.
With a groan, he came to life, returning the kiss in a way that meant he took it over. His arms wrapped around her, pressing her to his wet chest as he claimed possession of her mouth. That twinge became a surge, and her senses short-circuited. The whole purpose of her intrusion was forgotten as he swept her away on a tide of unexpected passion.
Then he ripped his mouth away and shoved her back so abruptly she stumbled against the sink. He faced her, chest heaving and anger masking any sign the kiss had affected him the same way it had affected her. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Seducing you.” She pressed the back of her hand to her lips. “Badly, I think.”
A muscle along his jaw ticked with fury, and it matched the ire blazing from his whiskey colored eyes. “Why?”
Brandy closed her eyes. “You really don’t find me attractive, do you?”
“You’re beautiful.” Speaking dismissively, he grabbed a towel and closed the shower curtain. “That’s not the point. Answer me, Firebrand. What happened while I was away that made you decide to do this?”
“You’re not going to buy that I find you irresistible or that I’ve fallen for you?”
“No.” His hand reached out, grabbed the stack of clean clothes he’d left on the floor next to the shower, and snaked back inside with the garments. “I’m not stupid.”
As she came to know him, Brandy had realized Bull was a very smart man. It baffled her that he would join up with The Eye. Something in his life must have gone horribly wrong for him to end up there, but he didn’t talk about his past, and he didn’t ask about hers.
“I know you’re not,” she scoffed.
He emerged, fully clothed, and reached for the knob to open the bathroom door.
Brandy threw herself in his way. “Daddy, please don’t be mad.” She reached for his chest, resting her hand there lightly, and she noted how it trembled. Yoseff had scared the hell out of her.
“I’m not mad.” His glare said the opposite.
“Disgusted?”
“Out of patience.” Nostrils flared, and he loomed over her. “These games are beneath you.”
She closed her eyes. “Yoseff said that if I didn’t please you, then he was going to take me away from you and train me himself.”
If she’d thought he was angry before, that was nothing compared to now. Fury vibrated the air in the room, evaporating the steam from his shower. His eyes darkened to a deep brown, and the ruddy undertones cast his brown skin with a cinnamon hue. At his sides, his fists clenched. The muscle in his jaw ticked so hard the vein in his neck throbbed.
“Daddy, please. Maybe you can close your eyes and pretend I’m someone you find attractive?”
He closed his eyes and turned his back to her. The tension on his backside was no less palpable. “I find you attractive, Firebrand. Very, very attractive.”
And that kiss had been amazing. The air thickened between them. “Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that you’re not here because you want to be with me. You’re here by force, and you stay because you have no choice in the matter.”
She touched his shoulder blade, resting her fingertips lightly on his shirt. “I do like you. Maybe, under other circumstances, I would be with you by choice.”
“It’s rape.”
“It’s not rape. I’m willing.” What Yoseff threatened to do—that would be rape. Bull had been good to her. He cared about her, and she cared about him. She wouldn’t feel dirty if he touched her.
“If I have sex with you, it’s rape. Even if you initiate it. Even if you say you want it. The first day you were here, I told you I wouldn’t rape you. I told you I didn’t get off from hurting helpless women.”
“I’m not helpless.” Tears blurred her vision. She’d never been so vulnerable. “And I know you wouldn’t hurt me.”
He whirled, gesturing wildly. “How the fuck does he know we’re not having sex, anyway? He’s not supposed to talk to you unless I’m present.”
She came clean—anything to convince him. “There’s a camera on the streetlight outside. It looks like it’s monitoring the street, but it moves. I think it’s on a remote control. They can see through the window by the bed and through the one by the sofa. They know we’re not sleeping in the same place.”
“Then you’ll sleep in the bed with me.”
“It’s not enough.” She appealed to him with wide eyes while clutching at his chest. “There’s enough light from the street lamp to see what we’re doing—or not doing—and if you suddenly hang curtains, they’ll know why.”
He ran a hand over his smooth head, and he paced in the small space. “They can’t see everything. We’ll fake it.”
“Fake it?”
“Yes. Wear a bra to bed tonight, and you’ll sleep in my bed.”
Dinner was a tense affair, and when they played chess afterward, neither of them concentrated on the game. Bull looked out the window a few times, and Brandy knew he was confirming the camera movement she’d discovered.
Bedtime came much too soon, and yet it seemed to take forever for the day to fade.
Brandy wondered whether Liam had received her message and was preparing to raid the compound right now.
Bull did his nightly check of the room, and when she went to head to the sofa, he pulled her into his arms and laid an open-mouthed kiss on her that calmed her frayed nerves and ignited real passion.
He guided her to the bed, and then he broke the kiss. “Get in the bed, Firebrand.”
She climbed under the covers, and he doused the lights before joining her.
A shadow in the night, he loomed over her, and when he kissed her again, it was full of gentleness with a hint of reverence. He rolled so that he was on top, and he lifted her shirt over her head.
She’d worn the requested bra, so when he gazed down at her, he saw nothing but the way the sports bra squished her breasts into an oblong blob.
His lips grazed her throat. “I’m trying to imagine what this looks like to the cameras.”
Brandy arched her back and twined her arms around his neck. “This probably looks better. Too bad they can’t hear us.”
“It’s a blessing. If they could hear us, you’d be saying, ‘What a big dick you have, Daddy.’” He raised the pitch of his voice to mimic her. “’Oh, however will that thing fit inside me. It’s monstrous. Please don’t hurt me. Oh, that feels so good. I’ve never had anything so wonderful between my legs. Faster. Harder. Spank me, Daddy.’”
Brandy threw her head back as paroxysm of laughter shook her body. “I hope I’m a better actor than that.”
“Nope. You might have stood a better chance of convincing me you wanted my body if you hadn’t be
en so nervous and afraid. Desperate. That’s what you were.” He mimed touching her under the covers, but in reality, his hand caressed the sheet next to her body.
“It must have been my perfume.” She huffed fake annoyance. “Next time I’ll dress up in a white babydoll dress with a lacy trim and suck my thumb. Maybe put my hair in pigtails. Would that do it for you?”
“Not the thumb-sucking, but the dress? Yes. That’d do it for me.” He urged her legs apart, and he bent her knees up to hold the covers off him. That would make it easier to fake the sex act. “You know, you’ve never asked me about that before.”
“The Daddy Dom thing?”
“Yeah.” He pantomimed settling between her legs.
Brandy arched and cried out, demonstrating that she was a fine actor. “I know about Daddies and littles. Unfortunately for you, I’m not a little.” She’d filled up the coloring book, but that was only because she found the activity calming and peaceful.
“You’re a brat.” He moved his hips. Due to the closeness of their bodies and their position, he generated friction. “Stubborn. Tenacious. And you pout when you don’t get your way or win at Chinese checkers. That’s little enough.”
Brandy’s pussy tingled, and wetness flooded her pink areas, making her forget to argue. Though his touch was light and unobtrusive, he managed to hit a teasing pressure, and those kisses he kept peppering on her neck zeroed in on her erogenous zones. She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take without putting some serious effort into seducing him back.
“What do you get when you put Oedipus at the end of the alphabet?”
“What?” His question communicated bafflement, not an effort to further the joke.
“Zedipus. What do you get when Oedipus gets married?” She stroked the top of his head because she’d always wanted to touch him there. Bald men were sexy.
“Firebrand, have you lost your mind?”
“Newly Wedipus. What do you call it when Oedipus dies?”
“Deadipus. Why are you telling jokes?”
“Yoseff said that you’d better be really happy and walking funny tomorrow. I was going to put starch in your shorts to make you walk funny, and I thought maybe if you thought about my jokes tomorrow, they’d make you laugh.”
He swiveled his hips and rubbed against her clit.
Her breath caught. “What you’re doing feels really fucking good, and maybe I’m trying to distract myself. I don’t know baseball statistics, only a lot of cheesy Oedipus puns.” She could recite the FBI’s Most Wanted list, but that might tip him off to her identity.
He caught her earlobe between his teeth. “You can come, Firebrand. Think of this as no different from when you masturbate in the shower.”
She gasped from what he was doing to her ear. “You spy on me?”
“No,” he laughed. “It’s what single people our age do.”
“I haven’t masturbated in your shower.” She’d been too busy trying to survive to think about the absence of her sex drive.
“Then you’re overdue.” He nibbled on her lower lip and lifted his hips away from her core. “Go ahead and touch yourself.”
He devoured her lips, and she grasped his shoulders to anchor herself. His hips kept up the sinful rhythm hitting her clit with unerring accuracy. Most of her lovers had problems finding the fucking thing, and yet Bull couldn’t seem to avoid it. Again and again, he rubbed against her panties with perfect pressure. Electric pleasure ran through her.
She lifted her hips to meet his demi-thrusts. “You masturbate in the shower?”
“Yes.”
Her hands traveled down his sculpted chest, sliding and scratching as she indulged her urge to explore his sexy body. “Do you think of me when you touch yourself?” She cupped a palm around the erection straining his shorts.
He froze, the tremor running through his body his only movement. “Sometimes.”
Brandy hadn’t expected to occupy his fantasies, but she’d thought he’d at least lie since she had her hand on his dick and all. She caressed the length, noting he hadn’t been bragging about his size when he’d taunted her. “Earlier today?”
“Today was Kerry Washington’s turn.” He reached between them and disengaged her hold on his cock. Gently urging her wrist to turn, he guided her fingers to her pussy. “I try not to have those kinds of thoughts about you.”
“Why?”
“The more I imagine it, the harder it is to keep my hands off you.” He thrust again, the thickness of his cock brushing her hand. “You deserve better, Firebrand.”
“Better than you?” She abandoned her pussy because she liked the way he touched it more, and she dragged her fingertips along the waistband of his shorts.
“Better than this.” He slid one arm behind her shoulders and lifted her to him. He captured her with yet another kiss that threw gasoline on the desire thrumming through her veins. His hips swiveled with intent, rubbing against her drenched panties.
With a hitch in her breathing and a flood of moisture to her pussy, she climaxed quietly. Lost in his own blissful agony, Bull didn’t seem to notice. He buried his face in her neck, and his teeth clamped onto her shoulder. The action didn’t hurt at all, and her orgasm throbbed harder. She moaned and arched into his body.
Bull’s pace picked up, and strain radiated from every one of his muscles. Recognizing the tenuousness of his control, Brandy pushed him. He was right—she was a brat. She often pushed boundaries just because she could. With a quick slight-of-hand, she slid her hand into his shorts and grasped his cock.
He lifted his torso away from hers and stared down at her, the snap of his hips coming faster and faster. Seconds later, he lost the rhythm. With a guttural groan, he came, his seed spilling over her hand and onto her stomach.
He collapsed on top of her, his weight crushing her into the mattress. With a shaky breath, she stroked an uneven caress on his smooth head with her free hand.
“Thank you, Daddy,” she whispered.
“Don’t.” Agony cut his voice, leaving it harsh and hard. “Don’t fucking thank me for that.”
With jerky movements, he left the bed and went to the sink. She watched the shadowy outline of him wet a cloth and return to her. Wordlessly he cleaned the semen from her stomach and hand, his touch gentle though he held himself stiffly.
She didn’t know what to say to make him feel better. When he climbed back into bed with her, she snuggled against him, offering the only solace she had. He held her in his arms, a warm and soft teddy bear, until she fell asleep.
Chapter 6
The apartment was empty when she woke up the next morning. Brandy slid from bed, frowning. She always heard him get out of bed. That’s when she would fold her blanket on the sofa and start breakfast.
The bed was a lot softer and more comfortable than the sofa, which was why she slept there when he wasn’t home. It had proven even better with him in it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so deeply.
Rising, she noted the absence of his running shoes. She got dressed and decided to make him an omelet for breakfast. He’d brought fresh veggies back from his last trip. She’d sautéed some zucchini and mushrooms for dinner the night before, and she decided to include the leftovers in his omelet.
Since she didn’t know when he’d left or when he would be back, she set out the ingredients. He’d want to jump in the shower after his run anyway.
She took his clothes from the washing machine and put them in the dryer, noting he’d removed all traces of blood. His clean boots were lined up neatly next to the door where she kept her lone pair of tennis shoes.
Today they were supposed to have gone running together. He always took her out the morning after he returned from a trip. Knowing he was still disturbed by what had transpired the night before, she forgave him for leaving her behind. He probably needed time to clear his head.
The door opened, and he came inside. Sweat marks stained his clothes almost everywhere. Normall
y she’d say something, ask him about his time or how many miles he’d run. She might throw a remark about how she’d like to have gone with him so he could throw one back about how she slowed him down.
Instead an awkward silence settled over them. He nodded to her briefly before disappearing into the bathroom.
Brandy made their omelets. He wasn’t in the habit of taking long showers, and today was no different. She served their plates. Famished, she ate quickly. Normally the silence didn’t bother her. Bull wasn’t much of a talker, but they usually found something to say to each other.
Today he ate half the omelet before his efforts degenerated into pushing food around the plate.
“How far did you run today?”
“Didn’t run.”
He’d come back soaked in sweat. While the temperature outside was low, it didn’t usually stop him or her from going for a run. For her part, she not only needed to get out of the apartment, but she needed to maintain her physical fitness. She also used his weight bench when he wasn’t home. One day she was getting out of there. Soon, hopefully. If Liam had received her message—and she had no reason to think he hadn’t—the FBI would be along any minute to bust her out of there.
She planned to be able to aid in her rescue and the taking down of Redemption Center.
Until then, she had to keep the only person in this place who cared about her on her side. “Where did you go?”
“Boxing ring.”
Her eyes widened, and not because she hadn’t known there was a boxing ring on the property. “You didn’t challenge Yoseff, did you?”
He grunted, which could mean anything.
She reached across the small table and set her hand over his. “Bull, please tell me you didn’t do anything you’re going to regret.”
“Regret?” His voice echoed hollowly through the room, shades of ragged emotion barreling in all directions.
The whole six weeks she’d been there, Bull had maintained a disaffected emotional state. He kept his distance from everyone and everything, and he didn’t display strong feelings. Even last night, he’d kept his emotions mostly in check.
Re/Deemed (Doms of the FBI Book 8) Page 6