Protecting Olivia

by Riley Edwards

  I was grateful for her offer, I was starving. “I’m easy. Anything is fine.”

  I took her spot on the sofa and opened my laptop. Siles was hiding something. I shot a quick message to Garrett about Abe’s suspicions and started digging myself. I had no doubt Garrett would find something before I would, but I needed to do something to busy myself.

  Dinner was delicious. Surprisingly, Olivia was one hell of a cook. She made asparagus stuffed chicken, wrapped in bacon and smothered it with homemade pesto. My ma would’ve been impressed with her pesto, it was heavy on the garlic and perfect. We were both lost in our own thoughts throughout dinner and barely spoke. Not that it was abnormal for us. We’d spent much of our time together in silence; which made this fierce attraction toward her even more perplexing. I didn’t know anything about this girl, yet I wanted to run away with her and not let anyone hurt her.

  “Do I take the earring out to take a shower?” Olivia asked cutting through my musings.

  “No. Leave it in.”

  “Is it alright if I go take a shower?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I’ll finish up the dishes,” I offered.

  “Thanks.”

  Olivia turned to walk away, and just like all the other times, I couldn’t stop myself from watching the sexy sway of her hips. I rushed through rinsing the rest of the dishes. I didn’t know if me using hot water in the kitchen would affect the water temperature in the bathroom and I didn’t want her to burn herself.

  I debated whether or not I should go into the master bedroom and get ready for bed myself. Somehow, I thought I was better off staying far away from Olivia while she was naked and soapy. I only trusted myself so much when it came to her. I adjusted my now semi-hard cock in my jeans and hoped that I wasn’t going to have permanent damage. I don’t think I’d walked around with a hard-on for this long without taking care of it, ever. Maybe that’s what I needed. A shower and some self-pleasure. It would knock some of the batter off the brain, so to speak.

  I finished putting the dishes away and checked the doors and windows. I was arming the alarm when Olivia joined me in the main room.

  “Shower is all yours.”

  “You cannot be serious,” I mumbled.

  Tonight’s PJs were a pair of skin-tight yoga pants and another tank top. Only this one had one of those built-in bra things that allowed her nipples to poke through the fabric taunting me, tempting me to lick them.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked and looked around the room.

  “Nothing. I’ll be right back. Do not open any of the doors and don’t open the curtains,” I commanded and left the room. Probably a whole lot harsher than I should’ve but damn, she was going to kill me. Maybe that was how I’d go out, death by nipple display.

  I slammed the bathroom door harder than I meant to and quickly disrobed. I didn’t bother waiting for the water to warm up before I stepped in the shower and fisted my cock. This was going to be embarrassingly quick. All it took was a few pumps and visions of Olivia’s perfect tits and engorged nipples for me to feel my balls tighten. I didn’t need to imagine what they looked like, the memory of them were fresh in my mind. Perfect heavy tits…

  The door to the bathroom flew open. “Leo,” Olivia’s frightened voice slammed into me. Without thinking, I pulled the shower curtain open.

  “Holy crap,” she whispered.

  I realized my hard cock was standing at attention, like a heat-seeking missile pointing directly at Olivia. It was too late to do anything about it, she’d seen everything there was to see.

  “What’s wrong?” I ignored the awkwardness and tried to pull her back to the original reason she had come into the bathroom.

  “Hmm,” she stammered.

  “Focus, Olivia,” I commanded and turned off the water, stepping out of the shower. Uncaring that I was not only dripping water all over the floor but getting closer to Olivia while my cock was swinging in the wind.

  “Oh, I am focused.” Her eyes still hadn’t left my cock.

  You would think that being interrupted while jerking off in the shower would make your cock go limp. Under normal circumstances, it would’ve. But with Olivia staring at it and unconsciously licking her plump lips my cock grew harder, if that was possible. All I could imagine was what it would feel like to push the tip past her lips… I had to shut this shit down. Olivia was scared.

  “Why are you in here?” I asked.

  “I heard something at the back door,” she whispered.

  I quickly wrapped a towel around my waist and grabbed my gun off the counter.

  “Fuck. Stay in here. Keep the door locked. And no matter what you hear do not come out.”

  I didn’t wait for her reply. I’d wasted enough time already focusing on my dick instead of the mission.

  I checked the front of the house first. Nothing. I hugged the wall of the living room noting that most of the lights were already turned off. But there was still enough illumination in the room that if someone was looking in, they could see me.

  I pulled back the curtain to the sliding glass back door ever so slightly. Two raccoons were on the back deck eating whatever kind of nut the large tree behind the house had dropped. I let the curtain fall and walked back to the bathroom.

  I knocked on the bathroom door twice and announced, “All clear. You can come out.”

  The door opened and Olivia stepped into the bedroom. “Was someone out there?”

  “No, it was raccoons,” I answered her.

  “Oh. How do you know that no one is out there?” she questioned.

  “Because if someone was sneaking around the back of the house, the raccoons wouldn’t be sitting out there eating.”

  “That makes sense. Sorry, I panicked for nothing.” Her face flushed and her gaze dropped to my towel.

  “It wasn’t for nothing. You did the right thing. If you hear something, no matter how small, you have to tell me,” I informed her.

  I had to put some clothes on. It was dangerous for my cock to be this close to her, uncontained.

  “I’ll ummm…let you…umm….finish your shower,” she stuttered.

  I wasn’t sure if the smile that spread across her face was because she knew what I’d been doing in there, or if she was imagining me naked again. Either way, it turned me on. I didn’t give two shits if she knew I was stroking my dick thinking about her.

  Without realizing what I was doing, I stepped into her space. “What are you smiling about, tesorino?”

  “Noth...nothing.” Her smile faded, and she inhaled so deeply I could feel the rush of air.

  She was so beautiful. Before I had met Olivia, I had studied her pictures on her social media accounts and had drawn conclusions based on the reports I’d read regarding her disappearance. For weeks, I’d been following leads trying to find her. I had been wrong. Olivia was not the spoiled girl I thought she was. She was kind and strong. I had scoured through hundreds of images, but they all lacked one important thing. The way the brown of her eyes came alive and danced. They showed her every emotion. They were captivating, deep chocolate pools that I could no longer deny. I had tried, really tried, to keep this unexplainable attraction at bay until my mission was complete. The allure wasn’t only physical, though right now, the physical pull was all I could think about. It was also the way she had conducted herself – not only during the rescue mission but every day since. I was impressed, so impressed as a matter of fact, I was done fighting this connection. I needed to see where this would go and if everything I was feeling was one-sided.

  If the way her eyes clouded over and her nostrils flared was any indication, I’d say she was on board. Then there was the fact that she had been studying my dick when I got out of the shower like it was something she needed to memorize. I stopped holding myself in check, there was only one way to find out.

  “Nothing? You sure about that? It looks to me like you’re smiling about somethin’,” I told her.

  The corner of her mouth tipped up, she s
hrugged her shoulders, and her eyes, those fucking eyes, told me everything I needed to know. Game on.

  “Do you like knowing that you have me so worked up that I was stroking myself like a teenage boy after he found his first porn mag? That all it took was a few long hard tugs and I was ready to explode? Or, was the smile because you were remembering what my cock looked like when I stepped out of the shower?”

  Her cheeks pinkened at my words, and the ghost of a smile turned to a full-on smirk. She knew exactly what she was doing to me.

  I was going to show this girl a whole new world.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Olivia

  I was stunned into silence. Did he say I had him so worked up he was stroking himself?

  There was nothing I could say. Hell, I didn’t know what to say. Was he joking with me? Trying to embarrass me? I didn’t mean to stare when he got out of the shower but come on, the man had a body that was straight out of the pages of a men’s fitness catalog. And his… holy wow sweet mother of God.

  “I’ve never seen…” I trailed off not knowing how to explain why I was now smiling. At least I hoped I was smiling, it felt more like a grimace to me.

  “Come on, I’m sure you’ve seen a cock before, tesorino.”

  My back straightened at his comment. “Why? Because you think I’m a whore?”

  “Easy, tiger. I meant that in this day and age with dick pictures floating around the internet it would be virtually impossible for you never to have seen a dick before,” he explained. Now I felt stupid and embarrassed. “Now, finish your sentence. You’ve never seen what…”

  I thought for a moment how to explain and what word to use. Penis? Dick? Cock, like he called it. Hell, at this point in my mortification I was afraid I was going to blurt out the word, wiener, or something equally as stupid.

  Here goes nothing.

  “I’ve never seen one that large before,” I rushed out.

  It was his turn to blush. Who knew a big tough man could turn that shade of red.

  “Is that so. Never? Are you sure, because if you need another look, I’d be happy to oblige.” Now he was having fun at my expense.

  “No really. I think I’m good. You can keep your anaconda there, in its cage.”

  Leo belted out a laugh at my silly description of his dick. He was beautiful, which seems like an asinine thing to call a man, yet he was. His dark hair and olive skin contrasted with his green eyes. He had it all. A rock-hard body, chiseled features, and a gigantic cock. The woman waiting for him back home was lucky. Guilt washed over me, I wasn’t that type of girl. I never even flirted with another woman’s man. That was a no-go for me. I might’ve drank too much and partied a lot, too hard most of the time, but I’d never poached another girl’s boyfriend. I didn’t think Leo was serious about what he was doing in the shower, I think that was his twisted way of cutting the tension. He didn’t strike me as the type of man that would cheat. Maybe he was testing me to see if I was trustworthy.

  “Get into bed. It’s been a long day. I’ll be right back.”

  He disappeared into the bathroom, and I turned down the comforter on the king-sized bed. I was almost positive with the threat of Gomez coming our way he’d want to stay in here with me. Not that I minded, as a matter of fact, there was no way I was going to sleep unless he was in here with me.

  I slipped into bed and waited for him to come out. My thoughts immediately went to my mom. I missed her. The more I thought about what Leo said in the car he was right. I didn’t need to find more things to be upset about, I only had to find a way to forgive her. I wonder if she and Peter had spoken. She had always told me she was still in love with my dad. Was that part a lie, too? Or had she spent the last twenty-five years loving a man who was alive but lost to her. Suddenly I felt a deep sadness for my mom. Peter, if I remembered correctly, had been married to a horrible woman. That must’ve killed my mom to know. She had to have had a good reason for keeping me from Peter all these years. The only thing I didn’t understand is how her secret came out. And why now.

  Leo got into bed beside me and pulled the covers up to his waist. I turned in his direction and propped myself up on my elbow. It was so hard not to reach over and run my hand over the muscles on his stomach. The only thing stopping me was knowing he was taken.

  “How does your girlfriend feel about your job?” I blurted out. Real smooth, Olivia. Way to make yourself look like even more of an idiot. “I mean it must be hard for you both with you gone all the time.”

  “Come again?”

  “Your girlfriend back in Maryland. Is it hard for her when you travel?”

  “Why do you think I have a girlfriend?” he asked.

  Well damn, I didn’t know what to say now.

  “The girl you talked to on the phone, Bella. She told you she loved you, and you said it back,” I explained.

  “Arabella is my baby sister,” he huffed, his face hardening. “What kind of man do you take me for? Do you think I would’ve taken you into a shower and washed you if I had a woman? Or I would’ve spent the last two nights in bed with you wrapped in my arms. And if that wasn’t enough, you think I would jerk off thinking about you if I had a woman I loved waiting for me at home? The fuck, Olivia? And let’s not forget I was willing to quit my job and go on the run to keep you safe.”

  Holy shit, he was beyond pissed.

  “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “No, tesorino, you weren’t.”

  He rolled to his back, threw one arm over his head and stared at the ceiling. I had to make this right.

  “I’m sorry,” I started. “I didn’t think about the shower in the basement. I figured that was…I don’t know, you helping a scared victim you had rescued.”

  “You figured wrong. I don’t make it a habit of showering with women. We already discussed the victim statement. I apologized for that. We gonna rehash that, too?”

  Whoa. I knew I’d screwed up, but he was over-the-top mad.

  “I’m trying to apologize here. I’ve spent the last few weeks locked in a room, having to pee a few feet from where I slept, I was woken up every morning by being kicked in the stomach. I was told repeatedly I was going to die. Then I get rescued only to find out my father’s not dead, but the Attorney General of the United States and someone kidnapped me because he has someone they want back. Oh, and now that person wants to kill me if my new daddy doesn’t deliver.” I was on a roll, I might as well let it all hang out. I closed my eyes and rushed the rest out. “Then I go on the run with a man that is by and far the hottest man I’ve ever laid eyes on. Only he doesn’t like to speak to me. Which honestly worked out well considering the moment I saw him I felt an instant unexplainable and probably unhealthy attachment to him. I’m sorry I am not thinking clearly. I don’t think you’re that kind of man. Frankly, I didn’t believe you were…you know…in the shower. I thought you were testing me to see if I would try something with you even though I knew you had a woman.”

  I braved opening my eyes and was shocked to see Leo’s smug grin.

  “So, when you saw me get out of the shower with my cock hard enough to hammer nails, you thought what? I always sport wood?” Leo laughed.

  Jerk.

  “After everything I said, you want to discuss your…thing?” I huffed.

  “Well given the opportunity, yea, I’d like to address my cock first. Though I don’t think it’s ever been called a thing before.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about why your cock was hard, you ass. I was too in shock at the size of it. Honestly, my first thought was you had to be a virgin because there is no way that it would fit in a woman.”

  “Oh baby, I can assure it’ll fit, nice and snug and make you scream. And please don’t say the word cock again,” he groaned.

  “Why not, you call it that?”

  “Because hearing you say cock makes me want to fuck you, and we have things to talk about first.”

  He wanted to fuck me? I didn’t think he even liked
me. Not that that always mattered for a guy, but I figured it did for Leo.

  “First, I’m a man, not a boy. I don’t need to test you, nor would I ever. I showered with you because the second I met you I felt a protectiveness I have never felt wash over me. Not with my sister and not with my ma. Which scared me shitless. I’m an Italian American, and we are notorious for being mama’s boys. I love my ma. That brings me to why I was silent. I was trying my hardest not to get close to you. I thought it was better if I kept my distance because I have an irrational draw to you. And it’s not only physical. Though, I won’t lie that is part of it. When I buckled your seatbelt in Maryland and your nipples puckered when my arm brushed against you, I wanted to lay you out on the hood of my truck and take you right then and there. What scares me is the emotional attachment I feel. I’ve dated women for months and not felt an ounce for them what I feel for you, a woman I know very little about. For a man like me, that’s enough to make me crazy.” Sweet baby Jesus he felt the same way I did. Only he wasn’t smiling anymore. I felt a but coming. “There is one more reason I kept my distance. You’re twenty-five and still wet behind the ears. I’ve been places and done bad things – I still do them. I’m fucked up, I have enough boxes nailed up tight to fill a cargo ship. And I don’t do slow. I have one speed when I want something: Mach one and full steam ahead. That’s who I am, and there’s no use pretending I’m not.”

  I didn’t appreciate the wet behind the ears statement, but I could work with all the rest.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “Thirty-two.”

  “How many siblings?”

  Leo smiled catching on to what I was doing.

  “Marco, he’s a cop; Luca, he works in IT; and Arabella.”

  “I’m an only child. Er…I think. How many tours did you do?”

  His smile faded. Now we were getting into personal territory. I waited a few seconds and when he still hadn’t answered when I decided to give him some of my truths.

  “I graduated the University of Maryland at twenty-one. I was a good, straight-laced student. I started Georgetown Law studying constitutional law. I hated every minute of it. I thought I was doing what was expected of me. Following in my mother’s footsteps, making her proud.” I blew out a breath and prepared myself for his judgment. “I lost my virginity while at UM, I was twenty-one. It was with a frat boy. I just wanted to cash in my V-card. I wasn’t forced, and it wasn’t unpleasant, though it wasn’t satisfying either. It was merely, okay. I had no real want to have sex again, so I didn’t, until about nine months ago. I woke up one day and realized how much I hated my life. After that thought, I felt like a guilty asshole. I’d graduated from a top university, and it was paid for. I was in law school, again it was being paid for. I had a nice apartment, all paid for. Yet, I hated every part of it.