Ivan (Gideon's Riders Book 3)

by Kit Rocha

  A prick of pain, but still gentle. He covered her hand with his and pressed her fingers harder into his skin. “Rougher. Scratch me up. I like feeling you the next day.”

  “Now that you mention it...” She wrapped her other arm around him and lightly traced one of the cuts she’d already left on his back with her fingertip. “I noticed.”

  That shiver of contact over the sensitive marks only wound him tighter. Ivan lifted her hand from his chest to his mouth and dragged his tongue across the pads of her first three fingers. Her eyes widened, and she murmured his name, but she didn’t pull away.

  She moved closer.

  He nipped the tips of her fingers before guiding her hand down. The water beat against his shoulders, sliding down his arms as he coaxed her fingers to dip between her thighs.

  Then he stepped back and leaned against the opposite wall. The view was stunning--the colorful tile was a vivid backdrop for Maricela’s naked body. The water beaded on her light brown skin and sluiced down her curves in rivulets. Her long hair clung to her shoulders and breasts, but her nipples peeked through, tight little buds he wanted to taste.

  Her cheeks were flushed with more than the heat of the water. Her chest moved with every unsteady breath, and her fingers trembled against her pussy.

  His cock ached. He wrapped his fist around it, partly to remind himself to be patient and partly just to see her big brown eyes get even wider. “If you want it rough, first you have to get yourself ready for me.”

  She licked her lips. “How ready?”

  The hunger in her expression must have stripped away the final controls on his tongue, because the words that came weren’t suitable for a sheltered princess. “When you’re riding three of your own fingers, I’ll take you.”

  “That won’t take long.” Her fingers moved, a slow stroke that she met with a sinuous roll of her hips. “Or it could take all night.”

  “It could.” He waited until her gaze dropped to his hand, then indulged himself with one slow, careful stroke. “But you won’t have this inside you.”

  “True.” Her voice caught. “I thought about this. At night, alone in my bed. What it would feel like to have you watching me.”

  That wasn’t going to help him maintain his control. Now he was remembering the last time he’d distracted himself from a raging hard-on by polishing his knives--and imagining her on the other side of the door, stroking herself to a silent climax.

  “Show me,” he commanded, and it came out so rough it might as well have been a snarl.

  She shuddered against the tile. Her hips moved faster, and she lifted her free hand to her breast. Her fingers squeezed tight on her nipple, twisting lightly.

  Harder than he’d done it. He committed the preference to memory before his gaze dropped back to her other hand, and the rhythm he could already feel in his bones. She liked it steady, a long, careful build to an explosive, inescapable finish.

  He could give her that. “Use another finger.”

  Her gaze flicked down his body, and she licked her lips again. “Getting impatient?” she panted.

  “No,” he lied. And because she seemed to like his inappropriate words, the cruder the better, Ivan channeled Reyes at his most obscene. “I just like watching you work those fingers into your pussy. I like imagining how much you can take.”

  Maricela froze. “You don’t have to imagine it.” Slowly, she angled her hips to his view and worked one slender finger into her body. “You could find out.” Another finger. “You might even help me discover that I can take more than I thought.”

  He’d do any damn thing she wanted. “I know you can.”

  She made a soft noise of anticipation that hit him like a caress. The rainfall sound of water hitting tile couldn’t quite cover the slick sound of her plunging her fingers deep. Hers weren’t as wide as his, and even three wouldn’t be overwhelming. He locked his muscles to resist the urge to lunge across the shower and replace her hand with his own, to work his fingers into her and feel the tight clench of her body as she shuddered and came--

  “Three,” he rasped. “Now.”

  Finally--finally--she obeyed, pushing three fingers into her pussy with a sharp cry.

  It was too much. Not for her, but for him.

  Ivan shoved away from the shower wall and all but fell on her. He caught her next cry with his mouth, muffling it as he kissed her. Wild, a little out of control, but the noises she was making--eager and frantic, trembling on the edge of release.

  He tried to help her get there. Everything was slippery now. Her skin. His hands. He slid them up to her breasts and caught her nipples, tugging at them the way she had. Maricela went rigid against him, then started to shake, her back arching as she came long and hard.

  Groaning, he dragged her hand away from her body and pinned it to the tile next to her head. “Last question,” he ground out. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” she moaned. “Yes, yes, ye--”

  He hauled her up the wall and drove into her.

  And there was nothing but her. Her pussy clenching tight around his cock, still fluttering with the aftershocks of her release. Her strong legs winding around his hips. Her hand on his shoulder, her fingernails carving sharp little points of pain as she clung to him through his first rough thrusts.

  She gripped his head, her nails raking his scalp through his wet hair. “Harder.”

  It was a royal command, and Ivan had never been happier to obey. He hoisted her even higher, bracing his legs wider for leverage, and drove into her. “That’s it,” he groaned. “Take everything. Everything you want. All of me.”

  “Don’t.” She yanked his head back. “Don’t say that.”

  Because it was too much. He was a Rider, and a Rider’s future was never their own. He couldn’t make promises or give her more than this--a few weeks of raw, filthy fucking before his stint as her bodyguard ended.

  But he’d give her as much of it as he could. The passion, the pleasure. A glimpse beyond her gilded cage.

  He fought her grip on his hair until the pain slid through him, hot and intoxicating. He managed to seize her mouth, driving his tongue between her lips to part them as he fucked into her body. Maricela moaned into his mouth, lower and more intense with every thrust.

  She bit his tongue when she came again, but even the sudden, bright shock of pain couldn’t eclipse the sensation of her pussy squeezing him impossibly tight with every pulse of her orgasm.

  He told himself to hold on. To fight the wave of pleasure, to fuck her harder. Longer. Forever. But Maricela had been studying him, too. Her nails scraped over his skin, her other hand jerked at his hair, and her teeth sank into his lower lip--three bright spots of pain that melded into the clenching, shuddering pleasure without getting lost in it.

  His final thrust slammed her back against the tile, and fire flooded him. He groaned her name and buried his face in her throat as he came.

  She stroked his back, whispered something against his skin, then lifted her mouth to his ear. “All of you.”

  It sounded like a promise. Ivan raised his head, serious words on the tip of his tongue. But staring down into Maricela’s flushed face, he couldn’t find it in him to remind her that all of him wasn’t very much, not when most of what he could be was already sworn to the Riders.

  He didn’t have much, but everything he had was hers.

  Moving slowly, he eased from her body and coaxed her legs down. When he was sure she was steady, he left her only long enough to find her shampoo and turn her so the water cascaded over her.

  She was silent as he lathered her hair, speaking only as he rinsed away the shampoo. “Nita is coming tomorrow for a visit.”

  “Is she?” There was conditioner on one of the shelves, something sweet and floral. He worked it through the long strands of her hair. “Is she back at the temple, or still at her family’s estate?”

  “Still at home. That’s why I invited her here.”

  Nita was a smart girl,
but very few people in Sector One could go toe-to-toe with Estela Reyes and come out triumphant. “Is her mother giving her a hard time?”

  “Always.” Maricela leaned in to his touch. “It’s too much pressure.”

  “I know.” He wouldn’t even resent Nita stealing a few of the precious hours he had with Maricela before this affair ran its course. “I could talk to Reyes. Maybe he can get their mother off Nita’s back.”

  “No.” She turned in his arms. “When he tries, they only fight, and that stresses Nita out even more.”

  Another unfixable problem. Heiresses seemed to come drowning in them. Ivan tilted Maricela’s head back and drew his fingers through her hair to rinse it. “I’m better with problems I can punch. Or throw a knife at.”

  “Or kiss breathless.”

  His lips twitched, but he forced a serious expression. “I probably shouldn’t kiss Estela Reyes.”

  Maricela squinted at him. “Don’t joke. You might like it.”

  Ivan couldn’t help himself. He laughed, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that. Sometimes Zeke and Reyes provoked groans or snorts or, at the most, reluctant chuckles, but a heavy weight had always existed somewhere inside him--a smothering blanket of darkness that numbed every emotion before it could fully form.

  And he hadn’t known. He hadn’t known how much he was missing until Maricela crashed into his life, shining so bright the darkness didn’t stand a chance.

  He finished rinsing her hair and stood patiently as she found his soap and worked it into a lather. Her touch was light across his back and shoulders, a sensual tickle interrupted by the sting of hot water over the scratches she’d left.

  No one had ever spent so much time touching him before. It wasn’t even sexual. Her fingers slid over his skin, soft and gentle, petting and caressing until he felt like one exposed nerve. By the time he got them out of the shower and had her wrapped in a giant, fluffy towel, it was a struggle not to drag her to the tile floor and drive into her again just to drown all this sweet affection in something comfortably carnal.

  It only got worse when she reached up and ran her fingers through his hair. “You’ve never let it get this long before.”

  The scrape of her nails over his scalp made it hard to keep his eyes open. “I used to do it myself, but Ana’s aunt told me I was terrible at it. She usually cuts it when Ana and I stop in on our intel runs, but I haven’t done one in a while.”

  “I can trim it for you, if you want.”

  He bit back the instinctive urge to agree. She made it too easy to forget why he was here. That he was a bodyguard with a mission, and this was only a temporary affair. For all her power, she was still so young, so sheltered. She could build this sweet, intimate little world where they acted like husband and wife, but at the end of the day...

  He was still what he was. And so was she. The last bodyguard who’d dared to love a Rios princess hadn’t just ended up dead, he’d been erased from the sector’s history, an embarrassing, desperately ignored footnote.

  One of them had to remember that.

  So he distracted her with a kiss, deep enough that she let the towel slip down her body to pool on the floor. He followed it, dragging her to the cool tiles that quickly warmed under his back. He pulled her on top of him, showed her how to ride his cock to her pleasure and gritted his teeth against his own when her head fell back and she came hard around him, muffling her cries against her own hand.

  It didn’t help. Even with his thumb working her clit and her pussy squeezing him tight as he whispered the most obscene things he could imagine, the sweetness was still there. The intimacy. Fucking didn’t drive it away, it made it worse.

  When her fingernails pricked his chest and dragged downward in eight perfect lines of fire, Ivan gave up. He fell into the fantasy with her. And fell. And fell...

  The landing was going to be a bitch. But Maricela was worth it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The shed at the edge of the east garden had been used for a lot of things over the years. It had served as a chicken coop, a potting shed, tool storage--and, during some of Maricela’s more imaginative childhood years, the headquarters from which she planned dashing adventures on the high seas, where she would rule her crew of salty privateers at the point of a sword.

  Now, it had been converted to a workshop. Nita spent so much time at the palace these days, working alongside Maricela, that she needed a place to store her equipment, and the old shed was perfect. It was close to the courtyard where they preferred to spend their time, but roomy enough for her to work in it if she chose. A space that was hers, away from the temple and her family’s home.

  But, for once, she didn’t look happy to be there. Maricela watched her friend as she examined a line of freshly fired clay bowls, and finally spoke. “Are you all right?”

  Nita cradled a bowl in her hands, her thumb working over the edge. “I’m wondering if it’s time to pack this place up. I don’t know if I’m coming back to stay at the temple.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” So far, Nita’s mother had kept her close to home, claiming the need for support in a difficult time. But Estela Reyes was far too practical to pull her daughter out of prestigious service to the temple for too long. “She can’t keep you at home forever.”

  “Can’t she?” Nita set down the bowl and sighed. “She only let me stay here for so long because she thought I had a chance at marrying a Rios. You saw the way she was all week, throwing me at your brother.”

  Maricela wrinkled her nose. “We already knew she was delusional.”

  “I know. If Gideon wanted a nubile young bride, he’d have one.” Nita turned to the next bowl and traced a crack along the side with her finger. “She doesn’t see the world as it is. She never has. And she wants all of us to conform to her vision.”

  And why not? All her life, Estela had always gotten exactly what she wanted. “Some things never change, I suppose.”

  “No, they don’t.” Nita finally met Maricela’s eyes and squared her shoulders, as if preparing for battle. “I talked to Alexei after you left. It’s not precisely what my mother imagined, but Alexei’s parents would pay a lot for a Reyes. I think Estela would come around. And Alexei is looking for the same thing I am. A pragmatic partner.”

  Shock left Maricela standing there, blinking and confused. Nita had spoken before of giving in to her mother’s demands, but always as a vague potentiality, not a plan.

  “And he’s rich,” she continued stubbornly, and Maricela couldn’t tell which one of them she was trying to convince. “Even if my mother refuses me my inheritance, he has so much money. He promised he’d set aside enough for me to provide for my sisters and brothers who want a different kind of life. I’ll be able to take care of them.”

  Somewhere outside the shed, Ivan was waiting, watchful and observant but out of sight, giving them the illusion of privacy.

  That wasn’t enough, not right now.

  Maricela quickly closed the door and turned to Nita. “You can’t.”

  “I have to,” Nita countered, her eyes shining too bright. “I’m twenty-five years old, too old to still believe in fairy tales. And--” Her voice dropped to a rough whisper. “And I can never have him, Maricela. Even if he wanted me, it’s impossible.”

  The word should have stung. After all, wasn’t Maricela tangled up in the same impossible situation? In futile, hopeless love with a Rider.

  But it didn’t feel hopeless. When she was lying in Ivan’s arms as he slept, tracking his slow, steady breaths by the rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek, it didn’t seem impossible. It didn’t even feel possible. It felt inevitable, as if it didn’t matter what happened between them. Loving him was her destiny.

  But this wasn’t about her and Ivan. It wasn’t even about Hunter. It was about Nita and what she could stand to do. What she could live with.

  “You tease me about being an incurable romantic,” Maricela whispered. “But you’re even wor
se than I am. And you might be able to accept making yourself miserable, but doing it to Alexei would break your heart all over again.”

  Nita looked away and began to stack the bowls. “They’re only stories, you know. The tales of knights and ladies, all that pining love. It’s not real. Or maybe it’s just not real for people like us.”

  Apparently, calm arguments weren’t going to get her anywhere. Maricela leaned against the door and took a deep breath. “I’m having an affair with Ivan.”

  Nita dropped the bowl she was holding.

  It bounced off the edge of the table and crashed to the cement floor, splintering into three pieces. Nita didn’t even seem to notice. She was staring at Maricela, her mouth slightly agape. “You’re--”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Nita snapped her mouth shut and stared for another few seconds before a muffled laugh escaped her. “Oh, saints above. I knew there was something going on, but I thought--I just assumed--”

  “That he would never. I know.” Maricela laughed, too. “No one was more surprised than me. Than us.”

  Nita clapped her hands together and pressed her fingers to her lips, like she was fighting to hold back a torrent of questions. When Maricela didn’t say anything, her friend lifted both eyebrows and flung her hands aside. “Well? Are you going to tell me?”

  She wasn’t sure she could explain the weeks of tension. “We’ve been spending so much time together. I mean, I knew that I was attracted to him, but I didn’t know...” She trailed off.

  “That the sex would be hot? No, you knew it would be amazing. How could it not be?” Nita studied her, her brown eyes softening. “You didn’t know it would be more, did you?”

  Her heart ached. “It can’t be, can it? I mean, that’s what you were just saying.” What Ivan had been saying. “It’s just this, for as long as it lasts. Unless...”

  But the light was already fading from Nita’s eyes. She turned away abruptly and bent to gather the shards of pottery. “Why spoil what it is now by worrying about that?” she said with forced cheer. “It’s about time you had a good lover. Don’t let my gloom get all over you.”