Outside the Lines

by Lisa Desrochers

  He shakes his head and thumbs the ring on his pinky, a disgusted squint to his eyes. “Pop’s men swore loyalty to me during the trial. I thought I had things under control. But then we’re getting shot at in our own home.” His eyes lift to me and I see his apprehension. “No one’s been able to figure out who contracted the hit on us. I killed the hit man, so there’s no asking him. It makes the most sense that it was Oliver Savoca, Victor’s son and next in line to manage their affairs while his father’s inside, but it could have been our own guys.” He leans back. “Our business is cutthroat. If there’s an opening, someone’s going to pounce on it. Me taking over the family business when Pop went down could have been perceived as an opening by my father’s men or one or more of his business associates. We can’t go back unless I can figure out who contracted the hit and take them out.”

  I feel my insides constrict at the words coming out of his mouth. “Have you killed other people? Other than this hit man?”

  He holds my gaze. “You have to understand, Adri. Our strength revolves around fear and intimidation, and the currency we deal in is violence. When we make a threat, we have to follow through. People have gone missing on my orders. And I’ve hurt people in ways I’d rather not tell you, but I will if you need to know.”

  I feel suddenly sick. “No,” I say, hugging myself. “I don’t think I’m ready for that quite yet.”

  “I’m responsible for some pretty horrendous things,” he presses, and I can tell it’s hard for him to hold my gaze as he says it. “I’m not proud of it, but that was my life before I came to Port St. Mary.”

  I slide up to sit next to him. “And you want to go back to that life?”

  Something deep in his gaze shifts and he looks suddenly lost. “It’s all I know.”

  I lean toward him, needing the right answer to my next question more desperately than I’ve ever needed anything. “But is it what you want?”

  His head shakes so subtly that it’s as if he doesn’t know he’s doing it. “I don’t know.”

  My heart is beating a thousand miles an hour. “I think you do.”

  He sits back and his gaze deepens, finding that place in my soul again. “You make me question everything I’ve been raised to believe. You make me want to be a better person.”

  “Then be a better person, Rob.”

  Despite everything he’s just said, I’m desperately in love with him. And just as before, I can feel it in him too—see it in the anguish telling me all this is causing him. He loves me whether he can admit it to himself or not. We hold each other locked in a gaze that conveys everything we’re feeling, but neither of us gives it voice.

  “I wish it were that easy,” he finally says.

  “Why are you telling me all this now?”

  “Because you asked who I was. I want you to know. And I trust you.” He says it as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, but I know that’s not true. For him, trust may as well be a foreign word.

  “If you knew they were trying to kill you, why did you go back?”

  His intense gaze clouds. “My family will be hunted like dogs until I can take back what’s ours. I can’t let anything happen to them.”

  If he feels he’s put his family in danger, it explains everything. But I don’t believe that’s what his family thinks. “Lee was beside herself that you’d gone back. And Sherm …”

  Chagrin etches lines around his eyes. “Is he okay?”

  “He was terrified, Rob. I think if you talk to your family, you’ll find out that’s not what they want.”

  His mouth presses into a tense line. “They want their lives back.”

  “Have you asked them?”

  He just looks at me.

  I scrunch back under the sheets and tug my towel into place.

  He lowers himself down to lie next to me. He’s killed people. I’m pretty sure he would have tonight if I hadn’t stopped him. But I still want him. I am so in love with him I can’t even think.

  I lift a hand to his face. “You can be whoever you want to be, Rob.”

  He leans closer and presses a kiss to my lips. I kiss him back, drawing on the electricity between us and feeling it fill me. My shivering stops as heat erupts from my core. No matter what happens next, I can’t deny the growing need inside me, like a starving man’s hunger.

  I kiss my way along his sculpted chest while I work his boxer briefs lower. When I have him naked, he tugs open my towel. Hovering over me on an elbow, his gaze devours my body the way I want his mouth to.

  He kisses my lips again, then, as if he read my mind, his hands and mouth take their time, exploring every inch of me. I give myself up to him and turn off my mind, becoming nothing but sensation. Anyplace that his magic tongue elicits a moan or a gasp, he stays a little longer. By the time he works his way back to my mouth, he’s brought me to climax twice. But he’s not done yet. His fingers sink into me and I roll my hips with his rhythm. I gasp when he gives my swollen clit a flick of his wet finger.

  He gives me a throaty groan and kisses me to my soul, spinning my senses further into the stratosphere. When he positions himself over me, I open for him, my body begging for what I need. I run my fingertip over his bicep and feel his whole firm body setting mine on fire. His erection is hot and pulsing against my thigh, and I throb so hard for him it’s painful.

  “This is what you want?” he asks.

  I nip his lip. “Shut up and fuck me already before I scream.”

  An oh-so-sexy smile curves his perfect lips. “Oh, I definitely intend on making you scream, Adri. Big and right out loud. It’s my favorite part.”

  As he says it, he slowly penetrates through my aching folds to my core, and I’m plugged in. Sparks crackle under my skin, lighting me up, and I feel more alive than I ever have.

  “Okay?” he asks, a little of the playfulness leaving his expression.

  “Way better than okay,” I say, pressing my pelvis harder against his. There’s no pain, just a completely satisfying sense of being full to the brim … with him, happiness, love.

  I open wide and sink into the sensations as he moves so slowly, his thick length scratching the itch deep inside my soul. My breaths get shorter and quicker, and involuntary little gasps of “Oh, God” start escaping on them.

  When I look at him, his gaze is a mix of hot lust and adoration.

  He runs the tip of his tongue along the rim of my ear. “You’re going to make me come just listening to you moan.”

  “Harder,” I breathe.

  He kisses me gently on the mouth. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  My hands find his muscular ass and I pull him deeper inside me. “Fuck me properly, Robert Delgado, or don’t fuck me at all.”

  “Christ, Adri. You are just so fucking perfect,” he says on a breath.

  He seals his mouth over mine and kisses me with such intensity that I can’t find my breath for a long minute after, then he starts pumping harder against me. I lift my knees and spread them wider, letting him in all the way to the heart of me.

  There’s no pain. Only mind-blowing, life-altering pleasure as he drives himself into me to the root, pressing hard into my clit over and over.

  He unlocks my soul, and all the love I feel for him floods to the surface in an overwhelming rush. An animal moan that I can’t contain claws up my throat, trying to give voice to the indescribable ecstasy that has me spinning out of control within minutes. I lift my arms overhead and give myself up to him completely.

  I roll my hips under him and he groans out my name. He matches my rhythm, and we come in a blur of sweat and sensation, love and lunacy, trust and truth. On what feels like the last breath I’ll ever take, I call out his name.

  He collapses on top of me, and we wrap ourselves together so tightly I can’t feel a single part of me that’s not pressed against him. Outside these walls, the world is conspiring against us. But in here, this moment is all that matters.

  *

  I sleep more s
oundly than I have any right to, but only for a few hours. Insistent kisses along my neck and shoulder wake me with an ache already forming in my belly. Rob’s hot body is wrapped tightly around mine, and I feel his need, long and hard, pressed against my thigh.

  I push him back and roll groggily on top of him without even opening my eyes. His breath in my hair, and his hands on my body are a dream I never want to wake from. I sink myself slowly down his length and more feel his groan than hear it.

  “Adri,” he says, low in my ear.

  “Mmm?” I answer, still only half-awake.

  “We don’t have protection.” His words sound a little strangled, like he’s holding himself back.

  I stop moving on top of him and realize he’s right. Last night, it was the last thing on my mind. I push myself up to straddle him and open my eyes.

  He’s looking up at me with a mix of agony and lust in his gaze. I gasp when he swings around and stands, bringing me with him. He carries me to the bathroom and sets me down, then cranks the shower to life. I step in and he follows me, pinning me against the wall. His skin is hot on my back and the tile is cool on my front, the contrast sending a shiver through me.

  One hand finds my breast and the other slicks down my wet stomach to find the bundle of nerves between my legs. A quick flick of his finger sends an electric jolt through my entire body, weakening my legs. I cry out as my knees buckle, and he pulls me tighter against him.

  After a minute, when I feel like I have my legs back, he reaches past me for the soap. His hands are slow and deliberate as they move up my arms, my shoulders, my chest. My nipples pucker even tighter as his fingertips slick over them. He tugs at the stiff peaks, and I find they’re hardwired to my groin when I feel myself start to throb there.

  I try to turn in his arms, but he holds me here. “Uh-uh. This one’s just for you,” he says, low and throaty.

  One hand continues on my nipple, and the other reaches for the soap again, then caresses every inch of my chest and stomach on its way lower. When his fingers reach my clit, still swollen and sensitive, I arch with my moan. I feel his body’s response, his erection becoming stiffer against my back.

  His slick fingertips dance over the nerve endings between my legs, then press nearly to the point of pain.

  I hiss a gasp.

  “Good or bad,” he asks, his voice a low growl, sex in my ear.

  “Good,” I breathe.

  He presses harder and stars flash behind my eye closed eyelids, but then he gives it a soft stroke and I cry out. His lips glide down my neck and his teeth sink into my collarbone at the same instant he presses into my clit again.

  “Oh, God!” It comes out as half a sob.

  “Good or bad?” he asks again.

  “More,” I pant.

  His fingers slick along the skin at the fold of my leg, and he sinks two of them deep into my opening. He palms me, grinding the heel of his hand into my clit.

  I tip my head back onto his shoulder and a sharp “Ah!” escapes my throat, but it blends into a long whimper as his teeth graze my earlobe. His mouth finds the pulse point behind my ear, and he sucks. I grind my hips with his rhythm as his fingers move faster inside me. His other hand teases my nipple with soapy fingers in a way that I’d swear was his mouth if I didn’t feel it on my neck. He’s everywhere at once, wired directly to my nervous system: sensory overload that tears me apart from the inside out. I come unglued at the seams, screaming his name, as I sag against him.

  He keeps me from sliding into the tub, and when I finally have the strength, I turn in his arms. “That was incredible.”

  “You are incredible. I love how you come right out loud. Nothing feels better than knowing I can do that to you.”

  I lift my eyebrows at him and smile. “Nothing?”

  He tips his head in a question.

  I answer by skimming my hands over the taut skin of his chest and abs as I lower myself to my knees.

  His throaty groan when I take him into my mouth answers my question. I suck him deep, then swirl my tongue around the head before I give him a squeeze of my hand. “Your turn.”

  At first he just stands, his head tipped back, as I glide my mouth over him, but when I sheath my teeth with my lips and tighten down on him, he groans again and grasps fistfuls of my hair. I lay my hands on his hips and try to find the rhythm he wants. When I have it, I grasp him tighter and move him with me. He sucks in a sharp breath and starts rocking his hips as I move over him.

  I never dreamed doing this to a man could make me so hot, but as I feel him thicken and begin to throb in my mouth, I know I always want to be the one who can do this for him. I want him always to want me.

  His groans become deeper and more feral, and I move faster and harder over him. As his groan turns to a wolfish growl, he tries to back away. I hold him tight to my mouth. His release a second later is a warm blast of salt in my mouth. I swallow and look up at him. His honey eyes are dark, and in them, I see our truth.

  He draws me to my feet and kisses me like I’m everything in this world that matters. But that’s not what I saw in his gaze. Our truth waits outside this hotel. We have to go home, and he’s going to protect his family at all costs. Even if it costs him me.

  Chapter 28

  Rob

  As much as it pains me, I leave my Ducati at the bus station in St. Louis. Heading toward Louisville would have been more direct, but this is as close to the center of the country that I can easily get. If anyone finds the bike, I want to leave them guessing.

  What pains me more is what’s going to happen when we get back to Port St. Mary. Adri is asleep in my arms in the last row of seats in the tired Greyhound bus. At every single stop along the way, it’s taken every ounce of my will not to grab her and find a hotel where I can make love to her again—some backwoods town where we could just vanish.

  But I can’t ask her to leave her life behind. And I can’t leave Lee in the lurch. Between running into Sophie and the goons I couldn’t bring myself to kill back to Chicago, I’ve left too big of a trail. Now that I’ve likely exposed them, I have to do whatever it takes to protect my siblings.

  I look at Adri. She seems so peaceful. She doesn’t understand what it means to be a Delgado, and I don’t want her to. She shouldn’t have to live constantly looking over her shoulder. The thought of another man touching her is enough to bring me to my knees, but I want her to have a normal life and a family of her own. I can’t give her that.

  I turn to the window as the dusk sky turns dark and a cold knot tightens in my stomach again as I think about last night. Why couldn’t I have kept my hands off her? My desperation made me stupid and irresponsible. We had unprotected sex, and I don’t even want to think about the possible consequences.

  And I told her everything. Even if my family leaves, that alone could put her in danger. If those goons track her there, even if she doesn’t know where we went, she’s dead. If I brought her with us, then what? She’d be no safer. I’ve put her in an impossible situation.

  We get off the bus in Sarasota and take a cab to Spencer’s, where I left my car the afternoon of Sophie’s job. We’re quiet on the drive back to Port St. Mary. She seems to understand what this is, and I’m glad.

  “You can drop me here,” she says just before I make the turn onto her street.

  I pull to the side of the road, but it’s a minute before I can bring myself to look at her, because every time I do, I see the look on her face when she came with me inside her. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. The memory makes me question everything.

  “You’ll be okay?” I ask.

  “It’s not me I’m worried about.”

  Protectiveness flares inside me, hot and angry. “It should be. You are in real danger, Adri.”

  She reaches for my face and melts my anger with a single touch. “You’re leaving?”

  I nod because my throat is too tight for words.

  “When?”

  I swallow. “Soon.�
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  She eases in slowly, as if she’s afraid of scaring me away, and her lips brush over mine. As hard as I try to resist, I can’t. I reach for her face and draw her deeper into our kiss. When I let her go, she looks up at me for a long moment. Everything I see in that gaze—love, pain, good-bye—nearly kills me.

  I gently push her back. A tear leaks over her lashes as she looks at me. “Good-bye, Rob.”

  She’s stronger than me, because I can’t make myself say that word to her. She steps out of the car and doesn’t look back as she makes her way up the road toward her house. I watch her move under the streetlights until she’s inside before I can make myself pull away.

  I’m breathing in short pants, trying to keep the emotions at bay, but the road blurs in front of me as my eyes well.

  I pull over, drop my head against the headrest.

  The next second, I’m being ripped from the car. A beefy kid about my age, with a flattop, a shiny badge, and a crisp uniform throws me onto the hood of the Lumina, yanking my hands behind my back and cuffing me.

  Blue lights flash in the night. I was so lost in my thoughts, I didn’t even see them in my rearview.

  “Robert Davidson, or whoever you are,” Adri’s father says, “you are under arrest for kidnapping and false imprisonment. You have the right to remain—”

  “I didn’t kidnap her,” I interrupt.

  He shoves the back of my head, smashing my face into the hood. “You have the right to remain silent, and I suggest you do that.”

  He holds my face down and finishes with my rights while the kid frisks me. When he reaches the waistband of my jeans, I feel the tug as he frees me of my Glock.

  The kid yanks me up, shoving me toward the cop car parked behind me.

  “First day?” I ask him.

  “Move!” he shouts.

  He tries to shove me inside the car. I shove back, then lower myself in.

  Adri’s father thinks he’s saving her. He’s not. Because all hell is about to rain down on Port St. Mary.