by Sybil Bartel
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Those papers made me feel like the failure my existence was had come full circle,” she continued. “They made me relive every moment of being put in foster care. It was emotional and stupid not to sign. My rational side knew it. I had no hold on him, not that I wanted one after what he’d let slip about his true feelings. Besides, he has a new girlfriend and she’s pregnant. He wants to marry her and make the perfect family.” She pushed herself up into a sitting position. “Now he can.” She stood. “You should probably go.”
I didn’t leave. I took three strides and cupped her face. “It isn’t your fault he’s an asshole, or that you wound up in foster care.”
“No, it wasn’t, but it felt like it was. I was a six-year-old kid with attention span issues who failed kindergarten, and my birth mom couldn’t handle being a single mom with a problem kid. Just like it wasn’t my fault that those carjackers joined a gang and decided to steal.” She looked up at me with resignation. “None of it was my fault, but it all still happened, and it’s all still my life.”
She’d had everything in her life taken from her or broken by some asshole. Her trust, her stability, her spirit, her heart, but still, still, she’d looked up at me the first time she saw me and she’d given me a smile so pure of heart, it shone from her pretty eyes to her full lips.
I’d seen her as a lost doe, but she’d been waging her own battles since before I’d so much as thought about the Marines. She’d waged and won. Still standing, no training, no military support at her back, no family, no money, she’d navigated her own war zone and come out alive.
She wasn’t a doe.
She wasn’t even weak.
She was a fucking warrior.
I stroked her soft cheek. “You are not a problem, you hear me?” I tightened my hold. “Do not let anyone ever tell you differently.”
Her eyes welled and a tear slid down her cheek.
I lost all restraint.
My mouth crashed over hers.
HIS MOUTH SLAMMED OVER MINE and the seesawing, exhausting emotions that had been plaguing me all week, driving me insane, they all evaporated the second his lips touched mine.
But he didn’t stop there.
Pushing my back to the wall, tossing off his baseball cap, he plundered my mouth as his hands gripped two handfuls of my hair. All at once, he consumed me. Growling into my mouth, curving his body around mine, he tasted me and he kissed me.
And he tormented me.
His mouth, his hands, his sheer size—he was a dangerous game. Nothing else mattered when I was in his vortex and he was stealing my breath, making my body ache for the drug he was offering.
But I couldn’t do this. Not like this. Not to him.
I pressed my hands to his chest and pushed at him hard.
Our mouths parted, and the sound of our broken kiss filled the space between my head and my heart.
His chest heaving, his eyes hooded, he watched me, but he didn’t move more than a few inches away.
Trapped, in his gaze, in the cage between his body and the wall, I had no choice. I ducked and stepped away from him.
“Fuck.” His hand on the wall, his head dropped. “Genevieve,” he said with quiet resignation. “I’m sorry.”
“Just… wait.” I went to the junk drawer in my kitchen and riffled, coming away with what I needed.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice tired.
“Taking control.”
I was done with my past.
I was done being no one.
I was done feeling responsible for everything out of my control.
No more stressing about every single detail of everyone else’s parties, immersing myself in lives that weren’t mine, trying to be good enough for a life I didn’t want.
No more.
I signed the papers giving Brian his last name back. I was no longer Genevieve Jenkins. I was Genevieve James, daughter of a woman who didn’t want me. But I wasn’t going to be owned by a last name anymore. I didn’t need to be. I wasn’t a name. I was me. A mess of red curls, chaotic thoughts and the hope of a dream.
A dream I wanted to chase.
I looked up at that dream.
Expression guarded, shoulders proud, Sawyer watched me like he’d done since I’d first met him—with an intensity that made me feel special.
“Do you want me?” I bravely asked.
His voice firm, he didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“More than once?”
His penetrating gaze took me in before he gave me a measured response. “I’ve already had you once.”
“Because you felt guilty for what happened?”
“No.”
“Then tell me why,” I ordered, making my own demands.
“You’re everything I’m not,” he answered, no intonation in his voice.
Not expecting that answer, I wasn’t sure if it was a compliment. “I could say the same about you.”
“Your smile,” he added, his body perfectly still.
I frowned. “A smile isn’t a reason.”
“It is when it’s yours.”
So very guarded, no emotion in his response, his words still made my stomach flutter, but I couldn’t ignore the obvious. “We don’t make sense.”
“No, we don’t.”
It was as if a blade sliced through my stomach. “Then you should leav—”
He cut me off. “You smile and you mean it. You retain an innocence despite growing up in shit circumstances, and you breathe kindness.” Taking a step toward me, his voice took on an edge. “But you also have a temper. When it comes out, it makes me want to bend you over my knee. And when you flutter around me with your nervous energy, it makes me want to tie you down and show you how to submit.” He stopped in front of me and fingered a strand of my hair. “I want to wrap your hair around my fist as I sink inside you.” His determined gaze cut into my very soul. “And I want to wake up to this look every damn day.”
Oh God, I wanted that.
He dragged his finger from the corner of my eye, down my cheek and to my bottom lip. “These innocent doe eyes only seeing me, these lips wet from my kiss.” He leaned down to my ear. “Yes, I want you.” His open mouth landed on the flesh under my ear, and he sucked before whispering, “Over and over.”
My entire body shook with restraint, but I wasn’t finished. “I don’t want casual.”
“Good, because I don’t share.” His lips traveled down my neck.
I had to warn him. “I’m not the girl you met two weeks ago who dropped her tablet.”
He pulled back just enough to look at me. “I know.”
“I may never be her again.”
“I apologize for my part in that.”
Knowing what I was going to say next, heat flamed my cheeks. “I apologize for the shower at your friend’s house. If I had known how you felt, I never would’ve asked for what I did.”
His thumb brushed across my blush. “Violence makes people want to reaffirm life. I don’t hold you responsible for anything that happened that day.”
“You’ve seen a lot of death.” It wasn’t a question, it was an assumption, but he nodded once anyway. It made me brave enough to ask my next question. “Does it get easier?”
“Which part?”
“This feeling like there’s a blanket over everything and I’m struggling to get out from under it.”
“How honest do you want me to be?”
That nervous energy he’d mentioned about me, it was like a slow drip. Until it wasn’t. Then it was a rushing stream, and some days I couldn’t dam it up to save my life. But last week that nervous energy had taken a back seat to this heavy fog of guilt I was under, and I’d forgotten how debilitating the nervous energy was until this very moment.
One question about honesty, and I was back to the insecure girl who wanted to please everyone, but in the process of trying too hard, I was failing at the one thing that mattered most.
&n
bsp; I wasn’t being honest with myself.
So I took a breath and nodded. “I want you to be all the way honest.”
“You were under the blanket before I met you.”
I didn’t want to take offense, because he was right, but his words hurt just the same. “Then why did you ask me to dinner?”
“We all have our demons.”
“Meaning?” I knew what he meant. He was saying he had his demons, but I wanted to hear that from him and how it related to him making the first decision to take me out to eat. I didn’t know why it mattered so much to me, but it did.
He searched my face as his thumb slowly caressed my cheek again. “You were brave enough to let yours show. You made no apologies for it.”
“Maybe you just made me nervous.”
“Maybe you’ve always tried to please everyone.”
I didn’t like where this was heading. The balance between us had never felt anything close to equal, but this felt like I was sinking. “Pleasing people was my job.”
“Was?”
I hadn’t told him. I hadn’t told anyone. Inhaling, I braced myself for a wave of self-doubt, then I gave him the truth. “I quit my clients.”
“All of them?” he asked without hesitation and without any change in his facial expression.
“Yes.”
“Do you feel better?”
“I….” Wow. “That wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.”
“That wasn’t an answer to my question.”
“It’s complicated.”
“I have time.”
I sucked in a deep breath. Then I let it out. All of it. “I’d never met anyone like you. So steadfast in your seriousness and intensity. Nothing about you wavered, not even when you were angry. I was immediately drawn to you for it. But what I’d failed to comprehend until I’d spent five straight days in your company was the profound impact you would have on me.
“I’d never been around someone so still, so sure of himself. And like a moth to a flame, I wanted to soak in everything about you, but getting that close came at a price. I no longer wanted to be myself. I didn’t want to be the barely contained chaos that managed a hundred thousand details by the skin of her teeth. I wanted to be the calm, cool, collected Marine who caught someone else’s fall.”
“I didn’t catch you,” he reminded me, his fingers gently tracing the back of my head just above my neck. “You have a scar to prove that.”
Oh, he’d caught me all right, and he’d changed me. “I don’t care about the scar, but I need a fresh start.”
This time, his expression did change. His eyebrows drew together in a stern frown.
I clarified. “In my next career.” Whatever I decided to do.
“Which is?”
“My last client offered me a job working in her art gallery.” She’d mentioned it in passing at the end of the party I’d organized for her, but then I’d gotten sidetracked with the caterer and I’d never told her no thank you.
Which was fate staring me down.
Fate and a six-foot-three ex-Marine who was heir to a real estate fortune.
He tipped his chin once, then quietly asked, “Are you done talking?”
Nervous energy bled out. “Your family will never approve of me.”
“I’m not my family, and they’re never going to stand between us. I would never allow that.” He leaned closer and enunciated each of his next three words. “Are you done?”
“Yes.” No.
His voice dropped. “Turn around, Genevieve.”
I WAS DONE TALKING. SHE didn’t need to hear my words. She needed my control.
“Turn around, Genevieve,” I quietly ordered.
Her chest rose with a sharp inhale, but she turned.
“Good.” My cock stiffened. “Walk into your bedroom.”
For two seconds, she didn’t move.
Then she graced me with the soft sway of her hips and did exactly as I’d instructed.
Taking my keys and phone out of my pocket, I followed her to where she stopped in front of her bed, her back still to me. Tossing my shit on her nightstand, I issued another command. “Take your shirt off.”
Hesitating, she glanced at my stuff.
I gave her fair warning. “I like control, Genevieve.”
Her red hair cascaded down her back in soft waves. “Always?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because we all had our demons. Because I never had control until I turned eighteen. Because the Marines taught me to be a man, but I spent eight years taking orders. “Because I can.”
“So, in the shower…” She inhaled a steadying breath. “That wasn’t just… just rough because of circumstances?”
“No.” That’s how I fucked. Rough and in control.
“Oh,” she breathed, exhaling.
I dragged a finger down the side of her neck and watched her shiver as chill bumps raced across her skin. Then I gave her an ultimatum. “You need to decide.” I knew myself. There was only one way this would work, but I wasn’t going to make the decision to not choose me easy on her. Shamelessly, ruthlessly, I kissed the top of her shoulder, then brought my mouth to the sensitive flesh right below her ear. “Tell me to leave,” I whispered, kissing her soft skin once. “Or take off your shirt.”
“Sawyer,” she whispered, angling her head to give me more of her sweet-smelling neck.
“Decide.” My dick was pulsing, and my mouth was watering to taste her. If she decided to draw this out much longer, I wouldn’t be the dominating control I was promising her. I would only be rough.
“H-have you done this before?”
I knew what she was asking. “I don’t sleep around.” I could count the number of women I’d had on two hands, but most of those were when I was younger and navigating my preferences.
“I’ve never experienced anything like when we…. Like in that shower.”
“I know.” I drew a finger down the center of her back. “Now make a decision before I decide for you.”
“I’m scared,” she barely whispered.
“I won’t hurt you,” I promised.
Stepping away, she turned to face me. Then she gave me her decision. She took off her shirt.
The rush of victory going straight to my dick, I clipped out another order. “Pants.”
Slow, deliberate, she pushed her leggings over the swell of her hips and toed out of them. Standing back up, the errant curl I wanted to wrap around my finger fell over her eye as her face and chest flushed with excitement and nerves. She bit her bottom lip.
Fuck, she was stunning. “Bra.”
Reaching behind herself, she unhooked the black lace and pushed the straps off. Her bra dropped to the floor and her heavy breasts fell free.
Fighting not to touch her hard nipples, hell, to touch her anywhere yet, I issued another command. “Turn around.”
Submissive, beautiful, she turned.
Pulling my T-shirt over my head, I stepped out of my boots. “Get on the bed on all fours.” I unbuckled my belt. “Keep your knees on the edge of the mattress.” Hard as fuck, I kicked off my jeans.
She crawled on the bed, her sweet ass to me, then she dropped to all fours.
Fuck. Fuck.
Her cunt wet, her ass begging to be taken, she didn’t just drop to all fours, she rested on her forearms and looked over her shoulder at me.
Holding her gaze, I stroked myself.
Her lips parted, and her tongue darted out.
She was fucking perfect.
Stepping behind her, careful of her still healing wound, I wrapped my hand around the back of her neck. “Head down.” I gently pushed.
Still looking at me, her cheek went to the mattress.
“Good,” I murmured, stroking her hair.
“Touch me,” she whispered.
I stepped back.
Worry shot across her face, and she started to push herself up. “I didn’t mean—”
“He
ad down.” I traced an invisible line over her ass and down the back of one thigh. “Ass up.”
Watching me with uncertainty, she rested her head against the mattress again.
I stroked myself hard. “I said, ass up.” Just looking at her in this position made me want to come.
Dropping her lower back, she angled her hips up.
“That’s it.” Goddamn, she was fucking perfect. “Good girl.” Her cunt was so wet, I could’ve shoved into her in one thrust. But I wasn’t going to.
Taking in every inch of her submissive little body, I dragged my hand down her back and over her hip, then I gave her fair warning. “I’m not going to wear a condom.”
Her back tensed. “I’m not on anything.”
Squeezing the part of her hips that I wanted to hold on to as I pounded into her, I stroked myself harder. “I won’t come inside you. Not tonight.” But fuck, I wanted to. Leaning over her back, I nipped her shoulder and made a promise. “I will soon though.”
A sweet moan escaped her lips, and her eyes fluttered shut. “Okay.”
I dropped to one knee, and without hesitation, I licked from her clit to her ass.
Her back arched and her arms shot out as she fisted two handfuls of bedding.
She tasted like mind-numbing obsession. Groaning, I licked her again and again. Then I sank two fingers into her and stroked her G-spot.
“Ahhh!” Her elbows locked and her back went rigid.
Drowning in her desire and her scent, I grasped the back of one of her thighs and shoved her leg up as I latched on to her clit. Stroking her, sucking her, I took her clit between my teeth and bit.
She screamed, then her pussy was clenching.
I didn’t hesitate. I stood and shoved my cock into her wet cunt.
Her scream turned into a groan that filled her small bedroom, and my eyes rolled back in my head.
Goddamn, she was tight.
And still fucking coming.
Pulling back halfway, I grabbed her hip with one hand, then I thrust deep. My finger still soaked from her cunt, I pressed into her ass.
She jerked and her elbows locked as panic laced her voice. “What are you doing?”