The Protector: The Complete C.I.A. Romance Series

by Lilian Monroe

  Arching my back, I sank down into his touch as the energy between us grew frantic. I grabbed at Freddy’s pants, tearing his shirt upward. I needed his clothes off. All of them. Now.

  He growled and moved his fingers deeper inside me. He fucked me harder with his hand, pinning me against the countertop. I moaned, clinging onto Freddy’s muscular body. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t move. The only reason I was still standing was because Freddy was holding me up.

  I squeezed my thighs around his hand and he made that growling noise again. Wild. Animalistic. Possessive.

  Before I knew what he was doing, Freddy tore my jeans down to my ankles. I kicked them off, leaning against him to support myself. I didn’t trust my legs.

  The stew bubbled on the stove, ignored.

  He dropped to his knees in front of me, hooking my leg over his shoulder and burying his head between my thighs.

  I gasped. His arm kept my leg pinned in place, spreading me wide as he devoured me. His other hand crawled up to my stomach and kept me still. I grabbed fistfuls of his hair as he moved his tongue from my bud all the way down to my opening.

  “You taste so fucking good,” he said, lapping up my honey as he glanced up at me. I couldn’t answer. When his tongue found my opening, my head fell back and I curled my fingers deeper into his hair.

  “Grind on my face,” he said, pulling me closer as he drove his tongue in and out of me. He made a guttural noise as his fingers sank into my flesh. I did what he said. I’d have done anything he said in that moment. I rolled my hips on his face as he pulled me closer, driving his tongue deeper inside me.

  My whole body trembled, and he brought his lips up to my bud and sank his fingers inside me again.

  I screamed. He moaned. I gushed, and he lapped up every drop.

  The whole world was spinning around me, and the only thing that was anchoring me in place was Freddy. His hands on my body, his tongue between my legs, his voice, his gaze, his everything. I couldn’t think straight.

  It didn’t matter. I was a doll in his hands. He turned me around to lean against the kitchen counter and he spread my legs again. When I felt his hands on my ass cheeks, I panted, gulping down air like it was my last breath.

  Then, he spread me wide. When his tongue slid over my ass, I made a noise I’d never made before. I gripped the kitchen counter and leaned my forehead down as my back arched toward him.

  “Dirty girl,” he growled, flicking his tongue again.

  I moaned. “I’ve never… I’m…” Words just wouldn’t come.

  “You’ve never had your ass tongued like this?” He spread me wider and did it again. Heat exploded through my body as my pleasure started to crest. My cheeks felt red. My breasts pressed against the kitchen counter. Everything below the waist was on fire, and he tongued my ass again.

  I choked on my own breath. “No.”

  “But you’re doing it with me.”

  “Yes,” I panted.

  “Only with me.” Freddy teased me again, and I felt so dirty. So fucking dirty and so fucking good. I heard what he was saying and I knew what he wanted.

  He wanted me. To claim me. Mark me. Make me his.

  “Only with you,” I gasped between breaths.

  Then, he gave me what I’d been waiting for. He sank his fingers inside me and thumbed my clit as his tongue teased my ass, and I came.

  I fucking came.

  Shaking, screaming, convulsing against him as he did things to me that I hadn’t even known were possible. My walls clamped down around his fingers and I could feel my juices dripping down my legs. He groaned, not stopping until I finally quieted down.

  I lay against the counter, panting. I turned my head to look at Freddy and saw his eyes shining. His fingers slipped out of me and he brought them to his lips, tasting my orgasm on them.

  He groaned.

  I started to peel myself off the counter, but he put his hand on my back. “Don’t move.”

  Glancing over my shoulder, I watched him fish a condom out of his pants and unfasten his belt. My breath quickened. He flicked his eyes up at me as he slipped his pants down.

  I bit my lip when I saw it. My body was still pulsing, but I could feel the ache of emptiness between my legs as I watched him slide his pants down.

  I knew I was tight. I’d just had the orgasm of a lifetime and Freddy’s cock was most definitely not small. Yet as soon as he touched the tip of it against my slit, I knew I wanted it. I wanted him.

  He was still holding the condom between his fingers as he slid his cock between my legs, nestling it against my velvety, wet folds.

  My head spun. His heat and hardness were speaking to something primal inside me. He slid himself against me and we both moaned.

  “Fu…” Freddy sounded like I’d felt a few minutes before. He slid his cock over me again and all I wanted was for him to drive it inside me. This was the sweetest torture, a blinding ache in the pit of my stomach that needed to be filled. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw him looking down at us as he slid himself back and forth once more. His eyes were hooded, his cheeks a soft shade of pink, his lips still wet with my honey.

  “Put it in,” I said. His gaze flicked up to mine and he made to tear the condom wrapper open. I stopped him with my hand.

  I knew about safe sex. I was a grown woman. Responsible.

  But I’d felt his bare cock against me, and I needed him inside me. I was on the pill, and in that moment, I didn’t care about anything else.

  I. Just. Needed. Him.

  And when he drove his cock inside me, I gasped. His fingers tangled into my hair and he pulled my head back before thrusting to the hilt once more. He filled me up so completely it made me see stars. He pierced me over and over again, pulling my hair back and fucking me into oblivion.

  I came on his cock as he growled in my ear, wrapping his thick arms around my waist and holding me close to him. I was a rag doll, rocked back and forth with every powerful thrust as my orgasm crashed into me like a freight train.

  I think I screamed, I don’t know.

  Freddy still had his arms wrapped around me when he grabbed my breasts and came. I felt every single drop of it pumping into me, and I loved every second of it. He grunted once more, thrusting inside me as he held me close, his face buried in my neck with his arms wrapped around my body.

  We stayed still for a moment before separating from each other. I turned around in his arms and he kissed me, his stubble scratching my chin as his fingers cupped the nape of my neck.

  It felt so good being in his arms—too good. Our naked bottom halves pressed together as we kissed again, our lips swollen and bruised.

  I sighed, leaning my forehead against his.

  “I should go get cleaned up,” I said with a smile. “You made a mess down there.”

  Freddy reached between my legs and I jumped, everything far too sensitive to touch. He grinned. “I like you messy,” he said in a deep, low voice. “I like thinking of my cum dripping down your legs and soaking into your panties.”

  His eyes darkened and he brushed his lips over mine. My heart thumped.

  I liked it, too. I liked his seed inside me and his arms around me. I liked a lot of things I never thought I’d like. He made me want to be dirty, and messy, and his.

  …and that scared me more than anything else ever could.

  22

  Freddy

  How many times had I dreamed of fucking Hailey? I couldn’t even count. Reality was so much better than my imagination.

  I’d wanted to take my time—to make it last—but once we got started, it felt like I lost control. She tasted too good to go slow. She felt too good to try to stop. I had to have her again, but I needed a minute to recover. That, right there, was ten years of yearning in one fuck.

  I kissed her once more and nodded to the pot on the stove. “Let’s have some of this stew. I’m starving.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said with a grin.

  “I like the sound of that
.” I hooked my arm around her waist and nuzzled my face into her neck. “Call me ‘sir’ again.” She giggled and pulled away.

  I never wanted this to end—the easiness between us. The walls we’d built had fallen away, but I knew it was just a matter of time before she brought hers back up.

  We put our clothes back on and Hailey spooned some stew into a bowl for me. Instead of eating at the table, we sat on the couch. Hailey tucked her feet underneath me and smiled as she ate.

  It was nice. Pleasant. Easy.

  I never wanted it to end.

  When we finished eating, I brought the bowls back to the kitchen and came back to find Hailey stretched out on the couch. I sat down and she laid her legs across my lap, staring at me curiously.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Just looking at you.”

  “Like what you see?” I wiggled my eyebrows.

  “You’re the same arrogant prick as when we were teenagers,” she laughed.

  I massaged Hailey’s legs, looking first at her and then gazing around her apartment. Hailey had put up a few paintings and found some trinkets to decorate the shelves with. She had a new rug, too. She’d managed to make this cheap, empty-looking apartment into a home.

  My heart squeezed. She’d lost her real home—with her parents—because of me. Because she took the fall for me, and I didn’t stick around to defend her.

  Because I was gone.

  “What?” Hailey asked, and I turned to her with my eyebrows up. She grinned. “You have that look on your face like you’re thinking about something serious.”

  “What look?”

  “Your eyes get all tight and your jaw goes slack. Your cheeks turn a bit red.”

  “You know me that well, huh?”

  “Like the back of my hand.” Hailey laughed, and then sadness flashed across her eyes. She took a deep breath. “Why did you leave?”

  Those four words were like daggers in my chest. Why did you leave? It was a simple question, but I could tell it had been bothering her for a long time. A decade.

  I inhaled. “Short answer? Or long?”

  “Long,” she answered without hesitation.

  I nodded. I chewed my words, not wanting to say anything wrong. I didn’t want to blame her father, because I was the one who left. He might have made me the offer, but I was the one who signed the contract. I took his money. I packed my bags and left.

  Hailey wiggled her toes as a way of speeding up my thought process and I smiled. “Well,” I started. “I left because I was a coward.”

  “That sounds like the short answer.”

  “Yeah.” Memories that I’d buried very, very deep started coming back to me. That night—my eighteenth birthday—had been the best night of my life until it turned into the worst. “I remember what you were wearing when we went up to the roof of the abandoned building. You had this yellow sundress on, with little blue flowers on it. I remember thinking you were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.”

  Hailey was silent, looking at me. Her face was unreadable.

  I took a deep breath. “I remember thinking that I was going to marry you. I was so sure of it, when we were up there. You’d swiped that bottle of rum from your parent’s mini bar and I thought you were so cool and so completely out of my league.”

  “I was,” she said, wiggling her toes.

  I laughed. “Still are.”

  “No arguments there.”

  Sighing, I stared at the apartment wall and shook my head. “You know I’d never had a drink of alcohol before that? And I haven’t had any since.”

  “No? The only alcohol you’ve ever tasted was shitty, warm rum?”

  I chuckled, nodding. “Before, I was too scared of getting kicked out of prep school. If I lost my scholarship, I was dead. My family was counting on me. After, alcohol just reminded me of the accident. I’d thought I could handle the booze when we got back in the car. I…”

  Hailey nodded. “I know. That’s why I said I was driving instead of you. That’s why I took the fall, Freddy. I knew you had a lot more at stake than I did—or I thought so, at least.”

  “The first thing that flashed through my head when I hit that other car was you. I was just worried about you, above all else.”

  “So why did you leave?” Hailey’s question needled me again. “If you cared about me so much—thought you were going to marry me—why did you leave when you could have stayed?”

  I looked at her and that deep well of sadness opened up inside me again.

  That night, Hailey had taken me up to the roof of an abandoned building on the edge of town. We’d looked at the city skyline and drank from a bottle of rum from her parent’s house. We’d made plans to go to college together, to get married, to get a house and a dog and live happily ever after. We’d made love.

  And then I got into the driver’s seat of her car, more drunk than I realized, and I crashed into another vehicle. The other driver was a security guard—a single father—on his way to his night shift. He didn’t make it. Hailey was charged with manslaughter.

  I squeezed my eyes shut at the memory and took a deep breath. It was hard to get the words out. Your father paid me. He forced me to do it, I wanted to tell her—but that felt like an excuse. It felt like I wasn’t taking responsibility. So, I just shook my head. “I left because I thought it was better for you if I was gone. You were in that mess because of me—every mess you got into was because of me. I was a bad influence. It was better.”

  “It wasn’t better for me. You should have stayed.”

  “I know.”

  “As soon as the court case was done, my father threw me out. I had nowhere to go. The entire community turned their back on me.”

  “I’m so sorry, Hailey.”

  “I needed you. I needed someone in my corner.” She stared at me so hard it hurt, but I couldn’t look away. This incredible, talented, beautiful woman had started to open up to me again, but I didn’t know if we’d ever get past this. The accident had altered the course of both our lives.

  It was too big. Too heavy.

  “I took the fall for you, and you told me you’d be by my side. You told me you’d be there, and then you left without even saying goodbye.” Her voice cracked on the last word, shattering my heart for the millionth time.

  “I didn’t know they’d throw you out. I thought…”

  “You should have been there.” Tears streamed down her face, but Hailey didn’t seem to notice. Her legs were still laying across my lap, her arms crossed in front of her chest. She was completely still except for the trail of tears running down her cheeks.

  There was nothing I could say to defend myself, so I just nodded. “I know.”

  Hailey wiped her tears and took a long, slow breath. Silence settled between us.

  I cleared my throat. “Do you want me to leave?”

  Hailey swung her eyes to mine and let out a dry laugh. “I didn’t want you to leave then, and I don’t want you to leave now. That probably makes me the stupidest woman in existence, but you’re like a drug to me, Freddy. You make me do all kinds of stupid things—like take a manslaughter charge for you and agree to be a double agent for the CIA. I wish I wanted you to leave, but I don’t.”

  I scooped my arm around her back and pulled her up onto my lap. Cupping her face in my hand, I crushed my lips against hers. I kissed her fiercely, with all the passion that burned in my heart. I held her against my chest.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Hailey. If you’ll let me, I’ll be by your side until the day I die. I’m not making the same mistake twice.”

  She nuzzled her nose against mine and let out a sigh. Her eyes shone bright and she shook her head. “You always were a bit of a drama queen, Finchey. Just be quiet and kiss me already.”

  23

  Hailey

  I wanted to believe Freddy when he said he wouldn’t leave. Every bit of me wanted it to be true. But a nagging voice in the back of my head kept telling me
it wasn’t. He was going to leave when things got tough. Freddy would always take care of Freddy—and leave me to fend for myself.

  I wasn’t an idiot.

  But when he held me, and kissed me, and told me I was his, I melted into him. I knew I couldn’t keep him, but I gave in anyway.

  That night, we made love again. It was slow and tender and it set my soul on fire. He held me until we both fell asleep, and I woke up tangled in his arms.

  It felt good, but I didn’t let myself believe it was real.

  Tanya would probably call it self-sabotage. She said I did the same thing with all the men I dated. She told me I never let myself be vulnerable, so no one could get close to me. She said I liked being in pain all by myself.

  I told her that’s what made me an artist.

  But as Freddy cooked me some fluffy buttermilk pancakes while wearing nothing but his boxers, part of my heart wanted to heal. He flashed that dazzling smile at me and I couldn’t help but smile back. I didn’t want pain when I was with him.

  Pain, hurt—the one thing I’d held on to all this time—was the one thing he took away from me.

  “How did you sleep?” Freddy asked as we tucked into our pancakes.

  “Better than I have in a long time.”

  “Same.” He smiled at me and my heart melted. I thought of everything we’d talked about the night before—about the accident, and my family, and Freddy leaving. Freddy had been so sincere.

  What if he was telling the truth? What if now, after all these years, we had a chance?

  Whatever was going on between us—it felt real. It felt more real than anything I’d ever had with a man before. Freddy sucked the air out of my lungs every time he walked into a room. He made me feel like I was floating whenever he looked at me. If last night was any indication, there was still crazy chemistry between us.

  That was worth something, wasn’t it? There was something between us—something to be explored.

  But he had left me once, and it could happen again. As soon as this business with Gianni was over, would Freddy still be there? If my career as an artist crumbled when the Russos were taken down, would Freddy still think I was talented and interesting? Or would he lose interest and walk away again?