Rogue protector, p.16
Rogue Protector, page 16
“He didn’t murder anyone. He was protecting Dani and things went sideways.”
“Austin?” I pull away, then point him to my home office. “First, you can plug the receiver in there. Second? You don’t have to justify anything to me.”
From his knees where he’s hiding the receiver behind a pile of reference books, Austin glances up at me. “Yes. I do.”
Unwilling to have this conversation without touching him—or at least being close to one another—I shuffle into the bedroom, sink down onto the bed, and take off my boots. I don’t want to see these things again. Ever. The ankle brace is next. There’s only a little lingering discomfort, and as long as I don’t have to hike anywhere, I think I’ll be fine without it.
Austin hovers in the doorway, his hands clasped behind him like he isn’t sure what to do next. He’s not the only one.
“So, this is awkward,” I say.
His laugh breaks the tension in the room, and he comes to sit next to me, but doesn’t touch me. “Your move, sweetheart. If you’re too sore, we could just go to sleep.”
“No.” I turn and rest my hand over his heart. “I want to know you, Austin. I just don’t know what to do or how to start.”
“Didn’t you say something about wanting a bath?” He nudges my shoulder gently. “What if we just…?”
The sound that escapes me is something between a whimper and a moan, and I cover my face with my hands to hide my embarrassment. I don’t know how to deal with any of this. The intense need for Austin, the way my core clenches every time I’m near him, and my incredible lack of experience in what’s supposed to happen in the bedroom.
“Let me take care of things, Mik,” Austin says with a kiss to the shell of my ear. “Just relax. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
As soon as I feel him stand up, I bury my face in my pillow. How can he be attracted to me when I can’t even manage to admit I want to have sex with him?
While he rummages around in my bathroom, I head for my closet to find my favorite robe and emerge with it draped over my arm to find Austin leaning against the door frame. “Come with me?”
My nervous fingers steady when I put my hand in his, and he leads me into the bathroom, which is only lit by a handful of candles. Bubbles fill the two-person soaking tub—one of the main reasons I bought the house—and it’s utterly silent except for a few last drops escaping the faucet.
“I thought, maybe you’d be more comfortable if we kept the lights down low,” he says, his voice rough.
“It’s perfect.” I want to be brave. Brazen. Unashamed of my curves, of the slightly rounded belly I’ll never be able to exercise away, of this body I really do love, despite my asthma. But Austin’s built. Chiseled. From the quick look I got of him in the dim light as he stoked the fire to keep us warm, there isn’t an ounce of spare body fat on him.
I tip my head to meet his gaze. “Every time I don’t know what to do, you just…figure it out.”
His hands slide around my back, under my tank top, and I shiver. I love the way he touches me. When I’m no longer bruised all over, I think I’ll love it even more. Deft fingers unhook my bra, and then he steps back. “I can wait outside until you’re in the water…”
“No.” I return his hands to my waist. “I don’t want to hide from you, Austin. I was raised to be modest. That means I don’t have…moves. But I’m not afraid of you seeing me. Help me off with my tank.”
Carefully, he eases the top over my head, and my bra comes with it. My heart hammers against my ribs as he holds my gaze.
“You can touch me.” Smiling through my nerves, I add, “Looking is also allowed.”
Before he lowers his gaze, he cups the back of my neck and captures my lips. The motion presses my breasts to his shirt, and the friction makes my entire core vibrate with need. Gently stroking his hands down my shoulders, my arms, all the way to my waist, he unzips my pants, and lets them fall to the floor.
“No fair,” I whisper when I come up for air. “You have some catching up to do.”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. You’re allowed to look too.” He peels off his shirt, and up close, the candlelight flickering across his scars, over the well-defined muscles, the broad expanse of tanned skin… I want to touch him. All over.
“Pants too.”
“Oh, we’ll get there.” Even in the dim light, I can see the storm in his eyes. And the bulge in his pants. “But this isn’t going to be a quickie, sweetheart. We’re going to talk first. About…everything. Because once we do this, once we take this step, I don’t want any regrets between us.”
“See?” I say quietly. “Too good to be true.”
Austin
She’s so fucking beautiful I can’t tear my gaze away. Perfect skin, a body I’m aching to touch, and the look on her face…it’s like she’s waiting for me to unwrap her like a Christmas present. Molding my hands to her waist, I take things slow, skimming my palms up her sides.
Mikayla shivers when I cup her breasts, and fuck. Her nipples harden into tight nubs, and as I drag my thumbs over them, a little moan escapes her parted lips. Dipping my head, I kiss her as I pinch, lightly at first, then harder.
“Austin,” she whimpers. “I need more.”
“And you’ll have it.” Releasing her, I snag her panties and ease them off her hips, then turn her around and urge her towards the steaming water. “But sweetheart, you have a terrible poker face. I can see how much pain you’re in. I found some Epsom salts and added them to the water. We’re going to soak first.”
Mik sighs, but she sinks into the water, then sighs, the first truly contented sound I’ve heard from her since we landed. But she stares up at me, the bubbles hiding her body from view, and her expression…she’s so open and honest in everything she does. And right now, her gaze tells me exactly what she wants.
I can’t get my boots and socks off fast enough, and when I shed my pants, Mikayla’s lips part, and she breathes a little “oh” sound. I’m hard as a fucking steel rod, and a part of me thrills at the unabashed desire in her eyes.
Desire that only increases when I drop my boxer briefs. The caveman side of me wants to stand here, let her get her fill, but behind all that need, all that lust in her gaze, there’s also fear. Fear that mirrors my own. Fear that we won’t be able to find common ground. Fear that my past will come between us, despite her assurances she doesn’t care.
The hot water does more than hide my obvious arousal. Scented with lavender and lilac, it envelopes both of us in warmth, and I motion for Mik to relax against me. “Can I hold you?”
“You don’t have to ask,” she replies as she turns around and lets me wrap my arms around her waist. My dick nestles between her ass cheeks, and she shudders. “I…I like this.”
“So do I.” Nibbling on her ear, I relish in her little mewl. “But you’ve asked me more times than I’d like to tell you what happened between Gil and me.”
“More times than you’d like?” she asks, tossing a challenging gaze over her shoulder.
“Yes. Because I should have told you the very first time you asked.” I nuzzle her neck, my eyes closed, enjoying the feel of her as she relaxes against me once more. “I didn’t mean to keep things from you, Mik. But this isn’t a good story. I don’t want to tell it. In fact, I’ve never told it. To anyone.”
She snuggles closer and covers my hands with hers. “So tell it to me.”
“Gil was Dani’s brother.” Even saying his name makes my shoulders tense. “My parents adopted them when Gil was fourteen and Dani was barely nine. And for a while, we were a family.”
“For a while?” Mik’s voice is soft and tinged with exhaustion, and a part of me hopes she’ll decide she wants to soak until the water cools, then go to sleep. As much as I need her, as I need to bury myself inside her, I don’t know how to let her in.
“Yeah. Gil…changed. So much. But none of us realized it. He and Trevor joined the CIA, and I lost touch with Gil for a while. Trevor did too—the CIA is famous for separating friends, colleagues who get too close. Helps prevent…issues.”
“Issues?” she asks.
“Like sending Trevor to retrieve his best friend. To contain him and bring him to a black site where he’d disappear forever.”
“Oh my God.”
“This is my world, Mik. Was my world. It’s exciting and dangerous and great and terrible all at the same time.”
“A world in which best friends have to kill one another? A world where brothers torture brothers?” she asks.
“Yes.” I reach for Mik’s shower gel and drizzle a little over my hands before I start massaging her shoulders. “That’s one of the reasons I left.”
“Just one?” She moans as I find a particularly hard knot and go to work on it. “Oh, I could get used to this.”
So could I. Used to having Mikayla in my arms. Used to being wrapped around her, naked. Used to having her trust me implicitly.
“Keep talking,” she says softly. “Gil changed?”
“He tracked down his birth father. The man was big in the Venezuelan terrorist network, the Loma Collectivo. He ran it for years. And when Gil found him, his father managed to convince him to turn on everything he’d ever known.”
“Oh, Austin.” Mikayla wriggles so she can meet my gaze in the flickering light, and what I see in her eyes makes me want to stop and lose myself in her. “What did he do?”
“He set a trap. For me. Made a call on an unencrypted line that gave us the information we needed to prove he was working for the Loma Collectivo. And then he sent me an email.”
“Why?”
I snort softly and bury my nose in her hair. “To get me to come for him.”
“He meant to torture you?” The horror in her voice mirrors my memories, and I nod.
“He had me for six days. Started small.” I shift our positions so she’s facing me, her legs draped over mine in the hot water. Taking her hand, I place her fingers over the thin, long-healed scars. “Shallow cuts. Painful, but not dangerous. Not fatal.”
“Crap.” Mik inches closer, and when she kisses one of the pale slashes, something in me shatters. “Austin, I’m so sorry.”
“Can’t change the past, sweetheart. And…all of this…it brought me to you. If all of Gil’s torture, all those hours, days, fearing I’d be the reason Gil and Trevor died…if they led me here, to you… Maybe they were all worth it.”
Chapter Twenty
Mikayla
The water starts to cool, and Austin climbs out and wraps a towel around his waist before retrieving a second one for me. I can’t be sure, but I think he finally told me everything. The deep, haunted look in his eyes has faded slightly, an undercurrent of something akin to peace taking its place.
It’s surreal, standing next to this man, mostly naked, brushing our teeth like we’ve done this for months or even years, but it also feels right. Normal.
Until suddenly, we’re done and I’m staring at the bed like it’s both everything I’ve ever wanted and everything I fear at the same time. What if…what if I’m bad at this? I don’t exactly have a lot of experience to go on here.
“Do you want to go to sleep?” Austin asks, wrapping his arms around me from behind and pressing a kiss to my neck. “If you do…it’s okay. Nothing needs to happen tonight.”
I turn in his embrace, cup his neck, and pull him down for a kiss. Slowly, we inch towards the bed as our lips meet again and again, tremors of nerves and heat and intense need rocking my core. Emboldened by his hard length pressing against my stomach, I flick my tongue out, searching for his, and Austin groans as he lets me in.
Rough, calloused fingers slide under the towel to cup my ass, and there’s only a moment of fear, of uncertainty, before he lifts me and I wrap my legs around his waist.
“You say stop at any time…” he manages, but I shake my head.
“I want this, Austin. I want you.” Another kiss, this one so desperate, I feel it down to my toes, and I slide my fingers into his hair. He nips the corner of my mouth, then shifts my weight so he can pull back the sheet and blankets.
“Lights on or off, sweetheart?”
With no doubt in my mind—or my tone, I answer, “On.”
After he lays me down in the center of the bed, he turns to his pack, rummaging inside for a moment before retrieving a strip of condoms.
I use the moment to wriggle free from the towel, and the look on his face when he sees me…no one’s ever looked at me with such intensity before. Seen me like he does. And then he’s standing naked next to my bed, fully erect, and my God. It takes me three tries to form words, and when I do…
“You’re… You won’t fit. All that…” I wave my hand at him, still gaping, equal parts terrified and more turned on than I’ve ever been. He moved so quickly getting into the tub, I didn’t fully appreciate…him. The way all those muscles taper into a narrow waist, the v that leads down to short, dark curls and all that hard length.
“I’ll fit, sweetheart. Promise.” With a reassuring smile, Austin climbs into bed with me, then eases me against his side. “But you’re going to come at least once before we get to that part.”
Long, languid kisses have my insides melting into goo, and his hands. Oh, God. His hands. Fingers playing over my breasts, little pinches to my nipples that send zings of pleasure straight to my core, gentle caresses along my hip, my inner thighs.
And his words.
“You’re perfect. So perfect. So soft and strong at the same time.” Every time he does something new, kisses me in a place no one’s ever kissed before, he flicks his gaze to mine, asking for permission, watching my expression.
“No one’s ever…made me feel like this before,” I say, almost panting as his fingers stroke closer and closer to my clit. To where I desperately need him to be.
“Like what?” he asks before scoring his teeth over my nipple.
My eyes start to burn, because it’s all too much. Too good to be true. Even though I know he’s very, very real and every bit as good as he seems. “Like nothing else in the whole world matters but me.”
Austin pushes up on an elbow and skims the back of his hand along my cheek. “Nothing else does. Only you, Mikayla. And if no one’s ever made you feel like that before, I renew my offer to hunt down your exes and tell them what idiots they were.”
“I’d much rather you stay here,” I say, “and finish what you’ve started.”
“Your wish is my command.” With a grin, he finally gives me the pressure, the touch, the pleasure I’ve been aching for and strokes his finger over my clit. The sound I make…it’s pure need, and he slides down my body until he’s lying between my thighs. “I want to taste you, sweetheart. Can I?”
No one’s ever done that to me—with me—before, but I trust him completely, and with arousal clouding my mind, I don’t even think before I mumble, “Uh huh.”
“Austin!” I cry out when his tongue starts to dance over the sensitive bundle of nerves, and a finger slides deep inside me.
He freezes, meeting my gaze with fear in his eyes. “Did I—?”
“More,” I demand, not caring that his mouth is…there or that my neighbors might hear us. Every part of me, every cell in my body needs him right where he is.
He doesn’t reply, but I think, through half-lidded eyes, I see him grin as he returns his focus to…whatever the heck he’s doing to me.
His free hand molds to my hip, a feral, rumbling sound in his throat, and my entire body implodes with my scream, endless waves of pleasure so intense, so overwhelming, I can’t see, can’t think, can’t do anything but ride them and hope I don’t drown.
Austin
“You’re so damn sexy when you come,” I whisper in her ear as I carefully pull Mik into my arms, trying to avoid the various bruises on her back.
“Huh?” Her eyes don’t quite focus as she peers up at me, a lazy, bemused smile curving her lips. “You said something…”
“You said a lot of things. Or precisely, one thing over and over.”
“Please tell me I didn’t make a total fool of myself?” Her cheeks flush, and she bites her lip, her brows drawing together as she waits for my answer.
“Not one bit. You just kept asking for more.” I still taste of her, and when she curls her fingers around my neck and pulls me closer, the surprise registers in her eyes for a split second before she deepens the kiss, wriggling against me in a way that makes me groan.
“Mik, are you—fuck—are you sure?” I ask. “We can wait…”
“I’m sure.” Her voice is deeper now, sexier, the aftershocks of her release sending goosebumps racing down her arms. “I want this, Austin. That was amazing. But there’s this place inside me that needs more.”
“Kiss me again.” It’s more plea than command, because when we kiss, everything that makes Mikayla her is so clear to me. Her fears fall away, and with them, mine vanish too. I’m so hard it’s painful, and there’s nothing I want more than to bury myself in her, but if she’s not ready, if there’s even a single second of doubt in her kiss, we’ll wait.
There isn’t. All I feel is her desire, her need, her arousal. Tight nipples pebble against my chest, and delicate fingers trail down my abs, over one scar after another, until she lightly strokes my shaft, and fuck.
“Tell me what to do.”
“You’re…doing just…fine,” I manage. Though I’m not. Like any red-blooded American male, I rub one out in the shower from time to time, but it’s been almost two years since I had a partner. If she keeps this up much longer, I’m going to come all over her hand.
“Condom,” I mutter as I reach for the foil packet. Rolling it on is painful, and I hiss out a breath, willing my body to obey my commands long enough for me to get inside her.
Mik lies back against the pillows, looking up at me with a mix of desire and apprehension playing over her features, but before I can ask one more time if she’s ready, she spreads her legs. “Inside me, Austin. Just…go slow.”
