Her eyes narrow a fraction. “Debated it. Still am, to be honest. The pen pal thing we once had didn’t give you permission to enter my house. It didn’t make ussomething.”
“Something?” I drawl because she makes it all too easy. “Define ‘something’.”
She licks her lips, mumbles something that sounds awfully close to “Um,” and attempts to pull away. She couldn’t be more obvious if she tried.
“There is no definition to your so-called ‘something’ because the truth is something else.”
“I’m scared to ask, but what’s the truth?”
The precious cargo that is her face between my palms, I tip her head up and slash my mouth against hers. She gasps lightly, surprised, so I take that too. Her hands fall limp to her sides, submissive, a gift I also steal as I walk her backwards to the counter, uncaring about the four cameras pointed at us—something I scoped out the instant I entered—or Bones carelessly observing.
She tastes like sugar and spice, like hearts and flowers, and all the pretty shit women claim to need. Her responses, though, aren’t delicate. They’re energy—a storm on the coldest night, a light in the darkest tunnel. A crashing against my soul as she returns everything and more, her tongue tentative but claiming on her own too as she reaches inside and grasps my cold heart, unlocking it from the cell it’s been imprisoned in. They’re the kind of responses that can turn a man inside out and leave him begging for more.
And fuck me, for her, I might just beg.
My knee nudges between her legs until that sweet cunt of hers is pressed against my thigh. A little bit of pressure has her inhaling into my mouth—her breath, and thus her life, which I also steal. Knowing I’ll be leaving soon—hell, I should have already been gone—sucks. She’ll be wet and needy, but before taking care of her, I need to ensure she remains alive. Even if throwing Bones out on his ass, locking the door, and taking her right here on this counter is what my hardening cock craves.
Her mouth moves against mine, her fingers curling into the collar of my coat. Whether or not she realizes she isn’t trying to escape can be a bubble she pops on her own. She’s as obsessed with me as I am her.
The fact that at any point someone can walk in isn’t lost on me. And really, let them. Let the world see and understand this girl is claimed and protected by me. Always and forever, since her very first letter when she signed her life away.
She whimpers again, and her arms tighten around my neck. I nip her bottom lip with the promise—a vow made on my soul to hers—to return to her before pulling away. She wants me, and I have so much more to give.
But only when she’s safe.
“There’s your definition of ‘something’. You’re mine, and you’ve known it since the very first letter.” Her lips are swollen from my mouth, a claim my blood roars with. If I have to leave her, at least she bears my mark. “For months, I’ve fantasized about all the ways to prove it to you. My nights have been spent with the memory of those cute as hell dresses I longed to rip off you, this goddamn hair”—I slide my hand through the strands and grip tightly—“that I envisioned wrapping my fist around while sliding my cock between these sinful lips. And these baby blue eyes, imagining how they’d darken as you came, both on me and for me, screaming my name. Until then, let me protect you.”
Lust dilates her pupils, but still she has the gall to ask, “Why should I feel safe with you?”
“Because, sweetheart, you don’t actually know who I am or what I can do. Trust that your name being tattooed on my knuckles makes you untouchable. Anyone who threatens you has already signed his death certificate.”
I walk away from her, cast a final warning look towards Bones to keep his mouth shut, and head out to deal with my past so it can stop harassing my future.
TWELVE
ASPEN
The cold airthat seeps inside with Cade’s exit is a welcome distraction because his kiss heated my skin to a million degrees. He kissed me like I’ve never been kissed before. A bit rough but not painful. A way making me wonder if I’d like to be hurt—hurtonlyby him. A little out of control, like he was daring me with his lips and tongue to take the plunge and trust him.
God, what is wrong with me?Because fuck, I wanted to.Want, except this is the very man who’s been stalking me, who broke into my house, and claims I’m his after a year apart.
As if “apart” is even the best term to describe the pen pal relationship.
Smoothing my hair back and fixing my jeans so they’re not pressed into the place embarrassingly damp between my thighs, I attempt to regain some control of this situation, even while Cade’s friend in the corner pretends not to watch. “What’s your name?” I call to him, but he turns so he’s facing the door instead.
Dick.
By the time my co-worker, Becky, arrives an hour before my shift’s end, my body feels strung out with stress.
She touches my elbow to return me to the present and away from wherever Cade’s gone to—since his friend is zero help. “You okay? You’re pale.”
Pale seems to be my new skin tone.
“I’m fine.”
Her eyes slide to the man seated behind the counter—Scary Guy, as I’ve come to call him, since he refuses to give me a real name. After an hour of standing by the door, he wordlessly stalked into the back room, grabbed a chair from the office, and positioned it behind the counter but in view of the door. He’s spent the entire afternoon kicked back in it, glaring at the door, and ignoring every question about him and Cade. My responses have been a small smirk, and when extra lucky, a quick glance, confirming he’s ignoring me.
At one point, he nearly beat up one of my delivery boys, when learning the hard way there’s a back entrance. It chimed with their arrival when grabbing the next round of deliveries, and Scary Guy yanked a knife from his boot and lunged into the back room. I was thankfully able to save the poor guy’s neck in time, earning Scary Guy’s voice when he mumbled, “Sorry.”
