“You can try,” I say, but my head isn’t in the game in this moment, and somehow my hand is on his face, right by the almost smile, that seems to have complicated what should be sex, an escape, a way to pull back the emotions that umbrella stirred in me. That smile reminds me that Mr. Robot is his wall, his way to cope with death, with whatever makes him protect Jesse Marks.
He captures my hand. “What are you thinking?”
“That you have on too many clothes,” I say, before I let this go someplace emotional, somewhere that two people like us never want to go.
My hands press under his shirt, but he doesn’t immediately give me what I want. He studies me for several beats and then kisses me hard and fast. Too fast, but I get over it when he pulls his shirt off, tossing it aside, and given me a delicious view his perfect torso, and that shoulder tattoo that is gorgeously crafted: an eagle, a flag, the words Semper Fidelis, which is not just significant to the military, but to law enforcement as well. It means “always loyal” and only a man dedicated to his job and his country has that tattooed on his body.
I step to him, and caress a path down the tattoo. “You were a proud soldier when you got this.”
“I still am. Getting out doesn’t change that.”
“But you—”
He cups my face and kisses me, his hand sliding up my shirt, his touch fire that has me helping him pull my shirt over my head. Letting him drag me to him where he now sits on the couch. I straddle him, my bra somehow gone by the time I’m there. But my hands press to his shoulders, and I hold him at bay. “I will still arrest you if I need to,” I promise. “This doesn’t change that.”
“You aren’t going to arrest me any more than you hate me.” He glances down at my breasts, his gaze a hot caress as it rakes over my breasts, my nipples, before his eyes meet mine. “Because you know I’m protecting you.”
I ignore the ache between my thighs. Or I try. “From what? The slayer or the Jesse Marks damage patrol?”
His hand slides between my shoulder blades and he molds my chest to his. “Do you really want to talk about Jesse Marks right now? Because if you ask me questions, I’m going to ask you questions when I’d much rather be inside you, giving you as many reasons as I can not to arrest me. But you pick. Conversation or fucking.”
“Both,” I say, because it’s the truth. I want answers and I want the conversation my emotions are having in my head to shut up. “Fucking first.” I push away from him and stand up, unbuttoning my pants, sliding them down my hips, and he watches me with that unreadable, robot expression that is admittedly sexy as hell. I press my lips to his and that’s all it takes.
We are crazy, hot, kissing, his hands on my breasts, my nipples, my neck. I can’t touch him enough. I can’t feel him enough, can’t get close enough, and that’s new to me. I don’t need anyone the way I feel I need this man. I don’t want to need anyone this much, but it’s too late. At least, right here, right now, I do. He rolls us to our sides, facing one another, the wide cushion of the couch more than holding us and the next kiss isn’t fast and frenzied. It’s long, drugging, and somewhere in the midst of his tongue stroking my tongue, I end up on my back with the heavy weight of him on top of me, his hands on either side of my head. Those gray eyes of his bore into me. “I have one condom. We have to make it count.”
“I get the birth control shot, but I have a question before I give up that condom. When you weren’t fucking women you were protecting, how many women were you fucking?”
“I don’t fuck around. I don’t have time, but if that occasion presented itself, I used a condom. And a woman gets a shot for one man or a lot of men. You won’t let a lot of men get close to you.”
“I had a fuck buddy. He’s gone.”
“Who?” he demands.
“Just—a fireman. He’s gone.”
“How long and when did it end?”
“He was a fuck buddy, Jacob. There was nothing to end.”
“When did it end?” he asks.
“Six months ago.”
“Why did it end?”
My brows furrow. “Why does it matter?”
“Holy fuck, I don’t know, but it does.”
“What does that mean?”
“Why did it—”
“He was too nice, and he wanted more and I just didn’t.”
“What was wrong with him?”
“I told you. He was nice.”
“Nice is bad?”
“Okay, he was too nice. I don’t do nice. Nothing in my world is nice. And you’re not nice. In fact, you’re so far from nice that I might have to arrest you and I hate that I want you, but I do.”
“You aren’t going to have to arrest me. I’m a lot of things, many you might not like, but I’m not that guy. I’m the guy who will die to protect you if I have to.”
My hand goes to the tattoo on his shoulder. “You’d die to protect anyone,” I say, which only backs up his words. He’s not the guy I have to arrest. I don’t want him to be the guy I have to arrest.
“You’re not just anyone or I wouldn’t be here, like this, with you right now.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Neither do I,” he says, and he doesn’t give me time to process that statement or reply. He kisses me again, and I decide, “good kisser” is once again the proper description for this man. No, I decide, as his mouth travels down my neck to my nipple, where he licks and suckles—good with his mouth. Good, so very good, and everywhere. My sworn testimony to that fact is his mouth on my belly, and his tongue dipping low beneath my waistband.
He catches the string of my silk panties at my hips, and caresses them down my hips, but he stops mid-thigh, lingering there just long enough to give my clit a lick. I gasp, and arch my back, and he suckles my nub, sending darts of pleasure straight to my nipples. His tongue follows again, swirling and teasing, until his mouth is gone, and moments later, so are my pants. The instant my ankles are free, he’s standing, reaching for his pants. I sit up, not because I feel out of control—oddly—I’ve forgotten that battle that felt so very real when this started. I’ve forgotten what I was angry about, what I was afraid of. I sit up because I want to watch him, and by the time my feet settle on the ground with my knees pressed together with the ache in my sex, his pants and underwear are gone. And it’s not the jut of his cock—which like the rest of him is impressively big—that has my attention, but rather the much larger, deep scar that runs the length of his thigh and calf.
The horror of how he must have gotten that shakes me, and reminds me that he is a Green Beret, he is a hero. He walks toward me and the minute he’s in reach, one of my hands comes down on that scar, and the other around his cock. I trace the scar with my fingers, and it is deep, so very deep. I look up at him and he is watching me, his expression hooded, jaw hard. Cock even harder, and I lean in and give him a lick.
“Fuck,” he breathes out, and I like it. I like him sounding rough and out of control. I want him rough and out of control. But when I go to take him in my mouth, he moves, and in a blink, we’re back on the couch, on our sides facing each other.
“My cock in your mouth right now, means I come, and you’ll think I’m more of an asshole than you already do. And I’m not that damn selfish.” He kisses me and then presses his cheek to mine, his lips near my ear. “I’m going to fuck you now, hard and fast, because we both need hard and fast right now, but later,” he nips my lobe, “later, I’m going to taste you again. Lick you again.” His breath is a warm trickle on my neck. “Everywhere. But right now—” He strokes his cock along the wet seam of my body. “There is this.” He presses inside me, and I grab his shoulder with the sensation of him entering me, stretching me, until he’s in the deepest depths of me.
Our foreheads come together, and his hands settle between my shoulder blades, molding me closer. We don’t move though, we just linger there, and I swear I feel something happening between us. Or maybe it’s me that it’s happening
to. Maybe I’m more affected by the slayer than I realize, more vulnerable to Jacob’s appeal than I intended to become. Maybe alone isn’t as good right now as together.
“What are you doing to me, woman?” he asks, as if he’s thinking what I’m thinking. Like he feels this too, but I don’t even try to reply. I don’t know what this is, and I can’t think now. Not when the thick ridge of his erection is caressing a path backward until I think he is going to pull out to move away. I arch forward, desperate to bring him back, and he slides my leg up, over his hip, and answers me with a hard thrust. I pant, trying to catch my breath, moaning as his hand slides to my backside, pulling me closer, driving deeper. I want him to drive in again, but he leans in and kisses me, a slow, drink-me-in kind of kiss, his hips doing this kind of slide and grind against mine.
Our lips part and for a moment we breathe together before he thrusts again, and the explosion of sensation I feel has me panting out his name, and digging fingers into his arms. He thrusts again, and with that, a frenzied need erupts between us. He starts to pump into me over and over and I feel him shaking, or maybe it’s me who is shaking. His gaze rakes over my breasts, and he kisses me in between another pump and grind. And another. And another. I don’t want this to end, and yet I need him to keep hitting that crazy sweet spot that promises bliss. I need it to the point that I move into him, pull him closer, lean into every move he makes.
And then it happens. I am there and without warning. I am never there without warning. I’m honestly rarely there at all. I usually just hope to get there. But I am now. Suddenly, intensely there, my sex clamping down on Jacob inside me, spasming with the most intense orgasm of my life. He growls low in his throat and drives into me before I feel the wet, hot heat of his release. We tremble into release, clinging to each other. Our naked bodies meld together intimately, our foreheads connected.
And for the first time in my adult life, I don’t know what I want to come next. I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know what he’s making me feel. I need to think, which isn’t going to happen with this man naked and all over me. I try to roll away, but he captures me. “What just happened?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. The couch. I need tissue.”
He reaches behind us and grabs tissue, pulls out of me and stuffs it between my legs. “Problem solved. Now. What just happened?”
“We had sex,” I say, trying to get my head back on straight. “Just sex. That’s what happened.”
He cups my face and kisses me, this drugging, seductive kiss that is somehow all about sex, and yet, not about sex at all. “That didn’t feel like just sex to me,” he says. “But maybe it is. Maybe you needed to forget the slayer and maybe I just wanted you to forget Jesse Marks, which I do, I don’t deny that. But I can tell you that I plan to fuck you again. I plan to lick you every place I can possibly lick you. And I plan to make sure you can’t even remember that firefighter’s name.” He rolls me to my back and hovers over me. “So is it just sex?” he asks. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s something else and since I’ve done something else, I think I’ll try it on for size and take you with me.” And with that, he stands up and walks to get his pants, giving me a perfect view of his perfect ass.
He’s such a damn asshole.
An asshole that is definitely making me feel something else.
I’ve gone too far with Jewel. I know this, but I can’t turn back. I want her. I’m fucking obsessed with this woman when that’s not my way. I don’t obsess. I don’t crave. I don’t have to have anything, and yet I do feel every bit of that with her. I want her that fucking badly, and I can’t explain it. I could keep her naked in bed for a solid week, and I know that wouldn’t be enough to be enough.
But right now, she has a real stalker, and I need to end that person. And so, I let her dress, no doubt hammering away at her wall as she rebuilds it, while second guessing me and herself for wanting to trust me. We reach for our shoulder holsters and once we settle them back into place, we’re both back on the job.
“Tell me about the umbrella,” I order softly.
“Tell me about your scar,” she says, and I almost smile at her brilliant dodge and deflect.
I could do quid pro quo and promise her an answer for an answer, but I’ve torn down her trust by sideswiping her today with her boss. I need, and want, it back. “It was a Cuban mission,” I say. “I pissed off the wrong guy. Does it bother you?”
She softens instantly. “No. God, no. Of course, it doesn’t bother me. It’s a part of you.”
“You seemed quite obsessed with it,” I comment.
“You were naked. I was obsessed with all of you.”
Obsessed. There is that word that was in my head, now on her lips.
“Were you a prisoner?” she asks, before I can comment.
“Yes,” I say. “I was.”
“How long?”
“Seventy-two hours, until my team showed up.”
“Did you kill the person who did that to you?”
“Yes,” I say again. “I did.”
“Was Jesse Marks on the rescue team?”
And there it is. Proof of how good she is at her job. She hit me from the side. “That mission was top secret, and I can’t tell you that.”
“That’s a yes,” she assumes.
“Sorry, detective. I’ve been questioned and cornered while being tortured. Your questions and assumptions don’t faze me, nor does my lack of an answer constitute an answer at all.”
I reach behind me and pull the book out that she was holding when I followed her up here. “Tell me about the umbrella and this book.”
She closes the space between me and her and grabs the book. I shackle her free hand and pull her to me. “I can’t protect you if you don’t tell me what is going on. We have to do this together.”
“Your version of together and mine don’t work. And spilling details of an investigation to an army of people leads to mistakes, miscalculation, and problems.”
“This is about Royce going to your boss.”
“You went to Royce,” she says, “or he would not have gone to my boss.”
“I don’t deny that. But would you feel better about me leaving you exposed?”
“Don’t be an asshole and go around me.”
“I will do what I have to, to protect you.” I say.
“You mean you will do what you have to do to ensure you know what I’m doing with Jesse Marks.”
“Damn straight, detective. Because Jesse Marks will end you. Not your career—you. Back off while you still can.”
“Is that a threat?”
“That’s a fact,” I bite out. “A cold, hard, brutal fact that will get you killed.”
“I’m a—”
“Detective,” I supply. “Yes. I know.”
“Then you know that I can’t just walk away from this. I need more than that. I need details.”
“Details are top secret, just like his file.”
“But you know the details?”
“Yes.”
“So you served with him.”
“Yes. I served with him.”
“You’re protecting him.”
“Not a chance in hell. I’m protecting you.”
“You’re protecting him,” she hisses, angry now.
“The government does not let its secrets get uncovered.”
“You’re saying they’d kill me?”
“Yes. I am. And I will continue to say this over and over, and hope like hell one day I don’t have to prove it. I am the guy who will die for you, Jewel. Set Jesse aside right now. Set it aside and let’s catch the slayer together.”
“I told you, I don’t like your version of together.”
“Come on, sweetheart,” I say, releasing her hand and settling mine on her shoulder. “Forgive me like you fucked me. All the way. Let me in. You said yourself you need me.”
She studies me for several long beats. “I need to be able to trust you. I nee
d together to mean something.”
“One slip and you’ll be dead, and I couldn’t wait for you to decide to trust me.”
“Don’t do that to me again,” she says. “Together means together. Talk to me, not my boss, not my father. Not your team.”
“My team is protecting you, too.”
“I get that. I do. But humans make mistakes and the more humans who are involved, the more those mistakes multiply and whoever this is we’re facing is scary smart.”
“All right. I’ll concede there is truth to that statement, but my people are not average people. They’re the elite of the elite, and I don’t think your problem is what they know. I think if you’re honest with yourself and me, your problem is still what happened today with your boss. And Jewel, I’ve been frank and honest about why I did that. Put Jesse Marks aside for now. I need you to talk to me about that umbrella.” I lift the book. “Why did it take you to this book?”
She studies me for several more intense beats, before she takes the book, the tension around her brow telling me her headache is back. “I’ll show you, but downstairs. There’s a piece of the puzzle there as well.” She twists out of my arms and heads down the stairs.
I don’t hesitate to follow, hoping whatever piece of the puzzle she has leads us to the slayer. I find her behind the island, the book in front of her. I join her on the opposite side, and she reaches into her briefcase at her hip and tosses down the pink paper umbrella that she bagged.
I glance at it and then her. “What does it mean to you?”
She opens the book and flips to a page before turning it toward me. “My mother did an advertisement for the bakery holding a pink umbrella. People wanted those pink umbrellas and she started selling them in her bakery.”
I study the advertisement, and then glance at Jewel. “Another very personal message.”
“It is, but the ads were everywhere so this wouldn’t be hard to discover. Now, Tabitha’s love of butterflies is another story. This person still has to have intimate knowledge of my life.”
I glance at the date of the newspaper clipping. “This campaign took place while you were in college. That’s where this is leading us.”