I grab the curves of her ass and knead as best I can, dragging her core hard into me. Her mouth opens on a wordless gasp. I love that it feels so good I stole the noise from her throat.
If I had two good hands, no broken ribs, she’d be on the floor underneath me already. Or no, I’d carry her up to my bed. Tess deserves better than the cold, hard floor, no matter how wild she makes me.
I reach for the button of her jeans with my bad hand, figuring it’s better to keep hold of her with my good one. She’s fully on my thigh now, only her toes touching the floor, and I can’t let her fall. I’ve picked her up and I’ve got to bring her down safely.
But my hand is too useless to get the button free. Stupid tight jeans and stupid stubborn button and stupid broken hand keeping me from her sweet pussy.
She reaches between us, flicks open her fly just like that. Her panties peep out in the gap, purple with a tiny bow. I never knew plain cotton could be so damn enticing.
I switch hands then, my broken fingers throbbing when they curl around her butt. I tell them to shut up and not ruin this. My good hand slips down the front of her jeans, cupping her sex through that ridiculously sexy purple cotton.
When my fingertips find wet fabric, I groan. When I brush the stiff bud of her clit, she groans.
“You don’t have to… The jeans… Oh fuck,” she pants.
I’m guessing she means I could get her off like this, right through her panties. But if she thinks I’m passing up the chance to stroke her bare pussy, she’s dead wrong. I tease her clit with the fabric, watching her expression to see how far I can take her without pushing her over the edge. My other hand is clenched around her ass so firmly I might be breaking my fingers all over again, and my cock is so hard I might pop my pants button, but I’ve never felt so good in my life. It’s like everything I’ve ever done was building to this moment.
When her eyes roll back, I slide my hand inside her panties. It’s a tight fit with her jeans still on and her riding my thigh, but I like that. Makes me get inventive, and I’ve got cleverness to spare.
Her folds are soft and slick, better than the finest silk. Her arousal perfumes the air around us. My mouth waters as I imagine how she’ll taste.
Her clit is swollen and needy, and the second I touch it, she jerks in my arms. A noise that’s pure crazed need leaves her mouth.
A few delicate strokes and some twists have her coming completely undone, her panting treading the line between breath and sobs.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she chants.
I hold her tight, giving her an anchor to ride on. She’s so transcendent when she climaxes. I want to capture this image of her in my mind forever.
And then my bad hand gives out. She slips down my thigh several inches before I catch her.
“Fuck,” I huff out. Betrayed by my own body. Except my cock is still raring to go.
She jumps off my leg, her pants still unbuttoned. “Are you okay? What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking you were too goddamn sexy to resist.” I grin past the pain thrumming through my hand. “And I was right.”
She shakes her head, a slight smile on her mouth. “You need rest. And real pain relief.” She bites her lip. “And I should get back.”
I hold in my sigh of regret. She’s right, but my cock insists that we can still pull this off. My hand tells me that my cock is crazy.
“I’ll walk you back.”
She cups my cheek, presses a quick kiss to my mouth. “Thank you. I…” Her expression tips into pleased shyness, and I can’t fucking take it. She turns me inside out with those eyes of hers.
“Let’s go,” I say gruffly.
I don’t reach for her hand as we walk, because I don’t entirely trust myself to let go. And I have to concentrate on walking straight since I fucked up my leg somehow earlier and I’ve got the devil’s own hard-on.
When we reach her door, she kisses me again. Long and slow, like she wishes we could finish what we started.
I’m game. But she pulls away before I can suggest it, putting a hand on my chest. That touch says I really regret this, but I have to go.
So I let her leave and shut the door without any further protest. I do wait until I hear her turn the dead bolt.
As I walk back to the house, alone, her words about feeling responsible for everyone come back to me. I wonder who exactly the everyone is that she’s talking about. And if I can use all this money I’ve amassed to take some of that weight off her shoulders.
Chapter 15
I wake up the next day with every fucking inch of my body hurting. Not just hurting—screaming.
“Fuck,” I huff as I pull myself out of bed. I think I might have rebroken my ribs. But I drag my ass up and into the bathroom, getting myself ready for the day. A shower’s doable, but I decide not to shave, which leaves me smelling like Irish Spring and looking like a damn pirate.
Strangely, my mood is pretty damn good. Probably ’cause I got to see Tess’s O-face last night. I had some amazing dreams after that.
When I limp downstairs, Tess is already at work. She’s wearing yoga pants today for some reason, and they’re hugging her ass in a way that makes me wish like hell my hands weren’t fucked up. And that she wasn’t my employee. And that it wasn’t broad daylight. Fingering her at night is one thing, but sneaking up on her while she’s working is too beastly even for me. I do find myself wishing I was less of a gentleman as I take in her ass in those yoga pants though.
She turns as I come up to her, part of an electronic panel in her hand. “You look…” Her gaze runs up and down me, and I swear she lingers on my beard.
I rub at the stubble. Maybe I should keep it if she likes it.
“Like hell?” I ask softly.
A flush creeps up her neck and into her soft cheeks. “No. You look…” She swallows hard. “Good. Really good, considering what you went through last night.”
Heat flares in her eyes, a brighter gold than her usual topaz. I know exactly what she’s remembering from last night.
I reach out and lightly brush a dark mark on her jaw with my good hand. “You fell too. Are you okay?”
Her breath comes in sharp and quick. “I’m fine. Just a little stiff.”
“I’ll bet. You sleep okay?”
Her cheeks go pink. “It took me a while to fall asleep.”
I want to lick that blush off her cheeks. And then keep licking all the way down. “Me too,” I say huskily. Reluctantly I let my hand drop. “You got an early start.”
“I’ve got a lot to do.” She gestures at the panel. “Someone smashed all these for shits and giggles, and I’ve got to repair them.”
“What an asshole.” I scrub my hand through my hair. “I can help you.”
Her flush deepens. “It’s my job. You’re paying me—a lot—to do this.”
I am, but what I’m paying her is a drop in the bucket for me. A very tiny raindrop into a fricking lake.
“I want to make up for the asshole who did this.”
She raises an eyebrow. God, but her eyebrows are… elegant? Expressive? I don’t know exactly, but I can’t look away from them.
I couldn’t look away last night when she was caring for me. She tried to be gentle at first, but it didn’t work. And then when she came, I definitely couldn’t look away. Not if my life depended on it.
“You don’t have better things to do?”
“I do.” I reach out and touch the mark on her jaw again. “But I owe you. And I made your job harder.”
She nibbles on her lip. “I could use some help. If you have the time.”
If she keeps doing that with her lip, my head is going to explode. “How much do you trust your employee? The blond one?”
“With my life,” she says without hesitation.
Damn. That’s some real sincerity. I would have answered like that about the guys if I’d been asked the question before the break-in.
My sternum hurts. Again.
/> “You should have her come help you,” I say gruffly. “This needs to get done.”
For a moment it looks like she’s going to light into me and remind me that banning her employee was my dumb idea. But all she says is “Thank you. I’ll call her today.”
I wait for her to make the next logical leap—to ask or demand to be released from her promise to stay here. If I’m giving away so many of my earlier demands, she’s got to take advantage of it. Anyone would.
I don’t want her to though. I want last night to mean something to her.
She watches me for a long moment, like she’s… weighing me or something. I never had a woman look at me like that, not ever. Her look is deep.
I don’t know what to make of it. I’m not afraid of it, but I already told her she’s not going to like what she sees. If she stays, she’s only going to see more. We react too explosively together to prevent it from happening again.
“I should probably keep staying in the in-law.” Her tone is too casual. “To get this done faster.”
My heart does something strange. Something like a leap. To cover it up, I say roughly, “Good, because that wasn’t on the table. We were only talking about your friend.”
“Employee,” she says. “But also my friend. Like you and Rustem.”
I know what she’s doing: she’s reminding me of my human connections. Since she’s staying, I’ll let her get away with it.
“Why do you trust her so much?” I ask. “I mean, your life? Really?”
Her expression shifts, gets a touch haunted. “She gave up a lot for me. Almost everything.”
There’s a story behind that, a massive one, and I want to know it. “What happened?”
She sets down the part she’s holding and sighs deeply. Like she has to gather herself to tell it. “I was in the Army,” she says. “I enlisted the day after I graduated high school. No, two days after, actually.”
And there’s another story there, I can tell. This woman’s got layers, and every new one she reveals just pulls me in deeper.
“Okay.” I gesture like I’m rolling something up. “Start with that. Why two days?”
Color sneaks up her cheeks and her gaze drops. “I thought I’d have some time after high school to figure things out. Get an entry-level job, take some classes at the community college, decide what I wanted to do with my life. But then I… my parents had some debts that I found out about. Big ones. No job I could get with only a high school degree would be enough to help out as much as they needed. The Army would feed, clothe, house, and pay me.” She shrugged. “It was a no-brainer.”
Maybe a no-brainer, but not easy. “So you joined the Army. And helped your parents get out of financial trouble.” She doesn’t have to say that part—what I already know about her tells me she must have done that.
“I helped pay off those debts, yes,” she says carefully.
Those debts. Meaning there were more debts after. I wonder how many of those she’s helped pay off too. Not all of them, I’m sure—that must be why she took this job and kept it. Those debts held her here.
My long-dormant conscience stirs. I took advantage of her and lied to her. It’s not the first time I’ve used someone to my benefit, and it won’t be the last… but I haven’t felt bad about it since I can’t remember when.
So there’s at least some of the people she feels responsible for. Her parents. And this employee too.
“You joined the Army then,” I say irritably, because I don’t like feeling bad. “Got yelled at by a drill sergeant and scrubbed toilets.”
She tries to hold back a smile. “It’s not quite as bad as Full Metal Jacket. I got assigned to the Signal Corps, doing pretty much what I am now. Except an Army base is way less nicer than this place.”
“This house better be nicer,” I mutter. “Considering what I paid for it.” Secretly, I’m pleased. She likes this house. She wants to keep staying here, at least until the job is done.
Apparently I’m not enough of a monster to scare her away completely. Which was my plan all along—keep her at arm’s length so that she’d get the job done quickly and never look back—but having my plan blow up turns out to be pretty good. I’m going to have her within arm’s reach instead. My blood heats at the thought.
Maybe I should take her around the grounds. Show her the pool and the sauna. She ought to use those if she feels like it. And not to be a dick about it, but I wouldn’t mind seeing her in a swimsuit. I definitely wouldn’t mind at all.
Shit. My mouth’s dry and my pulse is jacking up. Probably should think about something else. I want her to finish this story.
“Victoria was my lieutenant,” Tess says. “Her family’s been in the military for four generations, and she was the first to go to West Point. She was really… committed. To being the best leader she could be.”
The guilt in Tess’s voice is like lead; heavy, dark. It makes my jaw tighten, because there’s nothing Tess could have done to deserve that kind of guilt.
She takes a shaky inhale. “Someone higher up than both of us decided to start harassing me.”
Immediately I’m on edge, my body bristling. “What the fuck? Is he still doing it? Give me his name. I’ll take care of it.” I won’t even give it to Gage to deal with, although it’s his specialty. I’ll deal with this fucker entirely on my own.
She eyes me up and down. “No.” Warmth creeps into her tone. “He eventually gave up, so you can stand down.”
I don’t feel like standing down. I feel like working out some of this anger on that dude’s face. But I also want to hear the rest of this, so I force myself to relax. “Okay, I’m calming down.”
She raises an eyebrow. “I guess that’s relaxed, for you. So I had this… problem. And there wasn’t much I could do about it because I was enlisted and he was an officer. Oh, and his dad was even higher in rank. But Victoria… she fought and fought for me. And kept fighting even when it went nowhere. Even when it endangered her own career.”
Tess swallows hard, then wipes her hand across her brow. She’s pale, almost trembling. I roar at her in the dark and she takes it on the chin, but telling this story has her rattled. Because she thinks it’s all her fault.
My heart can’t take much more of this.
“Hey.” I say it loud to grab her attention and hold it. “It wasn’t your fault. Victoria did the right thing. That’s why she kept fighting for you. If the higher-ups were shitty, that’s not on either of you.”
She doesn’t look at all convinced.
“If Victoria knew going in,” I say, “that she’d ruin her career over this, do you think she’d have done anything differently? I don’t really know her, but based on what you’ve told me, I’m going to guess no. What do you think?”
Her blinks are long and slow, like she’s coming out of a daydream. “She’d… she’d probably do exactly the same. She really believes in honor and responsibility. And doing the right thing no matter what.”
I’ll bet. And I’d guess Tess believes in it too even if she doesn’t seem to think so. It’s clear she feels very responsible for Victoria, even beyond the guilt issue.
“There you go,” I say. “It sucks that you both were punished for that, but you’re doing something better now anyway.”
I’d still like to find the guy who harassed her, but if she’d stayed in the Army, she wouldn’t be here in my house. And that would be a terrible loss.
Tess shakes her head. “But I never wanted an Army career. It wasn’t my calling, not like it was with Victoria. And she gave it all up because of me.”
“Because of you?” I ask. “Or because when push came to shove, the command wouldn’t allow her to do what she was supposed to? Like protect her soldiers?”
Tess looks away, her expression vulnerable. “I suppose. But I still feel like I owe her. Like I’ll never be able to repay her, no matter what.” Her mouth purses. “I mean, I’d help her anyway even if she hadn’t helped me. But… but I wish she c
ould have held on to her dream.”
And what about your dreams? All I’ve heard so far from Tess is what she wants to do for others. Not what she wants to do for herself.
“If you feel that way, why don’t you make her a partner?” I ask. “She’d make more money.”
“But she’d also have more risk. This way, when—if—the company goes under, she won’t be left holding the bag.”
But Tess will be. Those are some very small shoulders for everything she’s carrying. She might be after me to trust more people, to admit that I care about others, but she’s got to let go of some of this responsibility. The weight of it is going to crush her.
Admitting that would be admitting that I care about her, for her. But that can’t be right—I only just met her. I’m only feeling protective because she’s staying with me and this place isn’t exactly safe right now. Plus she almost got hit by a car last night. That’s it.
I mean, I might have been terrified out of my mind before I reached her, thinking I might not make it before the car did, but I did make it. So whatever I felt before doesn’t mean anything now.
“Nobody’s going to be holding any bag,” I say gruffly. “Have her come out if you need the help. And I’m transferring the first installment to your bank account today.”
Her eyes widen. “But the contracted schedule—”
“I’m changing it. Are you seriously complaining about getting your money?”
I hadn’t intended on paying her earlier than planned, but she needs the money. Or rather, her parents probably do. And having her friend around will make her happier.
But it also means she’ll be done sooner and will leave sooner.
I shake my head. That’s good. I mean, I like having her around, and I’m planning on getting her into my bed sooner rather than later, but the security system needs to be in like yesterday.
“I wasn’t complaining,” she says softly. “And thanks for letting me bring in Victoria.”
“It’s nothing.” I clear my throat, step away from her. The softness of her voice—and the rest of her—is scrambling my thoughts. “I’ve got to get to work.”
Primal Bargains Page 10
