My heartbeat slams achingly in my chest, threatening to crack my rib cage and leave me feeling more vulnerable than I already do.
“You’ll think less of me,” I whisper. “It will ruin everything.”
He stalks up behind me, breathing like a wild animal, barely containing his desire.
“What is it, Rosie?” he snarls.
I sigh, letting my head drop.
I know this is the end.
“I’m a virgin, Ryland,” I whisper.
CHAPTER TEN
Ryland
I stare at my woman, my eyes moving over the shape of her ass in her maid’s outfit. The frilly white hem drives me insane, just about low enough to reveal the thick lusciousness of her thighs.
Wetness glistens against those captivating legs of hers, the same wetness that covers my lips, her taste moving through me in animal song.
My seed roars as the helm of my cock pushes against my zipper, trying to burst free.
The word virgin – spoken in her captivatingly shy voice – causes more tension to flood into my balls, making me feel as though they could blow at any second.
She looked like a gift as she lay on the table, her legs spread wide, her perfect pink hole beckoning me closer.
I was so ready to pull out my hungry cock and drive into that sweet hole, to push deeper and deeper until I’d driven into her up to the hilt.
I knew she’d cream for me again when I fucked her hard, lifting her from the table and cradling her to my chest.
She’s a virgin.
She’s never been touched by anybody before.
She belongs to me completely.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly, with her back turned, as if she’s unwilling or unable to look at me. “I know this changes things.”
“It changes nothing,” I snap.
“What?” she says, glancing at me over her shoulder.
More spirals of her hair have come loose, messy, and enthralling around her flushed red face.
“I can’t talk to you when I feel like this. Get on your knees.”
She bites her lip, but she does as she’s told, turning to me and slowly lowering herself.
I stare down at her. At this angle, her breasts are even more glorious, big round tempting bulbs of flesh.
There’s so much of her, so much to be enthralled by, to be tempted by.
It’s like everything about her has been created to fit my perfect fantasy.
“Show me those tits,” I snap.
She moans as she reaches up – looking up at me with those stunning eyes all the while – and pulls down the front of the maid’s outfit.
Her breasts spill free magnificently, her nipples pink and hard. Beautiful veins move across the fleshy landscape of her breasts, making her seem vivacious and even more alluring.
“Push them together,” I growl. “Play with them. Beg me to come on them.”
I don’t want to waste my seed anywhere but her sweet wet slit, but I’m only human.
No man would be able to resist Rosie when she’s kneeling like this, her breasts seeming bigger as her small hands rise to them, compressing her flushed flesh as she pushes them together for me.
I tear my zipper down and free my cock.
She gasps as all ten inches of me spring free, my massive length bulging with veins, precome clinging to the end. The tip aches with the need for release.
“Beg,” I snap.
“Please come on my tits,” she whispers, shy at first.
But something shifts in her when she sees the effect she’s having on me. She pouts her lips and says it louder.
“Please, Ryland. Please come on me. Please, please, please.”
She continues to beg as I stroke my hand up and down my length, staring down at her with lust twisting its way through me, lust I’ve withheld for years.
I pump my fist furiously, spreading precome all over my gigantic dick, staring down at her as my vision begins to waver with the oncoming release.
Her voice rises, louder, moaning as I get closer and closer to the end.
“Your ass,” I grunt. “Bend over. I need. Your ass. Cheeks.”
“Okay, okay,” she pants, like the obedient minx she is.
She stands up and does a cute-as-fuck spin for me, sticking her ass out and placing her hands against the bookshelf.
“Like this?” she moans.
“Stick it out,” I snarl.
“Okay,” she cries, doing as she’s told. “Better?”
I let go of my rod and lean down, angling my cock so I can slide it between her ass cheeks. Precome smears across her skin, making it glisten as I slot the throbbing helm of my dick where it belongs.
Slippery and hot, I pump my hips, fucking the cleavage of her ass as the sensation drives me closer and closer to an explosion.
“Fuck,” I roar when it becomes too much to handle.
I squeeze her ass cheeks around my shaft and stare, captivated, as wave after wave of hot come squirts over her ass and her lower back, painting her in my need.
She gasps and grinds against me as my cock beings to wilt, the last of my seed drenching her.
I step back, my head fuzzy with the release.
“Did I do okay?” she whispers, turning to face me, every inch of her young, fertile, naïve skin tinged lust-red.
I grab her hand and pull her close, leaning down to capture her lips with mine. Her moan is adorable, part shock and part delight, as our tongues fuse together and dance in the shared space of our open mouths.
“Is that answer enough?” I snarl.
“I thought you’d be angry,” she says. “I thought you wanted, I don’t know… a fling? Something wild. And I thought you’d hate it when you found out that’s not what I am. Not that sort of girl, I mean.”
I smirk and stroke my hand along her head, smoothing down the rebellious strands of her hair. She smiles, closing her eyes as if to savor the contact.
“Let’s get dressed and discuss this on the balcony,” I say. “After all, I’m not a complete animal.”
She giggles and rolls her eyes at me, her meaning clear as if we’ve built up a lifetime of silent communication.
I can read the message in her copper eyes easily.
Yeah, right.
We sit next to each other on the couch, the lights of my estate turning the garden into a beacon of brightness. Chopper lies curled up under Rosie as though the little rascal has known her his whole life.
She’s changed into a long flowing dress, the type that’s made of fabric that settles like smoke against the gorgeous outline of her body, stirring my primal insides to action, my seed telling me to take her right now. I’m wasting time – my seed implores – by not claiming her right this second.
“So,” she says, “you’re not disappointed?”
I force my hands to remain on my thighs.
Reaching across to touch her tenderly can all too easily turn possessive and savage. I’ll mean well, but the next thing I know, I’ll have my hands on those round breasts of hers, squeezing possessively as I imagine how her pert nipples would look heavy with milk.
“Not even a little bit,” I growl.
I turn away from her, facing the garden. Staring at her for too long is driving me closer and closer to the edge of my control.
I can’t trust myself not to leap on her when she insists on looking so damn fuckable.
“I don’t understand,” she murmurs. “Why did you save me, Ryland?”
“I don’t hurt women,” I tell her.
“Who do you hurt, then?” she whispers.
I sigh and run a hand through my steel hair, turning my face up to the sky and studying the intricate map of the stars.
“I’ve never had to explain myself before,” I tell her, “and I don’t feel like starting now.”
“Fine,” she says, with a little feistiness in her voice.
I find myself smirking at her tone, my thoughts soaring to a future where she gifts our children with
the same feistiness.
“But you at least have to explain why you saved me, specifically… and why you’re attracted to me—”
“I’m attracted to you because you’re attractive,” I snarl, moving my gaze to her again. “There’s no hidden meaning there, Rosie, at least not in the way you’re implying.”
“What way is that?” she snaps, folding her arms.
I almost groan when she does that, her arms pushing her breasts together gorgeously, drawing my eye all over again. I swallow a thousand wants and force my gaze to remain on her face.
“You think you’re ugly,” I say. “And I hate it. I fucking hate that you’d ever see yourself that way. I wish you could see what I see.”
“What do you see?” she murmurs, some of the fire draining from her face, replaced with something softer.
“Beauty,” I say, voice husky. “Beauty like I never could’ve dreamed existed before I laid eyes on you. Everything about you is perfect. I’ll convince you of that one day.”
“One day,” she says, still in that same breathy tone. “So I was right. This is more than a fling, huh?”
I laugh darkly and rise from my seat, walking over to the railing and laying my elbows against it.
“You’ll think I’m crazy if I tell you,” I say.
“Try me,” she murmurs, walking up next to me.
She pauses beside me. Out of my peripheral vision – honed by years of awareness, of bloody work, of violence – I see her lift her hand and then drop it.
She was going to place it on my shoulder, but she lost her nerve at the last second.
I turn to her and grab her wrist, moving her hand to my shoulder with a smirk.
She giggles.
“I’m—No, I can’t say sorry, can I? Okay, then I’ll just say I get a little nervous. And I’ve never been intimate with anybody before. Earlier – what we did – it’s the first time I’ve ever done anything like that.”
The base of my cock throbs and pulses, fresh need trying to make me rock solid.
“You have no idea how crazy that makes me,” I snarl.
“Why?” she says, her hand getting tight on my shoulder. “You haven’t explained anything. None of this makes any sense. I want to understand, Ryland. I thought you were going to kick me out when I refused to have sex with you earlier.”
I laugh grimly, lifting my hand to cradle her flushed face.
“My perfect little virgin maid,” I tease, and she giggles. “Only immature little dickheads throw hissy fits when a woman rejects them. And don’t worry. You’ll be giving yourself to me, truly giving yourself, very, very soon.”
She whimpers at the force of my words.
“But why?” she moans.
I loop my arms around her body and pull her close to me so that there’s no space between us, our bodies feeling like they could collapse into each other at any second.
“Because we’re going to be together forever,” I growl. “Because you belong to me, and me alone. Because the second I saw you, saw a photograph of you, I knew you were the woman I’ve been waiting my whole life for. That, my perfect sexy maid, is why.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rosie
I stare up into his swimming silver eyes, struggling to take in what he just told me in my mind.
He’s been waiting his whole life for me?
I almost laugh at the thought. It speeds through me like a bullet of impossibility, shattering parts of me that only started to grow when I laid eyes on him.
No, earlier than that.
These crazy emotions swirled to life inside of me when I heard him through the door, as though he could transmit all this want and desperate desire without me even needing to see him.
“Rosie, you’re going to give birth to my children one day. And one day soon, I hope. You belong to me. That’s why I’m not mad about you being a virgin. Hell, that’s why I like it. Because it means I get to be the only one to claim you. No other man is ever going to touch you. You belong to me. Everything you are, everything you will ever be, it’s mine.”
“And that’s why you saved me,” I murmur, feeling as though I’m throwing these words over a gap many miles away.
His hands tighten on my hips, making my belly twist with desire, making my womb sing. I thought I was crazy for thinking things like that – things about wombs and families and destiny – and yet he’s just basically told me he feels the same.
“No,” he says. “I mean—yes, I would never let anything happen to you. But I wasn’t lying when I told you I’d never hurt a woman.”
I turn away, pacing over to the opposite railing. Any second, I’m sure, my legs could fall out from beneath me, just turn to smoke and leave me small and defenseless on the floor.
“What is this then?” I hiss, facing the garden, the sky, anywhere but him.
If I face him, I might find myself believing what he’s saying, and that’s craziness, just plain insanity.
“I don’t know,” he says, voice rumbling. “I can’t explain it. It’s just the way I feel—”
“No,” I snap, spinning on him despite my need not to lock eyes with him, despite knowing that staring into those shivering azures could make me weak and gullible. “I mean, why are you saying these things? What twisted game is this? Did Vito put you up to this? Did he want you to mind-fuck me before you killed me? Is that it? Because it makes no sense, Ryland. I’ve never…”
He drifts over to me, his lips twisted into something like a frown. But there’s more to it than simple sadness. It’s more like he’s disappointed in me, and I find myself wanting to rage and scream and tell him I can be better. I can be worthy of his attention.
He stops just shy of me, staring down at me with that all-consuming gaze of his, the gaze that makes me feel as though I’m the only woman alive.
“This is not a trick,” he growls. “You belong to me. You always will. Your virginity is mine. Your tits are mine, now and when they start milking. Your ass is mine. Your thighs, your mind… everything belongs to me. You need to accept that.”
I blink back wavering tears, trying to tell myself that this isn’t a lie, that this isn’t the same as when Dad walked out.
“How can I accept this?” I rage. “I started without enough money for a bottle of freaking lemonade. And then I found a man in a dumpster. And then a mafia boss threatened me… and now I’m here, in this castle, in this impossible place. With you, with a man I…”
“With a man, you what?” he growls. “Say it, Rosie.”
“I feel the same,” I snap. “Okay? The second I saw you – heck, the second I heard you through the door – I felt exactly how you’re describing.”
“So what’s the problem?” he asks.
“If I let myself believe it, I’m just setting myself up for heartbreak,” I snap. “Can’t you see that? This thing between us, this impossible thing, it’s… well, it’s impossible, Ryland. It doesn’t make sense. Surely you can understand that.”
“It’s not impossible,” he growls. “It happened to us. That proves it’s not impossible.”
“Are you saying its fate?” I say sharply.
He moves closer, his eyes biting into me, pinning me in place.
“I don’t like your tone, Rosie,” he growls.
“That’s not an answer,” I retort, clenching my fists and glaring up at him.
The corner of his lips twitch, his eyes flickering with something like admiration.
“Maybe it is fate,” he says. “I never believed in it before we met, but, fine, it could be that. I don’t give a damn what it’s called. All I care about is that we both feel the same.”
I bring my hands up toward his face. They tremble and a voice screams inside of me that he’s going to laugh at me, but I can’t stop myself.
I grab his face in my hands and I stare firmly at him.
“Tell me this isn’t a trick,” I say.
“I swear on the lives of our future children,” he snarls, �
�that this is as real for me as it is for you.”
I let him go and step away, returning to the balcony railing. Chopper stirs and moans, padding over to me, sitting at my feet, and staring up at me with his small kind eyes.
“What, that’s not good enough for you?” Ryland snarls.
When I don’t respond, he walks over to me, leaning on the balcony railing beside me and running his fingers up my neck, onto my face, cradling my cheek in his rough hand.
And yet even if it’s rough and powerful, I feel tenderness beneath it all that beckons to me, that tells me to sink into this moment and stop questioning it.
“What happened, Rosie?” he says.
“What do you mean?” I murmur.
“Why won’t you believe me when I tell you this isn’t a trick? Something happened. And, as the man who owns you, I deserve to know what.”
He adds irony to the words owns you, smirking, but I can tell he means it at the same time. It’s a confusing mixture of emotion and meaning that I shouldn’t be able to decipher after only knowing him for a day.
But I can.
Because we belong together.
Forever.
I sigh. “I never talk about this.”
“If you can’t talk to me,” he says, “who can you talk to?”
He takes my hand and leads me back to the couch, Chopper padding at our feet. I can’t help but giggle as Ryland drops down and pulls me into his lap, even if part of me still thinks this is all some twisted game, even if part of me is still living in a world of stabbing fear.
I slide from his lap onto the cushion, keeping my legs draped over his, my hand gripping his shoulder as though his presence can steady the past.
“Tell me,” he says.
I sigh, letting go of his shoulder and interlocking my fingers. I can feel the pressure building up inside of me, but not the same sort that built within me in the library. This is like steam rising inside a pot, knocking against the lid, and I’m afraid the explosion is going to send him running away from me as fast as he can.
“You probably noticed that my mom is pretty old,” I murmur. “She turned sixty-one this year. Anyway, when I was a kid, I never knew my dad. Mom always just said he didn’t want to be a father, and she’d never give me any more information when I asked.”
Maid for the Hitman: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Page 6
