Against Protocol (Protocol Series Book 1)

by Eden Butler

  “If memory serves, you were good at gumbo.”

  “Might not be now,” she said, stretching out her legs to rest her feet on the framing around the firepit. “It’s been ages since I cooked it, but I was feeling...I guess a little homesick and wanted comfort food.”

  “I’m sure it’s good.”

  Again, Lia smiled, this time returning the stare I gave her. She didn’t look away, kept her attention on my face, eyes shifting as she watched me, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that she wanted something from me, something I was sure I wouldn’t be able to give her.

  It was there in the easy twitch on her lips and the low, swift breath she released as she stared at me. When I cleared my throat, pulling my gaze from her face, Lia recovered, reaching for her glass and the last sip left in it. “Thank you,” she said behind the rim.

  “For what?”

  “Today...with the kid.” She rubbed her neck, stretching a little as she continued. “It was careless of me to call that order in. I should have waited for you or Johnson and that kid, he could have been anyone.”

  “Lesson learned,” I told her, dismissing her explanation with a shrug.

  “You...my God, you took him out in one smooth move.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of her statement or if me taking down that kid upset her. Sometimes with Lia, it was impossible to get a read on her, especially if she didn’t want you to. She moved again, nodding toward the kitchen as she stood.

  “It’s ready, I think.” When I looked up at her, a refusal ready on the tip of my tongue, she shook her head, lowering her shoulders a little. “Don’t make me eat alone. That only adds to the list of complaints I gave you earlier today.” She moved her foot to the edge of the firepit, a distraction, I figured. “I hate eating alone, besides, I know for a fact you like my gumbo.” I cocked my eyebrow up, but didn’t comment, following behind Lia when she rolled her eyes at me. “Come on, idiot.”

  Nelson met us in the kitchen and my stomach instantly coiled. The man was no true agent, not someone I’d ever trust alone with Lia, but he’d served a purpose. He wasn’t my guy. He wasn’t to be trusted, but I couldn’t mention that to Lia.

  “We’re about to eat gumbo,” she told him, nodding to the pot on the stove. “You hungry?”

  “He’s on perimeter duty,” I said, shifting my head toward the front door.

  “Ma’am,” Nelson said, grin a little too flirty. “I’d be happy to have a bowl of your gumbo after my shift ends, if Solano here permits it.”

  “You don’t need her gumbo.”

  “You do?”

  Lia stood next to me and it was only then that I realized how stupid I was being, how obvious. “Cruz?” she asked, a question about my attitude in her tone.

  “Sorry,” I told her, keeping the curve of my top lip from moving any further up. “I’m sure Mrs. Harris can leave the pot on low. Help yourself when your shift ends.”

  He waited, that stupid grin back as his attention shifted from my face, to Lia’s. “Ma’am, thank you in advance,” he told Lia before heading out of the kitchen.

  “What was that...” Lia started, then went quiet when I shook my head. “Fine then,” she said. “Come eat.”

  Lia didn’t disappoint and, it turned out, years away from home hadn’t made her forget what she knew about food and cooking and how to make the perfect roux. The chicken melted in my mouth and the spices from the paprika, garlic, and onion powder hit my tongue like a tease, reminding me what it was to be full and still want more.

  “You’re not saying anything,” she mentioned when I was nearly through my second bowl. I managed to look up from my spoon to grin at her. “Am I to take it that you approve?”

  “Please. You know it’s good.”

  “Want some more?” She reached for my bowl, laughing when I pulled it closer to me. “Okay, fine.”

  I liked the smile she wore. It felt real and honest and though I knew I’d probably regret it, I let myself enjoy the sight and didn’t try to hide what that smile did to me. It was beautiful and genuine and something I’d missed seeing on her face the past few weeks. I’d been the source to a lot of her grief and it made me feel better that my just enjoying her gumbo was chasing away the bad I’d caused her. I’d have done anything to keep that smile on her face, but that would require me dropping my guard, like I’d done today. There couldn’t be a repeat of that. The thought had me wondering about something she’d said before we ate. She’d watched me take down that kid. Did she think I went overboard? Did she feel bad for the kid?

  “Today, when the pizza guy showed and I...”

  “Took him out?” she asked, that smile widening when I laughed.

  “Yeah...that.” I sat up, wiping my mouth as I pushed away my empty bowl. “Did I...did I scare you doing that? You’ve never seen that side of me and, well...”

  “It was...surprising,” she said, sounding just like a politician’s wife. “But, fear wasn’t exactly the feeling I got watching you take that guy down.”

  Lia shifted in her seat, as though just the mention of me going after that kid did something to her that she shouldn’t be sharing. I shut my eyes to keep from seeing the change in her expression—how her smile shifted into a grin, how the humor lighting her eyes lowered into something that resembled need.

  Violence wasn’t ever pretty, but I gotta be honest...sometimes it’s a hell of a turn on.

  Shit. No. Can’t think that.

  I opened my eyes, rubbing the palm of my hand against my lids. “Lia, seriously, you gotta stop that shit.”

  “What shit in particular is irritating you?”

  I jerked my gaze to her, annoyed that she still smiled. The homesick gumbo meal was still working its havoc, only now it went deeper, made me forget that Lia wasn’t the girl back in New Orleans anymore and she shouldn’t be thinking the things I suspected she thought about me. “You get to think whatever the hell you want about me.” I waved a hand, ignoring her low, short laugh as I stood to bring my bowl to the sink, keeping my back to her. “You just don’t get to voice those thoughts. Not when they’re inappropriate.”

  “You don’t want me having inappropriate thoughts about you?”

  I jerked around, leaning against the sink as I watched her, a little taken aback that she had to ask. “No.”

  “Tough shit,” she said, standing next to me, arms at her sides. She’d gotten down three glasses of wine, but she wasn’t drunk. It was worse than that. Lia seemed bolstered by the alcohol in her blood. “You’re in my home. You’re in charge of my security. You don’t get a say so about what goes on inside my head.”

  “Not saying I should, but protocol...”

  “Fuck your protocol.” She stepped up to me, resting one hand at my hip near the sink. The humor in her eyes disappeared and the grin was missing from her full lips. “Protocol got you sent away from me in the first place. Protocol got my husband killed in front of three thousand people. It made me a widow at thirty-six.”

  It was the most honest thing she’d ever said to me. I’d seen Lia enraged. I’d seen her scared. Worst of all, I’d seen her heartbroken. I’d been the one that did that deed, but right then, I got a first-hand view of Lia with nothing left to lose. There was no need to hold anything back from me. There was nothing she wouldn’t say to me in that moment and I knew what a powder keg that could be if I didn’t keep my composure.

  When I went on keeping quiet, only able to watch the frustration shifting her expression, Lia lost patience, turning to leave before I got the chance to respond. I didn’t want that. Just like that, an instant brought on by memory and pure desire, I knew I didn’t want her walking away from me.

  Right then this uncommon need came over me and I had to make her understand. I finally had to get her to see what was most important to me. She took four steps away from me, her gait determined, quick as she started to leave the kitchen, but I stopped her. She let me turn her to face me as I held onto her arm.

  �
��Protocol is all I got left, Lia. I need order. I need discipline.” I blinked, hating the disappointment I saw on her face. “It’s the only thing that helps me make sense of my life.”

  Lia looked down, her gaze shooting to my hands, to the tight grip I held onto her arm and I held my breath, half hoping she’d tell me to let her go. A quick nod to my fingers on her bicep and Lia looked up at me. There was something brewing behind her eyes, something I should have recognized as a warning. I’d seen that look before from her. I knew what it was when I saw it.

  “This doesn’t make sense to you? The way I feel under your fingers? How hot my body is?” She stepped closer, and I finally recognized the scent that came off her. Gardenia. Sweet. Welcoming. Lia slipped her fingers over my hand resting on her arm and I couldn’t find the strength to stop touching her. “It doesn’t make sense how every time I’m next to you all the chaos and tragedy in my life disappears?”

  The breath left me then and I dropped the pretenses. If she could be honest, so could I. It was a dangerous game she played with me. It was one we’d both lost six years ago when her husband walked in on Lia going at me with desperate kisses and greedy touches. I hadn’t pushed her away back then, but I had to now. It took more strength than I thought I could muster.

  I gripped both of her arms now, not surprised when Lia’s smile returned. “You can’t say that shit to me.”

  She didn’t hesitate. Lia just bit her lip, eyes narrowing and when she spoke, and there was a lilt to her tone, I knew she was done teasing.

  “Like I said, you don’t get a say in what’s in my head or what comes out of my mouth.” She moved her pink tongue over her lip before she sucked it behind her top teeth, a grin stretching across her face when I tightened my hold on her arms. She was going for the jugular. “Just like you don’t get a say in how many times I think of you when I touch myself. The amount of times that happens would make even a Ranger like you blush.”

  The noise that left my throat sounded old and primal. There was only so much a man can take. Only so many times you can try to convince yourself that having what you want is too selfish, too senseless. I had wanted Lia from the first time I saw her at some stupid frat party when I was a kid full of piss and wind and zero clues about women. I’d taken her then. I’d taken her again when she belonged to someone else. Now there was no one stopping me but myself. Johnson was asleep, Nelson and the other agents were on point for their shifts, and I had the rest of the night to take Lia again and again.

  “Tell me you don’t want me,” she said, voice low, breathy.

  I had a little fight in me, but it didn’t feel like much. “I...I don’t want you, Lia. Not anymore.”

  She grabbed my chin, pulling my face toward her open mouth. “Try that again and this time, don’t lie.”

  Teeth gritting, jaw working tight, I released a low, long breath. “You got no idea what this does to me. What you...” I inhaled, tightening my closed eyes as I tried to push back the need and hunger being so close to her worked up in me. I should walk away. Step back. Remind myself who I was and why I was here with her.

  The job.

  The fucking job.

  “Cruz...” she started, that tempting tone vacant for a moment. My name from her lips sounded like hunger; it sounded exactly like need. “Please. I don’t want to be the only one touching myself tonight.”

  And just like that, I abandoned protocol. I was tired of pretending. Tired of telling her and myself that too much time, too much distance had come between us. I was tired of lying about what I wanted. For once, I decided to push aside the agent and let the kid I’d been with her years ago take over.

  Lia’s moan was short, but deep when I pulled her against me, fanning my fingers in her hair just as I crashed my mouth over hers. Then that moan transformed into a whine of pleasure, a noise that sounded like music. She gave back to me every lick of my tongue, every greedy, needful stroke of teeth and lips and hungry, aching desire.

  I paused long enough to push her against the fridge, holding her head still with my fingers in her hair as I looked down at her, our mouths close, but not touching.

  “I take you in your room, I do things to you that will make you forget.”

  “Forget...Lincoln?” she asked, pushing her eyebrows together.

  “Forget every man who’s ever touched you.” I lifted her head, making her keep her gaze on my face. She’d given me her body six years ago when her husband wasn’t paying attention, but I hadn’t had all of her. I hadn’t taken everything because I knew it wouldn’t last. Not then. Now it was different. We were. Now there was no one standing between us. “You let me have you again, Lia, and we forget everything. None of it matters. Not him. Not New Orleans, not anything else that tries to come between us. I don’t want you if I can’t have it all.”

  “Cruz,” she said, chest brushing against my chest as she breathed. “I’ve always been yours. Only yours.”

  It was a beautiful lie, one I’d tell myself was the truth.

  “Good,” I told her, kissing her deep, tongue against hers, teeth stroking her bottom lip before I grabbed her waist, pulling her legs up as I carried her out of the kitchen.

  She didn’t leave much space between us when we rushed into her room. The fire was on, the orange light casting a glow against her as she tore free from her clothes. But as close as she was, I wanted Lia closer.

  “Come here,” I told her when she stood in front of me in only her bra and thong. It had been years, too many to count since I’d seen her like this and I had no intention of missing a single inch of skin.

  She melted against me, mouth greedy, desperate as she kissed me, helping me out of my jacket, shirt, and pants without pausing her hungry lips. “Hurry,” she said when I pulled off my tie, shuddering the second she had my dick out, stroking between her soft fingers.

  “Fuck...fuck, mami,” I said, the old endearment I’d only ever spoken to her coming back like a habit, just as comfortable now as it had been when we were kids.

  “Cruz...yes.” Her voice was low, desperate when I touched her, giving her pussy the same treatment she gave my cock, my body lit with fire as I felt between her lips finding her wet and warm.

  “To hell with this,” I told her, turning her against the wall, too anxious to keep from her sweet body for a second longer.

  Lia’s gasp and loud moan gave me pause and I looked up at her, holding her against me, my gaze on her, only on her as I slipped inside her.

  “God...oh...God,” she started, eyes widening.

  “Hush,” I told her, covering her mouth at the same time the sensation of her walls tight around me became too much and I rested my forehead against her shoulder. “You have to be quiet. The agents...they can’t know this is happening.” She tightened around me again and I forgot about being quiet. I forgot about everything but Lia’s body and how deep I wanted to be inside her, how it had never been this good. How it felt like having her for the first time all over again.

  “Harder,” she said, arching against the wall, meeting my thrusts, that greedy pussy growing wetter and wetter the faster I moved. “Yes...oh, fuck me, yes!”

  It didn’t take long before she came, the wetness around me increasing, her walls like a vise now and I fell over with her, loving how she milked me, not caring that we weren’t being safe, that anyone could walk in and see what I was doing to her.

  At the moment, I didn’t fucking care about anything but the way it felt to be inside her and how hard, how quickly this beautiful woman made me come.

  It wouldn’t be the last time.

  Later, I found myself on Lia’s bed, spooned against her naked, buried deep. I held her leg over my thigh, my cock slipping in and out. “Fuck, mami, I like watching that sweet pussy of yours taking all of me. I could fuck you like this all night. I could take you over and over until there was nothing left of us.”

  “Do it. I don’t care,” she said, breath labored, sensation making her beautiful brown skin flush.
She was so opened to me, so uninhibited, and I loved watching Lia like this—free, eager and wanting nothing more than what I could make her feel. “Cruz...I...”

  “You want it harder? Slower? What do you need?”

  It had been years for us but somehow this wasn’t awkward or unfamiliar. We came back together like we’d never stopped, like time and distance and a thousand experiences hadn’t kept us apart. But my Lia wanted more, she needed something from me, something that she seemed unable to voice. Instead, she reached over her hip and slid her fingers over her clit, rubbing, touching, as I continued to move inside her. I was torn by wanting to make her come again and struck a little stupid watching her touch herself. Lia was beautiful all the time, now though, she was fucking radiant.

  “You fill me up...God, I’ve never been so full.” She arched her back, her fingers working faster, and I kept time with her, watching, trying like hell to keep up with her, wanting to watch, wanting to touch and taste. I could stay there forever, getting a contact high on her, on how lit Lia made me feel.

  She had perfect tits, round, the nipples dark and as she crested, her orgasm reaching closer and closer, I took one of those nipples between my hands, getting up on one elbow as I fucked her, cupping her breast so that everything was stimulated—her pussy from my cock, her clit from her own hand, her nipple from my mouth as I sucked it inside.

  It was the push she needed, and Lia came in a liquid roll of sensation, fingers circling in sloppy movements, her walls clamping tight around me. “Oh...oh, God! Yes!”

  There was no recovering. I needed her too much, wanting it to last, wanted to take until I was spent. Lia’s limbs were limp, but she adjusted, still shaking as I moved on top of her, looking down at that lazy smile and satisfied expression.

  “Look at me, mami.” She did, blinking her eyes open as I cupped her breast again. “Whatever you’ve done, whoever you’ve had to be...” she shuddered when I licked her nipple, that hard pebble tickling against my tongue. “It was pretend.” I pulled her closer, legs around my waist as I cupped the other breast. Despite everything between us, all the mistakes in the past that kept us apart—me leaving, her breaking her promise to wait, I needed her. Wanted only her. She was a meal I had no intention of ever filling up on. “Who you are right now with me, that’s the real you.” I kissed the swell of her cleavage, moving her full mounds together, loving how her body shook, how chills covered her smooth skin when I rolled her nipples between my fingers. “No one has you like I do, Lia...” she moaned, but didn’t seem able to speak. “Is that right, mami? Here, now, with me, is this who you really are?” She nodded, eyes closing, until I sucked her nipple back into my mouth again. “Tell me,” I said between mouthfuls of her sweet skin. “Tell me the truth.”