Passion, Vows & Babies: Body Language (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by Rochelle Paige

  “Things? Leaving?” I echoed softly, shaking my head.

  “Now,” he ordered, setting me on my feet and giving me a soft slap against my butt that made me stumble forward.

  “Eep!” I yelped.

  “Fuck it,” he growled before yanking me against his side and dragging me with him to my desk. My jaw dropped open when he went straight for the drawer where I kept my purse, grabbed it, and shoved it into my arms. Then he hefted me up and over his shoulder and stormed out of the office. I lifted my head before the door shut behind us, only to find Xander and Calista leaning against each other near my desk. Xander smirked at us, and Calista offered me a small wave.

  “I don’t understand what’s going on,” I finally whispered after Roman set me into the passenger seat of his truck. But he buckled me in and shut the door without offering an explanation.

  “Roman?”

  He reached over and slid his palm against mine. “It isn’t safe here. I’ll explain when we get to your grandmother’s house.”

  “Oh, no,” I groaned, my stomach tying itself up in knots. I could only think of one reason why he’d think it wasn’t safe for me to be at the office. I squeezed my eyes shut, refusing to look at him, and he tightened his hold on my hand. Neither of us said a word during the short drive, and I found myself wishing it was longer when he pulled up to the curb. That feeling didn’t last long, though, because too soon I was being nudged into my bedroom by Roman.

  It bore repeating—I was in my bedroom with Roman.

  “What the heck is going on?” I squeaked out.

  “I don’t want to scare you—”

  “Too late,” I mumbled.

  With one long finger, he tilted my chin up and searched my face. “I must have seemed like a crazy man when I dragged you out of the office, but I swear that the only reason I did it was to get you somewhere safe as quickly as possible. I would never do anything to hurt you, beautiful.”

  “I know,” I sighed.

  “Good.” His blue eyes filled with relief. “Because I’m going to need you to trust me.”

  Staring up at him, I lost track of what we’d been talking about. “Huh. Why?”

  “You may want to sit down for this.” He led me over to the bed—the bed!—and settled us next to each other on the edge of the mattress. “A package was delivered to the office for you today. It had some pictures in it.”

  “Pictures? Of what?”

  A muscle jumped in his jaw, and his expression hardened. “You.”

  “Me?” My brow wrinkled in confusion. “What kind of pictures?”

  He pulled a manila envelope out of the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out two photos, and handed them to me. I glanced down and heaved a sigh of relief. “I don’t understand. These are just of me going about my day.”

  “On the surface, they don’t seem that bad,” he conceded as he yanked a third out of the envelope, flipped it over, and showed me the note on the back side. “But the person who’s behind these knows your routine. He’s been close enough to you to get this package on your desk. And not only does he know where you live, he made a point to let you know that he knows where to find you.”

  “Oh,” I puffed out. My hands trembled so hard that the pictures I was holding started to shake. Roman took them from me, tossed everything onto the bed, and then took my hands in his.

  “It doesn’t matter what he knows about you, if he tries to get to you, or what he hopes to accomplish. I’m not going to let anything bad to you, Jessa.”

  “Okay,” I gulped.

  His hold on my hands tightened. “Can you trust me to do that?”

  My mind was swirling in confusion, but I had no doubts about Roman. “Uh huh.”

  “Then go pack a bag, beautiful.” He helped me to my feet and moved towards the doorway. “I’m sure Xander or Calista will fill your grandmother in when they pick Maddie up, but I’ll leave a note for her with my number so she can reach you since I want you to leave yours behind.”

  “You do?”

  He turned back to look at me. “Yeah, if this guy gets a hold of your phone number, then he might be able to track it.”

  My eyes got big as his explanation registered. “Oh.”

  “Oh, what?” he asked, taking a couple of steps back into the room.

  “Um. Well. You see—”

  “You keep acting like you’re afraid to talk to me, and I’m going to think you’re lying about trusting me.”

  “It’s not that!” I sputtered. “It’s just that I get...well...a little nervous around you. That’s all.”

  “You’re the last person who needs to be nervous around me, beautiful.”

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  “But I do need to know what went through your head that had those pretty brown eyes of yours as wide as saucers.”

  “Oh, yeah. That.” I took a deep breath and blurted it out. “I’ve gotten a couple of strange notes. One at work and another in the mailbox here. Nothing scary. Just a little weird because they weren’t signed. There was a voicemail message, too. It wasn’t a voice I recognized, and they didn’t say much. Just my name, really. And then last night, I got a hang-up call in the middle of the night.”

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he grumbled, stalking forward until he stood right in front of me. The anxiousness I felt at the frustration on his face must have been obvious because he gentled his expression and sighed deeply. “You’ve kept this all to yourself, haven’t you?”

  I nodded.

  He rubbed his palms over his face in frustration. “You’re employed by the best security company in the Atlanta area, Jessa. Why in the hell didn’t you tell anyone at work what was going on?”

  “I thought about telling Calista, but I didn’t want to be a bother.” I shrugged. “And I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, not until you showed me the note on the back of that last picture. I swear that if I’d gotten something like that in the mail, I would have said something. Right away.”

  Bending low, he dropped his forehead against mine. His blue eyes were serious as they gazed into mine, and I was incredibly flustered by his closeness—but also more aware of him than I’d ever been any other person in my entire life.

  “I want a promise from you, Jessa. You have any problems that are worrying you, from now on you come to me with them. Can you do that for me?”

  “But—”

  “Don’t,” he rasped. “I know what you’re going to say, but the last thing you are is a bother to me. I’d be fucking honored to be the man you turn to when you need help.”

  I wasn’t sure exactly how it happened, it was like my lips had a mind of their own. Instead of giving him the promise he wanted, one I was more than happy to provide, I found myself rising up on my toes to press my mouth against his in a soft kiss. It must have been answer enough for Roman, though. He quickly took control of the kiss, and it went from soft and gentle to hard and demanding in the blink of an eye.

  Chapter 4

  Roman

  Jessa’s hesitant touch of her lips to mine wasn’t the answer I’d been looking for. It was way fucking better. Her kiss told me, without words, that she was going to trust me with her problems. Trust me to keep her safe. Trust me with her body.

  Triumph raced through my system, and I pulled her into my arms as I crushed my mouth over hers. She didn’t put up any resistance to me taking over the kiss. Instead, her arms locked around my neck, and she pressed her body against mine. When her lips parted, a deep groan rumbled up my chest. I was getting my first taste of her, and it was beyond what I’d imagined—which I’d done more often than I cared to admit over the last month, jacking off to fantasies of her until my palm was sore. But the timing was shit because I needed to get her out of town before her stalker realized that we were onto him. Her safety came before anything else.

  I allowed myself another minute to enjoy the kiss, my tongue tangling with hers and my hands palming her ass before I tore myself a
way and stepped back.

  “Pack your shit, beautiful. Enough for at least a week.” If I had my way, and I fully intended to, those bags were going to come to my place when we were back in town, after this was all taken care of. Quickly followed by the rest of her stuff because I had no intention of letting her go now that I had her.

  “Uh huh,” she sighed with a dazed expression on her face.

  She had a habit of saying that, one that I’d always found cute. But with the way she looked now with her cheeks flushed and her lips swollen, it was sexy as fuck. I forced myself to turn around and walk out of the room before I ignored the danger she was in and tossed her on the bed. As I walked through the living room and into the kitchen, I spotted a stack of mail on the counter. Without any remorse, I picked it up and thumbed through the envelopes, pausing on one from a doctor’s office. It was addressed to Jessa, but I hadn’t heard anything about her being sick. After a quick glance over my shoulder, I pulled my knife out of my pocket and slit the envelope open. A quick peek inside alleviated my concern over her health—and had my cock pressing against my zipper.

  My innocent girl had made herself an appointment with a gynecologist. They’d sent new client intake forms, along with some brochures for different forms of birth control for her to read before she met with the doctor...tomorrow. She was going to miss it since we’d be in Kentucky by then. At my cabin, where I didn’t have any condoms because I never brought anyone there with me.

  Ever.

  Until Jessa.

  Hell, I didn’t even have any condoms in my apartment or my truck. Not a single one in my wallet, either. It’d been more than a year since I’d been even remotely interested in hooking up with a woman. Probably another year more than that since I’d been with anyone. When I made the decision not to re-up in the Army and move back home, I figured I’d have plenty of time to get back into the dating game. But then I met Jessa, and even just the idea of being near another woman left my cock limp and my balls trying to crawl back inside my body. It’d made me look at my dry spell in a new light, that’s for damn sure.

  She was well worth however long it took to woo her into my bed...and my life. That’s what I kept reminding myself each time she blushed and stammered her way through an interaction with me. For a man who’d been known for his patience in the military, it was in short supply whenever I was near Jessa.

  But now that she was going to be under my roof, sleeping in my bed? The time for waiting had come to an end, and I needed to solidify my position in her life. By keeping her safe. And with sex. Lots and lots of sex. Without condoms or the birth control she’d planned on getting—which had damn well better have been for me and not some other guy. I growled at the thought, my hands clenching and my muscles clenching.

  “Umm, all done,” she whispered from behind me.

  I turned to face Jessa, and she took a step backwards when she got a look at my expression.

  “Are you dating someone?” I hadn’t meant to ask her the question that had me so pissed off, but I couldn’t take it back now that it was out there. I was almost positive the answer was no, but even the smallest amount of uncertainty was enough to make me see red—or green as the case may be since my anger was one-hundred percent motivated by jealousy.

  “What? No! Why?” she sputtered.

  I unfisted my hand and showed her what I was holding.

  “Oh!” Her face turned bright red, and her gaze dropped to the floor. “Umm. No. I just. Well. I thought it was something I should finally do, I guess.”

  Since I’d already decided that the time for waiting was over, I pushed a little more. “Because someone caught your attention?”

  Her dark eyes jerked up to me, looking startled, and then darted back to the floor. “Um. Yeah. Maybe.”

  Stepping into her space, I slid my hand along her shoulder and up her neck to cup her cheek. When I had her eyes on me again, I gave her an admission of my own. “After that kiss, you’d better mean me, beautiful. Because you haven’t just caught my attention. You’ve owned it from the first time I saw you.”

  “I do? Really?” she gasped.

  I bent low and rubbed my nose along hers, breathing my answer against her lips. “Yes, really.”

  “Wow.” Her dark eyes widened in surprise, but they held curiosity in them too. And desire. But it was the innocence shining through that prompted my next question.

  “Are you a virgin?”

  Her uh huh was the best one yet because it meant that I’d be the only man ever to have her. To taste her. To see every inch of her delicate skin. To be inside her.

  “All mine,” I rasped out before capturing her lips for another quick, but hard, kiss. When I lifted my head again, I had to close my eyes and count while I took several deep breaths to get myself back under control. My cock was so hard it’d probably have ridges imprinted from my zipper by the time we made it up to my cabin, but now wasn’t the time to do anything about it. And it sure as fuck wasn’t the place since I couldn’t toss her on the floor of her grandmother’s kitchen and pop her cherry.

  With a regretful sigh, I let go of her face and stepped away. “We’d better get going. I want to make it to my cabin with enough time to stop and stock up on supplies since I don’t keep much up there.”

  “Cabin? What cabin?”

  At her adorable look of confusion, I realized I hadn’t filled her in on any of the plans I’d made. “Get your sweet little ass into my truck, and I’ll explain.”

  Chapter 5

  Jessa

  After listening to Roman’s explanation about how he was taking me to his cabin up in Kentucky because he felt it was the safest place for me to be, I took a long nap. It was only interrupted by one pit stop at a rest area to gas up and grab something to eat until we hit a small town where we stopped to pick up a ridiculous amount of groceries. About seven hours after we left my grandmother’s house, I found myself standing in front of a cute log cabin nestled in the woods.

  “This is yours?”

  “Yeah, I bought it six years ago after I re-enlisted in the Army. Got a great deal on it, too. I used my selective retention bonus and additional incentive because my military occupational specialty was considered to be in high-demand. Put it all towards a down payment so that my mortgage is barely anything,” he explained as he unlocked the door and held it open for me. All while carrying three bags of groceries without dropping anything as he did it.

  The inside was what you’d expect from a log cabin in the middle of the woods. He didn’t have any pictures hung on the log walls, but the fans and wooden beams that stretched across the ceiling were eye-catching enough that it didn’t really need anything more. The furniture was all oversized and broken in, brown leather. It had an open floor plan, with a granite counter splitting up the living area and the kitchen. The only spot of color was a burgundy throw rug in front of the fireplace.

  “Why in the world didn’t you just move here if you had all this waiting for you?” I asked, sweeping my arm around in a circle.

  He shrugged as he set the bags on the counter. “It was either that or Chicago, and Atlanta has always been home so I went with what was familiar.”

  “I didn’t know you grew up in Atlanta. Do your parents still live there?” I asked, trailing after him as he headed back out to the truck to grab more bags.

  When I reached in to get my suitcase out, he yanked me back with a gentle tug on one of the belt loops on my pants. “I told you; I’ve got it.”

  I wasn’t about to argue, not when the way he’d been acting all day had made me feel special. Protected. Cared for in a way nobody else had ever done.

  “My parents moved down to Florida a couple of years ago,” he finally answered as I trailed after him back into the cabin while he carried the rest of the groceries and my bag.

  “Do you have any other family in Atlanta? And why was Chicago an option?” My questions earned me a big smile that made me ask, “What?”

  “I like thi
s chatty version of you. It means you’re more comfortable around me.”

  “Well, after that kiss, I’d almost have to be. Wouldn’t I?” I mumbled.

  “Good point.” He quickly tossed the cold items into the freezer and fridge but left everything else on the counter. Then he stalked towards me with a sensual gleam in his blue eyes. “If a kiss gets you to open up to me a little, I wonder what making you come will earn me.”

  “Whoa,” I exhaled, my panties going from their normal damp state whenever he was near to drenched in the blink of an eye.

  “That doesn’t sound like a no, beautiful,” he whispered in my ear. “And I’ve been dying to know what you look like when you come. I’ve pictured it in my head so many times. Do you want to show me how much better reality is than my fantasies of you?”

  “Uh huh.” I nodded, too.

  “A new favorite.” I didn’t understand what he meant, but I didn’t have time to wonder because he slid his palm down my belly to cup my pussy over my pants. “But as much as I like it, I need you to say yes this time. I don’t want there to be any doubt in either of our minds that you want this.”

  “I do,” I gasped. “I really, really do.”

  He swept me up into his arms and carried me over to the couch. “If we had more time, I’d take you to the bedroom. This’ll have to do for now.”

  I didn’t know why we didn’t have more time, but I didn’t really care. Not with the way he was pressing me against the cushions. “This is perfect.”

  “No, you’re what’s perfect,” he corrected as he undid the button on my pants, took care of the zipper, and slid them down my legs along with my panties. Feeling shy, I tried to close my legs but didn’t get far before he wedged his shoulders between them. My hips jerked off the cushions when he circled my clit with his thumb.

  “Oh my,” I gasped. I was the only other person who’d ever touched me there, but it’d never felt even half as good as what he was doing to me.

  “Gotta see what you feel like wrapped around my finger,” he grunted. Then he slid a fingertip into my entrance, and I clenched around him. “So fucking tight.”