Solitude (Cunningham Security Book 4)

by A. K. Evans

  My hips bucked.

  He slid a finger inside.

  The moan that escaped from the back of my throat was captured in another kiss.

  He slid a second finger in.

  His hands were big, his fingers long.

  I felt every inch as those two fingers moved in and out. And I needed more. I needed it harder, faster. I rode his fingers hard, desperately seeking to relieve the ache.

  His mouth left mine and he muttered, “Fuck, baby.”

  Baby.

  “Lorenzo,” I breathed, unable to get out anything else, feeling myself so close.

  And in that moment, I lost his fingers.

  “Panties,” he asserted as he lifted up and moved off the bed.

  I wasted no time. Slipping my fingers under the fabric at my hips, I tugged them down my legs. He watched as he removed his boxer briefs and pulled a condom out of his wallet. As he tore it open with his mouth, I used that time to check him out. Everything I’d felt leading up to this moment was true.

  Lorenzo was a large man…everywhere.

  “Spread for me,” he ordered as he began rolling on the condom.

  From the minute we were in his truck outside my place, he’d given me several commands, mostly one word, and I never expected it’d turn me on as much as it was at this precise moment.

  I felt the flush hit my cheeks, but I parted my thighs.

  The next second, he was positioned between my legs. He inched forward.

  “Take me,” I begged.

  “You’re tight.” His voice was thick, strained.

  He pulled back and inched forward again, this time only a bit more than he previously had gone.

  “Lorenzo, please,” I pleaded. “I need more.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Jolie,” he shared, pulling back and pushing back in, but not completely.

  “You won’t, boss. Take me,” I encouraged him.

  “Slow,” he replied on another outward glide.

  I could feel the tension in his body, the loose hold he had on it.

  I brought my hands up to frame his face. “Please, Lorenzo,” I stressed. “Fuck me now please.”

  Any restraint he had left vanished and he entered me completely. I moaned in delight, my back leaving the bed, at the pleasure I felt from the fullness of him inside me.

  As he began moving slowly, he whispered a strained, “Most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  If the utter delight I’d already been feeling from just having his body joined with mine wasn’t enough to get me there, those words would have done it. I could have cried at how good they made me feel and how deeply I felt them.

  “Boss,” I exhaled, unable to say anything else.

  He picked up his pace and I couldn’t hold back anymore. “Baby, give it to me,” he urged.

  So, I gave it to him.

  And it was phenomenal.

  My limbs convulsed around him, my thighs pressing tight to his side as my back arched and I pressed the back of my head farther into the pillow beneath me. In the middle of it, I felt a rough, calloused hand cover one of my breasts.

  He thrust a few more times before he drove in deep and buried himself, an intense growl escaping him as he came.

  Lorenzo collapsed on top of me briefly, but quickly pulled out and rolled to the side.

  “Bathroom?” he wondered.

  “The next room,” I answered.

  “Be right back.”

  At that, he got up and walked out of the room. He was gone a long time and I started to worry. When he walked back in, I learned I had every reason to be concerned because he said four words in a tone that was low and foreboding.

  “We need to talk.”

  One decision.

  One choice.

  And then, life changes.

  I made a promise to myself a long time ago that I’d never turn into him. I’d never allow it to even become a possibility. So, while I’d certainly had an appreciation for the female form over the years, I decided to never get involved beyond the point of a one-night stand. Any woman I was with knew this and if she wasn’t okay with it, nothing happened.

  Five months ago, I told Jolie there’d never be anything between us. I did this because I knew she wasn’t a girl who’d want just a one-night stand. I was close with her brother; I knew she came from a good family. She was everything I wasn’t. She deserved to live free to be happy without fear.

  And tonight, I took that away from her.

  Because now I was in her bathroom disposing of a condom after having her for the first time and I knew it wasn’t enough. I needed more of her.

  Her body, her mouth, her dimple. Her larger-than-life personality.

  But I needed to be fair to her. She needed to know what she just signed up for.

  I pulled myself together, walked out of the bathroom, and stepped back into her bedroom. In the time that I was gone, she had flipped on the bedside lamp.

  “We need to talk,” I advised.

  Jolie had moved under the blankets, but at my words, she sat up in the bed and tugged the cover up higher. She nervously bit her lip.

  I hated seeing her worrying like that.

  “Do you want to do it here?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I…I don’t know. This feels like it’s going to be bad.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed and twisted my body to look back at her gorgeous face.

  It could be bad. I knew it would be bad for me if she decided she couldn’t handle what I was about to tell her. And if she decided she could, I knew it had the potential to be bad for her down the road. That, without a doubt, was far worse.

  She swallowed hard. “What is it?”

  “I lied to you.”

  Her eyes widened and she wrapped her arms tight around her body, already visibly uncomfortable with where she thought this was headed.

  “At the hospital,” I clarified.

  Her face changed and she grew curious.

  “I walked out when you were holding Hank, but it wasn’t because I had to take a phone call,” I explained.

  “Oh. Well, why did you leave then?”

  I let out a sigh. “It was because of what you said to him.”

  “Me? What did I say?”

  “You told him that the most important job he’d ever have was being the best big brother he could and that he needed to always protect his little sister.”

  I stayed quiet a minute, trying to figure out how to tell her what I hadn’t told any other woman.

  “Lorenzo, I don’t understand.”

  “That’s because you’re a Moore and your parents are who they are,” I noted after some silence had passed between us. “I spent the better part of my childhood doing everything I could to protect my younger brother from a monster.”

  Her lips parted in shock.

  I continued, “I did everything I could think of to shield him from that.”

  Jolie was silent for a long time. Eventually, she whispered, “What happened?”

  I closed my eyes.

  She wanted to know. She wanted the ugly truth.

  I heard the movement before I felt her touch. Her warm, soft body curled up behind me and instantly brought me peace. Peace that, anytime I recalled this awful part of my life, eluded me. Her arms wrapped around me from behind.

  She waited.

  “It started when I was eight. My brother was three,” I said.

  Jolie’s arms tightened.

  I went on and told her everything that happened over the years. She stayed close, her body tight against mine and somehow pressing in farther with each word I spoke. I explained how the abuse against my mother started and how it got progressively worse over the years. Then, I told Jolie about the day I saw my father hit my mother in the face and how I decided that day to put an end to it.

  I paused a moment and felt a drop of wetness land on my back.

  She was crying.

  I brought my hands to hers, disconnected them fr
om in front of me, and turned toward her. Picking Jolie up, I settled her in the bed and curled up next to her. After I pulled the blanket up over our hips, I ran my hand gently up and down her back.

  “It’s too much,” I muttered, angry at myself for having upset her.

  Her hand was pressed against my chest. “No, I want to hear it. It’s just…I’m so sorry. This makes me sad.”

  I didn’t tell her anything else. I didn’t say another word.

  “Lorenzo?” she called.

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “Did he ever hurt you?”

  My hand stopped trailing up and down her back. “He tried to,” I shared. “Once.”

  “What happened?”

  “After I made my decision to put a stop to it, I did what I had to do to make sure he wouldn’t be able to get the best of me. I was a teenage boy, so I started working out a lot, eating a lot. Within three years, I’d added a considerable amount of strength and some size. Add raging hormones to the mix and I was a force. During those three years, I did my best not to leave Mom alone, but I was in school. And as soon as I could start working at fifteen, I knew I needed to so that when we got out of there, we’d have money. I came home from work one day and found Rocco hiding outside in the garage. He was scared and didn’t know what to do so he went outside to wait, knowing I’d be home soon. My parents were inside and I could hear my father yelling at her.”

  Jolie’s body tensed as she braced for what was coming.

  “Are you sure you want to hear this?” I confirmed.

  She nodded and cuddled closer to me.

  “Rocco told me our father had come home from work and immediately started calling her names and complaining about dinner. That was typically how it always started with him. There wasn’t any name he didn’t call her. Stupid bitch, worthless cunt, and lazy, fat ass were his favorites. Dinner was almost always a problem for him. She was a great cook, but he’d find something to bitch about. And then he’d take it out on her.”

  “That’s awful, Lorenzo. What did you do that day?”

  I took a minute to collect myself. “I told Rocco to wait until I came out to get him. Then, I walked in. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. My mom was pinned against the wall, my father’s arm up at her throat, her eye swollen shut, and his free hand groping her as he screamed things at her I don’t want to repeat. I slammed the door shut and yelled at him to get his hands off her.”

  “Did he?”

  “He dropped his arm from her throat and turned toward me. He was shocked because I hadn’t ever spoken to him like that. I’d never gotten involved in their fights before then. I told him that it was stopping and that he was never going to put his hands on her again. He came at me slowly and thought he’d catch me off guard, but I’d been preparing for that day for three years. He took a swing at me, I ducked, and then I let my strength, adrenaline, and rage over what he’d been doing for years take over. I eventually had him pinned to the ground, gasping for air. My mom called out to me, telling me I was going to kill him. I told her that if she wanted to be sure I didn’t murder him that she needed to call the police. She hesitated for about two seconds before she called them. I held him down until they arrived.”

  “Lorenzo,” Jolie cried.

  “Even though there were our accounts of what happened and my mother’s clearly-visible injuries, my father had no prior convictions. This was the first report of any domestic violence, so he was able to get deferred sentencing. Essentially, he had to pay fines, do a bunch of community service, not leave the state, stay employed, and have no further arrests. We slept in the house that night, but it was our last night there. I told my mom I had been working and saving all my money. We got out the next day, Mom got a job, and we never saw him again.”

  Jolie and I stayed there for a long time, neither of us saying anything. When I could no longer stand the silence, something that I’d grown to love over the years, I spoke. “It’s killing me not to know what’s going through your mind right now.”

  “I’m honored that you chose to share this with me, but I’m not sure I understand why you did,” she answered honestly.

  “Five months ago, you made it clear that you were interested in me. As attracted as I was to you, I insisted that nothing would happen between us. When I saw you at the hospital a few days ago, I was thrown right back into having to fight your pull. It was like a magnet. Tonight, you showed up in that dress and I fought against everything in me not to go back on what I said months ago.”

  “I didn’t think you liked me at all,” she shared. “Well, I originally thought you might be attracted to me, but then the wedding happened and I realized I’d read you wrong. Or, I thought I had.”

  I needed to set something straight. “This is something we’ve got to talk about in a bit more detail, Jolie. I don’t know what’s happened before now, but let it be known that there’s not a single thing about you that I find unattractive.”

  She tipped her head back and looked up at me.

  “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid my eyes on.”

  Wetness hit her eyes.

  I continued, “And I’m not just referring to your face and your body, both of which deserve some serious compliments. Deep down, the woman I see, Jolie, you’re beautiful.”

  “How did we end up here now?”

  “Seeing you looking like that, dancing, after your friend told me you hadn’t been with a man in over a year, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from you. Until I did. And that asshole put his hands on you. The woman at the bar, she was the friend of a girl who’d been involved in a bad case I was investigating a while back. She saw me and recognized me from that. Her friend is doing well, and she wanted just to thank me for the role I played in that case. I saw her safely out to her car. When I came back inside, I saw you dancing with that guy. I went and used the bathroom and when I walked out, I couldn’t find you. Once I finally located you, you were across the room with his arm at your throat, the same way my father’s was against my mother. I couldn’t move fast enough to get to you. Then, you jammed your knee into his balls and I was so proud of you. I got there about two seconds after he pulled you back by your hair.”

  “I know all of that…well, most of it. What I don’t understand is why you finally gave in to what you were fighting and why you kissed me? Or, maybe more importantly, why did you not do it months ago?”

  As much as I didn’t want to, I knew I needed to answer her second question. It was the one that would allow her to make the choice she needed to be free to make.

  “I don’t want to become him,” I cautioned her. “And I feel it occasionally.”

  “What do you feel?”

  “Working the cases I do sometimes, I get angry. The anger I feel is so strong in those moments, I want to lash out the way he used to toward my mom.”

  Jolie’s hand trailed up my chest and rested on the side of my neck. Her thumb stroked over the skin at my throat. “Are you angry at people who’ve done bad things or innocent people?”

  I nodded. “I’m angry at people who’ve done really bad things,” I clarified.

  “You wouldn’t hurt me, Lorenzo,” she insisted.

  “What if I do? They didn’t start that way, Jolie. They were in love once.”

  “You’re not your father. I’m not afraid of you either.”

  I had to give this to her. “It’s been fifteen years since he last put his hands on her,” I began. “He crushed her spirit and I don’t think she’ll ever get that back. I see it every time I visit her. Baby, I’d never forgive myself if I did that to any woman, but especially if I did it to you.”

  Jolie shifted in the bed and sat up. She pulled the sheet up to cover her chest and looked down at me. “Listen to me, boss,” she ordered.

  I couldn’t help but grin at her. I thought she was the most adorable human being in the world.

  “You can’t live your life in solitude because you’re worried about becomi
ng someone you could never be. I can see the kind of man you are, Lorenzo. You are not an abuser and you proved tonight that it’s not even a possibility that you could ever be one. You came to my rescue earlier tonight at Carter’s, which should be evidence enough. But if it’s not, the way you were with me in this bed a little bit ago should get rid of any lingering doubts you have about it.”

  I fell to my back and reached my arm out behind her. I nudged her toward me. A second later, she was curled into my body, her head on my chest and her arm draped over my body. The peace I felt in that moment was something I couldn’t begin to describe.

  “I think you’re someone I could really feel something strongly about,” I shared. “I don’t want to ever hurt you, though.”

  She lifted her cheek from my chest to look at me. “You won’t, big guy.”

  We stared at each other for several long moments before I admitted, “I can’t believe it.”

  Jolie tilted her head to the side and asked, “What?”

  “For five months, I couldn’t stop the images of your beautiful face and that single dimple from consuming my mind, and now I’m here in your bed.”

  A coy smile spread across her face before she confessed, “I really like you in my bed.”

  “Are you sure you’re up for seeing where this could go?”

  Without hesitation, she responded, “Yes.”

  “It’s late,” I noted. “Are you tired? Or do you think you’ve got it in you to lie back while I put my face between your legs?”

  Her eyes heated before she rolled to her back. “I think I can muster up the strength for one more round.”

  Happiness at her playful tone speared through me. I turned to my side, brought my mouth to hers, and kissed her lips before I worked my way down her body. Once I had a single taste of her on my tongue, I knew I’d never be able to give her up. So, I did what I had to do to make sure she thoroughly enjoyed what I had to offer.

  After delivering a second orgasm with my mouth and a third with my cock, I fell asleep with the most precious woman in the world tucked tight to my body. And I hoped, with everything in me, that I’d never forget just how much of a treasure she was.