three months ago. In the middle of the night. I just wanted to start a new life. Get out from under his hand. I should have known he would find me.”
Memories flashed. The five years I’d spent little more than a servant and a prisoner. I’d refused to live it a day longer.
“He hurt you?” Derrick’s voice was gravel, scraping across my flesh.
Hostility vibrated his bones.
“In every way that didn’t leave a physical scar,” I whispered back.
His big hands spread out across my back, and he was growling a low sound of restraint, the man’s forehead rocking against mine in his own agony. “I won’t let him get near you.”
He pulled back and splayed his hand out on my cheek. “I want to protect you, Tessa. I want to take care of you. I…I don’t know what this is. I just know I can’t let it go.”
Emotion throbbed. Overwhelming. Coming at me in waves. “I can’t, either, Derrick. I know I should walk away, but I don’t know how to do it. Not when you make me feel this way.”
He groaned, and his mouth was on mine in a desperate, possessive kiss.
Need spiraled.
Bliss sped.
His tongue tangled with mine, one hand coming to the back of my head to control the angle, his promises whispered through the connection. “I found you, Tessa. I knew something was missing, and I found you.”
FOUR
Derrick
I SHOVED THE plate to the side and hoisted her onto the table. Pulse raging, dick hard, the same way it’d been since the second she’d started staying with me.
This woman who’d driven me mad.
Stolen my heart and my soul with each passing second. With each timid smile. With each hopeful glance.
I was hers.
Now she was going to be mine.
“You are so beautiful,” I told her.
Tessa panted as she leaned back on the table with her legs wrapped around my waist.
I ran my hands up and down her thighs. The girl wore these skimpy sleep shorts that she’d basically been living in and which had steadily driven me out of my mind with need.
Shivers raced across her flesh.
Tentatively, she reached out and ran a trembling hand down my chest. “You are the most beautiful man I have ever seen. Too good to be real.”
I took her hand and pressed it over the thunder of my heart. “I’m real, baby. So real. I’m about to prove it to you.”
A blush spread over her chest and up to her cheeks, and I couldn’t help the chuckle that bled free.
She had no idea—no idea what she did to me.
And the fucker that made her believe that she was less was going to pay. The piece of shit who would set fire to her home. Hurt her.
Rage bristled, and I shoved it down where it could fester and grow, so it’d be ready for the moment I got up tomorrow and hunted him down.
“If you’re ready for that?” I quirked a brow, and she was surging forward, pushing my shirt up as a rush of words left her mouth. “Yes. Please. Now. I need you…I need to feel you. Show me, Derrick. Show me what it’s like to be adored by you.”
I was all too happy to oblige.
I dragged my shirt the rest of the way over my head, and Tessa gasped, her eyes raking over me.
Desire.
Hope.
Delight.
I was going to spend the rest of my life proving to her that she deserved it.
I dove in, kissing her sweet, sweet mouth before I wandered, my mouth roving across her jaw and down her throat that trembled and shook.
I kept moving south, kissing across the rampage going down in her chest, her heart beating for me. She whimpered when I dragged the neckline of her shirt down.
Girl wearing no bra.
Exposing one perfect, pebbled nipple.
I swirled my tongue around it, groan riding free, lust taking me hostage.
Her hands fisted in my hair. “Derrick. Please. God…I need you.”
She writhed on the table, and I knew there was no taking this slow.
This girl needed to know and she needed to know right then.
I curled my fingers in the waistband of her shorts and dragged them down, taking her underwear with them. I edged back, holding onto her knees, searching for some kind of restraint.
None.
When it came to her, there was none.
I leaned down and feasted on her pussy as I held on to the outside of her thighs.
She moaned and whimpered and cried my name, and poor Gigi was whining at my feet.