you even joined the Marines—your mother, sisters, someone you care about. I don’t know who exactly, but that protective trait’s like, ingrained in you. You also check the magazine on your gun like a regular person would have a nervous tic, and you don’t suffer fools. You always like to be the alpha on top, not because you’re that controlling, but because you trust people even less than I do.” I turned slightly to look at him. In the sliver of moonlight peeking through the falling snow, his features looked even more austere. “How am I doing so far?” Fighting the urge to touch him like he was touching me, my fingers ached to brush over the two-day growth covering his strong jaw.
For two heartbeats, he didn’t say anything.
Then, as I was only just beginning to learn about him, he did the unexpected.
Shade, the bodyguard with a thousand layers, kissed me.
RENDERED FUCKING SPEECHLESS, I STARED at her.
Goddamn.
No one had ever pegged me like that. Not that I gave any woman the chance, because the shit suddenly crawling around inside my head wasn’t a mission objective I ever dealt with. My chest tight, the urge to fuck her consuming, I laid stock still and stared.
Five and half feet of trust fund princess who was all tits, and she’s the one who finally brings me down?
Jesus fucking Christ.
I needed to get my ass in gear and go back downstairs. I should’ve been checking the surveillance cameras, calling Ronan for a sitrep. I needed to do any damn thing except lay here and think about my tongue in her mouth and my cock in her cunt, because nothing good was gonna come of this. Nothing.
But goddamn.
She inhaled and her tits swelled.
Fuck this bullshit.
No remorse, I slammed my mouth over hers and did what I’d been jonesing to do all damn night.
I fucking kissed her.
Controlled, pacing myself, I showed the woman restraint, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to strip the clothes off her full hips and lush tits and taste every damn inch of her body before I sunk inside her. I wanted to make her come so many damn times, she’d be begging me to stop.
Which is exactly what she’d do if I didn’t prep her first.
Stroking through her mouth, tasting victory when her tongue met mine, I refrained from grinding my hard as fuck cock into her ass and scaring the hell out of her. Forcing myself to pull back, I addressed the spot-on bullshit she’d said about me. “You may have hit the mark on some of the shit you said about me.” How she fucking pegged me, I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. “But the only thing you need to know about me right now, princess, is that I’m going to make you come.”
Sucking in a sharp breath, she licked her lips, but her expression took a nosedive. “You can’t.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want me to touch you?”
“I didn’t say that,” she hedged.
I frowned. “You on your period?” Because I was past caring.
“No.”
I stared at her.
She stared back.
“Spit it out,” I demanded.
“I…” She looked away and her voice dropped. “Sex doesn’t make me come.”
Grasping her chin, bringing her eyes back to me, I forgot about my oath not to fuck her and asked the hard question. “Why not?”
Still avoiding eye contact, she shrugged. “Just…because.” She shifted in my grasp. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Instinct hit like an IED blast wave. “You been hurt before?”
She shrugged again.
“Summer,” I warned.
Her gaze cut to mine. “It’s not a big deal, okay. I don’t care. Yes, I’m attracted to you.” She tried to push away from me. “It’s just not going to happen. Been there, done that. My body’s hard wired to get off on drugs instead of sex, I guess.”
I saw right through her. “Who was he?”
She turned her head as far away from me as possible. “Who was who?’
My jaw fucking ticked and my teeth ground. “The asshole who raped you?”
She flinched. “I didn’t say—”
“Am I wrong?” I wasn’t. It was written all over her face. And her attitude, hot and cold, cavalier and innocent, scared and bold as fuck, it all made sense now.
She didn’t answer.
Because I was an asshole, and because she was in my head, I pushed. “Tell me his name.” I was going to kill the asshole.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Now,” I barked.
She looked back at me and threw her hands up. “I was high, okay? It was my fault. I