don’t know if I said no, I don’t know what I said. He did what he wanted, what all asshole guys do, and then he gave me more drugs.” Her eyes welled.” What was I supposed to do?” Tears slid down her cheeks, but her tone got angrier. “Say I didn’t want him to force himself on me when I was too fucking high to say no?” She swiped roughly at her face. “Yeah, that would’ve gone over real well.”
Rage like I hadn’t experienced since my last deployment consumed me. “Name,” I gritted out.
“Why?” She barked out a laugh void of humor. “It was my dealer. You already killed him.”
Rolling to my back, I shoved my hands through my hair.
“See? Now you know, and it doesn’t make any fucking difference except you’re disgusted by me, I’m disgusted in myself, and the whole thing was better left untouched.” She made to get up.
My hand around her arm, I caught her. “I’d dig the motherfucker up and shoot him again if I knew where he was.”
She snorted out a humorless laugh. “You can’t kill a dead man.”
A full magazine in his corpse would make me feel better though. “First of all, that shit wasn’t your fault. Second, giving drugs to a minor is a fucking felony. Third, you shouldn’t have to say no. Only a piece-of-shit fucks a woman too high to be coherent.” I rolled to my side to face her. “Understand?”
She looked away.
I fought from grasping her chin and instead did what I should’ve done before I kissed her. “I want permission to touch you.”
Her eyes met mine and her words came out with attitude, but the vulnerability in her expression about killed me. “You’re already touching me.” She moved her leg against mine to prove her point.
I kept stock fucking still. “I’m asking if I can put my hands on you. Intimately,” I clarified.
Her pulse jumped and her breathing picked up. She nodded.
“Use words, woman.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
I took her face with both hands. “You shouldn’t have had to say no. That piece of shit knew better. It wasn’t your fault. Understand me?”
Letting out a sound of frustration, she pulled out of my grasp. “I get it, but this conversation is pointless, and I’m done having it. The past is the past.”
For a split second I didn’t know if I was more impressed by her ability to compartmentalize or pissed off at her dismissal. I didn’t talk shit out with women. I didn’t lay in bed at night with them and rehash bullshit pasts or old wounds. And I never told anyone about myself. Except here I was, in a cabin I never imagined bringing a woman to, wanting to both kill the fucker who hurt her all over again, and give her words that’d mean something more than a useless platitude, but I couldn’t do either.
I could only make her come.
It wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when. Her and I, we had chemistry. Since the moment she and her dark hair, big tits and sober self told me to fuck off, I wanted a taste of her.
Her age, my job, the fucked-up reason why we were here—everything about this was wrong. Which only made me want her more. Then she threw down with her little proclamation and I was done holding back.
“You know what I think?” It wasn’t a question. It was a challenge.
“That you’re God’s gift to women, you shoot better than anyone you know, and you’re invincible?”
Fighting a smile, I dragged a finger down her arm. “In addition to that.”
Her attention turned to my hand. “Gee, I couldn’t hazard a guess.”
“First clue, I’m not talking about myself.” Slow, steady, I brought my finger back up her arm.
“In a shocking twist of events, the invincible, humble bodyguard relinquishes the conversation to a subject matter not about himself.”
Fuck, I liked this. Yeah, I wanted to fuck her and prove her wrong about coming. I wanted to erase all her bad memories more than I wanted my next fucking breath, but this right here, the back and forth, no hidden agenda in her words, this shit was better than foreplay.
I smiled at her. “Name one thing you know about me that came from my mouth.”
“You don’t let a woman pay for a meal.”
Smirking, I dragged the back of my fingers along the side of her breast. “Something real, sweetheart.”
Her nipple hardened though her shirt. “That’s not real?”
I coasted my hand over it. “Not as real