Chris didn’t think it needed to make sense, but frankly, why should it? They hadn’t met under normal circumstances. She wasn’t the average woman, and he wasn’t every other man, either. They couldn’t simplify anything they did together down to one label, but he didn’t care. As long as he still had moments like this with her, rather it be now or when she was away from here, then that was all that mattered to him at the end.
Valeria tipped her head back and rested it against the crook in his shoulder. It gave Chris the perfect chance to kiss her cheek, and then the corner of her mouth. So, he did just that. He thought about this woman, and all the things he wanted to do with her—to her—far more often than he should.
This job turned out to be more than he expected, but he wouldn’t complain. How could he when, he’d found an angel?
Someone was looking out for him.
“I meant ...” Valeria gave him a sweet smile when he used the pad of his thumb to trace the line of her cheekbone while he watched her. She didn’t possibly know it, but he found her most fascinating like this. She didn’t have to pretend to be someone else. Happy, pleased, and content. All his. As she should be, he decided. “I tried to date, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” he rumbled.
Not that he would tell her, but Chris was a jealous motherfucker. Even the thought of Valeria spending time with another man—before him, it didn’t matter—had his green monster beating at the bars of its cage. He kept the bastard in place if only because he didn’t think she would appreciate it. Hadn’t she put up with enough bullshit from a man who thought he owned her?
Chris would not be another.
Valeria peered up at him, her pink lips curving into a soft smile as he stroked two fingers up and down her arm under the blanket. “I was young when they forced me to marry Jorge, but you know that, don’t you?”
“I do, yes.”
“He was the first man ...” She flinched, but added, “He was the first for me. And then I ran, stayed running for years, and kept busy raising my daughter because she was always most important.”
Ah.
Chris thought he might understand what Valeria had been trying to tell him, but he remained quiet, and allowed her the chance to say it without his input. This woman didn’t use her voice enough, and when she did, God knew she watched every single word that came out of her mouth.
Shame, that.
She said beautiful things.
People were missing out.
Their loss, he supposed.
His gain.
“I never learned what it meant to enjoy being with someone emotionally, or physically. Love was always abusive. Sex only hurt. I never had the chance to figure out what I wanted and what was good for me until you, and this isn’t even a thing. It’s not right, we shouldn’t have done this, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do when you go. I can’t let him touch me, anymore. I can’t—”
“Shhh,” Chris murmured, leaning down just enough to press a kiss to her forehead. Valeria’s eyes fluttered closed, and her frown melted away. That was better. “Val, listen—”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
Yeah.
There it was.
“I don’t want to go, either,” he muttered.
He needed to be here. Someone had to keep an eye on this woman because no one else was doing it. Undoubtedly, leaving would kill him inside when it meant she would face hell alone. Yes, she had been doing it for years before him, but that didn’t matter to him at all.
She shouldn’t have to.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Valeria looked away from him. “I don’t understand.”
“When this is over, and you can do whatever you want to do, what is it you want?”
“Still not sure when that’ll happen, Chris.”
Right.
“Part of hope is having something to hope for,” he murmured against her cheek, letting his nose nuzzle her soft, warm skin. “So, what are you hoping for, Val?”
She stayed quiet.
He waited her out.
“You,” she said. “I’m hoping for you, and what you gave me here. I don’t want to forget it when you’re gone, I don’t think I can because I’m hoping for something better, and that’s you.”
Chris tightened his arms around her trembling form because, all too soon, he would let her go again. “You’ll have that. I promise.”
He didn’t break those.
He wouldn’t.
“Will I? How?”
Asking her to trust him again—how many times had he said that now?—didn’t seem like it was what she wanted, and so Chris said nothing at all. Actions were still louder than words, and he was working on making this a reality one fucking step at a time. It was the best he could do right now.
His silence wasn’t the response she wanted either. Valeria turned in his lap, the blanket around them falling to the stall floor before she was straddling him. Her hands found his face, and those sharp fingernails of her dragged teasingly against his skin as she pulled him in for a hard kiss. There was no give to it—only her taking.
He didn’t care.
She wanted it?
Have it.
In the back of his mind, Chris recognized they were running out of time here. She needed to head back to the house before someone noticed she left. Or even, before a guard made a trip through the stables just because.
And yet, all those thoughts faded away when her hands fell between them. Her palms found his cock, grabbing tight and stroking him alive in a few firm pulls. He didn’t speak the truth—that she needed to go—when her lips still crushed against his, and her tongue seemed intent to lick his flavor straight from his fucking mouth.
God.
It was so damn good though.
He swore, over the notes of the hay and the horses, of old wood and dirt floor, he still smelled the lingering whiff of their sex in the air. Of her fresh, yet warm perfume that reminded him of a summer rain in the dead heat.
“Again, once more before you go,” she whispered. “Please.”
Her words danced along his lips, sinful and tantalizing. Who could say no to that? It’s what he wanted, too. If he could keep this woman with him forever, he would do exactly that.
Chris reached for his discarded pants, digging through the pocket to find the last fucking condom he had. She took the foil packet from his fingertips, ripping it open before making quick work of sheathing his hard length in latex. Air hissed between his teeth when she settled on top of him, hovering with the head of his cock sliding between the fleshy lips of her sex while she watched him.
Perfect.
She was so fucking perfect.
When she came down on his length, he swore he found heaven. Even if it was his personal brand of hell, too. After all, it only reminded him that she wasn’t entirely his.
Not yet.
“You made me trust you,” she breathed against his mouth, but it almost seemed like something else. It almost sounded like you made me love you, and fuck, he felt that inside his bones. He heard that louder, echoing in his heart with the beats it pumped, and spreading like a wildfire ready to devastate his soul. Not that he had a soul anymore because he gave it to this fucking woman, and he had no idea when that happened. “And now you’re leaving.”