“Want me to stop?”
Her body answered for her. “No.”
After his slow smile, he didn’t bother with words or a soft brush of lips. He seized her mouth again, thrusting in and overwhelming her. A fresh surge of desire left her feeling flushed and overheated as sensation spread through her body. Her nipples hardened to painful points. The place between her legs began to ache. She felt a dangerous urge to open herself and welcome Trees inside her.
His other hand drifted down her body in a slow glide of fingertips that left her gasping. As he settled both on her thighs and spread them apart, she shuddered, her heart beating so rapidly she could hear the roar in her ears.
His hips sank between her parted legs. He nudged his erection against her sex.
Instantly, cold iced all the hot aches in her body. Every muscle tensed, preparing for the imminent, painful invasion of his massive penis.
You can endure this. Focus on Valeria and Jorge.
“Relax,” Trees murmured as he glided his lips across her jaw and down her throat. “I won’t do anything you’re not ready for. Let me explore you, little one.”
He proved again he was a man of his word when he skimmed her collarbones with his lips, then dropped lower with a soft drag of sweet, gumdrop kisses. Against her better judgment, Laila softened—until he approached her breasts.
She’d been groped, pinched, fondled, and squeezed against her will in the past more times than she could count. Hector had always called himself a “boob man” and had been seemingly fascinated with hers, often tweaking them until she cried.
But Trees proved himself different once more. He cradled one in his palm so gently she almost wondered if she’d imagined it. Then his thumb brushed over the distended tip. Laila gasped at the shocking new sensations skittering through her.
“You’re so beautiful,” he breathed against the hard crest. “I dreamed of you.”
Though she’d known that on some level, she still trembled. “Why?”
“Everything about you makes me ache to touch you.”
“And now you are.”
“But I need to protect you, too.”
“That is your job.”
Softly, he shook his head as his lips caressed the side of her breast. “Not because I’m paid to, Laila. Because the man in me…”
He stopped himself from finishing that sentence. His silence unsettled her. What had he intended to say? That he felt sorry for her because she had been treated badly in the past? That he saw her as too weak to protect herself? “What?”
Trees stared, his gaze so piercing, so achingly personal, she felt penetrated without him even entering her. “Let’s just say I don’t want anything to happen to you for reasons that have nothing to do with EM Security.”
What did that mean?
Before she could puzzle it out, Trees skimmed his lips up the side of her breast again, this time dangerously close to her throbbing nipple. Her thoughts evaporated. Against her will, she arched up, offering herself for his mouth.
Why? That usually brought teeth, biting. Pain. Had she lost her mind?
But Trees merely lapped at her hard bud with his soft tongue. His deep rumble of approval reignited her.
Laila met his stare, hot and dark and demanding. With their gazes fused, he enveloped her nipple in his mouth, closing his lips around the sensitive bud and sucking deep.
The pull jolted clear through her body. Her sex clenched. Her womb cramped. She whimpered as fire spread across her skin.
“Does that feel good?”
Lying never crossed her mind. “Yesss…”
The syllable had barely left her lips before he enveloped her tender bud again and sucked with a sensual pull that shook her to the core. Her other breast tightened with need. The tip—harder than ever—throbbed. She wanted his touch.
“Trees…” The plea slipped out. Before she realized it, she arched up in need.
“I’m here, little one. Just feel.” He both soothed and aroused her by cupping her neglected breast, his thumb brushing the painfully taut tip.
A new wave of heat crashed over her. She hissed and grabbed his shoulders, her eyes sliding shut, her head falling back. She couldn’t fight the urge to spread her legs even wider to him.
What was happening? What was he doing to her? Was she feeling the desire she’d seen in telenovelas and movies, the kind she’d always believed was fiction?
“That’s it. That’s my girl…” His voice, low and full of approval, filled her with an even more dangerous pleasure.
He sucked her aching nipple into his mouth once more while stroking the other. Laila hissed, unable to stop surrendering to the sensations. It was as if he controlled her body—and her mind. Despite being naked, she wished she could bare herself to him more. She ached to be closer, though he was already on top of her, pressed against her from shoulders to thighs. Laila settled for kissing his temple, wrapping her arms around him tightly, and lifting to him, desperate to erase what little space remained between them.
“I can’t keep my mouth off of you. You’re even sweeter than I thought.” He devoured her with another hot sweep of his lips.
She savored the masculine flavor of his kiss as he gripped her hip with one hand and wrapped her hair in his fist with the other. Though his big body pressed her into the mattress, holding her exactly where he wanted her, she didn’t feel trapped, just pleasured.
When he finally tore away, panting, he looked down her body, his eyes turning even darker. “I’m definitely going to hell.”
His words had barely registered before he was on her breasts again—thumbing, rubbing, laving, inhaling. Her thoughts faded as he touched the desperate points, sucking them, nipping them until she moaned and melted.
His hands roamed the rest of her—torso, hips, thighs, backside—stroking, squeezing, and surveying as his mouth left her nipples, continuing down to her abdomen to explore her navel. He dragged his tongue over her skin and muttered growled words she couldn’t hear over the roaring of her heart.
Soon he would mount her and push inside her. He probably wouldn’t mean to hurt her. He might even care if he did. But he was a man; that wouldn’t stop him.
Laila fought disappointment and told herself to be practical. Experiencing tingles and heady aches weren’t the reason she was in bed with this man. Neither were goose bumps and racing blood.
She was in his bed to get him off so he would fall asleep, nothing more.
Spreading her legs wider, she lifted her hips to encourage him. Instead of impaling her, he continued down the bed, down her body, inching and kissing a little at a time until his mouth loomed over her there.
Laila blinked at him, wide-eyed, her heart suddenly zipping harder and faster than ever. He raised a brow, his blunt gaze scorching her. She held her breath.
Surely he wouldn’t kiss her in that most forbidden place. Did men do that?
In the near dark, his eyes glowed hot with desire as he caressed her thighs, working his fingers under her knees and spreading her wider. “Laila? Honey…”
His deep-voiced entreaty made her whimper. Was he asking her permission?
“Do you want this?” He skimmed a pair of fingers over her swollen, shockingly slick flesh, igniting nerve endings she’d never known existed.
“Want what?” she panted.