Call it blind trust, or my way of opening up a part of me for him to discover, but deep down I believe he won’t hurt me.
I give a mental eye roll.
He growls low in his throat, recognizing without words that this is game on.
I feel his hand on my stomach, as he inches it downward, working it beneath my panties until the heel of his palm rest lightly against my nub. His fingertips caress my folds. Once. Twice. Then he wiggles a finger, parts my soft, sensitive flesh, and slides the tip inside me.
“Damn, you wet for me?” he demands, incredulously.
I don’t know what to say. I am wet. I do . . . want him.
He thrusts his finger deep inside me.
I buck from the abrupt intrusion, feeling myself stretch around his digit.
“So goddamned tight. Bet you can feel every last inch.”
“Yes,” I whisper, not knowing what to say. Overcome with sensation.
He stares down at me. But instead of sharing this monumental moment, a deep V forms on his forehead. “Didn’t your boyfriend finger you? Go down on you?”
“I already told you I don’t have a boyfriend,” I murmur, almost losing my train of thought as he slides his digit in and out, more gently this time.
“Okay, a fucking friend with benefits. A lover. How many times have you come from oral sex?”
His thumb rolls across my clit and suddenly I need this conversation to end. “What difference does it make?” God, I can’t believe this. Why not take what I’m offering?
His eyes shoot daggers at me. Why is he suddenly so cold?
“Never,” I respond, glaring back at him.
“And fucked? Because I’m seconds away from flipping you over and bending you across the mattress and taking you like I described, hard and fast, like an animal mating.
Damn it. How does he know? Is there a goddamned V plastered on my forehead?
“Tell me,” he bites out.
“Never,” I whisper.
I shutter as he withdraws his finger. Closing my eyes as I soak up the lovely sensation. Snapping them back open when I feel him move off of me.
“That’s what I thought,” he growls.
I sit up, confused, as I watch him stalk across the room and into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Leaving me alone on the bed, wondering what the heck just happened.
16
Declan
A virgin.
If I’d been thinking with my head instead of my dick, I’d have picked up on it. The signs were there when I touched her back in Corpus Christi. I’d kept an eye on her in Cabo with that dipshit on the beach until I couldn’t take it any longer and marched off. Add in how she’s been to college, she’s hot as fuck, and judging by how goddamn wet her pussy was just now, she’s eager for a good fuck, why would I believe any different?
A virgin.
That dipshit hadn’t managed to get between her thighs after all. No one has.
I shake my head, disturbed by how much this pleases me. It shouldn’t, but it does.
I run the sink, then douse my head beneath lukewarm water, in a lame effort to come to grips with my senses. I don’t know what to make of this. Of . . . her. She stirs up something inside me, something foreign and purely animalistic in nature.
Mine.
She can be mine.
I turn the faucet off and shake my head, ridding my hair of excess water much like a dog does. Telling myself no. NO. Who’s the dipshit now, thinking dumb-ass thoughts he has no business thinking.
Why kid myself? I’m nobody’s fool, least of all my own.
I stare at the wet polka-dot pattern I’ve splattered across the faded wallpaper on the bathroom wall. Watermarks will dry. Bloodstains, however, persist a hell of a lot longer. I learned that the hard way, after Joe “the Butcher” Cabrianni, my first kill.
Hayden gave the order, and within twenty-four hours, I executed it. Secured my reputation as a brutally efficient killer, someone Hayden could depend on. In and out, neat and tidy, that’s how I roll. No fuss. No regrets.
I terminate with ease, like picking daisies. Getting the job done using any means possible.
Weaponry. Bare-knuckle fighting. Lies and manipulation. Psychological foreplay. Fuckery. Whatever the job demanded, I’ve done. Gathering the Bastard’s intel. Each hit shaping me into the stonehearted fucker I am today.
I’ve proven myself over and over again, hit after hit, becoming part of Hayden’s most trusted trio of hit men. Me. Diego. Jaxson.
Jaxson.
Doing the right thing isn’t part of this picture.
Madelyn will never be mine. Not in any way other than physical. Not in the way she wants. “I like you,” she keeps telling me.
Not for long.
She’s pure, like a first snowfall before life’s vicious mongrels come and piss all over it. Uncorrupt. Unspoiled. So unlike me.
A novelty, that’s all she is. Like a golden apple in a barrel of rotten fruit.
I wipe the back of my hand across the water on my forehead, stopping the drops of water from trickling down my face. Like teardrops—the kind I won’t be shedding while I do what I have to do.
She’s an opportunity that came knocking. And I’m going to grab hold of it with both hands, along with my hard-as-a-motherfucker-dick.
I can’t afford mistakes.
Losing Madelyn before her sister shows up isn’t going to happen.
Fucking hell. Enough time wasted. For all I know, Hayden could call me back any minute with a direct order to find then terminate the younger sister. Like I have far to look. It’s like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Business before pleasure. Always.
What I’ll do is bide my time and ride it out. Proceed with my plans for drawing Kylie back to Shelby. Without reporting in to Hayden with the small, inconsequential details like who I’m keeping company with.
I plan on keeping Madelyn right here with me.
Safe, for the time being.
If Jaxson could see me now, holed up inside this bathroom, letting a goddamn virgin get the better of me.
Madelyn may never be mine.
But I’m going to fuck her. I’m going to take what she’s offered. I’m going to make her come while screaming my name. I’m going to give her something other than hurt to remember me by.
17
Madelyn
He exits the bathroom with wet hair, a relaxed demeanor, naked, and—oh sweet Heaven above—hung. Yet he brushes right by me like he doesn’t see me standing there at the foot of the bed, dressed in sexy lingerie and staring at him, uncertain and a bit breathless.
I watch, fascinated, as he pulls back the comforter and climbs into bed. Reclining back onto the pillows, he places his hands behind his head and, as my throat hitches at the sight of him, all muscle and raw, unleashed power, his eyes capture mine.
“Finish what you started.”
What I started. His words hang in the air like a passing cloud about to release its first light drops of rain. A precedent for what’s coming. And I simply stand there, watching him watching me. Trying to read him—and as usual, failing miserably.
He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t pat the mattress next to him. He doesn’t show me even the slightest encouragement. Or the slightest suggestion that what’s about to happen is going to be more than a fuck.