Page 18 of Her BRATVA Protector
Then he stands next to the bed and starts taking things off his body. First, his watch comes off and goes on the nightstand. Then he reaches under the back of his shirt and pulls out a folding knife in a leather sheath that was apparently sitting against his lower back the entire time. The whole time. The whole time his mouth was between my legs, there was a knife at his back. He sets it on the nightstand. Within reach…
Then the henley comes over his head. And Jeezus! The tattoos are freaking everywhere. Running across his chest, down his arms, up the sides of his ribs, dipping below the waistband of the jeans. A wolf’s head on his right pectoral. Some kind of mountain range across his collarbones. Lettering down his ribs in a language I cannot read. The dark hair between his pecs…
His chest is heaving. Like he is having to slow himself down.
He sits on the edge of the bed, unzips the heavy black boots, and sets them on the floor. From the inside of the right one, he removes a small knife. From the inside of the left one, a tiny handgun. Both go on the nightstand. His phone comes out of his pocket. Then, a second folding knife.
He stands, unbuckles his belt, unbuttons the jeans. And I swallow hard as his eyes meet mine, sexy mouth smirking. He shoves his pants down and steps out of them. They go on the floor, and theholsterat the small of his back comes off with the jeans, the handgun in it going on the nightstand too.
I make a strangled sound.
He looks at me. Smiles. Just a little. Tired, filthy, pleased.
“Aye, love. I’m finished.”
He is wearing black boxer briefs. Tight. The shape of him under them is…no, Lisa, stop, you cannot, the man just ate you against a wall, you cannot also stare…his rings stay on, butthe rest of him isbare, every line of inked skin and muscle and thick veins. He is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my entire life, and he isstanding in my house.
He climbs into the bed,behindme, on his side, and pulls me into him. Back to chest. His body is warm. His beard tickles the back of my neck through the thin cotton of my dress. One arm comes around me, heavy, the weight of it grounding. His other arm slides under my pillow. I feel the shape of his hand close around something under the pillow that wasn’t there a minute ago, and I realize, with a small shiver, that one of the guns wentthere.
His mouth comes down on the back of my neck for a soft kiss.
“Rest, lass.”
I open my mouth to tell him…what.Thank you for the orgasm?I’m not your lass?Don’t go to sleep before I do because I am not ready to be alone with this?
I do not get to say any of it.
His breathing changes within thirty seconds.
It does not become deep, exactly. Or slow. It justevens. The breath of a man who has spent a long day on his feet and is, for the first time in he does not know how many hours, finallyresting. His arm does not loosen. His hand under the pillow does not move. But he isasleep, or as close to it as a man like him gets, and the steady rhythm of his breath at the back of my neck is the most peaceful sound I have ever heard.
I lie in his arms in the bed I shared with Ray for a little while before his abuse, indifference, cheating, then complete neglect drove me to lock myself elsewhere every night. I stare at the nightstand and the small armory stacked on it…and I don’t fall asleep.
I don’t sleep because I don’t want to miss this.
I do not sleep because this man has just put his mouth on me and his arm around me and his sleep in my bed and I have donenone of the things I was supposed to do, said none of the things I was supposed to say, refused none of the things I was supposed to refuse. I’ve come undone against a wall, now I’m in his arms, and I have not evengivenhim anything, and he is asleep behind me with his face in my hair, peaceful, like he came home.
God.My eyes well up in the dark.God, what are You doing tome?
I close my eyes. I don’t sleep. But I rest. Mind and body warm, soft, and at peace for the first time in a long, long while…
Seven
Adam
I wake up hard as a fucking rock with my woman’s perfect arse pressed against my cock.
Christ.
I dinnae open my eyes for a minute. I just lie there in the dark with her tucked against me…back to chest, hip to hip, her thick thigh hooked over mine somewhere in the night…and I let myself enjoy it.
I have been a mean bastard my whole life and last night I went down on her against a wall like a man who’d earned it, and now her glorious arse is warm in my lap and her breath is slow and even against the pillow and her little hand is curled around my forearm where I have it laid across her soft belly.
I have not been this still since I was a wee boy.
I grin into the darkness.
Look at ye, lad. Look at the fucking life of ye.
