Page 72 of Defending Mateo
Tears streamed down Ally’s cheeks, and she didn't bother to hide them. “Mateo?” she asked softly.
“Yeah, baby?”
“I don’t think I can hold it in anymore,” she whispered brokenly.
“Then don’t, little mouse. You're safe here. Safe in my arms. Always. I’ll do anything to protect you, keep you safe, and make you happy. You’ll never feel alone again, because you’ll know that I'm always with you, even if we’re apart. Fall apart, baby, because I'm right here to catch you.”
Chapter
Twenty-Three
August 24th
8:34 A.M.
In the last twenty-four hours, Ally cried more than she had in her entire life before being abducted. Which was saying a lot, because she’d always been someone who expressed her sorrow through tears.
But all that emotion she’d kept locked down as she just tried to survive was now bubbling out. She’d cried when Doc carried her out of the burning building and passed her into Mateo’s arms. She’d cried when they’d been bundled into an SUV with blacked-out windows and driven into Manhattan. She’d cried as she’d been looked over by a doctor. She’d cried when she’d given her statement to Mateo’s boss, Falcon Oswald, and felt bad about it because the guy had been really kind and gentle with her despite looking like an angry giant at first. She’d cried when Mateo carried her into an apartment in Prey’s building, which was where they’d live until the Azure thing was resolved and they started their lives somewhere else. She’d cried when Mateo ran them both a hot bath and washed every inch of her with atenderness that filled all the holes inside her. She’d cried when he tried to get her to eat something, and when he’d tucked them both under the covers of a huge four-poster bed.
Basically, she was a soggy mess.
Nightmares had come for her the second she fell asleep, and if it wasn't for Mateo’s steady presence, shaking her awake, holding her while she trembled, the fear so real it was like it lived inside her, she wasn't sure what she would have done.
The only thing that made her not feel like a complete waste of space, was that at one point during the night, it was Mateo’s groans that had woken her, and she’d found him in the grips of a nightmare of his own. She’d climbed onto him, touching kisses to his lips until he’d woken, and then she’d let him hold her while he shook so violently the bed vibrated along with them. He’d apologized over and over again for getting her on Azure’s radar, and she assumed he’d been dreaming about the trafficking ring doing terrible things to her, although he wouldn't say exactly what the dream had been about.
Now they lay in bed, which was basically all they'd done since they arrived here. In the end, Mateo had convinced her to eat a little, but her appetite seemed to have fled despite her not eating much the entire time she’d been held captive. They’d taken a shower together before climbing back into bed last night. While she didn't feel rested, and wasn't sure she’d ever get over the bone-deep weariness that clung to her, Ally didn't want to sleep anymore.
“What are you thinking about, little mouse?” Mateo asked.
When she propped her chin up on his chest, she found him watching her with a careful expression. It was like he was worried that anything he did or said might be the thing that completely undid her and caused her to shatter into a thousand pieces.
Okay, she had been a mess ever since she knew they were safe, she’d cried and cried and cried some more, but she didn't like him being so careful with her. She felt broken inside, so messed up and turned about that she was having trouble untangling her emotions, but she wasn't going to break. Which sounded silly. How could you be broken but not break?
“I want you to stop being careful with me,” she blurted before she lost her nerve. Mateo’s rule was to always say what she was thinking and tell him what she was feeling. While that hadn't necessarily been something she could do while they were at Azure, even after she learned that he was undercover, she wanted to be that way again.
“Stop being careful with you?” His dark brow furrowed, and she leaned up to kiss away those lines.
“Yes. That’s not how you treated me before.”
“Before you hadn't been kidnapped by people I was trying to get arrested, and tortured.Ihadn't tortured you. You hadn't been sold, and then captured again, then almost died in a fire.”
“I'm not made of spun glass,” she said, realizing maybe for the first time as she actually said the words out loud, that they were true. Maybe she’d always been someone who cried, who took the easy way out, who hid and made herself small to avoid being noticed, and who was bullied because she never fought back. But she was here. Still standing. Broken but not shattered.
If she could endure the horrors of being kept prisoner by a sex trafficking ring and come out the other side, then she definitely wasn't made of glass.
“No, little mouse, you're not made of spun glass,” he said as he tangled his fingers in her hair. “You're made of gorgeous stained glass, beautiful, fragile, but strong all at once. You want me to make you forget for a little while. Is that what you want, baby?”
“Yes,” she said on a breathy moan as arousal flooded her body, and she ground her naked center against his hip since they were snuggled together in the bed. She needed him to show her that he still saw her the same way, even after what had been done to her. It was the only way to make the feeling of being dirty disappear. She needed him to take what he wanted from her body, leaving her wrung out and sated at the end.
“We don’t have any of my usual toys, but I guess we can make do,” he said, his voice taking on that husky tone she loved.
Before she could blink, he had her on her back, and he’d ripped the covers off the bed, tossing them in a tangled mess on the floor somewhere in the room. Since neither of them had bothered putting clothes on after that first bath when they arrived, they could skip the undressing step. Mateo was still a patchwork mess of bruises—she had a fair few scrapes and bruises herself after the motorcycle and car incidents—and she hated seeing them on his skin, but she was choosing to see them as evidence of their survival and his love for her.
“You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life,” he told her, and there was a reverence in his voice. “Need to devour you.”
That was the only warning she got before he shoved her thighs apart, wedged his massive shoulders between them, and did just that. His mouth was hot against her sensitive flesh, and he didn't hold back. Each stroke of his tongue against her bundle of nerves was deliberate, intense, and determined. He was going to make her come, and he was going to make her come hard.
And she did.
