“Yeah,” she replies a moment later, her voice shivering.
I push the door open, wondering at the change in her voice.
Fear? Excitement? Uncertainty?
Kneeling down, I focus on the dog for a little while. Jackson pants and lets his tongue hang out, standing on his hind legs and then placing his forepaws on my knees. I chuckle and scratch him up and down his body, looking into his eyes, into the light there.
My woman has helped him become a happy, friendly animal despite everything. Of course, that says a lot about what sort of mother she’ll make.
My mind burns with our future.
She’s sitting on the edge of the bed, but she stands when I do.
She’s still dressed in her pajamas, white three-quarter-length sweatpants hugging onto her thick legs, outlining their shape. Her hoodie hugs her heaving, juicy breasts, making my cock flood, getting rock-hard right down its tip.
She smiles shakily, making me think of our wedding day, and my gaze flits to her tattoo for a moment.
Our wedding day – not the one Conor was going to force on her – will be a freeing experience, not that hell.
“I have to go,” I tell her.
“Oh,” she murmurs.
Jackson follows at my heels as I approach Lena. It’s difficult not to leap on her, the lust thrumming hotly.
It’s like my body is trying to force me to act, act now, stop hesitating – grab her, throw her on the bed, and take her like a savage.
“It’s business,” I say.
“War, you mean,” she replies. “That’s what you were trying to avoid, remember? That’s why you didn’t save me at first? Because it would lead to war.”
“Yes.”
I move closer.
“And now….” She lets out a shivering breath, almost a sob, the sound going straight to my heart. “If anybody gets hurt or dies, it will be my fault.”
“No,” I snarl, closing the distance completely, feeling the heat of her body. “It will be my fault. I chose to save you. I chose to risk everything.”
“Why?” she whispers, gazing up at me, her cheeks flushed adorably.
Because you’re the only woman I can imagine being with, I silently say because you’re the only one for me.
I smirk, masking all that craziness. “Do you really think I could go my whole life without ever kissing you again?”
She gasps, and I growl, and then our lips are on each other. She makes the cutest, sexiest whimpering sound as she loops her arms around my shoulders, her fingers clinging to the back of my neck.
I can feel the passion and hunger in the way her nails claw me, in its firmness.
My tongue finds hers, seeking out that electric energy. My cock is throbbing as it pushes insistently against the inside of my pants. She shifts against me, moving from side to side as though instinct is guiding her as much as it is me.
It takes everything I have to step away.
All I want is to keep going, slide my hands down her body, and massage the globes of her ass with my hungry hands. And then strip her clothes again, but everything this time, freeing her breasts, delicious thighs, and her sweet soaked virginal canal.
“I have to go.”
“I know,” she whispers.
I grin as she looks up at me.
“What?” she giggles, reading my smile if a man like me can properly smile.
“You’re looking at me like you want to be kissed again.”
“Hmm, maybe.”
We both laugh, then I end it with another kiss. Her lips are addictive. Her body is the same.
She rubs her breasts against me as the kiss deepens, grinding up and down as though she likes the way it makes her feel. I shift with her.
Our bodies want to find a rhythm and slip into the lust that leads to sex.
But then I step away again, thinking of my men, my duty. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
“Hopefully, I won’t be too long,” I tell her.
She nods. “Am I allowed to use my cellphone here?”
I shake my head. “You can call anybody you like. We have a special line, untraceable. But cellphones can be tracked.”
“I’d like to call my friend, Izzy,” she says. “I want to make sure she’s okay. I…Conor’s men, they know I’m friends with her. They know she’s pretty much my only friend. What if they use her against me?”
“Give me her address. I’ll make sure nothing happens to her.”
She walks to the bedside table, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen. As she leans over to write down the address, my gaze snaps to her ass, to her round and gorgeous mounds of flesh.
She turns back to me before my temptation reaches snapping point. Jackson, sitting near my feet, watches Lena as she returns.
I take the note, our hands brushing, and I can’t resist. I grab her wrist and pull her into another kiss.