Chapter One Hundred
Blade
I slept. Like the dead.
Until five feet of tits and ass landed on top of me and small-as-fuck hands sank into my hair.
“Good morning.” The cheerful rasp went straight to my half-hard cock. “Can you bake?”
I hated the fuck out of her gripping my hair. “I’m sleeping, woman.”
She rubbed her cunt over my now fully erect cock. “Mmm. I bet you can fuck in your sleep.”
I grabbed her hips and thrust up in answer. “Already warned you. Get your fucking hands out of my hair.”
She scraped her nails across my scalp. “See, you say you hate it, but when I do this, you don’t throw me off. So I think you’re lying. I think you secretly like it when I grab your hair.”
“Not a fucking woman. Move ’em or lose ’em.”
She let out one of her short laughs—something I hadn’t heard until the third day in the cabin. “What are you going to do? Tie me up?” She gripped harder, and her rasp dropped to a whisper. “Maybe you should.” Then she abruptly let my hair go, braced her hands on my chest, and pushed herself up. “But later. I have other needs right now.”
I didn’t. “No, you don’t.” Flipping her onto her back, shoving her thigh wide with my knee, I brought my mouth down on one of her nipples and bit through the T-shirt she’d stolen from me.
Arching her back, she moaned. “ Oh God .”
The head of my cock slid against her already wet cunt. “Spread your other leg.”
“Condom,” she rasped.
“No.” I fucking hated them.
“The birth control you got me doesn’t kick in for a week.”
I didn’t get her shit. She’d announced the first morning she was here that she had an appointment in town and aimed for her ancient fucking Jeep. Intercepting her, I drove. Then she’d directed me to a doctor’s office and told me to wait outside because—her words, not mine—I scared people. Forty-five minutes later, she came out with a prescription for birth control and issued a command like a master drill sergeant to drive her to a pharmacy. With a shit attitude, I drove her. Then I followed her inside and paid for the fucking script. I was still irrationally pissed about it because ever since she’d vomited the morning after I’d been inside her raw, the idea had been carved into my headspace.
I wanted my seed in this woman.
I coasted a thumb over her clit. “I’ll pull out.” I wouldn’t. We both knew my month bullshit was only a test to see how long I could go without pulling the trigger, and how she’d react if I did leave her for a day or two to handle some work.
She hitched up a knee and groaned before her voice turned all rasp. “Right. Like you pulled out last night? Or yesterday afternoon?”
A man had to do what a man had to do. “Yeah.”
“You didn’t pull out until after you came inside me.”
“And?” Fisting myself, I rubbed the head of my cock over her clit.
“ Oh my God .” Her second knee came up.
I sank in to the hilt and ground my hips.
Moaning, she gripped my shoulders and uselessly shoved. “Stop.”
“Problem?”
She took two more breaths before she focused up and looked me square in the eye. “Are you trying to get me pregnant?”
Yeah. “I hate condoms.” I was out of my fucking mind over this woman.
“Oh my God, how many little Blades are running around this world if that’s your attitude about protection?”
“None.”
She scoffed. “Right. And you know this how, Mr. I Hate Condoms, Let Me Fuck You Raw Because I’m A Caveman slash SEAL?”
I pulled out, got off the bed, and headed toward the bathroom.
“Wait. Oh my God . Are you seriously offended by that?”
“You want to have an adult conversation, then fucking act like an adult.” Pissed as hell and hard as fuck, I turned on the shower.
She hit my six, then stepped in front of me and turned off the water. “If you’ve had unprotected sex with a lot of women, how do you know you don’t have any children? And I’m sorry I insulted you. It’s an honest question, though.”
“From a woman who was going to fuck a biker in an alley.”
“Low blow, but technically correct.”
I didn’t drop it. “How many men have you had unprotected sex with?”
“Two. But one’s dead, it was years ago, and I got myself tested several times after I left him. You?”
Fuck. “One.”
“Oh.” Her eyes went wide. “ Oh .”
Manning up, I crossed my arms. “You vomited at the dump in Detroit the morning after we fucked.”
“Okay.” Frowning, she drew the word out.
I kicked down my own damn door. “My head went there.”
Slow like shit was processing, she nodded. “So you thought I was pregnant?”
“No.” Fuck, I was an asshole. “I thought about the possibility that you could be pregnant.”
“And now you want to have kids? With me?”
I didn’t say shit.
She used my words against me. “Combat honesty.”
“I want to fuck you bareback for a month without birth control and see what happens.” I’d let her infer the shit about how that would trap her and bind her to me forever.
Sucking in a sharp breath and rearing back like I’d fucking hit her, she mimicked my position and crossed her arms. “Okay, wow. So it’s a bareback month now, huh?” She looked past me like she was aiming for escape. “And the whole see what happens ? That’s your measure of, of….” Her hand waved around like it did every time she got agitated, hurt, or defensive. “Of validity? Or worthiness for being the mother of your children? See if you can stand me for a whole month but knock me up anyway? Wow.” She pushed past me and gave me a view of that ass I was already addicted to. “I know I’m stuck on the whole month part when that’s the least alarming thing about that statement, but wow .”
“You got a better measure?”
In a flurry of dark hair and attitude, she spun around. “Yeah, I do. I was going to ask if you knew how to bake cookies. Then you were probably going to give me shit about it, say something like, you aren’t a baker or some other stupid shit. But then you probably would’ve made cookies because you don’t ever back down from a challenge. You also have this unhealthy affliction for always doing things for me even though you say you’re an asshole when I know you’re not. Not always. So, yeah, you would’ve made the stupid cookies. They probably would’ve been good. And when I tried one, if it was really good, I was going to tell you I loved them. But if they were really, really good, I was going to tell you I loved you. Because I do. I have for a while. And maybe you’re right. Maybe it was the idea of you at first. The uniform, the authority, the dominance, and all the shit I never had from the people in my life who should’ve loved me but didn’t.”
Jesus . “Woman.”
On a mission, she kept going. “Whatever. I know my own feelings. I’ve known since you told me to handle my shit and stop belittling myself over my weight. That was when I saw the real Haakon Emrik. You were still the SEAL, that’ll never change, but you were also an honest man. Even when you hide that from the world, it’s there. I see it. And I don’t believe for a second you said those things to be mean. I think you said them because you care. Not about my weight or my past, but about me as a person. And that felt like you were telling me you liked me for who I was. I’d never felt that before. So yeah, I stupidly fell for you. I couldn’t have stopped it if I’d wanted to. And trust me, I tried. That’s why I walked away. Because I always knew it would end like this. I knew you’d hurt me. But then you offered your month deal. I saw hope and reached for it, and now we’re here. Days in, and you have your answer. Congratulations, Chief Special Warfare Operator. You got on my nerves. Mission accomplished.”
Hightailing it out of the bathroom, grabbing her shit from the bedroom in a single armload of rushed fury, she stomped down the hall.
I fucking stood there, watching her ass, until she stormed into the second bedroom and slammed the door.
Then I grabbed my jeans.