Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
Slowly, methodically, Scout takes me. Breaks me, mends me, unravels me. Stroke by deep stroke, he presses me deep into the bed, and I collapse into myself.
Falling back. Tumbling forward. Erasing something bad.
Planting something new.
My neck arches against the bed, my breath leaves in a high pitched keen as my fingers tighten in the thick hair at his nape.
His rough palm scrapes over my nipple, then moves slowly down my body until his thumb is pressed against my clit, making a slow circle.
God. Oh god.
Coming apart.
“Memphis,” I rasp as I climb unbearably high .
I don’t even feel him shift away from me, I’m spiraling toward oblivion, burning bright as a rocket.
“Babe, open your eyes.”
I flutter them open and find him above me, braced on one muscular arm, his chest glistening, his expression fierce. “Give me your orgasm.”
I have no idea what he means, until it hits me. Until my release crashes into me. Drags me under and flings me to a place I’ve never been.
I scream, raw and primal, the sound wrenching from my soul as I hold my eyes wide open, with our gazes locked.
Then I know.
He didn’t just want my orgasm.
That isn’t what he meant at all.
He just demanded my heart.
And I handed it over in a scream with fire tearing through me. Shredding the woman I was.
His expression flashes pleasure, then pain. He swallows roughly as I convulse on his massive cock, his muscled body glistening above me, inside me.
Then he locks still, buried deep in my core. Gritting his teeth, he inhales through his nose. The first pulse of his cock makes me jolt with pleasure. The second drags me over the edge again.
I fall so deep this time, I know there’s no coming back.
No surviving Scout, or walking away from this job with any semblance of sanity.
And when he wraps his arm around me, and buries his nose against my ear, he grates out the words that seal my fate. “You’re mine now, beautiful. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll protect your heart and fight your battles.”
I lie blissfully in his arms catching my breath with my body tingling, until he shifts off of me and props himself on his elbow.
His voice is husky. “Tell me everything.”
Okay. That was not what I was expecting.
Feeling suddenly prickly, I roll my head until I’m facing him. “You can’t just demand that I do that.”
He blinks at me once. “If we’re going to do this then we have to be totally open with each other.”
I sit up abruptly.
This wasn’t part of the agreement.
I don’t say this to him, because I realize he’s just shared the most painful thing in the world with me—his vulnerability about his scars.
“Scout. This isn’t going to go well.”
I know how men like him react to things like what I’m holding back. It’s the reason Griffon Kane will never know.
He sits up and cages me in with his legs. I’m sitting tailor style, and he’s wrapped around the outside of my legs. We’re face to face.
“Look down.”
I drag my gaze away from the intensity of his eyes and look at his thighs. It’s bad. Webs of mottled skin. My heart contracts painfully for him.
For a long beat, I don’t know what to say.
Finally, I find my way. “I don’t see the scars, I see the pain you endured.”
He’s so still, I’m not sure what to do.
Then he curses and reaches for me. His hand finds my neck, my favorite place for him to touch me. Okay, maybe there are a few favorite places, but something about him cradling my neck in his big, strong hand melts a place inside me that I didn’t know could melt .
Sensing he wants to tell me something, I ask, “What happened?”
“Long story short, I ran through a fire.”
My heart is so broken for this man. “In the SEAL Teams?”
“Yeah.”
His voice is rough now.
All I can think to say sounds so lame. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
I look up and let my eyes trace over his chest. All the hard-earned muscles. The dips and valleys, sun line at the base of his neck, the smooth texture blanched by the hard lines. “You’re so beautiful.”
His throat works. I lean forward and kiss him on the lips again. This time he reaches for my hand, and my heart flutters when I realize what he’s doing.
He places my palm on his thigh. I don’t move my hand, but I keep kissing him. A few seconds pass then he groans, leans into the kiss, a rough sound in his throat.
When his hands move to my waist, my blood heats. He lifts me onto his lap and my legs go around his waist.
“I’ve never wanted this,” he says in a low rasp.
“Neither have I.”
He kisses the side of my neck, as I move my hand to his cock. “I want to feel you…”
He grunts, making a frustrated sound. “I can’t reach the condoms from here.”
“I’m not ovulating.”
“Explain.” He uses my word on me.
With my heart thrumming and butterflies in my tummy, I whisper, “It’s my cycle, I wouldn’t be fertile.”
His skin burns hot beneath my legs, as if the fire inside him is being stoked to a roar. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure. I want to feel you…”
He doesn’t hesitate, I’m not even finished saying what I was going to say and he’s already lifting his hips, pushing into me.
Then, kissing me slowly, tasting, teasing me with his tongue, he uses his hands to raise and lower me onto his rock-hard length.
It’s agonizingly sexy to be upright, face-to-face with him, my body wrapped around him, and the pleasure of being so close with him deep inside of me is the most glorious feeling I’ve ever experienced.
Something inside of me lets go.
A coiled tension unwinds until I’m liquid light in his arms.
If Scout can let go.
I can let go. I can breathe.
This time he doesn’t demand my orgasm, I give it freely to him. Any remaining fragments of my heart that hadn’t gone before belong to him.
How is it possible to fall in love in a day?
The old saying, what the heart wants, the heart wants, passes through my mind.
Well, what my heart wants—no, demands—is crazy.
I didn’t know what I needed. But now I know.
Now that battered organ inside my ribs wants to fit into the broken place inside another heart and become a whole together.
As I try to catch my breath, with my face buried in his neck. My hands resting on his sweat-dampened back, I begin to talk.
“I’ll tell you what happened. But this isn’t going to be pretty and you may never look at me the same again…”