12. Diego
12
DIEGO
I pressed my lips to hers, taking charge of the shock that controlled her. She would hyperventilate or pass out, gripped and trapped by the trauma that wouldn’t release her.
She gasped.
Surprise cleared out the stubborn thread of shock, even if only for a moment. I’d caught her off guard. I’d thrown a twist into the moment between us.
But she didn’t retreat. She didn’t wrench away or back up.
If I'd offended her by acting on this low-burning desire that had slowly been forming in the back of my mind as I tried to remember myself, she didn’t show a sign of it.
Instead, she went still. Staying in place, captive under my hand on her face, she tipped her face up so I could brush my mouth over hers. So I could absorb the electric shock of making contact with her like this.
Sofia was the start and end of what was familiar to me. She was the singular source of comfort and figurative security in my life, the life that I knew now.
We had become used to touch. She’d nursed me by carefully tending to my wounds. I’d accepted her fingertips stroking over my skin for the clinical purpose of changing my bandages and her smearing cream on my wounds. I didn’t flinch when she neared. She didn’t hesitate to act as my caregiver.
Now that familiarity and ease of comfort expanded and grew. With her soft, plump lips under mine, pliable in surrender, I relished this newness of feeling her essence in another, more sensual way.
Kissing her.
She sighed against me, sagging toward me as she let out a needy, almost silent moan.
Holding her.
She didn’t back up as I lifted my other hand to frame the other side of her face, guiding her to stay right here with me.
Slamming my lips on hers wasn’t the most conventional way to shock someone out of, well, shock, but it worked. Not only did it work, but it also encouraged her to distance herself from the mire of trauma and panic she couldn’t beat back. As she replied in kind, pressing her lips against mine harder, returning the need to explore this technique of avoiding the darkness, I welcomed her to ask for—no, to demand—all that she wanted.
What started as an impulsive idea to bring her out of that shock turned into something much more. Drugged and enraptured by the pressure of her sweet lips insistent against mine, I quickly gave up on the desire to stop. I couldn’t stop. Addicted to this peace, this simmering climb to let desire rule me, I did my best to calm her down and coax her to relax against me. She did, but she didn’t stop there.
Reaching forward, she slipped her hands up my bare chest. I’d felt her hands on me before, but not like this. Without the purpose of touching me to check my injuries or any other reasoning in the name of nursing me back to health, she glided her hands up my pecs in such a way that my heart raced faster. She looped her arms over my shoulders, circling them around my neck to pull me lower.
She wanted this. And she wanted more.
A sweet whimper of need slipped from her. I lowered my hand to slide it around her. Hugging her closer and slanting my head to get a better angle over her, I pulled her close to me until her soft breasts rubbed against me.
I growled, too lost in wanting her, in lusting for her. I parted my lips and stroked my tongue along the seal of hers, closed but eager. And she opened. On a sigh, she let me enter. I didn’t wait, easing my tongue into the sweet heat of her mouth so I could explore and taste. So I could dominate and caress.
Scraping her nails over my back, she gave the sexy impression that she wanted to climb me, to latch on and never let go.
She was no longer scared, but needy. She wasn’t relaxed, but determined to kiss me back and grind against me.
I still had no clue who I was. I had no idea what my identity was supposed to be and whether I had any right to want her like this or to take charge and encourage her to cave to this lurking desire that sparked between us like a force of nature we could no longer control.
Despite that cluelessness and loss of identity, I was certain that it’d been a while since I’d had a woman to enjoy, a long time since I’d lowered my guard to let a woman into my life at all. And in that same stroke of confidence in my thoughts, I had no doubt that I’d never, ever had the pleasure and gift of someone as brave and sexy and sensual and sweet as Sofia. No one as special and giving as my angel who’d saved me from the alley. My Christmas angel.
And never like this. At the core of my soul, I knew I’d never found a woman I’d clicked with and connected so deeply with like this. A woman whose sweet lips enticed me to beg for all she’d let me have. Like I’d die if I let her go. Like I’d fail to want to carry on without her kissing me with such fervor and need.
Of course, Sofia had made an impression on me. She was the first person I saw once I woke up without my memories. She was the first person to care about my wellbeing and nurse me back to health with such generosity and compassion.
This was more. Her desperate kisses hinted at much more. My need to grip her shirt and steal her sweet breaths was a lot more than desire, more than mere gratitude for her saving my life and wanting me to recover.
This was raw, unapologetic lust.
She stroked her tongue along mine, then retreated to suck mine into her mouth with just the right pressure and velvety heat that my dick twitched again under my shorts. And she knew it. She felt my erection poking at her stomach because she tilted her hips, seeking friction there.
I tore my mouth away, breathing hard and needing air.
She licked her lips, staring at me, and I knew the very second that she realized what we’d done.
We’d crossed a line, a boundary between nurse and patient. Between stranger and host. Between… victim and defender. In the name of shaking her out of that shock, I’d instigated us to fall down a spiraling path toward something closer to spontaneous intimacy.
Blinking those gorgeous green eyes, she retreated from the possibility of it. She set her teeth on her lower lip, that plump flesh I’d licked, sucked, and nipped.
One step back felt like a canyon.
The drop of her hands from my shoulders resembled forfeit.
But I had to let her take the next step.
“I…”
I shook my head, laughing once, without mirth. “No. Don’t excuse it.”
She raised her brows as a shy smile lifted her lips.
“Don’t make an excuse for that.” I cleared my throat, determined to let her show me what she wanted or needed now that the vacant gaze was gone from her eyes. I’d succeeded in surprising her, in arousing her from that damn shock, and now she’d have to let me know what came next.
Too many questions and unknowns existed in my life for me to call the shots. Too many things complicated it all.
“No excuse,” she whispered in agreement as she gestured for me to turn again. Leaning against the vanity, I sighed and willed my heart to slow. My dick to relax. My lungs to catch up.
When she picked up the scissors and once again stitched me up, I hissed and bore the pain through it. Coolness from the numbing cream helped, but the sting of the needle and the slight tugging of my skin distracted me from reaching for her again.
Don’t…
Don’t scare her.
Don’t rush her.
Just… don’t.
Being alone with her in this small room tempted me, though. Ramon was likely asleep. We had as much privacy as we likely ever could in this situation, but I wouldn’t jump headfirst into kissing her again until she could give me a signal that she wanted it. That she desired me, not as a side effect of my idea to snap her out of shock but because she simply wanted me.
“Who were they?” I asked, aware that it would be smart to talk through this than to let her sink back to the trauma poisoning her mind.
“I don’t know.” She sighed as she continued on my arm. “I don’t know their names, but I have seen them before. They came into the clinic where I work. Maybe a few times, but not in this year.”
“Hmm.”
“They came in from street fights and such. Drug withdrawal too. They were convinced I had drugs here, but I don’t. I don’t have any narcotics or heavy painkillers. Nothing they’d want or could use to get high on or sell.”
“Why’d they think that then?”
She shrugged. “Because they know I’m a nurse. We’ve probably walked past each other at the market a couple of blocks over.”
“They seemed to know you have a son.”
She frowned, tucking the tip of her tongue on the corner of her mouth, a tell that showed she was concentrating and focusing. “Yes. I think they must have seen Ramon with me at the market or out and about. If they were who I think they were, more than a few women have had problems with them harassing them. Not that police ever do anything about it.”
“Do you think they could’ve seen you getting the drugs at the hospital?”
She furrowed her brow. “The night I found you?”
I nodded.
She shook her head. “No. I didn’t see anyone around.”
“But someone could have seen you transporting drugs.”
“Then they would’ve also seen me deliver the drugs to the clinic.”
I let her explanation sink in as she gently pressed a clean cloth to my skin.
“Thank you, Diego,” she said after a long moment of quiet. Her voice shook only slightly, and I was moved by the sincerity in her voice. “If you hadn’t been here…” She sighed.
“You don’t need to thank me.” I faced her, and she gave in to the pressure of my attention on her directly like this to meet my gaze. Stuck in a heavy stare down, she studied me like she was searching for a clue.
As I waited for her to speak again, I realized that there was not a single hint of fear. She wasn’t scared. Yes, she had been traumatized, clearly frightened of those men making good on their threat to rape her and take Ramon. But she didn’t fear me. She wasn’t sad, either. I couldn’t guess whether she’d seen such gory violence up close like that before, but she accepted it in the name of self-defense.
“How did you know…” She lowered the last of the bandages and then faced me again, seeming to pick her words carefully. “How did you know how to do that? To fight like that?”
I shook my head and hated that I didn’t have an answer for her. “I don’t know, Sofia. I really don’t.”
“Doctors don’t…” She looked down and frowned. “Doctors don’t fight like that.”
“I doubt they do.”
She peered at me, curious but unafraid.
“It was just… It came to me. I didn’t have to think. I didn’t have to plan. It’s like it was just ingrained in me.”
She licked her lips, nodding pensively.
Like muscle memory, Angel.
Once again, I wondered just what kind of dark and sinister path I had before to be a killer like that.
And even worse, now that I had a sample of the sweet perfection of what it could be like to have Sofia as my woman, as my partner and not just my grounding source of comfort, I knew without a doubt that my past—hidden and out of reach as it was—could be the very thing that would make her want to run from me.