Chapter Thirteen
All the discomfort Mal had been feeling
disappeared the minute her mouth met his. His leg had been hurting, heart
bruised by the meeting with her father. Not because of what Alex had said but
the reminder that he didn’t fit in with her.
Oh, it felt like he fit. Those generous lips on his felt
like the ultimate acceptance of his life. His arms tightened around her.
She looked into his eyes, a soft expression on her face. “I
thought I lost you today.”
“You should have gone somewhere safe,” he replied in his
sternest Dom tone.
She wasn’t intimidated at all. “Not while you weren’t, Sir.
If I knew you had the advantage, I would have, but it was chaos in there and I
used it. I will always come for you.”
It was stupid. That was supposed to be his line. She was
supposed to be safe. He was the man. He was supposed to protect her.
But didn’t that marginalize her? She was smart and strong.
She was trained. Shouldn’t she be the one he wanted to watch his back? She
deserved to fight for her family, for the people she loved. His job wasn’t to
shield her from the world. It was to help make her strong enough to live in it,
to thrive in it.
“And I will always come for you.” The words felt like more
than a promise. An oath. A foundation to build a life on. “But Vivian, I’m
taking over your training.”
She frowned. “That sounds terrible. I think Lucy is doing an
excellent job. Though I can’t talk to my sister-in-law about it or she’ll come
and take over, and I do not want her as my drill sergeant.”
If being in the field was what she wanted, it was his job to
make it happen, not to talk her out of it. It was his role to support her.
But there were things that needed to be said.
“Vivian?”
Her eyes were soft as she looked up at him. “Yes, Sir?”
“I’m too old for you.” There was almost a decade between
them, but he meant more than mere years. What he didn’t say was that she was
sunshine that made him feel younger than he ever had before. He wasn’t playful
except with her. She brought out a side of him that he never knew existed. An
amusing side, an optimistic side.
“No, you’re not. You’re perfect for me.” She smoothed his
hair back, looking down at him like he was something wonderful.
“I’m too hard for you.” He had to say it all out loud. If
there was one thing he’d learned it was that they had to communicate, even when
it made him vulnerable to her. He didn’t tell her that he felt his soul soften
the minute she walked in the door, and he worried if he stayed with her long
enough, the change would be permanent. She made the world an easier place to
be, made him kinder, more tolerant, simply by example.
That was what he had to protect. Her sweet soul, her love,
her outlook on life.
She wiggled on his lap. “I think you are exactly hard
enough, Sir.”
Now he was. His dick had been in a state of arousal from the
minute he’d picked her up, but suddenly it was hard as a rock and ready to
fuck. No woman in the world got him hard as fast as his Vivian.
His Vivian.
“I’m not educated enough for you.” But lately he’d been
reading books that she told him she liked. So they could talk about them. He
listened to the news because she liked to discuss it with Sophy. Now he could
join them in their vibrant political debates.
Her brows wrinkled, a curious expression. “I never said I
wanted to marry an intellectual, Sir. And don’t discount your intelligence.
You’re quite smart. I didn’t grow up with professors and philosophers, though
my uncle thinks he is one. I grew up surrounded with soldiers and spies. This
is my real world. There’s a reason William called them the barbarian horde.”
He’d given her every warning. He’d told her his every truth.
She’d made her decision with that kiss, and he wouldn’t let her take it back
now. “Stop calling me that. You kissed me. I told you what that means.”
There was nothing but sweet affection in her eyes. “I know
what it means, Master.”
Fuck all. She was going to kill him. He kissed her this
time, drawing her close and melding their mouths together in a dominating
gesture that was as natural as breathing. He realized in that moment that he’d
never kissed anyone this way before. He’d casually kissed lovers, given his
ex-wife intimacy when she’d wanted it, but this was different. This was
everything.
His tongue surged in and tangled with hers, arousal and a
wild possessiveness filling his body and soul. He’d cared for women before, but
this was something more.
This was love. He loved Vivian. He wanted to spend the rest
of his life with her and that meant risking his heart because if anything
happened to her, he would want to die. It would be worse than anything before.
His hands found her hair while he feasted on her mouth. He
sank them in and felt surrounded by her softness.
This was something he never felt before, and it was good. It
was so good that even though he knew it wouldn’t last forever, he would risk
the heartache to come.
“Mal, your leg,” she whispered.
The car started to move but he didn’t care where they were
going. He was exactly where he wanted to be. And he didn’t care about the ache
in his leg.
He shook his head. “My leg is fine. You can baby me later.
Fuck me now.”
He wouldn’t allow anyone to baby him. Never. Since the
moment that leg had come off, he’d been the most stubborn bastard in the world
about it because he didn’t want to be viewed as lesser. He didn’t even like
going to doctors. Vivian had a cold the other day and he’d made her soup and
watched her water intake and laid in bed beside her watching something she
called a K-drama. She’d soaked it all in.
He was going to do the same for her. He was going to allow
her to take care of him because he loved taking care of her.
He was going to take care of her right now. In the hottest
way possible.
Her skirt was one of those thin ones with a small slit. Very
ladylike and nothing that would work for what he needed to do. They were going
to end up in the garage. She could wear his suitcoat to walk up to his flat.
She didn’t know it, but she would be spending an enormous amount of time there.
He reached down and caught the sides of the slit and ripped up so she could
move those legs the way he needed them to.
Vivian didn’t complain. She didn’t gasp. She simply
straddled him and stared at him while she touched the buttons on her blouse.
“Are you going to rip this off me, too, Master? Do you want me to parade
through the office naked?”
He shook his head and had to catch his breath. She was the
sexiest thing he’d ever laid eyes on, and she was all his. For now.
He shoved the thought away because it was quickly becoming
something vile he didn’t want to think about. He didn’t want a world where they
calmly left each other behind. Vivian was his. She kissed him. She gave herself
to him. What if he didn’t let anyone ever take her? What if only her choice
mattered? What if society and her family and his trauma could fuck right off in
the face of what they felt for each other?
What if this wasn’t some brief affair that should teach them
both something? What if this was everything?
“Kiss me again.” He groaned as he did what she’d suggested
and ripped open that blouse. He would buy her another one. He wasn’t rich, but
this job paid well, and he could give her the things she wanted.
“Don’t tear the bra apart,” she whispered against his lips.
“It’s hard to find a comfy one, Master. It’s a front clasp.”
He fumbled with it as she let her tongue play along his. How
had he waited so long to kiss her? Because he was too scared. He wasn’t scared
anymore. Not of anything but losing her.
It will hurt me.
He would never hurt her. Never willingly. He managed to get
that clasp off, to get his hands on her breasts. They were so full and soft and
perfect. He loved her body, but it was her soul that made him want to be the
best man he could be. For her. For himself. He cared about himself now because
of her.
He shoved the remains of the blouse and the bra off and
dragged her against his chest. His stump ached, but he didn’t care. Nothing
mattered but cementing this moment in his life. Making love with Vivian was his
whole world, and he didn’t care that all of London was rolling by. What was
happening between him and his love was a world in and of itself.
His dick rubbed against her pussy, his pants and boxers and
her thin silky underwear the only things keeping him out.
That and the fact that he wasn’t prepared.
His whole soul felt like sagging. “Love, I don’t…”
She kissed him again. “I’m on birth control and I haven’t
been with anyone else for months, and we always used condoms.”
Was she saying what he thought she was saying? His whole
body felt like it was going up in flames. “Vivian, I haven’t touched another
woman since that first night with you. I couldn’t. Even though I was an ass,
something inside me knew you were special. After that night, I couldn’t accept
less.”
Her hands went between them, and he felt her undo the buckle
on his belt. “Then we don’t have a problem, Master. Unless you think we should
be able to keep some of our freedom and see other people.”
“Do not make me spank you now,” he growled against her
throat. “I’m rabidly possessive of you, love. I can contain it most of the
time. I can pretend to be a modern man who trusts you and would never hide you
away from the rest of the world, but know I think about it all the time. I
think about how I want to make every inch of you mine. Forever.”
She slid off his lap and onto her knees between his legs,
her eyes looking up at him with that lethal combination of innocence and lust
that threatened to make him shake every time. She eased the sides of his slacks
down. “I know I scared you today, Master, and that’s what half of you being
this open with me is.”
“It’s not. It’s not really about what happened today. I
meant what I said. You were good in the field. This is about something else.
You kissed me,” he replied. “I told you what would happen if you kissed me.”