Fifteen #2
“I’m fine,” he insisted, leaning forward, rubbing his stubbled cheek over my smooth one before kissing the curve of my shoulder.
“Are you sure?”
“I promise,” he soothed me, holding up his hand for me because he knew it was important.
I sighed deeply. “Your ring.”
“Where it belongs,” he said.
I was thrilled to see the platinum band that matched mine back where it was supposed to be, fitting snugly on the ring finger of his left hand.
“It looks good.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Come get in bed with me.”
“Love to.”
I was so happy; I was sure I was glowing, but when I tried to pull him around the house after me, he wouldn’t let me.
“I thought you wanted to—”
“Lemme meet your friends.”
“Sam,” I groaned, “you know they’re not my—”
“Come on,” he cut me off, dragging me after him up the stairs.
As soon as we reached the patio, Hayes was there, walking over.
“Is this the detective, Jory?”
I nodded, my eyes all over Sam Kage.
“It’s a pleasure, Detective,” Hayes said, offering Sam his hand. “Hayes Fisher.”
“Mr. Fisher,” Sam rumbled as he shook the man’s hand.
Detective Kage towered over Hayes Fisher, massive in comparison, and I watched Hayes take in the wall of hard muscle that was my man.
“Hi.” Jaden was beaming, having bounded over, and thrust his hand at Sam, soaking him up, his eyes missing nothing. “I’m Jaden.”
“Pleasure,” Sam said, the deep, resonant voice sounding even better than normal.
“Detective,” Aaron said, but didn’t get up from his chair.
“Mr. Sutter,” Sam replied, releasing my hand to curl his arm around my shoulders and tuck me into his side.
They were staring at each other, and I knew that, even with Aaron not removing his sunglasses. After a moment, Aaron glanced away. And when my gaze flicked to Jaden, I saw the astonishment all over his face.
Sam intimidated the hell out of Aaron Sutter. And I understood because I had been watching people respond to the man for years. It was the strength—not just physical, but mental as well—that he displayed with such easy confidence.
Sam Kage lived really well in his own skin, and it was rare to find a man who truly did.
When Sam wanted to make an impression, when he wanted something from you, he could aim all that charm, intellect, and warmth and focus it at once.
And then it was overwhelming, and everyone did whatever the hell he wanted.
Dane was the exact same way. Both of them were devastating, the power just wielded differently. Sam was obvious about it, Dane more subtle.
“So”—Aaron cleared his throat—“would you like to join us for lunch?”
“No thanks,” Sam said, clutching me tight. “I have a lot to talk to Jory about, so if you’ll excuse us…”
“Of course,” Aaron muttered as Sam steered me toward the main house.
He bent and pressed a kiss to the side of my neck, which made me hiss in my breath and left no doubt in anyone’s mind what he wanted.
I didn’t give a damn.
On the way to the cottage, he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles.
“Oh, you did miss me,” I teased him.
“Shut up,” he growled at me. “All those assholes, lookin’ at you like you’re food—fuck them.”
And I understood then why Sam had not just ducked around the side of the building with me and made a quick getaway. He purposely walked me up the stairs to see the others. He wanted them to see us together.
Sam had kissed me hard and long so my lips were red and swollen. He had bitten me and sucked my skin to leave marks. My detective was a very primal man, and so he had let everyone see that I was claimed, that I belonged to him.
“I wear a ring, you know,” I said, talking to him like the dialogue had been out loud and not just in my head.
“But they don’t care,” he replied, following my train of thought, as usual. “It doesn’t mean shit to them, so this way, they can see. I wonder if anyone wants to come and watch us.”
“I’m sure Jaden would like to do more than just watch you do anything.”
“Which one was Jaden?”
“The hotter, younger version of me.”
He stopped so fast that I almost stumbled, but he caught me and gently, tenderly, took my face in his hands. Looking up into his eyes, I saw how heavy-lidded they were.
“I wasn’t fishing.”
“I know. I can tell from how you said it,” he said, fingers sliding over my jaw, down my throat, as he bent and kissed my forehead, the bridge of my nose, and then my cheek.
His lips just barely touched me, but my stomach tightened, and my breath caught.
“I know you worry about getting older, about not being the prettiest guy in the room anymore.”
And I worried about aging, but not how he thought. I had never presumed I was the prettiest, just one of many. My only concern now was that Sam Kage thought I was hot.
“But there will never come a time when that will be the case,” he said, pressing soft kisses to the side of my neck.
I leaned my head back so he could reach more of my throat, letting my eyes close to savor the closeness.
“To me, Jory,” he said, “you’re more beautiful now than you ever have been, and I can’t wait to see what you’re gonna look like at forty and fifty and sixty and, God willing, a lot more numbers after that.”
“Many after that,” I assured him as my eyes drifted open so I could look up into his smoky-blue ones.
“The most important thing is that you’re mine. You belong to me,” he said, his hands pressing me closer before he kissed me.
My heart, like it did every single time, skipped a beat and stopped. I wrapped my arms around his neck, not caring where we were, who could see, just kissing the man I loved, our lips melting together as I moaned deeply, offering submission.
The sound sent a tremor through his powerful frame, and I smiled against his mouth, arching up into him.
“Jory,” he growled against my mouth, pulling back just enough, putting a breath of space between us, “baby, I don’t even see anybody but you. Do you even fuckin’ get that?”
I did.
“Where’s the damn bungalow again? This place is like a maze.”
“It’s a cottage,” I corrected him as he took my hand and tugged me after him.
“I don’t give a shit.”
“Don’t swear.”
His signature grunt was all I got.
“Aaron Sutter was in my room,” I said as we walked.
“And?”
“And I thought you should know, is all.”
“Okay. Did you let him kiss you?”
“No.”
“Touch you?”
“He grabbed me, but I stopped him, and then I rolled off the bed and hid under it.”
He stopped walking and turned to look at me. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Are you listening?”
“I wasn’t, but I am now.”
I shot him a look.
“Just tell me.”
I huffed out a breath. “Well, so, we were talking, and then he—”
“You know what?” he said, cutting me off. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
“Sam—”
“No.” He put up his hand. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing happened, right?”
“Of course not.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Yeah, see, it’s fine. I got groped a ton of times by a lot of women when I was undercover. I even had to kiss one to—”
“What?” I yelled at him. “I got the hell away from Aaron because I knew that if anyone touched you, I would lose my mind, and it would not be fair to ask you to understand that he had done it just because he was my ex!”
“Breathe,” he said, chuckling.
“Fuck you and your breathing!” I yelled again, shoving him away as well as his hands when he reached for me.
“You’re cute, all jealous and possessive.”
“Sam!”
He lunged forward, grabbed me, and kissed me until I was breathless and panting and I was unsteady on my feet.
“We both know I didn’t do anything,” he said, staring down into my eyes.
I was held there as firmly in his gaze as I was in his arms.
“And do you think after all this time, I don’t know I’m the only one?”
There was no way he didn’t know. The years between us spoke to that truth.
I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe as his hands rubbed up and down my arms.
“You know I know, right?”
“Yes.”
“So, why would I worry, then?”
He wouldn’t.
“I love you, I only want you, and I know it goes both ways. Are we done?”
“Yes, we’re done.”
“Good.”
As I suspected, he had a key, which I had left a message with the front desk to give him whenever he showed up, and opened the door and shoved me inside, locking it behind him.
“I should take a shower,” I told him. “I’m covered in saltwater.”
When he didn’t answer, I turned to look at him, and he pounced on me. I was laughing as I went down under him on the queen-size bed, his face nuzzling at my now-hardening cock through the nylon of the board shorts.
“What’re you doing?”
“Stop giggling and squirming and take it like a man.”
Which sent me into peals of laughter as his face broke into a huge, mischievous grin that made his eyes sparkle.
“Sam!” I gasped as he yanked my board shorts off my hips and my hard, needy cock sprang free.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said as he fisted my shaft.
My back bowed up off the bed, and his other hand slid under my ass and squeezed tight.
The way he touched me, every time he touched me, showed possessiveness and ownership, and no one but Sam Kage had ever treated me like that, like I was his.
Aaron Sutter had talked a good game, but Sam made me feel it.
“Kiss me.”
Normally, the kissing came afterward, slow and languid, once the passion was burned off. In bed, Sam normally wanted me under him, buried in me fast.
I reached for him, and he stretched out beside me, him still fully clothed and me naked.
When my lips touched his, I heard a deep sigh rise up out of him.
He loved it when I took control, and what started out tender and soft soon became devouring and hot.
But he seemed content to kiss me—one long, wet, tongue-tangling, bruising kiss after another—hand on the back of my neck, the other on my ass, petting me.
I felt the tingling sensation begin in the base of my spine, felt my balls tighten, my cock harden almost painfully as I began to grind against him. When his fingers trailed over the length of me, I tore my mouth from his.
“Could you do me a favor?” I panted as he nuzzled the side of my neck.
“What’s that?” he asked as he began slowly stroking me.