Chapter 22
Solace’s body jerked to a stop and stiffened at his whispered declaration, while her lids flew open and she stared at him in wide-eyed disbelief.
That had woken her up.
“Wha-wha-wha-what?”
His body continued moving inside hers, while everything inside him fell into place.
He hadn’t intended on saying the words, but now that he had, he needed an answer.
Even while sensations raced over and through his body, leaving him numb to anything in the outside world when he slid deep. This was his world. She was his world.
Solace.
His one and only.
He leaned in again—still careful not to put too much weight against her belly—to kiss her parted lips, then took a moment to run his nose over her cheek and into her tousled hair.
Would there ever be a time when he wouldn’t need this woman in his arms and her scent permeating his every breath?
When he wouldn’t long to be deep inside her body? He’d become that desperate for her.
Him, Duncan Sheppard, desperate for a woman.
“I said,” he growled against her ear. “Marry?—”
“Put me down!” The feminine yell coming from outside his home froze them in place. “And I mean, now.”
“What in the…” Solace shoved him back and scrambled toward the headboard, effectively dislodging him from her body. “Who is that?” she groused as he hung his head in frustration and blew out a harsh breath.
“I have no idea,” he grumbled—not just because of the interruption, but because his wet dick was still hard as a pike—before taking a calming breath, rolling away from her, and getting out of the bed in one fluid motion. “But they’ve got a lot of explaining to do before I kill them.”
He all but stomped to the other side of the room and snatched the black sweats he’d left on the back of a chair. This had taken cock blocking to a whole new, ridiculous level.
He pulled the sweats on over his bobbing member, then grabbed his gun from atop the dresser. Whoever had invaded his…
That thought stopped him cold.
None of the alerts had gone off to tell him the perimeter of his property had been breached. And it should have. He had his property locked down with the most state-of-the-art security systems around—something he’d further tightened when Solace had come home. This wasn’t?—
Movement in his peripheral vision had him rounding on Solace dragging one of his dress shirts on over her body—sans underwear—and rolling up the sleeves.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Going to check it out with you, of course.” She said that like it was nothing, as she fastened several of the top buttons. Yes, his woman was a badass and could normally take just about any man. But not in her current condition.
“I don’t think so.” He peeked out the door and checked the hallway. No house alarms had gone off, but he remained wary anyhow as he took a step into the hallway. The question was, why hadn’t alarms sounded when whoever this was had invaded his property?
“I’m not helpless,” Solace groused. He turned in time to spy her rounding the bed “I’m just pregnant.”
“Angel, I’m not risking you,” he said, taking the few steps needed to head off her hurried stride. He met her in the middle of the room, took her by the shoulders, and stared down into her determined gaze. One of her brows rose in challenge and, god help him, he had to hold back a smile.
This wasn’t a battle he was going to easily win. And he was going to win it, whether his little angel liked it or not. Then a closer perusal of her steadfast features had him reconsidering.
I might not win this.
“Okay,” he finally said, looking her up and down. “But put some panties on first.” A smirk quirked her lips. “I don’t need any more excuses to kill them.”
“Sheppard.”
Pounding at the door accompanied that all too-familiar voice hollering his name, pulling a low groan from him.
“Enders…”
Solace’s expression changed from challenging to hard and irritated. Along with a touch of pure, murderous intent.
“It’s Henderson Knight?” she grumbled, pulling from his hold, before turning to scurry to her side of the bed again—her ass flashing as she went. He frowned over that until she snagged her own gun. “I have a few things to say to him.”
The way she released the magazine on her Heckler & Koch VP9 and checked it, before popping it back into place, should have given him pause instead of arousing him.
Something is seriously wrong with me. But that was sexy as hell.
If not for this intrusion, he’d have had her tossed back onto the bed. He grimaced. Now, that would have to wait for later.
Dammit.
Instead, he had to go into colonel mode.
“Davidson, what do you think you’re going to do with that?”
“This?” She held up her gun, eyed it with a little smirk, then turned her guileless gaze back toward him.
“Nothing bad. I’m just going to shoot him.
That’s all,” she said, hurrying back around the bed.
The unbuttoned ends of his shirt flapped against her thighs, with flashes of her naked pussy drawing his eyes. “Nothing too damaging.”
He ignored that comment. There were more important things to consider.
“Panties, Solace. Panties.”
“Panties?” Solace stopped at the dresser and looked down at her body. With a shrug, she placed her gun on top of the wooden surface, then fastened the last three buttons at the bottom of the shirt. “There,” she said, meeting his stare and waving a hand over the site with a flourish. “Better?”
“Hardly.” He gave her a hard look that had no effect.
“Good grief,” she groused, throwing her hands in the air.
Her muttered, “Panties aren’t necessary when you’re shooting someone,” followed while she turned and pulled open a top drawer.
And, yes, she’d moved most of her belongings to his home.
It was time for the rest of her things to make their home here. For Solace to make her home here.
“Okay,” she grumbled, while pulling a thong from the drawer, then lifted a leg to put it on. “Panties.”
“No.”
Pure disbelief filled her narrowed gaze flashing his way as she precariously balanced on one foot. A foot she stomped as more irritation flared in her eyes.
“It’s underwear. So?—”
“Come on, Sheppard.” Enders banged on the front door again.
“Henderson Knight!”
Oh, he’d almost lost sight of the fact Enders had brought a woman along for this little early-morning visit.
“I said panties. Those,” he groused, his mouth watering at how she would look in the lacy, black, bit of see-through nothing, “are not for anyone else’s eyes but mine.”
“Jeez.” More mumbling followed as she threw the thong into the still open drawer, then rummaged through it some more, while pounding continued downstairs. The man was certainly persistent.
“Here,” she grumbled, holding up a pair of plain, white, cotton panties. “Do these…” She shoved them out toward him and dangled them by her fingertips. “Meet with your approval?”
If it wasn’t for Enders’ incessant door pounding, he’d have laughed at her clear annoyance. And then, again, tossed her onto the bed.
“You should put some shorts on, too.” She groaned and rolled her eyes as she slipped the panties on.
Of course, that was a non-answer. But the idea of her wearing just a pair of panties under his shirt still didn’t sit well with him.
Shorts would give him some semblance of comfort.
Not much. But, again, some. “I don’t need Enders ogling you. ”
An exaggerated huff left her, along with a stinky side-eye thrown his way. “I’m sure he has no desire to ogle a pregnant woman…” She grimaced while tugging at the back of the panties. “Who obviously needs to buy bigger underwear that fits across her widening ass.”
“That’s it,” he said, shaking his head. He didn’t want Enders inadvertently seeing any part of her uncovered ass, either. “You’re staying put.”
“Oh, no, I’m not.”
“Sheppard, hurry your ass up.”
“That’s an order, Davidson.”
Her brows rose to her hairline—basically—as she took up her gun and headed his way with the weapon pointed down at her side.
“There’s only one kind of order I take in this bedroom.
” She stopped, her eyes narrowed, and stood toe to toe with him.
Then she slowly licked her lips. Damn, if it didn’t have him getting hard all over again.
Not that he had gone completely soft since they’d left the bed.
“And that isn’t it. Let’s go,” she said, brushing past him then out the door, leaving him to frown at the empty doorway.
“Stubborn woman,” he growled low, then headed after her, using his longer strides to catch up with her at top of the stairs.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said as they went down the stairs side by side. Silence from her coincided with…
“Sheppard.”
“Stop banging on my door,” Duncan yelled back, as he approached the door inset with beveled glass panels, where Ender’s hulking figure cast a fractured blob on his entryway floor.
At the bottom of the stairs, he placed his gun on one of the dark walnut entryway tables.
If Enders was out there, he couldn’t imagine anyone else would pose a danger to him or Solace.
“Well, hurry it up.”
“Pain in the ass,” Duncan muttered, while unlocking the door.
“I heard that.”
“I don’t care,” he said, pulling the door open. “You...”
Not many things surprised Duncan. But what greeted him on his front porch managed to do just that.
He’d expected Enders, sure. And a woman.
But not the said woman’s curvy body—wearing what he assumed to be pajama pants since they were flannel and covered with kittens and puppies—barefoot and slung over his shoulder like, as his grandmother used to say, a sack of potatoes.
“What the hell are you doing?” Duncan demanded.
“Mr. Sheppard,” the woman said, her voice strained and obviously exasperated, and vaguely familiar. “Would you please tell him to put me down.”
“Enders,” he said, looking up at the man. “Put her down.”