Chapter 17
I shut the French doors behind me, the tiny latch settling into place cracks through the silence like a gunshot, killing any possibility of this thing between us.
I don’t look back. I can’t. If I look back, I’ll see her face—the hurt in her eyes, the confusion, and the want that mirrors my own—and I’ll crumble.
I’ll break. I’ll go to her, take her in my arms, and kiss her until neither of us can remember why this is a bad idea.
Needing to put as much distance between us as possible, I continue down the hallway and toward the den, where the guys pretend not to see me as I walk the doorway.
I make my way up the stairs to the guest wing, where my room is located at the end of the corridor.
After shutting the door, I lean against it with my eyes shut, my head thumping against the wood.
I feel like shit. Worse than shit. I feel like I’ve taken everything she’s been offering and thrown it in her face.
Because that’s exactly what I did.
I push off the door and cross the room to the window.
With my hands resting on the frame, I stare out at the terrace below.
Devyn is still there, her stature so small in that ridiculous oversized hoodie, sitting on the bench with her arms wrapped around herself.
Even from here, I can see the sadness in her posture through the defeated curve of her shoulders and solemn drop of her head.
I did that to her.
It’s true, what I told her. She is a distraction.
A beautiful, infuriating, and intoxicating distraction that I want to get lost in until the rest of the world fades away.
When I’m near her, my professional focus fractures.
I notice things I shouldn’t be—the way her pulse flutters in her throat, the flecks of green in her golden eyes, or the way her lips part a fraction before she asks a question—instead of those I should.
My mind is filled with visions of what it would be like to touch her.
When I should be assessing threats, I’m lost in a myriad of images of her beneath me, above me, and wrapped around me.
But it’s more than my loss of professional focus. My need to keep her at arm’s length has never been just about the job.
I don’t do this. I don’t do casual. I don’t start relationships—or situationships, or whatever the fuck this would be—with women who live halfway across the country that could be nothing more than a fling.
Casual has never held any appeal to me. And it sure as hell doesn’t satisfy me.
I don’t do temporary. When I let someone in, I want all of them, their complete surrender.
It’s been four years since I’ve had that, since my last relationship.
Elena, a teacher from the suburbs. She was kind, patient, and utterly unprepared for the baggage I carried.
We tried for two years to make it work, but in the end, she couldn’t handle the ghosts that followed me home.
She couldn’t understand the things I needed behind closed doors, either.
The depth of trust I crave was never something we could build, and I stopped trying before resentment had a chance to grow.
Abstaining hasn’t been a hardship. It’s been a relief, a simplification. I poured everything into my work, the team, and into protecting people without complicating my life with my own needs. Four years of building a quiet, private existence, not wanting anyone enough to break my own rules.
Until Devyn.
I rest my forehead against the cool glass, watching her through the window.
I could go back out there—the thought rises dangerously—and say, “fuck it,” to all my rules, my reasons, and all the professional boundaries I’ve been fighting to hold on to.
I could go to her, take her face in my hands, and kiss her like I’ve been wanting to since she delicately pressed her lips to mine.
I could taste her, claim her, and make her understand exactly what she does to me.
When I force myself to step back from the window, my hands are shaking, and my body is aching with denied want. I need to do something with this energy, this hunger that’s clawing at my insides. I need to find release before I do something stupid.
I head for the bathroom, stripping as I walk.
Grabbing my shirt at the nape of my neck, I pull it over my head, discarding it haphazardly to the floor mid-stride.
My boots thud as I tear them off and toss them to the floor, my pants following quickly behind them.
Stepping before the mirror, I catch a glimpse of myself.
My eyes are wild, and my cock is hard and throbbing, my body betraying every noble intention I have for her.
After turning on the shower, I step under the freezing spray and hiss at the shock of it.
The water pelts my overheated skin like needles of ice, causing my flesh to pimple, but it does nothing to alleviate my current need.
If anything, the sharp contrast only makes me more aware of how hot I burn for her.
Frustrated—in more ways than one—I shut off the water and step out, the icy droplets running down my goosebump-pebbled skin.
Roughly toweling off, I make my way back into the bedroom.
The room feels too small, the air thick and suffocating as the walls close in.
I cross the room and slump into the chair beside the bed, the damp towel wrapped around me barely clinging to my hips.
The fabric of the upholstery is rough against my bare back.
My head falls back against the cushion, eyes squeezed shut as I try to will away the need coursing through my veins.
A fight I am desperately losing. My hand moves of its own accord, slipping through the gap in the towel to find my cock still achingly hard, throbbing against my palm with every beat of my heart, heavy, hot, and desperate for touch.
I groan, the low and guttural sound filling the empty room.
This isn’t what I want. My hand is a poor substitute for the woman I want to claim, whose taste still lingers like phantom sweetness on my lips, and whose intoxicating floral scent seems to have imprinted itself permanently in my nostrils.
I want Devyn’s mouth on me, as her hands explore me while her body yields beneath mine.
I want her warmth, her wetness, and the sweet noises she would make when I finally bury myself inside her.
I want to feel her unravel around me, watching her come apart, knowing I’m the one taking her there.
The fantasy takes hold despite my resistance, because my body is desperate, starved for years, and now ravenous for the woman I shouldn’t want.
Devyn kneels between my thighs, her golden-green eyes looking up at me through dark lashes and lips parted as she takes me into her mouth.
Her tongue swirls around my tip before she takes me deeper, her fingertips gripping my thighs as she swallows every inch of me.
Soft sounds of pleasure vibrate around my cock as she enjoys me being buried in her throat nearly as much as I do.
She bobs over my length with uninhibited enthusiasm, saliva dripping over her lips and trickling onto my balls.
My hand moves faster, gripping tighter, stroking from base to tip with rough, desperate movements. My chest heaves with each ragged breath, muscles coiling tight as the fantasy deepens.
After pulling her up from the floor and into my lap until she’s straddling my thighs.
I lower her over my saliva-coated cock, inch by torturous inch, as her tight pussy greedily takes me in.
Gripping her hips, hard, I guide her over my length, setting the pace.
Her head throws back in pleasure, her breasts swaying in my face with each sensual roll of her hips.
Sitting up with one arm wrapped around her waist, I bury myself in her neck and taste her skin.
Her sweet whimpers fill the room, her nails dimpling the skin of my chest where she’s finding purchase.
I close my eyes and keep stroking, lost in my daydream and chasing this release that will—hopefully—quiet this roaring need for her. My hips buck into my fist, the chair creaking beneath me, and the sounds of my own labored breaths filling the room.
The door to my room slams shut with enough force to shake the frame as Devyn’s voice tears me from my fantasy. “You don’t get to push me away and call it protecting me!”
My eyes fly open to find her standing a few feet from me, her mouth agape. Her hair is mussed from the wind outside, and her cheeks are flushed with anger. And now, shock. Her eyes drop to where my hand is still wrapped around my cock, moving in slow, leisurely strokes that I can’t seem to stop.
Her golden stare focused on the most intimate part of me, her voice cracks as she chokes, “Oh my God, you’re…”
I don’t stop. I can’t. My hand slides up and down my length as my eyes rake over her body with undisguised hunger, traveling from her flushed face to her bare legs.
If she wants to see what she does to me, let her.
Make her understand exactly how much I want her, and how my body aches to know what it’s like to feel her touch.
“Is this a sick game to you?” Her voice rises, trembling with a mix of hurt and fury, her eyes snapping back to mine with accusations burning in their depths.
“You lead me on, dismiss me, and then get off, knowing you left me nearly in tears?” She grabs the doorknob, her knuckles blanching white, before turning to face me.
Her eyes are bright with unshed tears, her lower lip trembling with the effort not to let them fall. “Fuck you, Gunnar. Fuck. You.”
She tears the door open, and the thin thread of control I’ve been clutching frays entirely.
I shoot to my feet, my towel falling away, forgotten on the chair.
I cross the distance between us in two quick strides and grab her wrist firmly, my fingers ensnaring the delicate bone and soft skin.
She gasps, startled by the sudden contact.
Using her moment of hesitation to my advantage, I yank her back into the room and roughly close the door with the weight of our bodies.
A grunt rises from her lungs as I forcefully pin her to the door, my tight grip around her wrist holding her hand above her head as my hips secure her body.
With the evidence of my desire pressed insistently against her stomach, there is no more hiding how much I want her.
I grind against her, watching her eyes widen, and her lips part on a silent gasp when her breath catches in her throat.
“Fuck you?” I growl, my voice vibrating with the force of everything I’ve been holding back. “Baby girl, all I can think about is fucking you.”