Chapter Fifty-Nine
Helios
I stripped her.
Leggings, tank top, socks.
Tossing them all aside, leaving on her thong and lace bra, my cock hard as fuck, I started at her pink-painted toes. Running my hands over her feet and around her ankles, looking for bruises, watching her for tells, I skimmed up her calves and around her thighs.
“Helios?”
“What?” Was I fucked-up for thinking how goddamn beautiful she was like this? At my mercy, spun out, and trauma exhausted?
Her hand landed on my shoulder. “What are you doing?”
Worshipping her. Testing her. Fucking touching her. “Recon.”
“I’m not injured.”
Yes, she was. That was shit I’d had to reconcile on the boat ride back. The second I’d kissed her, I’d hurt her. Then I’d thrown us out of a plane.
“You’re not gonna be singing that tune tomorrow.
” She’d feel that impact, physically, emotionally.
I was an asshole for doing it, but I didn’t regret it for a single fucking second.
Same as I didn’t regret kissing her. Hated that it took me eight years.
But a boat ride and some fucking perspective made me realize she’d needed those years.
And I needed to adapt my strategy. She wasn’t outright saying no to me, and I wasn’t looking back.
“I don’t sing,” she stated, not fucking joking because humor had never been a part of her arsenal against life. Then eight years ago, it’d all but disappeared.
“I know.” She took pictures. Lived her life through the damn lens of her camera.
“Then… do you know that I don’t know how to change?”
The question fucking loaded, asked so damn quietly, I looked at those golden eyes and gave her my full fucking attention as I skimmed my hands over her hips and around to her ass. “You’ve already changed.” I was touching her how I never had. She was letting me.
“You know what I mean.” Her fingers sifted through my hair.
No matter what bullshit came out of her mouth, her actions, tells, and body language were all green-lighting me. But I was a greedy bastard. And a goddamn assaulter who’d had time to regroup. Now I was one step ahead of this woman.
“How’s this feel?” I massaged her ass with two firm strokes before I dug my fingers into the tight muscles of her lower back, right where she rubbed after one of her long runs.
Her eyes fluttered shut.
“Yeah. Thought so.” I fucking know you, woman. “Again?”
Licking the shower water off her bottom lip, keeping her eyes closed, she whispered, “Please.”
“Turn around,” I ordered.
No hesitation, she pivoted.
Christ, my little Haven was gonna be submissive as hell in the bedroom, and I could not fucking wait.
My cock straining against my pants, I took in the sight of that sweet ass in her thong before I stood and grabbed her wrists.
Issuing new orders, I put her hands against the shower wall. “Palms flat. Brace.”
Soft and sweet but nervous as hell, her voice hit me in the chest. “What are you going to do?”
Brushing her hair over one shoulder, I leaned down to her ear. “You gonna trust me enough to find out?”
Her breath hitched. “Helios.”
“I fucking love it when you say my name like that.” Stepping back, I stripped off my shirt and tossed it aside.
“But that’s not an answer.” Unzipping my pants, then dropping them, I kicked them out of the way.
Down to my boxers, my cock hard as hell, I adjusted myself, and for the first fucking time in years, I actively thought about my hardware.
Fuck, it was gonna be rough on her. At first.
She glanced at the growing pile of wet clothes and shivered. “I don’t know how I’m saying it.”
Releasing my cock, I focused the hell up. “Fucking perfectly.” Christ, this woman didn’t know how damn consuming she was. “Don’t ever change it.”
But other shit needed to change. Wound tight as hell, she was carrying anxiety that wasn’t all PTSD, and it was holding her back.
Front-loading bullshit shame, she was using it as a crutch to deny herself sexual gratification.
I saw it, watched it, calculated it. Every damn day.
I knew it so well, I could fucking taste it from the second she woke each morning till the moment she fell asleep.
So yeah, the way she said my name when she let her guard down, when it was just me and her, when her spinout came to a standstill, that was the woman I was after.
The woman who rode on the back of my bike and asked to go faster.
The woman who stood at the door, waiting for my ass to come home.
The woman who silently worked out beside me, watched bullshit TV when I needed to decompress, fed my ass, and swallowed her fears every damn time she stepped onto my Citation.
The woman who stood beside me. Melted into me.
The woman who looked at me with those amber eyes like I was her entire fucking world.
The woman who gave me her agency every damn day.
Not because she was weak or had anxiety, but because she was a fucking warrior who chose to fight.
A kid who’d dragged furniture across a house and up a flight of stairs.
A teen who’d fucking raised herself.
A woman who ran to fight her asthma.
And eight years ago, in a goddamn bunker, she was the woman who’d put her full fucking trust in me. That was the woman who was mine.
Feralyn Alva Grayson. The only goddamn calm to my storm.
Gripping her hips, I held her to the fire—our fucking fire. “Still haven’t given me an answer.”
She ducked her head. “I trust you, but I’m not…. I can’t—”
“What have I said about can’t?”
“It’s not in your vocabulary,” she instantly recited.
“Not in yours either,” I warned, crowding her, leaning my chest into her back, making sure she fucking felt me. Then I picked up where she’d left off because I knew what she’d been aiming at. “I’m not going to fuck you in this shower, Feralyn.” Not with my cock. Not right now.
Her sucked-in breath echoed.
I pushed, like I always did with her, because giving her a choice about us had been the wrong fucking move. Yeah, she’d needed to hear it, and she’d always have an out if she really wanted it, but I knew this woman. I knew what she needed. “You gonna trust me?”
“To do what?”
“Make you feel good.” Real fucking good.
“And you’re not going to…?”
“Say the fucking words, Feralyn.” Jesus, I wanted to sink inside this woman.
I wanted my cock buried so goddamn deep that my name was the only one touching those lush lips.
Then I’d fuck all the rest of this bullshit shame out of her.
Show her how damn good we’d be together.
But none of that was happening until she was at the basic fucking level of saying sex.
“You’re….” She paused. Inhaled. “You’re not going to have sex with me?”
There she was. “Not right now.” But I would.
“That’s….” She trembled. “You’re not saying….” She trailed off.
I picked it up. “You’re right. I’m not saying I won’t fuck you, because I will.
But right now, all I’m talking about is basic human need, woman.
A lot of shit has gone down in the past forty-eight hours.
You need a release. Dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin, prolactin, serotonin.
Life-affirming neurochemicals.” Neurotransmitters, hormones. She needed that shit.
“How do you know all that?”
“I’m Delta, woman.”
She looked over her shoulder at me. “They taught you about…?” Her throat moved with a hard swallow. “In Special Operations Forces?”
“I’m trained to stay dangerous.” To fucking protect. “Every neglected skill is a liability.” Including release—mentally and physically.
All the color drained from her face. “So, you… release? You’re… you’re with other women after your assignments?”
“Not what I said, and don’t fucking go there, Haven.
You know I haven’t been with anyone in a long damn time.
” Motherfucking years. “I wouldn’t have kissed you if I was.
As far as handling my shit, I know how to take care of myself.
” But working off pent-up sexual frustration in our gym, jerking off, and doing one-twenty on my Ducatis wasn’t how I wanted to spend the rest of my life.
“I also know how to take care of you. Which is why I’m asking you to trust me. ”
For two beats, she didn’t respond. Then she turned her head back to face the shower wall. “All right.” Her voice dropped to a sweet, submissive whisper. “I trust you.”
My hands were on her ass the fucking second trust passed those lips.