Chapter Eight
Lacey
“I don’t care if you need to cry,” Kevlar says, voice low. “Hell, you want to scream, punch a wall, throw something? Go for it. Hell hit me if that’s what you need.”
“I’m not going to hit you,” I murmur, and he pats his stomach.
“Abs of steel. I can handle it.”
“Ha. Ha.”
The adrenaline crash has hit me hard, but I know I won’t be able to sleep. Not while knowing there’s someone, possibly others, who want me dead. Not while knowing that I’m putting everyone around me in danger.
“I need a beer and a fucking joint,” he says, rising from the bed.
I kick off my shoes. “I’m going to freshen up.
” I excuse myself to the bathroom. I can tell he doesn’t clean this room as much as he does his apartment.
There’s a stale pile of dirty laundry crumpled up behind the door that kind of smells mildewy.
I pilfer under the sink and through his drawers looking for something to wash my face with and praying for an extra toothbrush.
Everything he got me yesterday is back at his apartment.
I find an old stick of deodorant and a half-used box of condoms. The thought of crawling into a bed he’s shared with other women makes my skin crawl.
I have zero reason to be jealous, but the emotion is bubbling and boiling through my veins like lava.
He doesn’t owe me anything, and yet the idea of him having someone or multiple someones cuts through my heart like a knife.
He doesn’t owe me any explanations, but I find myself wanting to ask him if he’s involved with anyone.
I feel ridiculous. I could have a husband. Though he could be the person who was shooting at me, so there’s also that.
I grab the half dried up tube of toothpaste and squeeze a glob onto my finger and rub it all over my teeth and my tongue.
My head throbs and my belly rumbles with hunger.
I’ve not ate since breakfast, which feels like a lifetime ago.
I give up on washing my face and return to the room.
Kevlar is out on the balcony drinking the beer he was craving.
I hate to ask anything else of him when he’s already done so much for me, but if I don’t eat something, I fear I’ll be sick.
I press my right palm to the glass and stare out at the ocean. It’s grown dark out. The moon is well hidden somewhere in the clouds.
Kevlar notices me and cracks the door open.
“You can come out. I sent one of the guys to my place to grab some of your stuff and to pick us up some dinner. I wasn’t sure what you wanted, so I had him get a couple of pizzas.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. I’ve only got the one chair, but you’re welcome to park here.” he taps his thigh.
My pulse hammers in my throat, and I wonder if he’s making a pass at me or if he’s merely being a nice guy.
The selfish side of me hopes he wants me too. Part of me wishes I could start fresh and leave whoever I was in the past, but it seems my past doesn’t want to let me go that easily.
I open the door a bit more and walk to the railing. If there is someone out there who wants me dead, I’m giving them a perfect shot.
I suck in a breath, listening to the waves crash on the shore. The sound of cars and the town seems so far away, even though I know it’s just on the other side of this building.
Kevlar’s warmth presses up behind me as she cages his arms around me.
His mouth is right by my ear when he says, “Found you down there.” I follow the direction of his finger as he points to a rocky slope.
His breath and facial hair tickles my skin in a delicious way, creating an ache in my lower belly that has me feeling like I’m a balloon about to be popped.
“I wish I could remember.” I twist toward him, our mouths a few inches apart.
Kevlar licks his lips while staring at mine with an intensity so strong I’m afraid I’m going to combust under the heat of his gaze. “You asked me if I was an angel?” His lips curve into a smile. “But I wanted to ask you the same thing.”
“Is that so?”
“Mhmm.” He leans in and moves a hand to my back, holding me close. “I really want to kiss you.”
“And I really wish you would stop talking and just do it,” I tease.
“Fuck, you’re perfect, you know that?”
“If by perfect you mean in the middle of an identity crisis and having bad guys shoot at me, then…I won’t argue.”
“Good, because I’d tell you to shut up like this.” He closes the remaining distance between us, pressing his lips to mine. His beard scratches my skin, but man, can Kevlar kiss. I open to him, surrendering to whatever is happening between us.
His tongue sweeps along mine, hot and wet. It’s better than I imagined. Better than gooey chocolate chip cookies.
Heat flares down in my lower belly.
Then a knock on the door interrupts the moment.
“That must be dinner. C’mon.” he leads me back into the room, and I sit on the edge of the bed.
As promised, someone drops off some of my stuff and a couple of pizzas. The aroma of pepperoni has my belly growling and my mouth watering.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d prefer, so I got a plain pepperoni and a supreme.”
“Pepperoni works.”
Kevlar sits at the head of the bed while I sit with my legs criss-crossed at the foot with the boxes of pizza between us. All he has in this room is piss-hot beer, but I’m not going to complain.
Right now, in this room with him, I’m in heaven.
All the bad of the day melted away with that one kiss.
We eat in silence, but it isn’t awkward or uncomfortable.
After three slices, I wipe my greasy hands on a napkin and finish off my second beer.
I hiccup and Kevlar laughs as he moves the greasy cardboard boxes to the top of the dresser, then he goes into the bathroom.
I dig around in my bags for something to sleep in, but come up short.
I look around for one of his tees like I slept in last night.
As though he knows what I’m looking for, he exits the bathroom shirtless and wearing nothing but his gray boxer briefs.
My breath lodges in my throat as he tosses the shirt he wore today at me.
“Thanks.” I skirt past him and hurry into the bathroom.
Nervousness flutters in my belly like a million bat wings. He’s very undressed and I don’t know if I’m ready to take things any further with him. On one hand, someone wants to kill me, and on the other, I could have a husband I’m supposed to be committed to.
Morally, I know I should wait until I know I’m single, but I could die tomorrow.
I strip to my underwear and slip his tee over my head, loving that it smells of him. I open the drawer and take out a condom.
When I leave the bathroom, Kevlar has turned out the lights and is already in bed. I tuck the condom into my palm, hiding it behind my back as though I’m doing something very naughty.
Moonlight filters through the sliding glass door, illuminating him.
Kevlar watches me with that half-lidded, lazy expression, like watching me is a guilty pleasure.
Maybe it is. The way he lounges against the headboard, the way his toes wiggle against the comforter, he’s comfortable in the kind of way that’s only possible when you know you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.
Where you want to be.
I drop a knee to the bed, depending on muscle memory to guide me through the motions. I stick the condom between my teeth, and he smirks as I crawl up the bed to him.
“Hi,” I whisper, dropping the foil wrapper on his stomach.
“C’mere.” He hooks his big hands under my armpits and hauls me closer. I straddle his crotch, his erection pressing to the crotch of my undies.
Wetness pools there between my thighs. He wraps a hand around my throat, pulling my mouth to his.
I don’t care if this is wrong, or too soon. Or if I’ll regret it when the world comes screaming back in the morning. Right now, in the dark, with only the sound of the waves rushing the shore and the heavy sound of our breaths passing between us, I want him.
His hand is warm on my throat, a pressure more comforting than dangerous.
His kisses are hungry, full of a need he’s been holding back since we met.
I arch against him, shivering at the slide of his rough palms down my back, under my borrowed tee.
He groans, the sound deep, primal, vibrating between my legs as I suck on his tongue, returning every bit of desire he’s pouring into me.
“You sure?” he whispers, voice buried against my shoulder.
I don’t answer right away, but he kisses any remaining doubt away. His lips move up the slender column of my throat and along my jawline before returning to my mouth.
My hands roam his hot and hard muscles, appreciating his body. A body that results only from years of fighting and working out.
“Going to ask you one more time, sweetness. Are you sure you want to cross this line?”
“I want to feel you. I want to feel something that’s mine.” I reach between us, giving his dick a squeeze. He yanks the tee over my head in one fluid motion, slinging it somewhere in the darkened room.
Our legs tangle, and the line of his hips are narrow, sharp as a blade beneath my palms.
He keeps his hand at my throat, thumb brushing the line of my jaw, as if holding me to this moment. The other hand moves to my waist. I grind down, conscious of nothing but how good it feels to tease him through the thin fabric that separates him from thrusting inside me.
“Fuck, Lacey. I need to feel you, baby. To taste you. To be inside you.”
He breathes me in, kissing me once more as he yanks on the sides of my underwear, completely ripping them off me.
Kevlar pulls back, running his rough digits between my breasts, carving a fiery trail until he reaches his destination between my legs. “Look at you. Pretty as a damn picture. Naked and eager for my cock.”
He shoves two fingers into my mouth, and I suck and lick them like I would his dick.