Chapter 26
I’d marry you tomorrow if I could get you to agree.
Why had he said that? He lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Idiot.
Yes, she’d been the one to mention marriage, but she’d been joking. And when he’d gone and said it like that, she’d tensed up again, ruining all of his good work.
And then she’d hastily told him that she needed a shower. He’d wanted to point out that she’d already had two showers today, but he didn’t think that was a good idea. Instead, he’d gotten ready for bed, and now he was lying there waiting for her.
She walked out of the bathroom and moved toward him.
“I’m just going to go brush my teeth and stuff,” he said, climbing off the bed.
“Wait, please.” She moved in front of him.
He came to a stop, staring down at her in surprise.
“I’m sorry. I know I overreact to things—”
“Don’t you say sorry to me,” he told her fiercely, and her eyes widened as she took a half step back.
But he reached out and grasped the hold of her hips, stopping her.
“I’m the one that should apologize to you, Lily.
You have done nothing wrong. Now get that pretty ass into bed. We both need some sleep.”
Lily nodded and scampered away, and he took some time to brush his teeth and get ready, hoping to calm down. Lying in that bed with her right next to him was a strain on his control.
Just get it together, man.
You can manage lying next to her. You did it the other night.
Yeah, and he’d woken up with a raging hard-on, and her pressed against him. Then he’d kissed her like she was the very breath he needed to live.
He walked in to find her lying in the bed, looking like a gorgeous goddess.
Fuck, she was beautiful.
He needed to build up her self-confidence and make sure he did nothing to knock her down.
She should be the most confident woman in the room. In every room. Because her beauty outshone everyone. It shone from the inside out.
“Are you all right?” she asked him.
“Of course I am, baby.” He climbed into bed next to her.
“Will you be able to get insurance on all the smashed stuff in your house?”
Here he was, wondering how he was going to stop himself from having his wicked way with her, and she was worried about his house.
“It will all be fine. According to my family, it all looked like shit anyway, so maybe it was time for a revamp. My family can be brutally honest. That’s just the way we are, especially my grandpa.
He’s got no social filter whatsoever. Surprisingly, most people don’t take offense. I think it’s because of his accent.”
“Really?”
“Yep. You’ll meet him one day. But not too soon, because I don’t want you to go running for the hills.”
“So, when?” she asked.
“Oh, I was thinking maybe when we’ve been married five, ten years. Something like that.”
She grinned and slapped him on the chest, and the last of the tension seemed to leave her body. Good, that’s what he wanted.
If only the tension that was riding him hard would dissipate. Especially the tension in his lower regions.
He rolled his eyes at himself. He really needed to get over himself. He wasn’t going to die of a hard-on.
It was just really difficult to concentrate on anything but how good she smelled. And how smooth her skin had felt under his hands.
Or the small moans that had escaped her mouth each time he’d found a knot. He was certain that she didn’t even know she was doing it. But those noises had been sexy as hell, and he couldn’t stop thinking about them.
“What if I want to go back to school? To college?”
Okay, he really had to pay attention. He was starting to get used to the way her mind flitted from one topic to another.
Rolling, he faced her. “You want to go to college?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I barely finished high school.”
He cupped the side of her face. “If it’s something you want, we’ll make it happen, all right?”
She nodded, staring at him like she thought he could do anything. And in that moment, he felt like he could. He felt like he was a hundred feet tall and the king of the world.
This was a heavy feeling that he never wanted to forget.
Leaning in, he kissed her lightly. “Now go to sleep.”
“Is that an order?” she asked, but her lips were twitching, so he knew she was teasing.
“It is, and you should do what you’re told.”
“Sir, yes, Sir.”
“No need to call me Sir. Harvey will do. Although Sir Harvey has a nice ring to it.”
She rolled her eyes and rolled over onto her back. “Good night, Harvey.”
Lily woke up confused and overheated. She stared around her, but it was so dark. How long had she been sleeping for? Why was the mattress so hard underneath her?
And she didn’t normally sleep on her stomach, did she?
She attempted to kneel and then the mattress let out a groan of pain.
Wait, mattresses didn’t groan in pain. What the heck was she thinking? And what was she lying on?
“Well, that’s one way to be woken up,” Harvey said from beneath her, his breathing labored and fast.
Beneath her? Oh my God, she was lying right on top of Harvey.
What had she done?
“What’s wrong? How did I get on top of you?” She scrambled off him, and he let out another moan of pain as her knee brushed against something.
No, not just something, his cock. Oh my God, had she just kneed him in the balls?
“Did I knee you in the balls?” she said quickly, the words almost rolling together.
“Um, yeah. But it’s okay. It hardly hurt at all.”
Sure, right. She really believed him.
“It hardly hurt at all?” she asked. “You’re lying on your side with your legs up, cradling your balls. Oh my God, you’re protecting them from me. You think I’m going to do it again. I am such an idiot. What was I even doing lying on top of you?”
“You crawled on top of me while you were asleep, I think,” he said.
“I am so sorry. I can’t believe I did that. I don’t know why I would have done that. I don’t usually sleep on my stomach.”
“Hey, it’s all right,” he soothed. “It doesn’t matter. I thought it was rather cute.”
“Right, until I woke up, didn’t know where I was, panicked, and kneed you in the balls! Pretty sure you don’t think that was cute now, do you?”
“Definitely more painful than cute, but I’m over it. They’re fine now. Nothing’s wrong with them. It’s probably good for them to have a whack every now and then, gets the blood flowing.”
“Oh my God, I can’t believe you just said that.” She lay back on the bed with a groan, placing her arm over her eyes.
“Baby, hey, stop worrying. I’m fine. It was just a small knee to the balls. What’s the saying? What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger? I’m always saying I need stronger balls.”
She shot him a look of disbelief. Was he trying to make her feel better? Because it wasn’t working. “Really? You want stronger balls?”
“Don’t all men? It’s not like you can weight train with your balls.”
Lily groaned. “Please stop trying to make me feel better. It’s not working.”
He moved her arm away from her eyes and grasped hold of her chin. “Listen to me. I am fine. Stop feeling guilty.”
“You know, just because you give an order doesn’t mean that someone has to follow it,” she told him.
“Of course it does. Otherwise, why would I give an order if I didn’t expect you to follow it? You should always follow my orders. I know what I’m talking about. I’m always right.”
“Are you always this confident?”
He seemed to think about that for a moment. At least he was thinking about it. Surely, he was going to realize that he wasn’t always right.
“Yes, I am.”
“I’m surprised you took a moment to think about that.”
“Well, I didn’t really. I just thought that you needed a moment to think about it. Now, are you going to stop stressing about kneeing me in the balls?”
“I wouldn’t say I was stressing,” she said.
“You were,” he replied. “And there was no need to.”
“I’ll try not to climb on top of you again,” she told him. “Maybe we should put down a pillow barrier. That might stop me.”
“We are not putting down a pillow barrier, and I don’t want to stop you from climbing on top of me. I rather like the feel of you lying against me.”
“Only I wasn’t lying against you. I was right on top of you. Could you even breathe?”
“Of course I could breathe,” he told her. “You were right where you needed to be. With me, touching me, being mine. Maybe I’ll just have you sleep like that all the time. Although it might not be that easy to go to sleep.”
“Right, because I’d be squishing you.”
“No, because my cock would be as hard as concrete and unlikely to go down.”
Holy moly. Did he really just say that?
Her eyes couldn’t help but drop down to his cock, or where she imagined it would be since he was under the covers.
“Believe it or not, despite the whack my balls just got, it’s definitely hard.”
“Why?”
He gave her an incredulous look and she felt herself go bright red. “Did you really just ask me why it’s hard?”
“Well, it’s not like we’ve been doing anything sexy.”
“You were lying on top of me. You don’t think that’s sexy?
And now you’re lying next to me, staring at me with those big blue eyes.
With your red lips all nice and wet and plump.
Your cheeks blushing at the idea of me being hard for you.
It’s all fucking sexy, baby. Everything you do is, from the way you move, to the way you talk, to the way you look at me. ”
“How do I look at you?” she asked in a soft whisper.
“Like you think I could do anything. Like I’m your hero. Like I’m a candy bar when you haven’t eaten chocolate in years.”
Oh, God. She really did think all of those things when she looked at him.
“I haven’t eaten candy in years,” she told him. “And I do think you can do anything. And you are my hero.”
He cupped the side of her face. “I don’t think I would be considered a hero by normal standards, but I do want to be your hero. Your protector, your man.”