Chapter 16 #3
His laughter faded to chuckles; he turned to face her.
“If you unloaded a round of bullets into Anderson’s gut, you would’ve done less damage.”
“That’s not violence; that’s the vulnerability of a man’s ego.”
“Or his dick.”
“Well then, he likely won’t survive what else I have in store for him. The last rung on my ladder is Bailey Joe Williams. Once I verify a couple of things with him, I’ll know for sure.”
“Tell me what you wanted from Bailey Joe,” he demanded in that I rule over all creation way that grated on her last nerve.
“I’m not one of your deputies, don’t demand things from me. I don’t know if I can trust you with the information yet.”
He moved so fast she was on her back, caging her between his thick arms.
“Whose bed are you in Ms. Green?”
“Y-yours,” she choked out. She didn’t like the breathlessness of her voice because she knew what that reaction meant.
He leaned closer, the weight of his chest pressing her deeper into the mattress. She didn’t want to push him away. The weight of him on top of her felt good, right, tantalizing. His nose brushed against the shell of her ear and she sighed, her body loosening, readying itself.
“Do you trust me?” he growled out and she wondered where her tight-mouthed unyielding sheriff had gone.
That man, despite his rigidness, she trusted.
She knew this because there was no part of her nature that she hid or disguised from him.
This man, her inner voice purred, there was no part of this man she should ever trust.
“Do you trust me?” his nose grazed the side of her throat, his breath warm against her skin. Her pelvic floor tightened.
“I do. I don’t know why but I do.”
He grunted and rolled back on to his back.
“You do know why. Because I’m gonna say what I’m gonna say; do what I’m gonna do; and you never have to guess where I stand because I’ll tell you.”
In their limited time of knowing each other, she knew that to be true. He hmphed. She frowned, turning toward his shadowed figure. “What?”
“Nothing, it’s just… You seem to have this uncanny ability to detect bullshit. Was your Derrick that good at hiding his nature, his character?”
She thought about it, recalling different interactions they’d had over the course of their relationship and came up with the most honest response she could.
“He wasn’t. Derrick was more circumspect and analytical. He was levelheaded. He...he was good for me; grounded me—”
“So, he was your emotional support fiancé?”
She kicked him and he grunted.
“All I’m saying is we got a bloodhound that I’d describe in much the same way you just described Derrick.”
“You know, I don’t think he was that good at hiding.
Which is why I saw less and less of him as the wedding approached.
I just ignored the changes. In truth, I just didn’t believe I needed to pay attention.
I trusted him to tell me if something was wrong.
I even asked once and he said something about work and the wedding and the move and being overwhelmed; and I got it, I fucking got it because I was spread thin for all the same reasons.
” She sighed. “Most of all I just trusted him to tell me if something was wrong. Three months with no sex didn’t even bother me. ”
“Three months.”
“Shut up. Planning weddings is stressful.”
“And fucking the woman you claim to love goes a long way in relieving that stress.”
“Have you ever been engaged?”
“Hell no!”
“Then what do you know about it?”
“I know that the level of stress I’ve faced on an hourly basis has been enough to explode a man’s head, but if you were my woman I would have had you against the fucking wall at least once a night. Three fucking months,” he muttered.
Lauren stared wide-eyed at the ceiling trying to control all the little tingles of pleasure that came from imagining herself against the wall, clawing at the plaster as she tried to endure hard forceful thrusts.
“Did you ever feed him my cakes?”
Oh, they were his cakes now.
“No, I never got around to it. He was more of a pie guy anyway.” The details of her engagement sounded bad when she said them out loud, but Santi needed to know the context.
“I worked long hours. So did he. We had our own homes.” She sat up frowning.
“I don’t have to explain my relationship to you. ”
“Never asked you to. I asked about cake. You’re the one who felt the need to justify all the things that got in the way of you and Derrick.” They were silent in the darkness together. “What hurt you more,” Santi asked. “Losing the fiancé or losing what you had with your family?”
“It was realizing that they were so willing to lose me,” she whispered, lying down this time with her back to him.
“Just FYI—because after this will be the last time you bring another man to my bed—”
“You brought him up!” she said, flipping back over.
“I only acknowledged him, but you’d already invited him here.”
It was true, she’d allowed Derrick to follow her around like her personal demon. She was haunted by him; by what he’d done, by what they had been, by what could have been.
“What was the FYI?”
“You’d would definitely miss sex with me,” he declared.
She laughed.
“Seriously. After twenty-four hours, you’d start going through this psychological torment, wanting me, needing me. Then would come the physical withdrawal. After three months you’d be in jail for all the illegal things you tried to do with my body.”
“I don’t mean to be mean, but—”
“You absolutely do mean to be mean.”
“—but I haven’t seen one woman who seems to be going through sexual withdrawal from you in the nearly three weeks I’ve been here.”
“There are at least four countries I can’t return to this very day because of the women suffering from Stillwater Sexual Syndrome.”
“Oh my God, you’re delusional.”
“Trust me, it’s a thing.” She could hear him smirking in the darkness.
“I may not always learn a lesson fast, but when I learn it, I shape and master it, then it becomes mine to wield for good or for bad. You don’t see the women who suffer from the condition because I don’t have sex with anyone who lives in my jurisdiction. I’d never have peace.”
“Because the deranged women suffering from Stillwater Sexual Syndrome would be beating down your door?”
“You got it. Like I said, it’s a thing.”
She reached over and cupped the side of his face, stroking his cheekbone with her thumb.
“It’s nearly three in the morning and you’ve had a long, hard day. You should rest because the more you talk, the more I’m going to use what you say against you when you’re in your right mind.”
He flicked her hand away and turned over.
“Goodnight, Santi,” she said, snuggling her pillow.
“Night, little wren.”
Closing her eyes, she smiled. Tomorrow—no, today—would be a good day; she could feel it in her bones.
She felt a solar explosion between her thighs and cried out from an orgasm so intense it woke her up. Eyes snapping open she hoped she hadn’t woken up—
He was staring at her.
She pulled her hand from between her thighs, face burning with embarrassment.
“I was dreaming,” she muttered, turning to roll off her side of the bed, but he moved quickly, covering her upper body with the weight of his, caging her.
“You were dreaming. Of him? In my bed?” he asked, voice dangerously growly and threatening as he touched his nose to her ear and along her jaw like he had last night, but this morning she felt the thick length of his erection against her thigh.
Her fingers still wet with her own pleasure; she wanted to reach down and settle his erection between her legs.
She sighed.
“I wasn’t dreaming of Derrick.”
She felt him smile against her jaw.
“Were you dreaming about me, little wren?”
She opened her eyes just so he could see her roll them.
He laughed deep in his chest, making hers vibrate with his joy.
“You’re highly susceptible to the syndrome. One of the first signs is me becoming the man of your dreams.”
She laughed, half-heartedly trying to push him off her, yet somehow, he was more fully on top, hips between her widening thighs which were quick to make room for him.
“What’s the second symptom?” she asked daringly while placing her hands against the small of his back.
Clearly, he still didn’t understand that backing away from a challenge wasn’t something that came naturally to her.
Pulling down the neck of her tank top, he tucked it beneath her breasts, creating a loose kind of bustier.
Taking a nipple into his mouth, he sucked gently, head moving up and down slowly; the motion creating an equal and not so gentle pulsing in her womb. Her hips rose and retreated with a rhythm that grew harder, faster.
His hand slid between their bodies and found her—
“Uhm!”
Between his mouth and his hand, she couldn’t...she couldn’t…
“You feel that, Lauren?” he rasped. “That shaking your body is doing. That’s the second symptom.
And this”—she looked between their bodies where he was gliding his fingers through her arousal—“the way you’re weeping here; another symptom.
” He slid his fingers inside her and she moaned, hips rising, muscles contracting, her body’s shaking turned to quaking.
“You’ve become infected. You can’t save yourself.
No medicine other than what my body can give, will save you. ”
His voice was falsely soothing as he continued to stoke the fire raging inside of her womb.
“Tell me to stop now, and maybe the fever will burn itself out.”
“No, don’t stop. Don’t stop,” she pled.
He smiled triumphantly then lowered his forehead to her collarbone, pulling his fingers from her body. He gripped her thighs, widening them as he released his erection and reached toward his nightstand.
“Hey! League!” a voice shouted from outside the balcony window, followed by a series of sounds Lauren could only describe as a tribal holler.
“Paperwork awaits, brother! I need signatures before I can start killing bad guys again. One minute!” the man warned.
Santiago completely collapsed on top of her. “I’m going to kill him.”
“You’re killing me,” she said struggling to breathe.
Lifting slightly, he secured himself back in his boxers.
“You know, if you don’t get treatment soon, yours will be a slow death. I’m sorry for it.”
“Your delusions are entrenched.” She laughed, though she hadn’t felt this sexually desperate for a man in… Had she ever?
“Get off before your recruit comes up here,” she said, pushing against his shoulders.
“The loudmouth outside is Sonny Te Awa. Hot headed, like you,” he said, rising from the bed. He walked into the bathroom and closed the door, taking all his warmth with him.
Sitting up, Lauren reached for her phone. She’d put it on sleep mode but wasn’t expecting to wake up after eleven thirty in the morning. She’d missed over ten phone calls and fifteen text messages.
“Shit!” she shouted, scrambling off the bed.
Santiago opened the bathroom door to see her pacing as she went through her phone.
“Has there been another death?” he asked.
The security alarm trilled.
“Son of a bitch!” Santiago shouted, racing down the stairs in his uniform pants and naked chest. Lauren hopped off the bed, adjusted her tank top, and pulled her pajama shorts from between the sheets and stepped back in to them.
Slipping on her Garfields, she headed toward the door.
Changing her mind, she went back for her long cardigan and headed downstairs, nosy to see the man crazy enough to break into Santiago’s house.