Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Hugo
“Ineed you to know this isn’t your reward for not being a total creep,” Rue says as we leave the bathroom with her in my arms. “This is my reward for good judgment.”
“You sure?” I set her down in the center of the mattress. “Because you’re in my bed wearing nothing but a towel, which is something that I, personally, am choosing to celebrate.”
She bites her lip as she drags her gaze over my body. “Very much same, although I’m wishing your towels weren’t supersized.”
The white terrycloth knotted at my waist hits just above my knees, and I add tiny towels to my mental shopping list as I usher Cosmo toward the door.
“Give us an hour, buddy,” I say, ignoring his longing look at the warm spot on the bed where he’d been sleeping.
“Only an hour?” Rue pouts.
“Give us five hours, buddy.”
I scoot his furry butt out the door and listen until I hear the tippy-tap of his nails down the stairs and into the living room, where he dragged his bed next to the heating vent.
Once he’s sorted, I shut the door and turn to find Rue smoothing her hand back and forth across the comforter that, like the sheets and pillows, is new, fresh, and the same white as the ones she coated in blood.
“I keep duplicates,” I say in answer to her unspoken question. “Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time I’ve needed to get rid of bloody fabric.”
“I’m shocked,” she says drily. “But it’s all handled?”
“Yep. Clothes, bedding, car. Oh, and your sister says, quote, ‘I’ll kill her myself if she does this again.’” I crawl onto the bed next to her and have to take a second to breathe through the realization that I am in bed next to Rue Bellamy, especially when she laughs, relaxed and warm and sounding more like herself than she has all night.
“I’d probably let her.” She squints at me in thought. “Speaking of allowing murders to happen, why don’t you have any home security? You should’ve known the instant I broke your backdoor window to get into your place tonight.”
I look at the cheerful bandage on her arm, aghast. “Is that how you cut yourself?”
She waves off my question. “I was desperate to feel safe and didn’t want to bother picking the lock, Mr. I-Have-Multiple-Fake-Identities-But-No-Motion-Sensors.”
“You cut yourself on my fucking window? I did this?” I’m too horrified to savor the idea that Rue thinks of me as safety.
She rolls her eyes. “Your window did this, and answer my question.”
“I protect the things that are worth protecting.”
We both know I mean her and only her, but she chooses not to acknowledge that and instead pokes me in the chest.
“You are worth protecting,” she says fiercely. “Especially if you can come home and make it all the way upstairs without noticing the snow blowing in through a broken window.”
“I had other things on my mind.” I brush my thumb over the mark on her cheek, hating Overton for putting his hands on her.
“Unacceptable.” She’s glaring, but she leans into my touch. “We’re having Pell install a security system tomorrow. He can put it on our tab.”
Our. God, I love it.
“If it’ll make you happy, okay.” Then I lift my brows. “And that’s the last time you say that handsome motherfucker’s name when we’re in bed together.”
She scoots the tiniest bit closer to me, tightening the towel around her breasts when it threatens to slip. “Please. Do you think I’d look twice at him with you living next door?”
I’m about to remind her that she doesn’t live next door anymore, but her fingers are picking apart the knot at my waist. The fabric falls away, and my cock springs free, the head already damp with precum.
“Mine.” She sits up eagerly, reaching for me, but she can’t hide the tiny flinch the motion causes.
“Yours,” I agree, catching her hand before she makes contact and all my good intentions go up in flames. “But there’s a problem: you’re too hurt for any kind of sex—”
“The hell I am!”
“Let me finish,” I say evenly, pressing down on the pulse point in her wrist. “You’re too hurt for any kind of sex that has you on your knees or puts any weight on your shoulder or ankles or feet, and I don’t want to accidentally hit your collarbone or grab your cut arm.”
She flings herself back on the pillow and glares at me. “So, what, you want me to just lie back and think of England?”
I’m on top of her in a flash, caging her with my body.
“No,” I growl. “I want you to lie back and think of me.”
I keep all of my weight a few inches above her but close enough that I can lower my head to kiss her.
Our only points of contact are the tip of my hard dick against the towel covering her body and my mouth on hers.
I suck on her pouty lower lip until she softens and opens for me.
But when she lifts her hands to rest them against my tensed, flexed ab muscles, I shift away.
“There’s only one rule tonight,” I say, reaching for the calm, authoritative voice that worked to get her to the shower. “You move, I stop.”
As I speak, I lower myself again so my cock presses into her fabric-covered core, and exactly like I knew she would, she bucks up into me. I retreat immediately, and she gives a little moan.
“Hugo! Why?”
“Because,” I say, bringing my lips to her ear, “I’m sure as hell not going to cause you any pain during sex.” I bite down on her lobe. “Any pain you don’t want, that is.”
She pushes her hips into me again. I pull away again.
“I mean it,” I warn her. “No moving. No touching. Let me give you what you need.”
Her brow creases, but it’s accompanied by a lip nibble. “What about what you need?”
“This is what I need.” I drop my mouth to hers for another brush of our lips before rolling off so she can consider what I’m asking her to do.
I see the uncertainty in her eyes, and I don’t blame her for it.
She’s pulled a knife on me, taken me to the ground, fought bigger men to the death.
She’s used to being in control, and even when things spin out, she’s the one reacting, calling the shots. And she thinks this is a surrender.
To show her that it’s not, I brush a finger over the bruise on her collarbone, not hard enough to cause actual pain but enough to break her concentration and remind her that even my gentlest touches can hurt her if we’re not careful.
“It’s simple,” I say. “You move, I stop. You tell me to stop, I stop.”
I trail my fingers up the inside of one of her strong legs and slip them under the edge of her towel.
“But if you don’t move, I don’t stop.”
Her chest rises and falls unevenly as my hand pauses just shy of where she’s dying for me to touch, and she gives a little keening sound when I pull it back.
“Do you trust me?” I ask.
Her expression softens. “Yes. I do.”
Her wet hair is a tangle of old gold on the pillow behind her, and I exhale hard and press my forehead against hers, overwhelmed by this single, perfect moment, this thing I never thought I could have. She trusts me. She wants me, all of me.
Fuck, I’m going to make her come so many times tonight.
I get to work arranging her for minimal risk to her damaged parts.
She’s already on her back in the middle of the bed, which is where I want her, although she gives an annoyed grumble when I ease the pillow out from under her head, fold it in half, and slide it back so she’s angled to watch everything I’ll be doing to her without straining her bruised neck.
Next I fold the towel that had been around my waist and tuck it under her hips so they’re slightly elevated.
“Good?” I ask.
“Mmm-hmm,” she replies, her hungry gaze fixed on my cock.
“Be patient.” The warning’s as much for me as it is for her, but as I bend to kiss her, the uncertainty in her eyes stops my descent toward her mouth.
Oh, god. She’s asking for permission to move enough to kiss me.
It’s so hot I have to run through the behavioral indicators of Stendhal syndrome to keep from shredding the rules I just established and giving her the aggressive fuck she’s been begging for.
“You can use your mouth, sweetheart.” I push the strain from my voice to speak to her in the controlled way I did before. “Give me your lips and tongue.”
Her eyes light up, and I run through the diagnostic criteria of folie à deux as my mouth lands on hers. But no list of rare mental disorders can keep my cock from hardening even more when she gives me her lips and her fucking tongue as the rest of her stays completely still.
We’re both breathing hard when we separate, and I torture us both by dragging my fingers to the tucked edge of her towel and taking my time tugging it free.
She moans when cool air finally caresses her skin, and at the sight of those pretty pink nipples, I have to clench my fists against my thighs until I’m able to speak calmly again.
“I’ve been dreaming about putting my mouth on your breasts since the day you moved in,” I tell her in my Dr.-Mohr-is-running-this-session voice.
“Then do it,” she pleads, reaching for my hands.
I pull away immediately and arch my brows until she falls back to the pillow with a muttered curse, at which point I position her arms so they’re tucked next to her body.
Once her palms are flat on the mattress, I duck my head and swirl my tongue over her left nipple, keeping my eyes on her face as I take the little bud between my teeth and bite down.
Her lips part on a gasp, but she stays where I put her.
“Good girl.” I move to her other nipple, sucking it into my mouth. A whimper builds in her throat, and I grip her fingers and curl them into the comforter. “Hang onto this. Just don’t jostle your cut.”
Her nails bite into the white fabric as I kiss my way down her body, savoring her satiny skin and the definition underneath.
“Your legs, fuck.” I gently bite the top of her thigh.
“Greg didn’t like how muscular they are.” Her eyes are closed, her voice tight, so I increase the pressure of the bite until they fly back open. “Hey!”