Shayla Black: Wicked and Dangerous

“Give me your mouth,” he growled, and she turned her head, crying out as his tongue thrust past her lips. He was filling every part of her, and it was too much, pushing her over the edge. She came hard and wet and long, sobbing into his mouth. He kissed her more aggressively than he ever had before, then started fucking her harder as he curved her forward, back down to the bed, and followed her over. With a harsh shout, he buried his face in the curve of her throat and rammed himself deep, pulsing inside her in a long, shuddering climax that left them both wrecked. When he finally stirred and carefully pulled out, he lifted her into his arms and carried her back into the shower, soothing her sore body with the hot water and steam, carefully washing and caring for her. As his rough fingers gently touched the puckered entrance where he’d been buried, he softly growled, “No one but me,” in her ear, then moved his fingers to her swollen vulva, touching her there as well. “I mean that, Lily. Only me. You’re mine .”

She nodded weakly, too limp to even be embarrassed by anything that they’d done. It had felt right. And the raw, aggressive way that he’d staked his claim on her had felt right, too.

“I can handle you, Scott. I will be whatever you need. You just have to be honest with me.”

“All I need is you,” he told her, and it was true. With Lily, the games he played for control didn’t matter. There were no rules with her. No boundaries. He just wanted to consume her in every possible way and make himself a permanent part of her life. Make a new life with her. One that didn’t have any ties to the past. One that looked, for once, to the future. He just didn’t know how to make that happen. How to fix what was wrong with him, so that he could be what she needed.

They finally dragged themselves from the shower, and he dried her with a towel, before carrying her back into the bedroom. He stripped off the damp sheets, tossed some dry blankets over the mattress, and then they got into bed. She cuddled against him in the darkness, with her back to his chest, his arms wrapped tight around her. Though her breathing was slow and even, he knew she hadn’t yet fallen asleep. He hadn’t planned on making the confession, but he suddenly heard himself saying, “My mom was a junkie.” He had to swallow against the knot in his throat, but forced himself to keep going. “Not party drugs. The hard stuff. The kind that left you drooling on the kitchen floor, while your kid tried his best to drag you to bed. On the nights you actually made it home.”

“That couldn’t have been easy,” she said quietly, lifting his hand to her lips and softly kissing his battered knuckles.

“It sucked. I never knew when I was going to find her passed out in her vomit or screwing some dealer on the kitchen table or no longer breathing. She finally OD’d when I was sixteen, and I . . . I decided from that point on that I never wanted anyone to mean anything to me. That I didn’t want to feel responsible for keeping someone I cared about alive.”

When he fell silent, she didn’t push him for anything more. She simply rolled over in his arms, cupped his face in her hands, and tenderly kissed his mouth. Something hot and vibrant and tender rushed through him, his hands pressing against her back, locking her against him as he deepened the kiss, slipping his tongue between her lips, her sweet taste somehow washing away the bitterness of his past and replacing it with something that felt strangely like . . . hope .

They kissed for what felt like hours, neither pushing the intimacy to the next level, as if they just wanted to stay lost in the moment, until exhaustion finally claimed them. They slept in a tangled knot, his palm resting against the center of her chest, as if he could hold the rhythm of her heart in his hand. He slipped his other hand under her hair and curled it around her nape, as if he could hold her forever.

But their time was already running out.

RYDER WASN’T SURE WHAT IT WAS THAT HAD WOKEN HIM.He’d heard something, but it hadn’t been loud. Maybe a creak in the hallway or the rasp of a door being opened. But it’d been enough to catch his attention.

He woke Lily up as he pulled out of her arms, throwing his legs over the side of the bed, careful not to make a sound.

“Scott?” she whispered groggily, lifting up on her elbow.

“Shh.”

“What’s going on?”

Though he didn’t have any proof, he listened to what his gut was telling him. If he was wrong, then he’d let her and Mike have a good laugh at his expense about it later. But he wasn’t going to second-guess his instincts. Not when Lily’s life was on the line. “It’s Rado,” he told her. “He’s here.”

He heard her stifled gasp, but she was too smart to cry out. They both got to their feet and silently dressed. He pulled his cell phone from his back pocket, only to find that the battery had died on him. Shit. And there wasn’t a landline in the room. Grabbing his gun from the bedside table, he checked the clip, then curled the fingers of his free hand around Lily’s wrist and motioned for her to stay behind him as he made his way over to the door. There was a soft scrape of sound as he started to pull the door open, his hand now gripping her arm as he positioned her against the wall. If someone was in the hallway, he didn’t want them getting a clear shot at Lily when he opened the door.

Forcing himself to stay loose and calm, Ryder took a quick look around the edge of the doorway. The hallway was clear in both directions, the low glow of a light in the living room relieving the shadows. He listened for any sounds, but the house was silent, and he wondered where Mike was. If Rado and his men had found the safe house, the odds were high that they’d followed them from the club, which meant they already knew about Mike. It also meant they’d probably been watching him and Lily in the parking lot, and his gut cramped, his lips pulling back from his teeth as he choked back a snarl. He should have never put her in that position, damn it. He’d let his jealousy overrule his common sense, and had failed to protect her. Jesus. He was such a fucking jackass!

And this is not the time for this shit. Not if I want to keep her alive.

Taking a deep breath, Ryder shoved the fury back and focused instead on the problem at hand. He was about to let go of Lily’s arm and step into the hallway, when he heard a deep voice say, “Drop the gun and kick it over to me or I shoot her.”

Fuck! The gritty, accented words had come from across the hall, where Yuri Radovich was now standing in the open doorway to Ryder’s room, gun in hand. The sound he’d heard had probably been when his door was opened, and he thanked God the asshole had chosen to search that room first.

“You can’t shoot her if you don’t have a shot,” Ryder replied, tightening his grip on Lily’s arm. But the monster wasn’t fooled. With a low laugh, Rado eyed the position of Ryder’s body and the visible portion of his arm, then shifted his aim. If he fired the powerful 9mm now, the bullet would go right through the wall and into Lily.

Son of a fucking bitch.

As if she could read his mind, Lily said, “ Don’t. ” Her low voice vibrated with anger. “Don’t you dare do it, Scott. You know he’s going to kill me anyway. Don’t you dare give him your weapon and leave yourself unprotected!”

“Smart girl, your Lily. But do you really want to stand there and watch her bleed out, knowing you could have prolonged the moment?” Radovich murmured. “Maybe have even given the men who will no doubt be rushing to your rescue a chance to get here in time? We disabled several of the alarm systems you had in place. But who knows if we got them all, eh?”