Deep Under (Tall, Dark and Deadly #4)(47)

“You underestimate him.”

“You underestimate me,” I assure her. “You want to forget? Let’s forget.”

“Don’t treat me like-”

I tangle my fingers in her hair and drag her gaze to mine. “Is that too gentle?”

“It is until you kiss me again,” she challenges, and so I do, holding nothing back. My tongue stroking, taking, demanding, and she rewards me by giving me no fear, but rather a soft moan, and a whisper of “Kyle,” when I nip her lip.

“That’s what I want,” I say. “My name on your tongue, not his. My tongue on your body, not his.”

“That’s what I want too,” she dares, and when she adds, “very much,” there is this sense of her claiming something outside of a world she’d accepted but hated that empowers me, to help her go there, be there. I reach down and pull her tank top over her head, tossing it away. And she is not shy, timid or scared. She tugs my shirt up, but my shoulder strap and weapon, hold it in place. I’m far from detoured though, unhooking her sports bra and dragging it down her arms, my gaze raking over her high full breasts and pebbled pink nipples. And the minute our gazes collide, the fire between us ignites, and we are kissing again, my hand flattening over her back, melting her naked breasts to my chest.

She tries a new approach to getting me naked, shoving at my jacket and I shrug it over my shoulders, letting it fall to the ground, but when her hand goes for the clasp on my shoulder strap, my reaction is automatic. I grab her hand and stop her. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t get your shirt off while your gun is on,” she says, and then gives me an unhappy look. “Did you think that I was going for your weapon?”

“Programming,” I say. “Protect your weapon, always. And you aren’t the only one with a bad relationship baggage.”

“I can accept that and understand it, but now it’s my turn to say quid pro quo. I’m opening the door to trusting you. You need to do the same and trust me.”

She’s right. A hand for a hand. I let mine fall away now, leaving hers at my strap, a move from my gun. She closes her hand over the butt of my gun, daring me to challenge her, her chin lifting, gaze meeting mine as she says, “If you were him-”

My hands slide around her neck, dragging her mouth to mine. “Obviously I need to f*ck you fast and hard before I go slow and sexy, just to get him the hell out of this room.” I kiss her, a deep, demanding, stroke of tongue on tongue, I end with a challenge. “Do you want me or my gun?”

“You,” she whispers, her hand sliding away from my weapon. “I want you.”

“That’s the right answer,” I say, stepping back from her to remove my shoulder strap and set it on the ground. “Take your shoes off,” I order, ripping my own shirt over my head.

Her eyes travel my chest and jerk to my face. “My shoes? I thought you’d say take my panties off, not my shoes, but okay.” She kicks them off, while I do the same of mine, and then, one by one, playfully throws them across the room.

I shackle her hips, walking her to me. “I want to be the one to take your panties off, sweetheart,” I say, reaching around her and pulling the tie from her hair, the silky strands waving around her shoulders.

“Too late,” she says. “I was teasing about the panties. I don’t actually wear them with these workout pants.”

I arch a brow. “That’s unexpected.”

“Not really. You wouldn’t like it if things went the wrong places either.”

I laugh, at the adorable confession, my already hard cock just got harder, as my palms caress up and down her hips. “Then I’ll finish undressing you.”

“Does that mean I can finish undressing you?”

“If I finish getting undressed, then I’ll be inside you.”

“And that’s a problem why?”

“It’s not a problem at all, but we do need to talk about-”

“Protection,” she supplies, her hands flattening on my chest. “I’m on the pill, and thankfully he still uses condoms because he’s that paranoid someone is trying to kill him.” Her gaze drops to my chest.” And he kept me to himself. The Juan thing wasn’t actual-”

I cup her face. “You do not have to tell me this.”

“I just suddenly feel like you might think I’m a walking, talking STD. Juan didn’t do that part and never once with Michael without a condom. And I was never given drugs.”

“I want you to talk to me Myla, I want to know who you are and what you’ve been through, but I hate that you feel the need to say these things to me right now, in this moment. That you don’t know I see you, not him. It tells me you feel damaged, or tainted, when he is the one who is damaged and tainted.”

“I am-”

“No. You are not and all I was thinking about when I brought this up, was protecting you, and me being inside you. But in the midst of this, is still good news. When he’s gone, and he will be, you can wash him away.” I caress her cheek. “I want to be the man that washes him away for you. Will you let me be him?”

“Yes. Please. Be him, Kyle. Now. Tonight.”

“Then I’m going to make you remember what it’s like to not know what comes next and yet, know that it will be pleasure. Just pleasure. I’m going to turn you to face the wall.”