Rule (Marked Men #1)(26)

I wanted it to be good for her, wanted it to turn her inside out like it was doing to me and since it was her first time I wanted to make sure that it was what she was going to have to compare every guy after me to. We moved together, she arched her back and put her hands back on my head.

“Oh my God, Rule.” She was close; I could feel the little tremors all along my cock. There was no way I was going to ruin this for her so I touched her in a way that was guaranteed to make her shatter and was rewarded with big eyes and a gasp of surrender. I was super relieved because I wasn’t going to last much longer. I buried my nose in her neck and followed her over the edge. By the time it was done my arms were shaking and I was breathing like I had run a marathon. I slid out of her and rolled to my side all ready to have the regret and despair settle on me, only her eyes had drifted closed so I got up to go into my bathroom and clean up. I pulled on a pair of sweats and grabbed a wash cloth for her. When I went back into the room she was curled up on her side with her cheek resting on her folded up hands, she looked all of sixteen years old. The steady rise and fall of her chest indicated that she was asleep so I cleaned her up the best I could without waking her and settled in the bed next to her. I crossed my arms up under my head and stared up at my ceiling.

What the hell had I done? And what in the hell had Remy been doing with her for all those years if he hadn’t been sleeping with her? They had always claimed they were just friends but no one had believed them. The love they had for each other, the protectiveness, the camaraderie they shared had often even made me jealous and I now I didn’t know what the hell to think. Shaw had been a girl that never fell into the girls I can’t or won’t have sex with category for most of my life but now I had blown that all to smithereens I didn’t know what to do about it. She wasn’t just some chick I could never call again, that I could shove out the door the next morning and I didn’t have the first clue what to do about it. Add in the fact that it was probably the most intense, best sex of my life and I felt like I was losing control. I shouldn’t feel that way about Shaw; she shouldn’t be the one to rock my world like it had never been rocked before. Frankly it weirded me out that she was better and more turned on by my ink and piercings than the majority of girls I brought home. Now I had a disarray on my hands and the wrong girl in my bed and I didn’t have a clue what to do about it.

***

I fell asleep sometime after the sun started to come up so when I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing the first thing I did was look on the other side of the bed. All the things from the night before slamming into my head. Shaw was gone. The pile of clothes I left on the floor last night was folded neatly on the end of the bed and none of her pretty little things were left. I groaned and threw an arm over my eyes while answering the call.

“What?” Something crinkled under my hip as I moved while my brother chuckled in my ear.

“Did I interrupt something?”

On a plain piece of sketch paper I had laying around for drawing up designs for clients she had written in her neat, girly scrip:

Best birthday gift ever! Thanks

She didn’t sign it, didn’t say she would call or ask me to call her. It was plain and simple and I wasn’t sure if it made me elated or furious. My brother was still waiting for a response so I shook the cobwebs loose out of my head and sat up in the bed. It smelled like sex and her.

“No I just didn’t sleep good last night.”

“That’s what happens when you bring strangers home with you, you have to make sure you sleep with one eye open so they don’t rob you or stab you while you sleep.”

I groaned. “Dude you need to get out of the Army. Not every stranger is an insurgent.”

He muttered something under his breath that I didn’t catch. “Hey I’m gonna come to Denver for the week. My shoulder is acting up and I need to touch base with my Orthopedic surgeon plus mom is getting on my last nerve. Shaw refused to come over for lunch today because mom wouldn’t invite you as well and now she’s convinced you’ve somehow corrupted her darling girl. I keep telling her she needs to see someone and dad even agrees but she’s just so stubborn, I guess that’s where we get it from.”

I winced a little; glad the conversation was happening over the phone. I was sure guilt colored my face. My mom would freak out to extreme levels if she had any clue just how thoroughly I had corrupted Shaw.

“How much longer before you have to go?”

“I have to be medically cleared first and I’m supposed to meet with a VA counselor to make sure there isn’t any PTSD from the accident. I have to have a clean bill of health all the way around before I go back.”

“Well it’ll be nice to finally get a chance to hangout without all the family drama.”

“Yeah, I’ve been calling Shaw all morning so I can take her out to dinner or something for her birthday. I’m sure her moronic parents didn’t do anything again and I hate the idea that she probably had to spend it alone. You should get off your lazy ass and come with us if I get ahold of her.”

I started to choke a little. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that she most definitely hadn’t been alone but this was Shaw and as close I was to Rome he didn’t need to know what we had been doing in this room last night.

“Naw, I think she’s had enough of me. I ran into her a few weeks ago and I see her around here and there. I think it’s a nice break for her not to have to deal with me every weekend.”