Page 25 of Danger Close (Mourningkill #3)

Unlucky

Teri

Four Days Before the Wedding

The noise outside subsided. Dinner was over. Looking at the clock on the nightstand, I realized that it was past midnight.

“Would you spend the night?” I wasn’t usually so brazen.

I had been so lonely for so long, and here he was. Joaquin Guerro. An antidote. Or maybe he was more like a drug. A temporary high that would ease my pain for just a moment. Was I wrong to lighten my load for just one fleeting instant? To feel as irresistible as he’d once made me feel?

“Do you want me to?” His question was a rejection.

I shut my eyes, feeling the warmth of embarrassment flood my cheeks.

Perhaps I was not so irresistible after all.

“No,” I said, closing the door on hope once more.

Bitter hope. Insidious hope. Heartbreaking hope.

“You’re lying.” I squealed, feeling his breath on my ear. When had he moved?

I jumped, flying back, kicking away from him until my back pressed against the headboard. Surprise had turned to fear, my mind unable to distinguish between the two emotions. All surprises, anything unexpected, brought terror.

“I’m not!”

My protest just made him chuckle, as he boxed me in, one hand on either side of my head as he ran his nose up my neck to kiss my jaw.

“I want you, Teri. I really, really do.” Then he dropped his hands, leaning back as his gaze fell to my lips.

“But this thing between us?” He gestured with his finger to the space between his chest and mine.

“It comes with a lot of baggage. It comes with a full-grown kid, and I’m going to take a wild guess… years of unresolved resentment.”

I would change every fiber of my being if only you loved me. I would change myself, if only you loved me.

“Are you a shrink now?” I tried to sound scornful, but failed.

“If I was, I’d know what to do right now, but I don’t.” He bit his thick lower lip, his white teeth grazing the pillowy flesh. “I’m fighting this, baby. I’m fighting it hard. I thought I knew why. All those reasons have flown out the window right now.”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. When had that simple gesture become so fucking sexy? I wanted to kiss his throat and drown in his scent.

“I want to be a good guy, and give you space. But I’d love to not give you space as well.” His eyes darkened, hooded with unmitigated lust. “I’m willing to be a very, very bad guy, and not give you space, and claim you as mine. I’m willing to make your body sing and help quiet your mind.”

My thighs clenched. I was sure I had soaked through my sleep shorts. My chest heaved, and I swallowed, my lips parted as I struggled to draw in breath.

“Just say the word, and I will take whatever you offer, Princess.”

He leaned down and kissed a small, exposed part of my chest.

“I know what I want,” he said, placing a hand on my bare thigh. His tongue darted out, moistening that beautiful lower lip. “The only question is what does Teresa Louise Guerro want?”

I wanted to be touched. I wanted to be loved.

I wanted to lose myself in another person, but I couldn’t.

Every time the moment of intimacy came, I was wracked with panic and fear.

Ever since that night, ten years ago, it was as if my body stopped reacting to erotic stimulation, and all I felt, instead of pleasure, was fear.

It was the terror that came when you went up a roller coaster and felt that petrifying weightlessness before the fall. Except that fear never turned into exhilaration. It only led to more fear.

“I’m no Princess. I resent that you call me that.” Bitterness broke my voice. If I was a better woman, I would push him away. I would make him go far, far away, and never return. “I am an old, broken woman. I will bring you nothing but trouble and pain.”

He pinched my chin in his hand, forcing me to look at him. His unique eyes made me weak in the knees. I would do anything to protect him.

“You should run.” I tried to pull away, but there was no strength in me. “Run far, far away from me.”

“You’re my Princess…” he crooned, his voice sending pleasant shivers over my skin. “Lean on me, baby.”

He gently grazed my cheek with the back of his hand. I leaned into the warmth of his touch, unable to resist. He was the Cobra, and I was the mouse trapped in his hypnotic gaze.

“You’ll get hurt.” I tried to hold onto my conviction. To keep the image of Annie, broken and bleeding, all because she tried in vain to help me.

“You can’t scare me, sweetheart.” His hands went to the top of the blanket. He began to inch it down until it came to my waist, stopping above my shorts.

We were at the point of no return. Either I let him continue, and we fell into each other’s wanton embrace, or I found the strength to make him leave.

His fingers caressed the exposed skin of my belly, his eyes searching my face for protest. I knew if I said anything, he’d stop. I opened my mouth again and again to make him leave. But the lie couldn’t fall from my lips. I wanted this. I wanted him.

“Are you going to hurt me, baby?” His green-hazel eyes flashed with mischief, sending a shiver down my spine as he leaned down, placing a kiss on the sensitive skin near my navel.

“No.” The words slipped out, because I meant it with all my heart. “But someone else might. People around me… people who help me… they get hurt.”

His tongue darted out, his fingers traced the top elastic of the shorts, pulling them down little by little.

He took a deep inhale, groaning with pleasure.

He flashed me a grin, that thick, silver beard grazed my sensitive skin as my shorts went lower, his breath making my skin break out in goosebumps.

“Bring it on.” He said it quietly, but the power of his conviction made me still as his finger slipped beneath the silk that separated him from my sex.

I gasped, blushing, reaching down to push his hand away.

“No!” I tried to scurry away.

He stilled. “No?”

He sat up, creating distance between us. Distance I resented.

“No,” I said, sighing because, of course, he would take it as a rejection.

A decent man always did, didn’t they? A woman said no, and they backed away with no question, no hesitation.

“No, I don’t mean… no. ” My heart beat in my ears as I grasped for the words that would not spoil this one infinitesimal moment of pleasure I was offered. “I mean that I’m not the same woman I was when you met me.”

I swallowed, afraid of what he might see in the sparse light. Would he see my scars? The bumps where my bones had not healed completely straight? Would he see the years of pain and pity me?

“I don’t take care of myself the way I used to,” I whispered, my cheeks flushed. “I’m not as pretty as I used to be.”

I shut my eyes, trying to get to the real pain point.

“I also don’t react the way I used to.” A tear slipped down my cheek already, and we hadn’t even done anything. “I might… I sometimes… When I get lost in the moment, I might…”

How could I even explain the panic and self-loathing I felt when I was pleasured? I’d sound like a madwoman.

“I’d rather you remembered me as I used to be. Not how I am now.”

When he wiped my tear away with his thumb, another came to take its place.

Cobra reminded me of what I had been, and how far I had fallen.

“I don’t look like a twenty-year-old buck either.” He brought up his free hand to wipe my other cheek, fighting the flow of tears. “And at my age? The idea of being with a twenty-year-old is a little off-putting, don’t you think?”

His face was shadowed in the darkness, making the cut of his high cheekbones. He was handsome. He always had been. But that look in his eyes? The affection that lived within those beautiful irises promised the world. I wanted the world I saw in his eyes.

He abruptly stood, went to the door and closed it, flipping the latch to lock it.

He stood at the side of the bed, just looking at me.

Then he bent down to unlace his black riding boots, pulling them off and tossing them unceremoniously on the thick rug.

He pulled his long-sleeved shirt over his head.

My mouth dropped open when broad shoulders gave way to perfectly defined pecs covered with a layer of white hair that traveled down the center of his abs, flanked by a perfect six pack.

The same trail of hair went down into his boxers, where I knew it led to his glorious member.

“I’ll stop anytime, baby. But I don’t think you want me to.” He smirked down at me as his hands went to his belt. I swallowed hard, feeling the creep of heat between my thighs.

I pressed my legs together, feeling the need for friction as a small gasp escaped my lips. He unbuckled his belt. The whoosh of leather on fabric sent a shiver of sweet anticipation through me as he casually slipped it from the loops in one, fluid movement.

Mon Dieu!

My eyes shuddered, as I watched him undress. My mouth was dry, my heart thumping with desire and more. I was drowning in desire.

In one smooth motion, his thumbs hooked the front of his trousers, popping the button and sliding it down his muscular thighs until they dropped to his ankles. He stepped out of them, toeing his socks off at the same time, before he walked forward, closing the space between us.

“Sweetheart.” His tongue darted out as he slowly, patiently, pulled down the blanket to expose my legs. “Still beautiful.”

There was truth in his gaze. His fingers, again, went to the hem of the shorts. His eyes looked between the two of mine, searching for something. Approval? Consent? Or was he looking for rejection? If he was, he’d find none.

“You’re beautiful.” I ached to believe his adoration. “I want you very, very badly. But I don’t want to do something you’ll regret.”

He pulled my shorts and underwear off of my legs, and he threw them on the ground to join the rest of his discarded garments.

“I won’t regret it.” I would. But I didn’t care. I wanted him.

“You will. You will if I hurt you. You will if I scare you.” He placed his palm on my hip, teasing the hem of my shirt before slipping his fingers beneath the fabric. “If you tell me to stop, I’ll stop. No questions asked. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand.” I was growing impatient. Was this part of his foreplay?

My eyes shuttered as his roughened palms grazed my skin. The sheer pleasure of his touch was enough to give me ecstasy.

“Give me your eyes, Princess. Look at me.”

Pleasure prickled along my skin, as I tried to comply. My eyes fluttered open, only to close again when his hand gripped my thighs to spread them apart.

“Baby, I need your eyes. I need you to look at me.”

I whimpered but obeyed.

“There you are. Keep your eyes on me. Your eyes will tell me before your lips if something changes in you. I need to know where your mind is at all times while we do this. Do you understand?”

“H-How… How can you know?” No one else had seen as much as he had. How was he able to see into my soul? “What are you looking for?”

“I’m looking for signs of…” He shook his head, and he shut his mouth, probably choosing not to tell me anything more. “Distress.”

He bent down, pulling up the hem of the shirt, exposing my abdomen to his gentle kisses. All the time, his eyes never left mine.

“I’m searching for signs of fear. Of you mentally checking out. Of PTSD.” His breath teased my core, drifting over my sensitive inner thighs. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

He kissed down to the faded stretch marks earned from carrying our child. He kissed each one, lightly grazing the flesh of his teeth before he moved further down, to the barely trimmed hair on my mound.

His fingers found their target first, lightly grazing my swollen clit as he moaned with pleasure, “So fucking wet for me.”

My thighs tensed in anticipation and desire as he grazed the tip of his nose down the inside of my thighs. He was scenting me, like an animal. It was primal, natural. The way he licked his lips was animalistic, raw, and made my core clench.

“Please!” I begged. “Please don’t make me wait anymore.”

The amusement in his eyes when he looked up at me was so alluring and so devastatingly lustful that my heart burst from my chest.

He tenderly, slowly, placed one finger at my entrance, then two. My chest rose and fell with my ragged breaths. I was so hungry for him. I was so devastatingly hungry that I thought I would burst into flames and burn to ash.

“God damnit, Cobra,” I complained, gritting my teeth when all he did was lightly press into me. “Don’t tease me anymore. Please.”

“Princess—” He bent down, and in one delicious movement licked up my pussy. “To you? I’m Joe.”

I screamed, my sensitive body responding to everything he was doing. He’d never been this controlled. He’d always been the first to give in to temptation and plunge in, reaching for his release. I used to love his eagerness. I loved teasing him, and toying with his lust. Now, he was paying me back.

In one, smooth motion, he put three fingers inside me, filling my insides as I clenched down, my body urging him further and further, needing more.

“Ah!” I brought the back of my hand to my mouth to silence my screams.

“Eyes, Teri!” His voice sounded frantic.

My eyes shot open and I looked at him. The panic faded as a smile tilted one side of his lip as his eyes hooded with desire.

“I need your eyes, baby. If I can't read your eyes, I have to stop. Do you understand?” His voice was heavy with lust. I nodded vigorously, and he grunted in response, before he plunged in. His tongue replaced his fingers as he groaned against my core.

I arched my back, barely remembering to keep my eyes on him as his fingers and tongue switched positions. With his fingers inside me, his tongue massaged my clit before he took it in his lips, lightly sucking on the small bud. My legs trembled.

“Joe!” My hands came to my hair, pulling at the root to create pain. Just a little pain to counteract the overwhelming pleasure that spread through my body.

My orgasm was swift, overwhelming, sending electricity from my pussy to every fiber of my being. Every part of me tensed and tensed, just to the brink of pain before the climax swept over me, relaxing every part of my body, and I fell limp on the mattress.

“No, no, no!” I whined as I sobbed, moisture streaming down my face in an embarrassing, blubbering mess as sorrow, shame, and fear overtook me, erasing the pleasure and filling it with guilt. “No! No!”

I wiped the tears away weeping like a child. Weeping like a pathetic woman.

“Fuck!” I said through gritted teeth, trying to turn from Cobra so he wouldn’t see my embarrassing reaction. “I’m sorry,” I whimpered. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry! I’m sorry.”

There was nothing in the world so perfect, so pure, so pleasurable that Teresa Louise Guerro could not ruin it.