Page 20 of Into the Blue (Shades of Vengeance #1)
Wrapping my arms around her, I’m content with the fact that I can hold her without her wincing in pain. She turns her head just slightly, enough that I can see the corner of her mouth curve—not a smile, not really. Just a silent challenge.
“I never said that I didn’t want to be,” she says. I kiss the edge of her jaw, slowly making my way to her neck on the side of her tender shoulder. “Just that I shouldn’t be.” She doesn’t pull away.
“I would take out every single one of them,” I whisper into her skin, “just to see you safe with me.” Her breath catches with my words or my touch, I can’t tell.
My hand moves to her waist. We’re not talking anymore, not really. We’re hovering at the edge of something raw and deep.
If I can feel it, I know she feels it, too.
She doesn’t stop me when my fingers slip under the edge of her leggings. Our eyes on the path my hand is taking.
My middle finger grazes the little bud that’s already sensitive. “You’ve been missin’ me.” My finger slides lower to find her wet, not wet enough to take me, but slick enough to get there.
“You’ve been treating me like glass,” she exhales. My index and ring finger encase her lips and give me a little leverage in these tight pants to sink inside her. Her head tips back when I’m able to get to that second knuckle.
My nose drags along the curve of her neck, taking in the scent that is so Diamond that I’m taken back to that first night I had her in my hands. “You right.” I nod along her skin. “You like it when I make you shatter, don’t you?”
It’s impossible to go slow when I know what the answer will be, but I wait for her to tell me anyway.
“Yea, Blue,” she says and I waste no time sliding another finger in, too.
That tension in her back melts away as she gives into me. It’s soothing in a way that I could not have expected. Knowing that I’ll be giving her this moment of peace, that she expects the release I’m about to give her—priceless.
She may not be completely there, but I will show her that she can be soft with me.
I start working my fingers in and out while my other hand slides under her sports bra to find her stiff little nipple. She bites her lip, but the moan is still clear as day.
“That’s right, bae. Lemme hear you,” I whisper into her ear. “I want it all.” Something too dangerous to say out loud, but I say it anyway because it’s true.
“Mmh, what’s this?”
My teeth grind at the entirely unwelcome voice interrupting us.
Racquelle stiffens in my arms. Fuck . All that work to relax her and it’s gone. Evaporated into the air.
Now, I’m really pissed.
I let my hands slide away from her slowly as I summon patience. “What you want?”
He takes one step into the room, and I’m up out of my seat to keep Redd from coming in any further. I quickly adjust myself and hustle to the door.
I don’t care who it is, I don’t want anyone seeing my Diamond like this.
“Later,” I tell her and mean it. She nods before standing, tight ass on display in her leggings when she makes her way to the treadmill. Her shoulders roll back and a new mask of unaffected casualty resides where her undoing once was.
I fucking hate that even more.
“Called you a few times before I came, but you didn’t pick up.” I walk out of the room toward my office and my second follows me.
“I was busy.”
“If my honey was sitting up at the crib, walkin’ around in that, I probably wouldn’t be pickin’ up the phone either.”
“What?” Fuck . “Wassup?”
“You need to go talk to Colton. He is supposed to be keepin’ shit in line. If he’s not, then he needs to know that we aren’t cool wit’ it. We got those shrooms and wax coming.”
“What happened now?”
Redd walks over to the computer to pull up the information he’s talking about.
I take a seat on the corner of the desk, looking over his shoulder to see just what the fuck is going on.
“Multiple inconsistencies with the timelines. He was supposed to deliver on the last two late packages, today. He’s talkin’ some ra-ra bullshit and I’m thinkin’ he’s not cut out to lead like he said he could.
That was too big an upfront investment to allow some whenever-the-fuck delivery times. What the hell did we pay for?”
“You check his lines?”
“The best I could, which is really well. He hasn’t made any calls that would make it seem like he has any sort of foul play happenin’.
It’s the same guys and the same movements.
His truck is takin’ the same routes.” He shows me the map that tracks those routes and they all match the ones that have been laid out for them.
“If I go, it needs to be silent. I can’t move with the whole team. The last thing I need is for word gettin’ out that we have any weakness. Even perceived. Two men, max”
He nods. “You could be there tomorrow if you leave tonight.”
I look back toward the gym and grimace.
“She’s gonna be fine here.” My jaw ticks again. “Well the only people who know she’s here are top tier and security is tight on the premises. ”
“Double it.”
“For?”
“Her.” I’m not ready to leave her. I don’t want to leave her in my territory without me here. She will be protected by my best men. I’ll have eyes on her for the most part. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was scooping her broken body from the ground outside my warehouse.
It’s too soon, my heart and mind tell me.
Nothing’s more important than the money.
Fuck.
“It’s only a few days,” Redd reasons.
“I know.” I scrub a hand over my face. “Book the flight.”