Page 26

DENVER

She’s everywhere. Her taste on my lips, her scent in the breath I take, her hot body pressed up against mine.

“Sinclair,” I warn, the word muffled by her lips on mine.

She ignores me and wraps a hand around the back of my neck, pulling me closer. A breathy sigh passes from her to me as she keeps her soft kiss pressed to my lips. There’s no tongue. No movement. Barely anything other than her soft mouth against mine.

But barely anything feels like the whole damn world just shook beneath me.

“That ought to do it.” She pulls away, smiling triumphantly as she watches the taillights of Georgia’s truck drive away.

She turns back to me, rolling her eyes. “Come on. You can get your sex on with someone much nicer. I’ll help hook you up when we’re back in the city if you like?”

“Get my sex on?”

“Uh-huh.”

I slide my hand around her hip as she tries to walk away, turning her so she’s pinned in-between me and the side of my car.

She comes easily, used to me caging her in between my arms. I can’t seem to stop needing to do it.

She’s always putting us in situations where I have to fight to make her listen to me.

“Why would you do that?” I growl.

“Relax. Sullivan has a suite at The Lanceford especially for it. I know single guys might want to fuck but not date, I’ve got girlfriends who feel the same.

Like I said, I’ll hook you up. They’ll bring a smile to your serious face better than Georgia ever could.

” She pats my chest, humming happily like she’s pleased with herself.

“Fuck, Sinclair!” I slam my hand against the side of the car. “I meant you kissing me! Your father trusts me with you. Sullivan trusts me with you. What if other people had seen us?”

She shrugs, her face closing off like my words have struck a nerve. “Like who? Bigfoot?” She snorts. “It’s not like there’s many people around here.”

“That’s not the point. It’s my job to?—”

“Your job. Oh, here we go.” She throws her hands up. “I know. It’s your job to babysit me. Well, you’re welcome for me giving you a great excuse to cut ties with little Miss Bitchface. Maybe once we’re free of each other, you can find someone nicer instead.”

“When we’re free of each other?” I grit.

She averts her eyes from mine, wrinkling her nose. “No one saw us, and like I’d tell anyone I kissed you, either. Don’t be ridiculous. You’re worrying over nothing.”

She shoulders me out of the way, but I move in front of her, opening her car door for her before she can.

“When you’re with me?—”

“You do it! I get it!”

She plonks into her seat with a huff.

“No,” I correct her. “When you’re with me, I worry.

” I lean into the car and calmly take her seatbelt in my hand.

“I worry about you. About Monty. I worry about keeping you safe. Protecting you. If I stop worrying, then my guard could slip. And I won’t ever put you at risk like that.

So I’ll continue to worry, okay? I do it so you don’t have to. ”

“Because it’s your job since my father made it your job. I know,” she mutters.

“Because I worry, Sinclair.” I fix her with a look as I click the belt into place. “Because I’ve always worried about you, Since the first day I saw you, before we even spoke.”

She stares at me through the window as I close the door. I stare back, one hand resting on the roof as I exhale heavily, unable to make my feet move away from her to get back inside the car just yet.

Instead, I allow myself the indulgence of looking at her face and into her deep green eyes. It was that brightness I noticed the first time I met her. One that reached out and grabbed hold of me, captivating me in its beauty. Its brilliance. Making it hard to look away.

But it’s the sadness that’s been in them for the past two and a half years that’s made it impossible to look away.

“You’ve no idea how much I worry,” I murmur.

She frowns as I tighten my fist against the roof of the car before cursing and stepping back.

And I always will, Princess.

“Your hands are like mitts,” Sinclair says, hands on her hips as she surveys me fastening her sneaker for her again.

“I should get you some new ones, with Velcro,” I clip as I lace them tightly. They’re always coming undone. We’ve spent two more days training together, and I’ve needed to fasten them for her at the start of every session.

“Can you get gloves big enough?”

I look up at her from beneath my brows. “Gloves?”

“For your hands,” she muses. “If they got cold and fell off, you’d take out half of downtown.”

“Good job we’re out of the city then, isn’t it?” I stand and look at her. “You ready?”

“Yeah.” She shrugs. “But can we step it up a bit this time?”

“Step it up?” I frown. I’ve been getting her in all sorts of holds that she’s had to think about the best way to try to escape. I’ve kept them varied to help her understand it’s the thought behind her defense that’s important at this stage. Not the strength she uses.

“I mean, with the roleplay.” She twists her lips, muttering when all I do is stare at her. “It’s helping, it really is. It fuels my desire to punch your lights out.” She smirks, but it falters quickly. “But like… I know you’re going easy on me. You can be… worse, you know?”

“Worse?”

“Yeah, like… I don’t know. Grabbier. More realistic. Like you actually mean it.”

“Grabbier?” I arch a brow. “You want me to touch you more?”

She shrugs. “Yeah?”

I step closer until I can see her pulse fluttering in her neck. “Sinclair, if you want me to touch you in a certain way, you need to ask me to. And you need to be sure.”

“It’ll help me,” she says, lifting her eyes to mine. “What? You think it’s a bad idea? That I can’t handle it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but you’re thinking it.” She snorts. “Look, I know I can do better. I want to do better. But I need you to feed that part of me that responds to you.”

I run my tongue over my teeth as I look into her eyes. She’s got them narrowed in her usual defiance, but there’s also fear in there, pleading with me. Fear that I’ll say no and leave her alone and unprepared.

My chest burns with memories. Lifeless eyes. Blood on my hands.

The consequences of being unprepared.

“We do this, and we need a safe word. So if you’re really upset, I’ll know.”

“I won’t be. You can do whatever you like to me.” She lifts her nose, but sighs when I don’t back down. “Fine. Mine can be mitt. What’s yours?”

“What’s mine?”

“You need one too, for when I really hurt you and you can’t take anymore.” She curls her lips, waiting.

“Okay.” I nod. “Mine’s sneaker.”

“Is that because you can cry it more easily?” She smirks and takes a couple of steps backward, preparing for me to come at her.

“No. It’s because yours are undone again, baby.”

She looks down, and I take it as my opportunity to grab her, snaking one hand around her waist and placing the other against her throat.

“Cheat,” she spits, her windpipe pushing against my palm as I hold it.

“I told you; assholes don’t play fair.”

Her eyes burn into mine as I lift her like she weighs nothing and get her on her back beneath me within seconds. There’s no point escalating my attack slowly. We’ve done this so many times now, we get straight to it.

Only this time, I’m supposed to be ‘grabbier’.

I slide my hand over her hip, my thumb dusting over each rib as I inch higher toward the hem of her cropped workout top.

“Want to use that safe word yet?” I ask.

“Fuck you,” she spits, bucking beneath me.

I stroke over her thundering pulse with the hand that’s wrapped around her neck.

“Keep up the struggle, baby. It’ll make it more fun breaking you in.” I slide my other hand higher until the tip of my thumb grazes the underside of her breast through the thin material.

I pause, looking into her eyes as I wait for her to react.

She’s going to say it any minute. Mitt. She’s going to say it and then it’ll all be over.

She’ll race out of here, full of anger like she was the first time we crossed this line.

The last few sessions we’ve had have been tamer.

She’s right. I have stepped it down. I’ve held back, not wanting to push her too far.

Not wanting to face the consequences of what might happen if I did.

The way she might look at me after. Or worse, not be able to look at me at all.

We stare at one another, breath mingling. Her pupils dilate.

Then she bucks again.

“I’ll rip your dick off if you so much as touch me!”

My hand moves before my brain catches up, and I cup it over her breast, closing my palm over it, taking the weight of it in my grasp.

“Now there’s an invitation, baby,” I hum.

Sinclair fights me, clawing and scratching at my arm, pulling at my hair. But I don’t feel a thing except the way her nipple hardens for me beneath her top as I drag my thumb around it in circles.

“You wet for me too?” I ask, letting go of her neck and grabbing a handful of her ass and lifting her thigh so it wraps around my hip.

“Asshole!” she thunders as she slaps at my face.

I bury it into her neck, away from her attack, and kiss beneath her ear.

“Shall we find out, baby? I know that’s what you’re waiting for.”

Her nipple is so hard beneath my thumb that heat threatens to race to my dick. I force all thoughts of it away.

This is just roleplay. It’s what she wanted.

She bucks again, pressing her breast into my palm. “Get your dirty hands off me!” she yells as she delivers an impressive blow to my temple. I’ll have to commend her on that one when we’re done. She was so fast I didn’t have time to block it.

I squeeze her breast, pinching her nipple.

The next buck of hers has even more power behind it, and she manages to lift my weight off her a little.

She’s right. This does help her. She’s putting everything she has into it.

“Such a little fighter,” I muse as I snake a hand between our bodies and place it on her inner thigh, but not too close to where they join.

She could try and get the upper hand over me now. At this part of the attack, I would be distracted. Too lost in her, one hand groping her perfect, soft breast, the other inches from her pussy, to notice.

Come on, Sinclair. You can do it.

Her breathing quickens, and she shoves at my chin. She could go for my eyes or my groin. My throat. Somewhere.

But it’s like she’s lost, needing something to push her over, to give her that final boost. She grabs at my hair, completely missing an opportunity to hit me in the face as I straighten up and look at her.

“Asshole,” she says, her eyes burning.

I hold her eyes, wanting to tip her over that edge. Show her what she’s capable of.

I lick my lips. “You going to come on my cock as I fill you, baby?”

Her eyes narrow. She’s so close, I can sense it.

“You going to milk me dry with this beautiful cunt?” I stroke her inner thigh with my thumb, still keeping it away from the heat that’s seeping through her clothes.

She fights against me, still so close to overpowering me.

But close isn’t good enough.

Close won’t save her.

Come on, Sinclair.

Her lips part and blood fires through my veins like a shooting cannon, urging me to push her to her limit. To make her see that she’s capable and strong. Just like I’m always telling her.

I yank the neckline of her top down roughly, exposing her breast. Her nipple pebbles as the air hits it.

She gasps, but still doesn’t use her safe word. Her eyes drop to her breast, then back to my face, her lids hooding as I slide my hand up slowly and drag my thumb over her nipple, taunting her as I click my tongue.

“I think you like me touching you, baby. Admit it.”

“Screw you,” she hisses. “Your hands on me makes my skin crawl.”

She’s stopped fighting me. Her eyes are glued to where I’m cupping her breast and teasing her nipple.

But she has to remember what this is all for. She needs to be safe. I’d lay down my own life to protect her, but if there’s even a small chance someone could get to her, she needs to fight them with all she has.

I need her to be okay.

I need to push her to her breaking point.

“My hands?” I growl, holding her eyes as I lower my head toward her body. “How about my tongue?”

She watches me in silence as I move closer. She’s going to fight back any second. She’s going to stop me. I move painstakingly slowly.

Come on, Sinclair.

My lips brush her nipple, and her sharp intake of breath makes her chest rise, pushing the tip between them. I hold her eyes as I take it in my mouth… and suck.

Her eyes widen as an involuntary groan slips from the back of my throat. My grip on her thigh tightens, and I suck harder, rolling my tongue around the tip.

She stiffens beneath me.

Fuck, I’ve taken it too far.

“M-m…” she pants.

I pull my mouth from her, bracing myself for her scream.

The word that was meant to protect her from this. From me.

“Sinclair, I’m sorry, I?—”

But she’s screaming, drowning me out as she launches herself at me. I move back just in time before her fingers penetrate my eye sockets.

“M—!”