Page 26 of Too Guarded to Love (Project VIPER #3)

N ic left Olivia speechless as he slid from the cart at the end of the tunnel.

Earlier tonight, when she’d brought up a deal, he’d been intrigued.

Once he learned it entailed proving the sizzling connection between them was just simple attraction, he couldn’t stop himself from conjuring naked, carnal ways to prove her theory.

And now, when she’d explained why she’d kept her identity a secret, not with excuses but from her heart, his defenses melted just enough to take a risk.

Even though he sensed she wasn’t sharing everything about her motivations at the beach, he yearned to know why.

Walking to her side of the cart, he noted the room number the soldier at the door assigned them to and reached for Olivia’s bag.

“Nic, the type of deal I had in mind was just a?—”

“Quiet.” He slung her bag over his shoulder and extended his hand.

She sat back and crossed her arm over the sling. “Is that an order too?”

Cocking an eyebrow, he tilted his chin toward the top of the door. “Do you want to have this conversation in front of the cameras?”

He ignored her huff as she took his hand and climbed out. With alert efficiency, born from years of training, he guided her through the tunnel exit and into a brightly lit hallway. Two left turns and another right brought them to a door marked “Suite A.”

He opened it and ushered her through. A small common room held a couch and a couple of recliners.

Two open doorways on the back wall led to a bathroom and a bedroom.

Nic nudged Olivia to the door on the left and tugged her in.

Inside, two beds, barely big enough for one person, stretched against the walls on either side of the room.

A footlocker sat at the base of each. A long desk with two chairs took up the area between them.

He dropped Olivia’s bag by the door and slammed it shut. Edgar had given him orders to stick with Olivia, and he planned to follow them to a T . “Now, about finishing what you started.”

“Nic, I…” She bit her lower lip. “I just wanted a kiss so we could realize once and for all that there’s nothing special between us.”

He backed her up against the door, careful of her arm.

“Good idea, but too bad for you because we’re going with the deal I’m offering.

” He didn’t care about Kane’s warning to stay away from his sister.

Maybe an orgasm would demolish his desire into so many particles it would be scientifically impossible for them to merge into a flaming lust storm again.

She’d be out of his life soon anyway. She clearly didn’t want any part of life inside VIPER.

“Nic, let me explain.”

He braced his forearms on either side of her head and bracketed her in. “Nope. You’ve explained enough.”

She didn’t retreat from his dominance, and that made him want her even more.

“You’re not being very charming.” She tilted her chin. “Or reasonable. ”

“That’s the thing.” He leaned close enough to feel her hot breath ghost over his lips. “I’ve been using my God-given charm all my life to survive. When it comes to women, I’m just playing along. They’re the ones that fall all over themselves to flirt with me. ”

“That should sound cocky. Why doesn’t it?”

“Because you know it’s the truth.”

“But you flirted with me. You called me a cute nickname.”

“Baby, there’s nothing cute about the kind of sirena you are.” He twirled a curl around a steel finger. The soft strands felt like a feather and looked like the sun on the darkest day. “You’re beautiful and dangerous and you’ve stolen my ever-loving sanity.”

He grazed his flesh-and-blood knuckles along the waistband of her jeans. His grin felt feral as she sucked in a breath. Even if they were ordered to Level Hell, he wasn’t leaving this room until he’d gotten Dr. Olivia Darren out of his system.

She glanced down as his fingers dipped into denim. “You suck at letting others lead.”

“No, I excel at letting others think they’re leading. As for the sucking part…” He scooped her up and carried her across the small room and deposited her in front of the desk. “I’ll initiate the execution of this deal like a gentleman and get on my knees.”

She snapped her head up. “Wait. What?”

“Silence.” He pressed a finger to her mouth. With a whimper he could barely hear, she opened her lips and touched her tongue to his steel. The sensation shook him harder than the garage explosion. “I mean it, Olivia. The only sounds I want to hear are your moans, begging for more.”

“I won’t beg for a deal I never agreed to.”

Denial had never sounded so sexy. “Oh, you will.”

He skirted his steel hand down her flat stomach and snapped open her jeans. Slowly, as if her brother might not be banging on the door any second, looking for either of them, he pulled the zipper down. Desire thrummed in his body as she shook beneath his hands.

“Nic.”

He dropped to his knees and hooked his fingers in her waistband.

“Quiet, baby. If you want to beg me to take these jeans off, a moan will suffice.” With a jerk, he yanked her pants down to her ankles.

“Christ, you’re wet.” He ran a finger over her silky panties.

The geometric pattern of jewel-toned blues and greens looked like a mermaid’s tail.

She shivered and pressed her core into his hand.

“Now that’s the way to beg a man without words.” He didn’t try to keep the triumph out of his voice. He wasn’t sure when he’d decided to turn the tables on her, or when this had become a challenge to drive her as wild as she’d driven him, but he wasn’t turning back. “Hold on to the desk.”

She gripped the edge as he pulled off her boots, jeans, and panties.

Her cooperation made him harder as he sat on his heels and stared at the beautiful mess before him.

Tiny drops of blood stained her pretty pink jacket, wild curls framed her face, and her arm hung in a sling as dark as the desire in her eyes. “Your shoulder okay?”

She opened her mouth but closed it just as quickly, as if she thought better of speaking. Instead, she nodded in answer.

“Good.” He rose and hoisted her onto the desk. Only then did he let himself focus on her bare pussy. The back of his neck buzzed along with every other part of his body. Whatever electricity existed between them crackled like the lightning over the water when they’d met.

Fisting his hands at his sides, he locked his gaze with hers.

The magnetism that pulled her to him snapped like a flag in the wind.

She jolted like she’d felt it too. “Listen to me, Olivia. There will be nothing charming or flirty about what I’m going to do to you.

You only speak if you can’t take the intensity. Understand?”

She nodded.

With her permission, he dropped to his knees again. The charge between them detonated as he dove in headfirst for his first forbidden taste that might destroy him.

Olivia bit the inside of her lip, but his name carried on a guttural moan anyway.

“Quiet.”

The command rumbled from his throat, his mouth inches from the pulsing spot she ached for him to touch as he grasped each of her knees and jerked them apart. Gripping her hips, he slid her to the edge of the desk and against his mouth.

The connection between them writhed like an electrified wire.

She half screamed, half moaned as his tongue charged at her clit.

Her desperate, animalistic sounds intensified with each fingertip he pressed into her thighs.

She didn’t notice which hand gripped her tighter, but the contrast of warm flesh on one side and cool steel on the other, both full of raw, carnal power, assaulted her like a well-trained stallion taking the bit—smooth, controlled, and aching to run.

Maybe she wasn’t above begging. Every part of her body, from her lips to her breasts and down to places so deep inside nobody had ever tapped, reeled from the onslaught and cried for his touch.

Growling her name, he shoved her legs wider and licked from the top of her slit down and back up again. Her muscles screamed as she shuddered against his mouth, the pleasure so intense a piece of sanity slipped away with each lap of his tongue.

She let go of the desk and reached for him.

He grabbed her wrist. “I said hold on.”

Dear Lord, only he could make an order she’d normally bristle at sound so charming. She gripped the table harder. Moisture glistened on his chin as she tilted her hips and a desperate sound purred from her throat.

“Good girl.” He dove back in and rewarded her pleas.

“Nic. Dear freaking God…” The first time he’d buried his face between her legs moments ago was an opening act compared to this main attraction.

He didn’t relent. He sucked and licked in all the right spots, driving her higher and higher.

There was no teasing. No playful edge. Nothing charming or smooth, but the wet, filthy sounds of his mouth lapping and sucking her pussy and her moans urging him for more.

Taking his time, as if the world above wasn’t coming at them with guns and bombs, he used his tongue to mark her from the inside out.

Like the car in the garage, he ignited a slow burn he controlled with just his mouth and appreciative moans that hummed inside her.

And like a charmer, he coaxed every incoherent plea.

Every spasm of her ignited muscles.

Every mark her fingernails left on the wooden desk.

He’d warned her about the intensity. Demanded she be silent just like she’d done to him at the beach.

Devious, sexy bastard.

He’d claimed he wasn’t a slick Casanova who tried his damnedest with the ladies, but he was going at her with everything he had.

Wasn’t she the luckiest girl in the world to be the one Nic Romero put his all into?

Right now, he needed to put something else into her before the most intense, almost painful pleasure she’d ever experienced drove her to madness and drowned her in sweet, satisfied oblivion.

She needed her strength and sense for when it was her turn to make him this obsessed.

This undone.

To make him beg, but for now, she was the beggar and didn’t mind one bit. “Permission to speak.”

He lifted his head and stood. “Denied, baby. Only begging under my command.”

His sultry words and the way he said “baby” with that damn accent yanked a whimper from her throat.

“Am I driving you as wild as you made me?” He held her gaze as he slid his hand under the makeshift sling and undid a button on her denim jacket.

She panted as her abandoned pussy dripped with need and cried for his attention. “Nic.”

He undid the last button and pushed the denim aside. His dark eyes turned almost black.

“Sirena.” He dipped his head to her bra that matched her panties and kissed her through the material.

Ripples pulsated through her chest, down her belly, and landed between her thighs. Her muscles contracted as she screamed for more. She grabbed his flesh-and-blood hand, no longer caring who was leading, and directed it to where it belonged.

Without reprimand, without hesitation, he plunged a finger inside of her.

Her scream caught in her throat as her eyelids closed.

Stars shattered into a million pieces behind them.

She shuddered. He gripped her hip and held her steady.

Steel bit into her skin. The pain somehow intensified the pleasure, like the two opposing sensations were as connected as she and Nic.

“Look at me, Olivia.”

She wrenched her eyes open and almost orgasmed at the untamed look on his face. The other women could have the flirty playboy. She’d been blessed with the unrestrained super soldier.

“Please.” She whispered the word so softly it didn’t qualify as speaking.

A satisfied grin tilted those lips as he crooked his finger inside of her.

A scream built in her throat. He clamped his hand over her mouth.

The sound of her pleasure echoed in her ears and flowed into his palm as he added another finger and thrust them in and out, somehow always finding a new sensitive spot she didn’t know existed.

Was that his superpower? Burning car doors and lighting women on fire until they melted under his touch.

“Fuck, Olivia. I felt your scream in my steel.” He pressed on her clit. “Do it again for me, baby.”

His name flowed from her lips in a muffled moan.

He clamped his hand harder against her mouth as he dipped his head to her collarbone and nipped her skin with his teeth. “Louder.”

With a curve of his finger, he hit the spot he’d quickly learned drove her wild.

Tears leaked from her eyes as she purred out a long, breathy groan.

He pulled his hand from her mouth and thrust it into her hair.

Before she could take a full breath, his lips crashed onto hers.

His tongue matched the harsh rhythm of his fingers as he pumped her pussy and strummed her clit.

Olivia panted, her heart beating against her rib cage as he broke the kiss.

His hand stilled between her trembling legs as he cupped her chin in his steel. “Tell me why you misled me at the beach.”

“I already told you.” She squirmed against his hand but couldn’t find friction. “Please, Nic. You’re driving me crazy. Make me come. ”

A wicked smile lit his face.

“You’re holding something back. I told you there’d be consequences you may or may not like if you weren’t honest.” He pulled his hand from between her legs and pinched her inner thigh. “If you want to come, answer one last question and I promise I’ll make you see stars.”