Hawk (Sex and Bullets Book 2) (16 page)

Accept we’re back where we started. Ignore my feelings for him.

It doesn’t matter. He needs my help—just like he did in the warehouse. Those brutal friends of his would probably hurt him worse if they tried to help him clean himself, and frankly the thought of another woman helping him makes me stomach roil.

Help him. Make sure he’s okay. And then see what to do next. We’re in hiding right now, and I don’t even want to think about where we go from here.

Besides, I’m dead on my feet, and I stink. I also need to clean up, and eat, and rest.

“Layla?” he rasps, lifting his head, gazing at me. His eyes are heavy-lidded. He looks drowsy.

Better get in there with him.

So ignoring the way my blood heats up at his steady gaze, at the glimpse of his strong, tall body laid out in all its bare glory in the clear water, I step away from the door and walk toward the tub.

As sacrifices go, it’s okay. This isn’t a hardship, not by any stretch, and yet… And yet my heart will let me know the price later.

***

He’s watching me. He doesn’t move a muscle, but his eyes glimmer under his pale lashes as I step into the warm water. I’m going slowly, slightly light-headed and afraid to slip, and his gaze glides over my curves like a hot caress.

I shiver, like every time when he’s around, my body responding to his without conscious thought—my breasts aching for his touch, a throb starting between my legs as I ease myself into the water.

That’s normal, I remind myself. It’s been like this from the start. It has nothing to do with any newly discovered, unreciprocated feelings. Feelings I need to get rid of.

I mean, he’s beautiful. His strong-jawed face with the high cheekbones and the pale beard, the blue-gray eyes, the blond hair trailing in the water.

He’s powerfully built, his smooth, inked chest a work of art, all sculpted muscles, with a six-pack to die for. His biceps bulge where he rests his arms on the rim of the tub, his long-fingered hands lax. My gaze returns to his chest and dip low to his flat stomach, and the pale trail that dips under the water to his cock.

It fills out as I watch, the piercings on the crown glinting through the clear water. My mouth goes dry.

Sex is fine. Sex
was
fine until recently. Strings-free, awesome, toe-curling sex with this rich, handsome man, a guy normally unavailable to normal, middle-class college girls like me. I should be flattered he even slept with me.

I was. I
am
.

Never mind. This isn’t helping.
Just put some distance between you. Guard your heart.

“Come here,” he says, his voice a low rumble sending goosebumps over my skin, and I move toward him as if pulled by a string.

I dunk my head underwater, surface again and slide against his side. His lips tilt up in a smirk, that hot gaze fixed on me, moving from my face down to my boobs and back up, lingering on my mouth.

“Gorgeous,” he breathes, and he reaches for me, slipping his hand over my hip, around the small of my back. Pulling me to him. His cock is now hard and thick, flushed dark, the silver piercings winking at me. The sight sends bolts of heat to my core.

“I’m supposed to help you clean up,” I whisper, not even sure why I’m resisting, trailing my fingertips over his tattoos. “And dinner is on its way.”

Why am I resisting? Don’t I know by now it’s a lost battle?

I want him inside me. Right now.

“Then clean me up,” he says, and I blink at him, his words taking their sweet time to sink in. One side of his mouth tilts up in a grin, and the sight of fresh blood welling on his split lip jerks me from my trance.

His hand is still on my back, over the curve of my ass, a burning hot presence that keeps my whole body aware of him, aroused and taut. My nipples are so hard they ache, and my pussy is clenching on nothing, but I force myself to turn and grab the soap and sponge set on the edge of the pool.

“You look too smug,” and truth be told, too aroused, “for someone who could barely stand upright ten minutes ago.”

“I’m not standing,” he points out, still smug as heck.

“Some parts of you are.”

“My dick missed you.” He grins widely now, leaning his head back on the tiles. “It says hi.”

“Hi,” I breathe, my mouth watering with the desire to lick him, close my lips around his girth, my hand around the base, and stroke him until he comes. I want to hear him moan and curse and cry out.

I want him so much. In more ways than he wants me.

And that’s all the reminder I need to focus on the task at hand. I mean, his dick missed me. And although that’s hot, so hot my insides clench with need, he’s obviously keeping his dick separate from the rest of him.

He
didn’t miss me.

Incredibly, tears sting my eyes, and I busy myself lathering the sponge with the sweet smelling white soap that seems to be made of milk and clouds.

What the hell, Layla? Stop with this crap. You’re not a child. You knew what you signed up for from the start.

Sex. Pure, exciting sex.

Not a happily ever after.

Besides, what’s to say what you feel is love? It’s post-traumatic stress syndrome, or something like that. This closeness, this connection you think you feel will fade soon.

You’ll see.

He says nothing as I lift the sponge to his chest, his eyes bright, his hand still holding me close. He makes no move to stop me, change this into something else. The Hawk I know—the Hawk I thought I knew—would have pushed me against the edge of the pool and buried himself deep inside of me by now, not asking.

I used to love that. I still do.

But he’s hurt, I remind myself. It’s not that he doesn’t want me, if his hard dick is any indication. He’s just letting me wash him.

And that’s a power play, too. Cleaning him up, running the sponge over his smooth, hard chest, over taut pecs and small nipples, is turning me on, and he smirks like he knows it.

I bet he knows it. He knows me, and my body’s reactions too well.

I turn more toward him as I pass the sponge over his shoulders, up his neck, along his arms. His muscular forearms are inked, too, text that curves around his taut flesh. One reads,
Vivo Ut Serviam
. The other
Ad Serviam Veritatem
.

I wonder what they mean.

Then my thoughts trail off again, because the sweet vanilla smell of the soap is not enough to cover his male musk. It’s pungent, spicy. It makes saliva pool in my mouth. It makes my skin prickle and my breath catch.

The sponge drops from my hand.

He catches it and lifts it to my chest. Runs it over my breasts. Over my oversensitive nipples. A moan catches in my throat.

“We can clean each other up,” he says and drags me against him, his dick throbbing between our bodies, the piercings hard pinpricks pressing into my skin. “I think it’s fair.”

I swallow, my mind fuzzy, not sure if this is a dream or reality. The walls are white, the ceiling high, the light faintly yellow, coming from recesses in the walls. The tiny gray tiles of the floor around us gleam, the same under our feet at the bottom of the huge tub.

And he’s here, his beard and hair dark with water, his eyes shining with desire, his big, strong body flush with mine.

“You know…” he says, running the sponge leisurely over my boobs, and God, can I come just from that? I squirm against him. “I’ll need more help.”

“You will?” I barely recognize my own voice, so thick with excitement.

“Uh-huh. Can’t bend over to reach between my legs.” The sponge trails away from my boobs, passes over my shoulders, first the one, then the other. It trails back down, circling one nipple, then the other.

“You can’t, huh?” Holy crap, what is he doing to me?

“Nah. Need you, babe.”

He means nothing by it, I remind myself, my breath tripping as he brushes the sponge lower, under the water, down my belly. It’s just about sex.

“You need me, too,” he says, and the sponge moves lower, touching my mound.

“Ugh.” Can’t form coherent thoughts, not when the roughness of the sponge rubs lower, spreading my legs, brushing… oh Lord, brushing over my clit, and I tremble.

“Was that a yes?” He steadies me with one hand on my waist as the other slithers the sponge down my seam, setting off small explosions of pleasure. “Do you need me?”

Not sure what he’s asking. Too much seems hidden between the words, and I’m shaking, my body poised on an edge I didn’t realize I had reached so fast, just from his light touch and his words. His nearness, and his heat.

“Say it,” he commands me, the sponge traveling back up, drawing circles over my swollen clit, and I whine, clutching at his arms so hard I have to be leaving bruises. “Say it, Layla.”

“Need you,” I gasp. “God, yes.”

“That’s my girl,” he whispers, but there’s something different on his face, a flash of fear and vulnerability, there and gone in a flash. “I’ll make you come. You’re so close, aren’t you?”

I can’t speak. Can barely breathe as he moves the sponge up, down, up, down, torturing me, encouraging me to ride on it and let it consume me.

“Can you feel it?” he whispers. “How you’re losing control?”

I’m so worked up right now, I think a word or a touch can set me off.

So of course, with impeccable timing, a woman’s voice says from behind me, “Your dinner, sir, ma’am. I’ll just place it here.”

A clink and a swish, and steps clapping away.

Oh. My. God.

I freeze. Even pressed up against Hawk like this, not showing much of my body, I’m mortified, because it’s obvious what’s going on here.

Hawk chuckles.

“Oh God,” I moan.

“Did you like that?” he asks.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

But of course I know what he’s saying. That I liked being watched. And it’s… No, I didn’t like it! I’m ashamed. Humiliated. I’m not an exhibitionist—so why does my pussy throb like mad, even worse than before?

“Have you wondered,” Hawk whispers, “what would have happened if she’d walked in a moment later and saw you riding me? Your gorgeous tits bouncing as you rode my cock, my hands palming them, pinching your nipples? If she walked in on you screaming my name as you came, or as I came, slamming into you again and again?”

Holy frigging hell.
This image… it’s too much.

I come hard, moaning out loud at the burning pleasure, my body shaking, my nails digging into his arms as I clench again and again.

“That’s what I thought,” he says and sounds pleased.

***

The food is delicious. The soup is just the right balance of sweet and salty and sour, the chicken melts on my tongue. We’re turned on our sides, one elbow on the ridge of the tub, eating from the tray.

“Do you do that often?” I ask, slowing down finally, having inhaled practically everything on my plate. Well, there’s some potato left, and I take one more bite.

“Do what?” He’s chewing on his chicken, a muscled arm propped on the ledge, the muscles in his bare chest rippling as he lifts his hand to his mouth. He licks his lips, and God, how can I want more, want him inside me when I’ve just come not ten minutes ago?

“Show off the girls you bring to your penthouse or country house to your housekeeper or your butler, or whatever the hell you have?”

He grins and snorts. “Oooh. Lay is pissed.”

My face aflame, I bite my lip, because he just called me Lay, and I like it too much. Not Hot Body, or Doll, or Babe.

Lay.

He licks his fingers, and I’m distracted again, imagining them in my mouth, on my skin, inside me—

“To answer your question, I don’t.”

I blink, trying to catch the end of our conversation thread. “Don’t show them off?”

“I don’t bring girls to my penthouse or country house or anywhere else.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Okay.” That explains why I never visited those places, either. “You’re afraid of what the tabloids will say?”

“No, I just don’t care for them enough to bring them into my home.”

Oh. I see.

The sting in my chest is back. He never showed me his home. Never cared enough for me. I’m just one of those girls he fucked.

“Hey.” He puts his finger under my chin, tipping it up. “What’s wrong?”

Everything’s wrong. Well, apart from his hot body close to mine. Right now, that’s the only thing that’s right in the world.

“Nothing.” He frowns, and I know it won’t fly. “Can’t wrap my head around all that’s happened, you know? My dad. The Organization. Finding you there, tied up. I just…” I bite my lip. “Sometimes I think I’m dreaming, and it’s not a good dream.”

He pushes his plate away and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. I swear, most times he acts rather like a truck driver rather than a rich playboy.

I kinda like that.

I kinda like a lot about him.

I like it when he grabs my arm and hauls me to him, a wicked gleam lighting up his eyes.

“I can help you forget,” he says.

He can. Nobody else has that power. “It won’t make what happened go away.”

Any of it.

“We’ll deal with what happened. Later. Together.”

Now he’s distracting me for real.

Together.

But again I’m reading things where there’s nothing to read. Of course we’ll deal with it together. Because of my stubbornness, I got mixed up in his mission, and now I’ll have to deal with the fallout with him. The police will want to interrogate me again. Sandivar and his thugs are after me, too.

That doesn’t mean Hawk wants anything else from me.

I try to pull away.

He dips his head to my neck, licks a hot line up to my ear. “Where are you going?”

Nowhere, it turns out, not when he nibbles on my earlobe, turning up the heat once more. Not when he uses one talented hand to fondle my boobs and torture my nipples until they burn.

Not when he trails his hand down to my pussy and pushes two fingers inside me, groaning as he does so, the sound sending a bolt of crazy lust down my spine.

And especially not when he replaces those fingers with his thick, hard cock, pushing into me slowly, so slowly, stretching me, filling me up, the barbells stroking me in all the right places.