Above Protection (Imperfect Heroes Book 1) (16 page)

“Fuck,” he said, eyeing my white lace
panties.

I grinned, wondering what he would say
when he saw the bra I wore, since it matched the underwear. I saved
him the trouble and pulled off my white tee, tossing it on top of
the growing pile on the floor.

His eyes trailed up my body, and as if
his hands had minds of their own, he reached up and used his finger
to trace the outline of my breasts, which were straining against my
bra. When his thick digit wandered into the valley between them, he
smiled in satisfaction when he saw the clasp was in the front. With
two fingers, he flicked the plastic apart and the bra popped open,
freeing me with a bounce.

His mouth came down on my neck as I
shrugged out of the bra, which also found its way to the floor – I
think. I couldn’t be sure. Whatever he was doing with his warm
mouth had me deliciously distracted.

With his huge body pressing down on
me, I wrapped both bare legs around his waist. His mouth reached
mine and with a hard, desperate kiss, he lingered there for a few
seconds, then pulled back, staring into my eyes. The look in his
was wicked. Desperate. Aroused. Determined. Admiring.

I grinned a little and wiped my wet
lips with my index finger. “What are you looking at,
Cowboy?”

His passionate blue gaze flicked back
and forth between mine, but I refused to give up and look away.
Finally, after a long, thick silence, he said, “I’m gonna need to
spank you now.”

There was no way from keeping eyes
from widening in surprise. I couldn’t even process what he’d said
before his body lifted off of mine. Kneeling on the bed, he grabbed
both ankles and flipped me over like a pancake. I landed on my
stomach, giggling because I just couldn’t help it. I tried to
recover by pushing up on my knees, but no sooner had I done that
when I heard a chuckle from behind me. He reached up and slid my
panties off, throwing them over his shoulder.

With the flats of my palms on the bed,
I peered around to my protector to see him up on his knees, pulling
the belt from around his neck, a frighteningly wicked grin on his
face as he slowly ran the belt over the palm of his meaty hand. I
swallowed hard.

“Um, what are you going to do with
that?”

He chuckled and folded it loosely in
half. Without a word, he gently smacked it against my bare ass
cheek.

OOH.

I thought that would hurt. I grunted
and smiled, and thinking about a book I’d just read, I decided to
have some fun. “Is that all you got, Master Duke?”

One dark eyebrow reached his hairline
and he stroked the belt again. His jaw pulsed as he stared at me.
“No.”

Releasing the belt from its folded
position, he reared it back, his hand in the air, and I got a
little scared. I stiffened in anticipation for the whack. His eyes
drilled into mine, seemingly asking for permission, and I chewed my
lip and nodded slightly.

He unleashed the belt onto the other
butt-cheek and while it stung a little, I was incredibly turned on.
I’d never experienced anything like this before. Admittedly, when
I’d read about this sort of thing in books, I didn’t think I could
get into something like that, but it had intrigued me nonetheless.
And even though Duke came off as a hard-ass, I thought for sure
he’d be a big teddy bear in the bedroom.

Yes, I’d thought about what kind of
animal he’d be in the bedroom, and Duke the Dom wasn’t the one that
came to mind.

His warm hand massaged my bottom where
he’d whacked it, and it felt so good, I groaned. He slowly slid his
hand to the center, and I squealed when one hot finger pressed hard
against me, then ran the length of my slit, his finger sliding
easily over the wetness. My eyes opened when he pulled away. Still
on all-fours, I turned around to see him put his finger to his
mouth, but then he suddenly froze.

Eyes widening, he looked at his
finger, then at me. Using his hands, he pushed my ass down,
flattening me on the bed, then he flipped me back over. “Wait…
aren’t you on your, on your, your monthly… thing?”

His face was already red with arousal,
but I chuckled when it almost turned purple.

“No,” I breathed, trying not to
dissolve into a fit of giggles.

“But you said you needed more… stuff…
today…”

At the risk of ruining the mood, I
quickly fibbed. “I was mistaken. It’s gone. Been gone, false
alarm.”

He grinned again and nodded – in
relief, I’m sure – and straightened up to his knees. Pulling open
the button to his jeans, he ran the zipper down and before he could
lower the denim over his hips, I sat up quickly and used both hands
to lower them. I saved us both the trouble by taking his navy blue
boxer briefs along with them. When he sprung free in my face, I
gasped. Yanking the pants down to his knees, I put both hands on
his rock-hard thighs and smoothed my palms up them, avoiding his
scar, until I reached his hips. Wrapping my mouth around his
impressive length almost came naturally. He filled me all the way
up and the way he groaned in the back of his throat turned me on.
His hand threaded into my hair and he gently grabbed at the scalp
while his other hand rested on my shoulder. I was relieved that he
didn’t try to control my head, because really – no woman likes
that.

I pulled off, licked the stickiness
from the tip, then went back down, my lips gripping with as much
suction as I could manage. Moving my right hand to the base, I used
it to follow my mouth to the tip and back down again.

“Fuck, woman. You need to
stop.”

And I did. I halted immediately and
looked up, blinking at him in question.

“Shit. Don’t look at me like that with
my cock still in your beautiful mouth.”

I pulled off of him, satisfied at the
look of lust which hooded his eyes. He reached into his back pocket
and pulled out his wallet. He yanked a condom from it, and then
tossed his wallet and pants onto the floor after wiggling the rest
of the way out of them.

He used one hand to lay me back, my
head on the pillow. I watched with my breath held as he swooped
down onto me, his hardness pressing into my thigh. His lips found
my neck and he kissed up to my jaw, across my cheek, then they
found my mouth. I gripped his hair as our tongues got to know each
other again. I gasped into his mouth as his fingers reached down
and touched me. He slid them up and down, finally shoving two into
me and moving them slowly in and out.

He continued to kiss me, but I could
barely breathe.

His fingers didn’t stop. In fact, they
moved faster until I was breathing so hard I thought I might pass
out. Pulling his fingers out, he pressed down hard on my sensitive
center. I pulled out of the kiss to scream as the first wave of
pleasure hit me. Stars exploded behind my closed lids, my hips
bucking as his fingers worked fast, pushing on me, pushing in me,
then out again, my walls clamping around them.

“Damn, girl,” he breathed into my ear,
but I barely heard it.

I opened my eyes slightly to see him
rolling the condom on. Then suddenly the weight of his body was
between my thighs. I felt myself being stretched like never before
as his hips met mine and he slid all the way home.

“Oh, fuck,” he breathed again in my
ear.

He began to move. I began to move. I
met him thrust for thrust, our hips meeting then pulling apart,
then back together again. Duke used one hand to push my left knee
to the side as far as it would go as he plunged into me. I began to
pant harder when I felt myself building again.

His body was doing things to mine I
had never experienced. This definitely wasn’t my first time, but it
was the first time I’d felt something so simultaneously intimate
and animalistic.

Duke’s mouth found mine again, and in
a gesture that surprised me, he reached down and threaded his
fingers through mine, bringing them both up next to my head as he
continued to move in and out of me, moaning and breathing with each
and every push, increasing in speed. Soon, I was clenching around
him again, the explosion hitting me sooner and harder than I
anticipated. I yelled again, gripping his hair. “Duke! Oh, God,
please…”

“Yeah, baby,” he whispered in my ear,
“release it all on me, sweetheart.”

I was still riding my wave when his
whole body went hard and still. His cock pulsed almost violently
while I still clenched him, freeing all his tension and anger into
me. He growled and groaned between breaths, finally relaxing his
head into the crook of my neck.

We lay like that for a few minutes, my
fingertips running up and down his back, his hand still holding
mine next to my head.

Finally, he rolled off of me and got
up and left the room without a word.

Chapter 19

Duke

Walking as quickly as I could to the
bathroom, I flung open the door and closed it behind me. I
discarded the condom into the toilet and flushed it, knowing I
probably shouldn’t do that, but not giving a crap about that at the
moment.

I braced both arms on either side of
the porcelain sink and stared at my reflection. My dark hair was
sticking up in the front near my forehead, and some in the back
where her hands had been pulling, raking, clenching. My cheeks were
beet-red, and my eyes bloodshot. I was still trying to catch my
breath.

“What in the hell are you doing, man?”
I growled to my reflection.

If I looked closely, I could see him
grinning back in conquest. I smacked the palm of my hand on the
sink and raked a hand over my chin, shaking my head at
myself.

As I was slowly coming down from my
lusty high, my mind began to clear a little. Having sex with
Rayanne was wrong on so many levels. I could lose my job. I could
compromise her safety if I was distracted. I could break her
heart.

Or she could break
mine.

Nah, not gonna happen. There wasn’t
much left behind the wall of muscle on my chest to
break.

I used the toilet then took a deep
breath before opening the door and walking back into her room.
Cautiously peeking my head in, I saw her lying curled up on her
side, the covers pulled up over her chest. I stared at the blonde
hair splayed over the pillow and stood silently watching her for a
few minutes. She didn’t move or stir, and I gazed at the steady
breathing of her chest and back. I was now faced with a decision:
Crawl in with her, or go back to my room – where I belonged? Her
warm body looked so inviting, but this whole thing was just wrong.
The situation – what we’d just done – should not have happened. But
who was I fooling? It’s not as if it just happened, is it? We’d
been flirting since the day we met. Well maybe not the first day,
but she’d been putting out vibes, and shit, I probably was too. How
anyone could not want her would be beyond me. I’m still shocked she
wasn’t married, or at least had a boyfriend. Well, I guess she
could have one, but she never mentioned anyone.

Knowing what the right decision was, I
carefully crept in, gathered my clothes, and left her room,
flipping off the light and closing the door with a quiet
click.

Once back in my room, I threw on a
pair of boxers and a T-shirt and crawled into the cold bed and
stared out the window. I should be sleepy after that, but my mind
wouldn’t shut off, and I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be getting
much rest tonight.

I woke to the smell of coffee and
regret. Or was it guilt? Was there a difference? I wasn’t sure, and
was tired of analyzing it. It was time to man the fuck up and go
out to the kitchen and face the music. I slipped on my track pants
and went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I always had to brush
my teeth right when I got up.

As I wandered into the kitchen, she
sat at the dining table, sitting sideways in the wooden chair and
sipping coffee. She seemed to be staring at nothing. She briefly
looked up at me when I walked in, our eyes locking for the briefest
of seconds until she looked away again. I was trying to think of
how to interact with her. What I wanted to do and what I probably
should do were two different things. I tried to think of how I’d
handle this situation if she were one of my randoms, like Tish, but
quickly got rid of that idea. She’s not some random piece of ass
and never would be. I had slept with her because I wanted to,
because I needed to, because I couldn’t help it, even though my
brain knew better. It had just come naturally, I realized, but now
I didn’t quite know what to do with that.

Still, it had been something more than
just lust but I was too tired to continue to try to analyze it. I
splashed some coffee into a mug and sat at the table.

“Good morning,” I said, making
cautious contact.

She lifted eyes to me and I could
swear I saw something in them. Sadness? Fear? Anxiety? Before I
could ask her what was going through her head, she said, “Duke, I
think someone was looking in the window this morning.”

I followed her gaze to the front
window in the living room, where last night we had been slowly
seducing each other with a dance before moving to her room. I had
stupidly forgotten to close the blinds on them last night. I
swore.