She shook her head at his lack of response. "I know that look. She won't be the 117
only one left with scars, will she, Mr. Steele?"
"No," he finally answered her softly. "She won't be alone, Miss Maple." He moved away from her and left the shop to check the work the boys had done. As he moved out, they went in, eyeing him suspiciously as they did so. They were men; they knew he wouldn't be questioned where their sister was concerned, just as they knew that he was an entity to be wary of. He'd never harm Mikayla, but if her brothers got in the way of his protecting her, then God help them.
God help another living soul that dared to hurt her again.
He was sick and damn tired of people picking on his fairy.
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Chapter 12
People saw her as a pushover, and Mikayla knew it.
As she stepped from the shower that night, dried, and dressed in a long cotton nightgown and robe, she admitted she might well be too damned nice. Even Nik treated her with kid gloves. There was a difference between needing to be protected from a killer and needing to be protected from life. She had no desire to be protected from life. She wanted to live life, experience it. She wanted to laugh and she wanted to love, and if that meant getting her heart broken, then she wanted that, too.
She'd had plans, she admitted. Plans to be a virgin on her wedding night, plans to wear her white dress, but those plans had changed. She had a very bad feeling there was every chance Nik wouldn't be sticking around for a white wedding. Not because he was a heartbreaker. Not because he had any desire to hurt her, any desire to spoil the plans she had made. Because the darkness inside him might not allow him to love with the same need, the same intensity, as Mikayla could allow herself to love with.
Moving through the house, she was aware of Nik in the living room sitting on the edge of the couch as he cleaned his gun at the coffee table.
He had done that the night before when they left the bed for a snack. While Mikayla made sandwiches, he had cleaned his gun. He took exceptional care of his weapon.
"I ordered pizza," he called out as she moved for the fridge. "It arrived a few minutes ago."
She had to admit, she hadn't been looking forward to cooking at midnight.
"It's a good thing I'm not on a diet," she muttered as she poured herself a glass of sweet tea and moved into the living room.
Sure enough, a pizza box sat on the end table next to the recliner, along with several paper plates.
Mikayla made short work of a slice, sipped at her tea, and watched Nik finish cleaning the gun.
He'd showered as well.
His hair was nearly dry, fanning around his face as he bent his head to his task and carefully put the weapon back together.
"What are you doing tomorrow?" she asked as he laid the weapon aside.
"I'm heading to the job site to talk to the new foreman and a few of Eddie Foreman's friends. There has to be a reason someone wanted him dead; I just have to figure out what that reason is."
"What have you learned so far?" She knew what he had learned, the same thing she had. Not a damned thing.
"Just a few rumors." He sat back on the couch and stared at her thoughtfully.
"Foreman wasn't well liked by a lot of people. I called your friend. He gave me the same 119
information he gave you, but I haven't been able to verify it, or find Steve Gainard."
"Steve's out of town," Mikayla stated before breathing in deeply. "For a man so unliked, no one wants to discuss Eddie."
"We'll see." Nik shrugged. "I have a few more leads to follow."
"I'm going with you." She straightened her shoulders and stared back at him in determination. "Deirdre has dared me to come back to the store until this is taken care of."
"No. You're not." Steel encased his voice as he watched her with warning, icy eyes. "You're in enough danger, Mikayla; I won't allow you to compound it. Your brothers will be at the store with you tomorrow, and you'll do as you've been doing; you'll work in the back room. I'll pick you up myself once I get another vehicle tomorrow and begin taking you to work and back myself."
"No, you will not." She surged to her feet. "I won't like that, Nik."
"Then you'll die," he growled as he came to his feet as well. "And that's not an acceptable trade as far as I'm concerned. You'll only endanger yourself further by going with me."
"It's my business and my life." Her arms went across her chest as she lifted her chin.
She was going to help him; it was that simple.
"No."
She wasn't going to do anything of the sort, and it was that simple. The very thought of Mikayla putting herself that much closer to danger was enough to send terror racing through him. It simply wasn't going to happen. Even if he had to tie her to her office chair and release her himself at the end of the day, it wasn't going to happen. Damn, she was stubborn, though. He could see that militant little light in her amethyst eyes, the determined angle of her chin, the pure fire in her eyes. His cock, already rock hard and engorged, seemed to thicken that much more and ached with a hunger he wondered if he would ever sate.
He had tried to tell himself throughout the day that he had a job to do here and that job did not include rolling around the bed every chance he got with Mikayla. His imagination proceeded to place her on the kitchen counter, the couch, the coffee table, wherever he could get to her, if the bed was such a problem.
"You can't just tell me no," she stated, incredulity coloring her voice. "This is my life, Nik, and it's my problem. I was the one shot at three times already and I'm the one who will die if this isn't fixed."
"I won't let you die." The ice in his eyes was replaced by fire just that fast. Before the words left his lips he had crossed the distance between them, his hands gripping her arms as he glared down at her. "That's why you will not be going, Mikayla."
"I won't accept--"
Before she could finish the sentence her mind was being blown by a kiss that stole her breath and her senses.
This kiss was unlike any he had given her yet. It was a full-blown sex act, a hungry devouring of her lips and tongue by his own as he pulled her closer against his body and intoxicated her on the white-hot heat of his kiss.
There were no allowances for innocence with this kiss. There were no excuses made for the hunger that began to sizzle and burn between them. 120
There was definitely no permission asked as he untied the belt to her robe and pushed it from her shoulders and lifted her in his arms, turned, and sat down in the large chair.
Mikayla would have been shocked if she had been given the chance. Nik pulled her over him until she was straddling his lap, the sensitive mound of her sex pressing against the hard wedge of his cock as it strained beneath the cotton sweatpants he wore. This was pure, unadulterated lust with a little old-fashioned dominance thrown in on the side. Well, maybe more than a little. This was complete dominance. Her ass cheeks flexed in his palms as he cupped them, pulling her closer, grinding her against the throbbing flesh pressing between her thighs and sending her clit into a complete overload of sensations. The little bud swelled instantly, coming to full blazing, aching life and demanding satisfaction.
Beneath her hands his bare chest rose and fell swiftly as his lips slanted across hers, his tongue stroking against hers as Mikayla threaded her fingers through his hair and held on for the ride.
One of these days, she thought, she'd have the experience, the knowledge, to destroy his senses just as effectively. Until then, she would greedily take every kiss, every caress, and learn from it, even as she reveled in it.
And reveling in it she was.
Her thighs tightened on his at the feel of his calloused palms pushing beneath the hem of the gown and pulling it upward, sliding it from her body until her arms lifted and he tossed it away as though it didn't matter.
He didn't pause in his attack against her senses. Not Nik. He was a man who knew exactly what he wanted and how to attain it. An
d he was definitely attaining it now. His lips drew back from hers as his hands moved to her shoulders, bracing her as his lips moved down her back, heading swiftly to her breasts. Tremors shook her body as pleasure began to suffuse it. Like a flame beneath her skin, consuming her entire body, shards of sensation began to sizzle and electrify. The velvety feel of his lips moving over the curve of one breast had her shaking. Fingers of electric impulse were shooting straight to her womb, clenching it in need and dragging a cry from her throat as his tongue stroked over one nipple enticingly.
"I could devour you." His voice was a growl of pure hunger. "I swear to God, every time I touch you it's like being burned by pleasure." She was going to melt like butter all over him. The sound of his voice, the stroke of his lips and tongue over her nipple, and the eroticism of his words combined to have her juices flowing and dampening the silk of her panties. Her vagina clenched in hungry need and she swore her nipples tightened further.
"Then devour me," she whispered, the ache in her voice unmistakable as she watched him.
His lips were poised over her nipple, his hard bronzed face dark with lust, with need.
If only it were simple lust and nothing more, she thought. But she saw more, and ached to understand what the emotion in his eyes meant.
His lips quirked before he bestowed a suckling kiss on the sensitive tip of her breast, causing her to catch her breath in excitement.
"You like the pleasure, don't you, baby?" His cheek rasped against the curve of 121
her breast as his lips lifted from her nipple. "Sweet little innocent." The stroke of his hands down her spine to the upper curve of her buttocks had her inhaling in anticipation.
Of course, Nik didn't miss the reaction, she thought in dazed excitement. His fingers began to play there, drawing circles, the blunt tips of his nails raking against her skin as she shuddered in reaction.
"I'm going to take you right here," he promised her then. "I'm going to drive my cock up that sweet pussy, Mikayla, while my fingers play in other ways." One finger traced the narrow cleft of her rear to her thighs.
Mikayla cried out in sensory overload as he chose that moment to cover her nipple with his lips. His teeth rasped it gently; his tongue stoked and laved. He sucked the tender bud into his mouth, drawing on it with heated destruction as Mikayla lost even the ability to process thought.
She felt her panties tear. He didn't bother taking them from her, he just ripped them from her body, and she swore she almost came from the excitement of the act. Mikayla couldn't retain even a semblance of control where her responses to him were concerned. Each touch had adrenaline racing through her bloodstream, spurring the need for more, making each touch a bounty of pleasure.
Her hands stroked along his shoulders as he sucked at first one nipple, then the other, drawing it into his mouth, laving it with his tongue, setting fire to her womb with each draw of his mouth.
Anticipation began to thunder in her head as she felt his fingers move between her thighs. She thought he would release the heated length of his erection, thought he would take her then, ease the burning pain for his possession.
Instead, his fingers cupped between her thighs as his head pulled back, his lips releasing her nipple as he stared down at her.
His fingers stroked inside the slick, soaked folds of her flesh. They glided through the moisture, eased back, flicked over the hungry opening, then stroked against her clit with near-devastating results.
"How sweet and hot," he crooned. "You make a man want to burn inside you, Mikayla."
Burn, burn, she chanted silently as her hips moved as though on their own, pressing against his fingers and demanding more.
"Is this what you want, baby?" One finger pressed high and hard inside her, filling her with a sudden fiery ecstasy that had her back arching, his name falling from her lips. Oh, God, that was what she needed.
The rasp of his finger against tender, sensitive nerve endings was nearly more than she could bear. It felt as though electricity were surging inside her, searing her.
"Ahh, you do want that," his voice rasped, approval and hunger thickening the tone. "Do you want more, Mikayla?"
He gave her more. A second finger joined the first, pressed inside her, stretching her, burning her with the sensations as she gasped, her hips grinding down on the penetration.
It was exquisite. The feel of his fingers moving inside her, stroking her, parting the tight muscles, and finding hidden little nerve endings that had known no touch but his.
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His thumb stroked around her clit, the roughened pad an intense friction that kept her hovering on the edge of release. Surging white-hot fingers of sensation were attacking her nerve endings, sizzling through her clit, her vagina, screaming in silent demand at the feel of his fingers stretching her apart.
She tightened on the invasion inside her, perspiration dampening her flesh as the heat surging through her body began to consume her.
She couldn't hold back her response; she didn't want to hold it back. She wanted to lose herself in him, in the pleasure.
Forcing her lashes open, she stared back at him, her body jerking at each surge of pleasure that rocked through her. Each thrust of his fingers inside her body.
"What you do to me," she whispered breathlessly. "I love it, Nik. I love what you do to me."
His expression tightened, his fingers reaching higher inside her, where he paused, stroked, and forced a cry from her lips at the incredible sensations that raked through her womb.
"There, pretty girl," he groaned, the hand that gripped the side of her rear moving until his fingers slid into the narrow crease. "There you go; just let it feel good." All kinds of good.
Mikayla shuddered as the hand at her rear changed course, moved, and seconds later she felt the hard, naked length of his cock pressing against her thigh.
"Come here, sweetheart." His fingers slid free.
One hand gripped her thigh, the other the hard length of his erection as he tucked it against the entrance of her body.
"Ride me, Mikayla. Take me, baby, however you need me." However she needed him. She needed all of him, wild and uncontrolled. Breaking that control wouldn't be easy, though. It wouldn't happen tonight. Tonight, though, she would know the pleasure.
All the pleasure. Controlling it, taking it, relishing it.
Lowering herself, Mikayla felt her lashes flutter uncontrollably at that first fiery, stretching entrance.
The feel of the engorged crest pushing inside the tender flesh burning as it parted sensitive tissue and caressed once-hidden nerve endings with exquisite force. She moved on him slowly, taking him by increments as she watched his face. The way his eyes narrowed, the flush that bracketed his cheekbones, the harsh, tight lines his expression morphed into.
Savage hunger glittered in his eyes and tightened his face just as it began to roil through Mikayla's system.
She was wanton. She was hungry for him. Rocking against him, pressing down, lifting, slow and easy she took every hard, heavily veined inch of his cock inside and shuddered with the pleasure racing through her.
She had never known anything like this. Like controlling the strength and the power of the man beneath her, taking him, moving against him for her own pleasure, and watching the pleasure as it filled his face as well.
It made her want more. It made her want to see if his face could tighten further, if pleasure could brighten his eyes further.
Holding on to his shoulders, she breathed in roughly and fought to keep hold of 123
just enough of her senses to watch him, to memorize his expressions, his response. The way the muscles of his shoulders tightened and bunched, the way sweat beaded on his forehead and ran in a small rivulet down the side of his face. His finger slid to the rounded flesh of her rear, tightened, and parted them before sliding inward, meeting in the shallow cleft that parted the sensitive globes. Her eyes closed. Color ricocheted behind her eyelids as she felt his fingers rasp against the
delicate opening he found there before his fingers dipped to the point where their bodies were locked together.
She wanted to move, needed to move, but as his fingers caressed the edges of her stretched opening she could only feel and let the pleasure wash over her as he drew the heavy, slick moisture back.
As his fingers moved back once more, she lifted, her inner muscles tightening convulsively on his cock as the friction heated her further.
Sliding down once again, she felt his finger rub against her rear entrance, felt it tuck gently against her, using the downward pressure of her body to penetrate just enough to warn her of his intentions.
Her eyes flared open as she froze. The feel of his finger poised just inside the forbidden entrance had her breath catching as his narrowed pale blue gaze met hers.
"Do I stop?" he asked, his voice low, rasping deeper than normal as he pulled back and exited, only to draw more of the moisture that eased from her vagina back to the sensitive area.
She lifted again.
His finger tucked back into place.
Did she dare? Could she dare?
Closing her eyes, biting her lip, Mikayla slowly lowered herself once again. The look on her face nearly had him losing his hold on the release that threatened to erupt from his balls.
Nik gritted his teeth as he fought that ache, felt her pussy rippling around him in nearing orgasm as it burned through the thin protection of the condom he had managed to roll over his dick before she began taking him.
Innocence marked her expression, filled her eyes. Despite the eroticism of the act, that innocence was still there. Despite the fact that she was slowly, hesitantly, taking his finger up her ass, his dick up her near-virgin pussy, she still looked like a virgin. Like a wanton, innocent fairy perched on his lap, driving him insane with pleasure. It was all he could do to hold on. All he could do to hold back his release as he felt those tighter inner muscles gripping his finger as she began to move on him. It was an agony of pleasure. Sharp shards of sensation raced up and down his spine, coalesced in his balls, and combined to drive him closer to release, to another nail in his fucking coffin.