Authors: Cristin Harber
Oh, God. “Yes.”
“Say it.” He flexed his shaft between them, making them both groan at the erotic slide of their slick skin together. “More than understanding what we’re doing, Sophia. I want to hear you
say it
. You like how I sound?”
She murmured, knowing she blushed into the shower’s stream.
“I like how you sound.”
Sophia’s eyes jumped to his. That hadn’t crossed her mind. “Really?”
Javier nodded. “Words, tesão.” He tweaked her nipple. “Use them for me too.”
Leaning into his hand, she swallowed away the gasp. Instead of begging for a harder touch, for him torturing her vagina, Sophia inched closer. “I want you inside me.”
He growled in approval under the hot rain of the shower. “Tell me more.”
Her heart jumped, and her pussy clenched. She took a breath. “I want to feel you bare inside me.”
“Good.”
“How my mind stutters when you split my muscles.”
His hand dropped and fingers went into her needy entrance. “Yes.”
“That first thrust. When your eyes are on my eyes. That’s what I want from you.”
“Such a good girl.”
“God.” She grabbed his biceps, holding him to steady herself. The cold tiles pressed to her back, and lava-hot excitement raced through her. “I like when you say that.”
“Good girl?”
“Yes, sir.”
His smile went half-cocked in a way that was teasing and pleased and a thousand things in between that she couldn’t define. “Like when you say that too. I like when you say all the words.”
“Always remember the feeling is mutual.” Steady on her feet once again, she let go of his arms and circled his cock. Sophia locked her hands on him, stroking as he groaned.
Javier dropped his mouth to her neck. His stubble scratched the slope of her skin, making her arch as he pinned her against the wall, lifting her leg and wrapping it around his back. The shower sprayed on him, raining heavy, hot mist around them. Sophia’s eyes sank shut as Javier’s hand took over on his shaft. She circled his neck with her arms and anticipated every microsecond with him taking charge and guiding himself against her needy flesh.
The head of his cock urged against her, and it was nothing like she’d experienced before.
“Damn.”
Her eyes fluttered open, and his opened too, his teasing erection pressing against her, Javier’s eyes seeing
into
her. “You okay?”
“Yes,” she promised.
His weight shifted, moving her from the wall, into the hot spray. His back took her position against the tile as the hot shower rained on her. Too good. The sensation of him toying with her, teasing and testing, coupled with the warm hold pressing her to him, was too good.
“Better.”
“Eyes on me,” he ordered.
Just as she’d said she wanted. “Yes, sir.”
“Paixão. My good girl.” Javier tilted his hips and thrust into her body.
Sophia’s head rolled back, crying at the heat and intrusion. He gripped under her ass as her knees angled up and took over. All she had to do was exist.
“God, that’s good.” Javier held her weight. He fucked her, held her, lifted her, moved her. He was everything for her, and all she had to do was enjoy him as tight, low growls of Portuguese spilled from his lips.
“I can’t,” she cried, fighting the pleasure.
“You. Can.” The slapping noise of his pure strength manhandling her body onto his would forever be her favorite sound.
“God.” Her pussy tightened. Her arms squeezed around his neck, making his cheeks abrade hers.
Javier used each gasp and word as directions to bliss. He worked her faster and harder as she did nothing. She was just a vessel for him to fuck and give pleasure to, and as her climax crested, tears filled her eyes. He’d never know about them, not with all the shower water. But she felt so effortless and so intense. He pushed her beyond words, beyond trust. He made her feel a way that no man had before.
“Help me. Please.” An orgasm had never hurt so much and never felt so good.
“Come, Sophia. Now.”
Simple magic words that only he could order. Her muscles rippled on his driving shaft, and he met her groans with primal thrusts, coming simultaneously, lava hot and inside her body, a fire within that she couldn’t describe but could feel with crystal clarity amid the climaxing chaos.
They battled for breath and milked their orgasm together, lips pressed together, sucking and kissing, probing and biting in one deeply connected moment. Heaven.
She went limp; his greedy, hungry kisses melted to sweet and slow. Carefully, Javier released her legs, and as her toes reached to the tile floor, she limply hung to his hard-breathing body.
“Thank you.” Javier kissed the top of her head. “For giving me you.”
And she was in love.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mind-numbed and woman-focused, Javier pulled a towel that wasn’t good enough for Sophia around her then stopped to wonder when he’d ever thought about towels before. His bigger problem was that she worked a job he knew nothing about, and his protective instinct, which had only ever had been self-serving, was inserting its opinion into
anything
having to do with Sophia—apparently, including towels.
Javier stepped out to grab his own. She followed him to the counter as he rubbed his hair dry and wrapped the towel around his waist.
Her arm hooked around his bare side. “I know you’re leaving soon, but if we could stay in here and pretend the rest of the world had disappeared, I would.”
His heart seized. It simply hurt. The sweetness of her words and the conviction in her face hit him like a grenade explosion—fast and destructive. “Me too.”
Her gaze dropped to his chest as she took a sad breath. “What’s this one?”
“This?” He touched the ink over his heart.
Nodding, she tilted her head to study it. “Like a very masculine, screwed-up arrow.”
Javier forced his gaze down. “Almost. Do you know what a malin is?”
“No.”
“Malins are Swedish.” He gave her a playful wink despite what he wanted to say. “Opposite of me, right? Normally very clean lined, not as…”
“Ornate?”
He nodded. “But it basically means you have to deal with setbacks before you can move forward.”
She pressed her fingers to the arrow and traced the lines, sending shivers across his flesh and reminding him of his goal and every setback he’d had.
“What are the setbacks?” Sophia asked, having no idea that she was touching something that could rip him apart.
“Life stuff.” Stuff that would hurt to talk about and that hurt to remember. Those things suddenly seemed less important since she entered his world, just days ago. He didn’t know how to justify his shift in feelings or the way his prioritization was fluctuating.
Her lips curled in a sweet smile. “Do you care to share?”
“Not really.”
Gone was the sweet smile, and that cut like a serrated blade, needlessly painful and messy. His jaw ached to keep talking, and it was clear that he should’ve kept all mention of setbacks to himself. He cleared his throat. “Sorry—it’s not something… I’m protective over it. I don’t know how to explain it to… others.”
Her cheeks had flushed in a way that had nothing to do with the shower-soaked orgasm. “Really, I get it. I was prying too much. No worries.” The shift in her manner erased the star-struck expression in her eyes, and in its place was the same hardened look he’d seen before—when she marched down the aisle, groom-less and holding on to her dignity. That Javier was able to classify that look and lump himself into the same category as her asshole ex served only to make the situation worse.
“Sophia?”
“Yup.” She pushed out the bathroom door and headed to a dresser. In a perfunctory fashion, she pulled out clothes and focused intently on dressing.
He followed, feeling the loss of their sanctuary as the bathroom opened. Cooler air and reality coated him, making him feel chilled both inside and out. “Soph?”
“Hmm?” But her voice was cold as his freshly dried skin, not that he blamed her.
“Sophia?”
She stopped midmotion, her shirt barely tugged down over her bra. “Yes?”
His hand rested on her stiff shoulder, then he pulled back. “Remember that I said someone hurt my sister and I wanted revenge?”
Her brows softened, lips upturning with perhaps understanding and recognition. “Yes.”
“That’s been my life’s focus.” He stretched an arm up then squeezed the tendons at the back of his neck. Sharing wasn’t comfortable, but necessary after the reaction she’d had when he’d been too damn abrupt. “To track down every person involved and eradicate them. That’s what I’m moving forward toward.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“I don’t tell people because I’m nothing more than a cold-blooded tracker. My job, my life, my world is dedicated to…”
“Revenge.”
“Yeah, revenge.” He took an uneasy breath. “My dad, mom—they were bad stock. First roadblock in life is overcoming biological roots. That was easy. Soon as I could support myself, I did.”
She shifted, her posture not as harsh and angry as it had been. “What’d you do?”
Memories of his first street fights and the handfuls of money he made flooded him. Javier leaned against the wall, still only in a towel. “It wasn’t a job. More like a hobby. At first.”
She pulled up her pants, smoothing her shirt into place as though she had to focus on anything other than his nonanswer. “I don’t understand.”
How best to describe what was simple ruthlessness? He’d been an animal. A savage. Even though it was a makeshift career for an essentially homeless boy, he loved it—needed it. The fights, the thrills, the wins.
Explaining something so dark to someone so innocent was impossible. He turned and escaped back into the bathroom, using the precious seconds to not only snag his clothes from the bathroom but also find words that made him less of a predator.
There weren’t any. The truth with her was the only way to go. She’d sense a lie and deserved better than that even if the truth disgusted her. “I fight.”
Her brow furrowed. “You fight?”
“Since I was half my size and weight.” He laughed uncomfortably at what he was and what he’d become then shook his head and re-dressed. Boxers, pants, shirt. When he focused back on her, she stared, waiting.
“I was good at hurting people. It brought in the money I needed. But my problem, my setback was… damn, I liked it. The attack, the triumph. The blood, the pain, the win. I loved it too much. It made me forget, made me feel alive. It’s my addiction.”
She bit her lip, not taking a step back as she should have but, rather, an inch forward. “You’re addicted to fighting?”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “Not the actual, physical action of it. But yeah.”
“So you like to hit people? Like abuse? Or like a sadist?”
Kind of. But… “No. Just… it won’t make sense.”
“Try me.” She took another bare step forward. “Please.”
With the distance between them shrinking, he wanted her to realize what she was standing in front of—a brute. But her inquisitive eyes waited.
Javier cleared his throat. “It was the only outlet I had. Some kids grew up watching TV. I didn’t. Fighting was entertainment, release. And survival.” He cracked his knuckles then jammed his fists into balls. “So that’s me. Not the good, upstanding soldier like you might be used to in the Cole family.”
His gut check didn’t come in time to soften the words as they fell off his tongue. Even he knew throwing the perfect Cole family up for comparison wasn’t fair.
“Don’t act like that.” She closed their distance but didn’t touch.
He could feel her warmth, smell her sweetness, but couldn’t touch her without permission, not after what he’d just confessed. He was a barbaric villain compared to the political royalty of the Coles. “You have good parents. A strong brother.”
“That doesn’t matter to me where you’re concerned, and you don’t always know what you think you see.”
He blinked, taking in the sometimes timid, sometimes pushy puzzle piece of a woman who made his insides calm. “Fair enough.”
“Good.”
Nodding and uncomfortable, he pinched his neck again. “Okay. So, do you have any other questions—about me?” He dropped his hand, trying to read her blank face. “I won’t be an ass about it, Sophia. Promise.”
Her simple smile lit, too sweet and forgiving, and it made him want to hug her against his chest. “How did you join Delta?”
“They grabbed me off the streets.”
Her eyes went doe wide. “Oh.”
“Not like I was homeless. I mean, I was a man on a mission. Fighting and hunting and—”
“Hunting?”
“For the men who hurt Adélia.”
Sophia’s face gentled, and a strand of drying hair fell across her cheek. “I didn’t know her name.”
“I never share it.” If he could push that wayward piece of hair behind her ear… if he could touch Sophia and hold onto that feeling… Javier wondered if he could do that when he was long gone. That way, he’d always have his time with her.