A Matter of Time 05 - Bulletproof (MM), page 19
part #5 of A Matter of Time Series
"Yeah, no," he told me, fisting his hand in my hair, stilling me before he savaged my mouth, kissing me breathless.
When he put me down, I had trouble standing.
"You do the same thing to me," he said, forearm pressed to the wall, his head leaning into it, taking a breath to calm his body down.
"You make my knees go weak."
"I do?"
"Every time you kiss me." He smiled down at me, and I noticed the gold stubble on his upper lip. Everything about the man was gorgeous, and as I touched his face, he closed his eyes.
"You love me."
"I‘m a stupid fuck who knows better than to leave you alone."
He released a deep breath. "It won‘t happen again. We were apart for three years, and I hated every fuckin‘ minute of it. You‘d think I‘d learn my damn lesson."
"Oh, God," I said, but it wasn‘t the good kind. I had just gotten a good look at the bruises on his face, and the ugly patches on his chest and torso.
"I‘m fine," he insisted, leaning forward, rubbing his stubbled cheek over my smooth one before kissing the curve of my shoulder.
"Are you sure?"
"I promise," he soothed me, holding up his hand for me because he knew it was important.
I sighed deeply. "Your ring."
"Where it belongs," he said, and I was thrilled to see the platinum band that matched mine back where it was supposed to be, fitting snugly on the ring finger of his left hand.
"It looks good."
"Yes, it does."
"Come get in bed with me."
"Love to."
I was so happy, I was sure I was glowing, but when I tried to pull him around the house after me, he wouldn‘t let me.
"I thought you wanted to—"
"Lemme meet your friends."
"Sam," I groaned, "you know they‘re not my—"
"Come on," he cut me off, dragging me after him up the stairs.
Hayes was there.
"Is this the detective, Jory?"
I nodded, my eyes all over Sam Kage.
"It‘s a pleasure, detective," Hayes said, offering Sam his hand.
Detective Kage towered over Hayes Fisher, massive in comparison, and I watched Hayes take in the wall of hard muscle that was my man.
"Hi." Jaden was beaming and thrust his hand at Sam, soaking him up, his eyes missing nothing. "I‘m Jaden."
"Pleasure," Sam said, the deep resonant voice sounding even better than normal.
"Detective," Aaron said, but didn‘t offer his hand.
"Mr. Sutter," Sam replied, releasing my hand to curl his arm around my shoulders and tuck me into his side.
Their eyes locked, and after a long minute, Aaron looked away.
And when my own flicked to Jaden, I saw the look of astonishment that was all over his face.
Sam intimidated the hell out of Aaron Sutter. And I understood, because I had been watching people respond to the man for years. It was the strength, not just physical, but mental as well, that he displayed with such easy confidence. Sam Kage lived really well in his own skin, and it was rare to find a man who truly did. When Sam wanted to make an impression, when he wanted something from you, he could aim all that charm, intellect, and warmth, and focus it at once. And then it was overwhelming, and everyone did whatever the hell he wanted. Dane was the exact same way, both of them devastating, the power just wielded differently. Sam was obvious about it, and Dane more subtle.
"So." Aaron cleared his throat. "Would you like to join us for lunch?"
"No, thanks," Sam said, clutching me tight. "I have a lot to talk to Jory about, so if you‘ll excuse us…."
"Of course," Aaron said, stepping aside so Sam could steer me toward the inside of the main house.
He bent and pressed a kiss to the side of my neck, which made me hiss in my breath and left no doubt in anyone‘s mind what he wanted.
I didn‘t give a damn.
On the way to the cottage, he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles.
"Oh, you did miss me," I teased him.
"Shut up," he growled at me. "All those assholes lookin‘ at you like you‘re food, fuck them."
And I understood then why Sam had not just ducked around the side of the house with me and made a quick getaway. He had purposely walked me up the stairs to see the others. He wanted them to see us together.
Sam had kissed me hard and long, so my lips were red and swollen. He had bitten me and sucked my skin to leave marks. My detective was a very primal man, and so he had let everyone see that I was claimed, that I belonged to him.
"I wear a ring, you know," I said, talking to him like the dialogue had been out loud and not just in my head.
"But they don‘t care." He picked it up because he had been thinking the exact same thing. "It doesn‘t mean shit to them, so this way they can see. I wonder if anyone wants to come and watch us."
"I‘m sure Jaden would like to do more than just watch you do anything."
"Which one was Jaden?"
"The younger, hotter version of me."
He stopped so fast I almost stumbled, but he caught me and gently, tenderly, took my face in his hands. Looking up into his eyes, I saw how heavy-lidded they were.
"I wasn‘t fishing."
"I know, I can tell from how you said it," he said, fingers sliding over my jaw, down my throat, as he bent and kissed my forehead, the bridge of my nose, and then my cheek.
His lips just barely touched me, but my stomach tightened and my breath caught.
"I know you worry about getting older, about not being the prettiest guy in the room anymore."
And I worried about aging, but not how he thought. I had never presumed I was prettiest, just one of many. My only concern now was that Sam Kage thought I was hot.
"But there will never come a time when that will be the case," he said, pressing soft kisses to the side of my neck.
I leaned my head back so he could reach more of my throat.
"To me, Jory," he said, "you‘re more beautiful now than you ever have been, and I can‘t wait to see what you‘re gonna look like at forty and fifty and sixty, and God willing a lot more numbers after that."
"Many after that," I assured him as my eyes drifted open so I could look up into his smoky-blue ones.
"The most important thing is that you‘re mine, you belong to me," he said, his hands pressing me closer before he kissed me.
My heart, like it did every single time, skipped a beat and stopped. I wrapped my arms around his neck, not caring where we were, who could see, just kissing the man I loved, our lips melting together as I moaned deeply, offering submission.
The sound sent a tremor through his powerful frame, and I smiled against his mouth, arching up into him.
"Jory," he growled against my mouth, pulling back just enough, putting a breath of space between us. "Baby, I don‘t even see anybody but you. Do you even fuckin‘ get that?"
I did.
"Where‘s the damn bungalow?"
"It‘s a cottage," I corrected him as he took my hand and tugged me after him.
"I give a shit."
"Don‘t swear."
His signature grunt was all I got.
"Aaron Sutter was in my room," I said as we walked.
"And?"
"And I thought you should know, is all."
"Okay. Did you let him kiss you?"
"No."
"Touch you?"
"He grabbed me, but I stopped him, and then I rolled off the bed and hid under it."
He stopped walking and turned to look at me. "I‘m sorry, what?"
"Are you listening?"
"I wasn‘t, but I am now."
I shot him a look.
"Just tell me."
I huffed out a breath. "Well, so, we were talking, and then he—"
"You know what," he said, cutting me off, "never mind, it doesn‘t matter."
"Sam—"
"No." He put up his hand. "It doesn‘t matter. Nothing happened, right?"
"Of course not."
He shrugged broad shoulders. "Yeah, see, it‘s fine. I got groped a ton of times by a lot of women when I was undercover. I even had to kiss one to—"
"What?" I yelled at him. "I got the hell away from Aaron because I knew that if anyone touched you I would lose my mind, and it was not fair to ask you to understand that he had done it just because he‘s my ex!"
"Breathe," he said, chuckling.
"Fuck you and your breathing!" I yelled again, shoving him away as well as his hands when he reached for me.
"You‘re cute all jealous and possessive."
"Sam!"
He lunged forward, grabbed me, and kissed me until I was breathless and panting and I was unsteady on my feet.
"We both know I didn‘t do anything," he said, staring down into my eyes.
I was held there as firmly in his gaze as I was in his arms.
"And do you think after all this time that I don‘t know I‘m the only one?"
There was no way he didn‘t know. The years between us spoke to that truth. I couldn‘t speak. I could barely breathe as his hands rubbed up and down my arms.
"You know I know, right?"
"Yes."
"So why would I worry, then?"
He wouldn‘t.
"I love you, I only want you, and I know it goes both ways. Are we done?"
"Yes, we‘re done."
"Good."
As I suspected, he had a key and opened the door and shoved me inside, locking it behind him.
"I should take a shower," I told him. "I‘m covered in salt water."
When he didn‘t answer, I turned to look at him and he pounced on me. I was laughing as I went down under him on the queen-size bed, his face nuzzling at my now-hardening cock through the nylon of the board shorts.
"What‘re you doing?"
"Stop giggling and squirming and take it like a man."
Which sent me into peals of laughter as his face broke into a huge mischievous grin that made his dark smoky-blue eyes sparkle.
"Sam!" I gasped as he yanked my board shorts off my hips and my hard, needy cock sprang free.
"Now we‘re getting somewhere," he said as he fisted my shaft.
My back bowed up off the bed, and his other hand slid under my ass and squeezed tight. The way he touched me, every time he touched me, showed possessiveness and ownership, and no one but Sam Kage had ever treated me like that, like I was his. Aaron Sutter had talked a good game, but Sam made me feel it.
"Kiss me."
Normally the kissing came afterward, slow and languid, once the passion was burned off. In bed, Sam normally wanted me under him, buried in me fast.
I reached for him and he stretched out beside me, him still fully clothed and me naked. When my lips touched his, I heard a deep sigh rise up out of him. He loved it when I took control and what started out tender and soft soon became devouring and hot. But he seemed content to kiss me, one long wet, tongue-tangling, bruising kiss after another, hand on the back of my neck, the other on my ass, petting me.
I felt the tingling sensation begin in the base of my spine, felt my balls tighten, my cock harden almost painfully as I began to grind against him. When his fingers trailed over the length of me, I tore my mouth from his.
"Could you do me a favor?" I panted as he nuzzled the side of my neck.
"What‘s that?" he asked as he began slowly stroking me.
I shivered hard. "Would you please just fuck me already?"
"Yeah?"
I got it then. It had taken me a minute because his nearness had short-circuited my brain. Even though he had told me I was special, he had to show me too. Show me that I wasn‘t just the guy he wanted to screw, but the guy he wanted to make love to.
"Idiot," I told him. "I know all about your heart already."
The shuddering breath he took made me smile before he flipped me over on my stomach and licked a wet trail down my spine.
"Sam, what‘re you—"
"You taste like the ocean," he growled, sucking, nibbling, until he reached my ass, spreading my cheeks before his tongue invaded me on a quick thrust into my body.
"Sam!" I yelled, jolting under the siege, the push deeper inside garbling the rest of my words.
His chuckle was evil as the thrusting became rhythmic, pushing, laving, as he used the hand not digging into my hip to tug gently on my cock.
"Gonna come." I writhed, twisted and then gasped when he withdrew his tongue and replaced it with slippery, lube-slicked fingers. I was so out of it, so far gone, that I hadn‘t even heard the snick of the pop-top of the bottle. When he slid his fingers over my prostate, once and then again, I cried out his name before my body clenched tight and then came in a hurtling rush. It was a splintering orgasm, and I would have collapsed if he hadn‘t had his hands on me.
With his lips and his fingers and his tongue, he had driven me right out of my mind.
I spurted on the bed, my balls emptying in a shivering, consuming release that was still racking my body with aftershocks as Sam lifted my hips and buried himself to the hilt in my ass.
He hammered into me, hard, and deep, and I begged him not to stop, never to stop. When he came minutes later, I felt the hot liquid heat fill my rippling channel and then run down the back of my thighs.
"So fuckin‘ hot."
"Sam?"
"Your body takes all of me and holds me tight and then quivers when we‘re done. Do you have any idea how fuckin‘ hot that is?"
His words were scorching, delivered in his low, seductive growl that brought tears to my eyes as he leaned over, pressed his chest to my back, and wrapped his arms around me tight.
"You‘re shaking." His voice was hoarse.
I could barely breathe.
Slowly, tenderly, he eased from my body that wanted to hold him, keep him close, and when my muscles released him, gone was that feeling of weight and fullness that I craved.
He rolled over on his back and pulled me down into his arms, hugging me tight, burying his face in my hair. I trembled against him, and he held me until my body calmed and I stopped.
"You know, when we‘re together like that, I can feel how much you love me, trust me. It‘s a gift."
I tilted my head back and he kissed me, and it was tender and claiming and all that I needed. They were not the passionate, smothering kisses of earlier; the surging arousal was gone, replaced by the swell of feeling, the contentment of love.
I never loved any man before Sam Kage. There was only him for me. "I love you."
"Me too." He yawned and I smiled wide.
He was exhausted and sated, and he had me warm and naked in his arms. It was time to take a nap.
"I should take a shower," I said into the side of his neck.
He grunted.
I closed my eyes and gave up on the idea of moving.
SAM had ordered room service, and so we were both still naked, no showering had happened, and we were lying on the bed, talking, with platters of food between us. The topics of conversation had ranged from me and Dylan making another go at our business to Sam explaining about WITSEC, witness protection, and what that involved.
Since Sam‘s old partner, Dominic Kairov, had been placed in the program and given a new identity, I told him I was surprised that they had let Sam become a deputy. But apparently the US Marshal Service was happy to have Sam Kage, and it wasn‘t like the movies, and you couldn‘t just look up anybody you wanted to. You had to have a reason and clearance to go rummaging in files for people and cases that weren‘t assigned to you.
"You always look so crushed," he said, smiling at me, hand in my hair, thumb smoothing over my eyebrow, "when you find out that things aren‘t like they are in the movies and on TV."
I got to my hands and knees, leaned forward, and kissed him. He opened for me, and I tasted him, his mouth, and sucked on his tongue.
When he broke the kiss and crawled up the bed, I followed. He turned over, leaned back against the Koa-wood headboard, and reached for me. Still slick with come and lube from earlier, still stretched, I crawled into his lap, straddling his hips, and then reached behind me for his already hardened shaft.
"Take me in."
Lifting up, I lined his cock up with my hole and then slowly lowered myself over him until he was fully seated inside. Impaled on the long, hard, thick length of him, I moaned deeply.
The man‘s eyes were locked on mine, and as I rose up and eased back down, my muscles contracting around him, flexing tight and then easing, his breath got choppy.
I put my hands on his chest as he gripped my thighs and eased me forward. My head lolled back on my shoulders.
"I love watching you do this."
I knew that.
"Nothing—oh," he gasped, and a shiver raced through him that I felt and loved. "Jory," he moaned as he wrapped his fingers around my cock and stroked me fast.
I came hard, spurting over his carved abdomen, and he bucked up into me, pressing me down at the same time; his grip on my thighs would leave the bruises that I coveted.
"Jory," he whispered.
His lips were captured, ravaged, and devoured. He kissed me back until he had to pull free to gulp air into his lungs.
"We really gotta take a shower," I chuckled as we panted together.
"Water, first."
And drinking, pouring him a glass, watching it run down his chin, off his jaw, run over his chest, was too much of a treat to leave.
"That was hot."
I was under him seconds later, my appreciation translating to desire, and my legs were wrapped around him as he pressed his body to mine. Infused with happiness because he was there, I kissed his eyes, his nose, his cheeks, and finally his lips. His skin, the smell of him that clung to me, the feel of him in my arms… I told him that I could die happy right then and there.
"No dying." The sensual growl came again as he pushed his face against the side of my neck. "Just living."
I cleared my throat, because it was now or never. "What do you think about adopting, Sam?"
He lifted his head up and looked down at me. "I‘m sorry?"
"I was thinking that I don‘t want a surrogate or anything else that we‘ve ever talked about because what I really want is to adopt.
