Stand & Deliver Read online

  He shifted and teased the mouth of her sex with his fingers. Circling. Pressing without fully breaching and giving her the fullness she wanted.

  For a second, she was tempted to try to take over. To roll him to his back and scramble for control. But then he pushed inside her and the only thing that mattered was more. Reaching for the release that hovered just outside her reach. Diving over the emotional cliff he’d created and free-falling to whatever waited, no matter the cost.

  “Give it to me.” The dark demand wound through her. Notched her like an arrow on a taut bowstring aimed straight for the sun. “All of it. Everything.” He thrust another finger deep and angled his wrist, dragging his blunt fingertips against that delicious sweet spot inside her. His lips encircled her clit, suckled deep—and she was gone. Her pussy clenching his fingers with a desperation that echoed clear to her soul and her startled cries mingling with his murmured words of encouragement. It was beautiful. A wild cocktail of liberation and exhilaration that scattered all the tidy dos and don’ts of her life so thoroughly she’d never get them back in the same humdrum order she’d known before.

  Bit by bit, the world came back into focus. The easy glide of Beckett’s lips just below her belly button. The slow but steady shuttle of his fingers inside her. Beckett’s cedar-and-bergamot scent on her skin.

  She opened her eyes and cradled either side of his head, urging him closer. Needing his weight and the comforting warmth of his skin to hold her steady.

  He took his time, drawing out the aftershocks of her release with his fingers and skimming his lips and tongue up the center of her torso. No rush. No moving on to the main event. Just a slow and easy mood more fitting for a lazy Saturday morning. Only when he’d reached her sternum did he brace one forearm beside her and slide his fingers free. He cupped her sex, dipped his head and watched as he ran his thumb through her tightly trimmed curls and slicked his fingers through her sensitized folds. “You gave me that, Gia.” A firmer grip, his big hand covering her completely. Possessive. “Not letting you take it back.”

  A shudder moved through her, the determination behind his words prodding her protective instincts to the surface even as a deeper part of herself purred and preened at the mysterious shift that had taken place. What it was, she couldn’t pinpoint. Had no experience to assimilate what was going on. But it was huge, the air around them crackling with an inexplicable energy.

  She covered his hand with hers, desperate for a connection. Needing his gaze and the emotion behind it to help her fill in the blanks. “Beckett?”

  Up, up, up his hand went, the calluses on his palm strangely comforting on the slow and purposeful trek. His focus intent on his actions, he cupped her breast. A dominant yet reverent touch she felt like a claim.

  Her heart thrummed and her near-whispered voice shook with uncertainty. “What just happened?”

  He sucked in a slow breath and lifted his head. The rugged lines that defined his deeply masculine face were harsher, drawn tight with resolution, and his blue gaze burned hot and fearless. “That was the beginning of me and you.”

  Chapter Nine

  Beckett braced. Whether Gia would try to fight her way out from under him and hightail it back home after his blunt statement, or just go for the upper hand via sex was a crapshoot, but she’d try something. It was right there in her eyes. Fear. Uncertainty and a whole lot of what the fuck? He knew the look staring up at him because the same messy trio was churning through him.

  He might be scared and clueless about where he was taking them, but no way in hell was he fucking this up. Whatever she threw at him, he’d be ready. Whether she realized it or not, when she’d looked up at him and admitted she wanted him to take control, she’d all but handed him the keys to the kingdom. And, while it might make him the world’s biggest dick, he was gonna use those keys to his advantage.

  She swallowed huge and fidgeted beneath him, her sweet touch moving down his lats and in to brace low on his pecs. “I think you’re getting ahead of yourself. We’re having sex. That’s it.”

  He grinned, even knowing he risked her throwing a right hook. If she thought he was getting ahead of himself now, she was gonna be shocked as shit in the next few minutes and the days to come. He’d known going into tonight that he wanted something more than casual between them, but somewhere between the gumbo and her throwing down in his foyer, then apologizing for not being like other girls, just how much he wanted had gotten a whole lot clearer.

  As in the whole fucking enchilada.

  He slid his hand up to her throat and stroked his thumb along her hammering pulse. “Gorgeous, if you can use a simple three-letter word to label what you just gave me, I’m gonna have to up my game.”

  Her eyelids grew heavy and he’d swear he could see the memories of all she’d felt moving behind her pretty brown eyes. “Your game’s just fine.” Her hands slipped higher, the fingertips of one hand idling, tracing the dragon inked on his shoulder. “I’m just ready to send in my offensive line.”

  So, sex was gonna be her play—along with a casual sidestep of the big fucking elephant stomping through the room. If his cock got a vote in the matter, he’d have lost his jeans about a split second after he’d tossed her dress to the floor, but after what Gia had just given him—letting go, moaning his name as she’d dug her heels in his back and come so pretty on his fingers—he’d go to hell if he gave in and took what his throbbing dick demanded.

  It was what she expected, though. Which was exactly why he wasn’t going to give it to her. He pressed a firm, lingering kiss to her lips and forced himself to push back to his knees, stroking her insanely soft belly and thighs along the way. “Sorry, sweetheart. Your team’s gonna have to pack it in and do some thinking before we get back on the field.”

  “What?” Gia pushed upright as he backed off the bed, her scowl and the sway of her full, outstanding breasts from the sudden movement nearly knocking him off his resolve. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  He forced a casualness he didn’t feel and padded to the light switch by the entrance to his suite. “I’ll kid you about a lot of things, but in this, I’m dead serious.”

  He hit the lights.

  Darkness consumed the room, broken only by the distant glow of Dallas’s downtown and streetlights through the wide window opposite his bed.

  Rustling sounded on the bed a second before Gia’s shadowed form came into focus and her footsteps sounded on the concrete floor. He caught her at her waist just before she rounded the king-size footboard and pulled her flush against him.

  “Let me go.” Her carefully modulated words didn’t tie with the shaking hands pushing against his chest or the ragged breaths pushing past her lips.

  “Shh.” Spearing his fingers in her thick hair at the back of her head, he forced her cheek to his chest and tightened his arm around her waist. “Not shutting you down, Gia. Just slowin’ our roll a little bit.”

  “No, you’re not.” She struggled for another second or two, then realized he wasn’t budging and gave in with a huff. “You’re playing games. I don’t like it.”

  Damn, but he hated that. Hated how fast her shields came up and every fucking event in her life that had made the instinct necessary. He’d fix it, though. Show her she didn’t have to assume the worst and guard herself every single second. Not with him. Not with his family.

  “Relax.” Needing the touch to ground himself as much as she needed the reassurance, he slid his fingertips along her scalp. Up and down from her crown to the base of her neck, he did what he could to ease her. To show her she was safe. “I need you to listen, sweetheart. And by that, I mean, I need you to hear me.”

  Silence.

  No movement save the accelerated rise and fall of each breath.

  Not exactly the warm and open response he’d wanted, but it beat the wrestling match he could have had on his hands, so he took it.
He cupped the back of her neck. “I know what you think I am.”

  He hadn’t thought she could get any stiller, but in the seconds that followed even her lungs seemed to stop.

  He kept going. “You think I’m a player. You think all those women you’ve seen me with end up in my bed because that’s what I wanted everyone to think.”

  Her hands moved just a fraction, more of a flinch followed by the slight rasp of her nails against his skin. “You’re saying they don’t?” So vulnerable. Soft and barely loud enough to reach his ears, but the words were raw and open.

  “No.” He took a chance at easing his hold and combed his fingers through her hair, the slick strands uncoiling his tension as they slipped across his knuckles. “Not going to pretend it never happens, but only with a few and they know going in it’s nothing more than physical. I love women. Love everything about them. Love great sex. But the ones who can give me physical and not want more when it’s all said and done are few and far between. Me being me and not wanting any strings, I’m not gonna take a chance and hurt someone just to get my own needs met.”

  She rested her forehead on his chest. “Why are you telling me this?”

  The fear in her question tangled with his own. He slid the hand in her hair to her jaw and lifted her face to his, the soft glow through the windows painting her beautiful features and accenting her dark eyes. No matter the tough-as-nails image she showed the rest of the world, he’d always seen her as blatantly feminine. And now...now he knew he’d been right. She might not be like other women, but she was all woman. His woman.

  He ran the back of his fingers along her jawline. “Because you’re right. I’m playing a game. Just not the one you’re thinking.”

  “What game?”

  Whisper soft. Innocent and open.

  “The one where I win you.”

  Her lips trembled and her eyes got wet a second before she ducked her head, hiding them from view.

  He’d give her that. After the way she’d taken a chance on him tonight, she deserved a little privacy and a chance to process what he’d shared.

  “What about you?” she murmured. “You didn’t...” She shrugged and slid her hands to his sides, her grip telegraphing her uncertainty.

  “No, and I’m not going to. Not until you get that this is more than casual and are ready to take me on.”

  She sniffed and dashed one hand across her cheek. “What if I’m never ready?”

  “Oh, I’ll get you there.” In that he was certain. And he’d leverage every scrap of information she’d given him tonight to make that happen. He wrapped her up tight and kissed the top of her head, giving her a few more precious seconds to gather her emotional shit before he pushed his luck even further.

  “You’re a cocky son of a bitch.”

  “Baby, you just came so hard on my tongue I can still taste you.”

  He barely managed to brace before she jabbed him in the gut, but she was laughing when she did it so it lacked its usual wallop. It also gave him the opening he needed to sweep her up and treat her like the woman she was, whether she wanted him to acknowledge that side of her or not.

  “Beckett!” She grappled and tried to counter him as he strode toward the bed, but finally gave up and wrapped her arms around his neck. “What are you doing?”

  He yanked the comforter back, put a knee to the plush mattress and laid her out in the center. “I said I was givin’ you time to think and prepare. I didn’t say I’d let you do it somewhere else.” He paused long enough to let the image of her stretched out on his bed and covered in moonlight burn into his brain, then tucked the covers around her. “Plus, there’s the fact I’m a greedy bastard. I might give up feeling you come hard on my cock, but hell’s gonna freeze over before I give up sleeping next to you again.”

  For a second, she just stared up at him, either dumbfounded by his blunt comment, or turned way the fuck on by it. He backed off the bed, yanked the button fly on his Levi’s and made a mental note to explore how dirty talk worked on her the next time he got her naked.

  She curled on her side and tucked one hand under her head, watching him as he stripped to all but his black boxer briefs. “Um, if I’m naked, doesn’t it seem fair if you’re naked, too?”

  He chuckled and slid between the sheets. “Nice try, gorgeous.” He pulled her into the crook of his arm and tangled his legs with hers. “Now, settle in and do whatever you need to do to fortify your defenses. Come morning, I’m coming at you with all guns loaded.”

  She smoothed her hands along his sternum and toyed with the chain of his dog tags.

  That was another boon with Gia. She already knew about the brotherhood and how tight they were as a family. Knew how they guarded each other’s backs and looked out for the women they loved. She’d just have to adjust to what it meant to be one of the ones being protected. No small feat given she spent her days looking out for other people. He’d have to talk with Sylvie and Ninette about that. Maybe see if they couldn’t work her from a female perspective and help her see being cared for wasn’t a bad thing.

  Her hand inched lower, tickling the light hairs low on his stomach and reviving his cock’s barely diminished interest.

  He caught her wrist just as the heel of her hand touched his briefs and gave her a warning squeeze. “I know you like me holding you down. Wanna find out if you like me paddling your ass, too?”

  Her body flinched like he’d actually swatted her behind and her breathing jumped to that of a runner early in their workout, but she held her silence.

  Guiding her hand back so it rested against his heart, he let himself smile into the darkness. “Think I just added another thing to explore to my list.” Just to make sure she got his point, he wrapped her up tight, slid his hand to her perfect ass and gave her a meaningful squeeze. “Sleep tight, gorgeous.”

  Chapter Ten

  One more mile. One more and maybe—just maybe—the edge Beckett had woken up with would take a hike and he could get back to finessing Gia into giving them a chance. He cut the corner at the next block and put some extra steam into his strides up the street’s minor incline. At eight o’clock on a Saturday morning, the warehouse yuppie/artist haven was almost void of activity save those like him who favored exercise over sleeping in. In August in Texas, it was also the only time worth exercising outside unless you were a sick fuck who got off on insufferable heat. Today promised to be no exception, the sun already beating down on the asphalt streets without a single cloud in sight to offer relief.

  Risking busting his ass for not looking where he was going, he thumbed his phone to life and checked the app that monitored the security in their apartment.

  The bold red swatch that showed his system was still activated beamed back at him and pushed his pace a little faster. If Gia opened the door and bailed before he got back, he’d get a notice all of a second later. So, why he needed the visual confirmation stymied him almost as much as the number of times he’d checked the app.

  Because you’re afraid she’ll bolt.

  The itch that had wormed beneath his skin this morning dug a little deeper, warning him to back the hell up and rethink the path he was on.

  No. He wasn’t backing up.

  His brothers thought he was good enough. And Gia wasn’t some shallow woman focused on money, education, or status. She was real. Honest. Nowhere near the cold woman who’d left him with a drunk for a father. Her own demons and insecurities might make her fight him tooth and nail on a personal level, but she wouldn’t bolt on him. Not without a damned good reason.

  He punched the home button and started to drop his hand just as the phone vibrated, Knox’s name and phone number plastered across the front of it. Not missing a beat, he punched the answer button, let the call take over The Killers blasting in his Bluetooth earbuds and focused on the road. “You get that clip taken down?”

&nbs
p; “Well, good morning to you, too, Hercules. Or, should I call you Blue Balls since you took the extra long run route today?”

  Fucking Knox. Beckett might have a stick up his ass with security, but his brother took tracking people to insane levels. “You always check people’s GPS before you call, or am I just special?”

  “Well, I wasn’t gonna call if you were stationary at the loft.”

  Good point. But he wasn’t gonna stoke Knox’s stalker tendencies by agreeing out loud. “You didn’t answer my question. The clip down?”

  “Yeah, it’s down. No bead yet on who posted it. Whoever put it up took pains to cover their tracks, but we’ll get there.”

  Beckett grunted and took the next street that would land him back at the loft. “I take it Sylvie and Ninette have glutted the two of you with food by now?”

  “Me. Darya. Plus, the whole rest of the crew. Trevor and Nat brought Levi out about an hour after we got here, so Zeke and Gabe decided to round out the crowd and came out, too. The moms are in hog heaven.”

  A definite plus. Not to mention convenient. If he was lucky, he could get Knox to do a little of his dirty work in one swoop. “You think they’d be cool with adding Gia to their next girls’ day out?”

  Quiet drifted through the phone for a good three heartbeats before Knox answered. “I take it Gumbo à la Beckett went pretty damned good.”

  Good didn’t even begin to cover it. The fact that he was anywhere near the emotional ballpark called Relationships was a fucking miracle. “It was a simple question. Forget I brought it up. Is there a reason you’re calling this early on a Saturday? Or could you just not wait to bust my balls?”