Zach set his beer down and tipped her chin up so she could meet his gaze. The fierceness she saw there made her want to recoil, but this was Zach, not some nasty criminal biker who didn’t give a shit about any rules but his own.
The fierceness in Zach’s eyes, the utter violence leashed behind their green depths, was there for her. He would let it loose if he had to, but never toward her or Ana. He was their protector. Their safe place.
“I promise you they’ll stop coming for you. One way or the other, I’ll make it happen. I swear. The Kings of Doom are no match for a SEAL team.”
Neo woke up during the night with that telltale prickling on his neck. Trouble.
He sat up with a start when he realized Kayla wasn’t beside him. His gut twisted. Not with fear, but with something close to it. He reached for the weapon he kept on the nightstand and moved silently across the floor, ready to do violence if he had to.
He found Kayla in Ana’s room, looking down at her baby who slept peacefully. She looked up when she heard him. Her eyes were glassy with tears. He didn’t even think about it, he just went over and pulled her into his arms. Relief flooded him. The warning system was for her this time, not for any outside danger. She was crying, and he was attuned to her pain. So attuned that it woke him from a dead sleep in the middle of the night.
He didn’t want her to cry, but he was glad he wasn’t facing an intruder. Especially not one who’d come looking for her.
“What’s the matter, beautiful?” he whispered. “Did Ana wake you up?”
He hadn’t heard anything, but maybe his hearing wasn’t dialed in to baby frequency yet.
“I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep.”
She’d been tired when they’d gone to bed, her eyes drooping so frequently that he hadn’t tried to make love to her again. He’d held her and listened to her breaths grow even before he’d finally fallen asleep too.
He rubbed his hand up and down her back. “Do you want to talk about anything?”
He wasn’t typically a chatty, bare-your-soul kind of guy, but for her he’d listen and do his best to untangle whatever was causing her problems.
She put her arms around his waist and held on tight. “No. It was a bad dream. That’s all. But it scared me, and I had to make sure Ana was okay.”
“You ready to leave her?”
She nodded, her head moving up and down against his chest. He ushered her from the room, pulling the door almost all the way closed but leaving a good five inches of space so they could hear if Ana woke and started to cry.
“Need anything from the kitchen?”
“No,” she whispered.
He took her into the bedroom and pulled the covers back on her side. She didn’t get in though. She stepped into him, pressing her palms to his bare chest and then down over his abdomen, tracing every ridge of his six-pack, exploring him. His dick hardened instantly. Need for her was a hot itch in his brain, a throbbing in his balls. But he didn’t move. Instead, he let her explore his torso.
And then, when her hand slipped beneath the waistband of his athletic shorts, he hissed in a breath as her touch scalded him. She hadn’t touched his cock yet, and he was ready to come unglued.
“Kayla,” he groaned. “What are you doing, baby?”
“Touching you.”
His laugh was rusty. “Yeah, I noticed. And I don’t mind at all, but it’s killing me to let it happen at this pace.”
She tipped her head back—and wrapped her hand around his cock. “Oh, you mean you want me to touch you like this?”
He couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. His balls were tight against his body and his dick was like iron. Her hand was soft and silky as she squeezed, pumping him deliberately.
“That’s good,” he said, out of breath, “but I can think of even better things to do with it.”
She dropped to her knees and took his shorts down at the same time. Then she gazed up at him and curled her tongue around the head of his dick. “Things like this?”
“Yeah. Fuck yeah.”
He saw stars. Kayla took him into her mouth, swirling her tongue around his cock while cupping his balls with one hand and pumping with the other. She made lust burn hard at the back of his brain, but there was another emotion crowding in there as well.
Mine. All mine. Always.
He let her keep going until he couldn’t take another moment and then he lifted her up and tossed her onto the bed in one quick move. She squeaked and laughed at the same time, a sultry laugh that told him she was turned on and enjoying herself.
“You didn’t let me finish,” she complained.
“Nope,” he said, putting a knee on the bed and reaching for her silky little robe. She’d wrapped up in a robe to go into Ana’s room and he undid the ties and shoved it open. All she wore under it was a tank top that clung to her beautiful tits and a pair of lacy panties that did things to his brain. He dragged them off and tossed them aside, then wedged himself between her legs with his shoulders, shoving them open.
She was wet and ready for him. He tested her with a finger and she bowed up off the bed, hissing in a breath and gasping out his name. He grinned.
“Yeah, Kayla. Like that, baby. You are so fucking gorgeous.”
He dropped his head and buried his face in her sweet wet heat, licking and tasting and teasing her as he attacked her clit and then retreated before she could explode. Eventually, she fisted her hands
