“You didn’t have to drive me home.” Placing one hand on the car door, I slowly ease myself out of the vehicle and bite back a wince as a dull ache shoots through my abdomen.
“I wanted to,” Cormac replies, immediately offering me his elbow.
“Is this your way of making up for what happened?”
I loop my hand around his arm and clutch at him. Feeling the strength rippling through his muscles with the slightest shift gives me a warm sense of security. He might have been with me when I got stabbed, but he wasn’t near me. Having him tower over me as we ascend the steps to my front door gives me a comfort that if something else were to happen, he would protect me.
“Maybe.” He dips his head and when our eyes meet, he lifts his brow. “I would still prefer to have you at my penthouse.”
“No, thank you. I need my own bed after trying, and failing, to sleep these past nights in that hospital.” His offer had been kind and incredibly tempting, but I was exhausted. The last thing I want is to recover in a place that reminds me of my kidnapping.
“It’s not safe,” Cormac insists again, though he doesn’t fight me when I unlock my door and let us both inside.
“You’re here,” I say easily. “I feel plenty safe.”
“I can’t be here all the time,” Cormac replies.
“Ahh, so you were teasing when you said you couldn’t stop thinking about me,” I joke softly while releasing my grip on his arm. “I knew you were all talk.”
“I wasn’t teasing,” he replies as seriously as if we were still discussing the details of my stabbing. “But they know where you live.”
Reaching my kitchen, I set aside the small paper bag containing my medication and move to pour myself a glass of water. “Do they know where you live?”
“Yes.” Cormac sighs.
“Exactly. Here has the benefit of my own bed and my own pillow. So here wins out. Sorry.” Cormac doesn’t strike me as the kind of person to make a face, but the way his eyebrows twitch suggests he would do that if he were ten years younger.
“Your logic is irritating.”
“Just be thankful I’m on painkillers.”
Just as I finish pouring myself some water, his hand appears over mine against the tap and he takes over turning it closed. “I’ll be with you as long as I can tonight. Then Dale will take over.”
“Dale?” I glance from our joined hands to Cormac’s face. “The man you had tailing me ever since you let me go?”
He meets my eyes steadily, not a hint of shame in them. “Yes.”
“You really aren’t going to explain that?”
“What?”
“You had someone tailing me.”
“Yes.”
“Yes?” A dull spike of irritation rises, so I pull my hand away from him and turn to my medication. “No explanation?”
“I made myself clear,” Cormac replies. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you so I took steps to keep an eye on you until my interest died down.”
“And did it?” Three pills land on my tongue and I chase them with several gulps of water, then I turn to face him. “Has your interest faded?”
Cormac holds my gaze. “Not in the slightest.”
I should tell him to leave. The sensible part of me knows I should, but I can’t. Maybe it’s how warm his presence makes me feel or how small my kitchen feels with his bulk taking up most of the space. I want him here for as long as I can have him. Which might only be for tonight, and I’ll wake up tomorrow with more sense in my soul, but right now, I’m still stuck yearning for him. It’s been there, warm in my chest, ever since he cuddled me to sleep in the hospital that first night. And each night after until they discharged me.
“Alright,” I say, coughing slightly as a lingering tightness clings to the inside of my throat after those pills. “Well, you do your protection thing and I… I’m going to go and shower.”
Leaving the kitchen, I move through my small apartment toward my bathroom. Cormac follows.
“I don’t need help showering,” I say as I turn on the light.
Cormac lightly catches my wrist as my hand falls from the switch and he turns me to face him. “Maybe not, but you will need help wrapping your bandages so they don’t get water damage.”
He has a point but for some reason, his pointedness irritates me a little. Bathed in the bright light from the single bulb in my rundown bathroom, I clutch the hem of my T-shirt and pull the fabric over my head with only a tiny wince of pain. My upper abdomen and breasts are wrapped in thick, white bandages to protect the stab wound and my surgical incision.
Cormac barely even blinks and he doesn’t break eye contact.
“Wrap me up, then,” I demand.
He obliges. Using the remaining cling wrap from my kitchen, he tenderly covers all of my bandages to the point that I’m certain not even a drop of sweat is going to break the seal. Each brush of his fingertips against my bare skin sends a jolt of energy through me, like a bolt of lightning. He remains gentle even as he guides me to turn and lift my arms. It’s so different to the last time he touched me when we fucked in the car, and part of me aches to return to that.
It would be the fastest way to chase away this heavy sense of weakness that’s settled in my heart ever since I woke up in the hospital.
“There.” Cormac steps back finally. “Now you’re shower-proof.”
“Thank you,” I reply, and my heart flutters. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Cormac is blushing slightly, but it’s difficult to tell in such a bright white light.
“Happy showering.” Cormac steps out of the room, then he remains in the doorway with his back to me. He’s really taking this protection thing seriously.
I don’t mind at all. As I step under the lukewarm, weak spray of my shower, I finally have a chance to run through everything that’s happened. From the motel until now, everything feels like some weird dream. I’m on a runaway train that’s dragging me away from my normal life and I ache to return to it.
And yet, a growing part of me is enjoying it. It’s the most excitement I’ve had in years, and somehow, my debts are paid—technically. I’ve no idea what happens next, and I should ask Cormac about Harry and the money, but I almost don’t want to know—not when that detective could pop up at any moment and start asking me uncomfortable questions.
No, I won’t ask. Not yet, at least. Right now, I’m going to enjoy having someone taking care of me for the first time in my life.
I finish washing away the grime and stink of the hospital and step out of the shower smelling like vanilla and berries, finally starting to feel like myself again. Wrapped in a towel, my heart leaps when I open the door and Cormac is right where I left him. He stands guard silently and only turns when I gently touch his back.
“Good shower?” Cormac asks, and this time he isn’t subtle in the way he glances down my damp body.
“Amazing,” I reply. “Well, as amazing as that shower can be.”
“The pressure at my place is stronger,” he replies.
I roll my eyes and move past him to the bedroom. “Like I said, my bed trumps everything at your place.”
“Noted.” Cormac lingers in the doorway, leaning against the frame as I make my way toward my bed and drop down onto the saggy mattress. As beds go, it’s a bit shitty, but it has my own knitted blanket and smells like me. It’s the only place I have that’s warm and feels safe, like the blankets can act as some kind of barrier between me and the entire world.
“Are you going to stare at me the entire time I dry off?” I ask, suddenly shy about removing my towel.
“I need to take the wrap off,” Cormac says. “If you will let me.”
“Sure. Then can I sleep?”
“Sure.” Cormac walks toward me, slowly rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. “Sure.” As more of his sculpted arms are revealed to me, I become distracted by the beautiful, intricate ink on his arm. For a man so brooding and silent, so much color almost seems out of character, but the detail tells me he’s spent hours getting it done. Which means it’s important.
“May I?” Cormac sits next to me and touches the edge of my damp towel.
I nod, and my breath catches in my throat as he slowly pulls the cotton away from my naked body. Before my shower, I’d been tense with tiredness and slight irritation, but the painkillers are working full swing now, and the warmth of the shower and the scent of my body wash have soothed me. Suddenly, Cormac’s presence is taking up my entire focus. As he looks down and works at removing the plastic wrap from my bandages, I look at him.
Really look at him.
His thick, auburn hair has grown wavy over the past few days, like he hasn’t had time to brush it properly. His beard is thicker too, and the downturned corners of his lips betray the deep sadness hiding inside him. These past few days, he’s been busy watching over me at the hospital and busy on his phone. I wonder when he last did something for himself.
Did a man like Cormac do things for himself? Did he have hobbies beyond fighting and kidnapping? Surely, he had regular, human desires outside of this Mafia life.
I study the wrinkles across his forehead, and each time he leans close with his movements, I breathe in the spicy peppermint of his cologne. My heart begins to race as my attention drifts down to his thick neck and the sexy slope of his collarbone. The top few buttons of his shirt are undone so I can see some gorgeous curves of muscle and a hint of auburn curls across his chest.
When we’d fucked in the car, I didn’t have a chance to explore his body. Suddenly, I ache to.
“All finished,” Cormac says suddenly, and his voice jolts me out of my distracted musings.
My eyes flick up and Cormac remains close, merely a few inches away from me. The sloped curve of his lips calls to me and a warm pull of muscle squeezes through my core.
“You know,” Cormac says slowly, “when you dropped the towel, did you mean to drop it fully?”
“Hmm?” I glance down at myself. In my distraction of taking Cormac in, I had forgotten that, unlike in the bathroom when I removed my T-shirt, I am completely naked, and I hadn’t attempted to cover myself. Oh. “I feel like I should be embarrassed,” I say, glancing back up to those deep blue eyes. “But I’m not.”
“Must be the medication,” Cormac says softly.
“Maybe,” I reply, sinking my teeth into my lower lip. “Maybe there’s something wrong with me.”
“Like?”
“Maybe I’m numb.”
Cormac leans an inch closer. “You think you’re numb?”
“Mmhmm. I feel nothing.”
“Nothing at all?” His bushy brows knit together and he leans closer another inch.
“Not a thing,” I whisper. My heart pounds beneath my chest and goosebumps race across my skin, bringing with them a chill that forces a shover across my shoulders. “Maybe we should test that, though. Before we call a doctor.”
“Test how?” Cormac’s heavy, rough hand lands firmly on my damp, bare thigh, and my heart leaps into my throat.
“You really gonna make me say it?” I whisper. He’s so close now that his entire scent is the only air I breathe, and I can make out a few hidden flecks of green in his beautiful eyes. His hand burns with anticipation against my thigh, and I’m not even sure what I’m asking for at this rate. My mouth is running and my thoughts are leagues behind.
“Yes,” Cormac replies softly. “You want it, you ask me for it.”
“I don’t know what I want,” I reply honestly, placing one hand over his hot knuckles. “Just… something.”
“Something?” Cormac presses.
“You.”
That’s the keyword, it seems, because no sooner has that sound left my lips than Cormac is kissing me deeply, and my needy mind goes blank in relief. All thoughts screech to a halt and the next rush of goosebumps across my body is warm.
“You’re wounded,” Cormac says, writing those words against my lips when he breaks the kiss. “I will be gentle.”
And he is. Cormac lays me down on the bed and discards my wet towel, then he sits me up near my pillows for comfort. Through each movement, he kisses me and keeps one arm around my waist to help me move with minimal effort on my part.
My aching ribs thank him.
He kisses my chin, then kisses down to my throat, where he buries his face into the juncture of my neck and shoulder. Each needy drag of his lips and tongue over my fluttering pulse makes his beard graze against my skin, and it’s almost painful. But it’s nothing compared to when he kisses down my body and disappears between my thighs.
There, the drag of his beard against the sensitive skin of my inner thighs is painful, but it’s a pain I enjoy. Like the heat from pressing cold hands around a hot cup. Cormac slides his arms under my legs, then curls his arms around to grasp my thighs and pull me closer to his mouth.
A pulse of nerves skitters through my chest and I almost ask him to wait.
Then he kisses me, a firm, lingering kiss against my vulva, then my head tips back into the pillows. I clutch at the blanket beneath me, and my toes curl as Cormac’s tongue slides through the outer lips of my pussy and delves into my inner heat in one slow stroke.
I close my eyes and my focus narrows to his warmth between my legs. His tongue slides through my pussy, parting my inner folds and delving down to my entrance, then he laps back up where his tongue becomes a firm point that flicks over my clit. I gasp and lurch at the resulting burst of pleasure. His grip tightens on my thighs and he holds me in place.
I can’t think, and with each slide of his tongue through my damp folds, I can barely breathe, either. Cormac isn’t one of those men who thinks a few kisses and a touch of the other lips is all that a woman needs. He’s a real man and he’s buried against my pussy like it’s consuming him. He laps, kisses, and suckles every inch he can reach, barely pausing for air. Each time pleasure causes me to shift and rock one way, he’s right there with me and his hands are quick to guide me back into place so he has the easiest access.
The pleasure grows quickly, but when I try to close my thighs and rock into the sensation of his constant attention over my clit, Cormac’s hands prevent that from happening. Being lightly restrained, even like this, sends a flurry of excitement through my body. Sweat breaks out across my skin and thin strands of hair stick to my neck when I toss my head back and forth. My nipples ache for contact, but they’re trapped behind the bandages so all I can do is slide my hands over my own heaving abdomen. A light caress, then I stroke down to where Cormac’s head is buried against me. The moment I grip onto his thick red hair, he thrusts his tongue deep inside me and seals his mouth against my pussy. He hums and sucks as his tongue thrusts into me, reaching deeper than I can even fathom.
Arching off the bed, I cry out even as tightness from my stitches flares across my chest and warns me not to go too far. Right now, it doesn’t matter. Heat coils like a snake in my lower gut and my clit throbs in time to my pounding heart. Constant tingles sweep down my arms and legs. My toes curl and my thighs tense under his grip. His tongue swirls around my clit in circles, then zig-zags, and just as he presses it flat against me, my orgasm hits like a truck.
I arch forward with a cry and my entire body jolts like the crack of a whip. I squeal and moan, suspended in a rigid position for a few long seconds as pleasure pours through me like liquid gold. My core throbs under Cormac’s tongue, then I flop back onto the bed, panting harshly.
“Holy… shit,” I gasp.
Cormac is above me suddenly with one hand on my ribcage. His beard glistens from my juices and there’s a soft look around his dark eyes. “Too much?”
“No,” I gasp, lifting one hand and cupping his cheek. “Not at all.”
“Are you sure?” His eyes dart back and forth as if he’s taking in every detail of my face, then his lips twitch as if a smile sits just out of reach.
“So sure.” My thumb skims over his cheekbone. “That was amazing.”
“I’m not finished.” Cormac leans down and kisses the very tip of my nose, then he vanishes from view and settles back down between my trembling legs.
He draws me to a second orgasm as the sun sets outside my window. He’s slower the second time, taking his time and letting pleasure simmer in me until I’m desperate and begging to be tipped over the edge. Only then does he let me come, and it’s the second-best orgasm of my life.
Sleep comes easily after that, once Cormac’s looked me over to make sure our activities haven’t affected my stitches in any way. I sleep soundly, completely at peace for the first time in months, and I don’t wake until late the next day. Cormac is right there with breakfast and medication and then he stays with me the entire day. I mostly sleep, letting the painkillers do their thing, and each time I wake up, Cormac is there with a meal ready for me and a few light discussions either about the news or some random fact he wants to share. It’s oddly domestic for someone so large and dangerous, but he means it when he says he’s going to take care of me.
It lasts until late at night when Cormac wakes me gently and cups my face. “I have to leave,” he says in a low voice. “But Dale is here and I have people stationed outside.”
“Will you be back?” I ask sleepily, struggling to gather my thoughts through a painkiller-addled sleep.
“Yes,” Cormac says, then his beard and lips brush against my forehead. “Sleep.”
I do, and I dream of Cormac and I living in some nice house somewhere with a garden and a dog running around. My dreams last until pain from my surgical wound wakes me late the next morning. There’s no breakfast to greet me this time, but Dale is there with a fresh pot of coffee and it will have to do.
“Where’s Cormac?” I ask, accepting the steaming cup from Dale.
“Busy.”
“He said he’d come back.”
“He’s not finished yet,” Dale replies. “But he has a message for you.”
“Oh?” My brow lifts slightly. “Which is?”
“Pack.”
“Huh?”
“He’s going to take you somewhere safe to heal.”
“I told him I’m not going anywhere.”
Dale smirks. “Trust me. You’ll want to pack a bag. And bring your pillow.”
