Protector for Hire (18 page)

“Wait,” he murmured, pulling back.

She dug her nails into his shoulder blades. “Don’t you dare—”

“Relax,” he said, grinning as he planted a kiss on her forehead, then rolled away and reached for the nightstand. “Just grabbing protection.”

“Protection,” she repeated, startled to realize she’d almost forgotten. Hell, she was on the brink of forgetting her own name if he kept touching her like this. She watched him tear open the condom and roll it on and she wondered if she should do something more helpful than lying there like a woman waiting to be ravaged.

But she
was
a woman waiting to be ravaged. And he was exactly the man she wanted to do it.

He lowered himself over her again, and she noticed the careful way he carried his weight on his elbows, cautious not to crush her. But she wanted to be crushed. She wanted to feel all of him, the solid bulk of him pressing her back against the bed. She opened her legs again, and felt him slip between them like he’d always belonged there.

This time when she felt him graze her entrance, he didn’t draw back. Then he was inside her.

“Oh God,” she gasped as he slid in slowly, taking his time, letting her body adjust to the sensation of being invaded. Holy hell, the man was huge. She hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes until she opened them to see him looking down at her with an expression of dumbstruck nirvana.

“You feel so fucking good,” he whispered as he drew back slowly, then slid into her again. “Are you okay?”

“
Okay?
” It came out sounding like a cross between a gasp and a laugh, then turned into a groan as he slid in and out again. “Jesus, Schwartz—I’m about six hundred degrees beyond
okay
. I’m somewhere between bliss and I-think-my-brain-just-ruptured-with-pleasure.”

“Mmm,” he murmured, bending to kiss her as he moved in and out of her at a languid pace. “Try not to get brains on my good sheets.”

She could tell he was taking his time, being gentle for her benefit. But as his thrusts quickened and a furrow appeared between his brows, she knew neither of them could hold that pace for long. She dug her heels into the backs of his thighs, wishing she had spurs to really drive the message home. The thought of wearing spurs to bed made her giggle, but the giggle turned to a gasp when he thrust into her with a bit more force.

“
Harder
,” she cried, surprised the word escaped her lips, and even more surprised when he obliged. He drove into her with a force that slammed the headboard against the wall.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t hurt me. You might hurt the drywall, but—”

“I’ll patch it,” he groaned, and slammed into her.

“God, yes!” Janelle arched into it, urging him on with her heels tight on the backs of his thighs. He moaned, quickening his pace again, the friction between their bodies making her dizzy with heat.

“Janelle, I won’t last long if you—”

“Do it!” she cried, feeling the bubble of her own release growing somewhere deep inside her. She closed her eyes tight, pressing her breasts to his chest and her clit to the hard wall of muscle where his body joined with hers.

Something exploded behind her eyelids and she cried out, rocking against him as the first spasm of pleasure gripped her, then another and another.

“Come with me,” she gasped, not sure where this dirty-talking version of herself had come from, but knowing she couldn’t stop the torrent of words or the spasms of pleasure or the pounding of his thrusts as he drove into her again.

“
Janelle
,” he groaned, then shuddered in her arms. She felt him moving inside her and lost track of where his spasms ended and her own began.

At last, he lay motionless on top of her. She could feel his breath coming fast and hard, and she wondered for a moment if he’d passed out.

Then he rolled away, pulling her with him so she lay cradled against his chest. They didn’t speak for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few seconds. When Janelle drew back to look at him, he was smiling with his eyes closed.

“Janelle Rebecca Lambchop Sweet Pea Keebler,” he murmured, opening his eyes to look at her. “That was fucking incredible.”

She laughed and leaned down to kiss him. “I couldn’t agree more.”

…

Four hours later, Schwartz woke from a blissful dream of stars and rainbows and sunshine and fluffy fucking clouds to realize it wasn’t a dream at all.

Janelle was here. In his arms and in his bed, and he hadn’t been this happy about anything in years. Maybe ever.

He planted a kiss along her hairline, not meaning to wake her, but her eyes fluttered open and she smiled. “Good morning.”

“It’s actually three p.m. That’s what happens when you spend your morning running from a cougar and your afternoon fucking like rabbits.”

She yawned and rolled over, propping herself up on one elbow. “What do rabbits fuck like, exactly?” She slid her hand over his chest, making his skin tingle. “I’ve heard that expression before, but I’ve never understood what it meant.”

“You should be here in the spring when the wild jackrabbits are out in the meadow making bunny porn and doing their best to populate the planet.”

“Spring,” she murmured, her voice still sleepy. “I’ll bet it’s beautiful here in the spring.”

“Mmm,” he agreed, his brain still lingering on the way she’d felt tight and hot and yielding beneath him. Her hand was warm on his chest, and her whole body was pressed against his under the covers. How was it possible he wanted her again?

A soft rumble made him slide his hand over her belly. “Was that your stomach growling?”

She laughed, rolling away from him. “I’m starving, aren’t you?” She leaped out of bed, not waiting for an answer, and he savored the view of her naked backside walking away from him. “Wait right there,” she called. “One Pop-Tart smorgasbord coming right up.”

He thought about running to help her, but it wasn’t like it took two people to put Pop-Tarts in the toaster. Instead, he grabbed his phone off the nightstand and checked for any messages from his brothers.

Nothing. He fired off a quick text to Grant.

Anything new with Jacques?

He didn’t expect to hear back right away, since his brother was probably busy with whatever secret spy catcher duties the marines had him performing at Fort Lewis, so he was surprised to see a message pop up again quickly.

Nothing definitive, but Mac said something may be going down. Stay tuned. Will let you know as soon as I hear more
.

Huh. Something may be going down? He thought about that for a moment, wavering between guardedness over what that might mean for Janelle and the thought that there’d been a whole lot of
going down
going on in his bed over the last few hours.

Grant probably didn’t need to know that.

Schwartz settled for typing, “Thanks,” and setting the phone aside. Something clattered out in the kitchen, and he listened as Janelle banged a cupboard shut.

“You need help out there?” he called.

“I’m making Pop-Tarts, not coq au vin,” she called. “Pretty sure I have it under control.”

A cupboard banged again, and he pictured her naked in his kitchen, stretching up to reach the plates on a high shelf. He had a sudden urge to see all that beautiful flesh on display in real life, so he rolled out of bed and lumbered out into the living room.

She turned to look at him, her face flushed from either the heat of the toaster or the beard burn he’d inflicted upon her all morning. He should probably apologize, but he found himself reaching for her instead.

She giggled and pulled two Pop-Tarts out of the toaster, nudging his hands away with her hip as she set the pastries on a plate. “I told you I had it handled.”

“I know,” he said, bending to kiss her as he circled his hands around her waist. “I needed to make sure you were handled.”

“You’ve been handling me all morning. Aren’t you hungry?”

“Absolutely.” He bent to kiss her neck, and she tasted so good, he continued downward until his lips found her breast. “Just not for food.”

She gasped as his tongue grazed her nipple, and she dropped the toaster pastries. One of them landed on his foot, but he didn’t take his mouth off her breast.

“God, you’re good at that,” she moaned.

“You just want me for my Pop-Tarts.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Schwartz laughed and cupped her backside, boosting her up onto the counter. Something crashed to the floor behind her and she gasped, “Milk,” before Schwartz cut off the rest of her words with a kiss.

She gave a little squeak of protest, then moaned as his mouth slid lower, then lower again. Something cold splashed against his toes, and he wondered if he might be the first man to go down on a woman while standing in a puddle of skim milk. He dipped his tongue inside her, delirious with the taste of her and the sensation of her nails digging into his scalp and threading through his hair.

“Oh!” she gasped as he slid a finger inside her, angling it to find that spot he’d already discovered made her cry out and writhe against him. She leaned back against the cupboard, giving him open access to her body as he licked and stroked and felt her getting slicker by the second.

“Please,” she begged. “I want you inside me.”

“I
am
inside you,” he murmured, swirling his finger to make the point.

“The rest of you. Please, Schwartz,” she begged. “My purse is right there with a condom in the front pocket.
Please
.”

Her plea was more urgent this time, and Schwartz didn’t need to be asked again. He pushed aside the plate of Pop-Tarts, pushing aside his own reservations about doing this with the woman he was supposed to be protecting. There’d be time for regrets later. Much later.

He found the condom and slipped it on, then slipped inside her in one stroke just to hear her gasp of surprised pleasure.

“Oh, Jesus,” she groaned as he did it again, moving in and out of her as he bent to claim her mouth. She kissed him hard, her thighs clenching around him as she clawed at his back. He gripped the counter, but found himself with a fistful of Pop-Tart.

He let his palm glide down the length of her torso instead, savoring the fullness of her breast and the flare of her hip. He kissed his way down her throat and back up again, loving the way she writhed against him as he drove into her again.

“Schwartz, please!” she urged, and he smiled at the eagerness in her voice. He could never get tired of hearing his name uttered with that kind of hunger by a woman. Not just any woman.
This
woman.

God, she was wet. He couldn’t believe how good she felt, or the fact that he was doing this again after they’d been at it all morning. Hell, he was hardly twenty-one years old. Where had all this stamina come from?

“Pretty sure we’re going for an Olympic record here,” he said, drawing back and kissing her neck.

“An Olympic medal in sex.” She giggled, then gasped as he slid nearly all the way out of her. “You’ve already got bronze. And silver. And
ohmygod
gold.”

He plunged in deep, sheathing himself to the root as she arched up to meet him. She tightened her legs around him, then opened her eyes and grinned. “You feel so damn good.”

“So do you,” he whispered, moving into her again.

He loved having her like this, not worrying about crushing her beneath his weight. She was tight and slick around him, and he quickened his pace as he felt her whole body go tense. He could tell she was close. Hell, he was almost there himself. He drove into her and heard a plate crash to the floor.

“Yes!” She raked her nails down his back as Schwartz drove into her harder and harder until he felt himself start to lose his own grip on reality. His feet were sticky with milk and his body was slick with sweat and his brain was fuzzy with desire. He shuddered and closed his eyes as the first wave hit him, then the next and the next until he was breathless and panting and spent.

When he opened his eyes, she was smiling at him. “Well then,” she murmured. “I’d say you earned both the gold medal and the Pop-Tart.”

He grinned and slid out of her, getting rid of the condom as discreetly as possible. When he turned back around, she was sitting on the counter with her legs crossed primly and a Pop-Tart in each hand. He laughed and reached for a broken hunk of toaster pastry, surprised by how ravenous he was.

“Mmm, peanut butter and strawberry jelly Pop-Tarts,” he said. “The post-sex treat of champions.”

“Amen,” she said, and toasted him with her pastry. “Sorry about the milk. And the broken plate. And the smashed-up Pop-Tarts.”

He looked at the Pop-Tart in his hand. “They’re easier to eat this way.”

“We’ll consider the rest of it coital collateral damage, then. I’ll clean it up in a second. I just need to eat something.” She took a bite and chewed, looking thoughtful as she swallowed. “What’s that sound?”

“What sound?”

“That buzzing sound. I think it’s coming from the bedroom.”

Schwartz froze. His phone. Goddammit, he’d left his phone on the nightstand.

He sprinted for the bedroom, dimly aware of the puddle of spilled milk, plate shards, and crumbled toaster pastry on the wood floor and the sound of Janelle’s footsteps behind him. He grabbed the phone off the nightstand, head throbbing, kicking himself for leaving it behind, for missing the incoming text, for being a general dumbass who’d let his guard down.

Again.

He looked down at the screen and felt his blood turn to ice in the space of a single breath.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Holy shit,” Schwartz said, and dropped his Pop-Tart.

Chapter Twelve

They caught him. The motherfucker is in custody.

Schwartz stared at the words on his phone, hardly daring to breathe.

“What is it?” Janelle asked. “Did something bad happen?”

He shook his head and held out the phone so she could see it. He watched her face as her gaze slid over those eight simple words. When she looked up at him, her expression was tentative.