Roar (Military Bad Boy Billionaire Romance) (Soldiers of Fortune Book 4) (12 page)

I'm freezing up in a way I never do, and all I want to do right then is get away from him, even if I'm pretty sure I couldn't make my legs work anyways.

“C’mon, baby."

"I..I-"

"Let Anderson make you feel real goo-"

He grunts suddenly as he's shoved away from me, and I gasp and look up in shock.

Of course, it's Bryce. Bryce with his teeth bared like some sort of wild animal and every muscle in his body tensed while his eyes blaze liquid fire and hatred at the man he's just shoved away from me.

Anderson sputters as he leaps to his feet; "Hey pal, what the shit!"

For a moment, I think Bryce is going to actually kill him, or at least break him in horrible ways with his bare hands. But I can physically
see
the way he shoves that down inside; the way he takes a breath, the way his face drops back to neutral and the way he forces the anger from every fiber of his being.

He turns to me, all smiles now; "Ms. Black; I'm sorry but you've got a call from the home office, and it's very important."

"Hey bud, I'm talkin to y-"

"Apologies," Bryce says, his voice like hard-honed steel; "But Ms. Black has business to attend to."

I recover, picking my jaw off the ground as I stare at Bryce and try and collect my thoughts; "Oh, yes, I'm sorry Anderson, this is my- my assistant."

Bryce shoots me a dark look.

"Well, send him the fuck away, babe."

"I'm
so
sorry," I say, wincing like leaving this utter debacle of a date is the last thing I want to do right now; "I really do have to take this though."

Anderson glowers at Bryce; the two of them facing each other unflinchingly with the drunk one on the left probably totally unaware of how close he is to being torn limb from limb by the dark-haired man calmly smiling at him.

"I'll call you, I
promise
," I say quickly to Anderson as I grab Bryce's arm with an iron grip and quickly drag us through the restaurant towards the door.
 

*****

"I can
not
believe you!" We've marched back to the room in silence; past the glimmering candles of the light festival and through the shadows dancing on the old stonework walls of the city. But once we're back in the hotel room, I whirl on Bryce.

"Excuse me?" He growls, slamming the door shut as he loosens the tie at his neck.

"You're going to ruin the one chance we've got of getting Logan back, because your fucking
ego
won't let you just
let me
do what I have to do!"

"
What?!
" He explodes; "You think I was going to sit back and just
watch
that happen?!" He tears his tie off his neck and whips it across the room, his eye steely fire as he glares at me; "Jesus fucking Christ, Peyton, you were shaking back there. You were losing it yourself."

"I was
perfectly
in control!" I lie, hoping the anger in my voice covers how unconvincing I know I sound.

I whirl and start to storm away, but he grabs my hand, pulling me back and spinning me into him. I gasp as I come crashing into his chest, my hands against him as I look up to see the dark storms of his eyes boring into mine; “I couldn’t watch him just fucking
touch you
like that,” He growls. I can feel the heat throbbing between us, thick with the unspoken and the words held back; “I couldn’t watch him or any other man in the world put their fucking hands on you.”

“You don’t own me,” I say lowly, yanking my hand away from him storming off towards the bathroom door.

“Yeah? Who’re you trying to convince, sweetheart?” He throws after me.

I slam the door and lean against it, feeling my face burn and my pulse race;
damn
this man
. Damn the way he gets ahold of me like that, damn him for getting under my skin and into my thoughts, and damn him for knowing exactly what to say to me at every turn.

The steam rises quickly from the tap as I crank the hot water up, shedding my clothes as storm-clouds brew across my face. There’s just too much going on right now, too many ups and down and spikes of adrenaline for one night. And truth be told, I need to shower after that debacle with Anderson. I shiver again, thinking of his hand on mine, his thuggish, leering looks stripping away my clothes right there at the table.
 

But then, as I step under the cleansing hot spray of the water, I think of Bryce. Bryce stepping in to stop it, Bryce taking me away from it all. I don’t need
saving
. I’m not some fucking damsel in a tower that needs a knight to come swooping in while I faint delicately in the background. But what I need, and what I’ve always needed, is just someone to show they
care
. Someone to step up to the darkness and face it right there with me, if only just to say “you’re not alone.”

And that’s what he is.

He’s not my savior, he’s my strength. He’s the match that lights the kindling beneath me. For better or for worse, and no matter how much I want it not to be true after what happened a year ago, that’s the role he plays.

And
damn him
for that.

My mind betrays me as I lean against the shower wall, letting the scalding hot water draw the tension from my skin. I start to think of
other
things that Bryce Connors does to me. The way his eyes pierce into mine, seeing right into me like no one else ever has, or the way his hands feel sliding over my skin, as if memorizing every curve and every flaw.

And I think of the way his lips feel on mine; the way he kisses me with a searing need and a blazing passion that has me falling apart inside.

My body betrays me then too, and my wayward thoughts of the man I swore to forget but just can’t turn deeper; darker. I think of the ways our bodies fit together, the way his skin feels on mine, the way he gets me trembling and begging for him; the way he makes me come. My nipples slowly harden under the teasing hot spray of the shower, the electric drops of the water sending little sparks through my body as they tease across my chest. Heat blooms forbidden and tempting between my legs, and I bite my lip as a traitorous hand begins to slide down my tummy, over my my hips and down between my legs to feel the slippery wetness there.

The door to the room suddenly opens abruptly, and I gasp, yanked from my reverie by the sound of Bryce jumping out of my forbidden fantasies and storming into the here and now; “What the
fuck!
” I shriek, yanking my hand away from myself and turning away from the door; “Bryce-“

“Tell me you’ve never thought of us,” His silhouette growls from the other side of the curtain; “Tell me you’ve never thought of what was, that you’ve never second guessed any of it, and I’ll walk back out that door right now.”

I bite my lip, trembling and not trusting myself to even open my mouth in that moment.

His hand reaches out to the curtain, but I don’t shriek and I don’t move as he slowly draws it back. He’s naked; hard and ready for me, with his eyes blazing as he drinks me in; “Tell me you weren’t thinking of me
just now
, and I’ll leave it, for good.” My heart is roaring and racing like a river as he steps into the shower. My arms are still haphazardly covering myself, but it’s almost like his mere presence has me dropping them slowly to my side, baring myself to him. His eyes roam over my water-dappled skin, over the pink points of my nipples, down my body as I blush.

He steps into the shower with me, his voice dark and low; “But if even one of those things isn’t true,” He steps even closer, his body practically touching mine as his hand reaches out to cup my chin and lift it towards his face. And it’s everything I have not to whimper or moan right then at the feeling of his touch; at the feeling of that spark that lights the fire; “If even
one
of those things isn’t true, Peyton,” He whispers deeply, leaning closer; “Then there’s no fucking way I’m letting another Goddamn second pass by without kissing you.”

And then, I break, like the snapping of a dam or the crack across the frozen lake; “Will you just shut up and kiss me?”

I gasp at the ferocity in his mouth, the raw heat that surges through him as he crushes his lips against mine. I’m moaning into him, shattering and tumbling apart as his powerful arms wrap around me and draw me into him. He growls as my mouth parts for him, his tongue sliding against mine, and I can feel the pulsing of his cock throbbing hard against my thigh.
 

My hands trail over his back; delicate, hesitant, and exploratory at first, as if relearning the way across a map. But as he groans into our kiss, my fingers remember the path and feel of his skin, and I’m clutching him like I might fly away without him.
 

We break our kiss, gasping for air as his lips travel down my jaw, down over the delicate skin of my neck to my collarbone, to the place he knows turns me into a puddle.

I love that he knows that place.

I melt into him, whimpering as he sucks my skin there, and when his hand drops low on my back, over the soft curve of my ass, and around my hip towards my sex, I don’t stop him. Fingers part my lips and brush over the hard nub of my clit, and I’m gasping as he rubs me there. The hot water cascades over us as he slips a thick finger easily inside of me, curling it against that wonderful spot as his thumb rubs circles around my clit. I’m rocking my hips against him, moaning out loud as as his mouth starts to drop down the slope of my breasts, until his lips close over the rock hard pebble of a nipple. It’s like a live wire right to my core as his fingers plunge in and out of me while his tongue dances across my nipple. And then he’s moving lower; dropping to his knees as his lips trail kisses across my belly, across my navel, and then lower, across my mons.

I cry out when I feel his tongue there against my clit, drawing it between his lips and teasing me as his fingers curl again and again against that spot just inside. I can feel my legs start to buckle, my knees giving out, but his strong hand is there, grabbing my ass and steadying me as he slowly brings me higher and higher.

“Come for me,” he growls, looking up into my eyes as I slowly start to fade over the edge of my orgasm; “I want to feel you come on my tongue.”

Oh, fuck.

And when his tongue slides back against my clit, I explode against him. I’m crying out his name, my hands clutching hard at his dark hair as I ride out the wave of my climax against his tongue. I’m collapsing then, dropping into his arms, melting against his skin as the water teases over us both and the steam swirls around us; our own little cocoon from the craziness of the world around us.

P A S T

Cold sweat stings my eyes and chokes my nostrils. I’m writhing on the bed, watching the walls melt like fire and the ceiling run like blood. My pulse feels like ice inside my veins, choking me, ripping through me as if killing me now that the poison is leaving my system.
 

My own skin feels like it’s boiling, like it might drop from my aching, brittle bones at any second. And the roaring inside my head is so loud I want the clean release of a bullet to silence it; anything to bring me peace.

I’m on day three of heroin withdrawal, and I want to die.

Demons from the past come crawling into my waking-dream-like vision; clawing at me, screaming at me, cursing my name and laughing at me as I slowly die in front of them. Cold, lifeless hands grasp for me from the shattered windshield of my parents car crash. And there’s me, screaming in the backseat tied to my carseat with the grim reaper’s hand stroking my forehead.