Paradise Found: Cain (Paradise Stories Book 2) (13 page)

Believing the safest place for her was closest to me, I was confident she was protected in my home.
Our home
. It was purchased in my name, outside of funds directly linking the business of fighting and me. It was getting trickier to swindle my own money from my father. Although he didn’t keep the books directly, he did check them. It’s how he found out about Abel and his stunt with Elma, where he covered her tuition. It was only a matter of time before he tried to connect dots, like the heavenly stars, to figure out my actions.

Thoughts of firing my father as my manager had crossed my mind constantly the older I got, but it wasn’t that simple in my mind. The feelings of responsibility to take care of everyone in my family, including dear old dad, weighed me down even if he didn’t deserve the consideration. Our relationship was difficult to explain. His intentions had been to make me a warrior, in his image, and I didn’t wish to fail him, regardless of his means of education. Maybe it was in spite of how he taught me that I wanted to prove I was the one in control. I was the true fighter of the family, fighting for something that might not exist.

I returned home and immediately changed for a workout. I needed to punch something. The punching ball was only a start. My concentration was fixated on the rhythm of the vibration, while visions flashed through my mind. The scattered books. The smashed computer. The slashed bed. Increasing my momentum, my heart raced and bile rose when I thought of what could have happened to Sofie, if she’d been home. If she had walked in on whomever did this. If she’d been sleeping when the person broke in. I was nauseous at the thought, but I continued with my systematic pummeling of the hanging ball.

I didn’t hear her approach. My anger had completely consumed me, so when she touched my shoulder, my reflex was to strike. There was some grace from above that stopped my rounded twist and raised hand from lashing forward like I intended. The damage I could have done to her would have been unforgivable and I embraced her in relief and irritation. She had no idea how I could have hurt her, unwillingly. I never, ever would have laid a hand on her in anger. I promised her. I begged her not to fear me.

When the soft tip of her tongue touched my moist skin, the reaction was instantaneously intense. It took all my strength to prevent us from tumbling to the hard cement and taking her immediately. I promised her this as well: I would never take advantage of her. I wanted it to be sweet, like she was, when we finally consummated our marriage again. I wanted her to recall the pleasure of our one night, and turn it into a multitude of nights together.

My mouth sought hers and we melded together as if we were one. I couldn’t take her deep enough. I needed inside her. I needed to join us together as we’d been. I needed to remind her how good we were one time before.

In a fluster of lifting her then carrying her to the workbench, I fumbled with my damn gloves. I couldn’t get my hands on her and I needed to touch her. Skin to skin contact, I craved. When she gently pushed back and began to unlace my gloves, I swore she was teasing me, drawing it out to make untying boxing gloves look sexy. Everything she did was sensual to me. The way she looked at me, like she wanted me, but was holding back. That slow-flame smile of hers lit me up. My body was jacked, ready to strike in another manner. Then something happened. I watched the change in her expression. Her mind caught up to what we were doing and she shut down.

I couldn’t lose her. I was so close. My hands began to rub against her thighs, digging into her warm skin, hoping for friction, striving for connection. She stilled my hands. My body hummed with desire.
No!
I screamed inside me. She leaned forward slightly and I met her half way. My forehead came to hers and my brain sent telepathy to hers.
What happened? How did I lose you?

“Where’d you go, Sofie?”

She pulled back and blinked once then avoided my eyes.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes you do. We were ... you were … and then you just stopped.” My mind took a turn. “Don’t you want me?” The question sounded weak. Hearing my own voice, I cringed. It was whining and desperate. Of course she didn’t want me. She’d told me as much:
I don’t want anything from you
. Yet she kissed me.

My only explanation was the fight. It turned women on. It was some primeval instinct that brought them forward to sniff out a mate, especially one whose effervescence screamed protector. Security. I wanted to be those things for Sofie, but her reaction hadn’t been a desire for safety. It had been animal attraction. She licked me for fuck’s sake. I’d had this happen before. Not the licking, but women throwing themselves at me. They’d beg me to take them. Being the selfish bastard I could be, I did take. There was only one time I wanted to give. She sat in front of me, unwilling to receive.

Sofie was taking a long time to answer me. She had a habit of this, and I couldn’t decide if she was thinking or avoiding. Either way, I had her answer. If she wanted me, it should have been an immediate yes. No thinking involved.

When she stilled my hands, I let them fall to the side of her, balancing myself on the edge of the wooden tabletop before I pushed off the workbench and glared at her.
What was I doing?
I had Malinda waiting for me in Vegas. I could have the woman who showed me the warehouse yesterday. I could have had any woman at Carrie’s.
Why did I want this woman? What made her stand out?
I hardly knew her, yet I found her infuriatingly attractive.

I spun away from her the second I didn’t hear an answer. I was used to being taken advantage of. What made Sofie different was she didn’t take. For once I wanted to freely give to someone, because she wasn’t throwing herself at me to consume her, but I couldn’t continue to play a game. Not with Sofie. Wound too tight from the break-in to her apartment, and suddenly tied up from her shut down, I needed some distance. I retreated to the house.

I hadn’t finished my workout, but I had a meeting at eleven with a commercial realtor. A cold shower was in order to rid my body of tension. It would help keep my muscles loose as the abrupt halt to my routine could lock them. Letting the cool double spray fill the tiled shower space, I kicked off my shoes, removed my shorts, and stepped under the icy pelts of penance. The cold shock to my skin raised my flesh, but my dick still pulsed in hopes of release. Bracing a hand on the tile, I gripped myself hard, as I’d been doing more often than I cared for with the return of Sofie in my life. I imagined her hands on me, knowing they would be gentler, hesitant, and much more exciting because of her innocence. Three rapid jerks and my seed was lost in the frozen spray. I spun in the space, noticing a reflection in the mirror, through the glass enclosure. Without the steam of a typical shower, the vision was crystal clear. Sofie was watching me.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I couldn’t help it. Look at him.

My contrition prayer was ridiculous, yet true. I couldn’t turn away. He sped from me outside, but I followed repentantly. I didn’t want things to end how they had. He had been kind to me. He brought me to his home. I couldn’t reconcile that it was ours, but I had to apologize. I shouldn’t have teased him. I shouldn’t have encouraged him. I just wanted to tell him I was thankful for what he had done last night.

When he entered the bathroom and removed his shorts at once, I couldn’t turn away. His body was a temple of perfection. His sculpted back, etched in muscles, would make angels jealous of the strength it possessed. I’d seen his arms in action, as they were bulging from his earlier ministrations against the punching ball. Veins enlarged, I sensed the blood streaming through his body. His backside was unlike anything I’d seen before. David, the famous statue in Italy, held nothing compared to the rounded perfection that was aimed in my direction. He didn’t turn around. He was obviously lost in his own thoughts. 

Through the clear glass of the enclosure to an extra-large shower stall, I saw him lean forward then wrap his powerful hands around himself. It was erotic and sexual, rough and raw. Watching him pleasure himself was nothing I’d ever seen a man do before, and I could not drag my eyes away. The only willpower I had was to
not
enter the shower and takeover what he was doing. Although my brain steamed ahead of my body out in the garage, my body was humming so fiercely; I swore he could hear my sex vibrate in rhythm with him. He only stroked himself three times before I saw the strength of what he could produce wash down the drain. Something in me cried out for that lost opportunity, but I could not draw my eyes away from him holding himself. When he spun, I was caught, captured by the sudden heat in his eyes. The cobra was ready to strike and I was a willing prey. Hypnotized by his glare, he exited the shower while it still ran. He approached me, my body drowning with renewed desire.

“Were you watching me?” he growled. His voice hissed my name after the question. I didn’t even have the strength to nod. I willed his hands to touch me. The pulsing between my legs was beyond my control. I feared to move. I didn’t want it to end, actually.

“Did you like what you saw? Liked me touching myself?”

Again, I couldn’t answer. My eyes were trained on his, but my body had lost the will to reply. My hand twitched. If he didn’t touch me, I was going to have to take care of myself. Right. Now. The need was too great.

“If I touch you, will you come, Sofie?” The sound of my name, rolling off of his tongue, licked down the front of me and lapped across an area so sensitive I was ready to implode. I’ve read about it. Humans can self-combust. I was at that point when his hands removed my shorts, yanking them roughly down my thighs only enough that his large hand could slip between the apex of my legs and dive into me.

“Oh God,” I cried out, thanking the heavens in anticipation of release. I lunged forward at the invasion of his finger and clawed at his chest. It was seductively hostile, like he’d been the first time he touched me, in the hallway of the arena in Vegas. Yet somehow this was different. He stepped closer as his finger caressed the inside of me. Driving in deep, a second, thick digit met the first, and I took God’s name in gratitude again.

“Don’t thank God, Sofie, thank me,” he groaned, as his fingers rammed deeper as if digging for gold inside of me. They hit the treasure, and with a fierce flick, I did combust in a way I’d never experienced before. My knees gave out and I began to slump. Continuing for a second round, his fingers didn’t leave me as we crumbled to the bathroom floor. On my knees, thighs spread open, with my hands braced on his shoulders, my hips moved with the jabs and taps of his fingers that brought me to a second eruption, almost instantly.

“I can’t,” I begged, as he headed for round three.

“Oh yes, you can, my sweet temptation, and you will.” Determined to keep up the fast pace, his mouth crashed over mine. His cool wet chest pressed against me, while I gripped his shoulders for support. My knees were cracking over the tile floor but the pressure between my legs was overruling any discomfort. My nails dug into his flesh. Our mouths broke apart, and I slipped at an awkward angle to take his nipple into my mouth. I sucked over the coiled cobra tail that covered his chest. When he hit that spot inside me again, I bit him.

“Fuck,” he moaned, but not in pain. Wild and out of control, I was wanton beyond anything I’d ever done before. As he slid his fingers out of me, I lowered to all fours and swept the length of him, that was extended and hard, into my mouth. On hands and knees, I worked my tongue around the vein of his shaft then sucked the head to the back of my throat. Large hands covered my hair and his hips gently rocked as my mouth took control, hoping to bring him a powerful release similar to mine. Muscles I didn’t know existed ached as I latched onto the length of him and sucked deep.

“Triple fuck,” he whispered as he jolted forward, forcing himself to the back of my throat and releasing a salty liquid down it. I gagged but swallowed, primal in my desire to please him, to own him. He gently pushed my shoulders back and the weight of my body collapsed. Aching knees and shaking arms lowered me to cover him. My head rested on his lower abs, just above where I’d taken him. One of his hands covered my hair. My body lay limp. I was going to hell, but I enjoyed every second of giving into temptation.