Under His Guard (19 page)

Leon's head knocked up. “That ain't fair.”

I didn't care one damn bit. “Guess you better decide to live, then.”

His nod was slow.
“D'ac.”

His pronouncement was so quiet, but my God, it was a victory. One that meant everything to me.

“You do not do anything like that again, angel.” I shook him. Then, afraid of hurting him, I gentled. “Don't, please.”

“And if it's just another week?”

I forced a hard swallow before I could answer. “It won't be. It'll be forever for you and me.”

Leon broke from my hold. He rolled me onto my back and straddled me, suddenly flirty and sexy. “
Lâche pas la patate
—we'll hang in there. You're a romantic fool, Darke.”

“For you. Only for you.”

After Leon fell asleep, I disentangled from his arms. I stepped into the hall, shut the door, and collapsed to the floor. I needed a minute to regroup, sit down, and possibly pass out without him waking up to witness my total mental breakdown.

The stark terror of seeing him suspended from the ceiling with a rope around his neck crushed me. Leon hanging. Long bare feet swinging. Hair falling to cover his face. I'd now witnessed the deaths of three lovers.

I groaned, hugging my arms tighter around my body. Pain made me immobile as I saw the scene over and over again. It was a good thing I'd puked everything up earlier, because I broke out in a cold, nauseating sweat.

I rubbed my face and rose to my feet. I did my rounds of the castle, making sure everything was locked down, before I finally headed back to the bedroom.

Inside, Leon hogged the bed from one side to the other. I smiled, shucked my clothes, and slipped in next to him. He shuffled in his sleep as I filled all the empty spaces around him, as he did me.

It was still dark when I woke, and Leon wasn't next to me. I kicked off the bedding, intent on tracking him down, when I heard the shower running.

I used the basin to clean up the dust and dirt and tears from yesterday. It was barely dawn. Leon appeared from the bathroom just as I'd finished washing my face. He smelled of soap and the heat of silky skin.

As I patted myself dry with a towel, I glanced over at him. He didn't have a stitch of clothing on. His cock was hard, and a jewel of precome welled from the slit. I watched as that clear drop formed a perfect diamond before slithering down his shaft in a meandering path.

My jaw went tight. I licked my lips. I struggled to breathe when he ambled around the room, displaying every sexy part of his taut, toned body.

“Jesus Christ, Leon. Don't you think you should get some more sleep?”

“Sleep is for the—” Stopping abruptly, he shook his head. He bent over the foot of the bed, angled from his hips, pushing up his ass.

Looking at me, he ran both hands up the backs of his thighs to his buttocks. When he spread those firm cheeks to reveal the smooth crack between, I gasped.

“I don' wanna sleep. I wanna feel alive with you. I want you inside of me.”

Cherry-red and slick, his tiny hole winked at me from between the swells of his ass. I dropped my hands from where they clenched under my pits only to clamp them on my thighs. He dipped a finger inside himself with a soft, wet squelch.

My cock lurched forward, dragging me behind it.

“Holy hell.” I stared at his backside as he speared an extra finger inside.

Moaning and fucking up and down on two fingers, Leon threw his head back.

“You prepared for me?” I gripped the sides of his cheeks, mesmerized by the slick visual and slurping sounds.

“Din't wanna wait.” With a dip of his knees, he sent a third finger home. The back of his hand brushed my cock, which had clear ideas of doing all that filthy-hot work for him.

My palms on his inner thighs spread his legs wider. He withdrew his fingers to brace both hands on the bed in front of him. I roughly fondled his hanging balls, then inspected his sleek open asshole. I teased the broad black-purple cap of my cock against his pucker, clasping that pert ass wide.

Leon's whole body shook from shoulders to toes. He turned his head, trying to gauge my intent. While he watched, I greased my palm with spit. I curled my fist around my meaty erection and made it glisten. Backing away enough to fit my entire cock against the deep, hot valley of his ass, I decided to go for a little ride since he was being so acquiescent.

I grabbed his hair in one hand, wrenching him up, his hip with the other, and pulled him to me. The first long slide made me shift closer and rumble deep within my chest. The second made Leon wiggle his ass around me. The third caused a globule of ejaculate to stretch from the tip of my cock down his cleft.

I stilled. My dick thudded against him, the black rod wedged between his paler cheeks.

“Mon Dieu.”

Reaching around, I gripped his cock and squeezed. The head was engorged above my fist, filled with blood and need. I bit his shoulder and licked it before jerking his shaft in quick tight strokes that strangled his voice and made him rise to his tiptoes. Then I released him and stepped away.

“Get back here.” Groaning with frustration, he fell forward to his hands on the bed.

“I'm not fucking you raw. Lube and a condom.” Sweat beaded along my torso and dripped down my stomach.

Leon scrambled to find it, but I stopped him. “Oh, no. You wait right here. Stay just like that.” I swooped down for one long lick of his trench, stopping to twirl my tongue at his furled opening.

My cock covered and coated in lubricant, I returned to my man. His back arched for me. His ass lifted. The vision of his ruby entrance when I slid my thick shaft toward it made me swell even more.

There was no more teasing, just a slow pop through his ring and a long howl as I slowly seated myself completely inside him. I withdrew immediately and lunged back in.

“Yeah. Just like dat,
cher
.”

My breath coming in rasps, I fucked him right down onto the bed. I shifted him forward, keeping him attached to my needy cock, and crawled up after him. My arm around his throat—protecting it—his hand grasping my flank, I dug my toes in and rocked in and out. His round buttocks lifted up and sank down with each thrust and retreat. Muscles bunching and bulging, bodies banging together, we drove across the mattress and almost fell to the floor.

With a grunt, I slowed my pace. The underbelly of my cock caused a pause and the most heated friction every time I sucked out of him. It made Leon yelp in a throaty voice before I plunged deep again.

I stopped. Kissing across his shoulders, licking the nape of his neck, I said, “I'm not going to fuck you from behind, baby.” I dismounted, moving back.

Disappointment cracked his voice. “You're not?”

Flipping him over, I settled above so his cock was a hot spike between our stomachs. He lifted his legs to my hips, bracketing me with his body. We touched in all places, in all ways.

My lips against his, I whispered hoarsely, “I want to make love to you, just like this.”

I entered him with a groan. The slick slide inside was perfection—hot, tight nirvana. We held our lips open and close, our mouths sometimes missing the mark and landing on chins or cheeks or sensitive earlobes.

Leon voiced the sexiest little moans amid a litany of nonstop mumbles:
ooh yeah, ahhh, please, please, oh fuck, more…

“I like being inside you.” I lifted up to push deeper.

“I know.” His grin ended in a groan when I pumped long and slow.

I leaned down to kiss his chest, above his heart. “I like being inside you…
here
.”

His sooty eyelashes fluttered down. His lips parted for my kiss. His arms tightened around my neck, bringing me toward him.

I rolled into his body with lingering thrusts, awed by his beauty, his strength. Sinking inside with such care and love, I felt our communion light up inside my body. I swiveled my hips to grind my stone-hard balls against his upturned ass, breaching him deeper than before.

His breath hitched. His eyes flared wide. “Oh! I'm gonna come!”

A sudden flash of sizzling heat squeezed my cock. Unexpected. Too much for me to withstand as Leon's back arched, driving me deeper. It was impossible to stop the fast snap of my hips and the all-encompassing desire to fill him with my come. It lashed out of me for so long and in such magnitude, I hollered in my release and left fingerprint trails on his skin.

But I wasn't sated. Not by a long shot.

Leon whistled through his teeth when I grasped both ankles, drawing his legs wide. “Darke?”

“Now I'm gonna fuck you.”
Mark you, own you, make you mine
.

I managed wet kisses on his lips between our full-bodied writhing.

I volleyed into him, my blunt-headed length a torpedo engulfed by his grasping hole. It was easier to pound into him, his narrow chute used to me, nice and wet and sloppy. Lush sounds comingled with his uncontainable moans. And I was overtaken by my driving need to inhabit his body any way I could, to take away the fear and pain and fury and replace it with love and peace and forever.

Pulling out my thick cock, I pushed it against Leon's. He was just as hard as me. Wet with come and lube, I smoothed my hand up and down both shafts. His stomach clenched. His body strained upward. When his throat arched, I cupped the back of his neck and sent my lips sliding all over the purple-colored flesh he'd hurt.

“You want to give this up?” I lunged back inside of him.

Leon shook his head.

I hauled him on top of my thighs. I fucked into him again. “Remember this feeling. Me inside you. You inside my soul.” I lifted his hand to the hard-beating pump of my heart.

He nodded frantically, his fingers digging into my flesh.

“Because I love you. I love you so goddamn much.” Unbidden, tears rose in my eyes. I captured his lips, his gasp, his vow of requited love.

I withdrew completely from his ripe round cheeks and slid back inside. Once, twice…I bent over his body after watching my dark, glistening cock dive deep and retreat into the hot pink hold of his ass.

Leon looped his legs around my waist as I lowered us both down.

“Good. So good, baby.” Then I wrapped my arms around him. I brushed my lips over his and cried out. My seed sped into him as his spread between our bellies.

Minutes later, I loosened my arms to slide off of him. I flopped to my back.

The sole of Leon's foot rubbed my calf. He squeezed and massaged the muscles of my pecs down to my abs. When I lifted sleepy eyes, he was squinting at me.

“What?”

“It's so different with you.”

“Why?” Lifting up to an elbow, I captured his hand against me. “Because I'm black?”

Leon sniggered. “No.
Mmm
.” He bit his bottom lip. “That just makes it hotter. No, 'cause I never…”

“You never had a lover?”

His face, already flushed from exertion, turned rosy-colored. “Nah. I just screwed a lot of people.”

“Why?” A tight fist of jealousy cramped my stomach.

“Too busy workin'. Then I felt dirty. You know me, the Company whore.” His head lolled toward me. “Had to make money. Had to survive. Wanted to make sure my
maman
was safe, 'cause if you think I'm trouble—
merde
—she'd shoot her mouth off at anyone, anywhere because she never believed the must-do rules. We could barely make the government rent on our poverty-row house with her work at the factory. 'Sides, I'm cute and I got a great ass,
non
?”

“Leon.” I groaned. I wasn't sure I could handle this, but trust and love and complete honesty had to be on the table between us.

“Sold my soul to the devil. Pay was good. And since I was in demand, the Company left
Maman
alone.” His eyes drifted shut. “They made me go with men and women.”

“You don't like women.” Renewed anger aimed at the CO ripped through me. He'd been through so much, a war of his own.

He smiled, only one side of his lips curving. “I like 'em well enough to be friends with 'em. Wasn't too thrilled to fuck 'em. Not at first. But ya know what? It was easier with the women than the men. The executives wanted to own me, and I din't want them…inside of me…in my body or my head like that. The women? They were nice, usually fed me afterward. I could get it up either way, but I had control when I fucked a lady. The men took all dat control away from me.”

“That's not something to feel blessed about,” I said.

“Sometimes you gotta take what you get an' make the best of it.”

“Not with me.”

“Not with you. Never like that.” Rolling onto his side, he ducked his head. “But I know what it's like to have pussy, Darke.”

“If this is about Tam again, I will tell you every single day I don't want a woman. I'm not looking for anyone else—male or female. What happened with them, my love for them had everything to do with circumstances. I loved them. I miss them.”

He shuffled away.

I scooted right behind him until my chest met his back and my arms rounded his body. My lips skittered across his cheek to the corner of his mouth. “What happened with you? It was unexpected. I tried to turn you away because I convinced myself I couldn't have you, didn't deserve you, didn't want you.” I tipped his face so he couldn't hide from me. “You know what? That was all bullshit. You alone made me whole.
You
, just you. You are the one I want.”

He dropped his head. “I still feel dirty.” His words were muffled by a pillow, but I heard them.

“You can be as dirty as you want with me. Trust me. I like it. You turn me on so fucking much it's a wonder I didn't bang your ass wide open the night of Nathaniel and Cannon's handfasting. Christ, it damn near killed me to keep my hands off you these past months. My palm is thick with callouses from beating off to thoughts of you…”