Under His Guard (5 page)

“Where are you going?”

Turning in my arms, he slid his hands along my waist. A current of heat raced between us, trapping my breath in my lungs. “To bed.”

His mouth was so juicy and red. So ripe to kiss. I ran my thumb across his bottom lip, shuddering when he touched me with his tongue. “My bed.”

He backed away. “I don' need a keeper. I'm not a boy. And I ain't your boy. You made dat clear.”

I grasped his hair in a fist, softening my hold to cup his neck. “You're right. You're a man. My man. So stop fucking fighting me for a change and get your sexy ass in my bed. Now.”

Fuck.
Wrong words. Leon took another step back. Before he could let fly with another earful, I strode forward. “Please, Leon.” I raised my hands to his face. “I need you. I want you in my bed, just once.” My voice stuck in my throat. “We don't have to do anything, I just…”

“Oh, we're probably gonna do somethin'.” He turned his head until his moist lips brushed my wrist. His playful grin was back, but then again he could just be three sheets to the wind.

“Will you wait for me in my caravan?”

He nodded.

“I'll go to the kitchens, find some food.” He headed off toward my place while I did an about-face to the mess hall, grumbling, “Something to soak up all that alcohol, at least.”

C
arrying a tray of food, I stepped quietly inside. I noticed the glow of the lanterns scattered around. When my gaze found Leon, my caravan grew impossibly small, reducing the world to him and me. The sight of him in my room, sitting on my bed, was something I wanted to remember forever. I closed the door, running a hand down my face before the image of him burned holes through my eyes. He was too goddamn gorgeous, too young. Too young to be mine. Too young to die.

I set the tray in the middle of the bed. I felt his regard as I removed my boots and unbuttoned my shirt. His eyes widened with every bit of skin revealed down the center of my chest. Leaving the shirt on, I crouched on the balls of my feet in front of him. His hand rose to my face, over my jaw, down my neck, where it rested while I took off his boots. I skimmed my palms up his legs, feeling the heat of his skin beneath the cloth. When I reached his thighs, his breath fanned across my face. I kissed his neck, took his earlobe between my lips and nibbled.

Leon's hand darted to my waist, but I gripped his wrist. “You can touch.” He moaned, trying to twist free. I smelled the sweet scent of whiskey on his breath. “After you eat.” I needed him to dry out a little bit.

“Blackmailin' me?”

“You got it.” I grinned.

With a groan, Leon flopped back onto the bed. I climbed behind him and pulled him into my arms, my legs on either side of his. Resting with him against my chest, I arranged the tray beside us. He made a grab for a chunk of crusty bread, but I had him drink a glass of water first. He narrowed his eyes at me as he drained the glass.

“Let me feed you.”

His tongue wet his lips. His voice turned husky. “Okay.”

I dipped a piece of bread in a saucer of rich honey. “Open your mouth for me.” His lips opened and I couldn't help but imagine the head of my cock pushing through them to be welcomed by his tongue.

Honey dripped down my fingers. It drizzled onto his tongue. He sucked it inside, and I groaned. I swiped more honey from the bread over his lips until his mouth was shiny.

“Take a bite,” I forced out.

He tore off a chunk with a grin. The gorgeous bastard was playing with me.

The seductive dance continued with cubes of cheese and slices of fruit. Watching him eat was one of those simple pleasures I hadn't let myself enjoy. I soaked it all in, not knowing how long any of this would last. With that thought always in the back of my mind and Leon stretched against me, I dipped my fingers into the honey and fed them to him one by one. Watching his smoky eyes, listening to him hum as he suckled my flesh took simple pleasure to heightened intensity. When a drop of honey clung to the corner of his lips, I gave up resisting. I licked his mouth, pausing to dip just inside.

Eyes hooded and heavy lifted to mine. “Now I can touch you?”

“Yes.” I barely got the word out.

He got off the bed, put the tray on the small table by the window, and returned to crawl between my outstretched legs. Grasping both sides of my shirt, he slid it down my shoulders and off my arms.

“I could eat you up,
beb
.” His fingers sliding along my torso, trailing as if counting the muscles clenching at his touch, he sank his teeth into the sinew between my neck and shoulder.

My head cranked back. My hips surged up.

He soothed the bite with his tongue. “So many muscles. I like my men big, but you're like a fuckin' tank.”

He squeezed my pecs, rubbing his palms in circles. His mouth joined his hands. His wet, pink lips and flushed skin stood out against my black body. When his tongue flicked one nipple, I growled at the harsh pleasure. My cock reared up, looking for an escape from my pants. I felt it press against Leon's hip. He sucked my other nipple and grinded down on my length.

My need was a bright hot coil low in my groin. “My turn,” I said.

Taking him by his hips, I swiveled him around until he flipped to the bed beneath me.

He gripped my biceps. “
Mmm.
I like it when you use dem muscles on me.”

Fucking hell.
I could barely see straight, thinking about what it would be like to rip his pants off and attack his body, grab his tight ass and pull the cheeks open. I sucked hard on his neck, laughing when his back arched and his words became garbled. I gave him another love bite at the muscular hollow of his collarbone, bruising his skin until it turned red, then purple.

I tugged his shirt off, throwing it behind me. I undid his belt and quickly whipped it away. I stared at his swollen lips, remembering how he'd turned away earlier when I'd tried to kiss him.

I inhaled sharply and retreated from the bed. “I think you better do the rest.”

“You wan' me to take it all off?”

I shook my head
no
, meaning
yes
, of course.

“Too bad. 'Cause I'm commando under these.”

Jesus fucking Christ.
That was a visual I didn't think my cock could withstand. I turned away, keeping my back to him through sheer force of will as I heard the rustle of clothes. When I heard his pants
thunk
to the floor, every single muscle from my calves to my shoulders tensed.

“It's safe to look now.”

I doubted that very much.

He lay on his back. He regarded me with a smile on his lips, arms crossed behind his head. Tufts of soft-looking hair under his arms mirrored the thin line that trailed from his navel and beneath the sheet around his waist. His biceps were two tight hills of muscle. He wasn't a massive brute like me but a tasty, perfect package of slim strength and sexuality.

“So all's I gotta do to get into your bed is find out I'm destined to die in a few weeks?” Biting his lush bottom lip, Leon sent me a wink.

Fire traced hot fingers down my stomach to my groin. “Jesus, Leon.” His bravado was insanely erotic, as if he needed more of that shit going for him. There was no explanation for the gut-deep reaction I had every time I saw him.

Turning to the basin, I glanced at him and then away. “Please tell me you're really wearing something under there.”

“Yeah,
beb,
I'm wearin' my birthday suit like I told you. Did you know dat's what they used to call it? Bein' naked?”

I heard the bed shift. When I glanced over my shoulder, his smile was sinful. A long stretch pulled the sheet all the way down to his lean hips and the muscles carved into his pelvis. A dark shadow of hair peeked out, hinting at a cropping of pubes below. But that wasn't all. A lyrical-looking linear design was tattooed right there, on the left side of his groin, where the skin was smooth and golden.

I started to speak, but I couldn't. My mouth went dry and then totally wet. My eyes traced the tat like I wanted my tongue to do. It was suddenly hot as a furnace inside the caravan. I quickly splashed myself with cold water from the jug, hoping to cool down. In the cramped quarters, Leon's scent washed over me as I quickly dried. It became stronger the closer I got to him—musky, spicy, man.

I sat on the edge of the bed. “Maybe we should talk.”

One hand ran from the nape of my neck down the center of my back. “Maybe you should get in bed.”

My fingers contracted against my thighs. I shuddered at the sound of his invitation. Closing my eyes, I tried to steady my labored breath and quickening heartbeat, which matched the pulsing of my heavy shaft. When I rolled onto the bed, sinking in beside him, he moved against me. Intense, almost rabid lust for him made me jerk and shiver.

Rising onto an elbow, Leon watched his hand wander over my skin. My deep muscles flexed while he lazily explored my chest and abdomen. I pulled him against me. His flesh was hot, skin so silky soft when I dragged both hands up his back to grab hold of his head. The sun-streaked locks felt downright decadent between my fingers.

His eyes were nearly black when I pulled my face from the crook of his neck. “I want to kiss you.”

“
Non
. Not until I'm sure you won't change your mind at the last second.” Pushing me onto my back, Leon crawled over me. All that sleek skin slipped against me. He was small enough to curl on top of me, but strong enough to grasp my wrists and slam them to the bed beside my head. “Where you gonna go now?”

I lifted my head. “Nowhere.”

He dipped his mouth to mine, and I nearly exploded at his sweet taste. It was a first kiss in almost every sense. Leon didn't remember any of the others we'd shared, and this one blew my mind. At first it was just a whisper of his mouth. A wetting of our lips together. I licked his upper lip, the lower one, too. He pursed his mouth with a low mewl, and I sucked on him, plucking on his lips again and again. He rose. I tried to follow, but he shook his head. So slowly, he lowered again, brushing his mouth against mine. He stopped and moved away. A hairbreadth separated us.

“Leon,” I gasped.

He relented, sliding our mouths firmly together. Every lunge of his tongue against mine had him whimpering and moaning. Licking down my neck and up over my chin, Leon pumped his hips, and the pungent addictive aroma of precome drifted up to me.

I clenched my fingers around his, letting him take me any way he wanted. “
Ahh
, fucking hell, Leon.” Months of self-enforced celibacy had me clinging to the edge by my fingertips.

His stubble streaked across my skin in a hot burn. He dug his teeth into my shoulder, provoking a low shout that tripped out of my throat with every ragged breath. Tugging my close-cropped hair, he slanted his mouth to mine. The rough kisses mashed our mouths together, drugging me. I almost jumped out of my skin when he began moving down my chest. His moist lips pulled and teased the dark beads of my nipples. My hips moved, my dick chafing down the leg of my pants.

Leon hooked a finger into the front of my pants, teasing through the curls and almost touching the base of my cock. A spurt of precome pushed from my slit at that mere brush. With a low moan, I grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand up to the less-dangerous territory of my chest.

“Not taking these off because I won't be able to control myself if I do.”

His eyes were feverish. “I don' care. I'm ready.”

“I'm not. I don't want our first time to become another lost memory.”

He sat back on his heels, the sheet covering him from the hips down and foiling my sight. “And I don' want our first time to be our last time!”

The truth was chillingly cold as it swept through me.

“Leon.”

He refused to look at me.

“We will make love and not just once.” Pressing the butt of my palm to the hard length yearning to break free of my pants, I gave a low laugh. “I promise you that.”

After a moment of huffing, he nodded.

I pulled him to me and rolled him onto his back. Studying the high color of his cheeks, his kiss-bright lips, his half-lidded eyes, I traced the fan of his eyelashes. “You're so sexy, babe.”

Leon arched into my little touches. His hand drifted to my thigh, pulling it across his hip. “You jus' want me for my body,” he said. “Diseased as it is.”

“That's not funny.”

“You'll have to get used to my sick sense of humor.”

“You'll have to get used to this.” I teased his lips open and drove inside deep and fast. I waited for his hot gasps before slipping away to lick and kiss his neck and his ear. He purred for me.

I tipped his face to me for one last lingering kiss. “We need to sleep sometime tonight.”

He murmured softly, wrapping his arms around me. When sleep took Leon, I remained awake. I held him in my arms, cherishing every one of his breaths and every moment with him next to me. Because I knew better than to take anything for granted.

I woke up when Leon's lean body was replaced by a cool breeze. Propping up on my elbows, I watched him wash from the stand in the corner. His hands—those long fingers—rinsed the cloth after each sweep down torso to groin. From the back, his arms and shoulders flexed, and I could just see the deep dimples at the top of his buttocks peeking above the waistband of his pants.

He wrung out the cloth and slipped into a shirt.

“Where are you going?” I asked as he combed his hair back.

He swung around, color splashing his high cheekbones. There was an obvious tent under the sheet that fell about my waist, but I didn't bother to hide my reaction to him. In the dead of the night, I'd disrobed completely, wanting the closeness of his nude body against mine.

His eyes darted up and down my body. “Doc wants to finish up my blood work dis mornin'.”

“But he's sure it's a sleeper virus until the sixteenth, right?”

“Yeah.” He fiddled with the buttons on his shirt.

I stretched my legs. The sheet dropped just below my hips. Leon's gaze slid right along with it. “How about a kiss first?”

I liked it when he flushed even deeper at my unexpected request. His wide brown eyes flicked to mine and away.

He edged to the door of my caravan. “Not sure how sick I am yet. Better not.”

“Considering what you did with me last night, it doesn't really matter, does it? Besides, Doc already assured us it's spread through contact with contaminated blood. You're not…It's not live yet. Kissing isn't going to kill us.”

He said nothing. He avoided looking at me.

“Hang on. You weren't gonna let me kiss you at all, were you?” I frowned at him.

“
Non.
Because something
is
gonna kill me. You know nothin' can come of this,” he said sadly.

I jumped from the bed and strode toward him, the sheet draped negligently around me. “That's bullshit.”

“I don' wanna lead you on. I know how much that hurts.”

His words stopped me in my tracks. “You said you didn't remember.”

The warmth from our nighttime embraces was extinguished by Leon's icy demeanor.