Accidental Protector: A Marriage Mistake Romance Read online

  I’m gone. So far gone, so ready to indulge in his rapture, I barely have a coherent thought left in my head. “Please. Please do, Noah.”

  He follows through on each and every promise. Before my body can't take any more, he helps me ease back on the table. Then he takes me fully. Those magic fingers, that divine mouth, working deeper and harder and faster, turning me into a mess of twitching nerves and desperate gasps.

  I'm about to blow, and I know it's good. Different. Not like any O before.

  He looks up, one word written in blue fire in his eyes: Come.

  My thighs press tight against his head as he takes me over the brink. What starts as a scream becomes a breathless rasp, caught in my throat, and then the whole universe turns red and white.

  The explosion between my thighs burst forth. Intense. Reverent. Electrifying.

  I don’t have the strength to pull away, to break the godly seal of his mouth lapping at my pussy, chasing the spasms that take forever to drift away.

  Every orgasm with him is good, mind-blowing, but this one is otherworldly.

  I lie there, eyes closed, giving my body time to recover from something so intense, until his mouth slips away.

  Opening my eyes, I watch him wipe his short, sweet beard. The wicked glimmer in his eyes makes me grin, and then react.

  I pull my legs off his shoulders and slip off the table. He pushes his chair back, most likely wondering what I’m doing. I grin.

  “My turn to improvise,” I say, shoving my hands on his shoulders, urging him down, then unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans at the same time.

  “Lucky –”

  “Nuh-uh.” I hold up a finger at whatever he’s about to say. Using my other hand, I tug down his boxers so I can reach his huge, throbbing hard-on. Quickly assessing the situation, I say, “We can either do this the hard way, or the easy way.”

  I laugh at his frown.

  I know I’ll never be as good as him when it comes to coaxing or control or dirty talk, so I just lay it out there. “Stand up so I can have my way with your dick.”

  With a slow burning grin, he listens. Then sits back down.

  His cock is fully exposed, his pants down around his ankles. I take hold of him, licking the very tip of him. It's hot, earthy, ready.

  “I’m going to suck you off so hard,” I promise, loving how he groans. “Long and hard, Noah.”

  He groans and shifts slightly in the chair as I place my free hand on his hard thigh, stroking his cock with my other hand. His eyes dart between my face and my hand.

  At last, I angle his cock toward my face.

  The chair bounces slightly as I wrap my lips around him, taking him deep in my mouth. My tongue traces his vastness, his length, loving how he jerks as I explore.

  It takes a minute or two to get used to him, and then I go to town.

  While pumping his shaft, I continue to suck, taking him deep, then pulling back and focusing around his swollen, seething head.

  His breathing is fast, littered with small grunts as I continue. When he tries to pull back, tries to push me away, burying his hands in my hair, I go faster, squeeze him harder.

  Power surges through me. I’m getting as much pleasure out of this as I’m giving.

  The ache, the fire, is back between my legs. Throbbing. Howling.

  Somehow Noah knows that, and while I continue to work him, he reaches down and slides two fingers inside me.

  Our sex dance goes wild then. Beyond definition.

  “Lucky! Fuck!” He roars my name as he comes and buries his fingers deep inside me.

  I peak again, too, and shatter, but somehow manage to keep my attention on him.

  He comes, balls raging, hurling molten seed in my mouth. I'm lost in his taste, his fullness, just swallowing forever until he's spent. And when it's over, we're both short-circuited.

  Slowly, because I’ll miss his taste, I slide him out of my mouth, giving his tip a final lick and then look up. My smile is two-fold. Formed by my own pleasure as well as the shine lingering on his face.

  He slides off the chair and settles on the floor beside me, wrapping his arms around me, engulfing me in one of those wonderful embraces only he knows how to give. I lean against him. Happy. Content.

  “You aren’t the only one who likes dessert,” I say.

  His chest rumbles beneath my cheek as he chuckles. His hold around me tightens, too, as he kisses the top of my head.

  I’m in a haze, another best sex of my life fugue, when he shifts and his hold loosens. “Shit. Your family's gonna be upset, aren’t they? Once they find out you're hitched to me.”

  My heart stops.

  I swear it’s a full minute before it starts beating again. There's too much at stake for me to even consider the thoughts flying around in my mind. Crazy ideas that include Noah in my life for a very long time.

  Like forever. I said crazy.

  Dread soon follows. I’d like to say they’ll never know that, Charlie won't tell them, but it’s too late. He has no pride or common sense. He'll go out ugly, guaranteed, for humiliating him with those pics. I told Charlie to his face, and I know by now he's surely called his mother, who sure as hell called mine, probably apoplectic.

  I push away and use the chair to get off the floor, my legs wobbling slightly. Without a word, mainly because I can’t think of a thing to say, I go searching for my clothes.

  “I won’t interfere,” he says while pulling up his pants. “Not anymore, darlin'.”

  I wrench on my panties and then reach over to snatch my bra off the cupboard handle, where it’s hanging like some off-kilter flag. “What? Now you're chicken because it's you?” I ask. “Afraid to –”

  “No. Not afraid. I’ll call them right now if you want. Tell them the whole sordid story.” He grabs his shirt off the floor. “Just thought you’d want to do that alone, too.”

  I don’t even remember him taking off his shirt. Or if I was the one who'd done it.

  “Ugh. We'll have to wipe down Martha's poor table before we leave.” Shaking my head, I grab my dress and pull it over my head, taking a moment to mentally calm myself.

  This is cray cray. This whole freaking thing.

  Being fantastic in bed and mired in our personal problems doesn’t mean we should be married.

  It takes a lot more than sex and torching dumb exes to have a life-long relationship.

  My throat burns as I pull the dress down and cross the room to step into my sandals. I grab the bag of trash. He comes out of the bathroom a second later, holding some surface cleaner and paper towels.

  “Leave it to me. I'll tell my family everything,” I say. “They deserve that much, an honest conversation. Assuming Mother finally wants to listen.”

  Blinking back the tears, I head for the door, to toss the trash down the shoot in the laundry room across from the elevator.

  That’s just what I need for my life. A nice, big garbage shoot. Some secret place where I can toss away all my mistakes so they're never seen again.

  18

  Heart Seekers (Noah)

  I slap the glass table so hard the laptop bounces. Pushing off the arms of the chair, I walk to the balcony, overlooking the city nightscape full of lights. I’ll be so fucking glad when all this shit is over.

  Once it is, I might even take up Eli’s offer. Think I deserve one hell of a vacation.

  Not that it'll help. No matter where I go, whatever I do, my mind will be on one thing: Lucky.

  She went to bed as soon as we got back to my condo. While she hauled out the trash, I’d cleaned up the kitchen. Scrubbed the table until my arm hurt.

  It didn’t help erase the memory. Nothing will wipe away remembering her on that table, letting me have my way with her, the heat of her pussy when she went off on my fingers.

  Damn it. I’m a private investigator. A good one. And I still don’t have a clue what to do about her.

  Haven't made much progress finding Jess, either, I think. Guilt bites into
my gut.

  What the hell is wrong with me? When did I go so soft? Let myself get this distracted?

  I’ve become a replica of the men I shunned in the army. The guys who were always too worried sick about their loved ones to stay true to the mission. Boys with their wives back home. Families.

  I never begrudged them, of course, just swore I’d never let someone else rule my head or life that way, determining what I'd do, or when, or how. I'd never get spun in a million different directions, a constant danger when you're under fire.

  I had Aunt Judy and Jess, yeah, but that was different.

  They were family, the two of them. They'd made their home mine, let me share my life. They never made me feel that way, like deadweight, but sometimes I did. Like the outsider I’d been before I came to live with them, who'd only keep making problems.

  Maybe I’m more like my father than I thought.

  “Can’t ever stay in one place too long,” he used to say between his pulls of beer. “If you do, boy, you’ll get too used to it. Gotta keep moving. There’s always something more. Something better. And you don’t want to miss it. You stay in one spot too long, damn sure you will.”

  Whether it was thanks to those words, or how many times he’d said them, or because he’d died a fucking bum, still rolling, still moving, still running from something deep inside him, I’m not sure. I just know those last couple of years in high school with Aunt Judy, I was itching to leave.

  Knew I’d been in one place too long. That’s why I joined the army. Figured I’d never be in one place too long.

  I hadn’t been, either.

  The lot of us hadn’t.

  Young single men. That’s what my unit was made of. Bright-eyed ballbusters who didn’t worry about who they might be leaving behind while we walked through minefields, dove into half-smashed Iraqi houses after drones dropped missiles, or fought our way out of ambushes.

  We tore across the old stomping grounds of Alexander the Great and the Persians, Jesus and Babylon, Mani and Mesopotamia. We wrecked ourselves sometimes, always looking for something an officer barked at us during the briefings, when that fucked up, elusive thing – the thing that truly mattered – was always right inside us.

  That’s who the unit needed to complete the missions. Seekers.

  Me, Eli, and Perez fit the bill. We found treasure between bad jokes and illicit booze, boring ass card games and contraband nudie mags. We found ourselves piece by piece, every time one of us came way too close to a brush with the Reaper. We figured out real fast we had something to be thankful for.

  Life. Ourselves. Each other.

  When we weren’t on the front lines, we were peeking in back doors. Gathering intel on where the insurgent leaders and terrorist shits were hiding, and then finding them.

  We found them, too, all right.

  Everywhere from elite hotels to bat-filled caves. Bunkers dug deep in the desert sands, broken monasteries that hadn't been inhabited in centuries, run-down shacks protected by rebels, we found them.

  We found our evil spirits, our dragons, and then we kicked their asses. Dragged them out and delivered them to the powers that be.

  A soft growl leaves my chest as I lean against the balcony rail. I can never tell anyone about those missions. Not the little details. They'll stay classified for a couple decades, probably. Until long after they're no longer relevant.

  That part doesn’t matter.

  I’ve never wanted to tell. Just like I never wanted to tell anyone about my old man. About all the places he’d left me while he dicked around, making a mess of himself and his son.

  I'd told Lucky, though, hadn't I?

  Showed her this vulnerable place, this wound I'd left empty for so long I’d forgotten about it during the war. The combat filled me up with something else, the drive to come home a man, and always thank my lucky stars for every day I'm not pushing daisies.

  Mindy found that hole, that chasm inside me, too. And unbeknownst to be, she'd snuck in.

  Right smack in the middle of my chest. Now, I don’t want that hollowness back. That emptiness can get fucked. So can the loneliness.

  Because I'm not the only seeker standing here, watching my beautiful darlin' Lucky lady shift in the bed, a smile on her siren lips. The pleasant dreams no doubt filling her head tell her she's one, too.

  Another seeker. Maybe by accident.

  She's pulled me open, looked into my soul, and whatever else happens, whatever's on the agenda tomorrow, I know I'd be a madman to ever let her go.

  I walk back to the table, sit down and wake up the computer with a sharp finger-punch to the keyboard. I’ve already filled out the forms. Attached them to the email.

  All I have to do is hit send and Fred will take care of our divorce. There’s nothing left to contest. Nothing to argue about. He’ll even give me a discount.

  I'm about to send the draft to trash when a noise fills my ear like the world's biggest, hungriest mosquito.

  My phone vibrates loudly against the glass table. The screen lights up. Recognizing the number, I pick up the phone.

  Mr. Fuckface himself.

  It’s about time.

  I swipe the answer icon.

  “We need to meet,” Lucient says.

  “Do you finally have what I want?” I’d made it perfectly clear there would be no more talk, no jobs, no nothing. Not till I had some sort of hard proof what happened to Jess in my hand.

  “Would I be wasting our time if I didn't?” The edge in his voice is obvious, he has to restrain himself from adding some insult at the end.

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow night. Be there.”

  “Where?” I click open the internet browser so I can type the address in as he speaks.

  He rattles off an address. Coordinates, really, because these types of meetings never happen in populated places with names attached.

  It pops up on my screen and I hit the satellite image button. It’s on the outskirts of town, a desolate place with no buildings or heavy foliage.

  “What time?” I ask.

  “Midnight.”

  I hesitate. That's later than I've ever had to deal with his shit before. He could have anything planned under total darkness, with nothing but the stars and a few flashlights to illuminate anything.

  Still...if I balk, if I delay, I might never get this chance again.

  “Whatever. I'll be there.” Snarling, I hang up and pull the time stamp from the satellite image.

  The picture was taken less than six months ago, and I know there hasn’t been anything happening out that way, so I believe the picture should be accurate.

  I’ll still check it out tomorrow during the day. Make sure the bastard isn’t leading me into some kind of obvious trap. Again.

  I still can’t believe I lost Harkness so easy. That I hadn’t considered all the dirty details long enough to realize everything that could happen.

  Because my mind was on Lucky even then. Not long at all after our fake marriage.

  My pulse quickens, and though I know the thought of her does that, I glance over my shoulder.

  I nearly jump when I see the small, soft figure standing there.

  Smiling, Lucky pulls open the sliding glass door and then runs a hand through her dark tresses, from her forehead to the back of her head before stepping onto the balcony.

  I reach up and pull the top of the laptop down. “I thought you were sleeping?”

  She holds up one hand, showing me her cell with a sigh. “I did my best. This thing keeps going off.”

  “So turn it off.”

  Her smirk is adorable as she plops down in the chair beside me. “I did, Captain Obvious. But then I just wound up staring at the ceiling. Drifted off for a little while. Woke up thinking too much.”

  She's too adorable for me to ever stay mad at. And too sexy.

  She’s wearing one of my shirts again. A white one, which glistens in the moonlight. I pull my eyes away when they try settling
on the peaks of her pert breasts. “So Charlie boy told your family,” I say, pretending to look over the railing at the skyline.

  It's impossible. There’s nothing out there that'll ever hold my attention like seeing her in one of my shirts does.

  “No.” She sighs heavily.

  I glance her way out of the corner of one eye. She’s scrolling through messages on her phone.

  “I realize now that there's simply no way you could be married to that man,” she says, reading off the screen. “He's not your type, Mindy. His arms are covered in tatt-doos!” Glancing my way, she shakes her head. “Realize and tattoos are misspelled, just so you know.”

  I nod. “Spellcheck. Always tricky for moms.” Smiling, I think back to all the times my normally very classy aunt has butchered her texts.

  “No, not mom. This is Charlie. He can make smart phones dumb. He misspells words so often, spellcheck thinks the wrong way is right.” She scrolls to another message, continuing uncertainly. “I’ve decided to forgive you for having someone try and take pictures of me. Which they were unable to. They were all photo-shipped.”

  “Photoshopped?” Fucking ridiculous. I can vouch for them, right down to the wrinkles in his shriveled little peanuts. I’m sure Lucky already knows it.

  “I sure that’s the word he means.” Her finger stops again, and she reads, “I’ve decided your parents don't need to know about this little incident. You lying to me about being married to that bar-boreous trash.”

  “Barbarian?”

  She shrugs, hiding a smile, and keeps reading, “That will only hurt their feelings, after all. Once you’ve explained everything to my father, about the photoshopped pictures, we'll forget any of this happened. Once I vow to forgive someone, I forgive them forever, Mindy. Just like when I vow to marry them, I keep my promise.”

  Close to speechless, I nod. “That's it then. I'll have to send him to the ER.”