Dirty Sexy Saint (Dirty Sexy 1)

Without turning on the bedroom light, she quietly opened the door and glanced around the adjoining living room. The entire place was dark except for the beam of moonlight coming in through the kitchen window that illuminated Clay’s form. He was facing away from her, shirtless and just in his jeans. As she silently approached, she could see that he had his hands braced on the counter and his head hung forward, as if he was exhausted and defeated. It was the latter emotion that made her heart ache for him.

She moved closer, intending to slip her hands around his waist and hug him from behind so he didn’t feel so alone, but she stopped short when she saw at least two dozen round scars all over his back, which were about the diameter of a pencil. Shock rippled through her, and that’s when she realized that despite all the times they’d been together and all the times he’d been without a shirt, she’d never seen his bare back before—something he’d obviously and deliberately kept from her gaze so he didn’t have to explain how he’d gotten those

burn marks, which she suspected were from the tip of a smoldering cigarette.

She reached a hand out to touch his back. The moment the tips of her fingers grazed one of those scars, he spun around so fast she gasped, and before she could exhale a breath, he locked her wrist in his strong hand. His expression was dark and fierce, his gaze glittering with such savage intensity it was as if he didn’t recognize her. He looked like a man emotionally tormented and broken. This normally undaunted man who was so strong for everyone else and never showed any weakness now looked stripped bare. And she wanted to do whatever it took to soothe his anguish and pain.

“Clay,” she said, loud and firm enough to snap him out of whatever memories or trance he’d been lost in. “It’s me. Samantha.”

He blinked in the dim light, his gaze clearing and focusing on her face as recognition chased across his features. “Jesus,” he swore harshly, and released her hand, though the grim frown remained, as did the tension stiffening his body. “What the hell are you doing up?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, refusing to recoil from the snap in his voice. “Just like you.”

“Go back to bed, Samantha,” he said gruffly.

She swallowed hard and remained standing right where she was. After what had happened today, his walls were a mile high. And even though she knew it wouldn’t change anything about her decision to leave in the morning, she wanted that guard down between them now. Just this once. She wanted him to trust her with his pain, with all the horrific things he’d suffered through. All the horrible things she knew he never talked about because the memories were too terrible to bear.

Determination made her brave, and she lifted her chin to let him know she wasn’t going anywhere until he talked. “Tell me how you got those scars on your back.”

His jaw clenched at her insistence, and a spark of fury ignited in his gaze. “It doesn’t fucking matter.”

That’s what he honestly believed, but she wanted—no, needed—him to know that she cared for him. Deeply. Irrevocably. “Every single thing about you matters to me,” she said, unable to stop the rise of emotion that made her voice quiver. “Including how you got those scars.”

“Let it go, Samantha,” he warned darkly.

A wiser woman would have hightailed it out of the kitchen and back to the safety of the bedroom, but there was nothing about Clay that she feared, except losing him, and that was going to happen anyway. Standing inches away from her, he was like a brewing volcano about to erupt and unleash a firestorm of emotional fury.

She instinctively knew that all those years of suppressing a childhood of suffering were trying to claw their way out, and when all that overwhelming agony detonated, it was going to be brutal and violent.

But like a festering wound, he had to be cleansed before he could heal.

So she pushed a little harder. “Was it that man who came in today? Did he hurt you?”

Clay fisted his hands at his sides, his breathing deepening. “Leave. It. Alone.”

She couldn’t, because that meant leaving him alone, with all the pain. “You don’t have to keep everything bottled so tight inside of you.”

His stare was hard and cold. “My past is dark, twisted, and ugly, and the last thing I want to do is put those gruesome images in your head that don’t need to be there,” he snapped, but the sudden heat in his eyes was at odds with his harsh tone, making her shiver with longing. “Leave me alone before I do something we’ll both regret.”

The sexual undercurrents in his tone made it clear what that something was. Despite his attempts to push her away, there was no mistaking he wanted her. And if the only outlet she could give him was a physical one, then she’d grant him the permission to use her body to slake his emotional needs.

“I will never regret anything I’ve done with you. Ever,” she said, hoping he remembered those words long after she was gone.

Before he could say anything else, she boldly closed the distance between them, wrapped her arms around his neck so her body was pressed tight against him, and lifted her mouth to his.

The touch of their lips was all it took for Clay to come unhinged. With a raspy, guttural groan, his hands came up and gripped her hair near the roots, and she welcomed the slight sting of pain. He pulled her head back and slanted his mouth across hers so he was in complete control of the kiss, and she had no problem letting him take charge. This carnal, primitive mating was all about him, and she’d surrender to anything he wanted or needed from her.

He pressed her back against the nearest counter, his muscled body pinning her there while his tongue thrust deep and his mouth ravaged hers until her lips felt swollen and bruised. His chest rose and fell rapidly as his breathing escalated and his hunger for her intensified. She pivoted her hips, a soft, needy sound escaping her lips, a sensual plea for him to satisfy the ache building and expanding inside of her.

Releasing her hair, he shoved his hands beneath her long sleep shirt and cupped her ass in his palms, raising her and pressing her sex against the enormous bulge straining behind the fly of his jeans. She rolled her pelvis against his, and a huge shudder shook his strong frame. He slid his hands down her thighs and lifted her until she was able to wrap her legs tight and secure around his waist.

They both groaned into each other’s mouth as his rigid cock rubbed and pressed against the wet silk covering her sex. He ground his hips upward, hard and brutally, again and again, fucking her through the clothing separating their bodies, determined to achieve the pleasure he sought, clothing be damned. Fisting her hands in his hair, she arched her back, so hungry for Clay, and even more desperate to feel all that firm, solid flesh filling her so exquisitely. So perfectly, in a way no man ever would again.

With a sharp hiss of breath, he ripped his mouth from hers and buried his face against her neck, his hot, damp lips near her ear. “Samantha…” he groaned, his voice desolate and emotionally shattered. “I need you so fucking bad.”

The admission nearly broke her heart. A man like Clay didn’t want to need anyone, yet he was letting her in the only way he knew how, allowing her to see a vulnerable side that truly left him emotionally gutted and defenseless.

She wouldn’t take that gift for granted. “Take me any way you want,” she whispered back. “I’m yours.” And no matter what happened after tonight, she knew she would always belong to this man. Heart and soul.