Unbroken (The Protectors 12)

“Absolutely,” I said.

“Grits?”

“If Luca doesn’t have the ingredients, I’ll go find a cornfield and cut some of that shit down and figure out how to make it… with jalapeños,” I said in complete and total seriousness.

His mouth went still for a moment and I knew it was because he could tell I meant every word I said. He smiled again. “Or maybe just cereal with rabbits on the box?”

“One trickster rabbit coming up,” I said.

Aleks leaned down and kissed me. “Did I do it right?” he asked, his voice taking on a desperate quality. I remembered his fear of not being able to please me. I took his hand and first put it on my heart, which was still pounding.

“If that doesn’t convince you, this will,” I said as I moved his hand down to my damp groin. I made sure I wasn’t inadvertently making him touch my still half-hard dick in the process. But to my surprise, when I released Aleks’s hand, he let it linger and then he was brushing me through the shorts.

“I guess you have to do laundry too,” he said with a sheepish smile.

“I guess so.”

“Maybe next time we take our clothes off first,” he said, his voice holding a hint of uncertainty.

I was just thrilled there’d be a next time. I sat up, grabbing his waist as I did so that he wouldn’t topple off me. “That sounds like an excellent plan,” I assured him. I kissed him softly and said, “You can use this shower and I’ll use the one in the guest bathroom. Do you know where the kitchen is?”

Aleks nodded as he wound his arms around my neck. “Or you could just show me where it is… after we take a shower… together?”

I kissed him again. I loved his shyness but I loved even more that it wasn’t silencing him.

“Now, that sounds like an even better plan.”

Chapter 18

Aleks

As usual, dinner was a quiet affair, which was so very different from the dinners I had with my own family back home. But it made sense because even though some of the tension between Luca and Vaughn had eased a little, the reason we were all there wasn’t lost on any of us. If I hadn’t had the nights to look forward to, I’d probably be going crazy. But knowing what I had to look forward to every night with Vaughn made it easier to get through the days.

I supposed when it came to what people normally did in regard to sexual activity in bed, we were still keeping it pretty tame.

And that was on me.

But everything was so new to me that I didn’t want to mess it up with trying anything else. And Vaughn didn’t seem to be in any hurry to do more, either. It seemed like he was perfectly content to just kiss me for as long as I wanted and then let me grind against him until my body exploded with pleasure. He always came too, but despite my comment that first night about taking our clothes off the next time, when it’d come time for bed, I hadn’t had the guts. The only thing I had managed to do was wear the shirt Con had bought me so I wouldn’t mess up Vaughn’s shirt.

After all, why spend nights doing laundry when there was so much other pleasure to be had when darkness fell?

Once usually wasn’t enough for me anymore… I finally understood a little bit about what the word “addict” meant now.

Because Vaughn had surely turned me into one, though he hadn’t actually had to do anything other than let me use his body night after night.

I couldn’t get enough of that feeling of being free and floating. And when Vaughn closed that bedroom door behind us and locked it every night, the outside world fell away. After that, things played out much like they had the first night. I wasn’t comfortable having Vaughn’s weight on top of me, even just for kissing, so it was always me lying on top of him. And while I was okay with being naked when we showered together afterwards, my mind was convinced that things would go terribly wrong if we were naked beforehand.

Which wasn’t really fair to Vaughn, since he was forced to find his pleasure while still wearing his pajama bottoms.

But he never once complained, and when I once tried to apologize that I couldn’t get over my fears more quickly, he’d silenced me with a passionate kiss and had told me what was happening between us was perfect just the way it was.

As slow as things were progressing in the bedroom, they were moving at a snail’s pace when it came to finding Gio. Vaughn and the guys spent most days strategizing and going through all the chatter that my “return” had generated. I’d asked Vaughn to let me read some of the comments on one of the fake posts King had created, but it’d been a mistake because all it had done was set me back. Technically, the posts Vaughn had let me see were probably pretty tame, but it hadn’t mattered… my mind had sought to defend itself. I hadn’t blacked out, but I’d retreated to our room, thrown up the full lunch I’d eaten, and cried in Vaughn’s arms as he’d gotten me in the shower to clean me off. Despite the fact that he’d seen me naked a dozen times in the shower at that point, I’d been so upset I’d freaked when he’d tried to take his clothes and mine off. We’d ended up showering in our clothes and only when I’d calmed down had I let him undress me.