Accidental Shield

“But you did,” I tell her. “You questioned why Ray kept strong-arming you out of King Heron.”

Turmoil fills her face. “Only recently because—I wanted to know. And I couldn’t fathom anything like what I found. If I’d known there was an effing mafia involved, I might’ve just turned tail and ran. About the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”

I cup her cheek with my palm.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. The respect I have for her, for what she’s gone through with grace and courage, surpasses what I’ve seen in plenty of others. She needs to get her mojo back, her confidence, and start believing in herself. “Doesn’t fucking matter one bit, honey. Not here in the present.”

“But it does,” she whispers, her eyes fluttering, pain chiseled into her face.

“Wrong again. It doesn’t matter worth a damn what you did or didn’t do before this. All that matters is what you’re doing about it now.”

“Doing about it?” Sadness fills her eyes as her head rolls from side to side. “Like I’m able to do anything. We just spent the whole morning with you and your friends figuring out my jam. I’m helpless.”

“Bullshit, Valerie, but thanks for proving my point.” I cup her other cheek, tracing her bones with my thumb. “You said you’ve got no friends. Woman, you have friends. I’m your friend, and I’ve got my friends by extension lined up, all willing to stick their asses out for you. Cash, Davis, and the rest of my boys aren’t doing shit because they owe me favors. They’re doing it for you. If you were this horrible shit of a person, nobody would. Nobody hates you.”

Her face tilts down. “You would if you knew the real me.”

My hand runs softly up her face, reaches around her head, and tangles in her hair. Then I pull—gently, but just hard enough to startle her.

“Ah! What was that?”

I shake my head. “That was me proving how real you are. Didn’t think it’d be appropriate to pinch you right now, considering the waterworks and all.”

That gets a small smile and a roll of her eyes.

Good.

“For the last damn time, listen, and listen good. I know the real Valerie Gerard. She’s standing right in front of me. She’s a good, honest, beautiful woman with a smart head on her shoulders, and she also just happens to be a total fucking babe.”

“Flint, I—”

I’ve had enough with this sparring.

To stop her from disagreeing, I silence her off with a kiss that could end the next ice age.

I take her deep, take her hard, plunder her little mouth so she’s got more to fret over than who the fuck’s after her and who she used to be. I’ll drag her into the present, into the here and now, kicking and screaming if I have to.

Go ahead and call it psycho, but I’m past caring.

The frustration, the need, the evasive song and dance between us that’s been building up for days peaks in a wildfire collision of slashing tongues and breathless heat.

Then I pull her closer, pressing my forehead firm against hers, a low growl rumbling up my chest as I come in for more.

She kisses me back harder this time, taking her taste of me.

I fill her mouth with a groan, a snarl, telling her exactly what I’d like to do to her far louder than words ever could.

It’s too fucking late.

Too late to stop if I tried. Every taste of Val builds a thunderhead in my blood, and the only cure for a proper storm is letting it rip.

Her arms wind around my neck. Her body presses to mine. Her legs part for my knee and I push it into her heat, her desire, her sweet fuckery I mean to claim.

She wants it so bad she might die.

Next thing I know, we’re up against the wall, and my hand replaces my knee. I toss her dress aside and rub her pussy through her panties, showing what I aim to take, as long and as hard as I want till we’re both fucking sated.

We can’t get any closer.

Our kissing turns nuclear hot, famished, wild, driven.

I’m not sure who moves first, but we do move, nearly stumbling along the lanai where it wraps around toward the French doors leading to my bedroom. I tear them open.

By then she’s got my shirt unbuttoned, running her hands over my chest, down my sides, raking her nails across my skin. I love how she touches me.

“Goddammit, Val,” I growl, backing deeper into the room, her wrapped around me.

The bed hits the back of my legs and I fall down backward, pulling her onto the mattress with me. We bounce into the softness, and she giggles.

The brief separation of our lips gives me a second to think. To realize what’ll happen next if we don’t stop.