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  “Relax, Lucy. I won’t hurt you. Nothing will happen tonight but sleeping.”

  “You can’t sleep here. I can’t sleep in a bed with you.” She tried to roll away but he held firm.

  “I can, and you will.” When she trembled, he reconsidered the veto on castrating her ex. The fuckwad had done a number on Lucy. Dalton was a patient man, however, and would see Ross’ hold on Lucy broken one way or another. “Lucy. Lucy, look at me.”

  She remained frozen, her eyes squeezed shut. Dalton waited. After a few tense moments, she craned her neck and opened her eyes just enough to see his face.

  “There you are, darlin’. You’re safe here with me. You’re safe in my bed. I only want to hold you tonight. Let me hold you, Lucy.”

  “Why?” she whispered, suspicion and fear crawling across her pale face. “I can’t…I can’t be intimate with you, Dalton. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do that again.”

  He raised his brows and gave her a crooked smile, hoping to disarm her. She relaxed the slightest bit, her eyes moved from squinting to wide open. “First, you have a concussion and I’d never screw an injured woman. I want you healthy and able to give as good as you get. And it will be good. No, fuck that, it’ll be great.” He tucked her closer against him, forcing her to take her eyes from him. “I won’t lie to you. One day soon I’m going to make love to you, Lucy, but not tonight. Go to sleep.”

  “Make love?” Her voice sounded small and unsure. “I thought you…”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t think you were a man who made love.”

  Understanding dawned and he pressed his face into the fragrant and soft curve where her shoulder met her neck. “I can’t say I’ve ever made love to a woman. You’ll be my first, and I intend to make love to you frequently. That said, I’m also looking forward to fucking you so hard and in so many ways you’ll forget every touch but mine.”

  Dalton felt her hold her breath before she slowly released it.

  “I don’t want to disappoint you, Dalton.” Her breath hitched and he thought she was fighting tears. “I’ve never enjoyed sex all that much, even before Ross. I’m not very good at it and certainly not at the level of your other…your other lovers. Please don’t put me in that position. I can withstand a lot of things, but disappointing you in that way isn’t one of them.”

  He stroked his thumb over her belly where his hand rested. At least she was opening up to him, and what she was saying wasn’t all that surprising. He hated that her only sexual experiences had been poor or probably forced, but he had thought this to be the case given her history. “I’m guessing the men in your life didn’t take much time with you, other than to take what they wanted. I’m not that kind of man. Trust me, darlin’. I won’t ever slide my cock into you unless you’re dripping wet and begging me for it. And, Lucy?”

  Her breath hitched again and there was a tightness in her voice Dalton knew had nothing to do with fear or crying and everything to do with heat and want. “Yes?”

  Dalton placed a tender kiss on the delicate skin behind her ear and half whispered, half growled his words. “You will beg. I’ll make you want me so bad you won’t be able to think about anything else. When we get there, you won’t be worried about pleasing me. I get hard just seeing you walk into a room. There’s nothing you could do, in my bed or out, that would disappoint me. Now, baby, you’re not ready, you just got out of the hospital and we both need some sleep. Just let me hold you now, we’ll worry about the rest later.”

  His words must have slipped past Lucy’s worries and walls because she rubbed her thighs together and restlessly shifted in the bed. Fuck, a man’s good intentions could only survive so much. Dalton growled and tightened his arm on her waist to still her rubbing her sweet ass against his dick. “Darlin’, you keep moving around like that and I’m gonna have to go take care of myself before I get the first case of blue balls I’ve had since I was fifteen.”

  Lucy stilled. “I could…” She cleared her throat. “I could take care of it for you.” The tentative way she spoke melted his heart but shored up his decision to wait.

  Dalton snagged a pillow from the mound at the head of the bed and shoved it between his hips and her ass before cuddling back against her. “I’m not saying no, I’m just saying not yet. Not tonight. Sleep, Lucy.”

  He lay in the dark with Lucy wrapped in his arms, a pillow shielding his erection from her tempting curves and a grin on his face. Caring for a woman in a way that involved more than the promise of a mutual orgasm was uncharted territory for Dalton, but damn if he wasn’t enjoying it. Eventually, Lucy’s breathing slowed and deepened, and knowing she slept, Dalton let himself drift off, a contented sigh marking his last conscious breath of the night.

  * * * * *

  “It’s time, Dalton.” Lucy paused to study his dark scowl. She’d been living and working out of Dalton’s house for two weeks and if she had to spend one more celibate night pressed up against his hard body, tortured by his leather-and-sawdust male scent, she would lose her damn mind.

  “No. You’re safer here.”

  “It’s been two weeks since anything happened. According to Dez, Ross has been in Ohio since the day I was released from the hospital and hasn’t set foot outside of Cincinnati.” She closed the laptop she’d been working on at Dalton’s kitchen table and stood. After walking to where he stood with his hips braced against the door jamb, she placed her hands on his muscled chest and gave him a look she hoped conveyed her feelings. “I appreciate you letting me stay here, taking care of me, protecting me, but I can’t hide forever. I have to get on with my life. If I stay in seclusion like a coward, Ross will have won again by controlling me. I can’t let that happen. I’m stronger now, fully healed. It’s time I went home.”

  Dalton rolled his gaze to the ceiling, blew out a frustrated breath and ran a hand over his head. His warm breath stirred Lucy’s hair, which she’d started to keep free and wild instead of pulled back in her usual sloppy bun at the base of her neck because the man in front of her had mentioned he liked the way she looked with it down. Why she’d begun to care what he thought, started to change herself—more small shifts, really, than actual changes—in an effort to please him, Lucy had no idea. One morning in the past two weeks, she’d simply looked at the small elastic band she employed to keep her curly hair contained lying on the bathroom counter, then looked to the strange, new creature with sensual, tousled red curls framing a pale face staring back at her from inside the mirror above the sink, and made the decision to leave the hair tie where it lay.

  As Dalton scrubbed his hand over his scalp once more, Lucy’s fingers curled of their own accord into the taut muscles of his flexing chest. The index finger on her right hand lay directly over the beaded nub of Dalton’s left nipple. She clenched her jaw and closed her eyes, working to drown the sudden urge to scrape a fingernail over the hard pebble.

  Shit. I’ve got to get out of here.

  Dalton’s hands moved to cover her own, cradling them in his grasp against his chest. “I can’t protect you as well if you’re not here.”

  Lucy pushed against his chest, their hands still clasped together, forcing him back a step. “If I stay here one more night, you’ll have to be thinking about an entirely different kind of protection, Dalton.”

  His blue eyes went dark. Lucy pushed once more, moving Dalton until his back was against the wall. She knew she was only able to do this because he’d allowed it. Never having been the aggressor, having this big man submit to her, even in a small way, sent a rush of feminine power through Lucy she’d never experienced. Dalton made her feel something no one else had ever managed to make her feel. Safe. Safe to argue or push or try something new. Just…safe.

  Inching up onto her toes, she pressed against him, chest to chest, hip to hip, and leaned as close to his ear as her height would allow. “Either you take care of this ache you’ve built inside me, right now, or I’m going home to spend a few hours with my vibra
tor.” Her voice sounded breathy and laced with raw need.

  One dark, masculine brow arched and amusement battled with desire for dominance in Dalton’s gaze. “Hours?”

  Lucy gave a slow nod. “Usually I’m satisfied after about three minutes. Working you out of my system is going to take hours.” She felt her eyelids close a fraction. “Days. Weeks, maybe.” A shiver worked down her spine.

  Dalton released her hands, slid his own to her hips and bumped his pelvis against her, the proof of his arousal nudging her belly.

  Lucy tilted her head down so she could look up at him from under her lashes in a manner she’d seen other women do to men while attempting a seduction. She wasn’t sure it would work for her, not having had cause to practice the skill before meeting Dalton. She pushed out her bottom lip just a bit, figuring a little pouting couldn’t hurt. “I’ll have to order in food so I don’t starve to death before I’ve gotten rid of all the frustration seething inside me from sleeping beside you night after night for two freakin’ weeks.”

  Dalton’s long fingers flexed, securing her hips in an unbreakable hold just this side of painful. A dark thrill washed through Lucy.

  “I wouldn’t want you to suffer, darlin’.”

  Empowered, Lucy demanded, “Are you going to stop treating me like a cracked piece of glass? I might be damaged goods but I’m still a woman, after all.”

  Dalton’s body stiffened and he seemed to grow impossibly bigger. “You’re not damaged goods,” he growled.

  “Well, you either think I’m too fragile, damaged, or you simply don’t want me the way I want you,” Lucy said, knowing she was goading him but feeling liberatingly unafraid.

  Dalton leaned away from the wall, towering over Lucy and causing her to bend backward to hold his heated gaze. His nostrils flared, his breathing fast and shallow, he slipped his hands from her hips to the small of her back and ground the hard line of his erection against her. “Tell me what you want, Lucy.”

  She swallowed hard. “You.”

  He shook his head without taking his eyes off hers. “No, darlin’.”

  Her heart sped to bursting. The flush in her cheeks began to drain away with all the confidence she’d mustered. He didn’t want her. She slid her gaze away from his piercing stare and focused on a point over his shoulder.

  One hand stayed at the small of her back while the other traveled up to cup her chin and force her focus back to Dalton’s face. Lucy wanted to disappear. Drop right through the floor and fade away. Preferably before he said something more terrible than “no”. Like, “let’s be friends.”

  “Look at me, Darlin’.”

  With reluctant slowness, she met his gaze, shocked to find no pity staring back at her. Desire alone shone bright within Dalton’s navy eyes.

  “Tell me what you want. Exactly. Tell me exactly what you want me to do to you or I’ll do nothing at all. I want to hear you say the words, Lucy. I need to hear you say them before I touch you the way I’ve been dying to since the day you walked into Hart’s Ink for the first time.”

  Lucy felt blood rush back into her cheeks as she blushed. She’d never talked dirty and didn’t know if she could say aloud all the private things she wanted to experience with Dalton. “I…” Nervousness and embarrassment made her mouth close before she could do as he asked.

  Running a gentle touch over the side of her neck, Dalton must have sensed the reason for her silence. Placing his warm lips against her ear, he whispered, “Do you want me to slide my hand inside your jeans, rub my thumb against your hard clit while I fuck you with my fingers until you come screaming my name?” He nodded to one of his chairs. “Or maybe you’d like me to sit on one of those chairs, push my jeans down to my thighs and stroke my cock while I watch you undress before you straddle my lap and I feed every inch of my cock inside you.”

  A moan escaped Lucy’s throat and she decided to throw caution, modesty and embarrassment out the window. She knew exactly what she wanted and all she had to do to get it was say the words. This, she could do.

  Chapter Twelve

  Dalton knew he should put a stop to this before it went too far, but two weeks’ worth of nights with Lucy’s soft body tucked against his, in his damn bed, had pushed him to the breaking point. He watched her breath quicken and her eyes go wide as she struggled to say the words he’d demanded of her.

  Fuck, but this was what he needed, what he craved. A power exchange, push and pull, dominance and submission. He’d been an idiot to think Lucy couldn’t satisfy this dark part of him. With Lucy, it wasn’t about the stinging edge of pain, though he hoped to introduce her to the fine edge between it and pleasure. No, he wanted this woman’s absolute trust. Dalton knew the courage it would take for Lucy to offer her sweet submission, to drop her guards and give herself to him in this way. Suddenly, being worthy of this gift was the most important thing in the world.

  The first step would be to get Lucy to speak the words he instinctively knew she’d never spoken aloud. With the words, she would show her trust in Dalton. Trust that he would give her what she needed, tend to her, coax and steady her while she stepped outside her comfort zone.

  He carefully straightened and stepped away from her. Not because he intended to walk away if she didn’t do as he asked, but to give her room to make her choice. He almost couldn’t hear her quiet words.

  “I want you to touch me, Dalton.” Her eyes shone with a wildness Dalton yearned to capture.

  “Where?”

  Lucy held his gaze while reaching for his hand. She closed the space he’d put between them and pressed his hand to her breast. “Here.” Her heartbeat pounded a rapid rhythm beneath their palms. She used her hand to guide his down the length of her torso to the apex of her thighs. “And here.”

  Dalton pressed the heel of his hand firmly against her mound and groaned at the heat and dampness he could feel even through her jeans. Lucy’s eyes slid closed, her head tipped back, she pressed her hand against the back of his and rocked her hips against the pressure.

  Seeing her like this, feeling her small touch guiding him in her pleasure, nearly unmanned him. She hadn’t actually spoken any direct request, hadn’t used the dirty language he couldn’t wait to hear spill from her lips, but it was enough for now. Still…

  “Are you sure about this? I’m not an easy lover, darlin’. What happens between us, it won’t be quiet, in the dark, under the covers.”

  He watched, glad to see Lucy hesitate before giving her answer. She wasn’t too far gone with lust she couldn’t think this through and give an honest answer. Glad or not, he held his breath while he waited.

  “I’ll be honest and say I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to handle whips or spankings or anything crazy. I have a slight aversion to being struck.” She huffed a self-deprecating laugh which made Dalton want to gather her in a hug and soothe away the memories. “But I want this, whatever we have between us. More than that, I trust you enough to know you’ll never harm me or force me to do anything I don’t really want.”

  Something clenched in Dalton’s chest and a feeling he didn’t know he was capable of flashed through him like a lava flow. With her cautious words, she’d just sealed his fate. Fuck. He’d gone and fallen in love with the curly-haired nymph. A grin broke across his lips and he watched with fascination as an answering smile sparked on Lucy’s, tentative at first then growing to match his own.

  “Ah, Lucy, you’ve just bought yourself a whole mess of trouble.” He waggled his eyebrows as he stalked forward, nudging her backward toward the sofa.

  An indelicate snort was Lucy’s response. “Yes. Trouble with a capital ‘D’.”

  “You’ve no idea, darlin’. But you’re about to find out.” Dalton swooped down and captured her lips in a kiss full of desperate need and possessive heat. He nibbled her lower lip before thrusting his tongue inside her welcoming mouth. Her nails dug into his shoulders enough for him to feel the sting and his cock responded by twitching against the confine
s of his jeans.

  Pulling back, he held Lucy at arm’s length when she would have swayed forward. She looked a bit dazed and stared at him as if mesmerized while he removed his shirt and popped the button on his jeans. He hesitated with his fingers clasping the zipper before dropping both hands to his sides. “Set me free, Lucy.”

  She licked her swollen lips and he almost asked her to drop to her knees right then. Dalton clenched his hands into fists at the first contact of her trembling hands on the front of his pants. They both watched with rapt attention as she lowered the zipper tine by tine. The metallic sound seemed overly loud, the room otherwise silent except for their labored breaths.

  With growing confidence, she pushed his pants down until they rested on his thighs, paused for only a moment, then hooked her slim fingers into the waistband of his boxer-briefs. After tugging the elastic band up and over the straining tip of his erection, she swiftly guided the material down to rest atop his jeans as his shaft sprang free. He heard her gasp and hoped it was one of pleasure.

  Before Dalton could take control of the situation, Lucy dropped to her knees with a look of wonder on her flushed face. “Oh, my,” she breathed, reaching out to trace the silver balls at either end of the barbell piercing his cock just beneath the head. “I’ve never… This is…”

  Her warm breath caressed his aching flesh and he could stand no more. Wrapping a fist around his length, his voice deep, he said, “Open.”

  Lucy snapped her eyes to his face as if startled, then, without taking her eyes off of him, she parted her plump lips.

  A shudder stole through Dalton and before he could stop himself, he’d fisted his free hand in her hair and guided the head of his cock into her mouth with the other. She rolled her tongue over the tip, exploring the slit then moving to probe his piercing. Sweet baby Jesus!

  Dalton used the grip on her hair to pull her tempting mouth away from him before he came like some inexperienced teenager. His voice sounded harsh but he couldn’t help it as he pulled her to her feet. “Take off your clothes, Lucy.”