Claiming the Runaway by Emma Bray
Chapter Three
Damon
When I come home,my nostrils are assaulted by a clean, lemony scent. I look down and see that my floors have been mopped, and I notice there’s not a speck of dust on any surface. My lips tip up in a grin. My little bunny has kept kept herself busy today.
I follow the sound of the TV into the living room and stop dead in my tracks, dropping the bags in my hands to the floor, my eyes roving over the delectable sight before me, my cock instantly at full mast, pushing painfully against the zipper of my jeans.
Christ.Hadley is laying curled on her side on my couch with her head facing away from the TV. Her silky hair is hanging down, falling off the front of the cushions, and her little hands are pulled up under her chin in an angelic pose as she sleeps softly, but what has my dick about to bust my zipper are the rounded globes of her ass peeking out from beneath my shirt that has ridden up high on her thighs in her sleep.
It’s the most perfect little ass I’ve ever seen in my life, and I ball my fists together to keep myself from going over to her and thrusting my cock between her cheeks. I want to slide between those perfect globes until I come all over her and smear it all over her ass, painting her as mine. Fuck her in my shirt, on my couch, in my apartment. Mine, mine, mine.
Fuck. I grit my teeth and force myself to walk away from her, leaving her innocently sleeping form undisturbed. I go into my bathroom, turn on the shower, strip down and then get under the spray, desperately jerking my swollen cock while thinking of all the filthy things I want to do to her. I’m so hard up for her, it only takes a few pumps until my breath catches and I’m blasting my spend all over the tiles.
I’d thought about her nonstop all day while I’d worked on cars. I couldn’t wait to get back home to her presence, but I’d never expected to find her the way she was.
I can’t get the image of her plump little ass out of my mind. I want to hold it in my palms and mold it to my touch, slide my fingers between her sweet thighs into her dripping wet cunt until she comes all over them. Despite the fact that I just came harder than I ever have in my entire life, my fucking cock is hardening again.
Living with her and not touching her is going to be the death of me.
* * *
Hadley
I sit up on the couch and stretch languorously, wondering what time it is and how long I’ve been asleep. I can’t believe I even fell asleep. I never fall asleep in the middle of the day.
I stop mid-yawn when I see the bags laying on the floor. Those weren’t there when I fell asleep. I know because I cleaned the entire apartment before I dozed off while watching TV for lack of anything else to do.
Just then, Damon walks into the room from his bedroom, and my mouth goes dry at the sight of him.
He’s wearing dark gray sweatpants and no shirt, and my question about whether he has ink on his chest too is finally answered. His entire right pec is covered by an abstract design that goes up to break at his shoulder before continuing on down his entire sleeve. Both of his arms are completely tatted, and he’s nothing but hardened muscle. There’s not an ounce of fat on him, though the slabs that are his abs are humongous. He’s wearing the thick, braided silver chain and leather necklace, and I notice that the short hair on his head is glistening like he just got out of the shower. How did he come in without me even waking up?
My cheeks heat when my eyes finally travel up to meet his. His gray eyes are regarding me humorously, and I realize he’s caught me staring at him.
“Hi,” my voice comes out breathy. “How was your day?”
He leans down and picks up the bags before walking over to sit beside me on the couch. I’m surrounded by his scent as he sits mere inches from me and hands me the bags. “It was fine,” he says, “I picked you up some things after work. I hope this is enough to get you started.”
I peek into the bags, and at a glance, I see a toothbrush, rose-scented shampoo and conditioner, a hairbrush and hairdryer, leggings, tank tops, a pair of flip flops, and a pack of sports bras and cotton panties. I blush at the thought of him picking out my underthings.
“I didn’t know your exact size, so I just got those universal sizes,” he said gruffly. “Figured you’re a small?”
I nod, imaging this big man picking out such tiny women’s clothes. The thought makes me smile. “This is more than enough. Thank you.”
He grunts by way of acknowledgement, and I look up to find his eyes on my bare thighs. I instinctively pull his shirt that I’m wearing down, and his jaw flexes before his gaze flicks down to my feet and he frowns. “Where are your bandages?”
“I had to take them off to take a shower this morning,” I say.
“Stay there,” he orders me. “I’ll be right back.”
He walks out of the room, and a moment later, he reappears with a wet washrag, a hand towel flung over his shoulder, and the salve and bandages.
“You don’t have to do that,” I begin to protest. “It’s fine. I walked on them all day.”
He silences me with a stern look before he says. “You’ve got open cuts. We don’t want them to get infected.” Then, just like last night, he proceeds to gently clean my feet before applying the salve and rewrapping them.
His hands linger on my ankles a moment before he finally pulls back and looks up at me, his gray eyes piercing me with their intensity. They’re like the gray sky on a cloudy day, rolling and full of the threat of turbulence.
“Why don’t you go change into some things that fit you?” he suggests, his voice gravelly. “Then, we’ll see about doing something for dinner.”
“Okay,” I get up on shaky legs and go to do as he says, feeling the heat of his gaze on my back as I do so.
* * *
Damon
She’s so fucking gorgeous it hurts. I inwardly curse myself when she comes out of her bedroom wearing a pair of tiny gray sleep shorts and a pink tank top. I can see the straps of the gray sports bra peeking out from under the straps of the tank top, and I know she’s wearing a pair of the cotton panties I picked out for her. The pack I’d picked up for her was simple, but the fuckers had cute little designs printed on them of cherries, strawberries, and other fucking fruit, as if to entice a man to taste the sweetness between her legs.
I’d tried to buy the least sexy shit in the store without being too obvious about it. I certainly couldn’t have brought home a bag full of the lacy, silky lingerie I’d been tempted to buy for her. There’s no way I’d have been able to resist ripping that kind of stuff off her, but I’m beginning to think I could drape her in a burlap sack and she’d still be sex on legs.
And how the hell that is even possible when I’d bet my right hand she’s never had sex before is beyond me. I don’t know what it is about her, the innocence in her eyes, the ways she blushes too easily, but I’d be willing to bet she’s still got that little cherry between her legs.
The thought pleases me immensely and causes a wave of lust to crash through me. I don’t want to imagine another fucker ever touching her. Nobody else deserves her. Hell, I don’t deserve her. She’s a goddess too good for this world, too good for the likes of me.
That doesn’t stop my body’s reaction to her.
My cock twitches, but I fight to keep it from making an obscene tent in my pants. Down boy.
“What do you think about pizza?” I ask her.
She smiles a wide, girlish smile. “With pepperoni?”
I grin back at her, glad to have pleased her. “You got it.”
I pick up my phone to place the order while she sits on the couch and pulls her feet up underneath her, crosslegged.
“It won’t be long,” I tell her when I hang up the phone. “Tony’s is located right next to the shop, and it’s only about a five-minute drive from here.”
“So you’re a mechanic?” she asks me.
I shrug. “I work on cars, yeah.”
“How long have you done that?” she asks curiously.
“About six months,” I answer her honestly.
She looks surprised. “Oh, what did you do before then?”
I pause, looking into her innocent blue eyes. She has no idea what she’s just asked me, and I consider dodging the question, but my conscience gets the better of me. She has a right to know the kind of man she’s living with. “I was in prison,” I admit, my voice coming out more gruffly than I intend.
I’m halfway expecting her to back away from me in fear or to just get up and leave, but she just looks at me. She doesn’t even blink.
“Oh,” she finally says, “I’m sorry.”
My brow furrows, not sure I’ve heard her right. “What? What are you sorry for?”
She’s regarding me frankly. “I didn’t mean to pry. I’m sorry if I asked you something that you didn’t want to talk about.”
I bark out an incredulous laugh and run my thumb along my jawline. “I admit to being a felon, and you’re the one who’s sorry. Sweetheart, I should be the one apologizing to you.”
Now her little brow furrows, and her lips purse adorably. “What for?”
“I let you move in here without telling you what kind of man I am upfront.”
When she doesn’t say anything, I frown and add, “A criminal.”
“You won’t hurt me,” she whispers, “so it doesn’t matter.”
“How do you know that?” my voice is low. She’s right. I’d rather cut off my own hand than hurt her, but I’m half pissed at her for blindly trusting someone like me without knowing all the facts.
“You’ve had plenty of opportunity,” she answers, “and you’ve been nothing but nice to me. Nicer than anyone has ever been.” She whispers that last bit, and I can’t help it. I reach out to cup her chin and raise her eyes up to me.
“I would never hurt you,” I confirm, looking right into her eyes as I say it.
“I know,” she says before her tongue darts out to wet her lips. My eyes are drawn to her full, puffy bottom lip, glistening with moisture. I feel my head drawing closer to her until my lips are only a hair’s breath away from hers. Her breath hitches, but before I can taste her lips, there’s a loud knock on the door that breaks me out of her siren call.
I get up to go get the pizza and tip the guy—through I probably shouldn’t considering the moment he’d just killed—before heading back to the couch with the pizza box and a couple of cans of soda in tow.
“Dig in,” I tell her as I set the box on the coffee table.
She grabs a slice, takes a bite, closes her eyes, and moans. Christ, does she always have to eat food like she’s having sex? If she makes those sounds when she’s eating, I can only imagine what kinds of noises she’d make with me in between her thighs.
“Possession with intent to distribute,” I tell her.
“What?” she asks, stopping mid-bite.
“What I was in for,” I explain.
She shakes her head. “I didn’t ask.”
“I know,” I tell her, “but I think you have a right to know.”
She nods slowly before asking me, “Did you know what you were doing?”
My chest constricts. No one’s ever asked me that before. They just heard my charge and just assumed I was a piece of shit drug dealer.
But not this sweet girl. She gives me the benefit of the doubt. She sees me for the man I really am, the man I was before all the shit hit the fan that night five years ago. If I wasn’t obsessed with her before, I sure as hell am now.
I shake my head, “No. I didn’t know what I was transporting. I knew I was working with shady people. The money was too good for me to assume otherwise, but no, I had no idea what I was holding when I got busted.”
I still remembered it like it was yesterday. I went to drop off the package and out of nowhere was surrounded by a slew of FBI agents.
They’d tried to offer me a deal—immunity to snitch on who I worked for, but I knew better. I’d kept my trap shut and been lucky to get off with five years in the pen. I haven’t went near that crowd since I got out of prison. I’d been a stupid kid from the wrong side of the tracks, so when they’d approached me for an easy gig, I’d taken it. No questions asked.
After I’d gotten out of prison, though, I’d gotten the job at Rick’s garage. Rick and I had grown up together, and when he’d found out what had happened to me, he knew the kind of guy I was. He’d been the only one in the city to give a felon a chance. He was the closest thing I’d ever had to a true friend.
She nods. “I believe you.”
My chest swells at those three little words. She believes me. No questions asked. She trusts me.
She’s an angel.
I watch her take another bite of her pizza. She closes her eyes and moans again, and I fight back a grin. The girl really enjoys her food.
I’ll feed her whatever she wants every day. I’ll do anything to keep her safe and happy.
She’s my angel, and I’m going to take care of her.