Serve ‘N’ Protect by Tee O’Fallon

Chapter Twenty-Two

Cassidy’s eyes were closed, her lips parted and her chest just above her breasts slightly damp with perspiration. Leaning down, Markus kissed her breastbone, tasting the saltiness. “You really are so beautiful,” he whispered, trailing kisses from the hollow beneath her ear down to her chin, being careful not to bump the swollen part of her cheek. As it did every time he thought about it, icy rage flared in his gut that he hadn’t nailed the guy who had done this to her.

Slowly, she opened her eyes.

“Hi,” he said, wishing like hell that for just once he could come up with something more romantic and meaningful to say after sex.

“Hi.” Lush pink lips slightly swollen from how much he’d kissed her over the last ten minutes turned up at the corners, warming his heart and making him feel…

Christ. As usual, he was incapable of putting his emotions into words. With the tip of his finger, he nudged a lock of blond hair behind her ear. “Are you okay?”

The way he’d taken her, thrusting hard and fast, wasn’t how he’d planned during the entire drive home from the central detention facility. Then, he’d been planning on walking in the door, telling her everything that went down, then easing into the sex slowly. But one look into those gorgeous blue eyes, and he’d lost it. Everything he wanted to say, every emotion he couldn’t give voice to, had deserted him the second he’d seen her.

She nodded. “Are you?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” He’d just had amazing sex with the woman he’d been thinking of nonstop, and he was still inside her. If he got his way, he’d remain there for the rest of the night or what was left of it, bringing them both to orgasm at least twice more before sacking out.

“I meant your injuries. Your stitches may be out, but you’re still healing on the inside.”

“I’m good.” Better than good, actually. He was…content? No, whatever he was feeling, it was way past content. If she asked him to leap a twenty-story building, he’d bet he could do it. Or run a marathon in under two hours carrying a field ops backpack loaded with fifty pounds of gear. Yeah, he could do all that. Because she makes me feel that damned good.

“Thank you for the flowers, but you didn’t have to do that.” She trailed her finger down the center of his chest, grinning. “Then again, I did make you cookies.”

She certainly had, and those cookies meant more to him than he could possibly explain. “I sent them because…” He’d just gone with how he’d felt right at that moment. “Because I wanted to.”

“Well, it was very thoughtful.”

“Yeah, that’s me. Mr. Thoughtful.”

She tapped his chest. “Are you ever going to tell me what happened tonight?” she asked, trashing his plans to grab another condom for an instant replay. Knowing Cassidy, she wouldn’t let up until she’d fully debriefed him the way McMurray had. To say his boss wasn’t happy that he’d disobeyed a direct order and gone into the field to interview a murder suspect while out on IOD—injured on duty—was a major understatement.

“Give me a minute.” Regretfully, he eased out of her and quickly disposed of the condom in the bathroom. After cleaning himself up, he found her under the covers, her beautiful lithe body covered up to her neck with the beige comforter. Way too much comforter obscuring his view of the most perfect set of breasts that he could suck on for a very long time.

Hoping he could change her train of thought, he snagged another condom, tossing it on the table before sliding beneath the covers, intentionally pulling them away from her body so he could admire every sexy, enticing curve with his eyes first, then with his roving hands.

“Tell me what happened,” she insisted, and when he began teasing her nipple between his fingers, she latched on to his wrist. “No more distractions. Spill it, York.”

Her insistence had him chuckling. After sex, most women wanted to snuggle and pepper him with questions about what he was thinking. Not Cassidy. She wanted to grill him about Mansfield.

He rolled onto his back, propping a pillow beneath his head. Another round of sex would have to wait, although, in truth, talking about Mansfield would save him from having to address the unfamiliar emotions swirling around in his head, trying unsuccessfully to break free. “Turns out the guy did it for love.”

For the next ten minutes, he described how it all went down, including Mansfield’s romantic, protective motives.

“Misguided though he was, to say the least,” Cassidy said, “he wanted to protect the person he loved most in the world.”

There it was again. Love. The biggest of all emotions, or so he’d been told, and one about which he still felt clueless. So why did he think of Cassidy, see her face, every time that one little word came up? And why did the thought of someone hurting her have him seeing through a blood-red haze?

Not for the first time in his life, he wondered if he was capable of such extreme emotions. The kind that made a man kill for love.

“So it’s really over?”

“It’s really over.” He lifted her hand to his lips and began kissing her slim fingers one by one as he soaked in her guileless beauty. So few people were as pure of heart as she was. That dickhead Hugh’s loss was his gain.

He leaned over to kiss her but stopped, taking in the worry and sadness in her clear blue eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“You’ll be leaving soon.”

“I don’t have to go right away.” In fact, he planned to do the rest of his IOD time right where he was. Living next to Cassidy during the day, being in her bed every night. “I won’t be cleared for duty for weeks. I also have vacation days that I haven’t used.”

“But you’ll leave. Eventually, I mean.” She tried pulling away, but he interlaced their fingers, preventing her from escaping.

“Yes. I’ll go back to work. I have to.” When the smooth skin above her nose wrinkled, he wished he could miraculously cough up some meaningful words. He knew he should say something to ease her fears, but this was all new to him, these nameless, faceless feelings he couldn’t voice. If he didn’t figure something out and fast, he’d lose her before he even worked out what to do with whatever was growing between them. “I live two hours from here. We can get together on weekends.”

Her frown deepened, telling him he was royally fucking this up. What she wanted were flowery words, emotional promises that he might not have in him. Ever. But dammit, he had to try. Never seeing her again after he returned to duty… His insides twisted with misery.

“Cassidy.” Needing more physical contact but knowing he was in a dicey situation, he settled for stroking her cheek with the backs of his knuckles. Say it. If you can’t tell her how you feel, tell her what you want. “I want to spend more time with you. I want to see where this goes.”

Wanting a woman to stick around in his life was a new theme, one he never imagined would happen. He held his breath, waiting for her to respond.

Please say yes.

Slowly, she nodded. “If that’s what you want,” she said, “then I want it, too.” She turned her face into his hand, kissing his palm.

The simple gesture tugged at his heart. In his entire life, she was the only person who could play him that way. Other emotions raged inside his head, pinging to get out. He might never be capable of expressing them, but he could explain more about the events that had shaped his life, making him who and what he was. He’d never discussed it with a living soul, but he owed Cassidy that much. “First, we should probably talk about all the shit in my head that needs to get figured out.” Because he was a self-diagnosed psychological hot mess.

“Okay,” she said, lacing their fingers together, “tell me about the shit in your head.”

This would be a first, outing where it all came from. Steven. It had been years since he’d lived with the man, yet the trauma he’d inflicted was still there, festering like an untreatable cancer.

He inhaled deeply and started talking.

“My father drilled into us as kids that showing emotion is a sign of weakness. My sister and I learned that if we didn’t want to get criticized or smacked, we had to say nothing and keep everything inside. Life was easier if we just didn’t feel at all.”

Cassidy stroked his jaw, grazing her short nails over his rough stubble. “Are you afraid of what would happen if you let yourself feel? Or is it what other people might think if you shared those feelings?”

Both. Damn, but she really did get him.

“You know,” she said when he didn’t reply, “if you don’t let yourself feel and talk about those feelings, they might explode on you one day.”

That he already knew, but he’d learned to channel that frustration and rage into his work, first with the marines and then in the Secret Service. He dragged a hand down his face. “I’m afraid of fucking this up with you.”

“And I’m afraid of being close to someone again.”

Markus’s muscles tightened with the need to punch her dickwad ex-fiancé’s face into the next century. The guy had shredded her heart. Markus could kill him for that.

But not tonight.

“We both have to grow,” she continued. “In time, maybe we can.”

Maybe. But he still worried he’d never be able to dissect the feelings stumbling around in his chest whenever he thought of her, never be capable of flowery emotions and words she deserved to hear.

He leaned in to capture her mouth in a slow, wet kiss. Even if it was completely irresponsible and impossible, he wanted her to be his. Showing her how much would have to suffice. That he could do.

Oh, yeah. That he could definitely do.

He sheathed himself in another condom and pulled her astride, holding her hips above his straining erection, then lowered her down slowly, watching her take all of him deep inside her. As she picked up the rhythm, he released her ass, sliding his hands down the tops of her thighs and the raised, puckered skin of her scars.

With every rise and fall of her body, her breasts swayed, the distended nipples calling to him like a beacon. He leaned up, stroking her back as he sucked one nipple into his mouth, loving the sexy little gasp that escaped her lips.

She threw back her head, her walls gripping him tighter as the orgasm took hold and she cried out his name. A moment later, his own release left him trembling with his face pressed to her chest, inhaling her sweet, earthy scent.

As he drifted into a thoroughly satisfied post-sex haze, Cassidy curled up against his side, and Markus tried to relax into what was shaping up to be a plan. A plan in which he and Cassidy had some sort of future, even if he didn’t know what that might look like. He wanted more with her—that much he knew—but time was not on his side.

Unease crept into his chest. Soon, he would be leaving, and that scared him to death. Because no matter what he told himself, no matter what promises he made, once he was gone, he’d take the easy route and never come back. Anything to not have to face what he was really running from.

After he’d been attacked, the media had pegged him as one of the country’s most courageous domestic warriors, protecting the President of the United States, ready and willing to sacrifice his own life to accomplish the mission. On that score, they were right. If necessary, he’d lay down his life to protect the President. He wasn’t afraid to die, and he’d do it in a heartbeat and without any hesitation whatsoever. But they didn’t know the truth.

When it came to facing his greatest fear, he was a coward.

As a child and then as a teenager, he’d been denied love by the one person who should have given it to him. Had been punished for wanting it. The constant rejection time and time again had taken its toll. It didn’t matter how much he wanted something—he’d never allow himself to be vulnerable enough to get it. He couldn’t risk being rejected again, especially by someone as important as Cassidy, who gave her love so freely to everyone she encountered. Love that he so desperately wanted.

And because of that, Markus was destined to be alone.

That was the truth he was hiding.

Know yourself and you will win all battles. Sun Tzu was indeed a wise man, but he was wrong about that. Markus knew himself better than anyone, but this was one battle he would always lose.

Because he was the one afraid of getting hurt.