JARED (Lane Brothers Book 4) Page 5

  “Oh what nonsense! Of course I was looking! The two of you looked so cute the way you were all cuddled up together,” she yells back mockingly, making me still and blush all the way to the roots of my hair.

  Jared stalks out of the closet in a heartbeat, wearing a pair of sweatpants that ride low on his hips and a T-shirt that reads SEALs Go Deep and Hard.

  I want deep and hard. Please.

  He looks so yummy right now that if Judy weren’t in the room to witness my shame, I’d possibly just throw myself at him like the love-starved loser I am.

  “Ma! Don’t you do it!” he yells suddenly, waving a finger at her in anger when I feel her lift my hand and slide something onto it quickly before standing with a smirk and a wink.

  “It’s already done, cub. May the best man win!”

  “Ma. Cupcake, take it off right now,” he growls, turning to me when he sees his mother isn’t even listening anymore, just staring down at me tearfully with her hands cupping her cheeks.

  It takes me a second to realize what he’s said, but I finally look down and gasp when I see a huge, flawlessly cut blue diamond gracing my finger as if it were created just for me.

  “Oh my,” I breathe, staring at the stone with eyes gone huge and wide in wonder. “It’s so pretty.”

  “No, it isn’t! Take it off, now.”

  That’s when I snap out of the jewel daze and realize that I’ve just been proposed to by his mom. He doesn’t seem happy about it at all, I realize when he starts glaring and pulling at his hair.

  “Give it back, Paulie.”

  But…

  I slide the ring off with a pout, biting my lips to stop them from trembling when Judy scowls and takes the ring back before sniffing and turning on her heel—after kissing me, of course.

  When she makes it to the door, her head held so high I wonder how she can see where she’s going, she pauses and turns back with a glare.

  “I’m telling your father you hurt my feelings, boy.”

  “Yeah? You also going to tell him you’re proposing again?” he says, rolling his eyes.

  Judy sniffs twice before pulling the door open and marching out with her nose in the air, leaving me alone with him and feeling awkward enough to just die right on the spot.

  I’m no fool, really, and I know that he has every right to be upset about this, but for just that one, shining moment I felt…happy.

  “Sorry about that. She gets these weird ideas in her head and nothing we say can stop her. The easiest way to avoid her crazy is just to nod and ignore it mostly.”

  I nod and shift uncomfortably, fiddling with the coffee I don’t want, just to have something to do instead of stare at his perfect body as mortification swims through me.

  “Uh, it’s okay. Um, can I, would it be okay if I had a quick shower?” I ask, looking around for something to do that does not involve me staring at the crotch of his sweatpants.

  I can’t help that the man is huge and I’m only human.

  I feel like shit and I’m embarrassed and yet I still can’t seem to stop thinking about things I shouldn’t want and can’t have.

  “No.”

  “Er, no?”

  That has my eyes looking up at his, and I almost faint when he glares at me and stalks closer.

  “I don’t want you falling in the shower. You’re not healed completely yet.”

  Whatever. He probably doesn’t want to be the poor shlub who has to come in and rescue my naked ass if I fall in the shower.

  “I-I feel much better. Better than I should,” I say, putting a hand to my eyes as he comes closer.

  That hard expression is back and he leans in, coming nose to nose with me as he grabs the tray and rises with it, stalking away to put it outside the door before closing it and locking us in.

  “You’re not fine yet. You can have a bath. I’ll help.”

  “What! Uh, no, really I can do it.” He isn’t even listening as he walks back into the bathroom and I hear water come on before he’s back and picking me up, cradled firmly to his broad chest.

  “You’ll let me help or you stay dirty. Your choice.”

  It’s one thing to be all hot and bothered for a guy and want him, but quite another for him to be seeing me naked for the first time and having to wash my cruddy butt.

  Being naked now, in the cold light of day, is so not sexy and I don’t want him seeing me without the benefit of candlelight or the hazy lighting that I always had in my lascivious dreams.

  “Jared, I can do it by myself. Please,” I plead when he sets me down on the toilet seat and goes to check the water before turning the faucets off.

  The bathtub is huge enough to fit three and filled almost full when he stalks back and tries to grab the hem of the hospital gown I’m still wearing.

  “Arms up, Cupcake.”

  “What? No, really, I’ll be fine,” I squeak, snatching at the fabric when he manages to clear my thighs and I feel cool air hit my naked sex.

  “Dirty it is, then,” he says, dropping the hem and going to pick me up.

  No! I need a bath. I can still smell myself even after that mortifying sponge bath yesterday and the thought of staying this way makes my skin crawl.

  I want to wash it all off me, every bad memory still lurking in the back of my mind, and no way can I go back to bed with their touch still on my skin.

  “Agh, fine! Just, just don’t look, okay?” I beg softly, grabbing the hem to pull it up over myself.

  When it’s gone and I’m naked in front of him, I feel so exposed and raw that it’s a miracle I don’t scream when he leans down and hoists me into his arms.

  “Relax. I won’t hurt you,” he says when I shiver and close my eyes at the feel of his naked forearms on my skin.

  It feels so good to have him touching me that I forget my embarrassment and feelings of uncertainty and I look up at him, gasping at the rage I see in his eyes.

  “I-I know,” I whisper, groaning when he bends and lowers me into the hot water, my skin soaking up the heat as he submerges me almost to my neck.

  My words seem to calm him, for whatever reason, and I lean back with a sigh, closing my eyes against the need to cry.

  “Lift your head, Cupcake. I’ll wash your hair,” he says, sounding strangled and annoyed when I scoot forward and wrap my arms around my knees to give him better access.

  I groan when he starts lathering and just stop myself from leaning into his touch when he massages my scalp and starts working his fingers through my hair gently.

  It feels so good that I’m boneless by the time he rinses the shampoo and repeats with the conditioner before shoving his arms beneath me and hoisting me up onto the inbuilt seat.

  My eyes pop open and I forcefully stop a moan when I look down to see him staring at my breasts with so much intensity that I feel my nipples bead and shoot arousal straight to my core.

  It’s ridiculous to want him this much so soon after…

  I cut that thought short and focus on him, unable to pull my eyes from his face as he starts lathering his hands and soaping my shoulders.

  I almost jump out of the tub when he eventually reaches my breasts and spends a long time soaping them before moving down my stomach and to my legs.

  I’m fully wet and aching as he runs his rough palms from thigh to ankle and starts rubbing my feet with a slow and steady pressure that I feel all the way to my clit and empty sheath.

  I want him badly, and I can’t help the gasp of need that escapes when he finishes with my lower limbs and pulls me up to stand. Those magical hands go around me and I feel his breath on my belly as he cups my butt and washes me all over, slipping his hand into the crack and washing me so thoroughly, I blush.

  Suddenly, I grab his wrist, squeezing tightly when one of his hands reaches around, going for my sex. I can’t let him wash me for fear that he’ll feel my arousal and I know it.

  The thought of him knowing that I want him while he despises me is almost too much for me, and I hang
on for dear life, meeting his stony eyes, silently pleading with him to stop.

  “Please don’t,” I beg, pulling at his wrist when he tugs and brings his hand to my inner thigh.

  “You don’t need to be afraid, Cupcake. I would never hurt you.”

  “I know. I just…”

  “I know what they did to you, baby. I know and it kills me, but I swear I would never…” His voice is so thick with emotion that I don’t even think about what he’s saying and the memories that I won’t ever let escape.

  All I hear is that he thinks that I would equate him with those monsters and I can’t have that, not even to save myself from humiliation.

  “That’s not why. I just, I don’t want you to know,” I whisper, closing my eyes against the coldness in his.

  “Cupcake—”

  “There. Feel,” I say, shoving his hand between my legs so that he can’t miss the liquid heat building there.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, not wanting him to see me as vulnerability engulfs me.

  I want to rub all along his hand and soothe the aching throb beating in my sex, and a big part of me is so needy that I’d offer myself to him, beg him to touch me, but instead I stand completely still and avoid his gaze, not wanting to see his revulsion.

  When he starts rubbing and cleansing me, spreading my inner lips to get at every crease and fold, I almost moan with need and thrust my hips into his touch.

  The only reason I don’t is because I would never use him that way, no matter how much I want to.

  “I-I’m sorry,” I manage through my swollen throat and I hear him sigh right before he rises and grabs my chin, turning my eyes to his while he keeps rubbing between my legs.

  “Open your eyes, Cupcake.”

  What I see when I finally look up at him makes me gasp and tremble, because I see need and heat and so much lust, it takes my breath away.

  “You feel me, baby? You feel my hands on you?”

  I do. I feel his arm around me, holding me up even as that hand moves and his fingers hit my swollen clit.

  The sensation is explosive and I buck my hips uncontrollably, moaning when my core clenches at air, feeling so empty it actually hurts, but the pleasure when he starts rubbing and flicking at my bud is so good that all I can manage in response is a moan as I push closer, seeking relief from the heat attacking my sex.

  “That’s it, Cupcake, take your pleasure from me, baby,” he groans and I feel his arm leave me as his hand keeps up the slippery stroke.

  Our eyes stay connected the whole time, and though I try to look away, I can’t as I see his own pleasure reflected in his eyes.

  “I want you so much, Cupcake. I always have, and I will have you. You understand?” he says, speeding up his strokes when I nod and bite into my lip.

  The pleasure is consuming and I’m so wrapped up in chasing that orgasm just beyond my reach that it takes me a while to realize that his other arm is moving fast. My orgasm hits me the minute I look down to see him stroking his own rock-hard sex, the huge shaft twitching and jerking as he strokes himself hard and fast, in time with the rapid flick of his finger against my clit.

  I explode into pieces then, crying out harshly when I feel myself contract from womb to sheath in a series of waves so strong, my whole body stiffens up and quakes.

  I see his sex thicken and grow before he groans and starts coming, shooting his release onto our bellies in deep pumps of satisfaction that set off a string of deeper convulsions that leave me gasping and limp before his arms come around me and he pulls my wet body to his.

  “You’re mine,” he says, breathing heavily into my ear as I ride out the last of my climax in his arms.

  I nod again, incapable of speech as he gently lowers me to the water and resumes rinsing me gently.

  I know what he’s saying, and while the thought horrifies me, I can’t help but accept it, lapping up whatever he can give me. He wants me, that’s obvious now, and I’ll let him have me for as long as he wants.

  Chapter Six

  Jared

  I can still smell her on my hands hours later as I sit at my computer monitor and try to ignore the need coursing through me in waves.

  That little taste, if I can even call it that considering I didn’t put my mouth on any part of her, was not enough. Instead of stilling the need raging through me, it’s just made it all that much worse.

  I know what she looks like underneath those modest clothes she wears, and I now know what her pretty little slit looks and feels like. She’s perfect everywhere, sublimely perfect, and it’s a physical struggle I’m waging with myself not to just go back into the bedroom and fall on her like the beast I am.

  I want so much more than what I allowed myself this morning, and that’s why I’m keeping my ass pinned to this chair after dosing her again and putting her back to bed.

  She’s not ready for me yet. She still has some healing to do and I can’t touch her again without knowing that I won’t hurt her. So instead of going in there and opening her thighs so I can finally taste her sweet folds, I’m planted here, fighting to stay away.

  I almost took her in that tub, almost, but I stopped when I looked down and saw her stitches, reminding myself that while she is better and almost healed, thanks to the drugs we gave her, she is still not there.

  That’s all that stopped me when she put my hand on her sex and admitted her arousal. Once I felt all that slippery perfection, my dick got too hard to take no for an answer and I couldn’t stop myself from at least touching her and seeing her own pleasure.

  My jerking off was pure instinct, and I didn’t realize I was doing it till I came.

  I haven’t come that hard in…ever, and I once spent a night with a ballet dancer who was more flexible than an elastic band and knew exactly how to use her pelvic muscles.

  This experience trumps even that and I’m starting to think that once I do get inside Paulie, I may never want out again. At least not till I get one kid in her and know that I have her for good.

  I smile, remembering Ma’s tactics, and lean back in my chair with a chuckle, shaking my head in disgust. The woman is a menace if ever I met one, and I just knew she wouldn’t be able to resist claiming Paulie as her daughter before I claimed her as my woman.

  Too bad for her, I’m not a pussy like Wyatt and the others. No, my girl will wear the ring I give her without me having to see Ma’s stamp of ownership winking at me at every turn.

  I know just the ring I’ll present her with, and I can barely contain my excitement at the thought when my monitor starts beeping and I shoot forward to check it out.

  “Sonofabitch!”

  I’m on the phone and calling Miah less than a minute later and he answers with a growl that sets my teeth on edge.

  “This better be life or Goddamned death, bro.”

  “I got a video and I may need you in here before I take a closer look,” I say, feeling myself go ice cold inside at what I’m seeing on the screen.

  This cold, stony place I feel myself falling into is not one I ever want around to pull my girl into, and though I know I would never hurt Paulie, I refuse to have her alone with me in the next room while I’m in this frame of mind.

  This is the place I go when I’m on a mission, and I see something that turns my stomach. This is the place I go when I’m ready to kill someone for committing terrible crimes against humanity.

  The last time this happened and I wasn’t on a mission and able to focus on a target, Pop ended up rebuilding half the cottage and replacing two cars I trashed with my bare hands.

  “Yo, you sound—oh fuck!”

  Miah’s face is almost comical as it morphs from joking to deadly in under a second.

  I look into the terrified face of my girl on the video I happened to find while trawling the Net with facial recognition software that the military wishes I would sell to them.

  “Jared, dude, just calm down now, bro,” Miah says quietly, coming closer slowly when he recognises the l
ook in my eyes.

  I feel like I could rip someone apart with my hands right now, and the truth is I could, but I make a real effort to tamp it down when Miah bolts from the room.

  If this is the one, if those bastards have dared to put up a video on this piece of shit site that I will shut down before crashing and frying their servers, I will not be responsible for what I do to them when I find them.

  The door bursts open and Jace comes crashing in, his face going snow white when he sees me sitting so still, my cold face focused on the monitor.

  “Bro…”

  “They put her on some piece of shit site for perverts to look at,” I say, cracking my neck when the strain starts eating at my shoulders.

  I’m strung so tight, I swear I’ll break apart if anyone so much as touches me right now. I don’t want to see this. God, I know it’s a bad idea to even still be staring at her beautiful face so wreathed with terror and pain.

  But I need to know. I have to see what they did, because I know that I will never sleep again without knowing. And I probably won’t sleep again when I do.

  “Don’t look, bro. Let Miah and I give it a gander and we’ll tell you. Just don’t…you don’t need to see it,” Jace says somberly, making me smile because I know he’s terrified of what I’ll do if I watch.

  “She’s mine.”

  “We know, bro, we know. And I swear I won’t look anywhere we shouldn’t. I swear,” Jace pleads, urging me with his eyes to leave and keep those images from my head.

  I shake myself back to life when all I hear for several minutes is my brothers’ harsh breaths and hit the play button before I can rethink it.

  I should have listened to them and left. I should have. My body stiffens and I watch as Paulie is punched repeatedly before being shoved over a bench, her face twisted and bleeding as some faceless asshole comes up behind her bearing a police baton.

  My eyes close and I can guarantee my brothers are doing the same when I hear her screams and pleas for them to stop. She sounds agonized, terrified, and then so hopeless after minutes pass that I feel tears leak from my eyes and start pouring down my cheeks.