Page 76 of Ruthless Protector

I cupped her cheek and stared into her eyes. “Anything you want, just say the word, and it’s yours.”

Her eyes were glistening. She squeezed them shut, then blinked up at me. “I just…I don’t want to think. I need you to…” She pressed her lips together and bit down on them, drawing in a breath through her nose. “I need to quiet the noise in my head.” She gripped my shirt again. “Make it quiet, Jude. Please, make it quiet.”

I didn’t know where this was coming from, what had caused this sudden change, but I fucking hated it. Right now, she was hurting. I wanted her to confide in me, but if that wasn’t where she was at yet, I wanted her to lean on me. Asking me to make it better, knowing I could, Willa admitting to that was a big step in the right direction. Christ, didn’t she know all she had to do was ask, and I’d move mountains to give her what she wanted? It was only a matter of time before she gave me all of her story, but until then, I’d do whatever it took to bury whatever haunted her.

“Please,” she said again.

Gripping her waist, I hauled her off her feet. She wrapped her legs around my waist instantly, her arms curling around my neck, clinging to me. I carried her into her room and shut the door behind us, pressing her against it. “You don’t need to beg, Willa. All you need to do is ask and it’s yours, you know that, right?”

She bit her lip again, harder, and nodded.

“As much as I want to, I don’t know if I can give you quiet, baby, but I can try. I’ll make you come so many times you can’t think anymore. I’ll fuck you so hard all you can do is feel, then I’ll hold you so tight you know you’re safe. That with me, you’ll always be safe. Is that what you want?” I asked, voice hoarse.

She blinked, a single tear streaking down her cheek. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

“Ditto, sweetheart.”

She offered up a beautiful smile, eyes glistening, cheeks flushed, and it hit me with force. Christ, I wanted to climb in her head and uncover all her secrets right then and there. I wanted to make everything all right.

I brushed the tear away and leaned in, kissing her softly, slowly, not taking it deep, not yet. My cock was a hard as hell behind my zipper and I ground it against her jeans-covered pussy. When I lifted my head, her eyes were starting to glaze over, becoming unfocused. Which meant I was doing my job right. She was feeling, not thinking.

Willa liked it when I took control, loved surrendering it to me. I fucking loved it as well. The woman fought me on everything else; Jesus, she resisted every step of the way, locked me out, even when I saw the longing in her eyes, for me, for what I could give her. What I wanted to give her. But not in this, she never fought me on this. She was open and giving and free.

When I covered her body with mine, buried so damn deep inside her, and looked into her eyes, I saw what she wasn’t ready to say. She needed me as much as I needed her.

Tonight, though, what she needed from me, was to let go of it; all of the resistance, the fight.

And I knew exactly how I was going to give it to her.

“I want you to strip off your clothes and stand by the bed, understand?” I said, voice harsher than I’d intended, but the lust coursing through me had me almost shaking. Hanging on to my own control wasn’t going to be easy, but I knew how good it was going to be, how damn perfect Willa was going to be.

She blinked up at me, then nodded.

I stepped back and tilted my head to the bed. “I need to get something from downstairs. Make sure you’re naked by the time I get back.”

Willa shivered, and sinking her teeth into her bottom lip, nodded again.

I strode out, my heart racing a mile a minute, my cock so hard at the thought of what I was going to do to her, I was struggling to control my breathing. I rushed down to my place, got what I needed, and headed back.

The door to her room was ajar when I got back, just a small gap, and my pulse raced faster as I pushed it open.

Fuck. She was gorgeous.

Willa stood by the bed like I’d asked her to. Completely naked. Her lips were puffy from her biting them, her eyes wide, chest rising and falling with her panted breaths, making her tits jiggle.

“Turn around for me,” I demanded, voice guttural.

She did without protest, giving me a look at the rear view. Christ, I loved her ass. It was pert and perfectly round, a perfect peach. Enough to overflow my hands.

“Face me again.” She did what she was told and I yanked off my shirt, flinging it aside, and crooked my finger at her. “Come here.”

Her lips parted with her indrawn breath, and as soon as she was standing right in front of me, I slid my fingers in her hair, fisted lightly, and took her mouth in a hard, bruising kiss, gripping one of her tits while I did it. That warm, smooth flesh was the perfect handful, her tight little nipple pressing into my palm.

I tilted her head back farther and thrust my tongue in her sweet mouth, a wet hungry kiss that drove us both insane and had Willa trying to move closer, trying to rub her bare pussy against the fucking near obscene bulge of my aching cock through my jeans.

I stepped back and she whimpered.

I dragged my mouth up the side of her slender throat. “You’ll get my cock when I say so and not before.”