Battling Troy: Devil's Knights Series (17 page)

“Marley, let me go. I forgot the condom,” I ranted, reaching around my back to grab her arms.

“Troy, stop.”

“What? No, let me go,” I had never had sex without a condom on. I wanted to have kids someday, but today was not that day.

“Troy, I’m on the pill.”

“I can’t believe I let this happen. I’m so sorry, baby. If anything happens I promise I’ll be there for you and the baby. I’d never leave you or our baby.” I managed to pry her arms from around me and pulled her up so she was sitting.

“Troy, did you hear what I said?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m dripping down your leg. Come on, up. I’ll clean you up.” I grabbed her wrist and stood up, pulling her up behind me.

She yanked her arm out of my hold and crossed her arms over her chest. “Troy, listen to me.”

“Marley, can we talk later. We need to get you cleaned up, and then you need to rest.” Pregnant women needed lots of rest, right? Shower and then she was going to bed.

“Troy!” Marley shouted, yanking me from my thoughts of getting her to bed. “I’m on the fucking pill!”

“That’s good, Marley, but now we-” Wait, did she just say she’s on the pill? “You’re on the pill?”

“Yes, for the third time, I’m on the pill! Good God, I swear you were five minutes away from naming our firstborn. I’m on the pill, we should be fine.” She reached out and grabbed my hand. “Although that shower sounds like a good idea, but I do have plans for something more than sleeping after,” she purred, pulling me towards the shower.

“Wait,” I said, tugging on her arm to stop. She turned around and it looked like she was ready to hit me over the head with a baseball bat.

“Yes?”

“I’m clean.” She looked at me like I was crazy.

“Well, I’m not.” She stepped back and pointed to her thighs that had my cum dripping down them.

Son of a bitch, that was sexy to see my cum dripping from her sweet pussy. I shook my head, trying to stay focused. “No, not that. I meant I’m clean as in I’ve been checked out and I’ve never been with anyone but you without a condom.”

“Oh, OK. Good. I’m clean, too,” she whispered, ducking her head down.

“What’s wrong, baby?” I asked, reaching for her chin and tilting her head up.

“You’re not the first I’ve been with without a....” she trailed off, not finishing her sentence.

Shit. Her fiancée, of course. “Have you been tested since then?”

“Of course! I would never have let you do that if there might have been a chance. It was only with Mark and it wasn’t all the time.” She blushed bright red and she looked back down at the floor.

Not exactly the thing I want to be thinking about with my dick hanging out, but there was no reason my Marley had to feel bad about it. “Look at me, Marley.” She shook her head no and took a step back to run away. “Not so fast, Sunshine.” I grabbed her hand before she had a chance to get away and pulled her to me. “Don’t run from me. I’m not mad. You had a life before me, baby. I can’t get upset about that. Do I want to hear about it word for word? Hell no. You telling me what you just did was something you needed to tell me. I’m ok with that,” I grabbed her chin again and tilted her head up. “Don’t run from me, Marley. You promised you wouldn’t do that anymore.”

A lone tear fell from her eyes, and I swiped it away. “I’m sorry. I try not to run, but it’s hard not to sometimes.”

“Try harder, baby. I promise there is nothing you can tell me that will make me turn away from you. We might have just met and barely know one another, but I know I want you by me. Whether it be at my house, truck, or my bed, I want you there.”

Another tear fell from her eye. “I don’t deserve what you are willing to give me, Troy. I haven’t done anything to deserve it.”

“Is that what you think? That you have to give something to get something in return?”

“That’s life, Troy.”

“Sunshine, you have given me more in the past week or however many days I’ve known you than all the girls I have ever dated combined.”

“I keep running from you.”

“So, that’s something we need to work on. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t treat you good.”

“I’ve never had that before, Troy. Even with my mom, I knew if I messed up or did something wrong, she was going to be pissed at me. Punish me for it for weeks.” Tears were streaming down her face and there was no way I could stop them all.

Standing in the middle of my living room with both of us half naked was not how I wanted us to have this conversation. “Take your bra off, baby.” I walked over to the bathtub and turned the water on. I pushed the curtain back so it was in the back and reached under the sink. I pulled out a bottle of shampoo and figured it would do in a pinch for a bath.

I pulled my shirt over my head and tossed it over by the bed. Marley walked over to me, and I grabbed her hand. We silently watched the tub fill, neither of us talking. When the water was halfway up the tub, I opened the shampoo and squirted some under the running water.

“Did you just make me a bubble bath with shampoo?” Marley smirked as I shut the water off.

“No, I made
us
a bubble bath with shampoo.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her to me.

“I take we’re done talking?” she whispered.

“No, baby, we’re just getting started.” I stepped into the tub, sinking down under the bubbles.

She laughed as the water splashed and rolled over the side of the tub. “You think there’s room in there for me with all those bubbles?”

“This is my first bubble bath in over twenty five years. Forgive me if my water to soap ratio is off.”

She stepped into the tub between my legs and sank down, my legs cradling her. “You’re forgiven. It’s the thought that counts, handsome,” she purred as the bubbles enveloped her.

She leaned back into my chest and stretched her legs out. “I think I like you calling me handsome more than ass.”

“Hmm, I’ll have to try and remember that.”

I grabbed the washcloth I had hanging over the side of the tub and started running it over her body. She moaned as I grazed over her sweet pussy and perfect tits. “We need to finish our talk, baby”

“Fine,” Marley mumbled.

“Why do you keep running from me, Sunshine? What happened to you to make you think the best solution is to always run?”

She pulled away from me and turned sideways and looked at me. I could tell she was afraid to tell me, but I wasn’t going anywhere until she told me. I needed to know.

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Chapter 22

Marley

“I don’t have some sad sob story, Troy. Nothing horrible happened to me, it’s just the way I am.” This wasn’t where I thought our evening would wind up. Granted soaking in the tub with Troy was not something I would bat an eyelash at. Our topic of conversation was less than desirable, though.

“So you’ve always ran away from things that scare you? I doubt that because you were about to be married and would be married right now had it not been for your ex’s death.”

“I wasn’t scared of marrying Mark. I wasn’t scared at all when I was with Mark.”

“Because you felt safe with him.”

I stared at Troy and tried to figure out if that was why I wasn’t afraid or running away when I was with Mark. It wasn’t that he made me feel safe, it was more like he didn’t really make me feel anything. I know that sounds horrible, but that’s how it was. If I really was honest with myself, Mark was my best friend, and I loved him, but it wasn’t the kind of love you had for someone you married. “I guess I was safe with Mark. There wasn’t much danger or well, anything to worry about. He worked a lot and so did I.”

“So at the first sign of danger, you ran to your dad. If Mark would have been alive and you needed help, would you have turned to him?”

“Uh, if it had to do with business I guess I would have, but if it had to deal with the Banachi’s or anything like that, then no.”

“Could he protect you?”

Mark protect me? That was a good question. Mark worked out three times a week and ran, but I don’t think he would have the physical strength to protect me, let alone know what to do. He did always have his driver, Mo, nearby who, from the looks of him, could more than defend me if the need were to rise. “I don’t see what this has to do with me running.”

“I’m trying to understand you, Sunshine. You don’t need to get all sassy on me.”

“Sorry, but I just don’t know why we have to dissect the relationship I had with Mark. He helped when I needed it with my mom. He was there for me. I owed him a lot for that.”

“So marrying him was your way of thanking him?”

“What?! That is not why I was going to marry him. He was a good guy with a good head on his shoulders and he was going places.”

“Sounds rather boring.”

“I repeat, what does this have to do with me running?” I was about to lose it if Troy didn’t tell me what the hell he was trying to get at.

“You ran from your mother, baby, right into Mark. Then you stayed because it was safe and nothing scared you.”

“So, it was the logical thing to do. Why the hell would I want to be with someone who scared me and made me want to run?”

“Then what are you doing here, baby. You told me multiple times you’re scared.”

“Because, well, because…” Shit, why the hell did I stay? Besides from the fact always got talked into staying, what made me stay? “You make the scary shit not so scary.”

“Why, baby?”

Because he was strong yet sweet, rough and tough yet kind. He made me feel like I was wanted. Even that first night we were together when we barely knew each other, he made me feel like he wanted me to be there. Troy made me feel things I never thought I could. He made me feel wanted and safe while still letting me be myself. “You make me feel safe. You make me wish I had never moved to California and met Mark.”

“I’m glad you had Mark, Sunshine. He was there to help you when I couldn’t be. He may have not been the right man for you, but he kept you safe for me until I could find you.”

“You can’t mean that, Troy. We barely know each other.”

“I never say something I don’t mean, baby. You need to remember that. I know we have a long way to go to getting to know one another, but I think you need to know that I want you here and I don’t want you to leave.” He leaned forward, kissing me lightly on the lips and leaned back in the tub.

What do I say to that? What do I do? Mark never said those words to me and we were going to get married. Maybe Troy was right. I had run to Mark to escape my mom, and I stayed because everything else was too scary or different. But now I didn’t have that. Troy was so different from Mark. Mark was straight laced, lived for his job and barely ever laughed.

Troy worked, but it wasn’t like all he thought about was his job. He laughed all the time and was one of the most laid back people I had ever met. He made me happy just by laying on the couch and watching a movie with me. I had never been as happy as I had been the past two weeks. “I don’t want to go anywhere, Troy.”

“Then don’t, baby girl.” Troy held his hand out to me. I stared down at it and knew if I took his hand, I was taking a huge step. But if I didn’t take his hand, I was taking a huge step away from him. “I might try to run again,” I whispered.

“Do you want me to stop you?”

“Yes,” I grabbed his hand and he pulled me to him. I straddled his hips and wrapped my arms around his neck. I had just made one of the most terrifying decisions of my life, but I had never felt safer.

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Chapter 23

Marley

6 days. 144 hours. 8,640 minutes. Don’t ask me how many seconds, I’m not that good at math.

Two days ago King has told us he had finally gotten in touch with the Banachi’s, and they were working things out. He had a meeting with them today, and I was on pins and needles waiting to hear what happened.

“Sunshine, come watch the movie. You staring at the phone on the wall isn’t going to make it ring,” Troy called from the couch.

I glanced one more time at the phone and trudged over to Troy. “I just want to know what is going on. I should know since it’s about me,” I pouted, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Marley, we’ve gone over and over this. Just let King take care of it.” He was right. He had told me at least three times a day to chill out and leave everything to King. I couldn’t stop worrying though.

“I know, it’s just that we don’t have much to do, so all I can think about is what’s going on. I need a distraction.” I was whining, but god damn it I was going stir crazy.

“There’s plenty to do.”

“Like what? We’ve done everything there is to do fifty times. I swear if we go for another four wheeler ride, I’m driving till I find civilization.”

“Remind me to hide the keys to the four wheelers,” Troy mumbled under his breath.

“Ha ha,” I flipped Troy off and grabbed the remote that was sitting next to him on the couch. “I get to pick the movie.”

I flipped through the channels trying to find something to watch and contemplated chucking the remote at the TV when Troy wrapped his arms around me and tugged me into his lap.

“You’ve picked the last three movies, I think it’s my turn to pick one, Sunshine,” Troy rumbled in my ear.

“Oh really?”

“Yes, now hand it over and no one gets hurt.” I held the remote up over my head and twisted around to straddle Troy’s lap.

“You gonna play dirty again, baby girl?”

“I’ve been known to,” I purred tossing the remote across the room and onto the bed.

“Nice throw, but all I have to do is move you off my lap and beat you to the bed. Not a well thought out plan.” Troy grabbed my arms and held them behind my back with his hand. My breasts were thrust up in his face and my back arched.

This is what happened at least twice a day. One of us (mostly me) would get restless, and we’d somehow end up sprawled out on the bed or couch working out the tension. There was the one time when we were in the kitchen and we didn’t make it to the couch or the bed. We broke in Troy’s island that day.

“You’re wearing too many clothes, Marley,” Troy growled, grabbing the hem of my shirt and pulling it up. He leaned forward, his lips brushing against the swell of my breasts and I tossed my head back, already on the brink of cumming from just one touch from Troy. I didn’t know sex could be like this. Exciting and mind-blowing every time.