Buried (Hiding From Love #3) (18 page)

I
T'S
a strange thing that, when you're in hell, you can find the one or two tiny things that bring you happiness and focus on them entirely. It must be human nature, some sort of self-preservation. When I was in prison, it was the plants. Books about plants, classes about plants, picture of plants. It was the one thing that brought me happiness, so I planned most of my life around it, finding new ways to learn and read and think about plants. I used to draw out elaborate landscape designs for that big house in San Antonio I'd never have. It would keep me busy and strangely happy for hours at a time.

Now, I lie in bed, my head propped up on one elbow, and I watch Beth as she sleeps. This is my new sliver of happy. I know right now that I could look at her sweet lips, her inky lashes and soft cheeks, and it would make me happy for most of my days.

My mind travels to the events of the last twenty-four hours. I can't believe that, after everything I went through to escape this, it's finally happened. The man I've spent most of my life running from, the fate I thought I could avoid, has come and grabbed me right out of the shards of life I was clinging to in desperation. In some ways, I don't even mind. Now that I've actually faced the monster, a lot of the fear is gone. He's a murderer, a thief, a defiler of humanity, but so were the RH. The main difference is that my father is polite about it, and I find that to be a refreshing change.

The only problem is that Beth's been dragged into it. If I'd known she was going to end up in the middle of this, I'd have turned myself over to him years ago. I realized at some point during the plane ride here that whatever stupid logic I was clinging to that made me think the RH was better than my own father wasted years for me. Gangsters are gangsters. I should have just gone to him and gotten it over with. Would have saved a lot of time and trouble for everyone really. And a lot of lost lives too. All those RH dead yesterday, Destiny dead—that’s on me. I cost those people their lives, and it makes me a little sick to think about it too much.

But Beth is what bothers me the most. She shouldn't be here. She shouldn't be anywhere near me or my father. She never should have seen the inside of the RH headquarters. She never should have seen Destiny with a gun pointed at her head. But in the middle of all of that is this flood of awe and joy that she
is
here. That I can lie here and look at her beautiful face, listen to her soft breaths, smell her spicy hair. I'm a fucking prick, but I'm so happy to have her here that it brings a sweet ache to my chest.

"Hey," she says as her beautiful, big, brown eyes open and she looks at me sleepily.

"Good morning." I keep staring at her. I can't help myself.

"You're staring at me," she observes.

"You're beautiful," I answer as a dumb grin works its way across my face.

She blushes and rolls her eyes.

I lean down to give her a kiss on the cheek, but she turns her head just as I do and our lips brush against each other. Electricity sparks between us and I hear her breath catch.

"Um, I know I don't smell so great right now," she says. "And I think it's been, like, way over twenty-four hours since I brushed my teeth."

"Is that your way of telling me I'm rank," I laugh as I sit up.

"No, honest. I just really don't want to turn you off completely before we ever even get to the good stuff."

I clear my throat at her description.
The good stuff
. Yeah, I'm betting her stuff is pretty damn good.

"Oh yeah?" I can't help but smirk at her. "Is there going to be some good stuff?"

She rolls her eyes again and sits up next to me, her hair tumbling all around her face. It's the fucking sexiest thing I've ever seen.

"Did you forget what we said last night before we went to sleep?"

I scratch my head, feeling my cheeks heat. "Uh, no, I remember it pretty damn well."

"So, I love you, you love me, right?"

I turn and face her, my expression now serious. "Yeah, that's right."

"Then I'd say the good stuff is kind of what happens at this point, isn't it?"

"
Chica
. We're hardly in a normal situation here. I mean, you've been kidnapped by a Mexican drug lord. I'm his long-lost son who's a convicted felon in one country and now wanted in at least one too." I pause, realizing that by taking me out of the halfway house and removing my cuff, the RH and my father have now ensured that the police in Texas are after my ass to throw it back in prison. “Jesus, that sounds like a fucking
1
telenovela
, no?”

Beth places her index finger against my lips. "Shh," she shushes me. "For just a little bit, can we not think about all of that? We're here in our gilded cage, just the two of us, this big bed, that gorgeous bathroom. And we love each other. Let's pretend. Just for a little while. We've got the rest of the day to worry about being fugitives and kidnap victims."

I've been trying to be honorable and rational when it comes to Beth, but at the core, I'm a twenty-five-year-old guy who hasn't had sex in four fucking years and is in bed with the girl I've pined for since I was six. Honor and rationality left the room right about the time she uttered "good stuff." So much of the blood in my body has pooled in my dick that I can barely form words, much less think.

My voice sounds like I've swallowed a mouthful of gravel when I speak. "You, uh, want to hit the shower?" I ask, trying to be casual about it.

She nods as she stands up out of bed. She watches me with dark eyes and reaches down to slide her T-shirt up over her head, dropping it to the floor. I swallow, my throat suddenly dry as I take in her ample tits clad in nothing but a dark, lace bra. I can see her nipples peeking through the fabric, and my tongue darts out between my lips in anticipation.

Next, she undoes the button of her shorts and shimmies them off onto the floor as she steps out of them. Her panties match her bra, and there's very little to them. In fact, as she turns her back to me to walk to the bathroom, I see that she has a thong on.
Madre de Dios
.

I'm sitting on the bed, jaw gaping, my dick so hard that I'm not sure I'll be able to walk, when she turns and looks over her shoulder at me.

"Don’t you need to get cleaned up too?" she asks, smiling as she goes into the bathroom, and leaves the door open.

Don't have to ask this homeboy twice.

When I get to the bathroom, Beth's in the shower. I can see glimpses of her naked form through the steamed-up glass door. It's like a peep show, and I can't help but just stand there for a minute and watch the flashes of flesh that dance in and out of the steam.

I undo my jeans and drop them and my boxers to the floor. Beth must hear the denim hit the tile because she pokes her head out of the shower door, giving me a long look up and down, her wet hair streaming water down her breasts. I can feel one corner of my mouth tip up as her eyes linger on my hard-on.

Her voice is husky when she speaks. "There're toothbrushes in the cabinet," she tells me before she shuts the shower door again.

I open up the cabinet that flanks the big, oval mirrors over the twin sinks. Everything is a dark wood like cherry or something, and the fixtures are all brass, polished to a gleam. Inside the cabinet, I find multiple toothbrushes still in their packaging along with various types of toothpaste and other necessities like shaving cream, razors, soap, and—lo and behold—condoms. Guess dear old Dad isn't ready to be a grandfather yet. I shake my head.

I quickly brush my teeth then take out one of the condoms from the box and palm it as I open the door to the shower. It's a huge space with a bench and multiple showerheads—the kind of thing I've only ever seen in magazines and movies. Beth has her back to me, letting the hot water pound down on her as she stands facing the spray with her head bowed.

I set the condom on a nearby shelf built into the tile wall and step up behind her. I pull her heavy, wet hair to the side and lay it over her shoulder. Then I gently kiss the back of her bare neck. My hands rest on her hips as she tips her head against my chest and arches her back. I pull her closer to me, pressing the small of her back against my dick, then run my hands up her sides until I reach her breasts. I massage those full, lush tits and groan at how good they feel.

"Mmmm," she moans back as she places her hands over mine and encourages me to continue. I squeeze her nipples and she gasps.

"God, you're so fucking beautiful," I growl into her ear as I slide my tongue down her long neck. I don't think I've ever felt skin as smooth as hers. It's like butter when it melts beneath my tongue. I want to lick her from toe to head. She's my own personal ice cream cone, sweeter than any of the thirty-one flavors.

I release one of her breasts and slide my hand down between her legs. When I run my finger through her folds, I discover the wettest, warmest paradise I’ve ever felt.

“Please tell me that’s not just from the hot shower,” I rasp into her hair.

“Uhh…no,” she gasps as I insert another finger. “It’s all you.”

I begin a slow, steady rhythm in and out of her, and she grinds against my hand, keeping the time.

My balls are so tight that I think they’d pop like overfilled water balloons if anything touched them. I can’t keep this up for very long.

“Beth,” I breathe heavily. “You need to know something… I haven’t been with anyone in four years.”

She stops moving, her muscles tight around my fingers. “Can I ask you a question?”

I whisper, “Yeah,” in her ear.

“Do the guys in prison… I mean, is it true? What they say?” she asks in a small voice.

I slide my fingers out and gently turn her, placing my palm along her face so that she has to look at me.

“Yes,” I tell her firmly. “That does go on, both when guys want to and when”—I clear my throat, memories of guys screaming in pain as they were attacked in the showers crashing down on me for a few seconds—“when they don’t.” Her eyes drop, but I press my thumb into her cheekbone slightly to get her to look back at my eyes. “But not to me. Never. I made it my personal mission to avoid two things while I was in, and that was one of them.”

“What was the other?” she asks.

“Death,” I say simply.

She blinks a couple of times, and I can see the shift when she decides to avoid thinking about yet one more horrifying thing. A small smile curls the ends of her pretty pink lips.

“So, four years, huh?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“That’s a long time,” she tells me as her hand snakes down between us and finds its way around my cock.

I jerk against her. “A really long time.” I swallow and try to count the tiles on the wall in front of me. “Which is why we need to focus on you first.” I gingerly remove her hand from my dick. Again, I’m questioning my own sanity here.

She gives me a pouty face, and I have to chuckle.

“Listen, I’m going to make you see stars and then you’re going to return the favor by promising not to judge me too hard because I think I’m going to have to get inside of you and just let go. I have no patience left,
linda
.”

I kiss her, openmouthed, putting all my feelings into it, every sweet memory, every burning desire, every dream and hope and wish I’ve had about Beth for the last twenty-some years. My hand finds her core again, and I bend down to suck her nipple into my mouth at the same time. The water is peppering us, and the sensations of her slick channel around my fingers, her firm nipple in my mouth, and the warm moisture all over my body are like I’ve hit the Triple Crown of pleasure.

Within a couple of minutes, she’s back to grinding against my hand, and I’ve walked her to the wall, leaning my weight against her as we both seek the most pressure and friction we can get. I can’t help but thrust against her stomach as I finger her, her little gasps and moans spurring me on in my quest to give her one hell of an orgasm.

I reach down with my free hand and lift her leg so that her one foot rests on the built-in bench next to us. With her opened up more, I drive my fingers in deeper, using my thumb to rub little circles around her clit at the same time. I find that special little patch of skin inside her and focus friction there as I work her clit. Her breathing picks up until she’s rasping out breaths, her entire body trembling.