Savior (20 page)

"Paine is gonna cook for you?" he asked like I implied Paine was going to paint my toenails while watching a
Sex and the City
marathon.

"He already made me pancakes."

"Shit," he said, shaking his head as he handed me my drawing back.

I carefully refolded it, knowing it was going right in my jewelry box once I got home. "What?"

"You're both fucked," he said with a shrug.

"Gee thanks for that," I said, shaking my head. "See you next time," I added, going toward the door.

I drove home with both a knot of uncertainty and a thrill of excitement spreading through my system. And, sure enough, Paine's Challenger was out front. I grabbed my purse and gym bag and hustled into my place, expecting to smell dinner cooking, but all I was met with was the sound of my TV playing some kind of game. Paine was reclined back on my couch, legs up but feet (and shoes) hanging off.

"Hey babygirl," he called, not looking up from the TV.

"I got your, ah, note."

"And you got a kitchen counter full of groceries."

I felt my brows draw together. "About that..."

"You're gonna cook me dinner."

"I'm sorry, I'm what?" I asked, completely thrown off.

"Cook me, well, both of us, dinner. After you get that fine ass over here and give me a kiss."

"Paine... I can't cook. At all."

"Sure you can. And you're going to. I'll help."

"Paine..."

"Baby, you take care of yourself in every other fucking way. Wouldn't it be nice to know you can throw some food together too?"

Well, he did sort of have a point.

"Okay."

"Good. Now what part of getting your fine ass over here to give me a kiss didn't make sense to you?" he asked, but there was humor in his voice.

"You have legs too, you know," I said, standing my ground. "And if you want me to cook dinner, I think getting near a couch and kissing might delay that for, say, the rest of the night."

At that, he knifed up, turning over his shoulder to give me a wicked smile. "Might have a point there," he agreed, standing and making his way toward me.

I threw my gym bag and purse, knowing that whatever kind of kiss he had in store for me was going to require my hands as well as my lips.

He stopped when his toes touched mine, slid one foot between my feet, slipped one arm around my lower back, then sank one hand into my hair at the base of my neck, curling and yanking it backward. The second my mouth opened on a gasp, his was on mine, tongue moving inside to claim mine. Claim. That was the only way to describe it. Every time Paine kissed me, it felt like he was marking me, branding me, making me his.

What's more, I wanted to be his.

My hips pressed into his as he bent me slightly backward, throwing me off balance, and if his hand wasn't around my hips, I'd have fallen over. Against me, he was hard and straining. Which wasn't helping the fact that I was already hopelessly wet and almost painfully aroused.

"Alright," he said against my lips, getting me back on my feet and releasing my mouth. "Gotta stop or I'm gonna fuck you right here."

I fought the urge to tell him I had no problem with that and nodded.

Then he led me into the kitchen, my body still humming with arousal, and pulled items out of the bags.

"Starting easy. It's hard to fuck up spaghetti," he said with a boyish smile. "Boil water, put in spaghetti, stir. Put a pan of sauce on, stir. Ten minutes later, dinner is done."

"Sounds pretty idiot-proof," I agreed, going toward my cabinet to get a pot.

"You cooking for a football team, baby?" he asked, making me turn.

"What?"

"Swear to fuck, you're so clueless about this that it's cute. That pot is too big. Something half that size for the pasta. Then something half the size of the pasta pot for the sauce."

"Right," I said, finding the right pots, filling one with water, filling one with sauce and putting them on the stove as instructed.

"Want wine with dinner?" he asked, moving toward the rack.

"Sure," I said, watching the pot.

While I waited for the pot to boil, he asked me about my day, handed me wine, found excuses to casually touch me. It was all so... normal. Casual. And I realized I could really get used to it.

But I told him I wouldn't do that.

The night before, I agreed to let things play out how they were going to play out, to not expect things.

So yeah, I watched the bubbles pop up in the water and tried to tamp down the warm and gushy feelings inside.

"Salt the water first," Paine said as he handed me the box of pasta. I followed instructions. I mixed the pasta a time or two.

Then I couldn't mix it anymore.

This was because Paine had snagged me around the belly, pulled me across the floor, turned me, and pushed me up against the island.

"Got ten minutes. Twelve if you can deal with your pasta being on the soft side."

"Twelve minutes for what?"

"To fuck you," he growled, grabbing the waistbands of my pants and panties and dragging them down to my knees. He pulled me backward by my hair, sinking his teeth into my neck. "First let's have a quick birth control talk. Pill?"

"IUD," I corrected, groaning as his hand moved down my belly and started working my clit. "Had a screen at my last gyno visit six months ago. Haven't had sex since then."

"Checked last month. Always use a condom. You wanna wait for the paperwork..."

"I trust you," I said as his teeth bit into my neck hard.

"Thank fuck," he groaned, grabbing my hair again, twisting in it, and using it to push me downward hard and fast, pressing my upper body and the side of my face against the island, holding me there. "Tip your ass up," he demanded and I quickly moved to comply, the need for him inside me a throbbing, insistent thing. His palm swung out and swatted my ass hard enough for me to go up on my toes at the sting, my pussy clenching hard in excitement.

His other hand pressed hard into my neck, holding me against the counter, then he slammed inside me to the hilt. "Fuck," he growled, stilling inside me for a second.

And then he was fucking me.

Not fast, but
hard.

With each stroke, he almost fully left me before slamming all the way forward with so much force that it made my hips slam into the counter.

All I could think past the clenching tightness of my growing orgasm was... never. No one had ever taken me so hard before. The men I had been with before had always been tentative at first, just shy of gentle. When they got more comfortable, there was some headboard knocking, but nothing even in the same hemisphere as the way Paine took me.

On a strange growl, he released my neck. Before I could try to push up, his hands closed around my hips, his fingers sinking into my hipbones hard as he lifted me up and off my feet. I repeat: he lifted me off of my feet, thereby taking away any ability I had to thrust backward, or do anything at all but take him. My arms went out in front of me, grabbing the edge of the counter as he held me up and continued thrusting hard, getting faster, and I knew I was going to be done way before the pasta.

I clenched down hard as I teetered on the edge, letting out low, quiet whimpers.

"Come Elsie," he demanded, his tone tense.

Then he slammed forward, tilting up slightly once fully inside, and I did.

My entire body shook as my muscles contracted hard around him, a throbbing, seemingly endless wave of pleasure that had me crying out his name. At the sound, he buried deep, dropping me back onto my feet, and came.

I was still trying to even out my breathing as he slowly slid out of me. I pushed myself up on my elbows, but didn't trust my legs to fully hold me yet. Paine leaned down, grabbing my panties and moving them up my legs and into place. He went back for my pants, struggling with them slightly. Then he slid an arm around me, just under my breasts, and pulled me backward against his chest.

"You alright?" he asked, nuzzling his face into my neck. I felt my head nod tightly and his other arm snaked around my lower belly, both of them tightening hard enough to almost cut off my air. "Sure? I got a little carried away."

I drew in a breath that was still a bit shaky. "I like carried away."

He was in the middle of kissing my neck and I could feel his smile against my skin at my words. "Good. Now go get cleaned up. I'll strain the spaghetti."

"Okay," I agreed, sliding out of his arms and making my way out of the room. I went up the stairs, grabbing some more comfortable clothes, meaning gray yoga pants and a black long-sleeved tee, cleaned up, then made my way back downstairs.

"Knew you had to have at least one pair of those things," Paine said as I walked in, carrying the plates over to the island.

"Why?" I asked, brows drawing together.

"To have an ass like that and not have a pair of yoga pants would be a crime against fucking humanity, that's why."

Then we sat and ate the first real meal I had ever made. Paine led most of the conversation, talking about Shooter and Breaker, how they met, the crazy things they had been involved in. He explained how Breaker met Alex and how Shooter met Amelia, doing so with a fondness that made it clear he wasn't just friends with the women because they came along with his friends, but because he genuinely liked them. Alex, he said, was some kind of computer hacker who could be a bit standoffish at first, but once she warmed up to you, was pretty funny. Apparently watching her and Breaker fight was the highlight of almost every gathering. Breaker liked to pick at her and she always rose to the bait. It sounded downright popcorn-worthy. Amelia, Shooter's girl, was a drug and alcohol counselor. She could occasionally come off as prickly, but was soft underneath it all.

When he was done and we were just sipping wine, he asked about Rome, him being the only truly close friend I had.

I felt almost guilty talking about him with Paine, like it was a betrayal to both of them somehow. Which was ridiculous. But, after a while, I was smiling and laughing as I told him about all the stunts we had pulled together, the vacations we had gone on, the things we had helped each other through: my mother's death, his mother's stints in rehab before she finally got sober five years before, my father's relentless, demanding presence, our breakups, our failures and successes.

"Babygirl..." he said when I finally ran out of things to say. The word hung heavy with meaning.

"I know," I said, looking down at my empty plate.

He nodded, letting it drop, and moved to stand. "You the type who can't go to sleep with dirty dishes?" he asked, bringing both of ours over to the sink.

"I have no idea. I doubt it."

"Good. Then let's go to bed."

Then we went to bed.

Tired and, quite frankly, a little sore from our earlier carnal activities, we just went to sleep.

--

Again, I woke up in my blanket cocoon. And, again, I realized this with a smile. I immediately rolled to my side, looking over at the nightstand. I found another two pictures. I sat up against the headboard and reached for them. The first was a picture of a tattoo gun, which I took to mean he had to get to work. The second, well, the second one was of a man with a red woolen tunic under an armored chest and shoulder plate, a helmet, a sword, and a giant red shield. It didn't take a history major to recognize a Roman soldier. Also, the man had a startling resemblance to Roman. Underneath was a scribbled "set this straight".

So I guess that was what he expected me to do with my day. I wondered if that meant I wouldn't be seeing Paine after work because he wanted me to finally have that supremely awkward conversation with Roman.

And then I internally yelled at myself for thinking that thought because it was a bit too needy early on in our, er, relationship. Hell, as far as I knew, it wasn't even a relationship at all. So I definitely shouldn't have been thinking thoughts like that.

So I totally didn't think about the way his eyes got bright when he talked about his friends, soft when he talked about his friends' girlfriends. I also did not wonder if it meant something that we were at the point of something serious because we were having sex without condoms. If what he said was true and he always used them and I had only ever not used them with one serious long-term boyfriend in my early twenties, that kind-of implied we both felt like there was something different between us, right?

"Augh!" I growled at my reflection, pissed at my internal monologue and annoyed because my hair was doing that 'I'm not going to lay right no matter what tricks you try to tame me' thing. A little rougher than necessary, I tied my hair back. I applied more of the tattoo cover-up, threw on the barest hint of mascara, and headed out the door. The bruises were getting better. I figured by Sunday dinner, there would be next to nothing left there anymore. Which was good because half of the tube of that tattoo stuff was gone.

I got into my office a full hour before anyone, except the early morning cleaning crew, showed up. I pulled out my phone and texted Roman asking him to come over so we could chat after work. It took him almost an hour to answer me, which wasn't like him, saying yeah.

So then I worked.

Seven-thirty rolled around and I wrapped things up, checking my phone on my way out the door and realizing I didn't even have Paine's number. I mean I knew the number to his shop, but not his cell. And, as far as I knew, he didn't have my number either. I was pretty sure that was a pretty huge sign that we weren't in, or heading into, something serious.

I kept up these swirling, infuriating, frustrating thoughts the entire drive home, pulling up beside Roman's car in my drive. He was climbing the steps and looked back at me over his shoulder and, just like that, my thoughts finally quieted. Because I had never seen Rome look as beat-down as he did right in that second. I threw my car into park, grabbing my stuff in a rush, slammed my door, and almost ran up the steps to meet him inside my front door.

"Rome, what's up?" I asked, watching him hit the code before turning back to me, giving me a second to stash my bag, phone and keys.