One of her legs drops from my hip and she rests it on its side against the carpet, opening herself to me so I can push inside of her as deep as my fingers will go. Her body shudders against me as I pump slowly in and out of her, coating my fingers with her arousal. She wraps her arms around me, her hands smacking against my skin and her nails gently scraping down my back. I want to throw my head back in satisfaction and howl like dog.

I move my mouth to her neck, sucking her skin gently into my mouth as my thumb finds her center and circles slowly, around and around, back and forth, until her hips are thrusting against my hand and she’s gasping for breath and crying for a release I’m aching to give her. She’s so close I can practically feel her vibrating with need. I continue moving my hand against her, taking as much as she’ll give me, willing to give her everything I have, including my soul, just to feel her come apart against me.

I move my mouth to her earlobe, taking it between my teeth and biting down gently before whispering in her ear.

“Let go, baby. I want to feel you let go.”

My words have the desired effect. She wraps her arms around me tightly and holds her body suspended, racing for the edge and tumbling over. She cries out her release: a mixture of my name, curses, and mumbles of incoherent nothing. It’s the most beautiful sound in the world.

I never want to stop touching her, never want to stop feeling her.

“You are so fucking beautiful,” I sigh against her ear as she comes back down to earth, my fingers still buried inside of her because I can’t bear to move them just yet.

I’m so lost in her I don’t even realize one of her arms has moved from around my back. Her small, warm hand suddenly plunges down the front of my pants and wraps around an erection that is two seconds away from exploding after what just happened. I don’t want her to feel like she has to reciprocate. Even though it kills me to tell her she doesn’t have to do this, I need to. She needs to know feeling her and watching her come was better than any orgasm I’ve ever or will ever have.

“Layla, you don’t—”

She pulls my head down and cuts off my words with a hard, bruising kiss, sliding the tip of her tongue across my bottom lip before pulling back and looking into my eyes.

“It’s my turn now,” she tells me with a wicked grin, her eyes sparkling and her hand tightening around me.

She slides her hand down to the base and back up quickly, skimming her thumb through the wetness on the tip, making my eyes roll in the back of my head.

Both of her legs wrap back around my waist and she pulls me closer and works me harder and faster. I haven’t had a hand job since I was in high school. The women I’m usually with prefer to just hit it and go home. I don’t know if it’s just the fact that it’s Layla doing this to me right now or how on edge I am, but this is the hottest fucking thing I’ve felt in a long time. She uses just the right amount of pressure and the perfect speed, and I’m thrusting into her hand and biting down on the side of her neck to muffle the cries that are dying to escape from my mouth right now. With my eyes squeezed shut and my face buried against her, I’m conscious of the fact that I still haven’t removed my fingers from inside of her, and I slowly pull them almost all of the way out before plunging them back in. Her movements on my cock falter for a second as she groans in pleasure and grows impossibly wetter around me.

“Brady…fuck…I need you…oh God,” she moans against my mouth as we race each other to release, both of our hands moving fast and hard against the other.

Her stammered words shoot straight through my body and right to my dick, and I can’t move fast enough. She whimpers as I pull my fingers away from her, and I almost let out my own frustrated groan as her hand drops from around me when I pull back just enough to push my pants down my hips far enough to free my erection. When she realizes what I’m doing, she lifts her hips and begins pushing her shorts down her thighs. I push her hands out of the way, wanting to feel the skin of her legs against my hands as I pull them down for her. I get them off and toss them to the side, lowering my body back down on top of her and positioning myself right at her opening.

“Tell me you’re sure. Fuck, Layla, tell me you’re sure,” I plead as I slide the tip up and down through her wetness.

Her hands come up to my face, and she cups them on both of my cheeks, taking my bottom lip between her teeth and tugging on it gently.

“I’m sure. I am one hundred percent sure I need you inside me, Brady,” she whispers.

I let out the breath I don’t even realize I’ve been holding, pressing my mouth to hers and start to push inside of her.

A deafening, ear-piercing shriek of noise blasting through the house halts my movement, and my body freezes in surprise and shock. Neither one of us moves, the seconds ticking by and the racket growing louder as we both struggle to figure out what the hell is going on.

“Fuck! That’s your security alarm,” I shout over the noise as I push away from Layla and jump to my feet. I pull my pants up as I run over to the side table by the door where I had set my gun when I first entered the room after Layla’s nightmare. Lifting it into my hands, I double check the chamber.

I turn around to find Layla sliding back into her shorts, a look of fear on her face. Her skin, previously flushed pink from arousal, is now ashen and her hands shake as she wraps her arms around her waist. I want to calm her nerves and tell her that everything will be okay, but I can’t. Just like always, I let myself get distracted and now God knows who is trying to get into the house. I should have walked right back out of this room as soon as I saw she wasn’t being harmed earlier. If I would have been downstairs on the couch where I belonged, this wouldn’t be happening right now.

“Stay here. Lock the door behind me,” I yell to her as I step out into the hall, closing the door behind me.

Rushing down the hall, I get to the balcony overlooking the first floor, creeping up to it and peering over the railing, aiming my gun down into the living room as I scan the area. When I see nothing out of order down there, I slowly make my way down the stairs with my back brushing against the wall, careful not to make any noise. When I step off of the bottom step, I lead with my gun out in front of me as I whip around the corner into the kitchen.

It doesn’t take me more than five minutes to do a sweep of the first floor: nothing broken, all the windows and doors still secure, and no one other than Layla and I in the house. I quickly jog over to the front door and punch in the security code Finn reluctantly gave me earlier when he left to go to his own cabin. The alarm stops suddenly and I wince at the ringing in my ears with the abrupt silence.

I start to head towards the kitchen for the cordless phone that hangs on the wall to call the security company when a loud crash and a scream from upstairs pierce the silence.

“LAYLA!”

The shout bellows from my mouth as I take off out of the kitchen, my bare feel smacking on the hardwood floor as I rush to get back to her. I take the stairs two at a time, shouting her name the whole way until I get to the closed, locked bedroom door. Slamming my shoulder as hard as I can into the wood, the door flies open and I see a pile of broken glass on the floor right below her bedroom window, the sheer, white curtain billowing softly in the breeze.

My eyes frantically scan the room until I find Layla huddled in a ball on the floor with her back against the side of the bed, a red brick in her shaking hands.

I rush through the room towards the window, mindful of the broken glass on the floor as I get to the jagged hole and gaze out at the yard below. I scan the trees, the driveway, and the hedges and look as far as my eyes can see under the moonlight. As far as Layla’s house is from the road, someone would have had to walk quite a ways to throw something through the window since there aren’t any cars in sight and no one currently peeling out of the driveway.

I turn around and make my way over to Layla’s side, kneeling down next to her and prying the brick out of her hands. I turn it towards me and there’s only one thing written on it in white chalk: the word WHORE in big capital letters. Before I can say anything to her, the ringing of a cell phone comes from the table next to her bed. She blindly reaches her hand up to it and answers with a shaky voice without even looking at who is calling.

“Yes, this is Layla Carlysle. The password is hummingbird. Do I need police assistance?” she repeats back to the security company while looking at me questioningly.

I nod my head yes and she tells them to send the police, letting them know she’s unharmed and there is currently no one in the house with her that shouldn’t be before hanging up and tossing the phone to the side.

There are so many things I want to say to her before the police get here. So many thoughts running through my head that it’s all just one big fucked up mess. I didn’t want anything to happen with her until she knew everything about me and could make an informed decision about whether or not she wanted to risk getting involved with me. I should have handled things better with her instead of jumping on her the first chance I got. I let it go entirely too far when I was supposed to be protecting her, not losing my mind inside of her. I shouldn’t be starting anything with her until this job is finished and it isn’t a conflict of interest. I knew there was no way I’d be able to just ignore how much I wanted her, but I could have at least waited until I was off the clock for fuck’s sake. It was unprofessional and I was an idiot.

“Look, about what happened between us…”

Layla jumps up from the floor, her eyes glued to her feet as she steps around the broken glass and hurries past me.

“Forget about it. It was a mistake and it shouldn’t have happened. I just needed to forget about that guy’s hands on me. So…whatever,” she says with a shrug.

I stare at her retreating back in shock and anger as she heads towards the adjoining bathroom. Taking only a second before I storm after her, I wrap my hand around her arm and turn her around to face me.

“Let’s get something straight here,” I say with clenched teeth, staring down into her wide eyes as I try to keep my composure and not scare her half to death with my anger at her ambivalence. “This wasn’t a mistake. Not by a long shot. I’ve wanted to bury myself inside of you since the first moment you and your attitude walked into the room.”

Her lips part with a gasp, and I watch as her chest heaves with the breaths she’s taking, proving that what just happened between us wasn’t some half-assed way for her to forget anything. She liked it, and she wants more.

Letting go of the firm grasp I have on her upper arm, I slide my hand down to her wrist and bring her hand to my erection that’s straining against the front of my sweatpants so she can feel just how much I want her.

Her hand closes around me, and I have to momentarily shut my eyes and let out a low groan.

“This is what you do to me, Layla. Every second I’m within a hundred yards of you, I’m rock hard.”

She keeps her hand in place and begins to rub me as I move both of my hands to cup her face and tilt her head up so I can look into her eyes, forcing my knees not to buckle with what she’s doing to me.

“Don’t ever say this was a mistake, and don’t think for one minute I can’t read you like a book and see exactly what you’re trying to do: push me away first so you don’t get hurt. I’m not going anywhere, especially now that I’ve felt you come around my fingers and heard you cry out my name.”

Closing the distance between us, I claim her mouth with a forceful kiss, letting her know with my lips and tongue just how much I need her. I pull away quickly, long before I’m ready, and wonder how in the hell I’m going to compose myself to go downstairs and talk to the police that will be here any minute.

“We are absolutely going to pick up where we left off, and the next time you scream my name, it’s going to be when I’ve sunk myself inside of you as deep as I can get.”

Chapter 13

With my hands wrapped firmly around a mug of coffee, I take a sip, close my eyes, and lean my back against the counter in my kitchen. Trying to block out the events of last night is useless, especially on only four hours of sleep. And if I’m being honest with myself, I didn’t even sleep that long. The majority of that time was spent tossing and turning, thinking about Brady and his parting words to me before the cops showed up.

I’ve never been around someone who could read me so well, aside from Finn. But Finn doesn’t really count. He's just a friend, never a potential lover. We spent a few awkward weeks in high school testing out the dating thing by clumsily holding hands and trying to have a romantic dinner with just the two of us, but we couldn’t stop laughing at how weird it was.

The boyfriends I’ve had didn’t care much about knowing who I was on the inside, and I didn’t bother trying to change that. Sam…well, Sam was just an asshole who cared more about the bottom line than trying to figure me out. Looking back, I’m glad I kept him at a distance and he didn’t have any ammunition to use against me.

I’ve known Brady for a few short weeks, and he already has me tied up in knots. He already knows about the hatred that flows through my mother, and he can take one look at my face and know what I’m thinking.

“Don’t think for one minute I can’t read you like a book and see exactly what you’re trying to do: push me away first so you don’t get hurt.”

He was right. Of course he was right. As soon as his body moved away from mine and I realized what I’d done, on the floor of my bedroom no less, I felt more exposed than I ever have. I’d let him in, I’d shown him how vulnerable I was, and that scared the hell out of me. I threw out a flippant remark to push him away before I got burned. Of course I didn’t mean a word of what I said. I was with him because I wanted to be. I wanted him. I wanted to feel alive and desired, and I needed him to be the one to do it. Only Brady, with his piercing eyes that could see everything and his killer body that made my mouth water, could turn me to jelly with just one touch of his hand against my skin.