Chapter Sixteen

"And your tongue!" I said with delight, continuing to describe everything I'd loved about what we'd just shared. It was taking a while. "You're as skilled with it as you are a sword." I laughed at Jiron's reaction. "You've had people tell you that before, haven't you?"

He faintly coloured, the first sign of embarrassment I had ever seen from him.

"Was it the king ?" I asked, teasing. "Have you tasted royal cock? How can a mere peasant's compare, when his is probably cast in gold and spurts diamonds when he comes?"

I was laughing too hard to torment my daddy further although I very much wanted to, words and laughter getting jumbled in my mouth until I was a giggling mess. Jiron helped me along by reaching over and tickling me to keep me breathless, and I squirmed helplessly under his attentions.

"And yet you taste the best by far," he murmured in my ear before kissing my cheek. I melted into his arms.

Then there was a knock on the door, two sharp raps that scraped at the edge of my consciousness with their familiarity but which I was too sated and happy to take notice of. Jiron glared at the door as if the force of his fuck off glower would send whoever it was scurrying away – and I was willing to bet that with enough time, it probably would – but while thoroughly depleted and spent, I planned to be even more so in a second, and wanted our unexpected visitor gone so I could get to making that happen.

"Coming!" I called out, slipping from the bed. My ass protested with delicious soreness when I moved.

"You're not wearing any clothes, little one," Jiron said warningly as he lazed back on the pillow, one arm tucked behind his head.

I liked the tone he used.

It said you're your own man, but you're mine too.

It said I'm hella protective of you so only I get to see you naked.

It said wear my shirt, Wyatt, because that will make me want to ravage you again with that huge, fat cock of mine.

"Okay," I said obligingly and swiped it from the floor, slipping my arms through the billowing sleeves and tugging the laces together in a quick knot. The fabric immediately slipped down over one shoulder, far too large to remain in place no matter how tightly I tied it up.

Jiron stared at me.

"You're drooling, daddy," I pointed out smugly, not entirely untruthfully. He was wearing an open-mouthed, slack-jawed expression, his eyes dark and lidded.

My giant was so stoic when around others, and I loved that I could bring his emotions to the surface and lay them bare for me to revel in and for him to appreciate that not everything was better kept stifled and hidden.

" Hurry ," he growled out. "Hurry up and answer the damn door so you can get back in here." He patted the bed beside one of his hairy, muscular thighs.

I grinned, shimmying the ends of the sleeves back up past my wrists and making sure to inject a flourish to my spin as I turned around so the shirt would briefly ride up over my hips. From the rapid inhale I heard behind me, I succeeded.

Would he fuck me in it? Would he ask me to ride him while I-

"Oh," I said, blinking at the man standing on the other side of my door when I tugged it open. Jiron's sword rested in its sheath on his tattered belt. "What are you..."

"Wyatt," Macario snarled. "Get your ass dressed and give me your key."

"My...key?"

"To this place," he said, shrugging his shoulders to indicate where we stood. "I'm going to take care of it while you get me my money. Consider it incentive."

"If you need somewhere to live, Mac, I can ask-"

"Key. Now ."

"I..." I frowned and shook my head. My loose hair cascaded over my shoulders; one covered, the other bare. "I don't think…"

I yelped as Macario wrapped a meaty hand around my neck.

"Wyatt, I've fucking had it with you. You're-"

His brown eyes widened and he stepped back towards the stairwell, hastily letting go. Another hand touched me but this time it was a reassuring weight: a gentle squeeze of my exposed left shoulder, a closeness of Jiron's body against my back.

"What the fuck?" Mac demanded, his face drawn into an angry snarl. "Why is he here? You hired him as your Blessed guard or something?"

"Macario Aiza," said Jiron in a low, dangerous voice, tugging me back against him. I could feel the warmth of his skin through the borrowed shirt, and realised he was wearing even less than I was. "You should leave, and promptly ."

Mac sneered at him, far more fearless than he had been yesterday in the park. "You can't tell me what to do. This is between me and mine."

The breath left me as I was suddenly scooped up from the floor, lifted effortlessly into Jiron's massive arms.

"He's not yours," Jiron said shortly, naked and clearly not giving a shit. Mac's gaze dropped to between my daddy's legs and his eyes widened, making me smirk.

Jiron took a step into the hallway. He moved with deadly calm. "And I don't give second chances."

Yet Macario still didn't run away like he had that first time. He just offered a cocky twist of his lip and stamped his foot against the floor twice in quick succession. "Neither do I," he crowed as two burly men almost as big and mean as him swelled up the stairs towards us. "Figured we'd be breaking down a door if little Wyatt wasn't feeling cooperative, but I'm happy to put them to work breaking your jaw instead."

He dragged his eyes back to mine. "And when your new protector is lying in a pool of his own piss and blood, regretting the day he ever let you bat those pretty eyelashes of yours at him to drag him into your mess, will you just find another man to cling to?"

I stopped breathing.

Jiron gave the faintest of sighs as if he found this all very tedious, carefully adjusting his shirt over my hips to ensure I was covered and hidden from the rest of the men. The fussing calmed me; a soothing balm that coaxed my lungs back into life and eased the death grip I had around his neck. He offered a smile and then took a more secure hold on me with his left arm so he could free up his right.

I realised why a moment later when one of Macario's pet bullies swung a wild punch in our direction. Jiron stepped smartly to the side, caught his wrist with a single hand, and snapped it. The man howled and instantly went down to the floor, cradling his wrist to his chest.

With a yell, his companion threw himself at us, swerving to our left to keep me between him and Jiron's ability to defend himself. There was something in the man's hand, metal but dull like the handle of a frying pan or an unforged piece of steel, and I felt the reverberation when the edge of it clipped Jiron's bicep as he turned into the blow to protect me from being hit.

My giant barely made a sound, even though it had to have hurt.

Glancing up, all I found was a steely determination in Jiron's gaze. He caught my eye, winked, and then I was jostled slightly as he lifted his leg to kick the man back into the wall. A flurry of movement; two strikes, maybe three, and the man was on the floor, disarmed, and whimpering.

"Jiron!" I cried, spotting Mac looming over his shoulder with the sword drawn from its sheath. My arms tightened around his neck, fearing my warning had come too late. But Jiron was already moving, spinning towards where the hall gave way to the stairs so he had room to correct his footing.

Macario followed, swinging the sword at us with a furious growl and a flash of steel – only for his arm to be effortlessly batted away by my man.

There was a clatter as the blade landed on the tiles, and the two men shared equally pissed off glares before Jiron's hand shot out and wrapped around Mac's neck.

Competence is fucking sexy. I'll not have anyone tell me otherwise. And the sheer sexiness that Jiron exuded as he swung Mac out over the stairwell's edge and held him there by the throat...all while still carrying me? I almost swooned.

I was also terribly glad that I was not the kind of man who could get worked up while scared, because otherwise I might have come right then and there.

Macario's fingernails scratched desperately at Jiron's hand, his legs kicking uselessly in the air. How had I ever thought to compare them? My ex-lover had nothing on Jiron: not his size, not his talent, not his generosity of spirit that had made him put himself between me and my dangerous problems without an ounce of hesitation.

The other men got to their feet slowly, assessing the scene. One cracked his neck.

"Mac has no money to pay you," I told them from Jiron's arms. When they scoffed, I shook my head. "Why would he need it so desperately from me if he did?"

They eyed each other uncertainly before glancing at Macario, who was still hanging from my giant's grip. And then they disappeared down the stairs without another word.

"You would dare hurt Wyatt?" Jiron growled at the man he held. "Rest assured, I will do worse to you in turn, Aiza."

His fingers must have loosened, for Mac's desperate noises turned from heaving attempts to breathe to garbled pleas for mercy, and his hands were now clutching Jiron's wrist to avoid being dropped onto the stone floor a dozen feet below.

"Please, Wyatt! Please, I didn't mean...just tell him to put me down, please!"

I reached up to touch the muscle flexing in Jiron's jaw. "Don't kill him," I said softly.

"I should," he responded with another of those deliciously feral snarls, but before I could beg him for Macario's life, he'd already stepped us all backwards. He let go and Mac fell to his knees on the tiled floor, panting and massaging his throat.

"I wasn't..." Mac gasped, "wasn't actually going to..."

Jiron shifted me in his arms and Macario flinched at the movement, his arms coming up to shield his head as if from a blow. Looking somewhat amused, Jiron pressed a kiss to my hair and toed the other man's thigh with his bare foot.

Mac whimpered. "Don't worry about the money you owe me," he muttered quickly.

"Wyatt owes you nothing ," Jiron said, his voice sharp and commanding. "But now, you owe him your life. Come near him again and you'll lose even that."

Macario nodded and shook his head all at once in a frantic discord of movement, pushing to his feet and scurrying away down the stairs.

I pressed my face to Jiron's chest and felt his heart thrum reassuringly against my cheek. It was impossibly fast, at odds with the calmness in his stance and the steadiness of his arms as he cradled me close.

"Would you have actually killed him?" I whispered, needing to know.

Jiron glanced down at me. I wondered if he'd lie to spare my feelings, if he thought me as emotionally weak as others did just because I avoided conflict and tried to see the good in the world when they'd long given up.

But he nodded. "Yes," he said simply. "For threatening you? Absolutely yes ."

*