Chapter Fifteen

Beyond the Break-In

Tucker

“Let me go!” Ella’s feet kicked at the carpet playfully as she squealed over Tucker’s lap. “Sir, I said stop!”

“Oh, I don’t think so, Miss Bennett.” Tucker’s thumb stroked over the heated skin of her delicious backside. He’d been spanking her pert orbs for the best part of ten minutes—a tempting punishment that had started with a minor misdemeanor and morphed into something more pleasurable than even he’d imagined—but even though she feigned upset, they both knew she was as enthralled as he was. “Not when we both know you long to stay captured!”

“Sir!” She practically giggled as his palm smacked her cheeks again.

“Yes, little girl?” He paused, pressing his hand against her alluring ass. So much had happened between them in so little time, yet he couldn’t conceive his life without her.

“More, please.” She peered back over her shoulder, her grin impish as her hips ground over his thigh.

“You’ll have more.” Few things gave him more satisfaction than giving them what they both needed. “Just stay there and take them, Ella.”

“Yes, sir.” She slumped over him, her fingertips grazing the bedroom carpet as her hips wiggled provocatively.

She was perfect.

One impeccable little wildcat who’d learned not only to come to heel but who now understood the pleasure of being tamed that way. She’d started to trust him, to yield by choice, and to yearn for his discipline.

And her trust was everything.

That was how life had been for the three days since Collins had broken into his apartment while they slept and cut the heads from her bouquet. He’d relished every moment of their ballooning intimacy but wished it hadn’t been nurtured by such a harrowing incident. He could still recall the way the red rose petals had looked strewn all over the marble counter.

“Sir?”

He straightened at her inquiring tone.

“Silence.”

He spanked her again, watching the way the impact rippled across her skin as he tried to push away the unwelcomed thoughts of the burglary.

Tucker had ensured the security of the apartment had been trebled since the egregious violation. He’d set up new closed-circuit cameras and hired more men to check in on the building, but he’d also spent time doubling down on reassuring his little girl that they were truly safe. In all honesty, he’d barely taken his eyes off her since the chilling episode.

The crux of the matter was he’d brought her there under the pretense of safety. The threat of danger was the reason they’d left his cabin, but despite his best efforts, he hadn’t been able to guarantee her wellbeing. That fact plagued him more than anything else.

Ella, though, seemed rather less rattled about Collins’ intrusion.

Why is that?

Squeezing her fabulous behind, he pondered on the query. The idea that someone had penetrated his privacy was deeply perturbing. His pride couldn’t believe someone had managed to infiltrate his ivory tower. He’d been so comfortable since he’d brought her there.

Too comfortable .

It never occurred to him that anyone would invade their space, and the intervention had been a lesson. His feelings for Ella had meant he’d taken his eye off the ball, and he couldn’t let that happen again.

I can’t let that happen again. I won’t let anything happen to her.

Despite his personal turmoil, he was proud of how well his little girl had handled the pressure. Seemingly, everything she’d been through in the forest had hardened the precious gem he’d acquired. Though perhaps, he should have expected her mettle. She’d shown it enough times with him, hadn’t she? Ella was tougher than she looked.

His hand slapped down on her bare bottom, his arousal growing at her breathy, whimpered response.

Of course, she was tough. Ella had been showing her pluck from the first day she’d landed on his patch, and he’d been pushing those boundaries ever since. She was far from the spoiled, overindulged princess he’d first met in the forest.

The forest.

His brows knitted as he recalled what Kenner’s men had done to his favorite place. God only knew what was left of the natural environment there. He’d been told his cabin was reduced to ashes.

Heaving in a breath, he finally shoved the insidious thought aside. This moment was about Ella. He wouldn’t let Kenner infect it.

“My. Little. Girl. Will. Have. Every. Thing. She. Needs.” He punctuated each word with firm slaps to her ass, and she moaned appreciatively at the building sting.

“Oh, yes.” Her thighs splayed as though he’d commanded it, and he chuckled at her impertinence. “Yes, please, sir.”

A week ago, he might have been inclined to punish her for such brazenness, but now he was so enraptured, he hardly cared.

She wanted him, and in all his life, he’d never been happier. He’d never found anyone who could make him feel the same way and doubted he ever would.

Even though she hadn’t yet reciprocated her love for him in words, she showed him intense affection in different ways every day, from the way she’d offered to have cooking lessons to play a submissive chef for him to the way she kneeled in the shower to oblige his carnal needs. He had hope that the three words would come with time. And so, he suspected, would his little girl, at least based on the way her breathing had accelerated and her hips were rocking under his palm.

“Are you going to come apart for me?” He leaned down and growled the question in her ear.

“Yes,” she panted as her hands balled into delicate fists. “Yes, please, sir.”

“Then come, little girl.”

He rained down a fast succession of strikes over her before his hand slid between her legs and stroked her labia. She groaned as he slid two fingers inside her, her hips lifting to receive them.

“Down.”

He pressed her reddened behind back to his thighs as he eased his digits away, then pushed them back inside her again. His cock leapt at the heady sensations, wanting to emulate the action of his fingers.

“Ella.” His lips curled as she panted for breath.

She was the very best he’d ever had.

“Sir!”

Her strangled gasp resounded as his fingers pumped faster, amplifying her arousal. The sounds of her excitement filled the air around them, intensifying her journey to what he already knew was going to be a spectacular orgasm.

“Come on, little girl.” Folding over her, he kissed the glow of sweat that was building on her skin, skimming his tongue over her heated flesh and tasting her. All the while, his digits continued their pace in her cunt, building her pleasure as he lapped at her tantalizing body. “Come for me.”

His free hand brushed along her back and fisted her hair, pulling her body into an arch as her muscles finally relented, and she contracted around him.

“Fuck!” Her hissed tone was rasping.

“I know,” he cooed, allowing her head to lower. “Drink it in, little girl. You deserve this pleasure.”

He’d never intended to truly discipline her. Her so-called infraction had been minimal, and all pretense that the spanking was supposed to be a penance was lost.

He stayed with her as the waves of her pleasure rose and lowered through her body, relishing the feel of her soft skin. Once her breathing had returned to normal, his fingers slipped from her wet sex and slid to her tight little anus.

“Oh, sir.” She wiggled her ass seductively, elevating her hips in silent invitation.

“I want this.” He pushed one fingertip inside her ass, eliciting another carnal moan from his wet and wanton woman. His balls tightened as she bucked back onto his finger.

“Yes.” Her fingers splayed into the deep pile of the carpet. “Yes, sir.”

“Up you come.” He guided her to the floor before helping her back to the bed beside him. “I want you face down on the bed.”

She lowered to obey, lifting her alluring ass into the air as he pulled his enormous erection from its fabric prison.

“Look how turned on you are.” He beamed as he ran his digits over her soaking pussy and dragged her arousal north to her tight hole.

“You turn me on.” She buried her face in the covers, her hands playing at the side of her face. “Please, fuck my ass, sir.”

That was all he needed to hear. Crouching behind her, he positioned himself, so the tip of his cock grazed her swollen lips and skimmed to her anus.

“I’m going to fuck you, little girl.” He pressed inside her slowly, folding over her exquisite body as his shaft speared her. “Tell me if it’s too much.”

“It’s not,” she hissed, her fingers clawing at the covers. “You feel so good.”

Inch by inch, his dick drove into her. Tucker couldn’t believe how tight and satisfying its voyage was. He’d always reveled in the feel of her throat and pussy, but this was something else altogether. This must be what heaven was like.

“Fuck.” He kissed the back of her neck as he rose to begin his satisfying lunge again and again. Silently, he prayed the sensations would never end, but at the rate his passion was burgeoning, he wouldn’t last much longer. “Fuck, Ella, I love this.”

She groaned at his intimate possession, surrendering entirely to his will and never once trying to resist. As his orgasm built gradually from the base of his balls, his senses were filled with her. All he could hear were her mewls, and all he could smell was the dizzying scent of her hair and skin. He roared as his climax finally overcame him, burying deep inside her ass as he pinned her to the bed.

***

“Sir?” She looked dazed as she glanced up at him, his mother’s blanket draped around her shoulders.

Time had vanished in perturbing pockets since he’d come inside her, but he recalled cleaning himself up and joining her in the bed.

“Sir, are you all right?”

“I’m okay.” He kissed the top of her head. “How can I not be? You’re amazing.”

“I think we both are.” Her smile was lazy. “What we’ve found together certainly is.”

“True.” He hugged her close. “I hope you know how I feel about you, Ella.” He didn’t want to pressure her into speaking her own truth, but he never wanted to miss an opportunity to convey how he felt.

“I think I do, sir.” She reached for his free hand and squeezed his fingers. “I never expected any of this when Alexander left me in the woods, but despite everything we’ve been through, I don’t have any regrets.”

“Not any?” He was pleased to hear her sincerity, but there was no getting away from the way he’d treated her, to begin with. “I was an asshole to you at the start, little girl.”

“Yes,”—her breath was warm on his chest—“you were, sir, but I know I wasn’t the easiest person to deal with, and I forgive you for those things. We did what we did, but I want to move forward with you.”

“I’m so happy to hear you say that.” He tugged her hand to his mouth and grazed a kiss at her knuckles. “I won’t stop trying to make it up to you, and I swear, whatever happens, I will protect you.”

His stomach knotted at the idea of how close he’d come to something bad happening three days ago. Collins had been in the apartment while they slept. Anything could have happened…

“I know.” She snuggled closer. “I trust you, sir. I’m not worried about my safety.”

“That’s good.” But I am. He held back from vocalizing the final three words, though they played out in his head as he met her eyes.

He was worried. Worried the new security provisions wouldn’t be enough, worried that he should already have moved them somewhere else, worried they were vulnerable.

“I still wonder if we should have gone to another one of my homes, though.” He might as well seize the chance to have the conversation with her one more time. “There are other places in the city, or we could go elsewhere. I—”

“No.” She rose from her place at his chest. “Honestly, sir. I’d like to stay here.”

She’d said so before, but he didn’t really understand her motivation.

“Why, Ella?” He lifted his hand to stroke the side of her face. “We could go anywhere. Hell, I could charter us a jet out of this place if you’d prefer.”

“Run away again, you mean?”

That wasn’t quite how he would have put it.

“I just want us to be safe.” He pressed his palm against her hot cheek. “That’s all.”

“I’m tired of running away from fights, sir.” She gripped his wrist. “Whoever broke in, whoever burned down your little house in the woods, they’ll just track us down somewhere else, and this will never end. I’d rather stay and face this threat together.”

Her tone never wavered as their gazes locked, and he was struck suddenly by how much older than her twenty-six years she seemed.

“How did you get to be so brave, little girl?”

She’d seemed so immature when they first met, yet now look at her. Wanting to stay and face Kenner’s menace was beyond brave. She had more balls than most of the men he’d served with.

“I guess I’ve been hanging out with this ex-soldier a lot recently.” She shrugged. “Maybe that’s why?”

“I don’t think so.” His hand slipped to her nape and tugged her closer. “I can’t take credit for the person you are, little girl. This is all you.”

Tucker had no way of knowing for sure who’d slipped into the apartment while they’d slept, but the cowardly act had all of Collins’ hallmarks. He’d broken in, intending to create menace and fear, but hadn’t demonstrated the courage to actually face his foe.

I should have dealt with Collins years ago.

Whoever had risked his life scaling the building to get into the apartment, Tucker knew that the real threat came from Kenner. Kenner—the man who seemed to have despised him from birth—was the man he thought had fathered him and who’d murdered his mother.

Kenner had sent him a warning with the break-in—a sign for Tucker to watch his back—and that was precisely what he would do.

Caressing the side of her face, he was resolved to run with Ella’s philosophy. There was no need to run. If and when the threat came calling again, he would be waiting, and next time, he wouldn’t let the bastard get away.