Chapter Seven

S hiloh’s lips were on fire. Her body was on fire. Her nipples where they brushed against Oaks’s chest were blazing.

The thunder of her heart in her ears silenced the sounds coming from other parts of the house. She almost blocked out a male voice from another room answering the phone until the words “Black Heart Security” broke through her haze of desire.

She was kissing her bodyguard.

Did it matter?

She tried to pull away, but Oaks was having none of that. He clamped his other hand on her waist and yanked her onto tiptoe, turning her toward the bed in the same move as if they were dancing.

She hated how highhanded he was even as her body bowed toward him for more, like roots reached for water or a flower stretching toward the sun.

Angling his head, he slanted his mouth over hers, dipping his tongue between her lips as he did. The first taste of him burst on her tongue. Coffee, mint and man.

On a moan she couldn’t hold back, her lips parted for him.

He backed her toward the bed, his tongue swiping over hers in long passes that dizzied her. Her panties flooded, and her nipples…oh god, if he didn’t touch them soon, she was going to start begging.

When he wedged his thick, muscled thigh between hers, she issued a low cry and wantonly rubbed her aching pussy against it. If this was what they called fight or fuck, she understood the allure.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, tugging him down on the bed with her. His weight pressed her into the mattress, and the length of his erection flush against her pussy was a bliss she didn’t want to live without.

“Christ, honey. You said you can kiss, but I didn’t know you were going to make me so damn hard from it.”

She let out a soft noise of want and guided his mouth down to her throat.

He skimmed his palm under her top, walking up her ribs to her breast.

“Yes!” She might not have a lot going for her in the boob department, but she was highly sensitive.

As he lightly closed his fingers on her nipple, her eyes rolled back in her head. She dug her fingers into his muscled shoulders and lost herself for dizzying moments.

By the time he moved to the other breast, she’d lost all sense of control.

“Please! Oaks! I need you!”

His low rumble sent shockwaves through her. In a flurry they stripped each other. Her top went flying like those panties had earlier across the floor. In that moment, she’d seen the way Oaks went still, the way his eyes hooded and the depths grew flinty with need.

She tore off his flannel, then the shoulder holster and his T-shirt beneath it. When she finally got her hands on heated steel, she was wild with desire.

“It’s been so long since I—”

“Me too.” He slammed his mouth over hers again while onehandedly shimmying her sweats off. She rolled her body to assist him in stripping them off.

He broke the kiss, chest heaving, and stared down at her. “Does this mean we’re consummating our marriage?”

“Oh, who cares? We’ll get a divorce later! Just…” She took his hand and pressed it between her legs, over her pulsating pussy.

With a growl, he cupped her. The tip of one blunt finger rode down her wet seam, over her soaking panties.

“You’re so…fucking…wet.”

“And you’re hard as steel. I want you. Now.” She was finished with the cute foreplay. It was time to get her way.

She tore at his fly. When she dipped her hand into the elastic of his boxers and brushed the hot hardness of his cock, she shared his moan.

She curled her fingers around his length and gave it one slow pump, watching his eyes as she did.

That lasted all of a blink. Yanking her hand away, he pinned it to the bed. With a dip of his head, he captured her nipple between his lips…and sucked.

“Ahhhh!” She lost her breath on her gasp. The electric pulses inside her swelled to a lightning storm.

Moving her free hand to the back of his head, she sliced her fingers through his short, soft hair. The scent of cedar hit her and she realized it was his shampoo.

Something inside her softened. If they’d met under different circumstances…

No. She couldn’t think about what was real and what was not. Right this second, the only thing that was really going to happen was Oaks sliding his hard cock inside her and her riding him to completion.

He released her nipple with a soft lap of his tongue that almost shot her through the ceiling into the universe. The flash of his eyes—and was that a crooked smile?—panned past her vision. Rolling to his feet, he dropped his jeans and underwear in one smooth move.

At the vision of the gorgeous man standing before her, her mouth dried out. “My god,” she rasped.

Yes, that was a smile. A toe-curling one.

He took his impressive length in his fist. Veins snaked over the back of his hand and up his arm. A bead of precum pooled at the tip of his cock.

“I’m only in possession of one condom, honey. Let’s make this good.”

* * * * *

Oaks braced his weight on one arm, hovering over Shiloh. The heated kiss of her skin against his had his pulse throbbing.

Gazing down at the breathless woman beneath him, he cupped her cheek. Her lithe body was beautiful, but she was thin from the worries she’d carried all these months.

“Hurry!” Her hot whisper brushed across his face.

“I know you’re ready for me. You’re drenched.” Unable to keep from dipping his stiff cock toward that wetness, he angled himself toward her pussy.

She splayed a hand across his back, each fingertip branding him.

In one smooth glide, he filled her.

“Oaks!”

She rocked into him, taking him right to the base.

Christ, they fit so damn well. Her inner walls clutched tightly at him. The need coiling inside him felt like an electric cable.

“Fuck!” He couldn’t remain still inside her. Rocking his hips, he withdrew.

“Yes!” She hiked one ankle around his solid ass and rode him with each hard nudge of his cock against her deepest point. His hand slid from her cheek down her throat. She arched her neck for him, and he dropped his mouth to her sweet throat and sucked.

When he brought his hand lower to her small breast, her nipple responded to his touch by shrinking into a tight bud. Shiloh cried out in ecstasy.

“If I suck these, will you come for me?” He pinched her nipple and gave it a little tug, making her rock harder.

“Yes!”

A growl rumbled through his chest. Planting both hands on the mattress, he fucked her long and deep and then quick and shallow until his release threatened at the base of his spine.

Reaching between them, he stroked his thumb over her clit, humming with approval at how swollen it was for him. Next time he’d go slower with her, taste every inch.

Could there be a next time? If he was going to adhere to Black Heart Security rules, he shouldn’t touch her again. But just the thought of going down on her and feeling her nails bite into his skin sent him skidding to the edge.

She cried out as he applied pressure to her clit and began rubbing it as he drove into her with long, steady strokes. She tensed around his length, her orgasm building with every second they thundered toward the finish line.

“Oh…my…god! Yesss!” She clamped on him in rhythmic pulsations as her release hit.

His own blazed upward, hard and fast. His breath punched from his lungs. Jet after jet of cum exploded from his cock as he pounded through the waves like the goddamn SEAL he was.

Heated ecstasy stole over him. He went still for a long moment, catching his breath.

Shiloh’s eyes were wide, fixed on his face. When he caught her gaze, he couldn’t resist leaning in and stealing a kiss.

Her lips going soft beneath his brought a moan to his lips. She skittered her hands over his shoulders and then dropped them to the mattress, going boneless in his arms.

Exhaustion threatened to steal over him. No wonder. He’d spent most of the previous night awake, listening to Shiloh’s unsteady breathing amid the mutterings of some nightmare. She also tossed from side to side as if she slept on a bed of nails.

In the early hours before dawn, he finally anchored her to his side and drifted to sleep, but he was far from rested. It was catching up to him now.

He brushed his lips across hers a second time and then rolled off her. As he walked to the en suite bathroom, his brain tripped over how he should act.

He’d never slept with a wife before.

Even though she wasn’t his wife by all standards of the law, he still had obligations to her. Part of being a bodyguard was ensuring that his wards were in a healthy state of mind. There wasn’t room for complications from emotional entanglements.

After taking care of the condom and cleaning up, he returned to the bed to find Shiloh fast asleep.

His heart gave a little tug at the sight of her lying on one side, the blanket drawn over her breasts. Her bare arm was tucked under the pillow she rested on, and long strands of blonde hair spread across the white bed linens.

For a moment, he wondered if she could be faking sleep to avoid post-sex conversation, but her breaths came too deep and even for that. Clearly, he wasn’t the only one worn out from their restless sleep the previous night.

Soundlessly he moved around the room, dressing and grabbing his boots to tiptoe out. Just like the old days when he’d slip out of some girl’s room, hoping her family dog didn’t wake up and bark to alert her parents of Oaks’s presence.

Those old memories were there, but the girls he’d been with had blurred faces now. He might recall a few of their names, but none of them were very important. His encounters during the time he served in the military were more about slaking a need than making a conquest. None of them had been long-term relationships…but Shiloh wouldn’t be around long either.

Closing the door silently, he hurried down the hall. While he’d love to find a patch of sun to curl up in and take a nap, the ranch work never ended. Some of the veterans took care of the chores, using the time outdoors as part of their treatment plan. But there was always more work to be done on the Black Heart.

He paused in the living room to slip his boots back on, but he didn’t make it two steps toward the front door before his brother’s voice stopped him.

“Need to talk to you, Oaks.”

He turned to see Carson’s back as he walked away.

With little choice but to follow, Oaks braced himself to learn about some shit hitting the fan surrounding Shiloh.

As soon as they entered Carson’s office, his brother turned to him. “Willow told me you just made some new purchases on the company card.”

He cocked a brow. “I got Shiloh some clothes since she came wearing a wedding dress.”

His brother folded his arms. “At an electronics store?”

“I picked her up a laptop and phone too.”

“You did what?” Carson’s raised voice boomed through the house far too loud for Oaks’s peace of mind.

He strode to the office door and started to shut it, but their younger brother Colt appeared, amusement gleaming in his eyes.

“Did I hear our brother bellow?”

“Ugh. Get in here. And shut the door.” Oaks whipped around to face down Carson.

His legs were braced wide and his arms folded.

Colt chuckled. “What did you do to piss off Papa Bear? Don’t hold back now, Carson. It’s bad for the constitution.”

Oaks shot him a glare that would powderize any other man’s testicles.

“Don’t call me Papa Bear.” Carson shifted his glare from Colt to Oaks again. “Go on. Explain to me and Colt why you bought a woman with a background in tech, a computer and a phone.”

“A burner phone,” he clarified.

Both brothers narrowed their eyes at him, not reassured.

“To give her more freedom. She’ll feel more comfortable having a computer of her own, and it will give us a chance to monitor it and her through our security system.”

Colt sank to the leather sofa lining one wall, elbows on his splayed knees. “What do you think she’ll do on her own device that she won’t on ours? Are you trying to catch her at something?”

Oaks rubbed a knuckle between his brows where a tension headache was forming. “I think she’s trying to hide something. Bury it. Most likely it’s the intel she was attempting to pass off to the CIA agent she claimed was in touch with her.”

“And we’re going to wait and see what that looks like? Do you realize what a risk that is?” Carson leveled him in a look.

“I trust her. She’s not going to threaten us.”

Both of his brothers fixed their attention on him.

“You’ve known her for one day, Oaks.”

Colt nodded in agreement.

“Doesn’t matter. I have a feeling that she hasn’t lied to us. She just needs time to learn to trust us so she can share the rest of the story.”

“We may not have time.”

“Look, you both know I run off my instincts more often than not. I saw that she needed help so I helped. And I will continue to help until she is safe.”

“Hope you signed a prenup for when that day comes.” Colt’s quip had Carson heaving a sigh.

“You both know I didn’t have time for that. I’m not sure how much water our marriage holds in a court of law either, but that’s not my concern right now. You know she has a laptop and a burner phone. Keep tabs when she’s on the network is all I’m suggesting. Okay?”

Without waiting for their agreement, he walked out, trying to stuff down his temper at how that brief, annoying meeting had gone.

Arguments with his siblings always put him in a bad mood. He and his siblings had been living on top of each other, tripping over each other, for years now. Only when he was in the military did he get a break, and then he was tripping over other guys in a new brotherhood.

Damn his little sister Willow too, tattling on him about the company card charges. Didn’t she have anything better to do? Lord knew she had enough hobbies to keep herself busy if she didn’t have enough work to do. Wait until he got her alone and gave her a piece of his mind.

Maybe he should take his own advice and go pet a horse to give himself a breather.

This mess with Shiloh was far from black and white. He needed her to learn to trust him so she’d cooperate with them and give her the space to do it. The way to do that was to hand over those electronics.

He believed the words he’d spoken to his brothers; that in the end, she wouldn’t fuck them over and lead danger straight to their door.

His instincts better not be wrong.