Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

Rufus had absolutely no idea where Molly's thoughts had gone, but nor was he going to ask her questions about them. He'd almost lost her the last time he did that.

Whatever Molly was thinking or feeling, she was an adult and, as she had so firmly told him, capable of making her own decisions. He liked her enough to respect her and that claim.

"Shall we come down for him later, or would you prefer to take him with us now?"

Molly turned to look at him inquiringly, color blazing in her cheeks when she saw he was looking at the first kennel where Angus sat watching them with bright and expectant eyes.

Rufus chuckled. "Once Mia told me how fond you are of Angus, I realized why you were so lacking in warmth toward my remark about possibly adopting him."

Molly looked stricken. "Do you think Mia knows I take him up to my apartment with me in the evenings?"

Mia had already told him that she knew. "If she does, she isn't concerned by it."

Molly winced. "He's just so cute and affectionate, and I—well, I've appreciated having his company at night."

He grimaced. "I'm not sure if this helps to make you feel safer, but some of my men check the premises twenty-four-seven for intruders or any other security breach."

"They're your men I've seen creeping about the grounds at night?"

"I— Well, yes, I suppose they are— Hey," he protested when Molly slapped him on the chest. Not because it hurt, but because he had absolutely no idea what the hell he'd done to deserve it.

Molly's cheeks were flushed. "I've been keeping a wary eye on them for weeks! I thought they were drug buyers or sellers, at the very least! Maybe even Mafia, as they all wear dark suits!"

Ah.

"You dick! You absolute dick!" Her voice broke emotionally as she slapped his abs for a second time. "Some nights, I've been in fear for my life." Tears began to fall down her cheeks.

Rufus easily caught hold of her wrists to stop her from hitting him again. "You've never told Mia about that. If you had, she would have told me or Darius." He felt a chill down his spine imagining if those men actually had been drug dealers and had discovered Molly watching them.

"I didn't want to worry her in her condition," Molly choked.

"In future know that those men you've seen outside are here for your protection as much as the shelter's."

Molly continued to tremble against him, despite those assurances.

"I'm so sorry." Rufus held both her slender wrists in one of his hands so that he could cup a hand beneath her chin as he bent to kiss her. "I'm sorry, Molly. So sorry. Forgive me. Please," he murmured in between kissing her salty-tasting lips.

* * *

How could Molly resist such a heartfelt plea?

She couldn't, obviously, as she began to return his kisses. Once Rufus had released her wrists, her arms moved up about his shoulders to hold him closer.

Kisses that very quickly became deeply passionate, arousing a hunger inside Molly that she was absolutely sure only Rufus could assuage.

"They were your men. Unbelievable," she murmured self-disgustedly long minutes later, her neck arched as Rufus continued to kiss along its length, occasionally pausing to explore the sensitive hollows in her throat. "I seriously thought of calling the police on a couple of occasions. Despite the fact that the police and I do not have a good history."

Rufus raised his head to look at her with dark eyes. "Because they were the ones to remove you from the only home you had ever known all those years ago?"

She nodded. "They and social services. It's made me wary of asking any of them for help since then."

"That's understandable," he acknowledged. "But know in future that it's my men outside, and they will deal with any suspicious behavior on or near the shelter."

Molly smiled ruefully. "It would have been nice if you or Mia had told me that before I moved in… Mia doesn't know about them," she realized from the guilt she discerned in Rufus's expression. "Does Darius?"

"Darius, yes." His thumb caressed lightly along her jawline as he stared down at her intently. "He understood and accepted my need to protect Mia once I'd explained I would never risk losing her again. For any reason. What is it?" he prompted sharply when Molly's gaze lowered to his chest. "Do you think I'm being too obsessive about her safety?"

No, that wasn't it at all.

But there was no way Molly could explain exactly why she related to his pain as deeply as she did. Not without losing him completely.

"Let's go upstairs," she encouraged softly. "I'll come down for Angus later." After Rufus had left.

One more day. That's all she would allow herself. Then she would have to leave here and never see Rufus, Mia, or the rest of their family ever again.

One more day, and tonight, when she could be with Rufus.

It would have to be enough.

Even though it never could be.

Because she was in love with this man. Hot, soul-deep, achingly in love with him.

"Having second thoughts?" he prompted huskily when she hesitated after entering her bathroom. "You can, you know."

"No second thoughts." Because she had passed second thoughts and gone quickly on to third and fourth ones. None of them good. She turned on the water in the shower cubicle. "I just realized this shower isn't big enough for two." Especially when one of them was six foot four inches in height with a chest and shoulders an American footballer would envy.

"We'll make room."

"But—"

"You, my darling, are wasting time when we could be devouring each other." Rufus gently turned her to face him. "Are you nervous?"

"Of course I'm nervous!"

"You shouldn't be. I would never hurt you. Never," he repeated before lowering his head and claiming her slightly parted lips with his own.

It was what Molly had been waiting for, hungering for, and she reached up to grasp hold of his shoulders as he pulled her closer still and devoured and claimed her lips and mouth.

As they continued to kiss, she could feel the heat of his cock against her. That hard flesh pressed, grinding against the nubbin between her thighs. Causing her to gasp, which in turn allowed Rufus's tongue to plunge deeper still and in the same rhythm as his hips rolled in circles against her swollen and aching clit.

Molly was so lost to that pleasure, she was barely aware of his fingers unfastening her jeans before pushing them down. One of his hands slid into the back of her panties to take a firm grasp of one of her bottom cheeks, holding her in place as his other hand moved smoothly inside the front of her panties.

She gasped, drawing air into her suddenly starving lungs, as those long fingers pressed against and stroked her slippery clit. She was so aroused, so mindlessly focused on the pleasure of being touched so intimately that it took only one stroke, then two, before she toppled shamelessly over the edge of that pleasure.

She came hard.

So hard that for several long minutes, she was completely lost to that heady pleasure coursing through her body and the kaleidoscope of colors bursting inside her head.

* * *

"All okay?" Rufus finally murmured to the collapsed and heavily breathing woman he held in his arms. Molly still shook in the aftermath of her climax.

He had no idea how long he had kissed and touched Molly or enjoyed watching the expressions of arousal and then pleasure flitting across her face.

Long enough that the bathroom had filled with steam, he realized self-derisively.

Long enough that the thick length of his cock jutted heavy and throbbing, aching to be released and taken into the softness and heat of Molly's mouth.

He needed to be patient, he told himself. Molly was a virgin, and skittish as a mare when presented to a stallion. Too fast, too demanding, and she would shy away and possibly never return.

He kissed along the length of her neck, pausing to lightly bite the lobe of her ear. "That was one," he murmured softly.

Molly raised her head to look at him. "One what?"

"Orgasm."

Her cheeks colored a fiery red. "Please tell me you aren't going to count each of them?"

He grinned. "I'm not sure I can count as high as I intend going."

"Modesty is not your middle name," she teased as she pulled out of his arms.

"No, my middle name is Thomas, after my father. We have a tradition in my family of using the name of our father as our middle name. My father's name was Thomas Edward, for my grandfather," Rufus kept talking over the embarrassment he could see in Molly's face as she self-consciously pushed her jeans and panties down her slender legs before stepping out of them.

Her throat moved as she swallowed. "Your son, if you have one, will have Rufus as his middle name."

"If I ever have one, yes." He had never even considered the idea of having more children.

Until recently, he realized.

Until he met Molly and could so easily imagine having a son or daughter with her raven black hair and those beautiful sky-blue eyes.

Would it be difficult for him to have another child?

Yes.

Would he live in fear every minute that they, and their mother, might be taken away from him?

Yes.

But…

There had never been a "but" in those thoughts before. Before Molly.

Because the thought of Molly growing heavy and round with his child, of making love to her every day as her pregnancy and hormones demanded he could, filled him with euphoria rather than fear.

A dangerous combination of images and emotions he refused to linger on right now.

Especially when Molly had now removed all her clothing and he was able to feast his eyes on her slender perfection. Small, sloping upward breasts tipped with deep-rose-colored nipples. A slender waist curving out to shapely hips. There was a dark triangle of hair between her thighs, slightly damp from the release of her juices as she climaxed against his fingers.

Rufus held Molly's gaze as he now lifted those fingers to his mouth, drawing in the heady scent of Molly's release before opening his lips and sliding those fingers into the heat of his mouth. The taste of Molly's release, salty and musky, exploded on his tongue.

* * *

Molly couldn't look away, felt mesmerized, as Rufus licked her juices from his fingers, heat building inside her as her arousal began to rise for a second time.

It took every effort of her will to finally drag her gaze away. "Shouldn't you be undressing too?"

Rufus didn't answer her as he instead unbuttoned and removed his shirt. Revealing a tanned and muscled chest, with a light smattering of dark hair across his pecs, narrowing down over his abdomen before disappearing beneath the waistband of his trousers. Which he unfastened next and allowed to drop to the floor before stepping out of them.

Molly's breath caught in her throat, her gaze fixed on the way his black boxers clung to every lithe line of his hips, the bulge of his arousal on full display beneath the thin cotton.

She stopped breathing altogether when he pushed that material down, allowing the nine inches, at least, of his heavily veined cock to jut free.

He stepped forward until their naked bodies were almost but not quite touching, one of his hands lifting to cradle the side of her face. "There's no pressure to do anything. None. Do you understand?"

She swallowed. "But what if I can't?—"

"I think we've already established that you can," he teased gently.

She huffed. "I didn't mean that."

"I know you didn't." He chuckled. "But there's a lot for us to discover before A goes into slot B."

Molly burst out laughing, as she was probably supposed to.

But Rufus's teasing had certainly eased a lot of the awkwardness she'd been feeling.

So much so that she was able to enjoy the two of them washing each other beneath the hot spray of the shower, learning each other's bodies and what gave them both pleasure.

* * *

Rufus's cock was hard and aching by the time he'd washed each of Molly's breasts and down the slope of her abdomen. Instead of continuing downward, he dropped to his knees to gently part Molly's legs so that he could move in between them.

She drew in a hissing breath when, with a growl of satisfaction, he lowered his head to take another taste of her renewed wetness, made all the sweeter because it was from her glistening pussy lips.

He held those pussy lips apart as he lapped and licked with his tongue, drinking down that heady sweetness, feeling the tremors taking over Molly's body and feeling how stiff and sensitive her clit had become.

He was loath to enter her channel with anything more than the tip of his fingers, stretching that tightness, but leaving her virginity intact until they both felt comfortable with him taking that gift from her as well.

His tongue continued to circle and press fully against the throb of her clit, feeling Molly's pleasure rise, and then rise again, before her body exploded into a climax more violent than the first one.

Rufus had every intention of ensuring she experienced many more of them before morning.