Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Hoss

I already suspected I’d gone a little crazy without Tatum.

The way she peers up at me confirms it. I’ve become a beast.

Look at me. Walking down the street shirtless, my hands covered in gunshot residue and blood, walking beside this innocent creature. My princess. My reason for living when the walls were closing in and I hadn’t seen daylight in weeks. I’m starved for her breath on my skin, her body beneath mine. I scared myself back in the alley, because Jesus, I almost ripped off her pants and took her, despite her denials. Despite her obvious nerves in my presence.

We stop in front of a boarded-up restaurant and she guides me to an outdoor staircase climbing the side of the building. It leads to a beaten-up door—and no, no, please don’t tell me this is where she has been living. There isn’t another soul out on the street because it’s largely deserted. The perfect place to prey on a female.

Did I get to her just in time?

Or am I the animal preying on her now?

I don’t know. My head is so fucked. I’m broken and restless and desperate to find solace between her thighs. In her arms. I miss her voice and scent and sense of humor. And as she lets me into her little apartment, perhaps against her better judgment, I toy with the notion of boarding the door and never letting her out.

That’s how I know I’m bad for her.

She’s right.

She’s right—I should leave.

I’ve murdered and suffered so much since the last time we were together that I am not fit to be around this sweet girl. I also know damn well I won’t leave her alone until my pulse stops beating. That’s a dead certainty, more reliable than the tide.

“Are you hungry?” she asks, setting down her messenger bag.

When I see the sketchpad sticking out, I find it hard to swallow. “Yes.”

My growl turns her cheeks pink. “I’ll make you something while you’re in the shower.” She walks to the kitchen sink, opens a cabinet and bends down, stretching the jeans across her gorgeous ass and I automatically unzip my jeans, because I’m swelling so fat, the goddamn thing no longer fits inside the denim prison. When she straightens, holding a garbage bag in her hands, she gasps at the sight of my cock jutting out from the V of my fly. “Um…”

“Tatum…”

“We should put our clothes in this bag and get rid of it, right? S-so there is no, um…evidence…”

“Baby. Come get this cock.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“It’s the only idea.” I stroke myself a few times and watch her eyes turn glassy. “Horny as ever, aren’t you?”

“I haven’t been. Not until now.”

“Because I wasn’t here.”

She wets her lips. Nods. Thank Christ. I knew she wouldn’t let another man touch her, but I don’t even like the idea of her being wet unless I’m here to take care of the problem.

“I’ve never been…” She shakes her head. “Never mind.”

I surge forward, desperate to hear what she was going to say. “What? Tell me.”

When I tilt her face up so she can’t avoid eye contact, she confesses her secret in a whisper. “I’ve never wanted to be with anyone else. Like we were…in your truck. I thought there was something wrong with me.”

“There is nothing‚ not a damn thing, wrong with my princess.” I jack off while looking at her mouth, those swollen pillows that were made for kissing me. “You were just waiting for your king.”

“Don’t you mean my prince?”

“No. I mean your king.” I snag her hand and place it on my throbbing dick, hissing through my teeth at the softness of her palm, the mere fact that I’m with her and she’s touching me is almost overwhelming enough to make me ejaculate on a dime. “I’m the king and you’re the princess. You remember how we play, baby.”

Her eyelids flutter closed and she fists me, finally, the soft circle of her hand giving me a gentle pump, then a rougher one. “Yes. I remember.”

“Good girl,” I whisper beside her ear, licking the lobe crudely. “Show Daddy your bed.”

Her hesitation causes a roar to build in my throat. I look around for something to put my fist through, frustration welling inside of me. The need to be destructive. I’m bad for her. I’ve lost my mind and she knows it. The knowledge is right there on her perfect face. I’m lucky she even let me inside her apartment.

“I shouldn’t…” she says quietly.

“Yeah,” I return in a hoarse tone. “Maybe you shouldn’t.” I take her wrist and drag her along behind me to the bathroom. “Shower with me, Tatum. You’ve got blood on you, too. And Christ, I can’t let you out of my sight. I’m already teetering on the fucking edge. I need eyes on you or I’m going to lose whatever sanity I have left.”

“Shower?” she squeaks when I lock us into the small bathroom. “Together?”

“I’ve seen you naked before, Tatum,” I say, shoving down my jeans, stepping out of them, along with my socks. “I see you like that every time I blink.”

Again, I’m made painfully aware of how thoroughly I’ve lost my mind, because the fact that she’s shielding her body from me starts a vein ticking behind my eyes. A growl builds in my throat and I have to concentrate on not ripping the garments from her body. Calm down. Calm down, she’s scared of you. I settled for backing her against the door and, as calmy as possible, unfastening her jeans and pushing them down her hips.

“Show me what I need to see,” I demand, lips to her forehead. “Show me those big tits and that luxury pussy, before I starve to death from missing your skin on mine.”

Her head falls back and she’s dazed, denials growing weaker, weaker by the second.

I waste no time getting her jeans all the way off, ripping open her blouse and fumbling with the snap of her bra. Those lavish tits spill out and I almost spray my seed everywhere.

“God, you are so fucking perfect, baby.” I lean down, guiding one of her tits to my mouth in a gentle hand and suckling that little raspberry tip, my balls pounding with a riotous pulse, dick begging to be planted between her curvy thighs. “My lush little girl,” I breathe, licking my fingers and trailing them down her stomach toward her…

I stop.

My heart seizes in my chest.

There is something different about her shape.

Her belly has a subtle swell, a barely noticeable difference to the naked eye, but I remember every square inch of this girl. I’ve thought of nothing else for months.

“You’re pregnant.”

Tatum’s alarmed gaze flies to mine and I have my answer.

I’m immediately winded. With hope. With relief. And…pain. I’m in terrible pain.

“You weren’t going to tell me?” I fall to my knees and press my face to the bump, incapable of swallowing, my hands roaming over her hips, her belly, memorizing the changes in her, small though they are. “You were going to send me away. Keep this to yourself. Weren’t you?” My vision doubles from the agony ripping through my chest. “That’s not happening, Tatum,” I wheeze. “Leaving you would have ended me. Hollowed me out for life. Leaving you and our baby? Might as well chain me up in hell. You think I could leave my family unprotected?”

“That’s just the thing, Hoss. We don’t need protection anymore. Not from anyone but…”

“But me?”

I ask the question to her belly, pressing my lips there.

Kissing her. Kissing our child.

“Yes,” she whispers.

And I know she’s right. I’m not normal. I’ve been reborn in blood and mayhem. I’m fueled by anger and hunger and desperation right now. I have no place around this perfect girl and this innocent child. But there is no way in hell I can walk away. Ever. And the pain of Tatum keeping this secret from me, when all I want is to cherish her, is too much to bear after everything else I’ve been through.

Pressure builds inside of me, expanding, pushing outward from all sides, my temples pounding, heart rioting out of control. I’m in such a fucking state of need and pain and love, I don’t realize I’ve carried her out of the bathroom until we’re already entering her bedroom and I’m pressing her down onto the bed. “I’ll be better, baby,” I grunt, coming down on Tatum’s sweet body, quelling her struggles with my weight. “Kiss me. Open your legs. Let me remind you how good it is when you trust me.” I rake my mouth up the side of her neck. “Heal me.”

For some reason, those two words seem to register with her more than anything else I’ve said. She goes still beneath me, our breath mingling together, her eyes searching mine. Slowly, her hands come up and her fingers thread through my hair.

I moan, long and loud and shamefully, at the caring gesture. I’ve never been cared for. I’ve never had someone look at me the way she is right now. Like I’m a wounded animal and instead of kicking me or closing the door, she’s considering bringing me inside and bandaging me up. “Please,” I say hoarsely, urgently. “Please.”

“What happened to you?” she whispers.

I swallow, bury my face in her neck. “The night you left, I fought them in the parking lot, but there were too many. The two men who were still standing at the end took me to the boss and he locked me up. For a month. In the basement of some warehouse, barely any food. Constant darkness. Daily beatings. They thought I was an undercover fed or an informant, since I helped you that night.” I press down tighter to her body, wanting to absorb her warmth and goodness, use them to battle the bad memories. “Finally, I got free and…Tatum, I killed my way out. I’ve been killing ever since to make you safe. Killed every last one of them. And I’d do it again.” I trail my lips up to her mouth and snare her in a kiss. A hot, promissory one that makes her gasp, her back arching beneath me, her plush tits on display. “No one touches Tatum,” I growl, feasting on her nipples. Sucking them one by one. Licking at the peaked sweetness with hungry strokes of my tongue. “No one but me.”

“Th-thank you for defending me,” she chokes out, starting to tremble. “I’m sorry for what you went through. It must have been terrible. But—”

“Shhh.” I kiss my way down her body, nibbling at her swollen belly and hips, hands pressing her knees open. “Like I said, I would do it again.” She’s still wearing her panties, but they are thin and easy to rip off with two hooked fingers—and then, there it is. The pussy that I’ve been thinking about nonstop since I first walked into her diner. It’s as perfect as I remember. Soft and juicy, her slit glistening in welcome, leaving no doubt that she wants this cock. The evidence is right there in front of my face and it’s on my tongue, too, because I’m already lapping at her. Kissing the split of her sex, tracing it with my thumb.

I’m using my fingers to make a V and gently parting her flesh, revealing that slick, private place and the quivering little bud that’s going to push her over the edge. Not only into orgasm, but into needing me. Allowing me into her body, even though I’m an animal now. I lock eyes with her up the front of her body and I keep eye contact while jiggling my tongue against her clit. I do it without cease, seconds going by while she grows more flushed, hips restless, eyes unfocused. But I keep on looking at her and applying more pressure, more, jiggling until she’s panting, palming her tits and rubbing her nipples. Fuck. Hottest sight of my life. Knowing I’m tending to the pussy of the woman carrying my baby fills me with pride. Lust. Love.

Need her. Need our connection. The deepest one I can get.

Desperate for it, I do something that makes me a bastard. I wait until she’s right on the verge of coming and then I retract my tongue, savoring her sugary taste inside my mouth. I prowl back up her body with she shakes her head in disbelief. “No, please…just a little bit longer, Hoss. Please.”

“Be with me. Be my wife. I’ll lick you down every night of the goddamn week. I’ll sell you my tongue in exchange for one hard fuck, baby. You can do whatever you want with it.” I notch my cock firmly between her thighs, rubbing it in the stickiness of her arousal, gliding the trunk of it up and down between her damp lips, listening to her gasp when I ride over her sensitive clit. “Heal me. Let me in. Let me fucking love you.”

Emotion crests in her eyes and she pulls me down for a kiss. I feel the barrier give way between us, feel permission in the way she gives me her tongue, her inner thighs perching on either side of my hips.

With a ragged sound, I reach down and guide my dick to her entrance, struggling to get it inside for several seconds, before grinding it deep, deeper, all the way to my balls, my harsh expletive loud in the small, dark room. “Motherfucker. Baby’s even tighter than I remember.” It’s a wonder I don’t flood her right then and there, but I can’t. Not when she’s already so wary of me, her trust so hesitant. Thank God for her attraction to me or I wouldn’t be buried in the sweetest pussy on earth—and I show her I’m grateful for that. I scoop my hips up and twist them, stroking her inner walls on all sides, giving attention to her G-spot.

“Hoss,” she moans, her head beginning to toss on the pillow.

“Touch me,” I beg her, angling my hips and keeping them arrowed in the direction that makes her whimper. “Touch me everywhere while I tickle you on the inside.”

Her hands twist in my hair, fall to my shoulders and glide down my pecs, back up my arms. Everywhere she touches becomes her property and I get harder, harder, my balls wrenching tighter at the rasp of her fingertips and palm. My nerve endings are baying like dogs when their master has come home.

“You own me. Feel that. You own me, Tatum.” I kiss her hard, sweeping my tongue in and making love to her pretty little mouth, kissing her while life grows between us. While she feels every ounce of the life she gives my dick. I’m driving her up the bed with every nasty thrust, the mattress creaking below, flesh smacking off of flesh. “Tell me I’m hitting your spot. Tell me my cock is rubbing it right.”

“You are,” she sobs, slapping and pushing at my shoulders, drawing them closer, writhing beneath me. Confused by how much pleasure she’s getting after so long without it. “Hoss. Hoss. Oh my God.”

“That ain’t my name when you’re getting drilled by this cock, little girl. And you know it. You call me Daddy when it’s fuck time.”

“Daddy,” she whispers, eyes glazed—and her pussy screws up into a spasm, throbbing, the tightening and loosening of those little muscles making me bellow into the pillow beside her head. Jesus Christ, this tight fucking goddess. This perfect, beautiful creature. Thank God I’ve found her again. “Feels so good. So good.”

With her pleasure achieved, there’s no other word for what I do to her after that but one. Rutting. “In the future, baby, you’re going to get more than one orgasm, but I’ve been without this pussy for months. I need you to hang on tight while I filthy fuck you and get my nut. Can you do that for me?”

Still dazed, she nods, gripping my shoulders.

Not expecting me to pull out, flip her over face down and yank her ass up to my lap. Dick in hand, I spit on her asshole and watch the moisture snake down over her pussy, giving me the additional wetness I need to enter her from behind and pound her little pink pie. Hard. I grip the headboard with my left hand, taking her throat in my right, and I lose touch with reality. I can hear the smack of hips meeting ass, can hear her crying out with pleasure—oh, Daddy—but the beating of my heart is the loudest. Finally mine. Finally mine again.

“Tatum,” I choke, my mouth moving through her hair. “Need to give you my come.”

“I want it,” she whines, clenching around me.

I can hear the pout in her tone. She’s baby talking on her hands and knees, as if I needed any more proof that this is the last women I’ll ever need. The only one I’ll ever love. The one I’m obsessed with down to the marrow of my bones. My Tatum.

“You want Daddy’s sperm?” I grunt in her ear.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure? It’s hot and nasty.” I lick up the center of her back. “So much of it.”

She looks back at me over her shoulder, pushing out her bottom lip. “Please?”

Come rockets from my balls so fast, I don’t have time to prepare. I fuck her in a blur, trying to get rid of the insane pressure that isn’t ebbing nearly fast enough. My vision blurs and I ride that tight gash until it’s filled, until my spend is splashing everywhere, squelching onto her thighs and my stomach because I can’t stop grinding and thrusting like an animal. Somewhere in the middle of it all, she crests again, too, constricting around me and pushing my lust to another level, sending me into another lengthy round of spasms, until finally I drop face down on the bed beside Tatum, gathering her tight to my body before she can leave. Or disappear. She’s pliant and boneless, rolling up right against me.

But instead of falling asleep, she fights the unconsciousness.

She battles the drowsiness, keeping a wary hand wedged between us.

My girl doesn’t trust me. I make her nervous. She won’t let down her guard.

That’s how I know I have to be a better man for her.

For my child.

I’m a feral animal right now. I want to take Tatum and go on the run, but she wouldn’t be happy. She doesn’t want to leave this place. So I have to work with that. I will. I’ll do anything it takes to remain at her side. I’ll do anything it takes to make her love me, trust me. It’s going to take a lot of work, but I welcome the chance to prove myself to her. That I can give her the normal she seeks. That we can be a family.

I’m sick over having to leave, yet I know there is no choice. The bodies have to be taken care of if we plan to remain here—and that’s only the beginning of the work I’m going to put in to earn this girl’s affection. I lean forward and kiss her temple, her lips.

“Sleep now, Tatum,” I say gruffly, my chest packed tight, close to bursting. “I’m going to make everything better. You’ll see.”

Finally, she gives up the fight and falls asleep.

With one final look at her, I leave the apartment with my chest in shreds.