Page 66 of South Beach Bodyguards

Closing the gap between us, he bent over and kissed my earlobe, drawing the tender flesh into his mouth. A sigh escaped my lips before I could prevent it. Maybe I could turn it on.

“This is life or death,” he murmured into my ear. “Trust me to get you out of here alive.”

Goosebumps rose on my skin and I knew he was right. This wasn’t about my ego or embarrassment. Or modesty or confusion. I needed to pull myself together and acknowledge that this was serious shit. This was a world I didn’t understand at all, and I was the proverbial babe in the woods.

My jaw was still throbbing from the blow the henchman had given me. I didn’t doubt I was in serious trouble. I had no idea if I could truly trust Wester or not considering he had seemed hell bent on revenge against Ricardo, but I didn’t exactly have a choice. I did trust that Wester wouldn’t punch me, and I knew he could make me feel good, even if we were faking. Yet he had said there were cameras…

This was all madness. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off.

But I nodded. “I’m scared,” I whispered.

“Don’t be scared,” he said, giving me a soft smile. “I’m going to protect you. And I’ll shield you from the camera so too much of you won’t be showing. And leave your robe on.”

That made me shiver. I swallowed hard. I was going to burn this robe if I got out of here alive. “Okay. Tell me what to do.” I needed guidance. His confidence.

“Just be you.” His hand came up and cupped my cheek.

He looked so calm, so in control. He was looking at me like I was beautiful, as if he cherished me. His eyes held depths of emotion I couldn’t plumb but could interpret however I chose. Right now, I needed something to hold on to, to anchor me. “I can be me, if you can be you.”

I wasn’t even sure what I meant by that, I just knew that I needed him to be something. To be more than the random guy I’d met earlier that day. To be real, even if it were imaginary and impermanent, just to see me through this. I needed a connection, a lifeline, bonding me to him, giving me strength and courage so that I could get out of this alive.

Wester smiled. He kissed first one corner of my mouth, then the other. The tenderness of it made me sigh, relaxing my shoulders just slightly. Then he took my lips with his in a slow, sensual, devastating kiss that reminded me of why I had succumbed so easily to him, and why if I could shove my fear aside, I could pull this off. At first my response was stiff, but then his hands slid into my hair and massaged the nape of my neck, while his tongue teased over mine. He kissed like there was no urgency, no plan, no destination. Like there were no cameras.

The thought made me panic a little. I started to pull away, picturing the mysterious Benito’s staff watching us somewhere in a dark office, critiquing how we kissed. “I can’t do this.”

“Shh.” Wester didn’t grip me tighter, which would have made me panic more. He let me go completely but he stared at me, his eyes mesmerizing. “Imagine that we’re together, in love. We’re leaving on a cruise later or going to the beach because we have time on our hands and we want to spend it together. It’s been days since we’ve seen each other and we missed the feel of each other. The taste.” Reaching out he threaded his fingers through mine and drew my hand to his chest. To his heart. “Imagine if you were in here and how that would feel.”

It would feel special, amazing. Like I was the luckiest woman in the world because Wester was untouchable. I could see that already. He was the man whose eyes revealed nothing other than what he wanted them to. Melancholy washed over me and the loneliness I’d been ignoring came to the forefront. It had been too long since I’d felt that spark of something, anything with a man, and even longer still since I’d felt cared about, loved. I wanted to delve into the moment, the fake intimacy for more reasons than just to save my life. “Kiss me.”

He did. Just the softest, briefest gentle kiss. A ache throbbed in my chest and I didn’t know what it was, what it meant, but when he led me to the bed, I didn’t resist. I fell back onto the soft downy comforter, but Wester shifted it out from under me.

“Get under the covers,” he murmured.

The sheets were cool, but my skin felt flushed, feverish. He peeled off his suit coat and tossed it on the chair by the bed. Then he undid the buttons on his white dress shirt before yanking it off one sleeve at a time. I took in his muscular chest, covered in tattoos. I reached out and skimmed my fingers over his warm flesh, tracing an intricate voodoo doll, gruesome and bleeding, pins jabbed through it. “What is this?”

“Nothing.” He took my hand and raised it over my head.

The sharp motion had me sucking in my breath, my nipples hardening. He bent over and drew one into his mouth, teasing at the tip with his tongue. My response was immediate, a low groan drawing from my lips without thought or warning, my back arching up to meet his touch. He took his time, driving me crazy with first one breast, then the other, until deep in my body I felt the stirring, the driving need for completion. For long minutes he focused all his attention on my nipples, until desire had me starting to roll my hips, questing.

Finally he shifted, kissing down my abdomen and I tensed in anticipation, knowing what he could do with that tongue, wanting him to do it again. But he only gave me a brief teasing lick over my clitoris before reemerging. The covers were too bulky, he would suffocate under there, and I knew he wouldn’t pull it back and expose me. I almost wished we could throw it over our heads and disappear into a cloud of heat, passion, and sweet sex. But that would accomplish nothing and fear skittered down my spine again, an ever present pressure.

But then he shifted alongside of me, his hand covering me, thumb pressing into my heat. He still held my hand over my head and I tried to move it, wanting to touch him, but he just gripped me harder. He swallowed my sound of protest with a deep, penetrating kiss, his tongue teasing over mine. I didn’t know what I was feeling, my emotions jumbled and chaotic, overlaid with unexpected, hot, liquid desire. My body wanted him. My soul did, too. I needed his strength, his confidence, holding me down so I didn’t float away in fear and panic.

Instinctively, my thighs fell further open for him and I could feel the press of his erection, bulging and promising. He abandoned stroking me to unzip his suit pants. There was a rustling but I couldn’t see because he was still kissing me, desperate, hard kisses. When his touch returned to my inner thighs, I rose to meet him, wanting his finger deep inside me. He stroked my dampness before shoving my right leg further out, creating a wide open space for him to take me.

When he did, I cried out in shock, but the sound disappeared into him. He was crowding me everywhere, from head to toe, and I didn’t know how to feel, what to think. I just knew that this was insane, yet even more crazy was the fact that it felt so damn good. Natural. Like the fantasy he had spun—the woman craving intimacy with the man she loved.

As he started to move inside me, he shifted his lips to my neck to nuzzle the sensitive flesh there. He was all tightly coiled muscles and lean power, taking me with a big, hard cock and I lay there, too stunned to even wrap my legs around his waist. I felt consumed, but in the best way possible. I turned my head away from his dark, short hair, but that was a mistake. I saw the room beyond us, a strange place, with a strange man inside me, and I whipped my head back so quickly I cracked heads with him.

“Oh God, sorry,” I whispered then cursed myself at the stupid banality of a comment like that under these circumstances.

He gripped the back of my skull, knotting his fingers into my hair and tugging ever so subtly. Those ice blue eyes stared down at me, shuttered. “Let me fuck you hard,” he said, his voice rough and low. “I want you so fucking bad.”

I was pretty sure he had me, given how deep his cock was inside me, but he was moving slowly, sensually. I wasn’t sure I could take any more, but neither could I resist those eyes, that intensity. He wanted me and it felt like a triumph. He truly wanted me. Unsure of my own voice, I just nodded.

Wester’s nostrils flared and he said, “You’re beautiful, Olivia.”

My name on his lips sounded different, foreign to me. This wasn’t Olivia’s life. It wasn’t me. But before I could figure out what that meant, he braced himself with one hand on the headboard, the other buried in my hair, and he moved. Hard. Pounding. His body taking mine, the headboard slamming into drywall. My breasts bounced, my thighs tensing against the onslaught. Holy shit, was all I could think. I pressed my eyes closed, unable to look at him in all his masculine beauty.

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