Page 19 of A One Woman Job

Meg

Am I the sort of person who condones murder now?

No. No, it’s wrong. Nothing excuses violence.

Except maybe a child being sold and being given no choice but to train and become an assassin or starve to death. If Koen hadn’t been traded for the debt, what fate would have befallen his parents? He isn’t a psychopath, otherwise he wouldn’t feel guilt and grief over taking the old woman’s grandson away from her. It’s driven him into solitude.

Maybe I’m naïve, maybe I’m making excuses because I have feelings for Koen that continue to expand and grow complicated, but…

I believe that, if anything, his ability to still feel guilt and pain after the life he’s led makes him stronger of character than most.

I’m one of those women who marries an inmate, aren’t I?

Oh God.

“You’re still here,” he says, planting a hard kiss on the crown of my head.

Speaking of the ability to feel guilt, did I really try and suggest he simply needed a break from being an assassin?Maybe…maybe the problem is that you never take a break.My heart sinks into my stomach from simply replaying my own words. How can I do this job Etta asks of me? I should tell him to run. To find a peaceful life away from the world that did such a number on him.

“Of course I’m still here,” I say, turning my mouth into his shoulder. After a hesitation that comes from a place of inexperience, I…sip at his shoulder. I open my mouth partly and suck gently on his skin, my intimate muscles tugging between my legs when he sucks in a hiss, his hips shifting beneath the covers. “Do you…like that?”

“I can’t think of a single thing you could do to me that I wouldn’t like.” His nostrils flare when he cuts me a smoldering look. “Except run.”

I’m filled with the urge to make him believe I won’t. The deal with Etta means nothing right now. It’s an afterthought when this man is looking at me like I’m the axis of his world. Nothing can go wrong in this moment. There’s only now—and the need to make him secure in how I feel. How nothing has changed despite what he told me.

Garnering all of my bravery, I push up on my left elbow and look down at the sheet that covers his body from the neck down. My pulse is rapping wildly as I pinch the top and peel it down, down, down, revealing his flexed chest, so crowded with ink. My gaze on him is like a touch all its own, and his jaw slackens under my regard, the tendons in his neck and forearms growing more and more prominent.

“Are you restraining yourself?” I ask.

“Yes.”

Slowly, I lower my fingertips to the top of his abdomen, watching it shudder and tighten in fascination. “Why?”

“After what I just told you…” His forehead is gathering a sheen. “I’m not going to attack you like an animal, Meg.” He swallows hard and gives me a look rife with meaning. “Next time, though. Next time, I will. Do you hear me?”

I suck in a breath when my nipples tighten, fast and painful, an ache erupting between my thighs. I’m finding a lot out about myself tonight. How much I’m willing to overlook when a man makes me feel like this. How I like the blunt way he speaks to me. How I’m pretty sure when he executes his promise, I’ll like that, too.

“For now, I want to see what you do.” He stacks his hands behind his head and shifts to give me full access to his powerful body. “There are no wrong choices, Meg.”

The ink on his skin draws me closer, inviting just the barest touch of my lips on his hip. “What if I lick your body the way you licked mine?”

His stomach hollows with a shudder. “Oh fuck. Please.”

I let my tongue out of my mouth, finding the smooth heat of his hip bone, tracing a slow path to his belly button. To go any further, I have to kneel and bend over him and I do that now, skimming my palms over his chest and shoulders while my tongue dampens the colorful patterns that decorate his body. In my periphery, I can see his sex stiffening into a monument beneath the sheet, his hips jerking and undulating when I reach his nipples and lick them soundly, his hoarse epithets making me stay there longer than anywhere else, before my face visits his neck, kissing and biting him there, enjoying his scent.

Remembering what he did to me in the field last night, I raise my head slightly, finding Koen watching me through glazed blue eyes. “Can I lick you…down there, too?”

“Yes, baby. You can.” He turns his face and nuzzles mine, his breath turning shallow. “You can lick it, kiss it, suck it, stroke it,tease it. Put it inside you. Sign your name on it. Just make sure it’s the last one you’ll ever see.”

We turn our heads and gaze down the length of his body together, my middle finger playing in the trail of hair below his navel. He makes an anticipatory sound when my touch slips lower, gripping the sheet and slowly uncovering his thick erection. My mouth dries up at the sight of it, the beating veins running every which way, the engorged head. Even with my precious little experience, I know it’s sensitive to the touch. I just know.

“Are they supposed to be that big?” I ask, sifting my fingers through the black hair at the base of his sex, hesitating a moment, then fisting him.

Hissing like a tea kettle, he lifts his hips sharply. “No,” he slurs. “God must have decided that Meg deserves a little more cock than everyone else.” I start a gentle stroke that tightens gradually while I move my body into position between his legs, my attention rapt on the slit at the top of his shaft, how pearls of moisture continue to appear…and I ache to taste them.There are no wrong answers.

With those words of encouragement echoing in my head, I bend down and lap at the newest glistening pearl, bringing it into my mouth and moaning over the salty earthiness of Koen. A rash of heat spreads down my body, that secret spot beginning to throb between my thighs. “Tastes so good.” My fist travels up and down the length of him, picking up speed. “If I suck, will more come out?”

“Oh my God.” His head is pressed back into the pillows, neck straining. “I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve her.”

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