The Other Man Read online

  “I . . . went through an ugly divorce, over a year ago, and I decided to stay in one place for a bit, get my head on straight.”

  “Vegas is an interesting place to stay to try to get your head on straight.”

  That made me laugh because it was very true. Still, somehow it worked for me. “My boys enjoy it, and they enjoy staying in one place. I took them everywhere with me when they were kids.”

  “Do they live with you?”

  “No, but they live close and visit often.”

  “So now they hate to travel?”

  “No, I think they still love it, I just think they’re more well-rounded than I am. What about you?”

  “I enjoy traveling, and I’ve done a fair amount of it.”

  That was it, nothing else. He wasn’t a sharer.

  “Where did you live before Vegas?”

  “Here and there.”

  “Which was your favorite? Here or there?”

  I got a slightly bigger smile for that one. “Here. Right here. Do you have any other pets?”

  Hello, random. “No. Just ’Tator here. How about you?”

  “No pets. No kids.”

  I’d figured. He didn’t seem the type to have any attachments at all, let alone dependents.

  I turned my head slightly and found his eyes on me, full of a disconcerting razor-sharp focus.

  It was so disconcerting, in fact, that I began to question what I was doing. This wasn’t me. I’d felt a surprising surge of lust and let it temporarily cloud my judgement.

  “Knock it off,” he said lightly, or as lightly as he could with that gravelly, bar brawler voice of his. “Quit thinking so hard. I told you, you won’t regret this. You might be too sore to walk without a limp tomorrow, but you’ll be happy about it.”

  Something heady and electrifying shot through me.

  My nostrils flared, and my breath grew short.

  He’d guessed what I was thinking. That, and all of the sexy, arrogant things he’d just spouted, had me back to being too turned on to think properly.

  A man that knew how to read a woman. That combined with his knockout body and those magnums, well, I couldn’t help it, expectations were getting very unrealistic.

  This was not good. It’d been too long for me, and it had just occurred to me that I was a bit desperate.

  I missed penis. I liked penis, and this sexy creature apparently had an impressive one. The inner hussy that I never knew I had wanted badly to see it. See it, and a lot of other things that flashed through my head quite vividly.

  Beyond my impeccable instincts and against my better judgement, I kept right on walking with him, all the way to my front door.

  I let him into my house, and he prowled inside.

  I followed him, letting ’Tato off his leash.

  ’Tato bolted straight for the kitchen, then out his oversized doggy door into the backyard.

  Acutely aware of the eyes burning holes into my back, I went into the kitchen, washed up, and got a pot of coffee brewing.

  When I turned to look at him, Heath was leaning against my counter, bulging arms crossed over his chest. It didn’t even feel like my kitchen anymore with him in it.

  The man staked his claim on everything. He owned whatever space he occupied.

  That sparked a visual that made me shiver, head to toe.

  He just watched me, eyes way too intense, not even a hint of a smile on his mouth.

  “Come here,” he said, voice low and guttural.

  The most unnerving shock went through me, but I went.

  I was standing almost close enough for our chests to touch when he reached up with one hand, gripped my thick braid, and began to wrap it around his heavy fist. He did this until his knuckles were digging into my scalp and then he pulled a little harder.

  It stung, but it wasn’t the sort of pain you wanted to shy away from. Not at all. It was the kind you wanted to lean into, to explore to its fullest, because you knew that just on the other side of that pain was intense pleasure.

  “How rough can you take it, Lourdes?” he asked, bringing his mouth very close to mine.

  I was trying not to pant. “I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “Why don’t you show me what you got?”

  He smiled, and this time, it very nearly reached his eyes. “You asked for it.”

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  I thought he was going to kiss me. I wanted him to. I wanted that and more. But he didn’t, not then.

  Instead, he let me go, and stepped back, nodding his head at the coffee pot that had just finished brewing. “I know better than to come between a woman and her morning caffeine.”

  I smiled wryly, but as I prepared us both a cup, my hands were shaking so hard that I wondered if I should even drink it. I was already wound up too tight to contain.

  “How do you take it?” I asked, my back to him, my shaking hand on the creamer.

  Before he even touched me, I felt him getting closer. I shivered as he pressed his chest against my back, his taller form folding over me until his hands braced on either side of mine, gripping the counter’s edge.

  “I’d rather show you than tell you,” his gravelly voice rasped into my ear.

  I gasped, then silently cursed at myself. This was not me. Men did not make me nervous. “I was referring to the coffee,” I said archly. “Cream and sugar?”

  “Just cream,” he responded. “No sugar. I’m sweet enough.”

  That forced a hard laugh out of me, because we both knew that he was about as sweet as a pit bull.

  I finished mixing our coffees, him pressed to me all the while, his body dominating mine before he’d ever even kissed me.

  He took his cup and moved away. I was equal parts relieved and disappointed. I was having a hard time knowing what I was feeling, what I wanted, where he was concerned. I knew this was moving too fast, was certain of that, but at the same time I wanted more, wanted it to move faster, to go forward with no brakes.

  I took a few breaths, then turned to look at him, leaning back to brace my hip against the counter as we both took our first drink.

  “How do you feel about restraints?” he asked casually.

  I nearly choked on the hot liquid pouring down my throat.

  Of course he’s into kink, I thought to myself, eyes narrowed on him. Any man that young and good looking would have some quirks.

  “Like handcuffs?” I asked when I’d finally recovered from the fit of coughing that he had caused.

  His arched brow just arched higher, the corner of his lip lifting up in what I thought was amusement.

  I shook my head. “No. Sorry, no. I don’t know you that well.” I set my coffee down, done with it. I was already too wired.

  He set his down, too, and in spite of everything, all I could concentrate on was how his muscles moved under his tight shirt with every movement.

  He moved to me slowly, and I had to consciously make an effort not to hold my breath.

  “Fair enough,” he told me. “We’ll work on getting to know each other better. But in the meantime . . . ” His hands reached down, grabbing both of my wrists.

  I watched those hands. They were so big. I never saw myself as particularly delicate or small. I was slender and fit, but not tiny. But as he grabbed my wrists, circling them with his fingers, I became hyperaware of just how delicate I was compared to him. How fragile.

  A strange thrill moved through me. Strange because it wasn’t only desire I was feeling. Mixed in there somewhere was a definite thread of fear.

  Why did that only enhance the desire? I almost didn’t even want to investigate it. Yes, it was perverse. But it was also exhilarating. Exhilarating and so much more.

  Exciting.

  Compelling.

  Intoxicating.

  Electrifying.

  So many things I hadn’t felt in too long to name, and I didn’t want to pass on any of them.

  He squeezed my wrists. Not to the point of pain, but
with just enough pressure to let me know his strength, which was formidable.

  “I won’t use restraints,” he said quietly. “Not until you’re ready. But I will hold you down. Can you handle that?”

  I found myself nodding jerkily, even as I wondered if I really could.

  I didn’t know why I just agreed to that, just like I didn’t know why I was about to have sex with a perfect stranger in the middle of the morning on a Tuesday.

  It felt dangerous, yet completely necessary.

  It was a while before I could look away from my captive hands and up into his cold stare.

  “Any other quirks of yours that you want to tell me about upfront?” I managed to ask him in a somewhat steady voice.

  He smiled, and it was colder than ever. “Not particularly.”

  Well hell, that was far from reassuring.

  He took a step back, still holding my wrists. “I don’t even know where to start with you,” he said, voice low, eyes on my body.

  That wasn’t reassuring either, but going by my body’s reaction to every alarming thing that came out of his mouth, it was becoming clear to me that maybe I didn’t want to be reassured.

  He moved closer again, took one captive hand and pulled it, palm first, to cup him. I moaned at the feel of him. The hardness of him, the foreign largeness. I rubbed him over his sweats, my heavy-lidded eyes on his cold ones.

  I suddenly found myself grabbing a handful of bare cock.

  I glanced down. He’d shifted his waistband down, exposing himself.

  My jaw nearly dropped, eyes going wide. He was fully aroused and huge.

  Holy shit, I thought. Oh no, I hadn’t thought that. I’d said it aloud.

  He seemed to get a kick out of it, which I didn’t think was good. This guy did not need any more strokes to his ego.

  “I take it your ex-husband didn’t measure up,” he said. Arrogant bastard.

  “I don’t think many men measure up to that,” just sort of slipped out of me. But fuck it all, it was only the truth.

  I ringed my fingers around his girth experimentally, licking my lips. My fingers couldn’t touch. I let him go, watching his heavy cock bob down heavily as I did it.

  I’ve always considered myself to be a passionate, sensual woman. I’ve enjoyed sex, not just the physical release but the intimacy of it, but this was something else entirely, like some new person was suddenly sharing space in my body.

  Never in my life before that moment had I felt a need like this. It was so acute it made my teeth ache.

  Never had I felt like a bitch in heat, but I did then. I stared at that cock, and I wanted it. Wanted to drop to my knees and beg him for it, any way I could get it, anywhere.

  “Your turn,” he said, his rough voice drawing my eyes back to his face.

  I licked my lips, mind gone blank, no concept of what he was asking or why. “E-excuse me?”

  He smiled his cold smile and pushed my hand back to his cock. “I took something off. Now it’s your turn. You take something off.”

  I glanced down at his sweatpants, hand feeling at him, memorizing his length with hungry fingers. I tugged at my other arm, but he held it fast, still gripping my wrist.

  “You didn’t take anything off,” I pointed out. “You just pulled something out.”

  He chuckled, and I glanced up at his face. I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed, or more fascinated than ever, that even when he laughed it didn’t reach those eyes of his.

  He pushed my hand away, dragging it behind my back, along with the other, gripping both of my wrists in one massive hand. The other went to my braid, twisting again, wrapping it around his fist, tilting my head back.

  My lips parted, eyes closing as I realized that he was finally going to kiss me.

  It wasn’t what I expected, that kiss. After all of his blunt statements, I’d expected him to be rough, to ravage from the start. He did not. Instead, his lips were soft, coaxing, easing mine open for the shockingly tender onslaught of his tongue.

  His body shifted, crowding mine against the counter, his hardness digging into my leg.

  I moved against him, impatient for more contact.

  He deepened the kiss until I was moaning. I tasted and sucked at his driving tongue as it plunged repeatedly to mate with mine.

  He groaned, shoving his enormous erection hard, hard, harder into my thigh. So hard I wondered if I’d have an oversized boner shaped bruise there tomorrow.

  He ripped his mouth away from mine, gasping. “Bedroom,” he said curtly, taking his hands off me and pulling away.

  I nodded, then began to move on unsteady legs toward my room. I could feel him at my back, his breath on my neck every drugging step of the way.

  I paused in the doorway to my bedroom, but his hard body nudged me all of the way into the room. That made me shoot him a glance over my shoulder.

  Every line in his face read unapologetic, so I knew it had been deliberate.

  “Raise your arms over your head,” he ordered me.

  I raised a brow at him, but did it, holding them high, arching my back, my aching breasts thrusting forward.

  His nostrils flared, and he stepped close behind me, so close I could no longer crane to see his face.

  His big hands settled on my hips, gripping into the fleshy part, testing it in a way that made me tremble.

  My arms started to lower, but a rough, “No, keep them up,” in my ear stayed them.

  His hands started skimming under my shirt, teasing at my belly.

  Abruptly he pulled it up and over my head.

  A muscle quivered in my stomach as the skin of my abdomen was bared.

  My shoulders drew up tight as, with rather impressive speed, he unsnapped my bra and tore it off my arms, tossing it carelessly to the ground.

  His hands ran from my shoulders to my fingertips with a feather light touch. I could hear my own breath panting out of me as he folded my wrists behind my head, held together close to my nape.

  He used that hold to nudge me, moving me closer to the bed.

  “All this needs is a bag over my head, and we’d have a perp walk,” I said, my wry tone spoiled by the fact that I couldn’t seem to breathe properly.

  He liked that, I could hear it in his voice as he responded, “If this is a perp walk, I need to do a better job of patting you down.” As he spoke, he shifted my wrists to one hand.

  I sucked in a breath as his free hand moved to my collarbone. I glanced down to watch as he slid it over my skin until it held my breast, watched it move with the rapid rise and fall of my chest. He ran a rough thumb over my nipple.

  “You’re trembling,” he rasped into my ear, making me tremble all the more. “Fear or excitement?”

  I licked my lips and gave him the truth. “Both.”

  “Are you wet?” he asked, hand snaking down my body, pushing into the waistband of my pants and going unerringly, aggressively, for my sex.

  “Yes,” I gasped, though he’d already answered his own question, his fingers rubbing over my slick folds.

  “You don’t normally do things like this, do you?”

  “Bring strange men home and lead them to my bedroom? Um, no. This is not a habit of mine.”

  “I’ll be sure to make it worth your while, then.”

  Somehow, impossibly, I believed that he would.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  Abruptly, he released my wrists, and I turned to look at him.

  He backed away, one step, and then another, his eyes on my breasts as his hands went to the bottom of his T-shirt. He shrugged it off, the material straining to the point I thought it’d rip as he dragged it off his shoulders.

  I sucked in a shocked breath as I took in the hard flesh he’d exposed.

  Scars were painted all across his granite torso. I don’t know why, I think it may have been his face, which was so handsome and young, and unscarred, but those markings caught me completely off guard. They were all shapes and sizes, ranging from
several little round ones (two of which were still fresh and pink) to long jagged cuts, the worst being a particularly big one that drew up along his side in a way that made it look like someone had literally tried to gut him with a knife.

  Somehow, I knew not to ask him the first question that popped into my head, which was, What happened to you?

  Instead I studied him for a long time, his cold eyes on me, his jaw held hard as he studied me back. Finally I settled for, “You’ve been shot recently.” It was an understatement. He’d been shot many times, and knifed, and if I had to guess what some of those marks were, he’d even been branded and burned.

  Tortured, I realized.

  This man, who was much younger than I was, had been brutally tortured. Repeatedly.

  Something inside of me, my strong maternal side I was sure, went soft for him.

  “Yes, I’ve been shot a time or two,” he grumbled out, sounding pissed. “Is that a problem?”

  I shook my head, even while I wondered if it was. Was he a criminal? He didn’t strike me as a cop, so what was the alternative?

  He seemed to see something in my face, utter shock perhaps, that had him reassuring me in a soft tone I’d never heard him use before, but I loved it and craved more as soon as I heard it. “I’ve lived a violent life. But, Lourdes, listen very carefully, because this is a promise: I’d never hurt you. Okay?”

  I nodded jerkily.

  “Aside from rough sex, that is,” he felt the need to add.

  I licked my lips and nodded again.

  “Very rough,” he continued. “But you won’t mind that. In fact, unless my instincts are wrong about you, soon you’ll be begging me for it.” As he spoke, he reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a handful of condoms, of the magnum variety.

  He was pushing his sweatpants down impatiently when he said, “Get on the bed. On your back. Arms above your head.”

  I went liquid even as I managed to comply.

  He tossed the condoms on the bed by my hip, leaning over me, arms bracing on either side of my ribs, eyes running over my body.

  He bit his lip appealingly, blinking languorously. “Your body . . . “ he began and trailed off.