"This is the only way I can get to you if something bad happens. Don't lock it." It's not and I could pop the lock on her door in no time and be inside her room. Hell, even if she locks it while she's naked and I want to come in I could - but she doesn't need to know that. I take a seat on one of the couches in her room and think about a good way to introduce the next thing she is going to have to become used to. "Come here."
Shit, even to my own ears I sound harsh and demanding and I don't even mean to. She comes closer to me, close enough that I can reach out for her. I grab her wrist and pull her down so that she falls half on my lap and half on the cushion beside me.
"First lesson, don't ever get close to a man like me. If I'm close enough to reach out for you then I am close enough to grab you and then you got a problem."
Her eyes are big and her mouth is slightly open from the impact of the landing. "Y...you told me to come."
"Only to me. Someone else asks you to come closer you take that opportunity to back the fuck up. Understand?" She nods for me again and my eyes land on the pulse fluttering at her throat just under her ear. I'm not sure why I am telling her to stay away from everyone but me. The other guys wouldn't hurt her. But I like the way she obeys and I don't want her to give that to anyone else but me. "Say it."
Her mouth comes open like she might do as I ask but nothing comes out. Her brows are pulled down in a cute as fuck furrow and her eyes - let's just say she might come to me when I ask but there is going to be a time of reckoning for me where she gives it back to me. "Say it. Say I'm the only one."
What the hell kind of sick fuck am I? I need to get this girl as far away from me as I can but that isn't an option. Why the hell do I want her to say things that she shouldn't be saying? Especially to me.
"You're the only one." As soon as her mouth wraps around the word one I have to concentrate on my breathing. I'm not sure if she understands it's something sexual but my dick sure can tell. It has no problem reading the meaning behind being the only one she obeys, the only one she comes to...and for.
She needs a collar wrapped around her little neck to show everyone...what? To show everyone she's mine? She's not and I need to remind myself of that before I lose my god damn mind and do something stupid I can't take back. But a collar would tell people to stay the fuck away. My thoughts have my hand following behind and even I'm shocked to find it wrapped around her neck.
Feeling her pulse beat under my fingers like a bird fluttering to break free should not make my cock so hard or pre-cum leak from just this simple touch. I growl and sit her up so that she’s beside me. She looked like someone who isn't going to be able to keep the act up around other people and that is something I have to change in the time it takes to cook dinner. They're not asking a lot of me, are they?
I grab a pillow off the fucking floor where it fell and put it over my crotch. The idea of teaching Lexi makes me hard. The idea of collaring Lexi makes me hard. The idea of doing anything with Lexi is making me fucking hard and it's pissing me off because it's starting to look like it might just be Lexi herself that makes me fucking hard.
Yeah, I was engaged for a while but I was away on missions and she never lived with me. We were hardly ever together and there at the end we were going months without even seeing one another let alone fucking. I haven't had sex in almost a fucking year. Maybe I need to get laid. The mental image of Bambi pops into my head and my dick shrivels like it's forty below outside. This can't be good.
"We need to make sure you act comfortable around me, comfortable enough to sell this to the people watching." She has such big, expressive eyes. It's going to be hard. I take her hand and entwine my fingers in hers. She's looking at me like I'm a tiger who hasn't been fed in a long time and I'm beginning to wonder if she can tell how hard I am. "We have to...you know, do things that couples do in front of others so you won't do something stupid like jump or go all nervy."
I could have worded my comment better but that's just not who I am. Better she realizes what she's got to work with instead of trying to impress her. "What kind of stuff?"
"Well," shit, I'm drawing a blank. I wasn't big on public displays of affection or ownership with anyone I was with before. "I don't really know how normal people act. I guess like Ace and Evie or Jim and Libby." They hold hands, they kiss, they...do couples' shit.
"How do you act when you're with a girlfriend? I mean we should try to keep it as real as we can so we don't look like we're faking it, right?"
She wants real but she doesn't understand what she's asking for, "Lexi, I don't do shit like this. I don't hold hands. I don't sit with people in my lap and cuddle. I kill people who need to be killed and I finish the job that needs to get done."
"Okay, but surely you have a way of showing someone you like that you like them, right?" She just keeps trying to make me more human even as I tell her it isn't going to work. "How do you show other people you like someone?"
"Oh, you mean like ownership?" Her eyebrows arch up. Her words bring my mind back to a collar. I can tell by the look on her face that she didn't mean what I took her words to mean. I'm not dense by any means, but damn it's fun to see the emotions flash across her face. "I've never really had a woman I want to put my mark on. I guess when it comes time I'll...,"
"Please tell me you don't mean something like branding when you say 'put my mark on' someone?" she is tense for the first time since I brought her to her room. The question does more than piss me off. For the first time in my life, I feel something close to...worry for another person.
"Who the hell are you hanging around if the first thing you think of when I say I'm claiming a woman is me burning a brand into her?" I don't want to have to hunt some smart assed college kid down and slaughter him but depending on her answer that might be exactly what I do.
"I took a class on cults and the psychology of cult-like behavior last semester."
My whole body loosens back up. I was ready to go kill an entire campus of shitheads for her. I lean forward as I sink my hand into her hair so I can bring our faces closer and whisper in her ear. "Baby, when I put my mark on a woman she'll be walking around with a swollen belly and my baby in her womb. Yes?" I pull back to find her eyes and see exactly what I wanted from her, shock and surprise. "Men, real men, don't hurt women to show everyone in the room who they belong to. If a man ever tells you differently he isn't a man at all and you come get one of us. We'll take care of him." She gives me another nod before her little pink tongue comes out to lick her lips. I pull back farther to fully take her in. Lexi likes the idea of my kind of branding and where my morals lie. My eyes drop to her mouth before coming back up to her green orbs. For a long time, we sit there staring at one another just looking into each other's eyes.
A knock on the door has both of us standing up looking guilty as fuck about nothing whatsoever. We didn't do anything even remotely guilt-provoking. I yell for the knocker to come in and her sister comes through the door taking both of us in. I can tell she thinks something went on in here even if it didn't. "Dinner's ready. I just wanted to give you a head's up that Don will be there."
"We were just...practicing, Libby." Real good, kid. Make it sound even worse than what it looks like.
"Practicing what?" Her eyes flash to mine.
"She can't be jumping if we want people to think she's mine." Libby's mouth falls into a circle. "You didn't think of that when you sat this whole thing up?" She shakes her head before closing her mouth and wringing her hands.
"Jack...,"
"Don't start with me, Libby. If we're going to pull this off then she's going to have to be okay with me holding her fucking hand and sitting in my lap. You started this, now let me do my job and keep her safe."
"Fine, Jack, but if you hurt her I'll finish what the bullets started. Do I make myself clear?"