Page 60 of Damaged Protector
No, I’m really not.
“What do you mean?” she asked, and I realized I’d said that out loud.
“I went to Velvet Paradise tonight,” I blurted, watching as confusion painted her irises with a touch more green than usual. “I heard you say you were going there, and… I went too.”
Her head tilted to the side, those blonde locks brushing her bare arm. “Why didn’t you come say hi?”
“I didn’t want to bother you. You were out with your friends.”
Mallori’s lips twisted to the side, and she looked up toward the corner of the room, her mind processing before she dragged her gaze back to mine. My every inclination was to look away in shame, but I didn’t. I held steady, as uncomfortable as it made me to do so.
“You were checking up on me.”
“I wanted to make sure you were safe.”
Hurt flashed in her eyes. “Because you don’t think I can take care of myself or because you really care about me?”
My molars gnawed the inside of my cheek, and I finally mumbled, “The second one. I think you’re fully capable of taking care of yourself, Little Bee. I don’t trust that Scott fucker though. He’s had a problem with alcohol in the past. Cam and I told you about that.”
“So why did you go there tonight?”
Why indeed? I wasn’t sure if I truly knew the answer to that, so I gave her the only explanation that made sense to my addled brain.
“I guess I wanted to be nearby in case you needed me.”
“Hawk…” Her voice was softer, understanding curling around my name as it left her pretty mouth. And I’ll be damned if I didn’t want to hear it again. In an entirely different setting. Fuck.
Mallori’s rested her small hand on my jaw, her skin warming me even through my beard. “That was really sweet of you, but you do know I have a cell phone and could call you, right? If I needed you?”
A chagrined smile curved my lips upward, and her eyes dropped there for a brief second. “You can call me any time, Little Bee. And…” I prepared myself mentally to say the words I didn’t utter very often. “I’m sorry. I was being overprotective, and I went too far. It won’t happen again.”
Her lips twitched. “You’re not going to put a tracker on my phone or anything, are you?”
My laugh was a quick bark of surprise. “No, I won’t do anything that intrusive.”
“Then you’re not nearly as good a stalker as my mother,” she quipped before shocking me further. Her arms went around my neck, and she hugged me. “Thank you for being honest with me, Hawk.”
I closed my eyes and returned the embrace, inhaling the sugary scent of her body wash. Maybe a hint of vanilla in there too. It was sultry without trying to be.
The steady beat of her heart thumped against my arm, and I knew I needed to do something about these weird thoughts rambling around in my head. These thoughts of possession.
First opportunity I got, I needed to go out. I needed to prowl like the predator my nickname implied. Find a willing woman and fuck this nonsense out of my head.
That opportunity came the next Friday. Mallori informed me she was going out with some friends and that she’d be home late. She also promised that she would call me if she needed anything.
I’d reluctantly admitted to myself that I found my roommate exceedingly attractive, but I knew nothing was going to happen. Ever.
And to put it bluntly, I was horny. That’s how I found myself sitting in Exodus, a nightclub in downtown Dallas. It was a smallish joint that was known to cater to people with my particular… tastes.
It wasn’t a sex club. There weren’t rooms upstairs or sex out in the open. Exodus had simply become a place where a certain type of woman seemed to gravitate. Which brought the men who liked that type of woman.
At the mainstream clubs, like the one I’d followed Mallori to last weekend, it was a grab bag as far as pickups went. To quote Forrest Gump: You never know what you’re gonna get.
In my early twenties, I had been much less discriminating when it came to my sex life. In other words, I’d fucked any woman who was willing, but I’d often found myself less than satisfied after an encounter. Sometimes I’d get lucky and take home a woman who loved being dominated as much as I enjoyed doing it, but you never knew until you got things going.
That’s when I came up with my system.
Before I would take a woman home with me, I’d make them perform some kind of little task to see if they were suitable to my needs. To see if they would follow my directions without question.