He smiled and grabbed her hands once again, not willing to let her distract him. “Okay, you were a virgin,” he correct, “so I’m assuming you aren’t on any birth control?” he asked, then watched her face. When she stilled and looked at his eyes instead of his chest, he knew that his assumption was correct. “And I didn’t use a condom. When was your last period?” he asked.
Marissa blushed painfully and wanted to turn away but he wouldn’t let her escape. “Um…we should be safe,” she said, biting her lip once again as she counted back the days.
“How safe?” he asked.
She sighed and closed her eyes. “My period should be here any day now.”
He relaxed slightly but wouldn’t let her hands go. “You’ll tell me if it doesn’t come, correct?”
She nodded her head, painfully embarrassed about the topic.
He had to laugh at her expression. She’d gone from blushing because of desire to blushing because of embarrassment in only moments. And he thought each of those reactions were enchanting. He reached out to his bedside table and pulled open a drawer. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” he said and placed a box of condoms next to them on the bed.
Marissa turned her head to see what he’d done and her face flamed up once again. She ignored his laughter at her embarrassment and instead focused on what she wanted to learn. Which was what all this skin of his felt like.
“Since you’re prepared,” she said with a growing smile on her face.
He grabbed her hands once again, shaking his head as he lowered his mouth to her breast once again.
Marissa struggled to get her hands released. “This isn’t fair,” she cried out, gasping when his tongue flicked against her already pebbled nipple. “I want to touch you.”
“Not this time.” His mouth moved lower. “I’m not finished with my exploration of your delectable body.”
Marissa thought about arguing, but when his finger slid inside of her, she couldn’t really form any words. And when his mouth followed his hands, sounds screamed out of her mouth but they still weren’t any words. Or at least no words that made sense.
Chapter 4
Marissa rubbed the towel through her hair, a smile on her face as she thought about Zeke and their afternoon that had shifted into evening. And then into night. The man certainly was a passionate lover. It was actually fortuitous that she’d started to get a migraine yesterday because the nap she’d had yesterday was just about the only sleep she’d gotten. Zeke had been relentless and every time he’d touched her, she was just as wanton, just as desperate as the first time. Well, actually, she seemed to get more ravenous for his body.
And when he’d finally allowed her to explore his massive physique…she smiled at the memory.
Her phone rang and she searched through the bedroom to find her purse. When she found it on a chair over by the windows, she had to smile because the only way it could have gotten here was if Zeke had brought it to her.
“Hello?” she answered, hoping it was Zeke.
“Marissa? Are you okay?” Sierra asked.
Marissa instantly felt guilty that she’d completely forgotten about her sister over the past twenty-four hours. “Sierra? Where are you? You’ve been gone for days!”
She heard her sister sniffle and her panic, as well as her guilt, increased. “I’m fine. I’m at the hospital. It isn’t me, Mari,” she explained quickly, knowing that Marissa would assume the worst. “It’s a man that was at the party several days ago. Dad had him beaten, Mari. Badly. He’s barely alive and,” she sniffled again, obviously fighting the tears. “And he’s fighting for his life.”
“Who is he?” Marissa asked, sitting down in the chair next to her purse. Her body had chilled with her sister’s words. She was terrified for both herself and Sierra not to mention the stranger her sister was crying for. Marissa didn’t even have to ask how badly the man was hurt. Sierra had said the poor guy was fighting for his life. Sierra wasn’t into dramatics but very down to earth and realistic.
“I don’t know his name,” she whispered. “I just saw him at the party and knew something horrible was happening so I followed Don and Jimmy when they drove out of the garage. They just dumped him, Mari,” she cried, her voice muffled as if Sierra were covering her mouth from the pain of her words. “They dumped him in an alley as if he were a piece of trash.” Sierra stopped for a moment and Marissa could hear her taking a deep, strengthening breath. “But he’s not, Mari! I know this sounds ridiculous, but I just know that he’s a good man.”
Marissa sighed, understanding exactly what was going on. They’d always suspected that horrible things happened in that office but there was never any evidence for them to follow. “Sierra, where are you? Which hospital? And how do you know he didn’t do something horribly worse?”
Her sister sniffled once again. “I just know, Mari. And you don’t have to come down here. I’m fine. Really I am. I just needed to talk to someone who won’t think I’m crazy. Besides, they aren’t letting him have visitors yet. Just family and I don’t want anyone to recognize me or you. So I’m fine, I merely wanted you to know that I’m fine. But I’m going to stay here and make sure he’s okay. Don’t tell Dad where I am, okay? Can you cover for me?”
Marissa didn’t even hesitate when her sister asked this of her. “Of course. Don’t worry about that. I’ll make sure to tell Dad something.” They’d done this for years, covering for each other when one of them needed to get something done. Because their father was so strict he wouldn’t even allow them to stay over at friends’ houses to study in the evening or stay late at the library. They’d never had sleepovers nor attended the traditional high school parties unless one of his bodyguards chaperoned. The only way the two of them were able to have a somewhat normal life was with their special system of covering for each other that they’d developed over the years. “Let me know what I can do and check in with me, okay?”
“Thanks,” Sierra replied sadly.
With that, she ended the call and Marissa was left to figure out what to do, how to handle her father as well as Zeke. Would Zeke understand her sister’s need to protect a stranger? It was odd even for Marissa to understand why the two of them did things.