Mystery Man (The Dream Man Series Book 1)

Hawk flipped me to my back.

“Baby,” I gasped. “I wasn’t done.”

He ground his cock into me. “You got a time limit up there, Sweet Pea,” he grunted. “You can’t bring it home, I take over.”

This was true. Hawk allowed the top for awhile. Then, if I couldn’t “bring it home”, he stopped allowing it.

Like now. Now, he pulled up my leg, kept it high with his bicep behind my knee, arm wrapped around, hand warm on my inner thigh and lifted up with his other hand in the bed, arm straight.

Then I watched his head drop so he could study our connection, his eyes heated, his face hungry. He liked what he was seeing. Just watching him, I felt a strong, pre-orgasm vibration.

Then he did that thing he does with his hips, I whimpered because I really, really liked that thing he does with his hips then he started driving into me again.

“Hawk,” I breathed, my hand trailing down, my fingers separating around his pounding cock, feeling our connection, the power of him riding me. Beautiful. Wet. Hard. Hot.

His eyes came to mine and he did that thing with his hips again, my neck arched and I came.

Not long after, Hawk did the same.

He released my leg and his heat and weight came to me. I took it gladly, welcoming it by wrapping all four limbs around him.

His face was in my neck and I glided my nose down his shoulder.

God, he smelled good.

His mouth came to my ear. “Got shit to do, babe,” he murmured.

It was morning. The morning after the girl posse meeting of the minds. The morning after he promised to handle me with care.

“Okay,” I whispered.

Even though he had things to do, again this was no first thing in the morning nookie, slam bam, thank you ma’am. His mouth came to mine and he kissed me lightly and again then again before he nipped my bottom lip.

Shit but I liked when he did that.

So much that when he started to roll off me, I rolled with him so I was on top, straddling him, my forearms in the bed, my breasts brushing his chest, my hair framing both our faces.

One of his hands spanned my hip, the other one gathered one side of my hair, holding it at my neck.

“Gwen,” he said softly.

God, I really loved my name.

I lifted a hand and put it to his face, my thumb moving over his brow, his cheekbone, to where his dimple would be if he was smiling then across his lips and he let me do this, his eyes locked to mine.

“Do you promise to handle me with care?” I whispered, my heart racing.

His hand at my hip curved around my waist pulling me down to him and his hand at my neck did the same so our faces were a breath away.

“Promise,” he whispered back.

“Swear?” I pushed.

“Swear, baby.”

“You had a hand up too, Hawk,” I told him.

“Dropped it awhile ago, Gwen.”

Shit. He had. He totally had.

I nodded then bent my head the quarter inch I needed to touch my lips to his. His arms got tight, he rolled me to my back and my lip touch became a long, hard, wet, delicious kiss.

His head came up and he asked, “You just give me you?”

“I’m gonna try,” I answered.

“All I can ask, Sweet Pea,” he muttered did the triple touch with his lips again, denied me the nip then stated, “We’re goin’ out tonight.”

Oh yeah. I liked that.

“Okay.”

“Dress sweet for me, baby,” he ordered.

“Okay,” I repeated.

He smiled down at me, his dimples popping out then I got the belated nip on my lower lip.

Nice.

* * * * *

“Babe,” Hawk answered his phone.

It was early afternoon and without the freezer full of frozen Twix bars calling my name, firebombs, drive-bys and commandos installing security systems, I’d had two days of uninterrupted, flat out work. I was getting ahead of the game. I had another author send me her files but the deadline was far away, so work was steady, I was golden and my invoices that month were going to be awesome.

“My insurance guy called,” I replied into the phone, wandering to the window, staring at the not-very-attractive scrub, hardscrabble and somewhat attractive, small-river-maybe-large-creek flowing by. “I need to meet him at my house.”

“When?” Hawk asked.

“Three,” I answered.

“I’ll send one of my boys,” Hawk replied.

“Thanks, baby,” I whispered, he didn’t respond so I went on. “Can I ask about tonight?”

“What about it?”

“Well, is it a little black dress and heels night? A glittery top with jeans night? Or a t-shirt and motorcycle boots night?”

“You own motorcycle boots?”

“No, but there are about a gazillion Harley Davidson stores in and around Denver. Maybe your boy can take me on a pit stop.”

“A gazillion?” he asked, sounding like he was smiling.

“Maybe a bazillion, just down from a gazillion.”

I heard a manly, deep chuckle.

Then, “Babe, not big on a woman in motorcycle boots.”

“Okay, that’s out,” I muttered and got another chuckle.

“Somewhere between dress and heels and tee and boots. That work for you?” he finally answered.

“Yes,” I replied then cried, “Oh! Meredith called. She wants to do dinner but she can’t make dinner at their house because clean up just started so she wanted to know if we want to meet them at Rock Bottom Brewery.”

“Call Elvira, tell her to check the schedule and give you my parents’ number,” he said.

“Your parents’ number?” I asked.

“They liked your folks, they’ll want to come.”

I lost sight of the scrub, hardscrabble and small-river-maybe-large-creek as my eyes went blurry. This was because it was one thing for our parents to be thrown together in a out-of-control family drama that involved cleavers and weeping but it was totally another to casually arrange a meeting of the parents like it was just any other dinner.

“Gwen?” he called.

“What?” I answered.

“Thought I lost you.”

“I’m here.”

“All right, so call Elvira.”

“’Kay.”

I got that out but I was incapable of further speech. It just hit me that my mystery man knew my parents, I knew his, he wanted me to set up a meet the parents dinner even though we’d already met each other’s parents, not to mention they’d met each other, and we were practically living together.

Therefore it just hit me that I was freaking way the fuck out.

And this was because he said that if I gave him me, he could find out that I’m treasure.

But he could also find out I wasn’t what he wanted.

But mostly I was freaking out because I just realized I really wanted to be what he wanted. I really wanted to be treasure. As in, really.

“Gwen,” he called again, sounding slightly impatient.

Oh no! I was making him impatient!

“What?” I answered.

“What’s up?”

I couldn’t tell him that.

“Um…” I quit speaking.

Hawk was silent. Then he sighed, another indication of impatience.

Shit!

“Gwen, baby,” he said softly. “What’d I promise you?”

I closed my eyes. He’d promised me that, no matter what, he’d handle me with care. And I was guessing that Cabe “Hawk” Delgado was the kind of man who kept his promises.

“Sorry,” I whispered then admitted, “Don’t mind me. Minor freak out. It happens.”

“Babe,” he replied, now sounding slightly amused.

“Hawk?” I was still whispering.

“Yeah?”

I sucked in breath then shared, “It happens a lot.”

“No shit?” he replied, definitely sounding amused now and not slightly.

I let out the breath.

Moving on!

“Don’t you have stuff to do?” I asked, “Beating infidels into submission, shit like that?”

“Sweet Pea, what do you think I do for a living?”

“Well,” I started. “You fly on your supersonic jet to hot, humid, tropical, war torn nations, execute your duties as a soldier for hire which means doing things like blowing up bridges and beating infidels into submission.”

“Hard to do that and get home to take you to dinner,” he noted.

“Hawk, your jet is supersonic,” I reminded him.

He burst out laughing and I smiled a relieved smile into the phone and listened.

When he was done laughing, he said, “Babe, I had a supersonic jet, your ass would be in it, I’d take you to a hot, humid, tropical nation but only so you could spend the days in a bikini and I could fuck you on the beach.”

Oh. Wow.

“Your daydreams are way better than mine,” I breathed.

“This shit gets done, Gwen, that won’t be a dream,” he replied, I sucked in another breath and then got dead air.

Nice.

* * * * *

When Hawk’s boy, Brett, parked in my drive, I saw the windows of my house boarded up, likely something Hawk or possibly Dad arranged.

I’d previously met Brett. He’d been one of the commandos who installed my security system. He was blond and blue-eyed and kind of had the boy next door thing going for him, if the boy next door had more weight and exercise equipment than Hawk. In other words, Brett was ripped and he was bulky.

But Brett wasn’t like Fang. Brett talked. I knew this because I knew Brett had worked for Hawk for three years. Brett also used to be in the Army. And Brett had a girlfriend named Betsy who was pregnant. They were getting married but not until after the baby came because Betsy didn’t want to be fat in her wedding pictures. I told Brett I could see that, I wouldn’t want to be fat in my wedding pictures either.

I let us in my house and Brett went to the security panel, punching in the code. This was a relief considering I’d forgotten it

Then I surveyed my living room.

“Boy,” I whispered, looking around at the destruction then my eyes went to Brett and I finished, “Bullets do a lot of damage.”

Then for some reason, perhaps because I was there when that destruction happened, that destruction could have happened to me and it brought it all back or because now my living room was even further away from being habitable and my furniture was shot up, my face scrunched and I burst into tears.

Shockingly, Brett folded me in his beefy arms and this was such a nice thing to do, I took advantage, circled his waist with mine and pressed in.

“This is all fixable, Gwen,” he said to the top of my hair and I nodded against his massive chest but didn’t reply so he went on. “And none of this is important. The only thing that might not have been fixable but is important didn’t take a bullet. Hold onto that.” Then his arms gave me a squeeze.

I was thinking Betsy was pretty lucky and because this big guy holding me made the unknown Betsy lucky and was also being so nice to me, I squeezed him back.

Fortunately I had just enough time to get myself together and wipe my face before the insurance guy arrived. He was just as stunned as I was. It was clear he didn’t often get called out to do estimations post-drive-by. Flood, yes. Fire, probably. Drive-by, no. He wasted no time in doing a tour, making notes, telling me the procedure, giving me some forms and he got out of there. I didn’t blame him. Lightning might not strike twice in the same place but a drive-by was a crapshoot.

Brett hung out downstairs while I went upstairs to peruse my closet for my outfit for the night. I also unearthed the big canvas bag that I used to drag my clothes in to the Laundromat when I didn’t have a washer and dryer. Hawk had a washer and dryer in the little paneled room in the space under the bed platform (this room also held a super deep bowled, huge sink that had a super-powered hose like spray attached and it was where I fancied he cleaned the blood off his weapons). I wanted to launder my caftan, wear it and assess Hawk’s response. I also planned a trip to the mall immediately after the Ginger trouble was over. My underwear was sexy in an understated way (or, at least, I thought so) but it was bought mainly for comfort, not style. It wasn’t out and out sexy and my sleepwear wasn’t sexy in any way. I was going to buy satin and lace and study the response.

I packed a small bag with my outfit, some jewelry and bits and pieces that would be nice to have around. I was zipping up the top and considering raiding my freezer for my Twix stash and adding it to my bag when I heard it.

Gunfire in the living room.

I froze for half a second, that alert-alive feeling assaulting my system instantly, my skin tingling, my heart beating, then I dashed to the phone as I heard someone thundering up my stairs and I hoped it was Brett. I really, really hoped it was Brett.

I still went to the phone and had it out of the receiver but didn’t manage to dial 911. An arm locked around my waist, wrenching me backwards, a hand batted mine and the phone clattered away. I twisted my neck to ascertain if it was Brett but I knew it wasn’t.

It wasn’t.

Then I kicked, screamed, bucked, elbowed and scratched and the man who had me was having trouble holding onto me.

Then someone else entered the room, I heard a weird popping and crackling noise, something was touched to my neck and I went out.