Kellan had been right: a bike was freedom. There was something about the rumble of it beneath her, and the feel of the wind against her skin that made her feel vibrantly alive. She didn’t just think it was the adrenaline wearing off, though she could feel her head spinning with that, it was the sensation of being utterly exposed to the world as it went by at sixty miles an hour.
In the past month she had been attacked not once, but twice. Her father had passed away. She had gotten married and moved in with a husband who kept claiming that he didn’t want her, but liked to grope her backside and came rushing to her rescue. Her mother had shown up out of nowhere. It was easily too much for any one person to take.
He didn’t take the straightest way home. She didn’t know if he was making sure they weren’t being followed, or that she had enough time to relax. Maybe both. She wrapped her hands tighter around his middle and leaned her cheek against his leather-clad back.
She loved him, and she knew it. When she had been afraid, it had been his presence she had turned to. She had known his arms, his scent. Maybe she’d always loved him; maybe she hadn’t loved him until that moment. She really couldn’t say. There was a small chance that she had loved him before he’d ever walked into her life. It didn’t matter, she knew it now, and she wasn’t going to let him go.
Too much in her life was easy to walk away from. Her father, school, and the not really friends she had made over the years. Hannah may one day be a friend; she was definitely trying.
When they turned down a familiar street she knew he was finally taking her home.
Rocco was bouncing from one side of the living room to the other when they walked in, clearly ready for a walk. Kellan gave him a perfunctory pat and moved past the spot where the leash was hanging and came back from his room with a pistol in his hand.
“This is for you.”
“You shouldn’t have.” She tried to keep her tone light. She didn’t reach for the gun.
“Emma, you’ve been attacked twice now. It’s time for you to be armed.”
“Statistically, a woman with little or no training with a weapon is more likely to have the weapon used against her than to use it well enough to be of help.”
“Where do you get all this?”
“I read.”
“Well, I can tell you from real experience that a chick with a gun can be scary enough to keep the bad guys back.”
She leveled her gaze at him. Her lips parted with every intention to explain how many women had been assaulted with their own guns, but he shoved it into her hands. The weight of it had her blinking. “It’s heavy!”
“It’s a weapon, not a feather. Keep it with you.”
“Fine,” she said, unwilling to argue. “Take the dog out before I have to clean up a mess.”
He gave her one final look before plucking up the leash and heading out the door.
She waited until he was gone to put the gun carefully on the table; images of it accidentally going off filled her head. Emma knew they were ridiculous, but she couldn’t stop them from happening anyway. She much preferred Aikido, or other forms of martial arts for self-protection. Guns were too easy to take away, too easy to use. It took passion to punch someone. It took a muscle jerk to pull a finger.
With a few minutes to herself she headed to the bedroom. Her funeral dress felt heavy as she tugged it off her shoulder and tossed it across the room like a memory she already wished she could forget. There were too many of those lately. With a careless gesture she undid her long hair, brushing it out as she mentally picked out pajamas.
Too many bad memories lately. Too many bad memories that made up her life. All she wanted, all she’d ever wanted, was a nice, quiet life. She wanted to not have to look out a window and worry. She wanted to find a good man, have a baby or two, and make a simple life.
She loved Kellan, but life with him could never be simple.
Emma sighed at herself and heard the beep of her phone. She glanced at the message. It was Kellan. Keep the gun with you, not sitting out somewhere.
She stuck her tongue out at the screen and typed back, How did you know?
He responded a few minutes later with, I’m not a college boy, but I can read you like a book.
It brought a smile to her face. With a dramatic sigh that no one heard she went into the living room and plucked the gun off the table. It was still heavy. She lugged it back to her room and put it on the table next to her bed. There, she thought, he can’t complain about the location now.
Emma didn’t want him to complain. She wanted him to like her. No, she amended, she wanted him to love her. Or at least admit that he felt something for her besides respect for her now deceased father.
She hadn’t even realized what she was planning until she pulled on a red satin nightgown. The shade of it brought out the natural hue in her cheeks, made her skin look luminescent. The fabric was dark and clingy, cupping the natural shape of her breasts so her nipples stood out like thumb tips. The skirt wasn’t particularly long, but there were high slits that flashed a good amount of thigh every time she walked.
Emma had bought the nightgown as a joke. Today she wasn’t laughing. She let her hair fall around her face. She knew she looked good; it didn’t take much. She wondered how much it would take to seduce Kellan, her husband.
She’d never tried seducing a man before. The one or two who had fumbled their way into her pants hadn’t been all that interesting, and hadn’t sparked her desire to try again. But Kellan was different, his presence was magnetic. The touch of his lips had her toes curling in a way she had always thought was pure myth.
She planned on finding out exactly how much her toes could curl tonight.
When the front door opened she pulled a robe over her shoulders. She took one last look in the little mirror. She didn’t look half bad, she decided. In fact, she looked good. She ran her fingers through her hair, making it look sensually rumpled. She didn’t bother with makeup, though she was tempted. It was too late anyway, and chances were it would just get all messed up.
“Emma?” he called.
She stood up and opened her bedroom door. “This is it,” she whispered to herself. She walked out of the bedroom and looked at him. It must have started to rain because Kellan was damp with droplets. Rocco shook off his own wet and pranced around her legs.
“Oh no,” she said, sidestepping the mutt, “you go lay down in your bed. You are all wet.”
While Rocco didn’t understand the whole statement, his ears pricked at the phrase “go lay down.” With an aggrieved huff he wandered off to Kellan’s room, leaving the two humans very much alone.
“I called Rudy while we were on a walk. Turns out Samantha is the one who told your mom to come.”
Emma felt a lash of heat ripple through her. “Oh really?”
“Yeah, I don’t know what she was thinking.”
Emma looked into his face. His brows were smooth and his eyes open wide enough that she could see that he really didn’t know. For all his talents with people, he really was oblivious. “Then you are an idiot.”
“What?”
Emma shook her head, making her loose hair fan out around her face. “She wants you. She wants you bad, and she thinks I am standing in the way of you having her.”
He continued to look confused. “But you aren’t.”
Emma chuckled, low and unamused. Her eyes were glittering with the kind of anger that was born out of frustration and possessiveness. It wasn’t quite jealousy, but it was pretty close. “But she thinks so. She’s made it clear she doesn’t want me around. I can’t blame her. I’m definitely the better woman.”
His lips curled into a smile. “I won’t argue about the better woman thing. It’s really no competition from where I am standing.”
She liked the way that sounded. Maybe seducing him wouldn’t be that difficult. “Oh really?”
He ran his tongue over his lips, they glittered softly. She wanted to kiss them, wanted to melt into them. She managed to keep her distance, at least for the moment.
“Listen, I hate to burst your bubble, but even if you weren’t around, I’m not going for Samantha. I don’t like her.”
“I know I’m not the worldliest person when it comes to this kind of thing, but I’m fairly aware that people can have sex with someone they don’t like.”
He shrugged and tugged off his damp jacket. With a haphazard gesture he tossed it across the back of the couch. She frowned at him. She didn’t like to think of herself as a nagging housewife, but she had spent her boring hours trying to make his bachelor pad a little less cluttered. Besides, rainwater could make things moldy.
With a stern look from her he picked it up and hung it in the closet. “Yeah, all right. I’m sure I could. But that girl is like a virus. She likes to latch on and stick around even when you are done with her. And yeah, she’s hot but there is nothing else there. She doesn’t talk, she isn’t nice, and hell, I’ve heard from a couple of the guys that the sex isn’t that great.”
“Poor Samantha.” Emma took a deep breath and blew it slowly out of her nostrils. She wasn’t going to let that woman ruin this moment. She wasn’t even here. With a deft movement she tugged the sash loose and opened up the robe. “Poor, poor Samantha.”
Maybe it was the tone in her voice, or the flash of skin as the robe opened. Either way, Kellan’s head whipped towards her. “What are you wearing?”
“Not much.”
“Jesus, woman. Put yourself away.” He took a step back. His misty hazel eyes were wide.
“No.” She kept her tone firm. With more grace than she had known she was capable of she sauntered over to him. She thought of Hannah’s expert sashay. His gaze darted down to the swell of her breasts, the movement of her hips. “I don’t think so. You see, I plan on using you tonight.”
He blinked as if she’d struck him across the face with a pan. “You…what? Use me? How?”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, going up on her toes. Her lips nearly brushed his as she talked. “Kellan, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m stressed. This is worse than finals. Hell, this is like three weeks worth of finals with no notes and no study time. Everything in my life is screwed up one way and down another and I am just not okay with that. What I want, what I need, is to relax…and you are real good at helping me with that.”
He cleared his throat. “You think so?”
“Well, you’ve put your mouth on me often enough to give me an inkling. More than that, our little encounter in the kitchen had me thinking that you’d be real good at making me forget all my problems.”
She felt his muscles tense, the clutch of his fingers still at his sides. He was like a wire that she was tightening. If she kept going, she was almost sure he would break. She wanted him to break for her. After all these years wondering what Kellan would be like, she wanted the reality of it.
“Emma, I’m not sure this is a good idea.” He didn’t move as her arms slithered around his middle.
She stepped close enough that her breasts brushed against his chest with every breath. His hands flexed at his sides. She ran her tongue over her own lips and felt him shudder against her. His eyes had zeroed down into pinpoints.
“I’m sober,” she reminded him. “I am stone cold sober and I just had a near death incident. Forgive me if I want a big strong man to make me remember why I’m alive.”
“Emma, seriously.” He stepped back suddenly, pulling himself out of the ring of her embrace. She stumbled just a little, and all the confidence she had gained evaporated.
She huffed out an uneven breath. This was a mistake. She never should have thought she could seduce him. She had no practice, and he’d had girls like Samantha throw themselves at him. Just the thought of that plastic Barbie had her blood humming with a vengeful need. Sure, he might say he didn’t want the leggy bimbo, but what guy would really say not to that?
“Fine.” She whirled away and took two long steps down the hall. Her robe was like a cape behind her, fluttering with her frustration.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“To call Joe. If you won’t help me, maybe he will,” she responded flippantly.
“He won’t. You are my wife.”
She whirled back. Her eyes turning to hot slate. “Oh, am I? I mean, it’s on paper, but you’ve made it very clear to everyone that you aren’t really my husband. So, by default, I’m not really your wife. Joe’s a smart boy, college and everything. I’m sure he has had practice. Yes, you know, the more I think about it, the more I like it. He’s more my speed anyway.”
The words hit home. She saw his jaw become a hard angry line. He closed the distance between them and pressed his body to hers. She felt herself pinned between the cold wall and his hot form. Bright hazel eyes flickered down at her. He gripped her arms and pushed them against the plaster. She pushed herself towards him.
“You play a dangerous game, little girl,” he hissed. “I know what you’re doing.”
“I am not a little girl.” She surged against him, molding her body to his like a wave of barely restrained need. His hips twitched in response. “Maybe you haven’t noticed.”
“I’ve noticed.” His fingers skimmed down her wrist, towards the curve of her side. “I’ve been doing nothing but noticing. You’ve been driving me nuts.”
“Prove it,” she baited.
With a growl his mouth came down, hers went up. She couldn’t call it a kiss, not really. It was an onslaught of lips and tongue and teeth. Their mouths mated like it was a battle. He smelled like rain and masculinity and she wanted to drown in it.
“Do you want this?” He ground himself against her.
She felt the unrelenting throb of him shove against the tenderest part of her. “Yes!” Her voice echoed off the walls. “Yes, I do! Give it to me, Kellan. Give it all.”
“Fine,” he snarled. “Fine.”
With one move he hefted her up and took her into her own room. The lights were off and he didn’t bother turning them on. Her eyes weren’t quite adjusted to the dark when she felt her back greet the familiar cotton of her bedspread. She heard rather than saw fabric hitting the floor, the slide of a t-shirt over flesh, the metallic whisper of a zipper. When he prowled over her supple form she knew he was naked without touching him.
He perched over her, the foldout bed shifting with his weight so she slid into the natural sag of the mattress. Her newly adjusted eyes could make out the outline of his wide body sinking down her own form. The distant sliver of light that came through the gaps around the door illuminated the wrought muscles in his arms.
Her hands found him in the dark. Warm, his skin was so deliciously warm. She traced the solid outline of his body. Her fingers sliding up one way and down the other, touching every bit of his back. She could feel the outlines of scar tissue. Some were the satiny lines of tattoo work. Some were the deeper, harsher rigid skin of long healed battle wounds.
His palms slid beneath her red dress and cupped against her womanhood. She couldn’t see what he did. All she could do was feel it. She arched, acutely aware of his fingers sliding over her sex. She was shocked with how wet she was, suddenly and completely wet.
“Kellan,” she gasped.
“Not quite ready,” he whispered in the dark. “Let’s fix that.”
He slid one finger into her, and she groaned. She was enthralled with his touch. That single digit worked in and out, caressing her walls until he found that perfect spot, the perfect rhythm, and then he played it relentlessly. When she was soft and pliant with her need he slid a second digit into her. The hungry stretch of her body welcomed the pleasure.
“There’s my sweet college lady,” he murmured against her thigh. His breath was cooler than the heat of her skin. “Give in.”
“To what?”
“Pleasure.”
His hand shifted before he kissed her His tongue slithered over her, quick and light, like the kiss of a snake. It darted over her again and again. His hand moved in countermotion to his tongue. Shocks of pleasure pulsed through her with every movement.
“Oh god,” she moaned. “Oh god, don’t stop.”
A fire began inside her body, stoked by the way he teased her. She began to move her hips, arching against the need he fed. She was a furnace, and he stoked her. He seemed to know just how she needed to be touched, tended, and pleasured.
“Is this what you need?” His breath tickled along her body.
“More,” she groaned. “God give me more.”
She felt his breath on her thigh when he chuckled. “Impatient little thing, aren’t you?”
She wrapped her legs suddenly around his middle. With a shove of her body she had him against the bed with her riding his chest.
“Damn, woman!” He laughed. “Those are some slick moves.”
“Oh, sweetie, you have absolutely no idea.”
She bent over him so her breasts, heavy and soft, swept along his face as she moved down his body. The pert peaks of her nipples drew their way down his naked form until she mounted his lap with pride. Her nightgown, still in place, made a shimmering fan over his hips, blocking either of them from seeing when she rocked her body against his in a parody of lovemaking.
He was so hard against her. She could feel him like steel encased in satin, pushing against her soaked lips. She moved over him again, her body a wave of sensuality.
“Mmm, Emma.” He reached to her hips, gripping the rounded flesh against his callused palms. “You teasing me?”
“Only for a little while,” she promised. “Just until you feel like you are going to break.”
She rocked over him, reveling in the power of keeping him pinned against the bed with her own body. Kellan Mathers was hers, if only for this moment. Would he want her again after this? Would this be their only night together? She hoped not. She pushed that thought away. It did not matter if this were only for a moment. It mattered that it was happening now, that this could never be taken away.
“I’ve wanted you for so long, Kellan.” She ran a single hand down his tattooed chest. “So goddamned long. I wanted to draw this out, take my time, but I don’t think I can.”
“Emma,” he said. His eyes glittered up at her in the dark like ghosts on a gray lake. “Emma, we got all night. Do what you want, baby. Do what you need.”
It was just what she wanted to hear. For all her planning of seduction she hadn’t lied. She wanted to feel alive. Her body ached with a need to be caressed, wanted, and given release. It was a heavy feeling, and she wanted to feed it.
She steadied her body by splaying her fingers across his chest. If she concentrated, she could see his eyes, those smoky hazel eyes that had haunted her teenage years. She could feel the smoothness of his skin beneath his palms. Emma pushed back, feeling the blunt tip of him pushing against her slick opening.
“Oh yes,” she purred.
She rolled her hips, stirring her body on top of his. The hot weight of well used fingers sliding over her hips to cup her breasts made her tremble. Awareness fed into every part of her body. She felt the cotton blanket beneath her knees, the sleek caress of his skin against her calves. His breathing pushing her hands up and down on his chest. Everything fed the fire that he had started. Heat burned along her skin.
It had never been like this for her before. Part of her wanted to understand it. Was it Kellan? Was it all those years of pent up frustration? Was it everything that was going on? Probably a mix of all three.
“Kellan…”
“Go on,” he coaxed. “Go on, take me, Emma.”
Her knees clamped against his naked hips. A thin layer of sensual sweat spilled between them. She shoved herself backwards, piercing her body with his. One moment she was empty, the next she was full of him. The weight of her body pushed him to the very depths of her.
The world fell away. The near dark of the room made the sensation all the more intimate. She could barely see him, but she could feel him. She felt the spring of hair on his legs against her ankles, and she heard the hitch of his breath become a hungry moan as she took him inside of her.
“Hot,” he groaned, “so damn hot.”
She moved, she shifted her body up and down on top of his, plunging him into her over and over again. But it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. Her body simply would not cooperate with the depth of her desire.
“More,” she pleaded. She didn’t know what would bring her. She hoped he did. “I need more.”
“Grab the back of the bed,” he coaxed.
“Hmm?” It made no sense to her. “The bed?”
He didn’t repeat it. He gripped her hands and put them on the back of the couch. She dug her fingers into the soft cushion. The fabric bunched against her palms. He grabbed her hips hard enough to keep her still. His fingers laced over the swell of her buttocks. For a moment she didn’t understand what he was doing, and then he levered into her. The tip of his shaft breached the deepest parts of her. Dimly she knew it should hurt, but it didn’t. It was pleasure with the fine edge of pain.
She must have made some sound because he went completely still beneath her.
“Emma?”
“Don’t stop,” she hissed at him.
He took her at her word and pounded into her from below. She felt every stroke of his thrusting body as he surged up and up. His shaft pushed deep, and deeper. She held on for dear life, bending her body to contain his rigid shaft.
Then, quite suddenly, the pain of it disappeared. It was as if her entire body accepted the sensual assault. His thrusts became heavy and erratic. It was glorious.
“Oh god!”
“There we go,” he grunted. “Take it, Emma. Take it.”
The fire whelmed inside of her. Her skin felt too tight.
“Kellan, oh god, Kellan!”
The fire burst with such heat that for a moment it blinded her. Her hips moved of their own accord, drawing every shock wave of pleasure through her. She was flying, and then it went higher. One moment she was inside of her body, the next she was falling into an inferno of ecstasy.
“Emma.” The strangled sound of that one word made her clutch around him.
“Don’t stop,” she gasped.
His body twitched, taking on that uneven rhythm of a man too close to the end to have anything resembling control. Rough hands raked over her tingling body as he struggled to make it last just a little more.
He cursed, over and over again, his voice jagged with desperation. A moment later he cried out and filled her.
# # #
The pullout bed was small with Kellan in it, but Emma couldn’t bring herself to mind. At some point they had turned on the lights, and all she could see was his long legged form laid out against the rumpled sea of her bed sheets. It looked good.
“Relaxed yet?” he asked.
“Getting there.” She smirked. She was tucked into the muscular curve of one tattooed arm.
He lay back, stretching his free arm back over his head. She watched his stomach do a fascinating dance with the moment. “All right, you just let me know when you are ready for round two. I’ll see what I can do about the rest of your tightly wound body.”
She laughed and shook her head. Her finger traced along the collarbone, and then down the center of his chest. The light brought out the colors of his tattoos. Most of them were dark ink, grayscale works of art forever imprinted on his skin, but a few had vibrant color in them.
“Did you know, in Russia, the tattoos that convicts and criminals have are basically their record? They mark what crimes they have committed on themselves like a body résumé.”
He raised one brow at her while her finger trailed over the largest one on his chest. It was just Beasts, spelled out in Old English script. She couldn’t help but be impressed by the line work involved, like ink-driven poetry.
“Arkaday Bronnikov made a big study of it between the 1960s and the 1980s. He wanted to understand exactly why criminals liked to tattoo themselves. What it was about ink on the skin that marked a person as other.” She squirmed into a half sitting position, pillowing her head on the palm of one hand while the other continued the trek across his body.
Her eyes flicked up to his face. His eyes were closed but his lips were curled into a gentle smile. The locks of dark hair had more curl to them than they’d had before, probably from all the sweating. She reached up and brushed it out of his face.
He glanced down at her. “Did he figure out why?” He lifted his head up so his eyes could follow her fingers as she spelled out the name of the club that had affected her life since childhood.
“Well, he didn’t, but a few sociologists have proposed that it goes back to warrior cultures. Many societies in which the warrior, or hunter or whatever name you want to use, was exalted using their scars to tell a story. Over time they added ink to wounds to make the scars last longer. Over time needles and ink replaced this. Their best warriors used this as a kind of bragging.”
“Yeah, I can tell you that criminals totally love to brag.” His gentle smile turned into a wide grin.
She smirked and sat up completely, tucking her legs close to her body. She leaned over him, her form still clad in red satin. “Can you tell me that criminals see themselves as warriors?”
He seemed to really think about it. Emma liked that. Her finger moved from the marking at the top of his chest to the larger picture on his arm, an attractive woman with flowing hair straddling some bike parts. At least she assumed they were bike parts.
“I do,” he admitted with a small hint of pride. “Most of the club does. Hey, I thought you were into, like, animal science. Why are you studying tattoos and criminals?”
Her gaze flicked up to his face. Her lip quirked up to one side. “Really? I mean, how weird that a girl who grew up around a criminal subculture might be interested in understanding it.”
“You could have just asked.” He patted his chest. “We would have answered.”
She shrugged. Her gaze slid away to focus on a completely uninteresting fold in the sheet. “Yeah, well. That would have taken me admitting that I didn’t know to begin with, that I didn’t pay attention, and I would have hated that. I like showing off what I know, not what I don’t.”
“You like to brag, too.” He poked a finger to her belly.
“I am my father’s daughter.” She sighed. “No matter how hard I tried not to be.”
He patted her hip. “Tell me about the Russian dude with the tattoo fetish. Archie…Bro…something”
“Arkaday Bronnikov.” She laughed. It was amazing how Kellan did that. She could have broken, she could have let herself become blanketed in her own self-doubt at her family, but he gave her a way to feel better, a way to talk. “He didn’t have a fetish, he had an interest.”
“Sounds the same to me.”
“Remind me to explain the difference between interests and fetishes later.” She smiled and waggled her brows.
“Man, you know, it’s kinda hot when you talk all this shit.” His hands went from her hips upwards to pull the satin fabric up. He revealed the creamy flesh in slow inches.
She watched him as he kept pushing the fabric farther and farther up her body. Her arms lifted above her head and the fabric came with it. The breeze was cool on her nipples.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“What?” She tried to sound as innocent as possible.
“You have a tattoo?” His grin was brilliant. “Are you serious?”
She rolled her eyes, dipping her head as her cheeks flamed with a blush. “I am my father’s daughter.”
“What is it?” He drew his finger over the patch of skin beneath her breasts, marked with the single snake twined around a rod. A simple V over the middle of it.
“The Rod of Ascelpius.”
“Is that, like, a medicine thing?”
“Yeah, I mean, okay most people know the caduceus, which has two snakes, rather than the single one. It is a common symbol of the people who take the Hippocratic oath and all that. You see it all over medical facilities and similar places. The rod and the snake are associated with an ancient Greek god of healing and medicine. The dual snake, with the wings and all that, was made for the US Medical Core, and got really popular, despite the fact that this is the more historically correct version.”
“Why?” he asked. He put a single arm around her back and pulled her unto his lap. He was still soft, the loose satiny skin of his masculinity pressed against her still damp folds.
“Smart people make mistakes, too.”
He grinned and sat up, placing a single kiss along the tattoo. “I like it”
She wiggled, and she could feel how much he liked it. He was beginning to swell against her. “Oh really?”
“Tell me more.” He kissed a line beneath her breasts, his lips trailing beneath the heavy swell. “Keep talking. I like the way you talk about all that smart shit.”
“Tell you more about what?” She gasped as his tongue darted out to caress along her breast. “Tattoos?”
“Mm-hmmm,” he purred, his teeth grazing along the tender flesh. “Tell me more.”
She did. Between kisses and licks along the bottoms of her breasts she gasped out symbolism and criminology, but her eyes fluttered back when his mouth wrapped around her taut nipple. Her hips rolled against him instinctively. He suckled at her, one strong arm wrapping around her back as she bucked.
“Kellan.”
Her hands sank into his dark locks of hair. They were curls of obsidian against her fingers, wrapping languidly around the digits. His lips suckled until her flesh puckered with the movement. A tingle started somewhere between her breast and his lips, arching along her skin with potent pleasure. The moment the pleasure edged into too much, he released her nipple.
He went from one breast to the other, back and forth, back and forth until she was dizzy with need.
“God, Kellan.”
“What?”
“You are so damn good at this.”
“Am I?” His eyes flickered with masculine pleasure.
She tightened her fingers in his hair and he gave a hiss. It wasn’t a painful one. She tugged again and his head fell back. “You know you are.”
“You are a kinky lady.”
“You like it.”
“Let me show you how much.”
He rolled her over onto her back and pressed his shaft to her opening. He was already hard; she felt the weight of it against her thigh. She made a low sound as his mouth went to her neck. It was not a soft or gentle tasting of skin, but the dragging of teeth down tender flesh.
“Oh yes,” she whispered.
He sat up, and she watched the long line of his flat stomach as he pumped the first inch of himself into her. He circled his hips, stirring her open. His hands wrapped over the curves of her thighs, parting her legs until her knees touched the bed. She felt exposed, and open in a way that went beyond the physical.
She ran her tongue over her lips, watching him shift between her thighs, skillfully keeping that blunt tip of himself rooted inside.
“Goddamn, you are pretty,” he whispered, starring down at her. She felt an unexpected blush rise to her cheeks. He circled his hips again and it sent sparks humming through her.
“Kellan?”
“Yeah?”
“Ravage me.” She pumped her hips towards him. “Make me forget the world.”
He gave a grunt of satisfaction and shoved himself into her.
Had she been unprepared it would have hurt, but her body was so pliant for his that all she felt was the sharp edge of rough pleasure. Her hands dug into the sheets and his fingers dug into her flesh. Kellan held her completely still as he did it again. With the lights on, she could see every hypnotic play of his body as he pumped himself into her.
“Like that?”
“Oh!” she gasped. “Do it again.”
He did. She felt him drive himself against the primal part of her need. She had always thought of roughness as inelegant and unnecessary, but she had been wrong.
His eyes glittered down at her as his hips picked up speed. The wet slap of their bodies echoed off the walls. She could feel each individual finger on her legs, keeping her open. A dull ache bloomed beneath his touch. There would be bruises in the morning, but she didn’t care. She felt wild and reckless, and she wanted to be taken past the point of thought.
“More,” she gasped. “Kellan, give me more.”
He fell on top of her, releasing her legs and mating his mouth to hers. His tongue plunged between her lips even as he plunged between her thighs. Her arms wrapped around his back and she clutched at him, her nails digging into his shoulders.
A layer of sweat formed where their bodies touched. It was a tantric full body mating that made her mind spin. They slipped against one another with every raw movement. There was no practiced, careful rhythm as there had been the first time, just a desperate need to feel one another. It rode the edge of too much and yet not quite enough. Emma dug her nails in hard. He tore his mouth away from hers and let loose a wild sound that drove her crazy.
“Harder,” she demanded. “Damn you, Kellan, harder.”
He pulled out of her, and she whimpered. He grabbed one hip and rolled her to her belly, lifting her backside into the air. He slipped along her cleft, once, twice, and then he was back inside of her. Her nails dug into the sheets as his hand slid up the sweat soaked line of her back. It cupped her shoulder, holding her against the mattress.
“Yes! Just like that, Kellan, just like that.”
“So beautiful,” he groaned as he levered into her over and over again.
Her body bounced, jerked with the movement, and she loved it. She could feel him pushing, pounding into the deepest parts of her body. Her orgasm came on her without warning. There was no steady, glorious build, just a wild, desperate breaking. It was blissful, unbearable, and liberating. She didn’t care, sinking into the tempest of her ecstasy as the unchecked pulse of their lovemaking crashed around them.
When it was over she slid against the sheets. Someone had left claw marks in them. Emma was only dimly aware that it was her. When she poked at them in the pleasant lethargy of afterglow he smirked.
“I think you did the same thing to my back.”
She glanced down at him. “Did I?”
He rolled over and showed her the ragged red marks that went from his shoulders down to the middle of his back.
“Oh my god, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you dare.” He wrapped an arm around her middle and hauled her down to him. His lips were gentle when he pressed them to hers, but firm. “I liked it.”
She smiled, and bumped her forehead against his. “Perv.”
He shrugged and settled back against the ruin of her bed. “There are worse things I could be.”
“True enough.” She settled against him, tossing one leg over his hip. There was an ache in the movement that told her she was definitely going to be bruises.
“Your mind all settled yet?”
She thought about it for a moment, then laid a kiss on his shoulder. “Yeah, I think it is.”
“Good, because I think I’ve only got one or two left in me tonight, and if you need more than that, I might have to wave a flag.”
“Poor you.”
He kissed her again. “No, no, poor you.”