TEN
Alex couldn’t explain, even to himself, why the hell the thought of her leaving, running, affected him like it did. It made him crazy, made him wild. Made him determined to show her exactly why she wasn’t walking away from Somerset, or from him.
He’d warned her he was hard, warned her he wouldn’t be an easy lover, yet when his lips came down on hers, he found himself pulling back, holding back, more eager for the heat and seductive pleasure than the wild, hard clash of pure lust.
There was something about her small, fragile body that made him feel bigger, stronger than he was. Something about the strength of her hunger that filled him with a sense of awareness, of the primitive possessiveness that he had been fighting for years.
Janey was different. There was something so special, so intrinsically unique, about her, that he knew she would never recede into the back of his memories as every other woman had.
Janey would always demand his attention. Without design, without even trying; if she was near, she would always enchant his senses.
A terrifying thought for a man who had ensured that no woman ever chained his soul. If he had enough sense left inside him to think.
The moment his lips touched hers, there was no thought. There was nothing but Janey. Her lips opening beneath his, wild and hungry as her arms curled around his neck and she all but climbed his body in her attempt to get closer.
He clasped her neck, feeling its fragility beneath his palm. He could feel her pulse pounding in the side of her neck, and beneath his fingers he could feel the tension building at the back of the slender column.
Her shy little tongue touched his, then licked, sucking his tongue into her mouth. She moaned as his lips slanted over hers.
She was as untamed as the wind. He had felt it in her, sensed it in her, even before he saw her dancing at that damned bar. Before he felt her body swaying, moving against his, and saw the exquisite joy she found in the dance.
Now he’d show her a different dance.
“You think it’s so easy to walk away,” he murmured against her lips. “Get up in the morning and walk away from this. I dare you.”
He deepened the kiss, leaning her into the wall as he lifted her, forcing her legs around his waist and pressing his cock between her thighs as he braced her against the wall.
One hand held her neck, the other her ass. His fingertips caressed and stroked as his tongue commanded her lips, her mouth. Deep, wicked kisses. Kisses that seared his soul even as those desperate moans echoing in her throat became more imperative.
Her hands were at the back of his head, trying to hold him to her. Sharp little nails pierced his scalp, adding to the sensations. He could feel the dominance, the hard-core sexuality inside him rising to the fore. But it didn’t overwhelm the kiss. Something else, a heavy vein of gentleness, a need for tenderness, tempered yet heated him further.
God, he was burning for her. His balls were on fire, his cock harder than it had ever been. If he didn’t get her to a bed then, he was going to end up fucking her against the wall.
He moved, stumbled a bit, trying to kiss her and get them to her bedroom at the same time. He wasn’t about to let her go yet. To release those lush, pouty lips that moved beneath his, suckled at his tongue and moaned with such earthy pleasure.
Damn her. She was twisting him in so many different directions he didn’t know what the hell to do with the feelings he could feel breaking free inside him.
He’d never known this rich, desperate tenderness for any other woman. Tenderness mixed with a lust so overwhelming he wondered if he would survive it.
Laying her back on her wide bed, Alex rose over her, holding her hips to him as he settled against her, both hands clasping her head as he moved his lips from hers to her jaw, then her neck.
He could feel the mark she’d left on him burning against his skin. Her mark. A brand. He’d never allowed another woman to mark him. The primal wash of lust he’d felt when she had done it, though, nearly had his cock pumping his seed into his jeans. And it created a hunger. A hunger to mark her just as effectively. To brand her. To leave his stamp of ownership on her.
Her neck arched and tilted to the side as he felt her breathing become harder, rougher. His lips slid over her neck, moved to the juncture of her neck and shoulder, where he knew she was most sensitive. He licked the spot, kissed it, then opened his lips over it and drew the tender skin into his mouth as he bit down on her.
She jerked against him as though electrified. Her hips arched into his, grinding against his cock, writhing beneath him. She was like a living flame in his arms now, and he was desperate for more.
Pulling back, he felt his teeth clench at the sight of the mark on her pale neck. It was deeper, the small bite darker, than he had intended. The fierce male pride that surged through him shocked him.
He stared down at her dazed face and wondered if this was what she had felt when she had seen her brand on him. This primal, overwhelming need to possess. For a man who had gone through life swearing to never possess anything that could be taken from him, it was a frightening feeling.
“I marked you back.” His voice was fierce, triumphant.
“You marked me long ago and just didn’t know it.”
Alex felt his abdomen clench at the declaration. If possible, he swore his dick thickened.
“You’re dangerous, baby.” He smiled down at her, hoping to take off the edge of near-obsessive hunger rising inside him as he levered up and forced himself to unbutton his shirt and shrug it from his shoulders rather than rip it off.
What the hell was wrong with him? He could be buried inside her now, pumping into that tight, hot little pussy and he was holding back instead.
It was that damned tenderness he couldn’t seem to push aside. He wanted her aware of him, so ready for him that when he took her, the pain would be minimal. The thought of hurting her sent shards of tension radiating through his mind.
“I love your body.” Her sigh was followed by the tentative touch of her fingers against his flexing abs. “So strong and hard. I wish I could wrap you around me.”
Christ. Her eyes. Those light green eyes stared up at him, wistful and filled with something that went deeper than hunger. It made him want to wrap around her, to become her personal shield, her blanket, her fucking life.
He was losing his mind to her.
He watched her, forcing himself to stay still as she pulled at his belt.
For a moment, regret flickered in her gaze as she pulled the belt free, and he knew what was going through her mind. She thought she was going to leave. Thought she was going to leave him. Oh, poor little Janey. She had another thing coming.
“Take your shirt off first.” He stilled her hands when she would have released his jeans. “I want to watch you take it off.”
She paused, blinked up at him, and her eyes darkened with a hint of self-consciousness. But she did it. She reached for the hem of her shirt and slowly lifted it. Her softly rounded belly was revealed, her breasts, then she was tossing it from her head.
And Alex was still staring at her breasts. They were perfect breasts. Not large, just right. Swollen little mounds topped with pretty cotton-candy pink nipples that were stiff, hard.
“I want to suck your nipples until you come from it,” he growled, and a flush worked over her breasts and up her neck. He couldn’t tear his eyes away long enough to see her flushed face. Yet.
He loved her nipples. His mouth watered to taste them, to draw them in, play with the hard little tips with his tongue.
“Your nipples make me sweat,” he told her roughly. “I want to suck them so bad it burns me alive.”
As he watched, those hard tips seemed to flush further. Rising over her, he licked at first one, then the other as he toed his boots off and kicked them over the side of the bed.
He tore at the snap and zipper of his jeans, working them off as he sucked at each hard little point. She was going wild beneath him. Her arms hugged his head, trying to push all of her breast into his mouth. Incredible. She was making him crazy with the taste, with each little cry that fell past her lips.
When he was naked, he tugged at her cotton pants, pulling her panties with them. He wanted her naked, wanted her bare. He wanted to cover her, wrap around her. God help him, he wanted to fulfill that need he heard in her voice for security, for safety. For pleasure.
Janey watched Alex’s face. Pleasure came in surprising ways, she had found. Not just the touch of his hands, or his mouth, but the look in his eyes, the tight, hungry grimace that pulled at his lips.
When she stroked his shoulders, his lashes would lift. His cheeks hollowed as he sucked her nipples, but each caress she gave him, each new touch, brought him pleasure as well. Brought her pleasure.
It was so good. The sensations traveling from the hard tips of her breasts to her womb were sizzling. His mouth covered her nipple, his tongue rasped it until she was writhing beneath him, crying out his name in a need so vicious she didn’t think she could bear it.
She felt as though she were burning up. That the heat in the apartment was too high. That some internal thermostat had stopped working.
“Fuck, your nipples are good, baby,” he drawled, his voice rough, sexy, as his dark gray eyes stared up at her. “Hard and sweet.”
As he spoke, one hand smoothed down her side to her hip.
“Almost as sweet as your pussy was in that truck tonight.”
A shocking surge of pleasure clenched her womb, and he grinned with wicked, naughty intent.
“Are you wet, Janey?”
Was she wet?
“What do you think?” she cried out. “Alex, you’re killing me.”
She lost her breath as one finger, just one, slid through her cleft, gathering her juices and running around her clit.
“Ah yeah, sweet honey,” he whispered. “You’re so wet, Janey.” His finger ran down the cleft and circled the entrance to her vagina as his lashes dipped over his eyes. “So tight.”
His finger pressed inside. Janey gripped his biceps, felt them tensing beneath her and felt more of her juices meeting his penetration. Oh, it was so good. So much better than her own fingers. His calloused fingertip rasped just inside the opening, stroking her internal muscles as she clenched around it.
Janey turned her head, lips parted, pressing to that heavy muscle in his upper arm as he stroked her, stretched her. She was only barely aware of biting into the tough skin, drawing it into her mouth.
Oh, she was so going to mark him again. Because it was mark him or scream.
She screamed anyway seconds later as he added a finger, stretched her, pressing inside her and stroking her to insanity.
“You’re fucking tight, Janey. Do you know what this is going to feel like around my dick?” His voice was harsh, agonized. “You’re going to make me crazy once I get inside you, baby. Once this sweet pussy is gripping me, rippling around my cock like you’re rippling around my fingers.”
Her hips arched as she tried to drive the penetration deeper. She needed deeper, needed more of this exquisite, burning sensation. She could feel the small, tight thrusts through her entire body. Each lash of pleasure whipped through her veins, burned her deeper, hotter.
“Ah, sweet baby.” His head lowered, his lips roved over her breasts. He kissed, licked. He sucked at the mounds. Hard enough that she could feel it in her womb. Gentle enough that there was no fear, no pain. There was just Alex touching her. Touching her as he never had, as she had never believed he would.
“Janey.” His voice thickened, became rougher. “Baby. If I don’t fuck you, I’m going to come on your bed.” He licked at her nipples again and his fingers pressed in farther, rotating and sending a flash of burning pleasure tearing through her.
Then another. Another. His fingers were sliding deeper, taking her, working inside her with slow, controlled twists of his wrist. Janey moved her thighs farther apart, her feet braced on the bed as she tried to thrust into each penetration. Tried to take more than he was allowing her.
“Do something.” Her head thrashed on the bed.
She was burning, burning inside and out. And he was as well. Her eyes opened to see the sweat as it ran in one small rivulet down the side of his face. His eyes were so dark, thunderous. His expression heavy with lust.
“Demanding,” he groaned. “Keep giving me orders like that, Janey, and I’m going to come before I get inside you.”
“Fuck me, Alex.” She stared back at him, lips parted, her breathing harsh. Heavy. “If you’re scared, baby, then lie back. I’ll ride you.”
Oh God, she hadn’t actually said that, had she? Teased him when she was dying for him.
He froze, his face tightening, cheekbones standing out in stark release as primal, primitive lust filled his expression. His cheeks darkened, his lips looked heavier.
“Hell yeah.” He suddenly grinned, and in that grin was teasing, wicked hunger.
She tried to hold him to her as he pulled away. Her hands slapped the bed as he eased from it.
“What?” she demanded roughly. “Where the hell are you going?” She came to her knees, struggling to find the breath to speak, to figure out why he had pulled away from her.
“Latex, sweetheart. I bet my left nut you’re not on protection, are you?”
Janey stilled, her heart suddenly beating rough and hard as he reached down for his pants and pulled a foil pack free.
She lifted her hand, then dropped it, watching him, heart racing; the need to do it for him was killing her. She wanted to sheathe him. She wanted to touch him.
“You can, you know,” he said, his tone still teasing, but growing rougher.
Her gaze jerked to his as he held the small square pack out to her. “Get me ready for you, darlin’. Show me how much you want me.”
She felt her hands shake, excitement and fear pulsing through her. She had never done anything like this, had no idea what to do, how to touch him.
She reached out and took the small square of foil, then opened it carefully, until the latex disc was held gently between her fingers.
“Just roll it over my cock, baby.”
She moved closer, holding her lower lip between her teeth as she watched his fingers curl around the heavy shaft.
And stroke.
It was so sexy. She could barely breathe. Excitement was racing through her now, her juices weeping from her pussy. She wanted him inside her. She wanted all of him.
She pressed the rolled condom against the head of his cock and unrolled it down his shaft carefully, watching as his fingers lowered, gripped his balls, and a groan filled the room.
His other hand tucked around her neck and lifted her face for his kiss. His lips were hard, hungry. They devoured as she held on to him, her tongue meeting his, dueling with it as she lifted against him.
“Christ, you make a man crazy.”
He gripped her hips, lifting her against him as he moved to the bed again, propping himself back, arranging her legs to straddle his hard, muscular thighs.
Janey stared back at him in surprise. “What are you doing?”
“Take me.” He smiled back at her, the curve of his lips tight, his gaze so dark, stormy. As though some hard, dark core was being restrained, pulled back.
She could sense it, but she didn’t feel it. His hands were gentle, firm, and as he pulled her hips lower, she felt the broad head of his cock pushing against the entrance to her pussy.
“I want inside you so bad I’m about to explode just thinking about it.” His hands clenched on her hips, then slid to the curve of her ass. “Take me, Janey. Go wild on me, baby. Let me see all that fire you’re hiding inside you.”
Janey shook her head. She knew what he wanted. He wanted all of her. She could feel it. If she gave it all to him, then how would she survive when he walked away? Alex always walked away, she knew that. No woman had ever held him more than a few weeks. No woman ever would. Especially not a traitor’s daughter.
“I’m not taking you, Janey.” His lips moved over her jaw, touched her lips. “If you want it, baby, you have to take it. Slow and easy, or hot and wild . . . Fuck.”
She couldn’t stay still.
Janey pressed down. She moaned as she felt the broad head part her, enter. She lowered her head, pressed her forehead against his shoulder, and pressed down more.
She was going to pass out. The blood pounded through her head. Pleasure was like a cascade of white-hot sparks, brilliant, electric, racing through her body.
He stretched her until she swore she couldn’t take more. She followed his guiding hands at her hips, rocked against him, felt more slip inside her, and she was dying for even more.
“Alex.” She moaned his name.
“Janey, baby.” He was tense, his muscles rippling with restrained power beneath her. “Fuck me, sweetheart. Take what you want.”
She wanted. Oh God, she wanted so bad.
She rolled her head against his shoulder, her hips flexing, moving jerkily, pushing down, feeling the stretch and burn.
“Help me,” she cried out.
If he would just do it, then she could hold a part of herself back. She was certain of it. Just enough of her heart to survive.
“Give me your wild, Janey,” he urged, his voice tight now, hoarse. “Give it all to me, baby.”
She shook her head. She couldn’t stop.
A whimper tore from her throat as she moved on him again, lifting and lowering, working him inside her. There was no pain, just that burning, stretching pleasure.
“Help me!” she cried.
“Fuck me, damn you! Take me, Janey!” The hard command in his voice ripped through her. It tore aside hesitation. It slashed through her brain, filled her with defiance, with challenge.
Her head jerked up, her eyes opened. And oh God, she should have kept them closed. His face was dark. Forbidding. His touch was light. There was nothing heavy, nothing forceful. But his face. The sight of all that lust, the heavy, brutal sensuality flickering in his eyes, tore through her.
“All of you?” She moved against him, her nails digging into his shoulders. “You want me to take all of you?”
“All the way to my fucking balls.” His muscles were tight with restraint. His hands fell away from her, lifting to the back of the headboard. His fingers were pale with the force of the grip he had on the bed. His biceps flexed, rippled.
She wanted to bite him again.
“All the way to your balls, Alex?” She braced her hands against his chest, lifted, and slid back down. Slowly. So slowly.
His expression twisted. His head fell back against the bed.
“Fuck. I’m going to come so hard you’ll feel it, Janey. You’ll feel me pumping into that damned condom.”
She pushed down farther, staring back at him, shaking, shuddering. It was so good. So fucking good.
“How bad will it hurt?” She whimpered. “I want all of you now, Alex. Tell me. How bad will it hurt?”
He drew in a hard, deep breath. “I took care of it, Janey. With my fingers, baby. No pain. No fucking pain. I can’t hurt you, sweetheart. Not like this.”
Her heart was breaking in her chest. She could see the need inside him, desperate, so male, dominant and powerful. And restrained. Holding back, so he wouldn’t hurt her.
In that moment, she knew he already had all of her, no matter the consequences, and it didn’t matter that she couldn’t have him in public, that he couldn’t claim her. Because of this.
She lifted, let her head fall back, and let all her weight go into the next downward stroke she made.
She heard herself wail. Felt the agonizing, burning ecstasy that filled her as she took him. All of him. All the way to his balls as he shouted her name.
His hands jerked from the bed to her ass. Gripping it, lifting her.
“Janey. Fuck. Baby.”
“Let me go.” Her nails dug into his wrists.
It had her now. That hunger. That need. She was powerful. She was invincible. She held the most incredible strength she had ever known, deep inside her, for only a second.
And he was holding her back.
Her head lifted. “Let me go.”
“Not so hard,” he gritted out. “Fuck. You’re too little to take me like this, Janey.”
She leaned forward, nipped his lower lip, stared back at him. She’d read things. She knew some things. She let her muscles clench around the heavy crown still embedded in her.
“Don’t take my choice,” she whispered. “You said I could take you. I need you, Alex. All of you. Just like that.”
Sweat dripped down his face now, dampened his chest.
“Your hands go on the headboard.” She pulled them free, pressed them back.
She was shaking. From the inside out, trembling, clenching on him.
“You’re spanked,” he panted. “So fucking spanked.”
Her pussy flooded around him.
“Maybe I want spanked.”
She lowered herself and it began again. Lightning. A blaze of fire. The stretching fullness that didn’t stop, wouldn’t ease. It burned with pleasure. Ached with ecstasy.
She couldn’t stop moving. She rode him hard and fast, feeling the pleasure building inside her. Taking her, overtaking her.
“God yes, fuck me, baby.” He was straining beneath her now, his hips lifting with her, pushing his cock deeper, harder, inside her. “So sweet. So damned tight. So damned tight you’re killing me.”
She couldn’t breathe. She could feel the sensations slamming through her now. She was dizzy, dazed. Her head lowered to his shoulder and she lost all control. She bit him and sucked at his skin, slamming her pussy onto the thick, throbbing cock penetrating her, fucking inside her until she screamed.
Her orgasm was alive within her. It raged through her, arching her back. It raced through her, pulling her muscles tight, clamping her pussy around him as she felt the hard, heated pulse of him inside her.
She was shuddering, writhing, twisting against him and dying from the pleasure. And he was right. She could feel him coming. Hot spurt after spurt as though it were filling her, heating her, sinking inside her and exploding through her womb.
It was brutal, it was terrifying and exhilarating. She wanted it again. Again and again. She didn’t want to live without him inside her. She didn’t want to exist without his kiss, without his hunger.
And when his head lowered, his lips covering hers, his tongue pushing hard inside her mouth as he growled her name, she knew she wanted all of him as well.
It wasn’t pleasure. It went beyond pleasure, beyond ecstasy. For a moment, just a moment, she felt as though she belonged to him.