ELEVEN
Alex knew the moment it happened. The second he felt his sperm shooting from the slit of his cock, he felt the latex split. And he felt pure, undiluted rapture. The fiery heat, the wash of Janey’s release, his cum spilling inside her, spurting hot and deep into the rich, fist-tight grip she had on him.
He’d never had a condom break. He’d always been on guard for it, until Janey.
He couldn’t pull back, couldn’t jerk out. All he could do was slam his lips over hers, holding her to him and trying to push deeper inside her. She took him to the hilt. He could feel the ultra-tight depths of her from the tip of his cock to the base; there was no place left to fill her. But he tried. Tried to get deeper, to fill her to her womb as his seed shot from his dick.
It was the most exquisite pleasure a man could know. More pleasure than Alex had ever imagined knowing, and he knew, when it came to sex, he had a damned good imagination. He was sure, sure to the depths of his soul that he had known every lust-filled, wicked, sensual sensation to be found.
Until this. The crown of his dick bare, buried inside her, feeling each desperate ripple of her pussy, each pulse of his cum and hers. Feeling her. Inside and out. And feeling the soul-deep knowledge that there was no chance in hell of walking away from her now.
He held her in his arms now. He couldn’t let go of her. Couldn’t make himself let go of her. He was buried in her, the latex spread away from the head of his cock, and he swore he felt her heartbeat in her pussy. Rocking, rippling around him. He felt it clear to his soul.
He leaned his head over her. Trying to surround her. His sweet Janey. She loved it when he held her, stroked his hands over her, and she tried so hard not to. He had seen it in her eyes, felt it in her. That need to hold back, to not be dependent, to not need anything or anyone. And now she was going to be stuck with him.
At least until he knew whether or not she was carrying his baby.
She was still shaking in his arms. He couldn’t tell her yet. Her little nails were still digging into his biceps. For some reason, he thought, his arms turned her on. She was holding on to him there and she would get that little faraway look in her eyes, kneading the muscle. He knew it sure as hell turned him on. And when she had bit him . . .
He closed his eyes and leaned back against the headboard. Hell, he was hard as a rock again.
A little giggle passed Janey’s lips. Alex opened one eye and stared down at her as she pushed herself up against his chest.
“I felt that.” There was the slightest satisfied curl to her lips.
“I’d be worried if you didn’t,” he told her, then sighed heavily. “Come on. You’re exhausted.”
He felt her yawn, felt her leaning against him again. Hell, it hadn’t been a good day for her. He’d tell her about the condom tomorrow morning. That was soon enough.
He slid from the bed as he lifted her from him. She burrowed under the blankets and snagged the pillow he had been leaning against before curling up and closing her eyes.
She wasn’t running to the shower or running to clean the scent or feel of their sex from her body.
Alex shook his head, unrolled the destroyed condom from his erection, and padded into the bathroom. He used the toilet, washed up, and dried before flipping off the light and moving back to the bedroom.
He turned off the little low light on the night table before reaching for the blankets.
“Turn the light back on,” she mumbled from beneath the blankets. “I don’t like being alone in the dark.”
He slid into the bed and pulled her into his arms, her back against his chest. “You’re not alone.”
She froze, as though she hadn’t expected him to stay. Alex wrapped himself around her. Her head pillowed on his arm, his larger body framing hers. His erection pressed against the cleft of her rear.
A few seconds later she relaxed against him, though, and burrowed closer. He knew the moment she went to sleep. The wariness left her, slowly. Her breathing deepened, and Alex was left to stare into the dark, his arms around her, wondering what the hell he was going to do. Because holding her as she slept felt as natural as breathing.
Hell, he’d fucked up here. He should have gotten her on birth control before he let things go this far. He should have thought to ask her before tonight if she was on birth control. But he’d known. A part of him had already known she wasn’t protected. And he was damned if he could find a moment’s regret inside him.
He hadn’t wanted to be tied to any woman, but he was also a man who well understood fate and destiny. Sometimes shit just happened, but it happened for a reason.
He brushed her hair back from her forehead, his lips pressing against her hair as he closed his eyes against whatever the hell it was raging inside him.
He’d never imagined he would be a father. A husband. He’d sworn it would never happen. There were too many things in the world that a man couldn’t control. Acts of God a man didn’t have a chance of avoiding.
He let his hand slide over her hip, his palm flattening on her stomach. She hadn’t even washed. Maybe he should have told her. There were ways of attempting to stop a pregnancy. He could have had her try it. So why hadn’t he?
Because he knew fate when it kicked his ass. In his entire sexual lifetime, he’d never had a condom break. Not once. But it had with Janey. With this one tiny, fiery woman-child, all his ideas about his future had been shot to hell.
He didn’t have a choice. He’d have to marry her. He’d take the six months’ active reserve duty and resign from the Special Forces. He’d had enough of blood and death anyway. He’d had a bellyful of it. He’d take care of Janey, and their child.
He was a damned good father. Hell, he’d raised Crista. She’d survived, even turned out to be a hell of a woman. He could do it again with his own. He was a man now, not a kid himself.
And he was rationalizing something that had a slow, steady burn building inside him. He wanted to jerk her closer, wanted to lean down and kiss her stomach, whisper to the life that could be growing there. He was going crazy and he hadn’t even hit middle age yet.
And Natches would kill him. He almost grinned at the thought of that. Natches Mackay. They’d called him the ice man once. Now he was like an active volcano ready to blow at any moment. His wife and Janey were his trip wires.
“Hmmm.” A little moan slipped from the woman he was holding as she moved against him again. Her ass wiggled against his cock and Alex ground his teeth together at the sweet pleasure that rocked through him.
He could have this, every night. Every day. Once they caught the bastard tormenting her, he’d show this county that Janey wasn’t to be messed with. She had paid for being Dayle Mackay’s daughter in ways that should have broken her years before. Should have turned her cold, heartless. Instead, the core of the girl she had once been had hidden behind an unemotional façade and cool green eyes. A façade that was slowly easing around him. Tonight, she’d gotten angry. Flushed cheeks, blazing eyes. Tomorrow, she’d likely scratch as deep as that damned cat of hers, once she realized he wasn’t letting her go.
Try to run off to California on him, would she? His smile was less than amused. Like hell. His woman. His hand pressed her closer, felt the smooth roundness of her stomach. And, maybe, his child as well. She wasn’t going anywhere without him.
“Again,” she mumbled, surprising him, rubbing her ass against his cock, her hand covering his.
“Sleep, baby.” He kissed her forehead, then groaned as her leg lifted, rested along his, opening herself to him.
“Again.” Sleep-filled, demanding, the hunger in her tone undid him.
Alex moved, shifted, gripped the shaft of his cock in his hand and eased it against the snug opening of her wet pussy.
She hadn’t cleaned their sex from her. That still amazed him. Their combined juices clung to her, slid against the head of his cock as he tried to ease into her.
One touch. That was all it took. Just one touch. She reached between her thighs, her fingers curling along his balls, and he lost his damned mind. Lost it. Lost it inside the tightest pussy he’d ever fucked, as he plunged half the length of his dick inside her. Pulled back, pushed in. He was moving inside her, harder than he should. He knew he was being harder than he should be.
But fuck. Christ almighty. She was lava-hot. His cock was bare, no latex, and it was the most exquisite pleasure in his life.
And he couldn’t stop to savor it.
“Alex, it’s so good.” Her forehead pressed into his arm as her hand curled beneath it. There was an edge of a sob in her voice, desperate pleasure, rising need.
“Here. Over.” He felt like an animal. Like a brute. He pushed her to her stomach, lifted her ass, and pushed inside her, hard and deep. “Touch your clit, Janey. Rub it. Make it better.”
Her head was shaking against the pillow as he pushed inside her again and stilled. Tight, hot flesh rippled and contracted around him as he covered her, hovering over her, his lips at her ear.
“It’ll feel so good.” He kissed the shell of her ear. “Let your fingers caress your clit, baby. Surely you masturbate.” There was no way she didn’t.
“Not with you here.” Her whisper was scandalized.
“It will feel so good,” he crooned again. “When you feel good, your pussy gets hotter, tighter. When your clit explodes, your tight little pussy is going to grab on to me and suck the life out of me.”
She whimpered, a sound of pleasure and need. Making Janey come out of that cool little shell of hers was going to be his pleasure. He could do it. She loved his touch. Needed it as much as he needed hers.
“Touch yourself, baby.” He gripped her hand and pushed it beneath her body. “Think about me. Think about how crazy you’re going to make me when your hot little cunt begins to quiver and tremble around my dick. I’ll go crazy.”
She moved and he felt it. Her fingers were on her clit, her moans rising beneath him as he clenched her hip with one hand and thrust against her, pulled back. He eased inside her again, and felt the ripple and shudder as he stroked her inside and she stroked herself outside.
“Damn, that’s good,” he said softly at her ear. He licked at the lobe, then nipped it and felt her panting for breath.
Alex dug his knees into the mattress and pumped her hard then. Fast, quick strokes before he stopped, stilled. She was crying out beneath him, shaking so hard in pleasure that she made him feel ten feet tall. And she was still stroking her clit, her fingers playing over it.
Janey was dying inside from the pleasure. She needed with a desperation she couldn’t explain. As though in sleep, the hunger had risen inside her, biting into her.
“Does it feel good, baby?” Alex’s voice sent tremors racing down her back. “You feel good on my cock. Like living fire. Come on, Janey, tell me you like it.”
“Love it. Love it.” She pressed her forehead into the pillow and lifted her ass for him. He stretched her wide, overfilled her, and she loved it.
“I could fuck you like this forever,” he groaned. “Just pumping inside you, slow and easy, baby. Do you feel how hard your little clit is? How it throbs?”
“Yes. Oh yes.” It was throbbing. Hard and fast. Like her heartbeat.
“I feel your pussy throbbing around my cock, too. You’re getting close, aren’t you? The closer you get, the tighter you get.”
Explicit, demanding. The words fired inside her brain, sending electrical impulses of sensation racing to her clit, her vagina.
He felt huge inside her. He was huge inside her, and she loved it.
“Keep stroking, sweetheart,” he crooned. “I want to feel you come around me.”
She knew how to do this. This had saved her sanity. She stroked her clit, knowing it would never be the same again without Alex inside her.
“Feel good?”
“So good, Alex. So good.”
He kissed her neck, her ear.
“Tell me to fuck you again, Janey. Come on, baby. Do you know how much I loved hearing that? Those pretty lips pouting, demanding I fuck you.”
“Fuck me! Fuck me hard, Alex. I need it hard.”
“Why hard, sweetheart?” A shiver washed over her at his voice. “Slow and easy lets you feel it. Lets you feel it build and tighten inside you.”
And it let her need. It built on her memories. It would sear into her brain and into her soul.
“See how good slow and easy can be?” Slow and easy, one long stroke inside her. He eased back, leaving her desperate, empty. Aching. Then he filled her again, stretched her, revealed ultrasensitive nerve endings as her clit tightened with impending release.
“You take care of that pretty clit. I’ll take of this sweet pussy.”
Janey fought for breath. She couldn’t believe it was this good, this soon. That it could get better than it had been the first time. That anything could do this to her, make her insane, make her drop her inhibitions, her fears. But Alex was doing it. With his hoarse statements, his crooning demands.
“Oh, you’re close,” he growled at her ear, nipped at it. “You’re getting tighter.” He was moving faster. That was what she wanted.
“Yes, faster. Oh, Alex. I can’t stand it.” The pleasure was whipping inside her, whirlpooling, sucking her into some vast, starstudded realm filled with racing pinpoints of ecstasy.
Her fingers rubbed over her clit, around it. Close. So close. Alex was moving faster, pumping inside her, shafting her with heavy, exquisite thrusts that pushed her higher.
“I’m going to come.” The words whispered from her lips and he groaned again. “Oh God, Alex. I’m going to come.”
“Come for me, baby.” He fucked her harder, faster. “Come for me, Janey, all over my dick. Let that sweet pussy suck me tighter.”
She exploded. More from his words and the heavy, pummeling strokes inside her than because of her fingers. But it was white-hot, brilliant. She screamed into the pillow and felt the violent, shuddering tremors jerk through her body, quake her womb, and throw her, helplessly, into a fire that consumed her and tossed her, left her writhing and convulsing beneath him as she heard him groan her name and stiffen behind her. His cock seemed to swell further, pulse, and spill a blaze of heat inside her as the sensations rocked her again.
She was lost in it. Lost in the feel of him over her, like a powerful blanket, covering her, pumping into her as she slowly, so slowly, drifted through a shower of pleasure.
She collapsed beneath him.
Long moments later, she felt him move, leave the bed. And then a warm damp rag ran between her thighs.
“No,” she mumbled, more asleep than awake. “I like you there.”
He paused and kissed her hip, and she swore she heard him curse. But sleep smothered her, dragged her in, and wrapped her in bliss.
She felt him pull her against him again, distantly, in her sleep dreamscape, his arms living warmth, his leg over hers keeping the nightmares at bay. She swirled on the edges of her subconscious, but his hold on her kept them back. His palm flattened on her stomach again. And she liked that. A kiss pressed to the top of her head, and it was the last thing she knew.