Nearly a week later, Turk closed and relocked the apartment door after another visit from J.D. and his diabolical son. He was beginning to think perhaps John D. did deserve to be drowned at birth as his father had threatened.
If the little bastard kept flirting with Erin the way he was while pretending a brotherly air, then Turk would take care of that little task himself.
“I think that went rather well,” Erin stated cheerfully as he stepped into the living area to glare down at where she had stretched out on his couch.
Those little tank tops were going to get her ass in trouble. They outlined her breasts perfectly.
Today, instead of jeans or oversized sweatpants, she was wearing a pair of shorts that practically made his tongue hang out of his mouth like a slavering fool.
They weren’t indecent, but the material ended far too short for his peace of mind, and they fit. They fit her perfect. One slender leg was lifted and bent, her bare foot resting on the cushion of the sofa. She looked relaxed, comfortable, and just like the shorts fit her body, she seemed to just fit into his life.
“None of you threatened to kill each other, you mean?” he snorted.
She gave a small, light chuckle. “Mom says when that happens she looks for the safe room because the explosion is coming.”
He almost winced. Yep, he could almost feel it coming himself.
“What usually instigates the explosion?” he asked carefully.
“J.D.” She didn’t even hesitate before giving that answer. “He’s not allowed to screw with Mom’s life or her friends’ lives, but for some reason, she refuses to put her foot down on my life. And poor John D., his mother died when he was a baby, so he’s had no other example to follow but J.D.”
Plopping down at the bottom of the couch Turk almost felt sorry for John D. Almost. The entire time the bastard had been there he’d petted on Erin like she was a homeless pup or something.
As he sat there contemplating the other man’s drowning, a delicate little foot slid to his thigh. Automatically he reached for it, gently kneading her arch as he tried to convince himself that drowning her stepbrother was a bad idea.
“John D. and I are really close though,” she said.
He wondered how long he’d have to hold John D. under the water?
“How close?” He glared at the wall instead of her.
“Not that kind of close,” she answered, an edge of laughter flirting with her tone. “He was always the big brother. Pulling my hair and hiding my hair bows when I first moved in. The first time I caught him unaware and planted my fist in his solar plexus he still didn’t take it seriously when I told him to leave my things alone. Then I caught him coming in drunk as a skunk one night. He passed out in the garage. I spent the night chewing gum and planting it in his long, pretty black hair. The next day Mom nearly had to shave his head bald. He must have gotten the message then.”
Okay, he might let the bastard draw a breath or something.
Turk narrowed his eyes on her. “Vengeful creature,” he grunted.
It would be hard to get seriously aroused when a man knew a woman could do such damage, he thought.
She shrugged with a smile, lifting her breasts beneath that snug top. “He knew I’d done it, but he never told on me. Never got me back. But he did stop stealing my things.”
Kneading her little foot he stared over at her, seeing the genuine affection she felt for her stepbrother, but none of the hunger for him that lit her eyes.
Okay, he might let John D. live. Maybe. If he could keep his hands off what belonged to Turk.
That almost had him stilling in shock.
His? When had he actually decided she was his?
They’d settled into a wary routine for the past week, one Turk had felt unraveling from the moment it had developed. Still, they both seemed to be adhering to some unwritten set of rules.
Erin cooked, he cleaned up and stacked the dishwasher. While he remotely helped Gabby work the surveillance cameras at the bar, she worked on reports J.D. kept her busy with.
Come midnight, normally the busiest part of the night for the bar, and for them, was when the tension developed. When the air between them became rife with arousal, with awareness.
As it was now.
“You’re quiet, and you’re staring at me,” she said suspiciously. “What are you thinking?”
About her lips wrapped around his cock.
How sweet she tasted.
How tight she felt wrapped around his engorged flesh.
He was thinking about things he should never be thinking about and he knew it.
“I try real hard not to think too much where you’re concerned,” he grunted as he lifted the remote and flipped the television on. “It’s too damned dangerous.”
Yeah, like he might decide to actually stop pretending that he didn’t want her.
Lifting her foot from his hard thigh, where he’d been absently rubbing her arch, Erin swung her legs around and rose from the couch.
“I have things to do,” she stated.
She had no intentions of watching several hours of the news as they had the night before.
“Sure.” He sounded distracted, he might want her to think he was distracted, but she could feel his gaze on her. Like a physical touch, stroking along her back, her thighs.
She almost rolled her eyes.
She wasn’t going to beg him, if that was what he wanted. And she was damned if she would make the first move.
Her bedroom door closed quietly.
Running his hand over his face Turk clenched his teeth and told himself he was not following her.
He’d made it a week. Questions were being asked and several suspects were being investigated. Unfortunately, a lot of the bar’s customers had noticed the female bartender that was suddenly absent. Just as Cooper’s men had noticed those who pretended a disinterest, or too much interest.
Then there were those who had noticed his absence as well.
Blowing out a hard breath he leaned forward to the laptop opened on the wood coffee table. Waking the laptop and pulling up the surveillance cameras outside the apartment building he took note of each vehicle, comparing them mentally to those that were often seen at the bar.
Next he tapped into the bar’s cameras and the program Gabby had running from Erin’s apartment. Everything looked good there.
There wasn’t a damned thing for him to fill the upcoming hours with. Nothing to distract himself with.
God, what was he doing to himself?
What was he doing to himself as well as Erin?
He’d spent three months keeping other men away from her, watching her like a hungry wolf, telling himself he was saving both of them by not taking her, by not giving in to whatever kept drawing them toward each other.
He wasn’t saving either of them a damned thing. He was killing himself. And if he wasn’t careful he’d lose any chance he may have at the heart of the woman he couldn’t force himself to stay away from.
He’d lost his mind.…
Or had he lost something far more serious? he wondered as he rose from the couch and turned slowly to the closed bedroom door.
Had he lost something he hadn’t even been aware he actually possessed?
* * *
“Erin.” The bedroom door opened several hours later, Turk’s tall, powerful body stepping into the dimly lit room.
She lay back on the queen-size bed, the small lamp that sat on the bedside table not nearly enough to fully illuminate the shadowed planes and angles of his face.
Erin stared at him from across the room, never shifting position. Lying back on the pillows, one arm curled beneath her head, the other rested just beneath a breast.
The thin gray cami top snuggly outlined her breasts while matching brief boy shorts made her legs look longer.
The sleepwear was comfortable, but as lust burned in his chocolate-brown eyes she realized exactly how little it was covering as well.
Turk prowled closer to the bed, his eyes darkening to nearly black as his gaze moved over her slowly.
“I’m not in the mood for one of your quickies,” she informed him, though she knew better.
Her body was primed and ready for whatever the hell he wanted to give her for however long he wanted to give it to her.
Her mouth dried out as he gripped the bottom of his T-shirt, stripped it off, and dropped it negligently to the floor before his hands fell to his belt.
Sweet merciful heaven. Hard abs flexed, and the power beneath hard, sun-bronzed flesh caused her to swallow nervously.
“No quickie tonight.” The dark rasp of his voice, the sensual promise gleaming in his eyes had her breathing quickening, the blood rushing furiously through her veins.
Her gaze moved to his hands, watching as he unclasped his belt before releasing the first metal button of his jeans.
“Sit up.” The growl in his voice, the erotic hunger tightening his face, combined with the knowledge she may have asked for more than she could handle wasn’t lost on her.
Slowly, she sat up, mesmerized, aching for him. Drawn to him in a way she promised herself she’d figure out later.
“I tried to stay away from you, Erin.” Jeans loosened, he pushed them over his hips after freeing the impressive length of his cock.
“Why?” She had to fist her hands at her side to restrain the urge to touch him.
“There was a very good reason.” Shedding his jeans and stepping closer to the bed, Turk wrapped his fingers around the base of his erection and stroked the iron-hard flesh slowly. “Right now, I don’t even have a clue what that reason was though.”
But he wasn’t unaware of what he wanted.
Pushing his fingers through her hair, he gripped it, tugging at her head until the wide blunt tip moved slowly to her lips.
“Part your lips, Erin,” he groaned. “Sweet baby, give me that hot little mouth.”
Sweet silken lips parted, allowing the head of his cock to pierce the wet heat of her mouth.
The sight of her taking him, the feel of her mouth slowly surrounding the crest as her delicate hands gripped his thighs drew a strangled groan from Turk’s lips.
Damn her! It was too fucking good.
Damn him! Because he was stepping willingly into a waiting hell and he knew it.
He knew it, yet fighting it was impossible.
“You’re a fucking witch. You should be burned at the stake,” he accused her as electric pleasure rippled from the engorged shaft to his tightening balls.
Innocent green eyes blinked back at him with erotic promise as she worked her lips and tongue over his hardened flesh with feminine hunger. That wicked little tongue licked and stroked, rubbed at the underside of the throbbing crest and teased that ultra-sensitive spot just below it.
Her mouth was exquisite. What she lacked in experience, she more than made up for in hunger. And the hungry demand in each suckling stroke had his body tightening as pleasure lashed at his nerve endings.
He’d never felt that curling heat in his gut that he felt now with any other woman. He’d never burned for another woman like he burned for Erin. From that first moment that their eyes met, to that first kiss, and beyond. Each day with her, each time he touched her, his need for her only grew. This hunger for her touch, the need to just hear her voice … God, what was she doing to him?
Staring down at her, watching her lips move over him, her expression flushed and filled with pleasure and need, he could feel himself unraveling. His release boiled in his balls, threatened to slip his control.
“Enough.” Tightening his fingers in her hair and pulling her back, Turk watched as her lashes lifted languidly, her sea-green eyes darker now as arousal filled them.
“Lie back for me.” The demand was a hoarse rasp as he fought the need rushing through him, demanding that he take her now.
Gracefully, temptingly, she lay back.
His lips almost quirked at the witchy, hungry look in her eyes.
“Take the clothes off,” he ordered then. “Let me watch.”
Let him watch she did.
The teasing, taunting movements as she lifted the little top over her head, revealing swollen breasts and tight, cherry-red nipples had his cock flexing in demand. Then those slender, graceful fingers moved to the boy shorts she wore. Slipping beneath the elastic band she pushed them down her thighs, over her knees, then discarded them with a smooth shift of her legs.
“You’ve tortured the hell out of me for far too long,” he growled as he knelt on the bed. “Months too long.”
“You tortured yourself,” Erin assured him, her arms curving over her head as a sharp pulse of sensation clenched her womb before sending a heated strike of sensation to wrap around her clit.
He wasn’t touching her yet. She shouldn’t be feeling this.
Satisfaction curled at the corner of his lips.
“You’ll regret this later,” he assured her as he came over to her.
“And you know this how?” she asked, the shadows in his eyes sending a flare of uncertainty raging through her now.
He had no idea how he drew her. How the months working with him, drawn to him yet denied his touch, had created an erotic need she couldn’t deny.
His head lowered, his lips brushing against hers. “Because, stubborn determination and independence are so much a part of you that it terrifies me.”
A moan escaped her. Filled with need as her hands lifted to touch his shoulders, only to have him catch them and press them back to the bed.
“Keep your hands right there. Don’t touch me yet, or I’ll lose what little control I have left.”
Releasing her wrists, he obviously thought she would obey him without question. For the moment, she let him believe.…
“Oh God, Turk,” she moaned as excitement exploded through her at the feel of his palm curving around her breast, his thumb stroking over her nipple.
Sensation raced across her nerve endings, slamming through her senses, sending need screaming through her body. Fingers of flaming pleasure raced across her flesh, set fire to her body and her mind, and need tore through her.
She’d ached for him. Dreamed of this touch.
Lips parting beneath his kiss she lifted to him, her nipples raking across the scattering of curls over his chest and increasing the heat and the need tearing at her.
Turk’s kisses were incredible.
As his head lowered and his lips covered hers, Erin realized she had forgotten just how good the feel of his lips against hers really was.
He didn’t just kiss.
He sipped.
He tasted.
His lips caressed and possessed while his incredibly wicked tongue staked full possession. The hungry demand of his lips against hers filled her with a hunger that shocked her.
Oh, God, she’d waited so long.…
Clenching her hands in the blankets beneath her, Erin let herself sink into the morass of sensations building around her.
They sensitized her flesh, beaded her nipples tight, and caused them to ache for his touch. Between her thighs that small bundle of nerve endings swelled, pulsed, and demanded attention.
When she began lifting her arms to touch him again he pressed them back to the bed with a growling,” Keep them there.”
The firm dominance in his voice was previously unknown to her, but not something that surprised her.
“Turk—” She arched in an involuntary move, her breasts lifting his bare chest as his lips moved down her neck, a hand stroked to her thigh.
The stars behind her closed eyes were multiplying as their buddies began racing through her bloodstream.
Her lashes drifted up, her breath catching as she glimpsed the absorbed, erotic hunger reflected in his face as his head lowered, his lips, the moist heat of his mouth surrounding her nipple.
Sharp, furious pleasure pulsed in near violence from the hard bead of her nipple to the swollen bud of her clit. Sensation clenched her womb. Her hands fisted in the sheets beneath her, hips arching.
“Turk!” she cried his name in shocking pleasure at the erotic pulses of electric sensation.
Releasing her nipple from the moist grip of his mouth he moved lower. And he didn’t waste time.
As flames began to envelop her senses, heat rushing around her, inside her, Turk wedged his broad shoulders between her thighs, his head lowered to flesh so sensitive, aching with such need she suddenly feared the intensity of it.
Erin froze.
The hungry demand of his lips and tongue instantly burrowing into the slick response of her body threw her into that world of shocking chaos with no apology.
There was no slow journey into the dizzying kaleidoscope of sensation. There was no time to sense the storm gathering in her body. There was no time to fear it.
The feel of his tongue flickering at the clenched entrance, licking and probing with experienced demand had her hips arching involuntarily to the decadent caress.
Her thighs spread wide and her hands latched into his hair, sinking into the thick strands and gripping tight, Erin felt all control over her own senses disintegrate.
She would have tried to pull back, but instinct actually surged forward refusing to allow it. At the same time his lips and tongue found the curved bar as it lay along each side of her swollen clitoris.
Turk sucked the violently sensitive bud into the heat of his mouth, lips and tongue devouring it with wicked hunger, and each draw, each lick worked the piercing that curved beneath the bundle of nerves. Destructive sensation exploded through her body. It tore through her senses and convulsed her muscles as pure blistering ecstasy and rapid-fire pulses of rapture combined to destroy her with pleasure.
Turk knew the moment Erin found release, convulsing beneath him in an orgasm that drew her body taut, filling the bedroom with her cries of rapture. God, he’d die if he lost her. How would he survive it?
He should have heeded the white-hot hunger that nearly blinded him three months ago. Should have realized this delicate, fragile, young woman was becoming far too important to him.
He nearly lost all control, nearly spilled his release to the sheets in his hunger to have her as her release began ripping through her.
Thick, engorged, his cock throbbed, pulsing in painful arousal as he draped her legs over his thighs and pulled her closer, lifting her to him.
The swollen folds of her sex, bare of curls, silky and slick with dew, like the prettiest pink flower opening for him, petal by petal.
Gripping the heavy length of his cock Turk guided the wide, blunt crest to the weeping center. The feel of slick, heated flesh and his princess’s pleasure swept through his mind with the force of a tidal wave.
Shudders still gripped her body, little cries falling from her lips as the pulses of release continued to clench and ripple through her snug pussy. Pressing against the entrance Turk eased the engorged, sensitized crest into the flexing entrance. His teeth clenched, pleasure searing him, electric surges of incredible sensation racing from the head of his dick, along the heavily veined shaft to tighten around the sac of his balls.
“Turk.” The husky cry pulled his gaze from the slick flesh enveloping his dick to the dazed pleasure suffusing her expression.
“It’s okay, baby.” Reaching up he cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing over her trembling lips as he clenched his teeth against the fiery pleasure gripping the head of his dick.
“Fuck, Erin,” he groaned, the feel of tight, slick silk sucking him into the gripping heat of her pussy, destroying him with pleasure.
Her head thrashed against the mattress, her fingers gripping his forearms as her thighs tightened and her pleasure began to build once again.
And he watched it.
Echoes of her pleasure milked his hard flesh as he pushed deeper inside her slick heat.
“Erin…” His hands slid from her thighs to her hips where he held them still, halting the instinctive little movements that had her pussy riding the hard engorged crest stretching the entrance. “Easy, baby.”
Flushed, dazed, her expression was tight with the sensual hunger building again. The swollen curves of her breasts drew him as pebble-hard pink nipples topped them, a flush of arousal surrounding the delicate hue.
Feeling her hands caress his shoulders, her tight sheath gripping him as he tilted her hips to him, Turk let his lips brush hers.
A brush was all it took.
Her lips parted beneath the caress, her tongue meeting and tasting his. A pulse of white-hot lightning tore over his nerve endings, sending a surge of pleasure through his body. His hips jerked, thrust, pushing the hard flesh penetrating her deeper.
A low, keening cry filled the air around him as Turk felt the last, fingernail hold he had on his control dissolve.
The next thrust sent an overload of sensation crashing through his brain and spreading through his senses like lava pouring from a volcano. Immersed in more pleasure than he’d ever imagined finding in a woman, Turk gave himself to the overwhelming ecstasy he’d only found with this one woman.
* * *
Erin couldn’t process reality. Pleasure was a brutal storm whipping through her, burning her. The pleasure-pain of the thick flesh penetrating her, driving into her, dragged her in an erotic whirlwind more devastating than the one before it.
Turk surrounded her. Filled her.
The heaving thrust of his cock burning between her thighs, stretching and caressing intimate flesh, sent waves of desperate pleasure tearing through her again.
Again, it built inside her, rushing through her body and her senses as the storm began tearing through her.
The hard length of his thick flesh impaling her in quick, hard thrusts, the engorged crest stretching her, his throbbing shaft stroking with ever increasing pleasure …
“Turk!” She tried to scream his name as he buried his lips at her neck. Tried to breathe through a pleasure raging through her in rapidly tightening bands of chaotic storm centers. Like dozens of tornados racing through her, threatening to converge.
A hoarse male groan was her answer, his lips moving against the sensitive curve of her breast. Then his lips lowered, covered the painfully hard tip, his tongue lashing at it as he sucked it inside.
Sensation exploded from the caress, speared to her womb, her clit, then imploded with a force that she knew she would never fully recover.
Ecstasy was a vortex of swirling, vivid sensation. It spread through her senses, wreaked havoc with her emotions then overtook her soul in a blinding burst of pure rapture.
She was only distantly aware of Turk crying her name as he stiffened above her. The pulse of his release filling her, heating her further and adding to her orgasm.
Had she sensed what was coming she would have surely tried to run in fear as it rose inside her.
Such destruction no matter its need, no matter the resulting renewal could never be eased into. The senses were far too wary of change, the soul far too insulated against such havoc. But some storms, even the soul has no protection from. A man’s hunger for warmth, need for love. A woman’s beckoning, wrapped in innocence, flames trapped within and a love more enduring than even the sharpest blade.
Apart, they were lost, tortured by need, tossed about by capricious winds.
Together, forged in the flames of not just pleasure, but the need for each other, the need for emotions suppressed, buried, hidden, until this moment. They came together, neither admitting to each other, but both knowing, they found much more than pleasure.