by Lucy Monroe
His laughter was low and wicked as he rubbed his stubble right over her nipple, sending so much sensation zinging through her that she cried out. "You’ve got me, beauty. All night long."
"Don’t want to take all night." Her legs moved restlessly, her body shifting against his in needy urgency.
He didn’t speed up his oh so gentle movements but blanketed her body with his, adjusting so he could kiss her mouth. Not deep, voracious kisses like she was used to. Oh, no.
Soft, tender kisses. Kisses that could not be denied, slow, burning kisses, that stoked the fire inside her to impossible heights without taking her over.
Her hips cradled his, both their groins still covered, the fabric no barrier to the feel of his hard flesh pressing against her clitoris. In fact, somehow, it enhanced it.
But still, she didn’t climax.
She felt tension which had become familiar since becoming his lover building inside, her muscles contracting and relaxing in haphazard spasms she didn’t understand.
"Rock! Please…"
"Do you feel alive, beauty?" he asked, his tone as serious as she’d ever heard it.
"Yes. I always feel alive with you." Didn’t he know that."
"Do you feel me? Feel how alive I am?"
A glimmer of understanding pierced the fog of her arousal. "Yes."
"No one that you care about got hurt today, Deborah." His kiss was an affirmation of that fact. "We are both better than fine."
Before she could reply in any way to his words, he pressed his sex against hers, rubbing his hard flesh up and down, sending more and more pleasure through her clitoris. Words were impossible. Any kind of real movement was just as impossible because of the way his heavy body pinned hers to the bed. It felt good, but she wanted more.
He licked against her lips. Finally.
She opened her mouth and met his tongue with hers, tasting, touching, affirming, pleasing.
His body continued to move against hers, giving pleasure, stimulating, but not taking her over into the realm of orgasm.
While it was frustrating and sweat gathered at her temples and trickled down between her shoulder blades, part of her was glad. She wanted him inside, wanted their bodies reaching that pinnacle together as close as two people could possibly be.
The kiss continued, her hands somehow twined with his against the bed above her head, his strength and control both a turn on and a comfort.
How long they went on like that, she didn’t know, she only knew that the pleasure felt never ending, like it could get bigger and bigger with no end in sight. But finally, he broke away from her, pulling off his briefs before removing her panties with deliberate movements.
She put her hand out and grabbed his wrist. "No condom." They’d shared their test results with each other, but they hadn’t taken the step of not using that final barrier of protection yet.
He didn’t ask if she was sure. He just lifted her knees, making room between her legs for himself.
As the head of his sex pressed against her opening, she looked deep into his sherry eyes.
"We’re safe," she whispered.
"We’re safe," he promised. "You’ll always be safe with me."
He pressed inside, the words giving her as much delight as the zings along her nerve endings while his hard-on stretched her vaginal walls.
"I’ve never done this before." She wrapped her fingers around his biceps, everything in her attuned to him.
Her breath gasping out in the same rate as his panting exhalations, invisible arcs of electricity connecting them where they didn’t touch, the sensation of being almost one body where they did.
"Me neither."
She was glad he didn’t make the joke about her not being a virgin. He got the importance of the moment, no matter how temporary their relationship.
He pressed forward, filling her, connecting to her, no barriers between them, nothing but the most intimate slide of skin against skin.
"You’re so hot, so tight, beauty." He groaned as his pelvis settled against her. "So damn wet."
"You spent long enough making me that way."
"You complaining?" he asked, his expression not quite making it to mocking.
"No." There was no room for pretense with this new intimacy between them.
"I didn’t think so." He pulled back and thrust forward again, the movement so delicious it drew a moan from her. "You’re so responsive."
"With you."
"We’re perfectly matched."
"You think?" she asked, her breath hitching and drawing the two words out to four syllables.
"I know."
She should ask why he thought they should end when the movie did then, but she already had one perfect moment ruined that day. She wasn’t ruining a second one on purpose.
Letting her mind shut down and feeling take over, Deborah submerged herself in the lovemaking, reveling in the slow but driving pace he set, wringing every drop of ecstasy from her body’s response to the excruciating copulation she could.
No matter how many times they made love, there would never again be a first time without the barrier of a condom between them. There would never be a moment like this in the silence of the room with Alaska’s twilight coming in the through the skylights, the sensation of being the only two people in the universe.
The knowledge that right then as far as Rock was concerned, even his siblings weren’t registering. Deborah Banes was the only person who mattered to him in this precise second. Her body, her pleasure, her responses.
It was heady knowledge she accepted it as the true gift it was.
Her orgasm came up on her without warning, like she’d been on the edge of coming for too long and her body would no longer be denied. It started with a contraction of her vaginal walls but radiated out until every muscle in her body went rigid, a scream tearing from her throat as her head went back of its own volition, her neck arch impossibly tight.
He drove forward, twisting his pelvis against her swollen clitoris and she screamed again, her voice giving out as the pleasure became too much. She’d never come so strongly, never experienced ecstasy so profound, never felt her body convulse so tightly.
Rock growled her name in a deep, primal tone and heat flooded her insides as he came as well, his body rigid above hers. He jerked his pelvis a couple of times, both their pleasure jolting with aftershocks that made their bodies convulse against each other. But finally, she went limp, her climax and its aftershocks finished.
He was still semi-hard inside her and she was glad. She knew it couldn’t last, but for now, they were still connected.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
His forehead dropped against hers. "You’re lethal, hot stuff."
She made a semi-intelligent sound. At least she hoped it passed for intelligent. She wasn’t sure what his answering chuckle meant in that regard.
"We’re not done."
"What?"
But he meant what he said. He started kissing her and because he wasn’t wearing a condom, he didn’t have to even move from where he was before he started new small thrusts that brought his sex back to full hardness.
The harder he got, the better it felt for her. He never broke the kiss, never moved his body away from hers. She didn’t know how he got a full erection so quickly again. She didn’t really care. She only knew that once he was fully erect, he turned them so she was on top. His penis pushed up into her in their new position.
She threw her head back. "Oh, that feels good."
"Yeah, beauty, it does. I like the view too." His expression said he liked it a lot, his gaze paused significantly on her breasts and how they jiggled with her every forward and backward thrust.
"You going to bring us to another climax, hot stuff?" he asked.
He might say she was the one bringing them to the climax, but the way he was swiveling his hips? And now his hands were cuppings her breasts, his fingers manipulating her nipples, sending electric jolts straight to her core.
She kneaded his chest as she rode him, loving the freedom to touch, to be touched, to be able to continue making love without having to worry about the condom.
Which is what they did for hours. If Rock’s goal was to convince Deborah that she was okay, he more than succeeded. If his intention was to convince her that he was fine, he did that too. She fell asleep wrapped in his arms, replete and convinced he was some kind of super-stud.
That worked for her.
"You know, our brother and your girlfriend are the real deal." Marilyn’s voice interrupted Rock’s focus on his computer screen.
He looked up from his email.
"What?"
Marilyn pushed away from where she leaned on the doorjamb to his office. "Carey and Deborah. They’re doing their scenes without a hitch today."
"Shouldn’t they be?"
"After yesterday?" Marilyn made it sound like the actors were accomplishing some amazing feat rather than simply doing their jobs.
"If they didn’t, I’m pretty sure Art Gamble would have a coronary." The director’s schedule could not tolerate losing both his principles for an entire day’s filming.
"But yesterday was so stressful." Marilyn leaned against his desk, her eyes so like their mothers filled with concern in a way Georgia Howell's never would have been.
Rock shook his head. "Don’t be a drama queen, sis. Yesterday had its moment of unpleasantness." But it had ended just fine. "End of story."
"Only you would put it that way, brother dear." Marilyn flounced across the room and plopped into a chair. "You are such a businessman."
"Guilty as charged."
Marilyn gave an exasperated huff. "Don’t be so, so, so…"
"What?" he asked, making no effort to mask his humor at her expense.
"Unemotional! You nearly died."
"Not even close."
"You faced down a gun."
"That was never even discharged." No one would question who in their family had the dramatic flair.
"You were still at risk." The look she gave him said just how unreasonable she thought Rock was being. "Were they escaped convicts? Did Benji say?"
Marilyn's assumption wasn’t ridiculous. Not even all that sensational. Alaska drew more than its fair share of people running from their past. "No. Home grown idiots with disgusting recreational interests."
Marilyn’s shiver appeared involuntary rather than one of her exaggerated, dramatic movements.
"Nothing happened," he reiterated.
She frowned. "No, I know, but everyone is acting like nothing happened. And something did. Something really awful could have happened to both you and Deborah, but you didn't let it. You were a hero, Rock."
He was as uncomfortable with the claim as when Deborah made it.
"I did what had to be done."
"That’s what you said when I was seven and you used the money you’d saved for a new computer game to buy me an outfit for school picture retakes when I cried over picture day until I made myself sick."
"You were a little kid. You were humiliated. Mom didn’t understand how important it was."
Their mom had sent Marilyn to school in one of Rock's hand-me-down t-shirts on picture day, her hair unbrushed, jam from her toast still smeared on her upper lip. When the pictures came in, Marilyn had sobbed until she'd thrown up, utterly devastated by the visual record of their mother's neglect.
Rock had been determined to make it better for her, and he had. "But you did."
Rock rolled his eyes. "That doesn’t make me special. Believe it, or not, most people understand that kind of thing."
"Just not people like Mom and Dad."
"No."
Marilyn looked at him with sadness. "You know you got it wrong, Rock."
He turned away from the computer, giving up on getting any work done until his sister said whatever she needed to say. "What did I get wrong?"
"You think they were the way the way they were because of the industry they were in, but it went the other way." Her blue eyes glowed with sincerity, her body leaning forward like she wanted to reach out to him.
"That’s convoluted, even for you."
"Mom and Dad were drawn to the film industry because of their narcissism. It magnified their flaws for sure, but it didn’t create them."
"Be careful what you say, Carey will have your head. He worships the memory of our parents."
Marilyn's mouth twisted in a grimace of acknowledgment. "He ignores the fact that the only family we ever had was because you made it for us, but deep inside? Rock, he knows. Just as much as I do. Why do you think I’m so upset about yesterday?"
"Well, don’t be. Nothing happened." Rock sighed. "Amos and Virgil are locked up and will stay that way for a very long time. Benji figures DNA evidence is going to link them to a string of tourist assaults and robberies."
"Not rapes?"
"We’ll see." Rock wasn’t speculating when so far, the evidence pointed to thuggery, not depravity.
The tourists had been left incapacitated with zip-ties while their assailants made their getaways. The situation yesterday might have been a new deviation for them.
One that had clearly not worked out well for the pair. The fact that they hadn’t been wearing the ski masks they’d worn during their previous robberies didn’t bode well for the plans they’d had for Rock and Deborah either.
Although, according to Benji, they were claiming they’d only been joking around. Supposedly Virgil and Amos hadn’t been planning to do anything at all. Hard to believe that when Amos had pulled a loaded gun on Rock, but no matter their intention the day before, the miscreants were facing hard time with multiple counts of robbery and assault.
"Well, at least I know how to get you to stop denying Deborah is your girlfriend," Marilyn teased.
"How’s that?" Rock asked, exasperated.
"Call you a hero."
"You are a pest."
"You’ve said that before."
"Maybe you should have listened."
"It’s an endearing quality."
"Pretty sure neither Carey nor I buy that."
"Did you know about Carey’s ex taking him for all his money?"
"I didn’t know the man was his ex."
"But you did know about the money."
"Yes."
"So."
"What?"
"What did you do?" Marilyn asked, maybe as stubborn as Rock.
"Let’s just say that whatever career benefits he hoped to gain by taking advantage of our brother that way were not realized."
"You have connections in Hollywood." Marilyn said it like she was just making a realization.
"Yes."
"Does Carey know?" Marilyn demanded.
"No."
"Would you use them to help him if he asked?"
"I don’t know."
"Would you use them to help me?" she asked, her tone hard to read.
"I don’t know." Before this movie thing, before meeting Deborah, his answer would have been a resounding no. He met her questioning gaze. "It would depend on the circumstances."
"That’s honest." Marilyn shifted in her seat. "So, his ex, is he working?"
"As an actor? No. And the likelihood of him doing so in anything but the adult entertainment arm of the industry is very slim. If he was wildly talented, it would be different, but he’s not. Besides, he’s an asshole."
"And he hurt your baby brother, so you made sure he didn’t profit by doing so."
"Yes."
"People think you’re laid back."
"What people?"
His sister laughed. "Okay, maybe that’s the wrong term. They think you are civilized."
"Maybe." He made no claims in that direction. He knew that when it came to his family, the veneer of civilization fell away.
Rock was not that guy that trusted things to even out in the long run. He hadn’t been able to trust his parents to take care of his family. He hadn’t been able to trust in the world be
ing a balanced place since he was a tiny boy. He never would.
He’d learned early on: men were predators or they were prey. He would be a predator.
"Does Deborah know what kind of man she’s fallen for?"
"What Deborah and I have is temporary. There’s no reason for her to learn my secrets." Though she knew more of them than some people he’d known for years.
"You keep telling yourself that, big brother."
Deborah finished her takes for the day and wasn’t surprised to find Rock on the outskirts of the set. He’d been waiting for her the last two days since their trip into Ninilchik.
She liked it.
But she was smart enough not to make a big deal out of the practice.
For a strong alpha male who could run a billion-dollar company and take down armed criminals, Rock was as skittish as a newborn foal when it came to relationships.
They were in one though. A real live relationship.
Whether he admitted it out loud, or not. Deborah was of the school that if it walked like a duck and quacked like a duck, then it most likely was a duck.
He’d risked his life for her. He wanted to spend all their free time together…and it wasn’t always for sex. Not every waking moment anyway.
Not that the sex wasn’t amazing. It was incredible. Since Amos and Virgil’s attack on them, Rock had been insatiable and inventive.
Taking pains to leave his mark on Deborah’s body that makeup and wardrobe often grumbled about having to conceal.
Deborah didn’t care. She’d never been so happy.
She ate breakfast each morning with Lydia, Rock and his siblings and dinner each night with him, Carey and Marilyn, the siblings always making sure that Deborah was drawn into the banter as they ate their meals. Marilyn treated her like a sister and Carey, like a friend rather than just a colleague.
Rock treated Deborah like she mattered.
He never spoke of the future, but maybe that was something she would just have to show him. She’d have to come back to Cailkirn and show him that sometimes, people came back from LA. Sometimes, people found reasons important enough to make a home away from the bright lights of the big city.