Renegade

by Lora Leigh

  He wasn't going to be able to pull her away. He couldn't pull her away. It was too damned good. Her mouth was liquid heat, her lips like hot silk, the draw of her mouth like pure ecstasy.

  Son of a bitch. He was supposed to walk away from this? What had ever made him believe such a thing was possible?

  The nails of one delicate hand raked down his abs as she held the hard shaft with the fingers of the other. Her lips and snug mouth drew on the engorged crest, her hot little tongue flickering over it as every muscle in his body tightened with the riptide of sensation washing through them.

  The tentative, innocent movements were more destructive than any touch he had ever known in his life. He'd been with women whose experience more than matched his own, but even then he hadn't been as affected as he was now.

  Now, he was drowning in the fucking pleasure. It was tearing through his system with wildfire destructiveness and tearing at his determination to hold back, to ease the damage that could be done to her heart when this was over.

  There was no holding back with his dick in her mouth, though, or the innocent movements that sucked him to the back of her throat, the murmur of a little moan vibrating against the tip before she pulled back and then took him all over again. Before Nik could rein the hunger overtaking him, his fingers tightened in her hair and he was fucking her mouth with tight, controlled movements. Movements that taught her what she didn't instinctively know.

  As he watched her lips move on him, watched the hunger that filled her face as her lips enclosed him, Nik could feel the control he fought so hard to hold on to slipping out of his grip.

  Electric fingers of sensation were racing from his balls up his spine and back again. Hunger was a ravenous need tearing at his mind now, demanding more than her lips, her slender fingers trying to enclose him. That hunger demanded that veil of innocence, as well as that core.

  Buried beneath that hunger was a flame he fought to deny. A surge of possessiveness, of tenderness. A knowledge that in his life he had never felt anything like he was feeling now.

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  "Enough." His voice was harsh as he pulled back, forcing his cock from the heat of her mouth as he pushed her to her back and moved between her thighs, his knees pressing her legs farther apart.

  As she lay spread out before him like a luscious offering to the hunger raging through him, Nik couldn't help but take a moment to appreciate the unique beauty of her. Her slumberous amethyst gaze gleamed with violet fire. The long strands of her wheat gold hair spread out around her as her swollen lips parted to breathe in roughly. Firm ruby-tipped breasts rose and fell heavily, the pale globes tempting his lips, even as the curl-shrouded, dew-glistening mound of her pussy drew his gaze and the throbbing length of his dick.

  "Are you sure?" It was the most insane question he could have asked. If she changed her mind now, then he was going to explode in agony rather than pleasure. She reached down, her slender fingers gripping his cock as her hips lifted. Searing feminine heat brushed against the head of his cock, causing him to grimace in erotic agony. The need to thrust inside her was making him crazy.

  "Do you think I'm sure?" Her voice was breathy, breathless, as his hips shifted, his cock parting the swollen folds of her pussy to press against the tight, clenching entrance to her body.

  He prayed for patience. His hands tightened on her thighs as he shifted closer, watching as his cock began to press inside her.

  Heat surrounded the engorged crest, streaked up the shaft, and tore through his entire system.

  Some instinct inside him was screaming, Mine. It broke past the shields he had kept around his soul for so many years and speared straight to the center of his spirit. His. She belonged to him.

  Mikayla stared up at Nik, feeling the slow, steady stretching at the entrance of her pussy. Pleasure/pain began to wash through her as he forged inside, his cock taking her, possessing her in ways she hadn't expected.

  She struggled to keep her eyes opened as she watched the folds of her sex part, watched the slick, juice-laden folds part and hug his flesh as he entered her.

  "Nik." Her hands gripped his wrists as he held her thighs, his hips pressing steadily forward. "Nik, I . . ." She licked her lips. She didn't know what to say, what to do.

  Pleasure was tearing through her; a tight, pinching burn was mixing with the violent eroticism and stoking the arousal inside her higher. Heat washed over her, burning beneath her flesh as a painful pleasure began to deepen.

  "Hold on, baby." Nik's voice was deep, dark, stroking over her senses and pushing her higher. "Hold on to me, Mikayla."

  Her hands tightened on his wrists as she thought she knew what was coming. Deirdre and other friends had assured her there would be pain. The larger the man, the greater the pain, she had been assured.

  Nik pushed inside her, his cock pressing against the thin shield of her virginity. His thumb moved to her clit, pressing against it, rotating and sending her senses screaming in sudden, vibrant sensation.

  The orgasm that washed over her shocked her. It threw her into a pleasure so extreme she lost her breath, her voice, and any pain she would have felt as Nik surged 106

  inside her, breaking through the virgin shield she had saved for him. A part of her acknowledged that. She hadn't known him, hadn't known who he was or when he would come into her life, but this was what she had saved herself for. Wild, exquisite sensation crashed over her, arching her hips and burying his cock deeper, harder insider her as his hips thrust against her once again. Pain was submerged in brutal pleasure. It was disguised in agonizing ecstasy as one orgasm surged through her even as she began to build toward another. The feel of his cock stretching her, thrusting hard and deep inside her, had her entire body arching toward him as he came over her. His hard body surrounded her, his arms gathering her close as his lips covered hers.

  A brutal male groan joined the tortured moan of pleasure that tore from her throat as his tongue thrust hungrily into her mouth.

  His chest hairs rasped against her nipples; the stubble on his face rasped against her; his thighs caressed hers; his cock speared inside her. Hard. Deep. Triggering a climax that tore her from the very foundations of her soul and sent her flying into pure ecstasy.

  Nik stiffened in her arms, his erection burying deep when she felt him tense, felt his cock pulse and throb inside her.

  It was a rush of adrenaline and rapture. A high that Mikayla could have never imagined. One her friends had never warned her of. It was like flying into the sun and piercing paradise as Nik groaned her name, whispered something foreign, and collapsed against her.

  It was like finally belonging.

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  Chapter 11

  She was sleeping.

  Nik stared down at Mikayla's relaxed face as he moved back to the bed, a warm, damp cloth in hand.

  Cleaning her gently, he couldn't help but marvel at the softness of her skin once more. Unblemished, lightly tanned, her muscles toned with a feminine softness he could barely resist.

  He'd nearly forgotten to wear a condom.

  As he moved back to the bathroom, that thought tortured him. Not since he was a teenager had he forgotten to wear a condom. Not since the conception of the daughter he had lost. But he'd nearly forgotten with Mikayla.

  Disposing of the damp cloth, he turned and braced his hands on the decidedly feminine sink and stared into the mirror above it.

  What he saw there bothered him in some elemental way. The lack of emotion that had been in his eyes, hell, in his soul, for the past years was now replaced with too much emotion.

  The pale blue orbs looked tortured. As tortured as he felt. He could feel the nightmares of the past moving in on him now, brewing from behind that closed door that had his nightmare emotions locked behind it.

  That door was no longer locked. Mikayla had opened it, and now he had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do with the emotions welling inside him. What the hell was he supposed to do with Mikayla?

&
nbsp; Stepping back into the room, he had every intention of walking out of it and back to the cold, lonely bed in the guest room. Why compound the mistake? he thought. Sleeping with her would only make it harder to leave later.

  Amethyst eyes were opened now, watching silently as he stared back at her, as though she knew what he was about to do.

  He had just taken her innocence, taken a gift that she could only give once. One she had saved all these years only to bestow it on a lost cause. She would remember this night forever; he didn't want it to end with her regrets. Like a man walking to a death chamber, he moved back to the bed and the woman. Slid into it and gathered her against his chest as he wondered if sleep would ever hold anything but regrets after this.

  "You have no responsibility to me, Nik," she whispered in the darkness as he flipped the small bedside lamp off.

  God, was she so wrong.

  "I didn't say I did." He kept his voice low, fought to keep his emotions in check as he buried his fingers in long strands of hair that flowed out from her head. He felt her lips against his chest as her fingers played softly against the light mat of hair on his chest.

  "Tell me something about you," she whispered.

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  Nik stared up at the darkened ceiling and realized how little she truly did know about him. How little he allowed anyone to know about him.

  "I was married once." He grimaced, wondering where the hell that admission had come from.

  Rather than jumping in and questioning, Mikayla remained silent.

  "I had a daughter. Her name was Nicolette." He hadn't told anyone about his child. He never talked about her. Sometimes, he felt as though Nicolette had been nothing but a dream.

  "That's a very pretty name," Mikayla breathed softly against his chest. Nik could feel the pain inside, just as sharp, as bright, as ever, but this time it seemed tempered by time, or by Mikayla.

  "What happened to her?" she asked softly after several minutes had passed, an edge of sadness in her voice that warned him that she knew his baby was already gone.

  "How do you know anything happened to her?"

  Mikayla lifted her head from his chest until she could gaze down at him, the dim light from the moon spearing through the windows, giving her just enough perhaps to see by.

  "If nothing had happened, then she would still be with you," Mikayla said softly.

  "You wouldn't be dodging bullets for a woman you barely know if you had a child depending on you to come home."

  God, how right she was.

  "I was in the army." He cleared his throat, remembering too clearly the decisions he had made because of his daughter. "I transferred out of the unit I was in for a desk job when my wife became pregnant. Nicolette was five when her mother decided marriage didn't suit her. She was having an affair while I was working long hours to try to provide as much as I could for her and Nicolette. It wasn't enough.

  "I was at work when she left. The man she had been sleeping with had been mixed up in some bad business. Some of his enemies thought he was in the car with her and Nicolette. They intercepted it. Nicolette was shot." Her body was torn apart by the power and speed of the bullets that had ripped into her tiny body.

  Nik could still see it. The blood, the horror. The knowledge that he hadn't protected his child.

  "It was my fault," he finally whispered, accepting that guilt now as he had never before. Accepting it because he realized the care it took to hold a woman's heart. He hadn't taken that care. He had nourished his job, nourished his position, and given his free time to his child, while his wife had been left on the outside looking in.

  "How is it your fault?" Mikayla asked.

  Nik stared back at her. "Because I wasn't the husband I should have been, Mikayla. I wasn't the man I should have been."

  "Nik, I'm so sorry," she whispered, and he swore he saw the glimmer of a tear that eased down her cheek. "But it wasn't your fault. Your wife made that decision, not you." Someone other than he shed a tear for the child who had never had a chance to live. The delicate little girl who wanted to be a ballerina. The laughing mischief maker who waited each evening for her "poppa" to come home.

  "It was a long time ago." He had to blink back the moisture in his own eyes. 109

  Mikayla shook her head. "It happened yesterday. That's how clear it is in your heart, Nik. You loved your daughter."

  He nodded slowly and said, "Yes."

  It happened almost nightly in his dreams, almost daily in his memories. And the ache never completely went away, though over the years it had softened.

  "Lay down." He pressed Mikayla back to his shoulder. "Nicolette would have loved you. You look like one of those damned fairies she was forever reading about." And Mikayla did. In that moment Nik realized how much she did resemble one of the little sprites in those long-ago books Nicolette used to make him read to her.

  "A fairy, huh?" He felt Mikayla grin against his chest.

  "A very beautiful, very wild fairy." He almost smiled himself. "Flitting around and finding trouble every chance she has. You need a full-time keeper."

  "Are you applying for the job?" The laughter in her voice, the gentle teasing, was almost more than he could bear.

  "Too many jobs already." He had to close his eyes against the refusal he forced past his lips. "Let me get you out of this one first, baby. Maybe you'll learn how to stay out of trouble after that."

  "You can hope." Her voice had sobered, the realization that he wouldn't, couldn't, stay a silent reminder that nothing lasted forever.

  "I can hope." He kissed the top of her head gently before tucking her closer to his body.

  He could hope for many things, though he had stopped doing so long ago. If one didn't hope, then disappointment didn't visit. Hoping meant you had something to live for, and living for something or someone else was asking for pain. He'd make certain she was safe; then he would make certain someone watched over her. Someone other than him.

  The next day Mikayla assured herself she had gone into this with her eyes opened. She wasn't in love, she promised herself. When Nik left, and she knew he would leave, then she would be able to go on without nursing a broken heart. It didn't help to know she was lying. As autocratic as he could be, as dominant as he was, she was still falling in love, and that knowledge had the power to terrify her. He was so much more than most men she knew. Hell, more than any man she had ever known. In the dark the night before, she had learned something about him that she hadn't expected. Something that might explain that dark, tortured air she glimpsed around him.

  He'd lost so much. A whole life in some ways. A wife and a child. He'd obviously left the army after their deaths and now worked privately. But he was still alone. And a niggling little warning at the back of Mikayla's mind whispered that he seemed to like being alone really well.

  When he drove off after following her to the shop, Mikayla stared at his back with a frown for long seconds. He'd drawn away that morning. He'd already showered and had coffee when she got up, his gaze as frosty as ever as she fixed her own. Perhaps frostier, she told herself as she stepped into the shop and greeted Deirdre before heading to her office.

  There were phone calls to make. Nik was searching for Eddie's killer, but that didn't mean she couldn't help him in other ways.

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  She hated being on the sidelines where her own protection was concerned. Mikayla didn't hide from the realities of life. This was her life, and she was the one who had now become a killer's target.

  But why?

  It took a while, but she finally managed to reach a friend of Eddie Foreman's who had been elusive for so many weeks.

  "Look, Mikayla." Robert Cronin sighed after realizing who she was trying to get hold of him. "Let the police investigate this one."

  "Robert, they're not investigating anyone," she informed him wearily. She had known Robert for years. Before his divorce, his wife had often come to her for dress alterations. As Robert was another construction forema
n, though now no longer with Maddix Nelson, there was information as well as gossip that he had to be privy to.

  "Why did you leave Maddix Nelson's company?" she asked. "Just give me information, Robert. Help me."

  "Son of a bitch, you're gonna end up dead," he said and she could almost imagine the grimace on his craggy face. "Maddix Nelson ain't no killer. If his granddaddy was alive, then I'd say be looking at him. That man was a pure black-hearted son of Satan if you ask me."

  She didn't want a dissection of the family tree. Just information, she thought in frustration.

  "Maybe Maddix is just better at hiding it," she suggested. Robert was quiet, though the distant sound of machinery in the background could be heard.

  "There's some talk," he finally said. "Maddix has been seen in places that he shouldn't be seen, maybe talkin' to people he shouldn't be talking to. The illegal sort. Eddie was at a party a few months ago; he used to get pretty drunk, ya know?" Robert cleared his throat. "Anyway, he said he had something on Maddix. Didn't say what, but said it would bring him down."

  Mikayla bit at her lip. "Do you have any idea what it was?"

  "He didn't say, Mikayla," Robert growled. "Whatever it was, though, Eddie was sure he could hurt Maddix with it. If Eddie told anyone what it was, then it would have been Steve Gainard. He's the only one Eddie would confide in, if he was going to confide in anyone."

  And Steve had been out of town for months. Mikayla had left several messages with his service as well as on his cell phone.

  "I can't believe Maddix did this." Robert sighed again. "But I can't believe you lied about it, either. That puts a lot of us between a rock and a hard place, Mikayla. Like I said, his granddaddy was a real bastard. I wouldn't have put anything past him before his death. That old bastard went so far as to threaten to disinherit Maddix's father if he dared decide to have another child. He didn't want Maddix's daddy, Lowell, to have a large family. Felt it would take away from the company they were building."

  "But as you said, he's dead," Mikayla pointed out. "And it wasn't Maddix's grandfather I saw, Robert. It was Maddix."