Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

She glanced at Damien, who had his right leg crossed over his left as he read the morning paper. His pinstriped trousers strained against the muscle of his thighs. His pale shirt stretched across his broad torso. His tongue darted out to catch a crumb on the edge of his lip. And all Chelsea wanted to do was crawl up onto his lap and wear herself out thoroughly.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she said, then rang off.

  Damien closed the paper before glancing up at her, pinning her to the lounge-chair with his dark gaze. ‘Day off?’

  She nodded, and turned her phone over and over in her palm.

  He glanced at the coffee and bakery feast on the table, then back at her. ‘This is a first for me.’

  ‘Me too,’ she admitted.

  He picked up a piece of hot flaky bread and took a bite. And only after he’d swallowed it down did he break the silence again. Saying, ‘Whatever will we do to fill in the time?’

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHELSEA again woke with light filtering through the backs of her eyelids. Only this time she was curled up on the pink floral couch in the front room wearing velour track pants and a long sleeved T-shirt. She blinked to clear her fuzzy vision and the display on the mobile phone on the coffee-table read 4:15. She could only assume it was in the afternoon.

  The TV was on with the sound turned down low, which wasn’t all that unusual. She liked having the TV on when home so that she didn’t feel as if she was alone.

  What was unusual was that her head was resting on a pair of strong male thighs.

  She peeked up into Damien’s face. He was completely immersed in the action on the TV. She glanced back, and over the half-empty bowl of popcorn realised he was watching Doris Day sling it out with Howard Keel in Calamity Jane. She bit back the laughter that bubbled into her throat.

  She moved slightly then, trying to extricate herself before he realised she was awake. But when she went to move the arm beneath her head she realised she was trapped. Her hand was tucked neatly between his warm thighs. She sent a quick prayer to the heavens in the hopes that was as far as it had ventured while she slept.

  She managed to slide her hand less than an inch before his thighs clamped down. Her gaze shot northward to meet with a pair of smiling blue eyes.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ Damien said, his deep sexy voice washing over her like a shower of warm milk.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, her voice soft and croaky with sleep.

  ‘Sweet dreams?’

  The last hazy remains of what had been a pretty hot and detailed dream still lingered on the edge of her mind. She looked away before he realised he had been the star. ‘How long was I out?’

  ‘A couple of hours.’

  ‘Wow. I haven’t had a nap during the day since … I can’t remember when.’

  ‘You needed it.’

  She tried to sit up again, and his thighs only clamped down tighter. ‘May I have my hand back?’ ‘Don’t know how I feel about that.’

  ‘Well, I have no feeling left from my wrist down, so it won’t do you any good to keep it there.’

  Damien held eye contact for a few heated seconds longer before slowly releasing his grip. She slid her hand from the space and brought it out into the cold of the open air.

  She sat up, rubbing at her fingers, but there was no way she could regather the kind of warmth they’d felt being so near his skin.

  He grabbed the remote from the coffee-table to turn off the TV.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘don’t stop on my account. You a big Doris Day fan?’

  Damien’s eyes narrowed, piercing her until her lethargic heartbeat kicked up to a jogging rate. ‘I had been watching Ocean’s Eleven, the Rat Pack version. This simply came on afterwards and I knew if I moved to get the remote I’d wake you.’

  ‘How benevolent.’

  ‘Just call me Nurse Halliburton. I seem to have a flare for it. Odd considering the only time anyone in my family has been in need of a hospital has been the rehab kind.’ A smile pulled at his cheeks.

  She tucked her feet up onto the couch and wrapped her arms around her knees for protection. But nothing could have protected her from the rush of feelings when he reached out and ran a finger down her cheek.

  ‘My trousers have left a crease mark,’ he said.

  Her hand flew to her face. She could only imagine how she must have looked. Even after her long hot bath, and the three times she’d cleaned her teeth, her hair must by now have again looked a mess. Her eyes puffy. Pink-cheeked with the image of wool trousers branded into her face like some kind of over-familiar tattoo. She let her hair fall forward to act as a curtain.

  Damien’s hand reached out again, pushing her hair behind her ear.

  ‘Chelsea,’ he said, his voice insistent. He looked so deep into her eyes she could scarcely breathe. His hand continued sweeping her hair over her ear, and along her neck. Over and over again. ‘There’s something I want to say to you, to make clear, before you fall asleep on me again.’

  Her hand dropped to her lap. ‘Okay.’

  ‘I wanted to tell you, now, while we’re here alone, with no distractions, bar Doris Day’s finest hour on film, that sitting here, watching you sleep like an angel in my lap, I have come to the conclusion…’

  He stopped and took a deep breath. Chelsea held hers until her lungs felt as if they were about to burst.

  ‘I can’t go another day without making love to you, Miss London.’

  Chelsea’s heart thundered in her chest as hard as she’d ever remembered feeling it thunder. The reciprocal words caught in her throat as pride and fear and hope and history egged her to hold her cards close to her chest. She’d never felt like this before in her whole life. Never experienced this kind of euphoria just by looking into another person’s eyes. Each moment with him was a gamble with the chances of losing her guarded heart to him becoming greater with every passing moment. Nevertheless she gave into temptation and threw the dice.

  ‘I want nothing more either, Mr Halliburton.’

  He cupped her cheek, held her gaze and said, ‘Then I also need you to know that I recently came out of my last relationship just shy of bloodshed. I don’t plan to bore you with the gory details, but suffice it to say I’m not on the hunt for someone new to fill that place in my life.’

  Chelsea swallowed hard, but Damien kept eye contact so she couldn’t move.

  ‘But,’ he continued, ‘I can’t get you out of my mind. Your face, your lips, your skin haunts me and I can’t deny that I want you.’

  Chelsea’s instincts screamed at her to listen and listen hard. He was openly admitting he wasn’t in the market for permanence or responsibility. It wasn’t just all in her head. Now was her chance to pull out, before she became the next in line to bleed for him.

  But as she looked into his beautiful eyes she knew it was already too late. The temptation of him was simply too great. She reached out and ran a trembling finger over his lips. Every second seemed to stretch out before her, longer and longer until he leaned slowly in, and placed his lips upon hers.

  It was the sweetest kiss of her life. His mouth gently moved against hers, coaxing more and more from her with every touch. And every conscious thought, every warring emotion, slipped away bar the feel of the man at her side.

  He tasted of fresh roasted coffee and hazelnuts. Any hint of cologne from the night before had been replaced by the smell of pure warm male skin. The slight stubble on his chin rasped lightly against her chin, so that the goose-bumps trailing every inch of exposed skin did not for one second let up.

  As the emotions inside her swelled to breaking-point, she pulled away the tiniest possible amount, and whispered, ‘What if I’m contagious?’

  His breath whispered against her lips. ‘I’m willing to take the chance if you are.’

  She looked into his eyes, and knew he was asking more of her than the possibility of sharing germs. He was asking her to take a chance on him, to let this kiss play out to its inevitable conclusion. He was aski
ng her to dream big, damn the consequences.

  She took a long slow breath, and nodded.

  He blinked, just once and the deal was sealed.

  This time when his lips met hers it was with more pressure, more urgency, and she couldn’t have pulled away if she’d tried. Not that she wanted to try. All she wanted was to sink into him. To lose herself and find herself all at once.

  Her hand moved beneath the hair at the back of his neck, sliding into the soft thick texture the way she’d wanted to ever since she’d first laid eyes on him. And she moved until she was lying on his lap, his strong grip holding her upright.

  Then she opened her mouth to him and with it her powerless heart.

  The kiss went on for ever, as they got to know one another’s taste, and feel, and the particular things that made each other shiver and sigh.

  Finally, his hand moved down her back, sliding along her spine until she curved into him. He reached the top of her track pants and didn’t stop there. His hand dived beneath the waistline and managed to find skin on its first try.

  His large warm palm cupped her left cheek and lifted her gently towards him. Deeper into his arms. If he was looking for a new way to make her shiver and sigh he’d found it.

  She let her own hands drop to blindly find the buttons of his shirt. The kiss didn’t let up as she undid each one and pushed the starched cotton off his shoulders, her hands stroking over hot, rolling muscles of his arms, which were far more beautiful than she’d even imagined.

  As her hands moved around to the front, to course over his perfect chest, scraping against a smattering of dark, curling hair until her fingernails reached the fly of his trousers, Damien’s hands slid up to grip hers, pulling everything to a halt.

  The kiss broke apart so suddenly the two of them came up gulping for air.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, turning her fingernails into her palms. If he rejected her for a third time she’d never forgive herself for being so consciously imprudent. For trusting a man who’d all but told her she shouldn’t.

  He shook his head, his eyes so dark she couldn’t have guessed they were blue if she didn’t know better.

  ‘No?’ she asked, wondering what she could possibly have done wrong.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘God yes. Just. Well. Hell.’ With that he scooped her up in his arms.

  She let out a whoop as her legs were flung into the air and her arms instinctively wrapped tight about his neck. And when he began to jog, no, run, into the bedroom she laughed so hard she was sure Mrs Luchek next door would have heard her had she not been away.

  Chelsea took about half a second to worry if the bed was made before she landed upon it with a bounce. ‘Whoa. I think I felt the earth move.’

  Damien said nothing. He just stood at the end of the bed with his white business shirt open and hanging off his shoulders like a pirate on the front of an old romance novel. His breaths rose and fell in great slow moves and her mouth went completely dry. He was, quite simply, the sexiest man to ever walk the face of the earth.

  He slid the shirt from his back and let it drop where it fell. If his body had felt beautiful it looked, if at all possible, even more daunting. Tanned, sculpted, mature. This was no teenager with whom she was exploring, no leftover New Uniform high-school fantasy come to life.

  Damien Halliburton was all man.

  And as he walked towards the bed, popping the button of his trousers, unzipping his fly, she felt a sudden need to scurry to the head of the bed, but instead grabbed a hold of a hunk of her angora throw and hung on tight lest she pass out from pure anticipation.

  He stepped out of his trousers and his black silk boxers in one go until he was naked from the top of his dark head to the flats of his large feet. He was ready for her in every way possible. Veins stood out on his arms as though he was straining. His jaw was sharp and his lips tightly clenched. His erection was quite simply glorious. And rather than let her simply admire he just kept on coming.

  She tore her T-shirt over her head and the moment his knee hit the bed she was reaching up and wrapping a hand behind his neck and drawing him down to her.

  He held himself away, only just, but enough so that he wouldn’t crush her with his heavy weight, while his mouth held back nothing, plundering hers with his tongue, until she felt deliciously bruised.

  He lowered himself to her side so that he could free his hands. To caress her stomach, which quivered beneath his touch. To brush her hair from her neck before following through with an array of searing kisses. When he gently nudged aside the strap of her bra with the tip of his nose and scraped the very bottom of her neck his tenderness almost broke her.

  ‘So you are a shoulder girl,’ he murmured into her neck, before nipping lightly outwards until his teeth sank into the soft flesh just before her shoulder-bone.

  Her head dropped back to the bed and she arched into him. ‘Who knew?’ she managed to say.

  ‘Well, if that works, I wonder…’ He reached behind her, un-clipped her bra with one hand, slid it away, then threw it to the other side of the room. His eyes turned impossibly dark as they roamed over her breasts, which felt so very heavy against her chest.

  ‘Which one first?’ He lowered himself so that she could feel his hot breath whisper across her breasts. Her nipples hardened into tight peaks as she fought against the urge to grab him by the back of the head and pull him down to whichever breast was closest.

  He went left, laying a row of kisses beneath until she could have cried out. His tongue darted out, leaving a trail of moisture until his mouth closed over her nipple. A spasm rocketed through her, lifting her hips off the bed.

  He lightly grazed her with his teeth before moving over to the right breast and following the same pattern, which only made her ache more, knowing exactly what was coming next.

  Once she was sure she could stand it no more, he began kissing down the sensitive inside of her arm. There was little she could do but let her arm hang limply in his care as wave after wave of warmth spilled outward from every touch of his mouth.

  His hand trailed a gentle course along the beltline of her track pants, and then he blew across her naked stomach until a wave of agonising goose-bumps sprang up. Her hand flew to rub the skin prickles away but he stopped her.

  ‘Uh-uh. This part is mine now.’

  She lifted her head enough to catch his eye. ‘Says who?’

  ‘Says the guy who is about to show you why you should stop yabbering and just let him do as he pleases.’

  As he spoke his fingers stroked back and forth across her stomach, moving ever lower with each caress, until they began to push her pants lower and lower past her hips.

  Her neck muscles gave way, her head collapsed, and her arm flopped over her eyes until all she could see was the backs of her eyelids. All she could hear was the heavy sound of her own breath. And all she could feel was the smooth slide of velour down her thighs, past her calves and off.

  The central heating was on low to hold the cold autumn afternoon at bay. But her skin felt as if it were on fire. As if she was blushing from head to foot. Her blood vessels must have been on overload.

  The bed shifted as Damien moved. Her imagination went crazy as she tried to foresee what he would do next. And just as she thought she couldn’t take the wait another second his hands closed around her feet.

  His thumbs rubbed the soles, his fingers sliding against the muscles of her ankles until she sighed with the luscious pleasure of it. They moved up her calves, making her thank her lucky stars she’d shaved that morning. Once they hit her knees she began to shake. Her self-control broke down, inch by beautiful inch.

  His caress was so gentle as his hands rounded her thighs, kneading ever so slightly before delving in between and pressing her legs until they fell apart. One hand continued up her side, his thumb brushing into her navel, then up her ribcage as he again rested beside her.

  His mouth claimed hers in the very same instant his other hand reached
the juncture between her thighs.

  Her groan was swallowed by his insistent mouth, his searching tongue. She writhed beneath him, her senses confused as to whether to let her concentrate on the delicious sensation of his lips playing, oh, so gently, and, oh, so tenderly with hers, or to let go and give into the feel of his fingers touching her, stroking her, sliding against her flesh with ever so slightly increasing pressure and pace that her whole body thrummed.

  She began to peak all too soon. She tilted her head sideways and begged him, ‘Wait.’

  ‘Not going to happen.’ His gravelly voice almost sent her over the edge all on its own.

  ‘I don’t want this to end,’ she said, her voice now a desperate whimper. But it was the truth. In her blissful state she could truly imagine holding back, slowing down, and finding a way to feel like this until the end of time.

  ‘Too bad,’ Damien said, then kissed her until she was completely breathless.

  With that, she finally allowed herself to feel every ounce of pleasure. The kiss, the caress, the weight of him pressing against her came together as a slow boiling-point vibration coursing from her centre and spreading out through every nerve ending to the tips of her fingers and toes.

  The hand over her eyes reached out and clung to his shoulder. Her right knee bent and spilled sideways until she was completely open to him, body and soul.

  And the heat, and shakes, and pleasure and lack of control came to a head until her whole body went numb for one brief idyllic second before sensation returned and rolled through her like a tidal wave, destroying every shred of restraint in its wake, leaving her so ragged she had not even enough energy to lift a finger.

  ‘Open your eyes,’ Damien said an eon later. She struggled against the heavy weight of her eyelids before she was able to blink into the late afternoon light, which sent the cream walls in her room a bright burnt orange.

  He looked deep into her eyes, and she was too shattered to hide what she felt for him. But what she saw in his eyes soon woke her up.

  Burgeoning compassion. Genuine, honest to goodness care that he had in no way hurt her. Which meant that he believed he had the power within himself to do so. Which in turn meant that, not only was he arrogant as all get out, he also saw far more in her expression than she cared to reveal.