They laughed softly together, and she moved her touch from the back of his head and down his chest. She splayed her fingers as she stroked her palms over his pecs, down his heaving abs, and along the deep V at his hips, stopping mere inches from his hardness, still standing to attention between them. She sank her fingernails into the sensitive smattering of hair just above his aching member, making the skin there, ebb and tighten, his body begging for her to move her touch lower. He took hold of her wrists before she could.
“Every woman I’ve ever cared about has ended up…” A lump rose in his throat, slowing his words for a moment, making it a struggle to finish. “Hurt… or taken… or dead.”
She bit her lip, big brown eyes widening up at him. “I’m not gonna get hurt. God, Linc, you think you’re hurting me when you’ve really given me the most amazing gift. I’ve never made love to a man I actually wanted. To a man I’m actually attracted to. For a long time, I didn’t even think it would be possible. I sure as hell never thought the man who’d kidnapped me would be the one to prove that it was… but he did. You did.”
He dug the fingers into the skin on her back, trying to pull her closer, even though she was already as close as she could get.
She brushed the tips of their noses, her voice softening. “I don’t care that we’ll eventually be split up. If this moment is the only time I’ll know what it’s like to be with a man because it’s what I want…” She clenched her teeth. “In the deepest part of me… it’ll be worth it. Something that I can carry it with me forever. A beautiful memory that I can revisit for the rest of my life. Maybe this moment, with you, will be my only chance to know that feeling.” She shook her head, making their noses brush. “Please don’t take that chance from me.”
He opened his mouth to refute, but nothing came. The sight of her, laying her heart on the line, just as emotionally bare as she was physically—he couldn’t speak. The response that her lean body, plump breasts, and mouthwatering nipples inspired in him physically was no match for the words she’d just whispered. What they’d done to him internally. They’d entered his body and rendered every word he’d just spoken—every word that had made so much sense just a minute earlier—completely obsolete, and he was leaning in once more.
Their lips met again, an enduring kiss this time. One that lingered long enough to take both their breath away. Airlifting them into another world. One that felt so far removed from the one they were currently in. Linc didn’t even realize he’d been moving her back toward the bed until she tumbled onto the mattress before him, her breasts jiggling as she fell. A warm, inviting smile lit up her face.
And he was on her like an animal, crawling on top of the bed while searing his lips to hers once more. Her maddening scent filled his nostrils and propelled his agony to another level, causing his insistent fingers to snatch and grab at her. Moving and flinging her body across the bed with ease until her damp hair was buried in the pillows at the headboard. He sat up to take her in, and she nibbled her bottom lip once more, spreading her legs wide, showing him the swollen, glistening lips of her channel. Showing him the evidence that her body needed him just as much as his did her. Encouraging him to take her. To take what would always be his and only his.
A tightening in his stomach moved him to her at the speed of light. He cradled one fisted hand on the bed beside her and seized her waist with the other. Yanking her body up from the bed and sealing every inch of it to his. She drew in a sharp gasp at the swiftness of his movements, spreading her legs to accommodate his massive size before locking her every limb around him, trusting him to serve as her anchor.
Their lips met again, tongues encased in a tumulus battle once more. Since the moment he’d thrown this woman over his shoulder, not a day had gone by when his dick hadn’t been as hard as a rock, and Linc couldn’t wait another moment. Reaching between their writhing bodies, he seized his erection with a soft kiss. Their fervent kissing didn’t cease as he guided the aching head to her wetness, gasping and moaning into her mouth, each of them bathed in turgid flames, pounding and yearning to become one. His stomach tightened as he slid slowly inside her, the tightness of her slick walls both fighting him and drawing him in. Each agonizing inch he sank sent a new shockwave of pleasure charging through his bones, and he dug his fingers into her thighs when it nearly became too much. His lips brushed hers as he whispered lust-filled words between each kiss. Words he couldn’t even hear beyond his own pounding ears. Words he knew had the potential to get filthier by the second as good as she was making him feel right then.
Not even halfway in and the first warnings of his orgasm were already prickling his skin. Threatening him. Warning that an explosion was imminent. That it had been too long and he had made a grave mistake in deciding to break his streak with a woman as incredible as her.
An amazed gasp parted his lips, leaving him unable to return the hot kisses she still feathered on his mouth as he fought for restraint. He managed to resist the impending ejaculate, tightening his balls by a prayer, putting Mia on her back and slamming his hand into her waist, forcing her body down onto the bed. Half of his dick slid out of her, and he gritted his teeth against the friction it caused, making the warm tidal waves splashing across his skin to grow in fervor.
The warmth of her fingers stroking his tensed arms as he cradled them on either side of his body made his heartbeat pick up to thrice its speed. Every muscle in his body squeezed tight, stretching to the brim. He slammed his eyes closed and begged for control. He didn’t just want Mia to come first—he wanted her to come hard. Harder than she ever had before. If he was the only man she’d ever make love to by choice, he wanted it to be as perfect for her as it already was for him. But her beauty was proving a real threat to his wishes at that moment. Proving that lasting inside Mia might be a battle hard won. Mission impossible.
She tightened her walls around the head of his dick, which remained inside her, smiling playfully up at him as if she was well aware of the mental battle he was enduring.
At the sight of that smile, he seized her waist like a man possessed, lifted her off the bed, and yanked her body forward, driving his dick as deep as it could go. They both cried out as he filled her to the hilt and he kept a tight hold on her waist as the pleasure caused her body to collapse in his arms, her back arching deep, giving him all over her weight. Linc didn’t relent, even as she went limp, now blind to the heat of her soaking wet walls as he propelled into her, tugging her hips into his, faster every second, a new incredible sensation filling his body with every thrust. Each hit felt better than the last, leaving him frowning as he fucked her, his lips parted but not making a sound. Utterly speechless in every possible way.
Mia clawed her fingers into the bedspread as he took her. Her throbbing center grew juicer with each stroke, the sound making music in the room. A room that had gone deathly silent outside of their hushed pants, desperate gasps, and slapping skin.
“Yes,” she whined, and Linc could only assume it felt as good for her as it did for him because her previously flaccid bones came back to life. Strong enough for her to push herself up onto her hands, lock her arms behind her, and drive her hips back into his. Her brown eyes, now hooded with her own naked desire, locked to his as she matched his ardent thrusts, her thighs smacking against his as she worked with him to reach the spine-tingling peak they were both well on their way to. Even as her face darkened with rapture, her lips still managed to spread into an alluring smile. “You’re so sexy, Linc.”
His name on her lips was like a sweet symphony. “You’re so fuckin’ beautiful, baby.” He clenched his teeth when she tightened her cavern around him, a heavy line drawing itself between his eyebrows.
She drew his length in deep and held him there, grinding her hips in a languid circle that pulled a strangled moan from his throat.
Then her name was on his lips too. “Oh, Jesus, Mia.”
“Oh my God.” A soft frowned crossed her face. Her whimpers moved to zealous gro
ans. Her groans to fractured cries. Cries that rose in volume with every swirl of her hips. Her lips fell apart, more with every stroke, until her mouth was hanging wide open, increasing in size right along with her fiery cries as they ebbed to amazed screams, making her voice go hoarse.
Her already snug walls grew even tighter around his dick and then shifted like a seismic wave. So violently he worried her pussy might break him clear in half. It didn’t break him, however, but it did drag him right over that screaming edge with her as his hardness swelled inside her, stretching her to the tilt. The muscles at the base of his column contracted and his thrusts grew urgent, the heat and friction taking him to heights he’d never reached before. An orgasm so powerful tightened in his stomach and exploded all over his body, and he began ramming his hips into hers in at a bruising pace—with an unyielding force.
She took every hit like a champ, and her walls shuddered around him again as she rode her second wave, her limbs going limp once more.
With one last, ardent thrust, he finished inside her, a guttural growl tearing up his throat as his hardness twitched and pounded in the warm sleeve of her pussy. A new, startled gasp left his lips with every shot. Every surge. Every blast he hadn’t expected. Every aftershock that hit him when he’d been sure there was nothing left. Each one tightening his skin with a new realm of pleasure he’d never experienced. That he’d never had known existed if not for Mia at that moment.
Then, Linc collapsed on her chest, spent. They both released long, heaving breaths as the weight of his body landed on top of hers, making her sink deep into the bed as if the mattress was trying to swallow her whole. Mia tightened her arms and legs around his heaving body and kissed the crook between his neck and his collarbone. He felt her smiling against his skin, followed by a soft laugh. She couldn’t help the gentle chuckle that raced up his throat moments after hers, a white-hot relief he’d never experienced washing over his body and making his laughter grow. She must’ve felt the same relief—the same freedom—because her serene laughter rose with his, raising the ceiling and filling the room, fluttering out into the flooded Venice quarter that still awaited them beyond the open double doors of the balcony.
28
The storm had passed by the following morning, but Venice remained underwater, ensuring that no one without a boat came in or went out. That anyone who hadn’t gotten their affairs in order beforehand were shit outta luck. No food to eat? Oh well. Hopefully, there was a neighbor who had a full fridge. No boat? Tough shit. Time to get comfortable until the city drained.
Mia, however, had never been more thankful to be stranded. As she lay atop Linc’s hard chest, his sleeping body just as naked as hers, with her hands stacked on the valley between his pecs and her chin cradled on top, there was no place else she’d rather be. No feeling she’d rather feel than his mountainous abs rippling against her soft stomach. His long, thick thighs supporting hers like they were as light as the dark hair feathering them and tickling her smooth skin. His feet—still twitching in his sleep—all tangled up in hers at the foot of the bed.
The yellow stuffed bear smiled upon them from where it was propped up on the bedside table.
As her eyes ran Linc’s face, Mia timed her breathing with his, amazed at how long a human being could go between breaths when they were in their deepest depths of sleep. Every time she held her breath along with him, she always felt on the verge of suffocation. That if one more second passed without both of them inhaling they would surely die right there in each other’s arms, aka Romeo and Juliet. But Linc would always breathe deeply right in the nick of time, relieving her burning lungs as she followed suit and breathed in too. His aroma filled her nostrils as she did, entering her body and warming it up. Making her feel safer than she’d felt in almost fifteen long years.
As their breathing became one, she smiled at the feeling of his heart beating through his chest. It pumped at a slower pace than hers, but in her own defense, how could she possibly calm her racing heart when she was looking upon such a handsome face? His long, dark eyelashes fluttered closed and tickled his chiseled cheeks. His full pink lips—lips that, just days earlier, had been between her legs. The tongue that lived beyond those plump, pink lips—a tongue that had licked her to completion like it was nothing. The five o’clock shadow that had tickled the inside of her thighs the whole time, somehow making her orgasm that much more tantalizing as it arched her back off the floor.
The memory alone had her center pulsing for more. If it was possible, her heart pounded even faster. Threatening to burst right out of her chest and plop onto the massive body, bearing all her weight. Her fingers itched to reach up and fix his long, wavy brown hair—messy and haphazard on the white pillow he slept on with his head craned to the side. She didn’t fix his hair, however, unwilling to risk waking him.
The weight of her body on his, however, must’ve done the job instead, because he suddenly drew in a deep, ragged breath that broke through the languid rhythm he’d taken up for the hour she’d been lying there watching him. As soon as the tempo was broken, his eyes opened, just a peep, and landed on her.
His nostrils flared the moment he caught sight of her, just lying there, staring at him. His cheeks heated up, and his green eyes opened completely, shifting away from hers as a chuckle rumbled in his chest.
She sat up, resting her elbow on his chest while cradling her chin in her fisted hand, a beaming smile crossing her face. “You’re blushing.”
“You’re staring,” he accused, voice still fractured and sleepy. He cupped his jaw when it grew red under her gaze.
“Don’t try to hide it now. Your eyes already gave you away. Even when you’re trying to fake a frown, your eyes tell the real story.”
He dropped his hand from his face and sank his fingers into her hair, finally allowing the smile, fighting to be free from his lips, to bloom.
“My mom always used to tell me I was the only person she knew who could smile with his eyes.” He tucked her hair behind her ear and then drew the backs of his knuckles down her cheek, over her lips, under her jaw, and along her neck. Only stopping when he reached the swell of her breasts, which looked ten times plumper since they were squished against his chest.
She stacked her hands in the valley between his pecs and plopped her chin down on top of them, causing him to groan when she gave him her weight once more.
She smiled up at him. “Does your mom still live in California?”
“Yep.”
“And your dad?”
He licked his lips, voice still hoarse from sleep, still stroking her hair. “Never knew him. Not until I put a bullet between his eyes, anyway.”
Her eyes expanded. “I need more information.”
His nostrils flared as he gave a breathy laugh, but his face grew somber in a flash. “He raped my mother. She got pregnant with me. And for my entire life, she didn’t have the heart to tell me who he was. Or, at least, I thought she didn’t have the heart. Turns out she was really just trying to protect me.”
“From him?”
He nodded.
Mia’s eyes ran his face, noting how tightly drawn it’d gotten. “Why would she need to protect you from your father? Outside of the fact that he’s a bloody rapist, obviously.”
He smirked. “That’s so adorable. The way an English accent just slips outta your lips at the most random times.”
“Hey, you try spending over a decade in England and coming out on the other side without a few ‘buggers’, ‘tossers’ and ‘bloody hells’ on your tongue. It’s harder than it seems, okay?” She took a beat. “And stop trying to change the subject. We’re talking about you. About what made your dad such a bloody wanker.”
A long silence fell, and he cupped the side of her face, letting his thumb stroke her cheek. “She never told me who my father was… because she knew he was the Chairman of Blackwater Cruises. The same cruise line that abducted my wife and daughter. The cruise line that ran a sex trafficking operation ou
t of the hull of their ships for decades. She didn’t tell me about him because she knew what a monster he was. A man who’d made billions off the backs of modern day slaves. Who’d molested his own daughter at the age of twelve. A daughter who gave birth to a man who’d eventually become my sworn enemy. A man I wouldn’t even learn was my brother until almost thirty years later.”
Mia’s eyebrows jumped. There were so many questions. So many things she wanted to say. She wanted to disparage his father. To request more information about the cruise line that had apparently been working in the trade. To inquire further about his long lost brother. She wanted to frown, to scream, to do anything to intervene and say her piece. To let him know how disgusted she already was with every word coming out of his mouth about his father. But another part of her realized this was the first time Linc had ever laid himself so bare. So she bit her tongue.
He shrugged. “Or maybe she was trying to protect him from me. Maybe she knew all along that I’d kill him if I ever found out who he was. That I’d kill them all.”
She took in his words, flashing back to the first time she’d asked him how many people he’d killed. Back when he’d still had her tied up to that bed in the outskirts of London. A time that now felt like it’d happened a million years ago.
“The ten people you killed?” she asked. “They all worked for the cruise line?”
His lips tightened. “Yep. Employees. Investors. All getting paid exorbitant incomes to traffic innocent women and children. To traffic my pregnant wife… while she’d been on a cruise by herself. A cruise where I should’ve been by her side… but wasn’t.” His teeth bared through his tightly drawn lips. “She never even had a chance to tell me she was pregnant.”
“You can’t blame yourself, Linc.”
His eyes had moved to a faraway place, so far that she wondered if he’d even heard her reassuring words.
Captive Page 20