by Karen Anders
The loud, piercing sound of a siren split the air and Austin froze. He lifted his head and looked at her, quickly adjusting her clothing when he heard the cops break up the spontaneous party, urging people home and shutting off the hydrant.
His dark eyes came back to hers and closed. With a soft sigh, he slipped down her body to his knees. Maxie quickly tucked in her shirt and felt her heart breaking. She’d driven him to wanting her, knowing that he would fight against it, and she felt shame for it because she’d pushed him to the edge and all it would take was a small shove to send him over, but she thought, as she too closed her eyes, she wanted to soar with him.
She fixed her clothes and bent down, too. She cupped his face and looked into his eyes and saw everything that had been missing from her life, everything it could be, everything it should be.
He nodded and stood.
It took very little time to pick up what they needed.
AUSTIN WAS SUBDUED and quiet when they entered the hotel room. Maxie hovered near him, but seemed to be afraid of touching him. He didn’t blame her. She should be scared. He was on the very edge of his control and he wasn’t sure about this. Did she plan to trick him again in some way when he was lost in her? He needed time to regain equilibrium before he touched her. “Give me a minute,” he said when she lifted her hand to touch him. He walked to the bed.
Suddenly his clinging, wet T-shirt was uncomfortable. Feeling confined and edgy, he pulled the shirt over his head and dropped it onto the floor. Then he glanced down.
It was the most mundane thing. His sodden T-shirt and her silky undergarment were entwined together on the floor at the foot of the bed. He reached down to pick up his shirt, but his hands touched the soft, silky material instead. He gasped, bringing the wispy garment up so he could take a better look at it. He stroked his hand against the sheer material, becoming aroused that Maxie had worn this cloth against her skin. He brought it to his nose, breathing deeply of her delicate fragrance. He closed his eyes at the powerful need that rocked through him. The material felt cool and silky against the bare skin of his chest. He rubbed the garment along his cheekbone almost groaning with pleasure.
His eyes opened and Maxie felt as if a blast furnace had suddenly materialized in the room such was the scorching flame she saw in his hot honey eyes, full of flickering flashes like caramel lightning. That gaze sent warmth tingling down her spine. One look from his sultry eyes could do this to her body—make it catch on fire and burn.
“Come here.” His voice wavered unevenly.
She walked across the room as if under a spell. She could see the rock-hard need in him; he was almost tense with it.
When she reached him, he let the material slip out of his hands. It slid sensually down his chest, dropping in a whisper of sound to the floor.
She looked up into his desire-hardened face and felt compelled to touch him. She was overwhelmed that he needed her so much and knew it was not just sex. If it were, he wouldn’t be so worried about where it would lead them. He would have taken her a long time ago without thought or protection. But she meant more to him than some bounty. She knew it in her soul and her heart contracted painfully knowing that there wasn’t a thing she could do about his pain or her own. They would both just have to endure it, because what was between them was much more powerful than duty and honor. More powerful than liquor licenses and clearing her name. More powerful than anything.
Forced by her blatant need to reach out, she touched the hot sleek skin of his chest. He jerked, groaning and twisting his head to the side. Enthralled with his response, she trailed her hand down the middle of his chest over the banded muscles of his flat stomach. He groaned louder, his breathing rapid and harsh. She moved closer to him. “We are in trouble,” she whispered, her voice coming out husky and strained with the riotous desire clamoring inside her.
“Maxie.” His voice was tension filled, her name on his lips desire soaked.
She knew that was all he could manage, so caught up in his need for her he couldn’t even speak. It was awesome to have a man want her so badly that he couldn’t speak.
“We’re crazy.” She ran her hands farther down, slipping beneath the waistband of his jeans. His hands clutched her shoulders as if he were going to collapse, pushing the hard heat of his erection against her hand, burying his face into the hollow of her shoulder. She felt the power in his big hands on her shoulders. But he would never hurt her. That thought was like a rush of adrenaline to her bloodstream. She drew her nails up the tautly rigid shaft.
It was as if he couldn’t move, couldn’t think, he could only let her do with him what she wanted. The pleasure that exploded inside of him sent his face deeper into the hollow. He panted open mouthed against her skin murmuring unintelligible words. She grasped the waistband of his jeans, peeled the offending garment away from his body, freeing the glorious burning weight of his shaft. She swiftly removed her clothing. And when her hands were free, she ran both palms across his hips and up his sides. With her full weight, she pushed him backward onto the bed. She raised her leg, dragging it up his stiff arousal, relishing the power she had over him when his head thrashed and he groaned deeply in his chest.
The pleasure of sliding along his thick, hard erection spiraled inside her.
Austin jerked and tried to rise.
Maxie deliberated for a moment, then asked, “Don’t you want to cuff me to the bed? I won’t be able to get away.”
“Are you sure about this, Maxie?”
“Yes.” The thought of being bound made the thrill inside her intensify, bound by a man she so desperately wanted to touch. It would intensify her pleasure, heighten it to be unable to use her hands.
He reached for the handcuffs and switched their positions. Pulling her arms over her head to close the cuffs around her wrists and around the slat in the bed.
He gently guided her chin up, tilted her head back as he lowered his. “You’re safe,” he murmured. “Safe with me.”
The heat of his mouth was rivaled only by the softness of his lips. “Safe,” he murmured against her mouth. The word a soft, charged promise. All thoughts flew out of her head in the sizzling aftermath of his kiss.
As if she was the only woman who could give him what he craved, he explored the sweet nectar of her mouth. His seductive tongue was like moist velvet. Maxie took from him as if he was the only man who could give her what she needed.
His fingers were deliberate, relentless and methodical as he stroked the skin around her breast. He touched her everywhere but the taut peak that craved his mouth. The mouth that conquered hers, branded her his. His caresses were too light, glided over skin sensitized by desire long denied. Aching for fulfillment that was only just a whisper away, she strove to hang on to each new sensation. His fingers promised, his mouth pledged that soon he would give her harder contact, the wet heat of his mouth, but the torturous caresses continued, leaving her arching and gasping.
He was aware of every sound she made as she uttered it, each time she shuddered. He brought her to the very edge of her endurance and beyond.
He drew his tongue up the globe of her breast. She could feel his hot breath hovering almost within reach of her straining nipple. With a fleeting flick with his tongue, he drew away and laved her other breast in the same manner until she was writhing beneath him. When his hot, searing mouth finally closed over her breast, sucking hard, Maxie went mad.
With a strangled moan she came up off the bed; her hands fought the cuffs, wanting, needing to clench tightly into his hair, to feel the straining muscles of his back. Her body writhed beneath his, something she couldn’t ever remember doing before.
“Austin, please.” She wrapped her legs around his waist until she was flush against his hardness. Austin groaned and she loved the sound. Didn’t think she could hear it enough. “Please.”
“I want you so much it hurts.” His mouth against the shell of her ear was tender, soothing.
“Please, Austin.”
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br /> “But not reckless. Not fast.” His voice was a whisper, feathering hot kisses against the skin between her breasts.
He was taking her to a new place, a place she was afraid she didn’t want to reach, but he gave her no choice. She tried to press her enflamed flesh against the hot, sleek muscle of his hard body. She couldn’t stand it. “Now. I want you inside me now.”
“No.”
She moaned in protest when he wouldn’t comply with her demand. She fought the cuffs, pulling against them in her need to feel him inside her. But to no avail. Austin would have his way and she was powerless to do anything about it. All her thoughts burned up like fodder to flame with each swell of intense pleasure, each kiss he nibbled over her hot flesh. When he traced his tongue skillfully through the valley between her breasts, she stopped fighting the escalating sensation and surrendered.
He savored her.
His arms around her kept her grounded even as he took and gave, touched her, coerced her, tormenting, but satisfying. He was caught in the same tormenting need, his strategy backfiring to engulf him in the same flames that burned her.
With each stroke of his hand, the tension within her mounted. With each gasp and moan from her, his breath got harsher, hotter, more deliberate. He used his amazing control to drive her higher. He wanted to give her this because their time was so short. This was his way of leaving her with more than she had when she met him. Something that would linger long after they were separated. Even in her wildness, Maxie cherished it, knew it, accepted it.
His mouth lingered over her body as if she were a tasty feast and every flavor was exquisite, each ripe, rich. When he flattened his hand low on her belly, but not low enough to satisfy her, she was scorched. When he took a nipple in his mouth and bit down gently, she was consumed.
In a gruff, uneven voice he whispered her name across her lips, moving his mouth over hers with unrestrained longing. Thrusting his tongue in her mouth, she arched against him sobbing with desperation and need. When she felt his naked, hot shaft against her, she thrust her hips in an uncontrollable dance of passion.
“Look at me,” he demanded and she did, but she couldn’t stop moving against him. It was too much. But his eyes compelled her attention and mesmerized her. She couldn’t look away.
It was there again, that shimmering passion she’d almost experienced in the hotel room in Albuquerque. She wanted to know it, wanted it to consume her, wanted him to make her his. He grabbed her hips, holding her still against him. “Wait.” He took a ragged breath. “Just a minute.”
It was an order, a plea, a prayer.
It took all her willpower to still her body. The cuffs clanged against the headboard and he looked at them and then down at her. With an incoherent sound he ran his hands up her body, around the curve of each breast. Hungry for him, Maxie could barely contain the power building in her muscles. When he groaned and grabbed what was on the bedside table, she smiled.
Her smile was replaced by a gasp of anticipation when he fitted the condom to himself, then lifted her hips to place a pillow under her, spread her thighs, and sluiced his hands down her legs, beginning with her inner thighs.
A killing pleasure speared through her, piercing and devastatingly fierce.
A pleasure to die for, to live for.
He splayed a hand down on her belly and fitted himself to her.
She accepted him with a startled moan of sheer pleasure arching her body off the bed to accept his deep frenzied drive, understanding all too well what drove him. The wildness that was a part of him, she knew, was unleashed, and as he powered into her, she welcomed the hard hot heat of delicious rapture.
Maxie lost her hold on reality as the sensations inside her started to gather and gather, pulling into one hot, pulsating center. He moved again and again and the sensations brought an agonized groan from her. He touched her, lifted her, brought her to the peak and held her back. Over and over.
Breaking down her barriers, then shoring them up.
She met every thrust of his body with hers, until she could bear it no longer. He pressed against her, wrapped his arms around her, buried himself as deeply inside her as he could, and sent her spiraling into that place where darkness and stars meld and ecstasy lives.
Her climax was long and convulsive, draining and glorious. She laughed and wept into it, tried to reach out to hold him, but the cuffs got in the way, held her back. Her body went slack and limp around him.
His thick shaft was hard, pulsating inside her.
When she could function, she opened her eyes to look at him. “Austin?”
He grinned and rocked his hips gently, eliciting an incoherent moan from her.
“Oh God.”
“We’re not done.” He pulled out of her and unlocked one of the cuffs, then locked one to his wrist. He lifted her knees, wrapped them about his hips and entered her with one quick thrust, rolling with her clasped tightly to him.
“Ride me, Maxie.”
She grabbed his free wrist and drew his arm over his head along with the cuffed one. Bracing herself on his hands, she leaned down and seared his lips with a hot, desperate kiss, loving the soft groan as she rolled her hips.
Then she rode him with slow, measured thrusts. He gasped and his body jackknifed in an uncontrollable movement of muscle and bone.
A violent tremor coursed through her, blinding her with desire. She clutched at him, a shock of sensation compelling her deeper and deeper, tempering her body with the steel of his own.
Austin moved his free hand, reached between their driving bodies and touched her. Her eyes widened and a ragged gust of air escaped her chest in a rush as that small, private contact sent her hurtling to the most splintering orgasm of her life.
Austin didn’t take his eyes off her face. It was all the torture she guessed he could endure as he pumped his hips in uncontrollable thrusts, spilling his hot seed inside her.
8
“YOU KNOW I wouldn’t mind staying handcuffed to you and in this bed until Jake calls and tells me my name is cleared. Then you won’t have to chase me to Mesa Roja anymore.” Maxie snuggled up to his big body, sated, warm and comfortable.
He put his arm around her, draping it casually across her flat stomach. “The chase is the interesting part, Maxie.”
“Do you always have fun when you catch what you’re chasing?” She ran her thumb along his collarbone, enjoying the heat of him against the sensitive pad of her fingertip.
Austin shifted, his voice hardened. “No. Usually I get paid.”
And just like that they were back to square one. Releasing an uneven sigh, she met his gaze. “I can understand that you have a job to do. I really do.”
“I can hear a but in there.” His mouth was hard, his eyes bleak with the knowledge of how it would end for both of them.
“But I’ve caused my sister a lot of pain.” Maxie raised herself up high enough so she could look him full in the face. There was wariness there and a look that said she wasn’t going to change his mind. Undaunted, she continued to hold his gaze.
For a moment he stared into her eyes as if he were searching for something that was vital. Then he too let out a heavy sigh. “Maxie, I want to save you, your sister and mine. But I…”
Resting her cheek against the top of his head, she swallowed hard and began slowly running her fingers through his hair. “I understand that you don’t want to go back on a promise you made to your sister. So you have to understand that I don’t want to let Dorrie down. Dorrie is the only family I have that cares about me. You see it’s been the two of us for a long time. My parents weren’t much interested when we were little and left us mostly to our own devices. People liked to call Dorrie the serious bookworm and me the free spirit.”
She could feel his head nod. “I do understand.”
“She’s always been there when I needed her. Now it’s my chance to be there for her. The opening of the nightclub is now a nightmare because of this embezzlement problem.
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“She was the quintessential older sister. Dorrie used to walk me to school and pick me up. We spent a lot of time together since my mother was busy. She was a garden-party-set wannabe. She wanted Dorrie and I to fit in. I didn’t. Dorrie did. While they were drinking tea, I’d sneak outside to play baseball with the next door neighbor’s son. When they were all gathered around listening to Dorrie play the piano, I was climbing trees. I put frogs in my piano teacher’s purse so she wouldn’t come back. I was a hellion.”
“Why?”
“I guess to get attention so that my mother would see me for who I was, not what she wanted me to be. But she never did. When I was sixteen, I went to live with Dorrie because my mother told me constantly what a disappointment I was to her. When I graduated from college, I traveled around for a while and lived a bohemian lifestyle. I’d work until I got enough money to travel again. I never had a permanent address and I was constantly missing payments on my bills and Dorrie would cover me. I want all that to change now. I don’t want her to have to pick up the pieces anymore.”
He rolled onto his back and dragged his hand down his face, then he turned his head and looked at her. And Maxie who had struggled to a sitting position with the sheet clutched around her, made an unnerving discovery. If she thought Austin was dangerous to her mental health when he was up and moving, he was really lethal all sleepy-eyed and sexy after a session of heavy lovemaking.
“Maxie,” he whispered unevenly, rubbing at his eyes. “I appreciate your dilemma. I really do.” When he looked at her, she could see the indecision tearing him apart and it hurt her so much she actually had to steel her stomach.
“Now I hear a but.”