Secret Sins

by Lora Leigh

  Because now it had already happened. They had come together in a way that was certain to tear them apart.

  He hadn’t invited her to move in with him after they became lovers. He had been forced to bring her to his home because she had no other place to go.

  Archer turned her in his arms, one hand sliding into the back of her hair, clenching in the strands and sending pleasure racing through her nerve endings.

  Lifting her gaze to his, she could see the hunger burning in his eyes, lust and something more. Something she wished was love.

  Then his lips were covering hers, easing over them, his tongue licking over the fullness of her lower lip before pressing inside and finding hers.

  Anna moaned at the rich seductiveness of the kiss. The feel of his lips caressing hers, taking sipping kisses and burning her with the hunger in his touch, tore a whimpering cry from her.

  He couldn’t know how deeply her heart beat for him. How deep the hope that she could fill his heart went. And how wide was the certainty that when this was over, she would be without him.

  Wrapping her arms around his neck and lifting to her toes, Anna parted her lips for him, taking his kiss with a need she didn’t bother to control.

  Her hold tightened.

  Sliding her fingers into his hair, Anna moaned with rising pleasure, lifting against him, feeling the thick ridge of his cock, iron hard, iron hot, pressing against her stomach as his tongue thrust inside her mouth and rubbed against her own.

  Before she could stop him, he was drawing back, releasing her, then pulling her to the fire.

  On the other side of the patio a wide lounge chair had been pushed against the house. Archer jerked the thick, heavy pad from it and tossed it to the patio in front of the fireplace.

  A second later, he’d shed the sweatpants he wore before gripping the scarf she used as a sash around the elastic band of her skirt.

  Staring into her eyes, he untied it, loosening the ends before gripping the elastic band and pushing it over her hips and down her legs to pool at her feet.

  With a flick of his fingers between her breasts, her bra was loosened, the straps pushed over her shoulders and smoothed down her arms until he could toss it away as well.

  “Sweet God, have mercy on me,” he breathed as he cupped her firm, sensitive breasts, his eyes caressing her nipples. “I love your breasts, Anna. And your sweet, berry ripe nipples. Do you know I dream of sucking those pretty little nipples?”

  Bending to her, his lips surrounded one hard tip and sucked it into the heat of his mouth.

  Staring down at him, her fingers feathering through the dark blond of his hair, Anna fought to control her accelerated breathing, to find enough strength in her legs to remain in place.

  “What if someone sees us?”

  “No one can see,” he promised, brushing his lips against her nipples before easing her to the wide, firm cushion he’d tossed in front of the fire. “You might want to watch those little cries when you come though. You never know if the neighbors are listening.”

  Lying before him, wearing only the pale peach panties riding low on her hips, Anna bit at her lower lip, wondering how in the hell she was going to manage that.

  Lowering himself beside her, his lips came down on hers again, stroking against them, licking over them as Anna fought to hold back a needy moan.

  “Shhh,” he murmured as his head lifted, his eyes glittering a rich golden brown as rising hunger reflected in the depths.

  Calloused fingertips stroked her thigh as his lips moved across her jaw, down her neck.

  Anna turned her face to him as his kisses fell to the upper rise of her breasts, her lips finding the hard flesh of his neck.

  As he drew the sensitive tip into his mouth, Anna had to clench her teeth to hold back her cry.

  Warmed by the fire and by Archer’s hard body, Anna lifted to the heat of his mouth. With her hands buried in his hair, her lips and tongue caressing his neck as he tormented her nipples with searing pleasure, Anna felt the world around them receding. Pressing the hard curve of his knee against the mound of her cunt, Anna could feel the flames rising higher, pleasure sinking deeper inside her.

  Sucking first one hard nipple, then the other into his mouth, Archer groaned against the hard tip, his tongue stroking, rasping against it until she cried out his name. Throttling the sound, desperate to keep the unknown neighbors from hearing her, she pressed the back of her hand to her lips and prayed that would work.

  Then those diabolically clever, wicked lips began moving down her body. His tongue peeked out to play, to lick and draw heated patterns of erotic pleasure against her stomach before trailing lower, lower.

  When his lips came to the elastic edge of her panties, his fingers moved from her thigh, gripped the band, and eased them slowly over her thighs.

  Drawing back, he pulled the silk past her knees, down her legs, then dropped them to the side of the makeshift bed.

  Her breathing ragged, pleasure whipping through her, Anna stared up at Archer as he pushed slowly between her thighs, his hands gripping her knees as she lifted them, planting her feet next to the pad on each side to lift closer to him.

  Spreading her legs apart, Archer stared down at the dew-slick, juice-laden folds of her bare pussy. The swollen bud of her clit peeked out beneath the small, short tuft of curls while her juices saturated the flesh below it.

  She had the prettiest pussy, he thought, licking his lips in anticipation. The need to taste the sweet, wet heat spilling from her was a hunger nearly impossible to control. It was all peaches-and-cream perfection outside the tight, slick embrace of her hot little vagina.

  Fucking her was euphoric.

  It was better than any drug any dumb son of a bitch could imagine.

  Moving his lips to hers once again, Archer took her kiss amid her small, muted little moans. He couldn’t help but groan at the pleasure.

  She did something to him. Something far deeper even than the sight of his hat on the coat hook. Coming home to Anna, touching her, tasting her, was like really coming home.

  With his lips settling against hers, pressing closer, his tongue tasting her, Archer let his senses become fully immersed in her. Stroking his tongue against hers, tasting a hint of the wine and chocolate she’d had for dessert, he let his hand caress her side before moving in to cup her breast.

  The firm, swollen flesh fit his palm perfectly. The pebble hardness of her nipple beneath his thumb, the responsive arch of her body to his caress, held no deception or hint of ulterior motives.

  She was completely lost in the pleasure. So lost in the sensations whipping through her body that she dragged him deeper into his own pleasure as well.

  Sensation rose like a blazing sun burning in the pit of her belly and sending heat radiating through her pussy.

  Anna arched into his touch, whimpered with the lash of pleasure and the rising clash of sensations that were impossible to keep up with.

  It seemed every cell of her body ached for his caress. She craved his kiss. Her nipples throbbed, swollen tight, ultrasensitive nerve endings eager for even the slightest touch to send burning arcs of sensation striking at her clitoris, at the clenched muscles of her vagina.

  Flattening his palm at her knee, Archer stroked slowly up the inside of her thigh, parting her legs further. Bending one knee, her foot pressing into the thick pad beneath them, Anna lifted herself closer to his touch.

  Her hips lifted in anticipation as his palm stroked like a tease, a taunt of what was to come. Flat, short nails scraped against the sensitive flesh of her thigh but refused to come closer to the aching center of her body.

  The rasp of his nails had sensation prickling beneath her skin, racing along nerve endings to strike at her clit as she jerked closer to his touch.

  “You’re teasing me,” she panted, her neck arching as his kisses returned to it.

  “I’m enjoying you,” he growled. “God, I don’t think I can get enough of you.”

 
; She didn’t want him to get enough of her. She never wanted him to stop aching for her because she was afraid she would never stop aching for him.

  “I need more, Archer.” She didn’t think she could be held on this edge, as violently sharp as it was, much longer.

  “How much more, baby?” His lips moved from her neck to her nipples.

  Suckling a tight peak into his mouth, his teeth rasped it, drawing a short, sharp cry from her lips. Gripping it between his teeth, his tongue rubbed against it until it felt as though her orgasm was only a heartbeat away.

  The tender tips were so sensitive now, so incredibly hard that the pleasure bordered ecstasy and the pain bordered agony until they merged to create a clash of such intensity she didn’t know if she could bear it.

  She felt suspended, poised on an edge of ecstasy so sharp it was all she could do to breathe.

  “Archer, fuck me,” she moaned, her back arching as his lips moved lower. “Please, you’re killing me.”

  Sliding his fingers to the wet folds of her pussy, he parted the intimate lips slowly. There, with only the tips of his fingers, he rubbed against the clenched entrance to the sensitive inner flesh.

  Arching closer, a strangled moan falling from her lips, Anna tried to force his fingers inside her, to find the release that tortured her.

  “Archer, it’s so close,” she gasped, her nails biting into his shoulders. “So close. Please. Please let me come.”

  Her nails raked across his shoulders as he moved closer. The wide, engorged head of his cock slid through the heavy, slick moisture. Parting the hot, wet folds he angled his hips to press the wide head against the weeping entrance to her pussy.

  “Oh yes,” she moaned, the pinch of the incredibly tight fit beginning to bloom at the narrow slit as he began to push against it.

  Heated, stretching, the impalement was pleasure and pain. The pinching heat speared through her as Archer worked his cock inside her.

  The hardened flesh parted the sensitive muscles with short, strong thrusts of his hips. Working the wide, hot crest inside her, inch by slow inch, he pushed the pleasure higher, pushed her closer to an edge she’d never suspected could exist.

  “Archer.” Her low, desperate moan filled the air as ecstasy began to fill her. “Oh God, it’s so good. It feels so good.”

  It was better than good. It was a rising wave of sensation swirling through her with burning sensation and rising rapture.

  Deep, sharp, the aching need for release rushed through each erogenous zone and stroked over each nerve ending as his cock shuttled inside her, pushing into the clenched, snug tissue milking his engorged erection.

  Each thrust stroked against painfully sensitive nerve endings. It rasped over them, igniting flames of such fiery intensity that Anna felt as though she were melting around him.

  Each fierce penetration, each hard thrust rasped over areas so sensitive, nerve endings so burningly alive that each stroke sent ecstasy slamming through her.

  Her body tightened, every muscle straining, aching, as she reached for release.

  “Look at me, Anna.” The harsh male groan had her lashes lifting, her gaze meeting the fierce glow of lust in his eyes.

  One hand gripped her thigh as his hips thrust and rolled, stroking inside her harder, faster.

  “Let me see you, baby,” he demanded. “Let me watch you come, Anna.”

  Anna felt the last restraint holding her to earth shatter. With her gaze locked to his, his hands gripped her wrists, pulling them from his shoulders and lacing his fingers with hers as he pressed them to the pad above her head.

  Entwined with hers, his fingers tightened, holding her to earth as his hips moved harder, faster, thrusting desperately inside her. Anna felt the cataclysm erupt within. Exploding, blazing, shattering through her system with a rapture that stole her breath and sent her flying through ecstasy.

  Archer’s lips came over hers as his release rushed through him as well. His tongue tangled with hers, his cock burying deep as she felt his release spurting inside her, filling her with the hard, heated jets.

  Crying out into his kiss, her fingers tightening with his, Anna shuddered, her body trembling, jerking against his. With each spasm of her pussy around his cock, each heavy, milking clench of her inner muscles, a surge of rapture raced through her again. Again.

  Archer lost himself in the release he shared with Anna. The power of his orgasm rushing through him, through her, over them, was a pleasure he knew he had never experienced before. It was a pleasure he knew he would never have with any woman but Anna.

  He had fallen into the trap he had sworn he’d never allow himself to fall into. That trap where pleasure and emotion combined to lock a man’s soul to a woman’s and leave him lost at the thought of ever being without her.

  He’d fallen through the rabbit hole and he was very, very afraid he was in danger of the illusion taking control of him.

  Archer was beginning to believe he might have found the fairy tale.

  CHAPTER 26

  It was time to pack for good.

  Anna realized that this time she had accepted the fact that she wouldn’t be coming back, because this time she remembered to pack her toiletries from the bathroom.

  Packing her toiletries, Anna was zipping the bag when the bedroom door opened.

  “Anna, I thought we were out of the grilling steaks? I know I laid out the last two the other night—”

  Anna lifted her head and watched as Archer came to a full, hard stop.

  His gaze went to the luggage.

  Straightening, she stared back at him, her heart breaking as she watched his fierce, predatory gaze flicker between her and the bags several times before he reached back and slammed the door closed.

  She flinched, her heart jumping and racing furiously in her chest.

  She had never seen such a look on his face before now. She had never seen that look on anyone’s face before now.

  “What are you doing?” There wasn’t so much as a hint of emotion on his face, but his eyes … there was so much rage in his eyes that Anna couldn’t have kept up if she’d had an emotional dictionary.

  “We know who’s behind it now,” she stated calmly. “I know what both Wayne Sorenson and Amory Wyatt look like. They can’t catch me unaware again.”

  “And just where do you think you’re going to go?” He advanced into the bedroom by only a few feet before coming to a stop.

  “For the next few nights I’ll stay at the hotel in town,” she answered with a shrug, wishing she could take her eyes off him. Wishing she could take her heart back from him. “Momma wanted me to come back to the ranch, but…” She shrugged. She couldn’t. Not yet.

  “I’ll be fine, Archer,” she promised, turning away from him and pretending to make certain she hadn’t forgotten anything. “You’re not responsible for me any longer.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  The slow, furious drawl of the question should have warned her. She should have known the second that tone snapped across her senses to beware.

  She was a second too late in turning, not that she could have avoided him, no matter how fast she moved.

  One hand gripped her arm, the other went around her back as he pulled her the rest of the way around.

  Locked to the length of his hard, aroused body—he hadn’t been aroused before—there was no pushing away from him.

  “Why are you doing this?” She pushed against his chest, despite the fact that she knew there was no breaking free.

  “You think I’m going to just let you walk out?”

  “Why not?” Glaring back at him, fighting to keep from melting against him, Anna pushed her fists against his chest as she tried to angle her hips away from the length of his erection.

  “Why should I?” he questioned her instead, his lips lowering to part, his strong teeth nipping at the lobe of her ear.

  She shouldn’t respond so easily to him.

  Biting her lip, Anna had to fight
to keep from tilting her head to the side and giving him full access to her neck as she felt the whisper of a kiss against the sensitive flesh.

  “You should—” Lashes fluttering as sensual weakness flooded her body, she had to fight to remember why. “You should, Archer, because I’m weak.” Bitterness returned with a rush, but it didn’t dissipate the need for his touch.

  Stilling against her, his lips against her neck, one hand pressed against the small of her back, the other a scant breath beneath her breasts.

  “Anna,” he protested softly. “Why do you think you have to leave?”

  Pressing her forehead against his chest, Anna felt tears filling her eyes again.

  “Why leave me, Anna?” he asked.

  “Why doesn’t matter, Archer.” Her voice sounded as hoarse, as aching as her soul did.

  How was she supposed to fight this need for him? The hunger that raged through her and had no intentions of abating?

  “Why always matters, Anna.” Lifting his head, Archer stared down at her, his gaze still raging but his expression not hard or unemotional any longer.

  Savage, fierce.

  Possessive.

  The dark emotions brewing in his gaze were reflected on his face as hands tightened at her hips.

  Shaking her head, she fought the need to respond to that look, to give into the demands, the dominating strength of his body and the hunger that only burned hotter in his gaze.

  “I’m weak, Archer,” she reminded him bitterly. “Too weak to be able to give you what you need.”

  “Like hell.” Stark, echoing with denial and rich with possessive intent, Archer lifted her, turning and pressing her against the bedroom wall. “The last thing you are is weak.”