by Naima Simone
Even as he drawled the words, he cringed inside. She didn’t deserve to be the whipping boy for his anger, guilt, and pain. Others had committed the same sin against her, and shame that he could now count himself among that number clawed at his chest. Dammit—
A soft palm cupped his face, and he shuddered at the gentle touch. Rage at his offensive question didn’t harden her gaze. Instead, understanding, desire, and something else he couldn’t identify warmed her gaze.
“Is that what you want?” She brushed the pad of her thumb over his bottom lip.
He shook his head. Taking advantage of her selflessness, releasing his confusion and emotions on her, her body? No, he couldn’t do that, couldn’t ask that of her. “Yes,” he rasped.
She rose on tip-toe, erasing the last centimeters separating them, and, burying her fingers in his hair, covered his mouth with hers. For a moment, he didn’t respond, but closed his eyes and reveled in the sensual glide of her lips, the shy but needy sweep of her tongue, the quickening of her breath. But just for a moment.
With a groan, he opened his mouth wider, snagged control of the kiss, delved harder, deeper into her. Their tongues tangled in an erotic duel, both seeking and battling for dominance. A quiet pressing of mouths erupted into a clash for carnal ground. He licked, sucked, plunged, and she parried and thrusted, meeting him, challenging him, seducing him. Her teeth sank into his bottom lip, tugged, and he growled at the nip of pain, loving it.
Grasping her waist, he hoisted her on top of the bar and moved between her thighs. But her palms slapped on his chest, preventing him from crowding closer.
“Wait,” she breathed with an underlying vein of steel. He paused, his chest rising and falling, his cock throbbing with the need to ride the slick V between her legs. Before he could ask what was wrong, she inched down, landing on her feet and slipping around him. Like invisible strings connected them, he turned, already reaching for her. But she evaded him, circling his wrists and lowering his arms to his sides. “This is for you.”
And she slid to the floor.
Oh. Fuck.
A shiver quaked through him. “Sweetheart, you don’t…”
She shook her head, her fingers already busy at the front of his jeans. “I want to. I’ve dreamed about it. Let me,” she said.
Like he would deny her—deny himself, the selfish bastard he was—this pleasure. How many times had he imagined her kneeling before him, her eyes, dark with arousal, fixed on him, her hands unbuttoning his pants? Her pretty lips parting for his cock? Too many to count. And now… Only one thing was missing.
He tugged on her ponytail. “Take it out.”
He didn’t trust himself to remove the band from her hair. With his big fingers and greedy need, he would make a mess of it and probably hurt her. She complied, abandoning his zipper to remove the restriction on the thick, heavy strands he had developed a secret fetish for.
“Let me,” he murmured after she tossed the band aside. With a groan, he dug his fingers into her long, dark hair, the strands falling over his hands and wrapping around his wrists like silken cuffs. He drew it forward, over her shoulders, then contradicted himself by clutching the locks in a fist at the back of her head. As much as he loved tangling his fingers in her hair, he couldn’t have anything hinder his view of this beautiful, sexy woman taking his cock into her mouth for the first time.
As if perceiving his thoughts, she lowered his zipper, the metallic sound reverberating in the air like an electrical current. And when she reached inside his jeans and fisted his cock, the current sizzled through him, replacing blood and filling him with static. Moans rose in the room. Hers. His. A sensual blending of the two, impossible to separate.
She squeezed him. Then she released him, and he almost begged her to put her hand back on his dick, to finish what she’d started. But when she tugged his pants lower, giving herself more access to him, he thanked God. Which seemed damn near sacrilegious, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Not when her fingers were wrapping around his heavy, aching flesh once more, and the other hand was freeing his balls and cupping them.
He’d once told her that he wanted to corrupt her. How ironic that now she was the one doing the corrupting. Forever changing him so he would never think of this act without picturing her, on her knees, her regal, slim hands pumping his cock as she stared at him with hungry eyes. Fuck, he didn’t think he could allow a woman to touch him like this again. Not after this. Not after her.
“Take me, duchess,” he pleaded, voice rough with lust, with need. “Suck me deep into this pretty mouth like I’ve fantasized about.” He trailed his fingertips along her jaw, chin, the corners of her mouth. “Make it better,” he whispered.
Her lashes fluttered along her cheekbones as she arrowed his cock down and toward her mouth. The breath trapped in his lungs as she brushed a kiss along the head, her lips becoming glossy with the pre-cum already beading at the slit. Christ, he tightened his grip on her hair. The tip was swollen, ruddy, aching to be introduced to the hot, moist depths of her mouth.
“Don’t tease me, duchess,” he said, covering her hand with his so they both gave his dick a couple of lush pumps. He gritted his teeth against the gut-tearing pleasure. “Please.”
God. That first push into her wet heat—not unlike first penetrating her sex. He closed his eyes, but immediately opened them again, not wanting to miss a moment. His cock disappeared inside, her mouth spread wide as she took more and more of his length. On a long, low moan, she withdrew, her tongue bathing the underside, polishing the tip. She swallowed him down again, her puffy lips bumping her fist. Another sound of greed—this one a hum—vibrated over his flesh. Pink stained her cheeks, desire gleamed in her hooded eyes. She was loving it.
She set up an enthusiastic, healthy suck. Not skilled, not rhythmic. And all the more beautiful and perfect because of it. His other hand joined the first in her hair, held her head steady.
“Please,” he murmured, asking for permission as he nudged her lips. She opened for him, sweetly, willingly, and let him sink inside. “Jesus, that’s pretty. Open up wider for me, Sloane.” He fucked her mouth, loving the sight of him shuttling in and out, of her lips stretched to accommodate him. And God, did she accommodate him, give to him. Let him take his fill.
His cockhead bumped the back of her throat, and she gagged. He retreated, crooning to her. A fierce pride and blast of possessiveness that could probably be tracked to the caveman surged within him. His. No man had ever breached her throat before. He was the first. And the last, that until-now-repressed caveman snarled. But the few brain cells that hadn’t evacuated his brain for his dick, shied away from that thought. Instead, he rubbed the pad of his thumb along the front of her throat, soothing her.
“Relax for me, duchess. Breathe through your nose, and let me in,” he instructed continuing his caress of her neck, willing her to trust him not to hurt her. Though his body screamed at him to thrust, to take, he waited. And when she uncurled her fingers from around his cock and flattened both palms on his thighs, he couldn’t contain his growl of relief, of arousal, of gratitude.
Deliberately, he glided forward along her tongue, his pace unhurried. And damn, he didn’t want to rush this—not this first for her, not the pleasure for both of them. When he bumped the channel to her throat this time, she didn’t fight him. Soft exhalations escaped her nose as she permitted him entrance to the narrow opening.
Lust, need, hunger—there weren’t any words to describe the power and ecstasy that ripped down his spine, that tightened his balls to the point of pain. Again. She nodded, and hell, he must’ve been so caught up, he’d uttered the word aloud. She took him again. And again. Jesus, she was going to kill him. But could you kill a willing sacrifice?
He couldn’t last. The need crackling through him, gathering strength and speed with each race up and down his body wouldn’t allow this head-long plummet into rapture last. He cupped her jaw…groaned when her mouth tightened around his flesh in
an eye-crossing suck.
“Sweetheart, I’m too close,” he rasped. “I’m about to come,” he groaned, withdrawing, “so fucking hard. But I don’t want to come here. I want to be deep in your pussy, drowning in it when I do. But first…”
Clasping her shoulders, he dragged her to her feet and yanked the sweatpants down her legs. In seconds, he’d grabbed her waist, lifted her to the bar again, and knelt between her thighs. Spreading her wide before him, he pressed his lips to the crease that connected her torso and legs.
“Ciaran.” Sloane clutched his hair, tugged on it, but at the same time tried to move his face away from the swollen, wet sex just a breath away. “I don’t…this doesn’t…”
Shoving aside the need to dive into her, he flicked a look up, meeting her flushed face and the uncertainty that shimmered through the desire in her eyes. That hint of insecurity yanked at his heart. Someone as sexy and gorgeous as this woman should never suffer a moment of doubt about her sexuality. She was everything feminine, beautiful, and so selfless.
Not releasing her from his scrutiny, he traced her slit, and gathered the evidence of her desire that glistened on her folds. Without hesitation, he slipped the finger in his mouth and sucked it clean. Her taste—fresh, tangy, and her—exploded on his tongue like the rarest treat. God, he craved more than this sample. He wanted to dine, to feast on her. He’d wanted it from the moment he first saw her.
“You’re so pretty here,” he praised, gently circling her clit. She emitted a whimper, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. “Shh,” he hushed, gripping her hip with one hand to control the reflexive buck. “So soft.” He caressed a plump fold. “So sweet.” He licked a path from the top of her sex to the fluttering, tiny entrance of her core. “Hmm. Addictive.”
Then he devoured her.
Her cries and pleas rained down on him as he lapped, sucked, stroked, and savored. He couldn’t get enough of her. Stabbing at her clit with the tip of his tongue before soothing the pulsing nub with careful, slow flicks. He didn’t leave an inch of her undiscovered, dined on her. And when he thrust two fingers inside her, more of her delicious cream was his reward. That, and the orgasm so strong, he wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow his skin boasted bruises from the tight clamp of her muscles. She came for him, wept for him, and he reveled in it.
The shudders hadn’t ceased wracking her body before he ripped his wallet from his back pocket, removed a condom, and sheathed himself. With movements roughened by the lust writhing inside him like a living thing, he jerked his T-shirt over her head, baring her completely to his hungry gaze. Cupping her hips, he dragged her forward until her ass was balanced on the bar’s edge.
“Hold on to me,” he ordered, his tone harsher than he intended. But the need to get inside her… “Tight, sweetheart.” As soon as her arms encircled his neck, he plunged inside her, burying himself inside her clenching, wet heat. “Fuck,” he rasped, pressing his face to her wild tumble of hair. “You’re so goddamn good. I can’t get—” He ground his teeth together, trapping the admission that would reveal too much. Would doom him. But he couldn’t stop them from rebounding against his skull like a ping-pong ball. I can’t get enough of you.
Pulling from her grasping core was torture, driving back in was masochistic. Her hot flesh sucked his cock, coaxing him deeper, higher with every thrust. Hard, short digs. Slow, long strokes. Each hurtled him toward the oblivion he craved—the oblivion he feared. But as he pounded into her…as she unwound her arms, planted them behind her and arched, offering him more of herself, he didn’t think of guilt, shame, or penance. As his lips closed over a rigid nipple, and he rolled the tip on his tongue before drawing on it, he didn’t think at all. She consumed him. He filled her body, but she filled his head, his senses. Only her. Only Sloane.
Her plaintive whispers bathed his ear, her convulsive trembles vibrated against his body. Reaching between them, he rubbed her clit, not gentle, because she didn’t want gentle. This fucking wasn’t gentle but hungry, fierce, wild. She writhed against him, demanding release. And he acquiesced. Her scream echoed in the room as her slick walls clamped down on him, rippling around him. She shook with the power of her orgasm, and he rode her through it until her cries softened to whimpers.
Only then did he let himself go. Only then did he welcome the dark, knowing she would be waiting for him on the other side.
“Was she an agent, too?”
Ciaran rested his head against the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. His palm paused mid-stroke over Sloane’s sweat-slickened back as her question seemed to boom and reverberate in the living room like a shout in a cave.
Sex on the bar had been soon followed by sex in his bedroom. She’d ridden them both to orgasm, and the bone-weary lethargy that was a consequence of amazing sex had just fallen over him when her soft question had plummeted into the room like a boulder in a still pool. Tension rippled outward in ever widening circles.
He closed his eyes, as if that could shut out the imminent conversation. But he couldn’t reject her like that. Sloane wouldn’t have broached the subject out of morbid curiosity—she had too big of a heart, was too sensitive to cause him pain just to pry. And the truth was, he owed her answers. He’d just been balls-deep inside her body but couldn’t bring himself to rise yet because he knew—he knew—he wouldn’t be able to stay here, lying down beside her.
With the other women, he’d had no desire to sleep with them. But her? He craved it. Which made the desire even more of a betrayal to the woman he’d loved and let down in the most devastating and final way possible.
Sloane shifted, as if about to slide off his chest and thighs, but he pressed his palm harder against her spine, halting the movement. After several seconds, she relaxed, her body curling into his once more, the warm puffs of her breath tickling the damp skin of his neck.
“No. She was a CI, a criminal informant,” he murmured into the shadowed darkness. “I didn’t know it when we first met at a local dive bar four years ago. I heard her laugh before I even saw her. The sound of it…the sheer joy of it filled a room. And when I turned around? Beautiful. Hair the color of dark fire, a smile that was contagious, and she was so sweet. Samantha Genoa, although she only responded to Sam.” He huffed a soft chuckled at her remembered stubbornness. “For the first time in my life, I’d fallen hard for a woman. And months later, when she confessed why she never brought me home to meet her family, it was too late. I’d already given my heart to her—the niece of a capo in the Lucchese crime family.”
He could still feel the shock and sickness that had rolled through him when she’d confessed the truth. “At first I’d felt so betrayed, angry, disillusioned. I was in law enforcement, for God’s sake, and she’d held back something so important from me, jeopardizing my career, my life. But then she admitted she was also a criminal informant for the FBI. That’s when fear for her safety trumped my anger over her secrets. Somehow I convinced Sam to enter Witness Protection, to trust the system—and me—to protect her and offer her a fresh start where we could leave New York and be together.”
But some dreams belonged only in the darkest hours of night with hushed lovers’ talk and soft embraces. He swallowed the lump that rose in his throat, strangling him for a moment. He tightened his arm around Sloane, as if grounding himself in the present even as he slipped further into the past. The darkest, most painful, bloodiest moments of his past.
“A week after she entered the program, I received a call from the FBI agent on Sam’s case. The location had been compromised. Unknown assailants had killed the US Marshals on duty, and the agent believed Sam had been taken since her body hadn’t been located at the scene. As soon as I ended the call, I strapped on my weapon and headed to Queens, radioing for backup along the way. Sam had confided in me about a hangout in the Queens neighborhood of Ozone Park that she hadn’t mentioned to the FBI. She’d warned me that if something happened to her, look there, because the backroom had a notorious—and bloody—reputation withi
n the family.”
He paused, his breathing harsh in the heavy silence. Only the gentle caress to his jaw and cheek allowed him to continue.
“I-I found her there. She died… murdered. Right in front of me with a gunshot to the head. And I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it.”
Her fingers brushed the two scars on his chest where Sam’s murderers had shot him, almost killing him, too.
“Yes,” he rasped. “I was shot, too. Except back-up reached me in time. They did for me what I couldn’t do for her. I failed her. I urged her to go into Witness Protection, to trust me. I promised her I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. And I failed to save the life of the woman I loved.”
A deep quiet suffused the room as his voice trailed off. At some point he’d slid his hand into her hair, tangled the strands around his fingers and held on as if she were his anchor.
“I think Samantha was a very lucky woman to have your love.” A feather-light caress brushed his jaw. “Not many women have men willing to come to their rescue. To sacrifice their lives for theirs.”
“I didn’t rescue her. I didn’t give my life for hers,” he objected, voice hoarse with the pain and grief that never failed to swarm him when he thought on the darkest period of his life. Thought on, not spoke. Because aside from a drunken night about a year after he’d left the DEA, and Shane had scraped Ciaran off his bedroom floor, Ciaran hadn’t talked about Sam, her death, or being shot. “She stared right at me, knowing she was going to die. Knowing I wouldn’t save her.”
A fist of emotion blocked his throat, and he swallowed convulsively.
“Ciaran.” A soft palm cradled his face, tipped his head down from the back of the couch so he had no choice but to meet Sloane’s tender, but unwavering contemplation. “Maybe she did know she was going to die. No, look at me,” she said when he closed his eyes. She gently shook his head, and when he looked up at her again, she rubbed the pad of her thumb over his lip. “She might have known, but she also died knowing she was loved.”