by Jami Alden
And damn it, he was tired of fighting it. Stupid, crazy, or both, all he cared about right now was making her feel better.
“I know it hurts,” he said, rubbing his hands in long strokes up the slim length of her back.
“I guess you do.” She sniffed and lifted her head from his chest. Her eyes were puffy, her pale skin blotchy, but the way she was looking at him made his heart twist in his chest.
It was unsettling, like she was peering into his soul, like she could really see him like no one else ever could.
As though their shared betrayal had bonded them somehow.
He shied away from the notion. But he couldn’t tear his eyes from her face. “How do you stand it,” she said, “knowing you were so wrong about people you loved?”
He shook his head. “I stand it because I have to. You got past what your father did to you, you’ll get past this too.” But that was bullshit and they both knew it. What her father did changed her, drove her down a path she might not have otherwise followed. Just because she’d found a functional way to deal with it didn’t mean it didn’t still eat at her at some level.
And what had happened with Mark—Sean understood all too well the scar that would leave behind. It was bad when your family fucked you over, but you didn’t choose to bring them into your life. When you got screwed by someone you chose, it was hard to get past the fact that on some level you’d screwed yourself.
It was one thing not to trust others, but it was pure hell when you couldn’t even trust yourself.
“I always prided myself on being such a good judge of character,” she said with a teary chuckle. “When I worked a case, I thought I knew who was guilty, who was lying, who was telling the truth. But I’ve been so clueless.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about it. Believe me, I’ve been there and it doesn’t do any good.”
Easier said than done, he knew all too well. Krista shook her head. “How could I have not seen what was right in front of my face? How could I have worked so closely with Mark for so many years and not had an inkling that he was involved in something like this?” Her hands fisted against his chest and he could feel her whole body tighten with anger.
“You’re an honest person, Krista, and you took it for granted that the people you trust are being honest too.”
Another shake of her head and the short wispy ends of her hair tickled his chin. “It’s so screwed up—the people I’ve trusted. And the people I haven’t.” She raised her hand to his face and her eyes filled up again. “I thought you were a murderer. I looked at you and thought you had raped and killed a woman. That kills me—”
“Krista, you were doing your job and you got snowed just like I did—”
“No, let me finish. This isn’t about me feeling guilty about making a mistake or even feeling bad about sending an innocent man to prison. Believe me, I do, and I will beat myself up for the rest of my life for that. What I want to know is what’s wrong with me that I could look at you and believe for a second that you could…” She choked on a sob and he pulled her back into his chest.
“I looked at that creep Jason and saw a guy I wanted to date, for Christ’s sake, and I looked at Mark like a second father,” she said, the despair in her voice settling somewhere in his chest. “Although,” she sniffed wryly, “knowing my father, I suppose it’s appropriate I found someone deceitful and self-serving.” She swallowed hard, sniffed. “I’m so angry at myself that I believed the lies about you, that I couldn’t see—”
His arms tightened around her and his hand splayed across her back. “It’s okay, Krista—”
“No, it’s not! I should have believed your sister and seen the kind of man you are.”
She blinked and looked up at him, her thick lashes clumped together around her ocean-colored eyes. Her eyes were full of guilt, admiration, and something else that made his skin prickle like his whole body was blushing. “I’m just a regular guy, Krista.”
“No, you’re not,” she said, fisting her hand in the fabric of his T-shirt. “You are anything but regular. You’re strong, and you’re brave, and you take care of the people you care about, and even some of the people you don’t.” Her lids dropped for a split second, hiding her eyes.
I care.
But her gaze flicked back to him and the words stuck in his throat under the ferocity of her stare. “And it makes me sick to my stomach that I didn’t see it soon enough. You’re one of the only people in the world I can trust, and I didn’t even see it.” She closed her eyes with a grimace.
He held her so tight you couldn’t get a beam of light between them. But somehow he pulled her closer. “Sometimes shit has to go really bad before you can see who’s on your side.”
“I should have been on your side all along, Sean,” she whispered through tears. “I should have—”
“You have my back now,” Sean whispered, “and that’s what matters.” He realized that somewhere in the past few days, the resentment he’d felt for Krista had disappeared. He didn’t know when it had happened, but somewhere along the way it had been replaced with admiration, and God help him, affection—he wasn’t prepared to call it anything else yet. “And I have yours. Don’t doubt that.”
She whispered his name and rose up on her tiptoes to close that last millimeter of distance between them. It got out of control fast as Krista’s grief transformed to passion in the space of a breath. Sean groaned against her soft, parted lips and he sucked her tongue into his mouth. Her taste, hot and salty from tears, rushed through him. Part of him knew she wasn’t totally in control, that the emotional trauma was drowning out common sense.
He was taking shameless advantage, but he, better than anyone, understood her need, the need to forget, to drown herself in pleasure to block out the pain even if it was only for a short time.
The little sound of pleasure she made in the back of her throat obliterated any nobility or restraint he might have had. A jolt of lust shot through him, and his cock strained against his fly and his fingers shook as he pulled her shirt over her head.
Mine. The word started as a whisper when his palms met the silky bare skin of her back and built to a roar when Krista pulled his shirt up his torso and bent her head to lick the skin of his chest. He tossed his shirt onto the floor next to hers and stripped off her bra. He pulled her to him, the silky slide of her skin against his making his muscles jump like he’d been electrocuted.
Her scent and taste flooded his brain, every little noise she made echoed in his ears, and every nerve in his body jumped at her slightest touch. He wondered if it would always be this way, if he would always be so tuned in, keyed up, so hyperaware of everything about her that one touch from her made it impossible for him to think about anything else.
Right now, there was nothing but her, the silky heat of her under his hands, the soft moans into his mouth that grew sharper when his hands slid from her back to cover her breasts, cupping and kneading as his thumbs whisked across the rock-hard tips.
He moved them to the couch and pulled her down to straddle his lap. His hands went down her back, over her hips to cup her jean-clad butt. Firm, full curves filled his hands and he pulled her against him. She was on fire, the heat of her radiating through her clothes, searing him as she rocked against the bulge of his cock.
She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him like her life depended it, hard and fierce, sucking at his tongue like she was starving for the taste of him.
Like he was starving for her, drinking her in, sucking her up, every nerve on fire as he sprang to life in a way he hadn’t felt in at least three long years.
Hell, maybe ever.
Her tongue licked like a flame down his neck, dipped into the hollow of his throat. Her lips sucked and teased their way down his chest, sending a surge of lust through him so powerful it became a physical ache. His jeans were suddenly about three sizes too small at the crotch as she kissed her way down, down…
And then, holy God and hell yes, s
he slipped off his lap to kneel between his spread knees. The soft press of her breasts against his stomach as she slid down was one of the best things he’d ever felt. Nimble fingers flicked open the button on his jeans and carefully worked his zipper down.
She tugged his boxers down and pleasure slammed through him at the feel of those slim fingers curving around him, and Jesus, the sight of her pale, feminine hands stroking the throbbing length of his cock.
He was pretty sure he could be ninety years old and on his deathbed and the memory of this moment would still give him a hard-on that could cut glass.
“I guess this means you’ve recovered from your injury,” she said, her eyes gleaming hotly at him from beneath her lashes. His back arched and he groaned as she stroked him from root to tip.
“I’d say everything is in perfect working order,” he said, his voice strained with need.
“Still, I better kiss it better, just to be sure,” she said in a teasing, impish tone he hadn’t heard from her before but wanted to hear again.
Her hot breath wafted over him a split second before her lips closed over the sensitive tip. A groan ripped from his chest at the sweet, hot suction. He watched her through slitted lids.
With her hair cut short, there was nothing to obscure his view. Pink, plump lips surrounding his cock, sliding down his shaft as she took him into her mouth. Sliding back up, leaving him wet and slick, making him pulse against her lips and tongue.
She squeezed him in her fist, pumping as she sucked, sending him to the edge. He cupped her head in his hands, closed his eyes, and felt the silk of her hair slip through his fingers.
“Krista, Jesus, that feels so good.” He gritted his teeth, holding onto his control by a thread. “You need to stop. I’m not going to be able to—”
“I don’t mind if you come in my mouth.” The frank tone and carnal words nearly made him do exactly that.
God, it would be so easy to be that selfish, but this was about both of them. About sealing the bond they’d forged against all odds. About helping them both forget, even for a few minutes, that the world as they knew it was falling apart around them.
He forced himself to pull her face from his lap and up to his mouth and scattered kisses across her cheeks and fought to get himself under control. “Inside you,” he whispered. “I need to be inside of you.”
Her only response was a muffled moan as he lifted her from the couch and carried her over to the bed. He laid her back on the mattress and stripped off her pants and panties in one move. His were next, shoved down his hips to crumple at his feet.
He came down beside her and pulled her to him, hissing when his cock brushed the soft skin of her stomach. Though every beat of his heart urged him to take her, fast and hard and now, he forced himself to slow down, take his time, building her up with slow, deep kisses as his hands memorized every inch of her skin.
All too soon, her breath was coming in quivering pants. One smooth leg hooked over his hip and he could feel her wet heat as she strained against his thigh.
She pulled away suddenly and rolled to her stomach, reaching for the bedside table. “Please let Ibarra have stocked this room too,” she muttered and Sean would have laughed had the undercurrent of desperation in her voice not perfectly mirrored his feelings.
She gave a triumphant little shout and passed back a foil packet. She started to roll onto her back but Sean stayed her with a hand in the slim hollow of her back, his mouth gone bone dry at the view she was giving him.
Long, pale thighs topped by the firm curve of her ass, the deep dip of her waist, and the flare of her hips…Sean had always considered himself a breast man, but Krista Slater on her stomach, hips tilted up and legs spread just enough to provide a glimpse of the hot sweetness between was enough to fuel his fantasies for the next millennium.
He bent his head and trailed hot kisses over her shoulders, down her back, loving the way she shifted and sighed and squirmed against the sheets. His cock jerked and bobbed against the curve of her ass, and she arched her back and ground herself against him. Then his shaft slipped between, and she let out a moan as he slid against her wet heat.
God, it felt so good, her slick heat against his hardness. God, how would it feel to slide inside her, with nothing between them?
The one remaining brain cell not consumed by lust reminded him to be practical and he retrieved the foil packet from where he’d dropped it on the bed.
His hands shook so hard as he rolled on the condom that he nearly dropped it twice. Finally it was firmly in place. Sean guided Krista to her knees with one hand and grasped his cock in the other.
This time there was no resistance, no hesitation as he guided himself inside her. One stroke and he was buried deep, captured by the tight clutch of her body as she rocked back against him.
He established a hard, steady rhythm that quickly had her fisting her hands in the sheets as the pillow muffled her moans.
“Oh God, Sean,” she whispered. “Sean, I can’t.”
Her voice broke off and he felt her stiffen around him. She was close, so close he could practically see the steam rising from her as every muscle pulled tight in pleasure.
He slid one hand around and between her legs until he found the slippery bud of her clit. Stroking, circling, he gritted his teeth against his own pleasure, determined to give her hers.
Then she stiffened on a long moan, a tremor running through her as her body squeezed and pulsed around him. He held her hips, keeping himself buried deep until the last quivers drained from her body.
She collapsed forward onto the bed, panting and limp.
Sean was about to give himself a mental high-five when she burst into tears.
She tried to be quiet about it, muffling her sobs in the sheets, but there was no mistaking the quivering breaths and the shudders racking her body that had nothing to do with pleasure.
“You don’t have to stop,” she said when he pulled reluctantly from her body. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong—”
“Total fucking emotional overload,” Sean said gently as he lay on his side and rolled Krista to face him. “Completely understandable, with everything that’s happened.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “It has nothing to do with— I mean, you were— I—”
Her already blotchy face went even redder as she struggled to speak through the tears. “I know you came,” he said, softening the blunt words with a kiss on her nose.
“Oh.”
It was funny, he thought as he stroked his thumb over the curve of her cheek, to see confident, tough-talking Krista so at a loss for words.
She sniffed a few times, swallowed hard, and blinked tear-reddened eyes. “I don’t know what I was thinking. This is a disaster—”
“Krista, I’m not complaining.” He pressed his lips to hers, licked away the salt of tears.
“You don’t have to stay,” she continued, almost like she hadn’t heard him. “I’m used to handling my emotional breakdowns on my own.”
“I don’t have anywhere else I need to be,” he whispered.
And more to the point, he didn’t have anywhere else in the world he wanted to be other than right here, his body in an agony of frustrated desire, holding Krista Slater while she cried.
He had a weird, twisting sensation in his gut, kind of like he had the first time he’d jumped out of an airplane into a combat zone.
Big, gray-green eyes searched his, looking for any sign of BS. Satisfied that he meant what he said, she curved her lips in a watery half smile. She stroked his cheek with slender fingers and gave another little sniff. “I wish—” She cut herself short.
“What?”
Her eyelashes flicked down, hiding her eyes from his. “Nothing. It’s stupid.”
“Tell me,” he said with a little squeeze of her hip.
“I just—” She licked her lips and hot color flooded her cheeks. “I wish it could have been different, the way we met. Something normal, li
ke through friends, or even at a cheesy singles bar.”
He tried to imagine what that might have been like, watching cool, classy Krista walk into a bar. How he would have mustered up every ounce of his very limited game and approached her. She probably would have taken one look at him, fresh out of the army and barely civilized, and given him an icily polite “thanks but no thanks.”
Not that he would have taken no for an answer.
He tried to make a joke about it, but as he stared at her beautiful, tearstained face, he got the strange feeling that regardless of how he met her, no matter the circumstances, they would have ended up together like this. All he could croak out was, “Me too.”
He pressed his cheek into her hand and squeezed his eyes shut, and suddenly it was like she was comforting him instead of the other way around. She kissed him, softly at first, and then with more force as his lips parted under hers.
He splayed his hand on her back and pulled her tightly against him, close enough she could feel him, still rock hard and unsatisfied, against her stomach. She hooked one leg over his hip and reached between them to grip him in her warm palm. Jesus, it felt so good, but she was just seconds from her crying jag and he didn’t want her to think he was a totally selfish asshole.
Didn’t want her to think sex was all he wanted from her, even if it was probably better in the long run if she did.
“I’m okay,” he said. “You don’t have to—”
“Shut up,” she said, and rocked her hips so she could rub the tip of his cock against her hot core. Her breath hitched and started to come a little faster, all traces of her tears gone. “I want you,” she said against his mouth. “I need you,” she gasped as she guided him into her body. “I—”
Whatever she was going to say was lost in a long moan as he sank all the way in. His eyes locked on hers as he thrust, not wanting to miss a second of her pleasure. He could feel it in the way she clenched around him, see it in the way her eyes got that blurry, faraway look as he rocked himself harder and deeper inside her.