A choppy breath tore from him, and he scrunched his eyes shut for a heartbeat, as if struggling with something. His fingers dipped a little into her sex, teased her clit. “Are you sure?” He locked his stare on hers. “Are you sure you want it to be me?”
For an answer, she cupped the back of his head and, slowly, holding his stare, pulled him down until he covered her completely on the bed, her thighs splayed on either side of his hips, his cock nudging at her pussy lips.
One thrust, and he would be inside her.
One thrust.
He kissed her. Gently. And then not so gently, his lips and tongue and teeth growing wild, hungry. His cock inched little by little past her wet lips, parting them…
Oh yes. Oh yes.
He tore away from the kiss. “Condom.”
She wanted to tell him she had an IUD. She wanted to tell him she didn’t want anything between their bodies when he finally entered her. Instead, she bit her lip and nodded.
It took him but a few seconds to scramble off the bed, find his wallet, withdraw the condom, and cover his engorged cock. A few seconds. A dragging eternity.
Heart smashing in her throat, her stomach fluttering, her pulse pounding in her ears, she watched him.
And then held her breath as he returned to the bed.
He climbed onto it, settling his body over hers, supporting his weight with one elbow as he brushed the back of his knuckles alone her cheek. His cock nudged her pussy lips again, as if drawn to its rightful place. “It’s not too late,” he whispered, his voice husky. “You can tell me to—”
She wrapped one leg around his hip and rolled her own. “Fuck me, Lincoln. Now.”
With a slow thrust, he parted her sex and penetrated her.
Stinging fire and exquisite pleasure filled her. She cried out, arching into his stroke, and clawed his shoulders.
Oh God. Oh…oh…
“Breathe, babe,” he whispered, gaze holding hers, thumb brushing her cheekbone. “Breathe.”
Biting her bottom lip, she drew in a deep breath.
He sank a little more into her.
Fresh pain, but something else. Something soul-deep and wonderful.
“Breathe, Niki,” he murmured, inching deeper and deeper inside her.
The pain grew hotter, turned to a stinging burn, until Lincoln was inside her.
Completely inside her.
Chapter 8
Had he died? For real this time?
Must have. Being inside Niki, making love to her, being her first… It was everything he wanted. Everything he’d ached for.
Heaven. It was heaven.
“Oh God.” Her warm breath fanned his lips. Her eyes—half-closed—held him captive. Her nails dug into his shoulders.
“Christ, Nik,” he groaned, searching her face. “I tried not to hurt you.”
A soft, shaky laugh fell from her and she shook her head. “Shut up, Lincoln.”
He smiled in return, brushing a strand of hair from her temple as her heat gripped him, enveloped him. Propelled him closer and closer to insanity.
Driven mad with fulfilled lust?
What a way to go.
“Shutting up,” he murmured, slowly rolling his hips. He withdrew to the rim of his cock, reveling in the pleasure on her face, and then inched back into her tightness.
“Oh wow,” she breathed, arching into his steady thrust. “I didn’t think it would feel so good.”
It was better than good. The deeper he sank, the more intense, the more right it became. How had he fought this for so long? Why had he fought this?
Gazing into her eyes, he shifted his weight, just enough to allow the root of his shaft to glide over her clit as he began to withdraw again.
Niki gasped, nails clawing at his shoulders. Her pussy contracted around him, sucked at his length.
“That’s my girl.” He brushed his thumb over her cheek and reversed his stroke, burying himself into her again. Deep. Deeper.
She moaned and wrapped her legs around his hips. “Again,” she demanded. “Faster. Harder.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
Her legs tightened around his body. “Faster. Harder. Got it?”
He laughed, nipped her bottom lip with his teeth, and then thrust into her again.
“That’s it,” she panted, taking every inch of his cock each time. “That’s it. Faster. Oh God, f-faster. Please. Please.”
The raw need in her voice shoved him over the edge.
His rhythm grew wild. He fought to control himself, battled to retain some control over his stroke, but she wouldn’t let him. She bucked and whimpered and demanded he fuck her harder, faster, dragging her nails over his back, squeezing his hips with her thigh.
For a dizzy moment, he tried to summon something to slow his body’s impending eruption; an image of the worst tattoo he’d ever seen, the lyrics of the national anthem, but nothing worked. Nothing was powerful enough to overcome the sensations, the perfection of making love to her.
Of being inside her.
With her.
In every way.
Clenching his jaw, he fisted the duvet beside her head with one hand, grabbed the curve of her arse with his other and pounded into her. Over and over.
“That’s it!” she cried out, clinging to his shoulders. “Harder, harder! Don’t stop. Don’t—” She arched, her whole body grew still, as if suddenly frozen, and then her words dissolved into inarticulate sound as her pussy constricted around his cock, gripped it, squeezed it, pulsed around it.
And the second it did, the moment she orgasmed, Lincoln released what little control he had over his body and erupted with her.
Coming…surrendering…loving… All for her. To her. With her.
He filled the condom, his thrusts as powerful as the shudders quaking through him. As forceful as his release.
Wad after wad spurt from him, and a distant part of his pleasure-fogged brain—a part still functioning with tenuous clarity—heard her cry his name, heard her beg him to never stop. Heard her moan over and over that she loved him.
They came down together.
Their bodies’ rhythms aligned again, and as his thrusts grew slower, as his balls drained, she tangled her fingers in his hair and gazed into his eyes.
Held him that way until they were both motionless.
Her breath leaving her in ragged puffs, she smiled up at him. “Wow.”
“You can say that again.” Hell, where had all his breath gone?
“Wow,” she whispered with a smile, closing her eyes as she slid her legs from around his hips.
He didn’t move, wanting to brand this image—Niki, his Niki, sated and beautiful—into his brain forever.
For when she’s long gone? Or for when I’m long gone?
“So that happened,” she said, eyes still closed, lips twitching. “Finally.”
He let out a low laugh, and then groaned as his spent cock began to slide from her sex. He wasn’t ready.
Huh. Would he ever be?
Brushing her lips with his, he withdrew completely from her body and climbed from the bed.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she protested, lifting herself up onto her elbows to glare at him. “Did I say you could—oh.”
Her cheeks grew pink as he lifted an eyebrow and gave the space between her thighs a quick glance.
“Oops,” she whispered, voice little more than a husky breath. “Forgot about that.”
He climbed back on the bed and kissed her, a quick but hungry kiss.
She laughed into his mouth, the sound following him as he pulled away. “Alright, point taken.”
He smiled and brushed his thumb over her bottom lip again. “I’ve told you before you’re prefect, right?”
“Nope.” Playful mischief twinkled in her eyes, replacing the embarrassed shyness.
“You are perfect, Nikalene.”
She smiled up at him and everything in his world shifted. Everything. “Thank you
,” she whispered.
“I love you,” he said back.
She blinked. Her lips parted. She frowned. And blinked again. “Say that again?”
He grinned, stole another quick kiss, and climbed off the bed again. “Got something to take care of,” he threw over his shoulder as he headed for the bathroom.
He’d just finished taking care of the full condom and was cleaning up when she stepped into the bathroom—still naked—and leant her shoulder against the doorframe. “Say that again.”
He raised his eyebrow, threaded the hand towel over the rail, and leaned his butt on the basin. “Say what again?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
“I love you.”
She didn’t move. For a heartbeat. And then she threw herself at him.
He caught her mid-leap, wrapped her in his arms, and kissed her. Held nothing back. What was there to hide? It was all out there.
He loved her. Had done for fucking ever. There was no point denying it or fighting it any longer.
And when the agency tracks you both down?
A cold finger pushed at his gut but he ignored it. He’d deal with that later. For now…
Breaking their kiss, he smiled at her. “Wanna take a shower with me?”
She tightened her thighs around his hips and tugged with playful force on his hair. “As long as by ‘take a shower’ you mean ‘get in the shower and fuck each other like rabbits,’ sure.”
“Think it might be a little soon. Given I just…” He flicked his eyes south.
She snorted. “Do I have to seduce you again, Lincoln Wells? I will.”
He laughed.
They showered and then he carried her to the bedroom and dried her, taking in every inch of her body as he patted her glistening skin with the fluffy towel.
She stood motionless, watching him.
“What?” he asked, meeting her gaze as he straightened from drying her legs.
Her lips twitched. “Say it again.”
“What?”
“You really do want me to hurt you, don’t—”
He silenced her with a long, slow kiss, only raising his head when she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body to his. “I love you,” he whispered.
“Good.” She nodded. “As you should.”
“Are you always going to be this bossy? This demanding?”
A smooth shoulder lifted and fell in a casual shrug. Mischief danced in her eyes. “Probably.” She slid her hands between their hips and curled her finger around his pulsing erection. “Now, I think I want to do something about this.”
He let out a groan as she dropped to her knees and took his entire length in her mouth.
Who was he to argue with the woman he loved?
*
“Tell me about Crowley?”
Lincoln’s fingers stopped their languid trailing on her bare hip. He grew motionless on the couch. His thigh stiffened beneath her cheek.
Twisting onto her back, she looked up at him.
Six hour ago, he’d taken her virginity. In that six hours, they’d showered, made love again, changed the bed sheets, watched an episode of Antiques Roadshow, and made love once more.
Now they were watching dawn break through the living room window, the soft light casting softer shadows across the floor through the slight gap in the curtains. Those shadows played with his face, hiding his eyes from her. The tension in his body, however…yeah, no amount of shadows could hide that.
“I told you before,” he said, voice low, modulated, “you don’t want to know anything about Crowley.”
“How many people did you kill?”
The question fell into the silence. Lincoln grew even more motionless. Any stiller and he’d be a statue.
“Nikalene,” he finally said, his stare locked on the window opposite them. “Stop.”
“I’m not going to run screaming from the room.” She pushed herself upright, adjusted the shirt she wore—one of his T-shirts from the dresser in his room—and sat cross-legged, looking at him. At his profile, rather.
His jaw bunched. His chest rose and fell with a deep breath.
“This is what I think,” she said softly. “I think you worked for some secret branch of our government that did things to protect our country most people would never want to know about.”
His jaw knotted.
“And I’m okay with that.” She was. She may have been a virgin until only six hours ago, but she wasn’t naïve. The world was a messed-up, scary and dangerous place. She was glad there were people in it who would do whatever had to be done to keep freedom and humanity safe.
“So why do you want to know about Crowley?”
She swallowed. “Because he was you. Is you.”
“Crowley is…was cold-blooded and ruthless and without remorse.” He slid his gaze to hers, and a shiver ran through her at the unreadable light in his eyes. “And he died the second I entered you, Niki.”
Oh.
Heart beating fast, she licked her lips. Her mouth was dry for some reason. “Okay.”
He let out a low snort—part sigh, part laugh. “That’s not much of an answer, is it.”
“It’s a pretty awesome one, even if it doesn’t really tell me much.”
His eyes roamed her face as he brushed his thumb over her lips once more. “It tells you nothing matters in my life as much as you do. It tells you everything in my life changed for the better when you came back into it. It tells you the reasons for Crowley no longer exist—not for me, at least.”
“So no pressure then.”
His low chuckle rumbled through the silence. “No pressure.”
She studied him. “Tell me something. Were you a spy when I was a teenager? Side note, I feel silly saying spy. Is there something else I can call you?”
He chuckled again. “Let’s go with agent. Less James Bond, more…”
“Jason Bourne?”
“Ha. If only I had his fighting skills.”
She grinned.
His own grin tugged at his lips for a moment before fading. “I worked in cyber-security to start with. Straight out of high school. Was recruited before even sitting for my final exam. Employed for my tech knowledge. Which basically means they’d discovered I was the one who’d hacked the prime minister’s personal computer six months previously, and sent invitations to a private dinner at his house to the heads of over fifty charities for homeless people and almost fifty animal charities.
“Of course, no one is employed by the agency without an aptitude test. Mine revealed that working with computers wasn’t my only forte. As did the compulsory physical tests those employed by the agency have to complete every month.”
Something about the bitter tone to his words told Niki compulsory physical tests didn’t just mean push-ups.
“I refused to go out in the field for a long time, regardless of how strongly I was urged to do so. I wasn’t interested in that life.”
That life. The life of a what? Assassin? Did the Australian government really do that kind of thing?
She remembered how he’d looked when he’d stopped her from smashing the cricket bat into Barnaby Dutton. How he’d appeared out of nowhere, gun in hand, just as she’d swung the bat at Dutton’s head. She remembered what the vile diplomat had been doing to defenseless children in Bali.
Perhaps the Australian government did do that kind of thing?
And perhaps, sometimes, that was a good thing?
“When did you leave cyber security?”
His body grew still once more. Almost preternaturally calm. “Five years ago. I became a field agent five years ago.”
She swallowed. Five years ago she’d gone to his house with the sole purpose of seducing him.
He’d rejected her—and she hadn’t seen him again until that night in Bali.
“You became a…” She couldn’t say spy. Or assassin. She couldn’t. “You stopped being a cyber-security agent because of
me.”
He drew in a slow breath. “No. Yes. Maybe. I had to do something to stop thinking about you every second. So I took the most extreme option possible.”
“Did it work?”
His laugh caressed her senses. “God, no.”
The confession stirred something warm in her. Contentment? Triumph? Was is wrong it made her feel that way? Was she deranged?
“So that’s Crowley’s story,” he said, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead. “Or at least, the G-rated crib-notes version. It’s not the people who made me Crowley that you need to worry about, though. Or at least, who I need to worry about.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
He grinned. “Bebe is going to kill me. She threatened me under pain of death that I was never to hook up with you. Ever.”
Niki grunted. “Do you have any idea what Bebe gets up to back in Perth? I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve had to save her arse from some sleazy jerk. As far as bad choices go, Bebe’s hitting for six.”
He narrowed his eyes, lips twitching. “I can’t work out if I should be insulted because you indirectly called me a bad choice, or worried my little sister is screwing up her love life.”
“Both?” She smiled. “But if you are a bad choice, I’m riding it to the end.”
His gaze searched hers, and then he dipped his head and brushed her lips with his. “Not to sound cheesy, but you’ve given my life meaning.”
“That does sound very cheesy.” She grinned. “And I love it.”
He kissed her again, but this time there was no gentle brushing of lips.
“Do I need to get my arse back to Perth?” he asked after they came up for air a few minutes later. “Kick Bebe’s butt?”
The overprotective big-brother tone in his voice made Niki smile. “I don’t know. You brave enough?”
He snorted. “I’ve faced down some scary bastards in my time. Mind you, none of them were Bebe-level scary.”
Laughing, Niki settled against his side. God, he felt good; all warm and hard and there.
She’d never feel unsafe again, knowing Lincoln was in her life. It had been a while since she’d felt really safe. A year at least.
Was it just because of Lincoln? Because he’d finally stopped fighting what they had?
Or is it because crazy stalker guy can’t find me?
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