“C’mon, you silly thing,” I called, laughing at her cuteness.
She didn’t listen, of course, but continued to attack the leaf like it was some sort of menacing object.
Nathan released me and stepped out into the grass. “Lucy, come.” He squatted down and she came running over to greet him.
“C’mon, Killer,” he said and scooped her up. I took her from his arms and kissed her head.
“Lucy,” I corrected.
He grunted and we went back inside, Nathan sliding the door shut behind us. “Did you write all those books?” he asked, motioning to my covers lining the walls. To date, I’d written ten novels. I was close to finishing one and then I was supposed to start another.
“Yeah.”
“I’d make a pretty good cover model, don’t you think?” he asked, striking a pose.
Actually, he would be great on a book cover. “I’ll take it under advisement.”
“Maybe you should just write an entire series about me,” he said as we went up the stairs.
I made a choked sound. “And call it what? Tales of an Egomaniac?”
He laughed.
“You know,” I said, putting Lucy down on the carpet, “I actually thought about writing about what happened to me.”
He nodded thoughtfully.
“I could add in the part about the heroic Marine who shows up to save the day.”
“You saved yourself, Honor,” he corrected. “You managed to get that phone. You didn’t give up hope. You fought like hell to get away from him. I just showed up to help.”
“You didn’t even know me. Yet you came.”
“Baby, I would go anywhere for you. I would drop everything and come running.”
“But you didn’t know me,” I insisted.
“It didn’t matter.”
I knew that he would have come regardless; he would have gone out there for anyone who was in trouble. I actually felt kind of lucky it was me.
Was that sick? Did I need therapy?
“What’s the matter?” he asked, studying my face.
“Do you ever wonder,” I asked, “why things happen? You know the saying: ‘there’s a reason for everything.’ Do you believe that?”
“I didn’t used to, but I’m starting to believe that now.”
“I do too.”
“So what’s your reason, Honor?”
“I think the reason I was kidnapped, the reason my texts went through to you, is because I was meant to meet you. You’re my reason, Nathan.”
The look on his face was sort of priceless. A million emotions crossed over him all at once. Shock, wonder… joy.
“You sure make it hard,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“Make what hard?”
“For me to keep my hands off you.”
“So don’t. I want them on me.”
This strained look came across his face, almost like he was in pain. “But what he did to you…”
“Stop thinking about what he did to me.” I didn’t want to think about it either.
“It makes me so angry, Honor,” he growled, clenching and unclenching his hands at his sides.
I finally understood the anger I always sensed that seemed to simmer inside him. He was still angry about what happened when he was deployed. He was angry at the lives his friends never got to live.
He couldn’t do anything about that.
But I could let him do something about what happened to me.
I stepped forward, closing the distance between us, and laid a hand over his chest. Tipping my head back, I stared up into his conflicted yet longing-filled navy eyes. “You can make it go away,” I whispered. “Your touch will completely erase all the times he touched me. Once you lay your hands on my skin, I won’t be able to remember anyone but you.”
He groaned and captured my face between his palms. Nathan held me firmly, keeping me utterly still while he had his way with my mouth. Heat pooled in my belly and the blood rushed from my head. Still holding me in place, he nipped and licked his way down my neck, lightly sucking the sensitive skin into his mouth. I moaned, my knees threatening to buckle, and he finally released me. His hands glided down the curves of my body and wound around until he was cupping my butt in his very capable palms.
He whispered my name as he picked me up, my legs automatically hooking around his tapered waist. His grip stayed on my butt, and I rocked against him, rubbing my swollen bud along his abdomen.
He took two steps back and came up against the wall, where he leaned his shoulder blades and fastened his skilled lips to my collar bone. I filled my hands with every inch of him I could hold. His pecs filled my palms and I took pleasure in squeezing them, pinching at his nipples through his T-shirt until they were rock-hard knobs.
A sound of desperation ripped from my throat when I tried to reach the hem of his shirt and was blocked by my legs tightly clasped around him.
Nathan pushed away from the wall, one hand cupping my bottom and the other splaying across the small of my back as he strode along the hallway. As he walked, he reclaimed my lips in a searing kiss. His mouth was insistent and demanding; there was a possessive ferocity in the way Nathan kissed.
I began to slide down his body because my legs were so wobbly that I couldn’t keep them tightly around him. I was dangerously close to turning into a giant puddle of need.
I slipped a little lower and his arm slid around my ribs. I jerked at the sudden jolt of pain, and he quickly laid me across the mattress. “Damn, baby, did that hurt?”
I nodded. “Real bad,” I said, my voice so deep I barely recognized it.
Nimble fingers caught the hem of my paisley print top and he bunched it up beneath my armpits. I wasn’t wearing a bra today because the pressure of the straps hurt too much. Thankfully, my breasts weren’t large and I didn’t really need a bra.
Of course, right about now, I wish I had more for him to look at.
I dared a peek up at his face and saw the way he was staring down at me. There was a reverence in his gaze that made me feel powerful. It made me feel desired.
Slowly, he stretched out alongside me, feathering the tips of his fingers across my belly and dancing them up a little higher. His eyes darkened until they looked like midnight as he took in the swelled area and the splotched bruises.
“If I could take this away from you, I would,” he murmured and then ducked low, sprinkling barely there kisses across my torso.
I moaned and arched up off the mattress. I was beyond feeling any twinges of pain. Desire for him was in the driver’s seat and my body knew exactly what it wanted. I palmed the back of his head and guided him upward, past my ribs to the softly mounded peaks that awaited his attention.
He fastened his lips over the one closest to him, drawing in the hardened pebble and nipping at it with his teeth. An animalistic sound ripped from his throat as he took me just a little deeper into his mouth. I held his head there, silently begging for more sweet torture.
Nathan was a thorough lover and what he did to one breast, he did to the other. My entire body was boneless as he worked his magic over my flesh and my legs fell open and my legs twitched, like he was scratching an itch I never realized I had.
When my breasts were pink and slightly swollen from all the lavish attention, he began to work his way down, dragging his teeth along my hipbone and then sliding his tongue down the little indent where my leg met the apex of my thighs.
He pulled away only long enough to settle between my knees and stripped away everything I was wearing until I was completely naked lying against the sheets. “I’ve never in my entire life seen a sight that takes my breath away until now,” he whispered, caressing the skin of my inner thighs and causing my toes to curl into the sheets.
Nathan dove into my moist heat like I was an all-you-can-eat buffet and he was starving. I lifted up off the mattress, crying out with the first flick of his tongue over my clitoris. He slid his arm beneath the small of my back and tilted my
hips up off the mattress, giving his mouth even more exclusive access.
I couldn’t help but move against his mouth, small little thrusts that slid his tongue along my inner folds with mind-blowing perfection. I felt the exploration of his finger, and I caught my bottom lip in my teeth, waiting for the feeling of him slipping inside. I didn’t have to wait long as two thick fingers worked their way into my opening and slid inside my body.
Breath hissed between my teeth and all thought left my brain.
Sensation after sensation tingled through my body and the blood that pumped through my veins felt like it had caught fire. A fine blush broke out over my body, and I started murmuring incoherent words that didn’t make sense at all.
“Honor, baby,” Nathan whispered as he curled his fingers forward, scraping against the inner wall deep, deep inside me.
My entire body rippled with the orgasm that stole over my body. For very long, blissful seconds, everything fell away. There was nothing but the roaring pleasure that I felt in every single ounce of my body.
My mouth fell open in a soundless gesture and I collapsed against the bed, still quaking occasionally from the aftershocks of whatever the hell he just did to me.
God, I hoped he would do it again.
Nathan collapsed on the bed beside me, breathing heavily and letting out a little growl. “I almost came right there in my jeans.”
That reminded me. He was still fully dressed.
I pushed up onto one elbow and stared down at him. “It’s my turn.”
Both his eyebrows rose up his forehead. “I’m all yours, sweetheart.”
30
Nathan
I reminded myself to take it slow, that traveling the road to burying myself as deeply as I could in the center of her body was half the fun.
But the way she stared at me, her eyes looked like glittering blue diamonds. Her cheeks were flushed and her hands… oh shit, her hands were curious.
“Take it off,” Honor rasped, tugging at my shirt.
I didn’t look to see where it landed when I tossed it away from us. The bedroom was very dim. The light that filtered down the hallway spilled inside to give me just enough illumination to see every curve of her lithe body.
Honor’s eager mouth fastened on my nipple, and I knotted my fingers into her hair, holding her closer, urging her to suck a little bit deeper. She did, and I groaned as my erection strained against the zipper of my jeans.
“I like this,” she said, kissing down my USMC tattoo, tracing the letters with her lips and then nipping at the skin as she worked her way across my abs.
I’d had sex with many women, but this was the first time I’d ever been so far gone and still wearing my pants. Honor plunged her tongue in my belly button as her hand reached for the button on my jeans. She fumbled with it at first, but then it gave way and she didn’t wait a single second before dipping her fingers into the waistband.
The second her touch brushed over the straining tip of my penis, I growled and my hips bucked up off the bed. Honor crawled down a little and used both hands to glide down the zipper and open my pants completely. I sprang out like an eager jack-in-the-box, and her eyes widened in surprise.
“No underwear?”
I felt myself smile. “The boys like to breathe.”
She didn’t touch me, which about drove me insane. I wanted her mouth and her hands all over my body, but I stayed patient as she worked the jeans down over my hips and then around my ankles. I helped her out by kicking the pants off the end of the bed.
Both of us were completely naked.
Honor’s gaze fastened back on my throbbing cock and, as if fascinated by it, she wrapped both hands around the base. I groaned as one of her palms slid down to cup my balls. She kneaded them softly, rolling them around, causing them to shrink up and become tight with freaking want.
Using her nails, she scraped down the inside of my thighs, and I parted my legs just a little bit more because I wanted her to have all the access she desired.
My eyes rolled back in my head when her mouth closed over me and slid down. She deep throated me, all the way down, until I could feel my head brush against the back of her throat. I pulsed inside her, so completely turned on that black spots swam before my eyes.
She sucked me so deeply and so thoroughly that I forgot where I ended and she began. Occasionally, she would pull all the way back and wrap her lips around that ultra-sensitive ring at the top of my erection.
I would jerk and quiver, my entire body would stiffen with release, but then she would pull back, just enough to bring me back from the edge. I pushed up on one elbow, my eyes narrowed into fine slits, and watched the way she licked at me. It was like she couldn’t get enough.
“Baby,” I called, my voice hoarse and guttural. She glanced up, dragging her tongue right over the tip where a small bead of pre-cum had formed. “Fuck.” It was a curse and a prayer. “Come up here before you kill me.” I encircled her elbow with my hand and gently guided her so she straddled my lap.
The slick moisture of her core slid over my stomach and I growled.
She was all I could see. I had tunnel vision. I had selective sight. The only thing in this entire world was her. Her tight little body sat atop me like I was some crazed stallion and she was in complete control.
I fucking loved it.
I grabbed her hips and rocked her center against me. She moaned and went to topple over. I held her up, reaching between us and stroking my finger into her center. “I need my jeans,” I told her.
She slid off me and stumbled around the end of the bed. My jeans came flying up and would have smacked me in the head had I not caught them. I chuckled as I yanked out the foil packs in the back pocket and the tossed aside the clothes.
Honor stared at the packets in my hand and then crawled up onto the bed, making her way up my body until she was straddling my legs.
I used my teeth to rip open the packet and she watched as I deftly rolled it on, so totally ready for her I was afraid I would explode the minute her heat wrapped around me.
To my surprise, she started to climb off me, to lie on her back. I caught her. “Come back here,” I whispered and then positioned her back on top. “You get to drive.” I didn’t want to put her beneath me, not now, not after everything she’d been through. I wanted her to feel safe and in control.
Her eyes flashed down to mine and a little smile curved her lips.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, reaching down to pinch one of my nipples.
“I plan to be a very vocal and naughty backseat driver.”
Honor positioned herself over me and held my eyes as she began to slide down. It was the single most thrilling experience I’d ever known.
About halfway down, she paused, panting a little, her eyes wide. I noted the set of her shoulders and the fact she wasn’t quite as boneless as she was before.
“It’s been a while,” she said by way of explanation. “And there is nothing about you that’s small.”
“Define a while,” I growled, hating the idea of any other man touching what was mine.
“Over a year.”
The possessive animal in me liked that answer. A lot.
One of my hands reached up and cupped her breast, weighing it in my palm and caressing the tight nipple, and my other hand slid between us and began caressing the sweet spot in her center. She moaned and looked at me.
I smiled and then pulled my fingers away and delved it inside her alongside my penis.
“Oh,” she said breathlessly as she swiveled around.
I pulled my hand away and gripped the sides of her hips, not asking her to do anything but stay where she was. But she was ready for more.
Inch by delicious inch, her body accepted me. She was so incredibly tight that every single flex, every single contraction her body made reverberated right into my bones. My body actually trembled with the lust sweeping through my bloodstream.
And then her hips hit mine
.
Her body completely took me in and I was buried so deep within her that I swear I could feel her heartbeat. Ever so slowly, she began to rock. Back and forth… back and forth. It was agonizingly slow and tauntingly passionate.
“Nathan,” she murmured, leaning over so our chests were plastered together. She took my lips in a gentle kiss and I seized her hips and reared up, hitting against her inner wall.
That single movement seemed to flip a switch inside her and she began to move. She rode me like I was a wild mustang and she was the only one who could tame me. Her hips grinded against me so hard that I began to sweat. Tension coiled in my gut, like an angry snake ready to strike. I knew my orgasm was going to destroy me… and I was going to love it.
Frantically, we moved against each other, the pace picking up with each stroke. Finally, Honor made a desperate noise and bore down on me. I grasped her hips to keep her from moving, and I sat up, clutching her around the waist. Her arms and legs wound around my back and she buried her face in the hollow of my neck.
I knew I needed to slow down. Her ribs were in no condition for this kind of activity. I gentled my hold around her waist and started to lower back down onto the mattress.
Honor tightened her arms and legs around me, lifting her head to pin me with a pleading stare. “Don’t stop.”
“Your ribs…”
“I don’t care about my ribs.” She pulled me closer and I went because the feel of her grinding against my lap was just way too much to resist.
We moved together, the lower halves of our bodies grinding in perfect rhythm until the friction was almost too much to bear.
“Nathan,” she cried, her voice strained and pulled taut.
With one last thrust, I started pulsing inside her and then she toppled over the edge. Honor moaned and sank her teeth into my shoulder. A great shout ripped from the back of my throat as my release went on and on and on.
I hugged her close, trying not to crush her ribs but unable to gentle my hold. I couldn’t let her go. She was mine.
I was keeping her.
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