Shadows Fall

by Denise A. Agnew

  She burst into another wild orgasm, this one harder and more wrenching as her body clamped tight around his cock. He stiffened, his entire body trembling as he growled low in his throat. He thrust one last time and went still.

  * * *

  The boy stepped on the IED and flew upward and back. He didn’t shatter into pieces but landed on his back, still and silent. A blinding flash of light caught up with Roarke. Roarke threw his arm up to shield his eyes. When the loud crack stopped echoing in his ears, he opened his eyes and the boy lying in front of him was the one run over by the van. The very same one. Fear snagged Roarke, clogging his throat, suffocating. Nothing was as it should be. Nothing made sense.

  Roarke jerked awake. Disoriented, he didn’t even remember where the hell he was. The dream lingered in his mind like fog. Not distinct, but not gone.

  Then he recalled. Melissa was in his bed, and they had fucked like they’d never get another chance. One round of sex—a gut-wrenching, soul-stealing fuck. He smiled and reached over. The bed was cold. Christ, did she leave in the middle of the night? That’s when he heard a muffled sound coming from the kitchen. He sat up. The bedroom door was cracked, and muted light shone through. Someone was in the kitchen. His muscles tensed and he had to remind himself he wasn’t in enemy territory. He wasn’t riding in a military vehicle anymore hoping to get the job done and not getting his ass blown into pea-sized bits. He didn’t bother to put on clothes. He just left the bedroom and walked toward the kitchen.

  The sight that greeted him took his breath away. She stood with her back to him, a glass of water to her lips as she took a long gulp. He leaned against the wall, crossed his arms, and watched her. God, she was fuckin’ beautiful. Her long dark hair cascaded around her shoulders, the slim, flawless white skin of her back and rounded buttocks begging him for more. She placed her glass down by the sink and turned.

  She started and put her hand to her throat. “Jeez, Roarke. You scared the crap out of me.”

  “Sorry.” He walked toward her, and her eyes widened. Probably because his cock had turned into a flag pole, aching with need for her. “You okay?”

  She leaned back against the counter. “Thirsty. And I thought I heard something out here.” She rubbed her arms.

  He frowned in concern. “Cold?”

  “Yes. I was going to hop back into bed.”

  “I like the sound of that. What did you hear?”

  She shrugged, and worry lined her face. “I don’t know. Maybe I was dreaming it.”

  He didn’t believe her. She’d heard something and didn’t want to tell him what. At the same time, he didn’t give a damn. He wanted her too badly to care about strange noises. No, he wouldn’t allow things that went bump in the night to interrupt what he wanted this minute. Her sleepy eyes made him wonder if she recalled the intensity of their sex. He’d never been torn apart and put back together that way before.

  She sighed as he slipped his arms around her and brought her against him. She reached up and brought his head down for a kiss, taking over immediately. Her tongue touched his as she teased him. They dueled, and he allowed her to explore deep in his mouth. When she drew back, his cock was so damned hard he thought if he didn’t get inside her now he’d burst.

  As she smiled into his eyes, she slipped her small hand around his cock and stroked. “Are you happy to see me?”

  He returned her grin, glad they’d returned the conversation to sex. “Yeah. Very happy.”

  He dove into another kiss, this time taking complete control. He devoured her, and she moaned. He cupped her butt with one hand and squeezed, then reached between her legs. God, she’s already fuckin’ soaked. Her silky skin slid over his in a tormenting caress that drew his balls up tight and threatened instant eruption.

  He hissed in a breath. “God. Don’t.” He caught her hand. “Do that for too long and I won’t make it.”

  “And? There’s a problem with that?”

  “Yeah. I want inside you. Now. Don’t go away.”

  He hastened to the bedroom and came back to the kitchen with two condoms. He suited up and gently turned her around to face the counter. “Do you like it this way?”

  She parted her legs, leaned her elbows on the counter and smiled back at him. “I haven’t ever ...” She shrugged.

  Holy crap. She’d never had sex like this before? As eager as he was, he didn’t want to hurt her. He enveloped her in his arms from behind. His cock eased between her legs, but he didn’t thrust. Instead he pressed gentle kisses to her back. She shivered, and yet her skin was warm.

  She lifted her butt against him. “Hurry.”

  He laughed softly and did as she asked. He thrust slowly, finding her wetness and easing slow and deep inside her. His body quivered and he groaned as the pleasure about blew his head off. Being inside her was—fuck—it was the best lay he’d experienced. He hadn’t slept with many women over the years. His job had kept him on the move, and he hadn’t wanted relationship involvements while everything in his life seemed up in the air all the time. With Melissa—well—it was damned different. Emotions he couldn’t identify roiled within as he palmed her butt and slid his lips over her soft skin. She clasped him like a glove, and he rested inside her while she clenched around his aching cock. It took everything he had to keep from pounding out his lust.

  “Jesus, Melissa. Oh, God. You feel so damned good.” He couldn’t help it. The words came out raw and unfettered and utterly true. He reared back and savored the incredible sensation of her body embracing his. He felt like a wild man, a primitive beast that had just learned the pleasure of sex and couldn’t have enough. “Fuck.”

  “Roarke.” Her voice was tight and trembling.

  “All right?”

  “Yes. It feels so good this way.” She looked back at him and the pleasure radiating from her face confirmed it.

  Her reassurances and the undeniable trembling of her body around his broke his resistance. She pushed into his next thrust, learning his rhythm, and he couldn’t take it anymore. He pumped, thrusting with steady movements. He drove into her harder, and her cries of pleasure fueled his own. He wouldn’t last long at this rate. She tossed her head, her wild hair tangled and her moans of pure excitement making him crazy. He growled, groaned, and allowed everything animal inside him to burst forth. Her body stroked his into a firestorm, beyond any sex into pure experience. She cried out, shivering and quaking. He went wild, fucking with heavy thrusts and losing his mind. He continued to take her, reaching around to stroke her clit. She gasped and writhed, once more drawn into the craziness they formed together. He loved seeing her out of control, and it stoked the flames higher.

  “Come for me,” he managed to choke out.

  One last touch on her clit and she skyrocketed, groaning at the top of her lungs. The pleasure rose until he couldn’t wait any longer. He shouted and came and came, his body pulsating as he burst in orgasm. The pleasure was so staggering that he gasped for breath for what seemed forever.

  Her pretty face held contemplation, and when she crawled into his arms, he sighed in contentment. He didn’t know how long this would last, whatever lay between them. At this point he wouldn’t think on it too much. Being with her closed a hole in his psyche. It brought him physical joy and mental happiness. She sighed and placed her head on his shoulder, her arm slung across his chest. He kissed her forehead and drew the covers up over their nakedness.

  “Roarke?”

  “Mmm?” He allowed his fingers to trail up and down her back.

  “That was ... I’ve never experienced anything like that in all my life.”

  He smiled as male pride coursed through him. “Yeah?”

  She laughed. “Yeah. I’m not exactly ...”

  “What?”

  Another sigh left her, and this time it held weight. “Never mind.” She trailed her fingers over his chest. “It’s not important.”

  “Yes it is. I want to know.” He’d never delved into his bed partner’s m
inds after sex; he usually succumbed to sleep soon after. This time, though, he wanted desperately to know. “Tell me.”

  She hesitated so long that he wondered if she would. “The last man I had sex with was ten years ago. Another teacher I met at a convention. I was very attracted to him and him to me, but when we tried to have sex ... well, it just didn’t work. He liked it, but I didn’t. No orgasm for me. Very little pleasure. We broke up soon after. We’d dated for three months.”

  “You haven’t had sex in ten years?”

  She chuckled. “Well, I’ve had fun with sex toys. I’ll admit that.”

  His cock twitched. “Mmm. I’d like to see that.”

  “Really?” She shifted and propped up on one elbow to look down on him. “Baker—that was the teacher I was dating—I tried to suggest sex toys to him and he looked at me like I was an alien from a UFO.”

  He reached up to tug gently on one long length of her hair. The strands floated over her breasts, and his mouth watered thinking about taking one rosy bud between his lips again. “Guy must have been a fucking idiot.”

  “Yeah, I think he was. No, really, he was a nice enough man. I guess his sexual tastes weren’t the same as mine.”

  He reached down to cup her butt. “I think my tastes are yours. Definitely.” He drew her down on the bed and rolled her onto her back. He whispered into her ear. “You are gorgeous. Beautiful. So sexy you make me ache. And I want to fuck you again and again until we can’t stand up straight.”

  She quivered in his grip and moaned softly. “God, I never knew I’d feel this way when a man talked dirty to me.”

  He laughed and rolled onto his back again. “If you think that’s dirty, you haven’t heard anything yet.”

  She slung a leg between his. “Why aren’t you falling asleep?”

  “Because I’ve got a sexy woman in my arms, damn it.” He saw something wary in her eyes, and it made questions form. “Something happened to you a long time ago, didn’t it?”

  “Something?”

  “With a man. It scared the hell out of you. If it’s been ten years since you had sex—”

  “No. It was farther back. When I was a teenager I ....”

  She didn’t continue.

  “Did someone hurt you?” he asked, a surge of concern flooding him.

  “Yes and no. I was sixteen when I met John Trilby. We were a couple in high school. Two nerds. We clung to each other through science class and German class. We stayed away from sex all through high school, but we came close. We graduated and decided to go our separate ways. We went to college, but not together. The heart grew fonder.” Melissa spread her fingers over his chest. “We kept in touch. One break when we were both nineteen changed everything. We had sex for the first time.”

  She went silent, and Roarke realized he held his breath. Still, he didn’t rush her.

  “We used a condom but it broke,” she said.

  The quiet this time felt like a live thing. He knew without being told. “You got pregnant.”

  “Yes. I was terrified. I planned to keep the baby, and he asked me to marry him. I said yes, but all the time I had this uncomfortable feeling that I shouldn’t have accepted his proposal.”

  “You didn’t love him?”

  “I don’t think I even understood what love was. I still don’t think I do.”

  That information made him pause and think. Hard.

  Before he could ponder for too long, she continued with, “My parents were understandably freaked and favored marriage for appearances sake. They said that since I’d made my bed I could lie in it. They were right in that sense. I was paying for the consequences. But I also felt like something was wrong. All wrong. A few weeks later, I was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy.”

  Her reveal sucker punched him. “Ah, shit.”

  “You know what an ectopic pregnancy is?”

  “Yeah. A woman I served with in the Marines had one. Almost killed her before they could do anything about it.”

  “I was rushed from the university to the hospital. During that whole thing, John didn’t come to see me even when he could have, and it was that behavior and losing the baby that put me over the edge. I told him I didn’t want to marry him.”

  Roarke realized he’d tightened his arm around her, and he eased his grip. He plunged his fingers into her hair and kissed her forehead again. “How could that bastard not come and see you? Not support you?”

  “I didn’t know it until later, but he’d started snorting cocaine. I realized he was high when I talked to him on the phone, and in a fit of anger I told him I wouldn’t marry him. When he heard what was happening to me and then I rejected him, that was it. He took an overdose and left a suicide note. His roommates found him dead.” Roarke felt her tears on his skin and the ache centered in his gut expanded. She went on. “They called me and that was the last straw for me. I thought I’d done it. That I’d caused him to commit suicide.”

  She left his arms and went into the bathroom to grab tissues. He sat up and slid off the bed. She snagged his navy terry robe off the bathroom door and slipped into it. She walked past him into the living room and snapped on a light. She dropped onto the couch and leaned against one arm. Roarke settled next to her and slid his arm around her shoulders. Roarke ached for her but didn’t know what a man could do to help a woman who’d been injured this mortally.

  She glanced up at him, red-eyed and with a pink nose. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall apart like that.”

  “It’s all right.” Again he kissed her forehead. “It was a bad time in your life.”

  “I guess I sometimes have a high sense of responsibility. Even for things that aren’t my fault.”

  “I can see that. Just the way you felt responsible for that kid getting run over.”

  “I don’t think I can sleep right now.” She glanced at the clock sitting on the fireplace mantle. “It’s three in the morning. Why don’t you go back to bed?”

  “And leave you here to hurt? I don’t think so.”

  She threw him a weak smile. “You’re a good man, Roarke O’Bannion.”

  He grunted. “Yeah right. There’s more to what happened with you and your boyfriend, isn’t there?”

  She nodded. “The doctors gave me the drugs that get rid of the baby, but I reacted badly. They ended up doing emergency surgery and afterwards there was a lot of pain. I had to take drugs for that ... or I should say I wanted to take drugs for that. I was out of school for a few weeks and the pressure of trying to keep up, John’s funeral ...” She swallowed hard. “At John’s funeral his parents gave me looks as if they hated everything about me. His mother came up and told me that it was my fault her son had died. My fault.”

  Melissa’s eyes flooded with tears again, and she tried to stem the flow with tissues.

  Roarke's heart twisted in his breast as he watched the pain rip into her. “That’s crap.”

  “I know that now. But I didn’t then. I was so young and it all got mixed up in my head. I didn’t care anymore and started to take too much painkillers. I became addicted to them until one day I woke up in the morning and considered taking the whole damned bottle.”

  Roarke drew her tightly to him and felt the strength of her mental agony like it was his own. His throat was tight when he asked, “Did you?”

  “No. I realized right away that it was the pills talking and that I needed to see a shrink and detox. So I got my ass to therapy. I didn’t need an intervention. It was through the therapy and soul searching I finally understood what had driven me to the pills. My own pain, and my guilt.”

  “That was a lot for one young woman to take on. Did your parents support you?”

  “Yes and no. I think they were as much embarrassed by the whole thing as anything. They aren’t terribly demonstrative with affection. They probably hurt inside, but they don’t know how to show it.

  Admiration for this woman grew like a firestorm. He realized that he’d made a serious mistake by
underestimating her strength and character. She believed in the paranormal, and he’d equated that to flakiness. Shame curled through him. He’d prided himself on understanding people, on knowing how they functioned and why they did things. This time he’d failed.

  Quiet surrounded them, and he didn’t know what to say for a full minute. He caressed her back as he closed his eyes and wished he could absorb her pain. He’d gladly take it into his own body, his own mind.

  “You’re the bravest woman I know, Melissa Allan,” he said, finally. “You’d beat a whole unit of Marines all to hell. Losing the baby... Losing anyone like that… ”

  Silence covered them for a while until she spoke next. “Roarke, what happened at that party? Everyone was so wild. We were wild.”

  He didn’t want to think about it, because it wasn’t logical. “It was a party. Nothing more.”

  She didn’t look satisfied, so he distracted her with a deep kiss. She melted into his arms, and he held her close until they both fell asleep on the couch.

  In the middle of the night he heard sobbing. He jerked awake at the sound and looked down at the sleeping woman in his arms. Melissa wasn’t crying. Again, a woman’s soft whimper rode on the air. He closed his eyes.

  Go away. Go away, God damn it. As if it had read his mind, it stopped. He lifted Melissa into his arms and carried her to the bedroom.

  Chapter 16

  Melissa sipped her coffee the next morning, sitting in Roarke’s robe at the dining table while he made breakfast. Outside the sky was covered in gloomy clouds. For every flash of lightning, they spit snow. A fierce wind rattled the windows.

  She watched him covertly, enjoying the sight of Roarke dressed in jeans, red sweater, and boots. The man had no idea how drop-dead sexy he was. She could still see his muscles moving under the clothes and remember how that body had given her earth-shattering pleasure last night. She remembered the sensation of his long, hard cock caressing her inside and bringing her arousal to a fever pitch. She tingled recalling the excitement that had winged through her body as his thickness had drawn a series a small orgasms from her until she’d broken into screaming climax. Sex had never been this fantastic for her. And, God. His tenderness with her had blown her away.