by Lora Leigh
“Really?” His expression appeared curious; his gaze told another story. “In what way, sweetheart?”
In what way?
“Son of a bitch,” she muttered, irritation getting the best of her. “Is that all you can do—question every damned thing?”
“Isn’t that the only way to get answers?” he asked with a smug smile. “So, are you in the mood yet, baby, or do I get to have fun with that pretty little body of yours all by myself?”
“It’s my body, too, Crowe.” She tried for that no-nonsense voice she had heard her mother use.
“Hmm, before I’m finished, that inquisitive little brain of yours is going to realize just who commands it.”
Before Amelia could blink in outrage he’d moved. Pulling her into his arms and lifting her against his body just enough that only the tips of her toes brushed against the hardwood floor.
“Crowe. No.” The surprised gasp came as he gripped the band of her skirt, his fingers tightening on it.
His gaze narrowed further on her.
“I don’t have that many clothes, Crowe.” Admitting to that sent humiliation sweeping through her. “You have to stop destroying what I do have.”
What flashed in his gaze she wasn’t certain. Something wild and primitive. Something possessive.
His fingers relaxed just enough to flick open the tiny metal clasp and ease down the zipper securing the band. A second later, the silk-and-wool material slid down her legs to the floor.
“Crowe…”
“No more protests, Amelia,” he warned her, the dark gentleness of his tone sending a tingling sizzle up her spine as his palm shaped the sensitive curve of her rear.
The callused tips of his fingers stroked against her flesh, dipping between her thighs to test the damp silk of her panties.
“How long have your panties been wet, baby?” Those diabolical fingers slid beneath the elastic leg to find the swollen, silken folds beyond.
Gasping at the pleasure streaking through sensitive nerve endings, Amelia smothered the moan threatening to follow it.
“Answer me, sugar elf,” he demanded as he swung her in his arms and moved to the couch, laying her back on the thick cushions gently.
He made her feel delicate and fragile rather than clumsy and lacking in grace, as she knew she often was.
Following her, Crowe came over her, one hard thigh pressing between hers as his head lowered, his lips feathering over hers.
“Crowe, you have to stop this.” He was weakening her, stealing her pride and her will with his touch.
The feather-light caress of his lips changed instantly. The moment the protest escaped he sealed them in a kiss that didn’t just steal her protest. It stole her senses.
As his lips and tongue dragged a needy moan from her throat, his hands stroked, caressed, and pleasured.
Experienced fingers quickly unbuttoned her blouse, pushing it back from her shoulders as his lips moved from hers to the rise of her breasts above the delicate lace cups of her bra.
He was undressing her. Lifting her against him as he quickly removed the blouse and her bra, leaving her clad in nothing but her silk panties.
“This has to stop,” she whimpered, the sound anything but convincing.
And it wasn’t as though he was actually listening to her.
His lips moved to the rise of her breasts, stroking over them with heated kisses as her breath caught with pleasure.
She couldn’t think when he touched her. When she lay beneath him, her senses clouded with the building ecstasy, then she didn’t have the will to think. She sure as hell didn’t have the will to protest.
Her hands smoothed over his shoulders, loving the feel of his skin, stretched over tightly bunched muscles and rippling beneath her touch.
After licking a nipple with heated male hunger, he must have decided that wasn’t nearly enough. A second later his mouth covered the hard tip, sucking it in.
Once it was captured, he still wasn’t content. His tongue lashed at it, sending hard, clenching strikes of sensation to attack her womb.
Moving with hungry purpose to the other breast, he nipped and kissed his way to her tight nipple before drawing it into his mouth and suckling the sensitive peak with male hunger.
Her back bowed, the pleasure was so intense. Panting, blood rushing furiously through her veins as feverish need burned beneath her flesh, Amelia knew the battle had been lost before it even began.
Her nails raked against his hard shoulders. Clenching her thighs around the heavy male thigh between hers, her hips rose and feel, the bud of her clit pulsing with painful pleasure as the erotic need rose furious inside her.
The silk of her panties needed to go. They were between her and Crowe. His pants needed to go.
His clothes needed to go.
“Undress, damn you,” she cried out furiously, pulling at the shirt covering his shoulders, trying to drag the material up his back and over his head.
He moved, his hands no longer stroking her flesh, his hard body no longer covering hers. Jumping to his feet, he needed only a matter of seconds to undress. His shirt was tossed to the floor, his pants discarded quickly, the boxer briefs quickly pushed over his hips and tossed aside before he returned to her.
The panties he simply ripped from her with a rasped, “I’ll buy you more.”
She didn’t give a damn. She could do without panties if it meant he would touch her faster.
He didn’t stretch out over her this time.
Oh, hell no.
Anticipation raced through her entire system as he dragged her hips to the side, pushed her legs apart, and knelt between them.
“Oh hell yeah,” he growled, shoving one of the small couch pillows beneath her hips to lift them closer then lowering his head to the saturated folds of her sex.
His tongue swiped through the dew-drenched slit. Licking, stroking, he caressed and tasted her, licking from the snug entrance of her vagina up and around the swollen bud of her clit.
The rasp of each caress sent spirals of increasingly tightening sensation wrapping around and through her clitoris. Her inner muscles clenched and ached, the emptiness inside her becoming increasingly painful as her hips writhed beneath his caresses.
He was torturing her. Teasing her.
His tongue flicked over the hard bud with quick little swipes, the pressure just firm enough to give her a taste of the explosion waiting beyond the edge of pleasure he had her poised on.
Her fingers fisted in his hair, clenched, then eased to grip his head as she begged for release.
Extreme, erotically intense, each lick of his tongue, each suckling kiss sent such a rush of sensation tearing through her that she wondered if she would survive the coming climax.
She was certain she couldn’t bear more sensation. Certain that the least bit more pressure would throw her into release. Instead, when his lips covered the violently sensitive bud of her clit, it wasn’t release he threw her into.
It amplified the pleasure to a near-painful level. When she was certain she couldn’t bear more, two long, experienced fingers began working past the snug, ultrasensitive entrance to her vagina.
The pinching heat of the penetration had her inner muscles rippling, milking at the slow, widening penetration of the clenched tissue.
Her hips arched, trying to force him deeper. Her feet dug into the cushions of the couch to lift her closer, ragged cries escaping her lips as the suction around her clit eased and his tongue began torturing her again.
Licking, stroking. His fingers pushed in slow, shallow thrusts, working inside her in slow degrees as he filled her senses with nothing but him.
His lips and tongue drove her clit insane. His fingers teasing, taunting her with the steady stretch and burn that never increased at a fast enough rate to throw her over the edge.
Stroking inside her, then easing free of the snug grip of her pussy, he ignored the shattered cry that fell from her lips. His tongue danced over and between
the swollen, parted lips of her pussy, slipped to the clenched entrance, then sent flames reaching out over her body as his tongue plunged inside the spasming depths.
Amelia was thrown into a sensual, chaotic storm as he fucked her with slow, lazy thrusts and licking tastes of her inner flesh. His moan vibrated against the entrance, filled with male hunger and rising erotic purpose.
Her hips jerked and writhed against each plunging stroke. Her fingers fisted in his hair, clenched in the strands, desperate to drag him closer. She had to get him closer.
“Please, Crowe,” she cried out, growing more desperate with each plunging stroke of his tongue.
Experienced fingertips moved to her clit, stroking it, rubbing.
Panting, fighting to breathe past the incredible pleasure whipping through her, Amelia whimpered as his tongue eased from her inner grip and his fingers replaced it. His lips moved back to the hard, throbbing bud of her clit, enclosed it, and destroyed her senses.
The first, hard suckling pressure and firm rub of his tongue against the side of the overly sensitive bundle of nerves was destructive. Her senses exploded in such a furious series of ecstatic bursts that she lost her breath, as well as the tenuous hold she had on her emotions.
Waves of violent pleasure were tearing through her, shuddering through her body as she dimly realized he was moving. Rising between her thighs, coming over her—
“Crowe!” Her eyes widened, the shudders racing through her deepening, extending as the wide, heated length of his cock began tunneling quickly through the hard clench and release of her vagina.
His groan was more a growl of extreme pleasure as her hips jerked into the hard impalement. Hammering inside her, shallow thrusts, then deeper, as though even in the grip of his own racing pleasure he had to torture her with the ecstasy exploding in her, only to build and explode again.
His lips surrounded a hard nipple, tonguing it, sucking it deep inside his mouth as his cock shafted inside her with furious, driving thrusts.
Pushing her higher, his hand slid beneath her rear, his fingers sliding through the narrow cleft until he found the puckered entrance hidden between them.
Already slick from the excess of the liquid warmth escaping her pussy, his fingers needed no extra lubrication. Gathering the essence over the tight entrance, his fingertip penetrated her.
Easing back, he gathered more of the natural lubrication, pushed inside her again, then repeated the motion several times until his finger was impaling her with each hard, deep thrust that his cock took her pussy with.
One finger eased the tight tissue, then two. Working inside the tender depths, stretching until he was fucking her with controlled thrusts of his fingers as his cock burrowed deep and hard inside the tightening muscles of her vagina.
Whimpers fell from her lips, gasping cries as the internal spasms of yet another destructive climax approached.
It was right there, so close.
Each hard, rapid thrust of his shaft slamming inside her, the slap of their bodies, the sheen of perspiration that only aided his thrusts and did nothing to cool her body, increased the pleasure.
She wanted to scream, but couldn’t find the breath.
Pumping harder inside her, his cock throbbing, swelling impossibly thicker inside the swollen depths, Crowe buried deep, paused, thrust again almost uncontrollably, before she felt that first fiery pulse of semen releasing inside her.
The feeling of Crowe’s release spilling to the greedy depths of her body was an unexpected trigger.
Amelia heard the wail that escaped her lips. She was only dimly aware of her body bowing, her head slamming back against the cushions of the couch. All she was frantically, totally aware of were the catastrophic, soul-deep explosions of such brilliant pleasure detonating inside her that it wasn’t possible to stay alive.
It swelled inside her, pushing past inhibitions and past hurts; it tore aside any shyness and ripped through distrust as though it had never existed. It exploded with a rush of fiery pleasure that detonated another deeper, violent explosion of pure, fiery rapture.
Racing fingers of electric heat overtook her senses. Like brilliant imps of sensation they buried inside her soul; just as he’d swore, her body would now know who commanded it.
Her soul knew the other half of her, and it grieved.
Because she knew, to the very depths of her spirit, that nothing, no matter how she might try, would ever fill that part of her spirit once Crowe walked from her life. And she knew, no matter how close he held her now, no matter the words he whispered against her breast, she knew—
She knew there was no holding the man who owned her heart. No holding on to the pleasure past the completion of his quest for vengeance.
She would pay, but not by Wayne’s hand, for committing the ultimate sin of loving Crowe Callahan.
She would pay by Crowe’s hand, when he learned her secrets and took from her the only dream she’d had to hold on to for seven long, lonely years.
She would pay—
As the final harsh shudders eased and exhaustion overtook her, she realized his head had lifted from her breasts. Moving slowly, no doubt aware of the catch of her breath as echoes of raptures clenched her muscles, he eased the still-firm length of his cock from the involuntary tightening of her inner flesh.
She could feel him staring down at her as her body released him, her breath catching at that last wave of pleasure washed gently now through her senses.
Lifting her lashes and staring up at him, the knowledge of everything she would soon lose weighing on her soul, she stared up at him, fighting to hide the lonely ache growing inside her, to hold back the tears that would have filled her eyes.
“Don’t forget,” he said. “This isn’t over, Amelia. And you may want to be finished with me. You believe that you can just decide when this is over.” His head lowered until their noses nearly touched. “And you just might even be able to convince yourself of it. But hear me now, fairy-girl, you’re mine. And this will not be over until I decide it’s over.”
There was no stopping the bitterness that escaped her or the painful tightening of her chest. Ribbons of pain stretched from the very depths of her heart, wound around it and tightened to a clenching fist she feared she’d never escape.
“I always knew that,” she whispered, fighting to breathe from the pain and the realization that the cap she’d forced over her emotions seven years before had been hopelessly shredded. “But just because you control my body, my pleasure, doesn’t mean you’ll ever control me. Your chance at that died a hard, cold death seven years ago. And you’ll never have a chance at it again.”
It was a bluff. The greatest bluff of her life, but she’d be damned if she’d give him the last of the ammunition he needed to completely destroy her.
His lips tilted in a mocking grin. “Don’t dare me, fairy-girl, you may force me to prove otherwise to you. I don’t think either of us wants to see the results that could have, do you?”
“I think right now, all I want is to get up, get dressed, and go shower,” she told him quietly.
She pushed herself to a sitting position, looking around before grimacing and picking up the shreds of her black silk panties as she restrained a sigh.
“I told you, I’ll buy you more,” he reminded her, his voice harsh and tight.
Amelia only shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, I have more panties.”
She just didn’t have more silk panties. She enjoyed wearing them the most, and he’d just ripped her last pair from her body.
“Dammit, Amelia,” he said as she buttoned her blouse before rising to her feet, collecting her skirt, stepping into it, and pulling it over her hips.
“And damn you,” she stated without bothering to look at him. “The next time you decide I can’t keep a meeting, or a schedule I’ve put together, why don’t you allow me the same knowledge.” Securing her skirt, she looked up at him then, and hated Wayne even more for the knowledge that she was losin
g far more than she had ever imagined when Crowe decided to walk away.
“I wasn’t trying to keep you from the damned meeting,” he growled as he dressed as well. “I was taking you to the damned thing, Amelia. You were the one who decided to turn back.”
“I couldn’t walk without tripping over your damned goons,” she yelled, too many emotions, too much pain swirling through her senses now. “I couldn’t even see the damned street for their shoulders.”
“Which means Wayne couldn’t get a bead on you with a gun sight,” he snapped back, his expression creasing with frustration. “For God’s sake, Amelia.”
* * *
Raking his fingers through his hair, Crowe stared back at her in frustrated anger, wondering why the hell she would imagine he would deliberately try to hurt her—just to what?
Embarrass her? For what reason?
What would he gain from hurting her other than another mark against his soul? God didn’t look kindly on men who damaged innocent little fairies with such deliberate cruelty.
“I’m going upstairs, Crowe,” she breathed out, that heavy dark thread of an emotion he couldn’t quite decipher causing the frustrated anger to grow inside him.
Lowering his brows he watched her silently for long moments as she tucked her bra in the pocket of her skirt, picked up the overly large sketchbook she normally kept on the desk in the corner, then picked up the low-heeled shoes that had fallen from her feet as he swung her in his arms earlier.
She kept her head down, her expression hidden as he watched her. But when she passed him and headed for the door, it didn’t lift. Her shoulders weren’t exactly drooping, but there was something weary and saddened in their less-than-straight line.
Snarling silently, he watched as she opened the door, stepped through it, then closed it softly behind her.
Hell, he’d have fucking felt better if she had just slammed the door. She wouldn’t have had to slam it hard. Just a little bit. Just enough to indicate whatever it was she was feeling that clouded her turquoise eyes and hinted at the shadows filling her.