by Becky McGraw
Worry settled in his gut like a brick as he pushed back his chair to stand. She said she needed to rest, and that was a good plan, but since the injury was so fresh he needed to make sure she didn’t go to sleep for a while. That she was still coherent and her brain wasn’t swelling.
The thought sent a rush of adrenaline through him as he walked swiftly through the office to the front door. Slade brushed by Levi who was coming up the steps as he went down, but he didn’t stop.
“Hey, I need to talk to you!” Levi shouted behind him, but he didn’t stop.
He picked up his pace to a jog, then a run as tension ratcheted up at the back of his neck. She could be comatose in his apartment and nobody would know. Having a latent seizure. She could be dying. He flew through the front door of the barracks and ignored Caleb who tried to stop him too.
Slade had one mission on his mind right now and that was taking Taylor Kincaid to the damned hospital whether she liked it or not.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Slade flung open the apartment door and immediately searched the living room for Taylor, but he didn’t see her. He slammed the door and heard a whimper from the bedroom. Through the open doorway he saw her in the bed and ran that way. Buddy lay beside her with his head resting on her shoulder.
The dog looked up when Slade stopped by the bed, but Taylor didn’t move. Slade’s heart stopped, because other than the purple knot on her forehead, her face was as white as the sheet covering her. His hand shook as he strode to the bed and reached out to feel for the pulse at her throat, but Buddy snarled at him and he jerked back.
The starch left his body on a wave of relief when Taylor’s hand appeared from under the sheet to pat the Labrador’s head. It all congregated in another place when she turned on her side toward him and the sheet slipped to her waist giving him his first full view of her gorgeous, rose-tipped breasts. Dragging his eyes away, he leaned down to snatch the sheet up to cover her, but it was stuck under her forearm.
“Taylor wake up!” Slade growled, tugging on the sheet again. Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled, as her hand drifted up to cup his cheek.
“You should get in bed and take a power nap. It’ll make you feel better, I promise,” she said groggily, rubbing her hand over his beard stubble, starting fires inside his body. The sleepy, sexy quality to her voice fanned the flames. “You look exhausted.”
Slade was exhausted. They hadn’t slept more than four hours last night. He would love nothing better than to crawl into that bed with her right now, but he wouldn’t be sleeping. She wouldn’t either, and probably shouldn’t be right now anyway. Her drowsiness could be a sign of a concussion, and she could go to sleep and not wake up.
Something pulled hard inside his chest.
“I’m not sleepy, I’m worried about you. I wasn’t able to get the medic here to check you out, so we’re going to the hospital.” He couldn’t stop his eyes from dropping to her breasts again, and a yearning so strong it made his knees weak hit him right in the gut.
Taylor laughed, as she brought her hand up to feel the bump. “I looked at it in the mirror and it’s ugly, but I don’t even have a headache. It’s my own darned fault for not taking the time to take my car in for service when I got the airbag recall last year.”
No, her damned no-account cheating boyfriend should have done that for her, Slade thought, as he tried to raise up, but her small hand flew to his shoulder to keep him there. She held his gaze, electricity buzzed between them and she bit her lip. Why the fuck did she have to bite that damned lip?
“Thanks for worrying about me, I’m not used to that,” she said, her voice breaking. “I’m worried about you too. Sleep deprivation can bring on another episode, and so can the stress from this morning. Please just get in bed and take a short nap with me.”
Slade dragged his eyes down, and they landed on the pile of clothes by his boot. That told him that, just as he suspected, she was completely naked under that sheet.
“If I get in that bed, there’s no way I’ll be able to sleep,” Slade said, without looking at her.
Her hand glided over his shoulder, up his neck to his face again, and he bit back a groan when she raked her thumb over his lower lip.
“We could explore option two, and maybe that would help you sleep,” she offered, and her words rumbled through his body turning his muscles to putty.
The air became heated with his ragged breaths, as Slade fought the urge to take what she offered. But why the hell was he fighting it? She’d said last night it would remain between them, and wouldn’t mean anything. Maybe because for some strange reason that bothered him, since he knew she wasn’t that kind of woman.
“I could definitely go for continuing that kiss in the truck,” she purred, stroking his lip again causing a shiver to rock him.
Desire clawed at his insides, and a need as fierce as he’d ever felt engulfed him. With a growl, Slade’s control snapped, he grabbed her wrist to kiss her palm then licked his way up to her elbow and Taylor shivered. He yanked her up to her knees, shoved his hand into her thick hair and slammed his mouth over hers. His other hand found the warm globe of her ass, and her skin was like silk under his fingers as he dug them in to hold her closer.
Liquid heat flowed between them as their tongues met, danced, and her luscious body melted into his. Her hips ground against his fly, her heat scorched him through the denim and he moaned as he tumbled them onto the bed.
A heavy weight landed on top of him, a warm, wet tongue lashed over his ear, and dipped inside leaving behind plenty of slobber. Reaching behind him, Slade shoved Buddy, who must have thought it was playtime, off of his back, before he grabbed the sheet to dry his ear.
Taylor giggled, but Slade wasn’t amused as he grabbed the dog’s collar and dragged him toward the edge of the bed. Buddy teetered there, pulling back against him, but finally fell off the edge and Slade dragged him to the door to put him out.
He turned back to the bed and lost his breath when he found Taylor laying on her back waiting for him, her knees spread showing him the beautiful pink flesh between her thighs. His tongue tingled to taste her there too, to suck the nipples she was lazily caressing. He wanted to taste every square inch of her, feast on her until this gnawing hunger inside him was gone.
And he would, he thought, as he yanked his shirt over his head then tossed it aside before quickly removing his boots and jeans. Slade stalked to the bed, and Taylor raised up on her elbows, her eyebrows lifted as she smiled at him. He realized her eyes were on his crotch, and looked down.
“Da, dah, da, dah da—Batman!” she sang, with a laugh.
Heat crept up his throat, and Slade decided that maybe it was time for him to buy some regular underwear. Carmen, his last friend with benefits, and the other women he’d slept with in the last five years liked them. But it looked like Taylor Kincaid just wanted to tease him about them.
“I wondered which ones you had on this morning at the meeting,” she said, bringing her eyes up to his. “I kind of like the teeny white ones with the red lips.”
“You went through my freaking underwear drawer?!?” Slade asked incredulously. This woman evidently didn’t have any more damned boundaries than her dog!
She shrugged. “I have a curious nature, what can I say?”
With a growl, Slade kneeled on the bed and launched himself at her, eliciting a giggle he felt near his sternum. Pinning her to the bed, he looked down into her sparkling blue eyes.
“You can say you’ll never go through my stuff again, or I’ll have to kill the curious cat.”
“Can you loan me that pistol in your underwear drawer?” she asked, her smile fading. “There’s no way we can get mine from my house now, and I’d feel safer.”
That was his sidearm from the corps. The pistol he’d been carrying when the explosion happened. The firing pin was broken, and the barrel bent. He’d kept it as a souvenir, but knew it could never be fixed. Sort of like him.
“No, you can
’t have that one, but I’ll get one for you,” he said gruffly, as he swooped in to peck her lips.
With a moan, she craned her neck for another peck and he sealed his mouth to hers. She met him stroke for desperate stroke with her tongue, rubbed her calf along his leg and made needy circles with her pelvis that soaked his underwear with her moisture. Things got out hand fast when she wrapped her legs around his waist tightly and her gyrations put her heat in firmer contact with his throbbing cock. His hips moved too, and with each pass, he inched closer to embarrassing himself. He was not going to come until he was inside her body, and she came too.
“I need to get a condom,” he said, dragging in breaths as he tried to lift up but her legs tightened around him.
“I have one,” she slurred, her eyes as desire-drugged as her voice.
Her legs loosened as she stretched across the bed to shove her hand under the sheet. After a second, her hand emerged and she had a condom between her fingers.
She had a condom ready?
That added to the fact she’d been naked in his bed told him she’d been waiting for him to come to her so they could have sex. She’d probably been laying here fantasizing about it while she waited, not sleeping. That was just about the biggest turn-on he could imagine.
But something else bothered him.
“You went through my shaving kit too?” he asked brusquely.
“No, I found this one in one of the drawers in the bathroom.”
She hadn’t gone through his shaving kit, but she had gone through the drawers. He wondered what the difference was in her mind.
Slade snatched it from her and rolled to his back to shove off his underwear. His hands shook as he positioned the condom and rolled it on. Before he could get up again, Taylor sat up and pointed to the headboard.
“Lay that way,” she said, and he moved vertical on the bed. She straddled him, and placed her hands on his stomach and his muscles contracted.
“You want to be on top?” he asked, surprised.
“No, I want you to relax. Let go and let me drive this time,” she said, with a sexy smile as she stretched over him, the ends of her hair tickling his sides as she glided her palms up his chest leaving his muscles quivering behind. She reached down to grab his hands, and her palms met his as she pulled them up over his head.
Slade let her hold them there because that put her incredible breasts right there in his face. He leaned up to nip one, and she giggled, her back arched but her eyes narrowed as she looked down at him.
“You don’t get to do that unless I say you get to do it,” she said sharply, but her playful eyes took off the edge in her words.
Let go and let me drive. Every muscle in his body tensed as her meaning became clear, and electricity zipped through his body.
Taylor Kincaid wanted him to submit to her.
Slade had tied up women before during sex, because they’d asked him to, been dominant and bossy, but he’d never in his life let a woman do it to him. If she wanted to be in control though, he’d try it. If he didn’t like it, it wasn’t as if this five-foot-nothing woman could keep him down. It wasn’t like she was handcuffing him to the bed or anything. He was afraid he’d have to draw the line there.
“Keep your hands there,” she said wrapping his fingers around the narrow square spindles on the inset in the headboard.
She scooted off of him, stuck her hand under the sheet again, then stuck her head under too. When she emerged, a pair of silver handcuffs dangled from her fingers and Slade’s butt cheeks tightened. Those had to be the ones he kept in the shoebox in the back of his closet. That meant she probably found the packet of letters from Jeannie he’d saved too.
Slade let go of the spindles and sat up to grab her shoulders.
“Did you read my letters too?!?” he demanded, his fingers digging into her flesh.
“Of course I didn’t. That would be an invasion of privacy. I saw them but left them alone,” she replied, sounding hurt.
Slade almost wanted to laugh. An invasion of privacy? Taylor Kincaid had done nothing but invade his privacy, not to mention his peace of mind, since she’d been at the compound. His fingers loosened and her body slumped.
“I have the key too, but if you don’t trust me, we don’t have to use the handcuffs if you’d rather not. I just thought since you had them, you’d expect me to...”
He heard the disappointment in her deflated tone, and wanted the excited spark back, the hot momentum they had going a moment ago, but not at the expense of allowing himself to be cuffed. Slade was enjoying her take-charge attitude, and he was okay with trying new things within reason. That did not include allowing her to handcuff him to the bed.
He didn’t trust her, because he didn’t know her. This was their first time together. He could imagine doing something to piss her off, or her just deciding to leave him there for giggles for the guys to find, or worse.
“Let’s skip the handcuffs this time, but I promise to keep my hands where you put them. Does that work?” One corner of her full lips kicked up, and the other followed. Her eyes sparked again as she tossed them over the side of the bed.
She averted her eyes then, and he saw a faint blush stain her cheeks. “Whatever you want is fine. I’ve just been lying here thinking about doing that to you, and it’s been driving me crazy.”
She had been fantasizing about him and that knowledge made his cock throb. Slade quickly laid back down, stretched his hands over his head and gripped the spindles.
“Have your way with me, Ms. Kincaid,” he said, looking down at her where she sat on her knees by his ankles. Anticipation buzzed through him as he wondered what her way would be. She’d had about two hours to come up with a plan, so he’d bet it was going to be good.
But guilt knocked the edge off of his excitement. Slade needed her to hurry too. He had a lot to do at the office, and the guys were working their asses off to help him. He needed to be there when the video finished downloading. He needed to get with Levi and Dex about her cell phone and car. He needed to find out if Gray had the money together so he could call Winters.
He needed...a groan rolled from his throat when her small hand closed around him. What he needed, he thought grinding his teeth, was to feel her tight pussy wrapped around his dick.
“Wow, my fingers don’t even touch,” she said with a now agitating giggle, as she squeezed her hand tighter and his balls tightened more. He shoved his hips upward needing to feel the friction of her hand moving on him, but she released him and raised up.
“I said relax—that’s not relaxed.” At her dark, abrasive tone, Slade’s eyes flew open to glare at her.
“How in the hell can I relax when you’ve got my cock in your hand? When I want to be inside you so bad I can taste it?” he fired back.
“If you’re a good boy, we’ll get to the tasting part,” she said slyly, as she grabbed his ankles and nudged them apart. “Open your legs, and relax.”
If he was a good boy? It sounded to him like she thought she was training a dog.
With a frustrated breath, he let her spread his ankles wide and relaxed back on the pillow but his fingers gripped the spindles so tightly, he was afraid they would snap. He was even more afraid of that when her tongue licked a circle around his ankle and fire shot up his leg to his balls.
Slade looked down his body at her but couldn’t see what she was doing because her hair covered her face. He felt it though when she suctioned her mouth to the indentation on the inside of his ankle beside his Achilles and pulled hard. His body jerked rattling the headboard as tingles danced up the inside of his thigh, his cock swelled and he threw his head back to moan.
Who the hell knew that was an erogenous zone?
Holding the pressure of the suction, she slid her mouth up to his knee and found another hidden spot there when she flicked her tongue behind his knee. A tremor shook him and he groaned at the sensual torture she was putting him through with each tiny kiss and nip she made on her path
up to his inner thigh. Her hot breaths scorched his already sizzling skin, his nerves were electric and his balls were so tight they hurt, as he waited to see what she would do next.
The witch let him wonder, stew in the sexual hell where she held him hostage for a full minute, before the wet heat of her mouth touched his skin again and he groaned. She slid her mouth lower then sucked hard on the artery there drawing blood to his balls and come to the end of his dick. Slade held his body rigid as the condom became a tourniquet on his cock, and he fought to keep from coming taking shallow breaths that sounded almost like whimpers.
Every muscle in his body was taut with frustration as he leaned up to glare down at her. And then her teeth clamped down on his skin, pain shot through his groin to zap his brain, and he screamed, as he let go of the bars to launch up and grab for her with his throbbing fingers. When she moved away, he rubbed the welt on his inner thigh.
“You promised not to let go of the slats,” she said angrily, narrowing her eyes.
“You bit me—and I’m not into pain—at all,” he growled hoarsely, his cock throbbing in time with the welt that was now forming a distinct ridge around the edges. “And this has gone on long enough, I need you to stop messing around and fuck me!”
“That’s not the way to ask when you want something is it?” she asked, her brows pinched into a scowl. “Ask nicely.”
“Nicely for what?” he asked with frustration.
“For what you do want...I don’t know what you like, and I—I don’t want to do anything else to upset you,” Taylor folded her arms over her breasts. Was that fear in her eyes?
“I want to have normal sex with you right now—please!” Slade ground out.
“This is normal sex, isn’t it?” she asked, her voice and lower lip wobbling, as she unfolded her arms. Her surprised look and the confusion in her eyes, told him she wasn’t kidding, and his instincts told him something was very off here.
“No, ma’am this is kink, and I’d love to explore it with you if that’s what you like and it doesn’t involve pain—when we have more time. That’s not something you can rush or take lightly without talking about it first, or someone could get hurt.”