Devil's Mark

by Megan Crane

  “Shit,” he muttered. It was more like a groan. “You’re so tight.”

  “Killian.” She didn’t mean to use that name, but he didn’t react and she forgot she had in the next moment. “I don’t…I mean, I’ve never…”

  He didn’t pull his finger out of that slick channel she hardly recognized as part of her. Quite the opposite. She could feel him inside of her. Inside her body, and he rocked his hand a little, sending searing bolts of sensation through her whole body—though it was all concentrated right there. Right where he was touching her.

  She lifted her head to watch him, unable to keep from pulling her lip between her teeth. It was that or break apart. Or something worse she couldn’t even identify.

  “No one?” he asked, his voice as rough in that moment as his eyes were intense. “You didn’t let any of those Ole Miss assholes get their hands in here? A little third base when no one was looking?”

  She lifted her hips, pressing her pussy against his hand and sending that finger a little deeper. And she liked the spinning sort of lightning that washed over her then. A lot. So she did it again. And again.

  “I’m not the sports fan you seem to think I am,” she managed to tell him, breathless and arched back over his strong arm, her hair falling all around her, his big, tough, fighter’s hand deep in her panties and more, buried inside her. “I’ve always thought baseball was boring.”

  “Depends on the pitcher, princess,” he said with a laugh, and then he moved his hand in a different way.

  It was like an explosion. It rocked through her, making her buck against him, as if her hips knew how to do things on their own.

  “Take it,” he told her, dropping his mouth to her neck and doing something in the curve where it met her shoulder that made her want to cry. And dance. And cartwheel across the starry night while she was at it. “Fuck my hand.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Baby.” He did something with his teeth and she felt it like an electric shock in her nipples, her clit. And all over her body. “Figure it out.”

  Holly thought she’d do anything he told her to do if it felt like this. So good she was sure it might kill her. So good she thought she wouldn’t mind too much if it did.

  She moved her hips some more. She swiveled and rocked them into his hand. She learned how to meet each thrust of his finger and her reward was more of his wicked mouth on her neck, then her nipples again and then, when she couldn’t seem to stop moaning, a second finger to go with the first. And this time, when he set a new rhythm, he hit her clit with each stroke.

  It all got…dark and tense, insane and hot.

  Too much.

  But Holly didn’t want him to stop. She thought she might die if he stopped. And she knew, somehow, that the death she’d suffer if he stopped doing this was far, far worse than the one she was heading for if he didn’t.

  “Come on, baby,” he said, and he sounded so fierce. So wild, it became part of the madness storming through her, stalking her, coming for her like a train. “Give it to me.”

  She didn’t know what he meant. She opened her mouth to tell him so.

  But instead she burst into a thousand pieces, screamed out the name he didn’t like, and skyrocketed straight off the side of the world.

  Chapter 9

  Holly came in shudders, her sweet, hot cunt gripping his fingers and her soft cries washing over Uptown like more of that sunshine of hers.

  Except this time, it drove him wild.

  Wilder.

  He moved over to the couch while she was still shaking in his arms, her eyes screwed shut and her cheeks pink. He pulled out his fingers as he set her down, his mouth curving with satisfaction as she slid a little bit against the leather, as if she was so deeply shaken she was unable to hold herself up.

  It was a good start.

  He shrugged out of his cut and his T-shirt, too, while he was at it, because he wanted skin. He tugged her fresh, bright panties down from her hips and out of his way, peeling them down her quivering thighs and then off. Then he knelt down before her.

  For a moment, he just looked at her. Holly Chambless, sprawled out naked on his couch. Her hair was a dark tangle, tumbling down over her slender body and waving slightly as it slid to each side of her proud little tits. Her sweet brown eyes were dazed, which he could admit made him feel like a god. She was boneless and still panting a little bit, and he’d never seen anything in all his life that was quite this pretty.

  He shifted, widening his knees so he could move closer. He slid his palms over her thighs, marveling at how soft she was. She smelled good, as if she’d rubbed something sugary all over her skin, on the off chance she wasn’t sweet enough already. But he’d tasted her. He knew exactly how sweet she was, and he hadn’t even gotten his face in her pussy yet.

  Uptown lifted one hand and traced her mouth with his thumb, liking it way too much when her lips parted and he could dip into that lush wetness. He doubted she knew how to suck cock the way he liked it, if at all, but he was surprised to discover that when it came to Holly and her mouth, he had a serious interest in becoming any kind of tutor he needed to be to get her up to speed on that. Looking down at her, her lips closed around his thumb as if she was giving it a dry run, he couldn’t think of anything he’d rather do than teach her. Over and over again.

  He waited for her to say something. To call this off. Outline what should have been a truckload of second thoughts. Put up some kind of fight he’d have to knock down and neutralize to earn her. Wasn’t that how it went with the fancy girls?

  But she didn’t say a word.

  And Uptown thought he could read something on that sweet, dazed face of hers that didn’t make sense. A kind of certainty, maybe, that should have been out of place here. It made something inside him, darker and far more ferocious, echo with the same thing—but that was impossible.

  He ignored it. He concentrated on the feel of her silken skin beneath his hand. Her mouth on his thumb. The way her scent was messing him up. The heavy ache in his balls and his cock because he could no longer remember a time he hadn’t wanted her like this. As if she was the whole world.

  He pulled his thumb from between her lips and then he shouldered his way between her legs. He tipped her back against the couch, letting her feet dangle down his back, reveling in the smooth slide of her calves against his bare skin. His mouth was already watering. He could smell her pussy, sharp and sweet, the musk of arousal and all Holly. He felt drunk out of his mind, like he’d lost a week to a bottle of moonshine and had no intention of sobering up any time soon. He slid his hands up to take hold of her ass, aware on some level that his hands weren’t as steady as he thought they should have been, and then he lifted her to his face like a feast.

  And he knew he was fucked the minute he got her hot, sweet cunt to his lips.

  Deeply, epically fucked.

  She tasted so good he thought his cock might batter its way out of his jeans. He lost what was left of his mind as he buried his face in her. He couldn’t get enough. All that heat and quivering excitement. The way she shook in his hands and against his lips. He licked up all her cream and it wasn’t enough. He got his chin into it, each rolling motion he made making her sob out something he didn’t think was fully English, though it moved through him like a voodoo chant, rich and deep and dark. He kept going, sucking on her clit until she was bucking up against him, her head thrashing against the leather couch, and then he took as much of her ripe little pussy as he could fit into his mouth.

  Holly screamed. Uptown kept going.

  He went back and forth between the two, and while he did, he explored that dark valley between her ass cheeks with his restless fingers. He didn’t penetrate her asshole—not yet, not tonight, not for his little virgin—but he rubbed the little puckered nub he found at her back entrance until she was mindless. Or even more mindless. Then he held her there, keeping pressure against her asshole and her clit between his teeth, and this time when sh
e came she screamed out his name again and again and again.

  And Uptown figured she could call him Killian all she wanted while she was riding his face like that, her thighs clamped against his ears and her hips working him like she could come and come forever. It even sounded like some kind of song when she called it out like that. Music to his ears, anyway.

  Holly collapsed back against the couch and he had to take a moment. He had to get himself under control before he snapped and went a little crazy, which he didn’t think she could handle.

  Not tonight, asshole, he growled at himself. Not yet.

  Holly was panting so hard each breath came out sounding like a half-moan, and it made Uptown grin. He liked her this way. His naked princess, deconstructed. Hair wild, eyes closed, and all his. He rolled up to his feet, edgy and tense and so ready to get inside her at last that the world was narrowing around him with every punch of his heart against his ribs. It should have made him feel locked down. Trapped. Two things he objected to on every level and always had.

  But instead, all he could see was Holly.

  He reached down and picked her up, hauling her into his arms. She was flushed and so sensitive that she shivered all over again when he held her against his bare chest. Her breath tangled with his as she slid an arm around his neck, but he didn’t kiss her—because he wouldn’t stop. And if he’d wanted to bang her on the floor or up against a wall, he would have done it already.

  Uptown moved across the living room, not bothering to turn on the lights when he hit the hallway, then carried her straight into his bedroom. It was all bed and windows in there, with only the hint of starlight through the tangle of bayou outside. Not enough to see too clearly, but enough. He placed Holly in the center of his bed when he wanted to throw her down and beat her to the mattress, and congratulated himself on being such a goddamned gentleman. She moved her hands against the bedspread as if amazed the bed was made, but he didn’t call her on that. She was naked and beautiful with that killer ass practically begging for his hands, and Uptown thought his cock swelled three sizes at the sight. Or maybe that was the aching thing in his chest.

  She was even more perfect than usual here, in his bed at last, with her arms thrown up wide and her nipples red from the way he’d teased them before. Her legs shifted restlessly as if she was having aftershocks. Or was already ramping back up for what was coming next. Uptown kicked off his boots, then got rid of his jeans after grabbing the condom he had in his back pocket.

  He crawled up over her, settling between her legs and finally, finally rubbing his cock all over that cunt of hers. Getting it wet and ready. Indulging himself, after all this time.

  “Do you have to use that?” she asked, and he looked up to see her watching him, her eyes blissed out and her voice a little cracked. She nodded toward the condom in his hand. “I’ve never done this before. I want to feel you, not latex.”

  “You offering to have my kid?” he asked, sounding a lot rougher than he might have if he wasn’t instantly imagining what it would be like to take her tight, virgin cunt skin to skin. Jesus Christ. His cock leaped against the soft, wet cushion of her pussy, making its preferences known like the greedy asshole it was. “That sound like a good plan to you?”

  Maybe he imagined her hesitation. “No.”

  Uptown was a sick fuck, he accepted that, because there was a part of him that didn’t give a shit if he got her pregnant. That will tie her to you forever, something insane whispered. When the last thing he’d ever wanted was a blood tie to some other crazy woman. His junkie mother had always been more than enough female trouble for him. He had no idea what it was about Holly that made him want to blow up his life.

  Reality asserted itself then, and he ripped open the packet, rolling it on with one hand.

  “If we keep fucking, you can go on the pill.” He heard himself say it. He couldn’t bring himself to stop. Or take it back, when it might as well have been a goddamned marriage proposal, the suggestion that there was anything between them besides the urge to get off right here and right now. Such that there’d be plans to do it again. Together. He didn’t think he’d ever given any other woman more than a smile. But he was rubbing his cock along that soaking wet furrow of hers, dragging the plump head against her clit with every stroke. He couldn’t make himself care about anything but that. “But tonight we’re gonna use protection.”

  He could swear that was disappointment that moved over her face, but she angled herself up, propping herself on her elbows so she could look down between their bodies.

  “Can I…?” She looked something like guilty and glazed straight through when she met his gaze. “Can I touch you?”

  His heart slammed at him when he realized she meant his dick. And the sad truth was that he was going to come all over her stomach if she didn’t stop.

  “No.” He realized how harsh that sounded and relented. A little. “I’m barely holding on as it is, sweetheart. You touch me and I’ll bust a nut in your hands. That’s not the plan.”

  He didn’t wait for her to accept that. He shifted, moving higher on the bed so she was completely beneath him, continuing that insistent, rhythmic rubbing of his cock against her clit as he moved. By the time he had her where he wanted her, waiting for him in a languid sort of missionary position that shouldn’t have made him this hot for her when he was usually a fan of the acrobatics, she was starting to breathe a little fast again. Well. Faster.

  What he didn’t understand was why this was getting to him. Why he already felt wrecked.

  Denial, he told himself again. You’re not great with waiting.

  “You okay with this?” he demanded, gruff and a little too edgy. “You don’t mind paying for your daddy’s sins on your back?”

  It was as if he wanted her to freak out on him. As if he wanted her to stop this before he lost something here he couldn’t get back.

  Uptown had no fucking idea where the hell that thought came from. Or why, when she only looked up at him as if he was her entire world just then, he wanted to do something he couldn’t remember ever doing in his life before, and certainly not to a woman.

  Apologize.

  He bit his fucking lip because the way things were going tonight he couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t slip right out, making a mockery of every goddamned thing he’d ever stood for. Like a whole lot of pussy without all this…other stuff.

  Holly kept looking at him like that for a long moment, then moved beneath him, rolling her hips in a way that made his eyes cross a little bit, damn her.

  “I might not have done this before, but I think mentioning fathers at such a critical moment is pretty widely frowned upon.” She wrinkled her nose. “But I’m getting that from movies, mostly. I could be wrong.”

  He doubled down. “It’s a valid fucking question.”

  Holly didn’t do any of the things he thought she should. Hell, that maybe he wanted her to do so he could blame this whole situation on her instead of that weird crap inside of him. She reached up instead and ran her hands over the hair on the top of his head, like she wanted to feel him against her palms. He didn’t get that.

  Until it occurred to him that maybe she thought she was…soothing him.

  And that was the craziest thing yet. It worked. She made that edgy part of him cool down with a simple little touch, so the furious words he’d been about to throw at her just…faded.

  Something in him shook at that, so low and so dark he couldn’t identify it. Like a memory of a faraway night he didn’t want to bring any closer. He didn’t want to see what was there, waiting, and tied too closely to the way she was rubbing him, soft and easy.

  “I want you,” she said softly, the way she had in the bar. Then she shrugged, never shifting that soft brown gaze from his, her lush mouth not quite giving in to its natural curve. “I don’t care about the rest. I trust you.”

  It humbled him, that she should trust him that much. Or at all. It also pissed him off.

  “You shouldn
’t,” he told her starkly. Almost furiously. “Trusting me is a bad idea, princess. Or maybe you didn’t notice who the fuck I am.”

  Holly didn’t look fazed. She slid one of her hands down and molded it to his jaw, then held it there. Uptown had no idea why he didn’t shake her off. Why he felt caught there between her fragile little hand and the soft look in her eyes. He was something far more complicated and doomed than simply trapped and he hated it. Of course he hated it.

  Or he would hate it, he was sure, if he could figure out why she had this power over him in the first place.

  “Okay,” she whispered, and though she didn’t smile he could hear it in her voice. He could see it in the way her eyes gleamed in the dark. Worst of all, he could feel it inside him, tumbling around and slamming into parts of him he’d forgotten were there, he’d locked them down so long ago. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  She was killing him.

  Uptown could talk a great game, but not about this kind of shit. He wouldn’t know where to start. But he figured he had a better way to communicate. He reached down and guided his cock along the molten seam of her juicy cunt, lining himself up with her entrance, though he didn’t push in. Not yet.

  He went down on an elbow, then took her mouth. Some part of him expected her to balk at her own taste on his lips, but instead he felt her sweet little pussy get wetter, hotter. He took the kiss deeper. Raunchy and wild, tangling his tongue with hers and taking her mouth like he owned it. Like he owned her.

  He didn’t prepare her. He pushed the head of his cock into the narrow fist of her virgin opening and held himself there, barely breaching her. She was tight as fuck, but had no hymen to pop. Still, she jolted as if he’d pierced her, pulling her mouth away from his like she was trying to focus in on the new sensation. Uptown didn’t want that.