Relentless

by Lauren Dane

  His tongue swept into her mouth, sliding along hers and she sucked on it, causing him to arch into her harder and move his hands down to her ass, squeezing. The movement caused a slight bit of friction in her pussy. Just enough to build her pleasure but not quite enough to come.

  Stretched up on her tiptoes, she kissed down to his chin and over the line of his jaw, over the thundering pulse just below his ear. Greedy hands ripped open the buttons on his shirt, and she stepped back to look at him.

  His eyes had deepened in color, his mouth was swollen from kisses, lips wet and slightly parted. He watched her with a gaze that brought a shiver.

  “Did you bring that bag so you could stay the night?” she asked, slightly breathless.

  “Yes. If I’m welcome?”

  “You know the risks, Roman.” She wanted it, but she wanted him to do it knowing what might happen if he got caught leaving the next morning.

  “I do, but I don’t care. I want to wake up with you.”

  She nodded, more touched than she could afford to be by his comment, and pulled her shirt up and over her head, tossing it behind her. His pupils enlarged and he shrugged out of his own shirt, letting it fall to the floor.

  Reaching out, he popped the catch between her breasts and her bra fell open and down her arms. “Have I told you how much I love your breasts? Full, gorgeous. The stuff a man’s dreams are made of.” He took their weight, sliding his thumbs back and forth across her nipples.

  All sorts of witticisms raced through her head but none made their way to her mouth. The heat rose from his bare torso, sliding against her skin along with his scent. She slid her palms all over his chest, drawing his nipples between her thumb and forefinger, squeezing until his hips jutted forward. She breathed him in, her mouth hovering over his heart, wanting to simply touch every part of him while she had him in her possession.

  Suddenly, the bizarre situation, the way two grown people had to hide their involvement, the utter impossibility of it all, seemed hilarious. What else could she do but enjoy him and this thing they shared?

  Laughing, she fell to her knees. Her hands went to his pants, unbuckling his belt and popping open the row of buttons lining the stalk of his cock. Plain white underwear shielded his erection as it strained against the soft fabric.

  Shoving the pants and underwear down his legs, she then pushed him back so he was sitting on her couch. She settled between his thighs and looked up at him as she took him into her mouth.

  He hissed. “I’ve been thinking of this every day since I saw you last. It seems too long ago. I nearly forgot what your mouth around my prick felt like.”

  She let her mouth remind him. Her hair began to tumble down from the knot it had been pinned in as he’d unmoored it. His taste, the heady scent of him, seduced her. He may have nearly forgotten what her mouth felt like but she’d remembered what his cock felt like. He was fat, wide, delicious. His veins throbbed against her tongue as she swirled it around him. His balls rested in her palm and drew up, tighter against his body.

  “Oh, so fucking good. Yes, just like that.” His voice was a low growl, strung with tension as she drove him up.

  She flicked her tongue hard against the underside of the head and he groaned. She did it again. And again each time she pulled back up off him until he brought his hands to her shoulders and pushed her back.

  “Sweet Abigail,” he breathed out. “Wait. Wait. I don’t want to come yet. I want to fuck you. Stand up. Let’s go to your bedroom. I want to spread you out while I eat you.”

  Oh, that was good. Once he let go, the man was a fucking genius with the sex talk.

  He tasted good and she loved the power there on her knees before him. Slowly, she gave him a parting lick before allowing him to help her up.

  “You’re so beautiful.” He trailed his fingers along her scars, not breaking his gaze with hers and she wondered if he knew but quickly pushed it from her mind. “Walk ahead of me. You have the sexiest sway, and your ass is a masterpiece.”

  Even when he was drop-dead sexy, he still brought something carefree to their sexual interaction. She laughed and obliged him, putting an extra bit of hip action into her walk just for his amusement.

  Once in her bedroom he stopped her, moving to strip her of her skirt and shoes, humming his satisfaction when he caught sight of the stockings. “Keep those on.” He ran his palms up and down her legs and the material of the stockings. One quick movement and he drew his fingertips over the dampened crotch of her panties, bringing a gasp from her. “I do love the way these frame your pussy.”

  The warm, thigh-high stockings had just been a guard against the cold air with her business-style skirt, but suddenly she felt very sexy in them.

  He stalked her until she backed up to the bed, falling against the mattress. He smiled, slow and sexy, and she gave over to the rapid beat of her heart. He was a predator. Even with a perfect haircut and soft hands, he was the master of his universe, hells of all the ’Verses, and he knew how to stay that way. It made him alluring and mysterious, strong and very, very powerful.

  Above and beyond all that, he was a man, a beautifully masculine one, and Abbie wasn’t even sure what to look at first. He stood naked above her, his body hard and mouthwatering. Her gaze slid down his body, snagging on his cock, which was so hard it tapped his stomach. Her pussy clenched at the sight. She made him that way.

  Using her elbows, she pulled herself up a bit and he got on the bed after her. Tracking her movements with his own.

  “Hands above your head.”

  Swallowing hard, she put her arms above her head, grabbing the headboard. Skimming his palms up her legs, he pulled her panties down and off. “Pretty.” He tossed the dark blue scrap of lace over his shoulder, never taking his eyes from her.

  He was the one completely naked but the two thick stockings covering her legs didn’t protect her from feeling totally exposed by his gaze. She felt more than just naked. There was nowhere to hide from him, and so she didn’t try. There were enough secrets. Things he couldn’t know. But that wasn’t all of what she was, and so she gave him everything else.

  His breath hitched a moment before he leaned over her on all fours and took her lips again. Soft hands, big and powerful, swept over her skin, up her arms. “So beautiful,” he murmured as his lips skated down the column of her neck and across her collarbone. She tightened her grip on the spines of the wrought iron headboard as she arched up into his touch.

  Kissing down her body, he stopped at each nipple. His mouth drove her crazy as she writhed beneath him. The edge of his teeth applied just the right amount of pressure over the sensitive point, tongue coming behind to lave the sting.

  “Oh, please,” she whispered, needing more of him.

  He rolled his eyes up to look into her face. “Please what, Abbie?”

  He meant to make her beg. Wanted to hear her, hear the need in her voice to know he wasn’t alone in it. Roman wanted her so badly his hands shook. It weakened him. He didn’t like it but at the same time, he accepted there was a deep need for her and he would fill himself with her presence.

  “Please make me come. I need you.”

  “With my hands?” The tip of his tongue swirled around her nipple teasingly.

  She shook her head.

  “Tell me what you want.”

  Closing her eyes, she exhaled before opening them again and focusing on him. “I want you to go down on me.”

  “My mouth on your cunt? Two fingers deep inside you? Maybe three? My tongue sliding through each fold and up over your clit the way you like? Hard and then soft? Over and over until you come and your hot, sticky honey coats my lips and tongue and your taste burns itself into my memory?” Gods, he’d meant every word. He wanted to be indelible.

  She shivered. “Yes.”

  “You sure you want that?” He trailed his fingers down her stomach and teased around her clit with an idle fingertip.

  She gasped, rolling her hips up, arching to get mo
re contact. “Yes. Damn you!”

  Pulling his hand back he tsked at her. “Oh! Manners, sweetheart. Manners.” He scooted down her body and spread her open, blowing over the heated, wet flesh of her pussy.

  “Please, please,” she burst out.

  “Much better.” Dipping his head, he tasted of her, using his tongue to touch every part of her he could. He slid two fingers deep and hooked them, stroking over her sweet spot as he took a leisurely tour of her cunt with his mouth. Wet and hot, her inner walls hugged his invading fingers.

  Oh, how he’d missed her! Hadn’t wanted to. Tried not to. But when he’d seen that folder with all that information on her, when he’d read the polis reports about her attack, he couldn’t resist her any further. He’d had to see her.

  Seeing her walk down the hall toward him, her hair beginning to come loose from that bun of hers, her cheeks pinked from the cold and her arms full of packages, he knew he was jumping into something with both feet. But how could he resist her? Knowing he’d licked every inch of her skin brought it roaring back with a vengeance. When he was like this with her, there were no secrets. No class difference. No failure to communicate. Here, with the flat of his tongue pushing hard over her clit the way he knew drove her crazy—here they connected. He knew her. She knew him. Knew him in a way no one else bothered to.

  She was so fucking wet. Hot and slick and juicy. He brought her off then by sucking her clit into his mouth, lightly abrading it with his teeth. A low, guttural moan ripped from her lips as her back bowed off the bed.

  Waiting until she’d stopped spasming around the fingers still deep within her, he pulled out and moved up her body. He kissed her deeply and then painted a nipple with her juices and licked at it until she made that low moan that made him want to shove his cock into her as fast as he could. In fact, that was a fine idea.

  “Abbie, I’d like you on your hands and knees.” His voice was low as he watched her, taut as she looked over her shoulder at him and got to her knees.

  “Shall I grab the headboard?” She leaned to grab it and thrust her ass back at him. He nearly lost his mind.

  “I am a lucky man.”

  She quirked up one corner of that mouth of hers and spread her thighs, exposing her pussy to him, opening for him.

  He scrambled up, kneeling behind her, and guided himself to her sex. Grabbing her waist, he rolled his hips and thrust, hilting in one stroke. He halted, just letting himself feel the glory in the way she welcomed him, the way her body felt as if it were made for him and him alone.

  Each time they’d been together it had been even better than the last. Abbie could get used to this on a regular basis. “Yes. Oh, you feel so good.” She moaned, feeling him throb deep within her. Wet sounds of sex filled the room as he set to work, fucking into her body with deep, feral digs of that fat cock. She locked her elbows, really feeling the last bit of every thrust he made into her body.

  “Make yourself come, Abbie. I want to feel you come around me.” It wasn’t a request, at least not one she planned to ignore.

  Carefully letting go of the headboard with one hand, she reached down to where they were joined. Gathering her honey, she brought her fingers to her clit and touched herself the way she liked.

  He continued to fuck her while she brought herself closer and closer to orgasm. Grabbing her hair and wrapping it around his fist, he moved her head so he could lean in and kiss her.

  “I’m going to come any minute. Don’t make me do it alone,” he said, lips just above hers. “I know you’re close, clit swollen and hard under your fingertips. I can still taste you on my lips. Your scent is in my nose. Come on, sweetheart, come for me. You know you want to.”

  Her eyes closed and rolled back as orgasm claimed her with a sharp crack of pleasure. It shot down her spine and straight to her cunt and she was sure, his cock, as the sensations rolled through her in wave after wave of blinding intensity.

  “Yesssss,” he hissed, and she felt his cock jerk as he came. The fingers on the hand still holding her hip dug into her flesh, keeping her there as he pressed as deeply as he could. The other held her head so he could plunder her mouth.

  After long moments he sighed softly and gently pulled out. He rolled out of bed and returned shortly, climbing under the sheets she’d pulled back in his absence.

  She snuggled into his body and listened to his heartbeat as they lay in companionable silence for long minutes.

  Chapter 12

  “So, this thing between us.” He hesitated, watching her move gracefully around her small kitchen, wrapped in a thick robe, her hair loose. It was late, but after another bout of sex, hunger had driven them into the kitchen. “I don’t want it to stop. But I don’t know how to keep it going without making you feel like a secret.” He sighed. “I can’t, we can’t. You know that. Gods, this is complicated. Maybe we need to stay away from each other.”

  She placed the teapot between them on the table with two mugs and then sat. “You can’t what? Be seen squiring me around? I know.” She sliced into a loaf of something that smelled better than most anything he’d smelled in a while. “We’re not just from two different worlds, we’re from two different realities. I’m not looking to marry you. We both know it’s not possible for us to be a real couple in any sense. As it happens I enjoy you. And your lovely dick.”

  “A lovely dick?” He couldn’t stop the smile her words evoked.

  “Cock. Penis. You know, your tool of manly deeds and stuff.”

  Lindy would have never uttered that sentence. Never.

  He reached out and grabbed the piece of the cake she’d sliced. Spice burst through him when he took a bite. “I’m glad you find it lovely. This is delicious, by the way.” He sipped the tea; it was warm and sweet and it hit the spot. “I enjoy your company. I like you. If things were different . . .” He shrugged.

  “But they aren’t. So what do you want? We can end it right here. Chances are I won’t see you often anyway.” She didn’t say it in a harsh way, but it felt harsh. He’d been without her and he didn’t want that.

  “I wish you understood just what I was up against.”

  She made a sour face and waved the comment away. “Show me. I’m not a dullard. I can learn things, you know. Show me and I’ll do the same.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She took his hand, kissing the palm. “I mean, let me show you a bit of my world. The world of the unranked. I think we can keep you incognito. I have a source for some nifty disguise gear. You can tell me about your world, about your life. I can’t just traipse around in your life, you know that; not as easily as you can in mine. But you can share with me. We can learn from each other. And in doing so, we can see each other. Until it’s time not to.”

  He didn’t like the sound of her last sentence but it was inevitable. So until then, he could enjoy her and her friendship. Friendship was something he could keep after they had to end the sexual relationship part. Somehow he felt she would always be part of his life. Which seemed sort of silly, given that they’d only known each other for about eight standard weeks. But still.

  “Does this lesson include lots of sex?” He grinned and she laughed.

  “There are some things that do not change from Ranked to unranked. If you’d like, I’m going out tomorrow to interview some of the people who were with Jaron the night of the murder. We can go and do that and then how about you come dancing with me?”

  “Investigation and dancing? How can I refuse such an offer?”

  “I have a few more offers to make, if you’re up for it.”

  How was he going to let this woman go? he wondered as he took in her face, the way she smiled, the shimmer of her hair as she tossed it over her shoulder.

  “What in particular brought you to me tonight?” Her brows rose in a charming way. An unexpected tenderness sliced through him. And then guilt.

  He hesitated and decided to wait for her to tell him the truth about her past. “Just hearing Marcus talk
about you so much made me crave you.” He shrugged. “Now, I’m nicely energized from our snack, so I say we work it off in your bed. I have nowhere to be at all for the next day.”

  Chapter 13

  Funny how even walking through the streets of the outermost edges of the second ring of the capital, Roman still radiated power. Daniel had come by, dropped off a duffel filled with clothing and some items to disguise Roman’s appearance, and had delivered a clipped lecture about safety and the cost of getting caught.

  Roman assured Daniel it was all right, that he’d been trained in self-defense and was quite capable of not only protecting himself but Abbie, too. To which Daniel had replied, “If my sister is injured in any way, I will show you just how defenseless you are,” and left.

  His hair was darker and he wore lenses that made his green eyes dark brown. He’d taken a pill that had darkened his skin a bit, and his usually dressy clothing had been replaced by casual pants and a nice snug sweater. He looked tasty, and he’d garnered plenty of looks as they’d walked from the tram they’d taken from the center near her building.

  “What the seven hells would Jaron be doing all the way out here?” Roman voiced the same question Abbie had been asking herself since she’d read the original charging papers.

  The third ring, at this outermost edge, wasn’t a place a boy with nice manners and a good home should have been. While it wasn’t as lawless and chaotic as the fourth ring where Abbie’s family had lived when they came back to the capital from the outback, it was a place where you watched your wallet and jewelry. It certainly wasn’t the kind of place where you hung out in bars with people you didn’t know.

  “I don’t know. I asked him and he said he’d met up with some acquaintances from his time in the corps. He didn’t know them very well but they’d all seemed a nice enough sort and he was happy to see them.”

  She kept her voice low as they moved through the narrow streets. Her posture appeared relaxed but she was ready to run or fight at a moment’s notice. After the attack, she’d gotten training from Daniel’s friends. It was her way of taking her life back.