She had warned him. She was obviously defective and—
Oh! My! God!
He slipped two fingers inside her, pressing upward while his tongue pressed down and flicked side to side, and suddenly she was right there. Squirming and panting and teetering on the precipice.
“Look at me, Emily,” he commanded, his voice no more than a low growl. “See me make you come.”
She lifted her head from the pillows and looked down to find his green eyes blazing up at her. His shoulders looked huge between her legs. His skin astonishingly tan compared to her paleness. But it was the sight of his mouth on her, ravenously feeding that sent her careening over the edge.
She lost all sense of place and time. There was only her. There was only Christian. There was only intense, inescapable pleasure.
After who knows how long, the rapturous bliss tempered to a soft, lazy sort of satisfaction. Catching her breath, she watched him place one final kiss to her core before he turned his head and sucked sweetly on the inside of one thigh, then the other.
“Y—” She tried and had to stop and clear her throat. Holy Moses. Had she been screaming? She couldn’t remember, but her raw vocal cords seemed to indicate that she had. “Your turn?”
He crawled atop her sprawled body, a sheen of perspiration dotting his brow, the look on his face so fierce, so raw, that she shivered.
Here he was…
The man she’d always known lay inside those designer clothes and Italian shoes. Gone were his facade, his restraint, his caution. He was whittled down to his true form. And that form was all man. Hard. Powerful. Unapologetic.
Determination had replaced his charm. Passion had overcome his poise. He was now the embodiment of virility and barely leashed violence.
“Did I mention the third way I plan to make you come?” he whispered against her lips. Her legs spread wide around his lean hips. The length of him once again pressed tight to her sex.
“You didn’t.” She shook her head. “But I might have an idea anyway.”
He smiled that heady, smug smile, then grabbed his shaft and angled it toward her opening. She wiggled against him, needing the space between them gone. Needing him in.
The muscle in his jaw clenched. The one beneath his eye twitched once, twice. Then she saw his stomach muscles flex. He prepared himself to take her, to impale her, to finally, finally give her what she’d been secretly fantasizing about for months.
Steeling herself to receive him, she blinked in astonishment, her mouth falling open when he hissed, “Shit!” and rolled off her.
“What the hell?” She scowled over at him. His mink-brown hair looked almost black against the cream backdrop of the pillowcase. One tattooed arm was thrown over his eyes.
“No condom.” The two words sounded as if they’d been ripped from the depths of his chest.
“Oh!” Right. For the first time in her life, with him above her, so powerful, so fascinating and sexy, she hadn’t given a thought to protection.
She’d turned into the very thing Ms. Hanoman, her seventh grade gym teacher, had warned her about.
“Saying you got ‘caught up in the moment,’” Ms. Hanoman had said, standing in front of the class in her knee-length athletic shorts, a banana in one hand and a condom in the other, “is a stupid girl’s excuse for being stupid.”
Good. Great. Now Emily could add stupid girl to the list of things Christian had turned her into. It would go right beneath the entries for giggler and eeper. Ugh.
Her entire body ached with disappointment. Even though she had been recently satiated, she felt ridiculously empty. After so much buildup, she’d never be completely satisfied until he was inside her, filling her to the brim.
“You don’t carry a condom in your wallet?” She tried not to scream with frustration.
“Don’t carry a wallet. Only a fake ID and a money clip.”
Sure. Made sense since he lived off the grid.
He rose up on his elbow and leaned toward her. She might be aching with disappointment, but if the pained look on his face was anything to go by, he was in absolute agony. Poor guy.
“I could go ask Ace or Rusty if they have one,” he said.
She blushed bright red at the thought. It was one thing for everyone to know she and Christian had decided on a little bow-chick-a-wow-wow. But it was another thing entirely to go around asking for a spare love glove. Jeez.
She shook her head. “Nah. There are other ways to skin this rabbit.”
His distressed expression flickered with humor. “Such as?”
“Blow job.”
She might as well have said castration from the way he groaned and squeezed his eyes closed.
“What? Don’t tell me you’re the one man on the face of the planet who doesn’t like having his—”
He opened his eyes and shoved a finger over her mouth. “Don’t say it. If you say it again, I’ll likely come.”
She jerked away from his finger. “Well, isn’t that the whole point?”
“I don’t want to come without you.”
She snorted. “Oh, cut the ladies first bullshit. Because if memory serves, you’ve already satisfied me. Twice. Asking for a little quid pro quo is totally acceptable at this point. I promise I won’t revoke your Confirmed Gentleman card.”
“I don’t want to come without you.”
“Has semen backed up and infected your brain?” She frowned at him. “I just said—”
He stopped her mid-sentence by claiming her mouth in a punishing kiss. She was so distracted by his thrusting tongue that she didn’t realize he’d untied one of her hands until he wrapped her fingers around his hard, steely length.
Oh lord. He felt even bigger than he looked. So much deliciously soft skin encasing such stubborn firmness. Her fingers barely met—it was going to be fun seeing how foreskin changed the whole hand job dynamic. When she went to stroke, he squeezed her wrist, forcing her to stop.
“No.” He growled the word against her lips. “I’ll tell you when to stroke.”
“But—”
“No buts, Emily. You never do as I say any other time. But here, now, you will obey me.”
Ooooh, big, tough man in charge.
She didn’t know whether to giggle or gasp. Since she was still trying to deny the fact that she’d become a giggler, she went with the second option.
“Now,” he said, nipping at her lips, “open your legs for me. We need to get you warmed up again.”
She could have told him she was sore, because she was. She could have told him she didn’t need a warm-up, because she was already slick and hot and aching again. But instead she simply obeyed him, spreading her legs and moaning when his fingers gently, expertly slipped through her swollen folds and found the ultra-sensitive knot of nerves at the top of her sex.
Chapter 17
“What’s the deal with your tattoos?”
Oh, bugger it all, Christian thought, still trying to catch his breath. Save me from postcoital talkative women.
He and Emily had spent ten minutes giving each other vigorous, completely kinky hand jobs that had ended with both of them coming at the same moment, and now she wanted to talk? About his tattoos, no less?
He reached to untie the final rope, scooped her into his arms, and hauled them both off the bed. His legs felt rubbery. His stomach quivered from the intensity of his release. And his cock, though spent, still had some life left in it, jutting impudently from his body.
“What the—” Emily began. She didn’t manage more than that before he whisked the coverlet off the bed and cast it to the floor.
Surely there was a laundry somewhere in the house. The National Trust and the caretakers they employed took the job of maintaining historic residences very seriously. Emily and Christian were likely the first people to have slept in the big bed
in nearly a century, yet the sheets and bedclothes were fresh. Before they left tomorrow, he would need to be sure he washed the evidence of his spilled desire from the quilt and then replace it.
She squealed when he tossed her back onto the bed. Arms and legs akimbo, she bounced in the most delicious way. He joined her a second later, pulling her onto his chest and tucking her head firmly beneath his chin.
When she tried to press up to look at him, he slapped her ass and growled, “Be still.”
He didn’t need to look at her to know she was trying to decide whether to take him to task or shiver with delight. Eventually, after a few seconds, she settled on the latter.
He smiled. One thing had become obvious. Unlike in other areas of her life, when it came to the bedroom, Emily didn’t mind taking orders. In fact, she seemed to fancy it.
Closing his eyes, he replayed how well she’d followed his breathless instructions on how to touch him, how to spread his pre-ejaculate over his swollen head and then stroke. Soft and slow at first. Hard and fast near the end. Her palm had been so silky and hot and eager to please.
We’re a brilliant match, he realized with no small measure of satisfaction.
Instead of scaring her, his need for bondage turned her on. And she was so bossy in her everyday life, it was no wonder she didn’t mind letting go and allowing someone else to take charge when it came to sex.
Jolly good thing too, since he planned to tie her up and boss her around in the bedroom for the next fifty to sixty years. Quite soon she would realize that their perfectly paired sexual appetites could translate to a perfect pairing for life. And that bit about her not being able to fall in love? Rubbish. Slowly, day by day, stolen moment by stolen moment, he planned to prove it to her.
A sense of contentment wrapped around him. That is until she cleared her throat and said, “So, about your tattoos…”
The last thing he wanted was memories of his dark past invading this bright, glorious moment. But the woman seemed to have latched on to the subject, and he knew how tenacious she could be once she became fixated on something. A bloody dog with a bone, that’s what she was.
“What about them?” he asked reluctantly.
“Is there a story behind them?”
“Why do you ask?”
“They seem out of character. You’re kinda preppy.”
He snorted. Guttersnipe, little bastard, trash…he’d been called loads of things in his life. He’d never been called preppy.
“And your tattoos are the very opposite of preppy,” she went on. “Plus, considering how many hours and how much pain you must’ve endured to get them, well…” She rolled her hand before letting it rest over his heart. Could she feel how the silly organ picked up its pace, as if trying to get her attention? “It’s weird you don’t want to show them off. In fact, you do your best to hide them.”
“You’re certain the CIA didn’t train you to be a field agent?” He traced a slow circle on her naked hip. Her skin was so impossibly soft. Was there another woman on the planet with skin as soft as hers?
“No.” He could hear the frown in her voice. “Why?”
“Because you’re vexingly observant and irritatingly perceptive.”
This time, when she tried to push up on her elbow, he allowed it. Her dark eyes were narrowed in affront. “Irritating?”
“What?” He lifted an eyebrow. “You thought because we’re good at this”—he motioned between them—“that I’d stop finding you irritating? I will always find you irritating, darling. Delightfully so. You push my buttons. I fancy it. Keep doing it. And admit it, I irritate you too.”
“Well, I certainly find you annoying right now,” she huffed. “Because you’re Christian Watsoning your way around the subject again.”
“Must I repeatedly remind you not to use my name as a verb?”
“Must you repeatedly dodge my questions?”
He laughed. She had him there. “I got them to cover the lighter burns,” he said. “I got them so that every morning when I looked in the mirror I wouldn’t be reminded of what happened to me as a kid.”
But, unfortunately, he’d learned the tattoos drew people’s eyes. And when they looked closely, they saw the scars beneath the black ink and asked about them. He didn’t like talking about his past, so he’d taken to covering his arms.
Still, when Emily said haltingly, “What…what happened to you?” he found himself spewing the whole sorry story.
“After my dad died, for a while my mum took up with a contemptible prat. Every night, after she’d come home from the pub pissed, he’d slither into my room to torture me by flicking on his lighter, letting it get nice and hot, and holding it against my arms.”
One of her hands stole up to cover her mouth. “Oh my God, Christian. I can’t even… I don’t know what to say.”
His shrug said, Nothing for you to say.
I’m sorry, her eyes told him.
Again with a shrug. This time it said, Nothing for you to be sorry for either.
“Did you tell your mom what was happening?”
He shook his head. “The man swore he would hurt her like he was hurting me if I told. It wasn’t until about six weeks into the abuse, in a moment of sobriety, that my mum noticed the dried bloodstains on the arms of one of my shirts. She flew into a rage, kicked the guy out of the flat, and then dragged me down to the police station to file a report on the sick, twisted bastard.”
“What happened? Did the police catch him? Did he go to prison?”
Again, Christian shook his head. “While we were at the station, he left town. But not before going back to our flat and nicking our telly. You would think that would have made Mum sober up. But the guilt she felt at not protecting me made her seek the oblivion of the bottle even more.”
“I can’t imagine it.” Emily’s eyes traveled over his arms, searching for the old scars beneath the heavy, midnight swipes of ink. Her voice was thick when she asked, “How could someone do that to a child?”
“What? Stay plastered all day even after realizing that being plastered had resulted in your kid getting tortured? Or sneak into a little boy’s room to burn him with a lighter?”
“The lighter.” As if she couldn’t help herself, she pressed her fingertip into the indent in his chin. Who knew such an innocent touch could feel so intimate?
“Back then, I thought it was because he was in love with my mum, and he hated that I was a reminder of the man who’d come before him, the man she truly loved. But over the years I’ve come to realize that some people are just evil. They like inflicting pain for the simple pleasure of it. They fancy watching things weaker and smaller than themselves suffer. He was one of those people.”
After Christian had been decommissioned from the SAS, he had gone looking for that evil man. Good thing he had found the sod already dead and buried, or else he likely would have quietly and bloodily put the bastard in the ground himself. It was on that day, standing next to that headstone, when he had realized he couldn’t be a civilian.
He was too volatile, too barbaric. He needed an outlet for all the violence that bubbled inside him.
A sniffle had his chin jerking back. Huge pools of tears stood in Emily’s eyes.
His heart broke then and there. For one thing, never in his life did he want to see such pain on the face of the woman he loved. For another thing, Emily didn’t cry pretty tears. She cried like a violent storm breaking loose, and it took everything in him to hang on and weather it.
“Don’t, darling,” he crooned, holding her to him and rocking from side to side. “Please don’t cry.”
“I’m s-sorry,” she sniffled, wiping away the tears that tracked down her downy cheeks. “I shouldn’t be crying. It’s not my tragedy or trauma. But I keep seeing you as this innocent boy with dark, unruly hair and big, bright eyes, and—”
&nb
sp; She shook her head, unable to go on.
He didn’t tell her that his big, bright eyes seemed to have been part of the problem back then. John J. Tully—There! He’d said the name, even if it was only in his mind—had liked to hiss, his breath stinking of rot from his decaying teeth, “Stop starin’ at me with those spooky eyes, you daft little bastard!” as he burned a new scar on Christian’s arm.
Her fingers delicately traced over his bicep, stopping when they encountered one of the puckered patches of scar tissue. Then her hand drifted lower, her fingertips finding the burn on the inside of his forearm.
Most of his scars were faint, only discernible if you knew what you were looking for. But the one on the inside of his forearm? That was a different story. The skin had been thinner there, and John Tully had been particularly brutal. That scar was hard, knotted, extra sensitive.
He hissed when she smoothed her thumb over it.
“Does it still hurt?” She blinked.
“It feels raw, like the nerves are exposed,” he explained.
“Even after all these years…” She shook her head sorrowfully. “Well, maybe this will help.”
Lifting his arm, she kissed the raised lump of flesh. He shivered. Not because he was cold, but because nothing in his life had ever felt so sincere…or so loving.
If she had stopped there, he might have been able to keep his shit together. But she didn’t stop there. She crawled over him, straddling his legs, and proceeded to find and kiss every one of his scars.
By the time she got to the big, puckered scar on his flank, courtesy of an Iraqi policeman’s bullet, he’d had about all he could take. Grabbing her shoulders, he dragged her up his body until they were nose to nose, and pretended there wasn’t a bloody lump in his throat or bloody tears burning behind his eyes.
“You’ve got to stop that,” he whispered.
“Why? Doesn’t it feel good?”
“It feels good,” he admitted.
But it also breaks my heart and heals it at the same time, he could have added. And it makes me want to throw caution to the wind and tell you how much I love you, you sweet, delightful, brilliant girl.
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