The Storm That Is Sterling

by Jones, Lisa Renee

  She studied him, dumbfounded by this new turn of events. No wonder it had felt so intimate when they’d merged minds. They’d somehow delved into each other’s personal lives, dug deep into each other’s core. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to know what was there inside her. The battles she’d fought with herself recently—the insecurities, the fears. It was easier to think about what she’d learned about him, his thoughts. “You don’t have any family.”

  He shrugged and then sipped his drink. “Like I said, the Renegades are my family.”

  She gave him a gentle glower. “You know what I mean. You never talked about your mother back in the library. I remember you lived with your grandmother and that your father was killed in combat. Do you have siblings?”

  “My mother died during childbirth. My grandmother died a few years back of a heart attack.”

  A sudden memory flashed through her mind. Sterling’s memory—of him jumping off a building onto a car. His last thought—he could die, but not before he freed the little boy being held hostage in that car and returned him to his parents. He wasn’t afraid of dying. She felt not one tiny iota of fear in him.

  She blinked away the image, thinking of the terror she’d felt over dying these past few months. “Don’t you ever feel afraid?” Her voice cracked. She wasn’t sure why, but there was emotion balled in her throat, tightening her windpipes.

  Suddenly, he was on one knee in front of her, turning her to face him. His hands settled on her knees. Strong. Warm. His eyes searched hers. “You know when I feel afraid? Every time I think something is going to happen to you. I had nightmares about what Adam was doing to you at Zodius.”

  “Because you blamed yourself,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault. You tried to save me. I knew that.”

  “No,” he said, rejecting that idea. “A soldier finds a place to put that stuff. We have to if we’re going to keep going. That’s not what this is with you, Becca, and it wasn’t from the moment I met you. So in answer to your question… again, yes. I feel fear.” His hand slid to her neck, callused fingers sending goose bumps down her spine. “You aren’t alone anymore. We’ll be afraid together.”

  Uncertainty rose inside her, along with one of the many fears her cancer had brought with it—the fear that had kept her from telling her mother about her diagnosis. She didn’t want to have someone taking care of her… draining the life out of those around her while she died.

  She tried to pull back. “No,” she said. “I don’t need you to do this. I don’t want you to make me feel better.”

  He kissed her, a light brush of his lips over hers, followed by a seductive sweep of his tongue against hers that seemed to touch her all over. “I don’t want to make you feel better,” he said, his voice rough with desire. “Better doesn’t begin to describe what I want to make you feel.” Again he kissed her, featherlight. “I’ve wanted you since the moment I laid eyes on you, most definitely since I saw you walking up that sidewalk to your house.”

  As she had him. She remembered him standing there on her porch looking like sex and sin, recalling every pleasurable moment of her life she’d missed. She wanted to take what he was offering, to forget everything but him, to escape if only for a little while. But damn it, unlike in the lab earlier, she was now in her head, and in his for that matter, thinking instead of just feeling. She didn’t want to be selfish, to act without thinking about the aftermath.

  Sterling leaned in and brushed his mouth over hers again, his teeth nipping her bottom lip, tongue caressing. Becca moaned softly, unable to contain the sound despite her best efforts. Control was not her friend right now.

  Her hands settled on Sterling’s shoulders, the feeling of muscles flexing beneath her palms enticing her. To touch… to feel… Okay. Maybe she did want to be selfish. She wanted to rip his clothes off, wanted to see him naked—really wanted to see him naked. She barely stopped herself from arching into him, somehow reminding herself that when this was over she’d still be the girl with cancer that had become an ICE addiction, a load better carried alone.

  His fingers trailed down one of her bare arms, and she felt that touch all over her body. Her stomach fluttered. Her thighs ached. Her breasts felt heavy and full; her nipples tight and sensitive.

  “I’m trying to do what’s right here,” she whispered, her voice quavering as she struggled to find the will to resist him, even with words. There was something so enthralling about this man, so demanding about the desire he evoked in her. He was wild and thrilling, yet amazingly, what should feel dangerous felt safe.

  His cheek brushed hers, whiskers erotically scraping against her skin, his breath warm against her ear as he whispered, “If I instinctively know something so simple as how to order your dinner, think what else I might know about you. What we might know about each other. How to tease each other… How to please each other.”

  There was an emptiness inside her that shuddered with hope, with a plea that he would drive it away, fill it with something that wasn’t icy and cold.

  He pulled back and looked at her, his eyes dark, passionate. Compelling. “No regrets, Becca,” he vowed, and she knew he’d found those words in her head. Words she’d sworn to live by when she’d left that German hospital without a cure. Words she’d spoken in her head in the lab earlier with him there.

  She rolled them around inside her and let them take root, rewarded herself with a deep inhalation of Sterling’s addictive, masculine scent. “No regrets,” she said softly.

  A slow smile formed on his lips. “I love it when you agree with me,” he teased.

  Becca laughed. “You’re crazy.”

  “About you,” he said huskily.

  She felt a little schoolgirl rush from that. In the past, she would have felt like the geeky bookworm with the quarterback, uncomfortable and out of her league, but not with Sterling. Never before had a man taken her from such dark emotions to laughter. A place she might just find real escape.

  She pressed her hands to his face, her lips to his. Absorbing him. Breathing him in like a little piece of life. They lingered that way, heat simmering between them. Expanding… drawing them in closer to one another without ever moving.

  His tongue flickered against her lips, pressed past her teeth as he slid it against hers for a long, sensual taste. “Your kisses taste like honey,” he murmured. “What does the rest of you taste like?”

  She shivered at the erotic comment—the promise he was going to find out. He kissed her again. Crazy-wild, hot-kissed her, and she loved every second of it. Loved his tongue, his lips, and his hands sliding through her hair, over her face.

  Becca ran her fingers through his thick, blond hair. She loved his hair—a little wild like him. Hot like him too. With each stroke of his tongue, each touch of his lips, she felt liberated.

  Her palms traveled over his chest—warm, hard muscle, her reward. She was extremely, intensely interested in those muscles, like the best science project in the world that had to be studied. She explored his arms, his biceps, how they felt beneath her palms. Inching forward in her chair, she arched into him, for research purposes, of course. To explore how he would feel pressed close to her. Her breasts ached for his touch, her nipples tight and swollen, in need of his mouth. God. Had she really just had that brazen thought? She was a good girl; she always had been.

  His hands slid over her breasts, fingers teased the stiff peaks of her nipples. Her hands covered his, silently telling him she wanted more, because she couldn’t ask or demand. Because she was still that “good girl” at heart and couldn’t seem to let it go.

  But she didn’t want to be a good girl. If anyone knew the meaning of “life is short,” she did. Becca ran her lips over his jaw, hid her face in his neck, and nibbled as she said, “You know what I want?”

  He slid his hands around her waist. “If you say Chinese food, I’m going to object.”

  “I’ll give you a choice then,” she said, feeling braver with his jest. “Feed me, or take off yo
ur clothes.”

  “I’m all for getting naked, if you are,” he quickly agreed.

  “You first,” she bargained.

  And while the idea of standing in front of him naked, him fully clothed, would make her feel vulnerable, exposed, it apparently had none of those effects on him.

  “Okay,” he said, unaffected by the idea as he pushed to his feet and started undressing. And only seconds later, he stood there in all his naked glory, and she sat there, fully clothed.

  Becca wet her suddenly dry lips as her gaze traveled over that hot body of his, with the lithe muscles that bulged and rippled in all the right places. Her eyes lingered on his abs—oh man. The man had abs. Really, really nice abs. Etched like a canyon of hard rock with delicious dips and mountain, all of which called for her tongue. They needed to be licked, every single one of them. She swallowed, her throat now as dry as her lips, her gaze traveling over his jutting erection. Big, hard, and ready. She was wet. She squeezed her thighs together against the ache there.

  Part of her wanted to rip her clothes off and just feel all that perfection next to her. The other wanted to savor every second of looking, exploring, touching.

  Slowly, her gaze lifted to the smoldering heat in his stare. “Can I touch it?” she asked.

  “If you don’t,” he said, “I might have to beg.”

  Sterling, naked and begging. She was pretty sure she’d died and gone to heaven.

  Chapter 22

  Erotic images rushed through Sterling’s mind as Becca walked toward him, anticipation for the moment this gorgeous, sweet, yet incredibly sexy woman would touch him. She stopped in front of him, her gaze lifting to his, simmering heat expanding between them. He swayed slightly, then silently reprimanded himself, despite the very male, very caveman-like desire to reach for her and say “mine.” He knew that wasn’t the right move. Just as he had known what to order for her at that restaurant, she didn’t feel she had choices, like she was spinning out of control. Well, she was going to have them with him. Whatever she wanted, she needed—he wanted and needed.

  Slowly, her lashes lowered as she pressed her palm to his chest. It was soft, cool—a contrast to the fire licking at his limbs, spiraling between them. She splayed her fingers, flexing them against his skin before trailing one finger downward to his lower abdomen, and then flattened her hand on his skin again with the promise she wasn’t going to stop there. And man, oh man, did his cock know it. He was standing at attention, thrumming with anticipation, his heart pounding in his ears.

  Her fingers walked a path downward to the base of his erection, and then she caressed straight to the tip. His cock jerked instantly with the pleasure.

  Becca sucked in a breath and tried to pull her hand away, her eyes seeking his. And before he could stop himself, he stole a little piece of that control he’d vowed to relinquish to her. His hand closed around hers, wrapping her fingers around his cock. “Don’t stop,” he ordered, barely recognizing the husky voice as his own.

  Her teeth scraped her bottom lip, and he all but moaned. Lust licked at his limbs like a four-alarm fire. That soft, amber gaze of hers so often full of innocent uncertainty flickered to his face, innocence no longer there. Instead, her eyes shimmered with a combination of desire and hesitation. And then, blessed be, her hand tightened around him.

  “Oh yeah, sweetheart,” he said hoarsely, releasing her hand, allowing her that freedom of choice, as long as it involved her hand on his cock.

  “You like that?” she asked, more teasing than confirming.

  “Just to be clear,” he said, his voice gravely and affected. “You pretty much can do anything you want to me… and I’ll like it. Aside from the use of teeth, that is.” Amending quickly, he added, “If used in limited capacity, of course, teeth can be kind of sexy and remain on the table for acceptable use. And being a scientist and all, I know you have an experimental instinct. Feel free to go with that. Just let it ride.”

  She laughed, loosening her grip on him, teasing him with her fingers. “I’ve never known anyone quite like you before, Sterling.”

  “Ditto to you, sugarplum,” he managed, despite her voice strumming along his nerve endings like a musical aphrodisiac, helping her hand kill him with lust. Oh yeah. He was going to die if he didn’t feel the wet heat of her body wrapped around him in the real near future.

  Her smile widened, her hand working him mercilessly, pumping him. She had control all right. He had a love-hate thing about that too. He wanted to take control and rip off her clothes. Her, naked, now.

  “I should probably tell you,” she said softly, her lashes lowering, her gaze hot as she watched her hand exploring his cock. “My experimenting has been limited to a lab.”

  Hell yes. He loved that. “Baby, it turns me on just thinking about being the guy that changes that.” He closed his hand around hers again, around the pulsing heat of his erection, moving their hands together, moving his hips in rhythm. “The idea of being the one to make you wetter and hotter than any other man ever has—you feel how turned on it makes me?”

  Her chin jerked upward, her expression registering shock. “You’re outrageously bold.”

  “You like it,” he said. “And if you don’t get naked soon, I’m going to do it for you.”

  “I’m not ready yet,” she said, smiling. Soft. Sexy. Playful. And then she went to her knees. Holy crap and thank you Lord. She was going to put that sweet little mouth on him. “I’ll need to do some research before undressing,” she said, staring up at him, his cock jutted out mere inches from her lips. She closed her hand around the base of his shaft. “Tell me. How does this feel?” She touched the tip of it with her tongue. He moaned with the sensation. “I’ll take that as a ‘good.’” She drew the head into her mouth and then rolled her tongue around him. “And that?”

  “Good,” he said. She arched a brow. “Do it again, and I’ll judge better.”

  She did, and silently, he commanded. Suck me deeper. His hand went to her head, the words lodged in his throat as he reminded himself he’d vowed to give her choice and control. Ah, but she seemed to know what he wanted. She drew him deeper and deeper, a sliding motion up and down his length that had his hips pumping again, which felt damn good, until a sudden thought slid into clarity.

  She was hiding from her own pleasure, from the vulnerability of losing herself to that need. That’s why she wasn’t naked. That’s why she was on her knees. And he was letting her. Selfishly taking what she offered by convincing himself he was giving her freedom of choice, when what she needed was freedom all right. Freedom from pain, fears… inhibitions.

  With forced willpower he eased Becca away and went down on his knees in front of her. “What are you doing?” she asked, instant confusion clouding her lovely eyes, uncertainty flickering in her face.

  “Kissing you,” he said, pulling her close, one hand twining into her silky mass of raven hair, the other sliding up her back, molding her closer, pressing her soft curves and full breasts against him.

  Sterling kissed her like he was making love to her, using his tongue to caress, coax, and yes—to heck with handing over control—demand. He took his time, seducing, making love to her with his mouth. And when he thought for certain he’d kissed away her insecurity, he vowed, “I’m going to make you come. And then come again. And then come some more.” He pulled on her shirt hem and tugged it over her head, her bra quickly following. “Say and do all kinds of things to make you call me outrageous and make sure you love every one of them.”

  His gaze raked hungrily over her bare upper body. Her breasts weren’t large, but they were high and full, the perfect size for his hand. “You’re beautiful,” he said. “I love your nipples.” He played with one of them, tweaked it. “All rosy pink and plump. Perfect for my mouth.”

  “Sterling!” Becca said. “Do you say whatever comes to mind?”

  “You have a problem with me telling you I love your nipples?” he asked, molding her breast to his palm and kne
ading.

  “No,” she said softly.

  “Good,” he said, dipping his head down and lapping one with his tongue, his arm still supporting her from behind. One lick, nip, and yes, bite, at a time. His teeth scraped her nipple, and she moaned with pleasure. “That’s how you use teeth properly,” he declared proudly before kissing her again. “Damn, I like how you taste.” He kissed her again. “All hot and sticky sweet.” He took her down on the carpeted floor. “I want to know how the rest of you tastes.”

  He pressed his mouth to her neck, her collarbone, those hot little nipples again, and continued to travel, until his tongue dipped into her navel. Her flat, sexy tummy quivered with the touch.

  It didn’t take him any time to strip away the rest of her clothes. He kissed his way from her ankle up to her knee, and then gently nudged her legs farther apart.

  “That’s it, sweetheart,” he said. “Open for me.”

  She raised to her elbows. “Sterling,” she whispered, nervous energy pouring off of her.

  His hands slid up her thighs. “This is where you lie back down and enjoy this as much as I’m going to.”

  “I can’t—”

  “You can.” He slid his fingers along her core, and she moaned. “See how good that feels.” He caressed her some more, coaxing another moan, his gaze meeting hers as he continued to touch her, intentionally pushing her to let go of her inhibitions. “You’re so hot and wet. Just the way I like you.”

  She fell backward, sighing in an admission of defeat, giving herself to him. A smile touched his lips, one born of satisfaction, of conquest. His fingers explored, playing with her like a kid would a new toy, discovering hidden secrets—triggers that made her moan, sigh again, arch her back.

  When she looked at him with bedroom eyes that begged him to take her, he gave them both the ultimate reward, the pot of gold, almost as good as having that hot, wet heat wrapped around his cock. His tongue lapped at her swollen clit, and she arched into him, breasts high in the air, fingers digging into the carpet. He suckled and caressed with a tongue experienced in such devilish acts, but never so eager to perform. Expertly he used his fingers to stroke and caress, to drive her to the edge, then he took her to a shuddering climax that had her muscles milking his fingers, the sweet honey of her release pouring around them.