by Tricia Lynne
“Shit. So good…so fucking good.” His hand fisted my ponytail; the other brushed the corner of my mouth. “I love seeing your lips around my cock.”
I cupped his balls, taking his length all the way back. I swallowed, closing my throat around the swollen head. Hollowed my cheeks as I pulled back to the tip and met his eyes.
Declan’s brows drew together tight, his face strained and damp, but still his eyes met mine while I worked him over. When his gasps and groans turned ragged, I knew he was close.
“Uhn. Christ, Avery.” He swung his hips subtly in time. His accent thickened and I moaned at the sound, reaching between my thighs to slide my fingers over my panties. “I want to come in that mouth….”
That’s what I wanted, too. To hear him bellow his orgasm loud enough to wake the dead while he fisted my hair and met my eyes. But Declan pulled free and dragged me up the stone. “…But I need inside your tight, hot pussy.”
“Declan, God.” Calloused hands slid my skirt up my thighs, pushing my panties to the side, and skilled fingers delved into my wet heat, wringing a moan from me. He pushed my legs apart with a knee, slipped a finger into me, and a curse caught in my throat as my tiny muscles squeezed around him.
“Fuck, you’re so wet. I love how wet you get for me, sweet.”
“I want you buried inside me. I need to feel you stretching me, baby.” More animal than human, I sank my nails into his stomach, my teeth into his chest. His approving growl was a sound I would remember forever, return to repeatedly in the weeks that followed.
His fingers disappeared, replaced with the head of his cock, rubbing back and forth through my wet folds, nudging at my swollen clit.
“No more teasing, goddammit,” I rasped, throat too raw to yell. I moved my leg up his thigh, ran my nails over his skull, brushing that sensitive stubble from crown to nape.
“Avery. Don’t. Push. Me.” Declan nudged inside me with shallow controlled strokes that turned into long slow slides as he strained for control I didn’t want him to have.
Under the bright moonlight in a city full of the dead, I saw Declan McGinn’s ghosts crystal clear. He needed the control—over his temper, his feelings, his demons—because he couldn’t fathom being vulnerable. If I saw all of him, and accepted him just as he was, he’d be showing me a facet of himself that he was afraid might never get buried again, never fully leashed and caged, with feelings much more complex than the lonely frost of cool anger he usually allowed himself. How was it we could be so very different and still so much alike?
“Declan.” I met his eyes. “You need to fuck me. I need you to let go. You’re not going to hurt me, but if you don’t slam that beast inside of me, I may end up hurting you….I can take it, Declan. Let go of the leash, baby.”
A wild snarl ripped from his throat and he slammed home. The demon was finally loose.
“Oh, shit.” I came right then. The spasms hit me hard, wracked my body with tremors as my sex squeezed his heavy cock, bringing wave after wave of wholly abandoned pleasure as I bucked wildly, riding the orgasm with every muscle in my body.
“Christ, I feel that. Nothing like it. So perfect. Strong and soft. Wet and tight.” He wrapped both hands under the backs of my thighs and lifted until I was wedged between him and the stone, driving into me in furious thrusts.
No. No, no, no. Too heavy. I’m too heavy for him to hold me like this.
I squeezed my eyelids shut.
“Don’t you close your eyes.” He bit down on my lip. “You wanted me like this. Now you fucking see me. See what you do to me.”
My eyelids opened and our gazes locked. What I saw there…the heat and lust, and reverence and pleading. The strain of muscles, not because of my weight, but because of his need and what I did to his body, his control.
I choked my inner critic into permanent submission and my demons finally set to sky to play with his. I didn’t care how heavy I was, only about taking my pleasure and reveling in his strength. About giving Declan the orgasm of his life and making him come as hard as he made me come. Showing him that shattering the control, making himself vulnerable, didn’t mean he’d never find it again and leave himself exposed. I needed him to trust that I wouldn’t let him slip completely into the dark. That I’d be there to pull him back.
Crossing my ankles, I locked them around his hips as he set a furious pace and let him have that unfiltered mouth he loved so much. “Jesus, baby. This is what I wanted. Give me all of it. Every piece of who you are. I crave you, Declan. Just like this. Unleashed and out of your mind for me.” My clit rasped over his groin with each hard thrust. I was close again. Reveling in the power I could wield over this man. The more I spoke, the more frenzied his thrusts grew, the louder the snarls from his sandpaper throat.
“Why do you want to hide this man from me? I see you, Declan McGinn, and I’m not afraid of your demons. I feel you, too. Pumping that gorgeous cock into me, unhinged and feral.” His hips became pistons between my thighs, my shoulders raw from scraping the stone. “I want it, baby. Know that I can take it. That I need to take it, Declan. I need all of you.
“The light. And the dark…and a piece of your soul.”
I got the last out and came apart screaming his name, but a hoarse whisper materialized instead. My body drew on his, tugging relentlessly as I quaked in his strong arms, my legs shaking so hard that I nearly lost my grip on his hips.
Declan thrust once more so deep, swelling, stretching me to the limit. He let go with an earsplitting roar, and I felt every pulse of his cock buried inside of me for what seemed like eternity as my tiny muscles tightened and released with every pulse of his orgasm.
His eyes rolled skyward, exposing the corded muscles of his neck, and I struck, tasting blood and sweat and something unique to Declan. Back bowing into me, he shuddered as echoes bounced against the stone crypts. And I held him there, all the way in, refusing to let him slide out until his endless pulsing ceased and my body had wrung his dry.
Our eyes locked together, he held me against the stone, heavy breaths mingling between us. Slowly, he lowered me to the ground, our chests heaving in time. He consumed me with his kiss, more than just lust, as he explored every recess of my mouth in a passionate dance while he held on to me as if I’d disappear.
I ran my hands ran over his shoulders, his sculpted back, reveling in his warmth and strength. There would never be another man like Declan McGinn. Never.
We righted our clothes, and Declan smoothed the stray hair from my forehead while he searched my face, his eyes glowing intense, exposed and vulnerable with emotions.
I hoped he saw what he was searching for. It was there for him to take. Words I couldn’t give him any more than he could give them to me.
With a rueful smile, his eyes told me.
Though, everything was left unsaid.
His forehead against mine, he brushed my lips in a chaste kiss, then took my hand. “Let’s go find our friends,” he whispered through a grin. “Somebody probably called the cops.”
My smile turned insanely huge.
* * *
—
“Uh, we’ve found our friends.” I tugged him to a stop as Jamie and Kat came into focus through the shadows the moon cast against stone. They were sprawled atop a crumbling, waist-high crypt, with their clothes beneath them.
Jamie rocked into Kat in fluid, unhurried strokes; her legs wrapped over his thighs and her arms moving over his muscled back. Her cool beige skin and long graceful limbs were no more than a restless shadow as she moved her hands over Jamie’s pale body. Occasionally, her skin reflected the light in a way that I could see they were two people making love, and not a trick of the eyes; Jamie’s skin, the color of stone, and Kat, the shadows cast by moonlight through the trees. Their beauty was hypnotic.
I heard the moans and gasps, whispers and sighs, as Declan
stood behind me, the tickle of his breath on my neck and the soft lips against my ear as his deliciously dirty whispers heated my skin. Kat’s sighs turned to moans. Jamie’s thrusts, faster, more unpredictable.
“We should go,” I whispered.
“Whenever you’re ready, sweet. I’ll text him after we’re outside.”
I pried my eyes away, reminding myself that this was my best friend in the throes, not random strangers in an alley. I took Declan’s hand and we walked to the gate quickly and quietly. As we slipped through, I heard Kat cry out and Jamie’s broken yell.
“Oh.” I pulled up short. “What if someone did call the cops?”
Declan’s mouth split into an ornery smirk. “Jamie can afford to make bail for them both.”
I smiled back as he pulled me down the street.
Chapter 17
“You come in with me, I expect you to be here in the morning.” Declan opened the door to his suite.
Dammit, how had I spun out of control with this man, and so quickly? My carefully constructed wall was cracking all around me and BlackSmith’s front man was rapidly slipping in through the fissures. This was a bad idea—developing feelings for a man I’d known for so short a time when I’d have to leave in the end. I would most certainly get hurt when it was over.
Still, my heart argued. Going back to the half life that I’d been shuffling through, constantly hiding who I was? Walking away from Declan? We weren’t meant to find each other, made to both complement and offset each other. If he was fire, I was both water and oxygen. If he was the moon, I was the sun and tides. Elements so different, yet one didn’t exist without the others, and that recognition was bone deep.
He fixed us each a drink. “You lost in your head again?”
I nodded, my stare trained on the floor in front of me.
“Why?” He handed me a glass, sipped his own.
Nothing good would come of answering truthfully, yet I couldn’t bring myself to lie. I sipped the bourbon and sat it down while Declan watched me with keen eyes. I slipped out of my sandals and pulled my top over my head. Unzipped my skirt, pushing it off.
Declan’s gaze lingered on my hips, my breasts, my lips. Finally, he met my gaze. I felt sexy when his eyes devoured me like that, all heat and need with laser-sharp focus. Stepping into him, I inhaled his scent and he wrapped me with one arm.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, concern at war with lust. Always at war, his light and dark.
“Not now.”
His lips set in a tight line, but when I slid my palms under his shirt, over that amazing abdomen, he let it go. He cupped my face, kissed me languid and sweet—the comfortable slide of two lovers’ mouths in a dance performed for millennia.
I circled behind, ran my hands up his torso, raising his shirt. Grazed my lips along the valley of his spine, circling my palms over his hard planes, memorizing every dip and curve of muscle. His scent. The taste of his skin.
I unsnapped my bra, letting it fall down my arms and pushed my panties from my hips. Let my breasts tickle over his back as I reached around to open his pants. When I slipped my hands inside to finger those muscles at his hips, he exhaled in a rush, and when my breasts trailed down his back as I pushed his pants off, his head fell back on his shoulders.
Declan toed off his shoes and stepped free, turned, wrapping his arms around me, and trapped his hard length against my stomach. I took the opportunity to slide my hands around his neck and tickled his nape with a smirk on my face.
“You know what that does to me.” His lips turned up, eyes crinkling at the corners.
“I know.”
“I’ve never cut my hair this short. Did it on a whim, but when you do that, I can’t imagine growing it out.”
I pushed him backward.
The backs of his knees hitting the bed, Declan sat. Set to teasing the underside of my breasts with the tip of his tongue as I kissed a trail over his neck. He slipped fingers between my folds, then pushed them into his mouth while he met my gaze. When I pulled them free, I slipped them into my own mouth, his eyes went heavy and dark.
I pressed on his shoulders and straddled his hips, ran my hands over his abdomen, through the soft trail of dark hair, outlining the delineations with my fingertips as I rocked against him slow and easy.
Breathing shallow, Declan dug fingers into my hips. “Take your hair down, Avery. Please.” That last word, not one he used often, sent a stab of need through my body, a bittersweet pain through my chest.
I shook my hair out and leaned forward, enveloping us in its curtain. We kissed a slow and sensual twining of mouths that made my chest ache and my body burn. Emotions in a tangled knot, I tilted my pelvis, sliding him home.
Declan breathed out my name. “Avery, look at me. Your eyes are so beautiful. I could fall into them and live there forever.”
I drank in the sight of him. His emerald gaze and parted lips. Broad shoulders and tight stomach. The defined arms and narrow waist—and all that beautiful ink. So much power and masculinity, looking at me as if I were the most beautiful woman to ever walk the Earth.
Nothing in creation was more erotic than the sight of Declan below me, between my thighs, meeting my eyes with awe in his own. “You’re my addiction, Declan McGinn. Heroin, mainlined. Straight to my blood.”
His eyes burned, and with lips parted, his voice poured out rough. “No, sweetness, it’s you. I’m just the gasoline. You’re the match.”
My breasts pressed against his chest and his exhales became mine to breathe in. He arched as I sank down and slipped my tongue between his parted lips; the last piece fell into place. We came undone together, him swallowing his name from my lips along with the soft moan that followed. My name pushed through my own lips as his breathing hitched and my eyelids fluttered closed.
I leaned into Declan’s chest and listened to his heart while he brushed a hand over my hair, down my back. Just like that, I succumbed to sleep’s pull.
* * *
—
It was the most delicious dream.
I passed through the velvet curtains, Declan leading me to the dais with a hand on my naked back. On the platform, he leaned me over his velvet chair. Spread my legs for everyone to see.
He entered me in one quick thrust before turning us both, sitting on the chair without disconnecting our bodies. My legs spread over his; he pushed into my wet heat while prying eyes watched on. My head fell back against his shoulder; my eyes slipped closed, taking in the sounds and scents, reveling in the sensations.
The soft brush of sweet plump lips against mine and my mouth parted on a breath. Without prelude, a honeyed tongue sank into my mouth, soft, lush, and so sensual.
Declan’s thrusts were long and languid, unhurried, and I simply couldn’t force my eyes open. Lips dragged down my neck, over my breasts, my stomach, while Declan mouthed the skin of my shoulder.
Then I felt the warm breath over my wet skin, poised to take in my most sensitive nerve endings as Declan glided into my lush heat.
Consciousness prickled the corners of my brain as I woke.
I was on my side, ensconced in Declan’s arms; his chest, solid and warm against my back. I groaned, struggled to clear the haze.
He pushed against me, hard as granite against my ass; his hand splayed over my abdomen.
“Mmmm,” I said, and pushed back.
“Jesus. You’re gonna kill me.” His voice was gritty against my ear. “Ruin me for anyone else.”
“Seems only fair.”
“You’ve been grinding your ass against me with all these soft sighs. Were you dreaming about me, sweet?”
Shit. “Uh-huh. Sure was.” Not a lie.
“Why don’t I believe you?” His voice was full of amusement.
“You were sitting in a chair, and I straddled your lap, your chest against
my back.” I felt his grin against my shoulder. “My legs were spread open to a room overflowing with naked people doing naked things while you rocked into me slow and lazy, and my eyes drifted closed. Someone kissed my mouth. Slid down my body to where you pushed into me, but just before lips closed over me, I woke up.”
“People watching, huh? Did it make you wet?”
“Mmmm. I liked them watching me with you.”
“Interesting. But you tried to shut me out earlier, distracted me with sex. We need to talk about it.”
My heart sank; here it came. His exit strategy. “Declan, I’m on the level, okay? I knew this was over before it started. We don’t need to discuss it. I’m straight.”
He blew out a heavy breath and I felt him scrub a hand over his face. “Of course you are.” His voice was bitter and resentful. “Well, I’m not fucking straight, all right?”
I hadn’t expected that. And the strained tone. I needed to look at him.
“This was never casual, Avery, and you damn well know it. Not for either of us. No matter how fucking hard you try to pretend.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to rein in his temper. “Man, you do know how to aim for the soft spots, don’t you. I’ve never talked to anyone the way I talk to you. Look at you. Feel with you…It’s like you’ve always known me.” He met my eyes. “I’ll miss you when you leave me, okay?” Declan’s voice sounded uncertain, not at all like the confident man I knew. It had cost him a piece of himself to tell me that.
But it didn’t change our reality. We were night and day, with a world in between.
“This shit is not easy for me,” he continued. “I’m not used to getting attached. But here I am.” I searched his face, saw clearly the resignation. “I don’t want to let you go back.”
Let me go back. Impossible man. Beautiful, dangerous, sweet fucking control freak.
“Declan, I know there’s something…different between us. It’s not just new to you.” I stared down at the sheets. “But we both know it has an expiration date.” I laid my head against his chest. “I’ve no desire to spend my last three nights with you worrying about the inevitable.” I wanted so much to believe it was possible to be with Declan for real. But letting that kind of thinking take root in my brain was dangerous.