Shadow Alpha

by Carole Mortimer

  “What can I say?” He gave a self-derisive grimace. “The aquatic life of the Caribbean turns me on!”

  Kat eyed Dair uncertainly for a few seconds, not sure if he was joking or not; Dair was always so serious, and she didn’t want to make the mistake of misunderstanding him. Admittedly he looked more relaxed this afternoon than she had seen him since they met again—she fully appreciated avoiding New York crime bosses wasn’t conducive to a lot of laughter—but that didn’t mean Dair had meant what she thought he had.

  Although there was that telling bulge in the front of his swimming trunks…

  It had been a jolt to the senses to come down onto the beach earlier and see Dair dressed in only black fitted swimming trunks, all of his body tautly muscled and tanned to a light gold. As evidence that he didn’t spend all of his time behind a desk or stalking through the night to rescue maidens in distress.

  Kat had drawn in a sharp, shocked breath when he turned away to pick up part of the snorkeling gear and she had seen the scar on his back. A small round scar on the left side of that muscled back, about the size of a penny.

  About the size she would imagine a bullet piercing the skin might make…

  She hadn’t had the chance to ask him about it yet, was choosing her moment, but there was no way she wouldn’t or couldn’t ask him. When the time was right.

  “It is pretty arousing, isn’t it,” she now answered him cautiously.

  He raised dark brows. “Had the same effect on you too, hmm?”

  Kat moistened her lips as she nodded. “I’ve never been that close to a Grayson shark before.”

  “A shark? Impressive.” There was no mistaking the laughter now glinting in those grey-green eyes as Kat joined in the teasing conversation. “For me it was the orange and olive striped tigress fish.”

  “Tigress fish!” Kat spluttered with laughter at hearing herself described that way.

  She had never had a flirtatious conversation like this with anyone in her life before. Life had been pretty grim growing up around Dimitri Markovic, and to Sergei she had only ever been an asset on his arm, and the mother of the future Orlov heirs. Their marriage had been one of politeness rather than laughter or flirtation.

  Dair always seemed so intense, and he was the last person Kat would ever have expected to tease and flirt with her.

  But there was no doubting her response to this conversation; her nipples were now hard buds against the wet and clinging material of her bikini top, and she shifted slightly as the heat formed between her thighs.

  Dair nodded. “I’m pretty sure I saw a tigress earlier today on the plane.”

  Kat felt the rush of heated embarrassment burning her cheeks; she had been desperately trying to forget the way she had behaved with him on the plane.

  Her gaze dropped down to where his bare feet were planted in the sand. “That wasn’t the real me.”

  “Wasn’t it? It felt pretty damn real to me,” he assured huskily.

  Maybe that was because afterwards he’d had to go and clean himself up in the bathroom!

  How embarrassing was that?

  The first time in her life she had completely lost control with a man and for the main part she had done it in her sleep, while in the throes of a nightmare.

  And yet she knew her subconscious had known all the time it was Dair.

  Had known and reveled in the fact.

  She looked up at him now, tasting the salt on her lips as she ran her tongue across them, the hot sun having already dried off the droplets of seawater from her body. “What’s happening here, Dair…?”

  Dair had no idea.

  He had begun the conversation initially as a way of dissipating the awkwardness Kat felt at his obvious erection, and instead he had only intensified that sexual awareness, for both of them. Even the air between them now seemed to crackle and pop with that rapidly rising tension, and their locked gazes were blazing with that same sexual heat.

  Dair straightened. “Maybe we should both try and remember that you’re still a married woman, hmm?”

  “And if I wasn’t…?”

  He grimaced. “Not wearing your rings doesn’t make you any less married, Kat.”

  Kat wasn’t ‘wearing her rings’ because she had thrown both of them at Sergei during the fierceness of their last argument. After he had returned from Las Vegas, just hours after she had telephoned his hotel and realized just how worthless those rings were.

  Which was when Sergei had lost it completely, the two of them struggling as he tried to force those rings back onto her fingers.

  Kat been the one who ended up at the bottom of the staircase in the home they shared with Ivan, after which all she could remember was the pain and the blood.

  Did she fall or was she pushed?

  “Kat?” Dair dropped down onto the sand beside her as he saw the way her face had paled in the last few seconds, her gaze unfocused as she stared off into the distance. “Kat?” he prompted again more sharply; he hated it when she did this, because he knew Kat was reliving the awful nightmare that left her eyes haunted and full of shadows.

  She turned to look at him with those liquid dark eyes. “My marriage is over, Dair. Completely. Irrevocably.”

  He drew his breath in sharply; Kat couldn’t have told him any more clearly than that how she wanted this conversation to end. Or begin. Because if Dair started making love to Kat then he knew he wasn’t going to want to stop. Not today. Not tomorrow. Maybe never.

  She certainly wasn’t the type of woman for the ‘hit and run’ encounters he’d been involved in for so many years.

  “I don’t do relationships and forever, Kat,” he warned harshly.

  She gave a choked laugh. “The next hour sounds pretty good to me right now.”

  He gave a rueful smile. “Oh, I think we could make it last longer than an hour!”

  Kat had been a twenty-five-year-old virgin when she married Sergei; there hadn’t been any men willing before then to even risk flirting with her, let alone anything else, considering who her family was. The same had been true when she was Sergei Orlov’s wife; no matter how unhappy she was with him, Kat knew that other men kept their distance because of the Orlov name and what it represented. The thought of death at the hands of the Orlovs had a way of dampening even the most interested libido.

  Sergei had never been a romantic or considerate lover, even on their wedding night, and Kat had never physically climaxed with him, or experienced the pleasure she had earlier today with Dair.

  Even an hour of lovemaking with Dair, exploring and pleasuring each other, sounded wonderful to her.

  Other women found satisfaction in meaningless, unemotional sex, sometimes with a complete stranger—which Dair wasn’t—so why not her?

  “Don’t confuse gratitude with desire, Kat,” he warned harshly.

  “I think we can both assume I’m old enough to know the difference,” she assured huskily.

  His jaw tightened. “I can stop at any time if I have to—I just may not want to!”

  Kat’s heart leapt, knowing that such an admission, coming from Dair, a man who was always in control of any situation, was huge.

  Being with Dair, making love with him—for however long it lasted—was her teenage dream come true. And she wasn’t a teenager anymore, was determined to match Dair kiss for kiss, caress for caress, thrust for thrust.

  She lifted her chin. “Here?”

  His smile was derisive this time. “Not unless you want sand where it shouldn’t be!”

  Kat had chosen her bedroom in the villa because it had a beautiful white four-poster bed in it, surrounded by white diaphanous drapes, with similar drapes at the French doors that led out onto the balcony blowing lightly in the warmth of the breeze once she had opened up those doors.

  She couldn’t think of a more perfect place for her and Dair to make love together.

  “Let’s take a shower together first and wash away this sand.” Dair moved to swing her up into his arms
and began striding back to the villa. “We can decide when, or if, afterwards, okay?”

  Kat had no complaints with that plan, resting her head against the warmth of Dair’s shoulder as he carried her easily. The muscles were bulging in his arms, his chest hot and hard against her bare skin.

  With what looked like the scar from a bullet-wound on his back…

  No, she wouldn’t ask him about that now, knew instinctively that to do so would ruin the mood, maybe totally. And nothing and no one was going to take this time with Dair away from her. Any regrets she might feel could come later. And they wouldn’t be regrets because she had been with him, but because she couldn’t stay with him.

  “You’ve changed your mind already.” Dair had come to an abrupt halt on the pathway back up to the villa.

  “I— What? No!” she protested vehemently; if Dair changed his mind now she was surely going to die from the disappointment.

  He didn’t seem convinced. “You looked sad.”

  The heavy weight lifted from Kat’s chest. “If I did,” she reached up and kissed him lingeringly on the lips, her body heat instantly soaring; Dair had the most delicious lips, surprisingly soft and very sensual, “it was because I was thinking of how disappointed I was going to be,” she gave him another slow and lingering kiss, “if you changed your mind.”

  The tension instantly eased from his shoulders and he resumed walking up the path to the villa. “Haven’t you realized by now? I’m a man of action, not words.” He quirked a mocking brow.

  “There is a god, after all!” Kat sighed contentedly.

  She had a feeling that making love with Dair, this man of ‘action rather than words’, was going to totally ruin her for anyone else.

  “Still okay?” Dair prompted gruffly once he had put Kat down onto her feet in the bathroom. “Last chance to change your mind, Kat,” he added dryly.

  Her answer was to steadily hold his gaze with her own as she reached behind her and unfastened the top of her bikini before removing it completely.

  Dair couldn’t repress the groan that rose in this throat; Kat had the most glorious breasts, and he wanted them in his hands, in his mouth.

  No matter what Kat claimed to the contrary, Dair didn’t fool himself into believing that there would be no emotional repercussions from this. With the women he’d been with in the past it had all just been about sex, pure and simple. Well…maybe not so pure. Kat was already different than those other women he had fucked because the two of them had a history, not exactly together, but a history nonetheless.

  Did he care?

  With Kat standing in front of him wearing only the bottom half of her bikini, and that sultry invitation in her eyes?

  Hell no!

  Kat’s breath caught in her throat as Dair dropped to his knees in front of her, his hands resting on her hips before slowly gliding upwards to cup her bared breasts.

  Her knees almost buckled, would have buckled if she hadn’t quickly grasped onto the warmth of Dair’s shoulders, as she watched him suckle first one nipple into the heat of his mouth and then the other, sending pleasure soaring through her body and a hot rush of moisture to her labia.

  Her neck arched, breasts thrusting forward as he continued to suckle, tongue lathing, even as his hands moved down to her hips and he slowly, oh-so-slowly, slid her bikini bottom down her thighs and then off completely, all his actions surprising slow and—and gentle?

  That didn’t make sense, unless—“I’m not made of porcelain, Dair,” she assured softly. “Don’t—please don’t treat me as if I’m going to break.” The last thing she wanted from Dair was gentleness, as if she were too fragile, too damaged for him to make love to.

  He looked up at her, breath warm against the dampness of her nipple. “You want me to be rough with you?”

  She gave a choked laugh as she shook her head. “What I want is for you to treat me like all the other women you’ve been with!”

  “Sure about that?”

  “Yes!”

  “You’re giving me control this time?”

  Her cheeks warmed as she remembered her aggression on the plane. “Yes.”

  He shrugged. “Well for the moment this is what I want.” He squeezed one of her damp nipples between his finger and thumb. “Later on I might feel like bending you over a chair and pounding into you from behind,” he continued matter-of-factly, “but right now I want to eat your pussy while I pinch and caress your nipples. To make you come and come, until you plead for me to stop.”

  Kat had gone weak at the knees again just at the thought of Dair mastering her by bending her over a chair—only to lose her breath completely as Dair lifted one of her legs to place it on his shoulder before burying his face between her thighs.

  She gave a low groan in her throat, fingers digging into his shoulders, as she felt the first slow rasp of his tongue along the whole length of her moist slit, before moving higher still, tongue teasing her swollen clit at the same time as his hands cupped her breasts and pinched and squeezed her aching nipples.

  Kat’s whimper turned to a keening cry of pleasure as her climax hit her. Quickly. Fiercely.

  She barely had time to recover her breath before it was followed by another, and then another, as Dair licked and suckled remorselessly between her thighs at the same time as he pinched and stroked her throbbing nipples.

  Dair was in sensation heaven, his hands cupping the softness of Kat’s breasts, the hard peaks of her nipples, and the dewy taste of Kat’s juices on his lips and tongue as he lapped up every pulsing release of her creamy nectar.

  She was so fucking responsive, so wet and aroused, he could carry on doing this all day and all night, could live on the delicious nectar he was lapping up from between her thighs.

  “Oh God, Dair,” she groaned weakly as he thrust his tongue into her heavily weeping channel at the same time as the soft pad of his thumb stroked and pressed on her swollen clit, causing her to come again. “God…!” she cried out as she bucked and pulsed in yet another pleasure/pain release.

  “Is that a cry for mercy?”

  Kat could barely breathe as she looked down and saw the dark carnality in Dair’s eyes as he looked up at her, his lips and chin slick with her juices.

  He looked—

  He was—

  Dair was everything and more than she had ever dreamed he would be.

  No one else could ever have destroyed so completely the barriers that had been so necessary in every aspect of her life until now. First with her father, and then with Sergei.

  Dair knew exactly what she wanted. More importantly, he knew what she needed. And he wasn’t about to let her put up any barriers to hide those wants and needs.

  And Kat wasn’t about to plead for ‘mercy’. “Absolutely not,” she answered without hesitation, her gaze holding his as she slowly leaned forward to claim his lips with her own.

  He tasted and smelled of her, sweet and salty, musky, that taste and smell arousing her even further, if that was possible.

  “I want more, not mercy, Dair,” she assured him huskily. “Whatever you have to give me, whatever you want to take, I want all of it.”

  “I’m not an easy lover, Kat,” he warned harshly, eyes dark with promise.

  “I don’t want easy, Dair, I just want you, all that you are, any way you want me!”

  He looked up at her searchingly for several long seconds before nodding decisively. “Then that’s what you’re going to get. Last chance, Kat,” he added darkly as he slid her leg down his arm and placed her foot back on the tiled floor. “Otherwise be prepared for me to take you in any and every way I want you. No quarter given, Kat.”

  Kat’s marriage to Sergei may have lacked excitement as well as love, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t imagined, fantasized, about sex, about being taken in all the ways Dair was implying he intended to take her. Or that she hadn’t caressed and stroked her own body to completion as she fantasized, until she gasped and shuddered in release. To imagi
ne Dair doing those things to her, with her, was all of her fantasies come true.

  “No quarter asked, Dair.” She smiled at him, a slow, sure smile, as she stepped back to stand unashamedly naked in front of him.

  Dair’s cock was hot and heavy inside the trunks he still wore as he slowly rose to his feet, the taste of Kat’s pussy still on his tongue and lips. “Take off the trunks, Kat,” he instructed evenly, his jaw tightening slightly as she glanced down at him, her gaze shy despite what she had just said to him. “Take them off, take me in your mouth, and then suck me,” he ordered hardly.

  Words, as Dair knew only too well, were cheap, and if Kat couldn’t obey this one command, then this ended now. She either wanted this and proved she wanted it, or they went no further.

  He had meant exactly what he’d said to her earlier; he didn’t do forever. But he could give her sex, pleasure her as she had never been pleasured before. In return she would give him the same pleasure. If she baulked at the first instruction—

  His breath hissed between his teeth as Kat sank to her knees in front of him before hooking her fingers into the top of his trunks and slowly pulling them down and over the length of his already weeping cock.

  He clenched his jaw as one of her hands moved to cup his balls as she ran her tongue hungrily over her lips before flicking forward to lick the dewy drops escaping, dribbling from the slit in the bulbous tip of his cock.

  “Fuck…!” Dair staggered slightly before quickly parting his legs for balance as Kat opened her lips and took him into the moist heat of her mouth, that wicked tongue seeking, finding, the knot of sensitive tissue beneath the lip of that bulbous tip, probing and licking mercilessly before she parted her lips even further and took him to the back of her throat.

  Dair’s hands clenched into fists at his sides, his whole body taut with tension as she repeated that pleasurable torture, again and again, over and over, tongue lathing, lapping, her fingers wrapped about the base of his cock now as she began to pump him in the same rhythm as her tongue.

  It was all he could do to stop himself from thrusting down her throat, knowing she would never be able to take the whole length of him—