by Lucy Score
He drew her down the hall to the front of the house and the empty bedroom she’d visited once before. The bookcase was ajar, light flickering from beyond.
“Beckett,” she breathed as he led her inside.
There were gas sconces built into the wall that she hadn’t noticed in the dark. They were lit now and joined by a dozen candles that flickered on stairs.
He brushed her hair away from her neck and over her shoulder. “I’ve thought of you here like this since that night.”
Her eyes fluttered closed as his lips fed on the flesh under her jaw. “I bet I wasn’t dressed as a witch in your fantasies.”
“You’d be surprised,” he said darkly.
He worshipped her with his hands, stroking and caressing, sending shivers of need down her spine. She gave herself over to the tidal wave of sensations. His fingers tugged at the tie that fastened her cloak. It fell from her shoulders in a fluid swoop, puddling on the floor between them.
Beckett abandoned her neck and sank to his knees. His hands trekked down her body lower and lower, refusing to miss an inch of flesh. When those warm palms reached her knees, they traveled back up swiftly, drawing her dress with them. Beckett’s lips blazed a trail north.
Gia raised her arms overhead and let him pull the material from her body. He tossed the dress behind them and slowly turned her to face him. His shaky inhalation made her grateful she’d sprung for the spider web thigh highs. They added a little drama to the simple black bra and briefs she wore.
“Were you hoping for the pink thong?” she teased, her voice breathless.
“Next time.” His whisper was a promise.
She reached for him, but Beckett intercepted her hands. “Wait. Just let me look,” he breathed. “You are stunning. You are more than beautiful, Gianna.”
His words, like his hands, had her weak in the knees and trembling. She felt the prickle of tears in her eyes and didn’t know why.
He pulled her to him, rough palms skimming skin. His breath was warm on her face. Gia looked up at him, into him. She could see them, the thin, tight wires of control that he held on to so desperately. She could feel the tension in him, humming beneath her hands.
“Are you sure about this?” Gia asked him.
Beckett’s laugh was strained. “I’m the one who’s supposed to ask you that.” His thumb grazed her full lower lip.
Gia nibbled at the flesh. “Oh, I’m sure. I just don’t want to be a regret to you.”
He dropped his forehead to hers. “My only regret is waiting this long.”
“I haven’t even known you a month yet,” she said, her tongue darting out to taste him.
The noise in his chest was something between a groan and a growl. Primal, dangerous. “Too long,” he told her. “Be with me, Gianna.”
“I’m yours.”
Their mouths met in a furious eruption of desire and power, each wanting to consume. The battle waged and Gia felt herself losing ground. She was too vulnerable, too raw.
Her fingers struggled with the buttons of his shirt, fumbling them free until he shed the fabric from his shoulders. Her hands flew to his jeans, freeing him from the confines of denim. She felt him strain against the soft cotton of his underwear. He groaned against her mouth when she boldly stroked over his thick erection. A tiny damp spot on the fabric told her exactly how much he wanted this, wanted her.
Their breath came in pants now. Beckett hastily toed off his shoes and stepped out of his pants, never breaking contact with her mouth. But when Gia slid her hand in the waistband of his briefs, he stopped her.
“If you touch me now this is going to be over too fast,” he murmured against her bruised lips. “Trust me?”
Heavy-eyed, she nodded. She didn’t know what he planned to do, didn’t care, as long as his hands were on her.
Beckett spun them around until her back was to the wall. Using his hand, he cuffed her wrists overhead. He pressed his knee between her legs until she opened her thighs for him. His knee met the wall behind her ensuring she couldn’t close on him.
Exposed and at his mercy, Gia felt the flutter of nerves.
His free hand skimmed down, leaving a trail of fire to the front clasp of her bra. He paused, only for the span of a heartbeat before deftly releasing her breasts from their lace-bound prison.
He sighed, the hot cloud of his breath tickled her neck and sent a shiver down her spine. His hand paused on her ribs, just under her breast. “I want you so badly, I’m almost afraid to touch you. Afraid I won’t survive.” His lips murmured the words over her jaw and lower to where her pulse fluttered frantically.
Gia felt her legs give, thankful that he kept her from falling. He was seducing her, methodically, absolutely. She wasn’t prepared to defend against it. She couldn’t protect her heart from the imprint of the words he uttered or her body from the branding of his hands. In this moment, she was his.
He brought his lips to hers once more, his palm sliding over the heavy curve of her breast to cup it. Gia gasped against him and he used the opportunity to deepen the kiss.
He released her mouth in a bid to taste more. Her hands flexed against their restraint, but he held firm. He cradled her breast and brought his lips within an inch of her sensitive peak. Her nipple strained toward his hot breath and a cry tore from her throat as he finally took it in his mouth.
She wanted to fight the sensations that swamped her, rocking her equilibrium. But she could only whimper as he latched on and drank her in. His hand slid down across her stomach until his fingertips toyed with the waistband of her underwear.
Gia reflexively tried to close her legs and only succeeded in squeezing his thigh between hers.
Beckett released her breast and straightened. His fingers slid beneath the black cotton, smoothing over her soft folds. Gia let her head drop back against the wall. Her eyes fluttered as he parted her lips slick with desire, but didn’t close. They couldn’t. Not with Beckett’s gaze piercing her as his fingers did, sliding in and up.
Gia’s hips flexed against him and he obliged her, withdrawing his fingers slowly before thrusting them back into her center. Again and again, harder, deeper. She was falling now. Falling into the waves that threatened to carry her away, but still couldn’t close her eyes.
The stormy gray of Beckett’s gaze held her where she was. Anchored her as the waves crashed over her, in her. She came in the storm, lightning electrifying her body, her muscles quivering around his fingers.
“My God, Beckett.” Her breath came in shallow bids for oxygen.
He released her arms from their restraint and they tumbled to his shoulders. “Hold on to me,” he ordered.
Gia did her best to wrap her shaking arms around him as he lifted her up, his hands cupping her. He used a hand to wrench his cock free and yank her underwear to the side. The broad crest of his penis nestled at her entrance and Gia gasped.
She cupped his face in her hands. “I want to see you —” The words were wrenched from her when Beckett thrust into her — triumph burning in those smoke-gray eyes — impaling her against the wall. The thinnest slice of pain wove its way around the pleasure she felt from finally being stretched full. She had to adjust her legs around his waist before she could fully accommodate his length.
But there was no time to adjust, because Beckett had lost himself to a rhythm as old as time. Taken over by need and greed, his body dictated a wild pace.
Her nipples grazed his chest with every thrust, heightening their sensitivity to epic proportions. Already her delicate muscles inside were starting to tremor. The wall bit into her back as he rammed into her again, but she didn’t care. Gia wanted more. Everything that he had to offer, she wanted.
Holding her with one arm, he brought his free hand to cup her other breast tugging her nipple with strong, insistent pulls that drove her mad.
She gasped out his name and exploded around him violently. He slowed his thrusts by degrees to match the ripples of her orgasm, letting her core
milk him while she shattered.
He rode out her climax before carefully lowering her to the floor. Gia’s legs couldn’t hold her, so he carried her to the stairs.
He gently turned her away from him and down until she was kneeling on a tread.
“Are you okay with this?” he asked, kneeling behind her and stroking her hair.
She glanced over her shoulder. His face was tight with need. His erection stood at attention just behind her. “God, yes,” Gia whispered. She planted her hands on the step in front of her and braced her knees apart. “Please, Beckett.”
He guided his cock between her legs and ran it over and around her opening. “This is what I wanted to do to you that night,” he whispered. “This is what I’ve fantasized about every night since.”
He entered her slowly, with aching precision. A low growl rumbled in him as Gia wiggled her hips to allow the last inch of him to slide in. His hands gripped her hips to control the pace. “Gianna,” he gritted out her name, and slowly withdrew inch by inch.
She moaned as he filled her again, this time faster. He had to be desperate for release, she thought, but Beckett held back with smooth, measured thrusts. His size left her aching as he filled her and then again with emptiness when he left her.
She wrapped her hands around the spindles of the staircase and leaned a little lower. Beckett’s hands came to her breasts, cupping them gently. It was here, with her hardened peaks grazing his palms with each thrust that he began to lose control.
He grunted softly when she shifted her hips back against him and again when he felt her start to tighten around him. He brought one hand to her hair, fisting it in the wild wonder if it. His other hand left her breast and slid between her legs.
“Again, Red.”
She didn’t think she could. There was nothing left to give, was there?
But as she felt him get impossibly harder, as he began to grunt on every thrust her body gave her answer, she realized there was more. So much more.
Beckett’s hips flexed violently as he came, releasing his seed into her with a shout. “Gianna!”
His orgasm sent her over the edge once more, ripping a climax from her as he arched against her. Once. Twice. Three times. “Mine. Mine. Mine,” he whispered as he filled her with his release.
21
Beckett wondered briefly if he was dead and then decided he didn’t care. It had been worth it. He’d never felt anything like it. The possession that choked him when he made Gianna come, the wrenching release of his own orgasm.
He was afraid he’d just had a religious experience. With a witch. In a secret passage.
He shifted to bury his face in Gianna’s hair. Maybe she was a witch? A spell had obviously been cast. She had bewitched him. It was the only explanation for what had just happened.
“Can you breathe?” he asked, nuzzling her.
“Mm.”
“I can’t tell if that means I’m smothering you or you just can’t form words yet.”
“No words,” she mumbled, snuggling back against him.
Beckett brushed her hair out of her face and fanned it out over the stairs. “Is that better?”
“My ears are ringing,” she sighed, finally opening her eyes. “I think it’s from me screaming your name.”
He grinned. She had shouted his name as they came together.
“I still feel the need to ask you if that was okay.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers one at a time. “I think I got a little rough and I didn’t mean to.”
She smiled smugly. “Better than okay. I think all the cells in my body are singing … or weeping with joy.”
Beckett felt a quick wash of relief. He’d lost control, let go. He’d never done that with a woman before. Gianna’s words at yoga came back to him. She’d accused him of being too in control, afraid of falling. If this was falling, he wanted to do it again.
“I think we need to get off these stairs,” he decided.
“Okay,” Gianna sighed. “Which one of us is carrying the other one back downstairs?”
“Why downstairs?” Beckett asked, envisioning the soft expanse of his bed.
“That’s where your kitchen is and I need you to feed me.”
A quick detour to his closet yielded a pair of pajama pants for himself and a t-shirt for her and together they staggered down the stairs to the kitchen.
Gianna ducked her head into his refrigerator while he rummaged through the pantry. Beckett wrestled a box of Frankenstein shaped macaroni and cheese from the back of a shelf. It must have been Ellery’s. He hoped she wouldn’t mind donating it to the cause.
“How about this?” he asked holding up the box.
Gianna grinned. “It’ll go perfectly with these.” She held up a bowl of raspberries and a bag of sliced cucumber.
“You have an interesting postsex appetite,” he told her, pulling a pan out of the cabinet and filling it with water.
Gianna tossed him a saucy look and began plating the berries and cucumbers in a rainbow across the plates. “The handful of French fries I nervously inhaled did not sustain me,” she told him.
“Nervously?” Beckett looked up from the simmering water.
Gianna hopped up to sit on the island. “You weren’t nervous?” She poked him with her foot.
“I’m a man. Men don’t get nervous. We get focused on whether or not we will be able to provide appropriate amounts of reciprocal pleasure.”
She rolled her eyes in a way he found utterly sexy. “You are such an attorney.”
He stepped between her legs. His hands skimmed under the t-shirt to pull her closer. “And you are so irresistible.” He nibbled along the line of her neck until he felt goose bumps rise on her skin. “Why were you nervous?”
Her eyes were still closed and she angled her jaw to give him better access. “Because I was afraid you wouldn’t be any good at it,” she sighed.
Beckett’s teeth sank down. Hard.
She yelped.
“Not funny, Red.”
She was laughing now and it sounded like music.
He shoved a cucumber slice in her mouth. “Enjoy your snack. It looks like we’re not going to eat for a while.” With that, he turned off the stove, tossed her over his shoulder, and marched upstairs, smacking her once soundly on the bare flesh of her ass when she struggled.
Gianna bounced when he pitched her on to the bed and he fully expected her to jump back up. But instead she rose up on her knees and beckoned him with a finger. A siren’s song couldn’t have had a more immediate effect. He found himself painfully hard and diving across the mattress to her and those sea-witch eyes that called to him.
Beckett met her in the middle on his knees with a kiss meant to brand her. She was his for tonight. And he belonged to her. They tangled and tumbled, rolling over the expanse of sheets sending pillows and clothing flying to the floor.
He wanted — no — he craved her with an ache that hollowed him out. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, he thought, as his mouth cruised over her shoulder and then lower to feed.
She fell back on to the mattress, hair fanning out like wild fire. Beckett used the opportunity to gain the upper hand. When his mouth closed over a taut nipple, her fingers closed around his shaft. She stroked him with something that skirted the ragged edge of violence and almost sent him tumbling over that cliff.
A last lap of his tongue and then he was sliding down her body, out of her grasp. He tasted his way down her taut stomach and around the lush curve of her hip. Her breath was coming in gasps and Beckett wanted to push her further.
He nibbled the delicate flesh of her inner thigh and was rewarded with her gasp when he ventured higher. There, Gianna’s fiery core welcomed him home. He used his palms to spread her thighs, leaving her bared to him. She trembled against him, her thighs fighting his grip.
“Hang on, baby,” Beckett whispered. His tongue dove into her slick folds, teasing and tasting. She bowed back, hips pumping with
frantic energy. Her response frayed his control and when she moaned his name Beckett felt his cock go impossibly harder.
He paused just long enough to stretch two fingers into her tight channel. She was sobbing out his name now. His tongue found that most sensitive bundle of nerves and with a single stroke sent her hurtling off into the darkness.
Her fingers locked in his hair and her hips bucked wildly as she rode out the orgasm. Gianna had barely started breathing again when Beckett ranged himself over her. Her eyes fluttered open, misty green and dazed. “We’re not even close to done, sweetheart.” He made the promise as he buried himself in her. Fully sheathed in her heat, Beckett saw stars and fought to restrain himself.
Gianna’s fingernails dug into his shoulders and he held himself perfectly still for a heartbeat and then another. When her gaze — wide and hungry — met his, he began to move. He wanted to give her everything. Everything that was inside of him, locked up under layers of restraint and control.
He didn’t see her next move coming. Gianna used those strong, perfect legs of hers to lever him onto his side. They rolled, still joined until she gained the top. She stared down at him triumphantly and began to ride.
She set a reckless pace and Beckett understood her goal then. He wasn’t going to give her everything. Gianna was going to take it.
His hands found her hips and gripped as she rode. His jaw clenched, teeth bared, he tensed for the raging battle. He wouldn’t lose, he couldn’t lose. Gianna brought a hand to the base of his throat and held lightly just over his thundering pulse.
He stared into the face of the woman who had bewitched his body, and quite possibly his soul. Her color was high and as she leaned forward to capture his lips her hair tumbled over them in a curtain of fire.
“My Gianna,” Beckett heard himself whisper against her mouth.
She rose up again, a flawless goddess with her milky smooth arms reaching for the sky. She didn’t stop moving, bowing back, back, back until Beckett thanked God for yoga.
His hips took over the impossible pace, thrusting again and again until it didn’t matter who came first. That first quickening, a tightness in her was more than he could handle. He couldn’t hold back the orgasm that churned for release. And the second he spilled inside her, Gianna’s own climax echoed until they became one.