To the Edge

by Anna del Mar

  He entwined his fingers in my hair. He tilted my face and claimed my lips. Beneath his lashes, his eyes were dark, roiling and intense. Pressed tightly against my back, his body vibrated, high strung with passion, pent-up need and the effects of the liquid courage. I hadn’t touched the stuff and yet I was equally frantic with desire.

  “One day,” he said between strokes, “I’m going to get better. It may be a long way off, but if you’re patient with me, I’ll get there.”

  “I’m sticking with you no matter what,” I rasped. “If you lived in a cave at the bottom of the sea, I’d move in.”

  He halted midstroke and met my gaze. “Is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  I could feel his cock becoming one with my backbone, standing completely still inside of me and yet growing by leaps and bounds, bearing down on the plug, stretching and straining my pussy until I shuddered with unbearable need.

  He held himself motionless. “If you move in, I’ll expect you to be mine 24/7,” he said. “You’ll be busy. I’ll keep you stark naked most of the time and your pussy will be crammed full whenever I’m around.”

  I squeaked. “Okay.”

  “First thing tomorrow morning,” he said, “I’ll make you a key.”

  The smile on my face widened. “I’ll take it.”

  He wrenched my head back and kissed my lips, which I parted for him obediently, only to receive the full brunt of his mouth. He slid his arm around me and, holding me tightly, grabbed a hold of my breast and resumed his deep strokes. I arched against him and moaned as his fingers plucked my nipples and toyed with my clit, driving my body into a complete frenzy.

  “And you, Clara, do you know what you want?”

  “You mean in addition to lots and lots of this?”

  His laughter echoed in my pussy. “Words, Clara. I need words.”

  “I want you to be my partner,” I rasped. “I want to sail the Seaductress around the world with you. I want your babies growing in me someday, so they can spend time in Avalon in the same way we did. Can we do that?”

  “You bet.” His hand spanned my belly and squeezed my breasts as if he was already savoring my pregnant body. “I’m going to enjoy making as many of those as you want and I’ll promise, you’ll never run out of come to make them.”

  I clenched all over. I couldn’t hold back when he talked like that. “Can I come?”

  “In a moment,” he rasped. “I need to tell you about the letter, about what it said.”

  “No need,” I said. “I already read it. Can I come now?”

  In one long pull, he withdrew his cock from me, leaving me empty, at the edge of an orgasm and gasping for breath. The world spun. Noah whirled me around. I faced him, wrists tangled on the chain above my head, toes barely touching the floor.

  “You read my letter?” Noah said, eyes wide, cock rearing stiffly between his legs. “How?”

  “Long story short,” I said. “Diana kept it.”

  Noah considered me for a moment. He took me in, my face, no doubt flushed with desire, my body, stretched taut against the pole and tortured by his cock’s absence.

  “Jesus, Clara, don’t you think you should’ve told me?”

  “Yes, Noah.” I grimaced. “Sorry?”

  “What am I going to do with you?” He stared at me for a long moment. “I think I know.” He hooked his forearms under my knees, lifted my legs and, balancing me in his arms, glided his cock back in me, where it belonged.

  I cried out, thanking him profusely, my pussy smarting deliciously.

  “I want an answer,” he said, thrusting in and out of me.

  “An answer?”

  “Right now,” he rasped. “I’ve been waiting for a long time. I want my reply.”

  “You mean the offer stands?”

  “Now more than ever.”

  I met his gaze. All that affection walloped me like a bucket of fresh love. He smiled down on me. The light I spotted in his eyes brightened the world. I drew strength from him. I drew courage. I felt safe when I was with Noah. I felt strong.

  I tilted up my face and he lowered his lips to mine and kissed me until both of us were out of breath.

  “My answer is yes, Noah.”

  “Yeah?” His sexy smile made me tingle inside.

  “Yeah.” I smiled back. “I want love and forever. And sex. Lots and lots of sex.”

  “You’ve got it, princess,” he said. “It was always yours for the taking.”

  He unhooked my cuffed hands from the perch, draped them over his head and rested my arms around his neck and shoulders. I hugged him tight to my chest, wrapped my legs around his hips and surrendered to the pleasure. I found it in his smile, in his passion and in the way he worshipped my body with his. I wanted to worship him back.

  “Can I come?”

  He smiled and nodded and, as I began to come entwined in Noah’s arms, I knew that our lives together would be full and satisfying, different in some ways perhaps, but loving all the same.

  No doubt about it, my first attempt at submission was a disaster. The second? It turned out to be a stunning success. It’s weird, right? I found freedom in a cage.

  Note to Clara: true love is an agreement of mutual service.

  * * * * *

  Don’t miss THE ASSET, the first book of Anna del Mar’s Wounded Warriors novels, available now from Carina Press.

  To purchase and read more books by Anna del Mar, please visit Anna’s website here or at www.annadelmar.com.

  Now available from Carina Press and Anna del Mar

  Anna del Mar’s explosive, sexy debut novel in the Wounded Warrior series, perfect for fans of Lisa Marie Rice and Lora Leigh—the story of a woman desperate to escape her dangerous past and the navy SEAL who would lay down his life to save her.

  Read on for a sample of

  THE ASSET.

  Chapter One

  My finger twitched on the trigger as I stared down the barrel of my shotgun. A stranger stood on my stoop. The mere sight of him shoved my heart into my throat and sent my brain into default. I widened my stance, tightened my grip on the gun and aimed at the stranger’s chest. No way. He wasn’t going to take me alive.

  A sharp bark startled me. The largest, darkest, most handsome German shepherd I’d ever seen stood next to the stranger, head tilted, ears forward, nose quivering in the air. It uttered a quiet whimper and padded over to me without a trace of aggression, circling me once before it leaned against my legs.

  I kept my shotgun leveled, but I spared another glance at the stunning dog. The plea in his eyes tempered the adrenaline jolting through my body, reined in my runaway heart and gave me pause to consider the stranger before me.

  Framed by the Rocky Mountains and the lake, the man at the threshold blocked the morning’s gray light and cast a huge shadow over my little porch. Raindrops tapped on his leather jacket, dripped from the rim of his cap and ran like tears down the sides of his face. Despite the exhaustion etched on his features, his glacial blue eyes narrowed on my gun.

  “That’s a pretty old Remington,” he rumbled. “With the damn safety off, no less. Who the hell are you expecting, Jack the Ripper?”

  “Stay back.” I forced the words out. “I’ll shoot if you come any closer.”

  “Damn it, girl,” he said. “If you want us to leave, just say so.”

  The scowl on his face contributed to his dangerous appearance. So did the scruffy beard and the shaggy hair sticking out from under his baseball cap. If he hadn’t come all the way out here to get to me—and that was still a big “if”—what on earth was he doing here?

  I couldn’t see any weapons on him. Was he a drifter? He didn’t look dirty, but a metallic scent wafted from him, an odd, ripe trace I couldn’t place.


  He must have seen my nose wrinkle. His whole body stiffened. He drew taller than six feet by several inches, but it was the outrage I spotted in his eyes that reinforced my fears.

  “Aren’t you a spitfire?” He pulled out a rumpled piece of paper from his pocket, balled it and dropped it at my feet. “Secluded, cheap and quiet, that’s what the ad said. But I don’t think you want to rent out a room, at least not to me. Come on, Neil,” he said to the dog. “Let’s leave this little hellcat to count her bullets.” He touched the rim of his baseball cap. “And a good day to you, ma’am.”

  He braced on a pair of sturdy crutches and hopped down from the stoop. Crutches? I should’ve noticed those before. The sable shepherd looked up at me, then nuzzled my hip and trotted off after his owner. The rubber bottoms of the man’s crutches stabbed the ground as he shuffled to the black truck parked in my driveway, a supercharged Ram 3500 that matched its owner’s brawn.

  I exhaled the breath I’d been holding. Bad guys didn’t knock at your door. They didn’t back down, attack while on crutches or hobble away after they came for you. They didn’t call you ma’am, either. I picked up the crumpled paper and flattened it against the stair’s wobbly baluster. It was indeed the one flyer I’d dared to post at Kailyn’s convenience store, printed on pink paper, complete with the ten tear-off rectangles that listed my cell phone number.

  The ad. My brain came on line. He was here about the ad?

  Crap. Terror had a sure way of wiping reason from my mind. The ad talked about a stone cottage but didn’t include the address. True, mine was the only stone cottage around. Still, my stomach churned.

  I stared at the paper in my hands. He’d taken down the ad. Now I had exactly zero chance to rent out the room, which also meant that, since I’d have no money to make the rent, I was going to lose my little stone cottage. I was going to be homeless and I’d have to move on. Again.

  But I liked it here. The place suited me well. People in this secluded valley were nice and I’d managed to build a semblance of a life hidden out here. And what about my little friends out back? Who’d take care of them if I wasn’t around?

  The pound, that’s who.

  I took a deep breath and looked down on my flannel pajama pants and my extra-large sweater. With my hair up in a messy tail, I was pretty sure I looked like a gun-toting, gray-eyed witch, brimming with hostility. I’d just scared away my first and only customer.

  A top-notch German shepherd like that couldn’t belong to a crook. It was obvious that the owner took excellent care of his dog. If that wasn’t enough, the man got around on crutches. He couldn’t hurt me and, if he tried, I wouldn’t need a shotgun to defend myself. I’d just have to trip him.

  God, the things I thought about. Was I going to live in fear forever?

  Yes, I would, but living in fear was better than not living at all.

  Right?

  I considered the paper in my hand. My rent was due next week.

  “Wait!” I jammed my feet into my weathered rubber boots, gripped the gun in one hand and the umbrella in the other, and rushed out into the rain. I caught up with him as he slammed the door of his truck shut.

  “Hey!” I waved the flyer in the air. “I didn’t know that you came for this.” I tapped on the window. “Could you please, like, talk to me...please?”

  He rolled his eyes, but the window whirled down. “What now? You want to sue me for stinking up your stoop?”

  “Oh, no.” I blushed all the way down to my toes. “I just wanted to say—I’m sorry. I’m...um...skittish, you know? Living out here in the boonies all by myself...”

  “I get it.” The man’s glare didn’t waver. “Lots of folks don’t like dogs. Or vets. Sorry I scared you.”

  “You didn’t scare me,” I lied. “I love dogs. I was just...being careful, that’s all.”

  “Careful?” His mouth twisted into that terrible scowl. “Is that why you’re still toting that thing around, cocked and loaded no less?”

  My eyes shifted to the shotgun, still clutched in my hand, and then back to the stranger glaring at me. “Oh.”

  “That’s what I thought.” He turned the key on the ignition.

  “Wait!”

  On impulse, I stuck my hand through the window and placed it over his on the wheel. He flinched. I cringed. He was hot, and I mean scalding hot, to my touch. The look he fired in my direction burned just as bad.

  “I... I...” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I think you should come back inside.”

  “No way,” he said. “I hate the wrong end of the barrel.”

  “It didn’t register,” I said. “I didn’t realize that you were a vet.”

  He growled like a cranky bear. “I don’t want your damn pity.”

  It was a good thing I recognized pride, fury and defiance when I saw it. Otherwise, I might have forgotten the whole thing and fled back to the cottage with my tail between my legs. Instead, I steeled my nerves and stuck out my chin.

  “I’m not offering you any pity,” I said. “But I do need to rent out a room. So let’s start over. Okay? I’m Lia.”

  “Lia?” He lifted his cap and scratched his head. His eyebrows drew close together in a frown that deepened the two little vertical lines above his nose. “Have we met before?”

  “Not in this lifetime.”

  He let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t think I’m the kind of tenant you were looking for.”

  “You might be right about that,” I said. “You’re grouchy and we didn’t exactly get off to a good start. But right now, I’m offering you a cup of coffee. So follow me. If your references check, if you’re not a serial killer or wanted by the FBI, then we’ll talk.”

  The dog barked and, stepping over his owner, stuck his huge muzzle out the window and licked my face.

  “Come on, boy.” I opened the door. The German shepherd bounced out of the truck, running around me in an explosion of energy. I petted him as he loped beside me on the way to the cottage.

  “Neil!” the man shouted. “You traitor. Come back right this minute!”

  Neil sat on his hind legs halfway between the house and the truck and woofed.

  “See?” I said. “Even your dog wants you to come in.”

  The man slapped the wheel and cursed some more. Oh, Lord. He was stubborn. All that anger stiffened my shoulders and churned up my belly. Did I really want a bundle of rage as a tenant?

  But Neil wasn’t moving either. This was a war of wills if I’d ever seen one. The umbrella sprang a leak so I got out of the rain, set it on the porch to dry and wiped my feet on the mat. I brought the shotgun into the kitchen and settled it on the counter for easy access. Better safe than sorry. I prayed that my instincts were right on this one.

  The German shepherd trotted into the foyer, ears forward, mouth agape and long tongue lolling. He pawed at me, licked my hand and yapped in a way that sounded a lot like commiseration.

  “That’s a surly owner you’ve got there.” I scratched him behind the ears. “He’s lucky to have you, yes, he is. I would have shot him without batting an eyelash, but you? No way. You’re too gorgeous.”

  I went into the kitchen, grabbed an old towel and laid it on the floor next to the stove. Neil shook his coat and settled on the towel. I set up the coffeepot as the man shuffled with his crutches into the foyer and hesitated at the threshold. I kept my face blank but my senses on alert.

  “You look goddamn comfortable,” he said to the dog, before his gaze zeroed in on me again. “He’s never done this before. Go with a stranger? Never.”

  “Don’t take it personally.” I set out a pair of mugs. “Animals like me. I like them too. They’re better than people any day.”

  “Amen to that,” he muttered, his glare leaving no doubt that I belonged in his despicable human rac
e category.

  “Take a seat.” I gestured toward the kitchen table and placed the clipboard at one end. “Fill that out. Coffee will be ready in a moment.”

  He set his jaw at a stubborn angle. Yikes. The guy was nothing if not ornery. Neil got up and pressed his body against his owner’s legs. Bluster aside, the man couldn’t resist the plea in the dog’s eyes. He scratched Neil’s head with unmistakable affection. I took that as a good sign, but even as I went about the kitchen, I kept my eye on the man and the shotgun within reach.

  “You’re a pain in the ass, Neil,” the guy said as he took off his leather coat and hung it on the rack. “You’re trained a lot better than that. We’ll give this a try, but I’m telling you, this isn’t going to end well. That gun-toting madwoman is not right in the head.”

  “I heard that.” I poured some cream into a dish and stuck it in the microwave, “I’m not right in the head? What about you, Mr. Sourpuss who talks to dogs?”

  “Neil isn’t just any dog.” He set the crutches against the wall and winced as he lowered himself into the chair. “He’s got brains. He deserves to be talked to. As to the rest, I’m not the one going about in my pajamas aiming loaded shotguns at people.”

  “Sorry,” I said, duly contrite. “I’ve only been up for a bit. I’m a waitress, so I work late. But a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do—”

  “Jesus Christ.” He stared at the clipboard with open alarm. “How many applicants were you expecting? You do know that the nearest town is Copperhill, population two thousand? You’ve got like ten applications here and each one is five pages long.”

  “Maybe it was wishful thinking on my part, but I’m like the Boy Scouts, always prepared.”

  “I can see that.” He glanced at the shotgun before returning his attention to the clipboard.

  Hackles down, girl. I forced myself to breathe. He was only making a point. Still, the permanent knot of fear that churned at the center of my being tightened, an irrational impulse I couldn’t always control. It may have won out, if the ancient microwave hadn’t begun to clatter and rattle like my discombobulated, panic-prone brain.