by Gail, Stacy
“Maybe you should put a damn shirt on if you’re uncomfortable with me noticing you in all your spectacular male glory. Trust me, there’s no need for you to look like such an outraged virgin—I wasn’t going to jump your bones. You might be some great eye candy, but I’m not into raping uninterested men.” And with that, she snapped off the light and stomped to the pale blob that was the pullout bed. Not exactly the stinging retort she’d been going for, but what the hell. It would do in a pinch.
No sooner had she plopped down on the side of the bed, a light flared in the other section of the suite.
“Oh no, you don’t. You don’t get to turn the lights out just when things are getting good.” Nate appeared, leaning against the partial wall separating the sleeping and living sections of the suite. Though it was just about the last thing she wanted to do, Ella glanced over her shoulder as he crossed his arms over that chest she ached to taste. She could have sworn the bastard had the gall to flex his pecs. “Eye candy?”
“Yeah. As in, all sugar and no substance.” There. Let him chew on that for a while.
He shrugged. The pecs danced again. “I’m cool with that. I like candy.”
“Good for you.” Still aflame with humiliation, embarrassment and a growing desire that wouldn’t shut up, Ella ignored the stifling bedclothes and instead lay down on top of the scratchy blanket with her back to him. “Good night.”
“What about that spectacular male glory you mentioned? I’m interested in hearing just how spectacular you think my male glory is.”
Oh, please. “Since you’ve made it abundantly clear the feeling isn’t mutual, you can speculate on that all by your lonesome and leave me the hell out of it. Now go to bed.”
“Bed, huh? Well, normally I’m not into pushy women, but for you I suppose I can make an exception.”
If she hadn’t been lying down already, she would have fallen over in shock when the rickety bed groaned in protest as he stretched out beside her. “What the hell are you—”
“Don’t blame me, you started this. I’d have to hand in my official Red-Blooded Guy membership card if I didn’t at least try to find a way to persuade you to finish it.”
The bed squealed as she jerked to a sitting position, and it took every ounce of will she had not to openly drool over the picture he made. Shirtless and with his sweatpants riding low on lean hips, Nate reclined with his bare feet crossed at the ankles and his muscle-sculpted arms folded behind his head as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Then he smiled at her, a singularly predatory smile of a wolf eyeing a plump little lamb, and her belief in his disinterest died a quick death. A world of hunger burned in his eyes, and there was no doubt it was on the verge of flaring out of control.
“You need an operating manual,” she heard herself say. It was the only thing she could do to cover how her heart rate zoomed into a beat that made flamenco seem pokey. “I need step-by-step instructions on how your system works. One minute you’re the protective big brother, the next you’re a stand-offish cold fish, and a moment after that you’re doing your best impression of the king of gigolos. Who are you going to be next?”
“I’ll always be the guy who protects you. Though I have to say, you’re an idiot if you think there’s anything brotherly about me.”
“Do I look like an idiot?”
“You look like you need to work out some serious frustration. It just so happens I’m up to the task of helping you out.” He sent a significant glance down his body, and on automatic her gaze followed his. Despite the gloom of only one bedside lamp in the next room, Ella had no trouble making out the rigid thrust of his erection barely covered by the loosely drawn sweatpants.
Hello.
A flood of heat swamped her, hitting so hard and fast she could have easily believed she was suffering a delirium-inducing fever. Though suffering was hardly right, and she couldn’t stop the relieved smile as she glanced back at him. He remained statue-still, his heavy-lidded eyes trained on her face like a big cat waiting to pounce.
Waiting.
She had no clue what he was waiting for.
“I’m fresh out of engraved invitations.” As if in slow motion she turned to face him, curling her legs underneath her while the bed wheezed and squawked. “Let me guess—you’re shy.”
A low breath escaped him, whether a laugh or a moan she couldn’t be sure. “If you were anyone else I would already be inside you, and you’d be screaming my name for all the neighbors to hear.”
Her inner heat elevated to the level just below insanity, and the cleft between her thighs swelled with a dampness that made her squirm. Wasn’t he a confident one. “So...what then? What is it about me that makes you hold back?”
“You matter to me.”
Ella stilled as the impact of the words arrowed straight through her to settle in her very core, glowing with such sweet purity it all but crushed the breath from her. “You’re not hesitating because you think I’m...” She made herself say the words that had been lurking like a poisonous snake in the back of her mind. “Damaged goods?”
“No.”
The immediacy of his response killed the snake outright. “Is it because I’m scarred?”
“I have scars on my back too.”
She knew he had seen her when she first came out of the woods. But she had to be sure. “Charles Rainier...he carved wings into my back.”
“My mother hacked mine off.” His arms remained folded behind his head while the eyes he trained on her all but glowed with heat. It was a heat sparked from raw desire that, amazingly enough, existed just for her. “In a completely screwed-up way, we make the perfect pair.”
“If we’re so perfect, why aren’t you touching me?”
“I want you to do it.”
Her eyes widened. “Do what?”
“Anything. Everything. Whatever you want. Wherever you want. As of this moment, I am yours to do with what you will.”
Her mind boggled at the world of delight his permission opened up for her. But one question remained. “Why?”
“I refuse to scare you. Not after what you’ve been through.”
“You couldn’t possibly scare me. What happened two years ago and what’s happening now are worlds apart, because this is my choice. You are my choice.” And with that simple fact thrown out for him to deal with, she leaned over him, bracing her hands on either side of his body, and captured his mouth with hers.
From the first moment Ella had spotted him across the gym, she’d wondered what it would be like to kiss him. With his leading-man good looks and pulse-pounding charisma, she’d suspected it would be explosive. Mind-fracturing. Powerful enough to knock entire planets out of orbit.
She hadn’t even been close.
An overwhelming wave of sensation bloomed in the nerves at the point of contact, tingling her lips to ripple outward until her body was steeped in vibrant delight. His lips were warm, responsive, crushed silk over hard steel, and they molded against hers with an eagerness that made her believe he’d done this with her countless times in his mind.
Or, maybe she was merely hoping his need mirrored her own.
His mouth opened at the increase of pressure, and a soundless moan feathered over her when she invaded the moist territory with her tongue. She wanted to enthrall him as he did her. But in the end she was the one who fell under the spell as he met her, stroke for stroke. His head came up to meet the lush invasion as if he might die if he didn’t drink in the taste of her all at once, and his greedy ardor made her head swim. His tongue toyed with hers in a rollicking game of give-and-take pleasure, and the hidden flesh at the juncture of her thighs ached all the more with searing need.
Yet they were only kissing.
With that thought surfacing in her mind, she was suddenly impatient for more. A sound that could have been
regret escaped him when she lifted her head, but when she slid a hand down his flat, muscle-ridged stomach to the waistband of his sweats, his hand shot out and shackled her wrist.
Startled, she looked to him. “What? Are you shy?”
“No. I just...” He was breathing hard, as if he were already gloved inside her, and with a pained hiss he let her go and seemed to struggle to force his hand back under his head, resuming his position of submissive vulnerability. “I have a request.”
He definitely had her attention. “What?”
“You first.”
She stared at him.
“Undress yourself first. Then undress me. I’ll stay like this, and you can do whatever you want.”
Oh, my.
Her heart went still for what seemed like forever. Then it surged forward, somersaulting over itself to catch up while his words reverberated in the sudden echo chamber of her head. She heard the fine shuddering of his breath, coinciding with the tightening muscles of his lower abdomen, the twitching restlessness of his hips as he rubbed the tip of his iron-hard sex against her pelvis that she kept teasingly suspended over him. He wanted her. No, it was more than that. He was on the brink of madness with his need for her, but he withheld himself from taking what he wanted in favor of making sure she was the one in charge. That was why he kept his hands locked behind his head. That was why he didn’t want his fully aroused body free of clothing. These were the last restraints he had, and he was determined to hold onto them until he knew she was sure.
Silly, sweet man. She’d just have to prove to him that she was a woman who knew exactly what she wanted.
She slipped off the bed, ignoring its shrill creak, and turned to face him with a half-smile. “Just to be clear, I wasn’t raped during my captivity—I was nothing more than a canvas. And while I’ll always be marked by that so-called artwork, I refuse to be ashamed of my scars.”
“You shouldn’t be.”
“But I’ll admit, I have always been leery about anyone else seeing them. I never wanted the inevitable questions, or worse—pity. I never thought I deserved pity for surviving.” She kept her tone light while she moved to the foot of the bed, as though they were sharing idle chatter over a cozy pot of tea. His eyes followed her, unblinking, as if unable to look away. She slid her fingers under the hem of the long-sleeved shirt she’d opted to sleep in, lifting it to show the merest glimpse of pale flesh. “You’re not the squeamish type, are you? I could always keep this on...”
“No.” It was a gruff sound of torment. “Off. Now.”
“If you’re sure.” Heady excitement shallowed out her breath, and she drew out the anticipation for them both by shimmying the material ever so casually up the length of her torso, pausing just at the tips of her unfettered breasts. With one quick move she pulled her head free, the shirt still on her arms and covering her front.
He growled. She thought it might have been a curse.
“I’m a lot leaner...tighter...than I was when you found me in the woods. Maybe you’ll see the difference.” She wiggled her shoulders until the material slithered down her arms. She could have caught it at her elbows, but he looked like he wanted to take a bite out of something, so she let the shirt fall at her feet. Naked from the waist up, she raised her arms to slide her fingers through hair that had been mussed by her quick disrobing, and she arched her back at the sensual delight there was in having his covetous attention slide over the rounded swell of her breasts. “Is there any difference in my body that you can see, Nate?”
“Beautiful.” His voice was raw, strained. A shallow breath made his chest heave. “You make me hurt, you’re so damn beautiful.”
“You haven’t seen all of me yet.” She turned in a graceful pirouette and bowed her head, exposing her back all the way from her nape to where the waistline of the jazz pants she’d slept in rode on her hips. “There. Can you see my wings?”
He seemed to need a second to answer. “Yes.”
“They go down further.” She didn’t want either of them to dwell on the agony and terror involved in the creation of her wings; the marks were nothing more to her now than badges of honor, battle scars that came with surviving. The last thing she wanted him to think of was ugliness. “Are you ready to see all of me?”
His breath shuddered. “Ella...ah, damn it. Please.”
A strong man begging for mercy was just about the best thing she’d ever run into. It only made her hungry for more.
Slipping her thumbs under the elastic waistband, she inched them to the rounded point of her hips. She rolled her pelvis, a sinuous move of pure provocation when the material passed the crack of her ass. “The feathers end right about there. Hope you’re okay with that.”
“Yes. God, yes. I love the way you move. I want you to move like that on me.”
“I plan to.” Excitement bit into her hot and needlelike, an almost-pain that tingled along her nerve endings. She swept her panties down her legs along with the pants, then turned to give him a long look at her profile as she rolled her spine upward until she was standing at her full height, her gaze seeking his. His brow was furrowed, as though enduring an ache that drilled all the way to his soul, his teeth bared as he pulled in shallow breaths that she could hear. The thrust of his arousal was still veiled, and it looked like he was slowly dying from its sweet pain. Taking pity on him, she bent and pulled at the ankle cuffs of the sweats. “Your turn.”
“Hurry.”
She was almost as breathless as he, and his exhortation only made it worse. She rested a knee between his feet and skimmed her hands up the long column of his legs, and the slower she went the more deliciously excruciating the anticipation became. He sucked in a whistling breath between his teeth as she reached the terrain of his thighs, and his eyes squeezed shut when she palmed the graceful rise of his hip bones.
“Almost there.” She moved upward to flatten her breasts against his torso while she gave in to temptation and flicked her tongue over the dark disc of his nipple before taking it into her mouth. She sucked hard on it while rubbing against him like a cat, enjoying his hair-roughened skin abrading hers. His shattered groan that accompanied the convulsive arch of his back spawned a feverish pulsing between her legs.
“Ella, now, goddamn it...”
She’d pushed him to the absolute limit, testing his will to let her control the situation until he was all but insane, and she found she was at her limit as well. With an economy of movement, she divested him of the sweatpants and boxer briefs beneath, pausing only when he grabbed the sweats before she tossed them away to remove a foil packet from the slash pocket. Together they slid the protection in place, and she had enough time to catch her breath at his physique; he was as big sexually as he was in stature, and she knew a moment’s worry that she might not be able to accommodate him. Then she shifted until she straddled his body, taking his hot, pulsing length in hand and guiding him into her depths.
Yes.
Their broken moans intertwined at the merging. His hardened flesh was hot, but hers was scorching, molding around him in a welcoming embrace that made her shiver and whisper his name. Her fingers splayed over his chest as she rolled her hips experimentally, and joy shot through her at his jagged gasp. “Touch me. I want your hands on me, Nate.”
Beyond words, he gripped her hips with hands that seemed starved for the feel of her. He lifted her up until he was halfway out of her depths only to slam her down again, then repeated the move until the world shook with the glorious force. She shuddered with blossoming delight, the sensation of being filled so abruptly with his thickness so pleasurable the muscles deep inside her belly writhed with the sweet torture. The rhythm he set up was quick and savage, and she fell into it with ease, leaving his hands free to roam up her rib cage to possess her breasts, the bowls of his palms filled with the sensitive rounded flesh while his thumbs and fo
refingers relentlessly tormented the taut nubs until she ground her teeth against the urgent rapture building like a hurricane inside her. She pressed a hand over his, wanting more, her hips rising and falling feverishly as she rode his steely length. Heaven was so close...
His free hand dropped to where their bodies merged to massage the swollen flesh there, not stopping until he found the center of her pleasure. A ragged gasp tore from her, then another as he rocked with her while the giddy madness he pushed her into swelled...
The climax hit her so hard she could do nothing but writhe with it, trying in vain to escape the sweet madness of mindless pleasure, and dimly she knew he was right with her. Blinding, a whirl of ecstasy that she never wanted to end, they pummeled into each other in search of prolonging the perfection, and it was the sweetest relief to simply give herself over to it, and to him.
Shivers of reverberating satiation rippled along her skin. Her throat was raw from doing exactly what he’d said she’d do—call his name like it was the only word she knew. She collapsed onto his chest, then squeaked when the bed gave a death-rattle screech and buckled beneath them.
“Damn.” With a half laugh, Nate held her protectively against his chest and offered a satisfied sigh. “We must be good at this.”
Chapter Twelve
An early-morning TV talk show murmured in the background as Nate set up his laptop on the dining table, sleepily scrubbing at his stubble-rough face as the system slowly connected to the hotel’s Wi-Fi. The bathroom door was closed while the sound of running water hummed through the walls. The thought of joining Ella in the shower crossed his mind, but even as his inner lecher rubbed gleeful hands together, the caved-in profile of the busted sofa bed caught his eye.