by Nikki Duncan
“I look forward to it.”
Moving back, he smiled as he pointed to her nose. “This arouses me when you tip it up in defiance. And your eyes when they darken with arousal, like now.”
“Harte.”
“Relax, Mags.” Quirking a brow, he grinned. She’d use his given name again too. “I finally have you willing. I am not rushing this.”
“But…” The plea in her eyes darkened and mixed with confusion. “I thought…”
The sex she’d offered was turning into a seduction. He would spend all day seducing her if need be. Rather than move in for the next taste, he tilted his head. “What, Mags? Say it.”
“I thought it would be quick. Simple.”
“Is that what you’re used to? What you prefer?” Was it what she’d always known? A quickie with no seduction? No passion? Was that why she responded with such abandon? Did she read the romance novels on her shelves for escape, or because she saw herself as the women on the page?
“I…” She hesitated. “I like sex. It’s just always been…”
“A fulfillment of basic needs?” Okay, maybe a little harsh.
“Yes.”
“Not this time.” Her sadness had a disturbing ache settling in his chest, as if he really cared. Rather, as if he wanted to care and it was too much to handle at the moment. He would give her passion. Nothing more. “I need one thing from you before we go any further.”
“W-what?” Her voice trembled, but she didn’t blink or look away.
“Trust me not to let you down.” Unable to not touch her a moment longer, he dredged up more of his rarely tapped tenderness and laid his palm on her cheek. “And tell me if you want me to do something different, or if you want more of something.”
Embarrassment flushed her cheeks. She didn’t have to tell him what she’d been missing all these years. Her uncertainty reminded him of his high school girlfriend the night she’d given him her virginity. And in many ways he suspected he would be Maggie’s first. He needed to make it count.
“Do you trust me, Mags?” He ignored the little voice insisting he was asking for more than her body.
“Yes.”
Giving himself the space he needed to take things slowly for her, he held her gaze as he dropped his hand and backed to the small desk to lay his gun down. He stood, waiting for her to bolt and prove she didn’t trust him.
The pulse in her neck hammered. Her eyes trailing over him and filling with renewed passion thrilled him. Cocking a brow, he pulled the drawstring of his pants while kicking his shoes to the side.
She swallowed, but she stayed.
Her nipples tightened beneath her shirt. Holding her gaze, praying she didn’t run, he pushed his pants to the floor before straightening to let her look her fill.
He wanted this memory to be as perfect for himself as he did for her.
The flush covering her cheeks deepened and spread down her neck until it disappeared beneath the collar of her shirt. Her breasts had swollen. Her nipples hardened more and pressed against her bra. Her tongue teased her bottom lip as she devoured every naked inch of him.
Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she stared at his erection and then a wicked grin spread across her mouth. He didn’t have to wonder if she liked it or not.
“You’re…” She fisted her hands at her sides and slid her eyes back up until they met his. “Wow.”
“Thanks.” Staying back any longer was impossible.
He closed the distance between them and reached out to rub his thumb over a pebbled nipple. As impossible as it seemed, it hardened more. Running his hands down her sides, he pulled the waist of her tidily tucked in T-shirt from her jeans. Sliding the shirt up her torso, he slid his fingertips over the newly exposed skin.
Her pupils flared and dilated. Her skin rippled beneath his touch. His own body burned to move things along faster, but he had to give her this moment. He had to prove she hadn’t made a mistake by giving him her trust. “Raise your arms, Mags.”
She did as he asked. He pulled her shirt to her wrists, but rather than removing it, he lowered her arms in front of her and positioned her hands at her sides, spread as far as possible with her shirt acting as handcuffs. Escape would be easy, but the idea of her being bound and at his will, was an easy way to test trust.
“You’re like porcelain.” Teasing himself as much as her, he leaned close to her ear. “I can’t wait to see if you look like this all over.”
“Burke.” She turned her head and brushed a kiss beneath his ear. More flames shot through his body, arousing him more.
Burke, not Harte. She was right where he wanted her. “Do you like this?”
“Yes.” Her normally sultry voice thickened with a plea.
She could beg, but he still wasn’t rushing. “Then you’ll love what comes next.”
Since he was so close to her ear, he traced the outer edge with his tongue while rolling her nipple with his thumb. She moaned and angled toward him.
He backed away.
“Turn around, Mags.”
Her eyes flashed to his as if she was going to argue. He raised a brow and waited. He hadn’t seduced a woman in…well, ever.
When she turned, he dropped his head back and blew out a breath. This was going to kill him.
He slid his palms up her back and down again to the end of her braid near her waist. Pulling the hair band out and tossing it to the floor, he worked her braid free until he could fan her hair out so it covered her bare back.
Stepping close, his chest rubbing hers, he brushed her hair aside and whispered into her ear. “I love your hair.”
Her shudder echoed through his body. Slipping his fingers back to the hook of her bra, he twisted the material and popped it loose. He rested his hands on her shoulders and pushed the straps of her bra off her shoulders and down her arms, until they stopped at her shirt.
Turning her back to face him, the nipples he’d watched harden stood at attention begging for his touch. Her breasts swayed with her uneven breaths. He nearly swallowed his own tongue imagining how she would taste.
He twitched with eagerness to feel more of her, and to feel her touch him. Taking a small hunk of hair in each hand, he slid the ends of her hair over her nipples. The tiny bumps circling the tip popped out.
She gasped. Her breasts swelled. Her eyes slid shut. Her head fell back.
“Do you like that? Or do you want something different?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you like it? Or yes, you want something different?” Without waiting for her response, he slid his tongue around one hardened pink nipple.
She jerked toward him, encouraging.
“You like that?”
Taking her moan as a positive answer, he slid his tongue across her breasts to her other nipple. She thrust toward him. As much as he wanted to hover, he wanted to discover her other delights more.
He moved back to the center of her chest and covered her torso with nibbling kisses. He never stopped brushing her hair over her breasts. “Tell me, Mags. What’s that feel like?”
“W-what?”
“Your hair on your breasts. How’s it feel?”
She rolled her hips. A soft moan escaped her lips. “Soft. It tickles.”
“And?”
“Erotic. Decadent.” She jerked her hands, but didn’t pull them free of the shirt. “As if your mouth is hovering over me blowing warm air.”
“Like this?” Lowering to his knees, he laved at her belly button and blew a warm breath over the moisture.
She shivered. “Yes.”
“And where else would you like me to touch you, kiss you, blow on you?” Slipping his fingers in the edge of her pants at her sides, he edged toward the button, all the while pressing kisses to the quivering mass of muscles in her abdomen.
“Everywhere.” She freed herself from the makeshift cuffs and fisted her hands in his hair. She would give him everything he wanted and more. She would come unglued. He would take her to ecstasy.
> He released the button of her jeans and lowered the zipper. She’d expected a mad dash to the finish line. So had he. This was so much better.
Covering her with more nibbling kisses, he eased her pants down her legs. He’d missed her stepping out of her shoes, but wasn’t complaining. She braced herself on him, her right hand clutching his shoulder with her little finger tracing the edge of a scar he’d thought to be numb, and stepped free of the pants.
Fuck. She stood before him in nothing but the lace thong he’d unpinned the note from. Gliding his tongue along the edge, he exhaled slowly. “Here?”
“Yes!” Her hips jerked toward his mouth.
He almost gave in to the temptation to taste her while kneeling between her legs. To take her all the way over with his mouth, but he needed to make it last.
“So soft. You feel like silk.” He slid his fingers over her bare skin as he stood. Meeting her burning gaze, he smiled. “I’m going to ease you into a quivering mass of arousal until you unravel and cry out my name begging for release.”
“Harte.” It was a moan, but not the name he wanted.
“Not good enough, Mags.” He gestured to the bed behind her. She was aroused enough to do anything he pushed her into, but it would mean more if she made the choice. “Get on the bed. Get comfortable.”
With his patience straining on a short leash, he moved to the side table for the condoms. She crawled onto the bed, propped herself against the headboard with her arms crossed over her breasts and her ankles crossed.
Holding a condom against his leg, he held her wary stare. “Last chance to run, Mags.”
Even as he said it, he hoped like hell she stayed.
Looking at the condom in Harte’s hand, Maggie knew why she hadn’t removed them before he moved in. She’d wanted to end up here, in his bed, with him standing before her aroused and ready. She hadn’t imagined he would be a patient lover, but regardless of what happened when he climbed onto the bed with her, he’d already given her more than Mike, her only lover, ever had.
Chewing on her lip, she considered his offer. She could bolt. Get up and walk out. But was it worth missing out on the kind of passion she’d always wanted? The kind of heat that lit fires in her soul and spread through her veins? She wanted a passion strong enough to live clearly in her mind even after he left.
She’d been comfortable and certain until he’d stepped back. Without his constant attention doubt snuck in, but the flaming desire in his eyes, and the raging erection facing her, drove home how insane she was behaving.
Releasing her lip, she raised her chin, uncrossed her arms and ankles, and spread her legs. “I’m not going anywhere, Harte.”
“Good.” He tossed the condom by her hip and moved to the end of the bed, kneeling between her spread knees. “Do you remember what I told you?”
She nodded, remembering vividly the huskiness in his voice as he promised to ease her into a quivering mass of arousal until she cried out his name before begging for release. Forgotten muscles deep in her womb clenched and quivered at the idea. How far did he intend to take her?
As if she’d spoken aloud, he leaned forward and gave her a long lingering kiss. The skin on skin contact she ached for didn’t come. The teasing brush of his fingers remained absent. Instead, with agonizing control, his tongue explored her mouth in all the ways she imagined him touching the rest of her.
She gripped his broad shoulders and traced the contours of his biceps. However much time he spent working out was well worth it. She’d never touched a sexier man. Gliding her fingers up to explore his back, she felt a pucker of skin high on his shoulder.
“What happened?” While she traced what was surely a war wound he’d gotten on the job, he broke off the kiss and met her gaze.
“A stray bullet during a robbery.”
His matter-of-fact tone, as if scars from flying bullets didn’t matter, reiterated the reason she couldn’t have more than a passing affair with him. As long as he was willing, they could have sex, but nothing more. She could not, would not, risk her heart again.
Not that he seemed to mind.
Beginning a sensual assault on her neck, he didn’t give her the chance to ask any more questions. Her head settled deeper into his pillows. Her muscles quivered, relaxed, and quivered again each time he moved his mouth.
Avoiding the scar, she slid her hands over his back, moving toward his hips. His arousal pressed against her.
Putting distance between her hands and the goal of his hips, he eased down her body covering her with nibbling kisses. The occasional nip of his teeth followed by a soothing kiss and warm breath took her desire a notch higher. How, when she’d never been so hot, did he continue to raise her temperature and awareness?
“Harte.”
His lips curled in a smile against her stomach, but he shook his head and continued his assault on her body and sizzling nerves. What more could he possibly want?
When his slow descent delivered him to the juncture of her thighs, she arched her hips off the bed. Her fingers pressed against the back of his head, begging him to kiss her where Mike had never wanted to. Her pussy shook with anticipation.
A chuckle rumbled from his chest as he lifted his head, easily resisting her attempts.
He pulled her hands from his head and pinned them to the mattress by her hips. His desire-darkened cobalt eyes seared her with heat. “Tell me what you want, Mags.”
“I want…I need…”
“Yes?”
“Please…kiss me…there.”
Grinning, he lowered his head and pressed a kiss to the inside of her right knee, making her leg quiver. “There?”
“No.”
He pressed a kiss to her left knee and had that leg quivering. “There?”
“N-no.”
“I think I know.” He lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her thigh, just where it met her hip. “There?”
She shoved her head into the pillow, her hands fisted beneath his. She bucked her hips again.
“Was that not where you wanted it? Maybe you should be more specific.”
“No.” She moaned when he blew a warm breath over the slick heat waiting for him.
He pressed a kiss to her other thigh.
“Harte.”
She was giving him what he wanted. Her body more than quivered beneath his. She could hardly communicate beyond a moan. Still, he only teased. “Please. Taste me. Eat me. I want to feel your mouth on me.”
His warm breath rushed across her. She actually felt herself swell and throb. Jeez, she was going to erupt without his touch if he kept it up. Then his tongue flicked across her.
She screamed.
“You like that?”
Her hips bucked toward him. “Yes. Please. More.”
He slid his tongue up the length of her. Her muscles clenched in orgasm. “Burke, please.”
In seconds, her hands were free of his grasp. The condom wrapper was ripped open. His mouth teased her, drove her higher, while he sheathed himself.
“Hurry,” she urged.
He slid up her body, pressing against her. Arousal to arousal. Chest to chest. “My name, Mags. Say my name.”
She couldn’t have resisted for anything. “Burke. Please, Burke. Now!”
He thrust. Filled her. Froze. Her muscles convulsed. Tense.
Not moving, his cobalt eyes imprisoned hers in a kaleidoscope of emotions. Asking him to kiss her and touch her had seemed so basic. Only it wasn’t. She’d never been so free with herself or her wishes. Sex for the sake of sex was gone, and it scared the hell out of her.
Choking back tears and blocking the thoughts of what she’d lost to him, her heart spasmed in time with her body. She locked her ankles behind his waist and pulled herself closer.
His erection throbbed and pulsed inside her. The head of his dick rubbing the spot she’d always heard existed but never felt had her muscles convulsing harder and faster.
Until him, she’d never had a real org
asm.
Then he started gliding in and out. The friction of his sweat-slicked skin rubbing against hers, teasing her nerves, and the sensation of him nudging her g-spot over and over, took her higher than she’d already been.
Locking her gaze with his, she watched his pupils flare and drown out the blue. Digging her fingers into his arms, his banded biceps rippling beneath her fingers, she arched up to be closer still, as if she could get inside his skin.
Burying his face in her neck, his chest rubbing hers, the rumble rising up his chest echoed through her. “Let go, Mags.”
He nipped her lobe and thrust into her. Her body trembled with the force of her orgasm. He moaned and jerked with his own release and deep inside she wept. With the surrender of her orgasmic virginity, she’d paid an immeasurable price. One she wasn’t sure she could afford.
Chapter 12
“Not sure why I bother with this.” Maggie muttered as she sorted Transformer from G.I. Joes. “It won’t stay clean, and the mess won’t matter if I’m dead.”
She worked through the mess in Jared’s room, her thoughts volleying between BD’s plan, her kids and the promise that brought her full circle to fear. Adalia’s promise to kill.
BD’s assurances did little to calm the seismic quakes attacking her nerved. Any time now, Craig would come for BD. They would leave. She would be alone. Bait for the criminal.
They’d made a show in the bugged living room of calling for an AC repairman and opening all the windows while complaining about the heat. Making the house accessible was one thing. Announcing to Adalia they were trapping her when she was looking for ways to trap them was another. Why had she agreed to risk herself?
Weakness. The taunt whispered along her conscience.
Weakness resulting from Burke’s every touch and the constant hunger to be brave around him. There was no other explanation for why she’d given in. Why she’d asked him to kiss her. Why she’d asked him to make love to her when there was no shot at more. It was a mistake she wouldn’t make again. Neither would she regret the beautiful seduction.
She sank to the floor, sitting butt to heels and staring into the not-far-from-past memory. Casual sex didn’t exist inside the richness of what they’d shared. Touch and taste. Sight and sound. She’d felt it all as thick as tears in her throat.