After leaving the SEALs two years ago, he’d accepted an assignment in an English BDSM club, working undercover to help a former teammate take down Europe’s biggest sex trafficking ring. An operation that had netted not only the slavers, but several dozen high-ranking Albanian mob operatives as well. Out of a job and badly in need of a little r & r, Clay had retreated to his ranch in Virginia. He’d been there for the past eighteen months, building his house and establishing his stud farm. Until Everett Burke had found him and roped him into this assignment. Roped him in. He snorted. Like he’d had to be roped in. As soon as he’d found out the job was Leah, nothing could have kept him away. She called to him on a level he simply couldn’t explain. None of the women he’d ever met in any of the clubs had been more innately appealing than Leah. None of those women had had that air of vulnerability she wore around her like a cloak. Nor that sense of fragility, as if she would break at the slightest touch. And certainly none had ever reached beneath the hardened cynicism of his soul as she had done, to touch the very essence of his being.
This afternoon, in her bedroom, when he had kissed her and felt her uninhibited response, he had almost lost control. The sweetness of her reactions had very nearly pushed him over the edge. All he had wanted to do was to throw her onto the bed and make love to her without regard for the consequences. Not fuck her. Make love to her. Oh, sure, he wanted to fuck her, too. Endlessly. Over and over. Until they were both about to expire of pleasure. And then he wanted to fuck her again. With her tied to the bed, legs spread wide, open and helpless and begging for him to complete her, even as she completed him.
Jesus Christ! Stifling a groan, he turned and leaned back against the wall of the gazebo, neck arched, face turned skyward, eyes closed, trying to force that image out of his mind. The image of Leah Stanhope coming apart in his arms as she claimed the pleasure he gave her. And that’s what frustrated and frightened him the most. His feelings for her made him vulnerable, and he didn’t like being vulnerable. For the first time in his adult life he found himself in a situation where he was not in control.
Turning back around, he watched her arms slice steadily through the water. He was looking at the one woman in the world he could never walk away from. He knew it with a certainty that frightened him in its intensity. Yet, she had done nothing but lie to him since he’d picked her up at the airport, denying that she was attracted to him, even going so far as to tell him she was engaged to Everett Burke in a misguided effort to keep him at bay. She would have to be punished for that, something he was looking forward to with great anticipation. Just the thought of pressing his lips against her ass, made red and hot by his hand, hardened his cock so fast, he thought he was going to pass out.
* * * *
Leah stopped after swimming thirty lengths of the pool, arm muscles trembling with exertion, lungs heaving painfully for oxygen. Goodness I didn’t realize I was so out of shape. After a few moments, she crossed her arms on the ledge and lowered her head to rest on them, letting her tired body just hang in the cool, dark water. As her muscles gradually stopped tingling, a welcome lassitude enveloped her. She shut her eyes and snuggled her head more comfortably into the crook of her arms, letting the tension slowly ebb from her body. She didn’t know how long she lay there before the night air blowing across her wet hair and shoulders began sending goose bumps down her arms. And there was a strange, prickling sensation between her shoulder blades that was making her feel very uncomfortable. She’d felt this way before, when Richard Gordon had been spying on her.
Lifting her head abruptly, she jumped and stifled a small scream. Clay Knight was standing on the pool deck, watching her, so still he might have been a statue except for his long hair, streaming behind his head like tendrils of black smoke in the wind. “Oh, God!” One hand flew to her chest as if to keep her heart from leaping out. “How dare you sneak up on me like that? You scared me to death! Why didn’t you say something, or do something to let me know you were there?” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How long have you been there, anyway? Is this how you get your kicks, spying on unsuspecting women?”
He just smiled. “I can see that you are not at your social best at 3:30 in the morning,” he drawled lazily, unhooking the small white towel draped around his narrow hips and dropping it onto the stone deck. His dark swim trunks were loose, but the enormity of his erection stretched them so tight, it was a wonder they could contain him.
Leah sucked in her breath, staring openly at his nearly-naked body, totally mesmerized by the play of silver moonlight over the curves and hollows of his rippling muscles and his rock-hard abs. Her eyes followed the center line of his body from his well-defined pecs, as it arrowed down his flat, taut belly, to his sharp V-cut before disappearing below the waistband of his trunks. With that muscular body, those sculpted, sensual lips, those slashing cheekbones, he was beautiful. God, he was so beautiful. Remote and aloof, he was a pagan, primitive statue carved from cold moonlight and imbued with the heat of the sun. She drank in the sight of him, unable to stop herself, not sure she would want to even if she could.
“Like what you see?” he jibed softly, squatting gracefully at the edge of the pool, leaning on one hand, and sitting on the deck, slipping his legs into the water beside her.
He sat so close, she could feel the heat emanating from his body. If she lifted her hand, she could touch his chest. She had to fight an overwhelming urge to do just that. She wanted to back away, but she was afraid such a move would reveal how strongly she was affected by him, and she didn’t want to give him that power over her.
“What’s the matter, Leah? Couldn’t you sleep either?” His tone was so gentle she nearly sobbed out her longing for him.
Instead she clamped down tightly on her runaway emotions and said in a constricted voice, “No.” She accompanied her words with a quick shrug. “It happens sometimes. I-I’ve always had trouble adjusting to a strange bed.”
“I see. No doubt it’s an occupational hazard with women like you.”
She gasped. “What is that supposed to mean?”
He just shrugged. Unperturbed by her anger, he slid into the pool and turned to face her. Lifting his hand, he placed his fingertips against her cheek.
She jerked her head away, but otherwise couldn’t move. It was as if she’d been turned to stone. “Don’t touch me!” She’d meant it to be an icy command, but instead it came out a choked, frightened whisper.
Ignoring her, he sent his fingers on a journey along the line of her jaw, down the slender column of her neck. He paused at the base of her neck, holding the tip of his index finger over the pulse hammering there, betraying her agitation. The journey continued down over her collar bones, across the creamy, sloping mound of her breast to the edge of her modest bathing suit top. When she made no move to stop him, he hooked his forefinger into the stretchy material. When she still didn’t move, he allowed his fingernail to scrape against her tender flesh as he traced the outline of the fabric down to its lowest point—the point where it stretched across the shadowed valley between her breasts.
“Don’t—”It was a choked whisper. She closed her eyes, but she made no attempt to remove his hand. She was trembling, every clamoring nerve aware of his nearness, the potent sexuality of his hard, male body so close to hers. ‘I-I’m engaged to be married.”
“Ah, yes.” His lips twisted. “The ever-devoted fiancé. Tell me, Leah,” he tugged her toward him, the weight of his hand pulling the stretchy, jersey top outward, threatening to release the rounded fullness of her breasts. “Tell me about him. What’s it like making love to an old man?”
She should have pushed him away. She should have stepped back—anything to put distance between them. Except she wasn’t standing. She was floating in the water, anchored by her elbow on the pool deck and his finger hooked in her swimsuit top. Unable to get away, she stared up at him helplessly, trapped as much by the confusion leaping within her as she was by the sensual spell he seemed to be weaving
around her like a web.
Resting his left elbow on the underwater shelf, he released her top and lifted his hand to shape the back of her head, those long, lean fingers threading through the damp silk of her hair. “Does his touch arouse you?” Slowly, sensuously, he pulled her toward him, closing the distance between them, until his firm, mobile mouth was less than an inch from her own, his breath warm against her lips. “Does he set you on fire?”
The hard contours of his body brushed tantalizingly against the softly rounded curves of her own as the cool water undulated against them.
“Does he kiss you like this?” Clay persisted, dropping a warm, feather-light kiss near one corner of her trembling mouth, “like a father? Or perhaps like an uncle or older brother, like this,” he pressed his lips first to her cheek, then, tilting her head down, her forehead. “Or does he kiss you like a lover? Like this—”and his mouth closed over hers in a dark, golden storm, his lips expertly parting hers to admit the probing sweetness of his tongue.
Leah stiffened and tried to pull away, but it was too late. The flame ignited by his touch was all-consuming. Without volition, her arms went around his neck, her legs circled his waist, ankles locking behind him. The sheer size of the erection pressing against her sex made her gasp. Her belly plummeted, sending moisture gushing out of her pussy onto the strip of fabric that was the bottom of her two-piece. She’d never been so aroused in her life. Her traitorous body arched toward his, her hips grinding her sex against his cock. She moaned into his mouth as his arms went tightly around her back, crushing her soft breasts to his hard chest. Locked together, they sank beneath the surface of the water. Instead of panicking and struggling to break free, Leah wound her arms tightly around his neck and held on, trusting in his care of her.
Without breaking the kiss, Clay pushed off the deep end of the pool with a powerful thrust of his muscular legs, gliding swiftly through the water to the center of the pool, where he could stand up. They broke the surface still locked together, their mouths tearing apart only long enough to drag air into their oxygen-starved lungs before crushing back together, tongues dueling passionately.
Leah loosened her hold on his neck, running her hands wonderingly over his shoulders and back, savoring the power of the muscles flexing beneath his satin-smooth skin, delighting in the heat of his body beneath the cool slickness of the pool water. In spite of the pervading smell of chlorine, she could still smell his clean, masculine scent. Losing all reason, she broke off the kiss to bury her face in the side of his neck, where it curved into his shoulder, inhaling that scent deep into her lungs. Daringly, she put out her tongue and took a tiny lick of his warm, moist skin. God, he tasted so good! He felt so good! She couldn’t stifle the groan that ripped from her throat. Her hands curved around to the back of his head, her fingers gripping the thick, wet mass of his hair, holding his head still. She drew a shuddering breath, trying desperately to get herself under control. This is a mistake! This is a colossal mistake!
But it was too late. Never in her life had she experienced feelings like these, and while they scared the bejeezus out of her they also exhilarated her. Without thought for the consequences, she gave herself up to them.
Clay moved his hands slowly up her back, kneading the smooth flesh on each side of her spine. Dimly aware of something tugging at the clasp at the back of her top, the sensation was over before she could focus on it. Clay’s mouth was blazing a fiery trail of kisses down the side of her neck and across the creamy slope of her left shoulder. His hands slid around her sides to press gently against her breasts, pushing them together. His incendiary touch burned her flesh and she suddenly realized that she was naked from the waist up. The tugging she’d felt had been Clay undoing her top.
Lifting her head, she loosened her stranglehold, unwittingly giving him the opportunity he needed to move his hands between them and cover her breasts. As he took the full, voluptuous weight of them in his hands, he groaned, bending his head once more to hers, seeking her mouth as a man too long in the desert seeks water. The force of his kiss was like a whirlwind, moving through her heart and soul and leaving nothing behind but destruction.
Mindless with passion, she surged against him, opening her mouth automatically to welcome the invasion of his tongue, a series of tiny, whimpering mewls issuing from her throat as his thumbs lashed back and forth across her hard, aching nipples. He drank deeply from her mouth, slaking his raging thirst with her honeyed moisture.
No one had ever touched her the way Clay Knight was touching her. As if she were something priceless, something beautiful, something cherished. She moaned again as he continued to stroke and pluck and pinch her berry-like nipples, making them rock hard with a desire she still didn’t understand.
“Leah…”It was a ragged groan against her lips as Clay’s hands left her breasts to slide around her back, down below her waist to grip her buttocks, pulling her even more tightly against his cock in a desperate embrace. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured against her mouth, “so goddamn beautiful. Not just to my eyes, but to my heart. My soul. I’ve dreamed about this for three fucking years, but I never dreamed it could be like this…not like this…”
His mouth left hers to blaze a fiery trail of kisses down the left side of her neck and she bent her head with a sigh to give him the room he needed. His lips and tongue tortured and tasted her flesh, igniting fires wherever they touched. They brushed across her collar bone, lingering on the pulse point throbbing at the base of her neck, then down, down onto the softly sloping flesh of her breast. His tongue traced fiery circles on her satin smooth skin, edging closer, ever closer to the hard, aching tip. Leah waited, head back, eyes closed, breath held, her entire body trembling with needs she’d never felt before. Needs she didn’t even recognize. Needs that had her shaking with both arousal and anticipation.
Gently, oh, so gently, he touched the very tip of his tongue to the very tip of her dark nipple, then he pursed his lips and blew on it. Leah’s fingers dug into his shoulders as her whole body twitched.
More boldly this time, Clay’s tongue came out and circled her entire nipple, bathing it in the heated moisture of his mouth. A shudder passed through Leah as she flung her head even farther back and arched her body upward. With a groan, Clay took as much of her breast into his mouth as he could get, sucking gently, flicking his tongue back and forth across the hardened nub like a lash. His fingers slipped beneath the elastic of her swimsuit bottom to cup and caress the smooth, rounded curves of her ass. He raised his head to claim her lips once more, then, without breaking contact, he lifted her hips slightly, pulled her forward, and pressed her sex against the jutting ridge of his cock. She gasped in pleasure as his erection surged against the burning heart of her femininity.
“See what you do to me?” he muttered thickly against her mouth. “God, Leah, I want you so bad. I want to make love to you, right here, right now. I want to lay you down on the pool’s edge and eat your luscious pussy until you come on my face. And I know it’s luscious, because I can smell you and you smell so damn good I want to bathe in you. I want to sink my cock into you and fuck you until we’re both screaming in pleasure. God, you make me crazy with wanting you.”
The words were an icy splash of sanity in her face.
“No!” she cried in a strangled voice, twisting her head away from his marauding mouth and struggling to pull herself from his hold. “No! Let me go!”
CHAPTER FIVE
To her utter shock, he released her instantly. Suddenly deprived of his support, she floundered. Arms flailing, she sank beneath the water and came back up sputtering and wiping water from her face with the swimsuit top that had somehow become entangled in her fingers.
She didn’t bother to try to put it back on. Instead, she clutched it in nerveless fingers, hunching her shoulders forward and crossing her arms over her bare breasts in a futile attempt to regain at least some small measure of modesty. Leave! She ordered herself, a silent scream echoing through h
er head. Just turn around and go, for God’s sake! Get as far away from this man as you can. While you can. But she didn’t leave. She couldn’t. Instead, she just stood there, unable to move, imprisoned by the heavy weight of the desire raging through her. Staring at him, all the pain and confusion swirling inside her mirrored in her eyes.
“What’s the matter?” he jibed softly. “A sudden attack of conscience? Did you suddenly remember you’re an engaged woman?” His own eyes were hooded, revealing nothing of his inner feelings. But the icy coldness of his voice made her shiver and look away, all passion stripped from her as if it had never existed. “A very interesting experiment just now,” Clay went on when she didn’t speak, “and very educational.” He took a step toward her.
She sucked in her breath, telling herself once again to leave. But she couldn’t make her leaden limbs respond to her commands. Nor could she slow her galloping heartbeat. Her determination was unraveling at the seams until all that was left of her common sense was nothing but a pile of tangled threads lying at her feet.
“You’re a deeply passionate woman, Leah Stanhope. How are you going to sublimate all those emotions once you’re married to an old man like Everett Burke?”
Her shoulders straightened in anger. “What a vile thing to say,” she cried indignantly. “Just because Everett is older than you doesn’t mean he’s decrepit. He’s every bit the man you are.”
“Is he?” Clay’s smile was tight.
“Of course he is. Who the hell do you think you are? What gives you the right to question anything about me or the man I intend to marry?”
Furious with her for not telling him the truth, he grabbed her shoulders and jerked her against him. “You do,” he spat out. Water splashed between them as his mouth closed over hers yet again, grinding her lips against her teeth in a kiss that was a painful assault. “You gave me the right when you kissed me the way you did,” he repeated harshly, pushing her away from him so violently she once again lost her balance and sank beneath the water.
Passion's Dream (The Doms of Passion Lake Book 1) Page 8