by Lora Leigh
Her eyes closed, the memory pulling her in, the drugging pleasure and need for the sensations she knew Shane could give her weakening her.
“Don’t do this to me,” she whispered, her lips brushing against his as he teased her with the threat of his kiss.
“I pulled you to me, turned your back to me, and that pretty hand gripped my cock and placed the head there at the entrance of your tight little ass.”
She jerked, the memory of that pleasure, the lashing, burning sensations, destroying her.
“As I pushed inside you, you were crying for me, Alyssa,” he reminded her. “Moving against me, taking every increment with such heat I thought I’d die. Backing to me until my dick was buried to the hilt inside you, and begging Sebastian to fuck you again. And he did.” His jaw flexed with the strength of the tension rising higher inside him. “While you leaned back to me, my cock stretching you until you were crying out your pleasure, until you screamed with each thrust as Sebastian sank into your sweet pussy again.”
Her eyes closed, a cry spilling from her lips at the sudden heat surrounding her nipple. Her knees were pushed back, held in place with his arms, and before she could draw in a shocked breath he’d torn her panties from her hips and two fingers pushed demandingly, dominantly, inside the clenched depths of her sex.
Her orgasm was immediate. Shocking.
It exploded through her senses with a detonation that seared her senses as his lips slammed over hers.
It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It wasn’t an easy kiss. It was a prelude to the thick, heavy weight of the flared crest of his cock pushing inside her a moment later.
“Alyssa … Ah God. Ah, baby…”
Tight heat, rippling, clenching, flexed around his cock like a silken vise as it pulled the hard flesh inside; her pussy milked and caressed the engorged head of his dick, then inch by inch the throbbing, sensitized stalk.
Holding back his release would kill him. It would destroy him.
No condom. Sebastian had already spilled his release inside her and Shane was desperate to do the same. She’d known he would be here. She’d known he was coming for her. She’d been standing there waiting for him and he’d known it. Her expression soft, filled with remembered pleasure and aching need.
Taking her easy wasn’t an option. As hungry for her as he was, eight years of pent-up, desperate greed was like a crazed instinct now. Get inside her, ride her with the hard, burning thrusts he knew she craved, then spill himself inside the giving depths of her body.
He couldn’t push back the animalistic urge. Had she mentioned it, had she, for even a second, questioned the lack of protection, then he would have donned the condom he’d brought. He’d meant to protect her. But he knew what they’d had in Spain was all the sweeter for feeling her inner flesh rippling around his naked cock, clenching it and tugging his release from him with those spasming little ripples in her pussy.
Pushing in hard, deep, he stilled, some broken edge of consideration digging into him with razor sharpness.
“Tell me now,” he groaned, one hand gripping the back of her head to tilt it back, watching as her eyes drifted open. “Tell me to protect you now.” The words strangled him as he forced them from his lips. “Tell me to protect you, Alyssa, or I swear to God I’m going to come inside you so hard it will burn both of us alive.”
Her nails rasped along his belly before her slender fingers gripped his naked hips, her knees clenching at them while the internal muscles of her pussy rippled over his cock with flexing strokes. He couldn’t imagine losing the feel of her naked flesh clamped on him, but he would, if that was what she wanted.
Dark stormy gray eyes slitted open, a flush rushing from her breasts to her hairline.
“Then make us burn,” she seemed to dare him. “Burn us alive, Shane.”
Levering back, spreading her thighs, and holding them in the wide grip of his fingers, Shane watched as he withdrew from her body, the heavy layer of her juices clinging to the broad shaft stretching her, stroking her.
“Look, baby,” he crooned, flicking a glance at her to be certain she was indeed watching as all but the engorged crest pulled free of her. “Am I hurting you, Alyssa? Be sure.”
He had never understood how he and Sebastian hadn’t hurt her. There had been times in Spain that their hungry lusts had ridden her for hours at a time, exhausting her, leaving her wilted against their bodies as they fought to still the hunger for her.
It had never stilled. It never would still.
“I love watching your pretty pussy take me,” he groaned. “To see your clit, so swollen and red, throbbing, begging for that one touch that’ll set it off.” He looked up at her again. “Stroke your pretty clit, Alyssa. Let me watch. Let me feel you come for me there. Feel your pussy clamp down on me—” A harsh, brutally guttural groan was torn from him as her fingers moved to the little bud.
Graceful, sensual, she stroked the flushed little knot of nerves, her breath catching as her inner muscles tightened further on the stiff erection he pushed inside her again.
Hard. Her juices rushed to meet the impalement as her hips jerked, a cry tearing from her lips.
“Fuck me, Shane.” She was barely coherent, her fingers moving on her clit as he began thrusting heavily inside her. “Give me, before I die for it—”
Give me. Those two words. Give me …
He gave her. He gave her every hard inch, every thick, furious thrust, as he stared down at her, ached for everything he and Sebastian had lost with her. And when she twisted beneath him, jerking, shuddering, and flying into ecstasy with her second orgasm, Shane let himself give everything to her.
He gave her each fierce ejaculation. Each hard pulse of ecstasy ripping through his senses with such pleasure he felt destroyed by it as the spiraling, stormy release overtook both of them.
*
Both Sebastian and Shane confused her more than she could say. Curled in the corner of the large sofa that sat to the side in her office, she watched as Shane stared into the night, his back to her, his shoulders tight with tension.
He hadn’t said much since insisting on gently drying the spill of both their releases from between her thighs. He and Sebastian had both always been diligent about taking care of her in such a way. Even in Spain, when exhaustion had weighed upon all of them, one or sometimes both of the cousins had gotten from the bed and ensured she was comfortable after the excesses they participated in.
“You can’t stay here all night, Shane,” she warned him when he didn’t appear to be leaving. “I need to get some sleep soon. I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow.”
That long day included a meeting in town. Ian Sinclair, the owner of the Sinclair Men’s Club she’d once actually had membership in, had called and requested she meet with him. He’d hesitated to give her the reason for the requested meeting, which only made her more curious. She’d actually forgotten about it until that moment, though. Until she’d needed to find a reason for Shane to leave, to give her the last few hours before daylight to figure this out.
Still dressed in the torn blouse—the bra he’d all but ripped from her had been discarded, as were the panties he’d left in shreds—she wanted to undress and crawl into bed, his scent still lingering on her, his touch still imprinted on her flesh.
“I’m not leaving, Alyssa.” He turned to her and she saw the tight, grim set of his lips, the muscle that flicked at his jaw.
Leaning against the open door frame, he simply watched her, seemingly relaxed.
There was nothing relaxed about him, though. Alyssa could sense the tension and determined arrogance he wore like an invisible cloak.
“What do you mean, you’re not leaving?” There had to be a way to make him see that simply was not going to work. Not now. Not ever—
Her fingers clenched on the edges of her blouse at the “past” part of that thought. Something so dark, so filled with denial, swirled inside her, pulling free long-forgotten dreams of just that. Of at least one
of the cousins, either of them, holding her in the dark, sheltering her from the nightmares.
“Exactly what I said.” Straightening, he pulled the door closed, secured it, then tilted his head lazily to the side as his gaze continued to hold hers. “Let’s go to bed, siren.”
She almost rose eagerly to her feet.
The muscles in her legs were actually tightening to do just that.
“No. Absolutely not.” She did rise, but not to lead him to her suite next door. “That is unacceptable.”
The bleak, tight-lipped smile he gave her assured her he believed otherwise.
“Evidently you mistake me for Sebastian.” The lazy drawl in his voice was a warning, and Alyssa knew it. He’d made up his mind, and as far as he was concerned, he wasn’t budging.
“I’ve grown rather used to sleeping alone,” she tried to argue. She had always tried to sway him.
“You still think you can convince me to do something I know neither of us want.” He shook his head, buttoning his shirt as he moved slowly to her. “Since your bed’s so close, darlin’, and attached right to your office, it will be no problem at all to hide the fact that you slept with me.”
The shirt hung loose across his chest, the broad expanse of bronzed flesh pulling her gaze to the hair-roughened breadth.
She wanted so desperately to let him draw her into the suite, to her bed, beneath the blankets, against the heated power of his body where she wouldn’t feel the cold again.
“I can’t do this—”
“Of course you can.” Bending, he had her in his arms before she could protest, cradling her against that heated chest and moving to the connecting door.
“Shane, I won’t let you—”
“Sebastian’s on his way,” he informed her as he moved into her suite, his voice tight, his complete denial of her objections obvious. “Stop fighting, Alyssa; this is a battle you know you’re not going to win.”
Staring at the hard, grim profile, she acknowledged that the fight wouldn’t make a difference. It would take more than she was willing to give it. It would take a force of nature, several law enforcement battalions no doubt, and the National Guard.
“Bossy,” she muttered.
For a second, the briefest second, a memory teased her mind. Summer bitching at her, Shane commanding, and her own muttered “bossy.”
Summer was in so much trouble. That southern charm and wide-eyed innocent look would not get her out of trouble this time. She hadn’t told Alyssa that Shane and Sebastian had been there after Margot’s death. Just as she hadn’t told her how Alyssa had reaquired the necklace. Alyssa had actually thought Summer had stolen it somehow. The wretch.
“Whatever it takes.” Stepping into the bedroom, he moved through darkness to the bed and laid Alyssa gently on the blankets the maid had turned down earlier.
The maid turned them down every night, pulled them up every day. Alyssa never slept in the bed, despite the months she’d spent searching for it.
Light spilled into the room from the small table lamp and she felt Shane pause. Tension mounted inside her as he stared around the room.
“Did Stanhope ever sleep in this room with you?” His voice was harsh, rasping in his throat.
Alyssa shook her head.
Harvey had never slept in any bed with her. He’d never been a husband in any way but name. She’d insisted on it.
She knew what Shane saw, though. A near replica of the bedroom in Spain. The tile floors and scattered rugs. The iron bed and antique tables next to it. The windows behind the headboard.
It was her only concession to moving back to the Hampstead mansion after her mother’s death. The renovations to the bedroom had to be completed quickly. Alyssa didn’t sleep there, though. She slept on the couch in the other room and watched the night outside the windows.
“Alyssa,” the whispered sound of her name had her throat tightening.
“Leave,” she demanded, though her voice lacked any true strength this time.
“Alyssa.” His fingers clenched in her hair, pulling her head back.
She couldn’t meet his gaze, but that wasn’t what he wanted.
He wanted her kiss.
With hungry demands and fierce, arrogant eroticism his lips moved over hers, his tongue stroking forcefully between them to meet hers. It was nothing like any other kiss he or Sebastian had given her. It was nothing like any kiss she’d ever had in her life.
Hot, filled with dominance and sexual intent, it was erotic, spiked with lust and with something more. A something she didn’t want to feel, didn’t want to know.
When he pulled back, his lips slid to her ear and brushed against it softly. “Let it be another dream, siren,” he whispered, the bleak hunger in his voice tightening her chest. “When you wake, we’ll be gone and you can tell yourself it never really happened.”
16
Alyssa would have considered lunch at her favorite restaurant a treat at any other time, she thought as the waiter showed her to the private veranda where Ian Sinclair, owner of the Sinclair Men’s Club, his private investigator, Chase Falladay, and one of the higher-ranking members, Khalid Mustafa, were awaiting for her along with Ian’s wife, Courtney, and Khalid’s wife, Marty, a former FBI agent.
Allowing Ian to help her with her chair, Alyssa looked at each of them as Khalid poured her a glass of wine and placed it in front of her.
“Well then,” she said softly, letting her fingers touch the flared base of the glass. “I wasn’t really hungry this afternoon, so should we go ahead and get down to the reason for this little meeting?”
Ian grimaced at the question as she noticed Courtney’s arm moving as though to place a comforting hand on her husband’s leg.
“I knew it wasn’t a social call when you asked for the meeting, Ian.” Alyssa sat back and watched him closely. “So why not just get to the point so I can finish my errands for the day. Does this have something to do with Saturday night?” Her gaze flicked to Marty and Courtney.
“Not yet,” Khalid assured her, and though his dark eyes were friendly and warm, there was a tightness at his lips that assured Alyssa she didn’t want to hear whatever it was.
“Discussions concerning Saturday night are off the table,” she stated firmly, then turned back to Ian. “Is that why you’re here as well?”
“Unfortunately, no,” he sighed. “I wish my reason for being here were that simple, Alyssa. It isn’t.”
She picked up the wine and sipped. On second thought, she went ahead and took a healthy drink. She had a feeling she was going to need it.
“Shall I begin, Ian?” Chase asked then, though his tone of voice wasn’t one of a man seeking permission. “Alyssa, as you’re aware, the rules concerning the club aren’t just those that they agree to for the protection of the club. There’s also those the club itself makes for each member for their protection as well.”
Alyssa nodded warily. She could feel the trepidation rising inside her now, some warning that this meeting wasn’t going to be just about Sebastian and Shane. If it was about them at all.
“Yesterday, a little after daylight, a program was isolated in several computers used by members in the social rooms. The program was created to infiltrate the club’s mainframe and isolate all files and information concerning several club members. You were one of those members, as well as a close associate of the other two.”
She could feel herself paling.
“As I said, the program’s been isolated,” he said. “It in no way achieved its programmed parameters. But considering the two members that were also part of those parameters, and in light of other concerns that have been raised, we wanted to alert you to the problem and get as much information as possible. Identifying the member who placed that program is of the utmost importance.”
Of course it was. Some of the members who had been a part of Sinclair’s Men’s Club since before Ian Sinclair was given guardianship of it were more than just of the utmost importance. Hell
, even the man her father had stated would be his vice presidential pick if he was to run for the presidency was a member.
“I think I need a real drink,” she said, shock resounding through her.
As she covered her face with her hands for a long moment she was only barely aware of Courtney rising from the table. When she lowered them again and inhaled with a slow, even breath, she realized, as much as she wanted it to be, the past wasn’t over.
“Alyssa, the club files are completely safe,” Ian gave his assurance as well. “This isn’t the first time a member has attempted to betray his agreement with the club, and it won’t be the last. We have some of the most advanced minds in computer protection working on this. There is no danger to your secrets, nor any other members’. We make certain of it.”
“I know that.” She nodded, swallowing tightly. She had no doubt the files were safe, if any electronic files even existed. She doubted there were any. “Are you asking if I know who’s trying to steal information about me and your other two members?” She lifted a brow with bitter mockery. “Sorry, perhaps you should ask Shane Connor and Sebastian De Loren that question. They may be able to help you far better than I.”
“You have no doubt Shane and Sebastian are the other two members,” Ian said gently. “Why is that?”
“Really, Ian?” She felt like screaming, raging. When the hell was it going to end? “Shane and Sebastian are the only two members I’ve had a relationship with. If the members are associated with me, they’re the only options.”
As she spoke Courtney set a drink in front of her before sitting beside Ian once again.
“Thank you.” Nodding to the other woman, she picked up the drink and took a healthy swallow.
It nearly stole her breath.
It had been years since she’d allowed herself the pleasure of the smooth, potent whisky Courtney had brought her. Not since her last night at the club actually. When she had helped Courtney break Ian’s famous control and relent to choosing a third to share his lover with. There in the main bar of the club she’d done no more than caress Courtney through her clothes when Ian entered the room. It had been enough to show him his lover was far more adventurous than he’d wanted to consider, though.