Told you this was dangerous, her conscience whispered. You’ll never be satisfied with only this.
And for the first time since she’d taken the leap, she didn’t ignore her inner voice. It was right. She wasn’t going to be satisfied with only this. This one night. But she’d made her bed, and now she was forced to lie in it.
“I really thought I had you that time,” he said, nuzzling her neck and absently caressing her breast. His callused fingers created a wonderful friction every time they feathered over the aching point. “So where next?” he asked, his breath hot against her skin. “We’ve already seen to your neck and your belly and your breasts…”
He pinched her nipple for emphasis. The pleasure was so sharp, so keen, her heels dug into the cotton lining of the sleeping bag.
“Ssss,” she hissed. Too fast. Too fast. Draw it out. Savor it. But she couldn’t stop the force of the sensations thundering through her. They were too big. Too intense. Too insistent. “I guess there’s only one place left then.”
“Your elbows?” he whispered teasingly.
“Bran,” she said, drawing out his name just the way he liked.
He opened his mouth over her pulse point and sucked. “Say it again.”
“Bran,” she whispered over and over as he made his way down her body. Kissing her collarbone, her breasts, her belly, her hip bones. His mouth was hot and sweet; his lips were firm and determined. Her blood bubbled close to the surface of her skin everywhere they touched.
And then her lungs seized up. Because he was there. Hovering right above her throbbing sex. She buried her fingers in his hair when he grabbed her ankles and bent her legs until her feet were where he wanted them, on either side of her ass. The position opened her to him completely. And she shivered when the warm air of the room rushed over her most private parts.
“God, I’ve been dreaming of doing this for three months,” he said.
You aren’t the only one.
And then he put his mouth on her. Even in the stygian darkness his aim proved true. His lips closed around the bundle of nerves at the top of her sex and gently tested its boundaries. A sweet suck here. A soft probe there. Every touch was erotic, felt not only at the point of contact but higher, traveling up her channel, making her sex ache.
“Sweet Jesus,” she groaned, pleasure slamming into her like a wrecking ball. Over and over. Determined to tear her down before his mastery built her back up.
Her body arched, seeking more, ever more. But he stopped her writhing by wrapping one big hand around her thigh and holding her down. He used his other hand to gently spread her tender folds and slip first one, and then a second finger deep inside her.
“Mmm,” he hummed at the same time he curled his fingers upward, touching some magical spot that, until tonight, she hadn’t even been aware she had.
And talk about a go button. If there was such a thing on a woman’s body, that was it.
He pressed her clitoris with his tongue then, creating counterpoints of pressure, one from the inside, one from the outside, and her orgasm immediately threatened to overtake her.
“Bran!” Her voice hitched on his name.
He didn’t answer her, simply used his fingers to rub that wonderful spot, used his tongue to lave the aching button and…boom, boom, BOOM! Her thighs snapped around his head as blow after blow of undulating rapture rolled over her. Again and again she was hammered. Until lights flashed behind her squeezed-tight lids. Until her whole body contracted around itself, around him, around the red-hot pleasure he pressed on her…
Chapter 21
10:26 p.m.…
Bran delighted in Maddy’s release. Not that he hadn’t always taken joy in a woman’s pleasure, but there was something completely sublime about having Maddy in his arms. Maybe it was because she was so damned responsive. So unashamed and eager.
The dear, sweet woman approached physical pleasure with the same joie de vivre that she approached life. Just…all in. No holds barred. Balls to the friggin’ wall. And it was beautiful.
So beautiful, in fact, that he wished with his whole heart that it wasn’t so dark in the lighthouse. Because he wanted to see her in all her carnal glory. Wanted to see the flush of completion on her dewy skin. Wanted to see how pink and swollen she was between her legs. Wanted to see the color of the little landing strip of pubic hair that crowned the top of her sex.
Platinum like her hair? Dark brown like her eyelashes and eyebrows? Something in between?
There were still a million things he wanted to see, wanted to do, wanted to experience. There’s just not enough time. There’ll never be enough time!
He pushed the thought away as soon as he had it. He couldn’t dwell on what he didn’t have. Not now. Dwelling would come later.
“That was…wow,” Maddy said. “You’re quite good at that.”
The sound of her throaty laugh went all through him. His beautiful, responsive, naughty Maddy coming down from the heights of ecstasy as only she could, with grace and humor and praise.
Pressing one last kiss on her, he gently removed his hand and pushed up to his knees between her thighs. Even though he couldn’t see it, he could feel the heavy bounce of his cock and knew it was standing nearly vertical.
Maddy must’ve sensed it too, because he heard her breath catch. “How bad do you want me?” she asked impishly.
“So bad,” he said, finding her hand and guiding it to his shaft. She made an appreciative sound when she curled her fingers around him. “I came so hard in your soft, eager hands earlier. But I’m so swollen and achy I don’t feel like I’ve come in a year. This is what you do to me. You feel that?”
He moved her hand to the base of his shaft, using his fingers to show her where to touch him so she’d feel the heavy pulse that fed his cock and had it standing straight.
“Mmm,” she murmured. “So big and hard, yet satiny soft.” She angled him toward her entrance, toward the hot, quivering flesh he’d just had in his mouth and hands. “Please, Bran,” she pleaded. “Feelin’ you like this has me achin’ again. I want you to fill me up. Come inside me. Come inside me now.”
Her husky voice and dirty words made his balls clench. He didn’t want to go off like a geyser the minute he entered her. He wanted this to last. He couldn’t have forever, but he hoped to have more than a few measly seconds.
Once he had himself under some semblance of control, once the ache wasn’t so acute, he bent forward and allowed her to guide him to her entrance. He shuddered when the hot, swollen crown of his dick slipped through her tender folds. His bare toes curled. His hips flexed forward ever so slightly until the tip of him was snugged inside her.
“Holy shit,” he gritted. “I’ve never felt anything so good in my life. You’re so warm and wet and soft and—”
He stilled, letting his head fall back. Hell! He suddenly realized why nothing had ever felt so good. Well, besides the fact that it was Maddy beneath him. Maddy hooking her heels behind his ass in an effort to drag his hips forward. Maddy, Maddy, sexy, completely unprotected Maddy!
“Bran?” Her voice was a syrupy sweet temptation in the darkness. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“N-no…” He had to stop and clear his throat. At some point his vocal cords had shredded. “No condom,” he finally managed.
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to scream or cry. Maybe both. What he was sure of was that he couldn’t force himself to pull back, to break the delicate connection of their bodies. It was too good. Too sweet. Too perfect.
He suddenly knew what all the fuss was about when it came to love and sex and no barriers. The combination of the three transcended the mere physical and slipped into what he could only describe as spiritual. And although he considered himself a lapsed Catholic at best, he would swear that right then and there he was connected to Maddy in a deeply fundamental way that encompassed
his entire being. Heart, body, and soul. If he’d ever doubted it before, he didn’t doubt it now. There must be a God. Because what other than a divine being could have created two things so perfectly matched for each other?
“So are you goin’ to pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?” Maddy’s voice reached out to him, jerking him from his thoughts.
“What?” He groaned when she scooted back and broke their delicate connection. He mourned the loss of it like he’d mourn the loss of a piece of himself.
“Play the game, Bran,” she teased. “So you can tell me which body part you want kissed next. With no condom…” She let the sentence dangle. Instead of finishing it, she repeated the line, “You goin’ to pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?”
“Too easy,” he told her, his hips swinging forward when she used her nails to graze the supersensitive skin of his shaft. “The Outlaw Josie Wales.”
“Right,” she said and he could hear the sateen side of the sleeping bag whisper against the rough wood floorboards as she changed positions.
Then her hot breath feathered over his swollen crown and he nearly died on the spot. He thought maybe he did die, the little death as the French called it, when her silky tongue darted out to taste him.
“Maddy, s-stop,” he gritted, catching her sweet face between his hands and forcing her maddening mouth away from him.
“Why?” Her voice was so low he had to strain to hear it above the gentle whir of the lighthouse motor spinning overhead.
“I wanna be inside you the next time I come,” he said. He’d gotten a look at heaven, at what it could be like to join himself to the woman he loved, and now nothing else would do.
“But we don’t have a con—”
“Get dressed,” he told her, pushing to his feet. “We’re switching places with Mason and Alex. There are condoms on the sailboat. And bonus: There’s light on the sailboat. ’Cause, Maddy, when I make you come with my cock, I wanna see you.”
In typical Maddy form, she made his heart swell and a smile pull at his lips when she said, “Well, when you put it that way…”
* * *
11:21 p.m.…
“We have a problem.”
Tony squeezed the satellite phone so hard the casing made an ominous crackling sound. “For fuck’s sake, Rory!” he bellowed, his breath strangling in his lungs. “Again?”
“Hey!” Rory yelled back so loud that Tony had to hold the receiver away from his ear. “You’re the one who screwed the pooch on this deal and didn’t know there would be some sort of security contingent traveling with Miss Powers. I’m just trying to clean up the mess your poor Intel has gotten us into.”
Tony didn’t point out that there was no way he could have known Maddy had hired bodyguards and that four of Rory’s guys had been bested by two no-names. Playing the blame game wasn’t going to do either of them any good. So he blew out a deep breath and asked as calmly as he could, “What’s happened now?”
Little white lights were blinking in his field of vision. Either he was ten seconds away from having a stroke, or that was his future…his fortune slipping away in front of his eyes.
“I had my men in the water ready to climb the outer seawall of the fort when I picked up a radio transmission from the Coast Guard on the open channel. They arrived earlier than expected.”
“Shit.”
“My guys hung around for a bit, waiting to see if they might get an opening. But the Coast Guard didn’t waste any time loading everyone on the island onto the cutter—and that includes the two bodies.”
“Shit, shit, shit!” This time Tony didn’t squelch the urge to hurl his highball glass against the bulkhead. To his fury, it didn’t shatter. Simply made a thumping sound before hitting the deck and rolling under the teakwood coffee table.
Will nothing go my way tonight?
“Cool your jets,” Rory said, and if Tony wasn’t mistaken, there was a note of smugness in his tone. “I’ve got a plan. We can still make this thing work, but it’ll be messy.”
And by messy, Tony knew that Rory meant bloody.
“It’s already messy,” he snarled. “I’m listening.”
“It requires you to pull anchor and bust ass my way.”
“You mean toward the Coast Guard cutter?” Tony asked incredulously.
“Sort of,” Tony said, then proceeded to lay out his scheme.
Tony walked over to the little side bar on shaky legs and poured himself a stiff drink with trembling hands. Straight scotch. No soda. He needed some pure, high-octane liquid courage if he was going to help Rory implement this last-ditch effort.
* * *
11:31 p.m.…
“This might seem like a crazy question,” Alex said. “Especially considering we’re standing here on the deck of a Coast Guard cutter with three teenage girls bunked in the cabin below us and two mysterious dead men zipped into body bags and getting stiff in the hold, but how large is it?”
Maddy turned away from her view of Garden Key and the golden glow of the lighthouse that blinked its warning over the surrounding ocean. After Bran and Mason gave the Coast Guard the lowdown on what had happened, told them of the two men who’d escaped and the unknown someone who’d hired them to do the mysterious job, the captain of the cutter decided the best way to insure the safety of everyone was to load up and head back to Key West.
Maddy wasn’t complaining. Hell no. She wanted nothing more than to see those three sweet girls back home with their families. But there was a part of her that wished the Coast Guard could’ve held back, oh, say, half an hour longer. She and Bran had just run hand in hand onto the beach, ready to switch places with Mason and Alex, when the cutter arrived and dropped anchor.
So where does that leave us now? she wondered. Is our one-night stand over? Would Bran expect her to hold up her end of the bargain and go back to treating him the same as she’d treated him before, like a friend, like a…pen pal?
But we didn’t even get to do the deed! she railed silently, ignoring any inner arguments about what exactly constituted sexual relations. For one thing, she wasn’t Bill Clinton. And for another, she’d assumed when she made the deal with Bran to scratch their itch that he’d understood she meant full-on penetration. Him inside her. Sex. Sex. And more sex until they expired from either starvation or dehydration, or both.
Oh, like you’d be satisfied even then? her conscience insisted. You are so foolin’ yourself, sister.
“Earth to Maddy.” Alex snapped her fingers in front of Maddy’s unblinking eyes. “In case you missed it, that was the conversational baton I just passed you.”
“Sorry.” She shook her head. The Coast Guard cutter had picked up speed, and the wind played with Alex’s curly hair until it was standing out about a mile from her head. “What was the question again?”
“I’m cursed!” Alex threw her hands in the air.
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” Alex waved her off. “I was asking how large it is. The cloud hanging over my head. I’m afraid to look.”
Maddy leaned against the rail, absently noting the shhh-shhh sound of the waves washing against the hull. The wind was cooler out on the ocean than it had been on the island. It helped to blow some of the haze from her head. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why is there a cloud hangin’ over your head?”
“Because I have the worst taste in men,” Alex declared with a jerk of her chin. “Or at least I have no clue how to judge them. It’s like I have an internal compass that points straight at Mr. Wrong. Except I don’t know he’s Mr. Wrong until I go and make a fool of myself in front of him.”
Ah. Man trouble. I can relate. “I’m assumin’ we’re talkin’ about Mason?” When Alex blinked at her, Maddy said, “I see the way you look at him.”
Alex narrowed her eyes. “And how do I look at him?”
Maddy bit the inside
of her cheek to keep from grinning. “Like he’s a big, juicy piece of man meat and you’re sharpenin’ your knife and fork.”
Alex groaned. “That obvious, huh?”
“Only to anyone with eyes,” Maddy assured her.
“Great.”
“So…um…what happened? If you don’t mind me askin’?” She was happy to talk about, to think about, something besides her and Bran and what was left undone between them.
Alex shrugged. “I sort of…er…well, I kind of asked Mason to be my lover.”
Maddy blinked for a couple of seconds, then burst out laughing. “Apparently tonight is ladies’ choice.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” When Alex scrunched up her nose, all her freckles melded together.
“I propositioned Bran too,” she admitted.
“Well, no duh.” Alex shoved her glasses up the bridge of her nose with a terse finger. “I mean, talk about obvious. All those smoldering stares you two have been exchanging since you walked out of the fort are impossible to miss. I’m lucky my hair hasn’t combusted in the crossfire.”
And that gave Maddy hope that Bran wasn’t under the impression their deal was done. Her body hummed with the memory of all they’d shared in the lighthouse and warmed with images of what she hoped to share with him still.
“The only question is,” Alex continued, “did he jump on you before you finished propositioning him, or did he behave like a gentleman and wait a whole two seconds after you’d finished the sentence?”
“I…um…I take by your tone that between the two of us we’re battin’ five hundred?” Maddy asked cautiously.
“Why is everyone using baseball jargon with me tonight?” Alex gestured toward her baggy T-shirt with its history slogan, her two-sizes-too-big shorts, and the KEEN hiking sandal/shoe thingies on her feet. “Do I look like a sports fan?”
No. She looked exactly like what she was. An academic with a penchant for fashion faux pas. What Maddy wouldn’t give to get Alex in Eduardo’s chair. Her stylist was an artist, and Alex was a blank canvas.
Devil and the Deep (The Deep Six) Page 23