“Tell me that you want me to go home, Cooper. Say it and mean it, and I’ll go.”
It would kill him, but he would. He’d walk away. If that was really what she wanted. Really what she needed.
But it wasn’t, and now they both knew it.
She licked her lips, glanced away, and he watched as the lie she’d prepared to protect him died in her mouth.
“No matter what this is, we’re in it together,” he said.
She swallowed hard but nodded. “Together.”
“Now,” he said, stalking close but stopping just short of touching her. He looped a finger in the gap between the top two buttons of her shirt. “Tell me no.” He pulled, and the first button gave way with little more than a whisper of protest. “Tell me to stop.” The second button let go, exposing the top of bra-covered breasts he’d seen, but not yet had the chance to appreciate. “Tell me you don’t want this.” He stared into her eyes. “Tell me you don’t want my hands on your skin, my tongue in your mouth, or my cock in your body.” The next two buttons slid free and he let his fingers trace across soft skin that pebbled in welcome. “Tell me now, Cooper, and I swear I’ll go straight back to bed and see you at dawn.”
She swallowed hard, but her words were still raspy and dry when she said, “I want it.”
“Which part?” he asked, trailing a finger along the curving cup of her bra.
“All of it.”
He brushed a thumb over a cotton-covered nipple and stole a shiver.
“I’ve always wanted all of it.” She reached for the waistband of his sweats, cupped the long, firm length of him.
He let her tease him once, her grip loose and her stroke slow—the woman turned comfortable sweats into a prison and a torment she could wield against him. But when he hissed out a breath, and smug triumph curled her mouth, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away.
“It’s been a long time coming.” A slow-burning desire stoked over long, unfulfilled months that had stretched to years. A promise built, piece by piece, over late-night text messages and stolen moments. “Someone always had a reason we couldn’t meet.”
“We were never in the same place—”
“That’s what leave is for. We could have found the time, could have made it work.”
She pulled at her wrist, but he jerked her in close.
“You enjoyed teasing me,” he whispered against her mouth. “Didn’t you, Coop?”
“Yes,” she hissed as he tangled his fingers in her hair, scratching at the base of her skull.
“I warned you about that, didn’t I?” He pulled the hair he’d caught in his fist, jerking her head back so he could stare into her eyes. “Promised I’d make you pay for it.”
Her stare was defiant, her mouth full and fierce and challenging. “You promised me a lot of things. So far, it’s all been talk.”
With the hand he had wrapped in her hair, he pulled her close, slid his other hand down the gentle curve of her spine, splayed his fingers wide as he continued over the curve of her ass. He wanted to linger and explore and promised himself he would—eventually—but kept going until his fingers slid beneath her ass and between her thighs. He stroked back and forth, pressing his middle finger firmly against the denim seam, just enough to tease, to torment, to bring her to her toes and pull a gasp from her mouth.
When she shifted her hips, rocking against his hand, he held her still and forced her to look at him.
“Tell me how bad you want it, Coop.” He pressed a kiss to her mouth, tasted her desperation on his tongue. She was so goddamned intoxicating he pulled away. “Tell me what I can do to you.”
“Anything. Everything.”
“Bold promises,” he said, letting her go and pushing her back a step. “Let’s see if you can live up to them.” Her eyes flashed, and her fists curled as she stood there, waiting for him to throw the gauntlet. “Take off your shirt.”
He backed up until his hands hit the back of the sofa, then braced himself against it, partly so he could enjoy watching as she met each and every one of his demands, and partly to keep himself from taking everything he wanted, everything she was offering, in a single, frenzied rush that he’d enjoy, but knew he’d never quite remember.
“Now,” he ordered, when she didn’t move.
Her fingers trembled as she undid the buttons, but she didn’t protest and didn’t look away. When the fabric pooled at her feet, he said, “Step forward.”
She did as he asked, stepping into the center of the spill of light from the kitchenette. If it bothered her that she was fully exposed, while he lounged in the shadows, she didn’t show it.
But then, she didn’t have any reason to worry. Cooper Reed was one long, lean stretch of muscle. Life on the run had whittled back everything but what was most essential. Small breasts. A flat stomach. A shadowed valley at her hip that disappeared into her pants.
A warrior’s body in a survivor’s skin, and though he wanted to see what she looked like safe and content and just a little bit soft, this, this was compelling in its own way.
“Now the bra,” he said, his voice rough and wanting and straining against a control he couldn’t hope to keep hold of.
She undid the clasp and slid the plain cotton material from her shoulders. A flush spread across her chest and her nipples hardened without a touch. God, he wanted to touch. To suck. To pinch.
She caught him staring and her smile spread like a slow spill of ink, staining her face with amusement at the power she held just standing there. And because she was the sort of woman who loved nothing more than a challenge—and meeting it with one of her own—she brushed her thumb over the tight tip of her breast, closed her eyes, and sucked her bottom lip between her teeth on a hmmm.
He’d make her pay for that. Soon, he promised himself, his fingers itching with the need.
“Are you wet, Cooper?”
She opened her eyes. “Come find out.” She slid the button on her jeans free, and drew down the zipper, exposing the top V of her matching underwear. When she reached for the waistband, he stopped her.
“That’s enough.”
She froze and waited, anticipation stealing the breath from her lungs in ragged gasps until she visibly forced herself to calm, to settle. The second she did, he said, “Touch yourself, Cooper. Touch yourself and tell me how wet you are. Tell me how much your body wants me.” When she slid her fingers beneath her underwear on a sigh, he said, “Tell me how bad you wish you had my cock instead of just my commands.”
Her hand moved, just out of sight, and somehow the action was all the dirtier for it.
She rolled her hips, bit her lip, and defied him. “No.”
“No?” he asked, straightening from the sofa, his control fraying strand by strand.
“Always knew you were all talk,” she said, her hand moving faster. “It gets the job done.” Her shoulders dropped, and a tiny, desperate sound caught at the back of her throat. “But I can take it from here.” She smiled, then let that deep blue stare travel down his body and below his waist in a caress he felt to his bones. “Don’t think I’m missing out on much anyway.”
Will was moving before he thought about it. Had his hands on her at the same second it occurred to him that she’d baited him. Toyed with him. And won.
It didn’t matter. He caught her wrist and pulled her hand from her pants. In one swift move he spun her, pulling that wrist up behind her back and pinning her chest against the door. She turned her head, stared over her shoulder, and reached back for him with her free hand.
He caught her before she could grab his cock, slapped her palm against the door, then leaned down and sucked the wet, greedy fingers he held trapped between her shoulder blades into his mouth.
If there was a woman alive who could steal his orgasm without a single touch, it was the one writhing beneath him. The sound she made when he sucked—half squeal, half moan—was all sex and pleasure and need. It wrapped around his cock and stroked him to the very edg
e of sanity.
Fucking hell, the things this woman did to him without even trying.
He loosened his grip and pulled her arm down, then pressed her palm flat against the door. “God, I need to be inside you. Tell me I can come inside you, Coop. Tell me it’s safe.”
She turned her head just enough to smile at him. “Tell me how hard you are,” she mocked him. “Tell me how much you wish you had the warm heat of my body wrapped around your cock. Tell me how bad you want it, Will, and maybe I’ll give it to you.”
He rubbed himself against her ass and laid his mouth to the curve of her shoulder. Sucking up a mark, he admitted, “Bad enough to have spent months dreaming what it’d feel like, wondering what you’d taste like. Let me fuck you, Cooper. Right here. Right now. Then let me take you to bed so I can do it again. Taste you again. Have you again.” And again and again and again until she’d crave him for the rest of her damn life.
“Then do it.”
Possessed, he tore his mouth from her neck and his hands from hers. He shoved his sweats low, then yanked her pants and underwear halfway down her thighs. When she went to wiggle out of them, he stopped her. “No. I want you like this. Desperate and needy and so fucking ready that you can’t even get your clothes off.”
“God, yes,” she moaned, then bit back a gasp when he slid his cock back and forth across her folds.
When she reached for her clit, he caught her hand and brought it back to the door. “No,” he bit out. “At my touch, on my cock . . . or not at all.” Covering her body with his, he nudged her opening, grabbed her biceps for leverage, and froze when she jerked and hissed—pain, not pleasure, stealing her breath.
He tore his hands from her and wrenched himself away, cold replacing heat. Regret replacing desire.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his hands trembling, his eyes fixed on the bruises he’d left on her arms not two days ago. “I—I got a little carried away.”
She didn’t turn, didn’t say anything, just slid her palm across the door and dropped her forehead into the crook of her arm. She took a deep breath, and Will forced himself to look at what he’d done, how he’d treated her.
Naked from the waist up, her hair a riot over her shoulders, her jeans around her knees.
Her right hand was still pressed against the door beside her head, her wrist red from where he’d manhandled her.
“Tell me,” she said, mumbling into her arm. “Which part of this are you sorry about?” She shifted to glance at him over her shoulder. “The part where you ripped off my clothes? Oh wait. I did that. How about the part where you shoved my fingers between my legs? Oh no, that was me, too—”
“Cooper,” he warned, trying stay in front of her temper and focus on the issue.
“How about the part where you threatened to fuck me against the door—oh, no, that can’t be it because I asked you to do that, too.” She turned, propping her back against the door, but didn’t bother to pull her jeans up her legs.
Fuck, she looked wanton and ready to spit fire at his feet.
“So what, exactly, are you so damn sorry about?”
“I shouldn’t have been so rough,” he whispered. “You’re hurt, and I—”
“So are you!” she snapped at him.
He shook his head. “It’s not the same. I hurt you. Bruised you. If I’m not careful, I’ll do it again—”
“This guilt-ridden hero bullshit stops right now.” She jerked her pants up and stormed toward him.
He didn’t move, couldn’t, as she had him pinned up against the couch.
Topless and furious, she looked like some sort of gorgeous and unstoppable Greek goddess or Amazonian warrior.
“You’re not bringing that shit into bed with us, Will—”
“But I—”
“No. You were hurt and cornered and scared and I attacked you. I didn’t plan it, and I didn’t mean it, and I hate that you felt like you had defend yourself against me. That you had to get away from me. That for even one single second I was as bad as them.” Her face softened, and she put a palm to his cheek. “I will always hate that I pushed you. That I trapped you. But this?” She brought his hand to her chest, let his fingers cup the warm weight of her breast and touch the steady beat of her heart. “It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with that.”
“I left marks,” he whispered, brushing a thumb across the ring of bruises that circled her biceps, and wondered how he’d ever forgotten about them in the first place.
“And if I had it my way, you’d be halfway through littering my body with more.”
That statement wrapped itself around his dick and pulled twice. God, the things that came out of that mouth.
“When I wake up tomorrow, I want to feel it.” She brushed her thumb along his collarbone. “I want your fingerprints on my hips. Your marks on my neck.” She stared up at him. “And every single time I rub my thighs together I want to feel the whisper of your beard between my legs. I don’t need you to be gentle or careful with me, Will.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“And I’m not asking you to,” she said, clenching a fist in his shirt. “And I am definitely not asking you for anything you don’t want to give, okay?” She looped an arm around his neck and brushed his mouth with a kiss. “If you don’t want to do this, we won’t. If you just want to take this to bed, we can. But if you want to shove me against that door, if you want to fuck me like it’s the only chance you’ll ever get, if you want to grab my hips or hold my wrists, then I am telling you I want that, too.”
“This isn’t smart, Cooper.”
“Smart?” she asked, pulling far enough away to stare into his face. “Who the fuck gives two shits about smart? I’m not looking to master linear equations or launch a rocket—”
He couldn’t help the chuckle that rose in his chest.
“Shut up, you know what I mean! Fucking smart,” she grumbled. “No one wants smart sex, Will.”
“I can think of a guy who might take that as a personal challenge,” he said, brushing her hair away from her face with his thumb.
“Is he in this room?”
“No.”
“Then smart sex is off the table. Wild, rough, filthy, and entirely ill-advised sex remains on offer—if you want still want it,” she said, then, more softly, followed it with, “still want me.”
He stroked his fingers through her hair, brought her mouth to his for a kiss. “I don’t think there’s ever gonna be a time I don’t want you, Coop. You see every part of me—sometimes I think you see me better than anyone ever has, better than I ever will.” He pulled her close, held her tight. “You found me, Coop. And every time I get a little lost, you find me again. Don’t stop, okay?”
“I won’t,” she promised, her words soft and sweet against his neck.
He let her go and pushed her back and missed her the second she was out of reach.
“So,” she said, shifting from foot to foot, self-conscious nerves getting the best of her for the first time all night. “Bed?”
“Yes,” he said, then watched as her face fell and she mustered a smile and extended her hand.
He took it, laced their fingers together, then jerked her toward him. He stepped aside and set the hand he held on the couch. Stepping behind her, he put her other hand where he wanted it, then settled his palms on the waist of her jeans.
“You’ll tell me if you don’t like something,” he whispered roughly against the back of her neck. “Tell me to stop if I go too far?”
“Always,” she breathed.
He pushed her pants down her thighs and slipped a hand between her legs to find her still wet, still ready, still wanting. It was enough to take him right back to the edge, as if he’d never stepped back at all.
“Your hands don’t move,” he reminded her, stroking his index finger against her clit.
“Then don’t make me.” She shifted restlessly against his hand and whined deep in her throat when he pulled away.
&nbs
p; “You’ve got a gorgeous ass, Cooper Reed.” He grabbed her hips and jerked her toward him. “I think I need to see more of it.” He pressed a palm between her shoulders and pushed. “Bend over, show me how much you want it. How much you crave it.”
She did him one better, gripped the cushions of the sofa, spread her legs, and arched her back, presenting her ass for his appreciation.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful.”
“Compliments don’t count when your dick’s in your hand, Bennett. But feel free to tell me again tomorrow.”
Because he couldn’t think of a better way to shut her up, he positioned his cock and slid home in one smooth, wicked thrust that took her to her toes.
“Ugh,” she grunted.
He settled a hand against her shoulder, brought her feet back to the ground, and met her with another vicious plunge.
“Oh God.”
He grasped her hips and set a brutal pace, all too aware of the fact that he wouldn’t, couldn’t last. Not like this. Not with her writhing and pleading and cursing beneath him.
And definitely not when she matched every thrust and every demand with one of her own.
He may have had Cooper Reed half naked and bent over the sofa, every inch of her body at the mercy of his, but there was no mistake—she’d conquered him. Mastered him. Ruined him for anything or anyone else.
Because good God who could possibly measure up to this?
“Will, please. Please, please, please, I need . . .”
He pulled her hand away from the cushion and, though the angle was awkward, brought her fingers to his mouth, sucking them deep. When they were wet, and he was ready—so, so fucking ready it hurt—he guided her fingers down, settled them against her clit, and controlled every flick, every nudge, every thrust her hand made until she came spectacularly undone, her orgasm rolling through her and over his cock in pulsing powerful waves.
She went limp and loose and willing and tried to pull her hand away.
No chance. No mercy. No relenting.
He moved her fingers faster, brought her right back to the edge, her cries sharper, her agony sweeter, as he stole a second, more violent orgasm with the tips of her own fingers.
Fearless (Somerton Security Book 3) Page 18