by Lora Leigh
Soft, warm, hotter than hell, and fighting him tooth and nail. But she was back in his bed and sleeping next to him.
How many times had he awakened over the years, certain he would find her next to him, knowing that the dream that had haunted his sleep had to be more than a dream. And each time he had awakened alone, until now.
Hell no, he wasn’t letting her out of this one. He would blackmail her a thousand times over if that was what it took to get her into his bed and to keep her there.
He watched her carefully, reaching out with his hand, his fingertips only touching the silky flesh of her thigh.
Damn, she was soft. Like the finest silk. The most expensive satin. Warm and sweet.
She shifted again, a muttered little moan slipping past her lips as he let more of his fingers experience that heated sensation, caressing the rounded flesh gently.
She whispered a sigh, her thighs falling farther apart, giving him a clear view of the sweet flesh covered in cotton.
Was she wet?
His fingers paused on her thigh, only inches from what was paradise.
“Does this deal include molesting me in my sleep?” Her half-drowsy exclamation of contempt was punctuated by a quick jerk at the sheet to draw it back over her thighs.
He grinned. Damn, she was going to be a challenge, maybe more than he anticipated.
“I think I should start a list,” he murmured lazily, drawing the sheet back toward him. “Keeping your little butt off the firing line could get complicated. I’ll need compensation.
She didn’t let go of the covering. Her fingers tightened on it, her chocolate eyes glared back at him.
“Now, Crista,” he chided her gently, though his gaze was anything but gentle as it met hers. “Let go of the sheet. Let me see what I’m lying for today.”
“You wouldn’t turn me in.”
He could see the bravado in her gaze now. She was well-rested and feeling more confident, better able to handle him. Let’s see if she could.
He pushed back desire, need, temptation, and gave her the steely eyed look he had perfected in the Marines. The one that assured those both above and lower in rank that he was someone to be reckoned with.
Her eyes flickered with indecision.
“It’s like this, fancy-face.” He smirked. “When Alex returns, he won’t be able to do a damned thing about what’s happened here, right now. If my superiors connect you to this case, then you’re gone.”
“Over drugs?” She snorted. “I don’t think so, Dawg. Drug dealers are not terrorists.”
“Unless terrorists are dealing in drugs.” He shrugged, omitting the fact that his case didn’t have a damned thing to do with drugs.
She blinked back at him silently again. Damn, that little mind was quick. He could see it working in her expression, the play of emotions that crossed her face finally settling into lines of resentment and anger.
“Stop doing this,” she finally pushed out between clenched teeth.
“Why?” If she had a good reason, he might relent. For this morning.
“Because I don’t want it.” He could feel her tensing as he drew the sheet fully away, his gaze going to the mounds of her breasts beneath her shirt.
Didn’t want it, his ass. He restrained a knowing smile. He knew women, and he knew body language, and if he wasn’t totally wrong, she wanted it just as bad, maybe worse, than he did. Though he couldn’t imagine her wanting it worse. He swore his cock would rupture with the need to burrow into the tight, heated confines of her pussy.
“Your nipples are hard.” And he was going to taste them soon. “Is your pussy wet? Sorry, baby, but if you didn’t want it, then you did a damned good imitation of it on my couch yesterday.”
Shock, arousal, it filled her face as surely as the blush that began to work up along her neck and into her face. And it was damned enchanting. He hadn’t seen a woman blush in years.
But she wasn’t ready for another round yet, and Dawg could sense the uncertainty in her. If he weren’t careful, she could choose prison over him. Crista could be incredibly stubborn as he well knew. She wasn’t above cutting off her own nose to spite her face.
“No answer, huh?” He let an amused grin quirk his lips.
Hell, Crista was fun. Even with her back up and her mad on, she was fun.
She licked her lips, and his gut clenched. He wanted that tongue on his dick again. If she didn’t decide on his course of action pretty damned soon, then he was going to have to play another very delicate card in the hand he had dealt himself.
Yep, blackmail was a very dirty word, and a man had to have some way of backing up his threat.
“I have to meet with my team this afternoon.” He rolled away from her, stretching lazily as she seemed to freeze beside him. “We have bad guys—and girls—to catch.” He threw her a careless smile as he untangled his legs from the sheet and rose from the bed.
Her eyes were narrowed on him, but her fingers had a death grip on the sheet as she held it over her.
She was thinking, though. He could always tell when she was rolling something around in her head. He remembered before she left, catching that look on her face and wanting to be so deep inside her that she couldn’t hide anything from him. That need had only grown. Right now, he would give his eyeteeth to be buried so deep inside her that even their cells would bond.
“So what am I supposed to do now that you’ve had me fired from my job?” she snapped back at him irately. “I’m going to assume that during this game you’re playing, I’m not allowed to work.”
Dawg scratched at his chest, feeling a surge of satisfaction as her gaze licked over him. He was naked, aroused, and he would be damned if he was going to try to hide it from her.
“You have a job,” he assured her, turning to the low chest of drawers on the other side of the room and pulling out clean clothes.
“What kind of a job?” The low, wrathful tone had his lips twitching again.
“Fucking me. I’m fairly high maintenance, Crista. You won’t need another job.”
Then he ducked to avoid the alarm clock that came sailing at his head, then to avoid the picture frame that held a picture of his Harley. But he felt a swell of joy rise inside him as he jumped for her, gripping her wrist as she reached for the lamp, pulling her under him and holding her to the mattress as she bucked and writhed and cursed with all the exuberance of a damned sailor.
Crista couldn’t remember ever being so furious. A haze of red distorted her view, and a mix of murderous, adrenaline-crazed fury pumped through her veins.
“You bastard!” She tried to scream past the tightening in her chest, her throat. “Do I have whore written on my forehead? Do I look like one of your sex-starved little bimbos?”
She cringed from his body lying atop hers now, from the heavy, naked thighs pushing between her own and the powerful arms that held his body just far enough above her to allow her to breathe.
She wasn’t unaffected. Arousal pumped side by side with the fury, bringing angry tears to her eyes as she collapsed beneath him, exhausted, panting as she glared up at him.
“I hate you,” she hissed, feeling the first tear fall from her eye and track down her cheek. “I can’t believe what a bastard you’ve turned into.”
His gaze lightened, then became shadowed as he held her wrists in one hand and the other came up to touch the tear on her face.
“You cried then, too.” His voice was soft, brooding. “Didn’t you? When I kissed you, you cried.”
Oh yeah, she was going to answer that one for him. Not. Not in a million years would she ever tell him what he did to her then, and now.
“You told me you dreamed of me.” His jaw tensed as a flash of lust lit up his eyes like lightning.
“I wouldn’t dream of you if you were the last man on earth,” she scoffed, panting at the effort to force him to release her. “Get off me. I don’t want you anywhere near me.”
She didn’t want the blood pumping t
o her nipples and her clit with a force that had them straining, tight and engorged, against the material of her clothing as he covered her.
She didn’t want her skin so sensitive she could feel the hairs on his chest, even through her shirt. And she didn’t want the pleasure that was building, burning through her as he held her beneath him, restrained. Helpless.
“I thought of that all night as you slept,” he said guardedly. “Taking you again, having you beneath me. It was better than the dreams, Crista. They didn’t even compare.”
His voice dropped to a guttural whisper as his gaze flared with carnal heat. It was mesmerizing, watching his gaze flare, then lighten with sexual need.
“Get off me, Dawg.” It was all she could do to push the words past her lips. “I won’t let you turn into me a whore for your own amusement.”
“Say that word again, and I’ll make you regret it, Crista.” The order was clipped and filled with menace. “I haven’t called you a whore, and I never believed you were one.”
“Don’t you? Evidently you do, if you think my only job is fucking you.” She strained against him again, only to still as she felt the broad head of his cock butt against the crotch of her thin panties. Too thin, because she could feel the heat of his thick flesh pressing against her.
“Until I figure out what the hell is going on, that’s exactly what your job is. Because, make no mistake, fancy-face, I’m not a very charitable person anymore. Just because you’re not guilty doesn’t mean you don’t look guilty. You need me so you can stay out of jail. And you know the price for my help.”
Was he serious? And did it really matter at this point if he was or not? Her senses were suddenly rioting at the feel of his cock head pressing against her, causing her to grow wetter, her flesh more sensitive.
She didn’t want this.
Crista shook her head as she felt Dawg’s lips at her cheek, rough velvet, sliding over her flesh as her breath hitched in her throat.
“Nothing matters to me but fucking you.” Self-disgust filled his voice. “Being so deep inside you that this hunger that’s eaten at my gut for eight years dissolves.” His head lifted as he glowered down at her from between sensually narrowed eyes. “Make no mistake, Crista, you will spread those pretty legs for me again, and you’ll give me what I want. Because it’s the only way I can keep your ass out of jail. Walk away from me, and I won’t lift a finger to help you when they slap the cuffs on your wrists and you disappear. Because, baby, it will so be out of my hands then that I couldn’t help you if I wanted to.”
“But you can if I’m sleeping with you?” Disillusionment, disappointment, he heard it all in her voice.
Quite simply, as he said, unless he relented, she had no choice.
“Of course.” His smile was tight and hard. “I’ll know where you are. I’ll know if you’re playing dirty or playing nice, and then putting my neck on the line won’t feel like a fool’s fucking errand to me. Now make your choice.”
Crista stared back at him, finally admitting that the man she had dreamed of for eight years was gone, in more ways than she had imagined.
“It’s the same as rape,” she whispered, then bit back a moan as his free hand reached down, pulling her panties aside and allowing the heavy crest of his cock to slide through the juices gathering there.
“Do you enjoy lying to yourself, Crista?”
Dawg was breathing harder now, and Crista found it nearly impossible to draw in enough oxygen herself. The air was ripe with steamy carnality, her body so sensitive now, her clit so swollen, she wondered if she could survive if he didn’t fuck her.
“Damn,” he suddenly groaned, his hand gripping her hip as he let his cock slide through the heavy moisture until the feel of it rasping over her clit had her jerking in his hold and whimpering in heat.
“Your pussy’s so hot I’ll burn to ash,” he muttered, lowering his head again, his lips brushing over hers, though he ignored the parting of her lips to move to her jaw. “Like hot silk, molten silk. Let me have you again, Crista. I’ll take you so easy this time.” His lips caressed the shell of her ear now. “I’ll slide inside you slow and sweet, darlin’. And I promise, I’ll make you scream again with pleasure.”
As he had the first time and again yesterday. But then, he had pounded inside her both times, rocked her. Impaled her. He had taken her with a force that had left her shaken, not just from his possession, but from her response to it.
As he spoke, his free hand slid beneath her T-shirt. Broad and calloused, it rasped over her sensitive flesh, sending brilliant spears of pleasure exploding through her system.
“Dawg, don’t you think—”
“I never think around you,” he muttered as his lips moved back along her jaw. “All I do is feel.” His hips moved, dragging his erection down, the thick head sliding through saturated folds, then with wicked effectiveness, pressed into the clutching entrance of her vagina.
Crista stilled. She stared up at Dawg as his head lifted, his eyes nearly colorless, the green so light that the pupils of his eyes were stark in the center.
“Are you protected?” His voice was tortured.
“Fine time to ask that question.” Her fists clenched, her wrists straining against his hold.
Of course she was protected. She had learned her lesson. She stayed protected.
It was too much pleasure. She could feel it rising forcefully inside her, tearing at her senses, dissolving her objections. Just as he had the first time, he was ripping her from the moorings of her own common sense.
“Answer me!” His lips were tight, his body straining.
“Yes—” The cry that tore from her was a mixture of pleasurable agony and bitter realization.
The heavy, hard thrust that sent him tunneling through unused muscles and slick, heated flesh was almost as painful as it had been the first time. And it was definitely more pleasurable than it should have been.
Crista stared up at him in shock and surprise, uncertain, confused. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not like this. Not this fast. Not at all, if she hadn’t been so weak, so wet.
“Dawg.” She would wince at the beseeching tone of her voice later. For now, all she could do was lie there, feeling the muscles of her pussy ripple, clench, and struggle to accept the flesh impaling it.
Little darts of sensation were racing over her body, detonating with trembling force in erogenous zones that she didn’t know were erogenous zones.
“Do you know”––a heavy grimace contorted his expression as his hips flexed against her, causing the head of his cock to stroke the deepest part of her vagina in a way that had her breath catching violently––“know how tight and hot your pussy is? How you feel wrapped around me?”
She shook her head. She couldn’t do this again. Hear his voice, his words causing her to grow wetter, hotter. She couldn’t let him steal her mind or her heart again. But he was, stealing it all as the pleasure began to tear through her senses.
“Here. Come here, darlin’.”
She nearly wailed at the feeling of his cock shifting, stretching her farther as he lifted her enough, just enough, to pull her shirt free of her body, baring the lacy bra she wore beneath. A bra that did nothing to hide the straining nubs of her nipples.
“This is so—so not a good idea,” she panted as the front clip of the bra released, and her breasts spilled out to his waiting palms.
“Did I suck these pretty nipples that first time?” he asked then, his voice a hard, rough rasp. “I dreamed I did. I dreamed I dined on them. Fed from them.”
Her head tossed on the mattress as her hands gripped his wrists. To hold on or to protest his fingers caressing the swollen mounds, his thumbs brushing over her tight nipples, she wasn’t certain.
“Dawg, think—” She needed to think.
“Don’t think.” He pulled the bra free before tossing it away. “You think too much, Crista.”
A second later her panties were ripped from her hips, the scraps to
ssed to the floor as she stared down her body. Straight to where they were joined.
Dark brown curls glistened with moisture and pressed against his pelvis. Her legs were spread wide to accommodate his powerful thighs, her knees bent and hugging the outside of his legs.
“See how good we look together.” His voice was an insidious murmur of heated lust and pleasure as he flexed inside her again. “Let me show you, sweetheart. Look at this.”
EIGHT
“Let me show you…”
Crista couldn’t help but watch. Dazed, mesmerized, even more than she had been yesterday. She watched as Dawg shifted his hips back slowly, his erection pulling free of her inner grip as a whimper of denial left her lips.
The thick, hard flesh was flushed a ruddy red, his cock head purpled and throbbing and wide enough to make her swallow tightly at the sight of it.
It glistened with her juices, shimmered in the afternoon sunlight spearing into the high, narrow windows over the bed.
It was powerful, iron hard, and hot, and within seconds easing inside her again. Crista watched that, too. She couldn’t help it. It was so sexy, erotic. Inch by inch, it disappeared inside her until once again his pubic hair was tangling with hers as a low groan fell from his lips.
“I’ve dreamed of this,” he rasped. “Watching my dick fill you slow and easy. Watching you take me.”
She was caught in a whirlwind, sensations piling atop each other, pleasure ripping through her as the stiff length of his cock stretched her, sending a burning ecstasy roiling through her system.
How was she supposed to deny him now? How the hell was she supposed to survive again once it was over and Dawg went on to the next conquest? Because this—oh Lord—this could become addictive.
Her gaze moved from where he was buried inside her, lifting over the flat, rippling planes of his abdomen to his fiercely set expression. Light green eyes glowed in the dark expanse of his face; long, sooty lashes were lowered to half-mast; and a flush of erotic pleasure stained his cheekbones.