by L. A. Fiore
He inhaled.
“So fucking sweet.”
Yanking the silk off, he buried his face there as lips, teeth and tongue feasted. The orgasm didn’t so much build as it exploded. I had never felt anything like it. Overwhelming, all consuming and slightly terrifying that he could bring that out in me.
He stood and I reached for the snap on his jeans, hoping to give back the beauty of what he just gave me. He stepped out of my reach and kicked off his shoes. He had boundaries and was making those very clear. And control, he had to maintain it even during sex. His focus never left me as he slowly undressed. I squeezed my legs together when he dropped his jeans and briefs. He fisted his cock and pulled. My mouth watered. He was beautiful. I was under his spell, totally and completely, captivated as I watched him pleasure himself. He knew what he was doing, stirring me, teasing me, readying me for him.
It was then I noticed the condom.
“Let me.”
He ignored that and rolled it on. My stomach flipped, my heart skipped a beat and my clit spasmed when he moved me back against the wall. His fingers dug into my thighs as he lifted me and wrapped my legs around his waist. I tried to kiss him; he turned his head and buried his face in my neck.
It was deliberate, the way he claimed me. He was barely holding it together, easily seen from how ragged his breathing turned, and yet he entered me like he was making a statement. He wouldn’t kiss me, he wouldn’t let me kiss him, but he took his time joining us. That was very telling; the smile wasn’t one he would see. I didn’t rush him because I was enjoying the torture, every magnificent second of it. He filled me so completely it hurt a little before he stopped moving. The first quiver of the next orgasm started those delicious chills. He touched my chin, lifted my gaze to his and when he had my complete attention he started to move his hips. Slowly at first, the moan dragged from my throat because it was torture, the sweetest torture. Then it turned rough and wild as his control slipped. A scream tore from my throat as my body found its release, my nails dug into his shoulders as I jerked my hips into his rhythm to prolong it. A growl rumbled up his throat, right before his body stilled, his cock pulsing and twitching inside me. I tightened my legs around him and held him there. It was several minutes before he carried me to the bed for round two.
CHAPTER TWELVE
LIZZIE
It was late, almost three in the morning. Brochan hadn’t stayed. After exhausting both of us, he went back to his room. The man didn’t want me touching him, so actually sleeping with him wasn’t going to happen. My body ached. It was a good ache after the hours we spent fucking. I didn’t usually like that word when describing sex, but that was what it had been. There had been very little emotion; it was biology, pure and simple. Contradictory and curious because the man I had been spending time with felt things, deeply. He didn’t show it, had a nearly bionic control on his emotions, but he wasn’t the cold, unfeeling man people believed him to be, who I believed him to be once upon a time. For whatever reason, he held back earlier. What would it be like if he let it out? My body gave a pleasant shudder thinking about it. Perhaps it was wiser to keep that reined in. I might not live through it.
Brochan said he wasn’t looking to be saved. I wasn’t looking to save him. I understood some wounds cut too deep and his seemed to cut right to the bone. My mother was cold and manipulative, but I believed his father had been evil. The fact that Brochan could care about anyone—and he cared about Brianna, Fenella and Finnegan—showed the resiliency of the human spirit. His father hadn’t broken him, dented up and damaged, but that sweet boy Fenella remembered was still in there. He was just hiding. I wasn’t about to bring him back into the light. I lived in that darkness too. Sometimes people didn’t want out. Like he said, sometimes we just wanted to know we weren’t alone in it. But what would his life have been like had his mother lived? Who would he be had she lived? I didn’t know, but I did know I liked the man he was.
Perhaps his father’s grief broke him, but one had to wonder if he didn’t have that ugliness in him all along. People lost people every day, every second. Most didn’t turn into what Finlay McIntyre had. I think it could even be argued that what he felt for Abigail hadn’t been love at all. It was obsession. Love stemmed from something good and healthy. Obsession stemmed from something ugly. Brochan didn’t want love. He made that very clear during our hours of sex. He refused the intimacy of a kiss; and though he touched and tasted every inch of me, he wouldn’t allow the same to be returned. What was sad, he had love from Fenella and Finnegan, from Brianna. Maybe one day he’d realize that.
In the morning, I finished packing when there was a knock at the door. My hands shook and my stomach flip-flopped. “Stop being silly. It was just sex.”
Reaching the door, I pulled it open on Brochan. My heart hammered in my chest. Would he be different after last night? He didn’t enter; just stood in the hall and asked, “Are you ready?”
Not really the greeting I was hoping for. “Yes, I was just finishing packing. Do you want to come in?”
“No.”
I tried to hide my reaction to his decisive no and turned to close up my bag. “I’ll meet you outside in a few.”
“Lizzie.”
It was the first time he called me Lizzie. I looked back at him.
“If I come in, we won’t be leaving today or tomorrow…for the whole fucking week. If you’re okay with that…” He stepped into the room.
The wave of lust started with a tingling of my scalp and moved right down my body, but a week with him and I would fall too fast and too deep. If I had any chance of surviving him, I had to be smart.
“I really do want to see Culloden.”
He reached for my bag that sat at the door. “I’ll meet you at the car.”
“Brochan?”
He glanced back.
“I wouldn’t survive a week.”
His expression softened, but he said nothing and walked away.
It was awkward. Sitting in his car, so close to him I could touch him. I wanted to touch him. I had to link my fingers to keep myself from giving in to the urge. He hadn’t wanted my touch last night; I felt fairly certain he didn’t want it now.
A half an hour of complete silence and I was going mad. We had two and a half hours left. I wanted to ask him what he was thinking, but that was a classic mistake. Asking a man about his feelings. He’d probably toss me from the car. I didn’t want to think about mine because I wasn’t sure I knew any better than him how I felt. We had to talk about something though. The silence was maddening.
“Do you think the Loch Ness monster is real?”
He turned his head to me. My eyes moved to those lips, remembering how they felt on my skin, wishing I had felt them against my own.
“What if it really is some prehistoric creature? So many people have claimed to see it. And if he is real then are the creatures of myth and lore real?” I turned toward him because this was something I had pondered and often. All those stories written and passed down, they had to stem from something. I wasn’t convinced humans had good enough imaginations to make it up.
His focus was out the window when he asked, “Like werewolves?”
“I have it on good authority that werewolves do exist. Mrs. Wilson was quite adamant.”
“We’ve had a full moon. I didn’t change.”
“Yes, but I didn’t see you on the full moon. Next full moon.”
He glanced over and dropped his voice to a seductive whisper. “Are you thinking of keeping me preoccupied during the next full moon?”
It was how he said it that caused the ache between my legs. “It’s a plan.”
“A good plan,” he deadpanned.
I laughed out loud.
BROCHAN
Lizzie was getting her sketchpad. We didn’t find an inn before we stopped at Culloden. I leaned against the car and waited for her to collect her things. Last night had been a mistake and one I wanted to repeat. She didn’t need the kind
of trouble I would bring into her life. I didn’t need the kind of trouble she would bring into mine. Acknowledging that didn’t do shit because it wasn’t just lust I felt for her. I wasn’t a werewolf, but I was a monster. For the first time in my life, it didn’t claw to get out and that was because of her.
She walked passed me, her focus on the field and the monument. Small stone grave markers dotted the open field, the markers of the fallen clans.
Bright eyes turned to me. “Can you feel it?” A noticeable shiver went through her. “It was brutal. You can still feel it.” Her hand shook as she flipped open her sketchbook. “The cruelty man does upon themselves. It was the end of a way of life, wasn’t it?”
How she could feel such passion for something that happened so long ago, I didn’t know but I admired it. “Aye.”
“Warriors, proud of their heritage and they were forced to conform, to become something they weren’t.” Her eyes turned to me. “Why try to tame something into being what it isn’t? I don’t understand that.”
It was then, hearing those words from her, that I stopped trying to fight it. She’d found a way in. Rocked by the significance of the moment, my voice was rough when I answered her. “It all comes down to power and control.”
Silence followed as I watched her work and how easily she brought the pain and the beauty to life. It was another aspect of her that could grow addictive…she didn’t give up. She took the hits and yet she got back up, brushed herself off and kept going, kept finding the good in the bad and the beauty in the ugly.
Hours later we were in the car on the way to the inn. Her focus was somewhere else and I didn’t try to engage her. I brought her bags up to her room after we checked in. I had intended to give her time, despite the gnawing need to touch her; she had other plans. The door had barely closed at my back and she was pulling off my shirt. Hot eyes looked into mine, a challenge as her hands found my abs. I shouldn’t allow it, especially not with her when her touch actually had power over me, but I wasn’t in control. She had it, maybe she always did. Her eyes stayed on mine as she lowered her head and pressed soft kisses down my body. I was so fucking hard. She worked the snap on my jeans, yanking them down so my cock sprung free. Her small hand closed around me and I bit my lip and curled my hands into fists as I struggled to stay sane.
She dropped to her knees and I almost fucking wept. Stroking me softly, she touched her tongue to the tip. My legs went weak. I’d never been more turned on.
Her lips closed around my cock as she pulled me deep. Squeezing the base, she sucked then ran her tongue along the underside, swirling it around the tip. Her heel pressed against my balls as she squeezed. She kept up the onslaught until I couldn’t hold it back.
“I’m going to come.”
She replied by sucking harder. My fingers curled into her hair as my hips twitched and I blew…the best fucking orgasm of my life. She swallowed hungrily, like she was savoring my taste. I yanked her to her feet, thrust my hands into her hair and for a second I acknowledged I was stepping right off the edge before I slammed my mouth down on hers. She tensed in surprise before she grew as hungry as me. Her tongue warring with my own as I thrust it into her mouth, tasting her and me. I worked off her shirt, flipped open her bra and palmed her breasts. They fit my hands perfectly. Her nipples were hard as I twisted them and tugged. She straddled my thigh to ease the ache. I carried her to the bed. Her back hit the mattress as I yanked off her jeans and panties then thrust two fingers into her. Her back arched, her tits rising up to meet my mouth. I tongued her nipples, thumbed her clit and curled the fingers in her pussy, hitting the spot that made her moan.
“I want you inside me when I come,” she pleaded.
Grabbing the condom from my jeans, I rolled it on. Lifting her hips, I settled myself between her thighs. Her eyes opened, desire stared back. I thrust forward, my own eyes closing as she closed around me like a velvet fist. She linked her feet behind me and moved with my thrusts. Our gazes locked, her hand moved down her body where she played with her clit. She was close when she bit her lower lip. She came on a cry. I came seconds later.
LIZZIE
“Haggis. You need to keep your energy up,” Brochan teased as we checked out the room service menu.
“Fish and chips.”
“Haggis has more protein.”
“Then you should get it. I wouldn’t want you getting tired.”
The glance he threw me was wicked.
My body warmed even as my heart sighed. Earlier hadn’t been a fuck and it hadn’t been impersonal. He had let me touch him; he’d kissed me. Whatever had held him back our first night together, he’d willingly crossed that line. I didn’t know what that meant, if anything, but I knew I was in serious danger of falling for him.
While he placed our order, I climbed from the bed to get a robe. I felt his eyes on me, glanced over my shoulder to find his eyes were on me. I walked back, pulled the sheet down, climbed onto the bed and straddled him. He continued placing our order, his voice deceivingly neutral considering I was rubbing myself against his hardening cock.
I moved slowly at first, pressing down to feel him pushing against me before tilting my hips to rub my clit against him. He dropped the phone in its cradle, but he didn’t reach for me. He just watched as I pleasured us both. Dropping my hands on his shoulders, I brought my breast to his mouth; his tongue touched the tip and still he didn’t touch me, only his tongue. He teased the one breast before I guided the other to his mouth. He grew harder, my hips moved faster until I felt the first tingles of my orgasm.
“I’m clean,” he growled. “I want inside you. Are you on the pill?”
“Yes.”
He reached for me then, almost brutally his fingers sank into my hips as he lifted me up and brought me down at the same time his hips jerked upward. It felt like he was tearing me in two.
Glorious.
He flipped us, pulled my hips higher and really started moving, driving into me in hard, deliberate thrusts.
“Reach for it,” he demanded. I felt his body tensing with his own orgasm, but I was already there. He buried his face in my neck as we rode out the pleasure. The knock at the door came sooner than either of us expected.
His head lifted and he gifted me with a smile. My heart hiccupped at the sight. “We need clothes.”
I couldn’t answer since I was stunned speechless seeing him smile.
He bit my lip before he climbed from the bed and tugged on his jeans. I watched as he moved to the door. I wasn’t falling. I had already fallen.
We sat on the bed eating. It felt so natural. I was feeling a little off because I had never thought I’d find myself here, happy, but I was. Brochan gave me that.
“What did you think of Culloden?”
“Poignant and terribly sad. I read a little about it, knew how brutal it had been. I didn’t think I’d feel anything, but I did. It lingers, all that death haunts it.”
He was thoughtful before he asked, “What’s next on your list?”
“I don’t know. Do you have any suggestions?”
“There are a few scenic spots on the way home that you’ll want to see.”
The change in him was almost as profound as the change in me. Funny that two damaged people could find what they lacked in each other. “Okay.” I hadn’t realized I intended to say what I did next. “You kissed me.”
“I did a hell of a lot more than kiss you.”
Despite his words, his expression wasn’t quip.
“Why?”
He looked me right in the eyes and answered simply, “You make me feel.”
As if to prove his point, he pushed our empty plates to the floor, grabbed and rolled me under him. We spent the rest of the night doing nothing but feeling.
We stood on a cliff of green, the transition from land to water was blunt—a nearly vertical cut through the rock down to the beach. Water stretched out for as far as the eye could see. The colors, the grass wasn’t emerald or pine,
it was a blending of them, a blanket that was vibrant and lush. The water was sea foam green close to the shore before turning sky blue at the horizon. As a painter, the palette took my breath away.
“It’s like someone just cut this part off.” I glanced over at Brochan whose focus was on me. “I’ve seen pictures, but seeing it in person…I don’t have words. If someone told me as a kid I’d be standing here looking at this, I’d have thought they were insane.”
“I felt that way the first time I stood here.” His focus shifted to the horizon. “Beauty to rival the ugly I grew up with.”
My heart broke because if this beauty rivaled the ugly, his childhood had been really, really ugly.
I didn’t want to push him to talk about it and I had the sense he wasn’t ready to talk about the ugly, so I asked instead, “You never did say how you became a hitman. Is there like a school or online training?”
His focus shifted to me, humor in his eyes. I liked seeing that, liked knowing he was willing to show me that.
“I met Mac. I was a young kid with a lot of anger. He helped me channel it.”
“Mac?”
“My mentor.”
“You had a hitman mentor?”
He turned to me and actually smiled. Like last night, the sight of his smile distracted me, but it also inspired me. “Don’t move,” I almost shouted. I reached into my bag and pulled out a small pad of paper and a pencil.
He had moved, the smile was gone and he was looking at me like I was crazy.