He tangled his fingers through her weather-tossed hair, kissed her as if he had never kissed her before, as if he would never kiss her again. Need blossomed inside her, more need than she’d ever thought it possible to feel for another human being. Her hand pressed beneath his T-shirt, skimming hard muscle and warm, taut skin. He reached up and tugged the shirt over his head. Before it ever hit the ground, her fingers were entwined in his chest hair, tracing the lines of his defined pecs. He kissed her again, a long, drugging, perfect kiss that brought her to her toes. Her tongue caressed his with soft, hungry licks. A kiss that deepened as his hands bared her waist, calloused fingers rasping against delicate skin with the promise of pleasure that left her shirt on the floor next to his.
Too soon he tore his mouth from hers, his breathing as erratic and wild as her own, and led her into the efficiency-style apartment.
Cassandra scanned the room as they walked. A granite bar framed the small kitchen overlooking a massive open room, the front half the living area with a couch and two chairs and a big-screen television. There was a bedroom toward the back with a king-sized bed and a black leather headboard. There were no pictures anywhere. No personal items. Nothing that said—this was Michael’s home. Was that because he’d lived in Zodius Nation? Or because emptiness was all he allowed himself? Her heart ached at that thought. She didn’t want that for him; she didn’t want that for either of them.
They crossed the expanse of the living area and stopped beside the bed, facing one another. Michael released her hand, and they stood there in silent communication, in understanding of a decision between them that was profoundly important.
This was the first time since they’d found each other again that they would decisively choose to get into that bed together, rather than allow passion and emotion to drive them there. It was a signal of acceptance between them, of at least trying to find a way over the walls that always rose between them. And yes, there was a chance it could bind them together; they both knew this. Or rather knew the risk of going forward with so many unknowns, so many possibilities about their bond that they didn’t understand.
“I can still walk out that door,” he said softly. “This doesn’t have to happen.”
She reached up and unhooked her bra, tossing it to the side. “Or you can stay.”
For an instant, his gaze held hers before skimming downward in a slow, deliberate inspection of her breasts, stark passion etched in his face. Her nipples tightened, pleasure stealing a path from the tips straight to her core. “You have the most beautiful nipples I’ve ever seen,” he murmured softly.
Instant, wet heat clung to her panties. He’d always said bold things to her, things that made her blush, things that aroused her in a deep way, and now was no exception. “And you,” she said, “have on too many clothes.” Her voice was gravelly with passion, unfamiliar to her own ears.
In response, he unsnapped his jeans. She reached for hers as well, and a frenzy of undressing began. Excitement coursed through her veins, her hands trembling from the intensity. Like the first time they’d been together. Her mind went there now, retraced the path that had brought them here tonight.
Cassandra finished undressing, willing her heart to stop racing, like a schoolgirl on a first date. No one had ever excited her in this way—no one but Michael.
As they faced one another again she admired his body. He was a work of art, the ultimate man in her eyes, rippling muscle and masculine perfection. Her lips parted at the sight of his jutting thick erection; her breath lodged in her throat at the erotic thought of once again having him inside her.
She closed the distance between them, wrapping her hand around the width of him, her eyes meeting his, her free hand going to his chest. He pulsed in her hand, hard, inflexible, veins protruding. “God, I’ve missed touching you like this,” she confessed.
“My restraint is paper thin,” he warned.
Her lips twitched. “Ah, now,” she teased, leaning closer, her breasts pressed to his side, his arms wrapping around her waist as she flattened her tongue on his nipple. “I’m quite confident of your restraint.” She tightened her grip on his cock, and then caressed it with her fingers, stroking the wet liquid tip and sliding it around…kissing his shoulder, his arm.
She pinned him in a seductive stare full of erotic promise and then slowly slid down his body until she was on her knees. Watched the anticipation shudder across his strong features as she made one long lap of her tongue across the bulging head of his penis and then drew it between her lips. She sucked him deeper, harder, the salty-sweet taste of him filling her mouth. She loved the pleasure it represented, the proof that she was stealing just a little of his control. Her free hand went to his thigh, and she could feel him shaking, shaking. Michael was shaking, vulnerable in a way she knew he didn’t allow himself to be at any other time.
And she remembered why she loved this so much—because when she drew him into her mouth, when she was on her knees before him, that was the only time Michael ever allowed himself to really take anything. The only time he ever let go and forgot to hold back.
And so, she made sure he didn’t hold back, working him with her mouth, her hand, her tongue. Remembering what made him hot…what drove him wild. His fingers tangled in her hair, a moan escaping his lips, the sound washing over Cassandra like an aphrodisiac, driving her to give more, take more. His hips thrust as she pumped him, his cock sliding back and forth between her lips. She could feel the pulse of his impending orgasm gathering beneath her hand and feel the urgency in the convulsing of his hips. But he didn’t let her take him all the way; his hands went to her shoulders, demanding that she stop. He grabbed her arms and pulled her to her feet.
“When I come,” he said, “it will be inside you.” With the words, he gently lowered her to the bed, went down on his knees at the edge of the mattress, and spread her wide. She rested on her elbows, watching him. His hands trailed up her legs, caressed a slow, teasing path that told her of his intentions.
She fell back on the mattress the instant his warm breath brushed her clit, his tongue sliding delicately around the tip before he gently suckled. It was Cassandra’s turn to cry out as he drew her more fully into his mouth, his fingers stroking along the slick, swollen flesh and then slipping inside her. Her hands grabbed at the surprisingly soft fabric of the comforter, eyes fluttering with the sensation of every lick, stroke, and suckle. At the same time, he stretched to palm her breasts, teasing her nipples.
He gave her everything she could possibly desire, except him inside her. Yes, she so needed him inside her. Whimpering, she felt the flush of orgasm and fought against it. With a Herculean effort, she sat up and tried to move away. He grasped her thighs, held her firmly, stared up at her from that intimate spot between her thighs that only made her ache a little bit more.
“Together,” she whispered. “Please. I really want that.” She pressed her hands to his shoulders. “You lie down.” There was something inside her that said he needed to know in as many ways as possible that this was a choice, being with him, a thought-out decision. There was passion, there was desire, but this wasn’t a mad rush of passion overcoming indecision.
His eyes softened and then flared with newfound heat before he rolled to his back. Cassandra wasted no time straddling him, the wet core of her body pressed to his stomach while she leaned forward and brushed her lips over his.
Possessively, he filled his hands with her breasts and then caressed a path down her waist, holding her steady as she reached between them and found his erection. Their eyes held as she slid the tip to the seam of her body, slipping it past her swollen, sensitive feminine lips. Her breath lodged in her throat at the feel of him inside her as her body swallowed the hard edges of his erection. One slow inch at a time, she slid down the hard, hot length of him, until they were one, merged.
They stared at one another, emotions, passion, a web that captured them and would not let go. He moved suddenly,
pulling her lips to his, his hand wrapped around the back of her neck, his tongue stroking hers. Slowly, they began to move, hips swaying in a sensual rhythm that sent splayed pleasure to every nerve ending of her body. The kisses shifted from tender to desperate—passionate, wildly out of control. Michael sat up with her, wrapped his arms around her back, rocked with her in this slow, tilting motion that drove her insane. Their lips were close, breath mingled.
Abruptly, he stopped moving, his fingers brushing the hair from her eyes. “I love you, Cassandra,” he said. “I love you so damn much.”
Her heart skipped a beat, her skin tingled. Those were the words she had longed to hear. The words she needed as much as she needed her next breath. “I love you too, Michael. Even when I told myself to hate you, I knew I loved you.”
His hand framed her face. “There are things about me you don’t know,” he said. “Things I can’t, I won’t, ask you to live with.”
“Stop, Michael,” she whispered, her hands framing his face. “Stop judging yourself and then assuming it’s what I feel too. Have you ever done anything that you didn’t believe was to save innocent lives? Anything you regretted later?”
“It’s not that simple,” he whispered. “Baby, it’s not.”
“I know you, Michael,” she whispered and kissed him before he declared otherwise.
He tasted of rich masculine spice, devouring her mouth with his. His cock began to stroke the sensitive flesh between her legs. They were lost then, forgetting what had brought them there, what might tear them apart. His big hands powerfully explored her body, touched her in ways no other could. His fingers played with her nipples, tugged in a delicious, rough way that made her cry out and buck against him at the same moment. Made her nip his lips with her teeth and kiss a path to his shoulder. She could not touch enough of him, could not taste enough of him, could not get him deep enough or hard enough. There would never be enough. Part of her yearned to push him back against the mattress, then ride him wildly, take more of him. Take control. But that meant letting go; that meant those strong arms wouldn’t cradle her anymore and that was simply not an option.
Instead, she clung to him—with her lips, her arms, her hips. If it could have lasted forever, still it would not have been long enough. Too soon, tension coiled in her stomach, too soon, it spiraled into spasms that milked his cock and left her gasping for air, her face buried in his neck. His grip tightened around her waist, a guttural moan sliding from his lips a moment before she felt his seed spill inside her. They stayed there for long seconds, merged together, as if both were afraid of losing the moment, of losing each other.
It was Michael who broke the silence, sliding to the edge of the bed, still buried inside her. Before he stood up, he brushed his lips over her. “Bath and then sleep for you.”
“Only if you come to bed with me,” she negotiated.
“I’m not going anywhere.” The words rasped across his lips in a hoarse whisper full of torment that seemed to say—not now, but later—later he would leave.
Cassandra clung to him as he carried her to the bathroom. It was true, she’d been afraid of being alone. She’d admitted that to herself. Tonight though, she realized something. She needed and wanted Michael in her life, but he had to want to be there. No Lifebond, no physical connection, would change what was messing with his head. Nor would it bind them together in the most important way—the emotional one.
Michael had to make the choice to allow her inside his life. It could be no other way. Either he gave himself to her all the way or not at all. She might not like being alone, but now that she’d faced that fear, she was prepared to deal with it. What Cassandra wasn’t willing to live with was wondering when Michael would decide he was too dangerous for her, or too duty bound, and leave again.
Michael rested against one end of the claw-foot-style bathtub with Cassandra opposite him, and he stared into her black eyes. God. What had he done? What if they’d fully bonded, and it was irreversible? They didn’t even have his blood work back. He had no idea what it would show. He’d been selfish, desperate for the woman he loved.
Cassandra sank lower into the deep tub, her long, blond hair floating on top of the surface. “This is a little piece of heaven on earth.”
“Your eyes are black.”
Her lashes fluttered to her cheeks, dark circles against pale skin, and then lifted again. “I assumed as much.”
Being with her again made him remember why he’d thought he could be a different man when he was with her, how she made him want to be a better man. How she found softness in him where he thought there was only steel.
It was clear the GTECH injections enhanced what was there in each man—turned those dark into something much darker. That he’d managed to avoid becoming like Adam was nothing short of a miracle. That he’d gained lethal abilities no man should possess with that kind of darkness inside him shook him to the core. Shook him because he was still changing, still growing stronger. When would the changes push him over the edge? And would he take Cassandra with him?
Concern building, he asked, “How do you feel?”
“I’m fine. Tired. A bit nauseous, but who wouldn’t be with hardly any sleep?” She lifted her hand and let water and bubbles drip from her fingers. “I still can’t believe you had bubble bath,” Cassandra teased. “Bubbles defy the entire roughneck soldier image you wear so well, in case you didn’t read that page in my father’s macho soldier handbook.” Her smile wavered a bit, as if it hurt to say his name or compare the two of them.
Michael lifted her foot, her pretty, pink-painted toes poking out of the water as he gently massaged. She moaned instantly, and he smiled inside. She’d always been a sucker for a good foot rub, and he’d been a sucker for those cute faces she made when he gave her one. “Caleb put one of the nurses in charge of the comfort of the soldiers,” he explained. “Emma stocked everything she considered to be the basic necessities in every room, regardless of sex.”
Cassandra laughed. “I like this Emma already. Bubbles as a necessity.” She moaned a little as he massaged. “You’re very good at that.” She grinned. “And a great many other things as well.”
“Careful,” he warned, his cock pulsing with the suggestive tug of her voice. “Or I’ll be tempted to come over there and show you a few of those things. And we both know you have to get some sleep.” She needed rest. He needed her, but her needs came first.
“Sleep is overrated,” she said dismissively and changed the subject, her expression growing solemn. “What are you going to do about your mother?”
He reached for her and pulled her close to his side, under his arm. She was so tiny that she fit beside him easily inside the tub. “I’ll destroy her company and strip them of their ability to help Zodius.”
Several heavy seconds of silence hung in the air before she whispered, “Tell me what happened tonight.”
He drew a deep breath and realized how much he wanted to tell her, even needed to tell her. Though he excluded the parts about her father, the words came easily, rolling from his lips with the relief of a summer breeze rather than the discomfort of a forced wind. She already knew bits and pieces of how he felt about his mother, knew how his mother had shunned him for turning away from the family, from his father. About their long silence. But what Cassandra didn’t know was what he hadn’t admitted to himself until tonight—how much that silence ate him alive. It had not been until he stood in that kitchen and discovered that he couldn’t justify his mother’s actions as just those of a misguided housewife anymore, and that realization had ripped him into pieces.
The water was chilly by the time they stood up and turned on the shower to wash off. Michael turned Cassandra away from him, wrapped his arm around her waist, slipped her wet hair away from her neck, and kissed the mark that linked her to him. For a few moments, he let himself believe he could have all of her, tugging her closer, holding her snuggly against his body. The water sprayed th
em with peaceful warmth, and Michael squeezed his eyes shut, pretending that tomorrow would be as perfect as this moment and knowing it would not.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A loud pounding sound permeated the haze of Cassandra’s sleep, followed by the jabbing pain in her stomach. Oh God. She blinked awake and quickly squeezed her eyes shut against the agonizing glare of light. Not even natural light. More pounding. She held her head and forced herself to a sitting position, holding the sheet over her naked body.
Michael sat on the edge of the bed, fully dressed in the black fatigues she was coming to know as standard Renegade attire. “You might want to put this on,” he said, offering her an oversized blue robe. “Sterling is here to help you scramble that call to your father.”
“A robe, courtesy of Emma?” she asked, accepting it. “Because I know you prefer au naturel.” She attempted a smile, but her eyes pinched, and it turned into a grimace. “And I like au naturel.”
“Emma is responsible for the robe,” he agreed, planting a solid kiss on her lips, warm and sensual. A little sound of pleasure rumbled from her throat of its own accord as he added, “And yes, I do prefer au naturel…with you.” His mood shifted, darkened. Angst etched the hard lines of his face. “Your eyes are still black.”
Her hand curled on his chest. “And I’m sick again, but every second I’m awake it eases up a little.” She hoped. Another knock on the door burst through her brain. Okay, maybe she wasn’t better. “Please make him stop that incessant knocking.” It was killing her head.
She shoved her arms into the robe, and his gaze swept her bare chest, but he didn’t touch her. He wanted to, though—it was in the raw sexuality that settled deep in his eyes. Suddenly, he pulled her close again, his lips slanting over hers in a deep, passionate kiss that left her breathless and panting as he pushed to his feet and sauntered toward the door. There was a message in that kiss she frantically tried to decipher, but there wasn’t time. He was already at the door, already opening it. Cassandra tied the robe at her waist and scooted to the edge of the bed.
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