Wild Card

by Lora Leigh

  She almost cried as he kissed the bruises on her cheek, whispered how sorry he was. Didn’t he know? It was worth it. It was all worth it to have him with her, to have him alive and touching her.

  “I dreamed of you,” he whispered against her lips, holding her face between his hands as the water fell around them. “Every time I closed my eyes, Bella, I saw you as you were the day I left. Teasing me. Laughing at me. I saw you tempting me to take you, one more time, and I ached until the ache nearly destroyed me.”

  “I touched you in my dreams.” She touched his lips, caressed his beard. “I kissed you, I held you.”

  “You saved me.” His head lowered and the kiss he gave her was more than lust this time, it was more than hunger. It was a homecoming, and her breath caught at the sweet heat of it.

  His lips loved hers, made love to them. They stroked and caressed as his tongue licked and slid over hers, tasting her, sinking into her, until Sabella felt lost in the wonder of it.

  This was her husband. He hadn’t died. He had been wounded. Perhaps hiding. But the man who loved Sabella Malone was still there, and he was still living proud.

  “Bella, if I don’t do you soon, my brain is going to explode.”

  His hands were clenched at her waist, his expression tight, honed with the lust he did nothing to hide now.

  Well, the dirty talk was new, but she liked that. And she had a feeling that like the naked lust that slipped out of control, the vocalization of it had just been hidden before as well.

  Her hand slid down his chest until she could curve her fingers over the thick, iron-hard shaft.

  “Hmm. How are you going to do me?” She looked up at him from beneath lowered lashes. “All those threats you’ve made over the past weeks, maybe I should be wary?”

  His gaze flared, blue back lit by a fiery blue flame.

  “I don’t make threats. I make promises,” he warned her, watching her now with a sensual intent that had her body humming.

  He shut off the water before reaching outside the shower and dragging one of the large bath sheets from the towel rack.

  “I think you’re all talk,” she breathed out before rasping her teeth over her lower lip and giving him a look that promised she belonged to him. As long as he belonged to her.

  He didn’t say a word. He dried them both off. The look in his eyes warned her though. Warned her that the promises that had slipped past his lips over the past weeks were going to be kept.

  Her rear clenched at the thought, her juices spilled from between her thighs, creating a hot, sensual, sexy feeling that she couldn’t escape. Didn’t want to escape.

  Her husband had always made her feel this way. Like a woman, desirable, earthy, willing to be pleasured. Waiting to be pleasured. But so eager to pleasure in return.

  She watched as he dried her. Watched as he knelt in front of her. For just a second, the barest second, his fingers splayed over her lower stomach and his lashes flickered over his eyes.

  She wished she could see his eyes. Wished she could see the same hopes and the wellspring of paternal pride she knew he would be feeling. They had always wanted children. But they had always wanted to wait until he would be home more to see their baby grow.

  Those thoughts became swamped then. Pleasure whipped through her like lightning gone wild. It sizzled over her nerve endings, attacked her fingertips, her toes, her hard nipples, and the burgeoning knot of her clit.

  And he was just kissing her. Kissing the rise of her mound, just above her clit, feathering his breath over her clit and sending erratic, ecstatic impulses of pleasure racing over her flesh.

  Her fingers dug into his wet hair as his hands pressed against the inside of her thighs, parting them. Callused hands caressed the flesh there, tested the muscles, came so close to the weeping center of her body that her breath caught. Though he didn’t actually touch her with his hands.

  “You’re teasing me to death,” she breathed out roughly.

  His only response was a muttered “mmm” as he kissed her clit and nearly threw her into climax. And oh, she needed her climax.

  “I love your bare little pussy.” He lifted his head and stared up at her with wicked dark blue eyes. “It gets so wet, your flesh so silky.”

  She shivered at the sound of his rough voice.

  “I could come real easy too,” she panted, parting her legs further and flushing furiously as he parted the folds of her pussy and just looked at her.

  His gaze was almost a physical caress as he stared at her pussy then licked his lips hungrily.

  “I’m gonna eat you first,” he growled. “Eat you like candy, Bella. Lick all that sweet, wet sugar and listen to your cries fill my head.”

  She was going to melt all over him just like hot, wet sugar if he wasn’t careful. His voice, so rough, so ruined, but that hint of lyrical Irish lurked just beneath the surface.

  He straightened, his hands running over the curves of her butt, up her back, curled around her until the tips of her breasts rasped against his chest hair.

  She loved that thin sexy growth of curls. Loved the heat and the caress of it against her skin. She shivered, a moan passing her lips at the need that welled inside her. Tipping her head back, she luxuriated in the stroke of his lips over her neck, against the bruises on her face.

  “I love you, Bella,” he whispered at her ear, and wrung a cry from her throat as she held on to him, tried to pull him beneath her skin, or burrow beneath his. Which she wasn’t certain.

  “My husband.” Her arms wrapped around his neck as his lips took the kiss they both craved.

  It was intense, driving, primal, and hungry as he lifted her and carried her to the bedroom. It was a kiss that wiped the past away and left only the future, the present. It was a kiss that tore past boundaries. It was a kiss that opened them both to all the emotions that swirled unchecked between them.

  The darkness. Hungers as yet untapped. Eighteen months of brutal memories and dark fantasies. Years of aching loss, and the memory of tender love.

  It swirled between them, rocked them, fed the lust surging and gripping until they were eating at each other as Noah fell to the bed with her. Lips and tongues, teeth and hands, they were consuming, hungry, desperate.

  They needed. The stark, vicious pain that had consumed her when she thought he wasn’t returning to her still blazed through her soul. The thankfulness, love, the sheer brutal desperation for this one man, back in her arms, drove her.

  Drove her until she was sobbing. Until she was holding him, passion edging into such an intensity of emotion that she could let it free. Sob against his chest as she kissed him, loved him, whispered her need.

  “Ah Bella.” And he held her. His voice was thick with the same emotion as his arms tightened around her. “Never again, my love. I swear it. Never again. I won’t let you go again.”

  She hit his chest. His shoulder. Struck out first in rage, then in need.

  “Baby, you gotta stop hitting me.” He gripped her wrists and stretched them above her head as he came over her. “Hitting’s against the rules.”

  “So is dying,” she cried. “If you can die on me, then I can hit you when you come back.”

  His lips quirked. “If you won’t hit any more, I won’t die any more.”

  “Don’t joke about it,” she gasped, fear almost paralyzing her. “Don’t you dare joke about it.”

  He kissed her chin.

  “I’ll make you forget about it.”

  His lips moved over her collarbone, like rough silk, a caress that shouldn’t have stolen her mind, but it did. It moved through her. It sent flames racing across her flesh and had her stretching, arching closer, as his lips lowered.

  His lips covered a nipple. Sucked it inside his mouth and electric heat shot to her clit. Sabella gasped, arched. She felt his moan vibrate on the tender peak, and her gaze shimmered from the waves of excessive heat rising inside her.

  “Oh. I like that.” She strained against the hold he
had on her wrists. “Oh yes, Noah. Just like that. It feels so good. So good.”

  He was working her nipple in his mouth, his tongue rasping, his teeth scraping around it as he consumed her, devoured her.

  “I want to taste your candy, Sabella,” he breathed, moving down her abdomen. “All that sweet sugar building on your pussy. I love your pussy. I could eat you for hours. Make a fucking meal of you.”

  He released her wrists and his head moved between her thighs, his tongue raking through the narrow slit and gathering her juices to it.

  He licked, sucked, probed with his tongue and filled her with his fingers. She writhed beneath him, twisted, hungry, desperate as he moved again.

  “Stay there.”

  She stayed, watching as he went to the leather bag he had brought here days ago and left beneath the side table.

  He grinned as he picked it up, opened it, and withdrew a small bottle of lubrication.

  Sabella’s breathing picked up. She knew what was coming. She could feel it. Her butt clenched in anticipation and in excitement.

  “Roll over,” he ordered her.

  She turned slowly as she heard the bag thump back to the floor.

  “Raise your ass for me.”

  She lifted to her knees, her fingers curling into the comforter as he moved behind her, one hand stroking over her butt cheeks as a murmur of approval passed his lips.

  “This is the prettiest ass in the world.”

  Sabella moaned as he pressed a kiss at the top of the cleft. His fingers moved between her thighs, eased through the thick, heavy juices that had collected there.

  When he touched the hidden entrance beyond, she lost her breath. Nathan had never taken her there before, during their marriage. He had playfully threatened but had never actually gone this far.

  He was tired of waiting. She was tired of waiting.

  As he caressed her, prepared her, she felt the wildness of hunger building inside her. As if this act would finish something, complete something. As though the submissive position, the need he was building in her, connected them as she had never imagined possible.

  He eased her slow and easy. Lay beneath her and licked at the drenched folds of her pussy as his fingers parted her rear, stretched it, prepared it, send a blazing heat burrowing through her body.

  Sabella became lost in the hunger.

  Pleasure swelled through her as he licked, sucked at her clit then plunged his tongue inside the clenching muscles of her pussy. His fingers worked inside her rear, easing, lubricating her heavily as his other hand caressed, patted, then began landing on the cheeks of her ass in a series of subtle little slaps that had the flesh heating wickedly, erotically.

  Sabella never imagined she could enjoy this. Never imagined she could let herself be immersed in her sexuality, in Nathan’s, to the point that she forgot everything. That she needed nothing but the increasingly lustful caresses that her husband gave her.

  She was clawing at the blankets when he moved from between her spread thighs. Perspiration dripped from her, dampened her body as sexual tension sang through her system in a rising clash of impulses.

  “Christ, I fucking love eating your pussy.” He came over her. “I love fucking that tight pussy, Sabella. But this. This is going to blow us out the roof.”

  The head of his cock tucked at her ass.

  The gentle strokes of his fingers inside her ass moments before, easing the muscles there as he built the lust burning in her pussy, had relaxed her. Tension whipped through her body, but the tiny opening flared open over the heavy crown of his cock.

  Pleasure-pain tore through her as he eased back and forth. He worked the thick length inside her as one arm curled over her hips and his fingers moved over her clit.

  Feathery strokes that had her crying out, pushing back.

  “There, baby. Take that dick,” he whispered. “All the way inside you, Sabella. I’m dying for you, baby. Dying for this. Give me all of it. All of you.” His voice broke. “All of you, Bella. My sweet Bella.”

  She screamed as the head of his cock passed the tight, tense ring of muscles inside her rear. The blinding flash of pleasure bordering on pain nearly had her coming. She creamed instead, covering his fingers with more of her juices as she felt his cock slide in, all the way, filling her, stretching her.

  It was primal. Primitive. Sabella couldn’t understand the sensations, the emotions whipping through her, but the acceptance as well as the penetration opened something inside her.

  She had always trusted her husband. But until now, she hadn’t realized that trust hadn’t gone soul deep. He hadn’t known her as she knew him. Until now. Now, he would know her. In life. In death. She would never hide from him.

  Noah laid his head against Sabella’s, fighting to breathe. Just to breathe. He couldn’t move yet, if he did, he would lose it. He’d pump inside her and lose his soul to her before he ever had a chance to chain hers as well.

  God, it was fucking beautiful. He closed his eyes, feeling her muscles flex around him, but he felt something more. Intimacy on a scale he had never known with her before. A knowledge, a certainty, that this one woman was everything, every part of him. The bond he felt inside his own soul all these years had never been complete, and he had been too damned man-stupid to realize it. Until now.

  Until this. Until she gave him an entrance inside her that was more than physical. This.

  He shifted, moved, and heard her cry of pleasure. This was total acceptance. Total trust. And knowledge.

  They were both stripped to the bare bones now, his cock moving inside the sensitive, nerve-rich depths of her rear, and she was taking him, open for him and begging for more.

  “Beautiful Bella,” he sighed, lowering his head to kiss her shoulder, her neck. “My Bella.” His voice broke again.

  Fuck. He was dying for her. Broken and being reborn inside as he filled her. As she filled his heart, his soul. He could feel the emotions pouring into him, easing the ragged wounds, his fierce pride, his hidden fears.

  He moved inside her, easy at first. So easy.

  Leaning back, he spread her rear cheeks apart to watch. To watch as he took her, sinking inside her pink flesh and delving into fiery bliss.

  “More. More,” she begged, she pleaded. She was screaming out for him and the sound of her pleasure tore through the need for slow and easy. It tore past control, slammed through hidden fears, and he took them both to places he knew they had never reached before.

  He rubbed around the hard, swollen bud of her clit. Sweat dripped from his hair, his face, as his hips thrust, stroking his erection deep, hard and she pressed back, crying for him. Crying for more.

  “More. Oh God. Noah. Yes. Yes. Take all of me.”

  “My Bella.” He groaned her name, shafting harder, his hips pounding against her ass, his balls slapping against her wet flesh as he felt the need to come clenching around his testicles, whipping up his spine.

  Sabella exploded first. She tightened, surprised cries, curses, prayers falling from her lips as he felt her fly headlong into ecstasy. And he followed her. He plunged deep, shoved two fingers inside her pussy and set her off again as he felt his cock explode.

  His semen filled her. Fierce, shuddering jets of cum spurting inside her, tearing from his soul rather than his balls as he cried out her name.

  “My Bella!” His head fell back on his shoulders. One hand clenched her hips, and he didn’t lose himself inside her. He gave himself to her. All of her. Spilling and groaning her name until he collapsed over her.

  She was asleep when he came to himself. Lying next to her, wrapped around her, he saw her hand, her left hand, ringless against his chest. His left hand was wrapped around her, and he could feel the missing weight of the bond that burned inside him.

  He slid from her slowly, grinning as she grouched and flopped on her back, her hand on her stomach almost protective as she continued to sleep.

  He strode through bedroom and bathroom first, looking for h
er wedding band. She had been wearing it the day before when she left with Rory. He remembered her wearing it. But she hadn’t had it on at the caves.

  He walked to the kitchen and checked her purse. Organized little Sabella. There it was, tucked into a zippered compartment, the little ring shining bright as a band tightened around his head.

  He moved back upstairs, picked up his pants, and pulled his wedding band free before fitting it back on his finger. The outside of the bands were plain. Just gold bands. Sabella hadn’t wanted frills for them. Inside was the Celtic vow, “forever.” Go síoraí.

  Inside his were the words “Forever, my soul.” Matching vows. Matching hearts.

  He lifted her hand and slid her ring back in place.

  His wife.

  He tangled his fingers with hers, staring at the sight of her pale, creamy flesh against his own.

  His wife.

  His gaze drifted to her flat stomach.

  His wife and his child.

  His hands were shaking as he touched her stomach. Shaking so hard the shudders worked through him, making it hard to breathe, to think.

  Jesus. They made a baby!

  He stared in shock at her stomach. Then in awe.

  He spread his hand over her stomach and felt the tightness in his chest fill his throat, lock behind his eyes.

  Then he watched in disbelief the little bead of moisture that dropped to her stomach, shimmered against it.

  Tears?

  He blinked and another fell.

  He felt the slam of emotion. Love, regret, pure blinding God-thanked reverence filling him as he lifted his eyes to his wife’s face, to see her watching him, tears sliding down her darkened cheeks.

  The bruises would fade, but this moment in time would always fill his memories.

  “Go síoraí,” he whispered, the old lilt to his voice almost, almost, normal as he reaffirmed his vow to her.

  “Forever, Noah,” she whispered tearfully, her hand covering his on her stomach, her breath hitching in joy. Not in pain. “Forever, my love.”