by Anne Stuart
“Move back,” he said hoarsely. “Please.”
Her face was very still. She hadn’t touched him yet, but he could feel her long, cool fingers so close to him that he wanted to groan. “Why?”
“I want to suck your breasts.”
“It doesn’t turn me on,” she said in her cold little voice.
“Maybe you haven’t had the right person do it.” He didn’t wait for her reply, pulling her closer, so that her center rested against his solid cock, nestling there. She frowned, but he couldn’t give her complete control, and he leaned over and licked one taut nipple.
She had small breasts, nothing like Rachel’s monumental constructions, and he didn’t care. He let his teeth graze her, and he felt a shiver rip through her body, clearly surprising her. “I told you I didn’t like it,” she said, a little strangled, and he smiled against her.
He let his teeth surround her, softly, enough to imprison but not enough to hurt, and he let his tongue tease the little nub, flicking back and forth until she began squirming, rubbing against him almost involuntarily. He took her other breast in his strong hand, squeezing her just to the point of pain but no further, and she bucked again, letting out a tiny moan.
He lifted his head. “In case you ever find yourself in a position to make love to a woman,” he murmured, “you need to remember that breasts are different with everyone. A lot of women need gentle coaxing, almost worshipful attention. But more women than you’d imagine need a little roughness.” He pinched her breast, and he saw the reaction in her face, the dazed expression in her brown eyes. They’d been soft before, except when she was staring at him in rage, but now they were positively unfocused in reaction to what he was doing. “You’re one of the ones who need a little roughness.” Leaning forward, he took her breast into his mouth, stroking, soothing with his tongue, and when she rubbed against him in sudden need, he bit down.
The sound she made was a little bit louder then, dangerous under the circumstances, but he fed on it anyway. He didn’t care if she had the noisiest orgasm in the history of the world—he wanted it from her. He wanted her to take it from him, to drain him dry and then suck him off. He wanted sex—sex with this woman—and he wanted it all night long and the next day besides. In fact, he couldn’t imagine ever getting sick of her, but he knew that was a fantasy. He wasn’t a man for relationships, for monogamy, for long-term flings. He was a night or two at a time, energetic, healthy fun for both with no strings attached. Sophie came with so many strings she might just as well have been a marionette.
Except she was pulling her own strings. No one was making her do anything she didn’t want to do, and she squirmed against him, pushed against him, wanting more.
It was going to make things worse, he thought dazedly, holding still while she pressed against his erection. They’d done it once, in anger and reluctant need, something that simply needed to be done.
It should have meant nothing. Instead, it had been a taste of something very sweet, dangerously so, and he wanted it again. He could feel her hands on his chest, sliding down, and then they were on his cock—cool, clever fingers—tugging at him, and he let out a small huff of air, trying to control his reaction. She was wet, she was willing, and he wanted nothing more than to flip her over on her back and slam into her. He didn’t move, leaning back and closing his eyes. That afternoon had been too close to force. This time she wasn’t going to be able to hide behind blaming him. This time she was going to take what she wanted.
To his shock, she did just that, sliding down his legs so that her mouth was just above his straining dick. He could feel her warm, soft breath on him, and he wanted to moan out loud, but he didn’t move, his arms rigid as he held himself under tight control.
She glanced up at him from beneath her tangled hair, and there was a slightly wicked expression in her eyes. For the first time he caught a glimpse of who she had been, before she’d run afoul of the Committee and Archer MacDonald. He thought he’d known her, understood her, the victim who was still fighting back.
He was wrong. She was nobody’s victim, and the Sophie he thought he knew was the last person to be half-naked astride her avowed enemy’s body, ready to take his cock into her mouth.
She started with her tongue, gently licking the crown, and this time his groan was audible. And then she explored him, her tongue dancing around his shaft, tracing the thick veins, then putting her mouth over him and taking him into her until he was rubbing at the back of her throat, and his fingers tried to dig into the floor beneath him as he forced himself to keep still.
She was taking her time, learning him, driving him to levels of insanity with her curiosity, her obvious pleasure in the act. She closed her lips around him, increasing the pressure, and he didn’t want to come that way, not in her mouth, not this time. He wanted to be tight inside her, so deep he wouldn’t know where he ended and she began. She was no innocent—she knew what she was doing, and she liked what she was doing. This was no great gift for him, as he’d first assumed. This was Sophie, taking what she wanted.
He was getting close, dangerously close, and cautiously, carefully, he lifted one hand to thread his fingers through her hair, not guiding her or forcing her, just caressing her as she sucked on him, and he knew he wouldn’t last much longer. She slid her hands under his balls, squeezing lightly, and lifted her head for a brief moment.
“Come in my mouth,” she whispered.
He no longer had a choice. His body bucked, and she held onto his hips, taking him in, everything, her fingernails digging into his skin, and as he exploded he thought he felt an answering orgasm ripple through her body as she straddled him.
She drew back, away from him, sprawling on the floor in what should have been graceless exhaustion but instead looked like pure sexual abandon. He’d climaxed, come hard in her mouth, but he wanted more from her, he wanted her every way he could have her, and this time it was for nobody’s pleasure but theirs.
It took him a moment to get his breath back. She moved, starting to crawl away from him, but he somehow found the speed and strength to stop her, catch her, his body covering hers from behind. He tore away her skimpy boxers and slid his hands between her legs. She was wet and swollen and ready, he was still hard, and he pulled her hips up, pushing into her.
She was tight, despite the wetness, and he tried to slow down, to make it easier for her, but when he was halfway in she suddenly shoved back, taking all of him with a small cry of pain and triumph. He held her like that, his hands on her hips, staring down at her elegant, narrow back, at the unmistakable scar of a bullet dangerously close to her spine. He wanted to give her time to get used to him, to stretch it out as long as he could, the sleek grasp of her cunt driving him to the point of madness. He wanted to slam in and out of her, but he knew he could hurt her, so he stayed very still, feeling her body relax around him, then tightening again, as her body recognized what it wanted, needed.
He didn’t know whether her brain was in agreement, and at that point he was past caring. He just needed to lose himself inside her. He could be slower now, take his time, stoking into her. It was too damned dark on the balcony—he wanted to see her—but he wasn’t taking the chance on Archer listening in. Slow and hard, and she was silent beneath him, only her body signaling her agreement, her pleasure. She came, too quickly, the walls of her sex clamping down on him, and he held still, letting her ride it, before he moved again.
She began to shiver, and he thought that if she dared to make any sound, she would have told him she couldn’t take any more, but he knew she could. That ripple of reaction was hardly strong enough to take her over the edge, give her the release she needed, and he kept up his steady pace, into her, deep, so deep, and he heard an almost imperceptible sound from the back of her throat. It made his cock swell even more inside her, and he slid his hand under them, finding her slick clitoris, circling it. She was shaking so hard he felt the need to hold her together, keep her safe, pushing, pushing, until sh
e froze, a low, keening sound coming so quietly from within her, a sound more powerful than a full-throated scream, and he went over the edge with her.
He couldn’t hold himself up anymore—he was shaking as hard as she had been, and he fell onto the balcony, taking her with him, protecting her from the hard floor, still deep within her. His heart was racing—that never happened to him—and he pulled her deeper into him, holding her tight when he should have been withdrawing, moving away. It was over, and he couldn’t let her go.
She lay very still in his arms, still wracked by shudders, tiny orgasms shimmering through her body. He’d thought of her as the enemy, but right now she needed protection, and he held her, stroking her hair away from her damp face. This wasn’t the sex he was used to—the pleasurable buildup and satisfying release. This was something much more complicated, something he should have had the sense to avoid. His instincts had told him she was trouble, but he hadn’t imagined the half of it. He couldn’t let her go.
He had no condom to get rid of. Damn it—that was the second time he’d come inside her with no protection. He doubted she was on any kind of protection, given Archer’s control over her body. He didn’t even want to think about what diseases she could have contracted from Archer, though he knew he himself was clean. That was the least of his worries—Archer MacDonald had a strong OCD streak that would make him fastidious when it came to sex. Mal just had to hope this wasn’t the wrong time of the month.
He’d always planned to get a vasectomy, but the time had never worked out. It wasn’t that he didn’t want children, but his lifestyle made it far too dangerous. How people like Peter Madsen in England and James Bishop in New Orleans managed was beyond him—if he had to worry about a wife and babies, he’d never be able to do his best work, and anything but his best could get him killed.
Whether he wanted to pull out or not, his cock was finally softening, though he suspected not for long. He still held her, not wanting to let go. He had no idea what she was thinking, what she was feeling, only that she’d had at least three orgasms, one of them so powerful it had almost knocked her flat. But beyond that he couldn’t even guess.
The stone floor was cold and hard beneath them, and he wanted to carry her back to his bed, pull the covers around them, sleep with her in his arms, but Archer had put that fucking camera in. Her room wouldn’t do either—even if the place was too dark to film, the microphones were supersensitive, and he could just picture Archer sitting in the dark, listening to them and jacking off.
She was beginning to stir, getting restless, and he knew she was going to pull away, and he wouldn’t be able to stop her, not without drawing attention to them. With strong but gentle hands he turned her in her arms, pushing her hair back off her face, and put his mouth on hers, kissing her with extraordinary sweetness. He swallowed her strangled sob, and she kissed him back, sliding her arms around him and pulling him close, so close, their sweat-slick bodies growing chill in the night air, and he wanted to say something, tell her something, but he couldn’t imagine what. So he simply kissed her, until she pulled away from him, disappearing silently into the darkness.
Chapter Sixteen
Sophie sat in her bathtub, shivering, as the hot water showered down on her. She’d left her clothes on the balcony—would Mal find them and dispose of them? Or would the cameras pick up on them when it grew light? She had her knees drawn up, and she put her head down against them, wishing she could somehow disappear. How had life managed to get twisted into such a sick fuck-all? She’d been doing fine, managing despite the situation. Married to a sadistic madman, trapped by her feigned condition, she’d been busy planning escape and revenge, her hatred keeping her going, not letting her collapse when she came so close.
And then he had arrived, and everything had gone to hell. He’d touched her, kissed her, fucked her, and when she’d spread her legs for him, she’d opened herself to a world of hurt.
This time she couldn’t blame him, or the circumstances. There was no need to convince Archer they were sleeping together—he’d already accepted that and congratulated himself on his manipulations. She could have gone to her own room—how had she ended up in his? And then it came back to her.
She’d been certain she would finally kill Archer tonight, and she hadn’t cared one way or another if she went down with him. Instead, Mal had tampered with the Beretta he’d so generously left for her, putting her in the worst danger of her life with no chance of defending herself. That was unforgiveable. It had taken so much to psych herself up into shooting Archer in cold blood, and the letdown when the gun didn’t fire had almost made her pass out. He’d stopped her, caught her, held her when she wanted to run. He’d hidden her, protected her, carried her out of there when she probably couldn’t have made it on her own. He was a monster. He had almost gotten her killed. He had saved her life.
Why hadn’t she just left him? She was the one who’d initiated the sex, not Mal. In fact, for a brief moment she’d wondered whether he even wanted her. He’d acted as if the sex in the boathouse was simply part of the job. So why was he hard when he held her?
Hell, men would take anything that was offered, wouldn’t they? So why had she offered? Was she wanting to make things more difficult?
She raised her head, letting the water sluice down over her face. She could think of one very good reason. She’d wanted to feel alive. She’d almost killed a man in cold blood, and she needed to feel human. It didn’t matter that Archer deserved to die ten times over for what he’d done, not just to her, but to so many people. That guilt that Mal had thrown in her face was inescapable—it was the only reason she could bring herself to commit cold-blooded murder.
No, it was an execution, she reminded herself. One that was long overdue. She pushed herself up to stand in the shower, taking the soap and scrubbing herself ruthlessly, washing between her legs, trying to wash him away. She was still sensitive there, and the more she washed, the more she thought of Mal, so she gave up and staggered out of the tub, wrapping a towel around her.
There was a bench in front of the mirror, an inconvenient intrusion for someone who really had to get around in a wheelchair, but at the moment she was grateful, and she sank down on it, staring at her reflection in the mirror. She didn’t recognize herself. Her brown eyes were huge, her mouth swollen, her entire reflection looking . . .
Looking well-fucked. And she had been—there was no denying it. Mal knew what to do with a woman’s body—she didn’t think she’d ever come so much or so quickly. That it made things that much more complicated didn’t seem to bother Mal at all. It bothered the hell out of her.
But then, Mal hadn’t been celibate for the last two years. He’d probably traveled all over the world, a fuck buddy in every port, while she’d been moldering in her bed. It wasn’t that surprising that her emotional reaction practically equaled her physical reaction. It might even trump it. After all, physically it had felt nothing but good, so fucking good, and nothing she did could make her convince herself otherwise. Emotionally it had felt like suicide, like complete surrender, like death.
She looked at her stony face. She could see the bite mark that Mal had left on her neck from last time quite clearly. She had red patches from the roughness of his beard. No matter how fierce an image she was trying to project, there was still a slightly hazy, out-of-focus look to her. She’d never seen that look on her own face before, not even when she’d first been with Archer, but she knew it. It was the look of a woman in love.
She almost threw something at the mirror when that absurd thought came into her mind. She didn’t even believe in love anymore, except for a few rare, special couples. It must simply be the look of satisfying sex—she could deny almost anything else but not that.
Staring at herself wasn’t going to change anything. She brushed her teeth, then pushed back from the low-slung sink. She needed to sleep. Tomorrow she would have to face Malcolm Gunnison, tomorrow she would have to look at Archer and think abo
ut putting a bullet in his brain. Accept the reality of it—because sooner or later it was going to happen.
Her wheelchair was folded up behind the bathroom door. She climbed into it, switched off the light and rolled out into the darkened room. She needed to sleep, to block out all the mental and physical images that were assaulting her. She’d been doing that for that last few years—dismissing the mess she was in. Tonight it wasn’t going to be that easy.
It was a good thing Mal slept lightly. He’d just drifted off when he heard the sound on the stairs, and his hearing was acute enough to know it wasn’t Sophie making another crazy attempt to kill Archer, but Archer himself mounting the stairs. Tension ratcheted through him, but he lay very still in the bed, waiting. If Archer went to Sophie’s door, Mal was going to stop him, by any means necessary. He’d already made it clear that Sophie was his exclusive property for as long as he was on the island, but Archer hadn’t liked it, and he wasn’t a man to agree to anything he didn’t want to. Archer would have picked up on the tension and raw sexuality that pulsed between his wife and his guest, and it would be hard for a psychopath like Archer to resist tasting some of it himself, but Mal wasn’t letting it happen. He’d kill him if he had to.
Which was insane—he’d just stopped Sophie from doing that very thing. The mission mattered a hell of a lot more than one treacherous former agent.
Except that it hadn’t been entirely her fault. She’d been dropped off in the deep end when she had barely learned to dog-paddle, and she’d faced a barracuda. All the excuses in the world didn’t matter. He couldn’t throw away an important mission like this one for personal reasons.
But he wasn’t going to let Archer touch Sophie again.
To his mingled annoyance and relief his own door opened, and he felt Archer approach him. He hoped to God Archer wasn’t going to make a pass at him. He was usually willing to take one for the team—sex was a tool, and it didn’t much matter to him who he had to fuck in the line of business. He wasn’t so sure he could carry it off with Archer.
