Heart's Desire

by Ellie Masters

  “I guess I didn’t realize,” she admitted.

  There had been plenty of heat between them, but it was more obnoxious than anything else. Or maybe that was what her head had been trying to tell her heart. It was the perfect lie.

  Resting back on her heels brought her attention to the tenting of his shorts.

  “You’re fucking killing me here.” Following the angle of her gaze, he lifted one hand and dragged it down his face. A slight groan echoed out of his chest. His entire body vibrated with a seething mess of energy, making his posture stiff and uncomfortable. Several times, his eyes darted to the locked door, but invariably, they returned to stare down at her, crouched before him on the floor.

  She blinked up at him while he clenched his teeth. His fingers grabbed at the thin fabric of the covers, but he didn’t make a move, except when she pulled at the elastic of his briefs. His head tilted back while she shifted to a more comfortable position. It wouldn’t take much to lean forward and take him in her mouth, but this was her turn to explore, tease, torture, and please, and she intended to do all that and more.

  Her attention fell to his impressive girth and the swollen hardness that couldn’t be ignored. Thick and well-endowed, the head of his cock plumped with his arousal and leaked a tiny bead of pre-cum. Blood engorged the veins climbing up the shaft, an enticement for her to lick their paths from root to crown. His cock bobbed with the clenching of his abs, and the slight thrust of his hips betrayed his eagerness for her to begin. The smoothness of the heavy sac beneath surprised her, and she paused to admire his potency. Manscaping and Ryker Lyons didn’t belong in the same sentence, but he evidently kept himself trimmed and shaved. A dusting of hair gathered above his cock and formed a decadent path to the stack of taut muscles sitting low on his abs.

  She gripped the base of his erection, a non-tentative hold, and slid her hand up to the crown, twisting slightly as she went. His shaft was smooth but dry, something she intended to remedy in a moment. Slowly, she slid her hand up and down his hard length. Velvet skin covered a shaft of hardened steel, but the skin of her palm dragged against his shaft. He hissed, and she wasn’t clear if it was because it hurt or felt good. When she reached the tip, she smeared a drop of pre-cum over her palm and then took a moment to glide her hand over the head, massaging in a circle while the muscles of his jaw bunched.

  “Holy fuck,” he said, panting, “that’s torture.”

  “Do you like it?” The question was unnecessary, given the way his hips jerked into her palm.

  His eyes squeezed shut, and his lips pressed together. “It’s incredible.”

  A sense of victory jolted through her body. Scott had never allowed her to please him this way. He’d always been the one in charge of his pleasure, often taking before giving. Not that he’d ever left her unsatisfied, but sometimes, she’d felt more like an afterthought. The power to bring pleasure to another thrummed through her body, and she took time to enjoy the feeling.

  As she slid her hand down, Ryker’s hips bucked, and he hissed with his growing need. His chin lifted, and his eyes snapped open. It was all the encouragement she needed to move her hand faster, grip him tighter, and twist with each pass up and down. But she wasn’t going to let him come like this. She had something else planned. Adding her other hand, she moved them in a dance up and down his shaft until his breaths tugged, and the cords of his neck stood out. It didn’t take long before his legs shook, and his hips thrust against an urgent need to fuck.

  With him drowning in pleasure, she slowed the pace and changed the tempo to languid caresses. It was time to lavish attention on his balls and free up his cock for her mouth. She lifted the heavy sac, not so much stroking it as exploring it, and learned his response to her touch. She ran her hands over every square inch of his shaft and his balls. She even trailed them down the muscles of his tree-trunk legs while listening to the hitch in his breathing. Through it all, she maintained a steady rhythm and used enough pressure to take him toward an eventual explosive end.

  His legs trembled, and his fingers shook. His breaths pulsed out the turbulence of his need. He was getting close. The pulsation of his cock, the tenseness of his breath, the uncoordinated jerks of his hips—all told the same story. When she glanced up, she saw it in the darkness of the lust burning in his eyes as he watched her pleasure him.

  “I’m close,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m so fucking close.”

  Keeping contact with his heated gaze, she lifted up onto her knees. “Not just yet,” she said. “I haven’t tasted you yet.”

  “Fuck, Tia,” he said, “you’re killing me. If you don’t put me in that pretty mouth of yours, I’m gonna…”

  She arched a brow, perhaps daring him to finish that sentence. They’d fucked, but they hadn’t really explored much beyond that. What kind of lover was Ryker Lyons?

  “What will you do?” she asked, needing to know that answer.

  His entire body stilled, and he reached down to grip her hand wrapped around his cock. “Don’t push me,” he said. “I’m barely hanging on by a thread here, being gentlemanly and shit with you on your fucking knees. I want in your mouth, your pussy, and even that tight ass you have. Are you going to make me beg for it or let me take what already belongs to me? Which way are we going to jump, Tia? Is that what you’re asking? Because I certainly have an answer.”

  She swallowed against the thickness in her throat and clamped her knees together. “I’ve never really…d-d-done that,” she stuttered.

  “Done what?” he said. “You’ve never given head? Swallowed? Or are we talking something else here?”

  “I don’t know what we’re talking about.” And why did this conversation turn her on more than fisting his cock?

  “Have you ever submitted before?” His brows drew together. “Fuck, Tia, tell me that turns you on because I’m dying here.”

  “You don’t like what I’m doing?”

  His cock was more engorged now than when they’d started, and she’d brought him to the brink of orgasm at least once. Even now, his cock throbbed beneath her hand, pulsing and jerking with his need.

  “I fucking like it, but I’m not used to letting the woman take the lead.”

  Her eyes rounded with the answer to at least part of that puzzle. But how far would he take his need? How far did she need him to go? Neither question had an answer, which left her to flounder. Suddenly, she didn’t know what to do. Continue to stroke him? Should she put her mouth on him and trade the hand job for a blow job? He seemed to want that. But the mood had shifted between them, as if the entire world had wobbled as it found a new center.

  Before she could process what was happening, he surged to his feet. His fist gripped the base of his erection, and he reached down to palm the back of her head. “Open,” he said, tapping the flare of his cock against her lips.

  Her lips parted, and her mouth opened against the press of his cock. He thrust into her mouth, taking control firmly out of her hands, and then pulled out.

  “You and I are going to have a nice, long fucking talk after this,” he said. “A nice, fucking long talk.” He thrust forward again, lodging himself deep inside her mouth. Her eyes teared up, and her gag reflex engaged, but he gripped her head in his hand and kept himself buried deep. “This is what it means to give up control, Tia.” He pulled out while she sputtered and caught her breath.

  “Open,” he said, tapping the head of his cock on her lips again. “Don’t make me punish you.”

  His words brought a rush of heat to her pussy. It was like a dam had burst within her, releasing something she couldn’t control. She didn’t question what was happening. Didn’t fight her thoughts. She opened for him and let herself go.

  Deep, powerful, masculine grunts filled the air as he fucked her mouth with relentless determination to achieve his goal. Then, his entire body contracted, and hot jets of ejaculate hit the back of her throat. He continued to move in and out, slowing his pace as the aftershocks of h
is pleasure ran their course. The pace of his breaths returned to normal, and he pulled out. Still long and engorged, his cock jutted in the air in front of her face. He lifted her and cradled her in his arms.

  “Fuck, Tia. Are you okay? Was that too much?”

  She curled against his chest and wrapped her arms around his neck. “No. I mean, yes. Yes, I’m okay. And, no, that wasn’t too much.”

  “Goddamn, you’re amazing and more perfect than I could’ve ever hoped for.” His voice dropped to a whisper, and he ran a finger from her temple to the tip of her chin. There, he tilted her face up, forcing a collision of their need. “How far are you willing to go?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “That was the first time I’ve ever let someone…”

  “Dominate you?”

  She gave a nod.

  “Are you willing to explore more of that with me?”

  She bit her lower lip, terrified by a truth she’d only just discovered. Admitting it out loud would change everything between them because it was more than simply having sex. She trusted Ryker with her life, perhaps even her heart as well, and while this whole thing between them was a disaster ready to explode in both their faces, she didn’t care. She was tired of living half a life and pleasing her partner simply to keep the peace. She wanted to live without fear.

  With a deep breath, she nodded once again. “Make love to me,” she begged. “Please? I need to feel you.”

  “Let me get dressed. I’ll go find—”

  “I have an IUD. I can’t get pregnant, and we’re both clean. Please, don’t make me beg.”

  “Oh, you’ll be begging,” he said with a smirk. “On your knees, on your back, with your legs wrapped around my head…”

  He spun them around and pressed her back against the cold wall. She would’ve hissed against the shock of it, except he rearranged her legs and placed them around his hips. With his tongue deep inside her mouth, teasing and licking, devouring and claiming, he thrust upward and seated himself deep inside her pussy.

  And then it began.

  He took her against the wall.

  He tossed her on the bed.

  He bent her against the low dresser and swatted her ass.

  Ryker staked his claim, taking her body and making love to her soul. He took her over and over, making her his. She went to her knees. She lay on her back. She wrapped her legs around his hips, his waist, his ass, and his face. All the while, he made love and made her beg for more.

  She screamed out his name and collapsed from one orgasm, only to roll right into another. His relentless assault never wavered. He buried his face between her legs and had her writhing against his tongue.

  The night passed in a blur of flesh melding against flesh, moans lifting on lips, and cries filled with pleasure and a hint of delicious pain.

  Part Four

  Tour

  Tia & Ryker

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Lover Boy

  Ryker

  Ryker’s body curled around Tia’s lithe frame in the small one-person bunk. They were naked, and the scent of sex lingered in the air. He brushed his lips against her shoulder and pulled her against the hardness of his morning erection. If heaven were a place, then he’d found it right here.

  How many times had he awakened next to her in the field, aching and filled with longing, only to have to crawl out of his sleeping bag to find somewhere private to relieve the heavy ache in his balls? The desolate desert environment of Afghanistan made that task nearly impossible, but he’d learned the art of discretion as he jacked off to thoughts of Tia in his arms.

  She rolled her shoulders and stretched, which pressed her glorious ass against his dick, making it ache and come alive. Like him, it was an insatiable beast for anything Tia related.

  “Good morning.” She reached behind to stroke his cock. “Do you ever get soft?”

  “I’m constantly hard around you,” he said and shamelessly pressed his dick against the crack of her ass. “Any idea what time it is?”

  “Honestly, I don’t care,” she said. “I could stay here forever.”

  “You’d like that?” Stay with him? Forever? Tia in his arms forever sounded perfect.

  Her fingers grazed his erection, and her nails bit into the sensitive skin.

  “Mmm,” she said. “I’d like that very much.”

  “We have nowhere we need to be,” he said, grinding against her ass. “We can stay here for as long as you like.”

  She rolled over. Dark lashes swept over her sculpted cheekbones, and her chocolate eyes swirled with a depth of emotion mirrored in his heart. Lifting her hands over her head, she grasped the U-shaped metal tubing that served as a headboard. “If that’s the case, I guess I’m all yours.”

  “You need me to tie those in place, or are you going to be good and keep them there for me?”

  They’d barely scratched the surface of their fantasies last night. Too hungry to devour each other’s bodies, they’d fucked until exhaustion had them collapsing in a tangle of arms and legs. Blissfully satiated from the evening activities, he’d slept like the dead, which left him full of energy and eager to fuck with the coming of dawn.

  She gripped the rail and giggled. “Take me; I’m yours.”

  A growl ripped from his throat as he twisted in the too-small bed and positioned himself over the toned expanse of her body. “Brave words. Be careful what you wish for, Tia.”

  “I have no need to be careful,” she said. “I trust you.”

  She proceeded to show him exactly how far that trust extended. Morning became noon and passed well beyond lunch. During that time, he introduced her to a world she’d never experienced. And he liked that. He fucking loved being the one to show her something that belonged solely to him. But the time eventually came where exhaustion pulled at them both—that, and hunger for food.

  They had to strategize his exit from her room without getting caught. That consisted of her heading out, shower supplies in hand. Once she verified no spying eyes, she would return and rap on the door. That would be his signal to make his exit.

  With his ear to the door, he waited. The soft rap of her knuckles came less than a minute later. He counted to ten, giving her time to move away, and slipped out. His barracks were nearly halfway across base, and it would be a bit of a hike but well worth it. He fisted his hands deep into his pockets and wandered to find his things. With his head down, his thoughts drifted to last night, thrilled and a little stunned at the eagerness Tia had displayed. What he hadn’t counted on was running into Forest or seeing the recrimination in Forest’s eyes.

  “Lover boy!” The deep rumble of Forest’s baritone carried across the air, pulling Ryker up short.

  “What’s up?” And why did Forest look like he wanted to rip Ryker limb to limb?

  He glanced down for a quick look at his uniform. He and Tia had dressed quickly, and she’d left him one last lingering memory as she knelt before him, drawing him deep into her mouth where she drove him insane one last time. Insatiable in bed, she’d surprised him with her appetite for sex. He’d never found a woman whose hunger rivaled his or who had the physical conditioning to keep up with his demands. Many things surprised him about Tia, and he hoped to spend the rest of his life uncovering her secrets.

  “Come with me,” Forest growled. His arctic eyes hardened and froze Ryker in place.

  There was no way to refuse without making a scene, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try.

  Gesturing in the direction of his barracks, he attempted escape. “I need to get back to my bunk.”

  Forest closed the distance, his long legs devouring the space between them. Pulling up to a stop, Forest gave him the once-over. Then, he sniffed. “You smell like sex.”

  “That’s a bit intrusive,” he countered, offended by Forest’s overbearing manner nearly as much as the assumptions rolling off the giant.

  “You’re going to fuck up her life at the rate you’re going,” Forest
said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Look, I’m not military, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s off-limits. You and Tia—”

  “Whoa,” Ryker called out, “you’d better think very carefully about what comes out of your mouth next.”

  Forest arched a brow. “Funny, I was going to say the same about you.” He locked an arm over Ryker’s shoulders and sniffed again. “I smell her on you, and if I do, everybody else will, too. Be smart, Technical Sergeant Ryker Lyons, and fucking follow me. I’ve got your best interests at heart.”

  “Do you?”

  “I already got Ash to get your stuff. You’re coming to the VIP barracks. We’re getting you showered”—Forest took in Ryker’s appearance with a disapproving scowl—“and shaved before anyone is the wiser.”

  “You took my stuff?”

  “Ash took your stuff. You’re working for him now.” Forest huffed a low laugh. “Actually, you’re kind of working for me, which means you’ll do as you’re told.”

  “Sorry, big guy,” Ryker asserted, “but you’re a bit confused. I don’t know you, and while I dig Ash and the guys, I was pretty clear last night about playing for them.”

  “Right, you were all blustery and polite as fuck,” Forest said. “That means shit, by the way. Angel Fire wants you. Colonel Vane has requested you. You belong to us for the next two weeks. Like I said, all your stuff has been brought over. You’ll take a shower and rinse off the smell of sex, shave your scruff, and put on a nice, clean set of BDUs.”

  Ryker had to crane his neck to glare at Forest, a tall man. He didn’t like that one bit. “I thought I’d made myself crystal clear. I’m not doing shit until I speak with Bent.”

  “Well, that’s where I was gonna take you”—Forest made a show of sniffing again—“but you need to get her scent off your pathetic self.”