by Lora Leigh
It was definitely unusual. She had never slept with a man before John, and she was almost frightened at how easy it was becoming to get used to it.
Not once had she awakened wondering who was behind her, or terrified that the nightmares were returning. Not once had she felt uncomfortable, or that she shouldn’t be here. Unfortunately, a part of her felt as though she were at home.
She turned slowly, trying not to awaken him, but wanting to see his face.
The laugh lines at the side of his eyes hadn’t been there before he left Boston. Come to think of it, it had been years since she had truly seen John happy, until now. He laughed now. Amusement and fun gleamed in his eyes as it had so long ago. Before he had gone to the Marines. Before he had returned from blood and death.
As she had noticed before, he was stronger, tighter, broader. He was, on the outside, the man she had always known existed on the inside.
Lifting her hand, using only the tips of her fingers, she slowly pushed back a long, thick strand of hair that had fallen over his face.
He looked more arrogant than ever before, she thought in amusement, and John Walker Jr. had arrogance in abundance before he ever left Boston. He was more relaxed here, though, less austere and critical. He was the man who had stolen her heart years ago as a young girl.
As she watched him, the hunger for him rose. It was a natural extension of any thought of John. That need that filtered through her body, heated her flesh, and left her aching for him. She felt it in her breasts, in her erect nipples. That sensitivity that only arose whenever John was present, whenever she thought of him.
The heat that built there worked its way lower as well. It heated her clit, burned in her pussy, and clenched in her womb. From there, she felt the sensitivity working beneath her flesh, filling her with a hunger for him that she knew would never be completely sated.
She trailed her fingers from his hair, to a broad, muscled shoulder. Lightly. She kept her touch light, wanting to feel the subtle heat and texture of his flesh rather than the well-honed iron beneath.
She had always loved his body, but she loved it even more now. It was a rich, golden bronze. It was heated, pulsing, and hard like living iron beneath.
As her fingers roamed over his shoulder, his lashes drifted open. Sleepy violet eyes stared back at her for a second before he turned slowly to his back.
An invitation. An invitation to touch as she pleasured, to pleasure as she wanted. He was giving her carte blanche to his body and her senses exploded with chaotic hunger at the realization.
Moving over him, she couldn’t help but ache for his kiss now. A kiss she could measure, control, relish. Her lips lowered to his, brushed against them, and her entire body clenched in need as they responded beneath her.
The kiss flamed, but rather than blazing out of control, it only began to burn brighter, hotter, while maintaining the need for a slow, easy caress.
Lips stroked, tongues licked, tasted, and built the desire rising between them.
Touching him was like being in the center of a firestorm, protected, yet awash with the heat. It was like drawing in that heat, filling her soul with it.
The taste of him infused her senses, his kisses growing hungrier as she felt the need rioting inside her.
Dragging her lips back from his, Sierra drew them down the rough flesh of his neck as her hands stroked his hard abs. She nipped and licked, tasted and enjoyed him as she had never enjoyed anything in her life.
She felt as though she were becoming drunk on him. Each taste of him was more intoxicating than the last. When his hands threaded into her hair, his body arching against her, the knowledge she was bringing him pleasure amped her own arousal.
Her nails scraped along his thighs, feeling them tighten beneath her touch as her lips trailed down his abs. She knew where she was going, she knew what she wanted.
His control was shot. John could feel the last threads of restraint beginning to slip through his fingertips despite the battle to hold on to it.
He’d seen Sierra’s face, her expression as she began kissing her way down his body. She wasn’t just pleasuring him, hell, she was finding pleasure in each touch she was giving him. He’d never seen that expression on a woman’s face before. He’d never known of a time that a woman had actually known pleasure just from touching him.
The only way to hold on to that control was simply to watch her, even though he knew that was the fastest way to lose his control.
Swollen lips sipped from the flesh of his abdomen as her nails pricked at his thighs. A delicate pink tongue lapped at the flesh just a breath above the rigid head of his cock as it rose from between his thighs.
Damn, he wanted her. Needed her. But even more, he wanted to watch her face, watch her pleasure.
As her adventurous little tongue licked over the wide, throbbing crest and stole his breath, he watched her eyes darken, her face flushing further. Electric pleasure zipped through his body, sizzling up his spine as his hands tightened in her hair.
Hell, this was torture. It was the worst torture he had ever allowed himself to endure.
Her hot little tongue lapped at the head of his dick before her lips parted and drew it, but only momentarily, into the heated depths of her mouth.
As she released him, a tight grimace pulled at his lips as his fingers tightened further in her hair.
“You’re killing me,” he groaned.
A low, light moan vibrated against his shaft as she licked her way lower, then back to the tight head.
When her lips drew him inside her mouth once again, he swore he nearly lost his mind. She sucked him deep instantly, as though the need for his taste overwhelmed her.
Her fingers cupped his balls timidly, but that hesitancy was sexier than the touch of the most experienced woman who had ever been there. The pleasure of it, the sensations, the sight of her face, her lips surrounding his cock, was exquisite. Hell, the pleasure went so far beyond just the physical sensation of it that he wondered if he could ever make sense of it.
“Damn, Sierra, you’re making me crazy.” His fingers tightened in her hair once again, holding her in place for just a second as his hips arched slowly.
Then she smacked him.
John jerked back, blinked at the sting in his abs, and her little hand still pressed to it as her head jerked up.
“This is my treat.” The look in her eyes was determined, fierce, and hungry.
John stared back at her, his eyes narrowing.
“I woke up first,” she informed him. “I started this. So leave me alone to have my fun.”
Carefully, he laid his hands on the bed, palms down to allow his fingers to curl into the sheets when the pressure became too great.
Sierra proceeded to make him insane.
Her lips and tongue moved over the head of his cock like a hungry sensualist, taking him as he fought to keep his hips from arching, tried to keep from thrusting deeper.
Ah hell. She was going to destroy him.
Her fingers played with his balls, weighed them, stroked them as her lips and tongue wreaked havoc on his dick, and there was nothing he could do to ease the torture, the pressure. She refused to let him.
This was her turn, but his turn would come. As he watched her, watched the dampness of her mouth as it lifted from his dick, watched her lips redden, her eyes glaze with hunger, he promised himself he would drive her just as crazy, very soon. In ways she couldn’t imagine.
Slowly, with exquisite relish, her lips lifted from his straining cock as she stared back at him with drowsy eyes.
“I’ve dreamed of this,” she whispered as she moved back up his body. “Dreamed of every second of this.”
“Payback’s hell,” he groaned.
She smiled a sexy, siren’s smile as long black curls cascaded around her body. Easing up his body like a sleek little cat, satin skin brushing against him, the heat of her pussy glancing his hard shaft until she was straddling him, she blew his mind with her sen
suality.
“In your arms, payback would be paradise,” she assured him, hips shifting, the heat of her pussy nudging at the wide head of his cock.
“Ah, hell.” He was going to lose himself in this, he could feel it. Hell, no other woman had ever taken him like this, had ever loved him like this.
Pleasure tore through his body as she shifted again, the blazing heat of her intimate flesh beginning to enfold his erection, tender muscles working over the head as she moved, taking him by slow increments.
A firestorm of sensations overtook his body. His balls were tortured with the effort to hold back, his cock straining.
“Where’s the condoms?” she whispered as she eased up again. “Oh God, John, I don’t know if I can pull off you in time.”
Her body was shuddering as his hands moved, trembling for the drawer of the nightstand. He’d found one earlier. A single fucking rubber, and he knew damned good and well one would never be enough.
Tearing the package open as she lifted, he rolled the latex quickly down his cock, then gripped her hips and waited. It was like waiting for death and birth, and his patience was wearing thin.
But hers was as well.
She eased down.
She fucking destroyed him.
His dick jerked, throbbed, sweat popped out on his brow, and a thousand fingers of sensation began to race over his flesh.
He couldn’t handle it.
Bucking beneath her, he drove in deeper, expecting that very feminine smack once again. Instead, she cried out in pleasure, the sound wrapping around him and driving him harder.
Tightening his hands on her hips, he fucked her deeper, feeling her press down on him hard and fast as he surged upward. She kept up with him. Thrust for thrust, her pussy milking his cock as he stretched the inner walls until they created a snug, intimate little embrace around the desperately hard shaft.
He wanted to fuck her forever, but first he had to hold on long enough to simply feel her coming around him. He couldn’t forever, despite the agony at the thought of losing the pleasure enveloping him now.
What she did to him should be illegal.
Rising, she sat astride him, that small sexy little curl of her lips going straight to his balls. He swore he wouldn’t last another thirty seconds.
Then she moved.
“Fuck, Sierra,” he groaned, his neck arching as she began to ride him with a smooth thrusting motion of her hips that he knew neither of them would survive for long.
His hands slid to her buttocks, gripping the rounded globes and guiding her motions, entranced by the fact that she wasn’t adept at this, simply adventurous. And that was all the more arousing.
They moved against each other, their thrust and parry escalating in seconds. Watching her face, he knew the moment her release began. The way her eyes dazed at the same time her thrusts became jerky. The way her pussy began to ripple and tighten, the smooth, heated flow of additional juices, and then the ragged, tormented cry that tore from her lips.
She was there, coming around him, falling against his chest as he continued to thrust inside her, to take her, to fuck her past the last ecstatic shudder before he gave in to his own release.
A release that felt as though it was pouring from his soul. Arching hard and deep and inside her, he heard her name slip past his lips, felt his body shake, tremble, and then the harsh, electrifying pulses of sensation as they began to tear rapidly through his body.
And just as he feared.
He lost himself in her.
EIGHT
She was tearing him apart. John watched as Sierra dressed an hour later, her gray eyes pensive, too somber as she stared in the mirror over the dresser and carefully smoothed moisturizer over her face.
There was that edge of fear in her eyes that he hated seeing, the same edge he saw in her gaze as he carefully tracked the healing bruises against her flesh before allowing her to leave the bed.
Long, black curls rippled down her back, the thick strands gleaming like silk against her pale skin. He wanted to get her on the upper deck, naked, slicked with sunscreen, and basking beneath the summer sun.
The sun was a healing balm; it would heat her pretty flesh, darken it, and give her a look even more exotic than what she had now. First, he would have to move the houseboat for the day, though. He had one of the far docks, one of the most private, but it wasn’t private enough to keep preying eyes from watching her naked body.
He hadn’t told her they were being watched. It wasn’t something he was looking forward to telling her. She’d come here for safety, and the thought that the danger she had faced in Boston had followed her here made him homicidal.
“We’re having company soon,” he told her as she drew a pair of light, cotton pants over her legs.
She paused as she picked up a dark blue T-shirt.
“What kind of company?” she asked carefully.
“This morning, some friends of mine and their children,” he told her. “Rowdy’s cousins, wives, and infants. Rogue’s not back from her honeymoon yet so just the Mackays. It’s like a madhouse when they all get together, so be prepared. Their wives are hellions, their children are adorable little angels, and they’ll pump you for information, brag on their husbands, and decide who and where to begin matchmaking. So don’t let them know we’re sleeping together. It’ll give them something to wonder about.” He grinned with a wink in her direction. There was no way to hide the fact that he was sleeping with her. He’d kissed her lovely neck just a little too hard earlier, leaving the faintest red mark that he considered a stamp of supreme ownership.
Sierra rolled her eyes. “Dummy. As if they’ll believe that one.”
At least she was calling him “dummy” again. The playful little insult had always assured him that he was in her good graces and once again the love of her life.
He’d missed that, he realized. As he realized only just now how the playful little name had always made him feel. Sierra didn’t call anyone else “dummy.” As completely immature as it sounded, even to himself, John had to admit it gave him a bit of hope.
Hell, he had no intention of letting her leave him. She was his. He just had to convince her of that, and of the fact that it didn’t matter to him how many men she had been with before him.
He almost frowned at that thought as some part of his mind flashed back to that drunken night and the too hazy memory of pressing inside her.
Wishful thinking? He was starting to wonder about that.
“So how long are your friends staying?” she asked, drawing him out of his musings.
“An hour or so.” Pushing his fingers through his damp hair to tidy it, he watched as she drew a wide-toothed comb through hers. “The doctor will be here to check you out later this afternoon. While he’s here, explain the problem with the medication. He should give you something that doesn’t make you so drowsy.”
Sierra faced him as she arched her brow mockingly. “When did you get so bossy, John? You’re starting to sound like my father.”
He didn’t like that. Sierra almost grinned at the dark look he flashed her.
“Don’t get sassy, lollipop, or I might have to retaliate by talking to the doctor myself.”
“Go ahead.” Shrugging in unconcern, Sierra laid the comb on the dresser and faced him fully. “If you’re going to treat me like a child, then you may as well do it fully. Since when did you begin believing that I couldn’t take care of the simplest things by myself?”
Was that surprise in his deep, brilliant violet-blue gaze?
“I thought no such thing, Sierra.” His voice was quiet, sincere, sending a flare of remorse racing through her. “I was concerned. No more. But if you don’t take care of it, then you’ll be proving your own point. Won’t you?”
Damn him. The remorse chilled quickly enough in the face of his arrogance.
“Okay, lollipop, you have about ten minutes to finish dressing and bring your perky little ass downstairs if you want to meet the b
abies. Trust me, they’re well worth being on time for.”
With that, he left the bedroom and moved quickly down the stairs, leaving Sierra to stare after him in confusion. He was too playful, she decided. John had always had a nice sense of humor, but she swore the man he was now was joking more often than he was serious.
This playfulness was going to drive her insane, though, because she had no idea how to handle it, or how to handle him.
She finished dressing quickly, as he advised, wondering at the Mackay family that John seemed to have made friends with so quickly.
He hadn’t been a man that made friends easily before. She had seen when she met Rowdy that John was close to these people, though.
His sister, Candace, said that John had found his roots. That he had finally found a place where he felt he belonged. Sierra wanted to see that place. She wanted to meet those people.
Moving down the staircase moments later, she could hear the murmur of conversation, the sweet, melodic gurgle of infants. Not just one, she saw as she stepped into the kitchen area and looked into the living space, but four. Four approximately twelve-month-old toddlers with thick, thick black hair and varying shades of devilish green eyes. And all four turned to stare at her, just as their protective mothers and fathers did.
What a very interesting group. The women were so diverse at first glance, ranging in height, hair color, as well as expression. Of the four men, only one didn’t have black hair, but he looked just as hard, just as arrogant, as the other three.
“Sierra.” John’s voice held an odd tone, one she had never heard when he spoke her name before. “Come, meet my friends.”
The introductions were made easily as John placed his hand firmly at her lower back and led her into the thick of the group to the empty recliner that faced the sectional couch where Chaya, Kelly, and Christa Mackay sat with Janey Jansen. Janey was a Mackay before she married Somerset’s Chief of Police, Alex Jansen, the man who stood beside his wife’s seat, his gray eyes watching Sierra curiously as the Mackay cousins watched her with varying degrees of curiosity and, strangely, acceptance.
It was the tiniest of the four babes who drew her attention, though. Barely walking, her spring green dress flaring around her fragile body, she toddled over and offered Sierra a bite of a baby biscuit that she held in her hand.
