That level of aggression belonged to Crowley, and he wasn’t Crowley anymore. He wasn’t.
Are you sure?
“Omelets. Focus on the omelets.”
He focused on the omelets.
When he finished, he plated both, covered each plate in foil, and then proceeded to make a pot of tea. Niki was a tea drinker—English Breakfast, no milk. The cupboard was stocked with three different brands of English Breakfast.
He needed to give his uni student a raise.
“That smells good.”
He forced out a relaxed chuckle at Niki’s voice, keeping his attention on the teapot.
Pour in the boiling water. Don’t turn. Don’t look at her.
“Thanks.” He placed the lid on the pot, rotated the pot twice to the right—a bizarre superstition he’d picked up from his mother, about the only thing he truly remembered about her—and then reached for the omelets on the counter. “Ready to eat?”
“Yes.”
He carried the plates into the dining room without looking at her. Placed them on the table and sat himself down.
The sound of her sliding out the chair opposite him filled the room. Loud in the silence.
He adjusted his knife and fork. Moved his omelet around on his plate.
“This looks good. I didn’t know you could cook.”
Before he could stop himself, he threw her a quick smile. “I am an incredible cook.”
She grinned back at him. “And so humble.”
He laughed. “Bloody oath.”
She held his gaze. Stole his breath with the warring emotions in her eyes. Desire, uncertainty…apprehension.
“Eat,” he growled, dropping his focus to his food.
“Lincoln.”
He shoveled omelet into his mouth. Refused to look at her.
“Why are you angry at me?”
He let out a harsh breath, stare locked on his plate. “I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at myself. I scared you.”
“Maybe. A little.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, gripping his fork tighter.
“But then, I’ve always been a little scared by you.”
Frowning, he looked at her.
She rolled her eyes, lips curling. “The first time I looked at you, Lincoln, things happened inside me that had never happened before. Things tightened. Things…fluttered. And holy crap, that scared me. I’ve been drawn to you for as long as I can remember. As long as you’ve been in my life. And then, when I thought you were dead, an emptiness filled me—and that scared me as well. So I filled that emptiness fighting for those who couldn’t fight for themselves. And every night I thought of you, and missed you, and was scared that maybe the way I felt about you would never go away.”
A soft sigh slipped from her lips and she shrugged. “And it didn’t. In fact, it only grew. And then I found out you weren’t dead, and it was like I was suffocating in all those sensations I remembered from years ago, and I was scared again. Because being in love is scary. And I’ve been in love with you since I was sixteen. Maybe even younger.”
“Insanity, Nik. Your loving me. It’s insane.”
She shrugged again, a small smile curling her lips. “Don’t care. It’s the way it is. And nothing you can do or say will change it.”
His heart crashed in his ears. He was losing the war waging inside him yet again, the one he’d been fighting for years. No matter how hard he tried, he was losing.
To the victor go the spoils.
“You’re in over your head,” he said. One last attempt to deny the undeniable. One last attempt to delay the inevitable.
Her smile grew bolder. “Again, I don’t care. When it comes to you, Lincoln, I’m all in. My body, my heart. My soul. I love you. It’s time you accepted that.”
He jolted from his seat, the clatter of it crashing to the floor the only sound as he rounded the table, buried his hand in the hair at the back of her head and kissed her.
Screw holding back. For now at least, in the safety of these walls, he would give her everything she wanted. Everything she desired. Give her everything she had thought she’d lost.
If he had to die again when Pete checked in, when his ex-partner told him the lay of the land with the agency, he would. To keep Niki safe, he’d die a thousand times. But for now, he was giving her everything she wanted.
Including his heart.
He kissed her. And moaned when she rose to her feet, kissing him back.
She jumped, wrapping her bare thighs around his hips. He grabbed her arse and deposited her on the table, only tearing his lips from hers long enough to swipe the table clear of their plates and knives and forks before kissing her again.
She invaded his mouth with her tongue, her fingers knotting in his hair as she ground her groin to his.
Moaning at the hot shards of pleasure sinking into his core, he grabbed her hips and yanked her closer still to his body, dragging his mouth over her chin, down the column of her throat, up to the side of her neck.
“I’m warning you, Lincoln,” she rasped as he drew the skin just below her ear into his mouth, “if you don’t deliver this time, I will beat the crap out of you.”
Chuckling, he raised his head and stared into her eyes. “So if I were to step backward…”
He stepped back. Or tried to. Niki locked her ankles at the base of his spine before he could move. Balled one fist in his hair and another in the front of his shirt. “No way, Jose.”
Laughing, he pressed his groin to hers once more and cupped her face in his hands. “Okay, okay. You’ve got me. I’m yours.”
Until it’s not safe for you.
Her eyes flashed. Her lips twitched, and she dug her heels into the small of his back, drawing him closer to the junction of her thighs. “Damn straight, you’re mine.”
A wave of delirious joy rushed through him, followed by a cold reminder this couldn’t be forever.
It couldn’t.
So make it count now.
He crushed her mouth with his again, raking his hands down her body, under the hem of the loose T-shirt she wore—one of his, a distant part of his brain noticed—and up her rib cage.
She arched into his touch, snared his wrist, and directed his hand to her breast.
Chapter 7
He kneaded her breast. Plucked at her nipple. Tweaked it. Pinched it.
She groaned, her pussy growing wet.
Wetter. She’d been wet, ready for him from the second she’d walked into his tattoo studio.
He raked a hand up her back, snared a fistful of her hair and pulled, assaulting her bowed neck with his mouth.
“Oh God, yes,” she groaned as every molecule in her body melted with pleasure.
She clung to his shoulders, clawed at them, at the back of his neck, his scalp.
He sucked at her throat, and she moaned at the delicious pulling sensation. “Do that again,” she ordered. Being branded by him set alight a hungry fire in her.
He did, squeezing her breast as he did so.
“Oh yeah.” So good.
He moved his mouth lower, down to the base of her throat, and nipped at her collarbone.
She let out a little yelp, body burning hotter, and then moaned once more as he returned his mouth to the side of her throat and sucked on her skin again.
What was it about him leaving a mark that made her so horny? Feel so…wanted? It made little sense, but then when it came down to it, so did love.
“Again,” she breathed, bowing her neck, offering it completely to him.
He drew harder on her skin for a long second, and then moved his mouth to her ear. Flicked it with his tongue and bit her lobe.
“Oh God, yes.”
He moaned in reply, his cock pulsing against her spread pussy lips. “Christ, the sounds you make drive me insane.”
She chuckled. “Good. It’s about time.”
He lifted his head, just enough to look into her eyes, his breath hot and ragged on her lips. “Tr
ust me, Nikalene, you’ve been driving me insane for a long time.”
“Then stop talking and do something about it.”
He sucked in a slow breath, and then hauled her off the table and carried her into his bedroom.
Anticipation rushed through her. Made her tremble. Or maybe it was the tender way he placed her onto the bed, the gentle way he raised her shirt up over her head.
He ran his gaze over her, taking in her body—naked, save for a pair of his black boxer-briefs that she’d taken from his drawer. The raw need burning in his eyes flooded her sex with warmth.
“You are stunning,” he said, feathering his fingertips along the lines of her shoulders, down the side swells of her breasts, and then up over her nipples. “Even in my undies.”
She closed her eyes, the caress too intense to endure. Her nipples beaded—and suddenly, warm lips were sealing around her left one.
A shaky groan fell from her and she tangled her fingers in his hair.
He suckled on her breast, each drawing pull framed by wicked flicks of his tongue. Rivers of tight, hot sensation poured through her, quickening her breath and making her pussy contract.
“Don’t stop,” she ordered as he lifted his head.
He chuckled. “I just have to do this.”
Her heart slammed into her throat as he pulled his own shirt up over his head.
Holy crap.
For years, she’d remembered his bare torso as muscular and sculpted and perfect. It was more than that. Hard and purely male and coiled with an innate strength bordering on wild.
A tattoo covered the left side of his rib cage, tumultuous thunderclouds brewing over the side of his torso, a young child gazing up at them, wind tossing fine blond hair. A black robe covered the child’s body, too large and heavy for the boy’s size, and in one small hand he gripped what was unmistakably the Grim Reaper’s scythe. It was hauntingly beautiful and unsettling. Niki wanted to touch it. To ask who the little boy was.
“It’s me.”
She raised her gaze, finding Lincoln watching her. “Is this how you see yourself?”
“It’s what I am, right? What I became.”
Her throat thickened. “I’m sorry you feel that way about yourself.”
“Don’t be. It’s what it is. I’ve come to terms with it.”
He hadn’t. She could see it in his eyes. It tore at her heart.
“You’re wrong, y’know.”
“About what?”
“You are a good guy.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m not.” Lips curling slowly, he placed one knee on the mattress, next to her thigh. “But my sordid past is for another time. For now…” He smoothed one long-fingered, calloused hand up her belly and cupped her breast.
She sucked in a swift breath, a tingle of delight rippling through her.
His nostrils flared. “I love the way you respond to me, Niki.”
“I love the way you touch me, Lincoln.”
He chuckled again, dragging his thumb over her nipple. “Good. I plan to do more of it.”
Arching her eyebrow, she trailed her fingers down his six-pack until she reached the straining bulge of his erection. “Me too.”
His laugh turned into a guttural groan as she slipped her fingers into his jeans and squeezed his rigid cock.
“I want this inside me, Linc,” she said, tugging him closer to her with a gentle squeeze. “I want this pumping into me, over and over, until I scream and come and come and come.”
His eyes closed. His cock pulsed in her hand. “I—”
“Don’t make me beg,” she whispered.
He opened his eyes and locked his stare on hers. “Okay.”
With a gentle shove, he pressed her back onto the mattress, smoothed his hands over her hips and inched the boxer-briefs down her thighs.
Yes.
Gaze locked on her face, he threw the briefs over his shoulder, and then slowly curled his fingers around her ankles and spread her thighs wide.
Yes…oh yes.
“I know it’s wrong that I’m glad you saved your sweet, tight pussy for me, Nik,” he said, feathering his fingertips up the inside of her leg. “But I am. The thought of someone else penetrating you…” He rolled the tip of his finger over her clit.
Oh God, yes.
“The thought of someone else licking you…” He withdrew his fingers and, parting her folds with gentle thumbs, stroked his tongue up over her seam to her clit.
Holy crap, yes!
“The thought of someone else eating you out…” He pressed his mouth to her sex and licked her clit over and over.
Oh yeah oh yeah oh God yeah.
With a raw growl, he lifted his head and stared down at her, teasing her clit with the pad of his thumb. “It drives me insane with jealousy.”
“Don’t be jealous.” She rolled her hips. “I’m yours. Every inch of me. No one else’s. Never have been.”
His nostrils flared again. A question burned in his eyes, and then he returned his mouth to her spread sex.
His tongue set her on fire, turned her to liquid need. She clawed at the duvet beneath her, clinging to something substantial as wave after wave of pleasure rolled through her body.
He licked her to the edge of eruption and then, as she whimpered and begged him not to stop, he moved his mouth to her breasts, sucking on them in turn as he worshipped her clit with his fingers.
Over and over. Tonguing her to the brink of orgasm, teasing her, denying her release, and licking her back to the precipice again.
“Lincoln,” she protested, not wanting it to stop, his name barely more than a groan deep in her throat. “Lincoln, I need you inside me.”
His chuckle was low and suggestive as he licked at her clit. “This not good enough?”
“It’s good.” Her inner muscles contracted, impatient for more. “Don’t get me wrong. I just want…oh man…”
Her request dissolved into a ragged breath as he lashed her clit with the tip of his tongue some more.
The tingles began in the soles of her feet, swept through her very center, building into a crescendo of heat and tightness until, with a hoarse cry, she came.
It throbbed through her, a quake of concentrated pleasure and release she feared would destroy her. If this was how he made her come with his mouth…
God, how will I survive his cock?
Her head swam, ribbons of need threading through any rational thought she had, consuming her until she was a puddle of sated desire on the bed.
“Holy crap,” she half-breathed, half-laughed, as he lifted his head from her sodden pussy. “Holy…whoa. That was…that was…”
“Foreplay.”
Heart slamming into her throat, she opened her eyes, looked up at him.
And caught her breath as he slowly unbuttoned his fly and inched his jeans down over his hips.
“Oh baby,” she murmured.
His cock sprang free, released of its denim jail. Thick and rigid and jutting upward, it demanded her attention. A glistening bead anointed its very tip. She bit her bottom lip, staring at it for a second before moving onto her knees, and wrapping her fingers around its thick girth. “It’s time.”
His pupils dilated as his nostrils flared. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I don’t expect—”
She squeezed his cock with a low chuckle. “Just shut up and enjoy it.”
His own chuckle sounded choked. “Yes, ma’am.”
She sealed her lips around his width and slid down his length.
A tsunami of sensations crashed through her—the stretching of her lips as his girth slid against them, the solid thickness of him filling her mouth, the satiny-smoothness of his shaft sliding along her tongue.
So big.
She took him deeper, cupping his heavy balls as she did so. She wanted all of him in her mouth. Not just some of him. All. After all these years.
“Fuck, Niki…” His groan rumbled through his body and into hers. He s
nared a handful of her hair, not so much guiding her as trying to restrain her.
Sucking firmly, she slid up his cock and released him with a wet pop.
He stared down at her, his chest rising and falling with ragged breaths.
Giving his balls a gentle tug, she arched an eyebrow. “Don’t try to stop me going all the way down on you.”
His eyes closed for a second as raw lust etched his face. “Jesus, Nik.” He shook his head and looked down at her again, eyes ablaze. “I shouldn’t be letting you do this.”
She plunged down his length, farther this time to prove him wrong. So far, she fought her gag reflex.
“Jesus!” he roared, slamming his hips forward. She hummed her approval, squeezed his nuts, and then sucked her way back up to the rim of his crown.
Having him in her mouth…it was unlike anything she’d experienced. It was powerful, exhilarating. And holy crap, did it turn her on.
His fist tightened in her hair again, but this time he didn’t try to hobble her movements. This time he helped her take him deeper, his grip guiding her as her lips sank to the very root of his cock.
“Christ, babe, do you have any idea how incredible your mouth feels on my dick?” he groaned, rolling his hips.
In response, she lashed her tongue as much as she could. His pubic hair tickled her bottom lip as the head of his cock pressed to the back of her throat.
“Christ,” he groaned again, as he pushed even deeper into her mouth.
She took him, laved the base of his shaft with her tongue, and then drew all the way up to his crown again.
A shudder rocked him. His fist in her hair turned fierce. “N-Niki…I’m gonna…”
She sank back down his length, sucked, and then slid back up again.
“Niki…” With a tug close to savage, he pulled her off his dick. “If you keep that up, I’m going to blow in your mouth.”
She let a slow smile curl her lips. “We can’t have that.”
His chest heaved. An unreadable tension flared in his eyes. “You’re not… I don’t…I don’t want to hurt you.”
Taking his wrist, she directed his fingers to her folds. “Feel how wet I am, Lincoln?”
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