The Loner: Men Out of Uniform Book 4

by Rhonda Russell

  “I haven’t been--“

  He interrupted her lie. “Why have you been pretending? Who knows? It’s a mystery for another time. But if I had my guess, you were on the phone with a friend just now--probably Cindy--trying to arrange an interruption because you know as well as I do that if something doesn’t give soon, we’ll be in bed faster than you can say ‘charge it.’”

  Sapphira blinked, equally impressed and terrified that he’d pegged her so damned thoroughly.

  “Shut up, Huck,” she whispered, looping her arms around his neck as the inevitability of this moment crashed around her, bringing anticipation, joy, fear and breathlessness. “Nobody likes a know-it-all.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Miracle of miracles, Huck thought dimly as his mouth latched hungrily onto hers--she wasn’t arguing. Didn’t try to deny it or even put up the token protest.

  Instead, true to form, she’d made a smart-assed comment, then prevented him from uttering one in return by striking with a pre-emptive kiss.

  Only a moron would complain and, while he had to admit he couldn’t claim full cognitive reasoning at the moment--because all the blood had rushed to another part of his anatomy--he was not, and had never been, a moron.

  At the moment, he was simply on fire. And hungry. For her.

  The kiss, urgent and unplanned, had snapped something inside of him, had set off a reaction he should have realized was merely waiting for the opportunity to present itself.

  Given the way her body was pressed tightly to his, the urgency in her kiss, the slide of hand small hands over his body, that moment was now.

  In the darkest corner of his mind, Huck realized that he should stop this, that sleeping with her would surely be the end of his professional career with Ranger Security and an end to something else, less definable, but there all the same. He knew this and yet he also knew that walking away from her--actually stopping--was out of the question.

  Physically, he couldn’t do it.

  That alone set off a warning bell loud enough to rattle his insides, but didn’t so much as make him flinch away from her.

  For reasons he couldn’t explain and couldn’t reason, Sapphira Stravos, the mouthiest little rich girl he’d ever met, had the power to turn him inside out...and perversely, he looked forward to the destruction.

  More specifically, he looked forward to coming apart inside of her.

  With that thought in mind, Huck picked her up and started toward her bedroom.

  “Put me down,” she said, startled. “I’m too heavy.”

  Huck carefully set her on the bed and followed her down, kissing the side of her neck and nipping at her earlobe. “Obviously that’s not true.”

  Her eyes warmed with pleasure. “But what about you knee?”

  Huck chuckled softly, systematically undoing the buttons which marched down her shirt. Smooth skin, swell of a plump breasts... “Darlin’, that injury is well south of what part of my body I’m going to need for this.”

  She laughed, more of a wicked hum in her throat. “That’s not what I meant.”

  He knew what she meant, but it didn’t matter. He slid a finger over the lacy edge of her bra--one he recognized from their recent shopping spree--then bent and ran his tongue along the tempting swell, causing her breath to catch in her throat.

  He’d never heard anything as erotic as that one telling sound in his life.

  “Pretty,” he murmured huskily.

  Sapphira’s fingers tunneled into his hair and he felt her roll more firmly toward him, aligning the hardest part of him with the softest part of her. “Bet you wish you’d carried it for me now, don’t you?”

  He popped the front clasp and had the pleasure of watching her lovely breasts come free of their flimsy restraints. “No,” he said. “But I’m going to like taking if off of you.” Then he bent his head and pulled one achingly perfect dusky nipple into his mouth.

  She arched against him and another mewling noise issued from her throat. The sound swirled around his senses as he circled the bud with his tongue and pulled deep, savoring the taste of her in his mouth. Musky, fruity, the taste of woman. Oh, God, he could devour her. He cupped the other breast, rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and felt her press her hips against his, silently begging for what he desperately wanted to give her. Release and redemption, the disease and the cure.

  She tugged at his shirt and he broke away from her long enough to let her drag it over his head. She tossed it aside, then whimpered as his belly touched hers--skin to skin.

  He quaked.

  The sensation was so foreign it took a second to process, but before he could fully assimilate the emotional implication, Sapphira arched up and shrugged out of her shirt and bra, then her fingers found the button of his jeans and whatever profound thought which had been about to surface swiftly fled.

  He inhaled sharply as her fingers slipped beneath his waistband. Impossibly, he hardened even further and his dick throbbed with every beat of his heart. The whine of his zipper punctuated the silence and he felt his jeans sag away as her hand suddenly wrapped around him. A groan tore from his throat and he bent once again and fed at her breasts, suckling hard as she worked the slippery skin against her palm.

  Desperate to feel even more of her, Huck slid a hand down her sweet belly and carefully unsnapped her pants. Less than a minute later, even her panties--pretty, sheer and purple, which matched the bra--lay in the floor with the rest of their clothing.

  Fully naked. At last.

  He smoothed his hand over her hip, tracing the full womanly curve, then over her lush rump, the very one he’d been lusting after for what felt like years. He gave a gentle knead and she reciprocated by slipping her thumb over the engorged head of his penis. He jerked against her and growled softly because it felt so damned good.

  But not as good as she would taste, he knew.

  Huck worked his way down her abdomen, kissing every other rib, licking a path around her belly button, then parted her soft brown curls and fastened his mouth upon the very heart of her. Her taste bathed his tongue in a flavor so wonderful he groaned from the pleasure.

  Sapphira fisted her hands into the bedspread and bucked beneath him, a keening cry smothering in her throat.

  He smiled against her and suckled more, paying close attention to that kernel of sensation nestled high in her folds. He worked his tongue, laved and lapped, feeding at her as though he were a starving man and she his last feast. He sipped up her womanly juices, bathed his index finger in them and then tucked it deep inside.

  Her feminine muscled tightened around him, offering a prelude to what would come next, those soft, wet walls closing around him as he pushed inside of her. The mere thought brought him almost to climax.

  “Huck,” she said, her voice broken and raw with desire. “Please. I can’t-- I need--”

  He knew what she needed. He needed it too.

  Desperately.

  What he also needed was a condom and to his immediate horror he realized he didn’t have one. He swore. “Sapphira?”

  Her hands slid over his shoulders. “Yeah?”

  “I, uh... I don’t have a condom.”

  She leaned forward and nipped at his neck. “Bedside drawer,” she said. “Hurry.”

  Relieved beyond measure, Huck didn’t allow himself to think about the fact that she kept the protection readily available--for other men, obviously, which was intolerable--but rather decided to focus on the positive, like the fact that he was about to be inside of her, burying himself to the hilt in her softness, feeling her tighten around his aching dick, her breasts against his chest and her nails biting into his ass.

  He quickly opened the package, withdrew the protection and swiftly, hand shaking, rolled it into place. The instant he was finished, she pushed him onto his back and straddled him, her hot weepy folds settling over him. He instinctively nudged, his head pushing up against her clit.

  She whimpered, winced with pleasure, and glid
ed over him, coating him with her juices. “Sapphira,” he growled warningly. If she didn’t take the control she’d wanted soon, he was going to steal it back from her. Of course, that was assuming he’d ever had any control to start with and that, he knew, was doubtful.

  She bent forward and laved his nipple with her tongue, slid her greedy hands over his chest, mapping him wonderingly. She frowned when she reached the pink puckered scar on his side, carefully skimming her fingertips over it before pressing a delicate kiss against the wound, as though she could make it all better now.

  Before he could form the first cynical thought, she raised her hips and settled down on top of him, absorbing every inch of him deep inside her. He watched the breath leak out of her lungs, her chest deflate with pleasure, as she seated herself firmly over him.

  Huck set his jaw so hard he thought he heard his teeth crack. Sapphira, in that moment, was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Beautiful lips swollen from his kisses, caramel curls tumbling over her shoulders and teasing the tops of her full, ripe breasts. Sweet belly, the flare of her curvy hips, that patch of dewy curls seated against him and her ass--

  Sweet heaven, the woman had an ass that simply would not quit. Lush and heart-shaped, perfect for his hands, he thought, as he slid his them around and shaped her to him.

  She arched up, then slowly sank back down, clamping around him--holding on, as though she couldn’t let him go, couldn’t feel enough. The mere idea made his chest swell with some sort of caveman pride and he leaned forward and pulled a nipple into his mouth, suckling hard, flattening the crown of her breast against the roof of his mouth.

  She cried out, tensed and rode him harder. Up and down, up and down, tightening and tightening, refusing to let him go. He kneaded her rump and thrust hard against her, could feel his aching balls drawing up in preparation for climax.

  Her first, Huck thought, biting the inside of his cheek as the orgasm gather force.

  He bucked beneath her again, suckled the other breast and ground his hips against hers.

  Ah...the magic combination, he thought as her entire body went rigid with release and her mouth opened in a soundless scream. He watched her breasts jiggle and heave as the climax washed over her, felt her fist around him over and over, her neck go all but boneless, barely able to support the weight of her own head, much less the rest of her body as she collapsed on top of him.

  No worries, Huck thought as he rolled her over onto her belly, dragged her hips--that delectable ass--into position, then pushed into her from behind. She wasn’t going to need any more of her own strength.

  * * *

  The orgasm had been so intense Sapphira’s vision had blackened around the edges and hadn’t returned to proper focus before Huck had taken control and, impossibly, another climax hovered just out of reach. She could feel it building deep inside of her with every powerful thrust. His big hands were spread in an almost territorial fashion over her ass, kneading, stroking, with every push of him deep inside of her.

  Though she knew it was physically impossible, Sapphira could feel him in every cell of her body. He’d infected her, she thought as his scent coiled around her, drugging her, making her boneless and rigid, sated and yet energized, and with every delicious draw and drag between their joined bodies--with every brush of his balls against her aching flesh--she wanted more.

  More of this.

  More of him.

  More of them.

  She sank her teeth into her bottom lip, whimpered and pushed hard against him, desperate to take every enormously glorious inch of him. Her breasts bounced back and forth on her chest, absorbing the force of his thrusts. Her nipples tingled with the remembered warmth of his mouth.

  Harder, deeper and harder still.

  “I...love...your...ass,” Huck said, punctuating each growling word with a reverent squeeze.

  Since the lamentable size of her ass had always been a sore spot with her, he couldn’t have uttered a single compliment that would have pleased her more. A rush of feminine pride washed over her, bringing a smile to her lips.

  Another bright flash of tingly warmth ignited in her womb, the fuse to another bone-melting climax sizzling along until the orgasm detonated in a fiery ball of sensation which ripped the breath from her lungs and made every muscle tense in awe as it ripped through her. Colored lights spotted her vision, marking the occasion with blazing display behind her closed lids.

  Huck leaned forward, nipped at her shoulder, then she felt him stiffen behind her and a long bellowing groan worthy of a caveman tore from his throat. He held her tight and pushed hard, angling deep as he pulsed into her, jerking from the force of release.

  Desperate to see him--to watch him come into her--Sapphira turned her head and gazed over her shoulder at Huck. Lips peeled back over his teeth, shoulders and forearms absolutely locked in a sinewy display which would forever be emblazoned in her brain, Lucas Finn epitomized the word virile in that moment. If fact, she could say beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’d never seen a man so beautiful in his masculinity. The thought sent another tingle rippling through her sex and she squeezed around him once more.

  Huck’s gaze tangled with hers, smokey and sated and loaded with male satisfaction, and something shifted around her heart. Something dangerous and ill-conceived and just plain stupid because it had no place here.

  But before she could completely panic, he slid his hands over her bottom once more, then carefully--reluctantly, she could tell--pulled away from her. She immediately missed his warmth, the feel of those big wonderful hands on her body.

  With the help of a tissue he’d grabbed from her nightstand, he made quick work of the condom, then drew back the covers and settled her in bedside him. Despite the protection in the bedside drawer, she’d never had a man in her bed before.

  It was...nice, Sapphira decided. Because it was Huck.

  The moment begged for conversation, for a compliment or at the very least a thank you. He’d just given her the very best sex--and very best orgasm--in her life and yet...Sapphira couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  She waited, hoping he’d contribute something.

  He didn’t. He doodled his fingers on her upper arm, drew lazy circles and seemed to be completely content. He sighed into her hair. She concentrated on the heavy rise and fall of his chest beneath her ear, the delicious feel of her smooth leg slung over his hairier one. On anything but what lay unspoken between them.

  But...how the hell was that possible after what they’d just shared? How could he simply lay there and not say anything? Because he couldn’t think of anything positive? she wondered, becoming ridiculously paranoid. What? If he couldn’t say anything nice, then he wasn’t going to say anything at all? Was that his game?

  Fine, Sapphira thought. Besides, this was probably the only way she’d ever have the last word. Pasting a smile on her face, she snuggled in closer to him and sighed as though all was right in her world. And curiously, because she was with him, she could almost believe it.

  “Huck?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I need to tell you something.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ve got an appointment with the gynecologist in the morning.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Feeling like the proverbial only rooster in the hen house, Huck shifted miserably in the squeaky leather chair in Sapphira’s gynecologist’s office and pretended not to be uncomfortable--pretended being the operative word.

  Truth be told, he felt so damned twitchy it was a miracle his skin hadn’t started flaking off.

  When Sapphira had announced last night--immediately following the best sex he’d ever had in his life, because she was evil--that she needed to go to the gynecologist today, Huck had known one single blinding moment of panic. Visions of VD and antibiotics had flashed in his post-orgasm fuzzy brain, but then sanity had returned in the form of her laughter, and he’d relaxed.

  In the first place, they’d used protection, an
d in the second place, he instinctively knew she was healthy. After all, he thought, feeling a wicked grin slid over his lips, she’d tasted fine.

  She’d rattled off some nonsense about a bad pap smear--whatever the hell that was--and how the test had needed to be redone. He shouldn’t worry--she was fine, she’d assured him. It was merely a precaution and while they were out, could they please drop by her favorite coffee shop and that was all.

  She promised.

  Considering that she hadn’t asked to go anywhere in the past couple of days and she’d chosen a time when, admittedly, he would have told her she could fly to the moon if she’d had a rocket available, Huck had simply toyed with her breast, sighed heavily--because he was doomed--and said yes.

  Then, because he knew his job was going to come to the same disastrous end as his last career, he’d said to hell with it all and spent the entire night in her bed, punctuating the wee hours with the best sleep he’d had in years and the best sex...ever.

  Honestly, he’d known the attraction--the sheer force of her appeal--had exceeded anything in his extensive experience, but nothing--nothing--could have prepared him for the absolute annihilation of his self-control and resulting response.

  He hadn’t just wanted her--he’d had to have her.

  Impossibly, even sitting here in this wretched doctor’s office while feminine atrocities were being conducted behind closed doors, he could feel the heat writhing in his loins, creeping up his dick.

  He should have been satisfied. Shouldn’t have the friggin’ strength. And yet, if she walked out that door right now, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he could take her.