The low vibration of laughter reverberated through his body, and then he buried his face between them. Wallowing, licking, lapping. Worshipping them.
Her breasts had never been particularly sensitive before, at least not that she’d noticed. She’d figured they weren’t one of her erogenous zones. Wrong. They were the center of her universe, glowing points of light, of heat. His passionate caresses made her whole chest melt from the inside, shivering and soft, intensely alive. Shining.
His slightest touch sent sparkles up her nerves. She twisted, started, with electric jerks and shudders as he slowly unraveled her, begging with his mouth for something she could not grasp.
Surrender. Trust. That was what he wanted, what he silently demanded. Her resistance made her shudder, brought a gush of tears to her eyes. She dug her fingers into his hair and reminded herself exactly why his technique was so slick, his sensuality so fiercely focused. It was to prepare her to be physically capable of taking that ridiculously large thing of his into her body. There was nothing particularly personal about it. He was just being practical.
The thought made her angry. Which wasn’t really fair. After all, it was to his credit that he took his time, tried to please.
But damn it, she was going to start biting and clawing if he didn’t give her some relief. She lifted her head. “Nick,” she whispered. “Please.”
He wiped his mouth. “Please, what?”
“Just do it,” she pleaded. “Please, get on with it. Now.”
He shook his head slowly, a lazy smile on his lips, a gleam in his heavy lidded eyes. Pleased at the power he wielded over her. Proud of her desperation. She wanted to scream, pound on him, but she could barely speak. She was afraid to move.
“Come first,” he said. “Then I’ll give it to you.”
She dug her nails into his shoulders. “Don’t be a tease,” she snapped. “I swear. I will. In about two seconds, if you would just—”
“No. I want one of those mega-galactic, call the cops orgasms before I put my cock in you. I want lights flashing, sirens screaming, people yelling into megaphones, the whole deal. Got me?”
She tugged his hair, hard. “Is that some stupid macho rule?”
“It’s my stupid macho rule.” His teeth grazed her throat. “That’s how I know for sure that you’re ready.”
Her nervous energy was breaking up into helpless, shuddering laughter. “Sounds risky,” she coughed out. “They might haul you away in cuffs before you get any satisfaction for yourself.”
He snorted. “I don’t think their response time is that good.”
“But really. No jokes. I swear, Nick,” she assured him. “I’m so ready. I’ve never been so ready in my life.”
“Then give me what I want.” His velvety voice stroked and soothed, but behind it was unyielding steel. “Show me you’re ready. Don’t waste time telling me.”
She writhed in speechless frustration. So close…and yet she had no clue how to get from where she was to where she needed to go.
His arms slid around her waist, and down, cupping her bottom. “You want some more help?”
She hid her face against the tangle of dark hair that covered his neck, and nodded violently. She didn’t know what he meant by that, nor did she care. Anything was good, anything at all. Just more. Just now.
He reached down between her legs, his fingers brushing delicately over the sensitive seam of her labia, and parted her, insinuating one long finger slowly inside. The contact jolted her closer. She swayed over him, undulating like an exotic dancer over his delving hand, hips jerking, squeezing around him. Panting. Embarrassment forgotten.
“Yeah. That’s good,” he muttered. “Such a tight, perfect, gorgeous pussy. I think my finger is about to come all by itself.” He thrust two fingers in, curved them into a gentle hook, stroking and pressing a tender spot near the entrance of her snug channel. She jolted over his moving hand, as his rough voice urged her on. “Take me deeper. Pump it, harder…faster…there. There you go. Almost there…oh, yeah. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, Christ, that’s so sweet.”
It was. Just like before, it was heavenly and wonderful, the wave lifting her, pitching her over.
She was infinite, boundless. Lost in the pulsing, surging bliss.
When she got her leaden eyelids open again, she was flat on her back, panting in sobbing gasps. Legs splayed wide and limp. She felt like a flower beaten down to muddy earth by a rainstorm. Nick was poised over her, braced on his arms. She sensed rather than saw his triumphant grin. She was destroyed and he had only just begun.
She licked dry lips, tried to speak, but her voice was gone. Her throat was dry from panting. Sore and rough from screaming.
“Your landlady must be shocked to the depths of her puritanical soul.” He sounded pleased with himself.
Her chest jerked with breathy laughter. “Did I, ah, make noise?”
“I thought the windows would shatter.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said tartly. “Well, then. I guess the cops will be here any time. You’d better hurry and get on with it, hmm?”
He grasped her hand, put it on his cock, covered it with his own as he swirled her fingers around his glans, rubbing up and down the broad shaft. She could barely close her fingers around it.
“I never hurry,” he said. “I take my time. Come what may. Let them lay siege. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory. But I’ll die happy.”
The image made her wince. “Don’t even say that word,” she whispered. “Please. Don’t even joke about it.”
He ran his fingertip tenderly over her trembling lower lip. “Sure thing, babe,” he said gently. “Got any condoms?”
The question jolted her abruptly back to mundane reality. She tried to remember if she did. She had hardly ever entertained Justin in her dinky apartment. He had found it cramped and irritating, and had much preferred his own sleek bachelor condo, all done up in cool matte metal and black leather. “No, I don’t think that I do,” she said.
He nodded, unsurprised. “I won’t come inside you.”
It was a risk, but her idea of risk had been radically redefined today, and she was in no condition to argue. He fitted her hands around the base of his shaft, against the springy thatch of dark hair, and swirled the blunt tip of himself against her, nudging and prodding until he was firmly lodged. He forged slowly inside.
She gasped. She was hypersensitive after that violent orgasm, and the deep penetration was overwhelming, slick and soft though she was. He pushed deeper, each short, hard shove jerking a whimpering gasp from her throat. The room was getting lighter, and she could see the grim line of his mouth, the tautness of his jaw. His eyes burned into hers, as if he were trying to make her admit something.
She braced her hands against his chest, holding him at arm’s length, but he made a low sound and yanked her hands out between them, trapping her wrists with one big fist.
“Take me,” he said. She heard the pleading behind the harsh command. He jerked her legs up over his big shoulders and leaned, squeezing her legs high, swirling that throbbing club of flesh inside her.
Filling her with himself. So deep.
She didn’t know how she would survive if he started to move, but he did, slow, heavy lunges that ground her hard against the mattress. His shaft stroked and pressed and slid over a bright glow of awareness, creating a delicious, aching friction that got more and more intense until it was too much. She had to retreat from it. She turned her face away, squeezed her eyes shut. Panted, in short, sharp breaths.
He jerked her chin around. “Look at me!” His voice slashed across her ragged nerves, and her eyes popped open, swimming with startled tears. “Don’t hide away inside your head.”
“But I—”
“I need you. Right here. With me,” he said more softly. His hips came down heavily with each stroke. “Look at me. I need you.”
She stared back, and the intensity amplified, like a feedback loop. The bed squeaked and rattled, unus
ed to such hard use. His thrusts got deeper, faster, their gasps, moans and whimpers sharpening as they struggled in a desperate, heaving knot. She crested again and again, wailing as her body drew him impossibly deeper, bathing him with slick juice, clutching and milking his phallus with each ramming stroke.
Suddenly he wrenched out, and hunched over her, face contracted in a grimace that looked like pain. Hot, jerky spurts hit her belly, in a climax that seemed that it would never end.
Nick lay on his back afterwards, eyes burning.
He knew the script. He was supposed to cuddle her, sweet talk, make her laugh, if possible. Another silly crack about her landlady and the cops would be good. She’d given all she had to give. She was amazing. She’d held nothing back.
Neither had he. That was the problem. He couldn’t do the nice-guy postcoital routine in this condition. Not if his life depended on it.
He was scared out of his fucking wits.
And exactly what had made him think he’d be able to nail this girl, blow off some steam and walk away, relaxed, refreshed? Jesus. He’d fallen to pieces when he’d fucked her that afternoon in front of the vid cams and that monster, Zhoglo. Of all places to get emotional. Needy. He hadn’t felt that since he was a little kid. Look at him, begging her to look at him. Inches away from sobbing in her arms.
He still wanted to. She was so sweet and generous, underneath her shield of sarcasm. He could feel how it would be, how she would wrap herself around him, twine those slender arms around his neck, press those jiggly, petal-soft tits against his face, let him nuzzle and kiss and lick her. She would cradle his head, croon comforting things, and he would melt into her. Dissolve into her tender warmth until he no longer existed, until it was all comfort, all bliss. All safe.
Nope. It wasn’t right. She was too nice a girl to be messing around with him. He was too cold, too cynical, too rude. A depressed, egotistic bastard, just like his daddy. His sharp edges would bruise her.
They were bruising her now. She lay there, breath still hitching. Waiting, while he lay there like a bump on a log, throat frozen, muscles locked, staring at the fucking cracks in the ceiling.
He could sense how badly she wanted him to reach for her. They all wanted it. This part was always awkward and sad and flat. His least favorite moment in the sex act. When he disappointed them.
But what skidded him into a heart-thudding panic was that he wanted to reach for her, too. He wanted it bad. That woke up feelings he’d forgotten about, an abandoned place inside him with barbed wire, chain link, Keep Out signs. Goddamnit, he could not afford this frivolous bullshit. He was marked for death, as would be any woman Zhoglo could connect to him. Especially Becca.
Hell, she was marked for death on her own merits.
Zhoglo would find him eventually. The bastard was filthy rich, wily, persistent. It was just a matter of time.
He pictured it. The best he had to offer the chick. Hey, wanna get a new face and go into hiding with me in Outer Mongolia? C’mon, didn’t you say you wanted more adventure in your life?
No. One searing lay and he was out of there. It was the only way.
He dragged himself up, and sat slumped on the bed with his back to her, just like the stony, indifferent bastard that he was. The colder he was, the easier it would be for her to dismiss this night as a big mistake with a heinous asshole. So she could forget and move on.
He felt weird about spurting his come all over her, too. There was a sleazy vibe associated with coming on a woman’s body, like he was marking his territory or some crap like that. He’d probably watched too much porn. Not that he watched a whole lot, since the stuff bored the shit out of him, but when he channel surfed on sleepless nights, it was hard to look away sometimes, when it had been awhile.
Speaking of marking his territory. He could have gotten her pregnant this afternoon. That zinged through his body. Froze up his chest muscles until he couldn’t breathe at all.
“Um, Nick?” Her voice was timid, nervous. “Are you…OK?”
“Nope,” he said, his voice muffled. “Not particularly.”
“Did I—was it something that I—”
“No,” he cut her off. “You’re the best lay I’ve ever had. You’re white-hot. You are not the problem.”
“Then, ah…what is the problem?” she faltered.
He made a rude sound. “You met my problems today, babe. My problems almost got you raped and killed. Any more questions?”
He got up, thigh muscles weak and wobbly, and waded around in the pillows, kicking them aside to get to the door. His filthy, sodden clothing was strewn in the corridor outside. He yanked the clammy fabric of his jeans up over his legs. A crumpled pack of cigarettes fell out.
He picked it up, shook it. One last smoke rattled around, bent but not broken and amazingly, not soaked. He fished in his pocket and found a lighter. Might as well smoke that sucker up. Celebrate saying goodbye to Arkady.
And Sveti.
Pain stabbed through him. He went back into the bedroom and grabbed the SIG he’d laid next to the bed. He shoved it into his jeans, carefully not looking at Becca. On the plus side, it was good to be done impersonating a scumbag drug dealer and arms trafficker. That had been a big flesh-creeping bummer.
He looked around Becca’s bedroom, and quickly concluded that no woman who piled twenty lace-trimmed pillows on her bed was going to let him stink up her apartment with smoke. The way he was acting, she’d probably tell him to take his cigarette and shove it up his ass.
It would be exactly what he deserved.
Oh, boy. That stung. Becca squinted at the door that had swung shut, after Nick had retreated into the blur of the corridor.
That was about as bad as it could get. Her worst case scenario. It made her realize just how many silly, hopeful fantasies had been bubbling in the back of her head, when they were dashed to pieces.
She had no one but herself to blame if she felt slapped down, used, sad. She had to dig her dignity out from under the rock where she’d hid it and act like a grown-up. She dashed her tears away, sniffed. Enough wishing for something she just couldn’t have.
No, worse. Wishing for something that didn’t even exist.
Maybe she’d been subconsciously hoping that sex with Nick would make everything magically better. It hadn’t. It couldn’t. The sex itself had been beyond her wildest dreams, but if anything, that made it worse. It made the contrast between her stupid fantasies and cold, flat reality that much more hurtful.
She stumbled into the bathroom, groped for a washrag with trembling fingers. She soaked it, and wiped the semen off her body as she stared at her face, barely recognizing herself. She looked different. Those big, bruised-looking shadows around her eyes, the feverish color in her face, the glassy brightness of her eyes, the puffy redness of her lips. The wild snarl of hair. She looked like a woman on the verge of…she was almost afraid to imagine.
She’d seen four dead men, seen one of them actually die. She’d been subject to adrenaline dumps that would have felled a bull elephant. She’d been terrorized, shamed, slimed, she’d risked rape and torture and murder.
And then she’d risked Nick. Whew. What a night.
She felt small, battered and scared. Like prey. Something shivering and helpless and fuzzy, waiting for the talons and the beak. Great sex had no power to change that, no matter how violently she came.
It was just the current state of her soul. Very roughed up. A little tenderness or understanding might have helped, but it was quite clear that Nick was absolutely not capable of that.
And? So? Get over it, she lectured herself. The man had risked his life to get her out of there. Being alive and more or less in one piece was something to be grateful for. Even if she felt like a pile of total shit.
She should suck it up. Keep her priorities straight. Be tolerant of his bad attitude and his supremely crappy post-sex etiquette.
After all, hey. He’d had a tough night, too. She almost giggled. Her goofy rat
ionalizations sounded ludicrous sometimes, even to herself.
She pulled her vintage silk dressing gown printed with the red cabbage roses off the hook in the bathroom, and wrapped it around her shivering body as she slogged through the pillows.
She tripped over something in the corridor and almost pitched forward onto her face. She squinted, trying to bring it into focus. Nick’s boot. A soggy man’s sock was draped across it. Her breath snagged in her chest.
Oh. Wow. So he hadn’t left without a word or a glance, after all. He wouldn’t have walked out of her apartment barefoot.
She made her way unsteadily out into the kitchen of her tiny apartment. No Nick. He would be a big, blurry dark silhouette, taking up all the space, breathing up all the oxygen. He made the apartment feel so small.
Nick. She still hadn’t gotten used to having a name for him. Nikolai. She found herself repeating it, over and over. Rolling around the word in her mouth. Liking the tight, hot feeling it gave her in her chest.
Already obsessed. Oh, dear. That was scary stuff. Very bad.
She caught a whiff of cigarette smoke as she approached the door. She cracked it open, and peered out. Nick sat on the steps leading down from her porch, wearing only jeans. Tattoos swirled over his broad, muscular shoulders and back. Smoke wreathed his head. He glanced back. She resisted the urge to shrink back inside like a child caught peeking at the grown-ups. This was her own apartment, damn it.
He turned his back without acknowledging her. Went back to his cigarette and his silent contemplation. Dismissing her.
She closed the door, leaned her forehead against it, and repeated the grown-up/dignity/self-control lecture, from start to finish. Then she got busy. Her time-honored coping mechanism. Coffee. Yes.
She measured it out, with trembling hands. Poured in the water. Stood there, hugging her shaking self as she waited for it to drip out into the pot. Wondering if she was glad he was still there…or not. Why hadn’t he just left? He clearly didn’t want anything to do with her.
Extreme Danger Page 15
