“Mmm,” she sighed, as he began washing her.
Mmm, indeed.
Because working the stuff into her skin sure as hell wasn’t taking his thoughts off the only place they wanted to go.
Okay. He’d just have to rub more briskly…
But there was the long, lovely length of her spine to caress. The rounded curves of her ass. Her thighs.
The sweetness between her thighs.
She made a breathless little sound as he stroked her, and all his resolve vanished.
The need to have her take him deep within her became all that mattered.
“Part your legs for me,” he said, his voice raw and rough.
She moaned. And did as he’d asked.
He added a dollop of lotion to his palm.
Cupped her.
Opened her.
Stroked her clitoris and felt her wet heat against his palm.
She fell back against him.
Tanner bent his head, kissed the side of her neck, bit the flesh there and she cried out, her body arching against his.
He turned her toward him. Captured her mouth with his as he ran his hands over her shoulders, her arms, her breasts.
“Tanner.” His name was a broken whisper on her lips. “Tanner,” she said again, and he slanted his mouth hungrily over hers, his tongue sliding against hers as he cupped her breasts and feathered his thumbs over her erect nipples.
“Tell me,” he said fiercely. “Tell me what you want.”
She reached between them, curved her hand around his thick length.
“You,” she sobbed, “you inside me, inside me, inside—”
She wrapped a leg around his and he lifted her, penetrated her, drove into her again and again until she cried out and lost herself in ecstasy.
He caught her to him, drove deep one last time and then he groaned her name and let go of everything, all he was, all he’d ever been, and shot over the edge of the universe with Alessandra in his arms.
* * *
After, they stood under the spray, he holding her close against him, she with her arms wound around his neck.
Minutes went by. Then he drew back just far enough so he could see her face when he lifted it to him.
“Are you okay?”
She sighed.
“I am very okay, Lieutenant.”
He grinned and scooped her wet hair behind her ears.
“Because if you’re not, if we have to do this again just to be sure you’re good with it, I’m ready to make the sacrifice.”
“Really.”
“Really.” He nuzzled her throat. “I mean, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”
“Mmm. That’s a motto to live by.” She drew back a little and stroked her hands over his chest. “What are these?”
“Scars.” He caught her hands in his and kissed them.
“From what?”
He shrugged. “Just, you know, scars.”
Okay. He didn’t want to talk about them. The scars seemed unusual, almost as if someone had made two small, straight slits in his pectorals.
He had other scars, too. One on his left shoulder. Another on his flat belly. And she’d had a glimpse of red puckered skin on his calf. Was that the reason he was limping? He’d made it pretty clear he didn’t want to talk about that, either.
The thing was, she wanted to know more about him. Everything about him. They’d been together such a short time, yes, but she felt closer to Tanner Akecheta than to any man she’d ever dated, even for weeks at a time.
Not that she and Tanner were dating.
She knew better than to call having sex, the best sex of her life, “dating.” But they would date. When they left this place. She wanted to see him in the real world, be with him in the real world…
“Hey.” Tanner ran his fingers into her hair and tilted her face to his. “Why so quiet?”
She shook her head, pushed aside his dog tags and pressed a kiss to the center of his chest.
“I’m just thinking.”
“About?”
She smiled. “About the likelihood of us turning into prunes.”
He laughed. “Excellent point, Bellini.” He reached for a container of shampoo, opened it, took a sniff. “More vanilla.”
He dumped some into his hand. She brought his hand to her face and inhaled.
“Lovely.”
“How about I wash your hair?”
“Oh, that would be wonderful.”
It was.
The feel of his hands combing through her hair, taking out the tangles, then rinsing it clean, was wonderful.
He thought so, too.
The feel of her hair under his fingers. And the sighs, the sweet little purrs she made… After a while, they drove him crazy because he imagined her making those soft cries while she lay under him in bed.
He scrubbed himself down. Head. Torso. Body. Legs. He rinsed them both off. Then he turned off the water, wrapped her in an oversized bath towel and carried her to the bedroom. He lay her down on the bed and drew up the covers.
“Sleep for a while,” he said softly. “Then we’ll get something to eat.”
“Mmm.” She gave a huge yawn. “What about you? Aren’t you going to lie down with me?”
He pressed a light kiss to her hair.
“I have to call in first.” He kissed her hair again. She smelled of vanilla and, inexplicably, of wildflowers. “Five minutes.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. Not a second more.”
But she was already asleep.
Tanner stood looking at her. A muscle knotted in his jaw.
Then he got the satphone from the pack and went into the hall.
Chay picked up so fast Tanner knew he must have been waiting for the phone to ring. “Dude, everything okay? Where are you? Took you a while to make contact.”
“Yeah,” Tanner said again, rubbing his forehead. “Everything’s fine. We’re at the house.”
“Excellent. Look, you’ll have to stay put for a while. The weather’s no better. This thing’s turned into a full-fledged hurricane.”
Tanner nodded as if Chay could see him.
“No surprise,” he said. “The rain’s coming down in buckets and the wind’s wicked. Got to be blowing sixty, seventy miles an hour.”
“I’ll let you know when the cavalry’s gonna ride to the rescue, but figure eighteen, twenty-four hours. Sorry about that, man.”
“Any word on Bright Star?”
“There’s some activity about forty klicks from your location. Not sure what it is. This fucking storm…”
“Okay. Let me know if you have more info.”
“Wait a minute… Hey. Hey, Blondie, I’m talkin’ to you. How many times I have to tell you, you can’t be in here.”
“Blondie?”
“Wait a second…” Tanner heard a door slam. “Okay. Blondie. Yes. The hostage’s sister. One of her sisters. There are Wildes and Bellinis comin’ out of the woodwork here.”
Tanner rubbed his forehead again. He could picture the scene, all the Bellini and Wilde hotshots waiting to take his woman from him and return her to their world…
His woman? His woman?
“Tanner?”
He swung around. Alessandra stood at the end of the hall, wrapped in what looked like a cotton blanket. Her hair had dried into soft, loose curls. Her lips were still rosy from his kisses.
He’d always thought one of the dumbest sayings in the world was that somebody’s heart turned over. Hearts pumped blood. They didn’t turn over or swell with emotion…
“Akecheta?” Chay asked. “You still there?”
Tanner cleared his throat. “Still here,” he said briskly.
“Okay. Stay safe, dude. Out.”
“Out,” Tanner said, and disconnected.
He went slowly towards Alessandra, slipped his arm around her and brought her to him for a long, long kiss.
“I thought you were asleep,” he said softl
y.
“I woke up and you weren’t there.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I missed you.”
They walked into the bedroom, his arm tightly around her. He put the satphone on a table beside the bed. Then he sat down and drew her forward until she stood between his legs.
“I missed you, too.” Slowly, he undid the knot she’d tied between her breasts. The soft blanket fell away and he filled his eyes with the sight of her. “God, you’re so beautiful!”
Her lips curved in a smile. “Bug bites and all?”
“Bug bites and all,” he said, smiling back. Then his smile faded. He dipped his head and kissed the slope of one breast, kissed his way to the rose-pink tip and closed his lips around it.
Her hands clasped his shoulders.
Her head fell back. She breathed a soft, delicate sigh.
Tanner kissed her other breast. Sucked the waiting bud into his mouth, and her sigh became a moan of pleasure.
His hands swept down her body. Lingered on her hips.
“My beautiful Alessandra,” he whispered.
He bent his head and kissed her belly. His kisses trailed down her skin, lower, lower, until his face was against her thighs.
“Open for me,” he said.
She sobbed his name as he nuzzled against the soft golden curls at the apex of her thighs. He put his mouth to her. Touched his tongue to the delicate flower that awaited him within the sweet petals of her sex.
His head was spinning.
He knew women liked this. He’d always enjoyed doing it, but mostly for the pleasure it brought to a woman. This—this was different. Tasting Alessandra, inhaling her scent, caressing her this way…
He could feel his balls tightening, the pressure in his groin becoming almost unbearable. He was almost out of control with desire, except that in all his hard, disciplined adult life, he had never been out of control.
A cry rose from her throat. She buried her hands in his hair.
“Stop,” she said brokenly. “Tanner. I’m going to—I’m going to come. But not without you. Not without—”
He looked up. Saw her face, the sweep of crimson in her cheeks, the darkness of her eyes.
“I want you to come,” he said in a thick voice. “I want to see it happen. I want to see what it is I do to you.”
She said his name over and over as he did wicked, wonderful things to her with his tongue, his teeth, his fingers. He watched her. Saw her begin to tremble, saw her toss her head from side to side.
It almost drove him over the edge.
Hang on, he told himself, dammit, hang on.
She screamed. He felt the power of her orgasm as it swept her away, and the earth tilted.
“Now,” he growled and he pulled her into his arms and they tumbled back on the bed together. He rose above her, clasped her hands, raised them high over her head and entered her on one deep, driving thrust and she came again, weeping, sobbing, sobbing his name.
“Tanner,” she sobbed.
He let go, gave himself up to the whirlwind that had seized them both and as he exploded deep inside her, he leaned down and kissed her and whispered a word in the language of his people.
“Wastelakapi.
It meant beloved.
He had never said it before, not in his entire life.
CHAPTER TEN
They fell asleep in each other’s arms, Tanner on his back, Alessandra in the curve of his arm, her head on his strong shoulder and her hand spread over his heart.
Her sleep was deep and dreamless, but she came awake in a rush of adrenaline, bewildered by the strange surroundings.
The big bed that wasn’t hers.
The rain beating against the now unshuttered skylight overhead.
The sound of the wind, prowling outside the house.
Her heart raced.
And then it all came back.
The struggle to get down the river. The exhausting march through the swamp. The perfect house, seen through the mangroves as if it were a mirage.
And Tanner.
Tanner, she thought, and the memory of him making love with her in the hall, in the shower, in this bed sent a rush of warmth through her blood.
She rolled over, needing the sight of her lover…
But he wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere in the room.
The bathroom door stood open and she could see that he wasn’t in there, either.
She sat up.
Where was he? Had he gone outside into the storm? The rain was still heavy. The wind still prowled the house like an angry wraith. If he’d gone out alone…
Alessandra shot from the bed. Her clothes. Dammit, where were her…?
“Try the closet,” a deep voice said.
She spun around.
Her heart almost stopped beating.
He stood in the open doorway, hipshot, arms folded over his chest.
He was barefoot, shirtless, wearing only a faded pair of jeans that clung to his lean hips and long legs in a way that surely would have reminded any woman lucky enough to see him why they liked seeing guys wear jeans.
Guys who looked like this, anyway.
Guys with muscled shoulders and washboard abs, the kind that came of necessity instead of vanity. The scars she’d noticed last night, the little ones on his pectorals, the puckered flesh in his shoulder, made her want to put her mouth to them and soothe them with her kiss. She wanted to kiss the other scars, too, the ones she’d only glimpsed. The thin red line low on his belly. The angry-looking one on his calf.
She wanted to kiss them, too, even if it was crazy. You couldn’t heal wounds with kisses…
But you could try.
He was beautiful All of him. The short dark hair. The stubble on his jaw that felt so incredible against her nipples and between her thighs. His smile, the kind that promised things women dreamed about.
And his eyes.
Those gorgeous eyes.
They were moving over her now, hot with appreciation, dark with promise, and for the first time, she realized she’d been so caught up in looking at him that she’d forgotten she was naked.
Automatically, she swept one arm over her breasts. Silly, of course, because the rest of her was still bare.
Besides, after the night they’d shared, nothing, absolutely nothing about her body was unknown territory.
But, oh, the way he was looking at her. As if he’d never wanted a woman the way he wanted her. As if she were…
“Beautiful,” he said as he stood straight and then came slowly towards her.
“Lieutenant,” she whispered, and he laughed softly as he gathered her into his arms.
“Such formality, Bellini.” He bent his head, kissed her throat. “Do you need a reminder of why you don’t have to call me lieutenant anymore?”
She smiled as she ran her hands up his arms to his shoulders.
“I have another name for you, too, remember?”
He looked up and laughed. “I remember, but I don’t think I’d do much for blue tights and a red cape.”
“Mmm.” She looped her arms around his waist. “But those little red shorts…”
“Better than camos?”
She stood on her toes and pressed a kiss to his chin.
“Different, anyway.”
“The guys in my unit would agree to that.” He brushed his lips over hers. “I hate to disappoint you, honey, but I am far from being anybody’s idea of Superman.”
“That’s your opinion. Besides, I didn’t think of you as Superman only because you’re strong and brave.”
“And good-looking,” he said, laughing. “Don’t leave that out.”
“Umm. And occasionally pigheaded.”
“ Me?” he said. The word oozed righteous indignation, but it was tempered by the gleam in his eyes.
“You, my Caped Crusader.”
“You’re getting your superheroes mixed. Supe’s the guy with the handy-dandy phone booth. Batman’s the Caped Crusader.” He kiss
ed her again, a little longer, a little deeper. “And I am not pigheaded.”
“Okay. Not pigheaded. Just the strong, silent, I-do-not-need-or-want-anyone’s-help type.”
Tanner sighed. “Okay. The thing is, I just wanted to get you to safety. And then keep you safe. Maybe I got a little, you know, overfocused…”
Alessandra leaned back in his arms.
“You can overfocus on me all you like,” she said softly.
The look in her eyes. The curve of her mouth. All at once, his dick reminded him of what his brain seemed to have forgotten.
She was naked in his arms.
“You’re asking for trouble, lady.”
She started to tell him he was right when, with the worse possible timing, her stomach gave a loud growl.
He laughed.
“Your belly’s asking for trouble, too,” he said. “It’s threatening rebellion unless we get some food into it.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “And I just happen to have something interesting going in the kitchen.”
The mention of something interesting in the kitchen was enough to make her belly give another snarl. Tanner laughed again and she scowled and punched him lightly in those six-pack abs.
“Don’t you dare laugh at me, Lieutenant.” Her scowl morphed into a supersweet smile. “What do you have in the kitchen?”
He kissed her mouth. Her throat. Then he cupped her bottom and lifted her into him.
“Sustenance,” he said in a low voice. “Because you’re going to have to keep up your strength.”
Suddenly, it was difficult to breathe.
He dipped his head. Kissed her, hard. Then, even though it took everything in him to do it, he turned her towards the closet that stretched the length of the wall.
“Find something that fits and get into it before I forget about ever letting you out of that bed, Bellini. You understand?”
She knew he was trying to ease the hot tension between them, but the hoarseness in his voice made her knees weak.
Still, what he’d said was true. They did have to eat. It felt as if they were in a glorious world of their own creation, but they weren’t. Reality was just outside the door. Anything might happen to them at any moment, and you didn’t have to be a military operative to know that full bellies were better than empty ones.
“Go on,” he said gently. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Power: Special Tactical Units Division (In Wilde Country Book 3) Page 16
