“How is it possible?” he demanded. “How could they have tracked us?”
“I do not know,” Haroun admitted. “Perhaps our papers were not as well-forged as we thought. Perhaps we were caught on camera somewhere and facial recognition software—”
“Enough,” Qasim cut him off. He knew the Americans had ways, unimaginable ways of tracing people, of protecting their precious borders. Now, the question was how Qasim and Haroun should proceed? In this arena, he relied on his second-in-command. Haroun usually knew when the risks outweighed the rewards. “What do you propose we do?”
“Nothing has changed,” Haroun assured him. “I was able to steal a truck from the barn of an old farm. I followed the signal of the cellular phone to a motel. Miss Fairchild is being held inside, guarded by the bikers and two additional men I can only assume are agents. I am hidden in a tree line behind the place. Watching. When the time is right, I will sneak up on the man positioned outside her back window. He is not very attentive. In the last two hours, he has barely glanced up from his phone. Before he knows what has befallen him, I will slit his ugly throat. And then I will climb into Miss Fairchild’s room and take her.”
It seemed dangerous. Too dangerous. Qasim told Haroun as much.
“No, habibi,” Haroun insisted. “This is our chance, our moment. The one we have been waiting for. We must grab it with both hands. I will come to you soon with the woman. Wait for me. And trust in Allah.”
Qasim couldn’t argue with such staunch bravery, such formidable belief. “Very well.”
***
Mac was, without a doubt, the sexiest man alive.
His smell, that uniquely Mac smell, was a constant in her nose as she fought to catch her breath. Mac and sex. It was decadent. And as he lay beside her, propped up on one elbow, the breadth of his shoulders overwhelmed her. The hair on his chest delighted her. And the angry red thrust of his once more fully erect penis sent a frisson of awareness zinging across her nerve endings.
She’d just had two unbelievably hard orgasms. But looking at him—at his corrugated stomach muscles, at his long, long legs, at the sweat making the dark hair near his temples curl boyishly—she knew two wasn’t going to be enough. Not nearly enough. Hell, two hundred wouldn’t be enough. Not when it came to this man. The man she…loved…
Her thoughts stopped on a dime. She fancied she could hear the errrrtttt of squealing tires inside her head.
Loved him? She loved him? Was that true?
She searched inside herself, inside her heart, and saw that it was.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! What in the world had she been thinking? Had she really believed that once she had him, she’d stop wanting him? Had she really believed that her heart wasn’t already involved?
She was a fool. A goddamned self-deluding fool! And, oh, holy shit, this was going to hurt.
“What is it?” Mac asked as he ran his thumb along the ridge of her collarbone, gently, studiously, as if he’d never touched a woman there before.
She forcibly smoothed the frown from her brow, swallowed the tears burning at the back of her throat. It was either that or ruin everything. And she wouldn’t do that. If she only had this day, this one brief moment in time to hold the man she loved in her arms, then she was going to revel in it, luxuriate in the opportunity to take pleasure from him and to give pleasure in return. She’d lost too many people she cared about not to treasure each moment for what it was, not to rejoice in those precious, few instances that brought her sheer happiness. Like now.
“Nothing,” she assured him, smiling, loving the play of light in his eyes when his gaze searched her face. Loving…him. “Just ready for round two.”
A sexy little smile curved those wickedly skilled lips of his. “Good,” he rumbled, bending forward to lick her nipples, pulling back to blow air over them.
Oh, for Heaven’s sake… The tips of her breasts tightened until the sensation was just this side of pain. But he didn’t stop there. He continued to pluck and suck, to lick and flick the tips with his tongue until she was writhing, nearly coming from that alone.
“Not yet,” he growled when her mewling and squirming alerted him to the fact that she was close to the edge. “The next time you come, it’s gonna be in my mouth.”
And if that wasn’t the sexiest, naughtiest, most delicious thing a man ever said to a woman, she didn’t know what was.
“Mac. Oh, God, that feels good.” She speared her fingers into his hair as he slowly kissed his way down her body, stopping to swirl his hot tongue into the hollow of her bellybutton. And she’d never noticed it, never seen it on any of her biology class diagrams, but there was obviously a nerve that ran from the navel straight to the clitoris. Her toes curled into the sheets, her hips lifted from the mattress.
She wanted his mouth on her, his tongue in her. She wanted to feel his beard stubble rasp against her most private parts. In the simplest terms, she wanted sex. All of it. Every which way. Until she couldn’t think. Until she couldn’t lament that this time, this one time, would be all she had…
“I love the way you smell,” he told her, kneeling between her legs, his broad shoulders forcing her thighs wide. “I love the way you look.” His eyes were on her. Drinking her in. “And,” he said, palming the globes of her ass in his warm, rough hands, lifting her hips, pressing one all-too-brief kiss to her heated core, “I love the way you taste.”
“Mac…” His name was sigh, a prayer, a curse… But then all thought escaped her. Because his tongue lapped up the length of her, tapping against the distended bud of nerves at the top of her sex, and her center pulsed, becoming a throbbing void of yearning. Of hunger. And then…
Oh…he wrapped his lips around her clitoris and started flicking his tongue in a rhythm that drove her straight to the edge. Two fingers filled her, pumping, rubbing. His growls of triumph and pleasure echoed in her ears.
She strained. Strained toward release and away from it at the same time. She wanted an end to the glorious misery. And yet she wanted it to go on for eternity. Stretching out to infinity.
Her head thrashed on the pillow. She plucked at her own nipples. Mac bit her, ever so gently, catching the nerve-bundle between his teeth. And that was it. She exploded. Her orgasm hitting her with the force of a runaway train.
She screamed…something. She didn’t know. She didn’t care.
Divinity. She’d heard the word. Knew what it meant. But never had she experienced it until this moment. The sensations Mac pressed on her as he continued to coax more and more from her were divine. Mystical. Spiritual.
This was making love. This was what it was supposed to be like. She never knew. Oh, God, she never knew…
“Again,” Mac told her when the last pulse of orgasm ran through her. He pressed up on his knees, grabbing his shaft by its thick base and angling his plump head toward her entrance. “Do it again just like that. With me inside you.”
***
Mac had lost his mind. His body was in control now. And it wanted to devour Delilah, claim her, mate her, leave its mark on her until she’d never be able to look at herself in the mirror without thinking of him. Of them. Of this time together when their two bodies became one in what had to be one of the most phenomenal, cosmic couplings since the beginning of time.
He was so hard he could barely bend himself enough to press into her tight channel. With a growl, he adjusted his position, letting go of his shaft in order to plant his palms beside her head. He used his knees to spread her thighs wider. Ducking his chin, he thrust forward, watching the raging head of his cock separate her silky folds. Watching himself grow shiny with the evidence of her passion. But just when he gathered himself, tensed his hip muscles in readiness to flex forward, she tilted her hips, changing the angle.
He moaned. In frustration. In unspeakable, horny delight when she grabbed him, rubbing herself against him before pressing the head of him tight against her throbbing little clit. He was nearly cross-eyed, but he could st
ill see her mouth fall open on a gasp of pleasure when he pulsed against her.
“You like that, don’t you?” he asked, rocking back slightly, supporting himself with one arm so he could grab his shaft and tap his tip forcefully against the hard bundle of nerves guaranteed to send her to the moon. She sighed blissfully, her knees falling to the sides. He kept up the motion until he thought he’d come, until he thought she’d come. Then, in one smooth stroke, he plunged home.
Delilah climaxed instantly, writhing against him, scratching his back, neck arched in a lovely bow. With gritted teeth, he held on until she finally quieted. Then he began to move. Slowly, steadily, the tension in his balls, the pleasure along his shaft building with each glorious glide.
“I want you to come again,” he told her, pressing kisses into the damp hair along her brow, breathing in the scent of her. “And this time,” he reached down between them so he could rub her tiny nub with the pad of his thumb, “I want you to take me with you.”
“Yes,” she breathed, fisting her hands in his hair, claiming his mouth as she drew her thighs higher along his sweating flanks. “Yes, Mac. Oh, oh, yes.”
He rode her then. Drove into her over and over again. Staked his claim. Marked her. And when she began to shatter, he went with her, holding himself deep, flooding her with his passion.
When it was over, he lay atop her, body spasming, breath sawing from him and ruffling the ends of her fiery hair fanned out beneath his face on the pillow. Finally, he gathered enough strength to pull back, and he choked out a laugh.
Delilah…was asleep. Eyes closed. Lids fluttering every so often. A soft little snore grumbling from between her lovely, kiss-swollen lips.
Holy smokes, he’d screwed her unconscious. And if he wasn’t such an evolved guy, he might just slap himself a high five.
Then it hit him. Just how exhausted she must be. How scared. How…vulnerable.
Shit. Had he taken advantage? Had he made a mistake?
Slowly, with infinite care, he rolled off her. She murmured her dislike of his sudden absence, the desertion of his heat, shivering slightly when the air from the window AC unit raised goose bumps all over her body. Her nipples tightened and, in response, his spent cock jerked with interest.
With a frown, he admonished Little Mac for being a witless wonder. Then he pulled her close, brushing strands of fragrant hair away from her temple so he could press a kiss there. Brave Delilah. Strong Delilah. Wonderful Delilah…
He didn’t want her to regret this. Didn’t want her to hurt because of him.
Daring Delilah. Charming Delilah. Beautiful Delilah…
She was the kind of woman to make a good dog break his leash. And she made Mac wish everything was different. She made him wish he was different. A man with fewer emotional scars, a man who didn’t know better than to lay it all on the line and give it a go. Sweet Lord almighty, she just made him…wish.
And wishing was a dangerous business. After wishing came hoping. And after hoping came what the hell; let’s try. And after what the hell; let’s try came—
Jolene! That broken cry from that ravaged voice echoed in his head. He could still feel the unfathomable ache in his chest.
As he looked down at Delilah, so pretty, so…everything a woman should be, he knew he could fall, if he let himself. Perhaps he had fallen…just a little. And that right there was enough to scare some cotton-pickin’ sense into him.
This is a one-night stand, asshole. Nothing more. You’d do well to remember that.
Good advice. Great advice. And since it was just a one-night stand, he’d be damned if he wasted one single, solitary moment of it.
“Darlin’,” he murmured, rubbing his burgeoning cock against her silky hip, thumbing one of her delicious nipples to rigid life. “Wake up. I want you again.”
Her pale lids fluttered open. Her eyes impossibly green in the lamplight spilling across the bed.
He wasn’t sure she was fully awake, but she turned in his arms, eagerly offering her lips. He took them like the heartless, ravenous bastard he was…
***
Delilah would say this for the man, he was certainly thorough.
She’d fallen asleep on him twice, and twice he awakened her to wild positions and mind-blowing sex that shattered her psyche and decimated her body. He’d bent her over the bed, forcefully thrusting into her from behind while his fingers did things to her clitoris that made her scream. He’d had her on her knees, murmuring titillating commands to her on just how she should suck him, stroke him, cup him. He’d even taken her up against the wall, heaving into her over and over and over again until she shattered into a million tiny pieces and couldn’t remember her own name, much less his.
What wonderful delights would he show her next?
Without opening her eyes, she reached for him, her outstretched fingers searching the rumpled sheets next to her. The linens were cool, and…empty…
She bolted upright, pushing her hair from her eyes. A quick glance told her two things. One, she’d been asleep for a while because the sun was sliding toward the western horizon, sending tendrils of golden light through the slats of the aluminum blinds, highlighting the dust motes dancing in the air. And two, Mac wasn’t in the room.
“Mac?” she called quietly, her heart giving her rib cage a quick kick. She ignored it. He was just in the bathroom.
Mmm. Sex in the shower. That was one they hadn’t tried yet. Water, slippery soap, their bodies slapping together. Yes. She could go for some of that.
Sliding from the bed, she smiled at the little twinges and aches that were proof her body had been well-used, well-loved. Bending to grab her panties and T-shirt from where they’d fallen to the floor—fallen? More like been hurled—the memory of his fervor caused a shiver to race up her spine. She hoped he’d be just as anxious to undress her again. With a little giggle, she shimmied into the garments.
“Mac?” she called again, padding to the bathroom, knocking hesitantly on the partially closed door. It squeaked open under the pressure of her knuckles, revealing…nothing. Just the standard motel shower, sink, and toilet. But no Mac.
No Mac…
It was then she realized. True to his word, he’d given her one gloriously decadent afternoon. And that was it. Done. Finished. Over.
She slumped against the doorjamb, biting her lip as tears instantly filled her eyes. Thoughts spun through her head like tornados, threatening to destroy everything in their path. That ball of broken glass was back, tearing at her lungs, scraping against her heart, shredding her until the sob she held at the back of her throat broke through.
The sound was pathetic, even to her own ears. Desperate. Devastated.
You made the bargain, the voice whispered.
But that was before I realized I loved him! she argued in her own defense, then covered her mouth with a shaky hand because she knew that wasn’t true.
She’d known she loved him. Hell, if she was honest with herself, she’d known she loved him for years…
In fact, she’d fallen in love with his chin dimple and crooked nose the very first time she laid eyes on him. A few months later, when Ozzie told some raunchy joke and he tossed back his head, belly laughing, she’d fallen in love with the crinkles at the corner of his eyes. Then there was the day he valiantly came to the rescue of a woman whose husband was pushing her around out in the alley behind the bar, and she’d fallen in love with his courage. Fast forward to just a few months ago, when he held her close after she lost Buzzard, and she’d fallen head-over-heels in love with his compassion.
Yes. From the beginning, she’d loved him.
And now I have to live with it being…over.
She glanced wearily at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were red and shiny, her hair a rat’s nest of tangles. The skin around her mouth was pink from Mac’s whiskers and…what was that? She pushed away from the doorjamb, leaning against the sink as she turned her head to the side, examining the skin on her neck. A love
bite. Just a small one. But it was a reminder of how well, how thoroughly he’d taken her. Made her his in every which way.
A reminder… A memory…
It was all she had now. And it would have to do.
She was Delilah Fairchild, after all. The ass-kicking, Harley-riding, shotgun-toting beer-slinger-from-hell. What was a little heartbreak to a woman like her?
“Everything,” she admitted to her reflection, wiping at the tears slipping down her cheeks and dropping from her chin. “It’s everything. But you can’t let him know.”
Because she’d promised there would be no strings, no hurt feelings. And if she couldn’t keep her word, the least she could do was never show him how much she suffered.
So toughen up, buttercup, she scolded herself, sniffling and pressing a hand to the ache in the center of her chest. Shaking out her hair, she forced herself to take a deep, cleansing breath, and turned on the faucet. In the middle of splashing cold water on her face, she jumped when the CIA agent tasked with guarding the rear of the motel tapped on the large frosted window positioned behind the toilet.
“May I have a glass of water?” he called, his voice hoarse and slightly muffled.
Poor guy. He’d been out there in the sun all afternoon. He was probably about to shrivel up and die.
Out there all afternoon…
Her cheeks flamed when it occurred to her that he might have heard everything that been happening inside the motel room, that whoever was positioned at the front had probably heard it, too. She wasn’t known for being a quiet lover, after all. And Mac had been nearly as vocal. Growling, groaning, yelling in triumph during orgasm like he’d just won an Olympic race or something.
“Well that’s just great,” she muttered to herself, embarrassed, wondering how she’d ever look any of these people in the eye again. I mean, really. What must they think of her? Her uncle was missing. Nuclear warheads were about to fall into the hands of terrorists. And what was she doing? Yep. You guessed it. She was getting her groove on. Getting her groove on and getting her heart broken all at the same time.
Hell for Leather Page 24
