Captured (Gowns & Crowns #2)

by Jennifer Chance

  Pull it together, she implored herself. But she couldn’t pull it together, it seemed. She couldn’t think of anything except having Dimitri’s arms around her, holding her close. She wanted the feel of his body against hers, the touch of his lips brushing close, the sound of his gruff, throaty words whispered in her ear.

  She wanted him.

  Fool that she was, she wanted him, and she didn’t know how to turn that desire off. Her control was deserting her exactly when she needed it most, and—

  “You want to talk about it?” he asked, his words a low rumble, officious enough to make her think he was interrogating her. Yes. Interrogating her was exactly what he was doing. All he was doing. Focus.

  “Princess?”

  “I—what?” Lauren blinked as Dimitri moved with sudden, almost feline grace. One moment he was lounging carelessly by her chair, loose and easy, the next he was kneeling between her legs, his hands on either side of her chair. His dark gaze held her eyes as she gaped at him, unresisting as he reached out and pulled her sunglasses from her face.

  “What is it, Lauren?” he asked, his words barely a murmur. He looked impossibly gorgeous, staring at her. Hot and vital and real. Not someone who was weak, not someone she needed to protect. Someone who would laugh at the very idea of needing her protection, no matter how much money she had, how much power. Perhaps he did simply want her, the way she now wanted him, the way she burned for him, if she was honest with herself. “If something is on your mind, you need to share it with me. I can’t help you otherwise.”

  Confusion, need, and want all clanged together in Lauren’s brain. What was he saying? How was she supposed to reply? Did he really think—

  His next words hung it. “What are you afraid of?”

  “This,” she snapped, and leaned forward too quickly for him to back off. With her free hand, she reached for the back of his head and pulled him toward her, so they could kiss, a real kiss, not the half-pitying smooch she’d experienced with him the night before. Once again, Dimitri let her pull him to her, giving as good as he got but nothing more—nothing. She broke away from him in embarrassment and more than a little disgust—at him, at herself, at this entire stupid situation. “That.”

  His eyes lit up with amusement, and his mouth quirked up. “You were afraid of kissing me?”

  “You kiss me like it’s your job, and it’s not your job, Dimitri. I don’t need your pity, and I don’t need your duty, though kudos to the Garronia National Security Force if it trains you to keep lonely women entertained. I thought—I mean, I thought—” She was having a hard time focusing with Dimitri so close.

  “Perhaps you think too much, princess,” Dimitri murmured. And then he did lean forward as she edged back into her chair, pursuing her until his lips brushed hers once again. Teasing, tasting. He drew his tongue along her lips. Her mouth opened on a sigh, and then he pressed into her intimately, angling his head as he deepened the kiss. He tasted of salt and beer and lime, and Lauren’s mind completely blanked for a moment as he pulled her beer bottle from her unresisting fingers and set it away from them. Her hands seemed to naturally find their way under the loose fall of his tank top, and she shuddered as her fingers connected with the rock-hard planes of his abs. Dimitri was not a lean man, whipped to precision. He was thick and hard, almost bulky, his muscles bulging beneath her fingers as he moved his mouth away from hers to trace a line along her chin, up to the delicate skin by her ear.

  “I assure you, kissing you is no duty,” he said, the soft tickle of his words sending whorls of intense desire down her neck. She slid her hands to either side of his torso, anchoring him to her, wanting nothing more than for this to continue. He did her one better, reaching out and pulling her closer to him until his groin pressed into the vee of her legs. The evidence of his arousal was as hard and fierce as the rest of him, and Lauren arched her body further, practically whimpering as his hand snaked around her waist to press her more tightly as her head fell back.

  Dimitri used the angle to explore her neck, his rough, unshaven skin pressing against the hollow of her neck and shoulder while his lips ranged over her collarbone. His tongue replaced his lips and then his teeth, grazing over the delicate skin as if she were a meal to be consumed bit by careful bit. Explosions of desire had pretty much detonated everything south of her belly button, and she tilted her hips up more, wantonly, mindlessly, needing him closer, needing him inside her. Needing him to fill her with all his raw vitality until she was in his arms, wrapped by his body, nothing and nowhere and no one but his.

  Somehow, one of his hands had pressed up between them, and it captured her left breast, touching, exploring. She shuddered as his fingers found her nipple, brushing across it as it peaked eagerly beneath his touch, the slow tease so brutal, her eyes practically watered with need. She was almost through a half sigh when he palmed the full weight of her breast, squeezing it hard as she gasped. His head lifted quickly, and he stared at her, his eyes mutinously hot.

  “I did not hurt you?” he asked. His hand softened its hold, rolling the round swell in his palm. But he didn’t return his fingers to where she needed him most, wanted him, that tight pleasure-pain of her peaked nipples that made her want his hand beneath her shirt and thin bra, not on top of them, touching her skin to skin, heat to heat, need to need.

  “No,” she managed when she realized he was still staring at her, waiting for an answer. “No.” Breathing had become something of a challenge, but she had to make him continue, had to make him understand. “Please, don’t stop.”

  “I have hurt you,” Dimitri said, impossibly soft, his words making no sense to her, her body tense and quivering underneath him. He moved his hand away from her, and she almost cried out, until she felt the rough touch of his fingers on her belly, under the hem of her shirt, sliding up toward her breast once more and bunching up the material as he went. “Let me kiss it and make it better.”

  Dimitri took Lauren’s groan as all the encouragement he needed. He bent toward her body, reluctantly breaking contact with her so that he could take her breast in his mouth, sucking hard as Lauren gasped and entwined her fingers in his hair. Her body was on fire, and he had done that to her, he had made her forget, made her think of nothing but him. Him and the sunset and beach and his body and hers, wrapped together on this porch, which was now his favorite porch in any country, anywhere.

  “Dimitri,” Lauren said brokenly, and he adjusted his hold on her again, pulling her out of the chair in one fluid motion until she sprawled on him as he lay back on the porch. Her hair had fallen loose from her bun and was drifting around her shoulders, her lips full from his kisses, her eyes glazed as she settled against him. She was too far away now, however, and he reached up to her, freezing as she laid a hand on his chest. She could not seriously want to stop now. Not now, when he was about to explode from looking at her, when all he wanted was to roll her beneath him and bury himself in the wonder of her body.

  Instead, she gazed down at him and smiled, her gaze raking his face, his body. “You’re so beautiful,” she murmured, drifting a soft hand against his cheek. He stared back at her, willing his body to behave, to do this her way, whatever fucking way she wanted if it kept her touching him, rocking against him, her long legs straddling him and pressing up against his cock with a rhythmic pressure that made his head swim. “Please tell me you’re not simply teasing me.” Her gaze fell away, and her hand dropped to his shirt, where her fingers knotted up the material.

  He huffed out a short breath, moving his hands to her hips to seat her more firmly over him, knowing his erection was unmistakable through his gym shorts. “Trust me, I’m not teasing here. You—” He broke off as she reached for her own clothes, pulling her top up and over her head, bringing the bra with it. Her body gloriously bared in the setting sunlight was quite possibly the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and his control slipped that much more as she lifted her hands to palm her own breasts, her gaze fixed on his face as his mo
uth went dry. She swayed toward him and he reached for her, his hands sliding up her back to press her close as he kissed her breasts, her collarbone, her neck, and back down to her beautiful, perfect, glorious breasts, full and heavy and his.

  Lauren shuddered in his grasp, and his need crested again, until before he knew it, he was sitting up, scrambling to his feet with her tight in his arms, swinging her into the house as she laughed and held on. But he would not be fucking this woman on a porch. Not the first time. Maybe the sixth, but not the first.

  The relative gloom of the villa’s living room was a balm to his senses, helping him to catch his breath. The room upstairs was much too far away for him to consider. The couch was too. Instead, he sank down onto the thick woven rug that covered the tiled floor, laying Lauren down as if she would break. She looked at him, dazed. He could get used to that look.

  But for now, he couldn’t stand a minute more to be the only one wearing a shirt. He yanked off his tank top, and before Lauren could speak, he rolled back on top of her, stretching her hands high above her as he levered his body over hers. He reveled in the feel of her soft skin beneath him, and tightened his abs in an attempt not to crush her.

  “Hey—” She wriggled her wrists out of his grasp and brought her hands to his chest, her eyes wide as he braced himself above her. Releasing a purely feminine sigh, she trailed her fingers down his chest, feathering them along the line of hair that arrowed down between his pecs in a line that ended distinctly south of his navel. She followed that line like it was a map, not stopping until her fingers slid beneath the waistband of his shorts. She dragged the shorts low on his hips until the thick ridges of his hip bones were exposed, then slid her palms around his hips beneath his briefs, until her cool fingers cupped his bare ass. Pulling him into the vee of her thighs, she arched beneath him, giving him another heavy-lidded gaze. “I want you,” she murmured. “Please tell me I can have you.”

  “You ask as if you do not already know the answer.” He moved to the side and slid off her, his hands going immediately to her loose trousers. Unhooking the clasp, he peeled the soft linen back, marveling at the stretch of perfect skin bared beneath his hands. A thin line of silk lay against her skin, and he slid his fingers beneath it, not with the rough speed Lauren had used, but slowly, marking each sensation, each inch of skin that was revealed to his eyes, to his touch. As he pressed down, the material turned damp, and his own need ratcheted up in turn.

  He shifted his gaze to meet Lauren’s. “I, um, hope the answer is yes,” she said, and twin flags of color scored her cheeks, making her impossibly more beautiful.

  “It’s most definitely yes,” he murmured, reaching up to brush her lips with his. He tasted the sweetness of her and was suddenly consumed with a need to taste all of her, completely. The incredible smoothness of her skin beneath his rough and calloused palm was at once exhilarating and terrifying. He could hurt her so easily, and yet she moved with a pliant grace that seemed to fit his hand perfectly, her body opening to him eagerly, almost wantonly.

  He shifted his hand, expecting but not finding silken curls, then realized in a breath that the skin had been shaved smooth. His shaft seemed to swell to six times its normal size, and he schooled himself not to rip the material free right there. It did change his plans, though. It changed them somewhat significantly.

  “Dimitr—oh,” Lauren’s word ended on a gasp as he drifted his fingers down the soft folds of her sex, pressing into her, his teeth gritting tight enough to break as he felt her wet heat against his fingers. She was ready for him, but as if there was any question, her hands were suddenly at her own waist, grabbing for her pants to shimmy them down further.

  He batted them away easily. “No,” he murmured. “Let me.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Lauren watched almost spellbound as Dimitri wrapped his large hands into the waistband of her linen trousers and pulled them down over her hips. He seemed to wrestle with himself over the scrap of her panties, but in the end hooked them as well, his face rapt with attention as he bared her body to his gaze.

  Lauren’s heart thumped heavily in her chest, her skin both hot and cold under Dimitri’s stare. A curious mix of nerves and confidence surged through her—she knew she had a decent body, she knew she was attractive, she knew these things. And yet this man was different from anyone she’d ever been with before. This was no college guy still figuring out who he was or what he wanted. This was a man who looked like he would happily eat her alive.

  Oh God, don’t think about that.

  It was too late, however. As if spurred by her thoughts, Dimitri finished pulling her pants off completely, her panties with them, and tossed them aside in a heap. Then his hands were once more on her hips, and somehow he was kneeling between her legs now, his body bent down, his lips on the inside of her knee. He moved up the interior of her thigh as if he was exploring foreign territory, and she couldn’t stop herself from trembling in his grasp as his mouth moved closer—closer—

  He stopped, and she almost cried out, but he slid up her body, bracing his arms on the floor to stare at her. His heavy shaft pressed against her belly, and his eyes were dark, searching. “Are you cold? Is this still what you want?”

  “Oh God, you’ve got to be kidding me.” She pushed her fingers beneath his soft shorts. She wrapped her fingers around him, squeezing as his face contorted in a mix of lust and pleasure, then outright need as she ran her fingers over the head of his shaft. “I want you inside me now.” Without waiting for him to agree, she latched on to either side of his waistband and pushed down his shorts, over his heavy cock, and along his thighs. Dimitri swiped with one hand and yanked them off the rest of the way, giving her a glimpse of his perfect, incredible body, ridged with muscle, sunbaked to a dark bronze, the narrow strip of hair in the center of his abs arrowing straight down. “I want all of you,” she practically moaned. “Every inch of you.”

  “Good,” he growled, claiming her mouth with his own. He pulled his body away from her hands again and settled between her legs, the intense pressure of him so close, so nearly perfect that she almost cried out. Then he slid away, skimming her body, leaving her wanting as his mouth traced a fiery path along her neck and over her collarbone. He took one breast in his mouth, his left hand capturing the other, and suckled hard enough to make her arch off the floor. Then he moved away quickly, too quickly, licking a line down her stomach until he paused right over the center of her, his breath hot and moist, but not enough, not nearly enough.

  She arched up toward him and he met her with his tongue, the shocking contact turning her inside out as she gasped his name. She twined her hands in his hair and held him there, though whether to brace him or herself she couldn’t say. But he didn’t seem to notice her. Instead, his attention was solely on exploring, tasting, pressing in, somehow knowing how to tease and excite every one of her nerve endings, kiss by lick by—

  “Ohhhh.” Lauren froze as a new pressure assaulted her, Dimitri never stopping his sensual exploration with his mouth, but now eased into her with a finger, testing her channel as she trembled beneath him, willing him to go farther and deeper.

  “You’re so good,” he murmured, and the vibration of his words against her clit made her catch her breath. She gripped his shoulders, her fingers digging in, need spiraling up within her as Dimitri continued the rhythmic thrust of his fingers in time with the teasing lave of his tongue—so right, so good, so exactly where she needed him to be. He pulled back for half a moment, his breath a cool balm against her overheated skin, but she nearly cried out anyway in frustration when he leaned down and flicked his tongue against her one last time.

  She shattered against his mouth, panic and need filling her to bursting, then flowing over as she convulsed. He may have cursed, she certainly did, but he didn’t leave her, didn’t roll away and up, the box checked, the mission accomplished. If anything, he reveled in her climax, his mouth leaving her to kiss her thighs, her hip bone, the curve of her
belly, then returning as she was settling to stoke her into a new wave of convulsions, until she didn’t know which was ending and which was beginning, and her words had devolved into inarticulate moans.

  She was quivering now, practically helpless, and he shifted again, heavily and with purpose, dragging himself up her body until he hovered above her face again. His eyes seemed almost wild, his expression brutally fierce, and his shaft throbbed against her belly, causing her legs to fall open in mute desire. His gaze raked her face, and though he didn’t ask the question, she nodded, gripping his arms. “Now,” she whispered, and she didn’t recognize her own voice. “I want you now.”

  Dimitri growled and rolled to the side, up on his feet so quickly, she could only marvel at the tight urgency of his body. He strode out of the room and was back before she could reach for the throw blanket, and then he was over her again, warming her body instantly with his, surrounding her with his heat. He kissed her thoroughly, hungrily, and the cycle of desire ratcheted up once more inside her, full and hot, demanding to be sated. But when he would have moved off her again to sheathe himself with the condom he’d brought in from the other room, a new sort of urgency gripped her, impossible to ignore.

  She followed him up when he moved to the side, pressing against him until he willingly relaxed and allowed her to push him over onto his back. There was no question that he had “allowed” this too. She wouldn’t be able to move this man an inch without his permission, no matter how many cardio kick classes she’d taken or how much iron she’d pumped. But she moved up onto Dimitri’s thick body with ease, straddling his hips. He stared at her with a curious mix of intensity and desperation, but he didn’t stop her. It was almost as if he couldn’t stop her, and the intensity of her power filled her as she took in his face, his eyes, his hands half raised from the floor, the foil packet clenched in one fist, the other clenched around nothing but air.