by Lea Griffith
Rand had given up on staying away from her. He refused to try to justify it any longer or make excuses for the lust he felt. She was here and she would be his. He’d close his eyes to the pain in hers and just take them both where their bodies begged him to go.
His lips followed his finger’s path to the edge of her cotton panties, followed the slope of her hipbone, and then he took a deep breath. She stilled immediately and her eyes slitted open, the blue of her irises liquid in the sunlight.
She licked her lips and he smiled.
He hooked his finger and slowly pulled her panties down, his own breath locking in his lungs as he unveiled her. Was the hair at her mound as soft as that on her head? Damn it . . . yes, it was. He pulled the panties off and threw them.
She rose up on her elbows and watched him. He almost lost it right then, so close to coming in his pants he didn’t know if he could hold back. He grabbed her hand and placed it over his jeans-covered cock. She squeezed softly and he groaned.
Her bottom lip was being trounced between her teeth, and he wished it were him biting it. “Take them off,” she whispered.
He stood and unsnapped his jeans, had them off in seconds, and then he moved to the edge of the bed, staring down at the naked woman lying so proudly before him.
“You understand this means nothing?” He regretted the words as soon as he uttered them. Her face fell and her eyes darkened. She nodded, and the ends of her hair caressed her pretty breasts.
Goddamn it. He’d hurt her. When all he’d wanted to do was bring her pleasure, something he instinctively knew she’d never had much of.
He stood above her and watched as she lifted her head, eyes blazing, desire riding a wave over her trembling body.
“I understand that for you, it means nothing.”
With those words, she destroyed him.
He’d crushed Remi with his words, but she understood. And still she was willing to take what he was willing to give her. The heat he built inside her demanded surcease, and though all of these feelings were foreign, she knew better than to run from this.
He would hunt her because, as much as he protested wanting her, the truth was right there in the rigid lines of his body and swollen member that jutted so proudly from between his legs. She wouldn’t run. She couldn’t.
She pushed backward and lay down, careful to be acquiescent. She wanted, and nothing would stop her from having, but she was dealing with a man who had limited patience.
His face hardened, the muscles of his chest, arms, and legs jumping under his bronze skin. His hand stroked his penis from root to tip, and she couldn’t keep from licking her dry lips, wishing it was her mouth making the journey. It would have shocked her, but she’d put away the part of her mind that was in a constant state of thought. She was going to feel every moment of this, come hell or high water.
He came down over her and settled between her legs, the heated brand of his cock coming to rest against her opening. Her eyes closed and she sucked in a breath. So close. So very close.
“I wondered. . ." he trailed off, and she lifted her head to search his face.
He looked down at her mound, and heat flowed through her in a volcanic wave. He chuckled and then lowered his head, pressing the softest kiss against the top of her hairline, then licked a path to the crease of her groin at her thigh. She opened her legs wider, hips moving, trying to keep pace with his mouth.
He chuckled again, and the sound made her smile even as she groaned.
She wanted to watch, wanted to see every move he made, but found the sight of him sipping at her flesh more than she could bear. Bullet didn’t deserve such pleasure. Remi didn’t deserve such heat and passion.
But Gretchen? Yes. The woman she would have been had Joseph not destroyed her would have deserved this. For right now, in this infinite moment, Gretchen would feel this pleasure and become something more than a memory.
She would live, right here in this man’s arms, for whatever time she had.
Her hands had a mind of their own, and as much as Remi swore she wouldn’t rush this, her body needed relief. So she entangled them in his hair as he moved lower, broad shoulders forcing her legs wider.
He blew gently on her flesh, and the heat from his mouth taunted her, had her hips lifting to meet him more than halfway.
He stared at her from blue-black eyes, face hard, cheeks red, and nostrils flaring. He was so damned sexy, and she’d never in her life seen anything hotter, wanted anything more than this man. He licked his lips then, and his mouth kicked up at one corner.
“Oui.” Her permission wasn’t needed. He would do what he damn well wanted with her body. She knew she’d suffer because of it.
And it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but this feeling between them right now.
Then he kissed her, made love to her with his mouth, and took her soul with his tongue. One swipe along her entrance, and she hissed. An open-mouthed caress against her cleft had her gasping, searching for air, finding nothing but ecstasy.
He made love to her, and when she thought she could take no more, he moved to her clit and suckled. Her hips came off the bed and his hands grasped her ass, holding her to his mouth as he continued the torture.
On the edge of her consciousness floated a beautiful rainbow of colors, bright and shimmering, and she reached for them as the pleasure coursed through her relentless and unending.
“Come,” he demanded, and his voice was a velvet gravel on her nerves, urging her on and refusing to let her run from the eventuality.
Her head tossed on the bed even as her hands clenched in his silky black hair. Everything was so sharp in those moments. His smell, sandalwood and pine, permeated the room. Her own musk was an overlay of sweetness on top of his more masculine scent, and she licked her lips. His skin burned against her thighs, and his hands were a brand on her ass. The sounds he made as he sipped at her made her stomach clench, and had his shoulders not prevented it, her legs would have come together as she sought to ease the flames in her lower body.
And still the colors bludgeoned her vision, refused to dissipate, becoming clearer and sharper until they coalesced.
“Oh, God, arrete!” she breathed out.
“Come,” he demanded again.
Almost there, the heat swelled, and his tongue moved over her opening, dove in, and then licked upward, cupping her clitoris and pulling it to his mouth. His lips stroked her, and then gently, so damn gently she couldn’t have protested, bit down on her clit.
She screamed and felt the charge of colors as they shrieked over her nerves, blazing a path toward . . .
“Come, Gretchen!”
Her name on his lips. That was all it took.
She exploded in an orgasm so intense she felt her body swell with relief as her soul flew out and then rushed back to her.
When she came back to herself, his face was buried in her thigh and he was breathing hard, lungs billowing, shoulders rising and falling as he gasped for breath.
Her vision cleared and she realized her hands were still pulling his hair. She released them and let them fall to her side. Her legs had gone boneless. Everything in her was at peace. It was beautiful.
The most beautiful thing she’d ever experienced.
“I’ve got to have you.” His voice was so raw and guttural she could barely understand his words.
But the need in it reverberated through her, the tone so deep and desperate her body softened even more.
“I’m not sure what’s next,” she whispered, cursing the fear that crept in.
She didn’t want to think, she wanted to feel. She pushed the fear aside, unwilling to dwell on the fact that she’d experienced the emotion entirely too much since meeting Rand Beckett.
He lifted off her and moved to the edge of the bed, pulling her body toward him.
“You’re ready.” More statement than question, it was truth. Her body, so soft and wet for him, wouldn’t naysay.
He waited and she nod
ded, spreading her legs farther even as she fisted her hands in the covers. Rand grabbed a pillow and placed it under her, canting her hips at angle that had her aching in anticipation.
“You’re so beautiful. There’s not a piece of you that doesn’t make me want to mark you, make you mine.” The words seemed torn from him, but before she could say anything, he placed himself at her entrance and entered her with one thrust, coming down over her body and settling perfectly between her legs.
He stopped once he was fully seated, but she felt like she’d been cleaved in two. He was a large man, no two ways about it, and though every throb of his flesh inside hers caused heat, she hurt.
Motionless, she tried to breathe. He lifted his chest from hers and stared down at her. Face dark, eyes turbulent, there was a question in their depths she couldn’t answer. She closed hers, and of its own accord, her body clenched around him.
“Goddamn you,” he bit out, hips pressing forward, cock flexing in the snug confines of her body.
“He already has,” she whispered, and then gasped as he grabbed her hair and jerked her head backward.
He withdrew slowly, the feel of his engorged cock passing over untried tissue painful, but so damn erotic she could do nothing but tremble. He leaned down, dark eyes bright as the sunlight sliced over his face, and whispered, “He’s damned us both.”
He bit down on the tendon at the side of her neck, and she screamed. The sound lingering as he pushed into her again and again, her body becoming hotter and wetter than it had ever been, receptive to his every thrust and parry.
She moaned and he groaned; she scratched and he bit. Their movements became a war of attrition, full of need and pain, completion and joy. Her body spiraled, and still he rocked in and out of her, endlessly, ceaselessly. He praised her and she cried. He licked at her tears, and she nipped at his lips.
His invasion broke her open, as she’d known it would. It sliced deep into her mind and bit profoundly into her soul. Over and over, he moved within her until it seemed there was no part of her body that didn’t crave his, no part of her that didn’t long for him.
He stroked her breasts, plucked at her nipples, rolled them in his mouth, and plumped the flesh around them. Rand licked her collarbone and suckled at her neck. He grabbed her hips, held her still for his campaign, but her nails on his back had him bowing backward and hissing, grip releasing as he dug into the cover at the sides of her head.
How long it went on, she had no idea. She was there for every moan and sigh, every breath he took that pressed him more fully inside her. His words, guttural and bottomless in her ears, whispered of the things he wanted from her, wanted to do to her, and in that infinite space where it was just Rand and Gretchen, bodies entwined and souls in combat, something fractured inside of her.
The heat built and he pounded into her, sweat coating them both, fusing them together. She bit the large muscle over his heart, heard him curse, and smiled as she threw her head back and watched him watching her. He held himself above her now, arms extended, muscles straining to hold him upright as he meshed their pelvises and rotated his hips.
She moaned and reached up, digging her nails into the chest she’d just bitten, but he lowered himself and stopped moving, face inches from hers as his gaze sought . . . something.
She squeezed her internal muscles and he growled, wicked and almost mean, but then he did something she realized she’d never forget.
“It is sweet, this damnation,” he whispered as he pushed up higher into her body and closed his mouth over hers.
He pulled out and entered her once more, and everything inside her burst in a feeling so intense there were no words. Heat, light, ecstasy, and pain all intermingled as he exploded inside her, and warmth bathed her cervix. She couldn’t move, everything frozen and locked in that infinity of pleasure, and still his hips flexed as he kissed her over and over.
She couldn’t breathe but did not care. After long moments, he withdrew from her body and got off the bed. She recognized all of this, but there was nothing in her mind except what they’d just shared. Body weakened to a point she didn’t understand, she rolled to her side, faced away from him, and closed her eyes.
Broken, she determined to deal with it later. For now . . . rest.
Chapter Nineteen
Rand threw the pen down on the desk and rubbed a hand over his face. It was impossible to concentrate when his body was beating at him to go back upstairs and slide into her, hold her close as he ravaged every delicious inch of her. He’d left her sleeping and the day had flown by. He’d passed Ken as he’d been leaving her room, and Rand’s only thought had been what the hell have I done? Ken had left him alone the entire day, the knowing look on his face earlier the only indication a firestorm was brewing.
“That was a fuck up of epic proportions.” Ken’s voice was arctic.
Rand winced and looked out the window. Anywhere but at his deceased wife’s brother. “Don’t start.”
“Now, don’t get me wrong, I can see fucking her. She’s a prime piece of ass for sure, but goddamn, Rand, in Anna’s bedroom? You screwed her murderer in your daughter’s bedroom?” His friend’s tone was acidic, but something lay underneath the words that had Rand glancing up at him.
And it took a second for the words to sink in. “You mother fucker—” Rand ground out and went for Ken’s throat.
The haze that encompassed his vision allowed for nothing but Ken’s neck under his hands. In moments, Adam and Dmitry were between them, pulling them apart, and doing their best to hold a rabid Rand back. Rage flowed through him, potent and deadly. He gnashed his teeth at the other man, a promise in the gesture.
Ken smirked and it was ugly, so much an indication of everything they’d lost over the last seven years. Would their friendship go next?
“Shut up, Ken. If I recall correctly, you had your own hard on for the other one. Blade, was it?” Dmitry cleared his throat, but Ken’s words hung between the four men.
Ken snorted. “Like I said, I could see fucking them. They’re beautiful. But you can damn well believe I’d never fuck them in my sister’s house! These women killed them!” His voice rose with every syllable, his fury superheated and blistering.
And into the storm walked Bullet.
“I did not kill your sister or your niece, Mr. Nodachi. Neither did Blade. We have killed many, rest assured, but never the innocent.”
Her voice was soft, and Rand had not noticed the clear purity of it before. Normally, she was too hard to think of in softer terms, but now that he knew how very soft she was, his every perception of her was heightened and skewed. Her gorgeous red hair was braided and hung in a thick plait over her right shoulder. His hands clenched remembering the silky feel of it between his fingers. She wore black cargo pants and a black T-shirt but was barefoot. The glaring dichotomy wasn’t lost on him. Her toes were painted blue, and how in the hell had he not noticed that before?
Ken turned on her, and for a moment Rand wondered if he should intervene. Ken was a killer in his own right. Quick with a blade or gun, he’d fought beside Rand in the gutter more times than either could count. He was deadly.
Bullet, because there was a part of Rand that would not allow him to call her Gretchen, readied herself. So subtle as to be invisible, her body prepared itself for battle with an innate, inborn ease. It was eerie. A simple turn of her of her body and she was warrior once again. It made his heart hurt.
“Leave off, Ken. If you have a problem, take it up with me,” Rand growled.
She looked at him then, and he swore pain flitted over her features but then it was gone. He was left facing the mask of a killer.
“I don’t need you to intervene, Mr. Beckett.” His heart drummed heavy, a rat-a-tat-tat against his ribcage. “There are simple truths we can tell one another to keep this as peaceable as possible. I’ll give you what I can and after that, it is on you what you choose to believe.” She shrugged and the action incensed Ken. Before Rand could mov
e, Ken headed toward her.
Rand had worried in vain. Between one blink and the next, Bullet had Ken on his belly, her knee in his upper back and his arms wrenched so far behind him, it was a wonder she didn’t snap his shoulder joints.
“My goal is not to hurt you, though believe me I’ve had plenty of opportunities over the last seven years to do so. Had I wanted the job to kill your sister and niece, or even you or Mr. Beckett, each of you would have been mine.” She leaned down and placed her mouth at Ken’s ear. Rand had to strain to hear what she said. “But, again, I don’t kill the innocent, Mr. Nodachi. I don’t kill the innocent for anyone.”
She released him, stood up, and stepped back quickly. Ken pushed up just as fast and turned away from her, breathing heavily as he ran a hand through his hair. He rolled his shoulders, and Rand raised an eyebrow as Ken’s light-eyed gaze caught his.
Bullet’s voice broke the tension. “Perhaps you all need a moment to gather yourselves?”
Ken snorted. Dmitry outright laughed. Adam glared at Bullet, and Rand just crossed his arms over his chest.
“No? Okay then. Let’s talk war, Trident Corp, because that’s what we’re about to enter. No mistake, Joseph Bombardier is prepared for you.”
Ken didn’t turn around but said, “So you would lead us to ambush?”
“Perhaps, Mr. Nodachi, you and I should go a few rounds? Maybe an ass whipping will change your shitty attitude? I came here to garner support, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that you would want revenge and may even try to kill me.” Her voice raised a single octave, the strident tone slithering through Rand and forcing all the men to look at her. “Why in the name of all that’s holy would I risk my own fucking life to lead you to ambush? I could have put a bullet in your head many times over, Mr. Nodachi. Your actions are making me wonder why I hesitated.” Bullet threw up her hands, exasperation in the line of her shoulders, the set of her mouth.
