by Lora Leigh
As he gripped her hair, the dominant sexual creature lurking just beneath his surface surged forward.
His cock was hard, throbbing, her soft, silken fingers teasing him with her touch. Teasing him with the knowledge that every kiss, every lick, every second she was in his arms she was learning what he liked first.
His fairy-girl, he called her.
His fantasy.
Guiding her head, her caresses, and her kisses, Crowe slowly urged her lower. Fiery little licks of her tongue tasted his flesh as she moved down the line of his body.
Imperative little groans and hungry, breathless little mewls had his testicles hardening, clenching in need.
“Crowe.” The soft sound of his name was a plea on her lips as she reached the base of his hardened shaft.
Gripping his erection with one hand, she stared up at him, vulnerability marking her expression as Crowe eased her into position before pressing the engorged head against her lips.
“Just pretend it’s your favorite treat,” he teased her, fighting back the primitive urge to push past the swollen curves. “Just take me, baby, however you want to.”
Her lips parted.
“Ah yes, sweetheart.” he groaned, watching in shock, heat surging through him, as the fully erect crest slipped inside.
“Ah baby, hell yes.” Breathing was becoming harder by the second. “That’s it, Amelia. Just suck it inside your hot little mouth.”
Ah, God.
Staring down at her, the feel of her lips, the moist heat of her mouth, her nimble, graceful fingers at his balls tore aside any last thoughts of not having her.
Of course he was going to have her.
By God, she belonged to him.
* * *
She could barely breathe.
Amelia sucked the engorged crest of Crowe’s erection as deeply as possible, suckling it, licking it, loving it. The salt-and-heat taste of him was addictive. The throb and flex of the iron-hard flesh was an aphrodisiac she didn’t want to fight.
With each draw of her mouth his hips flexed, pushing him deeper, urging her to take more, coaxing her hunger higher with each taste of him until she was certain the hard, ever-deepening clench of his shaft signaled the release she craved.
“Hell no,” he suddenly groaned.
The first dark, salt-and-man taste that infused her senses had him suddenly pulling back, his fingers tightening at the base of his erection as her eyes flared open.
“Wait, Crowe.” Her protest was instinctive.
It was time for his treat now.
“Come here, Amelia.” Drawing her quickly to her feet, his hands clenched her hips, lifting her until she was reclining back on the desk, watching him impatiently.
Anticipation was exploding through her. It raced through her bloodstream, awakened nerve endings she hadn’t known were so sensitive, before striking at her clit in electric pulses of deepening sensation.
As he laid her back on the desk, one hand cupped the back of her head, the other sliding up her thigh as his head lowered, his lips covering hers in a kiss that burned through her senses. He’d never kissed her with so much hunger, so much need.
His lips slanted over hers, his tongue licking against hers as his fingers found the curve of her breast, then one tight, hard tip.
The stroke of his thumb over her nipple sent crashing waves of pleasure flooding her, drawing her body tight as a gasp tore past their kiss.
Crowe’s head lifted, his gaze locking with hers as he watched her reaction this time.
Catching her nipple with his thumb and forefinger, tightening his grip just enough, he began milking slowly, rolling the pebble-hard tip as her lashes fluttered and a cry of pleasure escaped her lips.
She didn’t see his head lowering. She felt his lips surround her other nipple. Moist, hot, his tongue curling over the tight tip as he sucked the sensitive point into his mouth.
Drawing on her hungrily a groan rumbled in his chest, his fingers leaving her opposite nipple to stroke down her side, her hips, before moving across her lower stomach and sliding between her thighs.
Her sex was freshly waxed just the day before, the trip to the spa slipped in during an errand Wayne had sent her on. The only curls left were those that grew on the upper curve of her mound, above her clit.
Crowe’s fingers feathered through those curls, once, twice, before sliding lower, his hand curving, cupping the heated, aching flesh as his upper palm pressed firmly against her clit, rubbing against it far too lightly.
There wasn’t enough friction.
Hips arching, desperation pounding through her veins and centering at her clit, Amelia gasped with the pleasure rushing through her.
“Crowe, please.” Panting, fighting for breath as his lips moved from her nipple, she arched closer. Amelia could feel the driving desperate pleasure building through her senses.
Nothing mattered but his touch, now, always. No matter the time, day or night, the memory of it, the need for it, was always there.
Moving lower, his lips spread a wave of fiery pleasure across her flesh as her hands buried in his hair, clenching, tightening with the building tension ratcheting through her body.
His kisses feathered over her lower stomach, her hipbones, then drew a surprised cry from her as they brushed over the swollen, straining bundle of nerves driving her insane.
“Crowe, yes,” she gasped, her thighs parting farther as she felt him settle between them, his hands pressing beneath her knees, urging them to bend, to give him greater access to the sensitive, slick folds between her thighs.
“Sweet Amelia,” he whispered as his fingers parted the swollen flesh. “Now I get to enjoy my favorite treat.”
Dipping his head, he slid his tongue through the narrow slit, pressed against the clenched entrance of her vagina, then licked slowly upward until he found the hard swollen bud throbbing for his touch.
Pleasure was a rush of electric flames burning in the wake of his tongue. Each lick, each stroke, each muttered growl of pleasure had her arching, moaning, begging for release as each sensation built, burning brighter, hotter, with each hungry stroke of his tongue.
“Oh God, Crowe, please,” she begged, her hands buried in his hair, hips arching to be closer, to drive his tongue harder against her clit, the entrance of her vagina. Anywhere that would trigger the release.
Licking, stroking, his tongue circled the little bud as he pressed two fingers against the hungry entrance. They pressed inside, slowly stretching the inner tissue. Twisting his fingers inside her, working deeper as his tongue licked and stroked the pounding bud of her clit, he pushed her higher.
In the six weeks they’d been lovers, he’d done things to her that had her blushing to think about even as her need for him had encouraged him to teach her how to pleasure him as well.
Now arching and writhing at the strokes of his fingers inside her, Amelia could feel her senses threatening to come apart with the force of the steadily rising need for release. It pounded through her body, shot through it in wave upon wave of spasming pleasure.
And she was so close. So certain it was just a breath away, no matter how many times he pulled back just before she could crash into the rapturous abyss awaiting her.
His fingers slid deeper inside her, rubbing the nerve-rich flesh and flexing muscles that clenched around each penetration. His lips tightened on her clit, his tongue flickering over the little point, driving her so high, so close she tried to scream, to beg as his fingers curved inside her, reaching to a point in the uppermost depths of her vagina that sent a pulse of pure white-hot energy tearing through her.
Exploding through her.
It was cataclysmic.
Arching tightly against him, a strangled cry tore from her lips as he suddenly moved to his knees, his fingers stroking again, again. Rapid-fire pulses of release tore through her another time, causing her to jerk against each surge of sensation as his fingers slid free of her.
Not that she had a chanc
e to accustom herself to the deprivation. As his fingers left her, the broad head of his erection was pushing inside. Working the heavy shaft deeper inside her as her flesh aided him with the clenching, milking motions that stroked the hardened shaft with each surging penetration.
Her legs curled around his hips, her pelvis tilting as he came over her fully, gathering her closer to his chest. His lips covered hers, his tongue slipping past to drive her crazy with need for him.
She was surrounded by him.
She was stroked inside and out by him, kept imprisoned in a whirlwind of growing, burning rapture that quickly escalated out of control.
Her release shattered inside her in a complete frenzy of explosions that stripped her to the very core of her emotions.
Lightning licked over her flesh, struck at her clit, the clenched depths of her vagina. Hard, clenching pulses of pure ecstasy struck at her womb as she became completely lost in the man who created the storm.
“Oh, God. Crowe.” She jerked in his arms as the pulse and throb of his cock spilled his release inside her. “Oh God, I love you. I love you.”
Don’t leave me, she wanted to beg. The words locked inside her. Please, please God, don’t leave me.
Don’t let me go. The need remained locked in her soul.
She wouldn’t beg him for more than this, and she would only beg when the pleasure was too painful to bear.
But she would always, always love—
* * *
The room was silent, the hands on the clock still hanging on the wall ticking ever closer to the moment when he’d have to leave her.
What the hell had he done?
She had somehow managed to slip into his heart, and Crowe knew he had no choice but to walk away. For her sake, he had to.
He couldn’t allow this to happen again. Each time he held her, each time he took her, he was risking her further. Each time, she burrowed deeper into the heart he was certain he no longer had. The heart his training had ruthlessly pared down to essential function only. He could have sworn there was no longer the ability to love within it.
But Amelia was proving differently.
Thomas Jones’s accomplice hadn’t been found seven years before when Thomas had died with Crowe’s knife buried in his side. The FBI was certain the mastermind of the operation was still living, still waiting, still watching.
That meant any woman the Slasher learned Crowe or his cousins were with became a target. Amelia would become a target if he didn’t stay away from her. Because each time he held her the possessive, dominant male he was found that it was becoming impossible to release her once morning arrived.
Once this night was over he had no choice but to leave, to walk away from the only woman he swore he could feel even when she wasn’t in his arms.
Three nights later
Standing beneath the heavily leafed branches of the tree outside Amelia’s balcony, Crowe watched as she stared down at the pillow where the neatly folded letter lay. It took every second of training the military had put into him so far to force himself to remain still, to wait, to watch, to allow her to read what he’d written.
He could see her hand trembling as she reach out slowly, picked it up, then unfolded the paper and began to read. There was no hardening himself against the pain he knew she was feeling. He let it lance into his soul, let it burn through his heart. Once this night was over, he’d once again become the icy, emotionless agent he’d thought he was before he returned to Corbin County and gave in to his lust for the delicate fairy who had tempted him too far one hot summer night.
As she finished, a hand covered her lips and she rushed for the balcony doors, surprising him as she pushed them open, stepped onto the balcony, then closed them quietly behind her.
Had she seen him?
He was ready to jump soundlessly to the ground when she slowly crumpled to the floor of the balcony, huddled into the corner, and let the sobs she’d obviously been holding back, free.
“No. No. Please, please God no,” she whispered hoarsely as she sobbed, the words barely distinguishable as Crowe forced himself to watch, to listen.
He’d caused this pain.
He’d done this to her.
As much as he longed to escape it, as much as he needed to distance himself from it, he couldn’t.
She was his heart, his soul, and seeing the pain he was causing was ripping his soul to shreds.
“Please, no. Oh God, Crowe, don’t leave me alone…” she begged the night again, pressing her head into her knees as she wrapped her arms over it. As though somehow she could contain the pain, the driving agony of the words he’d left her.
“Good-bye, fairy-girl,” he whispered as he watched her, agony burning through him. “Maybe next life.”
Maybe.
Five years later
The funeral service had been small, but filled with friends of the late Clyde Ramsey. No one had foreseen this. For a man in his seventies, Clyde was amazingly—no, he had been amazingly healthy and in excellent shape. News of his death had therefore shocked the small ranching community of Gray’s Falls, and sent his friends reeling in shock.
His friends weren’t the only ones. The three young men he had assumed guardianship of, more than twenty years before, had sat silently in the back of the church, their heads lowered respectfully.
To give those friends credit, they had remained in the church and endured the presence of the three men. They had also remained polite and sympathetic as they all met at the small graveyard inhabited by only three other graves. Simple white gravestones marked the others.
David, Samuel, and Benjamin Callahan. Beside Benjamin’s grave, Clyde now rested, bare dirt covering the finely made vault beneath. Atop the bare earth were the multitude of funeral flower arrangements, some artificial, some live cut flowers whose endurance was incredibly limited.
After the reverend had read Clyde Ramsey’s final prayer from the Bible, he’d then expressed his sympathy to the boys he claimed Clyde had always called “his sons,” said a final fond farewell to Clyde, then called the service to an end.
Nearly fifty close friends made their way from the ranch’s cemetery to return to their homes in and near Gray’s Falls, a small ranching and tourist community nearly half an hour from Aspen.
Now, still standing inside the wrought-iron fence surrounding the acre of land set aside twenty-four years before, Crowe Callahan stared at the wounded earth where Clyde lay, the icy purpose he didn’t bother hiding now filling his soul.
He was a weapon. Born and bred in the fires of hatred, trained in the killing fields of a war on terrorism, and honed in the brutal, soul-destroying second that he’d felt one small woman’s heart break.
“He was murdered.” Clyde’s only recognized blood relative, and one of two whom Crowe recognized, Rafer Benjamin Callahan spoke his suspicions aloud.
Lifting his gaze from the grave, Crowe stared back at him from beneath his lashes.
“I know,” Crowe agreed, meeting his cousin’s dark-blue eyes before he once again shifted his focus, surveying their surrounding with the intensity of someone who knew all the ways to kill a man.
He wasn’t unaware of the concern that filled Rafe and their cousin Logan.
“He called me last week,” Rafer revealed then, drawing Crowe’s gaze back to him. “He said he needed to see me as soon as possible. He claimed he’d uncovered something about the night our parents were killed.” Rafer gave his head a hard shake. “He was dead before I ever received the message.”
“Same here,” Logan revealed.
Both men turned to Crowe questioningly.
“I got the same call,” he said. “Like the two of you, I was completing my final mission before discharge.”
“Just after his message, Archer left his own message saying that they had found him dead,” Rafer bit out with an edge of fury.
Murdered.
Even Archer suspected Clyde had been murdered, though he’d been unable to find
any proof. Still, Crowe had managed to get his hands on the report, and the fact that the sheriff wasn’t satisfied with the determination wasn’t lost on Crowe.
“So what do we do now?” Rafter asked, anger throbbing in his voice.
“Now we take back what’s ours,” Crowe stated, that icy purpose inside hardening further.”And God help anyone attempting to stop us.”
“He thought he knew who the Slasher was.” Logan’s statement had Crowe sliding him a thoughtful look.
“How do you know that?” Crowe asked, keeping his voice low.
He could feel the eyes on them, but he’d been feeling it since they arrived at the funeral, though he wasn’t certain if anyone was close enough to hear the conversation. He’d let it ride for now, but he’d go hunting later, he decided. Sometime when his cousins weren’t there to see.
“His message,” Logan said. “His message said he needed to talk to us, that he’d uncovered something about that night. Something that explained everything and to remember what we were searching for when we left.”
“We were looking for a possible tie between the Slasher and the person responsible for our parents’ deaths,” Rafe remembered as Crowe listened. “But we didn’t find one.”
They had searched hard enough over the years, though, relying fully on Clyde’s certainty that the tie existed.
“If we’re going on the supposition that Clyde was murdered, then based on the message he left Logan, we can assume he either found some evidence to support the theory of it, or had a suspect in mind,” Crowe murmured, keeping his head down, ensuring his lips couldn’t be read, nor their movement tracked.
“Then somehow the Slasher himself learned what Clyde had found.” Logan frowned at the thought. “If Clyde had actually suspected someone, wouldn’t he have left a clue to it somewhere?”
“We’ve torn apart every area of the house and property looking for the information we gathered ourselves before joining the marines,” Crowe reminded them, knowing someone would die for it eventually. “We can’t even find that, let alone anything else he left.”
