by JoAnn Ross
Rocked by the power and greed of Lucas’s mouth, Grace dragged her hand through his hair, ripping away the black cord, tangling her fists in the long ebony silk that was the only soft thing about this man. Tongues tangled as he savaged her mouth. She drew in a sharp breath as he yanked down the snowy bra and closed his hands over her breasts.
“I want…” Her head was flung back, her body arched like a tautly strung bow. “I need…”
She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think The need for him was pulsing between her thighs.
“I know.” When he shoved a hand into the front of the panty hose, cupping her in that place where a hundred, a thousand, pulse points hummed, air dogged thickly in her lungs.
“You’re so hot.” His fingers glided through the silken curls. “So wet” He slipped a finger into her dampness, swallowing her soft moan beneath his mouth. “So ready for me.” Another finger followed, stretching her, plunging deep.
As the warm moisture flowed over his hand like melted honey, Lucas experienced a new level of lust. She was whimpering now, helpless, vulnerable, willing to go anywhere he took her.
“Lucas…” She pressed her thighs tightly together, capturing his hand between her legs, squirming against the intimate touch. “Please…”
He’d dreamed of her like this. Hot and hungry and his. But he was rapidly discovering that the dreams hadn’t approached reality.
“Yes,” he said, his breath warm on her parted lips. He scraped a callused thumb against her ultrasensitive spot. “Now.”
Helpless against the unspeakable, unmanageable pleasure washing over her, Grace came with a wild, gasping sob. She dung to him, her nails digging half-moon-shaped gouges into his shoulders as her body seemed to dissolve.
“Oh!” She was gasping, breathless and as limp as melted wax. “That was…amazing.”
“Amazing.” She was trembling. Lucas held her close while the aftermath of her violent climax continued to pulse through her body.
He’d never met a woman as generous, as trusting as Grace. She’d opened for him fully, holding nothing back, making him feel as powerful as an ancient pagan god. And as humble as a penitent. “You’re amazing.” He kissed her cheek. Her temple, her eyelids, her lips.
“Not me.” Her lids fluttered open, her gaze still a little unfocused, but as sober as he’d ever seen it. “It’s us.” Her hand felt strangely heavy as she lifted it to his face. His beautiful, scarred pirate’s face. “Us together.”
He’d known they’d be good together. But even Lucas, with all his experience, hadn’t begun to imagine how good. “And just think,” he said with a rough, husky laugh as he pulled her down onto the bed. “We’ve just begun.”
It had started to rain. The steady tap tap tap on the deck above them added a counterpoint to the soft sighs and faint moans. Desire heightened. Breaths quickened as the rest of their clothes were ripped away.
The room radiated with a heat that had nothing to do with the flickering gas fire. His hands and lips were at times so gentle Grace almost wept. Then, just as she felt herself sinking into the luxurious sensations, they’d turn so rough and thrilling that emotions tangled and heightened feelings came tumbling over each other, making her almost faint from desire.
He did things to her, with her, that Grace had never imagined, and still left her begging for more. His mouth explored every curve and crevice. He feasted on her, his tongue plunging deep into her molten center, teeth nipping at tingling pink flesh, bringing her to countless orgasms. And just when she was certain there couldn’t be more, that she couldn’t take another moment of these devastating, dizzying sensations, he’d bend her body in some new possessive way and insist that he wasn’t finished. That she hadn’t had enough. Yet.
Grace felt absolutely wanton, stunned and thrilled by lascivious appetites she’d never known were lurking deep inside her. Yet even as she submitted to Lucas’s primal demands, she never felt as if she were surrendering. Because as his flesh burned and his breath grew rough and labored and his body became engorged with need—for her!—Grace experienced absolute female power.
Locked together, they rolled over the bed, tangling sheets, sending pillows falling onto the floor. Lucas’s teeth scraped against a nipple, drawing a gasp, then, before Grace had stopped trembling, they were biting at the distended nub between her slick, quaking thighs.
Lucas wanted her. In every way a man could want a woman he’d fallen in love with. He wanted to pleasure Grace as he’d never pleasured any other woman. Wanted her to experience sensations she’d never felt with any other man. He wanted to possess her—body, mind and soul.
Although he was approaching desperation, he took the necessary time to protect her. Then moved between her thighs, hot male flesh resting against hot female flesh.
“Look at me.”
Shuddering with sexual anticipation, Grace did as he commanded.
Although he was aching to plunge into her, he paused to drink in the sight of her flesh glowing in the flickering firelight, her ravished, swollen lips, her eyes dazed, almost blind.
“I want to watch you,” he murmured as he tilted his hips forward, separating the rosy pink folds with the tip of his sex. “I want to watch your eyes when I take you over the edge.”
She blinked slowly, almost hypnotically, as if in an attempt to clear her vision. “Oh, yes.”
He didn’t need a second invitation. He cupped her hips, lifted them off the mattress and surged into her, filling her, claiming her. Loving her.
His thrusts were deep and slow, and utterly ruthless. Grace’s hands clawed at the sheets as he drove them both into the smoke. Caught up in a breathless, burning need, she struggled to fill her scorched lungs with air.
She heard Lucas moan, felt him stiffen. And then, as his mouth captured hers again, he dragged them both into the flames.
* * *
LUCAS HELD HER close long after their breathing steadied, the tremors had ceased and their bodies had cooled.
“Are we alive?” Grace asked, when she could finally talk again.
“I think so.” He touched his mouth to hers. “Definitely. But I’m not certain about the rest of the bay area, because if that wasn’t an earthquake, we’ve just logged in a personal best.”
She laughed lightly at that and snuggled against him, loving the way he could make her burn one moment, then feel so amazingly lighthearted the next. She’d never laughed in bed, although there’d been more than one occasion when she’d wanted to cry.
She trailed a lazy finger down his chest and, since she was feeling happier than she’d ever felt in her life, tried not to think about how he’d gotten that terrible scar. His flesh was no longer hot to the touch, but wonderfully warm and moist, emanating a musky scent that, amazingly, stimulated another little spike of desire.
“I made you sweat.”
“You did a lot more than that, Gracie, darlin’.” He combed lazy fingers through her tousled caramel hair. “You damn near killed me.”
“I never knew it could be like that.” She pressed her lips against his stomach and felt his muscles clench and his sharp intake of breath. “I never knew I could be like that.”
“I knew.” The erotic touch of her open mouth was all it took to make him hard again. “The minute I first saw you, I knew that you’d be hot.”
“Hot.” She lifted her head, her eyes gleaming with a dangerous, sultry feminine pride that brought to mind how Delilah must have looked, right before she decided to give Samson that haircut. “I was, wasn’t I? Hot and sexy.” She rolled over on top of him, chest-to-chest, thigh-to-thigh and, Lord help him, sex-to-sex.
“The hottest, sexiest, most desirable woman on the planet,” he managed to say in a strangled voice as she began moving against him in a way designed to rekindle smoldering ashes. “Hell, the entire universe.”
“I know.” Her laugh, throaty with self-satisfaction, bubbled up from deep inside her. “And I love it.”
Without taking her eyes fro
m his, she reached into the drawer of the bedside table, locating the foil package on the first try. “How many of these do we have?” she asked as she ripped it open.
“I don’t know.” He couldn’t think, could barely speak as her fingers smoothed the condom over throbbing flesh. “I suppose a half dozen or so.”
“A half dozen.” She leaned forward again, the diamond-hard tips of her breasts brushing against his chest as she touched her smiling lips to his. “I suppose that will do.” Her tongue made a wet swathe along the seam of his mouth; her perfect white teeth nibbled at his lower lip. “For starters.”
“I think I’ve created a monster.” He made a ragged sound that was half groan, half laugh. “What if I can’t live up to your expectations?”
“Don’t worry, Lucas.” She smiled down at him as she took him deep into her welcoming warmth. “I’ll help you.”
“Well then,” he said, as she began to rock her hips in a slow, tantalizing rhythm, “I guess we shouldn’t have any problem.”
Her lips curved; her eyes sparkled emerald bright with passion and with humor. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
* * *
IT WAS THE SCREAM that woke her. A scream that chilled her blood and had her leaping out of bed. Grace’s heart was pounding so hard and so fast she wondered if it was possible for a twenty-seven-year-old woman to have a heart attack.
Disoriented from fear and the unfamiliar surroundings, it took a moment for Grace to realize where she was. Then she saw Lucas, sitting bolt upright in bed, and realized he’d made that agonizingly pained sound.
“Lucas.” She returned to the bed. “Wake up.” He was soaking wet and shaking. Whatever nightmare had gripped his mind must be horrific. His eyes were open, but she suspected he wasn’t seeing the cozy stateroom, but something much, much more deadly.
“You’re dreaming.” She held his head against her breasts and stroked his damp hair from his forehead. “It’s all right.” Her hands skimmed down his back. “It’s only a nightmare.”
Grace nearly wept with relief when he looked up and his dark eyes slowly revealed that he’d returned to her.
“Hell.” He dragged an unsteady hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Grace. I must have scared you to death.”
“Only for a moment. Actually, I was more worried about you.”
He closed his eyes and leaned back against the wooden headboard. “I haven’t had that nightmare since I quit drinking….Dammit!”
“Maybe if you talk about it…” she suggested quietly.
“Yeah, that’s the way to show a lady a good time. Bed her, then terrify her half out of her wits. With a technique like this, it’s a wonder I don’t have to beat the women off with a stick.”
Accustomed to his cocky male ego, Grace was surprised and more than a little moved by his apparent self-loathing.
“News flash, Kincaid,” she said. “I never expected you to leap over tall buildings in a single bound. Personally, Superman never appealed to me. I much prefer Batman. He has more shadows, more vulnerabilities.”
Lucas would have expected, at the very least, distress. Perhaps revulsion. Or even worse, pity. Her matter-of-fact attitude only made him love her more.
“You realize, of course, that you may actually be as crazy as me?” he murmured.
“Perhaps.” He watched the pleasure wipe out the concern that had been written across her face. Her lovely, lovely face. “I suppose that’s why we’re so good together.” She leaned forward and touched her smiling mouth to his.
The kiss was slow and sweet. Lucas could have kissed her forever. Unfortunately, Grace had something else in mind.
“I’d really like to know what happened to you,” she said softly. “What it was that made you quit the service, that made you drink and has you waking up in a cold sweat.”
Lucas figured that if he wanted to spend a lifetime with Grace, he owed her the truth. She deserved to know what kind of man he was. What kind he’d been. “You know I was in the navy.”
“Yes.”
“I was a SEAL. Do you know what that is?”
“Sort of. It’s like the Army’s Special Forces, right?”
“Right.” He put his arm around her shoulder and remembered that night—remembered wading through the frothy foam at the edge of the sea beneath a silver sickle of a moon that was barely visible through the thick gray fog.
The tide had been ebbing from the deserted beach, leaving broken seashells that could crunch underfoot if he’d mistakenly stepped on them. The hard-packed sand, which had sparkled like sugar beneath the hot tropical sun only hours earlier, appeared a dull charcoal gray somewhere between the pewter of the fog and the black of the sea.
Lucas shook off the too-dear vision. “We’d go in where angels and sane men are sensible enough not to tread.”
He’d known from the beginning that a single mistake could get him killed. If he was forced to be completely honest, he’d have to admit that was part of the appeal. Although he’d never done drugs, Lucas had often suspected there wasn’t a drug made that could begin to equal the adrenaline rush that came with putting your life on the line.
“We marked targets for artillery and bombers, took out radar on occasion, did some covert intelligence—”
“You were a spy?”
“Don’t let your writer’s imagination run away with you. It’s not like James Bond.”
“So you say.” She smiled and snuggled up against him. “But you’ll never convince me. Don’t forget, I’ve seen you in a tux.”
He shook his head. “Let me put it another way. You know how mothers like to brag about their kids?”
“Of course. Mine certainly does.”
“Well, my mom once told me that although she was proud of me, I made that a little difficult.”
“Why?”
“Because at cocktail parties, when all the other mothers were boasting about their doctor or lawyer sons and daughters, she didn’t feel comfortable telling everyone about her son, the assassin.”
He felt Grace go still for a suspended moment. Felt the goose bumps rise on her arms. And waited.
“I suppose I can understand that,” she said finally. Slowly. “But I also suppose that those of us who are fortunate enough to go our entire lives without having to face such situations should be grateful that others are willing to risk their lives to keep us safe.”
It occurred to him that this was almost too easy.
And Lucas had never trusted anything easy.
“I don’t think you get it, Grace. The man you’re in bed with is a man who’s killed. A man some, even my own mother, might call a professional assassin. And, although I’ve never actually defined myself that way, and certainly never received any pleasure in taking a life, if necessary, I’d do it again.” Like in order to keep her safe, he thought, but did not say. “The trick was to keep the guys on the other side from killing me.”
His words, spoken as a warning, did not seem to change her mind. Grace lifted a hand to his cheek. “I’m glad you were so good at your job that they weren’t able to do that. Otherwise, we never would have met. Never would have…” She paused as she realized she was about to say fallen in love. “Been here like this,” she said instead.
Deeply humbled, and vastly grateful, Lucas lowered his forehead to hers.
“You really are an incredible woman, Gracie.”
She tilted her head back and looked up at him, her heart in her eyes. “I want to hear what happened,” she insisted quietly. “Because I care for you. And then, sailor, you’re going to get very, very lucky.”
“I already am.” He’d never meant anything more.
Her pleased laugh was as soft as the hand warming his face. “Another thing we have in common.”
Censoring the story a bit to protect his ego and her sensibilities, Lucas gave her the bare-bones version. How he’d been sent to the remote Caribbean island in order to confirm a rumor about a conference between a faction o
f the Russian mafia and a South American drug lord.
“The deal was simple enough, as such things go,” he said. “The Russians, mostly former soldiers in the Soviet army, had arms for sale, while members of the cartel were willing to trade drugs for high-tech military weapons.”
“Drugs that could earn a tidy profit when cut and sold on the world market,” Grace guessed. Coincidentally, she remembered Jamie writing a romantic suspense novel based on a similar scenario.
“Exactly. I was never sure how many agencies had a piece of the action. Naval Intelligence, obviously. The CIA, DEA, Interpol, at the very least. I also knew going in that if the mission became public, every one of those organizations would deny my existence.”
“That’s horrible!”
Lucas shrugged. “That’s just the way things work. I’d always liked being on my own.” He dragged a hand down his face as he thought back to that night. “But then again, I’d never screwed up before, either.”
He recalled all too well how he’d been heading for the lush green cliff when the entire beach lit up as if a thousand suns had just turned on. When his eyes had adjusted to the blinding glare, he’d seen that the beach was no longer deserted and had realized that this was the night his luck had finally run out.
“What went wrong?”
“It turned out that they had a man on the inside. A naval officer who’d been living beyond his income and decided to sell a few government secrets. But I didn’t know that at the time.”
Finding a live hostage more valuable than a dead naval officer, they hadn’t killed him. But as days turned into weeks, Lucas discovered that the torture techniques he’d been taught about during SEAL training were not exaggerated. Again, to protect her, Lucas opted not to tell Grace how, after six weeks as a hostage, he’d no longer cared if his captors killed him or not.
“I managed to hone a knife of sorts out of a shell and was prepared to take out as many of them as I could,” he continued, “when a crack rescue squad, led by a SEAL pal of mine, showed up in the nick of time, just like the cavalry in the old westerns. The team broke into the compound, created general mayhem, then airlifted me out by helicopter.
