Her threat to him came as a woman, not as a hostile agent, and he wanted—no, needed— to understand the nature of that threat.
He slipped off his tactical vest. His black t-shirt went flying beside it. The movement finally caught her attention.
She spun around, her face sheet-white, one of her knitting needles leveled like a weapon. Max saw the moment she recognized him, saw the instant fear changed into uncertainty and then something else that mirrored his own dark hunger.
She started to speak, but he reached through the cool sheet of water and touched her mouth with one finger, silencing her as he took the knitting needle from her unsteady hand. There were questions to be explored, but Max knew that words weren’t clear enough for the answers he needed. Only skin would do. Only in the most intimate of touches could he read the shifting tides of her body through the language of a potent chemistry.
His awareness of her was almost painful, her movements so quick and full of life that they hit him like a dangerous magic. The cold soldier in him insisted that he turn away.
The hot-blooded man in him didn’t listen.
She stared at him, close enough that he felt the warmth rise from her skin. “Don’t you need more sleep?”
“I’ll get by. No need to use your needles on me,” Max said.
“I thought you were…” Her voice tightened.
“I know.” His foot hit something sharp and he bent down, picking up her second needle. “Where did you get these?”
“I used one of the scalpels you left and made them. I was restless and knitting always helps me think.”
Max stored that information away, surprised at her ingenuity. He didn’t understand how two sticks and a string could make you relax. Trying to knit would have made him crazy. “I have ways to help you relax,” he whispered, aware that he was about to break the first rule of his training. But he had to have true contact, skin to skin and nothing held back.
Just once.
Over their heads lightning cracked. Electricity seemed to dance along Max’s skin, gathering in Miki’s hair. Slowly he slipped off his gloves.
“What are you doing?”
“Touching you. I can’t seem to think of anything else.” Miki moved first, brushing his mouth with unsteady fingers. In that moment of contact he felt her need and uncertainty laid out naked on her skin.
“You need to understand something first. This won’t be sweet or tender.” He forced out the gruff words. “It won’t be all the things it should be.” That much Max was certain of. His control was fading and his blood was on fire. She had to know how he was affected—and the risks she took.
She slid her fingers through his hair. “You’ll hurt me, you mean?”
“Not if I can help it.” His muscles locked as she leaned closer and stared hungrily at his mouth.
Her tongue brushed his lip. “I don’t want sweet or tender. And what if I hurt you?”
“Honey, you’re welcome to try.”
The sudden nip of her teeth made him curse. Though her hands on his chest were torment, her sensual challenge made Max smile faintly.
“So what are we waiting for?”
He shuddered, feeling a trace of her saliva on his tongue. The taste of her was strong and complex, and he could pick out the notes of her body the way a wine connoisseur read tannins, oak and fruit signatures. Her body was slick and strong, and his control took another hit. He wanted to hear her cries of pleasure echoing through the darkness. He wanted her naked, lost in his arms. Foxfire’s icy civilian project manager would have told him to plunge ahead and treat this like a medical experiment to be carefully studied.
But there would be no reports or analysis because Max would never mention this to Ryker or anyone else. Tonight was between Miki and him, a stolen moment of forbidden contact, never to be repeated. There was sudden pain in that thought.
Never forget that you’re different, Max thought.
But tonight he didn’t want to be different.
“You’re wearing too many clothes.” She gripped his head and slowly drew his face down to hers while he stood just beyond the water’s spray. She scissored her wet mouth across his dry lips, giving him her moist, slick tongue until his senses screamed for him to take her violently and completely, pinned against the stone wall while he hammered deep and spent himself inside her.
Some thread of sanity remained, holding him still. Control and logic had become dim memories, but he recognized the trust that shimmered in her eyes.
He wanted—needed to be closer, to wrap himself up in the deep trust he saw there. He could withstand torture, betrayal and uncertainty, but this simple trust was his undoing.
How long since a woman had trusted him rather than used him?
He smoothed his fingers over her wet hair and tongued the hollow at her shoulder, her soft moan an explosion against his senses. With one arm he dragged her out of the water. She shivered, staring at him helplessly, her skin growing cool to his touch.
Too cool, Max thought. He sensed her shudder before he felt it, the nuances of her emotions brushing his skin like fog. He rubbed her back and shoulders, then dried her hair with quick strokes of his shirt. Only then did he catch her face and kiss her slowly, drawing out a whimper. She rose onto her toes, her hands at his neck, her body shifting restlessly against him.
Hunger like a knife. Need like the beat of a heart.
Desire stripped them both bare.
Max pulled away, yanked off his pants and kicked them into the pile with the rest of his belongings while desire hammered through him. He closed his eyes and ran one hand over her slick skin, drinking in the hot cloud of her response, read clearly on his fingertips.
Sweat and confusion.
Need and excitement. Even her smell had changed, dusky with sex and pheromones.
The mix hit him like a blow. He hooked his fingers around the lace of her bikini pants, trying to clear his head.
Her body strained toward him. “This is crazy,” she whispered. “I’m out of control. It’s too strong.”
“You’re the doing the same to me, honey.” Max brushed her breasts, smiling when he felt her nipples harden. “We don’t have much time.” The words were rough, muttered as he cupped her breasts, leaning to pull one tight nipple between his teeth.
“Then hurry.” She whimpered, her nails raking his back. “I’m burning up for you, Max.”
“That makes two of us,” he said grimly. He gripped her waist, pulling her against him. “Tell me where you want me, honey. Otherwise, I’m going to take you now and I’ll make my own choices.”
But Max found that he didn’t need her words. Under his hands, her body sang, damp and urgent. Every bead of sweat answered his question, clueing him by the nimbus of her arousal.
Here, he felt. Where her breasts met his tongue. There, where his fingers slid under lace, buried in warm, tangled curls until she gasped, rubbing her hips against him in unmistakable response.
Heat and need.
No hiding.
No lies.
A woman could never lie when he held her like this, tapping the secrets carried in her body’s arousal. And those secrets, now bared, left him awash in primitive instincts, his blood drumming with the need to control and claim. He had a dark vision of her legs wrapped around his waist as he slammed home inside her, again and again. One vision became two, and two became ten.
He wanted her hot against his mouth. He wanted to hear her moan when he worked three fingers inside her and pressed his tongue to her heat, intimately tuned to her orgasm as he pleasured her, worked her slick skin with unerring precision.
Max knew his rules weren’t fair. He couldn’t fail to read her emotions when his skills gave him that advantage. But he could never tell her that.
He bit her shoulder, pulled off the damp lace at her thighs, every touch fueling his own need. There were no casual social contacts for the men of Foxfire. Security precautions meant that women were arranged at necessary i
ntervals. Sex was fast and impersonal, with no messy emotions and no questions asked.
But Miki was nothing like any of those women. She made him smile and then made him curse in the next breath. She wasn’t weak and she definitely wasn’t compliant—and the mix was driving Max crazy. Their encounters were raw and personal, and he realized things were probably going to get messy fast. Worst of all, he didn’t care if they did.
He scowled, driving away all thoughts about their future. Whatever happened here had to end here. There would be no quiet bonding, no gentle laughter, no white picket fences. This was scream-out-loud, screw-your-brains-out sex and nothing more.
Not that Miki appeared to mind. Her eyes were wide, her body restless and wet like a quicksilver fish he could never hope to hold. She ran her fingers through the soft hair on his chest and watched his face as her hand slid down, curving over his hard stomach.
And then lower, sliding cool and damp to cup his out-of-control erection until Max had to grind his teeth and force her to stop.
Because he wanted more, because he craved softness as much as force, he denied himself and denied her, hardening his face and making his voice cold. “Don’t look for a future here, Miki. Don’t ask me for anything but what’s happening right now.”
“You have a name for this?” she rasped. “I’d love to know it if you do.”
There had to be words, but Max couldn’t remember them. There had to be definitions and calm descriptions. But he wasn’t aware of anything beyond her damp skin, warm hands, urgent eyes.
He frowned at her. “Look, Miki, I—”
She pulled his head down and bit his mouth, drawing a bead of blood. “Do it. It’s all I can think about.” She was panting when he gripped her shoulders, drove her body back against the wall, came inside her hard.
Her hands seared him, urging him to take what they both wanted. Awash in new sensations, Max fought for control when there was a real possibility that he might hurt her badly. He forced himself back from the edge as their bodies brushed, separated, then brushed again. Her foot traced his calf, her mouth restless, her nails impatient.
Shaken by the pounding force of his feelings, Max tried to pull back.
Miki wouldn’t let him. She gripped his hair and watched it slide through her fingers. “Did I tell you that you have great hair? Wonderful arms. And a really amazing butt.”
Max shook his head. “Afraid you take all honors there, honey. I could have gutted that bastard when I found him frightening you, touching you.” He traced a tiny bruise at her breast and cursed.
“Hey, I wasn’t frightened.” She smiled crookedly. “Not too frightened to fight back, at least. I was just about to use my needles on him.”
“Isn’t knitting supposed to be a quiet and gentle hobby?”
“Not the way I do it,” Miki said proudly.
Smiling, Max looked down at the floor. Her bra and panties were dropped on top of his discarded vest, looking completely out of place, sheer lace against ballistic nylon. Just like the two of them, he thought grimly. This shouldn’t be happening, according to the rules.
Damn the rules. He wasn’t about to stop until he’d had one taste of her pleasure. She shuddered when he kissed the tips of her breasts, her body arching in his arms. The sight of her made his touch turn rough.
It seemed that her heart hammered inside his chest, her blood churned in his veins. Something linked them, bound them, while Max traveled deep through the storm of her aroused senses.
“You want it slow?” he rasped. “Because that isn’t happening, honey. Not this time.” Not that there would be a next time.
The sound she made was part whimper, part wild laugh. “Stop trying to frighten me. It’s not going to work. I know exactly what I want.” She rose to her toes and caught his lower lip in her teeth. Smiling, she smoothed her hands along his locked thighs, teasing the heavy weight of his erection. “Whether you know it or not, you’re pretty unforgettable. Now if you’re done trying to make me change my mind, I’d really like to feel you all the way inside me.”
Miki had wedged a little penlight between two stones on the wall. In the faint light he could see her eyes, dark and urgent, but with the hint of a smile.
“Prepare to get yourself screwed into oblivion, honey.”
“Is that a promise?”
Max turned her sharply and pressed her hands against the stone wall, holding her in place with his body while his heavy erection rode against her tight, perfect butt.
With one hand he found the warm triangle of curls and stroked her apart. When his callused fingers played over her, she moaned and tried to turn in his arms, but he nipped her shoulder and worked his fingers deeper inside, past slick barriers that tightened at his touch.
She wedged her hips against him, wiggling madly. “Max, I need—”
He realized she would have been furious if she hadn’t been so lost, already on the edge of her first climax. So he pushed her over, capturing her breasts in his hand and stroking her damp, sexy mound until her body tensed and he felt the slam of her release. He didn’t wait, spinning her around and driving her up again, voracious as he took in her breathless cries and the whisper of his name like a soft plea.
The sound shocked him.
His name. This wasn’t distant and impersonal, and Max wondered if he’d ever escape her pull—or if he wanted to. The intimacy seduced him and suddenly he had to hear his name again, given blindly in her passion. He needed that affirmation of contact and humanity more than he needed breath. Kneeling with the rain on his back, he savored the taste of her stomach and then inched open her wet heat, exploring with his mouth and tongue until he found the faint throb of her pulse through the delicate folds of her skin.
She smelled like sex and his deepest, unknown dreams. Her husky cry cut through the silence as she gripped his shoulders, swaying while Max held her upright with one arm at her waist, working his mouth over her, bringing her up once more.
Her nails scored his neck.
“Can’t.” Her voice was breathless as she sank back against the wall, trembling. “There can’t be—more.”
“Like hell there can’t,” Max said grimly. He slid two fingers inside her and heard her gasp as a new wave of pleasure broke over her. And then while she hung suspended, her heart pounding, he kicked away the clothes at his feet and pulled her hard against his thighs.
Need seemed to solidify, dancing in ghostlike fingers of electricity around them. He had trouble finding the edge of his senses—and the beginning of hers. Damned weird energy here, he thought. He’d have to figure out exactly what was going on. Later. In an hour, he might actually be able to hold two thoughts in his head.
“No protection,” he gritted, aware that pregnancy would never be an issue, not after the genetic work that had come with his military selection. But Miki wouldn’t know about that.
“What?” She stared at him blindly, took a sharp breath.
“Protection. I don’t have any, honey.”
She pulled him closer and slowly savored his mouth, her dark eyes focused on his face. “I should care, but I don’t. We could be dead tomorrow, Max. Tonight I want everything, and I want it fast. Get my message?”
He couldn’t miss it. Not when her hand slipped down to cup his length and his vision took on an electric haze, like a circuit board that was overheating.
She teased him with both warm hands, and Max bit back a curse. “You’re too damned good at that, honey.” He caught her wrist and moved it to his thigh, where it would be marginally less dangerous.
“Hey, let go of me. It’s not fair. That’s one great body you’ve got, and it’s not the kind of thing I’m likely to see again. I want a shot at it.”
Max muttered a string of choice phrases. “Forget it, Blondie.”
“No, now.” Her chin angled up. “Otherwise everything stops here.”
Max felt the slam of her heart, the spike in her stress hormones. She was serious. “How about we compromi
se with later?” Never, he thought. Because there wouldn’t be anything later for them.
So this encounter was going to play out by his rules. No woman had ever tried to fine-tune his lovemaking before. If she had, he wouldn’t have cared.
But he cared now, damn it. He wanted to do this right for her.
Miki considered the compromise, then frowned. “I’m out of here. Not interested. Halt.” She hissed the words as Max pulled her around to face him. His thighs rode against her damp softness. With one hand pressed to her heart, he read her body’s response.
Pulse kicking. Stress levels up. The woman was lying through her teeth. She was as interested as he was and just as committed. “I’d say you’re lying, honey.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Let’s say that I’m good at reading the signs.”
“No way. No one can—”
Smiling grimly, Max lifted her leg across his thigh and entered her with a deep, slow thrust that brought half his length inside her.
She whimpered and closed her eyes.
He thrust again.
“I hate you.” She bit his lower lip, sighing. “I wanted more time so I could drive you crazy, but I couldn’t, could I? There’s some part of you that never relaxes. You’re always ready, always prepared for something bad to happen.”
He wasn’t thinking too much now. Max groaned as she opened sweetly to his strokes, then sucked in a breath as he felt her teeth nip at his jaw.
He watched her face as he stroked deeper. In the same moment he leaned down to kiss her, savoring the metallic taste of her saliva on his lips. Dozens of chemicals and body markers filled his mind, the rich complexity of her making him smile possessively.
Code Name: Blondie Page 18
