Captive Heart

by Anna Windsor

  “Harder. I can take it harder.” She raised her arms and reached back, finding his head, his thick hair as he bit her neck again. The pressure on her nipples doubled, making her squirm, making her hotter, pain and pleasure, just enough, just right. His fingers turned to fire on her nipples, tugging, pulling, rolling, and his teeth burned everywhere they touched. The bulge against her back seemed to pulse. She wanted him inside her and she didn’t want to wait much longer.

  God, she was wet. Water dripped everywhere. She couldn’t help moving and her knees brushed against the thick cushions of the couch in front of her.

  “I want you.” He kept nibbling but let his hands move down, across her belly, between her legs. He stroked her through the damp fabric and she barely bit back a scream.

  “I want you,” he said again, more ragged, more insistent.

  Heat washed across every inch of Andy’s body. “Yes, please. I’m ready. I’m ready for you.”

  Jack’s bass growl of need nearly made her come as he let go of her, turned her to face him, and kissed her like a man starving for anything she’d give him. His tongue probed hard and deep, demanding response, and Andy kissed back with everything she had.

  She pushed forward, rubbing his shirt with her breasts as she shoved his jacket off his arms and got rid of his tie. The buttons were harder. Some popped loose as she pulled open his shirt, running her nails up his well-cut abs and pecs. The scars from his bullet wounds felt rough, but he didn’t act like the wounds were tender. They seemed more healed than they should have been, almost like they were years old, like his other scars. More bullet wounds. A few knife or claw scratches. She’d known he would look like this, a warrior’s warrior, but it still turned her on beyond all reason.

  With a sigh, she let herself go flesh to flesh with him. So warm. So hard. He gripped her ass, rubbing, massaging, sliding her underwear down as she unfastened his pants, pushed them down, and reached inside his dark briefs.

  Jack bit her lip and she bit his, sighing at how thick and hot he felt, how full and long. Naked together. Nothing between them now. Jack’s hands seemed to be everywhere at once, and she wanted that, she wanted him now, right now, right that second.

  He pushed her down on the couch, and her bare ass rubbed the soft leather as he settled himself, forcing her backward, forcing her legs open so he could kneel in front of her. Before she could absorb all the sights and sounds and feelings, he cupped both her breasts, bent over, lowered his head, and took one nipple in his mouth.

  Andy gasped. Her back arched as furious pleasure washed through her body. His teeth. His tongue. His mouth heated her skin as he tasted first one nipple, then the other, and all Andy could do was hold the sides of his head and ache for more. His rough cheeks brushed across her breasts and he whispered, “So beautiful. Feel like heaven. And damn, you smell even better.”

  He moved his mouth lower, and Andy ached even more, hot between her legs, so excited and surprised she couldn’t quite remember how to breathe. The feel of his hard muscle between her thighs and the leather against her bare skin nearly made her crazy.

  Jack kissed a slow path down her belly, and lower.

  “Red,” he murmured as he kissed the edges of the curly hair between her legs. “I knew it.”

  And he kissed lower.

  “God, yes.” Andy kept hold of his head, pushing now, wanting his lips and tongue lower.

  He was taking his time. Treating her like a delicacy. Making her blood pound. Every inch of her kindled to hot and ready, and each electric touch made her shiver.

  Jack’s tongue moved closer to her wet center. Andy raised herself toward his mouth, feeling water break across her whole body and flow down, soaking them both.

  Jack’s shoulders moved and Andy realized he was chuckling as she drenched him with her water energy. His hot breath between her legs nearly made her explode. “Please,” she said, barely recognizing her own voice. She hadn’t known it would be like this, that she’d want him so much—and he’d go so damned slow! “Please, please!”

  Jack pressed his mouth tight to her throbbing folds. At the same moment, he slid one finger deep inside her, moving in rhythm with his mouth, and she had to cover her mouth to keep herself from screaming loud enough to bring half the OCU running.

  He plunged his finger in and out, moving his tongue in circles and setting off ripples of pleasure. Chills covered her and she breathed harder, faster, keeping time with his thrusts.

  Her first climax hit her so hard that a thin wave of water crashed against the wall of his room, soaking the plaster. She clamped her knees tight against his head. “Jack. Damn!” Her hips bucked outside her control as his mouth moved away from her depths. Up again. To her belly. Higher.

  Andy arched backward, her head against cushions, and Jack kissed her neck, her chest, and moved down fast all over again. When his mouth fastened on her nipple this time, she did scream. He gripped her with both hands at her waist, pulling her into him as he nibbled and sucked on the swollen tip. Before he could torture her with the other nipple, she leaned sideways, pulling him down with her.

  “I want to feel you. I want you inside me. Please, Jack.”

  The look on his handsome face turned positively wild as he lifted himself to the couch then stretched on top of her, spreading her legs with his knee, bracing his hands beside her head. His dark eyes focused so completely on her face that she thought he must be seeing everything about her, past and present and future, and she knew how good he’d feel. More than good. Better than good. She wasn’t even breathing anymore, barely moving except to open herself, let him in, hoping he’d go deep and never stop.

  He teased her for an instant, a second that lasted a year, letting her feel his width across her sensitive, waiting center. Then he sank inside her, going every bit as deep as she wanted, as deep as she could stand.

  Better than good. More than more. Infinite.

  “Oh, my God.” It was all she could say. The rest was nothing but moans as she trembled and shook and took him, barely able to stand the thrusts, lifting her hips to meet each one. Filled and completed. She grabbed his shoulders, pulling herself up, moving against his rocking hips until her eyes closed and her water became a slippery heaven between them, slick and warm, and still he went deeper, possessing her completely.

  “You’re mine now,” he murmured, and the sound of his voice, the raw possession in his claim pushed her closer to the edge.

  Andy held back by sheer force of will. She wanted another minute. Two minutes. An hour.

  “Jack.” Saying his name felt delicious. The sound of their bodies moving, moving on the leather sofa spun through her senses. She felt released in ways she hadn’t imagined, hadn’t even known she wanted. Each stroke lifted her now, pushing her harder, pushing her faster.

  “Come for me,” he whispered, driving into her, sliding her on the couch. “Let me hear you moan.”

  Andy’s orgasm took her like a fast-moving wave, starting in her center and washing outward, all over, from her aching nipples to her curled toes. She moaned and kept moaning, and Jack kept moving.

  She didn’t think she could take another second, but she wanted more, she wanted everything. Andy wrapped her arms around Jack’s neck and held on as those dark, dark eyes blazed down at her. Black inside brown. Endless depths. He claimed her mouth again, setting her lips on fire with the rest of her. She loved how he felt inside her, loved how he looked at her.

  She had to force her legs to work, to keep her thighs tight around his waist. He broke the kiss. Looked at her again, cherishing, possessing, adoring her completely.

  Andy tensed, fighting the next wave because this one, this one might drown her senses. As her breasts thrust upward, he caught a stone-hard nipple in his mouth, grazing his teeth across the sensitized flesh and making her scream. Another second, and she’d wash away completely.

  With a bone-deep groan, Jack exploded inside her, filling her even more, catapulting her into an orgasm so h
ot and hard she couldn’t feel anything but heat and shivers. Ecstasy hit her in waves, taking her sight, her hearing, every bit of her energy and resolve and reserve. She collapsed in a haze of satisfaction, feeling like she’d been set adrift in a warm ocean, and he held her to him, let his warm weight anchor her, easing her down, kissing away the tears she didn’t even know she was crying.

  “You’re mine,” she heard again as he moved himself gently off her, then picked her up, cradling her as he carried her to his big bed.

  “Prove it,” Andy murmured as he lowered her onto a mound of soft pillows.

  He climbed into the bed beside her, tucking her in, pulling her close, then kissing her face and whispering, “You’re beautiful,” until she fell asleep and dreamed about coral palaces, crystal beaches, and endless blue waves on the sand.

  Jack slept in a dark, velvety peace he hadn’t known since he was a kid too young to understand the world had real problems. When he woke, he wondered if he’d dreamed about making love to Andy, but she lay in his arms like a gift he’d never deserve, soft and barely moving as her breathing pushed her chest into his over and over again. Her head tilted back against the pillow, giving him full view of each curve and freckle.

  Beautiful.

  He’d wanted to take his time. He’d meant to go slow and make her beg for every pleasure, but the sight of her standing in his room waiting for him to touch her, wanting him to make love to her—too much. He’d had no more control than a teenage boy.

  They’d be lucky if the ceiling below his bedroom didn’t collapse, too. He was pretty sure they’d let off quite a bit of water.

  Rubber floor coverings? Maybe a first-floor room with a drain. Had to be some practical solution.

  Her rich red curls lay across her bared breasts, and he couldn’t stop staring at her, and he couldn’t stop thinking this was what he wanted, what he’d always wanted—and what he wanted forever.

  Jack brushed aside a curvy wave of hair, then rubbed one taut nipple with his thumb.

  She gasped in her sleep, and her whole body shivered with pleasure.

  Take your time.

  Yeah, right.

  He was already getting hard again. Hell, he’d woken up hard, and he knew he couldn’t wait long to be inside her.

  Andy stirred in his arms, blinked once, then leaned into him and kissed him, her warm breath brushing across his cheeks as her soft lips and tongue teased his mouth. He sensed her fingers reaching for his cock before he felt her grip, and that teenage boy problem came roaring back. He put his hand over hers before she could stroke him again. “Careful. I won’t make it three minutes with you touching me like that.”

  “Good. Then we can sleep and start over again.” Her sweet voice tickled his senses, and as her lips found his again, he moved his hand so she could do whatever she wanted with him.

  Her fingers felt like a dream on his hard shaft, dancing along the length like she knew each sensitive spot by heart. Jack had to jam his teeth together to hold back, especially when he looked into her heavy-lidded eyes and saw that she liked how he felt against her palm.

  Another second. He could hold out. He could control himself.

  Or maybe not.

  “Enough.” He rolled over and took her with him, and she kept hold of his hard length, then guided him in, smooth and flawless. She was so tight and wet he almost lost it all over again.

  Andy moaned and arched toward him, offering herself, and he moved deeper inside her, trying to force himself to go slow, to make her moan a little longer. He could sense her power rolling like tides through the air, and he liked that, liked her strength—and loved the vulnerable softness on her face, the pink in her cheeks, the way her mouth parted and her throaty moans as he drove himself deeper, deeper, giving her everything he could.

  Afterward, he lay in the soaked sheets, holding her to his chest, enjoying the feel of her nails on his chest as he kissed the top of her head. “Any regrets?”

  Her sigh sounded almost like a purr. “Waiting longer than I had to.”

  “Well, we did get shot.”

  “There’s that. What time is it?” She lifted her head enough to squint at his bedroom window. “Is it still night, or have we moved into morning?”

  “Day, by the look of the light through the blinds.” He pulled her to him again, and she let him even though he could feel her muscles tensing beneath his caress.

  “I’m supposed to be on Kérkira training adepts.”

  “Can they wait?”

  “They’ll have to.”

  Jack wished he could make her life more sane, more reasonable. That he could somehow craft time and hand it to her as a gift, or find some way to truly help her bear the burdens she’d been handed. He tried to find some way to express that, to pick exactly the right phrases.

  “Let me be the one,” he said before he got a good handle on what he was trying to offer her. “The only one for now.”

  Andy lifted her head again, and some of the sleepy relaxation faded from her pretty eyes. “Excuse me?”

  I’m sucking at this relationship thing already. But he’d started, and he knew he needed to finish. “I don’t know you as well as I should, not yet—but I intend to learn everything you’ll let me about who you are and what you want and what you need. Will you give me that chance?”

  She gazed at him, unblinking, definitely fully alert now. “It’s not me who comes and goes like the wind.”

  “You have it in you.” He met her stare. “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about disappearing since you found out about paranormal creatures—since you learned you were a Sibyl.”

  Her lips pulled into a frown. “Okay, fine. More than once. So?”

  “So don’t disappear from me.” He brushed her cheek with the back of his knuckles, enjoying the warmth and softness. “I want to see you, and I want us to be exclusive until we figure this out.”

  Andy propped one elbow on his chest and one beside him on the bed, keeping herself eye level with him. She shifted from frown to smile, then back again. “You’re awfully damned full of yourself, you know that? I’ve never given anybody that kind of power over me.”

  “I don’t want power over you. I want you. All of you.”

  Be mine. Have my children.

  Fuck, he had to get a grip.

  “Exclusive.” She let out an exaggerated sigh, the kind that went with her sunglasses-and-big-shirt persona.

  “That’s about the only thing that’s nonnegotiable. You’re mine until you decide you’re not.” Jack wanted to roar that part from the nearest rooftop, but he steadied himself and kept going. “If you make the call that you’re through with me, I’ll respect that—but I’m not a man who can take other men poaching on his territory.”

  Her mouth came open. For a few seconds, she seemed too stunned to say anything at all, and he figured he’d made a misstep—but he couldn’t help it. He had to be honest.

  “You should hear yourself,” she said, a lot less warmth in her voice. “I’m not territory, Jack.”

  His gut tightened. “I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t—” He paused. Calmed himself. She hadn’t moved away from him, so all wasn’t lost. Not yet, anyway. “I don’t think of you like that. As a nonperson or something I own. I don’t always say things the best way. Not—not in circumstances like this.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Have any of your circumstances ever worked out?”

  Jack refused to let the sarcasm in her tone goad him, so he answered simply, “No.”

  She closed her eyes. “Now I’m just being mean, and I need to stop. You’re allowed your male instincts. I can feel them bursting out of you, honest and whole and pure.”

  When she opened her eyes again, she looked away, and he could tell there was something she wasn’t saying.

  “What?”

  Another sigh met his ears, this one not dramatic at all. “There’s something you need to know, and you might not like it very much.”

  S
hit.

  He waited. Tried to be ready.

  “You know the whole emotion-sensing thing I’m supposed to do with my quad? Well, I’m not so good at it where they’re concerned, but it’s happening with you.” She faced him again, and he saw guilt and worry fill her eyes.

  The weight of her meaning settled on his insides like a cold weight. “You’re reading my feelings?”

  “Yes.” More guilt, and now helplessness, too.

  “For how long?”

  “I’m not certain. Maybe since the beach, but definitely since that day in the warehouse, right after you touched me.”

  That simple contact had been powerful for Jack, too. What she was saying made sense to him, made him happy in a weird sort of way, like she was admitting a deep connection even if she didn’t realize that.

  “And what am I feeling right now?”

  She laughed. “Horny. And triumphant. And vulnerable.” She leaned closer to him and kissed his cheek. “I’d say we’re on the same page. Now you have to tell me—is that too much for you, Jack?”

  Good question.

  Jack realized that a few months ago, he would have backed away in a big damned hurry from anybody who got a bead on his emotions—especially a woman. But Andy? Somehow with her, it didn’t feel invasive. It felt as right as having her naked body stretched against his and her soft, lovely mouth only inches from his own.

  Aware that he might be doing his own admission of a deep connection, Jack surrendered with no fight at all. “For you, I’ll be an open book. Now, do we have a deal on the exclusive thing?”

  Andy’s eyes flashed, but not with anger. She kissed him again and whispered, “Deal. If you make me regret it, I’ll feed your balls to an octopus.”

  Rebecca had known for years that she didn’t need as much sleep as her brother.

  Lately, she hardly slept at all. Why anyone would waste the vibrant night hours—that confused her.

  Night had a voice. Sometimes it sang to her, sometimes it whispered, but the darkness always reached out to her and touched her in ways she couldn’t explain. The hours between darkness and dawn gave her an excited focus and energy she didn’t quite know how to manage.