He was aroused. The hard length of his erection jutted forward demandingly. Muscular, hard, and proud, the sheer power in his body had always commanded her attention.
“You seem surprised,” he grunted. “I haven’t had a woman since you left my bed. Do you think it was from choice?”
Of course it wouldn’t be. Joe was highly sexed, a creature of lust when it came to his pleasure. That didn’t mean it was love. Did it? Or could it?
“I think I’m very much afraid you’re playing one hell of a game with me,” she admitted the possibility to herself. “You terrify me, Joe, simply because you hold the power to destroy me in the palms of your hands. And if you’ve already judged me guilty, you wouldn’t hesitate to use whatever weapons you could come by. Even lying.”
His eyes narrowed on her; the distance of the bed between them suddenly seemed much farther and much more difficult to cross than it had been even days before.
“You’re right,” he finally answered. “If I thought you were lying, if I thought you were involved, nothing would save you, Maggie. But I haven’t lied to you. I don’t believe you were involved.”
“You’ve just suddenly found all this love for me that wasn’t there two and a half years ago?” She jerked her long shirt from the floor and pulled it on with shaking hands.
“It was always there, Maggie.” He didn’t bother to pull his sweatpants on, he just stood facing her, aroused and proud and so damned confident she wanted to throw something at him.
Her smile was mocking as she shook her head slowly. “I don’t believe you, Joe.”
A frown jerked between his brows. “Oh, really?”
The dangerous undertone of his voice wasn’t exactly a comfortable sound.
“Really.” Maggie ignored the nerves building in the pit of her stomach as she faced him.
She had never truly challenged Joe, not in anything he said or the parameters of their relationship. Confrontations weren’t her first choice in solving anything, but as she stared back at him she realized that this particular confrontation had been coming since he had taken her from the police station.
“You don’t want to do this right now, Maggie,” he warned her quietly. The velvet softness of his voice was a sure sign that his temper was rousing.
“I don’t want to push you, period, Joe.” She turned from him, bending to pick up her pajama bottoms before putting them on. “It’s not worth the heartache you can deliver. But I stopped believing in fairy tales two and a half years ago.” She turned back to him, fighting the need to believe him even as she doubted him. “Especially yours.”
She didn’t expect his sudden response. Joe always handled himself calmly. Coolly. He never lost control. Until that moment.
The change came over his expression so suddenly that Maggie had no chance to react. From one second to the next the easygoing facade was stripped. His dark eyes narrowed, the flesh along his cheekbones tightened, and he had vaulted onto the bed, crossing it in one step before he was in front of her.
Turning to run wasn’t really an option, but she tried anyway. With a squeak of alarm she turned and tried to jump for the safety of the bathroom, only to feel the manacle of his heavily muscled arm wrap around her waist as he pushed her against the wall.
“You stopped believing in my fucking fairy tales?” His voice was a hoarse snarl at her ear as she felt her heart rate increase, the blood suddenly thundering erratically through her veins. Not from fear. There was no fear as his hands literally ripped the T-shirt from her body and flung the scraps aside, all the while holding her in place as she struggled against him.
“Are you crazy?” she yelled out, more from shock than any other emotion. Where the hell had this Joe come from? She could feel the anger, the lust, and more. Some added edge to his touch that had her heart leaping in hope.
His hands were gentle despite their commanding strength, his body controlling her, even as it stroked against her. This was no act. She could feel it in his hands, in the sudden, dominant hunger blazing in the air around them.
“Believe in this fairy tale then, damn you,” he snarled at her ear as the straining length of his cock pressed into the crevice of her buttocks. “You want reality, by God? This is reality, Maggie. I can’t bear another woman’s touch, and knowing you slept in that bastard’s bed ate into my guts like fucking acid. My best goddamned friend, and all I wanted to do was slip into his bed and fuck his wife until she screamed my name and begged me for more. Is that enough reality for you?”
She was panting for him, in the space of seconds just as aroused, just as hungry for him as he obviously was for her. She could feel the pulsing, driving lust in the engorged length of his throbbing erection as he moved back, then spread her thighs further apart.
“You make me fucking crazy.”
One hard, desperate thrust filled her with his flesh, took her to her tiptoes and had her crying out his name.
“Joe, please…”
“Yes,” he snapped, his voice thick with lust. “Joe. It’s Joe, Maggie. It’s Joe fucking you and it’s Joe that’s going to make you come. Come for me, baby. Oh God … Maggie.”
He stilled as she felt him inside her, bare, the latex barrier he normally wore no longer there.
“Shit. Oh hell, Maggie, you feel so fucking good.”
* * *
He was lost. Joe knew he was lost and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. The bitterness and pain in her voice and her expression as she doubted the emotions that had tortured him for so long, had broken his control. Control he had built for his own sanity, control he had sworn he would never lose with Maggie.
But there he was, his dick buried full length inside her, as bare as hell, throbbing with the need to spurt his semen inside her. No condom. Some primal instinct inside him screamed out the denial as he clenched his teeth and fought to pull back, only to return in a thrust that ripped the breath from his body.
“Oh fuck, it’s so good,” he whispered at her ear as he held her hands to the wall, shifted his hips, and stroked the brutally tight tissue clasping him. “Maggie, baby. You’re so sweet and soft. So hot…”
He didn’t know how to let her go. He knew he should, he needed to. This was a risk he shouldn’t be taking, a risk he should have never allowed. But he couldn’t release her. God, he couldn’t let her go.
“Joe…” There was a sense of wonderment in her voice. The cynicism was stripped away, the doubt gone. Innocence filled her tone, the same innocence he heard the night he took her virginity.
Hell, he had been just as shocked then as he was now by the sound of it. A woman nearly twenty-six years old should not be a virgin in this day and age. But Maggie had been. She had laughingly told him she was just waiting on a man who could do more than make her tingle. One who could make her desperate. And he made her desperate.
She made him desperate.
“It’s okay, baby.” He was panting with the effort not to come, not to fill her with the raging release drawing his balls tight. “Oh God, Maggie. Tell me it’s okay. Tell me it’s okay.”
He had to move. She was so silky soft, slick, tight, gripping him and moving with him as he moved in short, hard strokes that sent radiant pleasure racing down the shaft to clench in his scrotum. He was shaking, literally, with the pleasure tightening along his cock. It was agonizing, blistering, the most sensation he had ever known in his life.
“Joe, please … harder. Please.”
Her hips were twisting against him, her internal muscles milking him. Hell, it wasn’t as though she were the first woman he had taken without a condom. There had been others. A few. But it had never been like this. She was so slick, so tight that the soft sucking sounds of their movements were killing him.
The effort not to come had him drawn on a rack of torturous pleasure. He was going to pull out, he assured himself. He was.
“Are you on … the Pill? The Pill, Maggie.” Please, God, let her be on the Pill. Let her be protected.
She shook her head, even as her pussy tightened on him. His hips slammed against her, driving him in deep, hard before he forced himself to stillness.
He couldn’t breathe for the need to come.
“Move.” He was at the point of begging. “Get away from me, Maggie. God, do it now. I can’t do it.”
He loosened his grip on her hands, but he couldn’t pull free of her. Hell, where had his control gone? Where was his good sense? If he spilled inside her, she was going to get pregnant. He knew she would. Some instinctive knowledge tightened his gut, flared in his chest.
She didn’t move away from him, she moved closer. Her hips shifted as her fingers splayed against the wall.
“Baby…” He stared at the side of her face, her cheek was pressed into the wall, her eyes opening with drowsy, sensual pleasure. “I’ll come inside you, Maggie.”
Her breath caught. He saw it, saw the flush that mounted her cheeks, felt the further tightening of her pussy as her excitement mounted.
“I’ll give you my child, Maggie. My baby. Is that what you want?” He wanted it. Oh God, he wanted it so bad. His baby growing beneath Maggie’s heart, sheltered by the woman who owned his soul.
Her doubt didn’t matter. He loved her, and he was man enough to admit he had been a fool to ever believe Maggie would have aided Grant in any way. This was his woman. She had always been his woman.
He had dreamed of her for over two years. Dreamed of her back in his life, in his arms, her body growing heavy with his baby. God, he wanted that. Wanted to tie her to him in the most elemental way, in a bond that could never be broken.
“I love you, Maggie,” he whispered again as he lowered his lips to her cheek and a fierce involuntary motion of his hips had him thrusting against her again.
It was heaven. Ecstasy. The feel of her surrounding him, clasping him so tight he could barely breathe for the pleasure.
“Joe…” Emotion thickened her voice as her fingers tightened around his. “God, please don’t hurt me again. Please, Joe…”
He saw the tear that tracked down her cheek, glimpsed the ragged fear and emotion that filled her eyes. And he knew the pain she feared, that he would let her go, that he would hide the need, the hunger, the desperation he felt for her again.
There was no hiding now. Not now, not ever. He was instinct, a male claiming his female; more animal than man, as he fought to hold to him the one person he knew he could no longer survive without.
“I’ll not let you go again, Maggie.” He was on autopilot and he knew it. Hated it. Only Maggie could do this to him, and that was why she had terrified him two and a half years before. This was why he had let her run when she had believed there was no hope for the emotion she needed from him.
“Oh God, Joe. I can’t live without you again.” She was moving against him, gripping him, writhing against him. “I’ve always loved you, Joe…”
Sanity disintegrated beneath her words. His head lowered, his lips covering the sensitive point between neck and shoulder as he began to move. Hard. Fast. Deep. He was fighting to breathe, feeling her tighten around him, hearing her cries in his ears, and finally feeling her dissolve around him.
Sweet and tight, the hot clasp of her cunt began to milk at his erection, long contractions of pleasure that had him slamming inside her, his back arching, his neck tipping back as he felt his semen pouring from him. Thick, hard jets of ecstasy spurted inside the flexing depths of her pussy as he cried out her name. He heard his own voice, guttural, unnaturally hoarse, as he tried to drive deeper inside her, to fill her womb, to tie her to him in the most fundamental, primal way possible.
She was his. Only his. And for Maggie’s sake, not to mention his own, he hoped she realized that.
8
Maggie was stepping out of the shower hours later, her body pleasantly sore and aching, a delightful reminder of Joe’s loss of control and the feel of his semen spurting inside her.
As she dried, she rubbed the towel over her belly slowly, thoughtfully. She had always wanted children, had dreamed of having Joe’s children. The knowledge that life could be growing inside her now sent an exciting shiver up her spine.
She had never allowed herself to hope, or to dream, that this could actually happen. But in the hours since that first shocking display of primal domination, Joe had done nothing to regain that control. No sooner than he had spent himself inside her, he had her back in the bed, moving over her, and claiming her again. And he hadn’t stopped until morning was well on its way and a hunger for food had driven them to the kitchen.
They had showered together, though Joe had finished quickly and rushed to leave the small shower stall, swearing that if he didn’t get away from her, he was going to kill both of them taking her.
Maggie smiled at the thought as she dressed, pulling a pair of silken panties up her sore thighs before easing into her bra, and then jeans and a T-shirt.
She had a feeling that anything requiring much exertion was going off her to-do list for the day. Which meant the hike she had been thinking of talking Joe into was definitely out.
Sitting on the small stool in the corner of the bathroom, she pulled on her socks before rising and padding into the bedroom. She slid her feet into laceless sneakers before moving for the closed bedroom door and pulling it open.
Stepping through the doorway she came to a stop as first Joe, then Craig, moved from the kitchen. Both men were carrying coffee cups and had their weapons hanging on their belts. Joe had been armed for the past week she knew, but never so blatantly.
“Maggie.” He paused just inside the living room, his brown eyes watching her worriedly. “Come on in, honey. Get some coffee.”
Craig shot him a startled glance at the endearment.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
Craig Allen was part of the DEA unit Joe commanded before Grant’s death. He had been unaware of her involvement with Joe before her marriage, just as everyone else had been.
“We have some information.” His expression wasn’t comforting, but at least he wasn’t pretending they were strangers.
Unconsciously, her hand dropped to her stomach as she fought the nervousness rising inside her. Joe’s eyes followed the movement, his nostrils flaring as his cheekbones flushed with lust. Response trembled up her spine, sending a small tremor through her body as he watched.
Maggie swallowed tightly, drawing her gaze from Joe to Craig, who watched them both suspiciously.
“I can do without the coffee for now, then.” She breathed in deeply, feeling an insidious sense of disaster building in her chest.
“Come here, baby.” He obviously didn’t care what Craig saw or thought.
He crossed to her, drew her into his arms, and kissed her cheek comfortingly.
“It’s going to be okay,” he promised.
Maggie glimpsed Craig’s expression. Surprise definitely, and suspicion. But the cold calculation that lurked behind both made her nervous.
“What’s going on?” She let Joe lead her to the couch, sitting down nervously as Craig took the chair across from them.
“Your house was trashed yesterday.” Craig wasn’t one to beat around the bush, either.
As he sat down, his hazel eyes watched her closely, looking, she knew, for a guilty, frightened response.
“It was Grant’s house.” She shrugged. “If they just got around to trashing it…”
“It wasn’t trashed in the typical fashion,” Craig broke in. “The carpet was ripped through most of the rooms and pulled back. We’ve had a team going through it, but we’ve found nothing beneath any of it. We got there before every room was hit, but we’ve found nothing, and we know whoever went through it didn’t find anything.”
“The carpet?” She shook her head in confusion. “Why rip away the carpet?”
“They were looking for hidden pockets in the floor,” Joe said as he curved his arm around her shoulders, his fingers rubbing at her arm in comfort.
She glanced at him with a frown, shaking her head. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“The carpet could have been carefully cut to blend in with the nap of the material, but could be pulled away to access a hidden safe or loose boards in the floor where objects can be hidden,” Joe explained.
Maggie glanced back at Craig. He was watching her closely, doubtfully. He thought she knew where the information they were looking for was hidden. God, she wished she did.
“Did you check all the rooms after you saw where they were looking?”
Craig nodded shortly. “We had a team stripping carpet all night last night. We found nothing.”
Maggie rubbed at her forehead. Where would Grant have hidden that information?
“It could have been a lie,” she finally whispered, turning to stare at Joe dismally. “The journal was a lie, Joe. He could have lied about the information.”
“He had it, Maggie.” Craig informed her coldly.
She couldn’t sit still. She had fought to calm the fear rising inside her for the past week, to take one day at a time and pray the information would be found. Rising to her feet, she paced across the living room, listening distantly to Joe and Craig discussing the search the night before.
The house Grant had been so proud of would be a mess. The two-story brick colonial design had been a major buy for him. He had bragged about that house incessantly. Because it was better than Joe’s. Because as much money as Joe’s family obviously had, they weren’t real fond of sharing, because Joe’s house was so much smaller, so much less classy. She remembered how he would laugh about that. How Joe’s house, right down to the dank, unkempt basement, was so much less superior than the one Grant had managed to buy.
She paced to the edge of the room, turning back to stare at the two men as they continued to talk. Joe was frowning thoughtfully, his eyes narrowed as Craig explained the areas searched and how in-depth it had gone.
Grant wouldn’t have hidden anything in his own house. He would have known that was the first place they would look. He was smarter than that. He was demonic. He would have found a way to hurt Joe, even in this. She was actually surprised he hadn’t tried to frame Joe instead of her.
Real Men Do It Better Page 19
