In Safe Hands (The Safe House Series Book 1)

by Leslie North

  “I’m not afraid of that.”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “That when everything stops moving around me, there’ll be no one left.”

  “Alexa…” His note of warning was clear—don’t ask me to betray my partner, don’t ask me to lose control, don’t ask me to make love to you then ask me to stop because I won’t, just…don’t.

  But his shoulder was there, his inked badge of honor that he carried through life. What she was asking, the high cost of such an appeal, could only be conveyed with a gentle touch, a respect, a kiss. If he didn’t turn over, she would never ask again.

  Alexa leaned forward and brushed her slackened lips against his tattoo. She lingered, reveling in the heat of her exhale riding his scorching, smooth skin. Her kiss became the fuse that lit straight to her core.

  Still, he didn’t turn.

  She counted—one, two, nearly giving up at three because her hammering heart confused the tally. The world had quieted, all but the crickets, waiting, waiting, waiting. She held her breath. At five, she shifted away.

  Damian’s hands seized her waist and tugged her to him. His kiss crushed her mouth, parted in surprise, as his weight came to bear against the excruciating throb of her swollen folds. She answered with a counter-pressure of her own, one that rivaled his urgency and elevated the challenge. He sampled her lips with a technique she never expected the hardened man to possess, by turns lateral and stationary, punishing and tender.

  A soft groan escaped her throat. His tongue delved into the opening she provided. She tried to remain aware of their surroundings, their situation, of who they were and how far they had come, together, but it all fell away, forgotten in the realization that he wanted her.

  For now, she wouldn’t be alone.

  He severed the kiss, his minty exhales like a blast furnace against her cheek. “I don’t have a condom.”

  “I do.”

  He gave her a slow, sinful smile, punctuating his words with short pecks. “Of. Course. You. Do.”

  “Gas station in Missouri,” she whispered playfully, nibbling his ear. “After the backseat grope.”

  He chuckled, the rare sound against her eardrum nearly as addicting as his panting breaths in the dark. “If that’s what you call grinding the cleft of your sweet ass against my fly.”

  “Me?” she whisper-shrieked in mock horror. “You could have slept in the front seat.”

  “And missed you grinding the cleft of your sweet ass against my fly? Not a chance.”

  Alexa giggled and attempted to raise herself off the bed to fetch her purse, but the long line of his body pinned her. His position astride her was dominating, but he brought a hand to her cheek, the back of his fingers glancing off her flushed skin. His palm settled against the curve of her cheekbone. Warmth flared through her belly at the tenderness of the gesture.

  “Not yet,” he whispered. “The world hasn’t stopped moving yet. We have time.”

  He lifted his weight from her and sat back on his haunches, thighs spread wide, inviting her to imagine what lay beneath. Alexa mourned the loss of his body against hers. Jeans and a tight T-shirt still molded to his physique. His wardrobe change for bed had been as simple as putting on clean clothes for tomorrow. She wondered if the ex-cop dressed intentionally for any emergency that might arise in the middle of the night or if he wore his day clothes like armor against a full-on surrender such as this.

  His fingers encircled her wrists. He raised her bare arms to his lips and kissed her tattoo, a point of division between them for so long that his acceptance of it now spoke louder that anything his words could have expressed.

  Despite the shield his body provided from the night air, Alexa shivered.

  Strong hands stroked a path down her forearms, past her elbows, to the tiny cotton camisole string at her shoulders. His fingertips toyed with the straps, stroking her collarbone beneath until she thought she would go mad with impatience.

  To get even, she skimmed her fingernail along his denim inseam, knee…thigh…up…up.

  Even in the dark, the white teeth embedded in his smile illuminated the room.

  No words, but still a spirited match.

  They regarded one another silently in the darkness. Alexa moved her hands to the hem of his T-shirt. Damian's hands followed, aiding her in the removal of his shirt. His abdominal muscles bunched as he pulled the fabric over his head and discarded it to the floor.

  She was no stranger to his naked chest. Her view from the safe house windows during his fence repair, however, did not inform the near-silky texture of his skin, the firm resistance of his muscles against her upward stroke, the absolute lack of hair to detract from the visual feast of contours, light battling shadow.

  Soon, it was no longer enough. She wanted to see more. Alexa moved to free the highest button of his jeans.

  His hand covered hers. “Not very judicious of you, counselor. Your turn.”

  Damian glided his hand beneath her cami. The invasion felt wonderfully forbidden while she was still clothed, like it could have happened at any moment along the road. His palm slid along the bare skin of her contracting ribs, before ultimately slipping high enough to cup the curve of her breast.

  The feel of him touching her so intimately was enough to render her almost insensate. Alexa bucked at the contact. Damian lowered himself to capture her lips once more. Her hands moved along his bare chest, marveling at the fevered heat of the man's base temperature. How on earth did he ever wear clothes to bed? He burned so hot beneath her touch, he felt practically molten. By sheer proximity, she could go up in flames.

  She moved against his every caress, her body unable to remain still beneath his coaxing touches. He manipulated her off the bed enough to pull her shirt free.

  Her head spun. She needed to say something, but she was afraid words would halt the proceedings. Damian ultimately spared her the decision.

  "Alexa…" His voice was strained, as if he had been calling her name for a long time but she never heard him. Alexa raised her lips to his, trailing kisses from the corner of his mouth to the stubble along his jawline.

  He slid off her flimsy shorts.

  Alexa remembered her panties. Condoms weren’t the only souvenir she had purchased in small-town Missouri.

  He crouched closer to study the emblem covering the front of her tourist-y, red-and-blue briefs: a glittery Show Me message emblazoned across an outline of the heartland state.

  Damian belted out an appreciative laugh—head tossed back, eyes shrunk to half-moons.

  “What?” Alexa snickered. “Two minutes at the safe house was hardly enough time to grab all the essentials.”

  “They’re perfect. You’re perfect. Just like I imagined you…” His expression was slow to sober, but when his eyelids tightened with intensity, his words punctuated the kisses he placed upon her skin, belly to sternum to neck.

  “…on my run.”

  One kiss.

  “…during every swing of my hammer.”

  Another. Lower.

  “Resting against my cock in the backseat.”

  A third kiss. With tongue.

  The added stimulant of his tongue writhing against her flesh spiraled a jolt of pleasure straight to clit. A hot rush of wetness surged against the cotton barrier she no longer wanted. She lifted from the mattress, her pelvis involuntarily straining toward the indulgence of his kisses.

  Box springs creaked beneath them, but the bed had yet to give under their combined weight. Alexa was willing to risk it. She eased Damian's jeans down his hips, but stopped as soon as his erection, straining against the plaid cotton barrier of his boxers, sprang free of its confines.

  She teased the outline of his thick, heavily-veined cock with her fingernail, much as she had his inseam. Her thumb traced circles along its angled, purple head, scorching hot and irresistibly downy, before taking its full length in her grasp and tugging it closer.

  He suppressed a curse, unleashing a low, hu
sky moan that left Alexa wondering how she could replicate such a response in a man who prided himself on focus, intent, control.

  And, as if they suddenly had run out of time to fully undress, as if the outside world threatened to press in on them again at any moment, Damian scrambled off the bed, availed himself of the clinging denim, and eased himself down beside her.

  His length, searing and demanding, pressed low against her hip as he ground out his intention with mock rhythm, a foreshadowing of the dance to come. Alexa's fingers trailed along his scrumptious biceps, the coarse hair of his forearms, the strong and calloused hands she knew would protect her at all cost. Damian dipped his head to delve into the sensitive spot at the base of her neck.

  She arched with a gasp and squirmed higher along the mattress until his mouth covered her left nipple. He brought his enormous hand to join the endeavor, cupping her breast and reshaping its weight with care before drawing it into the fire of his mouth.

  Alexa uttered a wordless cry. His attention to one breast left an unbearable void for the other. She gripped her right breast and crushed it to his lips. He lavished his attention on the other nipple, only to leave the first side begging to recapture his body heat.

  The curtains billowed out on a spring wind that raised gooseflesh along every inch of her torso. She knew the only thing that could push back the chill night pressed the back of her hand, her thigh, well within her grasp.

  She took hold of his dick through the strain of cotton. Unsatisfied by the obstruction, she skimmed his waistband and delved inside to the volcanic heat beneath. Never, never, had anything felt so hard, so fortifying, so magnificently substantial in her grasp. She was just becoming addicted to the feel of it, the way it pulsed with the introduction of her cadenced stroking when he slipped from her grip.

  “Easy, Volkov.” He kissed her and smiled against her mouth. “These lips aren’t the only lips I plan to taste.”

  The heat between them was unbearable, but Damian seemed as cool and in control as ever. As Alexa reduced herself to pleading with her eyes, her body, the man steadily worked his way down from her neck, shaping his mouth into formless words she was beyond comprehending. She strained against him as his lips detoured once more to each rock-hard nipple then continued south until he kissed the thin fabric covering her pussy.

  “I’ve wanted you since I first laid eyes on you.” His words were a humid caress against her thighs. The forbidden nature of his statement in the dark drove her closer to the edge. She hadn’t imagined it, then. He wanted her that night on the armchair and all the nights in between.

  She arched her hips higher, her need reaching for him, begging him for more—a touch, a tongue, so much more. And as if her not-so-silent plea and her insistent movement had conveyed its intended message, Damain swept aside the cotton crotch of her panties and devoured her.

  Alexa nearly vaulted off the bed with the ferocity of her tremors. She lost the capacity of speech beyond moans, grip beyond that of his glorious dark hair, and modesty beyond that of the complete and unapologetic spread of her thighs to invite him deeper, fuller, with more abandon than she had ever displayed to anyone.

  "I'm going to wake the whole house if you keep doing that," she uttered between gasps.

  He paused in his attentive exploration. Puffs of air escaping his lips from a chuckle nearly climaxed her.

  "Are you blackmailing me?"

  Where his tongue had probed her saturated channel, his fingers resumed—one, maybe three, and a thumb, alternately filling her and working a magic against her folds that threatened to bring her to the brink.

  He licked his lips. “You taste incredible. I could drink you up…” He nuzzled kisses along her inner thigh “…all night.”

  "I'm begging you, Damian. Please," she murmured. "I need you inside me."

  She rolled over to the side of the bed and fumbled for the condom in the side pocket of her purse. Teeth sunk into the plastic wrapper, she bit open the package and slid the condom free.

  The urgency ebbed just enough for her to remember the absolute decadence she had denied herself up until now: his shaft, up close. She stripped him of the last vestiges of his clothes and made one, throaty request.

  “Let me see you.”

  She pushed him to a reclining position, his back to the crumpled sheets, his impressive manhood at such a stark angle from his body, it begged her to fondle, lick, command. He acquiesced, no struggle, no play for control, simply a bent arm at his neck for support.

  He intended to watch; she wouldn’t disappoint.

  She resumed the tempo of strokes she had established earlier, veering off occasionally to massage his heavy sack when she discovered that it elicited a sharp intake of his breath. Kissing, licking, teasing did little to incite the riot within him she wanted to hear. Finally, she took him fully into her mouth, one long, deep, swift movement to the back of her throat.

  Damian groaned his defeat.

  His complete loss of control drove her to madness. He tasted like soap and musk and everything she imagined after his morning run, entirely addicting, infinitely erotic. He leaned forward to reach for her, to take some part of her into his hands, to match her stroke for stroke, but she always teased out of reach. His big toe skimmed her inner thigh and entered the flood between her legs, stroking a determined, heavy rhythm against the needles of unbearable ecstasy coursing through her spread folds.

  Even that wasn’t enough for him.

  “Condom, Alexa…now.” He growled out the last word.

  For this, she gladly surrendered to his orders. She rolled the condom down his shaft, wet from her saliva, from the salty droplets that emerged from his tip. Securely in place, he wasted no time in grabbing her beneath the arms and hauling her upward to align their hips.

  Alexa circled over his hardness, enjoying the anticipation, the game, too much to welcome him inside her just yet. She didn’t anticipate the grind of her already-pulsing lips against his rock-hard penis would trigger convulsions that erased the room, the danger, everything but the beautiful man before her, begging for more.

  He sat up, his mouth hungrily covering hers to muffle her cries. Damian muttered a curse that Alexa could barely make out through the haze of her own pleasure. His hands clenched her hips and he guided her closer, closer, until her wetness directed him perfectly in place.

  He stilled against her momentarily and sucked in a quick, beleaguered breath. “God, you feel amazing.”

  "We're going to wake them if we keep this up," Alexa said, her voice seemingly coming from outside her body. She could hardly remember who they were, much less why she said it. They might be discovered at any moment, or worse, brought back to themselves—they might remember who they were and where the line was drawn, and realize that this was a mistake.

  "I don't care."

  Damian moved inside her, drawing her out slowly before pulling her back in. But even Alexa’s dominant display of control was no longer enough. He couldn’t pull deep enough, far enough for her liking, and when she whispered a desperate plea against his ear to lodge a complaint, he gripped her hips and swapped positions, hooking her left knee over his bent arm for maximum penetration.

  Alexa raised her hips to meet Damian, thrust-for-thrust. Her breath came in pants and gasps. She threw her head back into the pillow, fighting to control the racing of her heartbeat and the currents coursing through her body like an electrical storm.

  He dictated a steady and robust coupling that, for Alexa, was a tortured paradise. The stir of another orgasm teased her flesh around his, and with each stabilizing grip of her hips, each impact that jostled her body into a delicious and wild ride, each out-of-control and muffled curse he uttered, she climbed higher, higher, higher. A summit within that had not been reached. Ever.

  Damian lowered her leg to draw closer, to whisper in her ear. "I don’t want the world to stop moving, either. I could do this all night.”

  His confession, accompanied by the expert thrust
of his hips, took Alexa by surprise. “Then let’s move the world again.”

  He slid himself almost to her entrance before plunging in again. She had to act now, or she was going to unravel completely.

  Alexa turned on her stomach and pushed herself up, arching her back and wiggling her clit close to his groin, all but begging for him to enter her from behind.

  "Come on, Stone," she urged him, though the dare came out much quieter than she had intended. It lacked the fire of their usual exchange; it was an invitation, and ultimately, a submission. His lips brushed her hair aside, leaning forward and tenderly kissing her cheek. He slid his hands up to her shoulders and took hold as she guided him in place.

  Damian sank into her, filling her more completely than before. His groan came out on exhales more urgent than ever, her lover clearly reveling in the new position.

  Alexa arched her spine, throwing her head back into the crevice of his shoulder. His mouth found hers, his lips working hers open as he delved his tongue between her teeth. His hands roamed the curve of her hips and grasped her flank, holding her in place as he thrust into her. Alexa clung to the headboard, gasping and panting. His hands clutched her gyrating breasts, and he commenced to roll the diamond flesh of her nipples until she silently pleaded for release but begged outwardly for more.

  “Don’t stop…oh, God…”

  To think that this stoic man who had been sent to protect her could not bar himself from craving her was the ultimate aphrodisiac. Alexa bit her lips to keep quiet, but his every commanding plunge made her break her silence with a wordless request for more.

  The heat of his hooked arm embedded between her bouncing breasts and pressed her back. Slow was no longer the program for the evening. Flesh slapped flesh as their lovemaking degenerated to something carnal and base, something Alexa had yearned for the entirety of their charged acquaintance. Every insult had been dismissed, every flirtation thwarted, until she thought she would go mad with the fantasy of Damian Stone, the professional, taking her fast and hard and against his better judgement.