by Em Petrova
That look he recognized all too well.
“If you don’t get that door open in the next second, I’m going to beat it down,” he said.
She made a noise that was somewhere between giggle and snort. She used the key and twisted the handle. Inside smelled like all the things he remembered about Carissa years ago. The scent of drying herbs and something spicy that was almost medicinal.
She stood before him, all curves and dark eyes and shining hair. His heart skipped a beat as he set down the box and took her into his arms.
“Was that under a second?” she said, looking up into his eyes.
He nodded, raking his gaze over her beautiful face again and again, not quite certain he wasn’t fast asleep in his bed at home and none of this had happened, that he wasn’t really here with the old love of his life again.
She raised a hand to curl it around the back of his neck, an action that shouldn’t arouse him, but damn if he had any control over his cock.
“First, that promise.” His demand was quiet.
She stared at his chest for a long minute and then finally nodded.
He groaned. “Next step is to get your clothes off,” he murmured before claiming her mouth once again.
Chapter Four
Carissa’s body was tuning up to Roades’ nearness—tuning in. She hadn’t been with anyone in a long time, but this was far more than being horny. Her body knew this man even if her mind didn’t totally understand who he had become.
He slanted his mouth across hers, slick tongue probing the depths and making her insides quiver with a need to feel him between her legs once again. She clung to his shoulders, learning the carved muscles rivaling an action hero’s. Somehow the images of him as a younger Roades meshed with her new ones and now she could barely recall a time he wasn’t this huge beast of a man.
A faint cry broke from her when he eased his hand around the curve of her ass.
“Fuck, I missed this ass.” His gritty tone was swallowed by another kiss when she went on tiptoe to take his mouth.
The house was empty, Mari at her job working an early shift. And that was good, because Carissa would never be able to remain silent once Roades got her into bed.
Passion swelled, curled and broke over her like a wave hitting the shores.
“C’mere, mon coeur.” She’d missed him calling her the endearment that meant my heart.
He hooked both hands under her buttocks and lifted her as if she weighed nothing. She looped her thighs around him and held onto his broad shoulders as he carried her through the house.
When he reached the door to what was her former room, he paused.
She shook her head. “I have my parents’ old room.”
“They’re gonna roll in their graves.”
She didn’t know whether to laugh or regret they weren’t here. As he carried her through the door, a sudden shock of what she was doing hit.
She was with Roades again.
After all these years of pain and missing him like she’d miss her own limb if it were cut off, she was in his arms.
And he was kissing the hell out of her.
The kiss turned carnal in a second, and he dropped her to the bed and followed her down before she could even adjust her position on the mattress. He locked his hand on the back of her head and dragged her thigh across his hips, splaying her on his leg.
The urge to rock against the steely muscle was too much, and she succumbed. Pushing down on his hard thigh, she gasped as her pussy flooded with need.
“God, you’re gorgeous. More gorgeous than you were years ago. I’ve missed so much.” He planted a big hand on her ass and dragged her down on his leg again. She moaned. He growled.
“I need to see you without clothes, Roades.” Her plea came out breathy, almost inaudible. But he heard.
Drawing her to the side, he gave her free rein of his body. She reached for the hem of his T-shirt, tugging it free from his waistband and up over sculpted six-pack abs that made her blush just from looking at them.
Before she could remove his shirt, he flipped her onto her back, hovering over her. Seconds passed as their gazes said all the words neither could seem to conjure.
“Take off my clothes, please,” she whispered.
If he walked away from her again, at this very moment, she’d be devastated. And that was a very dangerous thing. She couldn’t afford to be in more emotional turmoil than she already was. But one night with the man she’d loved enough to want to marry once upon a time… that was worth any twinges of the heart she might experience afterward.
There wouldn’t be regrets, though. Not more than she already had after being left with only his picture in her mind.
His biceps bulged as he bore his weight over her. His thick hair fell across his forehead. “Carissa…”
He looked about to say something she didn’t want to hear, be it about their past or present. Either way, she didn’t want to listen.
She pressed a fingertip to his lips and then reached under his shirt, exploring those abs she’d only gotten a glimpse of. Then up over bump after bump of muscle to reach his hard pecs.
A shiver rolled through her.
He bowed his head over her, and she was reminded of times he’d gone to mass with her and bowed it in prayer.
After a long second, he raised his head and met her gaze. “I want to go slow with you. To kiss and stroke every inch of your body until you’re screaming for me. But…” His throat worked. “I can’t. I can’t go slow.”
A trickle of air left her lungs, pushed out by relief. She’d feared he’d call a halt to all of their foreplay and leave her aching.
To help him along, she grabbed the bottom of her shirt and yanked it up and off. Her hair fell across the pillow, and his stare traveled over it before landing on her face. Roving over her features to her throat and lower to her breasts.
She wished she had a prettier bra for him to eye up, but he didn’t seem to mind if the bulge against her thigh was anything to go by.
His eyelids closed and then he opened them again. “Hell, mon coeur.”
Throwing away all caution, she took his hand and placed it over her breast.
A shudder ran through him, and his eyes hooded in that way she remembered and sometimes woke with in her mind, as if she’d dreamed about this very look all night long.
His hand lay on her breast, warm and heavy. Then he caressed her mound. Her nipple hardened instantly, and he found it with a forefinger, rubbing back and forth until it was straining and small gasps escaped her.
“Still so responsive.”
He watched her face intently as he strummed her nipple over and over. When he eased his hand along the band of her bra to the clasp on her spine, she held her breath. How long had she needed his touch? More so in the years after than before. She’d been so young—would this encounter be different?
It had to be. And that was okay.
She arched to give him access to the clasp. He sprung it and slowly stripped the fabric from her. When the warm air kissed her skin, both nipples pebbled. Or maybe that was from Roades’ gaze being on her.
“Fuck. Fucking hell.” He dropped his head between her breasts, and she held him there with her fingers tangled in his hair. He drew five deep breaths while she wondered what it was this man had seen in his short life. He was much changed and his skills on the streets verified he was trained in the military or the like.
She ran her hands down the planes of his back, mentally picturing how it would look. What she wouldn’t give to just stand back and look at him, drink it all in. Call her perverted but seeing a beautiful man who worked hard on his body was transcendent. And if she could get him in the sunlight, even better…
He strummed one nipple.
“Pinch them, Roades. Please.”
He groaned and then his questing fingertips closed around one nipple. “I forgot you liked this. Jesus.” He ran the rough, beard-stubbled angle of his jaw across her sensitive sk
in, making her gasp.
When he sucked her other nipple into his mouth, she stopped breathing altogether.
With soft pulls of his lips, he tormented her while tweaking her other nipple with his fingers. Then he switched and she lost herself in the pull of pleasure between her thighs. Much more of this and she might after barely making it to second base.
Just when she didn’t think she could endure more, he slid downward, kissing her abdomen. She dug her fingers into his hair and guided him as he traced zigzags across her flesh.
“Beautiful. Soft.” His murmur sent shivers through her.
For a man who couldn’t go slow, he sure as hell was doing a fine job. She grabbed the cloth between his shoulder blades and pulled his shirt off. He gave her a dark look full of intensity she’d never seen before. What kind of lover was Roades now? She hoped to find out.
But part of her waited for the boot to drop and for him to draw back, to retreat into himself and not finish what he’d started.
Urgency made her hands shake as she tossed his shirt aside and touched him.
“God, Carissa.” He acted as if… as if he hadn’t been touched for as long as she hadn’t.
Looking the way he did, that was not possible. But none of that mattered because she was going to show him just how much she wanted him in this minute.
She leaned up and captured his mouth. Kissing, teasing with nibbles and bites on his lower lip. Then twisting her tongue around his for many heartbeats. When he popped the button at her waist and slid her zipper down, she kissed him with all the pent-up desire inside her.
Suddenly, he yanked free, staring down at her, panting.
“Mon coeur.”
Don’t say it’s a mistake. It might be but who cares.
“What is it?” she whispered, searching his rugged features for answers before he spoke. She’d guarded her heart very well after he left her, and she still had a wall up. But that didn’t mean one word from him couldn’t tear her apart all over again.
“I don’t trust myself not to hurt you.”
Her breath hitched. “Are you into some dark stuff like BDSM or something?”
A harsh laugh left him. “Nothing like that. But right now tying you up sounds like the best thought I’ve had in years.”
She giggled and held her hands out, wrists together. “I’m ready.”
“Mon coeur, you don’t know what you’re getting into with me.” He dropped his mouth to her breast again and she gave herself up to sensation. Each stroke of his tongue, wet and slippery, sent her into paroxysms of need. He managed to get her pants off and took her panties with them.
Pulsating now, she waited for him to put his hands, lips, cock where she needed them most. But he didn’t touch her.
Just leaned back on his knees to look at her.
“You’re different,” he said softly, a pang of pain in his voice.
“So are you.” She cut her gaze over his bare chest and shoulders, down to the dark trail of hair leading into his cargo pants. She wet her lips, and he groaned.
In a flash, he leaped off the bed and stood alongside, watching her face as he shucked boots, socks, pants and lastly, boxers.
Her need spiked at seeing him in all his full glory, with the sun from the windows streaming over his muscles, creating light and shadows in all the right places.
His eyes hooded again as he tore open a condom produced from some pocket and he stroked it into place. The veins snaking up and down his forearm made her wish she could watch him do that more often.
Finished with inhibitions, she let her thighs fall open in invitation.
He didn’t hesitate. Pressing her down into the mattress, the light fur on his chest skimming her hardened nipples as he poised his cock at the V of her thighs.
Their gazes locked and he pushed in with one hard glide, completely filling her.
Her body stretched, burning almost, but in the best way possible. He fell still at the invasion into her body but stared at her lips as if they’d done him wrong.
“Roades.” Her voice brought his gaze up to hers again.
He started to move. In seconds, she saw why he’d held himself in check—he was an animal in bed with her. Rocking into her hard, shoving her up the bed. Each plunge of his cock had her crying out, the pinnacle of release just in reach, she was sure of it.
His kisses were bruising. Then tender. Alternating until she didn’t know what to expect next.
When he locked the length of her hair around his fist and yanked her head back to suck on her neck and breasts, she lost all sense of reality. The years separating them vanished and it was only Roades.
He fucked her faster, churning his hips. The bed strained in protest but she could barely make out anything over the rough growls rumbling through her lover’s chest.
Suddenly, he released his grip on her hair and thrust his fingers between their bodies. The rough pads of his fingertips found her clit immediately. He pressed down, and she cried out. Juices flooded, and her body clamped down.
He groaned in response, and she grasped him to her harder, wanting everything from him, including a release like she’d never had before.
Because she was on the verge of that very thing.
He flicked her clit with each thrust of his cock, and it was too much. Too good. Too—
She tensed as her orgasm hit. A tempest swept up her body. And its name was Roades.
* * * * *
The tight clench of Carissa’s body around him made his balls draw up. The tingle at the base of his spine struck, and he pounded his release into her. Each spurt timed to his cock sinking into her body.
Bliss spread through him and he couldn’t think, just move. As the last of his release left him, he slowed. Small rasps still came from Carissa with each strum of his fingers on her clit. The sweet little pearl needed a good sucking, and soon.
First, he needed to catch his breath. And if he was honest, sleep. The toll on his body was more than he cared to admit, but this little vixen had just sapped him of more than his cum.
He rolled to the side and took her with him, still inside her hot body. When he pulled his fingers out from between them and licked her juices off one, she shivered.
He looked into her eyes. Fuck.
“Did I hurt you?”
She blinked. “Did I sound hurt?”
He barked out a laugh, the sound foreign after the weeks of probation and stress he’d endured. His heart softened at seeing the stunning woman locked in his arms, his cock still stretching her tight pussy.
He brushed her thick hair off her cheekbone. “You’re more beautiful now than you were then. I don’t know how that’s possible.”
“You’ve grown up a lot. I don’t know how that’s possible.”
“Are you talking about my behavior? Because I happen to think I was pretty damn mature at seventeen.”
She smiled at the teasing in his voice. “You were.”
“But my brothers always tell me they didn’t think I’d stop being such a pipsqueak.”
“How is your family?”
He was still hard but slipped free of Carissa’s body. She curled onto one side to look at him.
Dear God, he’d missed this. Talking to her. Learning what was in her mind.
He couldn’t let himself get so close, though he feared that had already happened. How stupid of him to claim her body in such a way. He knew how damned tenderhearted she was, and he’d left lasting bruises on her when he’d gone. He couldn’t risk doing that again—but probably already had.
“My family’s just as crazy and demanding as ever.” More so, with four of them in Knight Ops, one sister a Marine and the other with a tendency to choose the wrong men.
But Carissa knew nothing of his situation or work, and maybe that was for the best.
Her body glistened with the afterglow of their lovemaking, and—
Shit. Lovemaking? He definitely needed to put the brakes on sooner rather than later. Coming t
o her aid—and then coming inside her—had worn him down in ways he couldn’t allow.
He sat up and swung his legs off the bed, reaching for his boxers. He went dead still. The faint knocking wasn’t coming from the front door but around back in Carissa’s clinic.
“Damn!” She jumped from the bed and started throwing on her clothes. “That’ll be a patient.”
“Coming!” she yelled loud enough the person could probably hear through the thin walls of her home.
Roades threw out an arm to stop her as she rounded the bed, topless. “You’re not going to the door alone.”
“Well, of course not like this! Where’s mi camisa?” She searched the floor and then leaned over to snatch up her shirt, giving him more lurid fantasies.
The knocking ensued, and she ran out of the bedroom while pulling her shirt into place.
“Goddammit.” He grabbed his pants and had them on and buttoned, regardless of the condom he hadn’t disposed off and his still-hard cock.
He stomped through the house to catch Carissa before she opened the door on what could be a shit storm after what he’d just done to those men back in the alley.
He grabbed her before she reached the door, spinning her to face him. “You could be walking into something bad, Carissa. Think of what just happened out there.”
The color drained from her face.
“Let me go first.”
“But if it’s dear old Miss Juanita, she’ll have a heart attack seeing a big…” She waved a hand over his physique, and damn if his body wasn’t reacting again. He could lift her over his cock and pin her to the wall.
No.
He had to shake himself to clear his thoughts and adjusted his statement. “I’m going first.”
There was no entrance to the clinic from the house, and he had to walk outside. On guard, he swept the perimeter but detected no threats. Carissa, and probably Mari too, had cleared the yard of the smaller stuff that had washed over when the hurricane hit but there were still heavy objects he could take care of. He circled those and around to the back of the house.
