“Because,” she said poutily, turning, looking into his shadowed face, his eyes almost a gold color, “I’m hungry for you.”
“I thought you were tired from the jet lag.”
She gripped his thighs. “I’m not that tired, and you know it! It’s just thinking about you all day today, wanting more of you, more closeness with you …” She saw his eyes grow thoughtful, and she felt his male energy surrounding her almost like magic. He hadn’t touched her, but she felt him wrapping warmly around her, as if to say that he loved her, that he would always be this close to her whenever she needed him. “I mean”—her voice faltered as she held his gaze—“you’re going to be gone in seven days …”
“That’s it,” he rasped, leaning forward, licking her nape once more, holding that thick, silky hair to one side in his palm. “I’m always with you, sweet woman. You know that.”
The grittiness of his low, hungry voice thrummed through her, and her fingers dug into his thighs. “Matt, I need you. I want you to take me fast tonight, not slow. Can we do that?” She searched his hooded eyes, his mouth curving faintly as he lightly skimmed her shoulders with his fingers.
“You can have anything you want. You know that. You just have to tell me.”
Usually, that was true, but Dara had encountered times when fast still meant slow to Matt. “Then,” she said archly, “I’m taking over,” and she unwound from her position, slid off the bed, and turned around. She pulled on the clasp of the sarong and its folds fell to the floor, revealing her nakedness. She stood in the shadows, appreciating the primal expression that instantly came to his face. There was amusement in his eyes, and she knew he was pleased with her feminine assertiveness. Dara wondered, as she pushed him back on the bed, allowing him to straighten out his legs before she straddled his hips with her thighs, if sometimes he was teaching her how to go after what she wanted.
“I like my alpha goddess,” Matt teased, sliding his hands around her flared hips, bringing her wet core down across his erection. The moment her juices encased his length, he groaned, closing his eyes, feeling the zings of pleasure coursing through him like ragged bolts of heat and lightning.
“Well,” she warned him throatily, her hair cascading across her shoulders as she leaned down, her hands flat against his chest, her core sizzling and needy as he slowly moved his hips, sliding her back and forth, “you’re right. I’m feeling very alpha tonight.”
A pleased expression came to Matt’s face, and she felt him tightening his hands around her hips.
“Then come and get what you want, sweetheart. I’m all yours …”
A dream come true! Dara gave a pleased sound deep in the back of her throat. “About time,” she said, and returned his curving smile, loving him for allowing her to be who she needed to be, not what he wanted her to be. Normally, Dara wasn’t this assertive, but tonight, for whatever reason, she was starving for some orgasms. Maybe it was the right time of month for her, the hormones pushing her. Right now, she wanted this man inside her, swelling, thickening, so hard and stroking her insides until she erupted and one of those long, throbbing, delicious orgasms rippled down through her.
“Ready?” she asked, challenging him.
“More than you’ll ever know.”
She gave him a wary look but became convinced when Matt easily lifted her off him just enough for her entrance to settle over him. That made her quiver, and she shut her eyes, lost in the sensations of their centers suddenly and unexpectedly meeting, the juices thickening and quickening within her. World burning up, fire cascading through her as she eased down upon him, impaling herself on the warm, hard steel of him sliding deeper and deeper within her, she luxuriated in the delicious fusion. She didn’t need a lot of foreplay to get her ready for Matt. Just his slowly moving her up and down upon his willing shaft, feeling him grow and swell within her, made her moan with anticipation.
There was giddy power in taking him, doing exactly as she needed to do to gain that wonderful, building orgasm. He’d hardly even touched her nipples, tasted her, or licked her at all. She was so ready, and when he brought more weight down on her hips, her orgasm triggered. A scream caught in her throat, she threw her head back, her long torso arching as he prolonged the milking of that explosion swiftly undulating through her. The world stopped existing and there was only her, riding that orgasm, being hurled into light, tumbling, free, the pleasurable sensations moving up and down her spine like burning lightning. Floating, unaware of anything in those moments, Dara heard a hoarse cry tear from her throat. Her fingers dug spasmodically into Matt’s taut chest, her entire body flexing around the melting orgasm that was flooding every sense she had.
The sensations were like small tidal waves of heat combined with tinier explosions, racing outward, making her surrender and collapse against Matt’s long, damp body. He caught her, easing her down against him, her hair swirling around his face and shoulder where she nestled her brow next to his jaw. Dara’s breath was ragged and she couldn’t move, lost in the satisfaction glazing her heart and soul as he continued to gently thrust into her, initiating more sensations, prolonging the initial orgasm for her. Her heart exploded with such fierce love for Matt. He cared for her, he cared that she be gratified fully and completely. Never had a man been so focused on her needs. How lucky she was to be loved by him.
Later, Matt lay quietly, feeling Dara’s ragged breathing begin to calm. He loved her long, sinuous form paralleling his, the dampness of her flesh, the plumeria scent combining with the lime of the soap he’d used earlier. The tickling warmth of her blond hair against his neck and jaw made him smile. There was no part of his woman that he didn’t love, want to touch, lick, kiss, and nip as the occasion arose. She was an ongoing dessert to him, to his wide-open senses, and he smiled, eyes closed, luxuriating in her fully and completely.
As Dara slowly emerged from being dazed, and he kissed her hair and rasped, “Better now?” He felt her laugh. No sound escaped her, but he felt it and smiled, his hand resting lightly against her back, skimming her damp skin, hoping to give her more pleasure through his touch. Very soon after that, she fell asleep. He tugged the nearby sheet upward, drawing it over them. Matt was more than content to have Dara sleep on top of him. Her weight was half of his, and she was like a warm, fragrant blanket poured over his body. Dara was tired, and he knew the past few months were catching up with her. Matt didn’t have the heart to move or disturb her now. It was going to be a deep, healing sleep.
He lay there, his one arm resting against her waist, the other across her opposite shoulder, the thick strands of her hair beneath his fingers. Never had he loved anyone so deeply, so completely, as he did Dara. She slept like an innocent baby in his arms, trusting and vulnerable in every possible way. Closing his eyes, he felt filled with happiness. Matt was sure he was going to burst wide open from the intense emotions he felt for her. He’d never had a woman pry him open, steal his lonely heart, and then hold it with such sweet, innocent love as she had for him.
Matt felt her breath against his body, absorbing the moisture of it against his neck and upper chest, his mind moved languidly to the weeks they’d spent on her family’s ranch in Montana. Callie, her younger sister, was improving after the trauma she’d suffered, with the help of Beau Gardner, who was there to fortify and support her. Callie had nearly been raped by several Taliban soldiers while they were running for their lives after that ambush. Beau had taken her in the opposite direction from Dara and Matt, hoping to split up the Taliban faction. It had been a brilliant strategy, but all told? Matt had taken Dara into the mountains. Beau had elected to take Callie toward the river in the valley and then thirty-five miles south through a lot of hilly country, to reach Bagram on foot. And they were within miles of Bagram when Callie disobeyed his order to hide and not move as he went to engage a group of Taliban coming their way. She was a civilian and didn’t realize how crucial it was to follow Beau’s instructions. As the Taliban had drawn closer to where Callie w
as hidden, she’d panicked and bolted. She’d brought six enemy down upon her, and they were in the midst of tearing her clothes off to rape her when Beau heard her screams and came running back to save her. It had been close. Too close. Callie had been emotionally broken by that attack. They never got to rape her, but it was close enough to shatter her. Beau had saved her life and ended up getting a leg wound out of the deal as he placed himself between her and their enemy.
Taking a slow, deep breath, Matt moved his hand across Dara’s sleeping form. Thank God, she’d listened to him at every turn. She had never panicked as Callie had. She’d done exactly as he’d requested. His admiration for her courage under lethal circumstances rose. Because Dara had done what he asked her to, they’d survived.
At the McKinley ranch, Beau was falling in love with Callie. But the guilt she felt because she’d disobeyed him at a critical juncture in their escape, drawing down an attack that had left her damaged and Beau wounded, had driven deep into Callie. In that week when he and Dara had visited after Christmas, there had been a lot of tension in the McKinley family. And it was Dara, the big sister, who had slowly pulled Callie out of her shame and guilt over her actions. Matt had seen how hard it had been on Dara. Every night, when they went to bed, he’d hold her and she’d cry quietly in his arms. And then he would slowly love her, getting her to release the pain her sister was going through, to focus on her pleasure, on them, instead. And he’d purposely moved slowly as he made love to her, because her attention was centered on Callie, not on herself or him.
By the end of that week, he’d watched Dara begin to drag. Dark smudges appeared beneath her eyes because of her long, emotional, intense late-night discussions with Callie. Unlike her sister, Dara was not likely to fall into the emotional trap of allowing her feelings to run her. As a doctor, she couldn’t do that and still be of help to her suffering patients. But Callie wasn’t built like that, so it took extra energy, emotion, and sheer physical endurance to reach Callie and get her to look at the necessary changes she had to put into place for herself.
It had been a long week for Dara, so Matt wanted to make these last seven days before he had to leave hers. Dara needed to heal from that intense family drama with her sister. The McKinley family was flummoxed by how to help Callie. Beau had become her anchor, and Dara was the chain attached to that anchor. Both of them had helped Callie out of the hellish guilt that she’d carry forever if she were allowed to do so. Dara and Beau had talked privately to one another on how best to pull her sister out of the notion that everything that happened to them was her fault. After all, it had been Callie who had persuaded a reluctant Dara to go out to that Afghan village with her. When things went sideways, Callie took all the guilt onto her shoulders.
Matt spent many hours talking with her sister as well. Beau helped a lot, too. Their grandfather Graham McKinley had been a Marine Corps sniper during the Gulf War. He had earned medals, including a Silver Star, for his black-ops heroism, which the world would never know about. He was instrumental in helping Callie reorient and see that her actions were forgivable. After all, she was not a trained military person, but rather a civilian with no training. And anyone in her place would have done the same thing. Between the three parties, Callie had finally emerged from that dark hell that had entrapped her. And Beau was there to welcome her back into his arms, love her, and support her.
The toll on Dara was something Matt saw daily, but he couldn’t say anything. He knew how devoted Dara was to her little sister. He was the same with Tal and Alexa. They were family, and when shit happened, families came together to support one another, no matter what it took out of them. This was one of those times for the McKinley family, but Dara had paid the steepest price, other than Callie herself. There were days when Matt could swear that Dara had given part of her life energy to Callie to help her survive. He’d seen other situations where a person’s soul or their emotions had been fractured, fragmented, or parts of it had been torn away from them forever. It was the worst kind of wounding in Matt’s opinion. He was lucky. He’d only experienced physical injuries, and the body healed up a helluva lot faster than emotions and minds.
But Matt knew now, more than ever, that love could heal the most egregious wounds in another person. And as Dara slept innocently across his body, the sweet smell of her skin an aphrodisiac to him, he knew that tonight, this was what she needed. He didn’t try to figure out why; he just tried to love her as completely as he could. And if that meant he didn’t climax, that was all right. Some things were more important than personal sexual gratification.
That was the last thought Matt had as he slid into a deep, healing sleep himself, the woman he loved more than life in his arms. He would never get enough of Dara, those warm feelings flowing through him like light chasing away darkness. She flooded him with her joy, taking him into a place where only promises of bliss existed and held him in their embrace.
CHAPTER 4
Dara awoke slowly, wrapped in a warm, loving dream of Matt holding her. As she slowly opened her eyes, she realized it was dark in the bedroom. Matt was curled around her backside, his arm beneath her pillow, his other arm draped protectively across her waist, hand against her belly. The sense of security, of being loved and shielded, flowed like a warming river through her. She had never feared being alone or being in a strange place until she started going over to Kabul at Callie’s pleading. Because she was a pediatric physician, and the Hope Charity orphanage desperately needed a doctor to examine the fifty children who lived there, Callie had talked her into it.
Those yearly jaunts always filled her with a sense that she was doing the right thing for the right reasons. By nature, Dara was a worrywart, and she knew it. She tried to tamp down her concern about the dangers of being an American woman in a country that hated women like herself, women who were different, who didn’t follow Muslim traditions. She worried about being attacked or shot or, worse, killed. She worried for Callie, who was over there six months out of every year, but Callie seemed to thrive on the edgy danger that always existed in that country. Dara did not.
She pressed her cheek into Matt’s biceps, her nostrils flaring, drinking in his scent, stirring her awake, stirring her sexual appetite, which he always triggered effortlessly within her, once more. Memories of loving Matt earlier came with the drowsy realization that she’d dropped off into exhausted sleep without giving him a chance to have his own climax. That popped her eyes wide open as she lay there curved with him, his large, lean, muscled body cradling her. She had never allowed that to happen before. They’d always loved one another fully and totally. What was the matter with her?
Groaning internally, Dara knew the answer to that one: her week of blistering emotional ups and downs with Callie and trying to pull her sister out of that shock and trauma she’d experienced in Afghanistan had exhausted her. Literally, Dara felt drained of lifeblood from that marathon emotional wringer with Callie. It had all been worth it, though, because she, Beau, and her grandfather Graham had united and supported Callie. Dara didn’t regret it, but now, she hazily realized she was paying for it. Matt had said that she was tired to her soul. At the time, she had laughed it off and shaken her head. Now she was feeling it, how badly that week of drama and emotions had pulverized her.
Lying safe and warm in his arms, Dara closed her eyes, her mind and feelings now awake. Matt had been right. She was fatigued on every level. She felt guilty that she hadn’t loved him in return before dropping off to sleep. She was a fair-minded person. She knew how to give as well as receive. It didn’t feel right or good that she’d taken from Matt and given him nothing back. Dara had a sensitive conscience, and it was the rudder that steered her ship in life. Matt didn’t deserve this. Not at all. He’d pleased her so well, and her body still vibrated in memory of that long, ongoing orgasm that had swamped the shores of her exhaustion, feeding her, helping to heal her.
“I can hear you thinking.”
Matt’s voice was gruff wit
h sleep, vibrating softly through her. She felt his arm tighten around her waist, drawing her closer to him. She could feel his erection pressed against her cheeks, and she hummed with need once more. “I just woke up,” she admitted, her voice thick and raspy. She skimmed his forearm with her fingers, then tangled them among his.
“I love you,” he growled, nuzzling between her strands of hair, finding her nape, kissing it, then licking the sensitive flesh and nipping it just enough to send skitters of sensation straight to her breasts and her hardening nipples.
Relaxing into him, Dara smiled and closed her eyes, pressing her head against his jaw above her. “I love you, too.”
“So? What were you chewing on? I could feel it.”
“I swear, Matt, you’re scary psychic.”
He pried one eye open, noticed it was three a.m. according to the clock on the dresser. “Remember, Grandmother Damia was clairvoyant. There’s a long line of seers in our family. People who can see in the dark, so to speak.”
She heard the amusement and teasing in his low, sleep-ridden voice. It felt so good to be held so closely by Matt. All her fears and her concerns melted away when she was with him. He fed her confidence with that undeniable courage and strength he possessed. “Did I really wake you up?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he rasped, nipping her nape again, feeling her quiver, feeling her satisfaction over the small pleasure he was giving to her. “When you love someone, you’re aware of them twenty-four-seven, Dara. That’s not a bad thing in my book; it’s a good one.” Matt stirred, releasing her, bringing her onto her back while he remained propped up on one elbow, watching her shadowed expression. He moved some strands of hair away from her face, caressing her cheek, leaning over, seeking, finding her lips. They were soft, warm, and she opened eagerly to him. Groaning, he hardened, reminded him once again that he needed a release. Her mouth was hot, wet, and as he slid his tongue in invitation against hers, she rolled toward him, her fingers moving slowly up and down his erection, sending him into an immediate heated spiral.
Never Enough: Delos Series, 3B1 Page 5
