by Nana Malone
“Let it play out. I wasn’t some creepy peeping Tom,” he whispered.
She frowned, but as he closed his eyes again, her lids fluttered and followed suit. She saw him grab Alejandro by the throat and subdue him. So that’s what happened to the third one. He’d saved her life without her even knowing.
Abruptly the images changed to one of a boy, he couldn’t have been more than sixteen. He resembled Garrett with the strong chin, deep-set blue eyes, dark sooty lashes.
Like a flip book, she flicked through images of the boy as he got older. Canvassed through the memories like a movie of Garrett’s life. When he left for the Army. His training. His background in chemistry and the disease that loomed over him. That’s how Peter had found him. He was one of the soldiers originally meant for Symcore, until Gentech went under and Peter was forced to take his soldiers underground. Creating a private army. Garrett had thought he was saving the world.
She tried to focus on the surroundings, but they were unfamiliar. The same handsome boy laughing while he played football on the lawn with friends. His eyes danced with an easy smile. Even with the burgeoning muscles of a soon-to-be man, he still looked young. Unlike others his age, he wasn’t gangly and uncoordinated, but quick and agile. A natural born athlete. He reminded her of Alex and the other guys.
Garrett was telling the truth. He wasn’t trying to kill her, but others were. Others who wouldn’t care about her heart. Others who would do the job assigned. Until Cassie and the team neutralized the threat, none of them could live free. They were back in prison. Much better accommodations than their last prison, but a prison none the less.
The images flickered again, and heat pooled between her thighs. Garrett’s mind had shifted to her living room couch. Even though the ocular response was imagined, she still smelled cinnamon and saffron. That’s what she smelled like to him. Heat and need flooded her body as she swayed towards him. Eager to feel his hands on her once again.
His voice was low and husky when he spoke. “So now you believe me?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but her vocal cords wouldn’t cooperate, so she nodded. Trying to tug her hands free of his, she wanted to put distance between them, before she ended up on her back underneath him again. She might believe him, but that didn’t change anything. What was happening to them was purely thanks to Peter’s experiments and what he did to them. It wasn’t real.
But Garrett wouldn’t let go. His thumb traced a circular pattern on the back of her hand. “Do you feel that? The buzz flowing through my body?”
Drunkenly she nodded, lulled into a stupor by his voice.
“That’s what it feels like when you touch me. It doesn’t hurt. It’s more of a surprise. But when I stop fighting it, it’s like a high. Like the best kind of foreplay.”
Garrett’s strong hand pulled her to him. When she didn’t meet his gaze, he tucked a finger under her chin and lifted her face so she had no choice but to look at him.
“Now do you trust me? I’m not here to hurt you. I’m openly here to help.”
“I need you to answer a question for me. I saw you swing into my place, but how did you actually do it and avoid my security?”
“I repelled with a rope I tied to the antennae on your roof, then swung over to your open window. Couldn’t risk a booby-trapped fire escape.”
“How was I supposed to know you weren’t a deranged serial killer?”
“Simple. You would have been dead by the time I got into your place.”
That pricked her ire. “You’re the one who’s lucky to be alive. I’ve toppled bigger than you.”
He chuckled, the sound flowing over her like hot fudge over ice-cream. Nervously, she licked her lips. She knew she had to let go, but the slow circles with his thumb put her under a spell. “So what now?”
The timber of his voice changed growing huskier. “I want to see if you taste as good as I remember.”
Symone sucked in a breath as Garrett pulled her to him and his head lowered. His eyelids fluttered closed again, and she gave into the sensation. Unlike their first kiss, his lips were soft against hers, barely brushing. When she finally relaxed and exhaled, he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her flush against his body. They stood toe-to-toe, thigh-to-thigh, hip-to-hip, and lips-to-lips.
On a sigh, she parted her lips, and his tongue sought entrance, teasing her bottom lip ever so slightly. A shiver skipped down her spine. Tingles danced to the tips of every strand of hair on her body, making her ache and yearn for more of his touch. Her arms shaking, she looped them around his neck, her ungloved hand hesitating before it caressed the back of his neck.
He lifted his lips from hers. “What’s the matter?”
Still amazed by how little her powers affected him, she let a small smile peek out of hiding. “I’m not used to touching anybody.”
His smile was slow. “Then you have a lot of catching up to do.” His lips met hers again, but gone was the gentle brush and explorative caressing. He took and demanded a response from her. Devouring her lips, he urged a response from her she couldn’t have hidden.
Heat sizzled through her veins, she tried to get as close to him as their position would allow, like he lit a match to her gas canister. She wanted to do nothing else but rub her whole body against his.
Growling, he bent his knees and scooped her up by her the back of her legs. With long strides, he marched them to the bed without breaking contact of their lips. Lowering her to the bed, he shoved the empty tray onto the floor.
“Garrett.”
He nuzzled her neck. “Yes, Symone.”
She hesitated for a moment not sure how to continue. Soon enough, he’d find out for himself that he was dealing with a newbie, so she might as well break it to him. “I, uhm, I’ve never done this before.”
Garrett drew back and blinked at her, cocking his head as if he hadn’t heard her correctly. “You kissed me on your couch. I see you remember how.” He stroked her bottom lip with his thumb.
She averted her eyes and tried to wiggle out of his grasp, but he just cupped her face with his hands. “Shh, it’s okay. No pressure. I could do nothing but kiss you all night, and it would still be the best night I’d had in years.”
She frowned, not sure if she could believe him. She didn’t want him to stop touching her. But it was probably safer if she stopped now. The way Morgan and some of the others talked about sex, it could possibly become an addiction, and where the hell else was she going to find someone she didn’t charbroil every time she touched them? If she stopped now, she wouldn’t have to regret this. But if I stop now, I’ll never know what this can feel like.
Garrett leaned in and nibbled at her lips. His hands held her face as they kissed, and the tender action made her melt from the inside out. She studied his features intently. If he’d let his hair grow, he would probably be in danger of being called pretty with those eyelashes. But instead, he looked like a killer with his shrewd eyes. What image of him was she supposed to believe?
“Are you okay with this, Symone?”
He stared down at her, his navy eyes intent, blazing with lust. He wanted her. And she wanted him. For once in her life, she wanted to do what felt good and damn the consequences. She’d been alone for so long. Tonight, she wanted to touch someone.
Symone tugged Garrett’s head down and fused her lips with his, raising her hips to meet the hard length of him.
A growl bubbled up from deep in his throat. He tugged at the hem of her wife-beater, untucking it from her jeans and exposing her belly. The moment his hands met with skin, her breath caught.
Every time he touched her, it sent a zing of pleasure to her core. His roving hands traveled up her rib cage. He muttered something that was part epithet, part homage as his thumb came into contact with the bare flesh of her breast. After leaving the main house, she’d grabbed a shower and changed before bringing Garrett food. She hadn’t bothered with her bra.
When he didn’t continue, she squirmed un
der him, and he chuckled. His thumb traced a circle over her nipple, and Symone arched her back off the bed in an attempt to get closer. She felt the peak stiffen in response as her core pulsed. When she groaned, he repeated the action. She gasped out his name. On his third pass, he tugged the nub between his thumb and forefinger, and she moaned his name as her hips rode his thigh.
With a curse, he yanked her wife-beater over her head. When her heavy breasts spilled free, Garrett’s muttered “fuck” made her blush.
“You are so beautiful,” he uttered as he tossed her wife beater aside and kissed her belly button. Tracing kisses from her stomach up her rib cage, Symone arched her back as each kiss drifted closer to her breasts. When his hot mouth closed over a nipple, she felt her core contract and release. Moist heat dampened her panties, and she rolled her hips into his. As he suckled one breast, his palm closed over the other.
Disjointed images flooded Symone’s brain as she struggled to capture and remember everything about this moment, from the weight of his hand, to the warmth of his body as he stretched over her, to how the calluses on his hands felt as they massaged her flesh. Everything.
But she wanted to feel him too. Wanted to touch. Wanted to feel his skin under hers.
Reaching around his back, she tugged off her other glove and tossed it to the floor. She pulled at his T-shirt and dragged the material over his head, exposing an expanse of bare torso.
Her hands tentatively roamed over the nape of his neck and his back, exploring the muscles of his deltoids. With each stroke she could feel him shiver. Lightly tugging at her nipple with his teeth, he mumbled, “Do you want to explore a little?”
Her eyes widened. “You don’t mind?”
He grinned and something stabbed at her heart. “Touch as much, or as little, as you want.”
Wrapping his arms around her, he rolled them both over so that she sat on top. God, he was big. Broad shoulders and a wing span like a swimmer. Thick muscles corded his neck and his broad chest. They rippled with every intake of breath as her fingertips glided over his skin. When her hands shifted down to his abs, he sucked in a breath and held it.
Immediately, she snatched her hands back. “Oh shit, did I—”
With one large hand, he grabbed both of hers and brought the back to his abs. “I’m not in pain.
It’s just when you touch me, all I can think about is where else I want to feel you touching me. Where else I need to feel your energy buzzing all over me and burying myself deep inside. I’m trying to go slow here. Let you take your time.”
Nodding, she let out a relived breath and continued her exploration, letting her hands roam over the hardened ridges of his stomach muscles. “So this is what they mean by washboard.”
He laughed.
***
Garrett stared up at the beautiful creature on top of him with breasts worth paying homage to. Her cinnamon skin glowed in the dim light of the room. With every glance from under her lashes, and every tentative touch of her fingertips, his whole body felt like it was on being stroked to full blaze. Vaguely, he wondered if spontaneous combustion was a myth. Add in the euphoric feeling that surged through his blood every times she touched him, and he was likely to come in his pants. But was he going to stop her? Hell no. For weeks, she’d haunted his dreams. He’d wondered what it might like to be with her, to touch her, to hold her. He wouldn’t give up this opportunity for the world.
Her blackberry-tipped breasts swayed as she shifted her straddle further down his legs. Her hands came into contact with the button on his cargos, and his cock throbbed and strained against the zipper. Involuntarily his hips rose, and he tried to school his breathing. He didn’t want to freak her out. From the moment they’d made contact, he’d done nothing but freak her out. Given the tentative bushes of her hands, she didn’t have a lot of experience. And he wanted to give her as much control as possible. He did his best to lasso the sleeping giant that was his raging libido.
His body, on the other hand, had other plans. When she unsnapped his cargos, his back arched, and he snatched a pillow off the bed, shoving it over his face to muffle the cry.
Her hands paused. “Should I stop?”
“Jesus, God, please don’t.” He might consider crying if she did. The zzzpt sound of his zipper going down made him wish he practiced some kind of zen Buddhist religion. If he could find his center, he might have a chance of lasting long enough to make love to her.
Slim-fingered, delicate hands grabbed onto the top of his pants and boxers and tugged them down. Or maybe not.
Scooting back, she pulled them down past his ankles, and he lay before her, naked as the day he was born.
Her eyes traveled from his toes up his shins, up to his thighs, and fixated on his cock.
Unable to not respond to the look of lust like she had written all over her face, his cock jerked, and her eyes went wide. She shimmied back up his body, straddling him again at the knees. She supported her hands on either side of him.
“You’re very big.”
He grinned. “I love a woman who speaks her mind.”
She cocked an eyebrow, then resumed her inspection of his chest, belly, and groin. When she leaned directly over his straining cock, her long hair brushed against his skin, and her breath floated over the rigid member. It only took too puffs of breath from her, and his control snapped.
His hands banded around her biceps, and he hauled her up against him so he could kiss her. Flipping her back on her back, his hands flew to the waistband of her jeans, and he all but ripped off the button in an effort to get to her skin.
Yanking down her pants he slid back up her body and wedged a knee between her thighs. “I assume since you’re self-healing we don’t have to have the diseases conversation. I have a condom, but I’ve been dying to feel you against my cock since the first time you touched me.”
She blinked at him rapidly, her tongue peeking out to moisten her lips. She opened her mouth to speak, and he halted her words with a kiss. “Shh. I just want to make you feel good. Will you let me?”
She trembled underneath him even as she nodded. Against his thigh, he could feel the moisture of her slick core through her panties. He tried not to think about how soft she would be. He needed to go slow. His cock, on the other hand, had a mind of its own and pulsed against her thigh.
He gave her a peck on the lips before tracing feather-light kisses along her jaw. When he nuzzled her neck, she giggled. When he went from muzzling to nibbling, she moaned. His hands enjoyed free reign of her breasts, testing the weight of the full globes, teasing the tight buds to pucker. Her hips rose to meet his every time he tugged on one of the dark tips.
Garrett placed open-mouthed kisses on her clavicle and her chest. Eventually making his way to her breasts. But no matter how much she shifted, he didn’t kiss her nipples. Not even when her hands tied to pull his head to the dark tips. Though he wanted to taste the chocolate-covered cinnamon tips again, there was somewhere else he needed to be.
His lips continued a path down her ribs to her belly button. When the tip of his tongue dipped into the tiny crevice, she parted her thighs on an exhale.
Symone dug her hands into his hair when he kissed his way to the top of her mound. He knew beneath the soft curls, he’d find what he’d been waiting for.
Lifting his head, he watched her expression as he parted her slick folds with his thumb. She widened her legs and transferred her hands to dig at the sheets. Gently circling the nub of her clitoris with his thumb, he eased one finger into her slick, dewy channel. Immediately, her muscles clenched around his finger, and a tingle started at the base of his spine. Shit. All he was doing was touching her, and he was already so near coming. He tried breathing deep and focusing on her pleasure. He could wait.
Slowly, his finger retreated then entered her again. When she exhaled, she whispered his name. The soft Garrett filled the silence in the cabin. All he wanted was to hear her say it again. He slid his finger inside her again wit
h an achingly slow retreat, and she whispered, “Oh, God.”
When he slid two fingers in, she stilled, and he paused to give her a chance to get used to the motions. She didn’t like his consideration. “Why are you stopping?”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I want—” She frowned. “I don’t know what I want, but I know I need you.”
He bit back a curse as he kissed her thigh. “You’re not ready yet.”
With slow precise motions, she rotated her hips under his hands, coating his fingers with her juices. “I’m ready. If you just—”
With her hips doing half the work, Garrett began moving his fingers again. Gently making love to her while his thumb stroked her pleasure button. Her hips began to move in time with increasing tempo. She rode his fingers, and Garrett was mesmerized, by the pink flesh of her core surrounding his fingers. The surge of need nearly blinded him, and he hastily removed his fingers, ignoring the protest from her, and instead, replaced them with his tongue.
Symone gasped and sat up in the bed, but he didn’t stop, just held her legs wide, splaying her softness to him. While his thumbs parted her folds, he lapped at the sensitive flesh as she quivered around his tongue. The more he lapped at her, the wetter she became. She tasted sweet and spicy like her scent suggested, and the combination was heady.
Garrett could tell the moment she gave into the sensations. She lay back against the sheets and held his head in place while trying to widen her thighs. Tracing circles around her clit with his tongue, he drove her higher and higher, until her whole body tensed.
Her inner walls quivered against his questing tongue, and her breathing came out in labored puffs. Placing a gentle kiss on the sensitive skin of her clitoris, he drew himself back up her body, using his elbows as support. She blinked up at him with wide eyes.
“Wow.”
“You sure do know how to stroke a guy’s ego don’t you?” he drawled
