by Mary Hughes
Tammy brought my tuna melt with a brilliant smile for Glynn. “Anything else? We have a full range of coffee drinks. Steamy hot and wet.”
Annie on a trampoline, didn’t she ever let up? Even if Glynn wasn’t interested in her, he was still a guy. She lived where he was staying. All she had to do was offer him turn-down service, and he’d be slipping his peppermint between her sheets.
At the thought, I bit into my sandwich with a snap of teeth.
“Junior and I are fine,” Glynn said. “That will be all.”
“Later, then.” She gave him a wink and sashayed away.
I chomped more sandwich. Fine. She and Mr. Brooding Welsh Sexmonkey could do the nasty. I didn’t care. I masticated furiously.
Glynn’s eyes stuck on my mouth. As I chewed, the blue got darker and darker.
Finally he clamped his lids shut.
I took another bite. “What?”
“I’m seeing you doing that to my cock.”
My mouth fell open. I remembered I’d been chewing, swallowed, then let it fall open again. “Wouldn’t that, um, hurt? Chewing, biting teeth…really really sensitive, er, flesh?”
“I wouldn’t care.” He shifted in his chair. “Anything’s better than this bone-deep pain.”
I set down my sandwich. Whoa. He wanted it as bad as me. But what could we do? I was phobic of commitment and neither of us were into slam-’n-lam.
I took another bite of sandwich, more frustration than hunger in my chomp now. Glynn finished his Red Special, throwing it back with what looked like equal frustration. I tossed my half-finished sandwich down.
“You’re done?” He didn’t bitch about me not cleaning my plate, just extracted his wallet and cast a couple fifties on the table. Even with my mondo-order, that would leave quite a tip for Tammy nova-smile. Maybe he was hoping her door would be open, since mine wasn’t. He’d lit my fire pretty damned fast. He’d light hers even faster since her pilot was already burning.
Picturing that, I slammed out of the café.
Mr. Long Legs caught up easily.
We walked the block in silence. Our hands were jammed deep in our pockets. Not to keep from touching each other. I wouldn’t have touched that hard chest, those ripply abs…yeah.
At my door, I turned and kicked up my jaw to say something snarky. Definitely not for a kiss, much less tongues tangling bodies melding hips pounding, but he was already stalking away. Good.
Except I hadn’t gotten an answer about vampires or the kidnapper-luring plan. Damn the man’s mysterious, provoking, tantalizing, arousing… I clamped my thighs tight to shut off my insane desire. That only managed to kick-start desire into me want now.
I jammed my key in the lock, threw open the door and stomped inside, more than ready for a fight with the folks. So naturally the hallway was dark and empty. Snoring from the parental flat confirmed I’d go to bed with my full load of vitriolic heat. I stomped up to my room. It didn’t wake my parents, but the two-by-fours spat a satisfying amount of dust. Dammit, Glynn itched for me and I burned for him, but we disagreed where it mattered most. Couldn’t go two minutes without arguing. I’d probably pushed him toward Tammy.
In my room, I tore off T-shirt and jeans. So what if Glynn got his buzz from Ms. Caffeine? I was glad. It meant no entanglements, nothing between me and my dreams. Which would be wet dreams…my breasts swelled too big for my bra, and a definite raw tingle invaded my lacy panties.
Damn the man. He could have Tammy with the tug of one big finger, but I was alone. Only my right hand, small and cool in comparison to his… Double-damn him. Just one night, one door, one orgasm, and already he’d raised my standards impossibly high.
I needed to get away. I brushed my wall, touching an eighteenth-century map of the British Isles, petting the Irish Sea, which lapped the coast of Wales…
Argh. I didn’t need Glynn; I didn’t need anybody. Not for companionship, not to fulfill rainbow dreams and especially not for this. I flopped onto my bed, spread my legs and slid fingers under damp lace.
A growl at the window snapped me erect, my hand entangled in lace and my heart thudding. A shape loomed against the glass like something crouched there. Something big. And muscular.
Like Glynn.
Couldn’t be. How’d he get up here? The fire escape was a rollaway, currently rolled. Unless he could leap three full stories, it had to be a cloud shadow. It couldn’t possibly be him out there. Watching me.
Watching me satisfy myself.
Not Glynn, but it sure made me hot thinking about it. My anger slipped as I imagined his sapphire eyes on me, growing darker as I got wetter. His growl, pure male beast. I took a stroke and another. I imagined him kissing me as I stroked. A moan bubbled up from my belly.
The growl revved rougher. The form at the window blurred, like mist. The shadow solidified inside my room into a very real Glynn, stalking across the floor.
Chapter Seven
Glynn stalked to the bed where I lay, thighs spread, vulnerable in my thin lace and nothing else. He stopped at the foot of the bed, belly rapidly undulating with harsh breaths, like he’d been running. My belly rose and fell in rhythm.
Glowing eyes speared mine. He shucked his jacket and let it fall to the floor. My breath sucked in and held.
He snagged the hem of his tee and raised it, slowly, revealing hard abs ripple by ripple. He peeled the shirt past ribs framed by flared lats, over a cliff of a chest with taut ruby nipples. The buff mounds danced as he stripped the tee over his head and tossed it.
I swallowed.
He mounted the bed, stalking even here, rolling in on hands and knees like a panther. Raw male strength drove me back until my spine pressed against headboard. I panted in anticipation.
He thrust his fingers into my confined hair, holding my head, but I was already tethered by his stunning gaze, the violet fire of his lust.
A moment beat between us, pregnant with excitement soaring so high it was near terror.
Nerves pushed me to lick my lips. His eyes fell to my mouth and he growled, low and soft and feral. Desire skittered through me, an electricity both thrilling and deadly. He was so close I could see the perfection of his skin, the fan of black lashes. His nostrils were flared, his lips slightly parted.
Glinting between their chiseled male perfection were two sharp canines.
I sucked in a breath. “Gly—”
He cut me off by kissing me hard, crushing my mouth with his. He invaded me with his tongue, hot thrusts of bold power. Flame to my fuse, heat stoking heat, he wasn’t coaxing my response but demanding it.
I loved it. Desire rushed hot in my veins. I was so hungry for him that I wrapped my legs around his hips. It pressed my panties to my sex.
They weren’t just moist, they were sodden.
That shocked me enough to drop my legs and slap my palms onto his chest, to push him away.
His pecs were boulders sheathed in satin. I had never felt muscle like his—lean, rock-solid, covered in warm cream.
Instead of pushing, my palms slid over his chest as he plundered my mouth. My muscles melted and my body trembled, and I felt my control going. Yielding.
Surrendering to lust, like my mother. There’d go duty and rainbow dreams both.
It strengthened my resolve and my muscles. I pushed. “No.”
He stopped kissing me, but didn’t move an inch despite a damned hard shove. “Did you say no?” His breath played warm on my throbbing lips.
“Yes. I mean no.” I gritted my teeth. “I mean stop.”
He raised his head. Yellow streetlight glittered in his gaze. He stared deep into my eyes. Despite my mouth saying no, my eyes were probably screaming yes-yes-yes.
Thankfully…unfortunately…he listened to my mouth. After a small eternity, he blew a sharp breath. “Very well.”
He sprang from the bed and flew out the window. Leaving me hotter and hungrier than I’d ever been in my life.
“Damn it.” Despite making him stop, I leaped after hi
m. My body and mind were waging serious war. At the windowsill, I grabbed frame, dragging in hard breaths. I’d wanted him to stop, but not to leave.
My blood was boiling, my skin itchy, my whole body swollen. And my heart…I didn’t know what was in my heart except that I didn’t want it to end badly like this.
Dammit, I didn’t want the complications, but I wanted him.
No. I had to slay the sins of my mother. I had duty and dreams. I was stronger than this, stronger than her.
Yet a need so deep it made me shake, a desire so strong it burned, pushed me after him. I leaned out the window.
This was insane. He was gone, and it was better that way. No. I had to go after him. It nearly tore me in two.
Glynn’s footfalls sounded on the sidewalk, heading away.
My hold on the sill broke. Need won out over duty, pushed me onto the roof. I scrambled out, skittered to the edge. “Glynn, come back!” Cautiously, I poked my head over the edge of the roof. Then my body. Then not so cautiously, I leaned out as far as I could.
I lost my balance. Scrabbled. Felt myself fall.
Terror sheared through me. Three stories splat onto a Meiers Corners-solid concrete walk. I’d be a Junior-size trash bag of shattered bones.
A hand cinched me back, spun me. Glynn filled my vision, his eyes violet fire.
He also filled my roof crenel, his bare shoulders smashed to shingle on both sides. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, woman?”
“Where did you go?” I flung back, gasping. “You were practically crawling into my mouth and then you were just gone!”
“What happened to ‘stop’?”
A pounding shuddered from inside, beneath us. Glynn snarled, pure predator.
“It’s Pop,” I said. “Hitting his ceiling with the broomstick.” I had a momentary flash to Otto and his ever-present broom. Wondered if it was a family thing, like maybe all the little Stieg kids got one for Christmas and played shopkeeper instead of war.
Going insane hurt. “My parents are awake. We need to be quiet.”
Glynn gave a single sharp shake of the head. “I need to be gone.”
“No.” I took a deep breath. “No, I need you too much.” I grabbed his hands, looked deep into his eyes and committed. “I want you inside.” I burned crimson. That sure sounded like more than an invitation into my room. Stupid Freud.
His eyes glowed a violet so bright it was painful. “You don’t mean that. You know what will happen. You can’t mean to invite me in.”
I pulled another deep breath, shuddered with the force of it. “Yeah. I do.”
His hands tightened on my arms and he skewered me with that intense stare. “Then let’s be clear, shall we? I’m going to screw you, Junior. Screw you in absolute silence. Are you sure that’s what you want?”
Was I sure? Hell no. And hell yes. And since I was damned either way… “I want you.”
He bundled me into one arm and leaped into my bedroom, shut the window one-handed. No more words. He flung me onto the bed, climbed on after and caged me with his huge body.
Biting my lip, I forced myself to relax. Whatever happened now had been my decision. I’d have to live with that.
Yesterday Glynn had been a gentle lover. Sweet, thoughtful, taking it slow, at least to start.
Not now. The wild beast had been restrained too long and ripped free. He spread my thighs and crushed my lace-covered sex with an open-mouthed kiss.
I arched into the mattress. Throttled a shriek. Incredible heat flooded me, his breath and mouth and roving tongue. He licked lace, rolling his tongue, slapping and pushing until I was spread flat. Until each heated breath, each stroke of tongue caught all of me, tender inner flesh to sensitive clit. He licked and kissed until I whimpered. Until I dug my fingers into his thick hair and pulled.
Until I clutched his head with my thighs.
With a soft growl of triumph he pulled away. I mewed at the loss, but he’d only freed himself to tear my panties from my hips.
He thrust both hands under my butt, lifted me and really got to work.
He swiped my sex relentlessly, stroking and grinding with his muscular tongue, scouring me with hot licks until I tossed my head with the need to scream.
Aside from brief, soft growls, he made utterly no noise.
It was frightening; it was incredible. Ravished to within an inch of my life in absolute silence. Tiny rasps of breath and slaps of tongue were the only indication of the passion raging on the bed. I swallowed shouts of pleasure, viciously repressed keens of desperation. They echoed inside my head, caroming off my skull and gaining strength until I thought my head would crack with them.
Denied an outlet, the insane response he wrung from me overwhelmed me. In utter silence he drove me up a peak of lunacy—and swept me over.
I came silently, clutching his head. Screaming in my mind, yes Glynn yes—but not breathing a word.
Slowly I calmed. A tenderness rolled over me. An amazement. I want you so much, Glynn. My heart yearns for you.
But in the silence, none of the words were unleashed.
So there was no need to explain when I opened my eyes and found his, warm and blue as a tropical sea. I hadn’t shouted his name at the peak of passion, hadn’t murmured tender words after.
I hadn’t said anything that revealed my temporarily unguarded heart.
I had no need to explain at all.
He cuddled me after, long enough that when he kissed my forehead, got to his knees, and unzipped his jeans, I had my guard back up. Mostly. Muscles played in his chest and arms as he shucked pants, and—sweet mystery of economics, his erection was a gold card with heavily compounded interest. Kneeling over me, he fit that monster between my thighs.
“Wait! You’re not wearing a condom.” I kept my voice to a whisper, though I wanted to shout it.
“Babi. I carry no diseases.” He pressed the glans into my wet opening like a soft kiss. “And you can’t get pregnant.”
“You’ve had a vasectomy?”
“No.” His straining muscles shouted how torturous he found it not to thrust home. “But Junior, I’m telling you. You cannot get pregnant by me.”
“I’m just supposed to take your word for that?”
His eyes clenched shut. When he opened them, they’d gone pale blue, the pupils constricted. “Another no?” He leaped from the bed, swearing viciously in a whisper that made it even more raw. He paced the small room, hissing expletives. Came to a sudden halt, spine arched, fingers digging into the small of his back. “Bollocks. Are you saying stop?”
I didn’t want him in pain, but potential pregnancy was a deal breaker. “I’m saying no penetration without protection.”
Before I finished the last word, he was on the bed and covering me, so fast he seemed to blur. “There are other things we can do.” He buried his mouth in my neck and nuzzled. “Other ways to find satisfaction.”
My eyes closed at the feel of his lips, his teeth sharp on my sensitive throat. “I do owe you an orgasm. Two, now.”
“Then lie back.” He eased his weight onto me, kissing and nuzzling and sucking the sensitive skin until I arched helplessly into him. His erection pulsed thick between us, hot silk running the length of my belly. I thought about the “other” ways he could find satisfaction. In my mouth, with licks and sucks…or between my breasts, sliding in the slick perspiration of my own arousal, or…
He thrust against my pubic bone. The hard, driving shock banged pleasure through me. Yeah, that worked too.
He drove against me over and over, until his cock snarled in my pubic hair, until each thrust tugged flesh, wrenching against my swelling clitoris. “Glynn, wait. I want…” I clutched his biceps, trying to slow him. I wanted to give him pleasure. To drive him insane while I remained cool and in control.
To maybe open his heart as he’d opened mine.
But he rode my mons with increasing fervor and my protest went unfinished. Control went out the window and
my hips beat up against him, seeking more.
His nuzzling became frantic with nips and licks. “I can smell your arousal, babi. Hear your pulse quicken.” He groaned, soft, deep. “I must taste you.”
“You already tasted me.” The hot, broad swipes of his tongue, the heat of his breath was driving me up that spiral of insanity again.
“Fully…your essence… I must taste all of you.” His arm circled my shoulders, protecting me from the headboard as he slammed harder, each thrust juddering through my entire body. His breath boiled across the skin of my neck as he nuzzled my throat. “Please, babi. Let me taste you.”
He sounded so desperate, so unusually needy and vulnerable. Like his heart might be unguarded, just for an instant… I raised my chin, tacit assent.
“Ah, Junior. Thank you.” He touched tongue to my throbbing pulse, butterfly-light. I stretched into it, enjoying the sweet flutters—
Pain stabbed my throat. Sharp, hot, so intense it was pleasure. I throttled a scream. Jerked out a hoarse rasp as I exploded in a cataclysmic orgasm.
Glynn thrust one last time and joined me. Hot liquid poured onto my belly in muscular spurts. His mouth moved over the pain/pleasure in my throat, almost feasting in sensual abandon. A dark rumble underscored his kisses, pausing when he swallowed and resuming when he opened his mouth to lick my throat.
A dark rumble like a big cat. Like Glynn was purring.
Connections fired in my brain. Unnaturally handsome men and sated friends and Dirk saying vam—
Glynn’s head jerked up. His eyes went far away, iced.
He swore, softly. With a final lick to my neck, he sprang from the bed, started jamming himself into his jeans while I was still processing the fact that he was gone, again. I nearly leaped after him, but with that same instantaneous sort of shimmer he was back, wiping my belly with his T-shirt. “Your parents. On their way up.”
“Both of them?” I squeaked it.
But now I’d heard it too, the telltale squawk of the two-by-four I’d deliberately weakened to warn me. A second squawk, lighter. Jeez, it was both of them. I only got both for the serious stuff. (I was twenty-five, but they delighted in reminding me they’d always be my parents and I’d always be their little girl. Never mind that I half ran the business. I’d never be too old to spank.)
