by Marie Harte
The ropes of muscle in his neck tautened as he muttered, “I wish to hell it was, geek.”
“Oh yeah, squid?” If he was going to yank out the stinging nicknames, so would she. “What the hell’s going on?” she went on. “What have you done?” She shot back to her feet. “You’re the terrorist who broke in and demanded Aimee call me back from Tahiti? You’ve had this whole place in a lockdown of fear for the last day and a half?”
“Nobody’s been a captive,” he countered. “Except me.”
She snorted. “Looks like you found ways of staying amused.”
His features crunched into a frown. She hated when he did that. He was too damn cute when he was perplexed. “You were really in Tahiti?”
“The point?” she countered. “Can we stick to it?”
“Why? Is there some new fish there that can fuck five whales at once?”
“Answer me.” She used the demand as an excuse to advance on him. Like she was going to confess that the four feet separating them was as torturous as a medieval stretching rack for her. The pain would only go away when the distance did. Dammit, dammit, he smelled so good.
She forced herself to stop when realizing she was about to seize the front of his black T-shirt and bury her nose in it. But that wouldn’t have been enough. His taut, tanned skin would be next, then God knew what else. He tensed as if plucking the thought from her brain. She stared, mesmerized as his arms tightened into ropes of brawny beauty.
Why did the asshole have to be so flawless?
And why did fate have pick this moment to give him the insight of a wizard?
“Don’t stop.” He accompanied the growl by wrapping one of his huge hands around her wrist. His touch…was magical. Charlotte gasped from the electricity of it, especially when he guided her hand to the center of his chest. “You need it. Don’t stop, geek. Do it. Touch me anywhere. Everywhere.”
Hell. The planes of his pecs were like steel plates beneath her fingers. “I don’t understand,” she rasped. “You were just as glad as I was when we wrapped the research early and were able to get off your damn ship. You never wanted to see anyone from my team again. You—”
“Charlotte.” The utterance was vicious, a perfect match for the grip he dug into her hips, He jerked her tight, slamming their thighs, their crotches, their heartbeats together. Hell. His scent brought her the most perfect peace…and the deepest hunger. “What do you want to do here? Chitchat corner—or me?” As he pulled her shirt free from her jeans and scraped his hands up her bare back, he buried his beautiful face in her neck. Her skin came alive as he inhaled deeply. When he did it again, he added a guttural moan, pouring a hot thrill down her spine…then lower. “Fuck. Oh fuck, finally.”
Her lungs shuddered in a quest for oxygen. Every spec of her body battled every neuron in her brain. “Finally…wh-what?” It was exhausting just to get those two words out. She panted hard, coaxing his essence deeper into her senses, making her mouth water for the taste of him. Before she could think to control the action, she opened her mouth and—holy shit—licked him.
She braced herself for his rebuff. Instead, Kaden groaned and grabbed the back of her head, locking her face against the base of his neck. “Yesssss.” The sound vibrated through him, zinging his taste along her tongue like a pack of pop-fizz candies infused with buttered rum. “That’s it. Let it take over. Let it drown you. We need this. Now.”
His husky voice was sheer hypnosis on her senses. Charlotte fought the pull of it despite dipping deeper under by the second. “Need…what?”
What the hell was this?
She hated him but craved him. They’d always gotten along worse than Congress. A shark and a porpoise. His world was black and white, hers was a giant crayons set. She didn’t want to be thinking of him like this. Craving his smell, his body, even his damn sweat like the only things she’d ever want again.
She was terrified. Of him, yes—but mostly of herself.
“I know.” Once again, it was as if her thoughts had transmitted straight to Kaden—not a help for the whole “terrified” thing. But when he brushed her hair off her forehead then kissed her there, as if he yearned to smooth the tension from her mind, she was an instant puddle of goo. “I know it’s scary, Lottie. I’ll explain—but later. There’ll be time for words later.” He licked his way along her hairline. Pulled at her hair with his teeth. “Right now, we just need…” His words halted as he sank to his knees, dragging her to the floor with him. “Damn. Yes.”
She couldn’t peg the final screw he twisted free in her resistance. The way he called her Lottie with such tenderness? The new power of his hold, keeping her safe as he bore the brunt of their descent? The fire line of his lips over her face, enflaming her more?
She didn’t care. Nor did she want to. She told him so when his mouth brushed over hers, immediately lifting her head to silently beg for more. A sound rumbled from his chest, seemingly part jaguar and part dragon, continuing into the kiss he branded into her.
Hell. She’d heard of kisses that did this to people. The lost equilibrium. The twirling room. Thoughts narrowing to a single point of contact. She’d written that crap off years ago. It belonged to minstrels who’d roamed the earth centuries ago, with nothing better to do with their time. Whimsy. Fantasy.
Now her reality.
She responded to fate’s chuckle with a protesting whimper, like that was any use against Kaden’s incredible mouth. She tumbled deeper into his magical mist when he parted her lips to plunge his tongue to hers, slamming her with the full impact of his taste. Perfection. She sighed from the smoky yet buttery decadence of him, collapsing like a cardboard box in a hurricane.
Papers skittered everywhere as they fell fully to the floor. Kade twined their legs together, amazing her even more with his size now. Was he always so huge…everywhere? Had two years fuzzed over her memories that badly? Or had she been blinded by his uniform and his arrogance when the team was part of his duty log at the base?
Once more, none of the answers seemed to matter. She just needed to see more.
Amendment to the directive. She needed to touch more.
He tore his mouth away as she tunneled her hands beneath his shirt, feverishly exploring him. He grunted. She gasped. His back and shoulders were just as solid and perfect as the rest of him. Tiny animal whimpers peppered the air, and she suddenly realized they came from her. She lifted her gaze, found the dual fires of his waiting, and gasped again. For an amazing instant, all the harsh angles dissolved from his face. The look remaining on his features was so gentle and adoring, even breathing became impossible.
The expression disappeared as soon as he pulled off his shirt.
But so did the last holdout of her control.
“Dear God.” She barely managed it while running her hands over the mountains of his shoulders before joining them over his heart, which greeted her touch with a thousand-hammer salute. Kaden’s gaze darkened. He bent his head as if to kiss her again but bypassed her face to gather one of her fingers into his mouth. Without taking his eyes off her, he sucked the whole thing in.
Charlotte’s chest clutched. His tongue, lapping into the sensitive crevice between her fingers, tripped a switch of arousal wired to the deepest core of her sex. She parted her lips, trying to take in air, but every gasp brought more need for his smell, his beauty, his power.
More. Yes. More.
Without stopping to think anymore, she circled her other hand to the back of his head and dug her fingers between his dark brown strands. Kaden let her finger fall from his mouth, letting another growl fall out as he did. The sound filled the air and prowled into Charlotte, compelling her to yank his head back down, her mouth eager and parted and waiting for him. He lunged in as soon as their lips met, unrestrained and violent, conquering and painful, consuming her with his taste and his force. She answered his assault with a high cry, letting it swell up her throat and empty into him.
It was exactly what she wanted—but the beginning of wha
t she needed. If her body was a fire before, it was a barely-banked explosion now. Every fuse to that bomb was wired into her intimate core, needing the release there. She was nothing but expectation and energy, thoughts burned away, logic completely fried. Even the room vanished. The world was only Kaden, the only creature on the planet who could ease her agony. She bucked and begged and writhed, a slave to instincts old as time yet powerful as Creation. Clothes, always an annoying afterthought to her anyhow, were now the enemy. She pulled at his, sobbing in frustration at the ties she couldn’t remember how to use. He jammed a hand down to help her, shoving aside his pants and briefs. She whimpered her thanks when he continued to her pants, slipping closures free before his hand slid under her panties and around her backside.
“Ohhhh…” She drifted her hands lower, as well. His torso gave way to buttocks that were hard and tight, constricting with his effort at control until her hands flowed over him, causing him to shudder and shake.
“Holy fuck. Lottie…oh, yeah…”
Her heartbeat sped to match his. Her rough gasps joined his harsh breaths. To feel and hear what she did to him…it fed her lust like rocket boosters, billowing her need higher, even higher…
“Mmmm.” The sigh was thick with her pleasure, yet her desire. She repeated it while biting the burnished skin at the base of his throat.
“I know, sweet geek. I know.” He clenched one hand tighter to her ass while sliding a finger through her sex from behind. “Damn. I can smell every drop of you now.”
She jabbed her head up and down in agreement. His scent, full of masculine tang and primitive lust, hit her like a blowtorch. She’d never smelled anything so amazing. Her senses were a war zone, blasting and burning and screaming. Like a soldier stumbling through that chaos, she reached out, barely recognizing what she did—only knowing her hand needed to find the searing rod of his desire.
As soon as she wrapped her hand around him, her fingers were drenched by the white-hot drops on his broad crown. They thickened as she rubbed. A shudder claimed Kaden’s body. A choke slammed off his lips.
From her own throat, words tumbled that she barely recognized but could no longer control. “I need this.”
Kaden dipped his face to align it with hers. His eyes were molten, his jaw hard as granite. “Where?” he demanded. “I need to hear you say it, Lottie. Tell me where you need it and this cock is yours.”
Under any other circumstances, his graphic words would have driven her palm to his face. Three years ago, when she’d first boarded the Sparta and he’d been assigned to attend the team’s needs, it was clear he’d have preferred being assigned latrine duty. She’d held her tongue and tried to be nice. For the first two days, she was a walking page from the Miss Manners Guide to Winning Over Your Asshole MP. But sailor boy had his mind set. That was fine by her. She’d arrived with six weeks of experiments to get through, and the Navy had only granted her three. Wasting time for social grandstanding simply hadn’t been an option. Too bad his delicate-wittle-feewings got dented in the crossfire. It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried—on numerous occasions—to thaw his anger. Her efforts had been shut down with suspicious glowers and dismissive sarcasm from the man.
Fine. He’d chosen to write her off as an aloof geek so she’d returned the favor with a label for him. Human iceberg. Finally, she’d ignored the beautiful bastard altogether, not looking back when she debarked the Sparta for the last time.
Now she was nearly naked on her office floor with the man, pawing him like a lioness in heat. This was so insane, it had to be a dream.
Pay dirt.
That had to be the key. A dream. This wasn’t happening at all. She’d tripped over something on her way into the room, passed out from the fall and was now concocting this whole thing from some Freudian outreach of her subconscious.
As relief flooded her, so did the freedom of knowing she could say it now. Thank God.
“Inside me.” She circled the length of him with her fingers, loving how his fantasy pre-cum felt beneath her fingers. “That’s where I need your cock, Kaden. Inside me. Now. Please!”
Chapter Two
‡
KADE SWALLOWED HARD as her plea filled the air—and him. And holy shit, how he meant that.
He knew how his body would want her from the second she entered the room. He just hadn’t expected the rest. Idiot. He’d forgotten the mesmerizing blue of her eyes, serving as windows to her magnificent mind. And the captivating curves of her lips, another outward sign of her thoughts, whether she liked it or not. And the grace in her movements. And the fire in her comebacks. And all the other things that had made it so hard to stay away from her during the first time they’d been forced into the same space together.
It’d been easier to remember all the screwed-up shit—the memories that made him stop his truck three times in the ten miles between here and the base. All the moments she’d stiffened whenever he came near. How those lips had tightened, betraying the patience she forced with him. And that strange light she got in her eyes, as if he were something between an alien to fear and another fish to dissect for her ridiculous pheromone project.
Pheromones. Fuck. If he had a buck for every eye roll he and Wick had given each other about the concept. Was she serious? Did she think the mating scents of carp were the key to changing the goddamn world?
Of course, Dr. Sinclare’s haughty attitude had only spiraled their derision. Behind closed doors, they’d named it things like “the fabulous fish fuck party” and “save the carp dicks.” They’d even taken to naming some of the creatures in Charlotte’s tanks, rationalizing that even gigolo fish deserved some dignity.
Little had they known how karma was keeping serious score. And plotting its mind-blowing revenge.
Which was why he’d restarted the truck and pushed himself to keep driving. Ordered himself not to lose hope—or his mind—when he’d arrived here and smelled just the remnants of her on the air. Compelled himself to stay calm when they told him she was on a mandated vacation. The news had been a blow but somehow made perfect sense—and gave him hope. The little geek had been going through a torture damn close to his own, and probably driving everyone crazy because of it. He’d seen as much in her co-workers’ eyes, which had given him another rung to pull on. Maybe Charlotte wouldn’t think him totally insane when she saw him here. Maybe she’d even started an effort at figuring this shit out. Maybe they’d even work their way to—
“Fuck!”
A miracle like this.
He repeated the exclamation against her ear, reacting to her tightened hold on his cock. She knew exactly how to touch him already, her fingers molding to all the most sensitive parts of his length. It was heaven. Salvation. Sanity for the first time in weeks. Why had he waited to do this?
Because you’re a stubborn dumb shit, that’s why.
Every syllable fit. He thought he’d be able to hold out, that the virus would give up and pass him by. He’d be the exception to the rule. He’d triumph over the fucker with the power of obstinate fury, become the first to beat the odds and walk away, able to tell all the others that all hope wasn’t lost—that those three weeks aboard the Sparta hadn’t really ruined their lives.
Stupid. Stupid. So fucking stupid.
The symptoms had fooled him at first, sticking to the mild side for several weeks. But overnight, the hammer had come down. The whir of the refrigerator woke him up like Reveille on a loud speaker. He had to go for two haircuts in one week. He was certain his skin got washed in the wrong temperature and shrank a couple of sizes.
Then there was the larger issue. The much larger issue, pounding day and night from the burning stalk between his thighs.
And karma, with her wonderful sense of humor, gave it to him good. No faceless ghost lover for his version of the infection. His fevered fantasies had a starring lady, complete with eyes blue as the sea, a temptress’s bow of a mouth, and a tantalizing shock of jet-black hair. And oh yeah, her skin. That incre
dible china doll skin. Whether he admitted it to the world or not, he’d already spent hours fantasizing about that pale silk beneath his fingers—even three years ago. He might’ve written off the woman underneath it, but her skin was a beacon to his cock.
And now she started to tear at her shirt, feverishly needing to show him more.
Karma had finally decided on a little mercy for him. Thank fuck.
He groaned his gratitude while once more sealing his lips to Charlotte’s. He was also thankful for the few dots he’d been able to connect so far, linking the virus—or whatever this shit was—back to that visit from the intrepid scientist and her gang of geeks. It was a good thing he had an OCD thing about never throwing away keys, either—though reopening the bay on the ship the team had used during their pheromones study had at first been a bust. All he’d found were scribbles in a notebook, an empty Twix bar wrapper, and a sweater, still redolent with a woman’s floral scent. On the morning of his refrigerator wake-up alarm, he’d retrieved the sweater again. That was when he knew, with cruel certitude, that Charlotte Sinclare was the fix to his jinx. His answer had been a string of profanity he wouldn’t unleash on his worst enemy.
Now? His tune had definitely changed.
Give me another, Mr. DJ. Maybe another two or three or four.
As he sank his teeth and tongue deeper into her mouth, tasting every layer of her essence, that lusty little ditty became a more urgent appeal. She tasted so goddamn good, like cherries coated in expensive liqueur, the kind that made a guy feel like a king from the first sip. The problem was, he didn’t want to just sample her. He wanted the whole bottle and then some.
“Kaden?” Her aching plea deepened his intoxication. “Help me. Please. It hurts. I feel…oh God, am I dreaming? Maybe I just need to wake up…”
“Ssshhh. I’m gonna make it better. I promise.”
He issued it against her lips, before licking the groove between her lower teeth and her bottom lip. She sighed, and he eagerly sucked in the gift of her delicious breath. Fuck, he couldn’t get enough of her. A shred of logic kept stating this was all simple biochemistry, but somebody needed to tell that to his bone marrow, his skin cells, and especially the agonized helmet of his cock. He managed to keep the thing out of harm’s way while shoving her pants free from her body. After that, as he settled his hips into the soft cradle of hers, all bets were off.
