Chapter 6
The bedroom door clicked closed. Heat and desire filled the room as if it were some exotic torture chamber where lusty gases were piped in.
Shana breathed it in. The weight of Dane’s need drove into her before he touched her.
But when he did, a mere stroke of his fingertips along her jaw, made her heart beat faster.
The zing of millions of nerve endings shot with electricity ran through her, hitting her belly and rushing to her center.
He pulled her close and his hand branded her back. She arched and pushed her hips into him, feeling the swell of her pussy against the hard rod of his cock. The heat scorched through their clothing.
“What about…” She couldn’t finish her sentence with the pulsing desire clogging her throat.
“Acer? I don’t care.” His hoarse voice sounded more like a growl against her whisper. The fleeting thought of the wolf and Red Riding Hood fell through her mind.
He slid his hands down to her hips and pulled her close, grinding himself in.
“This is what I care about.”
She saw the reflection of her wantonness in his dark glassy pupils. He would be rough. He was in that mood. The thought caused her mound to pulse and liquefy. Her chest tightened as he pushed her onto the bed.
He lowered his face to within a breath of hers so that she could see the raw violent need.
But she saw behind the mask to the fear.
Knew it was there. Knew why. She moved her hands up his back to hold his face, caress his jaw.
The tension there slowed her need to quench her own desire and made her want to give him whatever he wanted.
Herself. Her body and soul. Her love most of all.
“You know I love you,” she whispered, and held his eyes with hers. Kept his face in her hands until she saw the softening in his eyes, felt the softening of his jaw, the tiniest bit. But she’d take it. He was a hard man.
“Prove it.” His eyes went back to a shiny hard and dark look filled with menace. He’d doubled down on his mask.
Her heart tripped into overdrive. He would be rough. Her mind went blank with excitement as he took a fistful of her hair and dipped his mouth to claim hers, biting her lower lip, plunging his tongue to claim every part of her teeth, tongue, and lips.
Her breathing was ragged as his full weight covered her.
She felt him reach down with one hand to unzip his pants and free his cock.
He pushed her dress up and pushed a knee between her legs as he tore at her panties.
She gulped air and raked her fingers under his shirt, down his back, then pushed at the waistband of his pants.
As he tugged at her panties, she lifted her hips and he yanked them down to her knees.
She heard her gasping breath, the incoherent sounds coming from her throat as he positioned himself between her legs, forcing them apart. When he ran his hand up the inside of her thigh, he plunged a finger inside her then withdrew it. She cried out in shocked pleasure.
“You need me more than I need you.” He whispered the words in her ear in that tight voice that signaled leashed anger and fear. She felt confusion mix with her excitement.
And anticipation.
His hot slick cock pressed against her thigh and she squirmed and pushed to feel it on her clit, to feel it inside her.
Dane held himself from her. He lowered his mouth to her neck and bit as he came away and knelt, lowering himself down her body.
She held his shoulders, clenched the cords of his muscles in her hands as he brought his mouth all the way down to the vee of her thighs.
Anticipation held her in an aroused state, almost painful in its intensity. She moaned and tried to arch, tried to touch herself, but he held her back, yanking her hand away and then clamping her legs to the bed with his hands.
“I want you to feel like I do. I want you to be desperate for me.” His face was turned up, hovering over her.
She watched him but she couldn’t speak, couldn’t make herself form words from the jumble in her head, like an overheated circuit board.
It was too filled with overwhelming paralyzing sensations.
He lowered his head and spread her legs further. Then he lifted her ass so that her pussy was like a golden apple in front of his mouth. She watched without breathing, as he took a bite.
She didn’t hear it, but she knew she screamed.
Zillions of tiny white dots zinged around the blackness inside her head.
The first things she felt when her heart started back up and the switch in her head turned back on was the sharp painful pleasure of her exploding clit, the warm creamy cum oozing from her, the spasms of unbearable ecstasy in her center.
And Dane, his weight on her, his voice soothing his hands all over her, his mouth near her ear whispering. It brought her back until she felt his cock against her tummy between them, full and throbbing.
“Dane.” It was all she could say, all she could think.
“You’re okay.”
“I…” She couldn’t speak anymore. Didn’t need to.
He took his cock in his hand and moved it to touch her clit with the tip. She cried out with the overwhelming shock of it, with the explosion racking her. Her breathing was hard and fast. Her entire body quivered on the edge of oblivion. But he didn’t stop.
He pushed inside her and she tightened everywhere in a reflexive spasm, drawing her legs up.
The move forced him deep inside her as she clenched around him.
She felt the hard, slick length of him glide into her until it hit her wall.
She wanted to keep him there, still and enormous and foreboding, to take one full breath, to come down from the panic of her fried nerves.
But Dane was in control.
*****
He pulled his cock from her with as much ferocity as he’d pushed inside until his slick tip touched her clit, then he pumped inside her again.
And again. Whatever need drove him, whatever fear, he’d given into it because there was love surrounding him, holding him, until he felt weak.
Blood and mindless base need roared in his ears.
His hands pulled her forward, his fingers sinking into the flesh of her ass.
As he breathed in gulps of air, trying to keep up, trying to outpace the driving fear, sweat trickled and he lowered his head until his face touched hers and his eyes focused on hers.
She opened her mouth and darted her tongue out to lick the sweat from his upper lip.
He shattered into pieces as if he were a mountain of granite exploded by a stick of TNT.
Bucking up inside her, he collapsed on her as he pulsed, coming in waves of painful euphoria.
He heard her name. It was his own rough desperate voice calling it.
He surrounded her with his arms and his full weight on her as he squeezed her to him, to be part of him. To never let her go.
Weeping kisses onto her face, he gradually became aware of her hands caressing his back, of her soft murmurs of love in his ear.
Of the tears on her face.
*****
Dane got out of bed before dawn to drink coffee and let Shana sleep. He told himself it was the considerate thing to do. But he knew it was cowardly because he felt too raw and vulnerable.
He made a pot and contemplated how he could push himself past this fear of vulnerability he had with Shana.
Because he knew sure as hell it was the only thing she cared about, the one thing she was testing. The one test he needed to pass.
By the time she rose, he was with Acer at the table.
They all pretended nothing had happened behind their bedroom door the night before.
But all through breakfast, Dane, who was a master at pretense, couldn’t stand the strain of it and fought his instinct to walk out his back door and take off in his boat for somewhere else.
This was his frame of mind as he stood drinking his third dangerous cup of coffee.
It was a foregone conclusion that Dane would end up punching Delbert Parrish, ATF agent or not, in the mouth. That’s what Dane thought as he spied out his front window through the slats in the blinds to see Delbert and his deputy, Pratt, pull a car across the end of his driveway, blocking his Jeep.
“Shit.”
Acer stood. Shana came out of the bedroom and to the window, standing close to him to see the problem for herself.
“It’s Delbert Parrish on a mission,” she said.
“What do you suppose he wants?” Acer sounded wary. Dane knew he suffered from the same aversion for federal agents as all his old special ops team had. Acer tried avoiding them, but unlike Dane, when he couldn’t, he had a tendency to placate.
“Nothing good. But I’m going to find out lickety-split and get rid of him.” He eyed Shana.
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t invite him.”
“Time for me to leave. I’ll take my things and exit via the basement. Keep in touch.” Acer stood and left the room, clearing his things out, then disappeared through the basement door.
Dane watched Del and Pratt walk up the driveway toward the back door. After a few beats, giving Acer time to do his ghost act, Dane went to his back door and threw it open.
“What do you want?”
“Mr. Blaise. You don’t mind if I come inside with Agent Pratt.
” Del paused on the back stoop for a beat while Dane stood, making him wait.
Then Dane turned and walked back into his kitchen.
He placed his coffee mug carefully on the counter as Del pulled open the screen door and stepped inside, Pratt right behind him.
Dane leaned back against his sink, next to the drawer with his gun in it. Not that he planned to use the gun on a federal agent, but he liked that it was there in case.
“I’m doing you a favor today. I’m not arresting you for interference in a criminal investigation or obstruction of justice because my sister begged me not to.”