Chapter 2
Resting wasn’t an option. It occurred to Dane that he needed to prepare for his mother’s arrival.
The stars and moon lit the night in full force and Shana hadn’t returned yet.
He’d retrieved various weapons and tools from his treasure box in the basement and had them laid out on the table, sorting, cleaning, assembling, and placing them strategically.
Mixed in with the guns and ammo were assorted electronics like surveillance-detection devices and cell-signal blockers. As he stood testing one of the audio surveillance detectors, the back door creaked open and Shana walked in, glistening and magnificent.
Desire roared through him like a fire burning paper soaked in gasoline.
He dropped the sensitive device on the table and stared.
There was no way to hide his reaction. Not that he was inclined to waste his energy trying when he had better things to do with it.
She stared back for a scorching moment then turned to the sink and splashed water on her face.
His eyes stayed riveted on her, watching splashes of water drip down her neck, watching the flexing of her muscles, the roundness of her bottom and that special curve that flowed along her hip and caved in at her waist. Without planning or thinking, he moved forward on a primal heat-seeking mission.
She turned to him and waited. Her eyes sizzled, but she was still and silent.
If she thought to discourage him then she should have known better.
He wouldn’t be deterred with less than a slap.
The fear of botching their relationship, of losing her, had been blocked by his other needs, his other more immediate fears.
“Is that a gun in your pocket or are you happy to see me?”
She didn’t smile, but he did. And his happy body part twitched, waving hello.
“Want company in the shower?”
“Who says I’m taking a shower?” She held up a hand when he closed in on her. He pressed against her, sandwiching her hand. He was hoping she would, but she didn’t squirm under the weight of him leaning against her where she backed into the kitchen sink.
He held onto the counter at her sides and breathed her rich earthy scent. It was the usual heady smell times ten.
“If we could bottle Eau de Shana we’d be billionaires.”
He dipped his head and licked the salty sweat from her temple, then down to her earlobe where he nibbled.
The shiver in her went straight to his cock, engorging him against the zipper of his jeans and against her.
He pushed his hips forward into her pelvis.
Now she squirmed and he concentrated on not letting his knees buckle with the jolt of pleasure.
“You trying to take me here in the kitchen?” The breathiness of her voice robbed it of any critical lash.
He wrapped his arms around her and claimed her mouth, pulling her hot, sweat-soaked body in tight, letting the heat and scent and feel of her against him take over his world, block everything out. She was better than the best drug ever invented.
More addicting. More dangerous.
“Take me.” Her words rumbled through him, strong, heartfelt and like they were coming from a place deeper than here and now.
He straightened and pulled her with him away from the sink, out of the kitchen. Scooping her up as he kissed her neck while she had her head thrown back and her eyes closed to preserve their private world, he carried her the last steps to his room. To their bedroom.
He couldn’t think of it any other way since the first time they’d made love here.
He kicked the door open and then closed behind them before dropping to the bed with her across his lap. Her arms circled his neck and she dipped her mouth to his ear to whisper.
At first he didn’t understand her murmured words, didn’t care what she said, only felt the intimacy of her breath against the tender skin behind his ear, the feathery touch of her hair on his face and neck. Then he heard the words.
“I dare you to make love to me.”
Sparks of anger, lust, righteousness, and fear ran through him, but the lust was too far gone. The lust was riding on the head of something bigger, darker, stronger, that he didn’t want to see, that he brutally shut out.
Instead he looked into her eyes and dared her to see whatever lurked in his soul.
And took her face in his hands and plundered her mouth, enveloping it in his, touching every corner inside and out with his tongue lashing her and biting at her lips.
She protested once and he’d tasted blood, but he didn’t stop.
He licked it away with care and then he lowered his mouth to her neck and then to her magnificent breasts.
*****
When he took her nipple in his mouth and bit down with perfect exquisite pressure, she cried out, but not in pain or surprise. It was a deep guttural satisfaction of a burning need assuaged as his teeth sent a spiraling pleasure through her, winding her into that steep tense ascent to ecstasy.
She tried to tell him. Tried to say how much she loved how he made her feel, how much she loved him. But there was no room in her tumbling mind, no spare brain power for her to make the words come out of her mouth. He rendered her incapable of speaking. He always did. So easily.
His mouth, moist and hot and sucking, traveled down her body, over her ribs and caused every muscle in her abdomen to contract, creating a hollow where he descended, leading to her belly.
He didn’t stop. She raked her fingers through his hair, squirmed under the touch of his fingers as they parted the lips of her swollen center.
In a quick reflexive move, he reached out and covered her mouth as she cried out His fingers covered her lips, creamy and tasting of her. He was protective of their cocoon, of keeping them inside their bubble.
But there was no way to stop the moaning and twitching of her body as he lashed her wildly sensitive nub with his tongue.
She held his head, gripped his strong shoulders and let him push her to the dizzying, mindless spot of timeless blackness, the place where she couldn’t hear her own cry of pleasure, where every muscle, every molecule of her body went into a shock of ecstasy, suspended.
And then the waves of spasms, rippling sweet joy through her center seemed to go on forever. While he kissed her everywhere, all the way up her body until he covered her with his body and captured her open mouth with his swollen creamy lips.
He murmured through the kiss and she murmured thanks and praise and love and wonder.
When he stopped and lifted his head, she looked into his eyes and they were all dark glassy pupils, hungry and demanding.
She reached down and held him in her hand.
He was hard and dripping and pulsing and a bubble of excitement exploded inside her and whatever else she had intended to do didn’t matter.
Now she glided him inside her as she lifted her hips and he pushed forward.
“Greedy girl.” He whispered near her ear.
She clamped her hands on his naked butt, squeezing the taut muscles under the smooth hot skin, urging him forward and back.
He teased her with long slow strokes so that his tip pulsed at her opening and she tightened around him as he glided back inside.
He had exquisite control and she wanted to tell him how magnificent he was, but she only moaned and murmured.
Until he moved faster. And then with a violent spasm of pure joy she clenched around him, bringing her legs up and closing around him as if to never let him go, as if to hold him there in the endless orgasm spiraling her out of control, making him part of her. Keeping him there with her forever.
He lost his control in the end, when she thought she had nothing left, when she thought her heart couldn’t beat any harder and her chest heaved with her breathing.
He came in a violent shuddering gush of moaning pleasure.
He didn’t stop moving, he didn’t stop coming, he was taken away and he kissed her hair, her forehead, her eyes as he pulsed and gushed inside her.
All she wanted to do for the rest of her life was hold him, with him like this inside her, completely spent and with them suspended in that timeless place of orgasmic pleasure. Not in the real world. Not in a dream world. Somewhere in between.
The place where she owned him.
*****
The phone rang. He was instantly aware of the sound. Instantly awake and aware of Shana next to him, that it was still night.
Even as much as Dane was disinclined to pay attention to the mobile phone as it moved with a slight vibration on the second ring, as much as he loathed interrupting his vacation from trouble, he led the kind of life that didn’t allow him that luxury. He could never afford to ignore a call. Ever.
Without enthusiasm, but with a sense of burden, he reached for his mobile on the bedside table and swiped his finger across the screen, bringing it to life. Without bothering to see who was calling.
“This better be good.”
“It’s so good it’s bad,” Cap said. Dane smirked in the darkness, felt Shana stir and he put a hand on the round curve of her hip next to him.
“You’re up late.” He should have been alarmed but he waited for the reason, for the bad news, not wanting to waste his energy on premature excitement.
“The ATF never sleeps. I got a call.”
Dane sat up in bed and disentangled himself from Shana.
Cap went on when Dane said nothing. “From the East Coast office.”
“Shit.” That laid odds that Dag was near.
“More importantly, they agreed to share their file with me.”
“What the hell did you tell them?” What had Shana told Cap?
“I asked questions. They know where I work. They figured I had a reason for asking.”
“What did you tell them?” Dane controlled his annoyance. Cap had been trying to help. He summoned all his patience—which wasn’t enough to spit.