Chapter 3 #2
The sound of strained breathing and her gasping pleas filled his head.
It could have been him struggling to suck in air while he desperately filled his mouth with her nipples, the flesh of her breasts and then glided his tongue and lips down, following the lead of his greedy hands over her stomach, flat and twitching where her hips rose and fell to a primal beat.
He lifted his head a moment to look at her face, to see her in the throes of frantic rising sexual pleasure. At that moment, he wanted nothing so badly as to see her face while she lost everything to her orgasm. Wanted to feel her come on his fingers.
Skimming one hand over her skin past her navel to the most tender skin below, clean shaven, almost bald with only a light fuzzy coat, he felt the swollen folds, heard her whimper as she thrust her hips up into his hand.
He smiled as he watched her face, eyes closed, lips slightly parted, beads of sweat glistening, head arched back.
Slowly he traced his finger around the pulsing mound until her breathing sounded more like panting and then he separated the hot wet folds, the creamy come seeping in drips from within her He touched her clit, lightly.
It spasmed and she cried out before he could clamp his other hand over her mouth.
“Take it easy, girlie.” They weren’t alone and the thought cooled his ardor a fraction. But when he trailed his finger around her nub in small circles and she gasped for breath, clenching her teeth, his desire returned, swelling him and hardening his cock to close to capacity.
He continued moving his finger, slow at first and then fast. He watched her bite her lower lip, sucking it in with her breath. Then she opened her eyes, glassy with uncontrolled lust and stared at him. Then he smiled again.
In the instant before she came, he clamped his hand over her mouth and muffled the pleasure, felt her breath against his palm. He took her in, the flush of her face, the wisps of sweaty hair at her temples, the column of her glistening neck arched in ecstasy.
Then he removed his hand from the creamy hot nest and moved over her, and his cock took the welcoming place, gliding like a sleek bullet into her fiery velvet vault of pleasure.
She pulsed and closed around him as he moved in and out, slow, mouth clenched, holding on as long as he could to the feeling of rising to the summit before he fell apart.
Shuddering violently, he collapsed onto her, eyes shut, feeling her face, kissing her mouth, her cheeks, her sweating forehead, her hair, breathing in her scent in gasps. And murmuring.
In those dangerous lust-soaked murmurings where his mouth worked without benefit of his mind, all the emotions flooded out, bypassing his clear consciousness. Her hands caressed his back and then his face and then she stopped and held it.
He opened his eyes. The vision of love blazing from her sparkling green hooded eyes slammed him back to full consciousness in one galloping heartbeat. She clenched around him. The exquisite warmth made him smile, drained the rising panic from him that he always felt when she looked at him that way.
It was a forever-after look, one that spoke of death do us part.
Those were sentiments he wanted no part of, sentiments he had no right to.
He rolled off her and lay on his back next to her. She turned on her side, head propped up on a hand, and faced him with a devilish smile, the kind that said she had something on him, a hidden secret.
“You say the most interesting things when you’re—”
“Under your spell? Never mind. It’s not me talking.” Shit. Those murmurings.
“I bet you don’t even know what you said.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. His heart took a few leaps before he settled it down. No way did he want to know. He forced himself to look into her dangerous stare.
“There’s a reason for that.” He watched her face come to understand that he wanted no part of his love-soaked ramblings. She closed up, throwing a black cloak over her emotions, all the luster and mischief leaving her eyes.
Hell. He hated this part. He wished he were the man she wanted him to be. At least he thought she wanted him to be that forever man. Maybe not. Maybe she wanted to conquer him and then step on him on her way out the door.
“Let’s talk about tomorrow.”
“Business.”
“Yes, business. We’re partners. We’ll take our mothers to the beach to surf. We’ll enjoy ourselves, but we’ll be vigilant. And Jake will be there.”
“Will he be surfing too, because—” “No. He’ll stay on the beach with Tillie and Claire.”
“Tillie and Claire. Sounds like a TV sitcom.”
“I’m okay with that. As long as it doesn’t turn into a crime drama, I’m good with it.”
She threw an arm over him and, as much as he hated to admit it, the possessive gesture comforted him rather than bothered him. Relaxed him into a deep, satisfied sleep.
The melodic ring tone was unfamiliar to Dane, but that didn’t stop the sound from bringing him fully awake and alert within one and a half seconds. He automatically reached for the Glock under his pillow, but it wasn’t there.
Shana pressed against him. Damn. She’d made him move it to his dresser.
He slid from bed. The ringtone sounded again, ratcheting up his alertness level to the equivalent of five cups of coffee.
He glanced at the clock on his night stand.
There was no scenario in which a ringing phone at two a.m. did not cause a person concern—even a normal person who wasn’t in the kill-or-be-killed business for too long to think any other way.
Slipping from bed against the primal pull of Shana’s warmth, he slid fully into stealth warrior mode, responding to a different primal pull.
Survival. As he emerged from his room and slid down the hall into the office-turned-bunk-room, he watched Jake, standing and awake, put the phone to his ear.
Dane shot across the room in time to hear the voice of Dagmar Hunt.
“Hey, Jake. Thought I’d call in on an old friend to let you know I’m in the neighborhood.”
Dane snatched the phone from Jake’s hand. The singsong voice Dag used made his stomach turn with the implication. The man sounded like a psycho.
“Maybe we’ll run into each other,” Dag continued.
“That could be arranged,” Dane said.
“What the hell? If it ain’t Dane the Demon. I thought I was calling your sidekick—the surfer boy.” Dag’s voice reverted to something approaching normal.
“Where are you? Maybe I’ll drop in.”
Dag laughed.
“I don’t stay anywhere. Unlike you.” Dag paused, then whispered, “Unlike your mother—tell her I said hello.”
A blinding flash of pain shot through Dane’s head.
The line went dead.
Sam stood on his right shoulder and Jake stood in front of him. When Dane met their gazes he knew they’d heard everything. Sweat oozed from his pores as if the tension had squeezed it from him.
“You think he’s on island?” Jake asked.
Dane didn’t know if Dag was here yet, but if he wasn’t, it sure as hell wouldn’t be long before he was.
Standing in the doorway, Shana spoke. “Let me guess. Dag called.” The normalcy and familiarity of her voice, sounding matter-of-fact, calmed him. The sharp pain in his head subsided to its normal place between his shoulders. He flexed his back.
“He’s invited us for drinks at the Lucky Parrot.” Dane lied and pinched Jake’s arm before he gave it away with a look. Sam had no problem with fabrications.
Shana gave him a skeptical look. She knew him too well.
“Wherever you go, I go.”
“You’re on house detail. Close protection. Side-by-side. Siamese.”
She looked at him without expression for another beat, but he knew she was evaluating. She flipped him the finger, turned away and disappeared, likely back into the bedroom.
At least he hoped that’s where she’d gone.