Chapter 9 #2
He laughed, smiling down at her. “You make that sound like a problem.”
Her eyes welled with tears. “It is.” She swiped at a stray tear coursing down her cheek. “I’m supposed to be an assassin, a tough, take-no-flak person who can operate on her own. Not a blubbering woman who can’t control her emotions—especially when those emotions concern you.”
Rogue stepped closer and pulled her into his arms. “I’ve wanted to do that all day.”
She laughed, her fingers curling into his shirt. “Then why haven’t you?”
He tipped her chin up with his thumb and stared down into her eyes. “I don’t know. But I think it’s time to kiss the woman I find myself falling madly in love with.”
Keira closed her eyes, shocked to hear Rogue’s confession. “How can you be certain it’s love?”
He brushed his thumb across her chin and lip. “When you know, you know.” He pulled her into his arms and claimed her lips with his. When he came up for air, he admitted. “I care for you, Keira.”
She shook her head. “I care for you, too. And that terrifies me,” Keira said.
Rogue frowned down at her. “Why?”
“Because everyone I’ve ever cared about in the past has been taken from me. My parents in a car crash. My sister drugged to death. I don’t know if I could handle losing someone else.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I don’t know if I could handle losing you.”
He stepped closer and pulled her into his arms. “Then we make sure no one gets lost. We get Lily out. We take down Viktor, and we survive, together.” His mouth descended, taking hers in a kiss so tender and defining that Keira shook with the intensity of her reaction to him.
She raised her hands to lock them behind his neck, pulling him closer, opening to him and giving as much as she took from the kiss.
Keira pressed her body against his, wishing she could feel all of him, skin to skin, nothing between them but air and sweat.
His hands slid beneath her shirt, skimming across her back, searing a path from her waist to her shoulder blades.
She lowered her hands to the hem of his shirt and slipped her hands beneath, wanting to feel the warmth of his skin beneath her fingertips. Wanting him to take her, to make love to her like she was special, not just a convenient vessel to be used and cast aside.
Rogue raised one of his hands to her cheek, cupped it, kissed her tenderly and then stepped back. “I want you, Keira.”
“I want you, too,” she whispered.
“But not here. Not now.”
Keira moaned. “Why not here. Why not now?”
He brushed his lips across hers. “I want to give you more time to know me, to trust me, before I take you to my bed and make sweet love to you.”
“I know what I need to know about you, Rogue,” she said, her hands skimming across his chest, beneath his shirt. “I know you would be gentle.”
He nodded. “I’d show you how beautiful it can be between a man and a woman. That you could set the pace, tell me what you wanted. I wouldn’t take you as if I owned you. I’d worship your body, take you to the brink and make you cry out your release before I ever satisfy myself.”
His words stirred her body into a heated frenzy. She wanted him to do all that and more. “Take me now, Rogue. I want all that.” She drew in a shaky breath and let it out. “I want it now.”
Rogue captured her cheeks between his palms and kissed her long and hard. “You tempt me beyond reason,” he whispered.
“Then please. Give in to that temptation,” she begged.
Rogue stared down into her eyes. “I can’t guarantee I’ll be gentle enough. I don’t want to hurt or frighten you.”
“I’ll take my chances,” she whispered and kissed him. Then she took his hand and led him into the cabin, past the living room, the bedroom she’d assigned to Jade and to the rear of the cabin, where a king-sized bed took up most of the bedroom and a starlight shone through the window.
Once they were through the door, Rogue closed it and pulled her into his arms. “Keira, this might be too soon.”
She pressed a finger to his lips. “If you’re afraid of hurting me, let me take the lead.”
He nodded. “I’m all for that. You set the pace. You set the limits. You can stop at any point.” He drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “No matter how hard it is for me to scale back, I will.”
“Thank God. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could wait to touch you.” She smiled, grabbed the hem of his T-shirt, dragged it up over his head and tossed it into the corner. She ran her hands over his naked chest. “And for you to touch me.”
He tugged her shirt slowly up her torso.
She raised her arms above her head.
The shirt slid off and dropped to the floor.
Keira reached for the button on his jeans and released it.
He returned the favor and then slid his hands into the waistband, cupping her ass.
Her pulse slammed through her body, carrying molten blood south to coil at her core. She shoved her jeans over her hips.
Rogue smoothed them over her thighs and downward, dropping to his knees in front of her, where he unlaced her boots and tugged them off.
She stepped out of her jeans and stood in her panties and bra, on fire and in no hurry to quench that fire. She wanted to burn. With him.
Rogue, still on his knees, slid his hands up between her legs, skimming her inner thighs and coming to a stop at her panties. He looked up at her. “We can stop here, if you want.”
Her breath lodged in her chest. “No,” she whispered.
“Don’t stop. Please.” She hooked the elastic band of her panties and shoved them downward.
“I’m clean,” she blurted. “I’ve been tested.
And I’m on birth control.” She laughed nervously, struggling to get her panties further down her legs.
“Not because I have sex often, but to control my cycles.”
“I have protection,” Rogue said as he took over and eased the garment the rest of the way down, his knuckles skimming across her skin, sending shivers of excitement racing throughout her body.
Once her panties reached her ankles, Keira stepped out of them. She reached behind her back, unhooked her bra and let it slide off her shoulders and down her arms. She’d always thought standing naked in front of a man would be embarrassing, even demoralizing.
But the way Rogue looked at her made her feel powerful and desired in a good way.
Rogue rose to his feet, his fingers tracing a path along the curve of her hips upward to cup her breasts. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered as he bent to brush his lips across hers.
“You’re not keeping up,” she said against his mouth.
He chuckled, toed off his boots, dug his wallet out of his back pocket and tossed it on the nightstand. Then he shoved his jeans and boxer briefs down his legs and kicked them to the side. Then he gathered her into his arms and held her close, skin-to-skin.
Keira reveled in the heat. Her desire grew, spread and consumed her. She couldn’t get close enough to this man.
“We could just hold each other,” he suggested. “It doesn’t have to go further.”
Keira moaned. “The hell it doesn’t. I’m on fire. I want you.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I want to feel you in the most intimate way.”
Rogue’s hands circled her back and swept lower until he cupped her ass and lifted her.
She wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her across the floor to the bed, his cock nudging her sex, which creamed in anticipation.
He eased her gently across the bed, lay down beside her and leaned up on his elbow.
She stared up at him, suddenly shy and uncertain, a new feeling for one who’d been trained to kill.
“Whatever happens from here is completely up to you,” he said, trailing a finger along her cheek, down the length of her neck and lower to brush across the swell of her breast.
Keira arched her back, pressing into his hand, loving the way he touched her and wanting so much more.
When he stopped, she frowned. “Don’t stop what you’re doing.”
“You like that?” he asked as he brushed his finger across her breast, making the nipple bead into a tight knot.
She sucked in air and forced it past her constricted vocal cords. “Yes,” she breathed.
For several minutes, he fondled her breasts, cupping them in his palm and gently pinching her nipples.
The sweet torture made her body tense and undulate.
She wanted him to take more, move lower, touch her there.
She captured his hand and guided it downward, across her ribs, past her belly button, to the juncture of her thighs.
But she didn’t stop there; her fingers curled around his and urged them into her warm, wet channel.
She raised her hips as she thrust his fingers and hers into her sex and held them there, the pleasure intense and irresistible.
He cupped her down there and stroked her channel with his fingers, thrusting in and out until she writhed beneath him. The more he touched her, the more she wanted him to.
Was this what lust and longing were all about? Was this what making love should have been all along? He treated her and her body with respect.
Keira gave herself to him, unafraid, trusting that this man wasn’t like the others. He was gentle, caring and concerned about her pleasure, not just his own.
He swirled his fingers in her juices, parted her folds and stroked her clit.
“Oh,” Keira moaned. “That’s... That’s...”
Again, he stroked her.
“So good,” she whispered. “Do...it...again.”
He chuckled and teased a few moments more and then moved down her body, kissing a path along her neck and lower to capture a breast in his mouth. He sucked at her nipple, then flicked his tongue across it until she arched beneath him, sensations intensifying.
When she thought she couldn’t handle more, he moved to the other breast and treated it to more of his tender torment.
She could barely breathe by the time his mouth released its prize and moved across her ribs, his fingers moving at the same time to dip back into her channel.