All for You (21 page)

Be kind of fun to get in a fight with the police, to be honest, but since he was out of the Legion now, they might actually be able to arrest him, instead of just sending him back to his Colonel to get reamed out, put on some god-awful
corvée
duty, and then given a suspended sentence because the Colonel was secretly smug at how his police-defying wild Legionnaires enhanced the Legion reputation.

The casement window was still open—she hadn’t locked him out at least—but for a second he thought Célie herself was gone.

Then he spotted her, curled up between her bed and the wall, her arms wrapped around herself as if she was trying to turn into a turtle and shrink into a shell.

Hell.

He swung into the room, and she sprang up, forgetting she still wore only her bra and leather pants, her hands going to her hips. “You have one hell of a nerve.”

“I know.” He stripped off his own T-shirt so they matched.

She gasped and then just went stock-still, staring at him.

Fine, maybe he did pause at that stare so he could drink it in, glad to have his muscles already pumped for her from the climbing.

She swallowed. Her hands left her hips to press to her lips. “Oh, wow,” she whispered. “Oh, wow, you’re …” She looked dazed. “You’re really, really hot.”

Nice to know that part at least had worked out for him. He gestured to himself, to that feel of his muscles tightening still more to show off for her. “All for you.”

She licked her lips.

Well, then. Some other assholes might have gotten a chance at her before he did, but he’d damn well make sure she never wanted anyone else.

He’d wipe them so far out of her mind she’d never again even
think
sex without thinking him.

He put one knee on her bed—it was true you could barely move in her apartment without falling onto the thing—and her eyes widened so much, he just went with that, dropping his hands to the mattress, too, and prowling across it to her. “Want to touch?”

“Jesus.” She slipped one of her fingers into her mouth and bit it, hard.

He tsked and took it from her, slipping it into his own mouth and sucking on it soothingly.
There you go. Put yourself in my hands. They’ll treat you far better than you do.

She made a soft sound, and heat surged in that merciless wave through his body. But … fuck it. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d overcome his body and his mind and endured. He could do anything. He could take his time and make her lose her mind.

Make her lose all memory of anyone who had ever touched her before him.

“You can touch anything.” He drew her hand from his mouth and pressed it to his shoulder. “Anything you want.” He drew her hand down over his chest.

Her tongue touched her lips.

“Or that, too.” His gaze zeroed in on her mouth. “I’d love for you to lick me.”

“Joss …” A dazed whisper. It had to be the most beautiful way his name had ever been pronounced in his life.

“I’ll trade. You can have this.” He gestured to himself. “If I can have all this.” He reached for her, grazing his hand over her ribs to rest on her hip, tugging her gently toward him. “All for me, Célie.” He looked up at her from his kneeling position on her low bed. “All mine.”

“I—I—my body is actually mi-ine,” she managed, but she was following his tug, swaying in closer to him until her shins hit the edge of the bed.

“You don’t think it’s a fair trade?” he coaxed. Her breasts were only a topple away from his face. All he had to do was tug a little more until she lost her balance and fell toward him. Soft, full breasts, pressed up by the black lace of her bra. In his fantasies, he’d tested all possible colors of bras out on Célie’s body, depending on his mood. But his two favorites had included this one, the wannabe-tough sexy black from her Goth period, and a bright, hot pink like she really was inside.

“A fair trade for this?” she said incredulously, and her other hand came to rest on his other shoulder. “Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror?”

Apparently not the same way she looked at him now.

“You’re so pretty, Célie.” His hand slid up to cup her breast. Soft and full, the lace getting in the way with its tantalizing extra texture. God, her breast felt so much better in real life than in his imagination.

“No, I’m not,” she said warily, as if he’d just made himself suspicious by saying so.

“Cute. Full of life. Strong. Glowing.” Darling. How to explain it? “Beautiful.”

“You’re delusional.” But her face was crinkling up so funny, her eyes so wondering. “Joss, I think you really did turn me in your head into something I’m not.”

“How’d you imagine me?” He pulled her closer, breathing on her lace bra. Her pulse throbbed in her throat, and he rose a little on his knees to open his mouth over it, touching it with just the tip of his tongue.

“Here,” she said.

Damn it, he’d walked right into that one.

But when he pulled back, she didn’t look like someone who was trying to stick another needle in him. She looked like he felt most of the time: as if finding the one word that expressed what she meant was a careful struggle.

“Here,” he repeated, and drew her hand down his waist, over stomach muscles he tightened just to show off. “All right. I’m here. From now on.”

“Joss.” Her free hand flexed into his biceps. Then she lost track of whatever she had been going to say, her gaze going to her hand as she flexed again, and then again. “Wow.”

“Unless I burn up right now. It’s a possibility.”

“Umm … yeah. For me, too.”

Hell,
that
felt good to hear. Heat surged through him, higher and more urgent.

“I knew I’d never manage to make you work for it,” she said despairingly.

She had a really weird idea of working for it. Maybe he should show her some training videos from the Foreign Legion sometime. “I’ve worked. But I can work harder.”

“It makes my tongue tingle just looking at you,” she whispered. “You are
so hot
.”

Hell, yeah, did he like the idea of her tingling tongue.

He liked it so much that his body wanted to explode.

“I’m not going to screw this up,” he told her, flatly. He needed to approach this like any challenge in the Legion. Just because something was impossible was no excuse for failing.

“It does seem unlikely,” Célie said wonderingly, her fingers running a line of fire up his biceps to his shoulder. “God, Joss.” She squeezed his shoulder.

Sweet, small pressure against muscles that didn’t know how to yield to it. His head tilted back, his eyes closed, as all of his being, more than five years of waiting, focused on that feel of her hands. “I like that. Célie. Please do it some more.”

He opened his eyes to find her gazing down at his face, at her hands on his shoulders. Her eyes were so utterly fascinated with him that pride and hunger surged all through his body, beat in his dick and in his head, fogging thought. That fascination and admiration surpassed anything he’d ever come up with for her expression in his fantasies.

With one finger she traced slowly over the letters across his right biceps:
Honneur, Fidélité.
Her expression grew somber, focused. Then her hands stroked up, and she kneaded his shoulders again, strong, capable hands that were completely ineffective against the muscles of his shoulders. And yet it felt so good. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Oh, hell, Célie, if you stop, I might die. I want you to touch me everywhere.”

“Can I really?” she breathed, as if he was some kind of glorious present on offer that might still be yanked away from her.

Hell. The giddy arousal of her wonder in him was going to drive him out of his mind. It beat in him, trying to burst out of his skin.

He caught her hands, twisting her down onto the bed under him, one of his hands locking her wrists above her head. “A little bit at a time.” His breathing was too fast and too rough, and he couldn’t get it to slow down. “I’m so triggered.” He pressed a kiss into her captured palms. His body was vibrating with arousal. It pulsed in his dick, this unbearable command.

“You let go of my wrists this second, Joss Castel. That’s not fair. You can’t look that hot and not let me touch.”

“Shit.” Joss released her reluctantly. “But then I will screw this up.”

Célie drew her freed hands down his back, her expression so concentrated on the
feel
of him that it about drove him out of his mind. He’d never even imagined her sinking into him in this tactile, sensual way, as if he was something she had to greedily lap up. And he’d thought he’d imagined her every way possible by now.

“God, Joss.” She pushed at his shoulders suddenly.

Hell, no. He did
not
want to be pushed back. But that was the thing about making himself so strong—the strength was to take care of her, not to control her. If he ever broke that rule, he lost everything. So he rolled away from her onto the mattress, trying not to let curses hiss through his teeth.

And she came on top of him.

His eyes widened, and he reached above his head to try to grab something, anything on her bed to help him out, but there were no bars on her headboard, nothing to hold on to. He grabbed a pillow and squeezed with all his might, and hell, that was flimsy, as Célie sat astride him, as her hands ran down his chest, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as if she was tasting him.

Yeah, taste me. Oh, hell.

Down, down, down went her hands, over his stomach that flinched even tauter at her touch, to the waist of his jeans, her fingers tracing delicately, curiously, shyly even, along the line of them, that space left by his tightened stomach muscles where she could have slipped deeper.

But didn’t.

“Célie.” His head arched back. He thrust his hips up into her before he could stop himself.

She brought one hand to her face and bit the side of it. “You’re so hot,” she whispered. “Joss, God.”

“
Merde
,
Célie.”

“It’s like you’re half a stranger. This exotic fantasy lover. But then I say your name, and I remember I’ve known you so long. You were my friend, the man who was always there for me.”
Until you weren’t.

But at least she didn’t say it this time. He saw it flicker across her face, and his body tightened against the words, but she bit her lip and focused instead on her hands on his chest.

He, too, focused on her hands on his chest. And her pelvis pressed against his dick. Hell, but he would like to get these jeans off.

“Can I kiss you?” she breathed, staring at his chest and his arms bent behind his head.

This stupid, inadequate pillow. There was no way it could give a man anything to hold on to. “Anything,” he said hoarsely. “Anything you want.”

She ran her hands up his body again as she leaned down and kissed his chest.

“Sweetheart.” The pillow lost. He curved his hands around that sweet, delicious ass, and
God
it felt perfect in his hands. He squeezed, pulling her hips in tight to his, rocking his up, fitting them to each other through their pants so he could rub them together.

She arched back up again, her spine flexing in a move that lifted her breasts beautifully and drove her hips down into his even better.

“Oh, yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah.
Gorgeous.
” His fingers fumbled for the zip of her leather pants.
Too fast, you’re going too fast
, he tried to tell himself, but his body fought his mind, trying to go even faster. Fingers that could strip and reassemble, in the dark, all the weapons most armies of the world had ever issued now fumbled over a zip.

But he got it undone. And not by ripping the thing open. He was pretty proud of that degree of self-control.

“Oh.” Célie’s eyes flew open as his fingers grazed against her panties. Her thighs tightened on his hips, knees pressing into his sides. “Oh.” She covered her face with one hand.

He gazed at her half-hidden expression … and then let his own fingers graze her panties again … a little more deliberately, a stroke that slipped a little farther down over what was still half guarded by her pants. In fantasies, a man didn’t have to worry too much about this part, because no matter what he did or how he did it, obviously Célie always came to pieces for him—it was his fantasy. But in real life, he figured he wanted to get it right.

She brought both hands over her face now, covering it completely.

Yeah?

“You like that, sweetheart?” He eased his fingers a little farther, using three fingers to stroke her broadly, watching her body, those hands over her face, for the spot she needed.

She was shivering now, her hips rocking into his involuntarily, and she wouldn’t lower her hands.

“Yeah?” he murmured and rolled her over onto the mattress, so he could ease her pants down enough to give him more space.

She pulled his abandoned pillow over her face and locked it there with her arms.

Okay, hands were one thing, but a pillow was just cheating. He pulled it free from her and tossed it across the room.

Exposed, she stared up at him, face flushed, eyes dazed. So what did she need? She wanted to hide a little. She wanted to be in darkness.

So he laid one hand over her eyes, closing them for her. And holding her still for him.

And with the other he took up that searching, gentle rhythm over her panties.

“Joss.” She clutched at him, at his butt through his jeans, and then, as he kept playing with the pretty, pretty texture of those lace panties, she pressed her hands down under his jeans, trying for his bare skin.

She couldn’t get her fingers far enough, and she ran them up his back and down, and back up and down, and finally, finally, around to struggle with his button. But her hands were clumsy and losing focus, and he pushed that little bit of lace out of the way of his fingers and found all that soft lushness hiding behind it.

She made a little sound, her hips jerking. He threw one of his legs over her thighs, holding her still. Holding her for this mesmerizing exploration of her body there, of what made her react. She was trembling and twisting, and his fingers slid through curls and lush folds, slickened with moisture.