Archer's Lady: Bloodhounds, Book 3 (11 page)

Her whole body tingled at her name on his tongue, spoken with such
wanting
. She drew him deeper, worked him with her hand and tongue in a way that denied him one type of mercy in favor of a far cruder sort.

His muscles flexed, his hips arching off the bed. “Christ Almighty.”

Shivering, Grace licked her way to the head of his cock. “Do you want me to take all of you?”

“I want—” The words dissolved in a groan, and he dragged her up. She landed on the bed with a bounce, and Archer loomed over her. “
I want.
”

She reached for him without hesitation, without fear. “Then take.”

He ground out her name and seized her mouth in a fierce kiss, teeth and tongue and his hands in her hair again, holding her still for his sensual attack.

It was a claiming, nothing less, one that made it clear that the wildest of his previous kisses had been nothing more than the lust of a vigorous man. This was the beast, unchecked and unleashed. Ravishing her mouth with a primal rhythm her body hastened to match, tensing with each deep lick as she imagined being fucked with that steady, merciless concentration.

He broke the kiss, and his teeth scraped across her cheek. “Give in. Tell me.”

“Tell you what? How desperately I want you?” Those words were easy. “I’m yours to have, for as long as you need me.”

His eyes were shadowed, turbulent. “Say you won’t hide yourself from me.”

A harder vow. She swallowed and touched his chest, over his heart. “My real name is Arabella. Grace is my middle name, and I quite prefer it, but you can know all of me. Nothing hidden, I promise.”

“Arabella.” His hand slid under her hips and lifted her against his with a hard grind. “Grace. Grace suits you.”

She scrabbled to clutch at his shoulders as the friction set off trembling in her limbs. “I like the way it sounds when you say it.” If he thrust into her now, he’d find out how much.

But he only rubbed against her with a groan. “Grace.
Grace.
”

“Archer.” She met his next grind, rolling her hips up with a hoarse moan. His shaft slicked against her clit with every rock, making it hard to catch her breath.

Then he moved, shifting away as his hand slid down her stomach, between her thighs. “I want you coming when I fuck you.”

Dirty, rough words, and she thought this time release might be easy. She spread her legs and slid her fingers over his. “What if I help?”

He growled into her ear and covered
her
hand, pressing it closer and curling her fingers against her entrance. “What if
I
help
you
?” He pushed as he breathed the words, sliding one finger alongside hers, thrusting them both into her body.

She hissed out a breath and squirmed, but her finger was trapped under his, both curled at a maddening angle. The heel of her hand ground down against her clit, pressed by the weight of his hand, and she dug her head back against the blanket. “You make me love all the things I should find obscene.”

“Do you care?”

“No.” She rocked up. “I want more. Cruder. I want to be shocked at the things I want to do with you, and I want to do them all the same.”

“How crude?” He thrust another finger into her. “So many ways I could fuck you, love.”

His fingers were wider than hers, and the stretch was wicked enough. Not enough to drive her over the edge, but she could taste the promise of it now, could feel it in the tension coiling tighter with every breath.

He could touch her any damn way he wanted. “Pick one. Shock me.”

Archer pulled away and rolled to his back, bringing her on top of him. “Ride me.”

There was no hiding in the crush of her body against his, not this time. She felt the burning weight of his stare as she lifted her hips and struggled to align them above his. His hands gripped her ass and moved her into position, holding her there.

Waiting.

Without looking away, Grace slid her hand down her body. The barest brush of her own fingers made her tremble, but she moved slowly, slicking her fingertips closer and closer to her clit. “Do you want me coming when you fuck me?”

His gaze dropped to fix on her hand. “Do it.”

The command was almost enough. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back. “All I have to do is remember your tongue,” she whispered, and then she
did
remember how it had felt the first time he’d sent her flying, when shock had propelled her past pleasure into a floating sort of bliss.

It didn’t take much. A few firm strokes and the knowledge that he was watching, and tension splintered into hot, shaking pleasure. She cried out as she came, and he pulled her hips down as he thrust up, burying himself to the hilt with a groan.

Her head snapped forward, and she braced both hands on his chest as she struggled for breath. Her heart still pounded with the rhythm of her body’s clenching spasms, but now she was tightening around him, and for a moment she couldn’t decide if she was still coming or coming again.

It didn’t seem to matter. All that mattered was moving, so she dug her fingernails into his chest and rocked up and down. “Like this?”

“Like…” Archer growled and guided her hips. “Fuck, like
that
.”

She tried to match his rhythm, but he’d tilted her hips so that every rock drove his cock over the spot that melted her bones. Within a few thrusts she was wound tight and tense again, but he had no mercy.

Her knees wobbled when she next tried to lift herself. She moaned, already tensed against the flash of heat that would come when he dragged her down. “Too good, it’s too good—”

He rose up, dropped her on her back, and pushed her thighs wide. “Too good?” He angled her hips and drove into her again.

It was everything she’d been afraid of the first time. Hot and glorious and so intimate, with him hovering over her. “Too good,” she whispered again, and she didn’t even mean the slow climb toward another climax. Sliding her fingers into his hair, she tugged urgently, wanting his tongue, his lips, his kisses. Wanting to drown in him.

Archer claimed her mouth, sweeping his tongue across hers just once before retreating to speak against her lips. “Should be no such thing.”

But there was, and they both knew it. She yanked at his hair, beyond any care for her own dignity as she begged. “That spot, right there—don’t stop fucking me. Please, don’t ever stop.”

He gripped her wrists and pushed them to the bed above her head. “Again—say it again.”

“Don’t stop.” Being trapped couldn’t frighten her, not when the hunger in his voice held a needy edge that made her pleasure the most powerful gift she could bestow. It hung just out of reach, but she didn’t grind up, seeking the touch that would set it free. For once she simply put her release entirely in his hands. “Don’t ever stop fucking me.”

Archer descended on her with a groan, sliding one hand under her hips to lift her into his thrusts. His teeth grazed her jaw, the base of her throat, and finally closed on the soft underside of her chin. A delicate bite, but timed with one of those maddening thrusts that drew her body tight, and it was too much to be contained.

Her world dissolved into sensation, into shuddering bliss and pulsing satisfaction, each throb so exquisite she only got through the first part of his name before the next one stole her breath.

He rode her orgasm with encouraging growls and moans before slowing to a gentle rock. “Grace.”

She whimpered, unsure if that twist of sluggish pleasure came from the way his voice wrapped around her name, or the realization that his cock was still hard and ready. Maybe he really could fuck her forever.

Be careful what you wish for.

Of all of her reckless wishes, this was surely the most hopeless…and the sweetest. Forcing open her eyes, she met his gaze and didn’t care if he saw the depth of her longing. “Archer.”

He stared back, quiet and serious. “It’s only beginning. I don’t know if I can control it—”

She cut him off with a kiss. “Don’t. I trust you, and I want you.”

“Then you’re all right?” he asked anxiously.

Was he supposed to be this worried? He’d prepared her for hunger and wildness, but not for this unchecked protectiveness. Fear lurked in his eyes, and she could think of only one way to banish it. Dragging her nails up his back, she bit his chin. “I’d be better if you hadn’t stopped.”

He rolled to his back once more and braced her above him. “Take what you want. Show me what you need.”

She almost told him she didn’t know, but that would be a lie. She had enough fantasies to last a week—if she had the courage to ask. Reaching down, she touched his lips. “I want your mouth on me.”

The corner of his lips quirked up, and for a moment it almost looked as if he was baring his teeth instead of grinning. “Where, love?”

Her cheeks flushed as hot as any border schoolteacher, but she rather doubted most of them would have her command of crude words. “I want your tongue in my cunt.” Not the first time she’d used blunt words, but it wasn’t an act this time, and that brought its own sort of thrill.

His hands dropped to the bed, and he lowered his gaze to the juncture of her thighs. “Can’t quite reach. You’ll have to come closer.”

“You want me to…?” Oh, the look in his eyes left no doubt. Already breathless, she crawled up his body until her knees rested on either side of his shoulders. The wall offered a suitable place to brace her hands, but self-consciousness kept her from shifting her hips higher. “Like—like this?”

His fingers closed tight on her hips and dragged her across half the remaining distance, but not all the way to his mouth. “Like this.”

Hot breath spilled across slick, already sensitive flesh, and she squirmed closer until his stubble scraped her inner thighs. Archer wrapped his hands around her thighs and teased her with his tongue, a quick caress that vanished too soon.

A moan of protest and his name in a desperate tone earned her another touch, but it soon became clear that Archer would settle for nothing less than begging. She gave in without protest, letting increasingly obscene pleas fall from her lips, words that made her previous requests seem tame.

She begged for his tongue and his lips, begged for the dangerous scrape of his teeth, begged for him to let her come and then to make her come again. When he sucked her clit between his lips and growled his way through an orgasm that left her slumped against the wall, she begged for his cock, begged for him to come with her, on her, inside her.

She begged, and he gave. Everything she asked for, even when the words began to slur into nonsense. Somehow he knew, understood enough to roll her to her belly and drag up her hips, or maybe in that moment they simply wanted the same thing. And what a fool she’d been to imagine that there was less intimacy in this, in the raw claiming of a man beyond control.

He drove into her with a sigh—relief, satisfaction. Need. “Don’t ever stop,” he rasped.

It didn’t matter what he meant. She’d agree to deliver him her body and soul and her fragile, damaged heart, if only he’d follow her up this last time and bring her over the edge with him. “Never. I’ll never stop.” Never stop wanting him, never stop wishing this could be her future, her life.

Chapter Eight

The world was warm. Safe.

Archer shouldn’t have been thinking it, and he knew it. It was his job to make a safe place for Grace.
His
, not hers. And yet every nuzzle, every sigh, every breath she took melted something inside him. He’d been cold so long, but this…

This was home.

He buried his face in the curve of her spine, the hollow of her lower back. There was no place he wouldn’t touch her, not if it brought her pleasure, and the hours passed into darkness, a haze of hunger and warmth.

Safe.

Even half-asleep, she didn’t turn him away. Sometimes she tugged at him, urging him to wrap himself around her, to push inside and rock her to breathless climaxes. Other times she’d wrap herself around him, pressing drowsy kisses to his back and shoulders as her hands smoothed up and down his body.

Now she stretched, murmuring approval of his lips brushing the small of her back. “You should eat something, Archer. You spend too much time worrying about me and not enough caring for yourself.”

He shook away the words and licked his way to her hip. “Mmm.”

Grace nudged him with her toes. “Fine. If you won’t sate one hunger, you might as well give in to the other. Do something wicked to me.”

Wicked. None of it was wicked, only
right
. He traced his fingers lightly over the cleft of her ass. “Something wrong?”

She lifted into his touch with a gasp. “Oh, very, very wrong.”

Wrong. Something tickled at the edges of his mind, drawing his reluctant attention from her creamy skin. A twisting in his gut. Something
wrong
.

“Archer?” Worry laced her voice as she turned slowly. “Are you all right?”

He caught her arms as the sick sensation in his stomach worsened. “Don’t move. It’s—I don’t—” The house rumbled a split second before a crash echoed beneath them. Archer swore and tightened his grasp. “
Grace.
”