Bulletproof Princess (15 page)

“Mackenzie.” She’d been reduced to whimpered entreaties and could not be moved to care.

As if he sensed her need, a slow grin stretched across his lips as he moved a little further down the bed and made himself comfortable between her thighs. It took a bit to accommodate his shoulders, leaving her open and exposed to him, and he took full advantage. His touch was tinged with the confidences of a man comfortable in his art, fully in his element as he gently teased her swollen bundle of nerves with the lightest of brushes.

When she arched her back, he chuckled softly, the warm breath tormenting her as much as the touch itself. “Please,” she ground out as she wound her fingers in his comforter to keep from reaching out and clawing him to draw him closer.

“Look at me,” he commanded on a whisper, her legs tensing around him and her heels digging into the bed. When she met his gaze, she knew he had been content to wait until she complied. Her acquiescence was rewarded with the feeling of his tongue against her most sensitive flesh.

Watching him watch added a layer of sensuality to the already intimate moment, and she did her best to maintain the fragile contact even as he drove her to new heights of pleasure with his skilled lips and tongue. Before too much longer, she felt the first jolt of what promised to be a spectacular fireworks show behind her eyes as her arms gave out beneath her. A hand on his head to hold him in place as he brought her right to the edge, she chanted his name like the most sacred of prayers. Finally, finally, he slid his fingers into her, the sensation enough to send her rocketing into the writhing, twitching stratosphere.

Cassie was vaguely aware of him moving, stretching her legs out so they’d eventually have feeling in them again and moving to lie next to her among the decimated collection of pillows. Taking advantage of the moment, she curled up on his shoulder and was gratified when his arms immediately came around her, like they’d been doing it forever.

His heartbeat in her ear was soothing, and he smelled positively lick-able, but her only comment was a satiated purr.

Mack chuckled, the sound rumbling through his chest as he kissed her head. “I’m glad you approve.”

“I’d be a fool not to,” she conceded, her brain coming back to her in foggy little pieces, the largest of which was the chunk that desired to bring him a comparable level of soul-cleansing bliss.

He nodded sagely, a wry smile on his lips as he said, “And your momma raised no stupid children.”

She snorted a laugh and tapped him on the chest in mild rebuke. “She certainly did not.” Another full-body stretch left her feeling invigorated and more than ready to carry out her plan.

Mack went over to his back easily enough, with barely a push from her, and Cassie moved quickly to straddle him, loving the view from the top. Not confined by their relationship or obstructed by clothes, she could investigate his body to her heart’s content, and she wanted to taste the tattoo.

Shaking her hair back from her shoulder, she leaned down to nibble his collarbone, the move bringing his hands to her hips as he swallowed a gasp. Wriggling in his grasp, she licked and kissed her way down his chest, following the inked path before her and pausing, as he did, to find out what made him forsake conscious thought and erase coherent speech. His abs were a work of art, defined, but not overly so, and the way they quivered beneath her tongue could get addicting quickly. The rush of power she felt as he bucked beneath her was stronger than anything she’d known, and that included going onstage. This was a different kind of performance, though no less life-changing.

“Oh, fuck,” he groaned as she ran a fingernail down the distinctive demarcation point of his jeans. His hands were now fisted at his sides like hers had been, a sight that pleased her enormously.

Speaking of
enormous
, she giggled at her own joke, though she was serious about cupping the full ridge currently testing the strength of his button-fly jeans. Her mouth watered at the thought of tasting him as he’d done to her. Flicking open the first button, she wondered idly, “So, how far down does your tattoo go?” He blinked at the question, and she could only grin that she’d managed to render him mute in response to her sensory overload.

The placket of his jeans folded back as she opened the next two buttons, and as much as she tried to resist, Cassie found herself pressing a kiss to the hypersensitive skin there. His groan was that of a dying man as he pressed up against her. The temptation to counsel patience was obliterated by the last two buttons that were compromised beyond measure and wouldn’t come loose for love or money.

She sat back on her heels to survey the situation and regroup, but Mack was having none of that; and with loud rip, the fabric gave way under his grip. It was a small but arousing display of strength and determination, one she planned to reward. His ruined jeans peeled down his legs like a banana’s skin, and then they were both naked.

Their mutual vulnerability was not lost on her, but she couldn’t dwell on it for the impressive display in front of her. Lounging casually as if they’d been lovers forever, he had one hand behind his head and the other on his belly as he watched her intense perusal of him.

He was incomprehensibly hot to her, from his toes to his ginger hair to the tattoo that started at his wrist and covered half of him all the way down to his hip, and she wanted to smother all of him in her attentions. However, there was one part of him that appeared to be in particular need. Taking her cue from him, she settled herself between his legs on her knees as she leaned over to get a closer look at her prey.

His size was a little daunting, she found as she wrapped her hand around his shaft to stroke him for the first time. Her fingers didn’t even meet, and it wasn’t due to having small hands. Cassie took her time, though, as he had, wanting to wring every ounce of pleasure from him. Paybacks were definitely a dish to be savored.

She licked her lips and Mack groaned, his heavy-lidded eyes following her every move. Feeling him go still as she brought her lips to the tip, she made sure to snag his gaze as she took him into her mouth for the first time. The stinging-hot salty flesh felt incredible against her tongue, and was easily as erotic a sensation as him touching her. She groaned around him, making his hips thrust up to meet her and plunge in deeper.

Any thoughts of taking him to the Nirvana he’d found for her were abolished when he bolted upright and dragged her back up the bed. Her first reaction was to pout. “I wasn’t finished.”

His humorless chuckle allayed any concern she had about her techniques. “Oh, I know, but I almost was, and I’m not done with you yet.”

The last was said on a growl that had her melting into the pillows as he levered himself off the bed and then bounded to his suitcase. He returned a moment later with his prize, a small box of condoms that appeared unopened. Before she could ask, he offered, “I usually travel with them. Fortune favors the bold and the prepared.”

She wrapped around his back as he sat on the edge of the bed, attending to his task. Her fingers meandered up his spine before moving to the more intriguing territory of the inked half of him. It had to mean something deeply personal to him, something he needed to keep with him always, and part of her wanted to ask, but knew now was not the time.

The moment he was done, he stretched back out in the bed on his side, pulling her to face him. Face to face, it was impossible to ignore the light brush of her nipples against his chest as they breathed, his hardness cradled between them, or the look of overwhelming awe in his eyes that knew was mirrored in her own.

Mack wrapped a hand around her nape, holding her still as he did nothing more than nip at her lips. Her impatient wiggling was met with only more biting kisses, each one longer and more intense than the one before. Somehow he’d managed to ease her to her back with his passionate osculation, sliding over her with athletic ease.

Her knees fell open immediately, betraying her impatience and anticipation, but still he took his time. He lavished attention on her nipples again, sucking each of them deeply in his mouth as he slid a hand behind her back to press her closer to his keen attentions.

She could feel him between her legs, an occasional tantalizing brush of his cock or his fingertips, but certainly not enough to take the edge off. The pleasure built inside her as he kissed his way up her chest only to bite her shoulder.

He slid into her in on a whispered admission, “I’ve wanted you forever.”

Her heart, the one part of this party that she’d attempted to keep under lock and key, twisted in her chest at his harshly muttered words, and it was enough to bring her to the edge of bliss once again. Feeling him so deep inside her, around her, it was beyond perfection. She framed his face with her hands as she kissed him, whispered in return, “You have me.”

* * *

It was over far too soon as far as Mack was concerned. The feel of her body against him, surrounding and gripping him, it had overloaded all his senses and better intentions, leaving him spent on top of her with his back burning from the fresh bites of her fingernails. Cassie had given herself over to please, and he’d gleefully inhaled all her attentions. Now, with her in his arms purring in contentment, he felt like the worst kind of bastard.

Everything was different now, and as much as he fought against the idea, having her in his arms easily eclipsed everything he’d done before, relationship-wise. This was perfect, an emotional and mental apogee that demanded recognition, regardless of his comfort with the situation. And, he admitted freely, there was very little about this situation with which to be comfortable. The man hunting her was still out there, and so long as that remained the case, this was a potentially-fatal lapse in his better judgment.

“Are you okay?” Her blue eyes looked like the deepest part of the ocean in the waning light of the afternoon sun. He loosened his hold on her, and she turned over to prop her chin on his chest.

He nodded, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead. Her hair was a mess, possibly irretrievable, but he’d never seen anything or anyone more beautiful than in that moment. When she’d come into the room in only a towel, his imagination went up in flames that were woefully under-informed. She seemed to know he needed this too, in spite of his erstwhile protestations to the contrary. He could never have conceived of anything as erotic, hadn’t dared to, and now she lay sprawled on top of him like a vanilla-scented blanket.

Cassie’s fingers began their aimless roaming, following this path of skin between the ink on his chest more or less. “What is it?”

Mack looked down at the spiral she traced over his pec, feeling like he owed her an explanation if for no other reason than to appease her curiosity so she’d stop looking at him like she wanted to lick the tattoo right off of him. Cassandra Whittfield could be hard on the dignity, among other things. “Further in the canyon, down a path that appears to lead to a blind turn, is a wall with markings on it. Petroglyphs just a little bit older than the saguaro cactus in the backyard. I saw them and I knew I wanted to keep them with me.”

“To know where you came from,” she murmured after pressing a kiss to the center of the design she was most likely memorizing. Her astuteness shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it caught his heart just right, and he felt the shift in his chest. “Keep yourself grounded.”

Her fingers’ travels began to skim down his ribs, sending tiny sparks through him that had parts of him he’d assumed were thoroughly spent shaking off the vestiges of their coma. He laced his fingers with hers to still her movements or they’d never leave the bed again. “I haven’t always been this grounded. I’m still learning.”

“We all are.” Cassie shimmied slowly up his body, stopping only when she was close enough to ravish his mouth like she had when she’d first come into the room. Coming up for air, she winked at him. “No regrets, huh?”

Train car loads of them, but she didn’t need to know that. “None.”

She bumped his nose with hers before settling back in on his shoulder. “Good.”

Her contented sighs transitioned over to soft snores, and he pulled the sheet up around them to keep her comfortable as she slept. He regretted the timing, the circumstance, and the potential fallout, but this, holding her close as she slept next to him, he couldn’t regret that any more than he could regret opening his eyes in the morning.

Mack’s musings began to unfurl into a light slumber for him, as well, at least until the doorbell sounded downstairs. If he were the kind of guy to get cold sweats, he had one now, because he realized in his shock that someone had come onto the property, and he knew who was at the door.

Cassie stiffened in his arms. “What? Who? What the hell?”

All legitimate questions, but his thoughts were now flashing through his mind like they were covered in jet fuel and set alight. As much as he didn’t want to move her, he sat them both up and reached for her towel on the floor next to the bed. “I forgot to tell you yesterday, Ange called me.”

All tousled and warm, it was hard to take her look of incredulity seriously. “I was there for that part.”

His mind flashed briefly to the kiss, and he felt his cheeks heat in embarrassment. “Yeah, I know, but I didn’t tell you what she said. She, Eli, and Bex are all coming here…actually,
are
here right now.”