Driving Force (18 page)

“Oh, please. Oh, please.”

She couldn’t stand any more. It was becoming too much, unendurable. The pressure building up inside her was agonizing. She was going to die if he didn’t take her right now. She clawed at him, her nails raking down his back, bit at his lips in frustration and saw the smile in those burning eyes above her.

“Looks like you’re ready,” he murmured and moved over her with intent.

She felt the broad, satin head of his cock pressing against her entrance, saw the flare of triumph and exultation in his eyes. Then he thrust home, filling her in one smooth stroke, all the way in and then just that little bit farther. She cried out, her head falling back on the pillows, her whole body arching and clenching upon him. So perfect, that moment of entrance, his thickness within her, his eyes watching her with that strange look of darkness and intensity and heat.

He filled her to the point that she thought she was going to split in half—and yet it was exactly enough, exactly right, there had never been so perfect a fit. Her sheath throbbed and stretched to accommodate him. The world spun away and she was aware of nothing but that pulsing length and thickness filling her so completely. She gulped in shock and delight.

Deep within her, he stilled, whispering, “Am I hurting you?”

“No.” She held him to her fiercely. “You’re just…so big.”

He gave a little breath of laughter, male and flattered. “Too much?”

He filled her utterly, stretched her to the utmost. It was pure perfection.

“Not too much, just right,” she sighed, and clenched on him within her.

“Ah!” His eyelids shuddered shut with pleasure and his forehead dropped against hers. “Witch. But if you do that, I won’t be able to keep control, might not be gentle.”

She didn’t want gentle. He had taken her so high that only fierceness would do. Her legs came up to lock about his waist. That sent him even deeper into her and they both groaned.

“I just want it
now
!”

“Oh, Sierra,” he whispered.

Then he was moving, thrusting into her, driving them both into a slow, searing, sensual rhythm, shifting a tiny bit with every stroke until he hit that place inside her that she had only read about and had never suspected until today that she possessed.

“Ian!”

“Right there,” he muttered with satisfaction and powered into her, his hips twisting now at the end of every stroke to hit both her clit and her G-spot.

“Oh, yes,” she muttered, unable to keep delirious, inarticulate moans of utter delight from spilling from her throat. “Oh, yes.”

He was pistoning into her now, going as far as he could go, then a little farther, hard thrusts that were initially slow, then rapidly speeding up. She writhed under him, heels pushing at the mattress to lift her hips right off the bed to meet him, knees coming up to grip his sides, nails gouging his shoulders, sheath clenching involuntarily on his cock to keep him within her every time he withdrew for the next powerful stroke.

She had never reached this point with Peter, had always been almost passive. But she couldn’t hold back with Ian.

“Yes!” he purred as she clawed and bit. “Let go, Sierra! I want it all!”

In flashes of dazed sight as her eyelids fluttered open and closed again, she saw him above her, his eyes intent and blazing as he looked down at her, still in control, still holding back. She didn’t want him to hold back, wanted him as lost to her as she was to him. She clenched upon him within her, clawed at his shoulders, bit him as hard as she could.

His head flung back and his eyes went blind. She snarled with triumph as that rigid control finally broke and he rammed into her. He was so beautiful, so beautiful, lost in sensation that way, his eyes closed in an agony of pleasure so intense that it bordered on pain, the cords of his neck standing out, lips parted as he gasped for breath, a muscle in his cheek jumping as his jaw clenched with effort.

Their hips battled, her thrusting up as he was thrusting down, and the feeling was so acute that she thought her heart would burst from the unbelievable ecstasy of it. She made wordless, helpless, unintelligible sounds to the rhythm of their bodies slamming into each other, heard him groan. They thrust against each other, straining together, every nerve ending on fire, lost in rapturous sensation, in that unendurable extremity of pleasure, speeding up, speeding up toward that bright, sizzling, accelerated rush.

An unfamiliar tingling began low in her belly, deep in her womb. Spread in all directions until every millimeter of her was quivering, from her fingertips to her toes.

“Ian!” she gasped in amazement.

“Yes, that’s it, Sierra,” he whispered. “Come for me. Come for me, Sierra.”

So that’s what it was. She was coming. For the first time in her life. And hard, based on the way her whole body went rigid and a scream tore involuntarily from her throat. Her eyes flew wide with shock.

His head dropped so that he could see her as she came. Her whole body convulsed in an orgasm so shattering that her brain blanked out and she thought her heart would stop. She shot on an explosion of excruciating delight into wild, white, pulsating light, while he held her and watched her and orchestrated each wave as it battered into her.

His body seized up and his cock swelled within her. His hips jolted against hers and she felt the sudden gush of heat deep within her. He was beautiful when he came, his face utterly open and vulnerable, surrendered to her, to this moment of annihilating pleasure, his eyes tight shut and his lips parted on a harsh, helpless shout of expelled breath.

She kissed his throat as he strained over her. His head fell to press his face fiercely to hers. Then he drove into her again and she lost herself completely, her brain blanking right out in another flare of this ecstasy that she had never known before. Came and came again helplessly, her mind reeling with shock and rapture.

She felt him jerk and pulse within her. They fell blindly over the edge together.

Chapter Seven

Sierra came back to herself in a haze of utter content. All her limbs felt languid and lush, as if honey were flowing through her veins instead of blood. Her whole body felt rich and heavy, languorous with fulfillment.

“That was…incredible,” she breathed, holding him tight as he lay panting and spent upon her, his face in her hair.

“Oh, yeah,” he muttered dazedly.

She felt the moth-wing flicker of his lashes against the point of her jaw as his eyelids opened, then shuddered shut again. She could feel the accelerated thud of his heart against her starting to slow now just as hers was, their beats matching.

“Ian,” she murmured, just to have the shape of his name in her mouth. He was a wonder to her, a miracle. She turned her head until she could see his face. His eyes were closed, his breath was still shuddering through his parted lips and the sweat-damp strands of his white-gold hair had fallen boyishly over his forehead. He looked very young and very vulnerable in the aftermath of lovemaking. An enormous surge of tenderness filled her and she held him tighter.

His eyes opened, their green darkened by drowsy, half-closed lids into a velvety warmth and softness. One corner of his mouth tilted upward.

“Did I please you?”

Her lips trembled into a smile. “You have no idea.”

He kissed her softly, slow, lingering kisses that wandered all over her face. She couldn’t help a little involuntary hum of pleasure and his arms wrapped around her, cradling her to him. It seemed he liked to cuddle and that too was new for her. She reached up to stroke his face, delicately exploring its strong planes and hollows, cherishing them. He nipped teasingly at her fingertips as they ran along the line of his lips.

Then he drew a deep breath and started to lever himself up onto his elbows.

“No, don’t.” Her arms closed about him to hold him where he was.

“I’m too heavy.”

“I want your weight. I want all your weight. You feel so wonderful.”

He made an odd little painful sound in his throat and his body surrendered itself to hers. They lay for a while just holding each other, limp with satiation, basking in the afterglow.

“I must be squashing you,” he murmured at last.

“I like it.”

He laughed a little. “You would. My Mouse with fangs. So fierce.”

Fierce. Her. “Yeah, right,” she muttered.

“Got the teeth marks to prove it.”

“Oh God!” Sierra tucked her chin down to stare at his shoulder, where there were indeed bite marks. Her hands ran down his back and found the weals her nails had left on his skin. “Oh, Ian, I’m so sorry!”

She felt him smile against her cheekbone. He rubbed the side of his face against hers.

“But I like it. You like my weight, I like your fangs. The marks will be gone in no time. I heal fast, remember?”

“I’ve never done that before!”

“‘What, never? Well, hardly ever,’” he murmured.

“No, never.” She let out a little shaky breath. “I didn’t think I was even capable of that. I… I’ve always been so boring in bed.”

“Boring? God, sweet! You nearly stopped my heart. Came so hard I thought my balls were going to turn inside out.”

Sierra giggled involuntarily. “Smooth talker.”

His stomach shook with silent laughter. “I suppose that’s not very romantic, huh?”

“But flattering.”

“It’s the truth.”

She tightened her arms around him and sighed. “I never knew.”

He kissed the hollow under her ear. “Knew what?”

“I never knew sex could be like this. The earth moved, just like in the books and the movies.” She grinned a little when he laughed. “No, seriously. I’ve never felt anything like that before. Not ever. It was a revelation.”

Ian blinked. He had noticed the look of surprise and wonder on her face when she came, but it hadn’t really registered, lost as he had been in the delirious pleasure of his own release.

“Are you telling me you’ve never come before? Never had an orgasm?”

She turned her face into the side of his neck, embarrassed. “No, never. I didn’t have a clue what it was like. I thought that meant there was something wrong with me. That I was frigid or something.”

“But what about that guy? What’s-his-name.”

“Peter?”

“Yeah, him.” His rival. The one who was human, who could give her all the things he couldn’t—marriage, children and a life.

“I think…he was too fast.”

“A thirty-second wonder?” The totally self-centered type who cared only about getting himself off rather than sharing love.

“Not that bad,” Sierra muttered, her face pink when he turned his head to look at it.

That wasn’t a rival—that was a moron. Anyone who didn’t realize how really good it could be if one held back and extended the pleasure had to be an idiot.

“Stupid, clumsy, selfish fool.”

“Was he?” She thought about that for a moment, then shook her head. “He just didn’t have your expertise. He wasn’t as skilled as you are.”

That hurt. He stiffened and pushed himself up onto his elbows despite her murmur of protest.

“Skilled.”

Her eyes widened. “I didn’t mean…”

“Didn’t you?”

He knew what she was doing. She was distancing herself again. Not physically, since her arms were still around him and her body entangled with his and she was making no move to disengage. But mentally, putting up that wall of his rep between them, shutting him out.

“I just wanted you to enjoy it.”

“I did enjoy it, Ian!” Sierra exclaimed.

She realized she had hurt him. His voice was toneless, his face had gone very still and his lids had fallen to hide his eyes. But his lips were pressed together, their corners pointed with strain.

“Was it just fucking to you? No connection, just good technique?”

“Oh, Ian, no!”

Beneath the lowered lids, his eyes were shadowed and very dark. At the corner of his jaw, a muscle was jumping.

“Sierra, don’t think. Just feel.”

“I… That’s hard.”

“Why?”

Letting go that way scared her. She had to guard herself against the way he made her feel, that helpless delight, that drunken loss of control. Lust was fine. He had just shown her how fine it could be. But getting emotionally involved would be a disaster. Truly stupid. She didn’t dare let that happen.

He was watching her with that strange intensity. He dropped his head suddenly and kissed her hard. “Skilled? Yeah, maybe I am. But you know what they say about skill. All it takes is a little practice. So let’s give you some practice.”

He pulled her thigh higher over his hip. She gasped as he rubbed himself against her core.

“Good grief, Ian!” Her eyes went huge as she felt him hardening rapidly against her. “We only just…”

“Yeah, so?”

“It isn’t possible!”

“Who says? Jeez, he must have been a real wimp. But then I’m a cat, y’know. We can do it a lot.” He was grinning. “We only need a few minutes and then we’re good to go.”

She gave a choked gurgle that was half incredulity and half laughter. “The benefits of being a Shifter. But I don’t know whether I can… Ooh!”

His mouth had closed over her breast, sucking. A fiery, electric flicker ran glittering throughout her body. Sierra arched involuntarily, her hands clenching on his shoulders. He could arouse her so easily.

He lifted his head and looked down at her. His shoulders blocked out the world and he was all gold in the lamplight. He was laughing, but behind the laughter was that strange, focused intensity.

“Think once is going to be enough?” he muttered. “With you? We’ve only just started, sweet. Gonna show you. Gonna show you what it can be like with us.”

The world spun away under the demand of his body moving on hers and his hands and his mouth inciting her. She lost all consciousness of time and space as they coiled and twisted about each other like snakes. She wasn’t even aware of the bed beneath her or of the breath in her body. She was only aware of him, of this delirium of pleasure he thrust upon her, the night dissolving into a fever dream of sensation and rapture. Lost and drowning, her brain frying right out.

* * * * *

Movement behind her roused her.

“Oh, no, I can’t,” she groaned, burying her face in the pillow. She had lost count of the number of times they had taken each other last night. “Not again. I’m so sleepy.”

They had gotten hardly any sleep at all. He had kept waking her again and again with his demands. And she had kept waking him with hers. She had been as bad as he, both of them avid for each other, greedy and unable to stop.

He kissed her shoulder and she felt the breath of his laughter against her skin.

“Yeah, I’ve worn you out. Sleep. I have to go. I’m meeting Nick and Abel at seven thirty.”

“Is it that late?” She cracked one eye open. Outside the bedroom window, the sky was rose and gold and the birds were singing their dawn chorus. The lamps, which were still on full, had faded into obscurity under the flood of sunlight. “What time is it?”

“I have no idea. But I can hear Annie moving around in the kitchen.”

“Oh, no! I have to help her.”

“No, you don’t. You’re a guest, remember? You’re entitled to sleep in now and then. You can skip breakfast for once and help with lunch instead.”

“What will she think?”

“That you worked late on your wheel last night. I’ll drop a hint suggesting that.”

She felt the bed shift as he got up. “I don’t like lying to her.”

“I won’t be lying. You’re tired. You were up late. You had orders to fill. Are any of those statements a lie?”

No, they weren’t. But putting them together that way definitely conveyed an erroneous impression.

“Sneaky.”

“Maybe. If I had my druthers, I’d just say you’re sleeping in and leave it at that.”

“Arrogant as well,” she muttered into her pillow.

“No one’s business but ours. I don’t see why you feel so compelled to explain.” He came around to her side of the bed, belting his bathrobe around him. “I won’t be back for lunch. Nick and Abel and I are going to take a look at that heavily forested country over in the north. Arrhan and his people could be hiding out there.”

“Why not wait to see what that guy you caught says?”

“Might take him a couple of days to recover enough for us to question him. Maybe we can find them in the meantime.”

“Be careful.”

“Always.”

She gave him a disbelieving glance over her shoulder. “Yeah, right.”

He stood gazing down at her for a moment, smiling, his eyes soft. “You look so damn beautiful in the morning.”

Sierra felt her face warm under his stare. “Liar. I must look a mess.”

“Some mess. You look unbelievably sexy. All warm and drowsy and boneless and lush.”

She flushed even harder. “Talk about smug.”

“Mmm-hmm. You do look well fucked.”

“Ian Raeder!”

He grinned. “Makes me want to climb right back into bed and fuck you some more.”

She used to hate his teasing. She loved it now—that vivid, flashing laughter, that deep enjoyment.

“Insatiable.”

He bent and slid his lips down the length of her spine. She shuddered and he laughed.

“You make me that way. Can’t wait for tonight.”

Neither could she. She was exhausted, but she still wanted more, couldn’t get enough of him. Maybe she
was
a nympho after all.

“Go away, tomcat, and let me sleep.”

He trailed his fingertips back up her spine, grinning. “Going.” And he did.

Lust was good. Lust was turning out to be very satisfactory indeed. Sierra slid into sleep, smiling blissfully.

Later, while she was helping Annie serve lunch, she noticed a new hand, a tall, tawny individual who gave her a nervous moment before he turned his head, and she recognized him as one of the Lowes.

“What are you doing here, Gregor?” she asked softly as she topped up his coffee.

He looked up at her with a smile. “Ian asked me to keep an eye on you when he wasn’t around.”

She flicked a pointed glance around the busy room. “I don’t need a bodyguard. Arrhan won’t attack me in the middle of this crowd.”

“What happens when they go back to work after lunch and there’s only Annie left? Got my orders,” he said flatly. “I’ll be hanging about the place ’til Ian gets back. He doesn’t want anything happening to you.”

It was just Ian’s usual protectiveness, but she couldn’t help being touched by it. It made her feel cherished and special. She had to keep telling herself that it didn’t really mean anything. All that there was between them was just lust, nothing more. She wouldn’t let it be more.

But she couldn’t stop worrying about him out there in Perdur where Arrhan’s pride might be and Ian, Nick and Abel would be only three against who knew how many. She had to stop wanting him back here just so she’d know that he was safe. No, worse than that—needing just to see him, needing just to be with him.