Fighting Fate: Book 2 of the Warrior Chronicles (17 page)

“Look, I’ve had a hell of week and a half and I’m leaving for Wiltshire tomorrow. I don’t want to think about your family or mine right now. I don’t want to throw another kick or punch or contemplate that I hit someone for the first time in my life and immediately after I wanted to throw up.” She yanked her hand from his and put her hands on less ample hips than she’d had ten days ago. She was also gaining volume, which she couldn’t seem to tone down no matter how hard she tried.

“What I
do
want, is your company. I want to see you naked. I want to push you down and ride you like there is no tomorrow. What I
don’t
want and
won’t
tolerate is your disappointment or your judgment. I want to come again and again until I can’t anymore and then I want you to hold me, kiss my forehead and tell me everything is going to be alright, even if the world is ending.”

She swallowed hard, chest heaving with the effort not to fall apart. “And if you don’t take me somewhere I can be naked and scream, so help me, I’ll drop trow right here and fuck you where you stand.”

Jesse opened his mouth, shut it, and then opened it again before slamming it shut as she swore. Both of his eyebrows shot up with her first tirade and his eyes got wider. Taryn wasn’t sure if that was a reaction to her profanity or her obvious intent to do exactly what she’d said. It didn’t much matter as long he found them a bed in the next sixty seconds.

Jesse’s face was void of all expression before his eyes crinkled slightly at the corners, deflating her anger. He bowed formally, a gesture she wanted to find offensive, but couldn’t, because it was executed with such polite perfection.

“Your wish is my command,
Mistress.
”

Uh-Oh. What did I just get myself into?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Jesse barely made it to his gazebo. His intent was to show Taryn his formal rose garden, medicinal herb garden and the trellised pergola with hanging hops and multi colored bougainvillea streaming down in riots of color. He designed his koi pond and the larger water garden pond beyond that featured a Rubenesque mermaid being pleasured by a massive Poseidon, complete with a trident. Finn commissioned that from one of her artist friends for his twenty-first birthday. Poseidon looked an awful lot like Finn’s husband, Henry, but Jesse loved the statue anyway. It had taken him more than a decade to create this tranquil garden, where he spent most of the spring and summer whenever he was home. He loved it, took great pride in it, and wanted to share it with Taryn. Five minutes ago.

Now all he wanted to do was make it to his gazebo, pull his rattan couch out into a bed, take off Taryn’s, scratch that,
his
gi pants, that she happened to be wearing and sink into her before he shot his load like a sixteen year old. He’d been disappointed by her unwillingness to admit Reed meant something to her. He’d been so taken back by her desire that it was all he could think of now.

“Jesse, slow down.”

He kept going. “Not yet.”

“For heaven’s sake. I’m barefoot, you idiot.”

Jesse didn’t slow down as he scooped her up in his arms. He opened the screen door to his gazebo, set her down, then went immediately to the couch and threw off the pillows. Sheets were already on the pull out. He smoothed them to have something to do with his hands while he waited for the rush in his ears to quiet. He didn’t want to turn and look at Taryn until he could do so without immediately jumping her. What the hell was the matter with him, he wondered? It must have something to do with her gym-rat attire.

When he calmed down enough to risk speaking, Jesse turned and came face to bare breast with what appeared to be a Taryn-eating-octopus-like monster.

“Ah…a little help here. This damned sports-bra is sticking to me. I can’t get it off and it’s cutting off the circulation to my brain.”

He wanted to laugh, but the sight of her full breasts bouncing up at him with their brownish pink nipples fully erect, stopped him. Taryn looked fabulously endowed fully clothed. Set free, she was utterly magnificent. Jesse bent, licking one salty-sweet tip. Taryn jerked back in surprise, arms flailing wildly, she hit him in the head. Her voice was muffled, but obviously perturbed, under layers of cotton and spandex when she spoke.

“Hey, cut that out and get me out of here. I’m having trouble breathing.”

In her haste to disrobe she’d managed to get herself well and truly stuck. He should have been flattered by her haste, and he was, but the absurdity of the moment gave him back his equilibrium, and his sense of humor. Before she managed to extricate herself he took out his cell phone and took a picture. She must have heard the distinctive click because she stilled instantly.

“That had better not be what I think it is, Jesse. I swear to God and Goddess, if you are saving this moment for posterity I’ll find your gun, I’ll shoot you and your phone.”

“That’s a lot of talk for a woman who managed to effectively tie herself up in her own underwear.” Jesse said, hitting the save button before hiding his cell in the small compartment in the table next to the couch. Then he turned, grabbed the edge of Taryn’s sport bra, and yanked. The damn thing barely budged. He yanked again, harder this time.

“Ouch. Take it easy. This torture devise is too small to begin with and it shrinks when it gets wet. Its only saving grace is that it keeps me from bouncing on the dojo floor.”

“Stop moving your arms.” He said, struggling with her and the material.

She growled, whether at him or the situation or both, he didn’t know, but he laughed as he finally managed to free her face. Taryn was able to get it the rest of the way off by herself. She threw it on the floor, huffing and puffing with exertion. Pushing her hair from her face she stood before him, scowling, breathing hard and naked from the waist up.

Jesse lost his smile and the urge to laugh. For as long as he lived, the image of her standing before him dragging air into her lungs, hair damp and curling with her efforts, would be burned into his brain. He wanted to see her do kata like that. Better yet completely naked. He’d have his wish before long, he vowed. “Untie your pants.”

Her eyes narrowed, her lips thinned, and for a split second he thought she’d turn around and leave him. He didn’t think he’d have the wherewithal to let her go. A second later, she surprised him by doing exactly what he asked. She spread her legs as if she were getting ready to wrestle instead of disrobe, then, standing like a warrior at the ready, she pulled the strings holding her gi pants in place. There was nothing shy or uncertain in her movements or her stance. She knew what she wanted. Jesse was beginning to love that about her too.

Taryn’s tongue shot out, wetting her lower lip as her fingers disappeared under her waist band. Her hips were round, but not as round as the first day they’d met.

“You’ve lost weight.”

“Ten pounds as of this morning.”

“You didn’t need to.”

Her hands stilled under the gi, holding the pants firmly in place. In that moment, he would have gladly shot himself if he’d been armed. His gaze move from her hands to her face then back to her hands. He couldn’t tell from her face if she was offended or not by his words.

Take off the gi pants, honey. Come on babe, drop trow. Remember?

First one hand moved, then the other, and suddenly he could breathe again. Cotton shifted to the right, to the left and then with a whoosh, the most delightful sound known to man, her pants pooled on the floor, covering her feet. Taryn stepped out with one foot then tossed them across the gazebo with a quick flick of the other. They landed with a thud, neither of them bothering to pay attention to exactly where.

She stood before him more like a demand than an offering, tall, regal and bold, wearing only a Mona Lisa smile and so much raw feminine power the air all but crackled around her. She was broad and full and so beautiful that he ached to hold her, but he couldn’t seem to make his feet move.

Taryn wasn’t shy with her body as a rule, she knew her flaws. She also knew they mattered far more to her than to any man who’d seen her nude. She’d never grace the cover of the
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit edition and she didn’t care. Her body, now ten pounds lighter and more finely chiseled, was curvy and strong, made for giving and taking pleasure.

Taryn tossed her hair with a quick movement of her head. Her chin went up and her shoulders back as she took a step forward, closer to Jesse, watching as his jaw tensed. His eyes continued to survey her body, seeming to take in every nuance as she moved closer and closer to him.

“We seem to have a problem.”

His gaze captured hers. “What’s that?”

“You are over dressed for this occasion.”

Jesse looked down as if only just realizing he wasn’t going to get the job done in his current hampered position. Unlike her, he had no trouble pulling his t-shirt over his head. It landed in the corner near her pants. He kicked out of his shoes with the same ease. He wasn’t wearing socks. His hands were at the metal button on his jeans and he opened it before she could stop him.

Taryn reached him before he made it any further, covering his hands with hers, stopping him without words. She’d seen him wearing nothing but a towel low on his hips. He wore his jeans the same way, low, showing the tips of his hip bones and the padding of muscle keeping them safe. The memory of him she carried to her bed every night didn’t do the man before her justice. She may not be beautiful in this cultural climate, but he certainly was, by every conceivable definition. He wasn’t thin, yet there wasn’t an extra inch of buffering fat anywhere on him. He wasn’t pumped with the mass of a power weight-lifter. He had the definition of a free climber and the breadth of a martial artist. Just above his hip he had what she’d heard her Aunt Finn refer to as the ‘karate muscle’. There were many words she could have used to describe the male perfection before her, but the one that sprang to mind was more of a sound than a word…
ummmmm…

Taryn moved his hands from his zipper to his sides, where they stayed, fisting slightly before he forced them to relax. The windows of gazebo were open, letting in a cool breeze that tightened her skin and his. They were hidden in a glade of willow trees and the screens were dark, but it was almost like being outside. Taryn reveled in the blatant sensuality of it.

Her hands moved from his hips to his chest, skimming the tattoo reaching out of his jeans, moving up his ribs to the kanji on his chest. It was small and precise, right above his heart. She ran one finger over it, then her tongue. When she was done, she blew softly, making him groan.

“What does it mean?”

Jesse captured her hand in his, holding it away from him, making her feel the loss. “When you’re ready to know, I’ll tell you.” His tone brooked no attempt at negotiation.

Taryn wasn’t sure what to make of his answer, or the fact that he clearly didn’t want her to pursue it, but she let it drop mainly because she wanted to keep touching him more than she wanted to know the meaning of that tattoo. She leaned into him, rubbing him with her breasts. He dropped her hand, his own moving back to his side.

Her eyes moved to his face, her hands to his pants. She unzipped his pants and then moved her hands to the small of his back, easing them down. It wasn’t as easy as it should have been, his penis kept them up when they otherwise would have fallen of their own accord. When they finally did fall, Jesse kicked them aside just far enough not to trip over them.

She would have looked down, but he pulled her to him, one arm around her bottom, one hand at her nape. Leaning in, she groaned as his cock surged between her legs, touching her with its heat, bathing itself in the dampness she couldn’t control and didn’t want to hide.

Jesse held her to him, rocking back and forth, growing even harder with each stroke. His angle was perfect, rubbing against her clitoris with his full length, each push and pull wetting the entire length of her with her own essence. It wasn’t going to take much more before he had her shuddering uncontrollably.

His hand at her nape moved her head closer to his, tipping her so she was looking directly into his eyes as they bled from deep blue, to navy, then black. “Tell me you want this. Tell me you want me.”

Taryn didn’t hesitate. “I want this. I’ve wanted you inside me since the moment I felt you outside my door and I knew I had nothing to fear from your presence there. It doesn’t make sense, but I wanted you then. I want you now. Don’t make me wait.”

Jesse’s eyes flared, and this time when the heat came it poured out of him. He didn’t let it bank. He picked her up and placed her on the bed, following her down, letting her feel his weight.

“I want to see all of you.” She said.

“Later.”

“Now.”

Jesse got up, opened the drawer in the table next to the bed and pulled out a sleeve of condoms. He tore three off, putting two under the pillow where Taryn’s head rested, giving her the view she’d asked for. He opened the third with his teeth and slid it on with a quick efficiency she envied. She’d always made a muck of putting on condoms, but she didn’t mind watching him do it. There was something elementally satisfying in watching Jesse run his hands over his penis, no matter how briefly.

“May we continue now?” His tone was light. His expression was not.

She smiled, feeling like the most beautiful woman on the planet in that moment as she nodded her head and spread her legs, letting her knees fall to the side, hiding nothing from him. He ran one finger up her labia to her clitoris, opening her fully. He took his finger and brought it to his mouth, licking the dampness. Holding himself with one hand he eased his way into her opening.

There was something in his eyes that touched her, burning her core with what this meant for him. When it became too hot for her to take, Taryn closed her eyes against the truth he was forcing her to see and pushed against him, forcing him to focus on the heat of their bodies and not the longing of their hearts.