INTO DANGER (Secret Assassins (S.A.S.S.) Book 1) (27 page)

They were midnight-black, glittering back at her, promising punishment. And her heart, already beating hard from exertion, roared like a runaway train. The wildness in his eyes called to the wildness in her heart. His nose flared as he stalked closer, as if he were really some wild animal scenting a mate. She bent her knees slightly, ready to counter any attack.

For endless charged seconds they stared at each other. There was fury. And excitement. And white-hot desire.

“War? Or love?” he asked, making both sound like a threat.

War. She hated his guts. Love. She wanted him like no other man. Both. “You’re on,” she snarled, eyes narrowing.

They both leaped at each other at the same time.

***

A
rms grabbed and pushed. Legs kicked and twined together. And their bodies rolled across the thick soft carpet. A lamp fell over with a crash. A vase tumbled off its stand, barely missing Steve’s head. He had pulled off some material from somewhere, and it wrapped itself around the leg of the coffee table as Marlena rolled on top of him. Steve flipped her back, pulling off whatever was left covering her body.

A soft groan, quieted by a conquering mouth. Flesh slid against flesh as hands ruthlessly explored each other, making each other moan, pushing each other higher.

Finally pinning her with his weight, Steve clamped his teeth down on Marlena’s neck, sucking on her rapid pulse, tasting her feminine saltiness, holding her down as he forced her legs wide apart. She jerked her hips left and right, avoiding his thrusts; he bit down a little harder, making her gasp. Her nails were sharp where they dug into his back. He put his hand between her legs, palming her ready wetness with a wicked touch. She jerked again and her nails dug harder. And still she refused to let him in, bucking him off the moment he tried to thrust inside.

He would make her stay still yet. Throwing her legs over his shoulders, he started loving her with his mouth instead. With her trussed up and open wide in that position, every attempt she made to escape only served to give him better access to her sweetness, and the advantage was his.

He feasted. He licked. He used his lips and tongue and teeth as she fought off her climax. Her scent drove him crazy and he opened her wider, delving his face against her heat as he kept making love to her with his fingers. Her hands in his hair at first pulled, then roamed, then stopped altogether. Her pants became whimpers. That was when he got to the dessert. He licked around it. He stabbed his tongue softly on its protective cover, repeating until her whimpers became gurgles. He took his wet fingers out of her and slid them along the side of the nub. He blew on it. Her hips swiveled higher, begging him silently. He pinched it with his fingers. He had her now. He could feel every tensed muscle in her legs locked securely over his shoulders.
Mine
.
Mine
. He parted her with his fingers. Such a tiny little nerve, and all his. He twirled the pink quivering nub delicately with his tongue, then placed his whole lips around it, and sucked. Hard. She screamed his name. And this time, with a violence that almost knocked him over, she came.

This was how he wanted her. Screaming for him. Wanting him. Giving herself to him. His own need was sharp and painful, a heavy throbbing thudding between his legs. No. This time he had to be the one in control longer. It was war. He was going to conquer this woman. He took one final taste, burying his tongue in the tangy heat, and slowly dragging it over her clitoris. Her wet release only fed his already burning desire.

Marlena was still lost in a spiraling vortex of pleasure when Steve climbed back on top of her. He dragged her hands high above her head, lacing his fingers through hers, and kneed her legs apart. Spread-eagle and still climaxing, she didn’t struggle when she felt him prodding, pushing determinedly into her softness. He squeezed her hands as he entered, making sure she couldn’t fight back. Not that she wanted to. He felt too good. The friction of his hard possession against her already sensitized flesh made her moan, and she shivered as she started peaking again.

His groin ground against hers, and as if that wasn’t enough for him, he pushed in deeper still, undulating against her clitoris, sending lightning up and down her spine. Marlena went limp, letting her body take over.

He seemed happy to remain buried in her all the way, just flexing inside her. Something vibrated inside whenever he touched a certain place, driving her crazy with lust and need. And always, each flex inside rubbed him against her on the outside, too, until she couldn’t tell where one climax ended and another began. Sensation spread like wildfire all the way to some center inside and her head fell back as each wave hit her, and she clenched around his hard invasion, needing more of him.

That’s when Steve lost control, and he jack-hammered in and out of her. She was slick from coming, and the silky possession of her body felt incredible. Tight. Hot. Eyes closed, totally lost in this sensual paradise, he changed his angle and heard her strangled cry. There, she liked it there. His pleasure doubled as he felt her long ripples of ecstasy massage his whole length over and over.

More. He needed her to give him more. He buried in deep again and flexed.

And still Marlena kept climaxing, unable to rise to the surface, hit over and over by the darkest of pleasures, hearing her heartbeat. His heartbeat. Feeling the hard pounding of his body into hers as those waves tossed her around in some magical space. She wasn’t sure what he did, but she felt like dying. He was everywhere—in her, on her, scenting the air she gasped in, totally commanding all her senses. Out of control, her body continued to milk him greedily, even as her thighs trembled from the tension of each climax.

Suddenly he stopped, a rough growl escaping him, as if his body protested what his mind commanded. “Look at me.” His order was harsh with emotion, bringing her back to reality.

He rose above her again, making her ache for him to come back. She opened her eyes reluctantly to meet his, dark and heated with lust, his lips sensual as he pleasured himself against her. His expression was triumphant, very male, very satisfied with himself.

“You can’t hold me down forever.” She meant to sound challenging, but her voice came out weak and breathless. His little thrusts were torturous. She wanted him to come back into her all the way. Little tremors shook her body. “You can’t hold my hands above my head all night.”

“You think not?” he taunted softly, his smile mocking her attempt to distract him. He lifted his hips slightly, then plunged into her deep velvet heat again, all the way. Her quick exhalation puffed gently against his face—warm and moist, like the rest of her. All his. He felt like a conquering barbarian. He felt like the wild animal that had won his mate after a fight. He smiled down and adjusted his hold slightly, pulling both her hands to each side of her face. “Honey, this is standard position for me. A Navy SEAL can easily do a hundred push-ups.”

“A hundred?” She breathed out faintly. Could she take a hundred strokes?

“Or more,” he murmured, and started demonstrating.

His breathing fell into a rhythm while he moved in and out of her as if he did sexual push-ups every day. His eyes were half closed as he gyrated against her sexually every time he impaled her, each slide keeping contact with that part of her that seemed to belong only to him.

For once in a long time, Marlena lost all sense of control, letting the man above her take over. This wasn’t sex. This was claim staking, and she recognized it even as she wanted him to continue. He was male to her female, claiming her with his body, stamping her with his scent, searing her with his kiss. And she had never felt more wanted.

“I think I’ll do this all night,” he muttered to himself. “Keep you wet. Keep you wanting. Keep you coming for me. Yeah, like that.”

Her spasms started with a slow shudder, responding to the sexual promises he whispered in her ear. Oh God, she couldn’t possibly do it again. What he was telling her shouldn’t excite her, shouldn’t make her feel like this. She shook her head, trying to clear it.

“Come again, sweetheart.” That velvet voice seduced her, even as her body started obeying. She heard her own deep-throated whimpers as she did as she was told.

“Again,” he commanded, his tongue exploring her ear, stealing the last vestiges of rational thought. “Once more. Yeah.”

She climaxed again. And again. Every deep stroke caressed her insides, pulling waves of pleasure that went on and on. She could scarcely breathe, as she gasped at each tremor. And then he, too, began to shudder as he gave in to his own need. A deep groan rumbled from his chest as his hips moved faster and faster. She was vaguely aware of the passionate kiss he gave her, plundering her mouth. The muscles on his arms corded thickly as his body tensed in mid-plunge.

“Lena...”

“Stash...”

There wasn’t any breath left for words. His hands were still holding her down when he collapsed on top of her. Their bodies were slick against each other. Dazed by the whole experience, Marlena could barely move. He finally rolled onto his back, breathing hard. She curled up on her side and tried to remember the last time she’d fallen asleep on the floor of a hotel room.

She didn’t have the luxury to recall anything. An arm scooped under her and she was pulled onto her knees, then onto her feet. “Oh no,” Steve whispered in her ear, as he swung her into his arms. “That was war. Now we get in bed and we make love.” He looked around. “Where is the bedroom in this place, anyway?”

***

M
arlena opened one eye. The bedroom light was still on, but from her vantage, she couldn’t see much. There was an obstacle in her way. On top of her, actually. Approximately one hundred and ninety pounds. Six feet of musculature and testosterone. A sex machine whose switch had been on most of the night.

She didn’t dare move. Mr. Happy Down There might still be awake, and she was much too sore to even contemplate going another round.

She should be damn mad. And uncomfortable to have a man sleeping on top of her. Yet, she wasn’t. She felt...satiated. Happy. Wonderfully at ease. When he’d taken her to bed last night, Stash had made good on his promise. He’d made love to her all night. Slow and satisfying. The kind of loving that made a woman feel...She jerked her head up the few inches allowed her, shock reverberating through her body. Oh no. She had almost said in love...oh no...

“Don’t move,” Steve ordered sleepily. His chest rumbled in her ear, and his masculine scent wafted through her senses as his chest hair tickled her nose.

In love...oh no...Her denial was automatic, conditioned from years of training herself to keep an emotional distance. Especially from men like Stash McMillan. She shook her head, or tried to, and instead tortured herself with his scent again.

“Don’t you ever listen, woman?”

“I can’t breathe,” she lied.

“Not true. You have a healthy pair of lungs. Your screams last night prove that.”

He was the only man who had ever made her lose control like that. Pleasure without preliminaries, without thought. Just mindless sexual satiation. It scared her, and she didn’t like it. She opened her mouth against his chest and bit him.

He yelped and turned over, pulling her on top of him as he did so. His eyes were sleepy and slightly red. His dark stubble somehow made him even sexier. She wanted to kiss the dimple in his chin.

“My back hurts,” he complained. “I think you took chunks of my flesh with your teeth.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t move my right leg,” she told him. She must have wrenched a muscle while tussling with him on the carpet.

His eyes started to twinkle. “That’s because you opened your thighs too wide last night.”

His raunchiness had her flushing. She couldn’t believe it. She felt her face heating at the things he did. He had taken her every way he wanted. Just as he told her in the car last night, he’d shown her exactly what he wanted to do.

“You’re beautiful when you’re blushing,” Steve said softly.

He caressed her bare back, a sweeping up and down sensual motion that had her body squirming against him. Oh no. She wasn’t losing control so soon again. She needed time. Needed space. “All my men tell me that,” she quipped, trying to be flippant.

It worked. His smile turned into a scowl. “I don’t want to know about your other men.”

“Good, I wasn’t going to tell,” she said. She could take anger. Anger she could control and shape. “Maybe you can go ask around, start another file.”

“Maybe I’ll ask Tess,” he came back.

That wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. She forgot that was what started it all. Tess and her meddling. Stash working with Tess. She tapped him on the chin with a finger.

“I don’t share,” she said.

He cocked a dark brow at her. There was a strange light in his eyes. “That makes two of us. But where does that leave us?”

Marlena didn’t have an answer. At least not an answer that wouldn’t leave her vulnerable. No man wanted a woman without an identity, who couldn’t give him the care a normal woman would. She had learned the hard way. It was much easier to be the first to walk away.

She bent forward and kissed him, shutting out the questions and the doubts. He didn’t protest, gathering her closer, hands splaying on the cheeks of her behind. She glided against his maleness, catching her breath at how quickly he responded to her touch. Just like that, he was ready for her again. His desire was mirrored in his sleepy eyes, a torrid lust in them as he savored her fondling. His lips parted when she took him in her hand and guided him into her.

He had taken her all night. This time she would take him. She knew how he liked it, too. Long and hard and slow, pulling his pleasure at a slow pace. And he loved it when she paused just a fraction of a second before taking him again. His hands on her buttocks tightened, trying to hurry her. He sighed when she complied. He seemed to grow even larger the longer she prolonged his pleasure. She smiled down as she rode him. They didn’t need any words for this.