Into the Darkness (18 page)

act—allowing her to draw out the exquisitely pain-filled

moment.

While she’d held Gerard in her fierce grip, she’d felt his orgasm as though it had been her own, seen the blackness that

devoured his thoughts grow like a large nimbus cloud to fill

148

delilah devlin

his mind, felt him falling toward it until he’d ceased to exist

on any plane.

Never mind that Gerard was recovering, or so the team had

told her as they cleared away her mess. But she hadn’t known

when she should stop or understood what needed to be done

to save him in the end.

If she could do this to a total stranger, how might she behave if she were making love to Rene? Would she stop herself

the next time?

She sat up at the side of the bed and eyed one of the manacles Rene had been forced to wear. With a shaking hand, she

slipped it around her wrist and closed it.

While the others lingered over drinks, Chessa excused herself to follow Nicolas as he headed back toward the security

barracks.

Outside, the wind had whipped up, tearing at her hair as

she moved swiftly down the graveled path through the garden, past the gazebo, and beyond to the old horse stables that

had been converted for the team’s use.

As she passed through an arbor gate, a dark figure stepped

out of the shadows.

“Are you following me?” Nicolas asked, his low, rumbling

voice nearly carried away on the wind.

Chessa’s breath caught. The storm building around them

hadn’t a tenth of the ferocity of the one growing inside her.

Dinner had scraped her emotions raw. “I—” Her throat closed

around her words, forcing them back. Why had she followed

him? She didn’t want to look too deeply inside herself for that

answer.

into the darkness

149

“Why are you here, Chessa?”

He wanted to hear the words, but her tongue refused to

form them. Tears filled her eyes, and she blamed the wind

that cut like a sharp knife.

Nicolas remained still, buffeted by wind that molded his

shirt to his lean torso. He stood stoic and solid in a long night

that threatened to unleash her inner demons and memories.

With an inarticulate cry, she launched herself into his arms,

winding hers around his neck, climbing up his body, needing

to be closer to take his strength, drink in his scent and essence until he filled her.

His arms closed around her, and his hands grabbed her

buttocks in a bruising grip as he lifted her higher against his

body.

The violence of their kiss ground her lips into her teeth,

raising blood they both drank. Muscles like hardened oak

flexed beneath her hands and within the tight grip of her

thighs.

Nicolas drew back his head and dragged air into his lungs.

“I want you,” he said, his voice raw with need.

Chessa drew a ragged breath. “Take me.”

“Here.”

“God, yes.”

He walked with her deeper into the garden to a raised

grass-covered bed and knelt, lowering her to the ground with

a hand cupping the back of her head.

Chessa still held him in the circle of her arms and thighs,

unwilling to let him go. She reached up and kissed his chin,

and then scraped her lengthening teeth along his neck.

“I want you naked.”

150

delilah devlin

She nodded and nipped his throat, drawing blood that she

immediately licked away.

Soft laughter shook his chest. “You have to let me go.”

“Nnnnnhh,” she murmured against his skin, rolling her

hips against him.

Nicolas grasped her hands and pinned them to the ground

beside her head. He settled over her, letting his weight hold

her still beneath him. When he had her attention, he shifted

his thighs on either side of her hips and sat up.

His fingers made quick work of the row of buttons on her

shirt. He tugged it from the waistband of her trousers, and

then raised her up to strip it away. She didn’t give him any

more help with her pants.

Laughter, tense and harsh, gusted from him as he fought

the button and zipper and then shoved her legs from his waist

to draw her jeans down. His fingers plucked her underwear,

tearing them away.

Then he stood and quickly stripped away his own clothes,

until the only thing clothing him was the dim light from a

faraway lamp.

Chessa lay still, her womb clenching around an empty ache,

unable to look away. The moment felt charged, pregnant

with promise. His dark, hooded eyes, so intent and piercing,

thrilled her, opening a dam of moisture that flooded her vagina in liquid anticipation.

With the wind caressing their bare flesh and flashes of

lightning to add to the fierceness of the moment, he knelt

between her legs, his hands gliding up her sides and over her

breasts to plump and caress them.

His mouth closed around one spiking nipple, and Chessa

into the darkness

151

cried out, arching her back to drive it deeper between his

lips.

He suckled and tugged, until her legs moved restlessly

along his sides and her head thrashed side to side. When he

gently chewed the peak, she keened and urged him to the

other nipple.

Nicolas licked his way across her chest, curling his tongue

around the ripened bud, flickering it with his tongue then

suctioning hard.

Chessa’s pussy tightened, cream seeping from inside to

ready her for his invasion. She dug her heels into the grass

and lifted her hips to rub against his hard shaft, inviting him

to take the plunge.

But he released her nipple only to glide his mouth down

her belly, pausing to nip the curve of each rib, sucking her

skin to raise love bites along his path to her mound.

Her belly quivered with each shallow breath she struggled

to take. “Nooooo!” she gasped.

She’d known he wouldn’t go straight to the finish. And in

her soul, she gloried in his determination to wring every last

gasp, every drop of cream from her body.

When at last the clouds released their rain, she opened her

arms, letting them fall to the ground above her head in acceptance of his gift.

chapter

11

hessa stared into the stormy sky as rain began

Cto fall. Cooler than the humid heat around

them, drops thudded against her skin to shatter in

tiny wet explosions.

Rather like the sensation of Nicolas’s kisses that

drew steadily nearer her pulsing cunt.

She spread her legs wide, unable to hide the

trembling of her thighs.

As he bent over her belly, his hands caressed

her legs. To soothe her? His touch did nothing to

lessen the quivering that had her jumping, gasping

as he tongued her belly button, rimming it with

the hardened tip of his tongue. When he pressed

the button at the center, it was as though the spot

were an ignition switch.

154

delilah devlin

She half-raised off the ground, crying out only to fall limply

back to earth when he roamed lower.

“Easy,” he crooned. “Sweet, so sweet.” He slid his lips

across her lower abdomen, nipping the skin between his teeth,

then soothing it with a lazy lap of his tongue.

Chessa thrust her fingers into his thick hair and tried to

guide him lower. Her pussy pulsed to a slower beat than her

heart, opening, gasping like her mouth, clasping air. Dewy

cream slid from inside her, trickling down her cunt between

her buttocks to waste itself in the grass beneath her bottom.

When at last he touched her swollen outer labia, she tried

to hold herself very still, hoping not to distract his attention

from the center of her torment.

He spread her plump lips and licked the edges of the thinner pair between, teasing her with occasional forays that

delved into her opening, only to dart away again.

A thick, calloused thumb drew back the hood cloaking her

clitoris, and he blew air over the hot, engorged knot, causing

her belly and thighs to spasm and tighten. Then he drew her

thighs over his shoulders and cupped her buttocks to bring

her closer to his mouth. Her fingers tugged hard on his hair,

trying to guide his mouth to her clit to ease the ache quickly

consuming her mind.

When at last his lips closed around the knot of bundled

nerves, Chessa issued a strangled scream as her pussy convulsed with the first spasm of an orgasm. He held her still as

she writhed against his mouth, drawing out the moment with

the increasing suctioning of his mouth.

When she lay spent, sobbing, only then did he rise over her

and thrust his cock deep inside her.

into the darkness

155

He lay on top of her, shielding her from the rain from chest

to toes. He kissed her, his lips softly gliding over hers. Then

he rose on his elbows to look into her face. “This is how I

want you. Always. Spent. No strength to argue or throw up

barriers. Mine.”

Chessa blinked against the rain and the intensity of his

stare. She shook her head. “I c-can’t. I don’t love you.”

His smile held no trace of humor and his gaze seared. “We

have forever to correct your misapprehension.” With that, he

thrust his knees between hers and pulled up her hips on either side of his, arranging her for his pleasure.

“For now, remember this.” He drew out his cock and

slammed back inside her. Again, he pulled out and thrust

back with more force, his cock driving toward her womb, each

thrust that followed harder, sharper, driving the air from her

lungs with each deep stroke.

His anger rolled off his body in hot waves that threatened

to drown her in remorse. But the friction he built inside her

reignited her passion, and she ground her heels into the mud

to parry his thrusts, working in opposition to stoke the flame

higher.

His shoulders bunched beneath her hands, his breaths

gasped between his clenched teeth, and still he hammered

harder, pistoning against the cradle of her sex, his fierce

thrusts shoving her across the bed of grass, until she splintered, shattering into a thousand shards of brittle glass, keening as she was thrust beyond herself into darkness.

When she opened her eyes, Nicolas glared down at her, still

seething with anger although his slowing motions told that

he too had found release.

156

delilah devlin

“Why are you so angry? This is all we can have,” she said.

“I won’t stay here. You won’t ever leave.”

“You don’t love him.”

She didn’t pretend not to understand who he meant. “How

can you know that?”

“Because you didn’t seek him out when you were

hurting.”

“I’m not hurting!”

He shifted and slowly withdrew from her, closing his eyes

briefly when his cock slid completely free. “No? That wasn’t

pain that nearly knocked me off my feet?”

She lifted her shoulders, pretending a nonchalance she

couldn’t really feel when he surrounded her still. “It’s just

sex, Nic. That’s all.”

His gaze nailed her to the ground beneath him. “Then why

didn’t you drink from me?”

Damn! She hated his perception. “You think that means

anything?”

“
Not
drinking certainly does.”

Shock at his perception took her breath away. Like a whore

who refused to kiss, she’d held back a part of herself.

Nicolas’s breath huffed and he shook his head as though

clearing away a fog. He rolled to the side and lay with the rain

washing his body. After a long moment, he turned his face

toward her and offered her a crooked smile. “I didn’t mean to

spoil the moment.”

Chessa blamed the rain for moisture filling her eyes. He’d

backed off for now. Given her space when he could have

pushed and maybe forced her to admit more than she was

ready. She rewarded him with at least part of the truth.

into the darkness

157

“You didn’t spoil a thing. Knowing you give a damn means

a lot.”

Rene paced the bedroom, too edgy to rest. He did his best to

ignore Natalie huddled beneath the covers on the bed.

He knew she was awake. Her breaths were too shallow. But

he didn’t care about her deception, was glad she didn’t want

to talk, didn’t even look his way. His cock already tented the

towel he’d slung around his hips after the shower he’d taken

when Chessa left.

For whatever reason, close proximity to Natalie equaled

arousal.

The fact she lay still and silent with the blankets up to

her ears caused him a pang of sympathy, but he didn’t care

enough to do anything about it. Certainly didn’t want to get

into bed with her again.

To keep his mind busy and off the ache in his groin, he circled

the room, looking for any possible means of escape. He wasn’t

going to wait for anyone to spring him. The longer he remained here, the better the likelihood Natalie would take another bite. If he didn’t put some distance between them, his

days were numbered.

Unfortunately, the soft, feminine-looking room had reinforced concrete walls, a solid oak door, and steel bars over