Mesmerized (15 page)
Authors: Lauren Dane
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Erotic fiction, #General, #Adult, #Erotica, #Mercenary troops
“I’m flying you out to the Wastelands. Period. Kenner wants to help as well, and I know Taryn will. This is ours.
You’re
ours. Mine most especially.” She pressed herself to his back, hugging him from behind.
You’re
ours. Mine most especially.” She pressed herself to his back, hugging him from behind.
Warmth settled in his belly, and he hadn’t the strength to resist.
“Come back to my room. Be with me before meal time.” She climbed out and handed him one of the robes hanging nearby.
Why he allowed it, he wished he couldn’t say. But it was that he didn’t want to refuse her. Even knowing he was not good enough, he still wanted. Wanted her so badly his hands shook from it.
The small room smelled of her, and he took a deep breath, pausing a moment to take the space in. It had its own kind of femininity. Despite the rifle in the corner and the scuffed work boots under a nearby desk, there were bits and bobs strewn here and there. A shiny necklace, a bright scarf, a tie for her hair. Her bed was large and not slept in.
They’d slept in his bed the night before, and he’d laid there when he first woke up, breathing her in where she lived on his sheets.
Here it wasn’t a wisp of her scent; her scent lived in the air, wrapped around his senses and squeezed to get his attention.
She dropped the robe. “I think I need some recharging. Can you help me with that?” Her mouth—Gods, her mouth—curved into a half smile. A knowing smile a woman wears when she knows the man she’s smiling at will be inside her shortly.
Two steps and he was on her, his mouth descending to meet hers, taking it in a kiss of possession. He wanted to mark her in every possible way.
When it was really the other way around. She’d marked him for most of his life, and it was still there. Her fingerprints on his very soul. Nothing had changed, but everything had changed in ways he didn’t know if there was a way around.
But for that moment, for those stolen moments between them, it didn’t matter, because she was his and he hers. Naked to the bone.
He tried to hold back, but it was useless to try. His desire swelled, bursting through him until it was everything and drowned him.
Her back met the wall, her arms around his neck and her legs about his waist. Skin to skin, the heat of her was a fever. He eagerly swallowed her surprised breath as he continued to kiss her. The sounds she made deep in her throat drove him mad for her. Made the blinding, crippling desire for her crawl over his skin, marching onward until he gave in.
His teeth caught her bottom lip as he spread her a little wider. She hooked her ankles at his back and suddenly, her cunt engulfed his cock, welcoming him in a tight, hot embrace so good he had to pause or come right that second.
She writhed, trying to get more, and he pushed her back, his body against hers enough to keep her in place. Instead of being horrified, her wide-eyed gaze went half-mast, glossy with need. “Yes. Take whatever you need from me, Andrei.”
Her words settled in his mouth as he licked over the curve of her bottom lip and he groaned, pulling out nice and slow, only to reverse and push back in as deeply as he could. Her nails dug into the muscle of his shoulders. Pinpricks of pleasure/pain like hot sparks.
“Tell me, Andrei. Give me your words.” Her voice was laced with pleasure and something else. Whatever it was, it stoked his own response, his own pleasure, and yes, he accepted what they had, what they once were and what she had always been to him.
“So good.” He kissed the hollow below her ear. She tasted like tears. In that place where heartache and great joy can sometimes slide against the other. He stroked his chest against hers, her nipples hard points against his skin, bumping over his nipples in the bargain. He gasped, and she tightened around him.
“Your pussy is so fucking hot and wet. Perfect.”
Her upper back rested against the wall, rough-hewn enough to scrape just a little. Enough to remind her of the intensity of the moment as his cock filled her and left her empty in turns again and again until she writhed to get more, until she could no longer hold back the words.
“Please. Gods, Andrei, please.” She moved her head from side to side, hissing when he scraped his teeth over her collarbone, right at the place where it met the hollow of her throat.
“Please what?”
Oh he was so arrogant! With reason, no doubt about it. He used every part of himself against her. His weight to pin her hips in place, his hands, fingers digging into the muscle of her thighs and ass to hold her up. His cock fucking into her pussy, driving her mad with desire.
“I need to come. I want you to come in me.”
“You first.” He adjusted his hold, the tips of his fingers brushing against her labia, only adding more friction. He pushed her together, sealing her around his cock, and it was only a breath until the first tendrils of climax had begun to latch on, dragging her hip deep into it.
His openmouthed kisses were hot and sensual, the heat of his mouth a brand against her skin.
“Go on.” She panted. “Bite me. You know you want to, and I’m offering myself.”
His groan was laced with anguish, threaded with desire and need. And his teeth played against her shoulder, where they met her skin. Anticipation flooded her, sent her reeling headlong into climax. And then he bit, his teeth sinking into the muscle, and still she felt the fine tremble as he kept himself in check.
She rode it, let it take over, sing through her veins as she came around his cock, knowing he felt it. Knowing it only made the experience better for him. “Yes. Gods. Yes.”
She didn’t care how loud she was. Didn’t care about anything but how he felt. How he was, naked to her right then as he lifted his head and locked gazes with her. In that moment he was vulnerable, and it made her feel like she could do anything for that trust. Anything to see him this way again. Unguarded and open. Something she knew he rarely, if ever showed anyone else.
She wanted to writhe. Wanted to swivel, but he held her exactly how he wanted as he fucked into her body. Held her in place as he thrust over and over again. He bent his knees, digging into her body in fierce, deep presses until his head fell forward onto her shoulder and he came with a groan.
A groan of her name.
He slid to the ground, keeping her on top as he lay on the floor. When she sat upright, she looked down on him and sighed happily. He opened his eyes, a smirk on his lips.
“You look awfully satisfied with yourself.” She shouldn’t let him get away with his outrageous behavior. But, to be honest with herself, she loved it. Loved the way he acted. Perhaps it was those moments when he eased up and let her in, gave her a few words or a smile. Whatever it was, she was utterly charmed by it.
“I was about to say it was you who sounded satisfied.” He lazily traced the outline of the bite mark. That sensation shot straight to her clit. “Did I hurt you?”
The arrogance slid away, worry in his gaze. She couldn’t help but laugh; this tough man worried a love bite had harmed her. A man who’d taken out an entire squad of Skorpios. She found it wildly flattering.
She dipped her head, kissing his mouth and then his chin. “Yes, it hurt a little. At first. Then”—she licked her lips, trying to find the right words for him—“then the pain melts away and there’s this white-hot wash of pleasure. I loved it.” She touched the one on her inner thigh. “This one, too. I like it that you’ve marked me.” Glad for the way her skin color hid blushes, she ducked her face, and he caught it, easing her back to face him.
“I like that, too.”
She grinned. “Oh. Well, good.” Tipping her chin, she indicated the other rooms beyond her closed door. “I think, perhaps, our cover is blown.” She was loud enough to have let the entire household know they were fucking. Thank the heavens the children were all still in school.
When he moved to stand, she watched, as always, awed by his grace and the strength of his bunched muscles. She took the hand he held for her and let him haul her to stand next to him. “Are you concerned? I don’t wish to cause you difficulty.”
A laugh bubbled through her as she hugged him. “The only difficulty is that nearly every woman in the compound and a few men want what I’ve got. And they can’t have it, because I don’t share.”
“I guessed that about you. I have to clean up the launcher and get some things in place for my work later this evening.”
She cocked her head, narrowing her gaze at him.
“Fine. Our work. But it still has to be done.”
“The basin is right behind you. Clean up a little and go on out. The evening meal is cooking. Lune’s stew is one of my favorites. Don’t be late, or you’ll have to eat bread and fruit while everyone else has second helpings.”
She made no secret of looking at his backside as he washed his face and hands before skirting next door to get his clothes on, robe clutched around himself.
“Well, then.” Taryn looked her up and down when she sidled up to the counter and began to clean the vegetables they’d serve with dinner. Taryn made a delicious sauce to go with them. Pungent and tart with herbs and oils.
“Well then what?” She tried not to smile at Lune, but the other woman’s wink did her in.
“Are you all right?”
“Taryn, he didn’t break me. He’d never hurt me. It’s not like that.”
Her brother snorted a laugh. “That falls into the far more information than a brother needs to know category. I meant the outing. Kenner told me there’d been a spot of trouble.”
She put her hands over her face momentarily, feeling the heat of her embarrassment against her palms. “Yes, there was. He handled it. Pretty much single-handedly. Everything is fine. Well, not the big picture everything. That is not fine at all. But today, here and now, everything is fine.”
Taryn sighed. “Piper . . . don’t get attached again. He’s got a job to do. He won’t be staying. Even if he wanted to, things are dire, and he has big responsibilities.”
At least she knew Kenner hadn’t run to him to tell Taryn all about their earlier conversation. Quickly, and very briefly, she told him the same thing she’d said to Kenner.
She could fight it and make grand statements about how she knew it was short-lived and she was just having great sex with an old lover. But it was more. She knew it, and it seemed disrespectful of them both to claim otherwise.
He listened, patiently, as he worked and finally hugged her, onearmed, before turning back to what he was doing. “All right. I just want you to be happy.”
“I love you, Taryn. Have I told you that lately?” She looked up, and up some more. Her older brother had been her father since their own father had died shortly after their first winter on Asphodel. He favored their father. His skin nearly ebony, his eyes big and brown, hair in the short knots like their father had worn.
“But butt out? Was that the next part?” he teased.
“Not at all. Thank you for taking over after Dai was gone. For struggling to keep us fed and clothed. For being the father of us all here. There’s nothing here, no one who hasn’t been touched by something you’ve done for them. I admire you. I’m proud of you. I don’t say it enough. I appreciate your concern about my heart. But the truth of it is I love him. Never stopped most likely, and here he is as an adult and I am, too, and he’s even more than he was then. If he leaves, I will still love him, because that’s who I am, and how can I regret even a week or two with him when before I had nothing but far-off memories?”
He blinked his eyes a few times, bending to haul some more vegetables to the table where she worked. “Thank you for that.”
“He doesn’t think he’s a good man.”
“What do you think?”
“I know he is. He’s back here and protecting us all. Today, you should have seen him. Fierce. There was no way those Imperial soldiers were going to get away with being here and trying to harm us. He simply was not going to let that happen. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I can’t lie and tell you it doesn’t concern me. That I don’t worry for your safety. But he protects you. I’ve seen it. I can be happy with that.”
She needed more than his body between hers and danger. But she could certainly appreciate that nonetheless. It was his mind and his heart she was more interested in. Wanted more.
“I think he’s a good man, too.” And with that, Taryn left the kitchen, whistling, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
Chapter 10
T
hey hiked from the place where they’d left the zipper. He hadn’t wanted to risk being discovered or the zipper being damaged. So she’d left it on the edge of the Wastelands in the shadow of the cliffs, and they were currently moving at a fast clip toward the mine.
hey hiked from the place where they’d left the zipper. He hadn’t wanted to risk being discovered or the zipper being damaged. So she’d left it on the edge of the Wastelands in the shadow of the cliffs, and they were currently moving at a fast clip toward the mine.
Andrei was impressed with the way she easily kept up with him as they took a fairly brutal pace.
They couldn’t speak and risk being detected by any possible portable listening stations. The constant wind meant their footfalls would not be heard. She’d done everything he asked, except stay back at the compound. He’d tried again, telling her to wait with the zipper, and she’d ignored him totally, swinging out of the zipper’s cockpit and sliding her goggles and the sand mask into place over her nose and mouth.
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