Seduction Under Fire (17 page)

He brought her leg to his mouth and kissed the inside of her ankle, tasting it with his tongue. She slouched further in the chair and her legs gaped apart. Aaron froze, not trusting himself to move one millimeter until he overcame the urge to take her right then and there.

Once he regained mastery over himself, he scooted forward and guided her feet up the lengths of his thighs until her toes touched the crease of his hips. He lifted his eyes to gauge her demeanor again. A corner of her lips turned up in a lazy smile. It was all he needed to see.

He pulled her onto his lap so she was straddling him.

Their bodies and mouths united like water hitting hot oil, the power of two opposing forces colliding. They kissed violently, openmouthed, tongues pushing and testing, nostrils flared with the strain of breathing, each taking and consuming the other. Demanding more. Camille’s hands were in Aaron’s hair and around his neck, clinging to him.

This time, he couldn’t stop his mouth from curling into a hard smile, or his eyes from reflecting the possessiveness radiating through him. He tugged on the collar of her shirt, exposing her shoulder, and feasted on her sweet skin, only half aware of her own exploration of him. Her mouth sucked at his neck and earlobe. Her fingers remained threaded through his hair except for every so often, when she framed his face with her hands and forced his mouth back to hers.

The ferocity of her passion was what he’d been waiting for night after torturous night. He wanted her to hunger the way he hungered. To need like he needed. He licked a trail from her collarbone to the skin between her breasts. She moaned and tipped her chin up, arching to him.

It had been worth the wait.

When he was ready to do away with her clothes, he lifted her off him, back into her own chair. Crossing her arms, she gazed at the horizon in a show of prideful restraint—as though she thought he was done with her. The crease between her eyebrows appeared and, even in the shadows, the hard clench of her jaw was apparent.

So strong, yet so fragile, she would never beg him for more. If he walked away at that moment, she’d never breathe a word about their kiss, never let the shield guarding her vulnerability crack. What happened to her that made her demand so little of others, so much of herself? It was a question for another time. Tonight, he had far more important discoveries to make.

He stroked her cheek and turned her face up to his.

“I’m going to take you to our bed and make love to you now.”

* * *

It was harder than Camille expected to give herself over to passion from a safe emotional distance.

She’d sat on the bridge, replaying Aaron’s words outside the bar that morning in her head, confused and aroused. Terrified. As far as birthday resolutions went, hers was off to a dismal start. As a gift to herself, she’d vowed to let go of the stilted, fearful woman she’d become. To experience life to the fullest. To discover happiness. And yet, she’d lingered on the bridge that night, too scared to face Aaron within the confines of the cabin, praying he’d leave her alone so she could ignore the desire that was eating her from the inside out.

Pathetic.

And then he was on the bridge, looming over her, his eyes dark with desire. She didn’t want to accept his flannel shirt, knowing it would smell of him—and it had. Rich and masculine, clean.
Aaron.
The fabric was damp and hinted at the shampoo he’d used. She’d turned up the collar and inhaled.

His skilled hands had touched her in a way no man had before, but it was his words that tipped her over the edge.

There’s no changing the truth. This will always be here between us.

He was right. No matter how desperately she fought against her feelings for him, they would never change. Never burn out. Never leave her at peace. She had only one way to combat the fear that held her back—to bulldoze straight through it. To strike it down as it had stricken her for too many years.

So what if her desire for Aaron terrified her? So what if she was one more in a long line of conquests? He’d made her an offer and she’d be a hypocrite not to take him up on it.

The minute their clothes came off, her lack of experience would be obvious. She only hoped she wouldn’t have to admit how inexperienced she actually was. But if he figured it out, if her hymen was miraculously still intact...there might be no getting around the truth. But she was no longer willing to let fear and pride hold her back.

Happy birthday, girl.

Aaron wasn’t making it easy on her, though. She’d banked on his goofy sense of humor to emerge, for him to infuse the experience with playful banter and teasing smiles, but tonight he was dead serious. Did he dive into all his conquests’ skins as if he was having them for dinner?

Did he always call it
making love?

To counter her rising anxiety, she resolved to do the opposite of her fearful instincts for the rest of the night. So after her shirt was dispatched to the cabin floor by Aaron with lightning-quick efficiency and her instincts demanded she call the whole thing off, she grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and ripped it over his head. Then she did what she’d longed to for two long years. She caressed every single muscle of his rippling abs.

They shuffled past the sofa while kissing. Aaron reached around her and punched on a light in the kitchenette.

“Turn around and put your hands on the table.”

It was a command spoken softly, but a command nonetheless.

Despite the screaming protests of her instincts, she faced the table and set her palms on it, surprised at the pulse of pleasure it gave her to give up control to him. If she were keeping score, pleasure would be leading instinct two to nothing.

With his thumbs hooked in her waistband, Aaron shoved her pants to the ground. Pinning her to the table with his lower body, he dived into the skin of her neck, which was about the most delicious feeling Camille had ever experienced. She arched into his touch and when his teeth bit gently into the skin of her shoulder, she whimpered helplessly.

He unsnapped her bra and threw it on the table.

She twisted around, but he pushed her shoulder back and gently, but firmly, took her wrist and replaced her hands on the table, adding a squeeze of admonition.

He knelt and ran a finger along the side hem of her panties, beneath her buttocks and around to the front, until only thin, damp fabric separated his finger from where she really wanted it. His tongue followed his finger. Hunching into her arms, Camille put her head down, dizzy with sensation.

His teeth nipped at her inner thigh. His nose brushed against the panties. She widened her stance, wanting desperately for him to bury his finger or tongue in her. But instead of lingering, his lips skimmed across her panties and he continued the trek around her other thigh.

Finally, he slid her panties down and stood. Setting his hands over hers, he lifted their entwined fingers and straightened so that they were looking at their reflection in the window. She didn’t recognize the woman she saw, half-naked and flushed with passion. Her breasts hung in the forefront, her nipples hardened with arousal. He moved their hands as one to cup her breasts, so that, really, she was the one doing the holding and he was the puppet-master. They felt foreign in her hands, plump and sensual.

She looked past her reflection to Aaron and gasped in shock. His eyes were fierce, and the muscles of his arms twitched like they did when he was agitated. That threw her off. He was enjoying it, too, wasn’t he? Where was the Aaron she knew, the one with the dimples and the joyous laugh? Was she doing something wrong?

“Aaron...”

“Hmm?”

“I... Are you—”

Words failed her as he moved their joined right hands between her thighs. He manipulated his hold so both their index fingers swirled over the swollen pearl of nerve endings made slick with honeyed wetness. She writhed, straining to increase the pressure on this most sensitive part of her. He worked their fingers expertly until the world around Camille disappeared. All that existed was her raw need and the tips of their fingers.

Release swept like a strike of lightning through her body. She threw her head against his shoulder with a cry, the ferocity of her climax rocking them both where they stood locked together.

“You’re mine,” he rumbled into her ear.

The intensity of his tone made her eyes snap open. She studied his reflection and saw his first smile of the night—a savage grin that left her wondering how dimples could look so wicked.

Overcome with self-awareness, her urge to put some distance between them was a powerful one. But her instincts hadn’t done her a lick of good, so now was hardly the time to let fear take over. Scared as hell but too stubborn to quit, she sunk to her knees and unfastened his jeans. It was time to even the playing field.

The jeans were the easy part—button off, zipper down and a tug. It was the boxers underneath that gave her pause. She had no idea what to do with Aaron’s erection. Or rather, she had a general idea, but not many specific details and zero experience. She braced herself for the big reveal of her naïveté, then dropped the boxers to the floor and drew a sharp breath.

She’d seen a few male appendages in her day, but she’d never seen anything like this. All the jokes she’d made over the years about his tricked-out sports car compensating for something now seemed ridiculously inappropriate.

Aaron was huge. Monster.

She hesitantly grazed the shaft with her finger and watched it bob in response. Emboldened, she moved to the tip, slid the foreskin back and closed her mouth over the head. His body dipped and he staggered back, slamming into the kitchen counter. The muscles of her core pulsed with impatience, even as she grinned at the discovery that she had the power to do that to him. Oh, this could easily become her obsession, this piece of Aaron’s anatomy.

Happy birthday, girl. Here’s a bonus gift....

Before her exploration had barely begun, he pushed her away. “You’re going to have to torment me on your own time.” His voice was husky. “I’ve got other plans for you tonight.”

He led her down the stairs. The light from the kitchenette filtered onto the bed like a spotlight into which she was tossed with alarming ease. Crawling up the length of her body, he kicked her legs apart with his knees. Then, beginning with her breasts, he proceeded to drive her into a frenzy with his tongue.

Moments before her second orgasm shattered her last threads of control, two random thoughts floated across her mind. The first was that if practice made perfect then maybe she should thank Aaron for being such a male slut. And the second was that she was an idiot for waiting so long to have sex.

With an echoing scream, she clamped her thighs around his head. He kept his tongue on her, riding her waves of pleasure until they subsided, then kissed his way back up her body. Breathing hard, he positioned himself on his knees between her legs. She thought briefly about using protection but dismissed the idea. They were fifty miles from shore, fighting for their lives in a foreign country. They couldn’t simply dash to a store for supplies. The universe would just have to forgive her this one indiscretion on her birthday, because short of the fires of hell rising up around them, she wouldn’t have stopped Aaron for anything.

He positioned himself at her entrance, then swirled his fingertips through her moisture. With his thumb caressing her tender flesh, he dipped his fingers inside her.

“You’re so tight.”

That was the understatement of the century.

His massive girth was bound to make this part a bit of a challenge. She tried to relax, determined to lose her virginity to Aaron no matter how long it took her body to accommodate him.

She wrapped her legs around his waist. “Is that a problem?” she teased.

The shadow of a smile crossed his face. He pressed forward gently, and she felt him hit a wall. Two sets of eyes flew open.

Chapter 13

“I
s that...? Are you...?”

“Yes, I think it is. I’m a virgin.” She screwed up her mouth in a wince. “Damn it. I have the worst luck in the world.”

Thoughts swirled so furiously in Aaron’s head that his brain seemed near the verge of exploding. He made to rock back on his heels, but the grip of Camille’s legs around his hips proved unyielding. How could a woman as beautiful as Camille, surrounded by men on the job every day as she was, not once give herself over to passion? Or not even passion, but a down and dirty screw? Leave it to Little Miss Martyr to deny herself such a fundamental human need.

Still reeling, he met her brilliant green eyes and recognized a familiar determination in them.

“But I turned thirty today, so don’t you think it’s time I did something about it?”

That knocked the wind from his sails. And here he thought they were making progress on the intimacy front. “Today’s your birthday? Weren’t you going to tell me?”

“I didn’t see a reason to.”

Ah, baby.
What a way to live, inside herself, alone.

But no more.

She wouldn’t be lonely again. Because she had him, and he knew on an elemental level that he would never let her go. He had no idea where the knowledge came from, or what it meant for their future, but it burned inside him as fiercely as his desire. And, oh, did he burn with desire for her. He looked down, drinking in her juicy curves, amazing breasts and full lips. Her tight, wet body ready to be claimed by him. She was a virgin. She was his to take.

Battling that caveman part of him urging him forward, he kissed her temple. His hands trembled and his muscles strained, holding back his body’s demand. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

Cupping his cheeks, she searched his face. “More than anything.”

At her answer, a feeling like a howl swept through him and he let go of his restraint. Thrusting deeply, he took her virginity.

She nuzzled her face against his shoulder. He held motionless but for the heavy rise and fall of his lungs. The significance of the moment crushed the last vestiges of the restless, spoiled boy he’d been before the kidnapping that changed everything, before he fell in love with Camille. “A part of you belongs to me now,” he rasped, aware of his possessive tone but unable to prevent it.