Taking the Heat (10 page)

“Stop talking and enjoy it.” His lips slid across her jawline to her ear, where his tongue traced the shell. His breathing was harsh and loud, turning her on with the passion conveyed by the accelerated tempo. He stroked his cockhead down to the clenching opening of her pussy, notching himself briefly and growling at her trembling grip on that most sensitive part of him, before rubbing back up to nudge her swollen clit. “You’re so wet, baby. So ready.”

A soft sound escaped her as he continued to glide through the saturated folds of her sex with the heavy length of his beautiful cock.

“Promise me,” she gasped, her hands gripping his hips.

“I’ve been riding you bareback, Layla,” he murmured, his tongue worrying a hardened nipple through the thin cotton of her camisole. “And you specifically told me to come inside you. You’re not protected, are you?”

She sucked in a shaky breath. “You don’t know that.”

He slid his cock downward to the entrance of her pussy and pushed the thick crown into her. “Your cunt is tight and greedy. You haven’t taken a man inside you in a long time. Why take the pill if you’re not having sex?”

She was briefly startled by how perfectly his words mimicked her thoughts from the day before. “That’s not the only reason women take the pill, Bri.”

“You’re evading the question.” His lips circled the tip of her breast.

He worked another few inches inside her. She trembled with desire, her body so sensitized by his confident, relentless seduction. His virility and potent sensuality were their own foreplay. Being the recipient of that intense focus and dominant need was impossible to resist.

“Brian . . .” Her hips arched in an effort to take more of him.

“Do you want my baby, Layla?” he purred darkly, rolling his hips to slide even deeper. “Are you hoping you’ll walk away with a piece of me inside you?”

“You’ve always been inside me,” she whispered.

Lowering his hips, he drove in to the hilt with a low hiss of pleasure. The headboard tapped against the wall. “You’re asking me to let you go, while you’re trying to hold on to something of me? Someone who’s part of me?”

Her legs lifted and wrapped around his muscular thighs, holding him at that delicious point where he filled every centimeter of her. “Shut up, Brian. You’re the one who wanted to fuck instead of talk.”

Reaching behind him, he caught her wrist and pulled her hand up and away from his back. He pinned it to the mattress beside her head, then did the same with her other arm. His face was tight and hard with lust, his eyes dark, his sensual mouth drawn into a thin line. He withdrew slowly, stroking her inner walls with the wide head of his cock. Then he thrust home hard, ramming the headboard into the wall.

Layla bit her lip to stifle a moan. Heated pleasure raced through her veins.

“I’ll have to take you slow and easy,” he bit out, his jaw clenched tight. “Damn bed.”

She tightened around him just to torment him.

“Witch.” Circling his hips, he put pressure on her throbbing clit.

Her head pressed hard into the pillow as an orgasm hovered just out of reach.

Releasing her, he shoved another pillow under her shoulders. “Watch me fucking you, Layla. Watch what you do to me.”

Brian pulled out, his cock thick and glistening. “See how hard you make me? I’m so hot for you. I’ll never have enough of this, never have enough of you.”

He eased the heavily veined length back inside her, his teeth grinding audibly.

“It’s so good,” she breathed, wanting it to last nearly as badly as she wanted to come. “You feel so good.”

“As good as it gets,” he said hoarsely, snaring her wrists again. “You know it, too. We’re it for each other, baby. There’s no one else out there for us. You can’t tell me to settle. I won’t.”

He withdrew to the tip, then surged into her in a slow, deep glide. His harsh groan reverberated through the room. His head hung over her, his broad shoulders shivering as her pussy rippled helplessly around his hardness.

“I love you,” Layla whispered, her entire being filled with a desperate longing. “I love you so much.”

He caught her mouth with his own, his lips slanting across hers. His hips rose and fell, shafting her aching pussy with measured leisurely thrusts. Her pinioned hands clenched and released as she ate ravenously at his mouth, suckling his tongue as she longed to do to his cock. Sweat coated their skin, their bodies flexing and arching and straining together, their hips meeting each other with rhythmic erotic slaps. His heavy testicles swayed and smacked against her buttocks with every deep plunge, his chest heaving as the pleasure tore through them both.

The controlled pace was both maddening and delicious. They writhed against each other, driven by the need for a hard pounding tempo that would dull the reality of their inevitable parting.

Brian withdrew suddenly. She cried out in protest, her womb spasming with need.

“Fuck this noisy bed,” he growled. He hauled her up and carried her to the wall by the bathroom, pinning her to the flat surface with a desperate thrust into her.

She gasped at the rough impalement, potently aroused by his ferocity, knowing it came from the need to ignore the swiftly passing time.

“ Yes,”
he hissed as her pussy spasmed in greedy delight. “Hold on, baby.”

Clenching her hips in a fierce grip, he worked her up and down on his throbbing erection, his thrusts fast and furious.

She moaned, her nails digging into his back. “Harder. Deeper.
Yes.
Oh God . . . I’m coming.”

He fucked through her climax, dragging it out, making it last, watching her quake with the force of the sensations tearing through her. “That’s it. Give it to me, Layla.”

Finally, the racking tension left her. Her body sagged in the aftermath of the violent orgasm. But Brian kept working her, slamming his hips against hers as he shoved his way through the tightened grip of her sated pussy.

As the pleasure built again, Layla moaned. “Brian.”

“One more time,” he rasped, the strain of holding out evident in his tightly clenched jaw.

Grinding his pelvis against her clit, he brought her off. He cursed as she cried out and rippled along his length, his cock jerking as he came in thick spurts of white-hot semen.

His knee hit the wall with a harsh thud; his big body crowded hers as he leaned into her for support. With his lips to her throat, he groaned through the wrenching orgasm, clutching her hard while she trembled in his arms.

“I love you.” He nuzzled his perspiration-slick forehead against her cheek. “And your golden pussy, as you called it, is going to kill me. It’s going to suck the life right out of me one day. But, man . . . what a way to go.”

Layla laughed, his humor unexpected and welcome. She felt him smile against her skin, the moment as intimate as the climax they’d just shared. He stumbled back to the bed with her, staying inside her, even as they sank back into the mattress.

She pushed her hands into his sweat-soaked hair and held him close. “I want you to be happy. I want that more than anything in the world.”

“I know.” He pushed his arms beneath her shoulders and squeezed her.

“I don’t want to make you miserable.”

“Then stop talking about this, Layla.”

“That is so like a man,” she muttered. “Ignore a situation and hope it goes away.”

He nipped the tender spot between her neck and shoulder with his teeth. “I’m not promising to forget you or move on without you. Give it up.”

“Promise me you won’t let my memory get in the way of having a good life.” Her fingers massaged his scalp. “I can’t bear the thought of you waiting around for another chance that we might see each other a decade or more down the road.”

He lifted his head and looked down at her. “And if I did run across you, will you have moved on? Will you be married and happy?”

The mere thought caused physical pain in her chest. Perceptive as he was, Brian saw it. “Thought so. I rest my case.”

“Brian—”

“Go to sleep.”

She wondered how she was supposed to do that, with his heavy body atop hers and his cock still inside her. But she would never complain. She wanted the feeling imprinted on her skin, a vivid memory she would hold on to in the years to come.

B
rian was staring out the kitchen window at the pre-dawn sky when Jack reentered the room. The other deputy had come in earlier to make coffee shortly after Brian first left his guest room. This time, Jack was dressed. Like Brian, he wore his shoulder holster, and his badge was clipped to his belt.

Brian tossed back the rest of his cooled coffee and went to the coffeemaker for another cup. Despite his lack of sleep, he was wired. It was a big day. The biggest of his life.

Leaning his back against the countertop, he crossed his feet at the ankles and looked Jack over. It wasn’t yet three in the morning and the man had his boots on. “Why are you dressed?”

“I’m coming with you, of course.”

“The hell you are.”

Jack smiled. “You’re a ray of sunshine in the morning, Simmons.”

“Rachel needs you.”

“She’s got me.”

“This is my gamble to make. Stay here.”

“No can do.” Jack ’s dark eyes were hard, his shoulders set. “That lady of yours has a very important appointment tomorrow and you need more eyes.”

“Fuck.” Brian couldn’t argue against the need for help and more comprehensive protection for Layla. He wouldn’t. The only argument he could make was a personal plea for Jack to put himself first, and Layla’s testimony trumped that. “These guys aren’t fucking around, Jack.”

“Rachel accepts the risks. Did you call Jim?”

“I tried last night. Left a message. There was nothing in his recorded greeting that suggested trouble. He would have slipped in something I’d recognize if I needed to watch my back.”

“Okay. So you and Layla will take my truck, and I’ll follow in the Bronco.”

Brian shoved a hand through his shower-damp hair. “For the record, I strongly object to your involvement, Killigrew.”

“You’ll get over it.”

When they pulled over in Flagstaff for breakfast, Brian took a few minutes to leave a message on the AUSA’s office voice mail. Then he switched to a new disposable cell phone and called Doug Preston, a supervisory deputy U.S. marshal in the Southern District of California. Relying on voice mail again, he explained the situation in a low, steady tone. He started with the explosion and ended with his anticipated arrival in San Diego. Aside from the last, he fully expected the information to be a rehash of what was already known, but Brian wanted his version of the events to be recorded in case something prevented him from giving a statement later. The closer they got to San Diego, the more dangerous the situation would become. He had to make sure he protected Layla with the truth as he knew it, even if he couldn’t do so in the flesh.

Jack approached with a newly refilled soda in hand. “You sure you want to do that?”

Realizing the other deputy had eavesdropped, Brian shot him a wry glance as he pulled the battery from the phone. “You wouldn’t if you were in my shoes?”

“I would, but I’m your friend. I have to ask.”

Brian nodded, biting back further words when Layla stepped out of the restroom. He offered her a quick smile and she returned it, but they knew each other too well to hide anything from each other. She knew he was feeling raw. Twisted up over her, over her safety, over how much he loved her. Her eyes said it all in return.

“You ready?” he asked when she took his hand.

“No.”

He tightened his grip on her and shielded her the distance to the trucks.

“Criminal justice, you said. Do you like it?”

Layla looked at Brian as they crossed the border from Arizona into California. He’d started trying to distract her about a half hour prior and she was going along with it as much as she was able, considering she had a knotted stomach and heavy heart. “I do.”