Unleashed (24 page)

But he clutched her closer when she would have pulled away. “Please, Caroline,” he tilted his head up to look at her, his arms like iron bands around her middle. “Don’t go. Please Carrie.” Begging. Danny Taggart was begging her, his voice low, throbbing with pain and something else. Something she couldn’t resist.

Then he dealt the death blow to any resistance she might have been able to muster. “I need you, I need you so much.”

D
anny had only said those words to Caroline one other time. The night she’d given him her virginity. When it became clear his mother was gone and not coming back, and he’d fallen into a black hole that threatened to suck him under. Then, as now, he’d reached out to her to help him claw his way back out.

Now, as then, she was helpless to resist the siren’s call of a big, tough, brutal warrior like Danny needing her.

“Need you,” he murmured again as he rained kisses along the neckline of her pajama tank top and slid one hand in the elastic waistband of her knit pants. His big, warm hand sliding over her ass made warmth pool low in her belly. With every stroke of his hand, every press of his lips the warmth grew, until it drowned out everything. The voices in her head telling her to run away were silenced. The ache subsided until all she cared about was Danny.

Touching her, kissing her, needing her.

But she needed him too. Needed him to make her forget the grief she’d been carrying around. Needed him to make her forget that she’d spent ten years married to a man she didn’t really know.

She threaded her fingers in the rough silk of his hair and tipped his head back. She slid one knee on his lap and bent to kiss him. Tongues thrust and lips sucked and desire poured through her veins like thick, hot, honey.

Danny
. No one tasted like him, she thought as she cupped his face in her hands and thrust her tongue against his.

No one touched her like him, she thought as he slid his hand up under her tank top to cup and caress her breasts. She’d always marveled at the sheer power and strength of him, and he’d only grown bigger, harder, and tougher over the years. But he touched her with tenderness, sensitivity, seeming to know exactly how to touch her. Like he had a connection with her body that told him to flick his thumb across her nipple and to pinch the tight little bud with a firm pressure that danced on the edge of pain.

She slid her other knee onto his chair and settled into his lap, straddling him so she could feel the thick bulge of his cock between her thighs. She was drenched, the crotch of her pajama pants soaked as she ground herself against him.

“Sweet Carrie,” he muttered as he whipped her tank top up over her head. “So sweet,” he said as he closed his mouth over the tip of one breast and sucked hard. The heat of his touch chased away the chill of the night. His mouth devoured her breasts and he caressed her back and sides with hands that still held a faint tremble.

He shifted under her, grinding his cock against her sex. Moans erupted from her throat, increasing in volume as the knot of arousal between her legs drew tighter with every surge of his hips under her. Caroline’s hands shifted restlessly, touching every part of him she could reach. Broad cotton clad shoulders rippling with muscles; his bare corded arms and their dusting of wiry black hair; the soft, tender skin of his ears and neck.

All hers. At least for tonight.

Danny struggled to get a grip as Caroline circled her hips over him again. He was caught between pleasure and pain as his cock strained at the confines of his pants. He could feel her damp heat even through the layers of clothes, and the friction of her grinding against him had him close to bursting in his pants. That, combined with the sweet taste of her tits on his tongue and the sexy musk of her filling his nostrils, was all so good he was afraid to stop, afraid she would vanish into the moonlight like some elusive dream.

Caroline
. The night before he’d tried to pretend it didn’t matter, that she didn’t matter. He buried his head between her breasts, breathing in her scent like oxygen. He didn’t kid himself. She was everything.

He’d hurt her
. He shoved the thought away, knowing if he dwelt on that he’d get sucked right back into the hole that had threatened to swallow him before she’d walked out onto the deck.

Caroline
. Everything in him called to her, begged for her, even though he didn’t deserve anything from her anymore. He wanted to tell her he was sorry again, to beg her forgiveness, but all he could get out was her name as he kissed every bare patch of skin he could reach.

She was the only one. The only one who could unknot his insides and keep his demons at bay. Even as he knew he should be comforting her, he should be begging her forgiveness, greedy bastard that he was, he couldn’t stop taking from her. Taking everything she had to give in a selfish bid to save his sanity, save his soul. He wanted to lose himself in her and the way she made him feel. He wanted to give her so much pleasure she’d forget he ever caused her pain.

He lifted her from the deck chair and walked her inside, his arm under her ass supporting her weight as she wrapped her arms and legs around him. He tangled his fist in her hair and pulled her head back for his kiss. He swallowed her groan as he devoured her mouth, drinking in her taste, rubbing his tongue against hers as she clutched at his shoulders.

Danny lay her on the bed. The sight of her, with her creamy skin and hard nipples, her dark hair spread across the comforter as she gazed up at him with heavy lidded eyes, hit him with the force of a roundhouse kick to the chest.

Right
. Caroline in his house, in his bed, looking up at him with puffy lips parted and eyes dark with arousal. Nothing in his world had been this right since the day she walked out on him.

With that memory, and the knowledge of why she’d really left, came another surge of grief, so bleak and strong it made his knees buckle.

But Caroline chased it away, coming up on her knees to tug his shirt over his head and unbutton his pants with deft strokes of her fingers. He thought he was going to explode when she burrowed her face against his chest with a hungry little moan and started trailing hot, sucking kisses down his abdomen. He helped her shove his pants and boxers off and joined her on the bed. She pushed him onto his back and a groan ripped from his chest as she bent her head. Hot sweeps of her tongue teased the tip of his cock until he felt like he was going to burst out of his skin.

Jesus, she was going to kill him, running that soft pink tongue up and down his shaft, circling around the tip and greedily lapping up the thick pearls of precome that formed. He fisted his hands in the sheets to keep from grabbing the back of her head and shoving himself down her throat. “Please, Carrie, please.” He was begging again, but he didn’t care. Because Caroline sucked him into her mouth, over and over, taking him as far into her throat as she could. Sucking and stroking him until he knew he had to pull away.

He flipped her onto her back, stripped off her pajama pants and pinned her to the mattress with his hips between hers. He braced his hands on either side of her head and came down over her, mouth to mouth, skin to skin, the soft silky feel of her tits against his chest almost as good as the feel of her mouth around his dick.

Almost.

“I want to make you come,” he said, breaking from her mouth so he could kiss the spot on her neck that would make her gasp and sigh and shiver against him. “I want to make you feel so good.” He slid his hand between her thighs and his eyes rolled back in his head at the feel of her. Wet, hot, perfect. The hard bud of her clit pulsed against his circling fingers. He spread her lips and delved lower so he could sink his fingers into her giving warmth.

His cock jerked against the bedspread, anticipating the grip of her tight, willing heat as he sank into her body.

“Carrie,” he couldn’t stop saying her name as he slid his mouth and hands over her body. Like he had to keep reassuring himself she was real, she was here, giving herself to him. He couldn’t be this lucky.

He didn’t
deserve
to be this lucky.

“Ah, sweet, you’re so fucking gorgeous,” he said as he hooked her knees over his shoulders and took a long, appreciative look at her pretty pink pussy. He closed his mouth over her like a starving man and her loud, high cry rippled along his nerve endings. God he loved going down on her, the sweet salty taste of her, the feel of her hot and wet against his tongue. The way she pulled at his hair and rocked her hips and dug her heels into his back as he pushed her higher and higher. The firm clench of muscles rippling, her loud siren’s wail echoing through the bedroom as she came.

He licked and stroked her until the last aftershock pulsed through her. He rolled and pulled her on top of him until his cock was slipping and sliding against her slit. She spread her knees and he felt her body stretch as she took the tip of his cock inside.

No condom
.

And it felt just as good—no better—as it had the night before. He slid in another inch, gritting his teeth at the silky hot feel of her stretching to take him.

He wanted to thrust home, stroking and pumping until he came.

Inside her.

With nothing between them.

He could get her pregnant. Right now. Tonight. Then no matter what happened later on, after they found out who was really behind James’s death, she would always be tied to him.

She would always be his.

He slid deeper, groaning as her hips rocked back to take him all the way.

“Oh my God, we forgot the condom again,” she gasped and came up on her knees. As his cock slipped from her body it took every shred of restraint to keep from grabbing her hips and thrusting her back down. Gritting his teeth, he rolled off the bed and walked stiffly to his bathroom and retrieved a condom from the box under his sink.

He cheered himself with the thought that he’d had that box of rubbers for so long, it was possible they were expired.

Was he an asshole for hoping the condom broke? Probably. But he was practical enough—maybe even desperate enough—to want to tie Caroline to him by any means necessary.

Danny returned to his bed and gathered her against him, kissing her mouth as he pulled her on top of him. She sat up and gripped his cock, staring into his eyes as she positioned herself and sank down over him. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, her head thrown back, red lips parted on a moan as she took his cock all the way inside her.

Tight. Hot. Perfect
. She eased her way down, nice and slow, then back up until she held only the tip inside her. Then back down, and up, a slow, steady rhythm as her body gripped him like a hot wet fist. He leaned up to catch a nipple between his lips, sucking hard. The answering clench of her body nearly sent him over the edge.

He slid his hand down until his thumb rested against her clit. He circled it in time with her slow up and down strokes, increasing the pressure and pace as she moved faster on him. She came hard and fast, looking almost shocked by the force of her orgasm as she braced her hands on his chest and ground her hips against him.

Danny sat up and wrapped his arms around her, wanting to taste every moan and sigh as she rippled and pulsed around him. He held her tight and sucked her tongue into his mouth as he held himself inside her. He couldn’t seem to get close enough, deep enough.

Caroline
. His destruction. His salvation.

His own orgasm built in force, until his thigh muscles were rock hard, quivering in readiness as his balls pulled high and tight against his body.

“Oh, Danny, I love it when you come inside me,” her hot whisper against his ear threw him over the edge. He buried his face in her neck and thrust against her as his body was wracked with shudders. Even as he shook with pleasure, he couldn’t shake the feeling of resentment that he was shooting into a condom instead of inside her.

He could still give her a baby
.

It was crazy to even entertain the thought, but he couldn’t let it go. Just like he’d never let her go. Not completely. All he’d done was shove her way, way back in his memory bank and pretended to himself and the world that what they’d been was nothing more than a couple of dumb kids clinging to something familiar as the rest of their world spun into chaos. But it had been a lot more than that.

As Danny pulled Caroline’s back to his front and curled around her body, the emotions he’d held in check for so long came spilling through the cracks. The love, the lust, the anger poured through him in a torrent until all he could do was hold onto Caroline to keep from getting swept away.

Yeah, they’d been more than a couple of dumb kids planning too far ahead. They still were.

But how were they ever supposed to put all the broken pieces back together again?

“There was nothing there,” Patrick snarled into the phone. “Taggart almost fucking caught us, and for what?” Shit, if only Taggart hadn’t come pounding down the hall, Patrick could have taken care of Caroline himself.

Another fuckup in a seemingly endless chain.

As he paced, his footsteps were muffled by the twenty thousand dollar oriental carpet Melody had recently bought for his home office. Usually he enjoyed the feel of the thick weave under his feet, the smug pride that came from being able to afford to walk all over a piece of art.

Tonight it felt like another burden. Like everything else in this house. Like Mel herself and her need to upgrade and update the house as often as she upgraded and updated herself.

What would she do if the money stopped coming in? Because there was no question that he had to cut all ties with Marshall and Gates. With his malpractice insurance costs skyrocketing after the lawsuit, there was no way he could continue to support Mel in the style to which she’d become accustomed.

Fuck, he was so deep in the hole with Gates, he didn’t even have enough money to clear out and disappear. Which was exactly how Gates wanted it. At this point, Patrick owed him so much money, they could sell a thousand babies and Patrick’s share wouldn’t cover his debt. If Patrick tried to take off, he knew Gates wouldn’t hesitate to come after Melody and Jennifer.

And he had the added worry that once the truth about Anne Taggart and Emily Parrish came out, the trail would eventually lead back to him.

He had to keep that from happening.

“There’s nothing at the office either,” Marshall said. “I told you there wouldn’t be. I’ve been through James’s old files dozens of times in the last six months. Any evidence he kept, it was never there. But I don’t think there’s anything to find. If there was, we would have found it, or it would have turned up by now. Caroline hasn’t—”