All or Nothing (3 page)

She moaned into his mouth, their tongues meeting almost instantly. She tasted the beer, but beyond that was the rich flavor of him. Masculine, powerful, drugging. Her hands found purchase at his sides, pulling at his shirt until she was able to fist her fingers in it.

“Take me inside.” He released her from the kiss, taking his mouth to her neck, sucking there until she whimpered. There were so many meanings to his order, she didn’t know which one he was demanding. Inside her house?
Unwise
. Inside her heart?
Impossible
. Inside her body?

The hand at her waist found its way to her breast, curving over the small rise and fitting her nipple between his fingers.

Oh,
yeah
…as soon as she possibly could.

Wait, no… She couldn’t. She shouldn’t. She—

“I can’t,” she cried into the inches of space between them, a small voice for a tiny denial.

He didn’t stop tasting her skin, dragging his teeth back and forth over the curve of her neck. His thumbs toyed with both nipples now. “It’s the only way, Belle.”

Not really. People made love outside all the time, she thought absently. Hadn’t
they
?

“Lucas.” She didn’t know what she meant to say other than that, but when he groaned, it seemed to be enough.

“Please, Belinda. I may not be able to do this if we don’t.”

“Do what?” Lucas Lonnigan made it a lifelong goal to do any damn thing he wanted. Which was precisely why she was this close to screaming his name under a streetlight.

He pulled away, his passion suddenly distant, scaring her heart into beating triple time. The shadows were especially harsh now that they were both outside, standing eye to eye. He touched her cheek, a caress so gentle, so loving, that her eyes stung. So many years of fighting this, of fighting him, and the touch she craved was given as a gift she didn’t deserve.

“All I’m asking for is one night. Just one. Then I swear to you, I’ll do everything I can to make all your dreams come true.”

Wasn’t this a dream already? A forbidden one. A heartbroken one, but a dream all the same? “Lucas, you can’t—”

His forefinger kissed her lips. “I would break heaven itself for you, Belle. I can. I will.
After
tonight.”

She couldn’t see his eyes. She hoped he couldn’t see hers. Too many things she didn’t want to admit were there. She could feel them. “If we do this, you’ll only have my body. No one gets my heart, Lonnigan, not even you.”

His eyes must have caught the light somehow, the way they flickered before her. His jaw tightened and he nodded.

It would be wrong to let this happen without him knowing where they stood. But she still wished that just once, she had to courage to offer more. Instead, she unclipped her keys and put them in his hands.

Chapter Two

They made it inside the loft in relative peace. No one driving past them on the street outside the warehouse would have thought anything about the man leading a woman up the scaling staircase on the right side of the building. They’d never guess the tension, the rampaging storm rising with each step upward. But Belinda knew it. She was engulfed in it, in him, yet nothing happened beyond the gentle, continuous tug of his hand on hers. He didn’t bother with the lights after using her keys to open the four locks, settling for closing the door and positioning her against it.

She actually heard the peace break. Her back was to the cold glass and the curtains. The knob—a last chance to escape—in her hand while he watched to see if she’d turn it. His breath came in a deep heave, his gaze on her tightened fingers. But she didn’t want him to leave. She didn’t want to send him out. She’d already made her choice. She let go, a sharp jarring sound of metal and wood in the silence.

Then he descended.

The kiss skipped all the usual first stages. Nothing soft and seductive from him. He came at her, hot and wet, overwhelming and delicious. His fingers tangled with the laces at her hips, pulling her against the unyielding hardness of his cock. His moan rumbled into her mouth when she rubbed her belly against it in response. Both his arms wrapped around her, and the two of them slid away from the door, against the wall, sinking towards the floor where they’d likely rip each other’s clothes to shreds in their efforts to get inside one another.

Was it always going to be this way with him? The hunger between them so demanding there was little room for kindness? Her lips would probably hurt later—much later—and his grip on her butt would probably leave tiny bruises…

At least, that’s what she thought before he dipped, slipping both hands behind her thighs and scooping her up against the wall, gently supporting her without crushing her. She felt protected, cherished, well and truly notched to him, her slickening sex against his stomach, her breasts now at his mouth level. Her legs tightened around him.

Someone was sighing, sounding satisfied when the wetness of his kiss encompassed the hard point of her nipple through the nylon shirt. Breath was hard to grasp. The curtain on the door gave way beneath the swing of her arm and rising fall of her body as he thrust against her—hard, jutting pumps. Promises of what would come. Or maybe his body was simply as desperate to get to that part as hers was and didn’t have the patience to wait. Either way, they weren’t getting anywhere like this, except hot. Very, very hot.

She was melting from her core, a sensation that increased when he let go of her long enough to peel her shirt off her and throw it behind him. Then he had her in his mouth for real.

A girl could feel bad about not needing to wear a bra, but Belinda never did. Not after Lucas. Even as a teenager, he’d been so…
excited
about the slight curves there because he could graze his teeth over the sensitive points and make her cry out. She was near to sobbing now, his thumbs wet from his own mouth, flicking over her and making her hips rock against him.

“You’re hot, Belle,” he murmured in what should have been a soothing tone. It served only to tease while his hips rucked up harder than before. “Your skin is on fire.”

“I can’t feel yours.” She yanked at his jacket, impatient and frustrated. He was
trying
to make her crazy. He had to be. He shrugged out of it, and she pulled at his shirt with both hands, prepared to tear it in half. “I want your skin, Lucas.”

“You’ll get it.”

He didn’t understand. If he did he wouldn’t sound so calm. That growl in his voice would be a roar. He’d be trying to tear it, too. She’d wanted him for so long and refused him. Now that she’d given in, years of desire overflowed. She
needed
him now, like a fury. “I want it all. All of you.”

“You’ll get everything tonight, Belle.” He sucked in a ragged breath of his own, his forehead like a scorching blaze between her breasts. “Everything I am. Anything I can give you. It’s yours.”

She felt a frisson of fear, of exaltation, because he sounded like he’d made a vow. Sounded as if this were supposed to mean something more than simple sex. But then his mouth was on hers and she lost the ability to worry or to think. All she could do was feel and all there was to feel was
him
.

Buttons snapped and Lucas fit his big palms beneath her ass again, but then he started walking. They bumped into things, knocked some breakables down, but he kept going. When she expected him to drop her on her bed, he turned the opposite way and they stumbled into the walk-in shower.

“Where are we going?” Like she cared.

“Too hot,” he said between wet kisses. “We’re going to give ourselves heart attacks.”

Trepidation invaded in a second. “Lucas—”

“Trust me.” His white teeth gleamed in the soft yellow light of her nightlight through the clear shower curtain as he turned on the water.

The showerhead burst to life, spitting cool water on her fiery skin. She shrieked until he adjusted it, laughing, spreading his big palm over her bare back to take the brunt of the water flow. Eventually, he had what he wanted, enough heat to keep it from being cold…but still cool, gaining warmth as it spilled over her body onto his.

They were soon drenched, her hair matted wet, his shirt turning transparent and tightening its hold on his arms. Water flooded down her spine, into the valley between her ass and her pants, drops working their way to her molten pussy. She bounced in his hands at the pinpricks of sensation, cool droplets licking where she wanted his tongue instead.

“Take these off, I need them off,” she groaned, tearing her hands off him to unbuckle her own pants. The zipper went down easily enough…but the fabric refused to budge off her skin. A yank did nothing. The leather had bonded to her, sticky and immovable. “Oh, you gotta be fuckin’ kidding me!”

Twelve years of waiting and she was not going to lose this night because of a pair of pants, damn it.

“How much do you care about those?” Lucas asked, frowning at her midriff.

“I’m half-naked in a shower with you, Lucas, swearing at them. How much to do you think I care?”

“Here, try standing.” Adding insult to injury, he set her down on her feet, taking care that her footing was solid before letting her go. It didn’t help dislodge the leather. “Take off your boots.”

“I don’t see why—”

“Take them off, Belle.” She watched him detach the wet dress shirt from his arms and sling it into a squishy pile in the corner of the stall. Then he reached for the hem of his wet white T-shirt. Before he pulled it up though, he lifted an eyebrow at her, as if to say, “Well?”

Grumbling, she reached down for the zipper on her left boot and let him help her stay standing while she got her leg free with a disconcerting suction sound. The next boot came off and she was there in just the pants.

For his part, Lucas was still in his slacks, but they were plastered to him. The thick erection outlined there told her in no short terms that he had no intention of giving in to a few pieces of wet leather, either.

“I’m going to have to owe you.” He dropped to his knees and turned her at the hips so he was looking at one side of her speculatively, touching her exposed skin with his fingertips, faint as a feather.

“Owe me for what?”

“For this.” He put one hand on each side of the laces and ripped. The tiny strips proved little match for a determined man and after two good tugs, the pants gaped open around one leg. She stared, dumbfounded, as he spun her and made shorter work of the other side. Damn if he didn’t look proud of himself, kneeling in front of her, a smile she’d bet no one knew he could produce on those sinful lips.

His hands caressed her calves through the open sides, sliding up her legs to the insides of her thighs. She shuddered when his thumbs massaged upward, searching out her sex. His eyes darkened and the smile fell away when he found nothing but her soft folds and the thick moisture of her desire. His thumb slid over her clit, once, twice, then a third time until she threw her head back with a cry. Not in orgasm. No, he stayed well short of that. This was just a taste of relief and sweet, honeyed torture.

His hands came away from her slowly, then she felt the touch of his knuckles at her belly, working the pants slowly over her barely existing hips. Once past that, the weight of the wet leather made them drop all by themselves to her feet.

“This is new.”

Belinda looked down, now positive she was blushing, which she hadn’t done when she was dumb enough to get his surprising little find. At least, she didn’t think she did.

“I didn’t know you could get tattoos here.” He brought a fingertip to the hand-sized design low on her abdomen, tracing the dark outline over her smooth mound where it ended at the very top of her sex. “This had to hurt.”

“Well…I…wanted something pretty.” Actually, she was dead drunk for the first session and woke up completely unaware of what she’d done. After that it seemed a shame not to finish. But now was not a time for a lecture, which he’d give if she ever explained how it happened. She pulled on his nape, hoping to bring him back to the point.

Being Lucas, of course, he wasn’t going to move until he was ready.

His fingertip remained on the outer black edges of the pattern, tracing the wings with their blending colors of gold, purple and blue, to the tribal slash patterns that arced off of it into graceful pin-striping curlicues. She gasped, a shudder going through her from the outside in. Deeply in.

“I like it,” he whispered, sounding hoarse. “It
is
pretty.”

“I…”
Well, shit, what do you say to that?
“Thanks.”

“And, you know,” he said, perversely matter-of-fact while his breath caressed her, making her tingle and moisten further. “I’ve never kissed a butterfly before.”

She would have responded, but his tongue found her, parting her outer lips and caressing her clit. He was well south of her butterfly, the first kiss falling right between the dewdrop tips of the wings, but who was she to make a man feel bad about his aim?

No one, she assured herself, when he parted her thighs so he could cup her bottom with his hands. She leaned back, presenting more of herself for him to taste. To lick and lave and dip into. Slowly, as if he were savoring every drop, he ran his tongue through her folds, flicking here and there just to make her buck and gasp. And then he sank that devilish tongue into her, rolling against the edges of her entrance, fucking her with a barrage of tiny thrusts. She’d never known being devoured felt so good, so very damn good. He moaned, or maybe growled, she wasn’t sure, but the sound vibrated through her and sent her tumbling right to the edge of rapture.

But he pulled away.

And smiled.

“You bastard.”

The smile only grew. “We go over together. Or not at all.”

“Is that the deal?” she asked, pulling him up again, determined to be satisfied. He nodded and she pushed him against the back wall of the stall. She reached for his pants, undoing the button and smiling herself when she pulled down the fly with reckless speed. Unlike her, he was safe behind another layer of fabric, but it didn’t guard him long.

She found him, pulsing and rigid, overflowing her hand while she stroked him tip to root. His head fell back to the wall and she heard him swear when her mouth replaced her hand. One deep swallow and he was hers, his clothing shoved away, leaving only his honey-colored skin and the dark, bristly hair that tickled the side of her hand as she stroked in time with the slide of her lips.

She loved touching him, taking advantage in a way she hadn’t been able to that long ago night, drawing the pleasure out. She sucked hard, rippling her own tongue along the underside of his cock, loving his ragged groan at the turnabout. Her lips slid over the blush-colored mushroom head as she released him, only to rub her wet bottom lip along the crest before taking him back in. He pushed deeper, his hips pumping for more. She gave, swirling her mouth around him, drawing on him every time he pulled back. The texture and taste of him, the power of him, in her hands, in her mouth, made her senses drunk. Nearly desperate. Unable to wait, she slipped her free hand down between her thighs, seeking out her clit to relieve the pressure.

Then he snatched himself away.

Before she could even yelp her dismay, he’d lifted her up, back to his kiss, her breasts pressed to his chest, his insistent cock nudging up into her pussy. His back met the tiles behind him and his legs shifted beneath her to keep them both upright. She lost all awareness of the water or the sounds of the city below the second his fingertips coursed underneath, opening her so he could slip himself through her folds. Her own hands found the ledge to the small window above his head, pushing a shampoo bottle to the floor so she could cling to the blue-green tiles and pull her weight high enough to lift her hips above the rounded head of his cock. Then controlling her descent, she took him inside until she was utterly full of him.

They stared at each other, his eyes hooded, his mouth strained, while she maintained the stillness as long as she could. She wanted to absorb his fire and his need, memorize the silky smooth fit of him inside her. This was what sex was meant to be. Raw and powerful. Giving, taking, satisfying in its every moment. It was supposed to feel this good, even when you didn’t move. It didn’t have to be about love to be this good.