Born Wild (22 page)

And boy, oh boy, did he ever have reason to be. He was…
powerful
, she guessed was the best way to describe him. Powerful and unabashedly male. And she wanted to touch him more than she wanted her next breath.

He obviously had something else in mind, though. Because he positioned her heels on the very edge of the mattress, beside her bottom, which caused her legs to spread wide. Then he knelt at the foot of the bed.

Oh, geez. Oh, geez. Oh, g—

That’s as far as she got. Because he used his thumbs to spread her plump, outer-labia wide, and then his mouth was on her. His tongue was sliding up and down the wet channel. And he was growling.

The rumble undulated all through her, better than any vibrator ever built, and her toes curled over the edge of the bed.

“Oh, Billy,” she sighed, reaching between her legs to sink her fingers into his damp hair. He rewarded her by capturing her clitoris between his lips, sucking gently and laving softly with his tongue. Too soon she was teetering on the edge.

“You keep d-doing that,” she told him breathlessly, “and you’re going to make me—”

She didn’t finish because he inserted one, then another finger inside her, pumping gently, moving them carefully in a come-hither motion, touching her in…Just. The. Right. Spot. And—

“Oohh, Goddd!” Her body spasmed. No, not spasmed. Exploded. Her sex clamped down on his fingers, pulsing so forcefully she couldn’t tell if it was pleasure or pain. But whichever it was, she wanted it to go on forever. And Billy did his part as he continued to pump and suck, as the waves of her orgasm rolled endlessly through her.

It was so good. Wait. Good? No, no. It was better than good. It was transcendent. Like, for that brief moment, she thought maybe she could see through space and time. Scientists claimed all the elements on Earth, from the rocks to the atmosphere, from the smallest insect crawling through a log to the smartest man ever born, came from stardust. And that’s what she felt like right now. Stardust. Elemental and at the same time so flippin’ mystical and amazing.

But, all good things must come to an end. And, eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, her orgasm did. Which is when she realized she’d fisted Billy’s hair in her hands. Slowly, she uncurled her fingers, and he looked up at her then.

Okay, so was there anything sexier than a man gazing up at a woman from between her legs after he’d just given her the most violently delicious orgasm ever? Well, if there was, Eve’d never seen it.

“Wow,” she caught her bottom lip between her teeth, shaking her head in awe. “Just…
wow
.”

He grinned, and it was arrogant and lazy and altogether too sexy. She didn’t know how it was possible to want more after that Earth-shattering release. But she did. She wanted much more. She wanted Billy. She wanted to feel his hot, rigid flesh inside her. She wanted to slide her hands down his back, reveling in the power of his muscles as he thrust and thrust and thrust…

Her sex pulsed again, and she dug in her heels, pushing herself up on the mattress. Then she beckoned him with one crooked finger.

He stood, a series of movements that caused his tan muscles to ripple over his body. And there was his impressive penis again. Standing even higher than before…if that was possible. Looking even redder and more engorged.

“What now?” he asked, his grin going all lopsided and indolent. Because he knew the answer. He just wanted to hear it from her lips.

And she obliged him. “Now we…” Was that her voice? All low and breathy? “…fuck like bunnies.”
Sexpot
vixen
in
the
ha-yowse!
And if it wouldn’t have ruined the moment, she’d have slapped herself a high-five.

“Yeah?” he asked as he lifted one leg, kneeling on the edge of the bed, depressing the mattress with his weight.

“Yes,” she nodded, hoping her smile was sultry and seductive. She should’ve practiced in the mirror.

He lowered his hands to the bed, crawling up to her, crawling over her. His knees between her legs. His hands on either side of her shoulders. His handsome face and beautifully dark eyes looming above her.

Then all the air in her lungs escaped a giant
woosh
when he asked, “Condoms?” Because she didn’t have any. Not one. Considering how long it’d been since she’d had sex—four years; that’s right…four
long
years—that shouldn’t have come as a surprise to her. But it did.

How the heck could she have purposefully set out to seduce him when she didn’t have any flippin’ condoms?

Eyes wide, mentally hitting herself in the forehead with an open palm while chanting
stupid, stupid, stupid
, she shook her head. But instead of frowning, Billy just smiled. His beard stubble looked particularly dark against his white teeth.

“Um,” she scowled. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but not having condoms at this particular juncture is nothing to grin about.”

“I’m grinning,” he said, still hanging above her, the heat from his big body seeping into her bones, “because if you don’t have condoms handy, it means you haven’t had a use for them. And call me a caveman, but I
like
the idea that you haven’t had a use for them…until now.”

“Well, that’s all fine and good,” she harrumphed, waving her hand around. It slapped into his very hot, very hard erection, and she tilted her chin down to see him dangling incredibly close to her pubic bone. Okay, and
that
was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. Too bad it was all for naught.
We
have
no
condoms!
“But that doesn’t change the fact that now we can’t…uh…fuck like bunnies.”

Using the F-word made her blush. She couldn’t help it.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Billy said, pushing up and away from her. Crawling to the edge of the bed, he stood and padded back toward the galley. She pressed up on one elbow to see him scrounging through the duffel bag he’d brought on board. He smiled at her triumphantly when he pulled out a length of condoms that unraveled accordion-style.

Well, obviously
he’d
had a use for them. She wasn’t naïve enough to think he’d brought them along with him on the off chance he got to sleep with her. And as she watched him prowl back toward her, ripping into one foil packet with his teeth, she tried to feel some sort of animosity about that, about the fact that since they’d been reintroduced, it was no big secret that Billy was a total man-whore. But the sight of him stalking toward her, his erection bouncing between his bulky thighs, his six-pack abs flexing, made it difficult to feel anything other than explosive, volcanic lust.

And then, when he crawled up on the bed beside her, handing her the condom and presenting himself to her, saying, “Will you do the honors?” any hostility she felt toward his most recent bed partners vanished. She couldn’t think about
them
when she was too busy thinking about
herself
. About the pleasure and satisfaction he was poised to give
her
.

Just as soon as she rolled on the condom, that is.

But, first…

She leaned forward on her elbow, swallowing the searing, weeping head of him without warning.

“Ughnnn,” he made an inarticulate sound at the back of his throat, his hand tangling in her hair. She didn’t know if he was begging her to take more of him—he tasted like man and sex and all things delicious and naughty—or if he was asking her to stop. And since she didn’t know, she went with her own instincts, laving his plump head with her tongue, reveling in the way it caused his hips to thrust forward ever so slightly.

Suddenly, his hand was between her legs, his fingers gently delving between her slippery folds, searching for and finding her opening and pressing softly inside.

Ecstasy…

It was the only way to describe what they were doing to each other, giving and receiving pleasure in equal measures. And it ratcheted everything up another notch when he released her hair so he could find her aching, so-very-sensitive nipple. He tweaked it lightly, and she would swear she felt the sensation between her legs.

And speaking of…

The rough pad of his thumb landed on her clitoris, circling, circling, circling, and her whole body wound tight as a spring.

She ripped her mouth away from him so she could pant, “I don’t want to…to come yet. I want to come with you inside me.”

He obliged her by taking the condom from her fingers and deftly rolling it down his violent arousal. She watched the whole process with heavy-lidded, hungry eyes. Then he was between her legs, supporting himself on his arms. And as she looked up into his dear, beloved face, she knew two things without a doubt. First of all, she’d waited her whole life for this moment. And second, it wasn’t going to be enough…

She’d been fooling herself,
lying
to herself, when she thought it would be. Because a lifetime in Billy’s arms, in Billy’s bed, wouldn’t be enough.

But she couldn’t think of that now. If she thought of that now, she’d start bawling her head off, and wouldn’t that be just the thing to enhance the mood?

Um, no. Definitely not. There was nothing un-sexier than a woman blowing a giant snot bubble.

Oh, suck it up, Eve,
she admonished herself,
before
you
ruin
it
all. Take this one night. Take it for what it is, and then hold it in your heart forever. It’s better than nothing.

And that was good advice. Sage advice. So why did it make the need to cry even more overwhelming?

“Eve?” Billy must’ve seen something in her expression, because he was frowning down at her. And that wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all.

If they only had this one night, she was bound and determined to make it perfect. To make the memory of it perfect.

“Kiss me, Billy,” she breathed against his lips. “Kiss me and then take me.”

Kiss me and then take me…

Were those the six sexiest words ever uttered from between soft, peachy lips, or what?

And Bill had always been good at taking orders. So he lowered his mouth to hers, and for one long, seemingly infinite moment, he kissed her. His tongue sliding into her mouth, tangling with hers as he let the taste of her, the amazing softness of her, melt into him, seep into his very bones.

Yeah,
kiss
her
and
then
take
her.

That was the plan. To take her higher, take her farther, take her deeper than she’d ever been taken before…

Breaking off the kiss, she moaned her disapproval, but he wanted to see. He wanted to watch himself slide into her. He wanted to witness his hard length pressing up and into her soft, pink body. He pushed up, sitting back on his heels as he grabbed her hips. Eve had slender hips, equipped with those soft divots on the inside of her pelvic bones that made perfect handholds whether grabbing her from the front or…
friggin’-A
…from behind.

Just the thought of slipping his fingers into those divots as he pumped into her from behind, her soft, pale ass slamming against his lower belly, had his cock jumping between his thighs. But that would come later. The dirty part of the slow, hot, dirty sex he figured Eve liked would come later. For now, he just wanted slow and hot.

The gentle glow of the overhead light danced over her black tresses, sparkled in her half-lidded eyes. And the smile she offered him was as warm and soft as the air inside the cabin.

“Are you ready?” he managed to ask through a throat that’d nearly swollen shut around a giant lump of lust.

“I-I’ve been ready for twelve years, Billy,” she told him, her usually sweet-sounding voice all low and husky, and so damned sexy. He barely resisted the urge to plunge into her. No finesse. No skill. Just straight-up rutting.

But resist he did. Just enough to nod and drop his heated gaze so he could watch as he grabbed his dick and guided it toward her slick opening. He circled once, spreading her wetness onto himself, and then he gently, softly, oh-so-slowly pressed himself inside. Just the tip. The very tip of himself. And then he held still, his breaths shuddering from him, his chest working like bellows.

“More,” she moaned, wiggling slightly, and he felt like the top of his head would blow off. Then he couldn’t stand it any longer, he pressed into her. One long, wet, heated slide of hard flesh invading soft. And the sight of himself disappearing into her, the sight of her body swallowing him whole, was, hands down, the most erotic thing he’d ever seen. Because she was so tight, and so pink, and so plump, and so—

“Oh, God, yes,” she moaned, tossing her head back on the pillow. She grabbed his shoulders to pull him down over the top of her and eagerly sought his mouth. He obliged, giving her a penetrating kiss.

And then he began to thrust. Slowly. Again and again. Long, slick slides out until only the head of him remained inside her, and then slow, forceful plunges that seated him to the hilt, that pressed his throbbing balls tight against her ass. And all the while she was kissing him like her life depended on it, like she drew breath only from him. Her tongue was halfway down his throat, her hands were skating over his shoulders and down his back to clutch his ass as her knees drew up higher on his hips. And every time he buried himself in her, she made that little purring sound at the back of her throat.
Jesus!
He swore he could feel that gentle vibration deep in his gut.

It was amazing.

Better than amazing. Because for this moment, the woman he’d been dreaming about for years was his to hold, his to touch and kiss and caress. The hot female flesh between her legs was his to quicken to pulsing, wet release. Unremitting lust fueled his thrusts, driving them faster until they were primal and persistent. And the friction produced by her sultry walls? It drove him to the brink.

And then he felt it. He felt her sex clamp down on him. Hard. She wrenched her mouth from his to scream, “Oohh, Billy! Oohh, Goddd!”

She strained around him, against him, digging her nails into his ass as she held him to her. And that was it. He followed her straight over the edge, pouring himself into her, pumping and thrusting and coming harder than he’d ever come before. And in that moment, as they hurtled over the brink together, he experienced the kind of rapture that managed to create an entire universe out of two intertwined bodies. The kind of rapture that only happened once in a lifetime…

He didn’t know how long he lay atop her afterward, his heart thundering like he’d just cut the leads on an IED, his breath sawing from him in ragged gulps. But eventually, he became aware of her sweet softness beneath him, of the smell of her—and sex—all around him, of the sound of her gently breathing in his ear.

He reveled in it. In her. And then her inner muscles spasmed around him again, and he pushed up on one elbow to find her eyes half-closed and sleepy.
Spent.

He knew just how she felt. Wonderfully, completely, fantastically
spent
.

“Eve?” he whispered her name as he bent to nuzzle her neck before opening his mouth over the bruises circling her throat. He gently pressed kisses there, until he moved back to suck on the soft spot just beneath her ear. She rewarded him by sliding her hands up his sweat-slicked back.

“Mmm?” she mumbled, that little purr sounding at the back of her throat.

“I’m going to want to take you again in about five minutes,” he told her, nipping at her deliciously naked shoulder. The sweat from her skin had mixed with her lotion until she tasted salty-sweet.

“Mmm,” she sighed dreamily, lifting her legs to hook her ankles together just above his ass. “I approve of this plan.”

And right then he realized he’d been fooling himself. Having sex with Eve hadn’t brought him any closer to some sort of closure where she was concerned. It hadn’t taken the mystery or angst out of their history together. It certainly hadn’t sated his hunger—because, if anything, he wanted her
more
now that he’d had her, and he wasn’t sure that would go away even if he had her a thousand times again. And it definitely, most
definitely
, hadn’t clarified his yo-yoing feelings about her.

Shit. What’ve I gotten myself into?

Although when her inner muscles squeezed his semi-erect penis, causing it to twitch as it once more filled with blood, he knew what he’d gotten himself into. He’d gotten himself into Eve. Into smart, beautiful, sexy Eve. And right at that moment, that’s all that mattered. That’s all he would
allow
to matter…

***

Somewhere on Lake Shore Drive

2:51 a.m.

He was leaning against the wall of his condo, sweating like some sort of blue-collar cretin as he listened to Devon Price’s cultured voice ask, “Tell me, what do the police have on you?”

Sometimes it amazed him how
un
like the stereotypical gangbanger Devon was. The man had a degree in finance from Northwestern University, for Christ’s sake. Yet instead of going to work on Wall Street or down at Chicago’s Board of Trade, he’d taken his education back to the streets where he’d been raised. He’d taken his degree, combined it with his criminal genius, and built the most well-funded, well-disciplined, and well-insulated gang in Chicago.

The Black Apostles were untouchable, unbreakable, and…unrelenting. Which should’ve been enough to keep him from throwing in his lot with them. But he’d needed the money.
Damnit!
He
still
needed the money. Only now, he needed it to pay Devon back…

What
a
god-awful, unimaginable mess.

“Nothing,” he assured Devon. “They don’t have anything. And they
won’t
have anything.”

“Hmm,” Devon murmured, a huge amount of skepticism evident in that one small utterance. He lifted a hand to wipe at his perspiring brow.
It
should’ve never come to this. It should’ve never—
“You may be right,” Devon cut into his rapid-fire thoughts. “But that doesn’t solve our little problem now, does it? Eve Edens is still alive. You still owe me two million dollars. And I’m running out of patience.”

The seed of fear that’d been planted in his belly when his last big gamble failed to pay off grew into a redwood of terror. “You c-can’t kill me, Devon,” he insisted, hating the fact that his voice sounded weak. He wasn’t supposed to be weak. He was supposed to be a man of power. “You’ll never get your money if you kill me.”

“Yes,” Devon hissed out the end of the word like a snake. “But it’ll send a strong message to others that they shouldn’t cross me unless they want to find themselves encased in a cement block at the bottom of Lake Michigan. And I find that scenario increasingly appealing.”

“I didn’t
cross
you, Devon,” he insisted, his pulse racing out of control. “The deal went south and I—”

“I’m tired of listening to your excuses. This arrangement of ours has reached its conclusion, I think. And I—”

“No. No, I-I know where she is,” he panted, sliding down the wall until his ass landed on the cold marble tiles. “I know how you can finally get her. I know how you can end this thing once and for all.”

And
thank
God
he’d managed to overhear that tidbit of conversation about the sailing trip to Ludington. If he hadn’t, he had no doubt he’d be a dead man.

Silence on the other end of the line had his stomach jumping up to lodge in his throat. Then, finally, “I’m listening.”

“She and one of those thick-necked bikers she hangs out with are sailing her boat to Ludington, Michigan. Tonight.” That last part was a guess. He hadn’t overheard exactly when she planned to make the trip, but he didn’t want to give Devon a reason not to believe him. “You can send a couple of your men to meet them at the dock there. Then…then…” The plan was formulating in his head at the same time he was laying it all out. “If your guys have a second boat, like a rental, or hell they could just hotwire a boat there at the marina that they could tow behind the sailboat until they were in the middle of the lake, then they could kill Eve and the biker, sink the sailboat, and motor back to shore.” And even though it was an on-the-spot plan, he figured it might just work. “No one need be the wiser. Ships go down on the Great Lakes all the time. I mean
all
the time, so it’d be just like we discussed. An accident. It’ll be—”

“Shut up,” Devon interrupted, his tone as sharp as a rapier. “I’ve heard enough.”

He swallowed, licking his lips, looking with longing toward the decanter of scotch sitting by his favorite armchair. This fiasco was turning him into a goddamned drunk. And he hated drunks. His mother had been a drunk. And just look where that’d gotten
her
. And
him
, come to think of it…

“I agree with your plan,” Devon said, and his heart leapt with hope.

“Good. That’s good,” he wheezed. “And you’ll see, Devon. This will still work out.”

“You’re going to ensure it works out,” Devon said, his tone just this side of malicious. “Because you’re going to be the one to do it.”

“What? But—”

“This scheme started out as yours, and you’re going to be the one to finish it.”

“But, the police…They may want to question me some more, and—”

“I’ll supply you with a believable alibi,” Devon said. “Chartreuse just loves to spin tales of her Johns. She’ll come up with a great one for you.”

Chartreuse…One of Devon’s many gap-toothed whores. She was always meant to be his alibi if he came to need one. But he hadn’t really thought he’d ever need one until now. Because the police
were
likely to demand another interview, and when they couldn’t find him, he’d have to rely on Chartreuse to tell them he’d been with her the entire time. And considering the woman was about as skanky and rundown as the Southside project where she peddled her trade, it would absolutely ruin his reputation to be known as one of her clients.

Then again, if Devon killed him, he wouldn’t have a reputation to ruin…

“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. “But I can’t very well take my own car. I can’t have traffic cameras catching me exiting the city.”

“I’ll supply you with a vehicle whose plates aren’t in the system.” Devon said and gave him the address where he could pick up the car. “It’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

He consulted the Rolex on his wrist; he had just enough time for one drink. So, he’d make it a big one.

“And one more thing,” Devon said.

“Yeah?”

“This is your last chance. You fuck this up, and you’re dead.”

***

Lake Michigan

3:10 a.m.

Well, if this wasn’t the sexiest, dirtiest, craziest thing she’d ever done—screwing Billy’s brains out—she didn’t know what was. And you know what? It felt divine. It was divinity. Like consecrated by the Gods or something…

Oh, sweet Lord in heaven…

She arched her back, biting the pillow beneath her cheek as Billy pumped into her from behind. His strokes were smooth and deep, his thighs rock hard against the backs of hers, his fingers doing something magical at the top of her sex where he had an arm wrapped around her.

The temperature inside the little cabin had jumped at least fifteen degrees since they’d started…well…
going
at
each
other
she supposed was the best way to describe it. And, boy, oh boy, they should’ve done this years ago. She’d been an idiot to hold off. Because Billy was…well, he was
Billy
. Sexier, manlier, more physically inventive and more naturally talented than anybody she’d ever known. Yes, they should’ve done this…
Oh, God.

She could no longer think. Because he was so deep inside her, pressing into her, now working her with short, hard thrusts, his middle and index fingers slipping over the bud of nerves at the top of her sex, and she was pushed up higher, pulled closer to the edge of the abyss. Then he lengthened his thrusts, stilled his fingers, and she moaned in frustration, shoving her butt back at him.