Darkness at Dawn (32 page)

Read Darkness at Dawn Online

Authors: Elizabeth Jennings

Tags: #Romance, #General, #Suspense, #Contemporary, #Fiction

BOOK: Darkness at Dawn
6.39Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Lucy drew herself up, completely unintimidated. “Perfectly clear, General. And now I will thank you if you and your soldiers leave so we can get some rest.”
Christ, she deserved an Oscar.
The general turned on his heel and strode straight to the door without breaking his stride. Either someone was going to open the door or he’d slam right into it. His soldiers scrambled to open it for him and he marched through. Mike wished they’d been less quick on the uptake and let the fucking general break his fucking nose against the fucking door.
The door slammed shut behind the general and his men, and the key turned in the lock from the outside.
Lucy let out a long, shaky breath. “Man, that was—” She stopped when she saw him. “Mike? Is something wrong? You look—”
He had no idea what he looked like. Crazy, probably.
All he knew was that he had to have her, right now, or die. He pulled her to him, roughly, and his mouth came down over hers.
Instant kiss, a real one. No fluttering little busses around the mouth, testing her out, seeing if she liked it, if he liked it. Swapping a little spit, seeing if they liked each other’s taste. Playing the game.
This wasn’t a game. This was so far from being a game it wasn’t funny. Mike held the back of her head with his hand and dived into the kiss, zero to a hundred in two seconds.
He twisted his mouth, opening hers farther, and took his first big taste of her, his tongue licking hers. His body turned into a huge electrode, buzzing with energy. The kiss lasted so long he forgot to breathe; then, when his lungs protested, he just breathed from her, as if they were one entity.
Some dim bell in the back of his head rang, its vibrations shaking a few thoughts loose from a brain completely seized up by proximity to Lucy, fried from holding her so close, having her under his hands.
He was kissing her hard, holding her hard against him, everything hard, particularly what was under his towel. Hands gripping her hard. He had strong, tough hands. A climber’s hands and—Jesus—maybe in his excitement he was hurting her.
He loosened his grip a little, though he had to think consciously about it.
Open those fingers, that’s right. One at a time . . .
Because the last thing his hands wanted was to let go of Lucy, stop touching all that soft, soft skin. It was as if he’d become one of those dinosaurs whose brains were too small to control their bodies. Those dinosaurs had a second brain in their tails. He knew where his second brain was.
Every single body part seemed to be on its own, doing what it wanted. Touching her, holding her, kissing her.
He pulled his head back, gasping, astonished at how hard it was to do. Loosened his grip, tried to step back.
Looked down. Man, you’d have to be dead to resist her. Lucy’s face was rosy, lips wet and slightly swollen from his mouth, beautiful gray blue eyes dazed, pupils dilated.
“Am I hurting you?” His voice sounded rough, as if he hadn’t spoken in days.
“No,” she answered and pulled his head back down to hers.
So that was that.
He swiped his hands and both their towels fell unnoticed to the ground, and ah, Jesus, she was naked in his arms, warm and soft and
Lucy.
He pulled her tightly against him, so that every possible inch of his body could be touching every possible inch of hers. Hands over the smooth, sleek planes of her back, down to the swell of her backside, her own arms around him, fingernails digging into his back. She leaned into him, warm and tender, each breath bringing her close up against him, thighs rubbing against his.
Oh, man. Couldn’t do this standing up. Nope. Knees wouldn’t hold. Mike went straight to the floor, pulling Lucy down with him, without breaking the kiss.
Luckily the floor was covered in a million rugs, huge cushions scattered everywhere. He rolled them both onto an enormous silk-covered cushion the size of a car, kissing her wildly, coming to rest on top of her. Their hands met, entwined above her head. Her hands were slender, fine, delicate. Everything about her was delicate.
This evening he could have lost her, in a second. In the princess’s room, on the way over, on the way back, in their own room.
They weren’t out of the woods yet, not at all. Anything might happen, and though Mike’s new imperative was keeping Lucy safe, shit happens. No one knew that more than he did.
Lucy was smart and worldly, but she was also gentle and kindhearted, and this world isn’t kind to the kindhearted. It is brutal and cruel.
In this far-off kingdom, with a dying king and a tyrantin-waiting with an army of mercenaries behind him, Lucy was in deadly danger every second.
It drove him a little crazy.
He wanted to be inside her, because sex with Lucy right now seemed like the most desirable thing in the world, but also because if he was with her, inside her, holding her, he could keep her safe. Cover her body with his, shelter her. Hold her, have her.
As long as he was touching her she was safe.
He moved his mouth from hers to nip at her jaw, the soft skin under her ear, her neck. His thighs moved, opening hers. His penis nudged against her opening. He shook with restraint.
“I don’t think I can wait,” he said roughly.
“No.” Her voice was a mere whisper, right against his ear, soft, warm breath coming with the word. It raised gooseflesh all over him. “Don’t wait.”
Mike entered her, an electric flash of pleasure bursting through him, like slotting his body into a warm, welcoming place that had been awaiting him all his life.
It galvanized him. He lost all control, barely registering his heavy breathing, the sound of their bodies slapping together, the warm, wet sound of their kisses.
Oh God, it was too much. So much hot pleasure, from so many different places, Lucy holding him tightly with her arms and legs wrapped around him, as if to keep him from leaving her, as if that were even a remote possibility.
The heat grew, incandescent friction, bubbling up irresistibly from some secret place inside him. He was helpless to check the wave of pleasure crashing over him, unstoppable, uncontrollable. He shook, teeth clenched, as he emptied himself inside her.
It took forever. It was over in a second.
He lowered himself over Lucy, forearms bracketing her head, facedown on the cushion next to her head, breathing hard and sweating.
His brain was absolutely wasted, not a thought in his head, just physical sensations, all of them good. Fantastic, in fact.
Then, as he slowly came back to himself, the thoughts were not so good. He had no idea if Lucy had come, he’d been so concentrated on the wild riotous things rolling around inside him.
This wasn’t like him. He thought of himself as a considerate lover, careful and controlled, solicitous of his partner’s pleasure.
He did not consider himself a warthog in heat, but that was how he had behaved. To
Lucy.
And he, Mike Shafer, elite warrior of the Tenth Mountain Division, was scared to death to ask how she felt.
Do the hard thing.
What he constantly told his men.
“Ahm.” He turned his head and cleared his throat. He was so close to her he could have seen the pores of her skin if she’d had any. She didn’t. Her skin was utterly smooth, like marble. She was looking up at the ceiling, her face impossible to interpret. Was she mad? Upset? Disappointed? He studied her profile, tender and mysterious. “How you doing?”
That earned him a smile. Good. Smiles were good. She turned finally and met his eyes. Hers were so beautiful and unreadable.
“I’m fine. And you?”
Something garbled came out of his mouth. He’d just had the strongest orgasm of his life. He thought at one point during it that his heart would explode.
He smiled. Her smile grew.
She lifted a hand and traced the outline of his face, from his eyebrow, over his cheekbone, to his mouth. He could feel his lips curving. Her touch felt wonderful.
Make amends. Get it right.
“I’m sorry if it wasn’t . . . great for you. I’ll do better next time.” Which would be very soon, because he was still hard as a rock inside her. “Promise.”
“Sex is a great stress reliever, isn’t it?” she asked softly, and his smile disappeared. Wiped right off his face.
“No,” he snapped. “It’s not. My stress hasn’t been relieved at all.”
Is that what she thought this was about? Relieving fucking
stress
? He’d thought that himself a day ago. Now everything had changed.
He levered himself up on his forearms so his face was right above hers, nose less than an inch from hers, staring her right in the eye so she got the message.
“This wasn’t stress-relief sex, and it wasn’t comfort sex, and it wasn’t getting-to-know-you sex. It was . . .” Mike’s mind whirred, looking for the exact right term, maybe something with a little science behind it. Lucy was basically a scientist herself, so it would be something she’d understand. “It was bonding sex.”
He nodded sharply. Good term. He was proud of himself for making it up when his brain was mostly cream of wheat sloshing around in his skull.
The corner of Lucy’s mouth lifted. “
Bonding
sex? Is that a real concept or did you make it up?”
“No, no, I, um, I read an article about it. In a magazine.” Her smile was widening. “It’s like, when your pheromones come together and . . . mate.”
Lucy sighed. “Mike, pheromones don’t mate. That’s like saying the insulin from your pancreas mates.”
Mike looked at their hands together. He had his father’s hands—big and tough. The hands of a man who worked with them, mostly outdoors. One morning when he was seventeen he’d woken up and there they were—his father’s hands at the end of his arms.
How often he’d seen his father twine his hand with Cheryl’s, and it looked exactly like Mike’s hand twined with Lucy’s.
It was as if something in the universe slowed and settled within him. This was exactly as it should be. He felt connected to every single Shafer man since the dawn of time, the first Shafer entwining a hairy paw with his mate’s hairy paw up a tree.
His father had found his mate and now Mike had found his.
So he needed to start treating her like a lady. Starting now.
“We need to do that again. I need to show you I can do it right.”
“I don’t know,” she said, smiling, eyes starting to droop.
“Felt fine to me.” Lucy stretched lazily, and every hair on his body stood up because she was stretching underneath him and he felt it all, sleek belly rubbing against his, thighs stretching under his, small perfect breasts against his chest . . .
He swelled even harder inside her. Lucy’s eyes opened wide, startled.
“Yeah,” he said roughly. “I’m ready for round two. Really ready.”
“I can see that. I can feel it, too. But . . .” She gave a gentle smile, cupped his chin in her hand. “You need to give me some time to recover. Please.”
Startled, Mike looked at her. Really looked at her. Saw beyond the beauty who messed with his head. Saw beyond the off-the-charts sex. Saw
her
, Lucy Merritt.
Saw a woman who’d been under enormous stress yet had kept herself together, but at a steep price. Saw the slight bruises under her eyes, saw the drooping eyelids.
She was tired.
His dick could just take a hike.
“Okay.” He slid out, rolled off her, kneeled and scooped her up.
“Whoa!” Lucy emitted a half scream, half laugh and clutched his shoulders. “What are you doing?”
“Taking you to bed.” Her eyes rolled. “Not that way. I mean that way, yeah, sure, but not right now. Later. First you rest.”
He pulled back the covers and lay her down on the bed that wasn’t much smaller than the landing strip–sized bed poor Jomo was dying in. The enormous silk-covered comforters were warm and heavy and nearly a foot thick; it was like sleeping under a silk-covered mountain.
Mike slipped in after her, putting his arms around her and pulling her close, resolutely and heroically keeping his mind centered above his navel. A second later, they’d found the perfect fit, all her bits fitting against his bits.
The sheets and comforter were warm and soft, Lucy was warm and soft.
They were in a building where a king was dying, where deadly conspiracies were brewing, bristling with soldiers who would turn on them at a shouted command.
But here, in the cozy, dim room, with only a small night-light for illumination and shadows filling the dark corners, here he and his Lucy were safe and warm. He tightened his arms around her.
Once when he was about twelve, he’d camped out in the Rockies with his dad. It had snowed most of the day, but the night was clear, with a full moon. Restless, he’d gone exploring and had chanced upon a wolf pack in the night. A thick snow muffled sounds, and he was downwind from the pack. The sky was completely cloudless; the full moon bathed the uplands with an eerie silver glow. He’d rounded a corner and there they were—a pack of gray wolves asleep in a natural den under an overhanging cliff.

Other books

Yard War by Taylor Kitchings
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
Slipway Grey: A Deep Sea Thriller by Dane Hatchell, Mark C. Scioneaux
The Business Trip by Trixie Stilletto
Work for Hire by Margo Karasek
Relish: A Vicious Feast Book 2 by Kate Evangelista