Heart of Danger (24 page)

Yeah. He was sweating like a pig and she was drenched in his come. The smell of sex was so strong it almost overrode her natural scent. Something hot flashed in his mind—the image of his scent penetrating her, his cells sinking into hers, making him part of her forever.

“No, no, it was something else.” Mac dropped his forehead onto hers. “We’ll figure out a word. Can we do it again?”

This time the laugh was loud, coming from her belly, sleek and flat against him. Her entire body laughed and she was irresistible.

He stopped smiling, bent to kiss her, opening her mouth with his, stroking her tongue with his, and his cock swelled even more and he started moving in her. You couldn’t have stopped him with a gun to his head.

“Ahh,” she breathed into his mouth, and lifted to meet his strokes.

Mac’s hands moved down her side to clutch her hips, grateful that some reason remained as he tried not to grip hard. He had strong hands and the last thing he wanted to do was hurt this woman.

They moved into a perfect rhythm, his hands holding her hips, her heels riding his back. Slow strokes at first, moving easily in her. She was small but he’d pumped all the fluids in his body into her so there was lubrication.

Maybe some of it was hers? God, he hoped so.

Catherine dug her fingernails into his shoulders, lifting herself against him, and he speeded up, moving fast and hard now, his bed creaking heavily. It wasn’t just the bed making sounds. Their mouths as he kissed her at every possible angle, both of them breathing heavily, his cock sliding in and out, faster and faster, harder and harder . . .

She stilled, her entire body going stiff, and dropped her head back, eyes closed, mouth in a small O. A faint rose underlay the paleness of her skin, darker over her cheekbones. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen at that moment, an almost otherworldly beauty.

She gave a cry, her back arched, and she convulsed around him in sharp pulses that echoed his heartbeat and on one of those beats he came, just like that. No forewarning again, from one beat to the next his body simply going into overdrive.

“God you’re beautiful,” he breathed, the words coming out of him unbidden when he could speak again. Not a compliment but something so very true it had to be said, acknowledged.

“I think I’m going to turn your accusation around,” she murmured. “I’m sure you drugged me, did something to me.”

He’d done something to her, all right. A lot of it. She looked wiped. Her arms had fallen away limply, as if she no longer had the strength to hold him, where during sex she’d held on tightly.

He was still hard. Amazing. He had stamina but not like this. This felt like he’d plugged into some universal power source, because he could go on and on and on, forever. Or that’s what it felt like. He was still inside her, ready for Round Three. And Four and Five. But she did look tired, and between his ever-ready dick and her well-being, Catherine’s well-being won out, hands down.

He placed his hands flat on the bed, pushing his torso up. It was harder than he would have thought. It wasn’t just that he’d used up a lot of his energy but it was also that his body didn’t want to leave hers, not in any way. Not even separating his chest from her breasts. And farther below, his dick was screaming
Are you crazy? You want out of here? What’s the matter with you?

His better nature was warring with his animal side, which wanted nothing more than to settle back down on top of her with a sigh, nuzzle her neck and start fucking her again.

His phone pinged. He’d set his text messages to hologram and the bright letters appeared above it. The message was from Stella.

outside door

He smiled. His better nature had just had a friendly shove.

Pulling out of Catherine was not easy, though. It felt cold away from her skin, outside her body. Standing up was harder than he thought. Her body was like this huge magnet pulling him toward her. He had to move each muscle consciously to get out of bed. With a sigh he bent to retrieve his pants.

“What was that?” Her voice sounded sleepy.

“Something you might enjoy. Sit up in bed.”

She shook her head, eyes still closed. “No way. Something or someone stole my spinal cord. I may never sit up again.”

Well, he had a way to persuade her. He opened the door and sure enough the magic cart was outside. Bless Stella. He was in no shape to get dressed and go down in search of some food. He didn’t want to see anyone or talk to anyone except Catherine. Stella made sure he didn’t have to.

Right now, this room held everything he wanted.

He wheeled the cart in, leaning over and breathing deeply, luxuriating in the smells, like a foretaste of heaven. The smells reached the bed and Catherine’s nose twitched, her lips moving in a ghost of a smile.

“Sit up, honey,” he said. “But keep your eyes closed.”

That earned him a full-blown smile. “If you think it’s a surprise, I can smell it from here. Only I have no idea what time it is, and whether it’s breakfast, lunch or dinner.”

He lifted covers over dishes, peeked. Jesus. His mouth started watering. “Dinner. Now sit up.”

“Can’t,” she sighed.

“Okay.” He bent over, grasped her under her arms and easily lifted her until she was sitting against the headboard. “No peeking now.”

Her head tilted to one side, eyes closed. “Okay. No peeking.”

Her head slumped a little more to the side.

“No falling asleep, either.” She smiled, eyes closed, and he couldn’t resist her, bending to touch his mouth to hers.

His world exploded.

Christ. He did see colors. Bright shards of light moving through him as he felt her.
Felt
her. Felt her bone-deep contentment like smooth honey in his veins, felt how unusual sated contentment was to her, felt . . .

He swallowed heavily.

He could feel, so strongly he could almost touch it, her affection, a burst of emotions centered on him. Through her eyes he was handsome and strong and good. Though she wasn’t touching him in any way, was indeed resting bonelessly against the headboard, eyes closed, hands limp, palms up on the bedspread, tendrils of her warm feelings reached out and grabbed him, hard. These . . . things snaked through his body, tangling through his system until he couldn’t tell where he stopped and she began.

It was like being lost in a fragrant, sun-filled jungle, vines clutching at him, holding him down, and damned if he didn’t want to be held.

He stood for a second, looking down at her, at this woman who had unexpectedly crawled inside him, right under his skin. Beautiful and smart and somehow wanting him.

Mac had never had this in his life before. The closest relationship he had ever had had been with the Captain, but that had been a bond of duty and admiration and obedience. Nick and Jon—they were his men and he was sworn to lead them and protect them, but before the Arka fiasco had gone down, he hadn’t known them well. After Arka, they’d worked hard together to protect themselves and to protect their little community, but Mac felt more loyalty to them than affection.

Affection, love—these hadn’t ever played any kind of role in his life. He’d built himself from the ground up, an orphan who’d nearly drowned in the sewers of the system. The navy had saved him, given him direction and purpose, and the Captain had given him pride and duty and responsibility, but none of that had ever touched his heart. He wasn’t even sure he had one, though he was now.

Because it was beating for her.

Because this woman touched his heart. No, she didn’t just touch it. She reached out past skin and bone and muscle and grabbed his heart directly, squeezing it hard, wrapping herself around it so tightly he didn’t know where he ended and she began.

Dangerous, heady stuff and it made his head swim.

He straightened, scowling, wishing like hell he could put all these roiling emotions inside him down to some drug or fancy form of hypnosis or some crazy mind-control technique, but he knew it wasn’t that. It was all real and it came from him, from the deepest part of him that responded to her like a key in a lock.

Dealing with a firefight was easier than this. This was mind-bending, life-altering stuff and knocked him straight out of his boots.

“So?” she asked softly. “Can I open my eyes?” She drew in a deep appreciative breath. “It smells glorious.”

“Not yet.”

He angled the cart close to the edge of the bed, wondering how this was going to work without plates, then realized there was stuff on a shelf below. God, he was going to get something special for Stella the next time he went out into the World because bless her, she’d thought of everything. On the lower shelf was a foldout tray, plates, glasses, napkins and silverware.

Mac started to fold the tray out over her lap when he stopped, frowning. She was naked, the sheet barely held over her breasts, tucked under her arms.

Though a naked Catherine was a very good thing and though he couldn’t imagine anything finer than seeing and touching her breasts while he ate, a lot of the food was hot and the thought that she might be burned by hot food made him queasy. Mac knew firsthand the blinding pain of burns, soul-searing torment that went on forever. He couldn’t bear to think of Catherine going through anything like that.

Not an option.

“Hold up your arms.” He pulled out a clean folded tee from a drawer, shook it out, floated it over her head. “Here. You’ll be more comfortable this way. And you can open your eyes now.”

They opened immediately and met his and it was a punch to the stomach. No soft tendrils around his heart, no glowing heat flowing gently through his veins like honey. This was desire, hot and strong and hard as rock. Nothing gentle about it, just something vast and necessary. Strong as painless fire.

She knew it, she could feel it, he could almost see the lines going from him to her. Connection, deep and clear. Desire, like a blast furnace, fiercely strong, from him to her, strong and hot.

Her eyes widened and she instinctively flinched back against the headboard. God. She looked almost eerily delicate, his tee on her so huge the neck almost slipped off her shoulders. Her eyes were wide, fixed on his, confused swirls of emotion buzzing around her, darkening, and he realized with a sigh that she wasn’t ready for Round Two. He frowned. Round Three.

At some deep level she wanted it but at an even deeper level she was frightened by it and it scared him that this made sense to him. That he could read her like that.

He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles, one by one. He turned her hand over and kissed the palm. Her hand cupped his chin, one finger stroking his burn scars.

Normally, he hated that. He didn’t like being touched, not even in the heat of sex. He often held a sex partner’s hands above her head because he had heavy scars along his back, too. The deep, thick scars—shrapnel from an IED—were souvenirs of Fuckedupistan, well before he was fucked up at Arka, but the two together were like a roadmap of pain and violence. What he’d done with his life written on his skin.

He didn’t need the light for a woman to be curious. Even in the dark, you could feel his scars and he hated the question—
what happened?

What the fuck do you think happened?
He’d had to bite that one back a lot.

This was completely different. Catherine ran her soft fingers over the entire scar, rippled, melted flesh on the left side of his face that went from the top of his forehead down to under his chin. He had a working left eye by a miracle.

The tone of her feelings changed, softened. No fear, something else.

“I can feel your pain,” she whispered.

And she could. He could tell. Everything about her darkened and tightened, and Christ, he couldn’t stand it, not for one second. He didn’t want her to feel his pain. He didn’t want her to feel any pain, ever.

“Don’t,” he whispered back, clasping his hand over hers. Her hand under his was warm and seemed to emit light. All of her was light. “Don’t think of it.”

She shook her head, eyes never leaving his. “How can I not think of it, when it’s so close, right there under your skin? I can feel it. It never goes away. Not physical pain but the other kind.” Her hand traced down, over his neck, chest, to rest over his heart. Her hand seemed to pulse in time with his heartbeat. Skin against skin, skin melding into skin. “The kind that’s worse. I wish I could take it away for you.”

He smiled, something he did rarely. The burn scar puckered and stretched when he smiled. It wasn’t painful, just uncomfortable, and so he hardly ever smiled. There wasn’t much to smile about anyway. There’d never been much to smile about.

“You are taking it away,” he said in a low voice. It was true. Heat spread from her hand, filling his chest, curling inside him like smoke. The Captain’s betrayal, he and his men, who had pledged their lives to their country, on the run like outlaws, accused of treason . . . it faded to background noise. The sharp pain of it was gone, dissipated like morning mist.

The spiky, ragged, almost painful desire he’d felt only a few minutes ago had subsided, replaced with a liquid glowing need for her, strong and steady and true. Sex, surely. Desire, yes. But something else, something deeper and more necessary than that. What he felt was passing through her hand into her.

He took in a deep breath, her hand rising and falling with his chest.

“I want you. Again.” The words came out a gentle whisper, where moments before they would have come out painful and raw.

He leaned into her hand, knowing she could read everything about him through the skin of her hand, something flowing between them, hot and rapid and bright with the glow of passion laced with tenderness.

He didn’t press against her, didn’t try to convince her, just waited, feeling the ebb and flow and swirl of emotions in her. He watched her carefully, though he could read her better through the hand touching him than he could from the expression on her face.

But oh God, he couldn’t take his eyes from her face. She was so beautiful. It was as if someone had reached deep into his head to pull out his own personal template for a beautiful woman and had created her entirely from what was in him. Everything about her was just so fine—the pale, porcelain-smooth skin, huge silver eyes, luscious mouth, long, slender neck. Though his tee covered her breasts, he didn’t need to see them because burned in his memory was the feel of them in his hands, soft and firm, the way her nipples felt against his tongue . . .