Hell on the Heart (30 page)

His focus was between her legs and the need to lick her rode him hard. In his mind he saw her spread open with her ankles hooked around his shoulders. Her hands fisting his hair, showing him just how hard she wanted it. After she was mindless with need, he’d flip her over and pound into her while she knelt on all fours under her.

 Bending, he pressed open-mouth kisses to her knees and heard her soft moans. With a certainty that surprised him, he realized seducing her would never win her heart. She needed something no one else had ever given her.

“Hold on,” he forced his hands to leave her body. She squinted, a slight frown marring her features.

“What are you doing?” Her voice laced with lust almost weakened his resolve.

Instead of replying he sprawled on his back and stretched his arms above his head. He gripped the wrought iron bars in the headboard. “You’re in charge.”

She rose to kneel above him, a puzzled expression in her eyes. She waited, her arms folded under her breast creating a delightful tableau. When he stayed where he was, she tilted her head and an impish grin slowly stretched across her face.

Yeah, he’d made the right choice. This was what he wanted to see, the look of a woman who’d just gotten everything she wanted on Christmas morning.

Now, he just had to concentrate on not losing it like a teenager.

# # #

Cezi couldn’t believe he voluntarily surrendered control. Men didn’t do that. But what the hell, she wasn’t above taking advantage of it. She threw a leg over his hip, straddled him and nipped his lower lip before running a soothing tongue over the mark.

From deep in his chest, a rumple of discontent surfaced. She laughed, barely able to contain her excitement.

“This is harder than I thought,” he grumbled, but made no move to lower his arms.

“No chest hair.” She ran her hands over the rippled, delineated muscles and then pinched his nipples. His skin was tough and rugged, yet smooth. She scooted lower on his body, wanting more.

His penis wept a single tear and begged for her lips to kiss it away. He was already
gaijkanè
. Were their degrees of
marimé
? If she was already damned, why not take it all the way.

Sexual inexperience did not mean she couldn’t recognize his restlessness. A mere touch brought a groan. The power of that accomplishment made her feel like the queen of the rodeo. She’d tamed the biggest, baddest stud in the pen. Without any words she knew no matter what she suggested at this minute, he’d agree.

She concentrated on not scraping him with her teeth and took as much as she could in her mouth. He shifted his weight beneath her and lifted her hair off one side of her face so he could watch. The entire time he made a humming noise that had he been a cat would have translated to a purr.

His hips rose as she swallowed and suddenly she had a whole lot more of him than she planned. But the guttural growl that followed made her do it again. And again. Until he collapsed against the bed, shuddering as he pumped his essence into her, helpless in her power.

Cezi rose over him. His eyes were squeezed shut and he gulped air like a runner who’d competed in a triathlon. Lightly she stroked him. Each movement produced a shudder that racked his body. She parted her legs and lowered herself onto his still erect member.

With a startled look, his eyes sprung open, the smile lines crinkled, as a low chuckle followed. “Condom first.” He picked the small foil square off the nightstand and handed it to her. “Suit me up.”

That done his hands gripped her hips to guide her descent until she was fully impaled. Once again, he stretched his arms above his head. “I’m ready when you are, gypsy girl.”

No way could she have wiped away her grin as she shifted her hips. His response was to roll his head back and watch through heavily hooded eyes as he murmured, ‘Oh, yeah’.

It took her a minute or two, but she caught a rhythm that worked for her. And if his reaction was any indication, it worked for him as well.

But he was a sneaky devil. For a guy who wasn’t going to interfere, one hand snaked down and his thumb managed to slip between her body and his. That brief touch set fire to her body and now each downward motion was a search for a repeat pleasure. Her internal pressure built with each stroke, winding her tighter until she was blind with need.

Then his arm circled her waist, his hips rose and she descended. This time he held her, grinding into her. Her body shook. He moved in a slow circle. And her world exploded.

Exhausted she collapsed against his chest. Immediately, he flipped her over, pulled her legs to his shoulders and hammered into her. While every drop of ecstasy had been wrung from her only minutes before, she discovered a second opportunity would not go to waste. Together they tumbled into the abyss.

He slouched across her, but his weight rested on his arms. His face buried in her hair. She could hear his ragged breath which matched her own.

“Hold on.” He stumbled to the bathroom and returned with a washcloth. She took it from him, pleased to find it was warm and swabbed her body while he waited patiently for her to finish and hand back the cloth.

 On his way back to bed he shut off various lights and locked the front door. Cezi moved over to make room for him as he crawled in beside her. He wrapped his arms around her and held her like he never planned to let her go.

Six hours later John jerked awake and sat straight up in bed. His cell phone’s muffled ring had woken him. What time was it? Where was his phone?

Czigany groaned and pulled a pillow over her head. A smile came unbidden to his face as he hopped out of bed and searched for his pants, knowing his phone remained in a pocket.

It had been a long night of sweet endurance. Four times he’d wakened her. Each time she responded with an eagerness that matched his. He bet she’d be aching in places she hadn’t even known were places that could ache. He was sore himself.

For the first time in his life, he’d met a woman limber enough to perform most of the positions of the Kama Sutra. Not that he’d introduced them. Not yet. Next time. His only prayer was that he could keep up.

The phone stopped ringing before he located his pants in the bathroom. D’Sean. He hit redial. Six-twenty-two am. Out of curiosity he pushed up a slat on the window blinds to be blinded by the bright sunlight.

Rather than crawling back in bed, he pulled on his jeans and walked to the front door.

The phone was answered on the third ring. In the background a car horn sounded and several animated voiced yelled words he couldn’t quite detect. Whatever D’Sean had found wasn’t good. Now, why didn’t that surprise him?

John pushed the speaker button so he could see the photos as they came through. When everybody was on, D’Sean’s first words were, “This is such a cluster fuck I don’t even know where to start.”

“Where are you now?”

“Santé Fe. Good news first. The two pilots and Eli are in custody. All are in the hospital but they’ll recover. The pilots are in panic mode and have offered to cut a deal.”

“The two pilots, Eli and Cain returned from Ft. Worth to find Adam already dismantling the Mexico house. So it wasn’t the Ft. Worth event that triggered the shut down. Whoever set up the Mexico explosion knew what they were doing. Since Cain is missing we suspect last night’s disaster was orchestrated by him.”

John skimmed the photos of the rubble. “He appears to have been effective.”

“Not really. As near as I can piece it together he rigged the house with C4, which didn’t go off because he screwed up the connection on the blasting caps.”

“So he’s not a demolitions guy,” Dare said.

“No, but he’s escalating and out of control. Get this. He’d already made his escape from the house, but came back when the C4 didn’t go off, strung a pearl necklace of dynamite and set it off in the living room. I’m amazed he got out a second time.”

“Whoa, there’s some anger. Why? What changed?”

“Maybe hallucination. The pilots indicated he’d been heavily drugged since Fort Worth. They were supposed to be guarding him, along with Herod, but Herod got a phone call and bailed. Since Cain was comatose, the guards and Eli hit a couple of titty bars early in the evening. When they got back, Herod was still MIA and Cain hadn’t moved.”

“When did the explosion go off?”

“Around eleven o’clock. The news choppers picked up the story and broadcast it as breaking news. I arrived when the paramedics were pulling bodies out. The first face I saw was Eli’s.”

“Do you have any help?”

“Yeah, FBI’s already here. We’re going to comb the wreckage for anything that can help us. Account books, bank statements, a computer, whatever.”

“Where would Cain go?”

“He’s got to be headed your way. Every lucid minute he’s had since Fort Worth has been a rambling diatribe about revenge against the gypsies.”

Both Dare and D’Sean guffawed. Great. Somehow when he’d signed on for this gig, he hadn’t thought the team was part of the comedy club.

Mentally, he did the math. Cain had a seven and a half hour jump on them. He could be anywhere. “Dare, meet me behind Czigany’s house.”

“On my way.”

# # #

Stillwater stared at the beautiful pixie sprawled naked across the bed. Her black hair swirled around her shoulders and cascaded across her torso playing a seductive game of peek-a-boo with her ruby nipples. Her swollen lips were slightly open, inviting his kiss, which he would have willing given her, had the thick half-moon lashes resting on her cheeks not told him she was truly lost in sleep.

It pleased him she slept in his presence. And while she’d never said, he suspected much of her insomnia came from the delicate tightrope she walked daily, trying to fit into a world that valued conformity, a commodity she lacked. Of course, the other possibility was that he’d simply worn her out.

Daylight crept through the windows. Dare was headed this way. When the shit hit the fan, everybody needed to be on the same page. He scrambled to finish dressing.

Momentarily, he was distracted when Cezi snorted and flopped an arm over her head. What should have been jerky and awkward turned out to be adorable. Jeez, next he would be reciting poetry.

Without bothering to don his sneakers and socks, he tucked them under his arm and eased open the front door. Her wooden porch laced with orange pyracantha covered his movements. Last night he hadn’t cared who knew he was staying at her house. In the light of day, he reconsidered. She’d brazen it out, but there was no reason to embarrass her.

The sky was brighter than he’d hoped, but if he could make it around the side of the house to the nearest clump of trees without being seen, it was a pretty straight shot to her father’s house. Nicholae wouldn’t have to know where he’d spent the night. Personally, John didn’t want to see him at all, but he couldn’t organize the compound without the older Romney’s help.

Thirty-four and sneaking around like a teenager. Shaking his head in disgust he stuffed his bare feet into shoes. The socks shoved into his pocket, he checked the wandering path. 

Leaping off the porch, the gravel crunched as his feet touched down. He grimaced. It hadn’t been that long since his days in the Special Forces, had he already forgotten how to move without sound? He dashed around the side of the house headed for the cover of the grubby mesquite trees.

Only to stop in mid-stride.

The very men he wanted to avoid stood bunched together. Watching. Silent. Deadly. Nicholae, Luca, Stefan, Andrej and Tomas.

None held weapons. Even though it was five to one, he could probably take them with physical force. But the one thing he’d learned when dealing with these men, they were a sly bunch. He paused, waiting to see what the next move would be.

The corner of Czigany’s father’s lips rose slightly in a feral smith. Next to him, Uncle Luca burst into a big grin. None of his sons moved a muscle.

“There appears to be only one thing to say,
Gajikané.”
Nicholae emphasized the gypsy word as the older man’s hard cold eyes belied the pleasant tone of his voice and the half-smile on his lips.

John swallowed. Waiting the verdict. At the Kris, only two nights before, the man had declared his daughter to be a virgin. It hadn’t been true, but he had no way of knowing that. Now the bloom was off that rose and John appeared to be the man who’d plucked it from the bush.

Cezi’s words came back to him. “Gypsy’s don’t have a try before you buy program. You touch it. You own it.”  Well, he’d definitely touched her. Since her father wasn’t toting a gun, John anticipated the next sentence, before Nicholae uttered the words.