Killer Secrets (43 page)

Against her stomach she could feel the hard length and
throb of his cock and wanted nothing more than

to feel it pounding inside the hungry depths of her pussy.

"I'm just me," she told him breathlessly with a
quick shake of her head.

"Just you," he agreed, one hand settling on her
hip as the other moved up her side to cup the heavy

weight of her breast.

"Ian, I don't know if I can handle this." She was
shaking on the outside, on the inside she was melting,

weakening.

"Pleasure?" He smiled down at her, his expression
sensual, wicked. "Of course you can, baby. You can

handle all the pleasure I have to give you."

She could die from it, was what she could do.

A startled gasp left her lips as his head lowered, his lips
smoothing over a distended nipple.

"I can't stand up." Her legs were shaking.

"I can help with that," he told her, his voice so
very considerate, edged with lust and erotic promise.

Insidious eroticism was what it was, because in the next
second his lips covered hers, his arms holding

her closer, giving her the support of his stronger body.
His aroused body. His cock pressing into her

belly, throbbing against her sweat-slicked flesh as her
nipples were buried in the thatch of chest hair,

raking into it, rasping the tender tips.

It wasn't just a kiss. It was an assault against her
control. It was slow and savoring, a melding of lips and

tongues, whispered groans and weak cries.

It was her arms wrapping around his neck to hold him
closer, her soul devouring the emotional, sensual

trails of pleasure to hold for the future. To remember in
the event that he walked away and never

returned.

"Better?" Ian crooned, his sandpapery voice
sending a surge of sensation to strike at her womb.

"Don't have legs left," she muttered, trying to
recapture his lips, to hold his kiss to her.

His chuckle was followed by a caress of those lips against
her neck, to her ear, down to her shoulder.

"I'll be your legs." He picked her up and carried
her to the bed, laying her along it as he came over her,

stealing her lips again, his hands stroking over her breasts,
cupping them, his thumbs rasping her nipples

as his lips followed.

Kira shook her head desperately. She knew what he meant to
do, and she couldn't bear it. He was

imprinting her soul with his touch, with the pleasure only
he could give her.

"Ian, please," she moaned, not that her plea
distracted his lips from their course.

Taking stinging kisses from her neck, her collarbone, they
arrowed to the tip of a tight, hard nipple, they

destroyed any protest she would have further voiced.

"I want all of you tonight," he told her, staring
down at her, his eyes darkening as she bit her lip and

shook her head slowly. "All of you, Kira. If I have to
let you walk beside me, then I'll know all of you

belongs to me. Every inch of this sweet, hot body, every
particle of your heart and soul. You'll be mine."

Her fists clenched in the blanket.

"No . . ."

"Fuck you, yes!" Anger flashed in his eyes.
"You forced me to accept you being involved in this, now by

God, you will accept me."

Twenty-four

SHE DIDN'T WANT HIS LOVE.The thought was ricocheting
through Ian's head, burning through his

own defenses and plain pissing him off.

She loved him. He knew she loved him. He could feel it, see
it in her eyes, feel it in every touch of her

body, but she didn't want his love in return.

Why?

He cupped the swollen mound of her breasts, felt the heat
of her flesh and saw the flush of arousal that

colored it. Her nipple was hard, distended, like a tender
pebble against his tongue as she writhed beneath

him.

Her eyes were shadowed, riotous with fear and pleasure, and
that confused him. She confused him. The

mix of vulnerable woman and courageous agent never failed
to mesmerize him. She wasn't hard or

embittered. She laughed, and she cared, and she loved, even
knowing that those she loved could be

taken from her in a second.

He licked at the tender hard flesh of her nipple and sucked
it tenderly into his mouth at the thought. She

loved him, though he had given her no reason to love. He
had tried to push her away, even as he pulled

her to him, several times. And she was always there, a part
of him, sliding into his soul as though she had

always been meant to be there.

Now she was denying him the same place within her, that
same security. Damn her. She had made

herself imperative within his life, so imperative that he
had pushed aside his own prejudices about having

a woman within one of his missions and let her in. She was
part of the danger he was facing and she

couldn't even enter the part of his soul that he had opened
for her?

The hell she couldn't. She would, one way or the other,
give them both what they needed.

"You're mine," he whispered against her
sweat-slick flesh as he moved from one breast to the other,

licking and nibbling, tasting her skin and becoming drunk
on it.

"Please, Ian." Her gasp filled his head, passion
and lust, defiance and need, echoing within it.

"Tell me you're mine." He licked over the
opposite nipple, drew it into his mouth, and nearly shuddered

as the taste of sweet female flesh infused his senses.

"I'm yours. I swear. I'm yours." She arched
beneath him, pushing the berry-ripe tip deeper into his

mouth.

He gave her what he knew she was aching for. His lips
closed snug and tight over the tip of her breast.

He sucked it inside, drawing on her, relishing the taste of
her as his tongue lashed at her nipple.

Her body drew tight beneath his as she shuddered and
trembled in his arms.

"Am I yours too, Kira? Do I belong to you?" He
lifted his head, glancing up to see the battle she waged

reflected in her sweat-dampened features as her head
thrashed back and forth on the bed, denial

contorting her features as a cry fell from her lips.

He licked one nipple, then the other. He let his kisses
trail from one mound to the valley between her

breasts and the journey that led to the sweet, seductive
spice of her wet pussy.

He was dying to slide his cock inside the velvet heat of
her vagina. To feel her muscles tighten around

him, stretching as they took him, accepted him. The way her
juices slickened the sweet depths, the way

they eased his penetration of her. His possession of her.

Oh yeah, he had her heart, even a part of her soul. But he
didn't have all of her. Not yet. Not yet, but he

would have it before the night was finished.

"Ian, don't torture me. Don't do this."
Vulnerability, fear, arousal. It all clashed in her voice as the plea

had him laying his cheek against the soft mound of her
belly and forcing him to breathe in deep, to

remember what he was fighting for.

He wouldn't take from her. He accepted her. Her need to
fight for what she believed was right, her need

to be here, to see the man that had destroyed her family
fall. He accepted those parts of her that refused

to allow him to coddle her, to keep her out of danger. He
needed her to accept him in turn. To claim him.

To demand him.

He needed it, though it made no sense. He knew he loved
her, knew she loved him, what did it matter if

she was willing to face it at this moment or not?

It did matter. It mattered that he could lose her, that she
could lose him, and that vow wouldn't be

between them. That she wouldn't know how much he had loved
her, needed her. Because for whatever

reason, she didn't want to hear the words.

"Do you know what the taste of you does to me?"
He nipped at the flesh of her thigh as he made a place

between her legs for his shoulders. His hands clamped on
her hips to hold her in place even as he ignored

her sharp little nails digging into his scalp or how she
tugged at the thick strands of his hair.

"Let me touch you," she cried out. "Let me
taste you."

"Let you love me?" He smiled as he laid his cheek
against her thigh, the spicy-sweet smell of her infusing

his senses as he stared up at her. "Let me love you,
Kira."

She shuddered, her gray eyes going stormy as she stared at
him, pleaded silently with him.

"Let me show you, since you don't want to hear the
words."

One hand left her hip to trail between her legs. He felt
the heated juices against his fingertips and felt his

mouth watering to taste them. She was sweeter than syrup,
hotter than sunlight, and she burned him to

the very core of his being with her passion and her love.

"Ian, you don't know . . . Don't know what you're
doing to me."

"What you did to me?" He parted the sweet flesh,
ran his fingers along the narrow slit. "Showing you

how I feel? Making you accept that I need as well? Oh yes,
Kira. I do know what I'm doing."

Before she could form an argument or pull harder at his
hair, he lowered his head and swirled his tongue

around the distended, hardened little clit. Softly pink,
throbbing with arousal and glistening with her juices,

it drew him like a sensual drug, made him hungry, made him
ache to feel it within his mouth.

God, he loved her taste. It exploded against his tongue, filled
his mouth with the lightest hint of sugar and

fiery spice.

He groaned into her flesh, felt her shudder again and felt
an overwhelming pride that he could give her

such pleasure. The same pleasure she gave him. The kind
that whipped through the soul and bound a

man and woman together forever.

That was what it was, chains weaving through silken
emotions, ensuring that no matter where they

existed, together or apart, that they would always belong.

He had never belonged. Until now.

KIRA THRASHED, JERKED, WRITHED BENEATHhim but nothing could
break the hold he had on

her. She pulled at his hair, begged breathlessly, but
nothing stopped the destructive strokes of his lips and

his tongue or the explosive pleasure of his suckling mouth.

She arched, fighting to get closer even as she fought to
hold back the effects of the pleasure.

Oh God, it was so good. His tongue stroked around her clit
as his lips sucked at it. When she was close,

so close to release, he moved, licked along the shallow
slit, sucked the soft folds into his mouth and

groaned as her juices fell from her pussy to the caressing
fingertips that stroked over the entrance yet

never penetrated.

"Am I yours, Kira?" he whispered again.

Oh God, what did it matter? Why did he fucking care? He
knew he owned her. He owned her heart and

soul, what did it matter if the thought of his love
terrified her? She could love him and deal with the loss.

She had done that before. Dealt with losing those she
loved. But she had never known love. Not like this.

If he loved as she did, then it meant she was betraying not
just the man, but his soul. She couldn't handle

that. She couldn't handle knowing he was out there, without
her, betrayed, hating her. Even her

ex-husband hadn't hated her by time he walked away. Of
course, she had never allowed him to love her

either.

She cried out Ian's name as piercing pinpoints of heated
ecstasy exploded around her clit. He pulled the

little bud into his mouth once again, stroked it, licked
and savored it. He kissed it. Suckling little kisses

that were gone before they could push her over the edge.

She tried to tighten her thighs, to hold him in place, but
his shoulders were there, stopping her. Each time