Navy SEALs Complete Series: 3 Books + 3 Novellas (Tempting Navy SEALs) (55 page)

She was shaking, shuddering against him, as he drew her to him. She was still wearing her clothes. No way in hell was he giving her time to think as he removed them. As she moved above him, his hands eased her knees onto the cushions and he dragged his body lower. Until his lips were poised beneath her, his fingers gripping the material of the soft cotton Capris on each side of the seam and pulling.

It parted, the sound of rending cloth bringing a gasp from her lips and a warning tension to her body. A tension Kell didn’t allow to last for long. As the material parted, his lips were there. His teeth caught the edge of the triangle of silk covering her, pulling it to the side and then catching it with the fingers of one hand.

Then his tongue was free to touch her. Free to slide through the juicy slit, to taste ambrosia, the nectar of the gods, a heated, sweet syrup he knew would be his downfall.

Emily knew she had made a grave mistake. A tactical error, and she couldn’t stop. She was lost. The minute she heard the material of her Capris tearing, she knew nothing could stop this. Definitely not her. She couldn’t stop anything, she was too lost in that first lick through the folds of her sex and too desperate for more.

Then he kissed her. He covered the lips of her pussy with his lips, and gave her a kiss that nearly destroyed her.

The rasp of his short growth of beard sizzled across her flesh. The slightly rough rasp of his tongue, the flickering flames of sensation that crashed through her womb, drew her body tight.

“Oh God. Kell. Kell.” Her head was swimming as his lips placed light, sucking kisses around her clit, over it, then down, drawing the swollen folds of her pussy between his lips and kissing them with heated fervor.

Lightning crashed inside her body, her mind. Brilliant pinpoints of light clashed and exploded behind her closed eyelids as she began to shake.

“Kell—so good. So good.”

He licked again, painting the entrance to the tormented channel with heated licks and fiery sensation. Dazed pleasure filled her, the world narrowed itself to nothing but Kell’s touch, to his mouth, his tongue. To the incredible sensations racing through her with a speed that had her gasping for breath.

She was racing toward something. Something she had only read about, only dreamed about. Something she had never believed she would experience.

Panting for breath, she tried to move her hips against his tongue, tried to reach the pinnacle of pleasure she could feel waiting for her. But Kell’s hands were firm now, demanding. They gripped her hips and held her in place, restraining her above him as he drove her rapidly insane with each kiss, each lick.

One hand clenched in his hair, the other in the back cushion of the couch, as she titled her head back, forcing her eyes open. He chose that moment to press his tongue inside her.

One hard thrust, a rapid lick and another thrust, and Emily was screaming. It was too much. Flames tore through her body as she felt something tear free in her soul. Sensation and emotion wrapped around her, strung her tight, then shot her rapidly through an ecstasy so intense, so violent, that every muscle in her body began to tremble in response.

It was so good. Too good. It brought tears to her eyes as her wailing cries echoed around her. And he didn’t stop. He licked and groaned against her flesh, continuing to consume the soft flow of her release as she wilted over him, too weak, too confused by the dazed pleasure, to hold herself up any longer.

“There, sweet sugar,” he crooned as he lifted her, supporting her weight as he rose, letting her slide down his chest as his arms wrapped around her.

Emily whimpered as she found herself lying back on the couch, Kell rising between her thighs as he ripped the remainder of her pants from her body.

“I’ll buy you more,” he promised as he tossed the scraps of material to the floor. “I need to see you. Naked and wild beneath me.”

His hands gripped the edge of her shirt, pulling it quickly from her body and sending it the way of the torn Capris as he stared down at her fiercely. His gaze seared her as his large, warm hands settled at her stomach, then smoothed up to the swollen mounds of her lace-covered breasts.

Disposing of her bra took only seconds. A flick of his fingers at the front clasp and he peeled it from the swollen, sensitive mounds with a growl of pleasure.

Callused fingers cupped the curves, weighed them, tormented them as his thumbs rasped over the painfully hard nipples.

Catching her breath was impossible. Emily had never felt such pleasure, had never known such intensity of sensation. It spasmed through her womb, exploded in her bloodstream, and left her helpless beneath the driving ache that invaded her system.

A grimace of hunger creased Kell’s expression. His green eyes were dark, emerald fire blazing in the depths as he gazed at her.

“So damned pretty,” he snarled.

He pushed his jeans lower on his hips, one hand gripping the shaft of his cock as he began to lower himself to her.

She couldn’t protest. She knew she should protest. She knew she should be screaming out at him to stop, to think, but it was so good. So hot and desperate and filled with the sound of “Hells Bells.”

They both froze.

Emily’s gaze jerked to the cell phone still hanging at the band of his jeans as a curse ripped past his lips.

“Hells Bells” echoed around them again as he jerked it from the holder and flipped it open.

“Senator. How can I help you?”

Emily stared back at Kell with a sense of horror. Her gaze went from the hard stalk of his erection poised only inches from her flesh then snapped back to his gaze. There was mocking amusement there, and wry acceptance.

She began to pull herself back together, sitting up on the couch as she fumbled for the shirt on the floor and then jerked it over her head.

She felt adrift. As though something had torn her from an unconscious tether and now she was fighting to recover her balance. Dragging herself from the couch, she pushed her fingers restlessly through her hair and watched him as he spoke to her father.

His voice was quiet, not so much as hint of his earlier passion shading it, as he rose from the couch, fixed his jeans, and discussed a party she was required to attend the next day.

She had no desire to attend another of the political functions her father had arranged and she especially had no desire to attend the party with Kell.

Not now. Not while her body was flushed and burning with need and he was talking to her father with a steady cool voice as he turned his back on her.

She shot him a glare as he moved across the room, picked his shirt up from the floor, and pulled it back on without a single interruption in his conversation.

He was too tall. Too broad. And his touch was too knowing. As though instinctively he had known her weakness, her need to explore and to touch. To be touched.

Her hands still tingled from that need. Her body burned for it. And she had no idea how to fight it.

She had known sexual desire in the past. Moments when she had considered throwing caution to the winds for a particular touch, but she had always managed to maintain her control and walk away. She hadn’t maintained control this time. She hadn’t been walking away, she had been gasping, begging for more. If it hadn’t been for her father’s ill-timed call, then she would be moaning beneath Kell’s possession now.

She bit her lip, glancing over at him beneath her lashes as he leaned against the counter and talked, his tone a low, rough rumble as his gaze tracked her every move.

Suddenly, she felt more restrained than ever. The walls were closing in on her, the air became too close, suffocating, filled with the scent of sex and her own regret.

Shaking her head fiercely at the thought, she turned and stalked back to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her in frustration before heading for the shower.

A cold shower.

She had to find her control. Somehow, it had been stripped away from her one slow touch at a time, one erotic discovery after another. And she had no idea how to recapture it. Or how to save her heart.

Because she knew Kell Krieger was stealing it. Stealing her heart and endangering her soul with each kiss, each touch. Letting him go would break her. And keeping him wasn’t an option.

Her father dreamed of such a match. And it was her greatest nightmare. A man who could imprison her with his love, with his fears for her. Who would sap all the dreams that filled her and leave her with nothing but regret.

Was that how it had happened with her mother? she wondered as she stepped into the shower. Had her father hemmed her in so tightly that nothing mattered but escape? Had she regretted it when she lay in the hospital dying from the injuries of her crash? Had she known? Had she regretted? Had she thought of the husband and child she was leaving behind and the horror her choice would bring to them?

Emily had sworn years ago that she wouldn’t let that happen to her. She wouldn’t be weak. She wouldn’t marry a man determined to control her. She wouldn’t give in to loving a strong man until she could learn how to stand firm against her father’s demands.

If a woman couldn’t stand up to her father, then how could she have any hope of standing up to a lover or a husband?

And would a woman ever have a chance of standing up against Lieutenant Kell Krieger? She had a feeling he would be the ultimate mountain to climb, as well as the most dangerous. The most challenging. And certainly the most tempting.

She was going to have to be very careful. He was becoming a weakness, and right now, Emily knew she couldn’t afford this particular weakness.

K
ELL DISCONNECTED THE CALL WITH
the senator and stared broodingly at the cell phone in his hand for long seconds. He had to give the man credit. His timing sucked. One more minute and the call would have been ignored for the sheer pleasure he would have found giving Emily her first passionate ride.

Or the sheer insanity of blowing his own head off. It was only after hearing the phone sing out its distinctive song that he had realized he hadn’t sheathed his raging hard-on in a condom.

Dumb. Stupid. And here he had assured her that he knew how to protect himself, if not her.

But it was also the most pleasure he swore he had ever known.

He should have been shaking in his boots at the thought of taking a virgin. Especially a virgin whose father was actively seeking a particular brand of husband for her. A virgin who eroded his common sense and self-preservation. The one who had been tempting his dreams for too many years. He should have felt the noose tightening around his neck the minute those hot lips of hers touched his flesh.

But there was something
right
about her touch. Something
that called to him despite his misgivings. And he had a lot of misgivings, her father being one of his chief concerns.

Shaking his head, he flipped the phone open again, hit Reno’s speed dial and waited.

“I have five minutes,” Reno said quietly. “The senator has a meeting on the Hill and we’re escorting him.”

“Keeping you busy, is he?” Kell smirked.

“Watch it, Lieutenant, I could have Macey trade places with you and let you play the senator’s aide.”

Not in this lifetime. “No, thank you, Commander. I’ll get right to the point. This party we’re attending day after tomorrow. The senator didn’t mention Ian. I want him in place. If our mole is government and close enough to the Stantons to be worried about the senator’s investigation, then we could be walking into trouble.”

Reno was silent for long moments. “You’ll be followed by the Secret Service. I’ve gone over the agents’ files, they’re good men.”

“My gut is rocking here, Reno. I need Ian in place.”

He could feel that vague sense of danger moving in. It had begun to build the minute the senator began talking about the political party Emily was required to attend.

“You’ll have him.” Reno made the decision quickly. “Your dress blues will be waiting when you arrive at the senator’s town house tomorrow afternoon. I’ll arrange for Ian to have clearance on the flight in. We’ll leave one of the Secret Service agents in the condo Ian’s using to keep an eye on Miss Stanton’s home while you’re gone.”

Kell nodded at the shift in personnel. “We should arrive in D.C. by late afternoon according to the senator’s itinerary.”

“Clint will be waiting at the town house with the security layout of the mansion the party’s being held at and the route he’s laying in for the drive there.”

“Will you and Macey be in position?”

“Only as long as the senator is at the party,” Reno answered. “On another note, watch your ass. The senator is a
little too pleased by something going on out there. If you’re playing tango with the senator’s daughter then he could make a very bad enemy when things go sour.”

“Any idea what he suspects?”

“None, but he got a phone call last night and the man’s smile was positively smug. When he finished, he pulled up your file and spent quite a few hours going through it. So watch your six, my friend.”

There could be few things worse than a former SEAL plotting another SEAL’s downfall by way of a wedding band. What concerned Kell was who would have called to assure the senator it was happening. Only one person had seen them together, seen them touching, and his investigation into her background had revealed nothing but a spoiled, bored little rich girl. Evidently the little rich girl was more than she allowed others to see.

“I’ll keep my eyes open—”

“And your jeans zipped,” Reno reminded him. “I know damned good and well what was going on after you saw that strip she did.”

“It was a lap dance.” Kell grimaced at the satisfaction in his own voice.

Reno snorted. “Make sure I get an invitation to the wedding. This would almost be worth watching.”

“In your dreams,” Kell growled. “I’m out of here now.”

“Watch your six, my friend,” Reno reminded him again. “I’ll be waiting when you show up in D.C.”