Resisting Her Rebel Hero (8 page)

Her belly tightened and she let her fingers curl helplessly over his jaw, rough with a dark shadow that looked a good few hours past five o’clock. The rasp against her skin sent shivers of longing and arousal up her arm into her chest and a hot yearning set up residence in her belly. “Try harder,” she gulped.

His smile was quick and sinful as his big hand smoothed a path of heat down the length of her arm, over her shoulder to her breast. “
Babe
,” he drawled, brushing his thumb over the full bottom curve and drawing her nipple into a tight bud that had his eyes gleaming with satisfaction. “If it gets any harder I’ll injure myself.” He looked up from studying the hard tips of her breasts. “You’re bound by oath to treat me then, aren’t you?”

Cassidy slapped her hand over his with the intention of moving it to safer territory. “In your dreams, Major,” she scoffed huskily, but her resistance was fast slipping away—right along with her mind. And she was having a hard time recalling why she should care.

“Sam,” he corrected against her throat, and Cassidy lifted her chin to give him room, her eyes drifting closed with the lush pleasure of having his mouth on her.
Oh, God
. They needed to stop this before...before...

“Say it.” A shiver raced down her spine, sparks bursting behind her eyelids as he opened his mouth to suck on a patch of delicate skin. She gave a little gasp and clenched her thighs around his, the pressure setting off tiny little explosions of sensation in forbidden places.

“Wh-what?” She tried to concentrate long enough to make sense of his words.

“My name.” He abandoned her throat to kiss his way up to her parted lips. His thigh pushed harder against her. “Say it,” he ordered softly, pulling back when she tried to capture his mouth with hers. A moan worked its way up from her throat and emerged as a growl before she could stop it. Tunneling her fingers into his hair, she tugged him closer and closed her teeth over his bottom lip in a punishing little nip.

“Don’t make me hurt you, Major,” she growled, and his answering chuckle was deep and dark and sent delicious sensations heating up lonely places.
Heck
, he was like a furnace, incinerating everything in sight—her resistance, her reservations...her
mind
—turning her to putty in his big, strong hands.

His mouth smiled against hers. “Say it,” he taunted softly, applying a little hot, wet suction that made her moan. “Say it and I’ll give you exactly what you want.”

Cassidy heard a loud buzzing in her ears and in a far distant corner of her mind still capable of thought she acknowledged that he was right. She did want him and his name, “
Samuel,
” emerged on a husky sigh.

With a growl, deep and low in his throat, he caught her mouth in a kiss so hot and raw that she felt it in the pit of her belly. He pulled oxygen from her lungs and a frantic response from her mouth. It was so good that Cassidy fisted her hands in his hair and opened her mouth beneath his, promising herself that she would stop. In a minute.

It was her last rational thought. The instant his warm hand slid over the naked skin of her belly, she lost all reason, all ability to think of anything but the sudden frenzy of his kiss. Excited thrills raced over her skin as her world narrowed and focused on his hot mouth, his eager hands. She tried to touch him everywhere at once—his shoulders, his wide back, his hard chest—as though she couldn’t get enough.

She briefly acknowledged that she was in trouble—
big
trouble—when his hand slid beneath her jeans and cupped her through her panties. Thought slid away on a low moan as she arched into his touch, feeling perhaps for the first time the kind of hot, crazy desire people talked about. Too far gone to care that he was everything that was bad for her.

His touch felt too good, and the big erection pressing against her felt hard and powerful and welcome.

He shifted and before she knew it, he was whipping her T-shirt over her head. Grabbing a fistful of fabric at the back of his neck, he stripped off his own, sending both garments sailing over his shoulder into the shadows. Then he planted his big hands beside her head, and with their gazes locked he nudged her thighs apart before lowering his body slowly over hers until all that separated their good parts was denim and silk. At the press of his powerful erection into the notch between her legs he grimaced as though in pain and his eyes drifted closed.

“
Jeez
,” he said, his voice so deep and rough it slid into her belly like dark sin. “
Cassidy
...” he breathed heavily, and stared down into her face with hot, glazed eyes. “You are so damn beautiful, do you know that? And I’ve had really carnal thoughts about your mouth for days,” he growled. “It’s driven me crazy, thinking about kissing you. Kind of like this.” He bent his head and gave her a kiss, soft and sweet and hot. “
Oh, yeah
,” he breathed against her mouth, sucking gently on her swollen lip. “It’s lush and tempting and so damn sweet. It’s all I can think about.”

Then he opened his mouth over hers in a hard, hungry kiss that scattered her senses, and before Cassidy knew what was happening she was thrusting her hands into his hair and kissing him back, her mouth as hot and greedy as his.

Sam swept his tongue past her lips to taste the dark, sweet nectar within. She responded with a low hungry moan and closed her lips around his tongue, sucking hard.

Controlling himself with effort, Sam fed her hot, desperate kisses, tongue dueling and tangling while his hands streaked over her soft flesh, stripping off her clothing until she was left in nothing but a tiny triangle of teal silk.

Kneeing her smooth thighs apart, he settled his hips between them, pushing against her soft, wet heat until she was writhing restlessly against him.

“Holy
...” His mind glazed over and he couldn’t remember what he’d been about to say. Only knew that he wanted her more than he’d wanted anything.
Ever
.

“Samuel...” Her voice was a sweet, husky moan of desire that almost had him going off like a missile. He filled his big hands with her breasts and flicked at the hard little buds until a long, low wail tore from her throat and her back arched up off the floor.

Ignoring her entreaty, he dipped his head to scrape his teeth along her neck, nipping the delicate skin until she shivered as her palm slid down his belly. She pressed her hand against his button fly and he jolted like he’d been shot.

“
Sweet...
” he growled, grabbing her hand to pin it against the floor above her head. “Not yet, babe.” He gave a rough laugh when a sound of frustration burst from her mouth. “Soon,” he promised hoarsely, closing his mouth hungrily over one swollen breast. She gasped and his pulse spiked until all he could hear in the quiet room was the heavy thunder of his heart, the harsh sounds of their breathing and her soft, throaty whimpers.

She fisted her free hand in his hair and couldn’t hold back the full-body shudder or the eager moan that ended with, “
Oh, my God
...”

Soothing her, he dropped a moist kiss between her lush breasts before heading south, stringing tiny, wet kisses across her abdomen. He paused to trace his tongue around her shallow navel, gently blowing against the damp skin until her belly quivered. His hum of amusement turned into a growl of pleasure.

With his mouth on her flat belly, Sam slid his hands up her long smooth thigh to hook his fingers into the narrow band of fabric at her hips. And before she could gasp out a breathless “
Wait,
” he’d slid her panties down her legs and past her toes to send them sailing over his shoulder.

Grunting, he reared back onto his heels and looked at the woman sprawled like sin before him. For a moment he savored the tempting sight then dipped his head to run the tip of his tongue up the inside of her knee, chuckling when she shivered and let out a desperate whimper.

As though sensing the direction of his mouth, Cassidy uttered a squeak of protest and tried to clamp her legs together, fisting her hands in his hair to stop his upward progress. “No, Samuel,” she cried breathlessly, “I don’t—”

“It’s okay,” he murmured, sliding his big, rough hand over her quivering belly before wedging his shoulders between her thighs. He dragged damp kisses over her hips and stomach to the soft, sweet undersides of her breasts. Alternating stinging wet kisses with little swipes of his beard-roughened jaw that made her arch and moan, Sam gentled her with his hands and lips until her muscles went fluid and lax and she gave a long, lazy hum of pleasure.

The moment he felt her body shift languorously and turn liquid he moved and closed his mouth over her soft, damp folds. She tried to tug at him, her gasp of protest turning to a cry of pleasure as he pressed closer and did something with his tongue. In moments she was flying off the edge.

* * *

The force of her climax hit hard, and, eyes wide with shock, Cassidy could only lie there shuddering and think,
Holy cow...what was that?

But Sam wasn’t finished. He uttered a rough growl and reared up, yanking his jeans and boxer briefs down his legs before kicking them free. Then he slid up her body, dragging his tongue along the slick, damp flesh between her breasts and up her long slender throat until his fallen-angel face filled her vision. His molten-gold eyes locked with hers. She felt the bump of him against the tender flesh between her thighs and slapped a hand against his chest to keep him from thrusting home.

“Condom,” she gasped.

He froze and swore, surging upward to reach behind him for his jeans. Within seconds he’d rolled the latex down his thick shaft before he positioned himself and, with one fierce thrust, buried himself deep.

The thick, solid invasion set off another series of explosions, sending Cassidy arching upward as her body stretched to accommodate him. It took a couple of thrusts but once he was buried to the hilt she let out a long low moan of pleasure and wrapped her arms and legs around his big body.

Softly murmuring her name, Sam slowly withdrew until she was lightheaded with the incredible explosion of sensations. Then he thrust deeper, his mouth closing over hers in a ravenous kiss that stole her breath and blew away what was left of her mind.

Applying the same light suction to her mouth that he’d used in more intimate places, Sam sucked the air from her lungs until she was dizzy, mindless with pleasure. Then he began to move in a slow, sweet rhythm. The sensations shooting through her ratcheted higher and higher until her blood caught fire and her world spun off its axis.

Before she knew it, she was straining against him, meeting his every hard thrust with one of her own, tongues tangling and clashing as her hands raced over him, greedy for the feel of his hot, tight flesh and the steel-hard muscles shifting and bunching beneath the smooth damp skin.

Helpless with sensation, Cassidy sank her fingers into his big shoulders and clung, her third climax catching her completely unawares as it ripped a low moan from her throat. Her body bucked and convulsed beneath his, the soft growl in her ear scraping at raw nerve endings and sending more detonations exploding through her blood.

Catching her hips in his hands, Sam dug his fingers into the smooth flesh to hold her in place as he increased his pace until he was hammering every hard inch, every powerful thrust into her as though he wanted to stamp his possession onto her very DNA.

Caught up in his desperate pace, Cassidy wrapped her long legs around him, and fisting her hands in his hair was lost to his driving rhythm. Hard and fast—plunging into her deeper and deeper—until, with a hoarse cry, he came.

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
HE
 
BAD
 
THING
 
about disastrous mistakes was that no matter how hard you tried not to think about them, the more you did. It was this vicious cycle that gave Cassidy a headache and made her cranky in the week following...well, possibly the second-biggest mistake of her life. And even if she’d managed to forget for an instant that she’d had a one-night stand with someone so completely wrong for her, she just had to catch sight of her reflection and she was groaning in mortification.

Crescent Lake’s favorite son had whipped her up, given her some seriously intense orgasms and when she’d thought he was sleeping and had tried to sneak away—they had been in someone’s office, for heaven’s sake—he’d tightened his hold on her and said in his deep sleep-rough voice, “Where are you going? I’ve just started.”

Even hours later her skin glowed, her eyes sparkled and her mouth was bruised and swollen from his kisses. Anyone looking at her could see at a glance that she’d had her world rocked. And if that wasn’t enough, she had whisker burns and hickeys in places that made her alternately smile and blush.

Except there was absolutely
nothing
to smile about. She’d rolled around on the floor—
and
the huge sofa—with a hot Navy SEAL whose idea of a relationship probably meant a couple of nights with a busty babe before he headed off to wreak havoc in some foreign war zone.

What had she been thinking?

Clearly she hadn’t given a thought to where they were or the consequences of someone walking in on them. The last thing she wanted was to find herself hip-deep in another scandal. The last thing she needed was to get all worked up over some hot alpha SEAL with “temporary” tattooed on his sexy hide in eleven different languages.

Clearly the smartest thing to do was escape. Except every time she’d tried to slide out from under his big arm, he’d tightened his grasp, his sleep-rough voice murmuring, “I’m not finished with you yet.”

Finally her brain had cleared and she’d told him she needed to check the wards. His heavy arm had reluctantly slid away but not before a big rough hand had smoothed a leisurely line of fire from her naked shoulder to her knee and he’d murmured, “Hurry back...” against her throat.

Resisting the urge to arch into his touch and purr with pleasure, Cassidy had rolled off the sofa, snatched up her clothes and bolted. Standing in the shower an hour later, she’d leaned her forehead against the tiles as steaming water had cascaded over her sensitized flesh and prayed that he’d be recalled to wherever he was stationed. Because there was no way she could ever look into his wicked eyes and not remember where he’d put his mouth and how he’d done things that had made her scream.

Okay, maybe not scream, she amended, but she’d made some pretty embarrassing noises that had her blushing whenever she thought about it. But as the days passed and the gossip mill in town had him harassing bad guys and helping little old ladies across the street—when he wasn’t working behind the bar and chatting up the regulars—Cassidy realized he wasn’t going anywhere.
Yet
.

And when the thought of him leaving made her feel vaguely ill and a strange ache squeezed her chest, Cassidy began to get a very bad feeling that unless she got her head on straight, she was headed for heartbreak. Besides, he hadn’t called or tried to contact her, which clearly meant he was done with her.

And she was done too—
really.
So why, then, did his absence feel like a slap in the face?

But that kind of thinking was not only ridiculous but self-defeating. Samuel Kellan had “temporary” written all over him and what had seemed like more than hot steamy sex—at least to her—had been nothing but a good time for him,

In the week since he’d toppled her to the floor and brought her intimate places out of deep hibernation, he hadn’t been there to rescue her from falling off ladders or to push her up against any walls. And as she left the hospital eight days later and slid into her car, she firmly told herself she was relieved. She didn’t need rescuing. And she didn’t need a big, strong man with a wicked smile to rock her world.

Considering what she’d endured the past year she’d be really,
really
stupid to fall for another alpha male—even one with beautiful gold eyes, awesome biceps and the ability to reduce her to a mindless mess.

Except her confusion and uncertainty grew, along with the sick feeling that her emotions were deeper than she wanted to acknowledge, and that what she’d dubbed “just sex” had been anything but.

Frankly the smart thing was to pretend nothing had happened and wait for the churning in her belly to go away. Besides, there hadn’t been time to develop deep lasting feelings for someone like him.

That would have been so utterly stupid when she’d already used up her quota of stupid on a man who lived on the edge.

* * *

The following week found Sam riding shotgun while Crescent Lake’s sheriff droned on and on about something or other till Sam had been tempted to drive them both off a cliff. So he’d been a bit bad-tempered.
Big deal
. Instead of doing the job the government was paying him to do, he was driving around looking for truant kids and mediating between two old codgers who’d been fighting like toddlers over a toy truck for
fifty
years. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the lean, mean badass SEAL had been dumped after the best sex of his life.

Okay, so maybe a
very
small part of his surliness was because he’d thought Cassidy Mahoney would be as eager as he was for a repeat of their night of passion. Instead, she’d escaped at the first opportunity. And all he’d done since then was think about her.

Like a damn girl—obsessing about what she was doing, who she was with and if she thought about him at all. Frankly, he was behaving like a pimply-faced nerd with his first crush. She’d slid her perfect body against his, put her lush mouth and her hands on him and made his eyes roll back in his head. Then she’d calmly risen from the sofa, collected her clothes and sauntered from the room without a backward glance.

Maybe in the past he’d encouraged it, but he really hated it that Cassidy had done it to him. Maybe it made him a hypocrite, but there was just something about her that made Sam lose his mind and act like a lovesick ass. It was baffling—and downright terrifying.

So he told himself to stay away. He was leaving and had no place in his life for the kind of relationship she probably wanted. His life was perfect...except he had to listen to Ruben go on and on about seeing a shrink so Sam could get back to protecting the nation because he was giving the sheriff’s department a bad name by being a jerk.

And in the next breath he was telling Sam how great it would be if he came home so they could run the department together.

Yeah, right. Like that would ever happen. Ruben liked being in charge and so did he. They would probably throttle each other in the first week.

Sam sighed—again—and wiped the already clean bar surface. Fortunately it was Sunday night and the bar was quiet except for a few die-hard regulars huddled in booths along the wall, and Sam didn’t have to exert himself making conversation. Except it gave him way too much time to think—which was something he wanted to avoid like a tax audit.

The truth was he was bored. Bored with driving around harassing people during the day, only to serve them Buds and peanuts at night. So when his brother pushed through the front doors, Sam was ready to take his frustrations out on someone.

“I don’t know who called you but I haven’t beaten anyone up lately,” he drawled, folding his arms across his chest and eyeing his brother darkly. “But I could always make an exception with you.”

“No one called to complain,” Sheriff Kellan said tiredly. “At least, not in the last three hours.”

“Real funny. Beer?”

“God, yeah.” Ruben pulled off his hat and tossed it onto the bar counter. He slid onto a stool and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m off duty. Sort of.”

“How can you be ‘sort of’ off duty?” Sam demanded, sliding a bottle across the counter.

“I’m not here to hold up the bar and swap life stories with the barman,” Ruben said tiredly, lifting the beer to his mouth.

“That’s a good thing,” Sam snorted. “I already know your life story, and it’s about as exciting as a visit to the dentist. If you’ve come to nag me about my crappy attitude again I’m going to have to physically remove you.”

Ruben smirked and lifted his brow in that superior big-brother way that used to drive Sam crazy as a kid. “
Right
,” he snorted, and lifted the bottle in an ironic salute. “Like I’d let you.” He took a couple of deep pulls before lowering the bottle an inch and fixing Sam with his dark gaze. “Got a job for you.”

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Sam complained, “I already have a job. Hell,
three
if you count driving around in an air-conditioned SUV harassing innocent folk all day and serving beer to snarky sheriffs at night. You can do your own damn filing. Besides, I have to sleep some time.”

Ruben snorted since they both knew Sam wasn’t getting a lot of sleep. “Marty and Andy are back at work tomorrow and I’m tired of keeping you out of trouble. It’s exhausting. Besides, with your attitude you’re not exactly cut out for the sheriff’s department.”

Sam sent him a mocking look. “Just this morning you were telling me I should come home and join you fighting the terrible crime in Crescent Lake,” he drawled. “Make up your mind.”

Ruben shook his head. “Don’t know what I was thinking.”

“What changed your mind?”

“I need your unique skills.”

Sam lifted an eyebrow. “You want me to kill someone? Blow something up? Infiltrate enemy territory?” He tutted and shook his head. “This from the man sworn to uphold the law.”

“Not those skills, you moron. I’m talking about the medical degree you acquired on the taxpayer’s dime. I need a doctor.”

Sam arched his brow sardonically. “You sick? Your girlfriend find out she’s pregnant with quadruplets?”

An irritated look crossed Ruben’s face. “No, I’m not sick. And when do I have time to date?”

Sam shrugged, unconcerned with his brother’s love life. “How should I know? Most days you’re so busy nagging I can’t wait to get away from you. Besides, the idea of discussing your sex life is just disturbing. I don’t want those visuals in my head. I have enough nightmares.”

“Yeah, well, I’d like to have a sex life but I’m too busy protecting the innocent people of Crescent Lake from moody badass SEALs. Besides, I have a problem only you can solve. I just got off the phone. Doc Monty was run off the road up in Spruce Ridge. They had to cut him from his car and now he’s in County Gen with concussion and a shattered hip.”

“
Holy...
Is he all right?”

Ruben sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face. “I think so. Anyway, we need a doctor. Like now.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, you already have a doctor. The one from Boston? The one Hannah says you have a thing for?”

Ruben’s eyes glinted and his mouth turned up in a smirk that Sam was sorely tempted to remove. Ruben shrugged. “Well, she’s beautiful, single and doesn’t hold up bar counters in Spruce County. What more could a guy want?” He took a drink. “In fact, I was thinking of going over to the inn later and telling her about Old Monty. Maybe ask her out.” And when Sam growled a warning low in his throat, Ruben snickered. “Maybe even stay the night.” Then he burst out laughing. “
Jeez
,” he gasped when he finally caught his breath, “you should see your face.”

Sam folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes, barely resisting the urge to reach across the bar and punch someone.

“You
do
remember I’ve been trained by the government to kill scum like you, don’t you?” he drawled dryly, but that only made Ruben laugh even more until he was laughing so hard people from the booths in the back were craning their necks to see what was happening.

Sam ignored them and shook his head with disgust. “You’re pathetic, you know that?”

Finally Ruben wiped his eyes and took a drink of beer. “No more than you,” he snorted with a wide grin. “It’s like you’re sixteen again and mooning over Cheryl Ungemeyer.”

“I did not
moon
over Cheryl. I was temporarily...um...distracted by her endowments. Especially the summer she wore that string bikini. I was young and impressionable and she was an older woman.” He paused a couple of beats. “I’m neither young nor impressionable now.”

“Cheryl’s small fry compared to Doc Boston,” Ruben told him, waggling his eyebrows. “Any idiot can see that.”

“You keep your eyes, and everything else, off her endowments,” Sam warned half-heartedly, pointing a finger at his brother. He knew Ruben was just yanking his chain, but it wouldn’t hurt to warn the guy off. “She’s a doctor, for goodness’ sake.”

Ruben shorted with disgust. “You should listen to yourself,” he said, before finishing his beer in a couple long swallows. He set the empty bottle on the bar and rose. “I guess I’ll have to look around for another medic, then,” he said with an exaggerated sigh. “Maybe that guy from Redfern. The nurses all had a thing for him last time he helped out.”

Sam snarled and reached over the bar to grab his brother’s shirt. He yanked him close until they were nose to nose, before saying mildly, “You do that and you’re a dead man.” He let Ruben go with a shove. “Tell Doc Boston I’ll see her in the morning.”

Ruben laughed and smoothed the front of his shirt before reaching for his sheriff’s hat. “Tell her yourself, stud,” he said, slapping it onto his head as he turned to saunter from the bar, leaving Sam with the nasty suspicion he’d just been played.

* * *

It was past ten when a quiet knock at the door distracted Cassidy from the article she’d been reading about surgical procedures for head trauma patients. All very cutting edge and fascinating but she was having trouble concentrating.