Ropes and Revenge (13 page)

He wanted her so badly he was already imagining the sounds she’d make as he drove inside her.

God, he had to get out of here. Ten minutes ago. He should have known better than to trust himself in a room alone with this woman.

“I have to go,” he said, forcing the words past the tightness in his throat. “Now.”

“Then go,” she whispered, pressing up on tiptoe until her lips were inches from his. “If this isn’t what you want or need, then go.” She swayed into him, her breasts pressing against his chest as her hands slipped around to ease up the back of his shirt. “But if you want me, take me.”

“Percy.” Her name was a prayer for strength, but his prayer went unanswered as she tilted her hips, brushing against where he was rock hard and aching for her.

She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “Take me,” she repeated, voice shaking. “Give me something real to remember. Make me feel alive. Even if it’s only for a night.”

He tried to pull away, he really did, but then her lips parted and he could no longer deny himself a taste of her. With a groan of surrender, he drove his fingers into her hair, fisting his hand in the silky strands as he crushed his lips to hers. Their mouths collided, sending electricity rocketing through his chest. His heart stuttered and his breath caught and every cell in his body awoke with a sudden, violent hunger.

His tongue pushed between Percy’s lips, driving into her mouth. She tasted fresh and clean, like the ocean on a perfect day, when the air is so sweet you can taste the freedom of the open sea from the shore. She tasted like mercy and forgetfulness, and for the first time in forever, John found himself completely lost in a moment. This moment, with this woman who gasped into his mouth as his hand slipped up the front of her shirt to cup her breast in his hand.

“Yes,” she murmured, the word transforming to a moan as he teased her erect nipple through the satin of her bra. He could feel her hunger pulsing against his skin as her breath came faster and suddenly the fact that they both were wearing clothes seemed like a sin against nature.

He reached for the bottom of her shirt, ripping it over her head and tossing it away. Before it had hit the carpet, she was returning the favor, tugging his shirt down his arms as he reached for the top of her skirt and jerked, sending the fabric puddling to the floor at her feet. And then they were fused together again, mouths meeting in another ravenous kiss, hands wandering over newly bared skin as they stumbled toward the bed.

John guided her back onto the quilt and covered her with his body, moaning as her legs wrapped around him and her hips lifted, pressing against his erection through his jeans. “You feel so good,” he said against her lips as he reached behind her for the close of her bra. “So damned good.”

“You too.” Her breath shuddered out as he pulled back, drawing her bra down her arms, revealing her teacup-sized breasts.

John cupped her fullness reverently in his palms. She wasn’t quite a handful, but she was perfect, her skin so soft and beautiful it felt like his chest was going to explode as he brushed his thumbs across her tips, teasing the pale peach flesh into tight buds.

Her eyelids fluttered closed as she lifted into his touch, offering an invitation he couldn’t refuse. He shifted, bringing his mouth level with her breasts, pulling one sweetly puckered tip into his mouth. He pulled at her flesh with a gentle suction, desire fisting low in his body as her fingers drove into his hair.

“Yes,” she gasped. “Please.”

“Please what?” he asked against her damp skin.

“You.” She bent her leg, her toes teasing at the top of his jeans. “I want you. Take these off.”

“Not yet,” he said, knowing he had to keep his pants on or he’d never maintain control.

He slipped his hand between their bodies and down the front of Percy’s pink satin panties. When he discovered where she was already slick and swollen, his breath rushed out, his hand trembling as he drove a finger inside of her. She arched into him with a soft cry, a sound so sexy John would swear it triggered an out of body experience.

When he came back to himself, he was naked, Percy’s panties had vanished, and he was between her legs, devouring her like it was his last mission on earth. His tongue swirled back and forth between her clit and the well of honey at her entrance, building her need until she bucked into his mouth and her wetness coated his face. He was dimly aware of harsh, hungry sounds filling the room and knew at least some of them were coming from his own throat, but he couldn’t concentrate fully on anything except Percy.

She was beautiful here, too. Slick and pink and every bit as desperate for pleasure as he was to give it to her. She responded shamelessly, spreading her legs, baring herself to him, shattering his heart as she shattered on his mouth, coming so hard he could feel her inner muscles contracting as a fresh wave of heat rushed out to coat his tongue.

A part of him wanted to stay between her legs forever, living on her salty sweetness, but his cock felt like it was about to split in two. He needed to be inside her, a need that swelled to dizzying proportions as she tugged hard at his hair and begged—

“Please, John. I want you. Now!”

He surged over her, claiming her mouth with his as he positioned his cock with a shaking hand and sank inside her with a groan of relief. Of celebration. Her walls stretched around him, enveloping him in her beauty, in the delicate strength that was this amazing woman.

“Yes,” she sobbed as she lifted into his thrust, taking him all the way to the end of her. “So good. So so good.”

And it was. It wasn’t sad or desperate or strained. It was sweet and right and he already knew it wasn’t going to last nearly as long as he wanted it to. She was too sexy, too abandoned, too everything he’d hungered for in the darkness of the past few months when he’d been certain he’d never know this kind of closeness again.

As he pulled away and glided back into her heat, he gazed down into her face, teeth digging into his bottom lip as their eyes met and a jolt of need and gratitude took his breath away. She was so beautiful and looking at him with such trust, such compassion and hunger that it threatened to destroy him. To break down all his walls and send every scarred, aching, hoping, hurting part of him spilling out for all the world to see.

“Yes,” she said, tears rising in her eyes. “Don’t hold back. Give me everything. I want it all. I want all of you.”

With a growl of surrender John drove into her with a sharp jerk of his hips, faster and harder, crashing into her again and again, anticipation sharpening to a razor’s edge between them. She tightened around him as they fought their way to the edge until they were both so close. So terribly, wonderfully close.

He felt her go just moments before his own pleasure crested. He had time to feel her pussy locking around his length, to hear the erotic cry that filled the air as she tumbled over, and to realize that he wasn’t wearing a condom, before his orgasm rocketed through him.

He pulled out with a grunt, hand fisting at the base of his cock as sticky fluid spilled from his tip in thick, hot spurts, splashing across Percy’s stomach. For a moment, pleasure eclipsed regret as he came so hard it almost hurt, muscles low in his body clenching until he worried he was going to do himself damage with the force of his release.

The moment he had enough brain function to think straight, however, he began silently cursing his own stupidity.

“I’m sorry,” he panted. “I haven’t used a condom in years. I didn’t even think.”

“It’s okay.” Percy reached up, twining her arms around his neck, but he gently put her off before sitting back on his heels.

“No, it’s not okay,” he said, anger with himself tainting the moment. “It’s another example of me not thinking, Percy. It proves how dangerous I am. To you. To my kids. To everyone.” He brought his hand to his face, digging his fingers and thumb into the tops of his eyes, hating how close he was to losing it. “No one is safe around me right now. Not until I can get answers or get control or get…something.” Tears pressed at the seams of his closed lids, but he refused to cry them. “Christ, I’m so sick of this.”

Percy was quiet for a long moment before she asked, “Sick of what?”

John shook his head but didn’t move his hand from his face or risk a look at hers. “Of this. Of not knowing who I am. Of feeling like I’m doing everything wrong and knowing how disappointed she’d be with me.”

Fuck, the tears were close. He had to get out of this bed, get to the bathroom and get a few deep breaths in him before he made a fool of himself. But before he could slide off the end of the bed, Percy’s arms were around him and her lips were kissing his cheek.

“She loved you for better or worse,” she whispered. “And she still loves you now. That’s never going to go away, John. You don’t have to be afraid. Nothing you do can ever take that away. Love like that is forever.”

He pressed his lips together and bit down, but it was too late, the tears were coming, streaming down his cheeks no matter how hard he tried to will them back into his eyes. A moment later, his chest heaved and a hoarse, ragged sob echoed through the room.

“Come here,” Percy said, pulling him close.

His arms tightened around her. He crushed her to his chest, feeling the stickiness of his release against her skin as he pulled her into his lap and curled his body around her, holding on for dear life as he cried. The tears poured out, all the tears he’d held in during the long months since Lily had left him alone. He cried until his head was full of cotton and his chest felt hollow.

By the time he finally drew another easy breath, the light had changed and shadows filled the room.

“Thank you,” he whispered, running a hand up and down Percy’s bare back. At some point, they’d lain back down on the bed. Now, her head rested on his chest, right over the place where his heart was beating with a steadiness he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Percy said. “I just wish I could do more. I wish I could take the hurt away.”

John shifted onto his side, meeting her big green eyes. “You may be the best person I’ve ever met.”

Percy flinched and her gaze dropped to his chest. “Hardly. I shouldn’t have pushed you.”

“I’m glad you did,” he said, waiting until she looked up before he added, “I don’t regret it. I hope you don’t, either.”

After a moment, she shook her head. “I don’t. I’ve never…”

“What?” he urged, brushing her hair gently from her face.

“I’ve never wanted someone like that,” she confessed. “It’s never felt so right.”

John cupped her cheek in his hand, his thumb wandering over the perfect mini-landscape of her mouth. “It felt right to me, too. I hope I didn’t—” He broke off with a sigh. “I didn’t mean to unleash on you after. I was angry with myself, and I—”

“I know, it’s all right,” she said, sparing him the way she seemed so willing to do, but this time he didn’t deserve to be spared.

“No, it’s not all right,” he said. “You deserve better than a man who forgets about protection. You deserve better than a man who doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to love someone else again.”

“Maybe I don’t want better,” she said, kissing his thumb. “And I know I don’t want to leave. I want to stay until you get your answers.”

“I care about you, Percy,” he said, his chest aching as his heart was stretched in two different directions. “I don’t want to see you hurt, and I especially don’t want to be the one doing the hurting.”

“If you ask me to leave again, you
will
hurt me,” she said. “I need to see this through. Not just for you, but for me too. I need to see where this goes. Not just the investigation, but this. Us.”

His first instinct was to insist there was no “us,” but that would be a lie. What had happened in this room was more than casual sex or a fuck between friends. He felt something for Percy. It wasn’t what he’d felt for Lily, even at first, but it was real. As real as his need to protect the people he loved.

“But what if I can’t keep you safe?” he asked, voicing the fear that was making his tongue feel like it was about to crawl down his throat. “What if something happens to you?”

The way it happened to Lily.
He didn’t speak the words, but they still lingered in the air between them, sending a chill through the moment.

“Someday, I’ll tell you a story,” Percy said softly. “About a girl who lived in a world where everything was beautiful and there was no sadness, not even a little bit, and how one day everything changed. I’m not ready to tell that story right now, but I will tell you what happened after, when the girl went to live with someone else who loved her very much.”

She took a breath and dropped her gaze to where her fingers were tracing a trail through the crisp hair on his chest. “The girl was so sad that she didn’t speak a word for nearly a year, except in her dreams. So the woman who loved her took her to a doctor with kind eyes who taught the girl the most important lesson she ever learned.”

“What was the lesson?” he asked, wondering for the first time exactly how Percy came to be so concerned with the spirits of the dead. He wondered what horrible thing had happened to cause her to devote her entire life to the search for peace for souls too lost to find it on their own.

“Try to think with this,” she said, placing her hand over his heart. “Instead of this.” She brought her fingers to his temple, brushing his too-long hair tenderly from his face. “Because this…” Her hand came back to his heart, setting it to thumping harder than it had before. “Doesn’t know how to be afraid of life. Or love.”