"And you told him what?" His hands dropped to his belt. Kira's eyes followed. She had to swallow, hard, because her mouth was watering at the sight of that bulge beneath the dark slacks. He was hard. Aroused. Intent.
"Um." She swallowed again, nervously, because she had a feeling he was not going to like this. "I told him you might be trying to protect him too."
His lips flattened. "And you based that on what?"
"Well." She pursed her lips carefully. "I might have told him that you wouldn't let me have any fun either because you wanted to protect me. It seemed to go with the image." She clasped her hands behind her back as she watched him, waiting for the explosion. When none was forthcoming she tried to explain. "You know, that whole SEAL persona thing. You can take the boy out of the military, blah blah—"
"Take your clothes off."
She had known it was coming, but when he delivered the order, the response that fired inside her body took her by surprise. It was hard, a fiery wave of intense heat that rushed through her erogenous zones and cascaded through her womb with white-hot intensity.
"I don't think so." Amusement fired inside her along with the arousal though. "I'm not an outlet for all that adrenaline, Ian. At least not yet. We need to talk."
Talking was the last thing he needed to do. Ian let his gaze rove over her body. The white slacks and cream-colored top were smudged with dirt. Her hair was tangled around her face in sexy disarray and reminded him of the feel of it beneath his hands, the warm rough silky sensation that his palms seemed to itch for.
"I don't want to talk, Kira." He advanced on her instead. Perhaps he shouldn't have ordered her to get undressed. Each time he had taken her, other than that first time, he had been quick and rough. He hadn't taken the time to enjoy the feel of her flesh that morning or the night before. Not really.
He hadn't tasted her. Hadn't listened to her scream in pleasure as she came apart in his arms. That was criminal, he decided. Not giving her the full range of pleasure that she needed. Each caress, each lick and kiss, designed to drive her higher.
"Ian," she protested as he stopped in front of her, the dark ring of blue around her gray eyes darkening as the centers became stormy. "There are things we need to discuss."
"Such as?" He ran his fingers beneath the thin strap of her shirt, feeling the pure silk texture and deciding her hair and her skin were softer.
"Such as Diego." Regret flashed in her eyes.
"Diego is the last thing we need to discuss," he told her, pushing back the bleak anger that threatened to build inside him again. The pain. He didn't understand the pain any more than he understood the hunger and need converging inside him for Kira.
He ran his fingers beneath the strap of her blouse until he came to the rounded scoop of the neckline. Heat flowed from her flesh to his fingers, mesmerizing him with the impact it had on his senses.
He had never experienced anything like Kira before and he wondered if the effect she had on him was weakness or strength?
"You can't hide from it forever," she whispered, her voice strained.
Strained because she was breathing harder, her breasts rising and falling sharply, drawing his gaze to the presence of the tight, hard nipples beneath the silk.
"I'm not trying to hide anything, Kira. I just want to pleasure you. Pleasure both of us."
There was a well of emotion brewing inside him. Ian could feel it. He couldn't make sense of it, and he wanted nothing to do with it. He had forced himself to push back his emotions as a boy. Forced himself not to want or to need, until Kira. Damn her, she made him want and need things he was certain would never be a part of his life.
Hope. Warmth. Real passion. And that real passion was his weakness. The honest, burning flame of desire in her eyes and the strength he glimpsed within her held him as nothing else ever had.
"I wanted you out of this," he told her, his hands falling to the hem of the shirt, gripping it and lifting it. "I wanted you safe. So safe. So that when this was over I could find you and finish what we started in Atlanta."
Her arms lifted, allowing him to draw the blouse from her only to drop it on the floor a second later. Her breasts lifted to him with her hard breaths, her nipples hard and peaked, a light sheen of perspiration beginning to shimmer on her lightly tanned flesh as she stood proudly before him. No hesitancy, no coy shyness or attempts to deny what they both knew was waiting to explode between them.
His cock was so damned hard at this point that it throbbed like an open wound.
"Since when did I seem the type that needs to hide?" Her hands moved to his chest, her fingers working on the buttons of his shirt. "When we met in Russia perhaps?"
His lips quirked at the thought of her Russian persona.
"Not in Russia." His hands framed her face, lips lowering to hers as hunger beat at his brain in a steady rhythm.
"Albania?" she whispered against his lips, her hands pushing the edges of his shirt apart to touch the hard, hair-spattered muscles of his chest.
"Never in Albania." She had been a rebel, a competent warrior when she'd had to be one.
"Then why would I need protecting now?" she asked, pushing at his shoulders until he dropped his hands from her face and allowed her to shove the shirt away from his arms.
Her hands smoothed over the powerful biceps, nails digging in as she curled them into the thickest area and clenched.
"You don't need protecting." Admitting that wasn't easy. "What do you need?"
He watched the shadows that flickered in her eyes, regret and sorrow.
"I need you." Her hands moved to the band of his slacks, parted his belt, then the metal clasp that held it secure, before her fingers lowered the zipper. "Give me what I need, Ian. And, maybe, what you need too?"
God yes, it was what he needed. Needed to the point that he wondered if his soul would fracture without it. Without her. Months of living a lie, sleeping it, eating it, drinking it, fucking breathing it every second of the day, had been eating away at him like acid.
Until Kira had arrived. Until she had blown into his life again like a breath of sunshine.
"Come here." He lifted her into his arms, cradled her against his chest, and moved into the bedroom.
He needed something he couldn't name this time. He needed to touch and be touched in ways he couldn't describe. He had been slowly dying inside until Kira arrived in Aruba and now he was burning, throbbing, all-too-living and desperate for more of her.
"What are you doing, Ian?" A flash of vulnerability, of uncertainty in her expression and in her gaze, almost had him smiling as he laid her on the bed.
She could meet him head-to-head in a confrontation, argumentative or sexual, but for some reason this seemed to throw her off balance. Hell, he'd have to remember to relish her rather than gorge on her more often.
"I need more than a quickie, Kira." He released the button and zipper of her pants. Curling his fingers on the waistband and drawing the the pants over her thighs and down her long, sexy legs. And damn, her legs were pretty.
"Why more than a quickie?" She frowned and he couldn't miss the fact that her fingers curled tightly into the material of the blanket beneath her. "Quickies are pretty good, Ian."
"Quickies aren't nearly enough." He dropped her pants to the floor then disposed of his own just as quickly. "Unless you'd like to tell me why you prefer a quickie?"
* * *
Eighteen
WHY DID SHE PREFER A quickie? Kira inhaled tightly and stared up at him with the knowledge that she had made a slight tactical error where Ian was concerned. He saw things no others saw, and he was especially adept at seeing through her.
"We're rather running out of time." She cleared her throat nervously. "I know you have business to take care of, and Deke—"
"I hate it when you lie to me." His lips quirked, a sexy little mocking smile that had her womb flexing and the juices spilling from her vagina as he came to the bed beside her.
"What am I lyin
g to you about?" She turned to him, lying on her side, feeling the slight roughness of his chest hair caressing her nipples.
It was an erotic, exotic sensation. Why had she never noticed that before? The extreme pleasure from something so subtle as the feel of those hairs across the tender tips.
"You've always pushed our encounters," he said, his voice hushed as his hand stroked down her hip to her thigh. "Except for the first time. I stole your control then. Is that what scares you, Kira? No control?"
What was her life without control? Without the ability to maintain herself and her emotions? Her emotions especially.
"Sex isn't about control, Ian." She maintained a confident smile despite the nerves gathering inside her. "It's about pleasure, remember?"
Pleasure. All she had to do was make him feel the right amount of pleasure, get the blood pumping and the lust heating, and it might not be a quickie, but it could leave her a part of her heart intact. If he managed to take all of her, she would never be able to defend herself against the results of her own deception.
One hand slid down his stomach as the other curled around his neck. Her lips lifted to his, touching them, whispering over them.
Heat spiraled through her, wrapped around her as strong as his arms, and when his lips responded, opened and joined the kiss, she felt her breath hitch. Her hand tightened on his neck, the other moved to the hard, engorged length of his cock.
She needed to touch him, feel him. Nothing in her life had ever felt so good as Ian did. His touch, the stroke of his hands down her back, over her thigh. The other hand threaded through the hair at the back of her head. Before she could guess his intention, guess his next move, his fingers clenched and pulled her head back slowly, breaking the kiss, breaking the incredible pleasure weaving through her. It also clued her in to the fact that he wasn't going to be so easy to manipulate.
"Ian, this isn't the place for games," she reminded him, her hand curling around the broad length of his erection and stroking it with a long, slow caress.
"Then you shouldn't play them," he growled.
His hips shifted, thrusting his cock into her grip even as his free hand wrapped around her fingers and forced her to release him.
His eyes burned within the darkened centers, the fiery tobacco-brown depths glowing with lust as he came over her.
"Restraining me won't ease either of us." But she still arched to him, raking her nipples over his chest even as he gripped both her wrists in one hand and secured them over her head.
"I won't have to restrain you for long. Just long enough to get the fires blazing inside that hot little body. Isn't that right, Kira? Just long enough to remind you how hungry you can get."
She bit her lower lip and glared back at him. "And you don't get that hungry?"
"Oh, I get that hungry." Strong white teeth grazed over her lower lip as he controlled the subtle movements of her body while she tried to find a position that would allow her to break the hold he had on her. "I get very hungry."
His lips came back, moved over hers, his tongue pressing past her lips to lick at her tongue as his callused fingers curled around the aching mound of her breast.
Kira jerked, nearly flinching at the pleasure of that touch. His fingertips rasped around the delicate nerve endings of her nipple, yet never quite touched the hardened peak.
Her lips parted further, her tongue reaching out to stroke his as pleasure began to envelop her. Rapid, heated pinpoints of sensation built inside her, swirling through her bloodstream, sensitizing her nerve endings. She could feel the need growing inside her, building with his kiss, with each stroke of his fingers around her nipple and each second he held her restrained.
"Ian." She tore her lips from his even as she arched closer to his hard, warm body. "Don't do it like this. Please."
"Just say no, Kira." His lips slid over her cheek, her jaw. "A single word. All you have to do is use it."
Her lips parted, the word hovered on her lips as she gasped for breath.
"I'll stop," he promised, his voice velvet rough. "I'll let you go. I'll shower and attend to business. You'll be safe from whatever demons chase you then, won't you?"
Her teeth clamped shut as a fractured cry tore from her lips. She could say no and he would just stop? She tightened her thighs, pressing them together, desperate to stop the ache building in her clit. If he stopped, it might kill her.
"You're not playing fair," she breathed out roughly. God, even breathing was an erotic sensation at this point.
"I never promised to play fair." He brought her to her back once again, his head lowering, lips feathering over her collarbone, his tongue tasting her skin.
She didn't know if she could bear this. Heat was spiraling inside her body, attacking erogenous zones and sensitizing the rest of her body to the point that pleasure became near ecstasy.
"You have the prettiest breasts." His free hand cupped a swollen mound, his thumb brushing over her nipple.
Sensation whipped around the hard point then zipped across her nerve endings and clenched the muscles of her womb.
He didn't give her time to process the pleasure from it before his head went lower, his lips and tongue painting a trail of hunger straight to her nipple.
Heated moisture surrounded the engorged flesh as he drew it into his mouth and sucked it deep. Kira flinched, a ragged cry tearing from her lips.
"You want to destroy me," she accused him, her voice rough as she ground her head into the pillow.
The feel of his mouth drawing on her nipple, his tongue lashing it, was making her insane. The peaks were torturously tight, throbbing at the continued friction against them. With each rough lick the flames consuming her body seemed to lick higher, hotter.
"I want to touch you too." Her fingers curled, desperation tightening through her as the need to feel him became imperative.
"Not yet." He lifted his lips only to smooth his jaw over her breast.
The faint bristle of stubble rasped over the soft skin of her breast, sending rapid-fire sensation exploding through her.
"Why not yet?" She tried to twist beneath him, to break the hold he had on her wrists, and on her emotions.
She was weak. His touch was more potent than liquor, and he affected more than just her body. That was the problem. He affected parts of her that she wanted to keep hidden. Parts of her that she had kept hidden for so many years that she had forgotten they existed herself.
"Because I want to touch you." His head lifted, the piercing dark flames in his eyes searing her as he pulled himself up on the bed.
He knelt by her head, which made no sense. He wanted to touch her, yet the hard length of his cock was poised just above her lips as he secured his hold on her wrists.
Rather than trying to pull herself up to reach the engorged crest, she went for the sensitive sac beneath it instead.
Ian froze, his breath wheezing from his lungs as Kira's lips covered the side of his testicles, her tongue laving over it as a whispery moan vibrated into the tight flesh.
God help him.
He leaned his head against the thick wood of the headboard and concentrated on breathing rather than spilling his cum. Her mouth should be licensed. It was wicked, bordering on illegally destructive to the male senses. She mouthed the flesh as it drew tight beneath his cock, cum boiling dangerously close to an explosion.
Gritting his teeth, he dragged the slender chain and wrist restraints from the metal loop secured to the back of the bed. Whoever had owned the house and furnished it had had a definite eye toward hiding the accoutrements of sexual pleasure.
As she busied her lips and tongue with his balls, he quickly slid the velvet-lined cuffs over her wrists and secured them with a snap before moving back.
Her eyes flashed first with confusion, until she tugged at her wrists, heard the chain rattle and felt the security of the restraints. A shade of fear flashed in her eyes then.
"Just say no," he told her, his hands settling on her shoulder
and her stomach as he moved to lie beside her once again.
"I'm not your damned submissive, Ian," she bit out, tugging again on the chain holding her. "Are you insane?"
"Insanity is the least of my problems these days," he assured her, narrowing his gaze as she turned her head and stared back at the dark cuffs. "If you want free, all you have to do is say the word. We'll walk away from this."
"So I'm restrained for the torture or I don't get fucked?" Her gaze sliced back to him, darkening with emotion, almost mesmerizing him with the sharp flashes of intensity in the cloudy color.
"You understand perfectly." He smiled down at her in approval. "I knew you were a smart girl."
"You bastard!" Guttural, agonized, her voice had him gauging her reactions much closer now.
"Should I let you go, Kira?" He gentled his voice, placed a soft kiss on her shoulder and stared back at her. "Are you scared?" he asked, daring her.
Kira swallowed tightly, her breathing rough as she stared back at him, seeing his intent in his gaze. He would have whatever he wanted from her now, or he would walk away and she knew it.
"Should I be scared?" She was terrified.
He wouldn't hurt her, not physically, but what he would do had the potential to break her later.
"You should be very scared," he answered. "You're always holding back. Always keeping a part of yourself safe, aren't you? That's why you like the quickies. Why you want to rush to the climax and forget the buildup. What is it about the buildup that frightens you?"
"Boredom," she snapped in reply. "Who wants to lie restrained while someone else has all the fun?" She rattled the chains again with a furious shake of her wrists.
"You're scared."
The certainty in his voice had her breath catching, her eyes locking with his.
"I'm not scared of you," she denied. She couldn't afford to let him know just how much her emotions, where he was involved, truly terrified her.
"Prove it." The slight tug at the corner of his lips, the smug knowing smirk, assured her she had lost this battle.