"Let me go then."
He shook his head slowly. "You want loose, tell me no . . . This time, you won't rush this. Before the night is over, Kira, I'll have all of you, or I'll have nothing at all."
He was serious. She could see it in his face, feel it in his body as he arched over her, in the touch of his hand as he laid it possessively against her stomach before sliding it between her thighs.
"You're wet, Kira. So wet and hot."
Her eyes closed as his fingers slid through the slick cream that flowed from her, tantalizing her with the heat of his touch and stroking flesh so violently sensitive she could barely hold her cry back.
"My little control freak," he said, chuckling. "I bet it was hard to hold that cry back."
Her eyes flew open, or rather she forced them open as far as possible. She felt drugged, weak, yet the blood was pumping hard and fast through her veins and adrenaline was tightening the breath in her chest.
"Bastard." It was a moan rather than an accusation because even as he pointed out the obvious, his fingers were parting the swollen lips of her pussy and pushing heavily inside. "Damn you, Ian."
His lips came down on hers as the cry left her throat, taking it into himself as he sipped at her lips, placing hard, stinging kisses as two fingers worked inside her, stroking, rubbing, and driving her crazy with the sensations streaking through her.
He wasn't joking when he said slow and easy. When he said he would have all of her. He kissed her like a man starved for a kiss. His fingers delved inside her, retreated and returned in deliberately sensual thrusts.
She was burning from the inside out. Wild, fiery trails of sensation whipped over her, clenching her pussy around his fingers, driving the breath from her lungs and starting an ache in her clit that she was afraid would drive her over the edge to insanity.
"Damn, you're beautiful," his voice whispered across her senses as he broke the kiss, his lips moving from hers to her jaw as he ignored her broken cry.
"Ian, please." Her hips arched as his fingers retreated again; this time though they didn't return. They smoothed over her thighs, pressing her legs farther apart as his lips traveled along her neck.
Kira jerked at the restraints on her wrists, her hands itching to feel his flesh beneath them. She gave a whimpering moan as his lips feathered across her nipples. First one, then the other. A teasing, tantalizing touch before he sucked one into his mouth. He laved the tender peak with his tongue, then suckled at it with voracious hunger before continuing on the downward path to her aching pussy.
He couldn't do this. She couldn't allow it. His lips were like a brand against her flesh, sweeping over it with dampened trails of fiery pleasure. She could feel the perspiration building on her flesh, the slick heat of her juices flowing from her pussy, preparing her, increasing the hunger rising inside her.
God help her, she needed. She needed him with a desperation born of some dark hunger that she couldn't explain even within herself.
"Please, Ian. Don't. Don't tease." Her head twisted against the mattress, aching pain building in her chest. She didn't want to lose this need. This pleasure. She didn't want it to build inside her, becoming so sharp and agonizing that the need for orgasm was like a living entity inside her. Only to have it evaporate, die, because her mind refused to release that last shred of control.
He hadn't been the first lover determined to find that inner core inside her. That part of her feminine soul that, once possessed, would never belong to another. He wasn't the first. He wouldn't be the last. But he was the most important.
"Poor Kira," he whispered as he moved between her thighs, wedging into place as he parted her legs further. "Do you want me to stop?"
"This isn't going to work, Ian," she gasped as his fingers smoothed over the cream-slickened flesh of her pussy. "You'll destroy me, but not in the way you believe."
He would steal her ability to orgasm. It always happened.
"Don't worry, sweetheart, I'll take care of you."
The tone of his voice had her eyes opening, her head tilting to stare down at him in dazed fascination. The savage features of his face were taut, his eyes glowing with heat and his lips swollen with lust. But even more surprising was the understanding and knowledge in his eyes.
"I can't give you what you want, Ian," she moaned. "I don't have it."
"You have it, Kira." He pushed her legs farther apart, his head lowering to place a soft, delicate kiss on her clit. "And soon, I'll have it."
It was more than a promise, it was a statement of intent. Ian meant to take all of her.
Kira breathed in deeply. There wasn't enough oxygen. Heat surrounded her, filled her. She felt like the core of a burning sun, waiting to explode but expecting instead the freezing chill of diluted pleasure.
Ian chuckled again, his fingers parting the swollen folds of her sex, his head lowering.
Kira's cry shook her. It tore from her chest, ripped from her throat as he placed his lips over her throbbing clit and kissed it deeply. A kiss. It wasn't suckling pressure, or the rapid flicks of his tongue. It was a purse-lipped kiss that shocked the little bundle of nerves and had it rioting in desperation.
She needed to get closer to that kiss. Her hands clenched around the slender chain of the wrist restraints as her heels dug into the bed and she tried to lift closer, to drive her clit deeper between his lips.
She could feel the sweat beading on her skin now, small rivulets running down her forehead, along her stomach. She was burning alive, desperate. She jerked at the restraint, whimpering cries pouring from her as Ian's lips, tongue, and suckling mouth whipped her into a frenzy of hunger.
It was building. Blazing. She had never needed anything as desperately as she needed Ian now.
"There you go, baby," he crooned huskily, his breath feathering over the ultrasensitive flesh between her thighs. "Just let it feel good."
He kissed again. Firm little kisses. Whispery deeper kisses. He sucked at the swollen folds, each kiss, each lick, each rumbled growl against her flesh growing hungrier.
She should have lost the desire to come three screams ago. Instead, it was building, her cries growing more pathetically pleading. She was begging him for release. She could hear the words, feel the pleas ripping through her body as lust, passion, and emotion began to flame higher and hotter inside her.
"Ian. Now." She arched, fighting the hold he had on her hips. "It's killing me. Please."
Her pussy clenched, spilled more of her juices as his tongue suddenly plunged inside it. But it wasn't enough.
She twisted in his grip as his tongue stroked, licked. Her back arched, her fingers tightened on the chains, and she fought for climax. It was so close. Right there. Waiting on her.
"Damn you, Ian." Her head thrashed on the bed. She tried to trap him in place by tightening her thighs against his head.
Firm hands held her thighs wide, her arching hips angled the entrance to her pussy to his hungry mouth, and he consumed her.
"Fuck!" The rough, snarling groan into the swollen, desperate flesh had her shuddering, struggling. "Sweet Kira. Your pussy is sweet. Hot."
She twisted, fought for a deeper touch.
"What do you want, Kira?"
"Now," she moaned. "I want you now."
"What do you want now, baby?" he crooned, his guttural voice rougher, deeper than ever. "Come on, tell me what you want."
"Take me, Ian." Desperation laced her cry. "Now. Please."
"What am I taking? Tell me what you want me to take." He breathed the words over her clit, striking shards of sensation through it as she fought to breathe through the additional pleasure. Agonizing pleasure. A pleasure so intense, so overwhelming, it unraveled her to her soul.
"Me," she cried out. "Take me."
"All of you, Kira?" He asked the question, his lips formed the words and stroked over her clit, ricocheted through her womb. "Which part of you? Just this sweet pussy? Or is there more of you?"
Was there more of her? Did she need
more? Did she want more?
"Don't stop." She forced her eyes open, staring down her body as he rose between her thighs, her hips lifting, her voice beseeching as his lips touched her stomach before he rose to his knees. "Please don't stop."
"What part of you belongs to me, Kira?" He came over her, one hand framing her face as his lips touched hers, his gaze holding hers. "What part of you do I take?"
She needed more. More than she had ever needed before.
"All of me." She felt the first tear fall. "Take all of me."
Kira felt the defenses she had worked all her life to build unravel inside her as Ian took her lips in a kiss that burned through her like white-hot flames.
She was lost in him. Out of control. Undulating beneath his heavier, sweat-dampened body, she fought for skin-on-skin contact. The feel of his chest hair rasping her nipples, his hard abdomen pressing against hers. Powerful thighs holding her legs apart, the broad head of his cock tucked against the swollen folds of her pussy.
So close. She could feel the hard, throbbing crest against her sensitive flesh. The heat of it drove her insane. The sense of thickness, of iron-hard strength, had her pussy clenching in agonizing hunger.
"Don't cry." His eyes burned in his dark face as he leaned to her once again and kissed the tear from her cheek before whispering, "It's okay, baby. You have all of me too."
And the last threads broke free. Something tightened then shifted inside her chest.
"I love you." The words tore from her lips.
She ground her head into the pillow beneath her. Oh God, she hadn't just said that. Those words hadn't passed her lips.
"No." She stared into his surprised gaze, frozen, unable to believe those words, those emotions were tearing from her as she closed her eyes and felt her breath hitch.
Then Ian moved. She felt his erection nudge against her, bury inside her an inch, draw back, then with a hard lunge he was buried full length inside her.
Fear evaporated. There was nothing now but the pleasure and the emotions. They merged, whipped inside her, and drew her to a peak of pleasure she hadn't imagined possible.
"Look at me." He stilled inside her. Buried to the hilt, thick and hard, throbbing inside her. "Look at me, Kira."
"Don't. Don't do this." She shook her head. "Finish it. Finish it, Ian."
She couldn't handle it. Sensation exploded through her. The ripples of exquisite pleasure were too much. Not quite ecstasy, but so close to ecstasy. And it was only building. Rising and burning.
"Look at me, Kira." He held her hips still as she fought to move. "Look at me, baby."
His voice was tortured, hoarse. Kira forced her eyes open and stared into the dark fire of his eyes.
"Take me now," he snarled, his expression hard, savage. "Take all of me now."
He withdrew slowly, his cock pulling free of her as Kira gasped at the loss of sensation.
She watched his face now. She had lost her control, lost the ability to hold any part of herself back. And he was losing his now. She could see it. In the racking shudder that flexed the muscles of his chest, the slight tremor in his hands as he jerked a condom from the nightstand by the bed, tore the foil package open and quickly sheathed himself.
His expression twisted as her hips lifted and she managed to drag the engorged cock head over the folds of her sex. She was dying for it. Dying for him. More of him. Now.
Thick, pulsing, his erection pushed inside her once again.
She could barely hold her eyes open, but she needed to watch him. Watch him because he refused to release her gaze. And she couldn't break it, no more than he could break the hold she had on him.
"I need . . ." She swallowed before biting her lip, her lashes drifting lower as he began to move inside her again. Slow and deep.
"I know what you need." His voice was rougher now. Harder.
Kira stared up at him, dazed, awash in a pleasure so deep, so intense, that she wanted it to last forever. She needed it to last forever. To never end.
Perspiration coated her body, sweat beaded on his forehead, ran in rivulets down the side of his face and the broad planes of his chest. She tracked the trails of moisture. Watched them run down his neck, his chest, to his hard abdomen and below.
Her gaze was caught by the below. The sight of his cock moving out of her, glistening slick and wet with her juices, the heavy veins prominent and throbbing before he pushed inside her again.
"Do you like seeing that, Kira?" His voice was strained. "Watching my dick take you? Do you know what it feels like? Like a white-hot vise wrapped around me, clenched on me."
The muscles of his thighs clenched as he retreated, sweat beading on the dark flesh as more of her cream flooded her pussy. She felt it as he pushed inside her, saw it as he retreated.
She lifted her eyes to his once again. She was lost in him. It was too late to hide, too late to control.
"I love you." The cry tore from her, the emotions taking her as hard, as desperately, as he was suddenly taking her.
His jaw was tight, his teeth gritting. And he was the one holding back. She was a part of him and he was sinking into her soul as surely as he was sinking into her body.
"I love you." Her eyes closed as the words tore from her one last time before the explosions of primal, agonizing pleasure began tearing through her.
She arched, bucked, the ecstasy too much to be borne, the intensity riding so sharply inside her that she felt it cut into her soul.
Ian snarled her name as he came over her, his hips moving hard and fast as he fucked her with maddening hunger. Rapture was a continuous explosion inside her now. Pleasure rode pain and for the first time in her life Kira knew what it meant to be touched to the soul as Ian gave one final, desperate thrust, stilled, his cock throbbing and pulsing, his release shuddering through his body as his arms moved beneath her to hold her to him.
He cradled her as the spasming tissue of her pussy held him. Tight. Gripping. His arms tightened around her, his head was buried in the pillow by her head, and he held her as though he would never let her go.
* * *
Nineteen
DAWN WAS EDGING OVER THE horizon as Ian stood on the balcony, coffee in hand, staring out at the land that surrounded the villa.
Unlike the Fuentes estate in Colombia, the villa and its grounds weren't surrounded by mountains and jungles. The terrain was flatter, with only a slight rise of hills around it spotted with massive boulders.
The balcony wasn't the most secure place to take his coffee, or to sit and reflect on things he would have been better prepared to deal with once this mission was over. But those thoughts refused to be extinguished. And they centered on the woman now sleeping the sleep of the exhausted in his bed.
He hadn't expected her to say she loved him. Of all the things he had expected when he broke down Kira's barriers, it hadn't been that commitment.
He ran his hand over his stubbled jaw before sipping at the coffee again and staring at the huge boulders and sheltering trees on the rise across from him.
It wasn't that he couldn't feel the eyes watching him, it was that he was beginning to accept that they were there. And he had bigger problems than the knowledge that Durango team was out there. Kira was a much bigger problem. She had lost her objectivity, and in a woman, that could be fatal. She wouldn't care about her own life from this point on, he knew that about her. If it came to saving him or watching him die to complete the mission, she would give her life for him.
He should have had her tied, gagged, and shipped to a secure location until this was finished. He could have gone on as he was, risking no life or soul but his own, and finished the mission, one way or the other. His life or Sorrell's and Diego's. He had made that vow to himself when they had rescued Nathan eight months before. When he had seen the shape his friend had been in, and had known his father was responsible.
He had promised Nathan their heads, and he fully intended to carry that promise out, no matter what. Even hi
s life. But not at the cost of Kira's.
He lowered his head and ran his fingers through his hair before staring at the rise once again. She was too important. He had known that the moment he realized she was covering his ass in that warehouse. Hell, he had known it eight months before in Atlanta during the operation to protect Kell Krieger's woman.
He was screwed.
He flipped up the secure sat phone he held in his hand and keyed in Macey's number.
"Fuck-tard." Macey's voice came over the line, savagely quiet. "'Bout time you called."
"I have a shipment that needs to go out," he said firmly, closing his eyes at the thought of sending Kira away. "Are you available?"
"If it's raven-haired with a marksman rating, then you can fuck yourself," Macey growled. "I'm not touching that one."
That wasn't relief he was feeling.
"Why are you here then?" he asked. "Take the shot if that's what this is all about. Save us the trouble later."
Ian leaned back in the chair and opened himself to any shot anyone might want to take. He couldn't be certain why Durango team was there, but if this was all they wanted, then screw it. He was tired of the blood and the death, and he was tired of regret. SEALs didn't forgive betrayal from one of their own. And Ian didn't blame them.
"Killer Secrets." Macey reminded him of the code word he had given Kira. "And we got your message via Kira. Tell me, Ian, what part of friends don't you understand? Do you think I'm going to snipe your stupid ass while you're sipping your morning coffee and your woman is standing in the door watching you as though her heart were broken?"
Ian turned his head.
Whatever expression Kira may have had on her face cleared instantly, but her eyes were still somber, questioning.
"Hang for the commander," Macey announced.
"Lieutenant Richards, I'm going to kick your ass to hell and back when this is over." Reno came over the line, his quiet voice echoing with anger. "Where do we meet and when?"
"No meet." Ian lowered his voice further, never breaking Kira's gaze. "No chance."
"Unacceptable," Reno informed him coldly. "Take your woman on a ride. You know our location."