"Let me show you, since you don't want to hear the words."
One hand left her hip to trail between her legs. He felt the heated juices against his fingertips and felt his mouth watering to taste them. She was sweeter than syrup, hotter than sunlight, and she burned him to the very core of his being with her passion and her love.
"Ian, you don't know . . . Don't know what you're doing to me."
"What you did to me?" He parted the sweet flesh, ran his fingers along the narrow slit. "Showing you how I feel? Making you accept that I need as well? Oh yes, Kira. I do know what I'm doing."
Before she could form an argument or pull harder at his hair, he lowered his head and swirled his tongue around the distended, hardened little clit. Softly pink, throbbing with arousal and glistening with her juices, it drew him like a sensual drug, made him hungry, made him ache to feel it within his mouth.
God, he loved her taste. It exploded against his tongue, filled his mouth with the lightest hint of sugar and fiery spice.
He groaned into her flesh, felt her shudder again and felt an overwhelming pride that he could give her such pleasure. The same pleasure she gave him. The kind that whipped through the soul and bound a man and woman together forever.
That was what it was, chains weaving through silken emotions, ensuring that no matter where they existed, together or apart, that they would always belong.
He had never belonged. Until now.
KIRA THRASHED, JERKED, WRITHED BENEATH him but nothing could break the hold he had on her. She pulled at his hair, begged breathlessly, but nothing stopped the destructive strokes of his lips and his tongue or the explosive pleasure of his suckling mouth.
She arched, fighting to get closer even as she fought to hold back the effects of the pleasure.
Oh God, it was so good. His tongue stroked around her clit as his lips sucked at it. When she was close, so close to release, he moved, licked along the shallow slit, sucked the soft folds into his mouth and groaned as her juices fell from her pussy to the caressing fingertips that stroked over the entrance yet never penetrated.
"Am I yours, Kira?" he whispered again.
Oh God, what did it matter? Why did he fucking care? He knew he owned her. He owned her heart and soul, what did it matter if the thought of his love terrified her? She could love him and deal with the loss. She had done that before. Dealt with losing those she loved. But she had never known love. Not like this. If he loved as she did, then it meant she was betraying not just the man, but his soul. She couldn't handle that. She couldn't handle knowing he was out there, without her, betrayed, hating her. Even her ex-husband hadn't hated her by time he walked away. Of course, she had never allowed him to love her either.
She cried out Ian's name as piercing pinpoints of heated ecstasy exploded around her clit. He pulled the little bud into his mouth once again, stroked it, licked and savored it. He kissed it. Suckling little kisses that were gone before they could push her over the edge.
She tried to tighten her thighs, to hold him in place, but his shoulders were there, stopping her. Each time she tried to distract him, his finger would stroke inside her pussy, just a bit, just enough to force her to still, to ache for more.
"Ian, please. Please." She panted beneath the caress, ready to cry, to beg, ready to die if he didn't do something, anything, to ease the sensual pain building inside her.
His finger stroked inside her again, just enough to have her screaming breathlessly for more.
"So soft and hot. So tight and sweet." He rubbed at the entrance as Kira felt more of her juices coating her flesh.
Kira dug her heels into the bed, her hips arching closer.
"Oh God, Ian." Weak, desperate, her cry tore from her throat as another finger began to play, lower, along the snug opening to her rear.
"You've never been taken here, have you, Kira?" The tip penetrated, just enough, just enough to tug at the nerve-rich area with brutal sensuality.
Her eyes closed. She knew what was coming. She knew . . .
"Ian!" She screamed as his finger penetrated deeper. Just a little bit deeper, then retreated.
His mouth covered her clit as she felt him moving, reaching, the sound of the drawer at the bedside table slamming shut a second later.
She couldn't place the sounds, only the soul-deep knowledge that if he took her there, he was possessing more than just her body.
She had never been taken anally. Seductive toys during masturbation didn't count. The fact that each time she had done so her fantasies had revolved around Ian, did matter. The fact that she could feel his fingers, now slick with lubrication, caressing her there, that sure as hell mattered.
"You don't know what you're doing," she moaned. "You don't understand."
Pleasure was curling up her spine in frantic fingers of sensation as she felt his finger, slick, warm, ease slowly into the tight entrance of her rear as two fingers eased into the frantic, clenching entrance of her pussy.
Neither penetration was deep, neither should have had the effect it did. Flames burned at her, licking over her flesh, as pleasure streaked through every cell of her body and her breath caught in her throat.
Ian's lips covered her clit as her legs lifted, arching her hips higher, a foot bracing on his shoulder as the other flexed on the back of his shoulders. She was opening herself to him and she knew it, giving him access, giving him permission.
He groaned against her clit as he slid fingers deeper inside her.
Kira slid her fingers from his hair, the pleasure swamping her as she cupped her breasts, her fingers playing with her nipples, pulling at them, increasing the fiery sensations destroying her.
She was lost in him now. She couldn't help it. The pleasure was too much to bear, too much to fight. She tilted her hips higher, moaning in ecstasy as his fingers slid deeper inside her. Not deep enough though, not nearly deep enough.
The two fingers slid from her pussy as her own pinched at her nipples, increasing the sensations. His tongue, wicked and hungry, moved between the folds of flesh to flicker over the clenching entrance to her vagina as the finger slid deeper up her rear.
"Ian. God. Please. I can't stand it. I can't." Her feet were braced on both shoulders now, her hips tilted further, easing the penetration of the two fingers sliding slowly inside her rear.
The stretching burn stole her breath. She could feel the fingers easing inside her by slow degrees, penetrating her, preparing her.
"It's okay, Kira." He kissed at the folds of her pussy gently, sucked at the flesh and laved it with his tongue. "I'll take care of you."
Her head thrashed against the bed. He was killing her.
The fingers in her rear slid deep in the next stroke, his tongue pushed inside the gripping channel of her pussy and Kira knew she was losing the battle.
"Fuck me!" she snarled. "Now!"
"I don't want to fuck you, Kira. Isn't there another option?" His voice was grating, his own hunger, his lust, thickening the tone as she cried out, the sound harsh and desperate.
There was only one other option and it wasn't acceptable. It just wasn't.
"Then I'll fuck you," she groaned. "Please, Ian, I can't stand this."
His fingers shifted inside her, stretching her as they scissored apart and caused the flames burning across her flesh to intensify. Perspiration ran in rivulets over her body now, soaking her flesh, dampening her hair, as she tried to hold on to her senses.
His tongue stroked inside her pussy again, his fingers pumped slowly inside her rear. The alternating strokes were killing her, holding her just a breath from orgasm and building the heat beneath her flesh higher.
Pleasure this destructive should be outlawed. It was a pleasure that went beyond the physical, a pleasure that sealed a woman to the man giving it.
"Do you know the high a man gets when he takes his woman here?" His fingers slid inside her rear again, pumped with deep strokes as he spoke against her pussy.
Her head shook desperatel
y.
"It's better than drugs, Kira. Knowing she's with him this deep. That more than just her body is involved. Knowing you're giving me something you've never given anyone else. It goes beyond fucking, doesn't it, baby?"
"No . . ." The desperate moan was a cry, a denial bred from the knowledge that it was something more.
He kissed her pussy, a gentle suckling kiss at her clit as his fingers retreated and he moved over her, lifting her legs, holding them up with one hand at her ankles.
The tip of his cock pressed against the forbidden entrance of her ass. Kira forced her eyes open.
"Do you want me to fuck you?" Somber, filled with pain, his gaze locked with hers. "Is that all you want, Kira?"
Her lips parted, the soul-deep knowledge that it stopped here washing over her. If she denied him this, she was denying more than the possibility that he loved her. She was denying the man he was, and everything she could possibly have later.
Would his love gain acceptance, understanding, of what she was there to do? Would he see that she had come not to betray him, but to protect him against a decision that she knew would eventually destroy him?
She licked her lips, feeling the sensitivity of them even as she felt her anal tissue parting for the tip of the crest pressing into it.
"Love me," she whispered, almost choking on the pain now. "Please, Ian, please love me."
Her back bowed, a soundless scream leaving her throat, as she felt the head of his cock lodge inside her ass. Her eyes flared open, locking with his, feeling herself reaching for him, her hands latching onto the thick muscles of his upper arms as she placed her legs on his shoulders and braced his weight on the bed.
"I love you, Kira." His voice was grating as he began to work his cock inside her. "I love you."
The intimacy of the act burned through her mind. With each measured thrust, each inch of possession, he claimed more than the untouched entrance he was taking, gave more than the pleasure that surrounded her.
She stared into his eyes and saw a man who loved, perhaps like her, for the first time. A man as wary, as uncertain, as she herself was, but one unwilling to take the chance that if he lost it all in a second, those feelings would be lost as well.
He wanted her acceptance of those feelings. He wanted her to accept his love, just as she gave hers. To see, to feel, to understand.
As he lodged to the hilt inside her rear, stretching her, the pleasure burning up her spine, she stopped fighting his love, as well as her own. She soaked it in instead, took it into her as she took the impalement that had always been taboo with any other man.
"Perfect." He grimaced as he held still inside her, each throb of his cock echoing through her nerve endings as she felt the waves of undiluted sensation beginning to gather inside her.
She was so aroused, so hot, that the juices falling from her pussy eased along the crease beyond her vagina and coated the area he was penetrating, further slickening it when added to the lubrication he had used.
When his hips began to move, thrusting inside her, it blinded her with the brilliant arcs of light that began to cascade around her.
Sweet Lord, it was so good. She had never known pleasure like this. Had never felt taken so thoroughly. With each plunge of his cock inside her ass, her cries grew more desperate, her need for release more imperative. It was building, stroking inside her, overwhelming her.
"Ian!" She screamed his name, or tried to, fought to.
"Soon," he rasped. "Soon, Kira."
"Now. Oh God, let me come now. Please God, Ian, I can't stand—"
Her pussy spasmed, clenching hungrily as her clit throbbed painfully. Just one stroke, that was all she needed.
Desperately she moved one of his powerful hands, pushing it between her thighs as he levered back on his knees, still buried inside her, still thrusting. As her fingers neared her clit, he beat her to it. His hand turned palm up, two fingers plunged inside her pussy, the edge of his palm rasped her clit.
His hips moved harder, faster. The strokes inside her ass burned with brilliant pleasure. Hard, desperate thrusts that powered inside her, fingers in her vagina, stretching her, his cock buried in her ass, burning her.
The release, when it came, destroyed her, remade her. She screamed his name, vowed her love, her voice torn and nearly as unrecognizable as his. His vows, his love, poured over her with the same fierce, heated power that his release poured into her.
Hard, heated jets of semen filled her ass. Her pussy clamped around his fingers, her clit exploded against the pad of his palm. She was coming, dying around him, crying out his name as her soul opened and accepted his.
"I love you, Kira. God help us both, I love you."
He collapsed over her, sweat coating them both, melding them together as their ragged breaths filled the bedroom.
Kira felt her eyes grow heavy, her body languorous. Even as he pulled from her and eased his weight from her body, she couldn't seem to move.
She needed to get up, maybe shower. Instead she let her eyes close and felt herself slip into sleep.
IAN CLEANED HER WITH A damp cloth. With another he wiped away the drying sweat. Starting at her forehead and working his way down, a smile tugging at his lips as she shivered softly.
He dried her, pulled back the blankets, and tucked her beneath them as the first full rays of the sun speared through the slats of the shades over the balcony doors.
He'd been up more than twenty-four hours, but hell, so had she. He needed just a few hours' sleep, to recharge before he forced Sorrell into the confrontation that was coming.
He should go downstairs, meet with Diego and fill him in. He wanted him in on this, didn't he? Both of them in the same place. It would be like leading the lamb to the slaughter.
Later, he told himself, ignoring the warning little cringe that tightened his guts at the thought. Diego was no lamb. He had made his own choices and those choices had led him here, to this final confrontation.
He brushed the hair back from Kira's face as he slid beneath the sheets with her. She turned into his arms naturally, for the first time seeking him in her sleep rather than maintaining distance between them.
He kissed her lips softly, because he couldn't help himself. She had given him something he had never known before, the chance to love someone who knew the fires he walked within.
She wouldn't be pacing the floor and crying while he was on a mission. Hell, he'd probably be the one pacing the floor and cursing whenever she wasn't within sight. Because he knew her.
He frowned at that. Something would have to change after this. Neither of them would be able to go back to their old lives. Their old lives wouldn't exist now. Neither of them were the same people they had been when this operation began.
He smiled though, realizing there was no regret in the thought. There were other ways. There were always other ways, other jobs, and damned if he wouldn't be ready for a change, if they survived this.
If they came out of it alive.
His arms tightened around her as he sent up a prayer. Just protect her, he thought. Nothing more. Nothing for him, because that would be selfish. He never prayed for his own survival, but now he prayed for Kira's.
* * *
Twenty-five
HE SLEPT THREE HOURS; HE thought Kira would sleep longer. Ian slipped from the bed and made his way to the shower, mentally and emotionally preparing himself for the next few hours.
He would spill blood today, and he would spill it again before the night was over. As he stepped beneath the shower's spray he braced his hands on the wall, leaned his head into it, and breathed in roughly.
He hadn't lost enough sleep yet to weaken him, and he'd make certain once this morning was over to find an hour for a nap. He'd learned to sleep where he could, when he could, if it meant only a few minutes propped against a wall. Or a few hours curled around Kira.
His arms ached to return to the position he had awakened in. Clenched to hold her against him.
&
nbsp; Hell, he was dangerous to himself in this shape. This was a mission, not an excuse to screw his head up. Or his soul. But that was exactly what he had managed to do where Kira was concerned.
Suddenly, he was questioning plans that had been fact for two years. Questioning his own motivations and wondering about his reasons for getting involved. Honor, glory, and the American way were wonderful surface excuses, but when a man set out to kill his sire, there was more to it. It was personal, it had become personal in a desert twenty years before, and he realized with a vague sense of disgust that it had shaped his life, even after the danger had passed.
She was changing him. Or perhaps that was the wrong word. It wasn't a change, so much as a revelation. She had made him realize why so much of his soul had seemed empty for so long. He hadn't even realized what he was missing, what he was searching for, until Atlanta. And even then he had tried to deny it, tried to push it away.
He was the worst sort of male chauvinist, yet he had allowed her into the mission, he had kept her at his side. The logical part of his brain, which worked only rarely when it came to her, assured him she was a capable agent. The emotions though, those had blindsided him, ambushed him.
And now he was in emotional hell.
More blood would stain his hands this morning, and even more once the meeting with Sorrell commenced. He was sure she was no stranger to bloodshed, hell, he knew she wasn't, but he didn't want to kill in front of her. He wanted her to keep that vision of a white knight that she seemed to have convinced herself he was.
Ian shook his head before lifting his face to the stinging water and mentally kicking himself for the fool he was.
Son of a bitch. She had a way of twisting his guts into knots and he couldn't seem to stop it, no matter what he did or how many times he told himself he was doing the right thing.
As he stood there kicking his own ass for his weakness, he felt her. Hell. He lowered his head to the spray again. He hadn't heard her slip into the bathroom, but he felt her. Not just a presence, her presence. Soft, smelling of his possession, warm and willing.