went over the edge.

  In the back of her head, she realized that all her previous orgasms had been tiny bursts, inconsequential flutters of pleasure. In Connor’s arms, she experienced something completely different. This orgasm flashed white-hot, blistering through her system. The pleasure seized her, possessed her. She jolted against his hand and went wild, trying to squeeze out every second of the exquisite sensation. For long moments, she twisted in his grip, like a marionette dancing for a puppet master as he prolonged the ecstasy far longer than she had the breath to scream.

  Finally, Lara fell back, completely exhausted.

  The world upended as he stood, cradling her in his arms as if she weighed nothing at all.

  “Good. Now that we have that out of the way, it’s my turn. And I don’t intend to go easy on you.”

  She shivered at the promise in his voice. She’d been sure she couldn’t possibly experience anything more earth-shattering than what he’d just given her, but Lara was suddenly convinced that he intended to try.

  She didn’t bother to put her arms around him. Connor wouldn’t let her fall. She’d finally found the man she could trust with her body. She knew her heart was already halfway there, too.

  “Anything you want,” she vowed.

  He carried her into her bedroom, and Lara was certain that she would never be the same again.

  SEVEN

  Connor couldn’t remember a time when his dick had been harder. He’d been worried about how silent the damn thing had been since Greta had nearly fileted him. She’d been a supermodel of an operative. Sex on two very long, dangerous legs. He’d had some of the world’s most stunning women in his bed, but this short, curvy little sprite who’d induced him to dry hump her like a fucking fifteen-year-old had nearly undone him. He never lost control like that, and he swore as he carried her into her bedroom that he wouldn’t do it again. He wasn’t going to sink into her and fucking forget why he’d tracked her down in the first place. He would make sure she was taken care of but he wasn’t going to lose his head.

  Or anything else.

  She trusted him. She’d proven it by giving herself over to him. The minute her body had fully relaxed, he knew he had her. All he had to do was reach out and take, and she would be his—only his.

  That was the moment he’d decided to keep her.

  Anything you want, she’d offered him.

  Well, he’d never wanted anything more than he wanted her, but he could manage that desire. He could wrap her up in bonds so strong that when she discovered the truth, she would still choose him. Eventually, he would tell her his real name and that those close boyhood friends he’d mentioned were now superpowerful men, but she never had to know everything. He’d tell her that he’d acted to protect her. If he gave her enough pleasure, she would believe him and stay. He could have all that warmth and softness for himself.

  He laid her down on the bed and grabbed fistfuls of his shirt. He tugged it over his head and tossed it aside. He would take care of her and provide for her. She never had to know he was anything but an analyst with the CIA. He would pull back on foreign assignments and he would make sure she stayed out of trouble.

  In exchange, he would give her the family she craved, the stability she required. Hell, he would find all the dirt on her parents and bury it so no one would ever find it—especially her. He would protect her and her folks the way he’d protected his friends all these years. Surely that was a good exchange.

  He shoved out of his jeans, his cock desperate to be free.

  She’d managed to sit up among the myriad pillows that littered her bed. Her dark hair fell in tumbling waves all the way down to her breasts, curling around one nipple. Now that he had her naked, she seemed perfectly comfortable. She watched him, her eyes wide. She looked ethereal in the moonlit room, like any fairy princess should. The drapes were open, but her unit was up higher than all the surrounding buildings, so he didn’t worry about anyone peeking in.

  He liked seeing her in the silvery shadows. It made her skin glow. And as she watched him undress, her stare zipped right to his cock and a flush darkened her cheeks.

  “Do you like what you see, princess?” He found himself a bit self-conscious. Every inch of her skin was dewy perfection. He was covered in scars. He was older than her other lovers. She tended toward doe-eyed idealists. He was as far from that as a man could be.

  She twisted up, crawling toward him in a way that made her breasts bounce, and his dick tightened almost painfully. She balanced on her knees, ass resting on her heels, her hands perched on her thighs as she looked him over. “You’re a beautiful man. I’ve never known anyone like you.”

  His gut coiled up. She didn’t know him at all. He couldn’t correct her, so he rationalized his every deceit. If he hadn’t come after her, Roman would have sent someone else who wouldn’t have even tried to protect her. He could still make this right for her. He would.

  “Come here,” he cajoled. “Touch me.”

  He needed to slow down, feel her hands on him. Now that he had her in her bedroom, he wanted to take this slow. They only had one first time together.

  It damn sure wouldn’t be their last.

  When had he turned into a fucking sentimental old man?

  As he’d been thinking in circles, Lara had risen to stand in front of him. She touched her palm to his chest and brushed over his skin, her fingers finding the scars. She caressed the thin white line on his bicep leftover from a knife fight in Macau. She traced the jagged flesh along his ribs where he’d taken fire from a double agent in Dubai.

  She stopped at the newest mottled flesh, a short but nasty scar from the blade Greta had shoved into his chest. She leaned over and placed her lips there.

  The moment vibrated. Sensation rushed him.

  Stunned and unmoving, Connor barely dared to breathe as she kissed her way across his chest. Her hair fell against his skin, a soft touch that sensitized him. As if he needed to be more sensitive to her. His cock was so hard he was sure it would thump against her belly in a desperate bid for attention.

  Finally her hands made their way to his hips.

  She bit her bottom lip and cautiously brushed her hand over his unruly cock. Her fingertips found the head of his dick and she seemed utterly fascinated by the pearly drop seeping there. It was evidence he’d been so close to the edge. She swiped her thumb across it and he was right back there, fighting against the loss of control.

  He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t take another second of her hands on him or he would lose it. “Lie down on the bed. I want your ass on the edge, knees in the air, wide apart.”

  “What?” She shook her head like she hadn’t heard him properly.

  He sank a hand into all that hair and used it to tilt her head up so she was forced to look him in the eyes. “You. Bed. Edge. Legs spread. I’m going to eat your pussy and you’re going to lie very still while I make a meal out of you.”

  Her breath came in sexy gasps. Her heavy breasts with their hard tips pointing up, along with her pink cheeks and dilated pupils, were like a barometer for her arousal. Not three minutes after her first orgasm, she was starting to squirm.

  He could seize control again by making her beg. “Now.”

  She nodded and nearly stumbled in her haste to reach the bed. Once she’d decided to obey him, she did it with all the enthusiasm she put into one of her causes. If she felt awkward now, he couldn’t tell. Her breasts bounced as she lay back on the bed and splayed out. “I’ve always wanted to know what this felt like.”

  How could she make him laugh in the middle of something that felt so fucking serious? Or incite that twinge in his chest when he realized no man had ever given her this pleasure. There was zero artifice in the way she acted. She wasn’t trying to seduce secrets out of him. She wasn’t trying to gain the upper hand. She simply wanted him to make her come again, to make her scream, and she would enthusiastically comply with his every order to get it.

  “
Touch yourself. Stroke your pussy.” He had to be very specific.

  “I’ve done that before,” she said, blushing. She shook her head, but her hand trailed down her body and she gently worked two fingers over her labia.

  He dropped to his knees, putting those wet, swollen folds right at eye level. Her pink-tipped fingers were already glistening with her own arousal. He’d done that to her, gotten her wet and creamy. “No man has ever eaten your pussy? Keep stroking yourself.”

  Transfixed, he watched her fingers glide over her flesh.

  Her voice was deeper than normal, a little husky. “Tom never wanted oral sex.”

  “So clinical,” he tsked. “You won’t get what you want until you ask for it properly.”

  “Please give me oral sex.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Please put your mouth there. On me. On my pussy.” She was awfully cute when she fumbled. And she definitely sounded a bit breathless. “Yes, I would like you to put your mouth on my pussy and then move your tongue all around. Kiki talks about how nice it feels but only when she’s had too much to drink.”

  “The correct term is eating pussy. That’s what I’m going to do to you. Spread your labia for me. Tell me why Tom wouldn’t want to taste this sweet pussy.” He could smell her arousal, musky and pure.

  “He said it wasn’t natural.”

  “The hell it isn’t.” Connor leaned forward, gently grasping her wrist and bringing her fingers to his lips. With her eyes on him, he sucked her cream-coated fingers into his mouth and licked off every last bit of her essence. “He’s a fucking idiot. You taste so damn good, and I’ll show you just how nice it feels to have the big bad wolf make a meal of you.”

  He leaned forward and ran his tongue right over her clit. She gasped and nearly came off the bed.

  Connor stopped. “Be still or I’ll tie you down and bring you to the edge over and over again. Then I’ll give you nothing.”

  She went completely still. “That sounds horrible. But the other part felt even better than Kiki said.”

  “And no more mentioning Kiki or anyone else now. You and me and no one else in the entire world. Am I clear?”

  “Yes.” Her body was still, but he could feel her effort in her fine trembling.

  “Who’s going to fuck you?” He liked hearing his name on her lips.

  “Connor. My Connor.”

  That did more for him than he liked to admit. “Only me.”

  He’d never given a crap about where a lover was going after he’d finished with her. During college, he and Dax had shared women on many a night. There were women at Yale who had made a game out of bagging all six of them. Connor had just shrugged and taken his turn.

  The thought of anyone else touching Lara Armstrong made him crazy. Something primal inside him had taken one look at her and decided she belonged to him—and his higher-functioning brain could go to hell.

  He lowered his head to her pussy and devoured her. He licked and sucked and gave her a light scrape of his teeth. All the while she whimpered and cried out, each moan going straight to his dick. He reveled in every bit of her as he pulled back the hood of her clit. That pearl was engorged and desperate, ready to go off at the slightest sensation.

  “Please. Please, Connor.”

  “Please what, princess? Do you remember what I said to you the first day we met? I told you it might make you feel safer if I didn’t make love to you until you begged me. So what do you want me to do? I think I’ll forgo you getting on your knees and I’ll simply accept a very polite request.”

  “Please make love to me, Connor.”

  “Now go a little dirtier for me.”

  “Please, please fuck me.”

  “With pleasure, princess.” He sucked her clit between his teeth and was rewarded with a scream that just might have the police storming the condo. She cried out his name as he drew out her pleasure. Her legs shook and spasmed, and by the time he lifted his head, her whole body was flushed and trembling.

  She lay there, her eyes half closed, her body utterly spent. She wasn’t thinking about anything now. That was clear. He could do anything he wanted to her. She was his, body and soul, in that moment, and all he’d had to do was give her a few orgasms. This could work. They could work. He could keep and protect her. She never had to know the whole truth.

  In fact, maybe she was his reward for all the bad shit that had come before and all the darkness he still had yet to endure.

  He fished a foil packet out of his jeans. The minute he’d walked into the condo, he’d known this would happen. He’d prepared. She hadn’t seen him do it, but he’d already moved a box of condoms into her bedside table. He’d saved one because he hadn’t been sure where he would fuck her first. By the time he was done, he would use every surface and room in this place. There wouldn’t be a single inch of this space that wouldn’t remind her of what it felt like to have him inside her.

  He rolled the condom on his rock-hard cock.

  “Connor?” She lifted her head to look at him.

  Shit. He couldn’t lose her now. “Yes?”

  She wore the sweetest grin on her face, as if she’d been drugged from all the pleasure. “I thought I was one of those women who couldn’t have an orgasm, but I had two. I’m fully functional.”

  Had Tom told her she wasn’t? That’s right, the prick had called her frigid because he was too fucking clueless or selfish to please a woman. Connor wrapped his fingers around her ankles and positioned her right where he wanted her. He could see her whole gorgeous body laid out, her breasts, her silky skin, that pussy so close to his cock. She gripped her comforter tightly, looking breathless.

  God, had he really been looking for weapons in her hands? He’d thought he was over that shit.

  Lara wasn’t capable of hurting a fly, much less her lover, and he intended to keep it that way. She was going to live in a world where shit like that didn’t happen.

  “Wrap your legs around me.” When she did, he pushed the head of his dick just inside her. Already the heat and pressure were killing him. So fucking soft. Everything about her was silky and welcoming, including the quickness with which she heeded his needy commands.

  With her eyes wide and focused on him, Lara reached up to touch him. He grabbed her hands and held them down. He couldn’t have her arms around him. Not yet. Maybe in a couple of years, but for now he needed this. She was utterly trapped beneath him while he assumed total control.

  His eyes nearly rolled into the back of his head as he pressed forward. She was so wet. If he hadn’t gotten her hot first, he doubted he could have worked his way inside her easily, if at all. Her pussy was the tightest thing he’d ever felt. Those endlessly blue eyes of hers stared up at him, widening with each inch he took.

  But he needed to be deeper. “Relax. You can take me. You can take all of me.”

  She sucked in a deep, ragged breath and exhaled, her body melting into the mattress as she tilted her pelvis up so he slipped completely inside her. He groaned long and low.

  Very slowly, he began to drag himself back out, fighting the urge to pound into her. He wanted her to love this, to need him as often as possible. He didn’t have months to brand himself on her before his cover story could unravel. He had days, a week or two at most, and he needed her bound to him. So he fought his desperate desire and stroked into her, long and slow, moving his hips in a rhythm, finding that spot inside her.

  “Oh god.” Her legs gripped him like a vise as she panted and whimpered.

  He locked in place and let himself go. Over and over he fucked her deep, providing friction to those nerve endings until her whole body flushed and she cried out his name. Her head thrashed against the comforter, the only movement he allowed her. Other than that, he controlled her body, forcing her to take each stroke of his cock, every hard thrust.

  She clenched around him and he felt her body seize as she came with abandon. Her ecstasy sent him hurtling toward the edge. He couldn’t ho
ld back for more than another second or two.

  Connor pounded deep into her softness, lost to the primal rhythm of mating. He hated the fucking condom. He wanted to mark her, to know his seed might take root. Hell, in that moment he wanted to get her pregnant. She couldn’t leave him if she was carrying his child, right? Then they would also have a connection she couldn’t deny, no matter how angry she got if she learned the truth.

  His spine tingled and his brain shut down. Pure electric pleasure sparked through his system. Orgasm hit him with the force of a crashing wave. He pumped into her like a piston, using hard,