She was addictive and Duke knew he was hooked. Hell, she’d owned parts of him for years, she might as well own the rest of him.
Parting the flushed, bare folds of her pussy, he licked, stroked, tasted the liquid need that spilled from her. When he was certain he couldn’t wait much longer to take her, Duke eased from the sweetest taste in the world, his lips and tongue finding the hard bud of her clit as his fingers slid to the entrance of her pussy.
She wasn’t as experienced as many of his past lovers. Her responses were less practiced, her ability to hold back any part of herself nonexistent. When his fingers rimmed the narrow opening and he eased just the tip of one inside, he felt sweat pop out on his brow.
She was tight. So damned tight that the second fingertip had a ragged cry spilling from her lips.
This wasn’t possible.
It couldn’t be possible.
Easing his fingers deeper, screwing them in small half circles, he worked them steadily inside her, easing deeper inside the snug grip until he met the fragile resistance of an innocence he couldn’t have suspected.
Hell.
He should let her go.
He should get up, walk away, leave her to give that sweet gift to someone she loved. Someone who knew how to give all of himself to her.
As though she’d heard his thought he felt her go quiet beneath him, her breathing ragged and choppy. The whimper, a barely-there sound rife with an inner pain that had nothing to do with his touch.
“Sweet as candy,” he whispered, nuzzling his lips against the still-engorged kernel of her clit, determined to draw her back into the pleasure he’d allowed her to slip from.
Lifting his head he stared up at her, flashing her a quick grin.
“I knew you’d be this good, this sweet.” Gently, he parted the fingers possessing her, scissoring inside the snug grip clenched around them.
Her breath caught, heat flushing her face once again, the stormy depths of her eyes filled with need and haunting shadows.
“I can’t think,” she whispered, staring down at him uncertainly as her hips shifted, her body slowly growing accustomed to the feel of his fingers stretching her, rubbing against the silken flesh as her juices began filling the channel once again.
“You don’t have to think, Angel. All you have to do is let us feel good together,” he promised and lowered his head, his tongue finding her swollen little clit again.
A virgin.
Damn, a first for him. And he had a feeling she was going to blow his mind.
• • •
He didn’t know.
She’d been certain he’d figured it out, that he’d somehow felt that barrier as his fingers pressed inside her. But he hadn’t stopped, his fingers hadn’t retreated, they were still there.
She lifted to him, closer, feeling the hungry licks and firm draws of his mouth build that storm inside her again. Waves of pleasure rushed through her, drugging her senses and building in intensity.
“Duke, that feels so good,” she whispered breathlessly, feeling his fingers moving inside of her, stretching her deliciously.
Moving in and out, scissoring with slow stretching motions that only inflamed her clit further.
It was incredible. It was pulling her into a wicked, carnal maelstrom she hadn’t known existed. She’d never known pleasure could completely burn through her senses like this.
“Duke,” she cried out, shocked, helpless beneath his touch and the pleasure racing through her.
“That’s it, baby.” The roughened sound of his voice, his fingers moving inside her were sending pulsing waves of sensation building, gathering.
The quick flicks of his tongue over and around the aching knot of nerves he was tormenting were killing her with pleasure. The tension gathering in it, clenching her flesh around his fingers and stealing her breath. She could sense the edge nearing, feel the explosion coming.
She’d never felt this while masturbating. She’d never touched the ecstasy she could feel beginning to overtake her.
Then it was gone.
Her eyes jerked open, a protest on her lips that died quickly when her gaze met the lust burning in his as he rolled a condom quickly over the heavy erection jutting from between his thighs.
She was panting for breath, the need for more—his touch, his kiss, his possession was like a wildfire laying waste to her senses.
“Look how pretty,” he groaned, coming over her as he guided the sheathed erection between her thighs, the flared crest parting her folds, throbbing against the entrance of her sex.
Angel looked; she was helpless against that need. Staring down her body, seeing the thick, blunt intruder spreading her folds, glistening with her juices, held her dazed senses captive.
Bending her knees further, her heels digging into the mattress, she tilted her hips, whimpering as the thick crest throbbed imperatively at the entrance, teasing her with the promised invasion.
“Hold on to me, baby,” he ordered gently, his hand covering hers as it fisted in the sheets beneath them. “Let me feel you wrapping around my body as you’re wrapped around my senses.”
Hold him?
No one had ever wanted her to hold them before, had ever asked her to wrap around them. In that moment, she realized how the lack of that had created the barrenness that had filled her before he touched her.
Forcing herself to unfist her fingers, she lifted them, caressing up his arms, stretching beneath him, lifting closer to him, and feeling the broad head of his cock pressing inside her, parting her flesh with an unfamiliar pinching, pleasure-pain.
“So snug,” he whispered as she watched her flesh give way to the flared head of his erection, the crest disappearing inside her.
“Duke!” She struggled not to cry out, and failed.
This was just the blunt head filling her and her body was struggling to stretch for him, clenching and rippling around the intruder.
Her nails bit into his shoulders, heat fractured her senses, eroticism held her captive.
“That’s it, darlin’,” he groaned, the sound of his voice drawing her gaze from the impaling shaft to his heavy-lidded expression. “Damn, baby, that’s so good. Do you feel it? Sucking me inside you like the tightest little mouth.”
It was, she realized. The clenching internal movements were involuntary, each one causing her breathing to hitch as his cock eased inside her.
Angel tried to hold back the desperate mewls that escaped her throat, tried to stop the deep, rippling spasms that tugged his erection deeper inside her, filling her, stretching her, agony and ecstasy. She had no defenses against the sensations tearing through her body, causing her to buck against him, to drive him deeper.
“Do you like that, sweetheart?” he whispered, lowering his lips to her ear, his voice strained as he worked the hard flesh inside her. “Should I stop?”
Stop?
Angel shook her head desperately. She needed more. Needed more than the teasing increments he was giving her.
“Please.” The room was too hot.
She was too hot.
Fire and ice licked over her body, her cries intensifying as the flood of sensations rose, drowning her in such sharp, brutal pleasure that she wondered how she could possibly survive it.
“Please what, sweetheart?” he crooned, his voice growing thicker, his body tightening between her thighs. “Please stop? Or please give you more?”
She was on fire. Every cell in her body was burning, needing. “Please, Duke, please . . .”
His powerful body tensed further, thighs bunched.
Angel’s breath caught as he eased his hips back, nearly pulling free of her only to thrust forward, hard, fast.
His lips covered hers, swallowing her scream and each one that came after as he began pumping inside her, his cock sinking deeper, stretching her
further with hard thrusts.
Oh God, she needed this, needed him. Her knees lifted to clasp his hips, opening herself further to him, feeling the next powerful thrust bury him fully inside her, his cock throbbing, pulsing within the tight grip her body had on him.
Angel went wild beneath him.
There was no experience to dictate how she moved, and Duke groaned in reaction as her hips lifted, writhed. Her knees tightened at his hips, her head arching back, tearing her lips from his, gasping for air.
“That’s it, baby,” he urged her, the dark rasp a sound of pure male hunger. “Work that sweet pussy on my cock. Keep sucking me in. Fuck yes . . .” he hissed as she felt herself beginning to unravel.
She was shuddering, tremors attacking her body as his thrusts increased, driving his erection to the hilt with each inward plunge. The guttural sound of his voice at her ear, his lips brushing the lobe, his body caressing hers, stroking against her as the intensity of the sensations built with each thrust inside her.
Angel was lost in the driving sensations, in the intensity of the pleasure-pain of each stretching, filling stroke of his cock as he fucked her with increasingly forceful thrusts.
She couldn’t survive it.
She could feel the spiraling sensations beginning to tighten through her body. She fought to breathe, to find a center, something to hold on to to keep herself, her senses somehow grounded.
“Hold on to me, baby,” he groaned, suddenly seeming to surround her, his larger, powerful body sheltering. “I have you. Just hold on to me.”
Hold on to him.
He’d led her this far, filled her senses with the most incredible pleasure and now he was giving her his strength to survive the coming explosion.
“Duke!” She cried his name, her arms and legs tightening around him, the quickening thrusts between her thighs increasing the sensations, increasing that storm building in her senses. “I don’t know how!” she gasped, the lightning arcs of white-hot pleasure building in her clit, in the sensitive channel he was possessing.
She was being consumed.
The storm building in her senses was converging, the tension increasing, pulling her deeper inside the unfamiliar bands of physical sensation as they mixed with all the emotional needs that rose with it.
She couldn’t control it.
She couldn’t survive it.
“That’s it, love,” he encouraged her as she lost her hold on reality. “Let me have you, darlin’. . . . Give it to me, baby. Come for me. . . . I’ll hold you. . . .”
He would hold her.
He was holding her.
The sensations whipping through her, pleasure and pain, brilliant arcs of overwhelming ecstasy exploded inside her. And exploded, and exploded . . .
Angel lost herself as the converging sensations clashed in a white-hot orgasm that stole her breath and her reason. But he was there to hold her in place, even as he gave himself to his own pleasure, his own release. Still, he held on to her as she unraveled completely in a physical release she refused to admit had somehow changed her.
TEN
Angel could feel herself unraveling from the inside out and she knew if she didn’t get a handle on it she’d end up regretting it. Slipping from the bed as Duke dressed she hurried to the bathroom, locking the door behind her. Leaning back against the door, she closed her eyes and drew in a hard breath.
Oh Lord, what had she done?
She’d just so complicated this entire situation for herself and she knew it. She’d created problems she had no idea how to solve. And she had no idea how to deal with what she’d done the night before. That wasn’t like her. She normally accepted whatever decisions she made spur of the moment, even dumb ones. She accepted them and figured out how to make it work. But she couldn’t figure out how to make this work or how to avoid the broken heart she knew was coming.
And she didn’t need new scars on her heart.
She hadn’t wanted more scars, but they were coming anyway, and she knew it.
They were coming, and she had a terrible feeling that the scar Duke left when this was over would have far more impact than even she suspected.
Breathing in deep, she wiped her hands over her face, straightened from the door, and headed for the shower. She didn’t have time to stand around here and try to figure out something she had no idea how to deal with.
Right now, Bliss needed her. When her sister was safe, when the danger to her was over, then she could deal with the future scars she was allowing to be placed on her heart.
Freshly showered, the wound on her thigh cleaned and bandaged, Angel quickly dressed and stepped back into the bedroom. Where Duke was waiting for her, it seemed.
Dressed in jeans and a tan T-shirt, a short-sleeved shirt covering it and hiding the weapon holstered at his side, he was watching the cameras as he finished eating whatever he’d had in his hand.
“The family showed up this morning. Mercedes, Christa, and Kelly are in the kitchen fixing breakfast. It should be ready soon,” he told her.
She pressed her lips together tightly.
“He should just send an invitation to whoever’s after Bliss,” she snapped. “Do you think they aren’t watching Dawg, Rowdy, and this damned house for her?” Propping one hand on her hip she glared at him furiously. “Does Natches not think they’re watching? That they’re not aware of all the activity at this place? They know she’s here.”
“And there’s no way to keep them from suspecting,” he told her calmly. “But they can’t be sure and there’s a pretty little DHS agent that could pass for Bliss’s twin that’s made several brief, but notable appearances as she makes her way from one county to another surrounding this one.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Natches didn’t say anything about this before.”
“I just found out myself this morning.” As he turned from the monitors a grimace pulled at his expression. “Natches is determined that the abductors not know where Bliss is. That’s why she’s kept in the house, why the shades stay closed, and why Harley, Declan, and the August twins are kept so carefully hidden.”
“Why didn’t he give us this information when I first arrived?” How was she supposed to protect Bliss if she didn’t have all the information involved?
“Timothy Cranston just told Natches and Chaya about it last night, from what I understand.” Crossing his arms over his chest he leaned against the desk, his gaze moving over her warmly.
Heat flooded her body, an involuntary and confusing reaction. He was making her do things, feel things she didn’t know how to deal with.
“So, Timothy arranged it?” she probed, wishing he would just finish it already.
His lips quirked with a hint of a smile. “Timothy’s bad for things like that,” he said, as though it were acceptable that the former DHS agent would take such matters into his own hands. “Natches knew he was putting something together, he just wasn’t certain what. They’ve worked together for a long time, Angel.”
“Over twenty years. Nearly twenty-five. He was Army Intelligence first, FBI, then DHS. He was Chaya’s agent in charge in that time.” She knew the former agent’s history and Cranston’s close association with the Mackays. She’d made it her business to know.
Duke nodded at that information. “He’s been in D.C. trying to figure out what happened when the hotel exploded. Chaya and her husband both were with Army Intelligence. He’s checking to be certain the attempted abduction doesn’t have anything to do with that.”
She nodded, realizing she was breathing a little easier. For one terrifying moment she’d been afraid she was wrong about Natches and that he was allowing the abductors to realize where Bliss was to draw them out.
She couldn’t have stood that, to be so wrong about him.
“It might not work, the agent that looks like Bliss,” she stated, considering
all the angles. “They won’t be as trusting after realizing the safe house was a setup.”
“Natches is aware of that,” he assured her, resigned to the fact that the plan had its flaws. “His options are limited, though, and he’s not willing to allow Bliss to be used as bait. No matter how fiercely she’s arguing for it.”
Concern darkened his expression for a moment.
“I’ll talk to her.” Her sister would have to see the error of doing such a thing.
“Give me that kiss you’re trying to avoid so I can get my ass outside and do my part,” he demanded, ignoring her surprise. “I’m not leaving without it.”
A kiss?
“You were kissed last night,” she told him, suddenly nervous and uncertain. Why the hell did he want a kiss?
He strode to her quickly, slid his hand behind her neck, and before she could stop him, lowered his head to cover her lips with his. And drag her into that sensual, heated vortex of arousal that she had no defenses against.
And just as quickly, he released her.
“Be good today, and be nice to Chaya. Natches is becoming upset because you keep ignoring her.” The demand was made as he strode from the room and left the suite by way of the patio doors in the kitchenette.
She didn’t have a chance to argue, and she wondered if she would have known how to argue if she’d had the chance.
Be nice to Chaya.
Hell, she thought she was being nice. She was staying the hell away from her; that was as nice as she knew how to be right now.
Shaking her head at the demand, she left the suite. Rather than following Duke, she used the house entrance instead and turned into the kitchen, where Chaya and the other cousins’ wives as well as Mercedes, Dawg’s stepmother, had gathered.
“Angel, good morning to you.” Mercedes was the first to see her.
Her smile was warm, welcoming, just as the others’ were as they repeated the greeting.
“Did you sleep well?” Chaya asked from where she stood on the other side of the stove, where she’d been watching Christa slowly simmering something in a skillet.