She had had little more than a sperm donor. One that had kidnapped her mother, impregnated her, then attempted to raise Tehya to become a brood mare for her half brother.
“You’ve had weeks to prepare for this,” he reminded her. “You should already be out of here.”
Something flashed in her eyes then, something he could have sworn was grief.
If it was, then it was the same grief that seemed to be growing inside him as well. A well of furious denial where it came to walking away from her. She cast him one of those cool little looks that warned of retribution as she stood facing him.
“I dare you,” she suddenly stated, her eyes narrowing as she stared back at him.
Every muscle in his body tightened dangerously.
God, no. Don’t let her dare him, not when he could sense where that dare was going.
“Excuse me?”
“Are you not hearing so well, Commander Jordan?” A red-gold brow arched slowly as her arms crossed over her breasts, pumping the delicate mounds up, making so damned tempting a sight his mouth almost watered.
“I dare you to actually touch me,” she explained, that note of anger in her voice causing his jaw to clench in determination. “You’ve been a complete prick for six years now, alternating between ignoring me and ordering your men away from me until it’s made me ready to pull my hair out. Be a man, Jordan. See if you can handle it. See if you can handle me or get the hell out of my room.”
There were some challenges a man couldn’t ignore no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he wanted to. This was one of those challenges.
Be a man?
She had no idea who this man was she was tempting.
“Don’t push me,” he warned her, his fingers curling to fists at his sides. “You may not like the consequences.”
“Or you may not,” she replied with an edge of pain-filled mockery. “What’s wrong, Jordan, afraid you can’t walk away from me as easily as you’ve walked away from the little bimbos you’ve been fucking for the past six years?”
That flare of contempt that lit her gaze had his jaw tightening, but it was the pain in her voice, that tore at him. He hated hearing the pain, even that blurred edge of it. He’d seen that aching need, that hunger for something more, for years now. Too many years. He couldn’t stand hearing it in her voice now.
“I can walk away from any woman, Tehya.” He tried to keep his tone soft, gentle. God knew he didn’t want to fray those ragged edges further.
Soft lips tightened as the sharp blade of her nose lifted. Emerald-green eyes sharpened to gem brightness, but not from tears; no, Tehya didn’t cry easily. Hell, had he seen her cry at all in the many years he had known her? Definitely he hadn’t seen her cry for herself.
“Can you really?” Her head tipped to the side. “Isn’t that nice, Jordan, to be so certain you need nothing, no one. How superior you must feel to the rest of us mortals.”
Sharp, biting, her voice cut straight through the icy disdain he would have shown any other woman. The problem was, with Tehya, there was simply nothing but raw lust and shadowed emotions. That was the reason he stayed as far the hell away from her as possible.
He couldn’t project an icy disdain that simply wasn’t there. What he did have was a dick so damned hard he could pound iron with it.
“I don’t feel superior, Tehya.” Frankly, he felt lacking. During the past years, as he watched the happiness that filled men who had once been cold, hardened warriors, he’d finally realized what he’d lost in his life.
It was a loss he had accepted long ago, he reminded himself. He couldn’t make the same mistakes he had made in the past. The blood and rage that stained the darkest days of his life were never forgotten.
“The hell you don’t.” Anger filled her voice, but naked need filled her eyes. “You stood above your men daily, staring down that sharp, arrogant nose of yours as though they were recalcitrant children in need of discipline for actually daring to love. You were mockingly amused at the lot of them.”
Surprise burst inside him. Was this what his men thought? What his nephew thought? That he considered himself better than they because they loved?
He’d be damned if that were the truth. He was aware of the choices he had made, just as he knew that his men were in a far better position than he. They had someone to hold on to at night, someone to ease the aching loneliness. He had only the loneliness to keep him company.
“Is that what you really believe, Tehya?” He took a step forward, feeling blistering need and offended anger crowding inside him.
He promised himself before coming here that he wouldn’t touch her, that he would simply tell her good-bye.
Good-bye wasn’t going to be enough.
“Why don’t you just go ahead and leave, Commander Jordan,” she sneered, those tempting witch’s eyes flaring back at him as the fiery red of her lashes seemed to blaze around the iridescent color. “There’s the door, don’t let it hit you in the ass. Isn’t that what you Americans say?”
A whisper of French, that alluring little accent that only emerged in the most extreme situations, vibrated across his senses.
It may have vibrated across his senses but it seemed to wrap around his cock and squeeze. His balls tightened, the tormenting ache increasing. His self control was disintegrating and he knew it, felt it unraveling.
She did this to him. She made him crazy like this and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to stop it. It traveled through his bloodstream like poison, like a potent drug, stripping away the control he prided himself on and leaving him grasping at the threads of decency as he tried to force himself away from her.
“You don’t want to keep pushing this,” he warned her.
“Well, hell, you must be enjoying it, Commander, you’re still standing here.” Her breasts were heaving, the nipples so hard beneath the silken material he swore they were going to pop right through the threads.
The urge to lick his lips was almost overpowering. The need for her was almost as strong.
“I could fuck you,” he growled then. “It’s what you want, it’s what we both want, but have you considered what would happen the morning after?”
“Will there be a morning after?” she questioned him roughly. “Aren’t you the one who said you could fuck me, but then you would have to kill me? Double O Seven has nothing on you, does he, stud?”
Stud? She had not just called him “stud”?
Damn her, the woman didn’t have the good sense to know when to keep her smart mouth shut or her tender heart safe.
Before he could stop himself, his hands were on her. His fingers curled around her upper arms as he jerked her to him, watching as her eyes widened, her hair seeming to flow around her as the pure silk of her flesh met the callused roughness of his hands.
And then he froze. Because her skin was so fucking soft. Beneath his palms it felt as heated, warm, and soft as a cloud itself. Sensation sizzled at the touch, heated and mesmerized his senses.
Spreading his fingers apart, he touched her with his palms only and watched as he let the inner part of his hand cup the curve of her shoulder.
Hell, he wanted her. He wanted to fuck her until he was mindless with it, until nothing or no one mattered but Tehya. Until the past and the nightmares were obliterated.
She would be the death of him.
That was but a distant thought as he let himself relish the feel of her flesh against his palms. He swore he could feel the sizzle of heat just below the flesh, drawing him, surging through his pores and washing through his system.
“Bad idea.” Swallowing tightly, he stared back at her, so focused on the strength of the need surging through him that all thoughts of pulling back evaporated.
The emerald green of her eyes darkened, glittering with need, as he watched her lips tremble.
“Six years,” she whispered. “I waited…”
He didn’t want to hear it. He couldn’t hear it. The words she was a
bout to whisper would be words she would regret the moment she realized that it wouldn’t have mattered if it had been twenty years.
To hold back the words he covered her lips with his, because he couldn’t let himself hear them.
And everything in the fucking world exploded.
Son of a bitch.
He would have frozen if every lust cell in his body hadn’t risen in revolt. Because by freezing, he would be stopping. Hell no.
He wasn’t about to stop. He had her now, he couldn’t stop.
He tasted her.
His tongue slipped over her lips, licked at them, and before he could retrieve his basic common sense, he gave in to this one hunger.
It wouldn’t go any further. He wouldn’t allow it.
But this one pleasure was incredible.
Tehya was terrified to breathe, to whimper in hunger, or to moan in pleasure. She was terrified he would stop if she did. She was entranced by the kiss she hadn’t really expected, enthralled by a hunger that suddenly exploded through her system. His tongue stroked against hers, exciting that feminine, sensual part of her that went deeper than she had ever imagined.
But oh God.
She could feel herself trembling, shaking against him. Her hand lifted, fingers outspread, not really touching him. She wanted to touch him. Desperately. Feel him. Her hands were shaking with her need to touch.
He was warm, so warm. The feel of his lips moving against hers, over them, his tongue stroking against hers, sent pleasure racing through her as she lifted, strained to get closer without gripping his arms and pulling herself straight into his embrace.
His fingers curved around her shoulders, held her to him. Her fingers curled, and before she knew it she was gripping the material of his shirt, feeling the rolled sleeves beneath them.
Okay, maybe he wouldn’t feel her hands shaking through the material of his clothing. Maybe he wouldn’t sense the incredible need that there seemed to be no escape from. A need that had tormented her since the day she first met him in Aruba.
“God. Tey.” His hands slid down her arms, gripped her hips and jerked her closer, pulling her against the hard, heated length of his cock.
Behind denim, thick and hard, the hot flesh of his erection was a wedge of temptation, a promise of satisfaction, and it was pressing into her lower stomach erotically. She could feel that promise within her grasp. His hands gripped and kneaded her ass, lifting her, the silk of her gown pressing between her legs as she felt his thigh pressing between hers, the rough denim rubbing the silk against the swollen, sensitive flesh of her sex.
She had never deemed herself a romantic person, but she saw starbursts. She felt herself melting, her knees weakening and her breathing becoming harsh and labored.
His teeth nipped at her lips as she gasped, fighting to draw in oxygen. His lips tore away from hers, the rasp of the day’s growth of his beard scraping against her jaw in a caress that had her arching closer to the incredible sensation. Finally. He was finally touching her, kissing her. Finally she was in his arms where she ached to be.
It was exquisite. It was better than she had ever imagined it could be and her imagination was damned good. Years of fantasies were finally becoming reality.
“Jordan.” The gasp of his name was a sigh of pleasure as she felt his hand move from her rear to her thigh, his fingers edging beneath the silk of her gown, the callused tips of his fingers stroking up the outside of her thigh. The rasping sensation of his flesh against hers drove her pleasure higher, hotter.
“Is this what you want, Tey?” His arm wrapped around her waist, lifted her, and before she could do more than breathe out roughly she was pressed against the wall as he gripped her thigh, pulling it to his hips as he brought her closer to the incredible warmth of his body.
Her gown fell back from her thighs as she felt his hard, muscular thigh press harder, more firmly, into the sensitive mound of her pussy.
“Jordan,” the moan rose unbidden. “I’ve needed this. I’ve needed this so desperately.”
“More?” he growled. “Do you want more, Tey?”
More? She was ready to beg for more, did that count?
Her clit throbbed. The aching torment of unquenched pleasure rose inside her, burning through her body and dampening her skin with perspiration. Her breasts were swollen and sensitive, her nipples tight and hard. Every cell in her body was screaming for his touch.
“Answer me, Tey.” Rougher, darker, his voice stroked over her senses as she felt his fingers curve over the bare flesh of her rear. “Do you want more, sweetheart? Is this what you want?” His fingers curved, pushed beneath her rear, and found the lush, slick flesh of her pussy weeping in need. Swollen, sensitive, the folds of flesh felt too hot, too slick and wet with her juices.
“Yes.” It was a hiss of exquisite pleasure the only answer she could give. His fingers stroked, rubbing against the clenched opening of her pussy, and sent rasping flares of pleasure rushing through the sensitive flesh, through her clit and straight to the inner walls of her pussy.
Oh God, she wanted to come. She was so close. She could feel the need throbbing in her clit, rushing through her veins. It was a pleasure born of emotion, and she knew it. Emotion she’d kept tightly reined, until now. Until his kiss, his touch, had released it.
Until his fingers rubbed against her opening, pressed and parted the sensitive flesh to slip inside just enough to make her entire body burn. To penetrate just deep enough to make her hungrier, to make her moan in rising excitement.
“You’ve been begging for it, Tey,” he groaned, his voice dark and rough, as the tips of his fingers stroked and rubbed sensitive flesh, sending pleasure rocking through her.
“And you haven’t?” she gasped, her head rolling against the wall as those two fingers sank just deeply enough to drag an unwilling cry from her throat. “Every time you warned one of your men off…” A startled, desperate cry tore from her lips as his fingers jerked back, then plunged forward, stroking inside her with a whiplash of intensity certain to weaken her mind. Stretching, heating, the walls of her pussy clenched desperately as though to hold his fingers locked inside her.
Her hips jerked, trying to force his fingers deeper as she felt her juices gathering, saturating his fingers as he pulled back and thrust inside her again. The shallow strokes were just enough to build the flames of sensual desperation higher.
“If one of my men had touched you, I would have had to kill him,” he suddenly snarled, his fingers fucking deeper inside her. Her pussy creamed shamefully around his fingers as pleasure surged through it. “I would have made sure he was gone, Tehya, one way or the other.”
He lifted his head and those wild blue eyes glared down at hers, his dark face flushed with lust. She fought to keep her eyes open. It was hard. She wanted to look at him, to see him as he touched her, as heated lust poured into his gaze and tightened his expression.
She had waited so long for this. For his kiss, for his touch. She didn’t want to miss so much as a single sensation or one agonizingly pleasurable moment.
He didn’t give her a chance to reply. His lips moved back to hers, kissing her with a greedy hunger that had her arching closer as her fingers gripped the back of his neck, beneath the long strands of rich, silky black hair.
She had never known sensations so rich and lush, so incredibly vivid. She had had sex before, but never had it made her mindless, made her so desperate for it that all she could do was hold on and moan incoherently for more.
A keening wail tore from her throat as the fingers lodged inside her began to rub rather than thrust. He chose a spot so ultrasensitive, so wickedly heated, that she began to shake from the sensations. With his finger curved he reach high in the back of her pussy, pressed and rubbed and sent rapture electrifying her clit.
Her entire body was stretched on a rack of such incredible pleasure that she felt intoxicated. Her senses were dazed with the overload of sensations, her pussy clenching, snug muscles tightenin
g on the two wicked fingers stroking her with diabolical torturous intent.
“There, Tey,” he panted as his lips slid from hers again. “You’re so wet, baby. So sweet and hot. So fucking tight.”
Her pussy spasmed again, her juices spilling around his fingers as his head lowered, his teeth raking against her neck while he nipped and kissed the sensitive flesh there.
The low-cut bodice of her gown was pushed aside, her breasts rising to his lips, her nipples hard, aching, as he kissed a path from one to the other.
Tehya swore she lost consciousness for a moment as his lips surrounded the hardened bud and sucked it inside with a tight, hard drawing motion of his mouth.
“Jordan … Oh God, yes,” she cried out desperately. “It’s so good. So good Jordan.”
The feel of his lips drawing on the tender tip sent exquisite, flaming pleasure racing straight to her womb. Ecstasy struck at her clit, her pussy. Fire raced through her, jerking her hips, driving her sex against his fingers as she nearly climaxed from the intensity of it.
Nearly. Almost. She was so close to coming. She could feel her orgasm just out of reach, teasing her with the promise of mindless rapture as his fingers slid back and thrust inside her, driving into the responsive tissue and stroking a maelstrom of eroticism in their wake.
“Damn you. Tey. It’s not enough. God help me, I need more of you.”
Before she could process the fact that he had moved, Tehya suddenly found herself sprawled over the low bar that separated the living area from the kitchen. Jordan’s fingers were still inside her, fucking her with forceful strokes as her hips arched, her thighs falling farther apart, while he sucked, licked, and nipped at the tender tips of her breasts once again.
She felt the wildness of his response, the hunger she had glimpsed in his eyes burning out of control as he groaned around her nipple his teeth rasping over it as his head drew back.
The blaze of lust in his brillant blue eyes seared her as he stared down at her.
“You’ll destroy us both,” he whispered as his lips moved from one nipple to its mate.
She couldn’t answer, it was all she could do to breathe. The fingers of one hand held tight to his neck as she gripped his wrist with the other, desperate to force his fingers to thrust harder, deeper inside her. To give her that extra, added sensation she needed to slip over the edge into orgasm.