Holding her kiss, he lifted her until her ass met the table. His fingers moved to the band of her silken slacks, released them hurriedly, then undid the zipper before stripping them and her panties from her.
The light shirt was easy to remove from her. She'd torn his shirt; he ripped hers from her back and gloried in the strangled cry of excitement that fell from her lips. This hunger raged higher, hotter, than ever before. He couldn't hold himself back; he couldn't grasp the self-control he had managed to lose his grip on because of her. She was a live fire in his arms, tempting him, drawing him into a web of such hunger and need that it ripped past his defenses, tearing through a part of his soul he'd believed was forever gone.
That part of him was raging how. It was burning out of control. It was tearing aside the veil of self-protection that was far thinner than he'd ever believed. Naked now, her neck arching back as his lips traveled down along her jaw, her neck, to the pert, hard nipples reaching for his lips.
Or were his lips reaching for her nipples?
They were candied pink and so fucking sweet he wanted to drown in the taste of them. He wanted to intoxicate himself with her. He wanted to taste her until his senses were so sated with her that she would never torment him again. So sated that once he had to walk away, he would have her with him forever.
Drawing one of the tight pink tips into his mouth, he sucked it inside, flicking his tongue over it, laving it, loving it with every taste of her. He moaned with a hunger that went clear to his soul.
God help him, he would never be free of her. He would never be free because the more he tasted her, the more he needed her. The higher the hunger rose. Trailing his lips from her nipples, along her stomach, Nik pressed her back along the table, spreading her thighs, lifting her legs, until the sweet, silken curl-shrouded folds of her pussy lifted to his lips.
Soft, delicate dark pink flesh was revealed as those folds parted. The tiny pearl of her clit revealed itself, the snug opening to the fist-tight portal of her pussy. His dick was so damned hard it felt ready to burst. The need to thrust inside her was overpowered by only one thing.
The need to taste.
As he lowered his lips, his tongue swiped through the delicate slit, flickered around her clit, and relished the taste of feminine heat that exploded against it. Sweet, silken. Nik groaned at the exquisite taste of her.
Lifting his lashes, he watched as her eyes opened, held her sensually drowsy gaze 190
as he let her watch him lick around her clit.
Fairy eyes. Amethyst and violet shifted in her eyes as she watched, her lips parting as her breasts rose and fell erratically.
Ah, God. Her hands were cupping her breasts, her fingers going for her nipples. Nik curled his tongue around the delicate tissue of her clit before licking over it. Watching her, wondering how brave she would become, he kissed the little knot delicately before moving lower.
He wanted to taste the sweet dew easing from her pussy. Slick and hot, like the richest syrup.
His tongue flicked over the entrance.
Her fingers moved from her nipples, her hands smoothing down her stomach. Fuck. She was going to destroy him. He could see it in her eyes. Naked challenge glittered in her eyes as her fingers eased lower, her hips lifting, her pussy growing wetter, hotter, beneath his tongue as her fingers reached her clit.
Delicate, graceful. A single fingertip rubbed against the side of the small knot as her expression began to go slack with sensual delight.
Slim hips rose and fell to his tongue as he pushed it inside the snug depths of her pussy. Silken muscles clenched on his tongue, fluttering like a butterfly's wings against his tongue.
His hands tore at the fastening of his jeans as her delicate feet pressed against his shoulders. Her hips arched fiercely, forcing his tongue deeper as he fucked into it with a muttered growl.
She made him feel like an animal. So hungry, so desperate, that nothing mattered but taking her, possessing her, marking her.
Fucking her until every part of himself lived within her. It was the only way to sate the craving crawling through him now.
As her fingers stroked her reddening clit, Nik pulled his tongue from the addictive recess of her feminine heat and lifted his head until he could catch those fingers in his mouth.
Sucking the sweetness from them, he nibbled at the tender tips, licked them, then lifted her fingers from her flesh.
Rising, Nik gripped her ankles, wrapping them around his hips as he came over her.
Excitement raged through Mikayla. It was burning through her. The storm of sensation tearing through her had her heart racing, her pulse beating in her veins as Nik rose over her. His cock pressed against the folds of her pussy, parting her as he straightened, gripped her hips, and began to sink inside her. She watched, her breath catching, tiny mewls of pleasure falling from her lips as she watched the head of his cock stretch her until the pleasure/pain of the entrance began to rage through her.
"Yeah, watch me fuck you, baby. See how that pretty pussy stretches for me." The words. So explicit. So sensual. A wave of sensation tore through her at the sound of them, stoking the pleasure higher.
Her curl-shrouded folds parted for his cock, hugged the heavy shaft. She wanted him inside her. Fully. She wanted all of him. Oh, God, she wanted him inside her and he was going so damned slow.
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Dizziness washed over her as the intensity of the sensations began to rock her. As she lifted her hands, her nails scraped down his abdomen, her knees bending back to take more of him, her eyes locking with his as he tightened before her. She could barely breathe, the pleasure was so great now.
"What are you waiting for?" she cried out.
"You," he growled. "How fucking hot you make me, Mikayla. So fucking tight and sweet."
She was doing this to him. The pleasure gleamed in his eyes, hot and bright.
"Are you going to talk all night or fuck me now?" she moaned. His gaze flared, his body tightening further. Drawing back, he pushed in hard, fast. Mikayla felt the scream that tore from her lips as pleasure began to slam inside her with the same force of the thrusts of his cock working inside her. She watched him lose control. The cords of his neck tightened, standing out in stark relief as sweat began to bead on his forehead and shoulders. His hips began to move faster, stronger, his cock stretching her with a fiery burn as he impaled her to the hilt. She felt his balls pressed against her for only a second. She felt his cock throbbing at her innermost walls for the smallest amount of time.
Pain and pleasure beat inside her, the burn both exhilarating and unbearable. Striking hard inside her, the flaming sensations began to explode and rupture through her pussy, her clit, her very womb. The orgasm was a detonation that sent a tidal wave of pure white-hot sensation tearing through her.
It destroyed her. It remade her. It flowed through her, wrapped around her, and as she felt Nik bucking hard and heavy inside her, his semen spurting, it swamped her senses and seared each delicate nerve ending in her body.
It was like dying and being reborn.
Collapsing back against her table, Mikayla fought to catch her breath, to find a semblance of sanity where she was certain no sanity could be found. As the last of the tremors began to slowly recede inside her, Mikayla lifted her lashes, staring up as Nik slowly levered himself from her.
"Nik." She stopped him, her hand lifting weakly to her face. "If you do this without me, then whatever we have between us will be damaged."
"And no doubt, it would be best for both of us if it were simply destroyed." She stared back at him, something crashing inside her chest, restricting her heart as she felt him ease from her, the still-hard length of his cock deserting her, just as the warmth of his body did.
She couldn't speak.
She couldn't hold on to the pain that bloomed inside her with the force of a blow. And she couldn't stop the tears from filling her eyes. They didn't fall. She would be damned if she was going to cry for him. She wasn't
going to cry over him. She felt sick inside. Her stomach was cramping with the pain, with the tears that wanted to fall.
Lifting herself slowly from the table, she ignored him, aware of him watching her, aware of the dark, brutal grief that reflected in his gaze. A grief that built inside her with a force she couldn't fight.
She was going to cry.
It almost tore free. It almost bled inside her.
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"Mikayla." He caught her as she turned to rush from the room.
"Don't." Desperation shuddered through her. "Let me go."
"You don't understand," he whispered. "Listen to me, Mikayla. You don't know who I am. You don't know what I am. Don't love me, baby. Don't hurt us both like this." She shook her head. How was she supposed to answer him? How was she supposed to survive the pain inside her when she knew that whatever it was that kept tugging them closer was something he wanted destroyed. He didn't want whatever she had to give. She had been right in what she had said before: he wanted nothing but the fuck.
"I can't let this happen." His voice was hardening.
"Then don't."
Jerking away from him, naked, fighting back tears, she rushed from the sewing room for the safety of her bedroom.
In that moment she realized she had been hoping. Hoping so much. A part of her had been hiding that hope even from herself. A hope that Nik would at least allow a small measure of what she felt into his heart.
Just a little bit. She wasn't asking for much. Just enough that maybe he would think of her when he was gone. That maybe, oh God, maybe one day he would come back to her.
Rushing to the bathroom, she closed the door behind her, flattened her back to it, and let the first tear fall.
She wasn't going to cry for him. She was crying for herself.
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Chapter 21
As Ian and Kira arrived at the house more than an hour later, Nik watched Mikayla warily. She was composed, no hint of the tears he knew she had shed in her eyes, and no hint of the anger.
It was as if what had happened in the sewing room, the pleasure, the pain, the nightmares resurfacing inside his mind, had never occurred.
But evidently his own composure wasn't nearly as strong as he thought.
"What's going on, Renegade?" Ian asked as they moved onto the back deck with a beer.
"You were the one who wanted to meet," Nik reminded him as he finished his second beer. "I could be in bed sleeping now. So, I'd say that's my question."
"Yeah, but I'm not the one who looks like a train wreck and Kira's not wearing makeup to hide the fact she's been crying," Ian pointed out. Nik glanced back at him.
To look at him, no one would ever know that the former Navy SEAL was the son of a former South American drug cartel leader. Or that he had single-handedly brought his father down.
Ian Richards was one of the few men Nik trusted. He was also one of the few who knew Nik's secrets and the life he lived.
"She wants more than I can give," he stated as he gritted his teeth in frustration.
"She thinks her life is a fucking game and going with me to meet Kefler is a damned walk in the park."
She thought she should be able to love him and that he should be able to love in return. How did a man go about convincing a fairy that fairy tales simply did not exist?
"She's nothing like Tatyiana, Nik."
Nik's fists clenched. He never spoke his deceased wife's name. He never thought it. The guilt of his own absence in their marriage had the power to make him want to cringe in shame and anger, and her name was only a reminder of the fact that his wife and daughter had died because of his neglect of his marriage.
"Mikayla doesn't seem like a woman who would allow you to forget you had a wife. She's proving now that she would insert herself where she feels she belongs," Ian continued.
"Do you think I don't know that?" Nik kept his back to the other man as he finished the beer quickly.
"Then what's the problem? She's a damned fine woman from what I hear. You could do a hell of a lot worse," Nik was advised.
"Who said I was looking?" Nik growled, anger surging inside him. Ian chuckled. "That's when you find it, Nik. When it's the most inconvenient thing that could happen in your life."
"What was so important that you had to come here?" Nik turned back to Ian, careful to keep his expression unemotional, unaffected.
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Ian's lips quirked into a rueful smile as he stared back at Nik through the darkness.
"Kefler is dangerous," Ian stated. "But for the meet you're requesting, it would be safe enough to take her. What you need to know is some information Kira and I uncovered. He's not just backing certain construction projects; a contact I found says he's out to help someone else break Nelson and take his business over. No one knows who the partner is, but it's someone Kefler thinks he can control." Nik could feel his back teeth grinding in frustration. "Oh, but it's safe enough to take Mikayla to a meet and greet, right?"
Ian inclined his head. "No one's pretending he's a good guy, Nik, but he's a part of a network as well. One that's ensuring her safety."
Nik's eyes narrowed at the lowered tone and the information. That network could mean only one thing: Martin Kefler was a law enforcement informant.
"You know how it works," Ian continued. "He's given the white-glove treatment and certain leeway in exchange for services rendered. That doesn't mean he's not one of the meanest sharks in the pool, but it does mean he can be required to give certain favors."
"And the favor?" Nik growled.
"You need information and the assurance that no one in his little group will strike at your woman. You have that."
He should flat tell Ian now that Mikayla wasn't his. His lips were parting to do just that, but the words wouldn't come.
"I'll take that into consideration," Nik bit off.
Ian nodded slowly. "What are you fighting so hard, Nik? Do you think you don't deserve a life now?"
No, he didn't. He'd failed when it had mattered most. When the only innocence he had known in his life had depended on him, he had failed.
"Let it go, Ian." The rage was beginning to spark inside Nik once again, a rage he remembered from that long-ago night when he had stained his hands with the blood of fellow soldiers and murdered the man who had been the cause of that destruction. Nik had nearly died himself.
He had wanted to die, but he'd lived instead. To suffer? He'd often wondered. Was that why his soul had refused to simply drift away?
Ian breathed out heavily. "No one would begrudge you a little happiness after all these years, especially Nicolette."
Something crashed inside Nik's soul. He swore he felt something splinter in his heart, the pain went so deep.
"Let this go." He heard his own voice, heard the ice dripping from it, felt the fury threatening to engulf it.
"Yeah, sure, Nik, I'll let it go," Ian sighed. "But you're going to break that young woman's heart in there, and when you do, you'll suffer for it as well." He was already suffering. God knew the pain was sinking sharpened talons so deep inside his flesh he wondered if he were bleeding from it.
"I want backup." He returned to the subject at hand. "When the meet comes down, I'll let you know. I want you there. Nothing matters but her." He stared back at the other man demandingly. "Do you understand that, Ian? No matter what happens, screw the 195
others. She's all that matters."
Screw the Elite Ops, the organization Nik was a part of and the men who had pulled him out of hell and those who had paid a fortune to re-create him. The past ten years and the promises of faith he had made meant nothing when compared to the woman whose heart he was breaking.
"That goes without saying, Nik," Ian promised him. "A few of the guys from the backup team are close by on leave. We were getting together for a week before we went back on mission status. We're standing by for you. Just as Jordan is if you need him." Yeah, Nik's commander would bitch and moan and cuss a blue streak, bu
t he would do whatever he needed to do.
Nik nodded sharply.
"Anyway," Ian stated heavily. "What did you find out from Holbrook?"
"Confirmation Kefler is indeed backing him," Nik stated before relating details of the meeting to the other man.
"We're still working on the financials of everyone involved, but just from what I've seen so far, there was a hell of a lot of money being exchanged between Kefler and Holbrook. There are some other anomalies as well, but we're still working on those."
"There's something damned strange going on," Nik agreed. "And not just with the money. I can't fit the pieces together. If I look at it logically, Maddix has to be involved, but that alibi is going to be damned hard to break."
Ian nodded. "Stay on Holbrook and Kefler until we turn up something on the numbers," he advised. "You're going to need ammunition before you go to Nelson or the members of that alibi. Let's get our information together; then you can strike." Then he would kill. If Maddix was the reason Mikayla was in danger, then nothing would save him from Nik.
His fists clenched at the thought. The thought that Maddix might have used him against Mikayla, used him to make her look foolish, or like a liar, enraged him.
"What the hell do you think is going on with this, Nik?" Ian asked. "Ms. Martin's standing in the community is exemplary. None of the teenage high jinks her brothers and friends got into. No drinking, no drugs. She's quiet, dependable, and compassionate. And this has shed a shadow across that reputation she's obviously worked so hard to attain."
"Someone's using her," Nik stated. "The further this goes, the more apparent it becomes. To stop it, I have to find a killer."
"It doesn't make sense." Ian shook his head. "Her reputation could effectively destroy a normal alibi. If it was Maddix, why use a woman with her reputation?" Nik shook his head before rubbing at the back of his neck. "That's one of the reasons I ruled out Maddix in the killing. He knows Mikayla. He knew her reputation. He knew she would be there. He knew she would recognize him. Why use her? Why bring me in? Until I can answer these questions, Ian, then this isn't finished."