"And you're just now telling me?" Her breasts were moving faster now, harder. Tight little nipples pressed against the layers of bra and blouse, assuring him that her arousal was burning just as hot, just as high, as his.
Facing her with the truth, though, that was harder. Admitting to a weakness wasn't easy for him, especially the cowardly way he had allowed the past to nearly destroy what had always been between him and Morganna.
"Yeah, I'm just now telling you." He breathed out heavily. "Because you made me feel, Morganna. You made me dream. Dream of me and you together." He glanced at her belly. "Dreams of you beneath me, growing round with my child. Dreams that were destroying me because I was terrified I was my father's son."
"You thought you would beat your child?" She stared back at him incredulously.
"Dammit, Morganna, don't stare at me like that," he growled. "His father beat him, just as his father before him did. I was concerned-"
"You are so full of bullshit!" She stomped her foot.
Now that really wasn't a good sign. Morganna was approaching eruption level when she stomped her foot.
He narrowed his eyes on her, wondering what the hell she had in her mind now. This was what he got for trying to bare his soul to her? Next time he'd just fuck her and have done with it.
"You ran because you thought you'd beat your baby? Because you thought because I wore makeup and flirted and had fun, I'd screw around on you?" Her eyes began to brighten with tears. No. Hell no. She was not going to start crying.
"You ran because the big tough he-man, the Conan of the block, couldn't make one little girl obey him like everyone else in the damned world did." She was yelling before she finished, in his face, her finger poking into his chest. "Can your bullshit, Clint. You ran because you cared. Because when you were with me, I made you feel. I made you love and you hated it."
And she was right, which he hated more. Or did he? She knew him. She had always known him. What made him angry, what made him laugh, what could make him pull his hair out in frustration. Morganna knew, like the little witch she was.
"You still don't obey. Anyone." He rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. "You drive me fucking crazy. You've always driven me crazy. You make me want to fuck you silly and at the same time I want to paddle your ass for not listening to good sense."
"Good sense being whatever you want me to do?" she argued, her eyes blazing, her breasts heaving. His dick was throbbing like an open wound even as his own frustration began to rise.
Damn, nothing turned him on faster than Morganna when she decided to get defiant.
"For God's sake, Morganna, you drove us crazy all your damned life," he snarled. "Slipping out of your room to follow me and Reno-"
"You were always catting around." She pouted. "God only knows what kind of disease you would have ended up with if you hadn't had to deal with me following you instead."
Surprise narrowed his eyes. "The parties?"
She rolled her eyes. "Oh really, Clint, you came looking for me, didn't you?"
His lips flattened. "The flirting? The boyfriends?" She breathed in mockingly as she lifted her hand, glanced at her nails, then placed her fingers on her hip as she gazed back up at him archly. "Now, Clint, would you have paid half as much attention to me over the past few years if I had sat at home and waited on you? You would have forgotten I existed." "You little minx." Astonished amusement underlay the irritation in his voice.
"Hey, a girl has to do what a girl has to do." She shrugged negligently. "But I've stopped chasing after you, Clint. I'll be damned if I'll waste any more of my time on a man who continues to run from me. Go play SEAL games or something; I have a life to get on with, and living that life doesn't include watching you leave every time you figure out that you can't control me. And it sure as hell doesn't include waiting on you to decide if I'm worthy of loving every time you get in a little snit."
"A little snit?" he growled, feeling the loss of control he always felt around her. Damn her, she could tie his guts into knots with no more than a look. "Wanting to keep that pretty little ass of yours alive doesn't constitute being in a snit, Morganna."
"You're too controlling-"
"You're too damned wild," he accused in return. "Left on your own, only God knows the chaos you'll cause. You're trouble in progress, dammit, and you know it."
She tossed her head; the seductive, sensual little movement had every instinct in his body howling to take her down. He wanted her on her knees, that pert little ass lifted to him as he plowed into her from behind.
"Whatever, SEAL-boy. Now just go away. I'm certain I'll manage fine without you."
The last parting shot should have pissed him off. Hell, he had just bared his heart to her and she came out fighting. But he saw the pain in her eyes, the hope and the dreams. Yeah, he knew Morganna way too well. She was a woman, with a woman's strange thoughts and illogical demands, a beautiful, challenging little witch, and by God, he was going to get the upper hand here if it killed him. She was daring him to do it, and he wasn't about to pass up the opportunity.
"And you think I'm just going to turn and walk out that door now?" he asked her curiously. "It's hard to believe you're giving up so easily, Morganna. You've been fighting to get me into your bed for years. I thought you were more stubborn than that."
He moved his fingers to the buttons of his shirt while he talked, flicking the little discs free as he watched her. Her eyes were locked on each movement, her cheeks flushing further as her gaze took on a hungry little gleam.
Of course she was more stubborn than that. He resisted the urge to smile, to shake his head, as he finished unbuttoning his shirt, as he pulled the hem from his jeans. Her gaze was almost a physical touch, licking over his bare chest as he shrugged from the material.
"Don't make me cut the clothes off you, baby," he warned her gently. "Take them off."
Excitement flickered in her eyes.
"I told you, I have an appointment." She crossed her arms over her breasts. "If you think getting back into my bed is going to be this easy-"
"I went to see my mother." He sat down on Morganna's bed, lifting one foot to place it on his knee as he began unlacing his hiking boots.
He watched Morganna. She became still, wary.
"Oh yeah?" she finally asked when he said nothing more.
"She said you came to visit." He pulled his boot free of his foot before lifting his other foot and working on the laces of that boot.
"Is there a point to this subject?"
He dropped the boot and stared up at her. She looked fragile, delicate, and despite her ferocity, she was just a woman. Created to be protected, cherished.
"Why did you go see her?"
Her lips firmed as the irritation in her gaze turned to anger.
"She pretends to be so caring," Morganna snarled. "She had the nerve to call here, to see if I knew where you were. Pretending to be worried because she hadn't heard from you." She swiped at the tear that fell from her eye. "I wanted to face her. I wanted to see the monster I knew she was."
"And what did you see?"
She looked away, her lower lip trembling.
"You didn't see a monster," he told her softly. "You just saw an old, very selfish woman. You saw something you couldn't fix."
Another tear tracked down her cheek.
"I love you, Morganna," he whispered. "I'm not hiding from that any longer. I'm not running anymore. I'm scared shitless, though; I'll tell you that right now. The thought of destroying that love, of destroying your belief in me, terrifies me."
He watched her swallow tightly as she gazed back at him, her face-becoming damper with her tears. He rose from the bed, unable to stand those tears, to bear the pain in her eyes.
Clint reached out to her, fighting the trembling in his hands as he clasped her face, his thumbs easing the dampness from her cheeks.
"I'll never leave you again," he swore, knowing that running was no longer an option. "You'll drive me c
razy, I'll go gray early, but I'll always love you, Morganna. With everything inside me, I'll love you ... and any children you allow me to father."
She gasped, a shudder working through her as her lips parted, the tears running faster.
"I love you." Her whispered sob ripped through his heart with a joy and a hope that filled every particle of his being. "Oh God, Clint, I love you."
Chapter 30
HE HAD SAID THE C-WORD. "Children." The L-word. "Love." Morganna felt the aching, desolate emptiness that had held her for the past five days ease from her body as Clint's lips covered hers.
The feel of his lips moving on hers, his tongue licking, teeth nipping, had her reaching for more, wishing she could crawl into his body and hold on to him forever.
"The clothes are coming off, Morganna," he growled a second before his hands moved, his fingers curling into the low neckline of the shirt and tearing it apart.
Buttons scattered as she felt him pulling her arms from his shoulders before he jerked the material from them.
"I should tie you down and cut those jeans off." His hands tore at the metal buttons. "But damn, they look good on you, baby. I might want to see you in them again sometime."
"I might let you." Morganna fought to pant for breath as Clint knelt in front of her, slowly drawing the jeans down her thighs, lifting one ankle, then the other until he was tossing the material away.
"You take my breath away." He laid his head against her stomach, his lips pressing against her skin, his tongue flickering against her belly ring, tasting her skin as she shuddered in his grip.
Calloused fingertips rotated against her outer thighs, smoothed over her flesh, sent razor-sharp explosions of need echoing through her womb. She could feel the pleasure racing through her nerve endings, his touch, heated, moving deeper than flesh alone as his fingers moved slowly closer to the aching center of her body.
"You're making my knees weak," she whispered breathlessly, her fingers clenching in his shoulders as the slow-building burn began to encompass her body.
Morganna could feel the heated slide of dampness from her vagina, the swollen nub of her clitoris, her nipples sensitizing. Each touch of his fingertips, each slow, sensual drag drawing closer to the small triangle of silk covering her sex, had the veil of sensuality thickening around her.
She could feel the perspiration gathering on her body, between her breasts. Each panting breath rasped her nipples against the delicate lace of her bra; each suspended moment brought Clint closer to his goal.
"You bewitch me," he breathed against the moist silk between her thighs, sending shards of incredible pleasure to tear through her body.
"Clint." Whether her whispered plea was a protest or a whimper for more, she couldn't say.
His hand moved, his fingertips rasping against the silk covering the swollen folds of her sex as she shivered before him. The other moved to her rear, curving beneath a rounded buttock in support.
"You smell like summer." He nuzzled his lips against the damp material as a broken cry fell from her lips. She was shaking in need; perched on the edge of an arousal so intense she wasn't certain she could survive it.
"I love your touch," she panted. "Your hands, your lips ..." She was almost sobbing with the need for more, the need to feel him against her, surrounding her, penetrating her.
"Ah, baby, no more than I love touching." He drew the silk aside before giving the slick flesh a long, loving lick, drawing her moisture to him, feasting on the taste of her.
Her thighs parted further at the urging of his hands, her legs shaking as she fought for the strength to stand before him.
His tongue rasped over the delicate, tender bud at the apex of her mound, licking around it, drawing it into his mouth before suckling at it with greedy pulls of his mouth.
Her womb rippled with the incredible pleasure; her vagina convulsed with the need to be filled. Her hips pressed closer to his lips as her hands moved to his head, fingers burying into the silk of her hair as she opened herself further for him, pleading for release.
"As intoxicating as the finest wine," he whispered against her saturated flesh before kissing at her clit with gentle suction. "Come for me now, baby. Fill me with sweetness."
Two long, broad fingers slid inside the hungry depths of her vagina as his lips circled her clitoris, drew on it, his tongue flickering over it with devastating results.
She came apart beneath the onslaught, her body tightening, arching, suspended within a pleasure that sent starbursts shattering through her mind.
The world tilted as the quakes of pleasure tore through her. The feel of the mattress at her back was quickly followed by the rending of the silk between her thighs. Morganna opened her eyes, staring into the brilliance of Clint's dark blue eyes as he pushed her thighs up, back, then filled her.
The burning pleasure tore through her vagina, clenched her womb, and had her arching closer. Her hips writhed as he worked inside her, spearing the depths of her sex with such incredible rapture that she was screaming with it.
Her nails bit into his shoulders, her back arched.
"There, baby... so sweet, so tight." Clint strained against her, pushing inside her with greedy thrusts, stroking nerve endings so sensitized that the next orgasm sent her screaming with the pleasure.
"More," he groaned, his voice hoarse, desperate, as he pushed her further, sending her peaking again, hard tremors shuddering through her as she felt him tighten above her.
Three hard, fierce thrusts heralded his release. He drove inside her with a near-violent surge before catching her orgasm at its peak as his own release joined hers. She felt the hard spurts of semen filling her, the rich heat, a bonding as she melded into him, as he melded to her.
"I love you...." His voice was a strangled vow at her ear.
"With all I am, Morganna, I love you "
Epilogue
DIEGO FUENTES SAT SILENTLY behind his desk, staring at the waves breaking over the California coast below the mountainside home.
His steepled fingers rested against his chin, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully at the sun setting in the distance. Behind him, the report that had been faxed in was crumpled on his desk from the fury that had driven into his brain as he read it.
The lab had been destroyed. The potent date rape drug known on the streets as Whores Dust was gone forever. The stupid scientist had refused to give Diego the recipe for it, and it was so complicated that so far the others he had working on it had yet to duplicate it properly.
It had something to do not so much with the ingredients as it did with the production of those ingredients.
Ah well. He had quite a bit stocked in a little-known warehouse, and though it wasn't enough to make available on the streets, it would be enough for other uses perhaps.
"Don Diego." His new general knocked briefly at the door before stepping inside. "More reports have come in."
Diego turned in his chair to watch as the older man entered the room.
Saul had at one time been Diego's father's advisor. He had returned this past year to advise Diego and now, with Roberto's death, had agreed to take the helm as Diego's second. Saul was a good man. A cold, merciless man.
"Come in, Saul." Diego smiled benignly. "What more could those bastard DEA agents have taken from me?"
"Grant Samuels' journal," Saul answered. "Our men have found only those filled with his lurid imaginings of his wife.
We have not yet found the one that reveals the secrets Carmelita gave him."
Carmelita. Diego sighed. He had loved her. Loved her until there was no reasoning involved. And she had betrayed him so many times and with so many men.
"What of our SEAL?" There was another loose end. "He is still secure?"
"He's secure." Saul's lips lifted into a cruel smile. "The latest batch of the drug that Dr. Germano created seems to have promise. We'll break him yet."
Breaking the SEAL had become a compulsion. He was strong. So strong that he had resis
ted the Whores Dust for over a year now. He had yet to take any of the women locked into his cell with him. Though Diego could tell it was wearing away at the man's sanity. Soon the SEAL would find his release in a body other than his wife's, and then Diego could kill him.
But until then, they had that damned journal to deal with.
"Samuel's wife would know," Diego said pensively. "Take her and question her. If she does not talk, then you can give her to your men for their trouble. Watch Merino as well. He will not give up until he finds the journal. If the wife does not know where it is, then Merino will find it."
"Those were my thoughts as well." Saul nodded. "His daily journals speak of the secret one often. Merino will not be able to resist searching for it."
Diego smiled at that. The journals spoke often of Grant's wife and betrayed her with every stroke of his pen. Not that she knew a damned thing her husband was involved in, but Grant had planned carefully in the event of his arrest. Too bad the bastard had not planned for his death.
"Take the wife. And please arrange for an accident for the faithless Jenna. A painful one."
"It will be arranged." Saul nodded. "I've also finalized the plans to draw in your son, my friend. Striking the senator's daughter once again should pull him in. We should have no
problems now that the spies within your organization are gone. Once we secure the journal, we can then proceed with our plan to acquire his loyalty. Everything will run smoothly from here on out."
Yes, it would. Saul was now in charge, and he trusted no one. Least of all a woman. Perhaps he had a chance, though, with his son. The boy he had been unaware of for much too long.
Women. They could not be trusted. They were, as his father had warned him, traitorous whores who were less than the dogs who served them. At least the dogs, animals though they were, knew loyalty. But sons, true sons, a son with the power, strength, and honor this one possessed. Such a son would be an asset.