“You’re hot,” he grunted, rolling his hips against her ass as he slid one hand around her hip, his fingers seeking out the hard bud of her clit. “Are you ready to scream, Emory?”
He pinched her clit, a sharp, insistent touch and she wailed out his name as he pulled out, and then slammed back inside her.
The pain and the pleasure…they mingled, became one until she could not tell one sensation from the other. Screaming out his name, she climaxed, feeling the hot rush of fluid as it flowed from her, soaking her thighs and his hand as he started to fuck his fingers in and out of her pussy.
Drained, Emory felt her body trying to collapse to the bed but Joel continued to grip one hip with a hard hand, his hips pumping, his cock digging into her ass with hard, short thrusts.
“I’m not done with you yet,” he grunted, pulling his fingers from her pussy, trailing the damp pads along her torso before he gripped her waist and jerked her body upright. “You haven’t screamed enough…”
Scream…damn it, she couldn’t scream anymore. Her throat was hoarse, her mind going dark with exhaustion and pleasure and confusion, her entire body quivering from his touch. “Joel,” she whimpered, clutching at the arm banded around her waist.
He rolled his hips against her ass and she shuddered as the movement pushed his cock deeper inside her bottom. His teeth raked along her neck, his chin pushing her hair out of his way so he could whisper in her ear, “I told you…I don’t dream of making love to you until you sigh. I dream of fucking you so hard, so deep, you don’t know where you end and I begin. You’re mine, Emory. You’ll scream that out when I’m done with you.”
His arm released her waist and she sagged back against the bed, her breasts pressing flat against the sheets, while his hands gripped her waist, holding her ass up for the plundering thrusts of his cock. His hands gripped her cheeks, pulling them apart just a little as he pulled out, a slow, torturous stroke, then surged back in, his movements slow and thorough, designed to tease her back into mindless arousal without allowing her to come.
“You’re mine, aren’t you?” he purred gruffly, and she shivered at the rough sound.
Sucking in air, she whimpered out, “Hell, yes.”
“Scream it…” he started plunging harder, his cock penetrating the tender tissues of her ass, harder, faster, his fingers biting into the soft skin of her hips.
“Yours,” she moaned.
He stilled, reaching up to brush her hair aside, and she could feel his eyes on her face. Rolling her eyes just a little, she met the dark, turbulent blue of his gaze, watching as his lips moved, shaking at his words.
“You’re not screaming it…scream it, Emory. Tell me that you’re mine and you’ll do any damned thing I want.”
The words locked in her throat. Her fingers closed convulsively around the sheets and she mewled, rocking her hips back against him.
He snarled and shoved forward, using his weight to crush her into the bed, surrounding her. His hands came up, catching hers and pinning them to the bed. Instinctive fear rose, and he rasped against her ear, “No. You’re mine, don’t think of him…don’t think of anything but what I’m doing to you. I’m fucking you, fucking your tight little ass, making you scream…” His tongue trailed a slow line along her shoulder, up her neck. Then he sank his teeth into the fleshy pad of muscle on her shoulder. “Marking you.”
The hot, burning pain of his teeth tore through her and she screamed, startled by the hot wash of pleasure it sent through her.
His hips kept hers pinned as she tried to rock against him, kept her from moving more than a scant inch one way or the other. Emory screamed out in frustration as she tried to ride the thick pillar of flesh impaling her, swearing hoarsely.
“What do you want, Emory?” he rasped against her damp flesh.
Her nipples ached and swelled, almost as if that voice was a caress. Her pussy burned, ached, so empty… And she could feel each hard pulse that echoed through her womb, tightening her clit. She needed to come, couldn’t breathe…
“Damn it, Joel, fuck me!” she pleaded, screaming it out as she tried to shove back against him. “Fuck me, please!”
Slowly, his hips retreated and her breath lodged in her lungs as she prepared for a hard, heavy thrust. “You know what I want to hear,” he purred, sinking slowly back inside, the tight tissues of her anal sheath resisting his entry.
“I’m yours,” she sobbed out, the words tearing from her throat painfully. Tears burned in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks and her entire body went limp under his. “I’m yours, Joel. I’ll do anything, everything you want…just fuck me.”
His hips withdrew and he slammed into her once, then he lodged back inside her, laying his cheek along hers. “Tell me you love me.”
Her heart slammed against her ribs and she jerked against him. Love…had she ever thought about the word connected to Joel? She knew she needed him, had relied on him, then she’d learned to live without him. But she hadn’t really been alive until she felt his hands on her again. If that wasn’t love…it was damned close.
The truth rushed through her with blinding intensity and her lashes drifted closed, a small, replete smile on her lips, even though her body ached for fulfillment. Softly, she whispered, “I love you, Joel.”
He shifted again, rising to his knees, bringing her with him, his hands on her hips so that once more, her ass was lifted for him. He throbbed and jerked inside her ass and she whimpered, shivering around him. Without saying a single word, he started shafting her, pumping his cock in and out of her ass, his thrusts deep and hard and strong.
Keening in her throat, she exploded around him, bucking against him, thrashing against the sheets as she came. The orgasm didn’t roll through her this time, it clawed its way through her with a biting intensity that was damn close to painful.
As she slumped against the sheets once more, she felt him come, the hot wash of his seed flooding her depths. A hoarse moan fell from him and then he, too, sagged against her, rolling to the side so that he didn’t pin her underneath him.
That had been the most exquisite sexual encounter he’d ever had.
And guilt damn near choked him.
Emory lay on her side, curled into a ball, the slim line of her back shuddering and shaking.
Hesitantly he reached out and touched her shoulder. “Are you okay?” he whispered gruffly, tugging her onto her back, afraid to look into her eyes, but refusing to take the coward’s way out.
The soft, smooth flesh of her body was marred here and there by faint red marks from his mouth. As he pushed up onto his elbow, staring down at her, he saw faint purplish marks on her hips from where he had gripped her soft skin as he fucked her.
He’d marked her.
Nausea roiled inside his gut, but he still had to look into her face. Had to see what he had broken…
The soft smile on her face startled him. Her eyes were hazy, clouded with satisfaction. “Okay? Ummm…I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay again…” she stretched her arms over her head, and then she giggled. “Damn, how can I handle going back to feeling okay, after feeling like this?”
Joel licked his lips. Confused, uncertain…but he knew what that look on a woman’s face meant. “I didn’t hurt you?”
Her eyes cleared just a little, as she shrugged. “I don’t know. Haven’t taken stock yet…but if you did, it was worth it.”
Her arms came around his neck and he sank against her, cuddling his head between her breasts. “I shouldn’t treat you like that,” he muttered. “You don’t deserve…”
Her fingers came up to lie across his mouth. “I deserve to be treated like a woman. To know that you want me, that you want to make me feel a pleasure so damned intense it hurts.”
Wrapping his arms around her waist, he burrowed against her. “I want you like that…so much it hurts. But that doesn’t—”
She stiffened in his arms, shoving at him until he finally let her go. As she sat up, she winced in pain
, shifting so that her weight was on her hip, not her butt. Shame rolled through him once more and he looked away.
But her hands came up to cup his face, bringing his eyes back to hers. “Don’t.” She cuddled against him, lying down beside him and wrapping her arms around his neck. “Don’t. I’m not broken inside—not anymore. I was, until you came into my life. But I’m not broken now—you make me whole and I love the way you make me feel inside.”
She kissed his neck. “I love you, Joel. More than anything.”
The knot in his chest finally loosened and he sucked air, wrapping his arms around her tightly, crushing her against him. “I love you.”
She sighed against him as he lay back on the bed, keeping her tight against his chest. “Don’t ever stop, okay?”
Chapter Ten
Emory narrowed her eyes until just a thin rim of gray showed around the black of her pupils. Propping her hands on her hips, she glared at Joel with an outraged look on her face.
“You want me to what?”
Joel mildly replied, “I want you to leave. I’ll handle this. And I’ll deal better knowing you are far away from him.”
Sputtering, she demanded, “And where in the hell am I supposed to go that he can’t find me?”
Joel levelly returned her furious glare as he coolly said, “Within ten seconds of him stepping onto your property, he’s dead, so it won’t matter.”
“If it’s that easy, then why in the world do I have to go?”
Joel crossed to her, that slight smile on his handsome face, his eyes meeting hers, the dark blue gaze impossibly warm, impossibly gentle. “So I don’t have to worry, Emory. He won’t come alone. I know I can handle him, and most of his lackeys, but I’m too realistic to risk taking the chance of something going wrong.”
Poking out her lip, she sulked. Damn it, she should be overjoyed at the thought of running…she would have been, a day ago. What had changed?
Everything…
The knot of fear that had lived inside her for so long was gone. Joel would take care of her. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her…and she felt compelled to do the same with him. She didn’t like the thought of driving away from him, leaving him to face that monster she’d foolishly married.
Vincent Grainger was a monster, a monster in a silk suit. He had played the part of the dashing, enchanting older man very well, suckering her in. She hadn’t been the only one, but that hadn’t made the sting any less. She felt as if she needed to be here when it ended.
But gazing into Joel’s eyes, she knew she wouldn’t.
If he was worried about her, that meant he’d take less care of himself.
“Where do I go?” she asked thickly, swallowing around the knot that had formed in her throat.
For one second, his eyes closed and the subtle tension in his body relaxed. “To the cabin…remember our cabin?”
Emory nodded slowly. “When do I go?”
“Now. He could be here any time. And don’t drive straight out…go up Highway 3, head toward Indianapolis, then head east from there. Take your phone…if you need me, call me. But he’s going to be expecting you to be here.” He brushed his lips across hers, and Emory felt a bittersweet pain fill her heart. “I’ll come for you when it’s done.”
Stepping back, he squeezed her arms reassuringly then jerked his head toward the bedroom. “Grab a few things…and get out of here. Don’t tell anybody.”
She rolled her eyes, turning away with a huff. “Who in the hell am I going to tell?”
Joel asked softly, “Where are you going?”
She pointed at the door at the end of the hall. “That’s the attic. That’s where my bags are stored. You don’t mind if I take a bag with me, do you?” She batted her lashes at him, and when he scowled at her, she just snorted. “You’ve lost your sense of humor.”
Joel lughed quietly. “I never really had much of one to begin with…”
Whatever else he said was too faint for her to hear as she quickly climbed the steps. Get out…now, before she changed her mind.
It was better this way, anyway. Safer.
She crossed the dust covered floor of the attic to the pile of luggage under the window that faced the front of the house. As she bent to grab her duffel bag, something caught her eye.
Slowly, she straightened, her heart banging against her ribs as the black Benz pulled into the driveway.
The bag fell from her limp fingers and she inched back one tiny step at a time as she watched the driver’s door open. Carter… She swallowed. Her throat was so tight, it hurt.
She heard Joel’s furious growl filtering through the vent right at her feet. “Joel?” she called out softly.
“I see him,” he said softly, his voice carried through the vents and old ductwork.
Wrapping her arms around herself, she watched as Carter moved to the back door and opened it.
Carter…one of Vincent’s most trusted goons.
He was a goon, a big, baldheaded man who looked as if he belonged in a wrestling ring. His eyes were small and mean, too close together, and his mouth was too big for his head, his lips thin to the point of being nonexistent. Feet pounded on the steps and she turned slowly and stared into Joel’s eyes. He crossed to her and grabbed her arms, shaking her slightly. “Stay up here, Emory. You hear me? If there’s some place to hide, then do it, but stay here.”
He pressed a hard, fast kiss to her brow and was moving down the stairs by the time a firm knock sounded on the door.
That knock seemed so out of place.
Vincent was here to kill Joel. She knew it in her gut. But he was knocking…
A hysterical laugh rose in her throat and desperately, she muffled it, her eyes wheeling around the large, empty expanse of the attic. Hide? Where in the hell was there to hide?
There was a pile of boxes in one corner and that was the best she could do. Grimly, she started to cross the attic, stepping lightly, scared of making a single sound.
Cold chills broke over her and she wrapped her arms around her body, rubbing at her flesh, feeling the goose bumps break out. Cold. Nerves, that was all…right?
As she rounded the edge of the stack of boxes, she breathed out shakily.
That was when she noticed her breath was forming puffs of fog in the air. In an attic that had no air conditioning…on a day that was nearly seventy. Slowly, she turned around.
A faint white haze met her eyes and then darkness rushed up, taking her mind and pulling her into unconsciousness.
Joel felt the chill in the air and he wanted to swear.
Damn it, he couldn’t deal with Carly right now.
He’d moved in a circle through the house, not wanting them to see his shadow as he approached the door. Drawing his gun, he took the safety off, holding it in a loose grip, breathing in slow, shallow breaths.
Through the thin glass panes of the door, he could hear their voices as they murmured, and then there was another loud knock. A final one. Carter bellowed out, “Open the door, Tracy. Don’t make your husband wait any longer.”
The temperature continued to plunge as Carter broke out one beveled pane of glass in the door with the butt of his gun. He stepped through slowly, swinging his head to the left, then to the right and that was when Joel pulled the trigger.
Carter was dead before he hit the ground and Joel dove across the hall, keeping the planter wall that divided the dining room from the living room between him and Vincent.
“That wasn’t very smart, Joel,” Vincent said, his voice cold and flat with anger.
Keeping his back pressed against the wall, he stared into the hall, watching for the shadows on the floor to shift. “Maybe not, but it sure as hell felt good. I’ve wanted that bastard dead for ten years now.”
“You killed one of my best men, Joel. You know I can’t let that pass. One thing to kill some useless punks I hire off the street, another to kill an important member of my organization.”
His voice was getting fai
nter and Joel circled around the wall just in time to see Vincent heading down the other hall, the one that would lead to the kitchen, and then into the dining room. The stairwell leading to the bedrooms was at the end of the hall, and Joel had to keep him downstairs.
“Well, seeing as how you die today, I don’t think what happens in your business much matters anymore.” He stepped around the wall, facing Vincent just as the man spun around and met his eyes.
Vincent laughed. The sound was cold and lifeless, echoing through the quiet house. His eyes seemed darker in the pale circle of his face, larger, and even crueler than before. “You sound so sure. Joel, a lot of people have tried to kill me. None of have succeeded.” He held a gun in his hand, a small Beretta that was aimed directly at Joel’s gut.
Joel smiled, a slight flex of his lips, as he replied, “None wanted you dead as much as I do.”
Vincent opened his mouth to respond. A fog of condensation formed at his mouth as he breathed out, and Joel had to fight not to shiver as the room’s temperature plummeted. Damn it, it hadn’t ever gotten this cold…
Vincent’s eyes narrowed and he gritted his teeth trying to keep his gun hand from shaking. Joel saw the confusion in his eyes, and he let the smile on his face spread. “I was wrong…there is one other person who wants you dead as much as I do. Guess she came to see me finish it off…”
From the head of the stairs, Joel heard the soft creak of wood floors. Then he heard a voice, a solid voice that he hadn’t heard in twenty years. This wasn’t the insubstantial echo he had always heard before, but a real, solid voice. Carly’s voice.
“Marc, honey…I’m not here to see you finish it off…”
Vincent spun around, and Joel slowly lifted his gaze, terror streaking through him as he found himself staring into Emory’s face.
But it wasn’t Emory’s eyes he was staring into.