He was out to trap a vixen. To seduce her. To stroke her. To control her. And it seemed he had found the perfect bait. Something she had never had before, a treat particular to the heated woman smoothing her hands over his flesh, her tongue licking, tasting. The illusion of control.
It was going to be torture. The torture of feeling a pleasure so extreme, so liquid hot, it was all he could do to keep his hands to himself, to keep from trapping the vixen in his grip.
But some things were far better for the wait.
“Kiss me, Kell.” She lifted her head, staring up at him with sparkling blue eyes, hunger flaming in their depths as his head lowered. “I’ve dreamed of you kissing me.”
“You kiss me,” he suggested in a dare. “Show me what you have, sugar.”
He let his lips touch hers, and expected hesitancy. He didn’t expect her teeth to nip at his lower lip before drawing it between hers, her hot little tongue stroking over it like a lick of fire.
She smiled at the involuntary groan that came from his chest. Slender fingers moved up his arm to his nape, then into his hair. They tangled in the long strands and tugged him to her, her lips settling against his, first in a whisper of need, then with fiery demand.
Her tongue was silken and damp, stroking against his as she lifted against him, her beaded nipples pressing through her bra and shirt and burning into his chest.
He was dying to touch her. His hands itched to touch her. But he kept one on the counter, the other at his side. And he thought of the vixen and his need to hold her.
“Emily.” He whispered her name gently as her lips moved from his, then to his neck and to his chest once again. He began to move, easing slowly to the couch.
“Stay. Don’t go.” Her hand gripped his waist as he continued to ease back.
“Let me sit down, sugar,” he crooned, seeing the effect of his voice on her senses. Her expression lost its look of worry, sensuality taking over again as they reached the couch. “Just let me ease back here, and you can have whatever you want.”
If he didn’t sit down, lie down, find some way to get off his feet, then once her mouth completed its southward path he’d collapse on the floor. Damn her, she was making his knees weak. She was making his cock harder than ever.
She followed as he sat down gingerly then slowly eased back to the pillow at the arm. Her knee was on the cushion beside him, the other between his thighs. Her mouth was blazing a conflagration to his abs as her slender fingers moved past the material of his jeans and briefs and touched the sensitive shaft of his cock.
His hips jerked, arched. Fingers fisted over his head as he gritted his teeth against the need to grab her, to roll her beneath him and tear the clothes from her body.
“Emily.” Her name ground from between his teeth.
“Just a minute,” she whispered breathlessly. “I know how to do this. I do. I read about it. I know how.”
Ah shit. Her voice was lost, so filled with excitement it shook from her lips as her fingers attempted to wrap around his erection.
“Sugar, there’s more to this,” he ground out.
“I have movies,” she assured him. “And books. I know how to do this.”
Her research was going to kill him.
Her mouth surrounded the engorged head, her tongue tucked against the ultrasensitive flesh beneath the head, and she began to suck.
“Sweet God, have mercy!” His body jerked as though a whip had been laid to his balls.
Pleasure tore through him. It wasn’t insipid, it wasn’t a slow burn. It was hard, searing, it tore across his nerve endings as he bared his teeth in painful pleasure and growled in ravening hunger.
And he watched her. Watched the initial hesitation, felt it in the movement of her lips until she found the exact position she was looking for to tear his soul from his body.
Auburn curls fell like flames to caress his thighs as she began to move her mouth over his cock. Taking as much as she could hold, sucking deeply, her tongue flaying too sensitive flesh as her mouth tightened and worked over the thick cock head and sucking it against the roof of her mouth.
Oh God. Her fucking research was going to drive him insane. What the hell was he thinking? His fingers uncurled, his arms lifted; the only thought in his mind was to grab her hair and to force her mouth to move as he wanted.
Then she moaned. A sound of sheer pleasure, of wild temptation. Kell forced his hands back, tried to breathe through the pleasure and felt the sweat running down his brow.
He was crazy. He hadn’t tried to tame a vixen since he was a teenager and he hadn’t managed it successfully then. What the hell made him think he could do it now? Especially this particular vixen.
But he would never forget her face, her expression, at this moment, for as long as he lived. Her lashes drifted over her eyes, showing only a glimmer of her dark blue gaze. A flush darkened her cheeks and her cupid’s-bow lips were stretched wide over his engorged cock as her slender fingers wrapped around the stalk.
It wasn’t his first blow job, but he’d be damned if it wasn’t the sexiest one he’d ever had. Her lips moved up and down the throbbing head, her fingers stroked the shaft, her tongue licked and tasted, and he swore she was stealing his soul with the delicate greed of her sucking mouth.
“Ah sugar.” He winced at the thickening of the Cajun accent he thought he’d defeated years ago. “Your mouth is perfect. So sweet and hot.”
Her passionate little whimper vibrated on his flesh, causing him to stretch, to thrust against her lips. Hell, holding back was killing him. He could feel the need for release tightening his balls and tingling up his spine.
“So greedy,” he growled as her tongue licked over the small slit, probed and drew a pulse of semen that slipped past his control. “There you go. Suck me like you mean it, sugar.”
His fingers were digging into the couch cushion, his teeth bared in a grimace as he fought the pleasure. Just another minute, he swore. One more minute.
The soft suckling sounds pierced his head as she drew him deeper into her mouth. Slowly, oh hell, so slowly, drew him to her throat. Paused and released him. Drew him back again, released. Drew and swallowed, the reflex motion tightening and caressing the head of his cock in a move that had him snarling, pulling his hips down, trying to force her to release him.
The pressure eased, but for a second only. It returned as he watched moisture seep from the corner of her eyes at the effort it took to hold him there, to swallow and retreat.
“Emily.” He growled her name fiercely, staring down at her in desperation as her lashes lifted and he glimpsed the incredible pleasure that filled them. “Stop, vixen. Enough.”
She bore down again as he nearly jackknifed into a sitting position only to have her hand press imperatively against his abs.
“Do you know what’s coming?” he snarled, shaking the sweat from his eyes as he glared down at her. “I’ll fill your mouth, sugar. Ease up. You don’t want that this first time.”
A virgin. Sweet Lord, have mercy, a virgin vixen was destroying his control. Stealing it. Her eyes gleamed with satisfaction and her mouth sank on his cock again, took him deep and swallowed.
Kell flung his head back, his hands jerking from the cushions to her hair, tangling in the strands, holding her still, and filled her mouth. He felt the hard, violent ejaculations spurting in hard jets as pleasure, ecstasy, ripped through his body and drew it achingly tight. Every bone and muscle tautened as a harsh groan tore repeatedly from his chest.
It was rapture. It was like nothing he had known. She could give lessons in blow jobs. She could destroy a man with that mouth, and she was destroying him as she consumed every drop of passion pouring from him.
“Come to me,” he grated out as she eased up, one last lingering lick of her tongue to his cock as her head began to lift.
His hands were still tangled in her hair as the sight of her rosy lips, damp and gleaming with moisture, seared into his brain.
“Kell.
” Her voice filled with aching need as he drew her up his body, pulling her to him.
“Come to my mouth, Emily,” he ordered roughly. “Come, sugar. Right up here. Let me taste that sweet pussy. Let me show you what you gave me.”
She was shaking, shuddering against him, as he drew her to him. She was still wearing her clothes. No way in hell was he giving her time to think as he removed them. As she moved above him, his hands eased her knees onto the cushions and he dragged his body lower. Until his lips were poised beneath her, his fingers gripping the material of the soft cotton Capris on each side of the seam and pulling.
It parted, the sound of rending cloth bringing a gasp from her lips and a warning tension to her body. A tension Kell didn’t allow to last for long. As the material parted, his lips were there. His teeth caught the edge of the triangle of silk covering her, pulling it to the side and then catching it with the fingers of one hand.
Then his tongue was free to touch her. Free to slide through the juicy slit, to taste ambrosia, the nectar of the gods, a heated, sweet syrup he knew would be his downfall.
Emily knew she had made a grave mistake. A tactical error, and she couldn’t stop. She was lost. The minute she heard the material of her Capris tearing, she knew nothing could stop this. Definitely not her. She couldn’t stop anything, she was too lost in that first lick through the folds of her sex and too desperate for more.
Then he kissed her. He covered the lips of her pussy with his lips, and gave her a kiss that nearly destroyed her.
The rasp of his short growth of beard sizzled across her flesh. The slightly rough rasp of his tongue, the flickering flames of sensation that crashed through her womb, drew her body tight.
“Oh God. Kell. Kell.” Her head was swimming as his lips placed light, sucking kisses around her clit, over it, then down, drawing the swollen folds of her pussy between his lips and kissing them with heated fervor.
Lightning crashed inside her body, her mind. Brilliant pinpoints of light clashed and exploded behind her closed eyelids as she began to shake.
“Kell—so good. So good.”
He licked again, painting the entrance to the tormented channel with heated licks and fiery sensation. Dazed pleasure filled her, the world narrowed itself to nothing but Kell’s touch, to his mouth, his tongue. To the incredible sensations racing through her with a speed that had her gasping for breath.
She was racing toward something. Something she had only read about, only dreamed about. Something she had never believed she would experience.
Panting for breath, she tried to move her hips against his tongue, tried to reach the pinnacle of pleasure she could feel waiting for her. But Kell’s hands were firm now, demanding. They gripped her hips and held her in place, restraining her above him as he drove her rapidly insane with each kiss, each lick.
One hand clenched in his hair, the other in the back cushion of the couch, as she titled her head back, forcing her eyes open. He chose that moment to press his tongue inside her.
One hard thrust, a rapid lick and another thrust, and Emily was screaming. It was too much. Flames tore through her body as she felt something tear free in her soul. Sensation and emotion wrapped around her, strung her tight, then shot her rapidly through an ecstasy so intense, so violent, that every muscle in her body began to tremble in response.
It was so good. Too good. It brought tears to her eyes as her wailing cries echoed around her. And he didn’t stop. He licked and groaned against her flesh, continuing to consume the soft flow of her release as she wilted over him, too weak, too confused by the dazed pleasure, to hold herself up any longer.
“There, sweet sugar,” he crooned as he lifted her, supporting her weight as he rose, letting her slide down his chest as his arms wrapped around her.
Emily whimpered as she found herself lying back on the couch, Kell rising between her thighs as he ripped the remainder of her pants from her body.
“I’ll buy you more,” he promised as he tossed the scraps of material to the floor. “I need to see you. Naked and wild beneath me.”
His hands gripped the edge of her shirt, pulling it quickly from her body and sending it the way of the torn Capris as he stared down at her fiercely. His gaze seared her as his large, warm hands settled at her stomach, then smoothed up to the swollen mounds of her lace-covered breasts.
Disposing of her bra took only seconds. A flick of his fingers at the front clasp and he peeled it from the swollen, sensitive mounds with a growl of pleasure.
Callused fingers cupped the curves, weighed them, tormented them as his thumbs rasped over the painfully hard nipples.
Catching her breath was impossible. Emily had never felt such pleasure, had never known such intensity of sensation. It spasmed through her womb, exploded in her bloodstream, and left her helpless beneath the driving ache that invaded her system.
A grimace of hunger creased Kell’s expression. His green eyes were dark, emerald fire blazing in the depths as he gazed at her.
“So damned pretty,” he snarled.
He pushed his jeans lower on his hips, one hand gripping the shaft of his cock as he began to lower himself to her.
She couldn’t protest. She knew she should protest. She knew she should be screaming out at him to stop, to think, but it was so good. So hot and desperate and filled with the sound of “Hells Bells.”
They both froze.
Emily’s gaze jerked to the cell phone still hanging at the band of his jeans as a curse ripped past his lips.
“Hells Bells” echoed around them again as he jerked it from the holder and flipped it open.
“Senator. How can I help you?”
Emily stared back at Kell with a sense of horror. Her gaze went from the hard stalk of his erection poised only inches from her flesh then snapped back to his gaze. There was mocking amusement there, and wry acceptance.
She began to pull herself back together, sitting up on the couch as she fumbled for the shirt on the floor and then jerked it over her head.
She felt adrift. As though something had torn her from an unconscious tether and now she was fighting to recover her balance. Dragging herself from the couch, she pushed her fingers restlessly through her hair and watched him as he spoke to her father.
His voice was quiet, not so much as hint of his earlier passion shading it, as he rose from the couch, fixed his jeans, and discussed a party she was required to attend the next day.
She had no desire to attend another of the political functions her father had arranged and she especially had no desire to attend the party with Kell.
Not now. Not while her body was flushed and burning with need and he was talking to her father with a steady cool voice as he turned his back on her.
She shot him a glare as he moved across the room, picked his shirt up from the floor, and pulled it back on without a single interruption in his conversation.
He was too tall. Too broad. And his touch was too knowing. As though instinctively he had known her weakness, her need to explore and to touch. To be touched.
Her hands still tingled from that need. Her body burned for it. And she had no idea how to fight it.
She had known sexual desire in the past. Moments when she had considered throwing caution to the winds for a particular touch, but she had always managed to maintain her control and walk away. She hadn’t maintained control this time. She hadn’t been walking away, she had been gasping, begging for more. If it hadn’t been for her father’s ill-timed call, then she would be moaning beneath Kell’s possession now.
She bit her lip, glancing over at him beneath her lashes as he leaned against the counter and talked, his tone a low, rough rumble as his gaze tracked her every move.
Suddenly, she felt more restrained than ever. The walls were closing in on her, the air became too close, suffocating, filled with the scent of sex and her own regret.
Shaking her head fiercely at the thought, she turned and stalked back to her bedroom, slamming the door b
ehind her in frustration before heading for the shower.
A cold shower.
She had to find her control. Somehow, it had been stripped away from her one slow touch at a time, one erotic discovery after another. And she had no idea how to recapture it. Or how to save her heart.
Because she knew Kell Krieger was stealing it. Stealing her heart and endangering her soul with each kiss, each touch. Letting him go would break her. And keeping him wasn’t an option.
Her father dreamed of such a match. And it was her greatest nightmare. A man who could imprison her with his love, with his fears for her. Who would sap all the dreams that filled her and leave her with nothing but regret.
Was that how it had happened with her mother? she wondered as she stepped into the shower. Had her father hemmed her in so tightly that nothing mattered but escape? Had she regretted it when she lay in the hospital dying from the injuries of her crash? Had she known? Had she regretted? Had she thought of the husband and child she was leaving behind and the horror her choice would bring to them?
Emily had sworn years ago that she wouldn’t let that happen to her. She wouldn’t be weak. She wouldn’t marry a man determined to control her. She wouldn’t give in to loving a strong man until she could learn how to stand firm against her father’s demands.
If a woman couldn’t stand up to her father, then how could she have any hope of standing up to a lover or a husband?
And would a woman ever have a chance of standing up against Lieutenant Kell Krieger? She had a feeling he would be the ultimate mountain to climb, as well as the most dangerous. The most challenging. And certainly the most tempting.
She was going to have to be very careful. He was becoming a weakness, and right now, Emily knew she couldn’t afford this particular weakness.
Nine
KELL DISCONNECTED THE CALL WITH the senator and stared broodingly at the cell phone in his hand for long seconds. He had to give the man credit. His timing sucked. One more minute and the call would have been ignored for the sheer pleasure he would have found giving Emily her first passionate ride.