“Stay still, chère,” he groaned then, the sound ripping from his throat. “Let yourself ease around me.”
Ease around him? He was huge inside her. A thick heavy weight penetrating tender tissue, each throb of the heated stalk a latent caress that only made her wilder.
His hips jerked against her, dragging a startled cry from her lips as explosions of light shattered in her head. Oh God, she could become addicted to this. To this pleasure. To the sensations bordering on pain, but so exquisitely intense that her body began to riot for more. Every nerve ending, every cell, every cry from her lips as she began to writhe beneath him was a demand, an imploring, as the hunger inside her began to grow to a frantic level.
“Sweet. Chère. Hold on.” He buried his head against her neck, his larger body restraining hers. “I’m too close, bebe.” His accent began to thicken, deepen.
“Now,” she whimpered. “Oh God, Kell. Now. Please. I need it. I need you.”
She tightened on him again, an abstract memory of something she had once read coming to the fore. She fought for the control to caress him as she had never caressed another man, and the results were staggering.
A harsh male groan tore from his throat as he began to move. His cock drew back then pushed forward in a long, slow thrust that dragged a wail from her lips.
She could feel every inch of him burrowing inside her. The thick crest parted hungry tissue. Heavy veins throbbed with heat and hunger. And as he slid to the hilt once again, his control seemed to shatter.
Emily fought to make sense of the sensations, but she found it was all she could do to make sense of breathing as he began to move.
He began to tear her mind from her body. His hand gripped her thigh, lifted it, exposing more of her as he began to thrust inside her. Plunging deep and hard, he began to move his hips in rhythm, with a power that stole any ability to think.
Her fingers dug into the mattress as he held her restrained beneath him. She should have fought the control, but the rising sensations building, burning, inside her were too intense. She could do nothing but feel. And the feelings were so intense, so shattering. His cock shafted inside her, almost bruising in its girth, searing in its pleasure.
Reality was a thing of the past. Danger was nonexistent. There was only this. Only the speeding sensations ripping through her nerve endings, the feel of his erection stretching her, filling her. Then the blinding, soul-shattering orgasm that ripped through her with the force of a cataclysmic event.
AH, SWEET HEAVEN. SHE WAS SO tight; her pussy clenched around his cock with a strength that stole his breath as her climax washed over her. Kell surged in deep and strong, paused, waiting, flexing inside her as he relished the heat and pleasure of her pussy flexing around him.
Holding back his own release was agonizing. He clenched his teeth, blinked back the sweat from his eyes, and forced himself to wait.
Just once more. He wanted to feel the tightening, rippling heat of her as she exploded around him just one more time.
As the grip eased, marginally, he began to move again. Her breathing was broken, his name a breathless litany on her lips that seemed to soothe something ragged inside him.
“I feel like I’m fucking a dream,” he groaned at her ear. “So snug and tight. So much pleasure, chère. So much pleasure, I’ll crave it. I’ll dream of it should I ever have to leave your bed.”
A thin wail left her lips as he began thrusting inside her again. Hard and deep. His hips setting up a powerful rhythm that he knew neither of them could deny for long.
He gripped her hip, holding her to the bed as he began to move harder, faster. His cock shuttling inside the sweetest, hottest pussy he could have ever imagined. Pleasure was like a fire burning inside him now, each stroke pushing the flames higher. The clench of her sweet flesh around him, the driving heat, her cries.
He felt it rising inside her. Her body began to tense as his hand slid between her thighs from the front, his fingers finding her swollen little clit and stroking, massaging, as his thrusts increased.
When she came, there was no stopping his own release. He swore she dragged his soul from his body, through the hard, jetting pulses of his semen into the condom.
He snarled at the reminder that he wasn’t filling her. That he wasn’t shooting everything he had so deep inside her that she would never forgot, never know a moment that she didn’t remember it.
That she didn’t know she belonged to him. That she wasn’t aware of his possession, his mark upon her.
His head dropped to her shoulder, his teeth gripping the muscle there, his mouth drawing on her, laying the only seal of ownership he had left.
She was his. He would die for her. He would die without her.
As he collapsed beside her, his breathing harsh, his own groan startled him as he eased his condom-sheathed cock from inside her.
Small, rippling little tremors shook her as he eased his arms around her and pulled her close to his chest. He would make her get up in a minute, drag them both to that monstrously big bathtub he had glimpsed in her bathroom.
She would be tender, sore, if he didn’t take care of her. It was her first time, she deserved to be spoiled, eased. To be cherished.
Twenty-five years old, and she was still innocent. It didn’t matter what reasons she gave for her innocence; he knew better. She had waited. Waited until the pleasure was too extreme to deny, until she found a man who could match her. One she could be wild with. One who she knew would allow her a measure of the freedom she searched for so desperately.
Once this was over, he would take her to a special practice range, where Durango Team trained in the summer. And he would teach her how to protect herself, how to watch his back, how to watch her own. How to keep herself safe until he could reach her if something happened while he was out of the country.
He would take her to the safe houses, teach her how to prepare herself in case she had to run. He would train her, ensure her safety as he fought to ensure his own. And he would pray.
Because God help him, he couldn’t lose her. He had waited. For too many years he had endured the loneliness that filled his soul until he found the woman who could ease the bleak shadows that filled it.
He was a man without a home, without a family. A man who had once known a warm hearth and a family’s love and then experienced a betrayal that had nearly destroyed his soul.
All those years ago, he had hidden Tansy and their unborn child for fear of what was coming. He had taken her to the hunting shack in the Bayou that his family had owned and he had left her there until he could find the detective he worked with and could secure a safer location.
He had left her alone, and only one person had known where she was. The person who had caught him slipping into the home he had once known to steal the key to the old boat that he needed to get to the shack.
His mother had stared at him with such hatred, with fury. But he had never for a moment believed she would betray him. That she would tell his enemies where they could find Tansy and her unborn grandchild.
His mother had betrayed him. And he had never forgiven her. Just as he had never forgiven the rest of his family for turning their backs on him.
He had lived with it endlessly. Daily. Until Emily.
Until her laughter, her sense of adventure, and her need for freedom touched his heart. Until her loyalty, her willingness to forgo that need, touched his soul.
She was a woman worth fighting for and a woman worth living for.
She was the dream he never believed could become reality.
Fifteen
THERE WAS SOMETHING MUCH TOO natural about waking up in Kell’s arms, Emily thought the next morning. He had wrapped around her like a human blanket, arms and legs encasing her, his chest a solid warmth at her back.
The blankets were on the floor, pushed there sometime during the night as she flowed over him, taking him again, crying out with the pleasure and the explosive releases that tore through her.
>
Yes, she thought with a smirk as she stared drowsily at the wall across from her. Releases. Not just two or three, but climactic pulses that seemed to merge, one into the other, until she had no breath left to cry out with the shattering ecstasy.
After that first time, he had immersed them in her large tub, the steamy water encasing them in liquid warmth as he just kissed her. Just held her.
There had been no demands, just his arms around her and a sense of belonging that she had refused to delve too deeply into.
“You scare me when you do that.” His sleep-roughened voice grumbled behind her.
“Do what?” She smiled. She couldn’t help it. There was something too sexy about his scratchy morning voice.
“Think.” His hand smoothed up the outside of her leg to her hip as his erection began to prod at her rear. “When you think, things get dangerous.”
“Baloney.” She turned, smiling up at him as that lazy quirk tugged at his kiss- and sleep-swollen lips. “I’m never dangerous.”
“You were thinking the night before you took that wimp Dyson to the strip club that first day,” he pointed out. “I thought he was going to have a coronary as he chased you in the back door.”
“You were there?” Her eyes narrowed on him.
“And the day you took him to the canine instruction academy. Emily, how the hell did you manage to convince him to dress in those pads and let those dogs attack him?”
Her lips twitched. “I was the one who was going to do it. But that made him come apart at the seams. So I told him if he did it, he could give me an accurate account and I would settle for that.”
He shook his head. “You’re a bad girl.”
“Does that mean you’ll spank me later?” She curled closer to his chest. “You could spank me now, just to teach me a lesson, you know.”
Green eyes darkened, became brighter, sexier before an edge of regret filled his gaze and he glanced at the clock on her bedside stand.
“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up for two hours now. I have a meeting with the other team members when they arrive in about half an hour. With your father.” But he considered her suggestion for a few seconds, before shaking his head and loosening his hold on her. “Come on, vixen. I’ll spank you later.”
“What were you doing while I was asleep?” She lay back on the bed, admiring the lean, muscular perfection that filled her gaze. Erection and all, he was a sight to behold.
Her gaze caressed over his buttocks as he pulled his jeans over them, not bothering to snap them as he tugged the zipper up.
“I was holding you.” His look was frankly possessive. “Watching you sleep.”
And he wasn’t in the least ashamed of it. What had Kira told her once? That men never cuddled. Once they had finished, they were finished.
The bitterness in her friend’s voice when she made the comment had clenched at Emily’s heart. Because she wanted the tenderness Kell had given her. She hadn’t known how much she needed it until he had given it.
The way he held her and bathed her. The fact that he had watched her sleep, that he had just held her.
“I like being held,” she whispered as she stared up at him. “I liked it very much.”
The quirk of a smile suddenly curled his lips and lit his eyes. He leaned across the bed, bracing his weight on his arms as his head lowered, his overnight growth of beard caressing her cheek before his lips settled against hers gently.
“Get up, sugar,” he drawled, gripping her arms and drawing her up with him. “You have a full day ahead of you and I have things to do to keep that pretty little butt of yours safe so I can spank it later.”
She wiggled said butt at him, shrieking as he made to slap at it before pulling back at the last second.
“Shower with me?” she suggested, casting a suggestive look over her shoulder as she moved to the bathroom.
He shook his head, drawing in a deep breath before grimacing in denial.
“Not a chance. Reno will skin me alive if I’m late for this meeting. Get your shower and I’ll come back for you when I’m done. I want to go down to breakfast with you.”
She paused. “You don’t think I’m safe here? In Dad’s house?”
“I feel better knowing you’re safe,” he stated firmly. “Let’s get through this, Emily. We’ll iron out rules later. Deal?”
“The rules are adding up fast, Krieger,” she informed him warningly. “I’m making a list, you know.”
“I’m sure you are, sweet.” He chuckled. “I have no doubt. Now shower. I’ll be back here in twenty minutes.”
“Make it forty.”
“Try thirty. I’m hungry. Someone used me hard last night and I need to restore my energy.”
“Yeah, someone might end up using you hard again tonight,” she suggested, her heart racing at the look of remembered pleasure in his expression.
He winked wickedly, picked up his boots and then left her bedroom. Before closing the door he turned the lock on the doorknob then pulled it firmly behind him.
She got the idea. Don’t open it for anyone but him.
A smile tugged at her lips as she went into the bathroom and adjusted the water for her shower. They would have to talk soon, she knew that. There were secrets Kell was holding back, she could see them in his eyes sometimes, she heard them in his voice. Whatever those secrets were, they were filled with pain.
As she stepped into the shower she thought again how little she knew about him. She didn’t know his past, barely knew his present, but he was becoming more important to her than people she had known her entire life.
She was falling in love with him. Hell, she was in love with him, and that part was scary. He owned a part of her, she admitted. A part of her she would never reclaim if he walked away from her.
Breathing in deeply, she promised herself she would savor every moment she had with him. She didn’t want to miss this for the world. This euphoria. The sense of someone knowing her and her body as well, if not better than, she did. The feeling that for the first time in her life, someone understood. Not so much understood her, but understood the need to live.
She needed to live. And she wanted to do it in Kell’s arms. But if he left her, if he walked away from her when this was over, then he had still given her a gift she knew no one else had given her. He had looked beyond the daddy’s girl, and seen the woman beneath.
An hour later, after breakfast with Emily, before turning her over to her father’s and the admiral’s care, Kell entered the small room set aside as a meeting place inside the mansion for Reno and his team.
“Hey, lover boy. Reno tells me there’s wedding invitations hitting the mail soon.” Clint McIntyre, Reno’s second in command, snickered as Kell walked in and closed the door behind him.
“In a few weeks or so. I’d like to get Fuentes out of the picture first,” Kell answered.
It was worth it to see their expressions. Reno, Clint, and Macey stared back at him in shock. Ian, as always, was harder to read, but he looked more thoughtful than surprised.
“Hell, another good SEAL bites the dust.” Macey sighed. “What’s with you yahoos? Are you contagious or something?” He looked from Reno to Clint to Kell.
“Could be, Macey. Better not get too close or you’ll be looking for your significant other next,” Ian’s dark, rough voice commented broodingly.
Macey snorted before turning back to the screen of his laptop. “Enough of that crap. Gather round, boys. As of oh four hundred, Judas made contact again. For one of Diego’s bastard skanks, he sure gets around on the Internet.”
“Not a nice way to talk about our contact, Macey,” Ian pointed out with an edge of amusement.
“Son of a bitch,” Macey growled. “I’d like to cut his balls off for not being a little more forthcoming.”
Kell moved around the table, staring over Macey’s shoulder at the e-mail that had come to the secured account Macey used.
Assassin and/or abductor moving
in. Location, D.C. Terms are as follows. Senator and/or daughter. Contact sent to senator to resign has been ignored. Fuentes contact requires action. Beware. Once in D.C., contact will be informing tool of foolproof method of capturing or killing daughter. Kidnapping is highest possibility at this point to use as leverage. Watch your six while hobnobbing because others are watching it as well.
Kell narrowed his eyes. There was something about that e-mail.
“Sound familiar?” Macey asked them all, staring up at them.
“Watch your six,” Kell murmured. “Military term. Not unusual.”
“There’s something too familiar about this.” Macey shook his head as he went back to the screen. “I’ve been trying to track this SOB for years now. It’s damned strange. I can’t get a handle on him no matter how hard I try.”
“His information has always been factual,” Ian pointed out.
“Too damned factual. He knows too fucking much,” Macey growled. “The fact that he found this e-mail address to contact me at is the most worrisome.”
The e-mail address had been set up years before as an SOS account. They were a team, no matter what. If one of them was in trouble, then the others would come running.
“You’ll find him, Macey. Give it time,” Ian said with no small amount of amusement. “My question is why the contact or spy changed his demand that Fuentes murder the girl to kidnapping her instead.”
“Kidnapping will give him leverage, just as the e-mail suggests. If he kills her, he has no leverage. Nothing to bargain with.”
“Why does he want to bargain?” Kell asked then. “The original idea was to first make the senator pay for his interference by killing his daughter, then to kill Stanton. Why change in midstream?”
“Good ole Diego, I’d guess,” Macey bit out sarcastically. “That bastard delights in kidnapping, torture, and breaking men’s souls. Not to mention women’s. He wants to play.”