Ash Rising (DEAd Series) (26 page)

“Yeah?” Not much better, but the sound
might be a decipherable word.

“Yeah,” she sighed, and he forced
his eyes open.

She smiled
dreamily, looking just as wrecked as he felt. Awareness slowly returned, and with clarity, the memory of how her touch had burned clear through him. He didn’t want to remember, but he did. He’d felt. He felt alive. Not something he wanted, but she—Emmaline—had opened the gates, and he wasn’t facing simply old memories and recent pain. He’d been fighting himself and his nature. Such an intrinsic part of him, to kiss.

Studying
her mouth, he realized he’d missed that zing of anticipation, the instant gratification that left him wanting more. The intimacy, the introduction, the possibility. She licked her lips in reaction to his gaze, and he couldn’t deny himself. Not when he was so exposed, not with her mouth so close, warm, and willing.

He kiss
ed her with every ounce of skill and pent up frustration that clawed to get free. A punishing kiss—punishing himself for wanting, for allowing, punishing her for breaking through his stalwart defenses. Lust and thankfulness roared merrily along the path his hands blazed as they raced over her, rousing, not allowing either of them respite or cover. She moaned and fought back just as strongly, just as frantically, an equal in the maelstrom. Crying out as he brought her high, and higher still, she crested and broke.

He woke
in the night with her spooned in front of him and eased inside her body, lifting her leg and sliding, advancing, giving. She moved slowly, settled into the rhythm he set, accepted his need and took hers. And at the last, hours later, when she had him in her mouth, hot, wet, worshipping, demanding her due, he gave everything. He emptied everything left inside, all that had gone before. She demanded, and he gave, thankful and drained, unsoiled in the purity of the gift she offered. He was wise enough to take it, even though he had yet to discover what it was.

Ash drifted in and out of sleep, comfortably distracted by the welcome yet unfamiliar warmth of a feminine body in his arms. Ages had passed since a woman slept beside him, and even longer since one had been in his bed at the lake house. She faced away, but he knew she was awake when her lips brushed the curve of his biceps resting under her cheek. Her sigh tickled across his skin, and although she seemed relaxed, he could almost hear the thoughts tumbling around in her clever brain.

“You said you’d been in love before.” Her voice was soft but went through him like a knife.

His heartbeat escalated,
but he maintained his hold around her waist.

“Yes,” he finally sa
id, when his pulse returned to a normal rhythm.

“I read your file, you know.”

Ash sifted through her hair until his lips found the skin of her neck and shoulder, and she relaxed against him at the gentle touch.

“I know.”

She had access to all the reports and records of the Salvatore op. A quick twinge knotted his gut knowing she’d been privy to such intimate and agonizing information, but he wasn’t bothered anywhere near as much as he would have been even a couple months before. The past was the past, and he couldn’t change the circumstances. He’d had to cultivate that attitude to survive.

“So, she wasn’t just a mark.”

Liz
. A mark. He remained silent for a long time, until his muscles unclenched. Sweeping her hair out of his way, he settled his face into the warm crook of her neck.

“No,” he finally answered,
his voice a rasp in his throat. “She wasn’t just a mark.”

Ash woke the next morning like he always did, asleep one m
inute, totally aware the next. Warm, content, and filled with a whole lot of absolutely fucking incredible, which wasn’t anything like normal. Turning his head, he blinked at Emmaline’s hair spread across his pillow. His chest swelled, expanded, and he didn’t fight the warm rush. He examined her profile, the part of her face he could see without disturbing her—the curve of her cheek, the dark lashes, the tiny uptilt of her nose. He continued to stare, waiting for the crash of discomfort or anxiety at finding her still in his bed. Mornings-after had the potential for unnecessary and unwelcome complications, but that didn’t worry him. Not with her. In fact, he looked forward to them. He wanted to see her again, both in and out of his bed.

Her fist curled under her cheek, completely ordinary—
feminine and tipped with neat slivers of white from the thing women did to their nails. Nothing to differentiate from the other hands that had been on him, nothing obviously special, but special didn’t begin to describe her. He’d been touched in many ways, many times, but the night before had been different. He wasn’t ready for her. He couldn’t give her what she expected—no matter how she protested she didn’t expect anything—but he felt the urge to try. For the first time since he’d been released from the hospital, he wasn’t just marking time, existing. He had something to look forward to, and he looked forward to more of her.

Emmaline
. Need swelled, the urge to wake her and demand she touch him again, stroke his skin, to see if he could feel where it counted deep inside, like he had the night before. He wanted to see if she could keep the rancor and apathy at bay.

The beguiling sce
nt of coffee stirred him, drifted into the bedroom thanks to the programmable machine in the kitchen. He slipped out from under the comforter with practiced skill, left her sleeping soundly while he padded naked down the hall and poured a cup of the brew. He sipped as he stared out the window at the clear light glinting over the lake, feeling more like himself than he had in a long time. Refilling his cup, he poured another mug before heading back to the bedroom. Balanced on the edge of the mattress, he couldn’t help smiling at the woman in his bed. She snuffled and buried her head deeper in the pillow when he gave a deliberate bounce.

“Ahh.” H
e smacked his lips as he took a gulp of coffee.

“Whazzit?” The muffled noise was groaned into her pillow, and he grinned, delighted with her.

“I’ve got coffee, beautiful.” The endearment rolled off his tongue without thought, and he grimaced, schooling his features almost immediately. Any one woman didn’t own the term. Wasn’t reasonable to never use the expression again, just because that’s what he’d called…
her
. Liz. Before. And Emmaline was beautiful.

She groaned,
shoving her face farther into the pillow, and he ran the back of his knuckles along the curve of her shoulder exposed by the slipping sheet. The groan became more interested, less irritated, and she turned her head to look at him with a bleary eye. A smile twitched at her mouth and widened as she took in the rest of his naked form perched on the bed next to her.

“Hey, there you are,” he said cheerfully, and she gave him what could only be interpreted as a snarl.

“Oh, God, you’re one of those, aren’t you?” She buried her face again in the bedding and wrapped her arms over her head.

“One of what?” H
e trailed his fingertips along her arm and shoulder to her smooth back.

She shivered and tried to bat at him without lifting her head. “G’way.”

Taking a mouthful of coffee and holding the hot liquid before swallowing, he traced his warmed lips and tongue along the curve of muscle running down the length of her back, nibbling along her sleep-scented skin. She shivered and moaned, and he pressed a smile to the dip of her waist.

“One of what?” he
repeated as he sat up and reached for his mug. She turned her head to give him a one-eyed glare.

“A morning person.” T
he eye narrowed when he laughed. “A cheerful morning person. Ugh.”

“I’ve never known anyone to be so cranky after the night we just had. How many orgasms did I give you? Can you even count that high? Or did they all start rolling into one big, amazing, unbelievable experience after
the ninth or tenth one?”

“If I had my gun, I’d shoot you,” she growled.

“But you don’t.” He pressed his coffee-warm mouth to the indent at the base of her spine, just above the swell of her buttocks. Pulling the sheet down, he exposed her, finding the incontrovertible truth she had nothing—absolutely nothing—on. “And speaking of guns…”

“If you
make any reference to your ‘gun,’ other than that Smith & Wesson you usually carry, I
will
shoot you. Twice.”

He
couldn’t help but laugh. She was wonderful.

“Admit it.” She rolled
over and sat up, held the sheet to her chest with one hand while she reached for the coffee mug with the other. “I rocked your world last night, Beaulieu.”

His gaze locked on, and his smile
faded right along with hers. She had rocked his world. Rocked, shook, blew him to smithereens. He wanted more. More rocking. More Emma. So he took, but he gave, too, even as he tempered his urge to grab great, greedy fistfuls.

He
took a last, long sip of coffee before stealing hers and abandoning the mugs on the nightstand, then reaching once again into the drawer to roll on a condom. With a tug, he drew the sheet away until the smooth cotton pooled in her lap. Her breath hitched as he braced himself on his arms, lowered his head, and covered the tip of her breast with his mouth. Her head rolled back with a gasp, and she tangled her fingers in his hair to hold him in place. Desire warmed him, liquid and flowing, as he added gentle teeth and tongue. He reveled in the craving. He reveled in her.

Emm
a looked down at his head bent to her breast, his eyes closed, mouth moving over her, and her heart swelled as her body responded to his expert touch. She tried to temper both responses, but he was too skilled, and she was too enthralled. She arched, asked for more, and he trailed his mouth down her stomach to her hip, biting and sucking at the thin, sensitive skin. Urging her over onto her stomach, he placed kisses up her spine until his big, heavy body lay along the length of hers. His legs slipped between her knees and nudged them apart, his erection hot and promising along her inner thigh. Lifting her hips, he slid in and then let his weight rest on top of her, covering her completely inside and out.

“Oh, God, Ash.” The whisper burst out when he just lay still and didn’t move.

She tried to entice him, to push, needing the friction, the thrust and slide, but he trapped her beneath his weight. She wasn’t used to the feeling, being a tall, strong woman and able to take care of herself, but the novel sensation thrilled her beyond measure. At his mercy in that moment—physically, sexually, even emotionally—she loved every second.

“Please.”

“Please what?” he murmured in her ear. “Please, this?” He rocked his hips, tightened the pressure inside her, and she moaned. “Or this?”

He pulled out and thrust hard and deep, a shocking thrill, and then subsided to his former position of lying on top, unmoving. She wriggled, but he somehow made himself heavier and pushed her into the mattress. The slight motion of her helpless gasp made her aware of every hard inch he had inside her body.

He didn’t move, so neither could she. Instead of lessening, sensation somehow built and grew, shimmering through her in waves. Her skin rippled and muscles shivered as he overtook her senses, instilled himself inside her mind and body until she panted in quick, sharp gasps, more desperate than she’d ever been in her life. When she began trembling uncontrollably, on the verge of an orgasm so huge she fought against the oncoming cataclysm, only then did he move. He rocked, nudged, pushed forward in tiny increments again and again until finally—
oh, God, finally
—he stroked, pulling out and sliding in along screaming nerve endings. She cried out as she came, gave herself up to both the tumbling white oblivion and him in a colossal burst of blinding pleasure.

He ran a shower and carried her into the bathroom, draping her body over his to hold her up while he washed them both. She floated along in a daze of satisfaction, replete and sleepy. Reality seeped back when he’d almost finished soaping them down, and she expected to see an arrogant grin on his face. The smile he wore was a little smug, but the gentleness in his eyes matched the stroke of his hands on her skin, and she had no defense against him. The disorientation intensified as she realized she was falling for him, falling hard, and nothing she could do to stop the headlong tumble.