Breaking Point (19 page)

Without warning, her mind flashed back to the Zeta hellhole, rough hands squeezing and pinching her. She closed her eyes, forced the unwanted memory away, unwilling to be robbed of this moment. This was Zach, not the Zetas, and he wasn’t hurting her. Far from it.

He ran circles over her nipples with the pads of his thumbs, teasing their sensitive tips, sending sparks of pleasure skittering into her belly. She arched into his touch, her fingers sliding into his hair again, urging his head forward, her breasts longing for his mouth. He groaned, held her tighter, gave each nipple a flick of his tongue, then drew one into his hot, slick mouth—and suckled.

“Oh!” She gasped, her head falling back, the delicious sensation making her inner muscles clench, the heat inside her turning to honey.

He went greedily back and forth from one breast to the other, tugging at her nipples with his lips, tasting them with his tongue, teasing them with the sharp edges of his teeth, his hands cupping her, holding her for his mouth.

Had her breasts always been this sensitive? She couldn’t remember. All she knew was that she felt every touch, every tug, every flick of his tongue all the way to her core. Drenched in sensation, she dug her fingers into his shoulders, her breath coming hard and fast, need for him a raw ache inside her.

This
is what it felt like to want and be wanted, to be a woman, to be alive.

Feeling almost euphoric, she let the nightgown fall to the floor, climbed onto his lap, and wrapped her legs around him. Then she took his face between her hands, drew his mouth down to hers, and kissed him.

A groan. His fist in her hair. His tongue thrusting deep.

He forced her head back and took control of the kiss with an intensity that left her breathless, plundering her mouth, nipping and sucking her lips, crushing her to him.

Oh, yes!

And then she was beneath him.

Zach was breaking the rules, but he didn’t give a goddamn, her impatient hands spreading fire over his skin as she explored his shoulders, chest, abdomen. Blood roaring in his ears, he tasted her mouth, cradling her head with one arm, his free hand skimming over the puckered velvet of her nipples, down the silky skin of her belly to that little landing strip of dark curls that had been driving him insane. He wasted no time, feeling his way through those trimmed curls to cup her, his dick nearly splitting his jeans when he discovered that her labia really were waxed bare—and that she was wet. He looked, took in the erotic sight of her vulva, and almost freaking lost it.

Holy God in heaven.

The musky scent of her arousal urging him on, he parted those soft, naked lips, gave the swollen bud of her clitoris a few teasing strokes, then slowly nudged first one finger, then two, into her slippery heat.

She whimpered his name, her sharp little nails digging into his shoulders, her thighs parting to give him better access.

He found a rhythm, his thumb rubbing circles over her clit, while his fingers stroked her deep inside. He swiped at a puckered nipple with his tongue, tugged at it with his lips. “Does that feel good, angel?”

A long, breathless moan.

God, she was responsive. As badly as he wanted to get inside her, he couldn’t get enough of watching her, of watching what his touch did to her. He sucked a nipple and felt her vagina clench, kissed her throat and saw goose bumps rise across her chest, thrust his fingers deeper inside her and watched her belly jerk. And her scent . . .

Jesus!

She was close, so close. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her head rolling back and forth, her dark hair lying in thick tangles across her pillow. Her breath came in pants, each exhalation a ragged moan, the sound of a woman lost in the ache and ecstasy of sex. Her nails dug deeper, her entire body tense, her inner muscles drawing tighter.

Then her breath broke, and she came, bliss bright on her face, her back arching, her vagina contracting tightly around his fingers. He caught her cry with his mouth, riding through the orgasm with her, keeping his rhythm steady until the quaking inside her subsided. And then he could hold back no longer.

He reached down to unzip his jeans, but her hands were already there, impatiently tugging at his fly. He freed his cock, guided himself to her cleft. Then with a single, slow thrust, he slid inside her, her moan mingling with his.

Tight. Hot. Slick.

She felt
so . . . damned . . . good
.

For a moment, he held himself still inside her, letting her get used to the feel of him. Then his gaze locked with hers, and he began to move, pushing himself into her again and again, the hot, slippery friction already driving him toward the breaking point. He willed himself to relax, shifted his position so that he was riding her high, his cock rubbing over her clit with each deep thrust.

Her response was instantaneous. Her eyes went wide, and she arched beneath him. “Ooh! I never . . . I never . . .
Again?
”

And through a haze of pheromone he realized she’d never come twice in a row before. “As much as you can take, angel.”

And he meant it. He hadn’t been a SEAL for nothing. He’d learned to control his body in extreme situations so that he could use it as a weapon. Now he was going to use it to please her—to please Natalie.

Guided by her response, he sharpened the angle, thrust into her faster, harder, fighting to keep his own climax at bay. Then he propped himself up on one arm and used his free hand to play with those exquisitely sensitive nipples of hers.

She whimpered, every exhalation a moan, her nails digging like talons into his hips, as if to draw him deeper inside her, her head going back as a second orgasm claimed her, her body shuddering beneath him, clenching around him.

He was on fire now, burning . . . burning for Natalie . . . His hips a piston, driving into her . . . Her slick vagina gripping him like a fist . . . He wanted, needed her . . . Her mouth on his skin . . . Her hips rising to meet his . . . “You’re so . . . damned . . . beautiful!”

With his last ounce of control, he pulled out of her, his entire body screaming in protest. His wet cock hovered above her for just a second before erupting into spasms, white ribbons of cum shooting onto her belly, a frustrated climax stuttering through him.

That’s what you get for not having a condom handy, McBride.

With that thought, he sank onto her, sweaty and spent.

 

HAPPILY EXHAUSTED, NATALIE watched Zach wipe semen off her belly with a hot, wet washcloth, his lips trailing little kisses across her clean, wet skin. She let her fingers wander through his hair and along his stubble-rough jaw, trying to ignore a growing sense of guilt, desperate to hold on to this feeling—the languid afterglow of great sex.

But the guilt was there, niggling at her, refusing to go away.

She didn’t feel bad that she’d had sex with Zach. And she certainly didn’t feel guilty for enjoying it. And she had enjoyed it, every unbelievable minute of it.

But what she’d realized—and what had begun to gnaw at her—was the fact that not once during the time she and Zach were making love had she thought of Beau.

ZACH HELD NATALIE, watched her sleep, his own eyelids heavy, a warm knot of emotion in his chest. He knew he should kick his own ass, but he wasn’t going to. He’d broken his own rules—and he didn’t give a damn. There was no way to undo what he’d done tonight, and he wouldn’t undo it even if he could.

He’d broken down in front of her, let the weakness inside of him show. But she hadn’t turned away from him. She hadn’t judged him. Instead, she’d accepted him, comforted him, given herself to him.

He’d never known a woman like Natalie.

But he didn’t want to hurt her. He was going to have to be honest so she’d understand. Just because they’d had sex didn’t mean they had a future. He hadn’t been joking when he’d said his life wasn’t the kind of life a man shared with a woman. He was rarely home. He spent most of his time on assignment. And unless he was very careful, he’d wind up in a body bag. He didn’t want to put any woman through that.

But it wasn’t just the dangerous and demanding job.

It was
him
.

He’d spent a good nine months trying to get back in the swing of everyday civilian life after his discharge from the navy, but it hadn’t worked. His nightmares had gotten so bad that he’d eventually come to dread sleeping. He’d taken up drinking, hoping to knock himself out, to drown his demons in scotch. But that hadn’t worked. As for gainful employment, he hadn’t been able to find, much less keep, a decent job. How was a man supposed to go from fighting in a war to sitting at a damned desk all day?

It hadn’t been long after that that he’d seen a recruitment ad for the U.S. Marshal Service. And he’d known that was the answer—going back to war. Granted, the war the Marshal Service fought was very different than the one he’d fought while in the navy. But it was the same basic principle—find the bad guys and deal with them. Zach had embraced that mission and never looked back.

But the bottom line was that he didn’t know how to live a civilian life any longer. He could never be the family man with the house in the suburbs, the wife, the two kids, and the dog. The only way he knew how to go on was to keep fighting.

Natalie deserved a full and happy life with a man who wasn’t fucked up or in the line of fire, and he aimed to see she got her chance at it. He would get her safely home even if it cost him every last drop of his blood. But then they would go their separate ways. It sucked for him, really, because if ever he’d met a woman who made him feel . . .

No, he couldn’t let himself go there.

He glanced over to make sure the Glock was on the nightstand, then closed his eyes, held her closer, and let sleep take him. This time, he didn’t dream.

CHAPTER 14

NATALIE WOULD NEVER again take for granted the simple pleasure of waking up in a man’s embrace. Her body floating, she opened her eyes to find her head resting on Zach’s chest, their legs twined together, one strong arm wrapped protectively around her. He was still asleep, his breathing deep and even. She closed her eyes and dozed, savoring the feeling of lying skin to skin beside him, refusing to let herself think.

When she awoke again, he was still asleep, one arm around her, the other stretched over his head. Somehow the two of them had kicked off the sheet, which was now tangled around their knees, leaving them both exposed. Though they’d made love last night, she hadn’t gotten so much as a glimpse of
that
part of him. But now with daylight filtering through the curtains, all she could do was stare.

Oh . . . my . . . stars!

To say he was well endowed was an understatement. Soft but not small, his penis lay across the upper part of his right thigh, the glans pointing toward her, veins visible just beneath the skin of the shaft. It was rooted in a thatch of dark hair, his testicles relaxed against his thighs, the left one lower than the right. She found the sight of him primal, erotic, beautiful.

She let her gaze travel upward, over his six-pack and up to his chest, with its well-defined pecs and dark, flat nipples. Although she didn’t want to wake him, she couldn’t resist touching him, her fingers trailing through the dark curls on his chest, her thoughts returning to last night.

She didn’t regret it—having sex with him. She’d gone so long without a man’s touch. And Zach’s touch was magic, giving her back a part of herself that she’d thought she’d lost. Yes, sex with Beau had been wonderful. But sex with Zach had been wonderful, too—and very intense.

Just like the man.

Everything about last night had been perfect. The way he’d kissed her as if his life depended on it. The way he’d taken his time with her, not rushing things. The way he’d held himself back, bringing her to that second astonishing climax. The way he’d met her gaze as he’d come, a pleading look in his eyes, an expression akin to pain on his face, every muscle in his body straining.

You’re so . . . damned . . . beautiful!

Although she’d entirely forgotten about contraception, he hadn’t. He’d pulled out in good time, sacrificing some of his own pleasure for her. She wouldn’t have expected that kind of thoughtfulness from a man who lived on the dark side.

Signs of the life he lived were still on his body—bruises, scrapes, faded burn marks. The sound of his tortured cries echoed in her mind—and she found herself wanting somehow to erase that pain, to give him pleasure.

She let her fingers have their way with him, following an irresistible line of hair down his belly to his groin. Then, she took him in hand and began to stroke the soft length of him, gently moving her hand down to the base, then back up again to the tip.

He groaned in his sleep, his hips shifting as his penis began to fill, growing thick and firm in her hand. She stroked him harder now, excited by the feel of him, a little bead of moisture pearling at the tip. Then he gasped, his abdominal muscles jerking, and she glanced up to find him looking down at her, an expression of astonishment on his handsome face, his gray eyes smoky with arousal.