Danger That Is Damion (21 page)

He stepped back to let her pass, not trusting himself to look at her, all too aware of just how on edge he was, just how ready to pull her into his arms and feel those soft curves melt into his body. She moved forward, and his gaze brushed the soft sway of her hips, thickening his blood and his cock right along with it, the stretch of his zipper uncomfortable with demand. He’d held her, touched her, and had her naked in his arms. It didn’t take much to envision doing so again.

He followed her inside and dimmed the lights. The narrow hallway was short and led to a room of white and gray tile, where the living room and the kitchen were one open space of black leather, silver, and glass—standard in all the quarters. Off to the left, the bedroom was, thankfully, through a door that both shut and locked. Lara paused, a few steps inside, turning to face him. He could feel her nearness tearing away at his willpower, threading through his blood, tempting him, calling him.

“Michael says you never break the rules, but you broke them for me,” she said.

“Michael doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.”

“So it’s true?”

“I told you I disobeyed an order by bringing you here.”

“Is it true that you never break the rules, but you did for me?”

“Yes.” And he didn’t know why she made everything different, why she made him reconsider right from wrong—only that he’d do it all over again.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t break the rules for me. Don’t trust me because I can’t risk trusting you. Damion, I don’t know who I am or what I am or what I’ve done. I don’t know if you’re my friend or my enemy. I don’t know anything except—”

He grabbed her and pulled her to him. “Except this,” he said, his mouth slanting over hers in a deep claiming kiss he’d no more planned than he could now conceive of ending. She clung to him, melted just like he’d imagined a dozen times in the past few hours, her hands wrapping around his neck, her breasts pressed to his chest. “We want each other. What happens beyond that we’ll deal with later.”

“And if we regret it?” she asked.

He brushed his lips over hers. “I’m not going to regret this. No possible way.” He kissed her, and somehow, he ended up against the door, her hand on his chest.

“We could be enemies,” she reminded him. “We could be trying to kill each other tomorrow.”

He molded her breast to his hand then pressed her shirt up, his hands touching the smooth, soft skin of her waist. He skimmed higher, to shove down her bra and caress her nipple. “You can try and kill me as many times as you want as long as you do it naked.”

She bit her lip and tugged at his shirt. “As long as you’re naked too.”

“Oh yeah,” he promised, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it aside. “I’ll be naked.”

She ran her hands over the body armor he wore. “You mean you’d trust me without this on?”

“
Do
you trust me without my body armor? Because once it’s off, there’s nothing to hold me back.”

“I’m counting on it,” she promised, tugging down the zipper on his shoulder, and pressing her lips to the skin there. “Which is why I can’t wait to get it off you.”

He tugged her shirt up, and she moved to let him pull it over her head. Before she’d even managed to toss it aside, he’d unhooked her bra and shoved it down her arms, baring her beautiful high breasts for his viewing. Damion filled his hands with the weight of them, pressing them together, teasing her nipples.

She moaned, her hands covering his, her teeth scraping her bottom lip. “Kiss me,” she commanded.

He tweaked her nipples, and pleasure rippled across her pale, beautiful face. “Where?”

“Everywhere,” she said, leaning in to brush her mouth against his. “And why are you still wearing that armor?” A wild kiss followed, before her lips trailed his jaw, before she licked his ear and whispered, “Take it off before I get a knife and cut it off.”

His hands slid into her hair, pulling her head back, baring her neck as he kissed a path down it and turned her to press her against the wall.

“What happened to getting naked, Damion?”

He let out a soft growl he barely recognized as his own—he was so aroused, so out of his own skin, yet never so inside himself as he was in this instant. The second she’d decided this was going to happen, the second she’d given herself, and him, permission to just be free, she had changed, and he with her. She was the woman from the shower now, demanding what she wanted, taking what she needed, and he was a man wild for that woman. There was something about her this way, about her ability to hold her own with him that turned him on in a way he had never imagined possible. She was no fragile flower, no delicate female who needed coddling. Just pure woman… sexy woman.

Stepping back from her, he made no effort to hide his lust, his desire. His gaze raked over her high, full breasts, and then lower—over her slender but curvy hips, her long legs that he intended to wrap around his shoulders, and then his hips. “Get naked,” he ordered. “Take the rest of it off.”

Her lips tilted seductively. “Already planned on it, soldier.” She reached for her pants. He reached for his. They watched every zip, tug, and disappearing garment, until they stood there naked, staring at each other.

She smiled slyly, her gaze traveling over his body with open hunger, lingering on the pulsing thickness of his erection, before running her tongue over her lips. “You’re even better than expected.”

“And you are dangerously naughty,” he said, reaching for her, only to have her dart past him and into the living room. He turned to catch the arousing image of her deliciously round and firm backside disappearing around the corner. “And you’re killing me.”

“I thought that was the idea,” she purred in the midst of a sultry laugh.

Damion stalked after her. His blood pumped with a rush of adrenaline as hot as liquid silver. It was the primal high of hunting Lara, of the chase, unexpected—damn near uncontrollable—in its demand. He scanned the living room and entered the bedroom, only to have her wrap herself around him from behind. He turned to her, his prey, this tantalizing woman, who’d challenged him from the moment he’d met her, pulling her close and kissing her.

She clung to him, kissed him back, her tongue wild and hot, her hand wrapped around his cock.

“Something you want?” he asked.

She shoved him backward onto the bed and came down on top of him, reclaiming his cock with her hand. She cast him a naughty look. “I want this,” she said and licked the head.

He moaned with the sensation only to have her straddle him, the wet heat of her settling across his hips, her backside pressed to his cock. “I want you,” she panted and leaned over him, her hand sliding over his chest, her lips following, her teeth scraping his nipple. Her silky dark hair splayed across his chest just where he wanted it.

He rolled her to her back, pressed her legs apart to settle into the wet, slick heat between them, pressing her hands over her head and shackling them with one of his. “Clearly I have to take control.”

“You can try,” she challenged.

He ran his hand over her breasts, kneading and caressing before skimming a path down her slender rib cage, around her backside. She bit her bottom lip. Damn, he loved when she did that. Her dark lashes fluttered.

“I’d say I’m succeeding pretty well.”

“Because I’m letting you,” she whispered.

“Letting me?” he asked.

“Hmmm,” she said, sucking in a soft breath, as he lowered his head and suckled her nipple, then took his time licking and teasing, while she arched her back, pressing the rose-red peaks toward him.

“Still letting me?” he asked, moving to the other breast to repeat his actions.

“Yes,” she assured, as he slid his cock in the slick heat of the intimate V of her legs, even as she squeezed her thighs together, trying to draw him into her.

“So kind of you,” he said, swirling his tongue over the stiff peak of her nipple.

“Isn’t it just?” she agreed, a look of absolute lust in her eyes as she watched him lave her nipples, one after the other. She inhaled as his teeth nipped a stiff peak, his tongue soothing the tip, then whispered, “Especially since I intend to make you pay for every second of torture you’re making me endure.”

“If I ever set you free.” He kissed her mouth, a soft, teasing kiss. “You never finished telling me what kissing me makes you feel.” His lips trailed over her jaw, her neck. “Tell me now.”

“Kissing you,” she whispered, “makes the headaches go away.”

He stilled with his mouth by her ear, lifting his head to stare at her. “What?”

She shook her head. “Touching you… stops the flashbacks. It—you—make them go away.”

He released her wrists, dragging his hand down her arm, cradling her cheek. “I’m not—”

“I know. You’re not doing it on purpose,” she said. “I know you’re not causing the headaches or taking them away.” She tried to laugh, but it sounded strained. “I guess you could say I’m using you. I hope you don’t mind?”

They stared at one another, the air around them, between them… shifting, hanging, intensifying. He knew her admission had come with a price, and that price had been trust. She’d just told him he had power over her beyond simple sex and attraction. Emotion welled in his chest at the realization, tightening his body, even as something unfamiliar expanded within him. Again, he had the sense of this woman belonging here with him, in his bed, under him, or on top him, or wherever she damn well wanted to be—but with him.

“Damion,” she whispered, at the same moment he said, “Use me all you want.”

He slanted his mouth over hers, his tongue stroking hers, caressing. He’d wanted women before, but never like this, never so completely—never with the sense of urgency that he did with Lara. Maybe it was knowing that he alone had eased her pain. Maybe that had created a bond. Or maybe it was the trust factor. Or maybe it was simply just the two of them together.

She sighed into his mouth, her fingers finding his neck, his hair. He trailed his lips over her jaw to her ear. “Do you have any idea how badly I want to be inside you?”

“Not as badly as I want you there, or you’d already be there.”

He might have smiled at the witty remark that he was fast realizing was her way, but the words, the challenge, had his cock throbbing, pulsing. “I don’t want to keep the lady waiting,” he murmured, holding his weight on one elbow, his lips close to hers, his hand reaching between them to wrap around the thick width of his erection. He slid himself down the wet heat of her, back and forth.

“Then why are you?” she said, digging into his biceps.

He watched her face as he entered her, sliding inside her slowly, despite the near desperate need to thrust deep and bury himself in the farthest depths of her. Still, another part of him wanted to watch her face, to savor the moment, the pleasure. Slowly, inch by inch, he slid deeper inside the tight core of her, the wet wonder of her body drawing him in, until he was buried to the hilt.

“Is this what you wanted?” he asked, settling his elbows on the bed beside her head.

“Yes.” She breathed out the word in a sigh and then taunted him. “But I thought you’d move or something.”

He laughed, the sound tight with barely contained desire. He pulled back and thrust into her. “Like that?”

“A decent start,” she said, her fingers curling into his backside, pulling him deeper. “But is that all you have?”

“You want more?”

“More,” she agreed, wrapping her legs around his hips. “Much more.”

It was a demand. She was panting, the feel of Damion inside her, filling her with heat and need, and she was holding nothing back. There were no inhibitions, not even a memory of past sexual experiences to guide her. There was an innate understanding of her own sexuality, of her comfort in it with this man, on the most intimate of levels. “More!” She arched against him, trying to pull him inside her, trying to take all of him when he refused to give it to her. He thrust deeply. Teasing mercilessly, he slid back slowly, until the tip of his erection was all that remained. Her hips lifted, chasing him. “You’re killing me, and you damn well know it.”

“Killing you softly,” he promised, suckling her nipple and letting his next thrust tug deliciously against it.

“Killing me is better than torturing me,” she assured him a moment before his hands slid under her backside, lifting her, as he pumped into her, harder and faster.

“How’s that?” he questioned in a passion-etched voice that bordered on primal. Oh, and she liked primal, she liked over-the-edge—it’s where she wanted to be, where she wanted him to be with her.

“Harder,” she ordered. “Faster.”

He lifted her legs to his shoulders, thrusting into her, watching her with a heavy-lidded stare. “More?”

“Yes. More.”

His face tightened, his body flexing as he held her, as he moved in a fast, hard rhythm—deliciously male, deliciously hot.

“Yes.” She wasn’t sure how many more times she repeated “yes.” The world faded into a cloud of sensation until she couldn’t breathe, until every nerve ending she owned seemed to still and then exploded in an erotic rainbow of pleasure. Her body spasmed around the thick width of his cock, and he moaned—a sexy male sound that radiated through her—an intimate caress that intensified her release. Another stroke, another thrust, and his hands tightened on her legs as he shook and shattered. The wet warm heat of his release spilled inside her, before he settled her legs down and collapsed onto his elbows, over the top of her. For long seconds they lay there, their bodies intimately entwined.