Authors: Lora Leigh
“You’re ruining your clothes.” Her arms tightened around her legs as he pulled her between his upraised knees, enclosing her in the shelter of his arms.
“I’ll buy more.” Seth kissed the top of her head as she rested her cheek against his chest.
The was a long silence then, nothing but the sound of the water flowing around them as he rubbed at her back, her shoulders.
Seth had never felt more helpless in his life than he did now. He had no idea how to help her, how to ease her pain, and that sent additional fury pounding through his brain. He wanted to smooth those shadows from her eyes, wrap her in safety and protection and never see fear in her face ever again.
“I wish you had stayed in the house,” he finally sighed, his inadequacies rising inside him.
What was he, that he couldn’t even protect the woman that meant more than life to him?
A small sound escaped her. Caught between a laugh and a dry sob, that sound tore at his heart.
“You’re not made of steel.”
“Neither are you, Dawn.” He rubbed his cheek against her hair, his eyes closing at the smell of Paris with Love, that unique scent that had its matching vial of shampoo and conditioner. He would have to call the soap maker and request more of that scent. It seemed to suit her.
“You’re my mate, Seth,” she whispered. “You’re more to me even than that. I’ve trained to protect, not to hide in a dark room and be protected. What happened was my fault. I let my fury overwhelm me. I didn’t take the proper precautions or he wouldn’t have taken me down so easily.”
“He used a tranquilizer, Dawn.” Disbelief filled his voice. “You’re not immune to it, and you sure as hell can’t avoid that damned dart once it’s fired at you.”
“Actually, you can,” she breathed out wearily. “I should have heard it, sensed it. I have before. I’m trained to know.”
Seth closed his eyes at the confusion in her voice, the sense of helplessness and failure she felt.
Dash said she had remade herself. She hadn’t. The potential for the strong, valiant woman she was had always been inside her; otherwise she would have never survived the life she had been forced to live in those labs.
As the water saturated his clothes, ran off them both in heavy streams, Seth saw what Dash and Callan hadn’t.
“Next time, we’ll work together,” he promised her, knowing he would never take the chance of leaving her behind again.
It wasn’t a lack of trust in her abilities. She would have never survived that attack if she wasn’t strong and well trained. He had heard the battle she waged with her attacker; the strength in the man’s voice, and his shock when she overpowered him.
He had seen the proof of it on the ground around her—the struggle to survive—and he had been too far away from her to defend her. He had left her, when he knew he should have realized she would never wait on him.
Pure rage had governed him though. She had remained calm when the bastard first made contact. She had found the Breed he had attacked, sent her help, begun coordinating the search when Seth picked up the comm link and heard the vile, smug laughter in that voice. The lust and possessiveness, the certainty that he would destroy the woman as he had nearly destroyed the child.
“Next time, we’ll let the team do their job and stay in place.” She leaned against him tiredly, curled against his chest, her naked body warmed by the heat of the water, and by his body. “I can’t lose you like that, Seth. Don’t make me lose you like that.”
The utter loneliness, the helpless emotion in her voice, tore at his soul. If she walked away from him, it would destroy him. God help him, if she were to die. Could he live through the pain? He didn’t think he could.
He lowered his hand until his fingers were tilting her chin, lifting her face to his.
“You won’t lose me,” he whispered, staring into the shadowed eyes, his chest clenching at the fear she was fighting so hard to hide.
He had known this would happen. Had known the memories would begin returning once he had her in his bed. How was he supposed to protect her from those?
“I can kick ass.” She stared back at him somberly. “I trained, Seth. I know what I’m doing. I kept him from hurting me.”
She kept him from raping her. He heard her unspoken words.
“I watched your training vids,” he revealed. “I know you can kick ass, Dawn. You kick righteous ass, babe.”
And she did. She was small and light, but she could turn the most hardened Breed Enforcers into pretzels as she moved around them.
“You watch too many vids of me,” she whispered. “Don’t watch vids, Seth. Watch me.”
“No more vids.”
He lowered his head. He couldn’t resist her lips. She had been biting at them; they were red and luscious and he wanted to soothe them. He rubbed his lips against hers, licked at them.
“Shower sex again?” She smiled against his lips.
He stared into her eyes. “I’m hungry for you. Now, Dawn.”
Her hand lifted and speared through the wet strands of his hair as she pulled his mouth back to hers.
“Here I am,” she murmured against his lips. “All yours, Seth. I’m all yours.”
CHAPTER 18
The fear was burning in her stomach, nearly as hot as the arousal, tearing at her control and the memories she had contained for so many years. Dawn didn’t want to face them. She didn’t want to face the pain and the horror, the helplessness she knew she would have felt.
She didn’t want to feel that, ever again. She just wanted to feel this. Seth’s hands as they roamed over her wet body, sliding and heating, stealing her mind from the fears and the shifting shadows of pain and turning it to pleasure instead.
Kissing Seth was like kissing sunlight. The same heat, the same blinding acceptance and wash of joy moved through her as it did when the sunlight touched her face.
In the past days, experiencing passion in his arms had opened a world for her that she had never known existed. A world she never wanted to lose.
“You’re still dressed.” She dragged her lips back from his long enough to pull at the sodden shirt.
Curled against him as she was, she could feel every inch of his chest along the side of her body, every beat of his heart.
He ignored her little protest. His hands cupped her head as he drew it back once more, his lips covering hers, his tongue pressing into her mouth to tangle with hers.
As he rubbed against the swollen glands beneath her tongue, Dawn felt the hormone that built there flowing free. He lapped it up. A low, throbbing growl left his lips as he teased her tongue to his mouth, then suckled at it. Sweetly, seductively, stealing the hormone and letting it course through his body as she came to her knees, turning to him, desperate to give him more.
She needed to bind him to her, if only in this way. Any way. That instinctive, animal part of her fought to make certain there was no part of Seth Lawrence that didn’t belong to her. Make certain he could never again forget the strength of his hunger for her and touch another woman.
He was hers. She was his. She was so totally his that at times she wondered if she could survive without him now.
“Don’t think, Dawn.” He pulled back from the kiss, only to run his lips down her neck as his hands cupped her breasts.
They were so sensitive. The mounds were hard and swollen, desperate for his touch. Her nipples were pebble hard, extending toward him, aching for his mouth.
Dawn shook her head, her hands pulling at his shirt as his lips covered one of the hard, too-sensitive peaks and drew it into his mouth.
Instant, ecstatic pleasure tore through her. She felt his tongue flaying the hardened flesh, his mouth suckling her. Deep. The pressure a pleasure-pain, as a half mewl, half purr escaped her throat.
Her fingers tightened in his hair as her womb clenched, spasmed. Between her thighs she could feel the moisture gathering, easing from her pussy to coat the swollen folds that parted in anticipation of his touch.
“Touch me.” She needed his touch. She needed his hands stroking all of her, his fingers delving into her.
And she needed to touch him.
Dawn knelt between his thighs, between his knees, feeling his lips pulling at her nipples, his tongue raking across them, and she let herself fly.
She couldn’t think when she was in his arms, she could only feel.
“Purring for me?” He dragged his lips back, his breathing harsh as his hands gripped her hips and he forced her to her feet. “Grab the metal rings, Dawn. Hold on tight.”
The metal rings were two towel holders hanging out of the way of the water. Her hands latched onto them as he turned her, then rose before her.
He stripped quickly. The sodden clothes were tossed to the corner of the shower and his erection stood out from his body, flushed dark, the veins pulsing beneath the flesh.
Bronze flesh rippled over hard muscle as he moved to her again, his lips tasting hers, his tongue stroking over hers, tasting the last remnants of the heat spilling from her tongue.
His hands caressed as he tasted, skimming down her sides, over her hips, parting her thighs.
“I want to taste you.” He reached up and readjusted the fall of water until it cascaded around them rather than over them. “I want my tongue inside you, licking all your sweet cream. Feeling it on my tongue, against my lips.”
She nearly lost her breath at the look of sensuality on his face. Her hands tightened on the rings as he slowly went to his knees once again.
He lifted one of her legs, placed it gently over his shoulder, then bent his head to her.
“Seth—” She cried out his name, her head falling back as her hips tilted forward, giving him access to her flesh, feeling his tongue stroking, slowly, so slowly around the hard nubbin of her clit.
His thumbs parted the folds and his lips covered the pulsing knot of nerves so he could suckle it, making her insane with need. Powerful flashes of sensation raced through her nervous system. Tiny implosions centered in her womb had her jerking, reaching, begging for release.
“I could taste you all day.” His voice was hard, lustful. “Every day. The sweetest flesh in the world.” His lips caught a flushed pussy lip, sucked it into his mouth, licked over it.
The bare flesh had no protection. There were no curls between his touch and her flesh. There was only the heat tearing through it.
Then one hand cupped her rear, the other looped beneath her leg and dragged it to his other shoulder. He was supporting her, his hands on her ass, holding her to him, and he began to devour her.
Hard, hungry thrusts of his tongue speared into her vagina as he lapped. Lapped and moaned and caressed flesh, so needy, so hungry for touch that it rippled and milked his tongue.
She tightened on the thrusting flesh, her thighs framing his face as she writhed into the delicate fucking. She was pierced by flames. Flames that whipped through her body, clenched her muscles and left her reaching, climbing, desperate for release.
Then he licked up, circled her clit, surrounded it with his lips and sucked, sending her spinning, racing into ecstasy as she wailed his name, certain she would never recover from the pleasure tearing through her.
But he didn’t give her time to recover. He came to his feet, her legs sliding down his arms until he was wrapping them around his waist.
“Hold on tight.” His voice was hard, his expression heavy with lust as he gripped his cock and fitted it against the hungry opening between her thighs. “Hold on to me, Dawn. I’m going to fuck us both into oblivion.”
He eased inside her.
Dawn’s head thrashed back and forth. “Harder. Take me, Seth. Take me hard.”
He stretched her open slowly, inch by inch, the muscles in his upper body straining, his neck corded at the force of control needed to take her so slowly.
“Please.” Her hands tightened on the rings as he bucked against her once. One inch driven in hard, and it wasn’t enough.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t beg. Pleasure was attacking her from all ends, wrapping around her as she felt him throbbing inside her.
Dawn tightened her legs around his hips, tilted her hips and tried to take him deeper. Seth held her steady, his gray eyes nearly black, locked on hers.
“I want to feel every clench, every flexing little ripple over my dick,” he growled. “I want to feel you take me, Dawn. Inch by inch.” And there were a lot of inches to take.
By the time he penetrated her fully, Dawn was a writhing mass of nerve endings, jerking in his grip as she fought for release. She couldn’t speak, words wouldn’t escape, only the little mewling cries that Seth seemed to love so much.
The pleasure was almost agony. It was building inside her, tightening her womb. As his pelvis rubbed against her clit, he drove her higher. As he pulled back then worked his way inside her again, a frustrated, tormented growl left her throat.
Her head lowered to his neck, her teeth raked the little wound she had left there before. She sucked it, feeling him tense, curse, but his movements grew stronger, the thrusts harder.
She felt him moving inside her, more than filling her, stretching her, burning her, and the pleasure of it was building until it whipped through her, exploded in mindless rapture and had her arching tight against him. She tightened, her pussy flexing on his cock as he gave a hard groan, pushed in hard and fast, once, twice, then buried deep as his semen began to spurt inside her. The deep, heated pulses of pleasure extended her orgasm, sent another hard shudder through her body.
She was awash in pleasure. Taken past ecstasy. She hung in his grip, his head bent to her shoulder as both of them fought for breath, and felt as though she had become a part of his skin.
And she never wanted him to let her go. She wanted to spend eternity, right here, with the steamy water surrounding them, and Seth buried inside her.
I love you. She mouthed the words against the wound she had reopened, where shoulder and neck met, where her lips pressed a kiss to the reddened area and she closed her eyes tight. She loved him until her heart was breaking with it, and she still had no idea if his response to her was love, lust or the mating heat.