“The Demon Seed. That is why you will not tell me your name.” All the spy movies she’d watched since leaving the cloister crowded her brain. “So I do not blow your cover. Now I understand. Once again you try to protect me like you would a child. How often must I tell you—I am not helpless.”
But the realization lifted her spirits and scrubbed away the hurt. “And when I refuse to call you Demon, I undermount your cover.”
“Undermine.” He shook his head, but that rare smile appeared like a blinding blast of sunshine, and she touched the three dimples when his lips curved—two dimples on the right side, only one on the left because of the scar.
“What am I going to do with you, kitten? Didn’t you hear what I said? I’ve killed dozens of men.” He leaned his forehead on hers, and his warm, coffee-scented breath tickled her face.
“Mas, of course. You are a warrior. I knew that from the first, from your actions and stance on the beach. And you, you are a SEAL, no? I have read much about them in the papers.”
“An ex-SEAL. Many ex-SEALs are mercenaries. Kill for whoever pays the highest dollar.” He folded his arms now, and she grinned.
“Not you.” She didn’t bother to add any more for something worried her about all he had said, but she couldn’t define what.
“You can’t know that.”
She threw her hands up. “There can be only one reason you are replacing this commander. You will take o Assassino Sorridente back to America. To punish him for his crimes. It is the right thing to do. I will help.”
“That is the one thing you
will
not do.” He captured her wrists and brought his nose to hers, making her eyes cross. “Because you won’t be in the same hemisphere as of two days from now.”
“What do you mean? That is not possible. Emilio has my travel papers.” Her eyelids suddenly became heavy to lift. She yawned and covered her mouth with one hand.
“Not a problem. It’s all arranged. In two days, you’ll be on a plane to the United States.” He glowered at her, his shaggy eyebrows pulling together like a jagged rope.
“No. You patronize me again. I am
not
helpless. How can you even think of such a thing? I must find out about my mother. I must visit her grave.”
She had to see where her mother had lived. Maybe there were more pictures, a prayer book, a diary like the one she kept. What a treasure that would be. Another wide yawn stretched her mouth, and she didn’t have the energy to do the polite thing and hide the tonsils that must surely show.
“Listen to me. Pedro killed his own sister. Do you think he would hesitate to kill you? He wouldn’t. Not for a second. If you thought Emilio was bad, Pedro’s a thousand times worse. He kept your mother a prisoner, Jacinta. She sent you away because she knew what he’s capable of.”
“How do you know this? What are you not telling me?” She yanked her wrists free and drummed her fists on his chest. “Did Emilio know my mother is dead?”
“What do you think?”
“I think he knew. Revenge. That’s what Emilio wanted. To send me to my uncle after many rapings. I do not understand. Why did he take me to Venezuela?” She dug a fist into her aching temple and succumbed to a series of several more yawns.
“You’re as pale as a ghost. And you’ve got smudges under your eyes. That’s enough for tonight. We’ll continue this tomorrow. You need some food in your stomach and a good night’s rest.”
She shook her head, but her mind remained fuzzy. “I thought I felt turvy-topsy before, but this is worse. I feel as if I have cotton in my brain.”
“Topsy-turvy. I put a sedative in your tea. It’s kicking in.”
Not able to choke off the yawn erupting from her mouth, she tried to summon the energy to glare at him. But when he gathered her close, she rested her cheek on his bare chest needing to hear the comforting sound of his heart beating.
Drained, emotions spent, she allowed him to carry her to the bunk, stood unresisting when he stripped her, and replaced her clothes with a T-shirt that smelled of him.
She dutifully chewed the chunks of a bar of chocolate he fed her until her jaw grew too weary to function. Drawing on the last of her reserves, Jacinta cleaned her teeth and crawled into the bunk.
He spooned her, his large body warming her chilled skin, wrapped himself around her, and buried his face in the crook of her neck. Sleep claimed her wool-stuffed thoughts like a heavy blanket before she could wish him good night.
* * * *
Though she felt the warmth of the sun and her subconscious registered the morning, Jacinta fought to stay in that half-dazed, delightful stage between distrait slumber and full consciousness. Fantasies fogged her mind, prickles coated her flesh, and her sex clenched. She arched to the tongue lapping at her folds, and her thighs edged farther apart in response to the firm, insistent pressure of hard shoulders.
Peering down the length of her body, a smile stole across her face at the sight that met her eyes—Demon’s head between her legs, the sandy waves of his hair mingled with the dark V of curls leading to her core. He looked up, their gazes met, and he flashed the wicked grin that liquefied her bones.
“Mornin’, kitten.”
She drank him in. His face glistened in the peach glow of a half-formed dawn. The obvious evidence of her arousal coated his nose, mouth, and cheeks. He smacked his lips. “Best breakfast in the world.”
Her inner walls contracted, and she couldn’t drag her gaze away from him, not even if a thousand Yanomami invaded the houseboat right then and there.
“I’ve discovered some of your sweet spots.”
His voice had coarsened, and her stomach hollowed as the bass growl rumbled through her insides. She crushed the pillow lying between her and the wall when the rough surface of his tongue dawdled at the rim of her center.
“Ah yeah. You like that.”
His thumb traced the circle, the pressure forcing her inner walls into a tight, rapid squeezing. Her vision blurred. She sucked in air but couldn’t fill her lungs. Jacinta sighed and surrendered to the sheer pleasure of feeling, of letting go of any semblance of logic, savoring every caress of his blunt, calloused fingers, the slow, careful licking and suckling of each fold, and the tantalizing feathering of his rasped, hot breath over her damp flesh.
He pinched her nubbin. She levered off the bunk and cried out, “Mãe de Deus.”
“I’m the strategy member of the squad.”
She heard the words but registered no meaning to them, too distracted by his teeth tugging her pubic hair. The stinging sensation spiked her nipples into a tingling, burning neediness.
“I set goals. Devise the strategy to achieve them.”
Wanting nothing more than to force him to nibble and nip at her nub, she opened her eyes to find him fixing her with a predatory stare. “Goal: five orgasms. Strategy: make you beg for each and every one.”
Time had no meaning. Reality evaporated. The sole focus of her existence drew down to his touch, his taste, his scent, his hooded study of her every reaction. His hearing seemed acutely attuned to her every half-stifled whimper and moan, for whenever she made a sound at a particularly electrifying caress, he tortured her by repeating it over and over.
“Who’s licking your pussy, Jacinta? Tell me. Then I’ll let you come.”
He brushed his lips back and forth over her nub, the light grazing so frustrating she tangled her hands in his hair and urged him to that spot. He shook free of her hold, rested his tongue there, licked her and then ordered, “Tell me right now.”
She gasped when he thrust a finger deep inside and continued with the lithe, teasing brushing of his lips on her core. Stretching her tightness, he added another finger. Her lungs squeezed. She couldn’t gather a single thought, needed him to thrust faster, increase the pressure. “Por favor, I beg you, Demon.”
Within a flash, his teeth grazed her nub, and he worked her without mercy, his fingers hitting nerves that sent her vaginal muscles into spiraling spasms that elicited a climax so intense her vision darkened at the corners.
He held her through the fierce aftershocks, sliding up the mattress and raining hot, openmouthed kisses over her neck, throat, and eyelids. Spent, unable to summon enough strength to move an inch, it took long seconds before she felt the heat of his stare and met his gaze.
“I can watch you come for hours. Taste you all day and all night. You’re so beautiful like this. All flushed and dazed. That was orgasm number one, kitten. Four more to go.”
“I cannot.” She shook her head. “It is all too much.”
“You’ve no idea, kitten. You can and you will. Feel how nice and wet you are.” He wriggled the fingers still snug and moving inside her. “The last time you come, I’ll be inside of you. And you’ll be so slick and ready for me, I’ll be able to fuck you for a long, long time. I’m going to learn when you like a slow in and out, how deep you like it, what makes you explode on a dime.”
Without warning her sex readied for him, drenching his hand. “How can this be? Seconds ago I could not have imagined having the energy or the desire. But you say such wicked words, and I feel it building again.”
“That’s the secret. Finding the things that get you going. Sometimes it’s a visual. Like those white cotton panties. Or you wearing my T-shirt. Sometimes it’s a smell.” He slipped his fingers free, brought the slick digits to his nose, and inhaled.
Fascinated, her excitement leaping, she licked her lips when he sucked off each finger. “Always it’s the taste. Then there’s the feel of us skin to skin. The little noises you make. The way you thrash on the bed and fight the climax. Even a simple, underrated, chaste kiss. You turn me on, Jacinta. Every which way and then some.”
They didn’t surface until near noon. Her body ached in places she hadn’t even known existed. He had made her wait longer and longer for each climax, and by the end, she would’ve done anything, anything at all, to get him inside her. He had kept true to every declaration: five orgasms, her pleading for release and crying out his name as she shattered, and the last and sweetest, his engorged penis ramming, sliding, driving her to the brink over and over until he finally threw his head back and roared his pleasure, taking her with him.
Cozy and safe in his embrace, Jacinta slid in and out of sleep, surrounded by the tangled aromas of her juices, his musk, and their combined sweat. The real world seeped back into her consciousness when her stomach growled insistently and the heat and humidity climbed to a thickness that had her longing for a swim.
Opening her eyes, she found him staring at her. “Do you ever sleep?”
“I don’t need much downtime. Ready for some grub?”
“Do we still have the M&M’s?” She tousled his hair and traced the square line of his jaw, lingering on the dimple in his chin.
“That’s for our afternoon quickie. I set a couple of lines in the water after you fell asleep. Caught three fish and scraped some mussels off the rocks. I’ve a fisherman’s stew bubbling on the burner.”
He winked at her, and she marveled at the thick fringe of lashes framing eyes now colored more green than brown. She sniffed. “It smells delicious. I think you want the M&M’s for yourself.”
“You got me. I’m going to eat them out of your pussy later.”
She blinked and then giggled. “They’ll melt if I’m as hot there as you claim.”
“Strategy number two. Sucking melted chocolate off your pussy. Not to worry—you can have the peanuts.” He nipped her earlobe.
Jacinta knew she wore a foolish grin. “What’s strategy number one?”
“Putting them inside of your sweet pussy.” He waggled his shaggy brows.
“We need a lot of rain.”
“Woman.” He shook her. “I’m talking of pussy and chocolate and you want rain? What gives?”
“How else are we to get clean?” She crawled over him and out of bed, batting his hands away when he tried to grab her waist. “I thought it would rain last night. I love bathing in the rain. In the cloister at night, when a storm broke, I would sneak out, naked, and run through the forests. Another example of my pagan nature, Sister Helen said when she caught me.”
“I love your pagan nature.” He lay on the bed wearing not a stitch of clothing, penis thick, heavy, the ridged veins prominent against his flat belly, head cradled in his hands, watching her through hooded eyes. “Where’s your Sister Helen from?”
She shrugged. “She wouldn’t tell me, and I stopped asking. Most of the elder sisters were from Ireland, and the younger ones from Brazil or Venezuela. She spoke so many languages, even French. I like not the French. I miss her. It has been fifty-nine days since I last saw her.”
His jaw clenched, the set of his mouth changed, flattening ever so slightly, and his nostrils flared for a brief instant. “Exactly when did you leave the cloister?”
Chapter Seven
Cocking her head, she squinted at him. “Fifty-nine days ago. Why? You have that look on your face. The one you had when I spoke of Emilio showing me my mother’s picture.”
Damn it
. No one saw beneath his poker face. Demon relaxed his facial muscles and checked his stance. His breathing hadn’t changed, and he hadn’t moved a muscle, so how in pissing hell had she cottoned on to the change in his questioning?
“Do not even think it.” She folded her arms. “You will not distract me with sex. Or food. You
will
stop treating me like a child. Like a foolish girl who cannot take care of herself.”
She’d lived in a cloistered convent from babyhood, save for the last fifty-nine days. Demon gritted his teeth. Plain as day to him and any other sane person—she needed protecting and sheltering to the max. Not that he’d done a brilliant job of that to date. He weighed his options and decided knowledge and a heavy dose of scare tactics were the best strategies to obtain her total obedience.
“Pedro Nunez killed your mother exactly sixty-two days ago. What kind of contact did the cloister have with the outside world?” No fucking coincidence, the two events—her leaving the cloister and her mother’s death—being so close together. Demon swung his legs off the bunk. He hadn’t intended to leave until well after dark, but this news impacted the timing of his plans.