Authors: Lora Leigh
“Will you let me love you, Jacob?” she finally asked him softly. “I need that much. At least that much, Jacob, or I can’t survive.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
If he had a heart, it would have broken at that moment. Pain sliced through Jacob’s soul, ripping through his body, clenching every bone and muscle in an agony of protest. Her voice was soft, so gentle and sweet it destroyed him. And in it, he heard her love. As though her soul had opened and from it the nectar of an emotional banquet poured. It washed over him. It seeped into scars and wounds he never knew he had, deep within his own soul.
His eyes grew moist as he held her to his chest, sheltering her smaller body, wanting nothing more than to protest all the innocence and belief she still held. Still. Even after the life she had been raised in. Even after all the cruelties she had seen since their escape. Still, Faith believed in love. She made him want to go to his knees and beg her to let him in on the secret of holding onto that belief. How had she stayed so soft, so delicate inside and out, when he was so hard, so bitter? What act of supreme mercy had saved her?
He didn’t know. But as he held her, he thanked God with everything inside him that she had been protected. That somehow His hand had sheltered her, protected her, held her heart intact.
“You humble me, Faith.” He didn’t know what to say to her. He didn’t understand the twisting morass of emotions tearing him apart now.
Unfamiliar emotions. Feelings and sensations he had never known in his life. Equal parts gentleness and sharp chastisement, it flooded his body and his mind as nothing else ever had.
“I don’t want to humble you, Jacob. I want to love you.” Her hands moved over his back, her nails scratching erotically across the material covering him.
He barely stifled his groan. The scent of her need had increased. As though her emotional storm were somehow tied to the intensity of her arousal. It beckoned him, drugged him until he could think of little else but sinking his cock deep inside her body. But there was a part of his soul that eased as well. Faith was his mate, and in her voice, in her actions, she had accepted him, even without the love that he knew she needed as well.
“You are everything to me.” He fought his need to ease her, to give her whatever she desired, just because she desired it. But hell, what did he know of love, besides what she had showed him? And God knew, he had never given her the devotion, the depth of sacrifice she had given him for six years.
“It’s okay, Jacob.” She shook her head to give him the escape he knew he needed.
But he also knew it wasn’t all right. He was failing her. He couldn’t fail her, not Faith. Not again.
“If I knew love, then I know all I would have would be for you,” he whispered desperately. “If my heart were intact, then it would be filled with nothing but my love for you, Faith.” He held onto her, his arms tightening around her as he felt her breath hitch, felt her tears against his chest. “Dear God in Heaven, Faith, I cannot bear hurting you. Please. Please, trip me on my ass again or something. Anything. But do not cry over me.”
“Not over you, you buffoon.” She pushed away from him, wiping desperately at her cheeks as she stared up at him. “I’m crying for you. There’s a difference, you know.”
She was beautiful. Such a beautiful work of nature that she held him spellbound. Her face was flushed, her eyes so dark and wondrous sparkling with tears and emotions until they seemed filled with a thousand pinpoints of light. A frown drew her auburn brows low over her eyes, and her mouth, so perfectly formed, hinted at just the smallest pout. He had never seen a more beautiful woman. Had never wanted anything or anyone in his life as desperately as he wanted Faith right now.
“Then don’t cry for me, either.” He shook his head, feeling mesmerized by her. “Dammit, Faith.” He raked his fingers through his hair, feeling adrift, lost in an emotional abyss he had no idea how to navigate. All he knew was that this was Faith, and that where it mattered most to her, he could feel himself failing her.
There was no way to apologize. No words that could express the wrenching emotional sensations so unfamiliar to him. He did the only thing he knew how to do. Fought to ease it the only way he knew how.
He jerked her into his arms, his lips covering hers, halting any more words, any more tears from her. His tongue pushed past her surprised lips, sweeping into her mouth with a desperation he could barely control. He needed her. Had to have her. He felt an overriding compulsion to imprint the taste and feel of his body upon her mind in a way she could never deny. In a way that would reassure her. Tempt her. Complete her.
Jacob felt her hands grip his shoulders, her nails biting into his flesh as she moaned into his kiss. She was hot and addictive. Sweetness and innocence and a sultry temptation that drove him insane.
He ate at her mouth, her lips, her tongue. The touch of her, the taste of her was burning into his soul. He needed more, needed her so hot, so desperate for him that she would never leave, never regret her love for him. Never regret that he didn’t know how to love.
“Jacob.” Her cry was music to his soul. Filled with hot need, dazed arousal. She made him feel like a conqueror, a rescuer. She made him feel alive. And Jacob knew that until she had walked into that dirty little bar, her arousal pulsing with each heartbeat, he hadn’t lived. Not really. His life began with that night.
“I need you now,” he growled as he tore his lips from hers, sweeping a path down her neck as his hands pushed beneath her shirt once more. “Right now, Faith.”
Her breasts were hard, swollen, tipped with pebble hard nipples that pleaded for his attention, his caress. He tweaked the little points, glorying in her heated cry for more. She pressed closer to him, arching against him as she moaned deeply. And Jacob could do no more than give her what she needed so desperately.
He turned, his hands maneuvering her as his lips nipped at her neck, at the mark he left on her. The sensual little brand that marked her as his mate. His woman.
The door to the living room was closed, he knew none of his Enforcers would dare disturb him, but he was to the point that it wouldn’t matter if they did. He couldn’t stop. He had to be inside her, deep and tight, her muscles searing him as she climaxed around him.
She whimpered. A needy, breathy little sigh that made his blood pressure skyrocket and his cock jerk in response.
“Right here,” he whispered, hearing the desperation in his own voice as he turned her in his arms, bending her over the back of the chair.
“The chair?” Amusement and lust vied for supremacy as she wiggled her butt at him.
Damn, that was such a fine ass. His hands cupped it, clenching on the rounded curves as an animalistic growl rumbled in his chest.
“The chair,” he assured her as he reached around, his fingers quickly releasing the snap and zipper to her jeans.
Before she could do more than gasp in surprise, he had them around her ankles, as his fingers delved into the slick, wet heat of her pussy. He wanted to write a sappy poem to that particular luscious piece of flesh. An ode of reverence to the tight heat, the wet, creamy clasp of her cunt as he burrowed into it. He was a drowning man fighting for survival, and he was being done in by a soaked, needy pussy and a curvy tight ass. He wanted to howl out his arousal, his supremacy, his victory that he alone had mated this woman.
“I’m going to fuck you until you scream.” He released his pounding cock just as quickly as he had stripped her of clothes. “I’m going to fuck you so hard and so deep, that you always know you belong to me. That you never doubt it, Faith. Never doubt what you are to me, and what I am to you—” He positioned the thick head at the entrance of her dripping vagina.
Ah, so hot. The frothy, bubbling brew that seeped from her seared his flesh.
“I always scream when you fuck me.” She was panting now, straining back against the bulbous head of his cock, teasing him with the tight fit to come.
“So you do.” Jacob realized he was panting as well. “And you scream so pretty too, baby.” His hand smoothed over the rounded curves of her butt before returning to her hip.
He held her firm, nudged his cock at her entrance, his teeth gritting against the fiery heat that lapped at the head of his cock. He felt her muscles clenching, caressing the head of his cock, raining her sweet essence over it. It was fire and lightning, heated pleasure streaking through every inch of his body.
He leaned over her, his lips moving aside the collar of her shirt as his teeth scraped over the mark he had made on her. He nudged the rounded head more firmly against her entrance, hearing her whimpering cry, her husky plea for more.
“Scream now, Faith.” He buried his shaft deep and hard in one long thrust that had her straightening against him, a wail of erotic pleasure/pain echoing around them.
She was shaking, trembling in his hold, her head thrown back against his chest as the muscles of her vagina quaked around him, spilling their juice along the thick stalk of his cock and dripping down along his scrotum as the small release he had triggered washed over her.
The muscles of her cunt quivered. He gritted his teeth, fighting his need to begin a hard, rapid thrusting motion inside her. He wanted to savor her now. Wanted to savor the sleek wet feel of her, the heat that damned near blistered his cock and made it harden further.
He could feel perspiration dampening his skin as he fought the need to take her hard and deep. He wanted to feel the rapid swelling, the agonizing pleasure of the knot that would lock him deep into her spasming flesh.
“Jacob,” she panted as he throbbed inside her, feeling her tighten on him, milking his flesh with a fist-tight grip that made him nearly insane.
“So hot and tight,” he groaned as his tongue stroked over the mark at the bottom of her neck. “So sweet and addictive. I could stay inside you forever, Faith.”
“If you don’t fuck me, I’m going to kick your ass,” she moaned heatedly, her arm reaching back, her hand locking in his hair as she fought for release.
Her hips rotated slowly as several deep, pleasured growls came through her throat. The motion nearly sent him over the edge into oblivion. Her vagina tightened, her juices easing between his flesh and hers as she worked her inner muscles around the thick shaft.
Jacob allowed his hands to slide to her breasts as he moved tentatively inside her. Small, measured thrusts that nearly broke his control. He needed her. Needed her too badly to continue such a slow progression to orgasm.
His fingers played with her nipples as he held her close, gripping the tight little peaks, feeling her cunt spasm each time he pinched them erotically. She was damp with sweat, shaking, her hips moving against his, her body arching into him.
“Bend over.” His hands moved from her breasts as he pushed her over once again, her hands bracing on the cushion of the chair as his knees bent and he drove his cock harder inside her.
“Yes,” she cried out in response. “Again. Oh God, Jacob. Do it again.”
Again and it might be over, he knew. But he couldn’t resist. His hands clasped her hips again as he dragged the heavy length of his erection from the heated channel until only the head was still lodged inside her. He felt like screaming at the indescribable pleasure that ripped through his body as he thrust hard and deep again.
He had no control left. He couldn’t stop the need, the fire that flashed up his spine, tightened his scrotum, and left him so desperate for release that he was nearly sobbing for it. Faith was already crying out in desperation. Each forceful thrust wrung a sob from her, a plea for more. Harder. Deeper. He gave her all she begged for and more until finally he felt her vagina ripple, squeeze him tightly as her orgasm began to tear through her.
She chanted his name as he thrust one last time, hard and deep before his flesh began to swell, locking him inside her. Jacob fought for breath, his body shaking in reaction as he felt the swelling, the binding that would refuse to allow even a drop of his seed to spill from her body for long, desperate minutes. It locked his cock hard inside her as his semen blasted from the tip, filling her, drowning him in pleasure.
Their gasping cries were the only sounds in the room. Sweat soaked bodies trembled, gasping whispers escaping their lips as every cell rippled with the shockwaves of pleasure.
The intensity of feeling lasted forever. Jacob’s legs trembled as his hips jerked against her again, extending the pleasure, as yet another spasm caressed his distended cock. Finally, the hard tremors eased, and his cock slowly softened inside her. He pulled free of her tight grip, steadying her as he moved backward.
“What a wondrous show.” The sharp voice had Jacob moving for his weapon until he saw those trained on his mate.
He jerked Faith behind him as she struggled weakly to straighten her clothes and faced a monster from the past.
Chapter Twenty-Five
He had been their training master. Lieutenant Dale Marshal. Ex-Special Forces, ex-SEAL. He had been released from the military under a suspicion of cruelty to prisoners and extreme depravities. Jacob knew well that the rumors were most likely true.
Marshal had been a nightmare at the Labs. His extreme training methods and cruelties had often resulted in painful punishments. Complete obedience, no emotion, no weakness was his motto. From a young age Jacob had learned how easily an emotional attachment could be used against him by the enemy. Namely, Marshal.
As Jacob straightened his pants, zipping them casually, he noticed that the other man hadn’t changed much in six years. He still stood tall, imposing. His blue eyes were cold, his blonde hair receding. He appeared as cruel as he ever had. At the moment, his gaze, as well as the two men with him, were trained on Faith as she struggled behind him to fix her clothing.
“You got past my alarms.” Jacob pulled their attention back to him. “That must have taken some work.”