He felt her terror, heard the increase in the sound of the whispers. She was so fragile, and he’d brought her into this mess, and now her parents were in danger as well. “Listen to me, baby. If you can’t handle the investigation, you’re done. That’s it. We’ll sideline you immediately before anything goes too far. I’ll be with you every step of the way, buffering your mind. If you work on the exercises, they’ll also help strengthen your barriers. Know this absolutely. Before anything or anyone else, I’ll protect you. Look at me, Tansy.” He forced her gaze to meet his. “Understand I’m telling you the truth. The one thing in your life, from now until the end, is that you can always count on me.”
She searched his face. He knew what she saw couldn’t be that reassuring. He wasn’t a handsome man by any stretch of the imagination. Several scars had added to the menacing appearance. His jaw was strong, his mouth hard. He’d long ago learned to keep his face without expression, and his eyes were as cold as the ice water running in his veins. As a rule, he felt little to nothing, until Tansy. He couldn’t explain that to her, because he didn’t fully understand it himself. Beneath the ice seemed to be a volcano that only erupted around her.
“Don’t handle me, Kadan. I don’t like to be handled.”
His eyes flashed with something raw that made her stomach flip. She reached up to trace his mouth. There was always such a cruel edge there, as if he was capable of terrible things, yet one small movement, just a slight turn, and he could appear incredibly sensual. The look in his eyes held a dark lust that just intensified when he held her like this. His arms felt like steel, his body both protective and possessive. She turned soft, melting against him, into him. She lost herself in his steely strength.
His hand slid over the curve of her bare hip, those incredible fingers, hard yet velvet soft, brushing against her skin erotically. His head dipped lower to find her ear again. “I think you’re lying to me. I feel your need beating at me, Tansy. You like the way I handle you.”
“You weren’t supposed to seduce me.”
He bent his head to her neck, his teeth nipping, first the hollow of her shoulder and then her earlobe. “Look into your mind, Tansy. You seduced me, not the other way around. How could I possibly resist you?”
She closed her eyes, knowing he was right, knowing she was enticing him, stroking at his mind with hers, enhancing his needs because she so desperately wanted to be held. To belong somewhere, with someone.
His teeth bit down, flashing pain through her body, then his tongue swirled, taking away the sting. “Not someone, Tansy.
Me.
You belong with me.”
Her eyes met his and her stomach flipped.
“Say it.”
She wanted to resist him, but she couldn’t resist her own needs. “I belong with you.”
His fingers smoothed up the inside of her thigh, teased her soft, damp mound. “Open your shirt.” The fingers continued their journey, sliding into her, curling and teasing, stroking and circling her sensitive bud.
Again, she wanted to resist, just for pride’s sake. She didn’t altogether trust him. He was too cold, too able to turn off emotion, and she wasn’t entirely certain she could trust that he would be all the things he said to her. His hunger for her was absolute, but there was a driving need in him for complete possession. She didn’t understand what he wanted from her. He confused her. She confused herself, craving him desperately, wanting to escape the way he mesmerized her.
His fingers stilled. Her womb spasmed. Desperation won. She slowly unbuttoned the shirt, revealing the swell of her breasts and narrow rib cage, the flat of her tummy and finally the vee of curls at the junction of her legs. When the shirt was open all the way, his fingers did another slow curl inside her and began to stroke again, pushing deep.
CHAPTER 7
Tansy’s breath caught in her throat. Her body pulsed with need. Kadan could turn her into a melting cauldron of liquid heat with one intense look. Hot excitement poured through her veins. He was all muscle and strength. And he was completely, utterly, focused on her. He made her feel as if he had to have her. As if waiting one more moment might kill him. He didn’t say much. He just looked at her, his eyes dark with lust, with possession, and every fiber of her being surrendered to the demand in his steady gaze.
His calloused hand was hot on her skin, and every muscle in her body tensed. He knew every shadow and curve intimately, and she craved his touch.
Craved
it. After a lifetime of never touching or being touched, she felt like a cat, pleasured by the caressing strokes, arching her back, pushing her hips upward against his hand, needy for whatever he gave her.
The pad of his thumb, with the strange feel of velvet bristles, made lazy circles on the inside of her thigh, slid upward to caress the crease between her buttocks and her thigh. A soft moan escaped, needy and hot and so unlike her, although she was afraid that with Kadan she’d turned into a very sexual being. Blood thundered in her pulse, roared in her ears, and throbbed in her clit, in time with the mounting tension in her womb.
There was something very arousing about lying sprawled across a man’s lap, shirt open, bare breasts spilling out, and his hands wandering possessively up her thighs, fingers circling and disappearing inside her body, as if her body belonged to him and not her. His face was dark and intent, hooded eyes on the rise and fall of her breasts. There was satisfaction in the carved, sensual lines of his face as he watched her breathing change to ragged gasps and the wild color flush all over her.
Heat radiated from him, and in his lap his shaft grew into a monster of need. He pressed against her tightly, letting her feel the way he responded to her eager, wet body. “Look at me, Tansy.” His voice was harsh. “I want to see your face when I take you over the edge.”
She loved how rough he sounded, that edge to his tone, that dark, intense desire, the lines that seemed deeper, the way her skin burned as his gaze slid so possessively over her. His fingers straightened, jabbed deep, filling her sheath, stretching the soft, slick, velvet folds. She gasped and bucked, as his thumb pressed down relentlessly on her hard bud.
“You’re so tight, baby,” he whispered, his teeth tugging at her earlobe. “Each time I push deep inside, you get wetter and hotter.” His tongue licked along her ear, swirled down her neck. His teeth teased at her skin.
He plunged into her tight depths again, watching her face, drinking in her gasps of pleasure, the way her eyes widened and her nipples peaked. Her thighs tensed; her stomach muscles bunched. It seemed so decadent, Tansy sprawled across him, her soft body open for his every touch, receptive to his every desire.
He had never thought he’d have a woman of his own, let alone one he craved, one he felt bonded to, skin to skin, mind to mind. It had happened before he’d had a chance to think, to even know or understand, but something in her drove out the cold and replaced ice with heat. Every time he looked at her, he wanted to touch, to give her pleasure, to see her eyes glaze over with heated desire just for him. Salvation. Redemption maybe. Whatever it was, and he didn’t even care, she was his and he was hers.
Moisture coated his fingers, thick and hot. Her sheath was so damned tight his cock jerked with anticipation. He thrust another finger deep, stretching her a bit, plunging and retracting, watching her face, her heightened breathing, that telltale flush, and the sheen in her eyes. He took his time, bringing her to the edge of her climax, loving her face, the beauty of need. He reveled in the way her body rode his hand almost helplessly while little whimpers and pleas escaped.
If this wasn’t love, he didn’t know what was. He wanted her with every cell in his body. He knew she’d been born for him. And he vowed to himself she’d never have a reason to regret her choice. He plunged deeper, his thumb teasing her clit until she went crashing over the edge, crying out his name, her body nearly strangling his fingers. He let her ride it out, feeling the powerful ripples before pulling out his fingers and tasting them, savoring the unique cinnamon flavor that was Tansy.
She was panting a little, dazed by the powerful orgasm. He slid his hand over her bottom in another slow caress and leaned down to her ear. His fingers remained tight in her hair, the heavy mass wrapped in his fist. “Slide off my lap to your knees.” Even as he said it, he tugged at her hair with one hand and pushed her hips from his with the other.
Tansy found herself kneeling between his legs as he sat all the way up, one leg planted on either side of her body. Her face was in his lap, right where he’d planned all along. He caught her hand and wrapped it around the thick length of him, down low at the base, even as he used the fist in her hair to guide her mouth over him. Her tongue touched him first and his cock jerked. His balls tightened. Warm air bathed the broad head. She licked a glistening drop away and watched the shudder of pleasure go through his body, felt it ripple through his mind.
Kadan clenched his teeth as she swiped her tongue in a long, slow curl over the top of the mushroom head and then teased underneath where he was so sensitive. She looked so hot, kneeling in front of him, her shirt gaping open to give him a view of her flushed breasts and flat tummy, down to the vee of curls with shimmering moisture clinging invitingly. He licked his lips and sucked in his breath as she swallowed him.
Her mouth was hot and tight and the sight of her enjoying pleasuring him, her eyes soft and loving, was so damn sexy he almost lost every vestige of control. She didn’t look away from his gaze, as her cheeks hollowed and her tongue danced and she followed the graphic instructions in his mind. His language was raw, he couldn’t help it; she was killing him with the tight suction of her mouth. Her nails grazed his sac and he jerked again, the air in his lungs exploding this time in a rush of sensations.
Son of a bitch, baby, like that. Hard.
His fingers clutched at her hair and he drew her closer, unable to stop the sudden thrust of his hips.
There was a moment of fear at the loss of control, but he breathed for her.
Relax. Let your throat relax. That’s it, that’s my girl. Son of a fucking bitch that feels so good.
He threw back his head, a hoarse groan escaping as he caught the nape of her neck with one hand and held her there, thrusting deeper. He wanted her to drop her hands, to cup his tightening balls in her palms. He gave her that order as well. She blinked, hesitating. Her hand at the base of his shaft was her safety net.
His fingers tightened in her hair and he tugged.
I need you to trust me. Keep your mind in mine. Feel what you’re doing to me.
At once fire poured through her body like hot lava, centering in her groin. Every nerve ending was inflamed, every muscle tight, from her calves to her breasts. She knew she created those sensations in him, that raw pleasure bordering on ecstasy. She wanted more for him, for herself. She wanted it all, everything she could take or give.
She needed to take him deeper, to constrict and massage, to pour more heat over him. Her hands cupped and caressed his sac, her mouth worked, and all the while she could feel his needs, dark and erotic, tugging at her for more, always more. He needed her to give herself to him without restraint. It was the only way he had to combat the ice in his soul. She burned the arctic cold away in a firestorm of lust and passion.
He held her still, drawing back, and then pushed forward, filling her mouth, pulsing along her throat, holding her gaze captive with his. He set the pace, hard and fast until she thought she couldn’t take it, then slow, each stroke long and leisurely, while his voice in her mind, rough and seductive, urged her to suck harder, to bathe him with her tongue.
All the while her body ached, begging for attention, her breasts heavy and full with need, her core wet and pulsing in time to the shaft in her mouth. She dug her nails into his thigh, desperate for all of him, even though he was intimidating her just a little, controlling her head with a hard hand at her nape and a fist in her hair as his rhythm became harder and faster.
She felt him swelling, and he immediately withdrew, breathing deep. “Not like this, baby.”
“I can feel your need, see it in your mind,” she protested. “I want to do this for you.”
“Another day I want to feel you sucking me dry.” He closed his eyes briefly, the feeling, the image, in his mind of her wanting him to finish in her mouth, her desperate for all of him, anywhere, anytime, all of him. “But not tonight. Tonight I want to be so deep inside of you that you’ll never get me out. I want to brand you mine forever.”
She was fairly certain he already had. She couldn’t imagine doing the things she was doing with anyone else. Her body was still on fire, every part of her aching and needy.
He caught her chin, forcing her to meet his suddenly cold gaze. “I’d kill them.”
“You mean me,” she corrected.
He loved her. She was already in his heart, buried deep in his soul. “Never you. I could never hurt you.” And he couldn’t. She was one of the people in the world—maybe the only person—who was truly safe, even if she shattered his heart.
He pulled her to her feet and walked her backward until they were behind the couch. He spun her around and once again caught the nape of her neck, bending her forward over the high back, pressing her head down so that the shirt road up over her enticing curves. “I think this shirt has become my favorite.” He didn’t wait. Didn’t give her time. He couldn’t.
He slammed into her, hard and deep, through the hot, slick folds, the tight muscles that reluctantly gave way and then gripped him hard, rippling like live silk. Her cry was loud, echoing through the house, but his was hoarse, strangling his throat, pleasure ripping through his body. He couldn’t believe what it was like wanting her. The intensity of his need was so strong he could barely stay in control. She was so damned hot and tight, so silky soft and slick, he had to fight to hold back his climax. Around Tansy, his control went right up in smoke.