Night Hunter (13 page)

Almost as if he’d heard her thoughts, he touched her wet opening, floated away, touched and again retreated. She swore she could feel her clit slide past its sheath. She dripped, dampening his fingers. Her clit was so heavy, so hot. Incredible!

“Laird, please!”

“Already?”

“Yes! Yes.”

Using his wet fingers, he opened her outer lips. Much as she wanted to watch what he was doing, she had to be satisfied with her imagination. Her sex would be rose-tone, maybe red. In contrast, his fingers were dark. Her flesh was soft and smooth, pliant when he was all hardness and control.

Control? God yes!

Her fingers dug into his thighs as he gently, so gently, played with her inner lips. Once, twice, maybe three times he touched her clit. Each feathered brush drove her half out of her mind. Her clit danced under his direction.

He dove and retreated, spread his fingers slightly, plunged even farther. Small firecrackers exploded inside her.

Heaven!

But not, damn it, not the real thing!

So? What does it matter? He likes what he’s doing. You sure as hell do.

I want to fuck him! Damn it, I need to be fucked!

“No!” she gasped. On the brink of a climax, she squeezed her legs together, immobilizing his fingers between her trembling thighs. “No. Not—that—way,” she insisted when he tried to pull free.
Laird, please.

Chapter Ten

“I want to do this for you,” Mala told Laird. “It isn’t about me.”

“It was a minute ago.”

“I know,” she admitted. Damn, talking was hard. If only she wasn’t so hot and bothered and the mental argument she’d just had with herself hadn’t taken so much out of her. “I shouldn’t have let that happen.” She focused on breathing. It didn’t help much, but it was better than nothing. She couldn’t begin to direct the words tumbling out of her. “I can’t begin to understand what you’ve been through, the responsibilities they want you to assume. A week ago you knew nothing about your heritage. Now it’s become everything, or at least they’d want it to be.”

He’d stopped walking his fingers over her belly and had rocked back on his haunches to regard her. Sunlight and shadows played across his features and naked body. He no longer seemed real—a spirit or ghost, maybe.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” she continued. She made no attempt to sit up but that didn’t stop her from running her hands up and down his rock-like thighs. In another time and place, there’d be nothing except their bodies speaking to each other until they’d been rendered deaf or died in the attempt. “I’m not sure I ever will. But that’s not important.”

He cocked his head to one side. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“Laird, you don’t dare lose contact with the world that’s been your reality up until this point. That’s why I came back.” She slid her fingers around to the insides of his thighs. “To make sure you don’t forget what’s always sustained you.”
To bring you back with me.

“It does not matter.” He placed his hands over hers but didn’t try to stop her exploration.

“Yes, it does.” This wasn’t the time for conversation. “Laird, I want to be on top. Do things to you, be in control, instead of the way it’s been between us so far.”

He stared at her still-exposed cunt. “You did not like it?”

“I loved it,” she admitted. He’d see through her lie if she told him anything else. “But bringing myself to climax because you weren’t in a position to do it—a certain something was lacking. And just now, you wanted to play with me the way I’d done with you. It felt—wonderful. But it’s not the same as sex the old-fashioned way. Something—was missing.” At the moment, she couldn’t think what that something might be, but he didn’t need to know how good her earlier explosion had felt.

Without explaining what she had in mind, she slid out from under him and sat up. Before today, no matter who she’d gone to bed with, she’d always been aware of being naked and the sense of vulnerability that went with it. Now, however, wearing nothing felt more right than it ever had. She wasn’t particularly proud of her body. It was all right, she guessed, particularly her large breasts, but a lifetime of wearing clothes had left her uneasy with the alternative. At least it had until now.

After checking to make sure the ground was covered with a soft carpet of vegetation, she took hold of Laird’s shoulders and pressed against them. He gave her a quizzical look, then allowed her to position him on his back with his legs together. His erection saluted her. Not making any effort to hide her excitement, she straddled his legs. When he reached for her hips, she pushed his hands away and placed them at his waist. She couldn’t take her eyes off his swollen cock, could barely think beyond the throbbing in her cunt. She smelled, not just her own excitement, but his sun-drying come.

Guided by instinct and need, she leaned forward and kissed the tip of his penis. The gesture felt both familiar and new—exciting. Her breasts dangled over him, the nipples puckered and so hard it was almost painful. Moisture pooled at her pussy, and a single drop broke free to run down the inside of her leg. Dispensing with preliminaries, she positioned herself over his cock, reached between her legs to spread her wet lips and slowly, easily slid him inside her.

He fit. Belonged. Filled her.

“There,” she moaned.

“There,” he repeated.

With her hands resting on his chest, she settled herself over and around him, sealing the connection. She’d been intent on his response and making sure he understood that this time she called the shots. As a result, she wasn’t ready for the unbelievable sensation of having him inside her. This was sex, pure and simple. Primitive and elemental!

His cock twitched inside her, then seemed to expand even more until it filled her being. She might never be free again.

Gasping, she threw her head back and sucked in as much air as her lungs could hold. She’d taken one breath and was reaching for another when she felt him grasp her hanging breasts and pull her close. Not sure why, maybe because she felt as if she was on a roller coaster ride, she leaned away from him. He held on, clamping down on her breasts until they burned. She tried to meet his eyes, but her vision had blurred.

Over and over again, he lifted his pelvis off the ground, the thrust and rhythm vibrating deep in her. She swore she could taste him. Not content to let him do all the work, she rode him as if he were a stallion.

It didn’t matter that their timing was off. No matter what he did, she adjusted herself to him, lost herself in his force. A mare might stand straddle-legged while a stallion plunged into her, but she refused to act like a dumb animal. She rocked, retreated and advanced, caught the last seat on the roller coaster and hung on with all her strength.

He plunged deeper and deeper inside her, his cock grinding against the sides of her throbbing cunt. Determined to keep him buried in her, she clamped her muscles around him, trapping him.

Control! This time I’m in control.

Yeah, sure!

He released her breasts and quickly clamped his hands over her rib cage and pushed. She couldn’t be sure, but it felt as if he was trying to push her away from him, to free himself.

“No,” she said.
No, you’re mine.

Giving weight to her thoughts, she ground her pelvis against his, her weight holding him in place. At the same time, she rocked back and forth, back and forth, taking his cock with her. She straightened somewhat and pressed the inside of her knees against his hips. She tried to slide her fingers between them so she could grip the base of his shaft, but the seal between them was complete, and there wasn’t room. Undaunted, she again leaned forward and rested her forearms on his chest. He’d stopped trying to push her away, but his hands remained locked around her hip bones.

She rocked, pushed and pulled, sealed him inside her.

“Fuck me,” she insisted. “Give it to me!”

He surged upward, nearly dislodging her.

“No! Damn it, give it to me.”

Another surge followed by a quick retreat as if he was trying to suck her into him. Laughing, she slightly decreased her lock on him, allowing him the freedom to pump. He did so—again and again. Slammed his body against and into her. She laughed, nearly howled.

He came, came again, grunted and sweated. Dug his nails into the earth and used that to shove himself so deep inside her that she felt impaled. His sperm flooded her.

Riding the crest of his ejaculation, she leaned over and onto him. Pumped and pumped, pushed and retreated. Her clit quivered, shook, spasmed. She turned her head to the side and screamed.

Came.

Mala felt drenched in sweat. She couldn’t remember where she left off and Laird began. They occupied two separate bodies. She knew that. But now she lay exhausted on top of him with his flaccid penis still tucked inside her. When finally she could put her mind and body to it, she tightened her pelvic muscles around him.

He looked up at her through sleepy eyes. “Not yet,” he whispered. “In a few minutes—”

“I’ll need more than that,” she admitted. “I just—I just wanted to feel you in me.”

“There is not much of me left.”

“I don’t care.” On the verge of admitting how precious this union was, she held back. Years of playing the man/woman game should have taught her to be cautious, to not let her heart take command. Still, acknowledging how close she was to admitting he’d reached her heart frightened her.

“Laird?”

He blinked and focused on her, but she didn’t speak until she’d slid off him and onto her knees—not because she wanted to but her weight pressed against his hip bones had to be uncomfortable.

“I met your brother. Did I tell you? Of course I did. I’m still—”

“He is not my brother.”

“I know. But you think of him that way, don’t you?”

He nodded. Although he looked half asleep, she plunged on. “He’s the only family you have. He didn’t tell me much. Just enough that I have some idea of your upbringing.”

“Do you?”

Of course she didn’t. The thought of never knowing what it meant to have parents brought her to the brink of tears.

“And I saw where you live—the place you built. You have a right to be proud of it.”

He chuckled and flattened his hand over her rib cage. “I am not sure it would pass a building inspection.”

“But it’s yours.” She forced her mind off his hand—tried to anyway. “Because a place to call your own is important to you.”

He didn’t say anything and had grown tense, wary.
Don’t get too close,
she read. But if she didn’t try, she’d always regret it.

“After all those years of being tossed from one foster home to another, finally, no one can force you to move again.”

“Clint told you that?”

“No. I figured it out by myself.” Made uneasy by his tension, she sought to defuse it by feathering his cheeks with kisses. “Laird, I spent years working for someone else. I’ve been a cashier, a bank teller, a receptionist in a dentist’s office. Those jobs paid the bills and most of the time I enjoyed the people I worked with, but nights and weekends were devoted to making jewelry.”

“All your nights and weekends?” He ran his fingers down her belly and buried his nails in her pubic hair.

“No,” she managed. She should be satiated, unconscious. Instead, his touch had awakened desire. “Not—not all of them.”

“I did not think so.”

She’d come back to the Everglades to try to get him to leave with her. She couldn’t forget that, didn’t dare.

“Don’t,” she warned and rolled away from him. She scrambled to her knees and made a feeble attempt at covering herself. Leaves and dried grasses stuck to her sweaty flesh. “If sex is the only thing between us, that’s sad.”

“Is it?”

“Yes,” she insisted. “Your brother told me there’ve been a lot of women in your life.”

“A few.”

“How many do you remember? How many did you want to spend the rest of your life with?”

He sat up and regarded her. His nakedness obviously didn’t bother him. Only, he wasn’t completely naked because he wore the leather necklace. “What business of yours is it?” he challenged.

That stung, but she didn’t allow herself to wallow in self-pity. “Will you answer something for me, Laird? If you hadn’t reached out for me when all this began, who would it have been? Those women—would any of them have interrupted their lives for you? Can you even remember their names?”

His hands balled into fists. His glare seared through her. Fighting fear, she forced herself not to back down. “I don’t want to pick a fight with you or make you defensive. That’s the last thing I want.”

Did she dare say more? Did she dare not? “The things you’ve done to me—I never knew it was possible,” she admitted. “I—maybe I’ve waited my entire life for what’s been happening.”

“Have you?”

Although he sounded calm enough, she’d be a fool to allow herself to be sucked into his tone.

“Do one thing for me, please,” she begged. “Before you turn your back on the only world you’ve ever known, the houseboat you built with your own hands, your business, return to it with me.”

His expression darkened, putting her in mind of a trapped animal.

“Please.” She looked around for her backpack, intending to show him the clothes she’d selected, but it wasn’t there. Shivering, she scanned their surroundings but couldn’t see anything of the Seminoles. Just the same, she had no doubt what had happened to the pack. The warning was clear. The Indians weren’t releasing their hold on Laird. It occurred to her to let them have him and save herself from any more emotional upheaval, but she couldn’t do that—for both their sakes.

Risking everything, she took his face in her hands and leaned forward until her mouth found his. He briefly returned her kiss, then turned away.

“They need me here,” he said.

“But is it what
you
need? Is it?”

He didn’t answer.

“Laird? You’ve been in here since the accident. They did that deliberately, are trying some kind of mind control. You can’t let them get away with that. You can’t!”