Redeeming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 9) (18 page)

“Take me to bed, Charlie,” she whispered.

There was so much more to rediscover between them, and she couldn’t wait to get started. The more sex they had, the less she would dwell on the panicky feeling in her chest.

Every man in her life left—with the exception of the one she wished would fall off the face of the earth. How would she survive it if…
when
Charlie left her again? She could scarcely think about that, but she’d better, because it was inevitable. The sooner she reconciled being okay with it, the better.

But please God, let tonight be about reconnecting, not figuring out how to stop herself from falling in love with a difficult-to-love man. He was here now, and she grabbed on with both hands.

“Again?” he said, and she heard the smile in his voice.

“And again,” she promised. “We have a lot of lost time to make up for.”

Charlie couldn’t comply with that directive fast enough. Separating from Audra long enough to snag the rest of the condoms, he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. She weighed practically nothing but felt substantial in his arms.

He’d needed this. The romantic date could wait. Audra surrounding him, laughing, her mouth on his skin, the way she crawled inside him to salve the calluses he’d developed—that could not.

Laying her out on the bed, he got revved up for round two instantly, with something akin to relief rushing through his veins. Up against the door? Hot. Necessary. He’d had almost no choice but to take the edge off his pounding lust so he could get serious.

This go-around, he planned to take his time. She peered up at him, her gaze entirely too bright and lucid. He wanted her sloe-eyed with pleasure, sighing and gasping her way through orgasm after orgasm. He wanted to watch her body flush with pleasure, flood with desire and bow up with intensity. He wanted it all. The more he made her come, the less damaged he felt. Like being with her had turned back the clock somehow, restoring him almost to the man he’d been.

She made him feel… better. The last two years could never be erased. His scars were permanent. But maybe an eraser wasn’t what he needed after all. Maybe he just needed her.

“Join me?” She held out her arms, clearly expecting him to fall down next to her.

“No.” If she got her hot little hands on him, there was no telling how long he’d last. That first time had taken considerable will to draw out as long as he had, considering he’d been aching for her the moment she opened the door. “I broke all kinds of rules just now, and I have some serious restitution to attend to.”

She arched a brow, rolling to one side to slide her lithe legs together, her breasts still ripe from his mouth. That was such a beautiful sight that he let himself look his fill.

“Rules?” she repeated. “What is this thing called rules you speak of? I came. You came. We all came. What wasn’t perfect about that?”

He laughed and let the wicked edge roll off his tongue. “How many times have we done this? The rules are that I always start with you. And I was very bad, refusing to wait my turn because you were so hot in that little dress that I could not stand it. I will have to be extra inventive with how I make it up to you. By my count, I owe you at least three orgasms before it’s my turn again.”

Or four or five. Who was counting?

As he crawled onto the mattress, she followed his progress with her eyes. “That’s not a real rule. What if I want to make it all about you?”

“Too bad.” He ringed her nipple with one finger, satisfied to see it jump to attention. “It’s a real rule in my world, and we’re doing things my way. Turn over.”

“What?” Eyeing him warily, she flicked hair out of her face. “Why?”

“Shall I make a list?” he growled and refused to return the smile when the corners of her mouth lifted. “Number one. Because I said so. Number two. Because I’m in charge. Number three, because if you don’t, you will be very sorry.”

She crossed her arms and batted her eyelashes. “I’m kind of curious what you plan to do to punish me.”

The game got dangerous very fast as she refused to back down, and it was nearly the sexiest thing she’d ever done. He’d always loved her strength. His chest flooded with a foreign emotion as her will clashed with his. She was such a resilient woman, thrilling, unflinching. Hardheaded. She had no concept of how easily she could twist him around her finger if she wanted to.

Hell, that had pretty much already happened. She’d been calling the shots all along. Parasailing. No sex. Yes sex. He just did his best to keep up. The rewards were worth it.

He went in search of the roses and grabbed the entire bouquet. When he came back, she hadn’t moved, which meant he had a lot of work to do to get her quivering again.

At the edge of the bed, he contemplated her and held up one rose. “Last chance. Rose or you find out what happens if you don’t turn over.”

“Oh, hell, I have to know what you’re going to do with that.”

She rolled over onto her stomach, and the sight of her gorgeous, firm rear revived his erection with a vengeance. She lay still, and all he could think about was sinking into her from behind. Exactly like that. She’d be hot and wet and so ready for him. Except he had a suspicion he’d come too fast and that was not the point of this lesson.

He was so hard he hurt. And he deserved every iota of the pain for devising this particular method of torture. But she deserved to be treated like royalty, and as he’d told her, it pleased him to no end to formulate different ways to make her shatter.

Kneeling on the bed, he dragged the bud of the rose along the arch of her foot. Up and over her heel, along the back of her leg. So beautiful. Every inch of her seemed made for his pleasure, and when he had such a bold, resilient woman vulnerable like this, at his mercy, it unfurled something inside him that he’d kept a tight hold on.

She was his match in every way. A thrill seeker of the highest order, and together they’d hit the peak of everything. That’s why it had hurt so much to have been forced to let her go. He might have to do it again at some point. And God, that would be the final death knell, to have clawed his way back from the brink of hell, determined to restore his slice of heaven, only to have it snatched from his fingers once more.

Maybe that wouldn’t happen. The problem was that he had no idea
what
was going to happen, and that wasn’t fair to Audra. But she seemed okay with the status quo. He hadn’t given her enough credit. Hadn’t she been the recipient of the world’s first Perfect Woman Award? He’d jokingly bestowed that on her because she’d always accepted him as is. She’d never pushed for more than he could give.
He
was the one who wanted to give her more, knew she deserved more, but couldn’t be that man she made him want to be.

Hell, he didn’t even have a stable source of income right now. She’d gone from a billionaire to a near penniless ex-SEAL with an inability to sleep in the dark. And yet she’d made that choice willingly. It humbled him that she’d give up so much for him.

Emotions he didn’t dare name rose in his throat, and he choked them back because he couldn’t let himself feel so much for Audra. It would make it impossible for him to do the right thing going forward if he let his emotions loose. So instead, he’d be a generous lover. That he could do.

When the rose hit her thigh, he added a second one, trailing it up the other leg. She flinched and sucked in a breath.

“Relax,” he told her.

“Yeah, as if. I have no idea what you’re going to do next.”

That was the point. He liked surprising her. Surprising himself as he found new ways to pleasure her. And the sight of her laid out on the bed as he dragged both roses across the globe of her buttocks pleased him enormously. As did the moan when he twirled one between her cheeks in the most forbidden of places.

Lust knifed through his gut as she shifted restlessly, and he abandoned one rose because he thought he might go mad if he didn’t put his hands on her flesh. The other rose he kept right where he had it, spinning the soft petals in a circle.

Audra was going to remember this if he had to emblazon it across her soul.

She squirmed as he parted her folds, running his fingertip up and down her soaking cleft, and then plunged into her slick channel while simultaneously swirling the rose in that intimate spot.

“Oh, my God.” She came off the bed as she clenched around his fingers in a lightning-fast orgasm of epic proportions.

Yes, more
. He flipped her over and bent up one leg to open her wider. The first taste of her on his tongue made him groan. God, she flooded his mouth as she convulsed again, and he’d barely started. That was so hot, it nearly wrenched his own release from the depths of his body, but he fought it.

He needed her to come again, needed her to know who the author of her pleasure was. He needed to hear his name on her lips. Always.

Faster, he worked her with the flat of his tongue, rubbing at her nub and sliding fingers deep inside her again as she cried out through another round of contractions.
Yes. Perfect. Gorgeous.

“Stop,” she gasped and swore as he bit down on her sex, drawing out the release until she collapsed against the bed, her chest heaving and her hair in a wild, gorgeous disarray around her head. “I think I’m on like number nineteen now. Please, for the love of God, let me focus on you for a minute. I just want to taste you. Make you feel as good as you made me feel.”

Absolutely not.

It was a reasonable request. One he should totally be on board with, especially given the way her gaze strayed straight to his erection. No doubt what she had in mind. What kind of a jackass turned down a hot woman who wanted to suck him off?

One who couldn’t afford the way it would open him up to her. He wasn’t in a place where he could be vulnerable enough to let go, to do something so intimate. It scarcely made sense to him, let alone as he struggled with how to explain the tension snapping his insides tight as he imagined her mouth stretched wide to take him deep into her throat.

Bottom line—that was too much.

He shook his head and let his lips curve into a smile. “I’ve got a better idea.”

He needed her now, hard and fast. The harder and faster the better, so he could pretend they were just having sex and he wasn’t in danger of spilling a heart he didn’t have to give all over this bed.

Her eyes widened as he crawled up her body, hands and knees sinking into the mattress. Clearly she’d read the intent in his gaze. Good. She understood exactly what was happening then. They were going to have the hottest, dirtiest sex imaginable, which given the rising passion in her expression, worked for her too.

He wound her hair around his hand and pulled, exposing her neck. She cried out as he bit his way down her throat, sucking with little pulls that would leave marks. Because he wanted her to have visual reminders of the one thing he could give her.

Shoving a leg between her thighs, he hit that sweet spot that was already soaked for him. It drove him wild when she was so turned on that he could practically drink from her core.

Which also meant that he didn’t have to spend a lot of time getting her primed. Fingering on a condom, he turned her over on her stomach and pulled her up on her knees.

“Grab on to the headboard,” he said and thank God she didn’t argue, because her gorgeous rear was right there for his viewing pleasure and he couldn’t wait a second longer.

Holding her hips, he drove into her center with one hard stroke. And another. To the hilt. She closed around him like a tight silky vise, and he threw his head back as the pleasure of it overtook him. Again. Oh, God. The feel of her. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced. Amazing, full, like he couldn’t contain the sheer ecstasy with just skin.

More. Faster. Better. Bigger.

He worked her hips with a grip on each side while carefully avoiding her bruise, tugging her backward a little harder each time until he was going so deep that he shoved himself to the brink almost instantly.

He groaned as the frenzied need for her soared. Harder he pulled, driving himself into the stratosphere with each swift thrust, and something unnamable broke through his body as she took each and every brutal plunge.

And then she cried out his name and clenched around him in an orgasm he hadn’t expected, hadn’t driven her toward. It was like a gift, but it was too much for his sensitized state, and he withdrew to slam into her again for that final push that triggered his own release. His body tensed and exploded, emptying him until there was nothing left.

He shut his eyes as the perfection of it, of her, washed over him. The aftershocks of her climax pulsed around his length, and he wrapped his arms around her to fall to the bed, still wedged inside, still in the throes of bliss.

God, what an amazing woman. So strong, so ready to jump whether he handed out promises or not. While he was busy trying to erase the past, she’d reach inside and taken hold of him, imprinting herself across his insides more deeply than he’d have thought possible. She’d chased away the darkness for a few precious seconds, and he could not get enough of her.