Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(53)

Lara was shivering violently, and he’d only made it up to her elbow. He raised his head. “You cold?”

She shook her head. “No. What are you doing to me?”

“My job,” he said, bending to the task again.

She laughed, but he stopped short when he got a look at the underside of her breast. Bruises, from clawing fingers. Her ribs were shadowed with blue, green, splotches of yellow. New bruises on top of old ones, on top of still older ones. “Jesus, Lara,” he whispered.

“It’s okay,” she assured him. “I’m not feeling it. Your kisses are magic. I am feeling no pain. Really.”

God, how he wished they were magic. He bent down and went at them with the same total, single-minded concentration he would employ if kisses really did have healing power. Caressing her with hands and mouth, no pressure, just petting and tonguing every inch of her.

He rolled her onto the side, to get a good look at the—oh, Christ. Her back, too, her flanks, her ass, her thighs. Everywhere.

He straightened up, found her eyes squeezed shut. Her face was wet with tears. “I should stop,” he told her. “Now’s not the time.”

She yanked him down, fiercely. “Wrong,” she said.

He held himself carefully off her body, afraid of crushing her, and blurted out the burning question that there was just no delicate way to ask. “Were you sexually abused in there?”

She shook her head, to his immense relief. “No. That was just Anabel, being a hag. She was the worst of them. She got angry when I hid from her. Behind your shield. In the Citadel.”

He let out a startled laugh. “That was what you called it?”

“Why? Does it sound strange to you?”

He propped himself on his elbow, settling his hand into the curve of her waist. “Citadel sounds so massive and important. A fortress on a mountaintop. My shield’s just, you know. Encryption. To protect data.”

“It was massive and important,” she insisted. “It protected me.”

“I’m glad it was good for something.” He bent to kiss her breast again. Lara curled up around his body, clutching his head. Her fingers wound into his hair, trapping him. He could cheerfully nuzzle those rose-petal-soft, perfect tits for the rest of time, rubbing those tight, puckered nipples against his cheek, his lips. Swirling his tongue around them, a hot, liquid, suckling pull, feeling her arch against him, trembling, like she was trying to give him more of herself, tightening, like she was going to . . . oh, God . . .

Like light, blazing out of her chest, blinding him, blessing him.

Her orgasm was long and drawn out. Her body shuddered and hitched. He held her as tightly as he dared, amazed and humbled.

“Wow,” he whispered. “I never made a girl come just from playing with her tits, I mean. Except, um . . .”

“In our dreams?” She laughed. “Yeah, I remember that one. We’re still in the same dream. Let’s just keep dreaming.”

“Sounds good,” he said, fervently.

The rays of afternoon light had gotten longer and yellower, slanting in the side blinds. They painted her pale body with stripes that accentuated every graceful dip and curve. His chest clutched with nervous excitement as he let his hand stroke over her belly, and drift lower. Tangling in the dark, silky puff of her pubes.

She dragged in a hitching gasp of air, and opened her legs for him, inviting him to get on with it, but he had no intention of rushing. He just petted with his fingertips. She hid her hot face against his shoulder, moving her hips against his hand.

When it felt right, he teased his finger inside, found her slick seam. The scent of her made him crazy, but he reined it in. Time enough later to mount up and ride off into the sunset.

His world narrowed down to that intimate contact, that tender slit, the tightly furled folds inside. His mind was clean of everything but the secret details of her body. He memorized her, marveling at her perfection. Poetry made flesh. Shades of pink shading into crimson, a glowing, shining contrast with dark hair, pale thighs.

He had so many shifting memories of touching her, tasting her, f*cking her, in their shared dreams. Hard and juicy and unchecked. Front, back, sideways, all ways, there had been no limits in their erotic dream world, but somehow, this careful, anxious petting was more raw and momentous than all those scorching episodes combined.

She grabbed his shoulders and tried to tug him down on top of her. “You’ve teased me enough,” she said. “I’m out of my mind.”

He held his weight off. He outweighed her two to one or more, right now, although he fully intended to improve that ratio, soon. But he poised himself so that he didn’t pin her down, and reached down again, to heaven’s gate, teasing his fingertip inside . . .

She heaved, pressed herself up against him with a moan.

Hot, wet, slick. Plush and tight. Incredibly tight. He had to force it deeper. Just his finger. Oh, man. This was not like the dreams at all. In those, they’d been perfectly matched, like a key to a lock.

“Lara,” he said gently. “You’re so small. Are you a virgin?”

“No,” she said, breathlessly. “Don’t stop. Please.”

“But it’ll hurt you.” He kept his voice gentle, though it came out through clenched teeth.

“No! Seriously? What would hurt me would be you chickening out on me, leaving me high and dry! Don’t do that. Don’t you dare!”