In For the Kill (McClouds & Friends #11)(41)

He pressed his wet face against her hair. For the first time all day, he could breathe.

“Out, Rachel, Irina. Go. Now.” There was steel in Val’s voice. Even Rachel responded to it. Sam barely heard the padding of little bare feet.

“Tamar,” Val urged gently. “My love. Leave them. Come on.”

Tam muttered something bitter and incomprehensible.

“She is grown,” Val soothed. “She can choose. She has chosen. Obviously. Let it go. Come with me.”

“Now? Seriously? Now is an intelligent time for her to make a choice like that?”

“Now is the only time,” Val said.

The door shut, but he heard Tam’s acerbic voice receding down the stairs. “Don’t you get all zen on me when I’m this pissed.”

“And when are you not pissed?” Val’s plaintive voice faded away.

The last strength that had kept him upright drained away. He was boneless, spent. Clinging to her, as much to get comfort as to give it.

With their audience gone, the tears leaked faster, but he didn’t want to lay that on her, so he kept his face buried in her silken swirls of hair, inhaling the scent. His ears roared and his body shook, and he was squeezing too hard, but he could not relax. His muscles were locked in that hungry vise grip of mine, mine, mine.

At some point, he must have kicked off his shoes. He found himself on top of her, entwined. Madly kissing her. He hadn’t meant to. It was the wrong time, after what had happened, and he was a prick and a lout to come on to a girl who’d been through an ordeal like hers.

But they were dragged down, as if by the kraken from the deep, into one of those end-of-the-world kisses. Her shirt got shoved over her breasts, her legs twined, pulsing her crotch against the bulge of his cock. She kissed him back like her life depended on it, honey sweet, all open to him, offering herself. So blitzed, she’d forgotten to hold herself back.

Instinctively, he took full advantage of that. How could he not?

She made a protesting sound as he dragged himself from her embrace and got to his feet. He gestured at the door.

“Privacy,” he said.

“They won’t burst in on me,” she assured him.

He flicked the knob lock shut as he tossed his shirt away. “You might be willing to bet your life on that, but I won’t.”

Sveti smiled. “Tam overreacts,” she said. “But you were the hero today. She knows that.”

“Whatever.” He kicked off jeans and underwear; then he was on that bed, caging her in, with his heat, his bulk. Mine.

She had goose bumps. She needed to be sucked, licked, squeezed. He jerked her flannel pants down, along with the scrap of underwear.

Oh, God, every damn time, it wiped him out, how beautiful she was. All those dips and curves, strong muscles and delicate bones. Scrapes and bruises, too, marring the porcelain glow of her pale skin.

He started with the hurt places, kissing scraped and scabbed hands and feet, skinned knees, the bruises on her thighs. Then he got waylaid by the warm nest between her legs, those secret pink folds.

But Sveti had ideas of her own, and she grabbed his hair and yanked him up, positioning him right where she wanted him.

Right down to business, no frills, no fuss. Fine with him.

He sank into her, with a choked groan. It was inevitable and amazing and perfect, his cockhead pushing into that tight, moist nest. Loved and squeezed as it forged slowly deeper. The in stroke was a wet, slow, dragging kiss all the way down to his base, and on the outstroke, her * squeezed and suckled him. A few of those slow, agonizing thrusts and he was wedged to the max in her plush depths. She squirmed and whimpered, lifting herself for more, more, more.

Easy does it. He rocked inside her, eyes squeezed shut, feeling for the sweet spots, the strokes, the pace that would take her to shivering pieces. They heaved, surged, rocked. He felt the glow inside her on some inexplicable level of his being, shining like a star about to supernova.

Juicy, scalding. No latex. But the thought had no teeth, not while frantically f*cking. Their hands twined, clutching as his hips thudded against hers. Their eyes locked. The contact was charged with power.

Heart-stopping. So beautiful, so painful. So f*cking real.

She was right on the edge, so he slowed it down and toyed with her clit, sliding his cockhead relentlessly against that magic place that made her sob and writhe and flop, eyes wild, gasping for air—

Ahhhh, yes. Off she went. Long, hard, clutching throbs. She grabbed him, crying out. Nails biting deep.

She lay, splayed and limp after, dragging in shuddering gulps of air. He just rocked, waiting for her eyes to open. Waiting to pounce.

They fluttered open, all unsuspecting. He lit into her without mercy. “You left the hospital without telling me.”

She blinked, nonplussed. “I didn’t . . . Tam just organized—”

“You could have called.”

“You didn’t have a phone,” she protested. “You were—”

“Bullshit. You had Horvath’s number. He gave you a card after he took your statement. He could have passed on a message that you were going to Cray’s Cove. I had to go to the hospital and get an adrenaline spike when I found someone else in your bed. I did not deserve that.”

She hid behind her eyelashes. “It was a very intense morning,” she said. “I don’t know the etiquette of—”