Too Hard to Handle (Black Knights Inc. #8)(30)

Chapter Seven


Penni was lost in a world of sensation…

Smooth, tough skin marred by the occasional scar slid beneath her searching fingertips. Scratchy facial hair abraded her tender cheeks and chin. A hot, wet tongue dallied and danced and dove deep, driving her crazy.

Dan…

She was lost in a world of Dan and she never wanted to find her way out. Wanted, instead, to stay wrapped in his arms, inhaling his scent and feeling his knowledgeable kisses and caresses. Forever. Until she expired. Until time ended.

With a moan that was picked up by the speakers, he broke the suction of their lips, pushing to support himself with his arms. “Jesus, Penni,” he whispered.

From the hair that dusted his chest and thinned to a single line running down the center of his corrugated stomach, to the expanse of his shoulders so broad and uncompromising they looked as if they could support the weight of the world, from the bulge of his pectoral muscles crowned by the flat, brown disks of his nipples, to the shaggy blond hair that fell forward over his forehead and temples, he was, in a word, gorgeous. Gorgeous in the way healthy, virile men were gorgeous. All heat and hardness and h-h-holy shit!

And then there were his eyes. They cut like lasers through the air between them, singeing her with their molten warmth, drilling into her soul, seeing so much. Too much? More than she was ready for him to see? Perhaps…

“We need to stop,” he said, his voice so soft and hoarse it sounded like it’d rolled over gravel on its way out of the back of his throat.

Right. Of course. Stop. “The mission,” she mouthed, nodding jerkily, trying to catch her breath.

“No.” He shook his head, then leaned close and whispered in her ear. “Not the mission. The talk. We still need to—”

“Later,” she murmured. She didn’t want to go there. Didn’t want to be dragged back to the real world. Not yet. For now, for just a little while longer, she wanted to stay immersed in the world of Dan. In the universe of lust and longing he created.

And since plying him with food and wine before laying her heart open was no longer an option—well, at the least not the wine part—she figured succoring him with a bout of hot, sweaty sex would do the trick just as well. Better even. And bonus! This way, she’d get to roll around in the sheets with the most beautiful man on the planet!

At least that’s how she rationalized it as she trailed a finger over the length of his neck, delighting in the hard, steady pulse at the base of his throat. Lower, the skin over his clavicle was smooth and hot. She marveled at the size and density of the bone beneath. Dan was a big man. And for the first time in her life, she felt small. Almost delicate by comparison.

“Penni,” he breathed his protest.

She couldn’t have that. “Shh,” she whispered. “Not now.”

Letting her fingers drift to his flat, brown nipple, she scraped the little nubbin with the edge of her thumbnail. It sprang to life and Dan hissed. The veins in the side of his throat stood out in harsh relief.

“Fuck me,” he groaned, his words picked up by the speakers and momentarily drowning out the sound of the scratchy music. Somehow that just made what he’d said even more salacious, even more sexy. Yes, she thought. Fucking you is the plan.

His hips flexed forward, and then she was the one hissing. Because the hot column of his erection was a rod of temptation, a steely shaft of promised satisfaction against her swollen, heavy sex. Aching sex. And when he stroked forward again—rubbing, teasing—the friction was amazing. Hard. Rough. Almost enough.

He watched her with eyes like lava, glowing and hot. “You like that,” he grumbled, stroking forward again.

“God, yes,” she said breathlessly, giving him the truth, because he hadn’t hesitated once all evening to do her the same honor. And that was just one more reason on a long list of reasons why she’d sought him out. His honesty, his integrity, his tenacity and toughness had been a boon to her in Malaysia—and had messed with her mind ever since. Every man she’d met in the past three months, every man she knew from before, fell short by comparison.

“Can you come this way?” he whispered in her ear, stroking forward again.

Her eyes nearly crossed. Her clitoris gloried at the decadent friction.

“Yes,” she whispered back.

He smiled then, and it was hot and warm, like a promise. Before she could tell him she didn’t want to come that way, she wanted to come with him in her, he reclaimed her mouth in a kiss that had starbursts exploding behind her eyelids. Little flashes of incandescent light streaked and slashed, dazzling her, dazing her. His hand snuck beneath her sweater. His palm was hot, callused, lusciously abrasive—a working man’s palm.

“So soft,” he husked against her lips. “So soft you make me even harder.”

As if to prove his point, he increased his thrusts, moving against her in a carnal, age-old rhythm. She wanted to cry out. To tell him to undress her and screw her and satisfy them both. But his tongue was back in her mouth, and little jolts of pleasure were beginning to thrum through the bundle of nerves at the top of her sex. She knew that making him stop would be the worst kind of torture…

*

Penni DePaul. Sexy, sultry, sinfully seductive Penni DePaul…

She was back in his arms. Back beneath him. Where he’d dreamed of having her for more than three months. And she was the sweetest thing. Lithe and lean and sinfully soft. Dan skated his hand up her smooth belly to gently cup her breast. The high, tight mound seemed to scream, “Touch me! Touch me!” and you can bet that’s exactly what he did. Gently squeezing. Softly molding.