Too Hard to Handle (Black Knights Inc. #8)(63)

Because he had Penni in his hands. In his mouth. Sweet, wonderful Penni and her little catching breaths and deep, throaty moans. She was so responsive. Made for love. Her nipples pebbled against his tongue, begging to be sucked. To be licked. To be laved.

He did exactly that. And with every pull of his lips, her hips arched forward just the tiniest bit. He imagined the move rubbed her sex along the seam of her jeans. Imagined she was hot and wet and wonderfully swollen. For him. For the pleasure he was giving her. For the pleasure yet to come.

“God, Dan,” she said huskily, her fingers tousling his hair as she held him to her. “I need…”

She trailed off. And he knew by the hot blush that had stolen into her cheeks when he’d demanded she tell him what she wanted that dirty talk didn’t come easily to her. But that just made it hotter. Made her hotter. That she was pushing her boundaries with him. For him. He didn’t give her a reprieve.

“What?” he breathed around her nipple, playing with the tip. Flicking his tongue against it just as he would against her hot little clitoris once he got her jeans off. “What do you need, Brooklyn? Tell me.”

“I need you to make me… Oh Christ. That feels good,” she moaned.

He didn’t allow her to distract him. Moving to her neglected breast, he gave her nipple the same attention. And once it was standing hard and proud, he leaned back to look at his handiwork. Her breasts were so lovely. Small and firm and utterly feminine. They seemed a little rounder, a little fuller than they’d been in Kuala Lumpur. The same could be said for her hips. Quitting the Secret Service looked good on her.

“You need me to make you what?” he demanded, looking up to see her eyes on him. The brown pools were shiny and bright, her lids lowered with passion.

When Penni looked at him like that, like he was the only man in the world, he felt about ten feet tall and bulletproof. He had the sudden urge to pound his chest and roar.

“I need you to make me come,” she said, biting her lip, running a finger over the little bump on the bridge of her nose. It was as much a sign of her uncertainty as it was of her need. The move was so totally, uniquely Penni. And so totally, unquestionably sexy.

“How do you want me to make you come?” he asked, one brow raised, loving the red flush that bloomed over her chest and stole up the length of her throat, obliterating the ring of darkening bruises there.

One look at them and he wanted to beat the shit out of Kozlov. Again. Because no one should ever mar the beauty of her ivory skin, the perfection of her long, lovely neck. Of course he forgot all about Kozlov when she opened her luscious mouth. “With…” She hesitated. He could see her screwing up her courage. It was as adorable as it was hot. “With your fingers,” she finally whispered, her breaths coming fast, causing her beautiful breasts to bob in front of his face. “Just like you promised.”

“Good.” He nodded, a muscle ticking in his jaw in rhythm to the erection pulsing behind his fly. The thought of putting his fingers inside her, inside all that silken, wet heat, made him so painfully erect he thought it a wonder the button on his jeans didn’t explode off and go pinging around the lavatory. “That’s good, Brooklyn,” he praised. “Now lift your foot and put it between my legs.”

“Wha—?”

“I’m gonna take off your boot so I can peel one leg of your jeans off,” he explained. “I want you to be able to spread your legs for me. I wanna do this right since you asked me so nicely.”

Her nostrils flared. And even though she hesitated one second, then another, she did as he asked. Tackling her laces, he quickly removed her boot, surprised to find his fingers were shaking with want, with need, with a desire so hot he imagined he saw steam rising from his wet clothes. Then he went to work on the button of her jeans. She remained stock-still. Standing in front of him like a sweet, feminine sacrifice. So trusting. So certain that he would take what she offered and give her what she needed.

Her panting breaths were amplified in the small space, and he loved it. It made everything hotter, more urgent. Made him hotter and more urgent. Which was why it was such a test to make himself slowly, ever so slowly peel her jeans down over her hips, her thighs, her impossibly long legs. But he did it, to draw out his pleasure and his pain at seeing her long, lithe, womanly body revealed. She was wearing black lace panties. Just a wisp of material that teased and tempted him with the delights it covered.

He leaned forward because…well, just because he had to, and pressed his mouth over the lace between her legs. He breathed out, warming her already molten sex. Then he breathed in, and drank in the smell of her desire. It shot straight to his head like top-shelf bourbon. Better than top-shelf bourbon, because he knew that after he was finished here, he wasn’t going to hate himself. This—being with her, touching her, giving her pleasure and letting her please him—was good. It was healthy. It was—

Out of nowhere he experienced that familiar sense of hesitation. That sense that he shouldn’t want another woman so completely. But before it could take over, something strange and wonderful happened. A simple phrase drifted through his mind…Stop holding on to what hurts and start making room for what feels good.

And even though he knew he’d heard it at an AA meeting, he would swear it was his beloved wife’s voice that whispered it inside his head. Dan wasn’t sure he really believed in a higher power, in the promise of life after death, but he would swear that he could feel his wife telling him it was time. Time to let her go. Time to soldier on. Get busy living or get busy dying. And then he knew…