Ultimate Weapon (McClouds & Friends #6)(107)

He let his arms slide lower, embracing her. She was as stiff as a wooden statue. “No.”

The gun dug deeper. “I mean it.” Her voice shook.

“So shoot me,” he said. “Go on. End it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You used this trick on me before.”

“It worked before,” he said.

“I’m wise to you now,” she said. “It won’t work again.”

“Yes, it will,” he said quietly. “Because this time it is not a trick. I know you now, Tamar. You will not shoot me. Put the gun away.”

Seconds dragged, oppressive with waiting. Rain rushed, an enormous, diffused sound all around them. Far-off thunder cracked and rumbled.

Crystalline tears welled up in her eyes, glittering in the gathering darkness. “Damn you,” she whispered.

He pushed the barrel of the gun away from his chin, took the thing out of her unresisting hand, and put it back in her purse.

He placed the bag gently on the ground and reached for her.





Chapter


20




She struggled, of course. She could not help herself. It was a given, an automatic response. But the fight was a frantic search for some place to put that desperate energy raging inside her. She fought how hard she wanted him, how much she was beginning to need him. She fought that sad, yearning ache that scared her out of her wits.

Not just for his beauty, his intensity, his fabulous cock. She wanted the life-giving elixir of his kisses, she wanted to wander through the boundless wilderness of him, to get lost in him. She wanted to devour him, soak him up, drink him in. She wanted to be devoured.

Stubborn bastard. She was furious at him for being a stubborn dickhead about Georg, and at the same time, pathetically grateful that he had stopped her from drinking that toxic brew.

He had saved her. From Georg, from herself. How dare he.

Val pushed her against the wall, wrenching her arms behind her, and for some reason, his smoldering barbarian energy did not piss her off. She’d encountered that conquering warrior vibe in her lovers before, and had been secretly amused by it. Never tempted. Never stirred. It was just another weakness to be exploited, another blind spot to turn to her advantage. She’d toyed with men’s vanity, their illusions about themselves. She’d made them dance to her tune when she bothered with them at all. Puppets. Clowns. Big bore.

But Val was no clown. He had no illusions, no vanity. Val danced to no tune but his own. And she was anything but bored.

He was going to throw her down on the bed and f*ck her, and she could not wait. She was going to explode, combust. She needed Val’s delicious hot scent to drive away the memory of Georg’s bitter odor, Georg’s sour breath, the damp, bruising clutch of Georg’s hands. After today’s nightmare, she was crazy for it, but she just couldn’t…stop…struggling. Her muscles trembled with the electric compulsion.

He immobilized her in his huge embrace and leaned, pinning her body against the wall. “Tell me that you want me,” he said.

She squinted, disoriented. “What?”

“Tell me that you want me,” he repeated impatiently. “I don’t trust myself to read you.”

She wrenched at her trapped wrists. “Why the hell not?”

He made a frustrated sound. “I want it too much,” he burst out. “I need it too much. I do not want to…how did you put it? Project my gutter fantasies onto you?”

She shook with breathless, hysterical laughter, every inch of her tensed against his body. “Why this sudden insecurity?”

His face was tense, a mask of rigid self-control in the shadowy room. “I do not want to be like him,” he said starkly.

Tam gasped in astonishment. The idea was so incongruous, she almost couldn’t process it. “Him? Georg? Hah!” Her voice cracked. “You are nothing like him! As if!” She shoved him hard to punctuate her statement. “You are his polar opposite!”

His grin flashed. “Ah. Good, then. This heartens me.”

She made a frantic growling sound, lunged forward, and sank her teeth into his neck, hard enough to hurt. “Goddamn it, Val,” she hissed when she let go. “Don’t be sweet. Not right now. You’re ruining the barbarian conqueror vibe. Keep waffling like this, and I’m going to have to put you down.”

He laughed, a free, delighted sound. Plaster dust and flakes of paint pattered down on the antique tile floor as he pushed her back against the wall. He wrenched her jacket down over her shoulders and off, then attacked the buttons of her blouse.

She gave him a shove that rocked him back a bare couple of inches. “Hey. If you rip the only clothing I have to put on my body, I swear to God, I will kill you. Slowly and painfully.”

He slowly uncurled his fisted fingers and let go of the handful of silk, but he did not step back. “Take it off,” he commanded.

She unbuttoned the blouse, and that was as far as his patience would stretch. He wrenched the sleeves down, flung the blouse away.

He stared at her breasts, his gaze hot and intent as he slid his sensitive fingertips slowly around her nipples. Tender, lazy strokes that left glowing streaks of light and heat in their wake, every nerve wanting him back. Hungering for more. Her nipples tingled. He bent low, and she gasped at the faintest contact, the scratchy brush of his stubbled cheeks, the softness of his lips. His swirling tongue, the wet suckling pull of his hot mouth. He kept her like that, topless and trembling against the wall while he made love to her breasts, until her tension melted, softened.