Naked in Death (In Death, #1)(48)

He had a vision of himself dragging her to the floor, pounding himself into her until her screams echoed like gunshots, and his release erupted like blood. It would be quick, and fierce. And over.

With the breath shuddering in his lungs, he jerked back. Her face was flushed, her mouth already swollen. He'd torn her shirt at the shoulder.

A room filled with violence, the smell of gunsmoke still stinking the air, and weapons still within reach.

"Not here." He half carried, half dragged her to the elevator. By the time the doors opened, he'd ripped aside the torn sleeve. He shoved her against the back wall as the doors closed them in, and fumbled with her holster. "Take this damn thing off. Take it off."

She hit the release and let the holster dangle from one hand as she fought open his buttons with the other. "Why do you wear so many clothes?"

"I won't next time." He ripped the tattered shirt aside. Beneath she wore a thin, nearly transparent undershirt that revealed small, firm breasts and hardened nipples. He closed his hands over them, watched her eyes glaze. "Where do you like to be touched?"

"You're doing fine." She had to brace a hand on the side wall to keep from buckling.

When the doors opened again, they were fused together. They circled out with his teeth nipping and scraping along her throat. She let her bag and her holster drop.

She got a glimpse of the room: wide windows, mirrors, muted colors. She could smell flowers and felt the give of carpet under her feet. As she struggled to release his slacks, she caught sight of the bed.

"Holy God."

It was huge, a lake of midnight blue cupped between high carved wood. It stood on a platform beneath a domed sky window. Across from it was a fireplace of pale green stone where fragrant wood sizzled.

"You sleep here?"

"I don't intend to sleep tonight."

He interrupted her gawking by pulling her up the two stairs to the platform and tumbling her onto the bed.

"I have to check in by oh seven hundred."

"Shut up, lieutenant."

"Okay."

With a half laugh, she rolled on top of him and fastened her mouth to his. Wild, reckless energy was bursting inside her. She couldn't move quickly enough, her hands weren't fast enough to satisfy the craving.

She fought off her boots, let him peel the jeans over her hips. A wave of pleasure rippled through her when she heard him groan. It had been a long time since she'd felt the tension and heat of a man's body – a very long time since she'd wanted to.

The need for release was driving and fierce. The moment they were naked, she would have straddled him and satisfied it. But he flipped their positions, muffled her edgy protests with a long, rough kiss.

"What's your hurry?" he murmured, sliding a hand down to take her breast and watching her face while his thumb quietly tortured her nipple. "I haven't even looked at you."

"I want you."

"I know." He levered back, running a hand from her shoulder to her thigh while his gaze followed the movement. The blood was pounding in his loins. "Long, slim… " His hand squeezed lightly on her breast. "Small. Very nearly delicate. Who would have guessed?"

"I want you inside me."

"You only want one aspect inside you," he murmured.

"Goddamn it," she began, then groaned when he dipped his head and took her breast into his mouth.

She writhed against him, against herself as he suckled, so gently at first it was torture, then harder, faster until she had to bite back a scream. His hands continued to skim over her, kindling exotic little fires of need.

It wasn't what she was used to. Sex, when she chose to have it, was quick, simple, and satisfied a basic need. But this was tangling emotions, a war on the system, a battering of the senses.

She struggled to get a hand between them, to reach him where he lay hard and heavy against her. Pure panic set in when he braceleted her wrists and levered her hands over her head.

"Don't."

He'd nearly released her in reflex before he saw her eyes. Panic yes, even fear, but desire, too. "You can't always be in control, Eve." As he spoke he ran his free hand over her thigh. She trembled, and her eyes unfocused when his fingers brushed the back of her knee.

"Don't," she said again, fighting for air.

"Don't what? Find a weakness, exploit it?" Experimentally, he caressed that sensitive skin, tracing his fingers up toward the heat, then back again. Her breath was coming in pants now as she fought to roll away from him.

"Too late, it seems," he murmured. "You want the kick without the intimacy?" He began a trail of slow, open-mouthed kisses at the base of her throat, working his way down while her body shivered like a plucked wire beneath his. "You don't need a partner for that. And you have one tonight. I intend to give as much pleasure as I get."

"I can't." She strained against him, bucked, but each frantic movement brought only a new and devastating sensation.

"Let go." He was mad to have her. But her struggle to hold back both challenged and infuriated.

"I can't."

"I'm going to make you let go, and I'm going to watch it happen." He slid back up her, feeling every tremble and quake, until his face was close to hers again. He pressed his palm firmly on the mound between her thighs.