Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(98)

“So we’re alone tonight?”

“Yeah.”

He stared down into her eyes, his own spectacular eyes hooded by a worried, weary brow. When he brought a hand up and traced his fingers lightly over her forehead, her temple, her jaw, she closed her eyes and let herself feel his coarse caress. He was being gentle, not rough, and the little snarl of disquiet in her belly loosened.

His hand trailed from her chin, down her neck, between her breasts. She opened her eyes as he hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her close. “Badge, what happened?”

He shook his head. “Not tonight.” With his free hand, he found the drawstring on her long skirt and pulled it loose, widening the waist with his finger until it dropped from her hips into a puddle on the floor.

She kicked off her ballet flats and left them in the puddle with her skirt.

Then he leaned back and lifted her sweater over her head, leaving her in a simple pair of black cotton boyshorts and a matching bra. With his thumbs, he circled her nipples, bringing them to hard pebbles through the black fabric. She whimpered and lifted her chest toward his touch, and he pinched, pulling lightly, until the sensation made all the nerves and muscles in her breasts and between her legs sing, and she cried out. “Badge!”

“I love your body so much.” He released her breasts and lifted her damaged right arm, bringing it to his lips. From her wrist to her shoulder, he kissed and nuzzled, his lips, mouth, and beard sliding over her scarred skin. It felt beautiful and awful, making her feel loved and ruined all at once. “Badge, don’t.”

“This is my fault. What happened to you. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I cause you pain. I wish I could stop. I wish I could let you go. But I can’t. I can’t let you go.”

She wrenched her arm from his grasp and grabbed his head, threading her fingers into his beard and pulling him to face her. “Stop that. I’d go if I wanted to. I don’t want to. I love you.”

The heat in his eyes flared white hot, and he grabbed her head. His mouth came down hard on hers. His fingers tangled and pulled in her hair. She felt like he was trying to pull her into him completely. No longer gentle, now the need he’d expressed earlier was loose. His teeth ground on her lips, his beard scraped at her cheeks, his fingers pulled strands of her hair loose.

And she was glad of it all. She wanted him to need her like this. She wanted to be the only thing that could quiet the beast inside him. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she brought herself as close to him as she could and let him take what he needed.

He walked her to the bed and pushed her down. His eyes locked on her, he stripped, barely taking the time to lay his kutte on the dresser. She removed her underwear while he did so. When they were naked together, he dropped heavily on top of her, his mouth seeking hers with the same savagery. His hands moved roughly over her skin as if he needed to feel all of her, to etch impressions of her into his fingerprints.

She pulled the band from his ponytail so that the silk of his long hair would slide coolly over her body.

It left soothing trails where his rough hands had been. He released her mouth and tucked his face against her neck, grunting as his body flexed and rocked against hers, every inch of him hard and demanding. His intense need made her own need nearly unmanageable. She wanted him inside her, deep and forceful, but he seemed not ready, despite the impossibly hard rod digging into her belly. He seemed to need this grapple first, grunting against her neck, his hands and mouth clutching, his legs tangling with hers.

Then his hand went between her legs and he buried his fingers in her. Their feral writhing had made her dripping wet and desperately ready, and she arched backward with a squeal, feeling right on the precipice immediately. Then he added another finger—God, it felt like all of them were inside her—and curled them sharply upward, pushing firmly against the most tender spot of her body.

She couldn’t help it. The orgasm ran her down like a runaway truck. She felt herself flood over his hand, and she had a fraction of a thought to be almost embarrassed by how much wet her body had released, and then he flexed his fingers again, and she screamed. Loud and long, over and over, her body coming off the bed with enough force to dislodge him from atop her.

When she was able to relax on the mattress again, but before she had regained her senses, Badger pushed into her, and she felt him so intensely that she turned right around and started on another orgasm.

He was so hot, so hard and silkysoft at the same time, so rough and so gentle. She loved that he would be the only man she’d ever feel the way she felt him now. So much. She felt him so much.

Her senses cleared, and she froze.

“Badge—condom. Do you have a condom on?”

He answered without slowing his frantic thrusts. “I’ll pull out, babe,” he gasped. “I’ll pull out. I need this. I need to feel you. Just you. Fuck, you feel so awesome.”

The thrill of fear she felt at what they were doing only brought her more quickly higher, and she didn’t stop him. Instead, she wrapped her legs around his hips and moved with him, and against him, until their bodies were slamming together. When she came the second time, she was able to stay quiet, biting down on his shoulder and clutching his back, but the experience was no less intense. In some ways, it was the most intense she’d ever felt. With her legs and arms and mouth, she clasped him to her as tightly as she could.

And then he went completely still. “Babe, let me go. I…let me go. Now.”