Her voice caught. “Then who are you?”
He was looking into her eyes, not at her breasts, and his gaze was intent. His mouth, the mouth she wanted, curved in a slight smile. “Your worst nightmare?”
She shook her head. “Let go of my hands.”
He did, and she lifted them, cradling his face, pushing his long, multi-colored hair away from the planes and angles of him. “Fate,” she said. “You can’t
run away from fate.”
“Are you trying to scare me off, Sister Beth? This is a blip on the horizon, not a relationship.”
“You already said that. Several times, in fact. Who are you trying to convince?”
He laughed softly, and the sound curled in her belly, warming her. “You’re evil, Sister Beth. I like that in a woman.” He put his hands on her shoulders, big, strong, rough hands on her, his thumbs beginning to knead the tension, the fear, out of her. They moved down her arms, slowly, so that she could stop him, and then he pushed her back on the bunk, and she felt the mattress against her back, the cool sheets, the soft pillow beneath her head.He let his slow, carnal gaze slide down to her breasts then, and he breathed in a ragged sigh. She waited for him to say something crass, to try to break the strange, erotic lassitude she was sliding into, but he was silent, watching her breathe. He moved then, onto the bunk, over her, straddling her, and he was dark and hot and everything she wanted.
He put his hands on her waist, letting them slide up to brush against her breasts, barely touching them, and she could feel her nipples contract almost painfully. She jerked, wanting more.
“Small,” he said in a rough voice. “And perfect.” He leaned down, and she could fee his tongue against her, brushing across her nipple, and she felt her womb contract in fear and anticipation “You’re going to let me suck them, aren’t you, Sister Beth?”
He waited for permission, but her throat closed, unable to say the words, terrified that he’d leave her. His eyes darkened, and he ran his thumbs across the swollen nubs. “That’s all right, sweetheart. You’ll tell me. Eventually. You’re going to say everything I want you to say. You’re going to cry it, and whisper it, and scream it.”
The heat between her legs grew hotter even as fear danced across her nerve endings. “We can take this slow, can’t we?” she managed to ask. “You won’t push me?”
“Oh, my precious one.” He was sounding more Irish, an instinctive croon that made her melt. “I’m going to push you so far you won’t know where you end and I begin. I’m not going to approach you on my knees. I don’t worship virgin queens. I fuck them.”
“Don’t.”
“And you’re going to tell me you want me to fuck you. Hard.” Her nipples felt so tight and hard they were almost painful, and the soft brush of his rough thumbs against them was a glorious kind of torture. “No fairy tales. Just you and me. And sex.” He leaned over her, his mouth catching her nipple, drawing it in, sucking, his tongue swirling, and she arched off the bed, burning.
She heard the sound she made, a soft moan of need. Her hands came up, almost of their own accord, and threaded through the long hair that fell around his face, sifting her fingers through it, dancing across his hot skin. Lifting his head, he blew on her breast, and she cried out as sensations danced through her, and before they died down he moved to her other breast, sucking, licking. She felt his teeth rasp against her, and she shivered in response.
He moved down, and his hands were at the fastening to her jeans, unzipping them. How many hands did the man have, she thought dazedly, awash in sensation. The tug of his mouth at her breast was like nothing she’d ever felt before, hot and hard and needy. She felt his hand between her legs, against the heavy seams of denim, pushing, stroking through all those layers of cloth, and she arched up again, pushing back, wanting more.
He lifted his head, looking down at her. “Tell me to take your pants off.” The demand was husky but clear.
She swallowed, fighting it, fighting the desire, fighting herself. “Are you wearing my pants?”
His laugh was shaky. She liked that. “Saucy, aren’t you?” he said. And then she felt his hands on her hips, shoving the jeans down, moving back and stripping them off her legs so fast she didn’t have time to react before he was straddling her again, holding her in place with his hard thighs. “There, that was painless, wasn’t it?”
It took her a moment to catch her breath. “You left my underwear on.”
“Well, getting your knickers off is half the fun, isn’t it?”
“Half the fun?”
He was unbuttoning his shirt, slowly, and his eyes glittered in the moonlight. “Well, no. Just one of the many bits of fun to be had.”
Fun. This didn’t feel like fun. If felt dark and torturous and powerful, this strangling need that was rushing through her body, but it didn’t feel like fun.
He tossed the shirt away, and he’d removed the bandage from the knife wound. She tried to angle her head, to look at him, but he pushed her back down. “You can play doctor later, sweetheart,” he said, reading her again. “We’ve got better things to do.”
“I just want to make sure …”
“If you make me bleed you can patch me up again. You sure I’m not going to make you bleed?”
She was glad the moonlight didn’t show her flush. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not a virgin? Why don’t you hurry up and get this over with and then you’ll know for sure.”
“Oh, I’m in no hurry. What’s another hour when you’ve waited three years?”