“Hour?” her voice rose in a little shriek.
“Well, perhaps not an hour,” he amended, a dark light in his eyes that shone even in the moonlight. “I have excellent control but I don’t think even I could hold out that long. Not since I’ve spent almost every second of the last six days thinking about doing this.”
She frowned, trying rapid calculations. “Six days.”
“I’d say since the first moment I laid eyes on you, but I didn’t even need to see you to want you. I just had to hear your voice in the darkness of that shack where they kept me and I was off.”
She swallowed. “Nonsense. It was simply because I was female.”
“Nonsense,” he mimicked. “There were any number of females I could have had in Puerto Claro. There’ll be women everywhere when we get to Spain, and I have a fondness for Latin women. They’re comfortable with their bodies, they’re comfortable with sex.”
For some reason she felt hurt. “I’m not,” she said flatly.
“There’s a news flash.”
“Then why are you here? Apart from the obvious, being that I’m the only female available?” Shit. She was being vulnerable again, when she wanted to be strong and sure.
“You can stop that right now,” he said. “Sometimes I like a challenge.”
She hadn’t realized she was clenching the sheets in her hands. He pried them loose, easily enough, and put them on his chest, sliding them up his warm, smooth skin. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. By the time I finish with you you’ll be speaking Spanish like a native.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
She tasted like fear and need and a thousand other things too complicated, and MacGowan didn’t care. He needed to be inside her, holding her, fucking her. But it took more self-control than he would have thought he possessed to keep moving at this pace when he wanted to do nothing more than yank down his jeans and thrust inside her, over and over again until he was lost in the bone-shaking orgasm her reluctant flesh promised.
That accident in the apartment only made the need more powerful. He felt an almost atavistic need to claim her. As if, having gotten through the desperate measures of the last few days she was now his trophy of war, to wallow in, to take, over and over again, until he could finally slake his overwhelming hunger.
He wanted her hands on him, he wanted her mouth on him, he wanted to take her from behind, leaning over the bunk, he wanted her to go down on him, he wanted everything he could possibly think of and more. He wanted it hard and nasty, gentle and sweet. But most of all he wanted it now.
He moved off her, stripping off his jeans and kicking them off the berth. He would have thought she would be closing her eyes and trying to run away again, but instead she looked at him, and impossibly he could feel his cock swell at her calm regard.
“That’s not going to fit,” she said.
He laughed. God, how coul
d she keep making him laugh when things were so intense? How could the laughter not lighten the darkness between them, around them? “Bet you another hundred thousand,” he said.
He would have liked to linger on the elegant offering of her body, a little bruised but still lithe and beautiful, but his patience was wearing thin, and he knew how to get her ready, fast.
He nudged her legs apart, and she let him, which surprised him. The underwear was more delicate then he would have expected, and it was easy enough to slide his hands beneath the lace bands on her hips and rip, pulling it off. Shocking her with the sudden violence of the move. But she didn’t pull away.
“Show time, Sister Beth,” he said, pushing her legs apart. He put his mouth on her.
She bucked in surprise, but he’d taken the precaution of holding her hips steady as he slid his tongue down, tasting the sweetness of her, the need of her. “Don’t,” she said in a choked cry. “I don’t like this.”
He didn’t lift his head. He was very good at this – he loved women, loved the taste and the touch and the smell of them, and he knew how to bring exquisite pleasure to the shyest of flesh. If she really didn’t want this she wouldn’t be threading her fingers into his hair, mindlessly stroking him, her hips arching toward him.
He brought her up slowly, teasing her, feeling the first reluctant tremors of response, the shiver as he slid his fingers inside her, the wetness of her that called to him. Her fingers tightened on his hair, and then released him as she clutched the sheet, but this time she wasn’t searching for control, this time she was simply trying to hold on as he tongued her, kissed her, bit her. And her body went rigid as an orgasm riveted through her, making her tight as a bowstring before she flung herself free, dissolving into shocked, choking cries.
He had moved up between her legs, resting against her, his arms on either side of her, shaking at the effort. “Hell, Sister Beth, haven’t you ever used a vibrator?” he asked with a soft laugh.
“That … that was better.”
He let the head of his cock press against her, sliding against the wetness, teasing her, teasing himself until he thought he’d explode. “Double or nothing?”
She was still having trouble catching her breath, and the hard intensity of her response was another bolt of pleasure shooting through him. He pushed, just a bit, feeling her body open to accommodate him, and he froze for a moment, to bring himself back under control. He couldn’t lose it now. Not until he was deep inside her, not until she came again, could he let loose and have her as hard and as fast as his body demanded. She deserved a gentle lover. Tonight she was going to have to make do with him.
She groaned, shifting, taking him inside. Her eyes were half-closed, but he didn’t chide her. She knew exactly who was between her legs, who was inside her, and he didn’t need to play games to prove it. He paused, his muscles so tight they might snap. “Are you all right?” His voice was raw, and he cursed. She couldn’t know how much it cost him to ask. If she said no he’d have to pull out, and it would kill him. But he’d do it.