“Just like this, little love.” He continued to rotate his h*ps slowly. “Just relax for me. You don’t have to do anything, sweetheart. No thought required. Just feel good.”
She stared back at him, gasping for breath. Something was always required. Her head shook in denial as she fought for enough control to do something, anything to return the favor.
“Being buried inside you is like being plugged into pure pleasure,” he growled as his head lifted, his eyes such a deep, burnished gold that they stopped her breath. “Pure hot sensation that steals the mind.”
Lust, pleasure and so much more reflected in the heated depths, terrifying her with the need to respond, to give him everything inside her, to give him all of herself.
“Let me show you pleasure, Scheme.” He kissed her lips gently. “Just close your eyes. Close your eyes and let me show you how good it can be.”
Her lashes fluttered shut before jerking open once again. She was trusting him. Trusting him was dangerous.
A chuckle left his lips as his fingers threaded through her hair.
“I dare you.”
“What?” She could barely follow, barely think.
“I dare you to close your eyes. Just lay back and feel me taking you. No responsibility, Scheme. No need to think. Just feel for me. Feel good for me, darlin’.”
His lips covered hers then, his tongue licking at her lips, sliding inside, taking the last of her resistance as her nails bit into his flesh and his h*ps began to move.
“Feel good” didn’t describe the sensations tearing through her now. With each stroke of his c**k inside her, he was filling her with demented ecstasy, soul-destroying pleasure. A pleasure that would haunt her, torment her even after death.
“There, sweet darlin’.” He jerked his lips from hers as she began to moan, to cry out with the sensation ripping through her. “You’re so sweet and tight. So hot. I could stay inside you forever.”
Her h*ps lifted beneath his, finding a rhythm to match him, to increase the pleasure building with such catastrophic demand that she couldn’t lie still.
Yet she couldn’t keep up. His rhythm would change, level, quicken, then slow. Perspiration ran in rivulets along her body, causing Tanner’s body to slide against her, to stroke with silky precision along her sensitive skin as his c**k thrust hard and deep inside her vagina.
She was dying. It was too much. Too much pleasure. Too many sensations. She had to back off, she needed at least a modicum of control. Just a little.
“Oh no you don’t.” A primal growl left his lips. “Don’t you stiffen on me, Scheme. Give it back to me.”
His strokes changed. His lips nipped at hers. His hands clenched in her hair and he began to f**k her hard, deep. Powerful strokes that sent his c**k shuttling in and out. Stroking, burning. Each thrust threw her higher, tossing her into a maelstrom of sensation that finally, blessedly, culminated in an implosion of such strength, such depth that there was no control, no restraint. She was helpless, tossed about within an inferno of twisting, searing sensation.
As she collapsed beneath him, she felt a last, desperate thrust before Tanner tightened and drove so deep inside her she was certain he’d pierced her soul. And then she felt his release spurting wet and hot inside her, his c**k throbbing, pulsing as he let go.
And she knew she would never be free of him. Alive or dead, the need for this pleasure would follow her. The need for this man would haunt her for an eternity.
Scheme tried to remember how to breathe without gasping as Tanner rolled to her side and pulled her against his body. He was breathing hard as well, his chest rising and falling in fast bellows as he buried his head in her hair and nipped at her shoulder playfully.
“Next time you pull a knife on me, I’m going to spank you,” he panted.
“Remind me to use it next time.” A smile twitched at her lips as he nipped at her again.
“Remind me to keep the knives hidden,” he grunted.
Scheme shook her head with a soft laugh as her hand moved to her lower stomach, covering the slight warmth she could feel deep beneath her skin. In her womb. She caressed the area, bitterness seeping into her soul at the memory of all she had lost the last time she had dared to let herself believe in a man. Reminding herself of all that could be lost if she let herself believe in this man.
CHAPTER 15
Tanner was gone, right on time. Sleeping with a man helped you to learn the strangest things. How responsive he was to you, even in sleep. But also, how responsive a woman became to a man, even subconsciously.
She didn’t have to fully awaken to know when he left the bed, and she noticed, within a few days, that she knew when he left the room.
When he left the bed the next morning, she felt him move. She was more asleep than awake, as the lights flared behind her closed eyes, then just as abruptly darkened.
He wasn’t up to fix breakfast.
Swimming up from the deep sleep she had been immersed in after the bouts of sex he put her through wasn’t easy. Especially with the knowledge that he would sense her waking.
So she dozed, doing as she had done during the years she lived on her father’s estate. Coyotes patrolled there, and her father’s punishments were brutal for slipping around the house after lights-out.
She timed the Coyote patrols and learned how to fool them. The brain could do miraculous things when it had to. She had learned how to place herself in that state between sleep and awareness, in a place where her brain was aware of every move, every sound, every scent that drifted around her.
Humans were very much capable of certain animal awarenesses. She could hear Tanner walking; she had no idea the tunnel he had taken, but several long minutes after he’d dressed and left the room, she heard the scrape of stone. Faint. The sound was so faint it took precious moments for her brain to identify it, and even longer for her to force herself to awaken.
She slid from the bed, blinking at the lights that flared around her as she bent to retrieve her clothing from the floor.
The velvet pants were on the other side of the bed table, the top at the bottom of the bed. One sock was under the bed; the other had her gritting her teeth in frustration before she found it tucked at the bottom of the mattress.
Tanner really was going to have to start taking more care with her clothing.
Jerking the socks on over her feet, she moved for the tunnels. A smile tilted her lips as she found what she was looking for.