Atlanta Heat (6 page)

He knew her college degree was in communications, design, and integration. As he read, he pursed his lips in surprise. She was good. She’d designed several integrated programs the Bureau was currently using. Nothing compared to those on his own personal setup, but he liked to think he had equipment the Bureau couldn’t touch.

He backed out of the Bureau’s files before heading into Diasonis. That was a little harder. The Bureau’s system was well known to him, its back doors as familiar to him as his own. Diasonis was a little more complicated.

He was working his way through the first pass when he heard the door. Damn. He backed out
carefully, his fingers moving quickly over the keyboard as he exited the system, not that he’d managed to get in far, and cleared the program as she stepped into the living area.

“There’s chili on the stove.” He turned, tilted his head to the stove, and reactivated the virtual war game he had standing ready.

She glanced at the monitor and moved to the stove. “What time is it?”

“Nearly eight in the evening. You slept a long time, Em. Feeling rested?” He moved his player around a tree, collected a rocket launcher, and blew a tank to hell and back. A thousand points and no sound behind him.

He jerked his head around to take a quick look, and froze.

He blinked, eye level with breasts he dreamed about, covered in nothing but one of his t-shirts. She hadn’t been close to him in forty-eight hours. She had maintained distance, kept a wary eye on him, and ignored most of his questions and attempts at conversation.

She had been hiding, if only inside herself, and he knew it. For the time being, he had allowed her to hide. The nice thing about his cave was the fact that sooner or later she was going to have to acknowledge him, him and the sexual tension, not to mention the emotional tension rising between them.

Two years he had waited, and she knew it. Two years too long.

“You’re losing your game.”

He lifted his gaze to her face, his eyes meeting her narrowed ones.

“My breasts aren’t part of your game, Macey. You just lost.”

A distant virtual explosion sounded behind him as she moved away. Macey sighed dejectedly and turned back to the computer. Oh well, the game was just there to hide his activities, not to actually win. He’d already beaten that sucker months ago anyway.

He swiveled around in his chair to watch as she moved across the room to the kitchenette. She was wearing one of his t-shirts and a pair of his sister’s cotton sleep leggings and socks. Damn, she looked too young to be here, too young for the thoughts running through his brain.

He watched her ass as she reached up into a cabinet and pulled out a bowl. His teeth clenched in an effort to maintain control as the twin cheeks bunched and rippled when she moved back to the stove and filled the bowl with chili.

When she turned, his gaze was lifted innocently to her face as he fought every male instinct to drop his eyes to those pretty unbound breasts again.

S
HE COULD HAVE HIM
, a little voice reminded Emerson. How many times over the past two years had he let her know just how easily she could have him?

“So when can I get out of here and back to my life? Any news yet?”

“What’s the hurry? Do you have someone besides the admiral waiting for you on the outside?”

She didn’t like the tone of his voice, didn’t like the friendliness in it, or the silent invitation to spill her guts to him. She had no secrets; she had no reason to feel sorry for herself.

“I have a full life.” She shrugged easily.

“And an empty bed.” His voice lowered, the black velvet tone stroking over her senses as he moved toward her.

“My bed is none of your business, Macey. When I want a man there, I have no trouble filling it.”

And how many times had she had done that? Too few. And they had been gone too quickly.

“Why are you so defensive with me, Em?” he asked then, his tone too soft, too knowing, too sexy. “You snap and snipe at me as though I’ve done something to hurt you. If I have, I’d be more than willing to kiss it and make it better.”

He was teasing. That playful, come-hither male sexiness that she found so hard to resist. That she had to resist. Otherwise, there would be no way she could hide the feelings she had for him. Feelings that went beyond scratching a little sexual itch while they were confined together.

“If I’m so hard to be around, why did you take this job?” she asked.

“Why did I take this assignment?” He leaned close, his lips curving into a smile, his dark eyes gleaming with sexual intent. “I took this job to finally get into your pants, Em. To get you under me,
around me, and to get so deep inside you that the last thing you think about is pushing me away. That’s why I let your godfather maneuver me like the good little SEAL I am. Now, answer my question. Why, Emerson Delaney, do you try to push me away every damned time I get close enough to do that?”

“I don’t know, Macey,” she snarled. “Maybe I don’t want to join the Macey’s Castoff’s club. Sorry, Lieutenant, but being part of the crowd never appealed to me, and being a part of your crowd appeals even less. So why don’t you stop trying to seduce me, get on your handy-dandy made-for-spying computer and find me a way out of this. Otherwise, we’re going to end this little fiasco as enemies, rather than the fragile friendship I thought we had managed to maintain.”

His brows lifted, amusement filling his expression.

“Do you let all your friends suck your hard little nipples in your godfather’s study, Em? If you do, I think I’m going to need to spank you.”

Flames raced through her body. Warning alarms were clanging through her head. But when his head lowered, his hand sliding into her hair to hold her still, feeling his lips on hers again, she was lost. Lost in the touch of a man she knew she could never hold, and unwilling to break free, because nothing, at no time in her life, had ever felt as right as Macey’s kiss. Macey’s touch. As belonging to Macey, if only for this moment.

HE WASN’T STOPPING THIS
time.

Macey eased over the back of the couch, keeping his lips on Emerson’s, tasting the wild passion and honeyed sweetness of her kiss, her tongue, letting himself become trapped in her pleasure and his own.

This was the snare, and he knew it. A pleasure unlike any other that he had known in his life. For the first time, he could feel his lover’s pleasure as well as his own, and he was trapped within it. He wasn’t touching, stroking, giving pleasure in the hopes of having that pleasure returned. Hell no. Hearing her pleasure, feeling her tremble with it, the sound of it echoing in her shaking moan, that was pleasure.

He stroked his tongue over Emerson’s lips, felt them tremble as he took another short, drugging kiss. He let his hands move over her shoulders as he tried to sate himself with the sweetness of her lips and her inquisitive little tongue.

But there was no sating himself and he knew it. Had known it since that first kiss.

“Come here, Em.” He lowered her to the couch as her velvety hazel green eyes opened and she stared back at him with pleasure.

“Macey.” She licked her lips, and he followed suit.

He let his tongue run over them before taking another hard, quick taste of her.

“Don’t think, baby,” he whispered. “Let me touch you. Have you. Don’t you know I’d beg for just another taste?”

“Macey.” She blinked drowsily, sensually, her hands fluttering to his shoulders. He watched the hunger overcome the hesitancy in her eyes. “Why?”

“Because I can’t fight it any longer.”

“But you’ll break my heart.” He heard her breath hitch as his lips became distracted by the long, slim line of her neck. “You know you’re going to break my heart.”

He jerked his head up, his eyes narrowing on hers. “I take care of what’s mine, Emerson. Every part of it. And whether you end up liking it or not, sweetheart, you’re mine.”

Her arms curved around his neck, and he set out to mark his territory. The primal need to possess had him by the balls now, and he had a feeling it wasn’t going to release him anytime soon.

As his hand flattened beneath her shirt on the bare flesh of her stomach, a moan slipped past Emerson’s lips into the kiss he was stealing from her soul. Calloused
and warm, the tips of his fingers stroking her flesh had her nerve endings howling in pleasure.

They strained together, hips arching, bearing down, the thick length of his cock pressed against her saturated core as her hands curved around his back, her nails digging into the material of his shirt.

It wasn’t enough, she needed to touch his flesh, needed to feel it against her. She tore at the cloth, tugging it upward to his shoulders, revealing the tough skin and hard muscles of his back. Pleasure whipped through her palms as she stroked his flesh and felt him tense tighter against her.

“Get naked,” he growled, tearing his lips from hers, lifting just enough to jerk his shirt from his body, then her shirt followed. A dark, almost black patch of chest hair arrowed along his hard abs and into the band of his jeans.

Her hands tore at the belt cinching his waist, pulling it free as his hands worked on the metal snap and zipper.

She tugged at the material, pulling it over his hips with one hand as she parted the front edges, pulled the snug boxer briefs from the thick length of flesh it covered and felt her mouth go dry.

His cock was so hard and the skin stretched so tight it appeared painful. Heavy veins throbbed in hungry demand and the wide, dark crest pulsed with a heartbeat all its own, pushing a silky pearlescent bead of pre-cum from the narrow slit.

“Oh God, Macey,” she whispered, desperation coloring her voice as she held the heavy flesh, stroking it, her pussy clenching at the thought of accommodating it.

She lifted her eyes along his tight abs, his heaving chest, to meet his dark eyes. He watched her as well, his expression tight, honed with hungry lust as she stroked the length of his erection.

“I want to taste you,” she whispered. “All of you.”

“For God’s sake, hurry,” he groaned. “If I don’t touch you, taste more of you, it might kill me.”

She wanted to smile at that. Had any man ever been so desperate to touch her? She knew there hadn’t been.

She sat up on the couch, her legs between his spread thighs. She lowered her head, the fingers of both hands curling around the heavy shaft as she licked the little bead of creamy liquid from the head of his cock.

The savage groan that tore from his throat shocked her, excited her. Hands slid into her hair roughly, bunching it and clenching in the strands.

Fiery bursts of heat spread through her scalp. Her mouth opened, covered the swollen head, and sucked it in. She gloried in the strangled curse that fell from his lips. Her tongue swiped over the tight flesh, curled around it and rubbed the underside, that sensitive little area just beneath the head.

“Emerson, darlin’.” His voice was rough, thick and heavy with pleasure.

He was close to the edge. She could tell by the tight length of his cock, the throb of blood beneath the flesh. The fingers of one hand cupped his balls, feeling the taut sac ripple beneath her touch.

She sucked at him firmly, finding more pleasure in the act than she ever had before. He tasted male, clean and strong, vibrant and aroused. The taste could become addictive.

As she sucked, her gaze lifted to his again. A moan caught in her chest as his eyes met hers. His lips, so sensually curved, were parted, his strong, white teeth clenched tight.

“So beautiful,” he groaned hoarsely. “Keep looking at me, Em. God, your eyes are beautiful. Your face. So beautiful. Your mouth so hot, so sweet.”

Her mouth was filled with his flesh, with the taste of him, the heat of him.

“Do you know what you do to me, watching me like that? Sucking my dick and staring at me as though you were starving for the taste of me?”

She felt her face flush, watching the satisfaction that filled his eyes.

“Such a pretty blush. Such a wicked little mouth.”

He was fucking that mouth with slow, easy strokes. He wasn’t digging in or trying to ram it down her throat. He wasn’t in a hurry to release. He was letting her enjoy, letting her taste, stroke.

Pleasure. It was in her eyes. She was drowning in her own pleasure right now, finding joy in touching him, even knowing she might not know the same consideration.

*   *   *

L
OVE HER HEART, HE
was going to eat her alive. He was going to have her screaming in orgasm, have her begging to be fucked, to be taken, possessed before the night was over. He’d take that look out of her eyes once and for all.

He watched the head of his cock disappear into her mouth once more, bit back a curse as her mouth surrounded it, her tongue stroked it, and she sucked at it with heated hunger. Her moan was another caress, dark, rippling over the sensitive flesh and drawing his balls tighter with the need to come.

That wasn’t happening. Not yet. Not nearly. First, he’d devour that sweet, sexy little body, those lush, luscious breasts. Oh yeah, he was going to gorge himself on the taste of her breasts and her sweet cherry-red nipples.

“Enough, baby.” He moved to draw back.

Panic flared in her eyes; her fingers tightened on the shaft of his dick and had him grimacing with the pleasure-pain of it.

“Come here, Em.” He reached down, loosened her hands and pressed her back to the couch. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I just want to touch you. Don’t you know how much I need to do that? Just a few minutes, that’s all.”

Just for the rest of his fucking life. God, the look in her eyes was killing him. Hope mixed with fear. Not the fear of physical pain, but the fear of loss. He knew that fear himself, knew how it hurt to wake up and realize that love had just been a fantasy.

Long ago, far away, when youth thought it was wise and all-knowing.

He knew better now. He knew the risk he was taking, the rewards and the possible consequences, just as he knew that he would always regret letting her slip out of his grasp if he didn’t try to find her heart.