Caine's Reckoning (41 page)

She shifted, rubbing her thighs together to still the restless need, but it wouldn’t lessen. It was focused on the tension in Caine, the passion sharpening his features until it stripped away all remnants of civilization and left behind the man as he was: deadly, capable and hers. All hers.

Another pulse of fluid. His cock went rock hard. His thumb pressed in on her cheek, melding them together, cheek to cock, skin to skin.

“Desi?”

She didn’t need him to tell her. He was going to come. She stopped suckling and started sucking, pulling his response from him, demanding that he give it to her the way she wanted. He gritted his teeth. His head fell back and then he was coming, not with hard thrusts and curses, but in a long, drawn-out shudder that flowed into her mouth, along with the soft, almost desperate whisper of her name. Pulse after pulse, whisper after whisper, until nothing else existed except the fragile sense of togetherness linking them for this one moment. And deep inside Desi, something shifted and crumbled.

He didn’t like it. Caine held Desi to him, shuddered as his bone-dry balls tried to offer her something more, something unsubstantial. Something he’d never had, and gritted his teeth against the blissful burn. He’d never had a woman take him like that, never let a woman have control, and he didn’t like the way it left him feeling. Like something was different.

Caine wrapped Desi’s thick braid around his hand, pulling her into his groin, jerking at every tender kiss she pressed against him, too sensitized to bear it. Too hungry to pull away. He slid off the table, standing before her. Desi’s arms came around his hips. Soft and sweet, hugging tightly, reminding him she needed him and not the other way around.

When he pulled her up, she didn’t fight him, just went into his embrace. All sweet, willing woman, melting against him, melting into him. He tipped her head back. She didn’t resist, just offered him her mouth with a totally feminine tilt of her head.

Caine took it. He wanted to give her back the gentleness she’d given him, but it wasn’t in him. Not now, with the memory of how she’d taken him, the sweet insistence, the acceptance. It called to something primitive within him, summoned it to the surface, made it rage until all he wanted to do was throw her on the table and fuck her so hard she’d be marked forever. His.

The kiss he pressed on her lips reflected the emotions raging through him. She didn’t seem to mind his violence, the absolute possession he took of her mouth—she just opened hers and accepted it. But then again, Desi had had a lot of men come at her violently. It was something she was no doubt used to.

And something he didn’t want her expecting from him. Between them, it had to be different. The realization sank deep. He wanted her to see him more than a duty or a man to be obeyed. He wanted her to want him because she needed him inside, where it mattered to a woman. In that place where a woman accepted one man above all others.

He broke off the kiss. “Son of a bitch.”

Desi blinked at his curse, but didn’t move. Just stayed where he’d placed her. Waiting, those full lips red and swollen from taking his cock and his kiss. Taunting him with their nearness.

He smoothed his thumb over the bottom one. “Let’s try that again.”

Inside the beast raged. He kept it harnessed, bringing his mouth to hers with slow precision, edge to edge, center to center, sinking into the kiss rather than diving in, teasing with his tongue rather than demanding. The shudder that took her from head to toe was a revelation. He could demand from her all he wanted, and he was a good enough lover to get some response, but if he wanted the fire of that first night, he was going to have to give her something no other man ever had. Consideration.

Her tongue touched his lip and then retreated, a subtle tension entering her muscles. She expected that little touch to set him off. Take it as an invitation to conquer, but he didn’t think he’d go there today. As ready as his cock was, he recognized a test when it sat in front of him. She wanted his passion, longed for his gentleness, but braced herself for lust. He rested his forehead against hers.

“I’m finding, Gypsy, that I want to give you softness, too.”

She blinked and then just as quickly frowned, as if he’d said something dirty. “You don’t like gentle.”

As if his likes were all that mattered. He placed another kiss dead center of the pucker on her forehead. “It’d be more correct to say no woman ever inspired me to want to give it a try.” He brushed a kiss on the end of her nose. “But you, Gypsy, make me want to try all sorts of new things.”

With a lift and a twist he had her sitting on the edge of the table. Her thighs parted naturally as he stepped in. She was still giving him suspicious looks. “It’s not a bad thing, Desi.”

“Men have habits.”

“That they do.” He tilted her head back, barely resisting the urge to undo her braid and have that gorgeous hair falling over his hands. If someone came in, he’d need to be able to make her presentable in a flash. “But—” he captured her gaze with his “—some men are lucky enough to have wives who make them want to try new ones.”

Her arms came around his neck and some of the tension left her face. “Like me.”

He dropped his forehead to hers as he gathered up her skirt. “Definitely like you.”

“Because I’ve known a lot of men?”

“If this skirt wasn’t so much in the way, I’d spank your ass for that disservice.”

If he hadn’t been watching so closely, he would have missed the shadow of excitement that sparked in her gaze at the word
spank.
He thought back to that first day. What had made her shiver. And smiled. “Ah, we’re going to have so much fun together.”

“Because you don’t have to worry about me?”

They were back to the too-many-men thing. His hand found the curve of her thigh. “Because we’re two of the lucky ones.”

He palmed the slim length and moved it higher, taking her little gasp into his mouth as he brushed the tight curls guarding her pussy. “Who have this.”

Her squirming nudged his finger between the swollen lips of her labia and into the liquid heat beyond.

“And this is important?”

His smile grew at the blatant fishing. He wrapped his arm around her back, stabilizing her as he slid his fingers deeper. “You said yourself, men have their habits.” She clenched around him. “And the way you respond to me is one I’m fast adding to my list of must-haves.”

“And it doesn’t make you wonder?”

He tested her with a second finger. A twitch and a spill of cream rewarded his efforts. “About whether you respond to every man this way?”

She bit her lip and nodded. Her expression was one of a woman caught between bliss and the agony of doubt.

“I’m not a green kid, Desi Allen. I know what’s real.” He stroked his tongue over her upper lip, waiting for and enjoying her shiver when it came, along with a liquid pulse of her channel. “And you, wife, were made only for me.”

She went still, her lips unresponsive beneath his as she digested what he meant. Her gaze clung to his and then she smiled, that sweet, soft, incredibly sassy smile that shot lust through him like a bolt of lightning. “You are insane.”

“But I’m your insanity.”

“Yes, you are.”

She hugged him so hard it might have hurt if she had the muscle of a woman used to hard work, but all her squeezing did was put a knot in his gut and coax that foreign softness out of his soul. He caught her cry in his mouth as his thumb settled, feather-light, on her clit.

“So, that being the case, maybe you ought to just settle in and enjoy me?”

She pressed her lips to his throat. “Maybe I should.”

He pushed slow and easy with his fingers, stretching her as his thumb rubbed; keeping it gentle, coaxing rather than demanding. “Maybe you should.” Her nails stung his nape. “Because I have a whole lot of gentle to try on you.”

“Now?”

The squeak was barely coherent.

“Now.” He gave her another finger, holding still as she shuddered under the delicate assault. “Now, I’m going to let you come on my fingers, all soft and womanly, but tonight,” he said, sliding his fingers to the hilt in the well-lubricated channel, “you’re going to come in my mouth, hot and delicious.”

Another squeak. “I am?”

A withdrawal and a thrust. “Yes.” Her ankles hooked behind his thighs and her back arched in that subtle way he’d come to recognize. She was very close. “Sucking me off turned you on, didn’t it, baby?”

She nodded.

“I want the words.”

That breathless “Yes” barely counted as speech, but he accepted it mainly because the next thrust of his fingers, combined with the next pass of his thumb, took all of her breath in a high-pitched cry.

“And kissing that sweet little pussy is going to turn
me
on, so you think on that while you’re going about your business today. You think on how tonight, I’m going to lick you, kiss you, suck this little clit…”

He punctuated the last with a firm brush on the swollen knot. Desi came around him in a sweet rain of pleasure, her body jerking into his. Caine pulled her closer, encouraging the way she clung with her legs, her nails.

“And then you think on how much I’m going to enjoy drinking in your pleasure. So much—” he thrust a little harder this time, prolonging the aftershocks “—I might just have to do it all again.” He withdrew his fingers. “And again.” He pumped his fingers deep. “And again.”

Another ripple passed through her. A smaller climax than the first. He seated his fingers to the hilt and pulled her face into his throat, letting her come down gently, enjoying the fluttering contractions and the hot breath buffeting the pulse in his throat. “Just like that, baby.” He rested his cheek on her hair. “It’s going to be sweet and satisfying for both of us tonight.”

“Promises, promises.”

He kissed her head for that bit of humor and then, because he liked the feel of her hair against his lips, left them there. She smelled of lilacs and satisfied woman. “And everyone knows you can take a Hell’s Eight promise to the bank.”

She wiggled against him. He pulled his fingers free. Her muscles relinquished him with a reluctance as expressive as her moan. Damn, he’d like to take her to bed and do nothing but bring that sound to her lips over and over again.

“I’d rather have a promise from my husband.”

Because it was more intimate. He understood that. “Definitely from your husband.”

Desi leaned her head back into his shoulder, still accepting his support. “Don’t think this gets you out of teaching me to fight.”

“Hmm…” The kiss he gave her lingered a bit longer than the quick bussing he’d intended. She just tasted so good. “I’m thinking it should cut me some leeway.”

He didn’t like the thought of her in confrontations.

Her ankles unhooked from his thighs, and her feet slid down his legs.

“Not today.”

“Why?”

She patted his cheek. A bit of daring she hadn’t aspired to before. An indirect expression of claiming he liked. “Because tomorrow I’ve got to learn to milk the damn cow.”

His laugh caught them both by surprise. He stepped back, smoothed her skirts down over her thighs. Her hands clung to his shoulders, the show of vulnerability at odds with the confident smile on her face. He took one of her small hands and brought it to his lips, kissing the back, holding her gaze. “Then I guess I don’t have any choice.”

And as much as he didn’t like the thought of her having to fight, he hated more the thought of her in a situation where she needed to know how but didn’t. Like what had happened to her in town.

He put his hands around her waist. It was just a three-foot drop to the floor but she clung to his arms as if he were lifting her over a chasm. “I won’t drop you, Desi.”

Her “I know” was as confident as her grip was tight. No doubt because she still thought it was necessary to try to control her safety. Even with him.

Her feet hit the floor. He pulled out the chair and pressed her into it. “Now, how about I fix you a snack? You’re going to need your strength if you plan to learn to fight.”

“You’re going to teach me?”

He sighed and flipped her braid over her shoulder. The fact that she needed to reiterate her request after he’d already conceded just went to show how far they had yet to go in getting into the reality of being man and wife.

“I’ll teach you.”

T
hree days later, Caine decided Desi didn’t have a lick of natural talent, which shouldn’t surprise him, seeing as she was an easterner, but the ferocity with which she tried had made him expect…he didn’t know what. Just more.

He came up behind her, reaching around to guide her. “Hold the gun like I told you.”

She jerked it into position.

“Gently.” He adjusted her aim. “The goal isn’t to throw the gun but to let the gun throw the bullet.”

“I just want it to get there.”

He couldn’t see her expression clearly, but he could see the creases across the top of her nose from how hard she was concentrating. “Well, when it comes to shooting, all helping it along does is ruin your shot.”