Killer Secrets (42 page)

Ian's love.

"Why are you so scared, baby?" His hands flashed
from his sides, locked around her wrists, and held

her still as he brought his body to hers.

He didn't drag her into his embrace, he stepped into hers,
pressing himself against her as he pulled her

arms to the small of her back and surrounded her with his
warmth.

She used to hate being restrained. Hated being held, until
Ian. Now, it sent a heated response streaking

through her as a core of once-unknown femininity came
violently to life.

She tugged at his hold, a distant part of her aware of the
fact that the struggle wasn't about being set

free. She didn't want to be free, she wanted to be held
tighter, closer. She wanted the world to retreat

until nothing mattered but the reality they created with
their passion. Until the danger and the deceit

swirling around them disappeared and left her free to reach
out to the one man who completed her.

"You haven't answered me, Kira." His lips lowered
to the corner of hers as he arched her against him.

"What are you scared of? You can love, but no one can
love you?"

"That's exactly how it works." She had to force
the words past the constriction in her throat.

"Why, Kira?" His lips moved over hers, ignoring
them when they parted in hunger, when her tongue

stroked across his. "Why can't anyone love you?"

"Because they don't know me." She almost felt
lost again, as lost as she had felt when her husband had

walked out on her. "I'm the Chameleon. Always
changing. How can you love someone like that?"

He lifted his head to stare down at her.

"And yet, always Kira," he guessed.

Always Kira. Always alone. She had never recovered the
feeling of security and sense of balance that

she had known before her parents' deaths. She had lived
with the knowledge that her family had died

because they had fought against the specter known as
Sorrell. Because her father had taken up one lost

child's battle and searched endlessly for her and her
abductor.

Her father had been a lawyer, her mother had been a child
services representative. When one of her

children had gone missing and the trail had led to a white
slavery organization, she and her husband had

followed that trail.

Sorrell had struck back. He had killed her parents and
Jason's fiancée and it probably hadn't even

blipped on his radar that he had destroyed two more lives
in the process. And made two enemies

determined to bring him down.

Until Ian, love hadn't been a part of her life. Neither had
true security. She realized, in his arms, she felt

safe, she felt warmed. And only now did she realize how
frightening that was. Because she could lose him

so easily.

"We'll talk about love when this is over," she
told him desperately. "You'll see then, you don't love me.

It's the situation. It's being in this world, having it
wrap around you, smother you. You don't love me, Ian.

You love the normalcy you think I represent. That's
all."

And she knew better. If any man knew what he was about and
who he was, then it was Ian. And he

was terrifying her. Shaking her resolve. She couldn't let
him do that.

He chuckled. Clear, warming amusement echoed in the sound
as he pulled her tighter against him.

"Psychology isn't your strong suit, sweetheart."

"Of course it is. I spent years studying under the
best profilers we have on terrorism and their victims.

Trust me, I know what I'm talking about."

Her voice was breathless; her body was filling with arousal.
She couldn't be this close to Ian and not

ache for more.

He simply smiled. A slow curling of his lips that sent her
senses spiraling with a hunger to taste them, to

feel them against her own. It also sent fear ratcheting up
inside her. He was staring at her as though he

knew her. Knew parts of her that even she didn't
understand.

"I love you, Kira."

Emotion exploded in her head, in her soul. She was only
barely aware of the thin cry that left her lips, of

the tears that rolled from her eyes and over her cheeks.
Tears he caught with his mouth a second before

his lips covered hers.

"Belong to me," he whispered against her lips a
second later. "Right now. Right here. Belong to me."

Oh God, she would always belong to him.

He released her hands but only an act of God could have
pulled her from him then. There was no chance

she was going to allow anything else to peel her from his
body.

Her arms slid around his neck as his wrapped around her
back. His lips were on hers, eatable, so

eatable. Like rough velvet, stroking over nerve endings,
sending fiery pleasure whipping through her

body.

Kira arched in his arms, wishing she could meld a part of
him inside her forever. A part she could always

hold close to her, some part of him that she would never
lose.

"My wild little lover." He eased back, ignoring
her cry of protest. "We're not going hard and fast this

time. Is that how you protect yourself, Kira? Does it have
to be hard and fast so you can hold on to

those reserves of control you keep in such supply?"

"My control?" she gasped, forcing her eyes open
as she felt his hands move to the hem of her black shirt.

"You're the one with too much control."

"Let's see about that," he suggested, his rough
voice and confident smile causing her to moan at the

implications of his dare.

"That's not fair," she gasped. "We both know
you can hold out longer. I want to break. You don't."

He chuckled again. "Is that how you see it, Kira? That
hard and fast means you've managed to break my

control rather than me breaking yours?"

"Duh!" She gasped as the black stretchy cotton
shirt cleared her breasts. "What else could it mean?"

"It could mean the pleasure is too important to
lose," he suggested as she lifted her arms, allowing him to

pull the shirt free of her body before tossing it aside.
"It could mean I want to relish rather than devour.

Haven't you ever wanted to relish it, Kira? Savor the
pleasure and hold on to it forever?"

He was going to lock her soul to him forever. She could
hear it in his voice when he spoke of savoring

rather than rushing. He was going to imprint himself not
just on her body, but on her very spirit to ensure

no part of her ever escaped him.

He thought he loved her, thought he knew her. He thought
this pleasure could go beyond deceit.

"No restraints this time," he warned her as he
pulled his own T-shirt from his body and dropped it to the

floor.

She should be running, finding an excuse not to do this,
not to allow him to lock her to him more than she

already was.

Naked from the waist up, Kira watched as he sat in a nearby
chair and unlaced his combat boots while

staring back at her.

"Take your boots off, Kira," he told her softly.

She sat on the edge of the bed and braced her ankle on her
knee, working at the laces as she watched

him, like a puppet without the sense to think for itself.

She licked her lips nervously as they pulled a boot off
simultaneously and then shifted to work on the

other. Once they were removed he gathered them, along with
their shirts, and walked to the closet where

he stored them on a rack before turning back to her.

As he stood in the closet doorway, he lifted his hands to
the belt cinching his waist, then the closure of

the black mission pants he wore. Kira got to her feet,
imitating his actions, removing her pants as he

watched her, her breathing escalating, moving hard and fast
through her lungs.

She couldn't seem to draw in enough oxygen. Couldn't seem
to shake free of the hypnotic arousal

tearing through her.

"Maybe we should sleep for a while," she
suggested breathlessly, knowing better but helpless against the

need to find an escape, any escape, from what she knew was
coming.

At least a delay. A delay would be nice.

"If that's what you want, the couch in the sitting
room should suit you."

He peeled the pants from his muscular legs and any thought
of sleep flew out of her mind. As he

straightened, his erection pointed out from his body, wide
and hard, the engorged crest dark and

throbbing with lust.

She felt her pussy clench at the sight, become slick and
hot at the need to be filled, taken. To be

possessed as only Ian could possess her. As though he were
the other part of her, separate but created

to fit her exactly.

As she watched, his fingers curved around the thick stalk,
stroking, tightening as he felt her eyes on him.

She became increasingly aware of the juices gathering on
her pussy lips, knew that in the low light of the

room the moisture would be shimmering on the bare, hairless
flesh. And that was where his gaze was

directed. She could feel it. It made her wetter, even as
she felt her breasts swelling, her nipples becoming

impossibly harder.

Licking her lips, she slid one hand over her stomach, her
fingers dipping down as it slid lower and her

eyes moved to his face.

He was watching, a grimace contorting his face, as she slid
her fingers over the sensitive flesh between

her thighs. Her breath caught at the pleasure. One
fingertip raked over her clit, sending hard, brilliant

streaks of fire burning over her nerve endings.

"Beautiful," he groaned. "Part your lips for
me. Let me see how hard your clit is. How swollen."

She separated the folds of flesh with two fingers while the
middle finger circled the torturously hard nub

of nerve endings.

Her juices were flowing from her now. She could feel them
trickling between the lips, soaking her pussy

with the slick excess.

His hand tightened on his cock before loosening his grip.
His nostrils flared with lust, as though drawing

the scent of her in across the distance separating them.

As she let her fingers push through the thick juices and
caress the humid flesh of her pussy, he moved to

her. She knew she should act. She should make the first
move and push him to the bed rather than

standing here, tempting him, teasing him. Instead, her
other hand smoothed up her stomach and cupped

the swollen mound of her breast.

She was teasing him and she knew it, hoping to tempt him,
to break his control.

Kira felt the breath catch in her throat as Ian grabbed her
wrist, dragging her fingers from the slick heat

of her pussy and lifting her hand. To his mouth.

Oh Lord, she wasn't going to be able to stand at this rate.
He brought her fingers to his mouth and let his

tongue lick at one before drawing it in and sucking the
moisture from it.

His eyes blazed, his expression tightened, and a groan
rumbled in his chest. The feel of his tongue

stroking over her fingers was sexier than she could have
ever imagined it would be. It shouldn't have been

this erotic. Fingertips weren't erogenous zones, were they?

Of course they were, but only when Ian was encouraging them
to be such.

Kira tipped her head back, feeling her hair stroke down her
spine. Another added sensation to lend to

the eroticism of the moment. Another blow to her own
control.

"Look at me, Kira." His voice stroked over her
nerve endings. Rough, rugged, almost ruined.

She forced her lashes open, feeling the heavy lassitude
that pulled at them as arousal grew inside her.

"Do you know how beautiful you are to me? How
courageous and strong?" he asked her, his tongue

stroking over her fingertips one last time before he placed
her hand on his shoulder.