Of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (16 page)

Jericho raised one eyebrow, and then his fingers left her lips, trailed back down her neck over her collarbone. Dahlia felt her back arch to meet his touch, already anticipating the thrill of his hand on her breast.

Jericho chuckled. “Not into it, hmm?” he asked while tracking a circle around her aching nipple with one finger.

“Fine,” she snapped, embarrassed. “I’m into it, but I don’t want to have this conversation!”

“Shh,” he whispered. “I know, sweetheart. But
I
want to have this conversation,” he said earnestly, his eyes sparking. “I want to tell you how I feel about you, and yes, I want to know how you feel about me. I need to hear it.”

She could feel her frown deepening. “Sure you need to hear it, so you can use it against me later.” Now, how had that slipped out? She definitely hadn’t meant to have said that, and she could tell by the look on Jericho’s face that he wasn’t going to just let it slide.

“Use it against you?” he muttered. And then the next second, he had her gathered in his arms, crushing her with his whole body weight that was no longer supported by his elbows. “Dahlia, sweet, what has been done to you,” he was muttering next to her ear.

She closed her eyes. His reaction was shaking her. Either he was a damn good actor, or he was legitimately worried about her and cared for her. Neither was something she craved.

He pulled back to look in her eyes, and the pure, blue color sucked her in. She felt her breath hitch. One of his hands came up between their bodies to lay over his heart. “I will
never
use your feelings for me against you,” he whispered fervently. “Believe what I’m telling you.
Never
,” he repeated.

The Knowledge spread reverberations of Jericho’s goodness throughout her body, leaving no question as to his sincerity. He was telling the truth, and that was a new concept to Dahlia — well, new relatively. Jericho always seemed to tell her the truth …

In fact, Jericho seemed to always do just what she needed.

“I’m crazy about you,” she whispered.

Out loud.

“Damn it!” She slapped a hand over her mouth. Had she really just said that out loud? She braced herself and looked into Jericho’s eyes, knowing she would see triumph. But she didn’t.

Jericho’s eyes had gone soft. His smile was no longer borderline sarcastic, but warm and to a lesser scale. What was worse is he didn’t say anything. No, “I knew it,” or “Hope you don’t mind one-sided relationships.” He just smiled at her.

It made Dahlia uncomfortable enough to squirm. After what seemed to be years of waiting, Jericho finally said, “Thank you, sweetheart. You don’t know how happy that made me.” And then before she could say or do anything else or even react to that unexpected response, he dipped his head and placed his lips against hers achingly gently.

Unexpectedly, tears sprang to her eyes and her breath hitched in her throat. She was shocked to realize that she didn’t regret saying the words, even though they had slipped out unbidden.

Jericho pulled back from the kiss, gazed deeply into her eyes, and said, “Come back with me.”

Dahlia gasped in shock. “What?”

“Come back with me. You and Gabriel and Esperanza. You need protection, and I can give it to you. We’ll go back to the facility. I’ve thought about it all evening. It’s a way to follow orders
and
follow my heart,” Jericho said in a rush, obviously desperate to get the words out. “I need you, sweetheart. I need you and Gabriel, and I think you both need me.”

Dahlia gaped at him in complete shock. Never in her life would she have guessed he would offer this to her. And she was so tempted to take it — take what he was offering — and run with him into the sunset. She wanted it so badly.

She could never have it. Dahlia and men — they just didn’t go together.

To distract him from what he’d just done, from the words that had thrown her world into upheaval, she pulled him back down and fitted his lips to hers. She couldn’t tell him no yet. She had to have him at least once. It was damned selfish of her, but then, that was her MO, wasn’t it?

Jericho deepened the kiss with obvious joy, taking her kiss as an answer and sweeping his tongue into her mouth. He nudged her legs apart with his knee, and when she moved, he settled deeply into the space between her thighs, lying flush against her. Her breasts were crushed by his chest; his rigid abdomen was cradled by her softer stomach. Immediately, all thought of what she had said, what he had said, disappeared. The Impulse took over. All Dahlia could think of was that she
needed
Jericho badly. More than she’d ever needed anything in her life. They’d been Impulse-paired for three days, and both of them had worked valiantly to delay this innate need they each felt to consummate their desire for each other. Apparently, the Impulse would be delayed no longer.

As though reading her thoughts, Jericho groaned in the back of his throat and his kiss grew more urgent. His arms tightened around her, drawing her closer to the center of his being, and she felt him begin to rock his hips into her, thrusting softly.

By the shaking of his body, she could tell he was holding back. But she wanted the out-of-control lover that Jericho had shown her he would be in all of their previous encounters. “Let go,” she whispered, and his body jolted at her words. “Don’t hold back, please.” She was shocked at the desperation in her voice.

He moaned. “Don’t — ” he cut off to kiss her brutally again and pulled back violently. “Don’t say that. I can’t control it if you say things like that.” Already, his thrusts had grown firmer, the bed creaking beneath them with his movement.

Her hands flew to his ass, her nails digging into the denim covering the muscle she wanted to feel flesh-to-flesh. “Yes, just like that,” she said breathlessly.

“God,” she thought she heard him utter, and then he broke.

He roughly kicked her legs further apart, rising to his knees between her thighs, allowing his hips to swing down freely to drive against her center again and again. His pace increased; he buried his face in her neck, and she felt him bite down on her throat hard enough to sting so sweetly. She cried out and raised her hands to his back, running her fingers beneath his shirt, her nails scraping his skin.

“Dahlia,” he gasped. “Please stop me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Oh, God.
“You’re not hurting me,” she moaned as he licked away the sting from his bite. She heard a pounding right above her head, and glanced up quickly to see that Jericho’s fist had found the headboard. The smooth oak was marred by a fist-shaped indentation, and now Jericho’s red, scraped knuckles were blanching white as he gripped the top of the headboard in a death-hold.

“I need you,” he moaned into her damp skin. “
Now
. I need you now.”

She could only manage a moan in response, which luckily he took as assent. He shoved off of the headboard to kneel between her legs. His hands flew to her fly without finesse, and her hands joined his, hurting more than helping in their combined frenzy to get her pants off. With an exasperated gasp, she moved her hands to his jeans, tugging until the button came free. At the same moment that he finally got her pants open and tugged them down her thighs in rough jerks, Dahlia slipped her hand inside his jeans and wrapped her hand around his velvety erection.

He hissed through his teeth, throwing his head back. The cords of his neck stood out in stark relief, and Dahlia shoved herself up with her free hand until she was at a level where she could lick up to his jaw from his collarbone. She nibbled near the dimple of his chin.

Like a shot, Jericho was off the bed. He reached down and pulled Dahlia’s pants the rest of the way off and then unceremoniously shucked his own and drew his shirt over his head, tossing it to the floor. Dahlia caught breathtaking glimpses of smooth, pale skin clinging to mouthwatering muscles before he leaned down again and grasped the bottom of her shirt. “I want to see all of you, sweetheart,” he whispered, whisking her shirt over her head.

And then he abruptly stopped. He froze like a deer in the headlights. His eyes hazed with passion further as he looked at her spread on the bed below him. His erection kicked violently, and his hand came to his chest, rubbing in a circle absently while his gaze swept from the crown of her head to her toes and then back again.

Knowing she was teasing him, Dahlia arched her back, thrusting her breasts into the air while he watched. His expression grew pained for a nanosecond, and then he leapt at her. Dahlia gasped as his body weight drove all the air out of her body. He landed between her legs, lunged forward to kiss her, thrusting his tongue into her mouth. She felt his fingers brush down her outer thigh, grab behind her knee, and push her leg up until her knee was at his ribcage. She felt the blunt head of his erection prod her entrance. He tossed his head back. His grip on her leg grew almost unbearably rough, and then he thrust into her in one brutal movement, seating himself to the hilt, his hips grinding against hers.

They cried out at the same time. Dahlia didn’t know if she was crying out from pain or from pleasure. She’d been ready for him, aching for him, but his invasion of her body had been brutal. He was large, uncomfortable. Glorious.

“I’m hurting you,” he ground out, his teeth clenched. “Sweet, I’m sorry. I’m trying to stop.” His entire body was shaking. His abdominal muscles were clenching and unclenching viciously as he tried to stop himself from thrusting into her and didn’t quite succeed. His hips jerked against hers. He moaned, a desperate sound part pain, part supplication. Her name fell from his lips in a breathless entreaty.

Her body responded to the sight in a rush of moisture. He was the sexiest sight she’d ever seen, and his inability to control his reaction to her turned her on to no end. She brought her hands to his chest, stroking the sweat-slicked skin briefly before exerting pressure, pushing him down to the bed. In an instant, he wrapped his arms around her and flipped over to his back while simultaneously making sure he never left her body, placing her firmly above him.

She straddled his hips, rose on her knees, and sank down on him slightly. She sighed in relief. She was better able to control the penetration from this position, and all traces of pain disappeared.

In a brief moment of clarity, Dahlia glanced down at Jericho spread beneath her. She groaned. His pale skin was glistening with sweat. His wide chest heaved up and down and was framed by his arms, bulging in the restraint he exerted over himself and the death-grip he had on the sheets by her knees. His abdomen trembled, muscles shivering as they clenched over and over, creating stark lines of shadow between each ridge of muscle. Her eyes flew to his face, traveling up his heavily corded neck, to find that his head was kicked back, his eyes clenched shut and his teeth smashed together as he hissed in and out through parted lips.

Her heart stuttered. He was trying so hard to hold back, to treat her gently. Tenderly. She leaned forward, sprawling her hands on his chest, to place a kiss on the corner of his mouth.

He forced his eyes open, a slight panic evident in their depths, and looked at her. “I’m sorry … didn’t mean … to hurt — ”

She cut him off with another kiss, this one full on his mouth, invading him by forcing her tongue through his teeth. She moaned in encouragement when he tentatively kissed her back, and then followed up the moan with a swivel of her hips, taking him deeper inside her body.

He broke away from the kiss to cry out, and his hips jerked below hers, thrusting himself the rest of the way.

This time, though, it didn’t hurt. “Yes,” Dahlia moaned desperately. “Jericho … do it again.”

His eyes found hers again, locking in on her gaze as he withdrew and thrust again. This time it was her head that kicked back, her teeth that clenched, her breath that billowed in and out of her body.

“Oh, God,” he groaned, repeating the action and picking up speed. “Sweetheart, I’m not going … to last — ” he cut off with another groan.

She barely heard him. Her body was galloping toward the edge of her pleasure and the world was tunneling. She pushed up, off of his chest and sat atop him to ride him hard. He grunted in the back of his throat with each of her movements.

She reached down and snatched his hands, which were still fisted in the sheets, and moved them to her breasts, spreading them over the taut peaks and holding them there with her hands over his. Guiding his fingers, he encouraged her to pinch her nipples, and when he did, she made a noise close to a scream and heard him echo the sentiment.

He raised his knees, digging his heels into the bed beneath them and thrusting with more strength. She leaned back against the corded muscle of his thighs, unable to control her frenzied movement this close to the end. One of his hands left her breast, trailing down her stomach. His thumb found her clit. He circled it once, and Dahlia came apart.

Her body snapped so tightly, she couldn’t scream his name like she wanted to. It came out closer to a whimper. Between her straining thighs, she felt Jericho’s body tense, and then she felt the first hot jet deep inside her as he followed her over.

“God … Dahlia … love you,” he gasped, his hips bucking uncontrollably.

And to her shock, she heard herself whisper it back to him as she came down from the stars.

Jericho was in heaven. Heaven at this current moment was Dahlia, still straddling him, sprawled across his chest. Her breath was coming in sweet puffs against the damp skin of his neck. One of his hands clutched her perfect ass. The other was playing with her hair, threading his fingers through it, then drawing his hand away and watching as the silk sifted through his fingers, catching the starlight that streamed in through the window in a wide array of colors.

He was still buried blissfully deeply inside of her, and very quickly, she was going to be able to tell that he was up for round two.

She’d told him that she loved him.

He was still grinning like an idiot over that — well, that and the mind-blowing love they’d just made. The best of his life, which, he realized, wasn’t saying much given his inexperience, but instinctually, he knew what they’d done was not the usual romp in the hay everyone raved about.