Vulnerable: (McIntyre Security Bodyguard Series - Book 1) (32 page)

She took a deep breath and stepped forward, unsure how to accomplish what he’d asked without looking like a total klutz. His hands came up to guide her into position, and she moved over him so that her pelvis rested right over his lap and her chest rested on the mattress.

“Are you comfortable?” he asked, laying his hand gently on her back.

“Yes.” She lay her head on the quilt, her face turned away because she couldn’t bear to look at him.

She felt his hands on her backside as he caressed the mounds of her buttocks, and she shivered when his hands skimmed down her buttocks to her thighs, then back up again.

Shane fingered the silky lace of her panties. His hand curved over one buttock, squeezing it gently. “Sylvia would be glad to know you’re using her gift.”

“I doubt this is what she had in mind, though,” Beth said.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” Shane moved his hand to her other bottom cheek, smoothing the creamy lace fabric over it.

She tensed when Shane’s fingers slipped between her thighs.

“Spread your legs a bit,” he said, nudging her thighs open. He pressed his fingers against the damp crotch of her panties. “You’re so warm here and already a little wet.”

His index finger slipped inside her panties and teased the slick opening of her core. “Hmm, very wet.”

Beth made a noise deep in her throat, something between a moan and a whimper. She tried to close her thighs, but couldn’t because his hand was wedged between them.

“It’s okay, Beth. Relax.” His finger pressed inside her opening and he collected some of the silky fluid and brought it to her clitoris. He worked the little nub, stroking it, applying just the right amount of delicious pressure to make her squirm. She pressed her hot face into the quilt and moaned.

Shane withdrew his finger and started working her panties down over her buttocks and past her thighs. He pulled them off completely and dropped them on the floor.

Beth closed her legs.

Shane made a disapproving sound. “Open your legs, sweetheart,” he said. His hand came between her legs, and he nudged them apart once more. Then his finger was there again, between her legs, searching. He teased her clitoris until she was squirming, and then his long index finger pushed back into her heated core.

“My God, you’re so wet,” Shane said, his finger sliding deeper inside her. Already she was swollen from her body’s arousal. Her wet tissues clung to his finger as it sank deeper. He began to move his finger inside her, thrusting slowly in and out. His finger curled, hitting the sweet spot inside her body as he stroked her, driving her desire higher and higher. The squirming was now accompanied by breathy whimpers.

“Do you want me to spank you, or do you want me to make you come like this?”

“Shane, please,” she moaned, her hips moving in tandem with his relentless stroking. He used his other hand to hold her steady on his lap.

“Please what? You have to say it, baby.”

“Make me come,” she pleaded, her hips rocking shamelessly into his touch.

Beth closed her eyes and surrendered to the mind-numbing sensations Shane was creating as he teased her with his finger. Her entire being was focused on his finger as he stroked it in and out of her in a steady, coaxing rhythm. Her hips rocked against his touch, and she couldn’t have stopped if she’d wanted to. In that moment, all she could think about was what he was doing to her body. She forgot everything else – all her fears, all her anxieties. She lost all sense of shame as her body surrendered to his stroking finger.

She pushed back against his finger, opening her thighs wider to give him better access to her body. The sensations continued to escalate, stealing her breath, making her heart race, turning her breaths into audible gasps. Higher and higher he drove her, knowing just where to touch her, just how much pressure to use, until the conflagration inside her ignited, setting off an explosion that ricocheted through her body.

She let out a high, keening wail that nearly brought the ceiling down on them as her orgasm swept through her. She grasped the quilt with both hands and buried her face in the quilt to muffle her cry.

Even before her cry had stopped reverberating in the room, Beth found herself wrenched up off his lap and positioned on her hands and knees on the bed. Her arms were too shaky to hold herself up, so she promptly found herself face down on the mattress, her bottom shamelessly propped up in the air. Her hands grasped at the bedding as she searched for something to hold onto.

She heard the rasping sound of Shane’s zipper going down, and then his hands landed surprisingly hard on her hips, hot against her bare skin as he pulled her to the edge of the bed. When she heard him tear open a condom package, her belly clenched with anticipation.

A moment later the blunt head of his cock was at her opening, demanding entrance. He pushed himself inside her wet channel, relentlessly surging forward as he thrust into her silky flesh. He made a low, guttural sound as he pushed deep, and Beth gasped when his cock was fully seated. He held still for several moments, letting her get used to him, and then he began a long, slow retreat, the drag of his cock stoking her fires once more with sweet friction.

He thrust back inside to the hilt, and she rocked forward from the momentum.  She gasped, unaccustomed to having him at this angle. He was a lot to take all at once, and she must have made a sound of distress, because he froze.

“Are you okay?” His voice was a deep rasp.

“Yes!” she gasped, rocking backward, reveling in the feel of him sliding through her slick flesh. “You’re bigger this way,” she panted.

“I’m all the way in,” he said.

Shane began to move then, slowly at first, giving her time to adjust to the fullness. But then his rhythm picked up and soon he was thrusting into her with considerable strength. “Is this okay?” His voice was low and hoarse.

“Yes,” she gasped, her breaths coming fast and shallow as she lost herself in the increasing power behind his thrusts.

Shane barely heard her breathy reply. He was balancing a fine line, caught between wanting to fuck her hard and senseless, and fearing he’d overwhelm her. So far, this position hadn’t triggered her fears. He wasn’t on top of her, and he wasn’t holding her down. She could easily pull free or roll away from him if she needed to.

“Remember your safeword,” he grated as he thrust into her. “Use it if you need to.”

“I’m fine,” she panted, as his thrusting rocked her forward on the bed.

He knew he could be a demanding lover, and he was used to being with women who welcomed his sometimes fierce nature in bed. With Beth, though, he was afraid of taking things too far, pushing her too much. But the welcoming wetness of her sex and the incredible sounds she was making spurred him on. He reached around for her clitoris and began stroking her once more, keeping up just the right pressure to bring her with him.

She began to whimper as her climax neared.

“That’s right, baby,” he said. “Come with me.”

When her sex clenched hotly on his erection and she cried out, he surrendered to the needs of his own body. When his climax hit him, Shane shouted loud enough to wake the dead as he emptied himself inside her, reveling in the mind-numbing pleasure.

When the tremors of his climax eased, he rolled them to their sides and rested behind her, still locked deep inside her. “Give me a minute to get my breath,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist.

He enveloped her in his arms, and she snuggled back against him. “I’ve got to get rid of this condom,” he muttered. “But I don’t want to move.”

When Beth giggled, Shane squeezed her, relieved to know he hadn’t completely traumatized her. “So much for your first spanking,” he said, realizing he’d never actually gotten around to it.

“That’s okay,” she said, her voice drowsy. “What you did was even better. I’m certainly not complaining.”

Beth lay against Shane’s furnace-hot body, absorbing the heat radiating off her own personal electric blanket. Eventually he stirred, gently disengaging himself from her body to go dispose of the condom.

He returned quickly and climbed back into her bed, spooning behind her. “I’m really glad Gabrielle’s not home. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure I’d be a dead man. Your neighbors probably heard me.”

Beth chuckled as she snuggled back into him, drowsy and sated. Her bones were liquid, and she could barely move a muscle.

Shane covered them with the bedding. “You okay?” he said, reaching for her hand and linking their fingers together.

“I’m perfect,” she said, yawning.

* * *

A faint noise brought Shane out of a deep sleep in an instant. He lay perfectly still, assessing his surroundings.

In Beth’s bed.
She was beside him, asleep.

He glanced at the digital clock on her nightstand; it was just after three o’clock in the morning. Something had awakened him, so he lay quietly, listening. He heard the grandfather clock ticking downstairs in the foyer. He heard Gabrielle in the next room as she muttered something unintelligible in her sleep and rolled over in her bed. He heard a car door shut in the alley behind Beth’s house, and a dog barked somewhere off in the distance. Then he focused on Beth’s breathing; it was shallow and quick. Too quick. She made a small sound in her sleep, a pained whimper. That’s what had awakened him. She was having another nightmare. His suspicions were confirmed when she jerked violently in her sleep and started gasping.

“Beth!” His hand went to her shoulder and he found her bare skin chilled. He shook her gently. “Sweetheart, wake up.”

Her breathing grew more erratic, and she moaned. Then she cried out sharply, as if she were hurt.

He shook her more forcefully. “Beth, wake up!”

She shot up into a sitting position, gasping for air, her hands raising as if she were warding off an assailant.

“Beth!”

She looked at him, her eyes wide and unfocused. “What?” She glanced around the room and got her bearings. “It was just a dream,” she sighed.

Shane sat up and took hold of her arms, turning her to face him. “Sweetheart,
enough!
” he said. “You have to tell me.”

Chapter 29

Shane felt, as well as heard, the sob that came out of Beth as she lay back down. She was breathing erratically, in short gasping breaths.

“Do you need your inhaler?” he said, already reaching across her for the nightstand drawer.

“No. I’m okay,” she said, clutching at him, as if he was her lifeline and she was holding on for dear life.

“No, you’re not okay, Beth.” His voice came out harsh, tinged with frustration. To soften the blow, he leaned down and gently kissed her. “I need you to tell me, baby.”

Beth sighed and pulled Shane down beside her, turning into him. She wrapped one arm around his waist and snuggled into his warm body, and immediately she felt the fear begin to dissipate. Lying with him like this soothed her more than anything else ever had.

“Beth.”

She buried her face against his chest. “You’re using your bossy tone again,” she grumbled.
The one that made her insides melt.

“You haven’t heard bossy yet, Beth, but you’re about to if you don’t start talking.”

“I know,” she groaned, squeezing her eyes shut.

“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me,” he said, making her look at him. “Who hurt you, Beth?”

She looked into his eyes, those steely blue orbs that looked rather impatient at the moment. She hated talking about it.

Once more, she stepped off that high-dive platform, trusting that he would catch her. She took deep breath, filling her starved lungs with air, then released it all as she blurted it out. “When I was six years old, I was kidnapped.”

Shane made a rough sound as he tightened his hold on her, simultaneously relieved and pained. He’d been prepared for those words; he’d known they were coming. But for some reason hearing it from her hit him unexpectedly hard, leaving a sick knot in his gut. He cleared his throat. “Go on.”

“I was playing in my front yard, riding my bike on the sidewalk. My mom was inside cooking dinner.”

When she stopped talking, Shane found one of her hands buried under the bedding and linked their fingers, squeezing her hand for encouragement.

“Someone grabbed me from behind and pulled me off my bike. He threw me into the back of a van, then climbed in behind me and shut the doors. It was dark in the van – there weren’t any windows. He used tape to bind my wrists and ankles so I couldn’t move.”

She fell silent again.

“Then what happened?” Shane’s heart was hammering in his chest, but he had to keep her talking. They were finally getting somewhere.

She cleared her throat. “The man who kidnapped me – his name is Howard Kline – lived in a rural area south of us, on a farm. There was an old cellar on the farm, just a big hole dug deep into the earth, with wooden steps and a metal trap door. There were no windows and no electricity; it was pitch black down there. That’s where he put me, in that cellar. My wrists and my ankles were taped together, so I couldn’t stand. He cut my clothes off, then left me there lying on the dirt floor in the dark. I was so scared I couldn’t stop shaking, and I was too afraid to sleep. I just lay there crying all night.”

“The next morning, the trap door opened. I remember the sunlight hurt my eyes. My eyes were tearing from the bright light, but I could see the police officers coming down the stairs, holding guns and flashlights. Tyler was the first one down the steps. He cut the tape from my wrists and ankles, and then he wrapped me in his jacket and carried me up the stairs to an ambulance.”

As he kissed Beth’s forehead, he thought about how easy it would be to simply end Howard Kline’s life. A simple shot to the head, and it would all be over. He’d never in his life been so tempted to take matters into his own hands – to play the vigilante – and seek retribution where it was due. He fairly shook at that moment with the need to do just that. It was a line he’d never crossed, but this situation... Beth’s situation really tested him.