Warrior Mine (17 page)

“
V
ail
,” Carmen’s voice quavered. She hated the way she shook. Not many things in the world scared her, but this… She tucked her legs beneath her in the middle of his bed. It hid more of her bare bottom and the small tuft of hair at the juncture of her thighs, but it didn’t do anything to cover her heavy breasts or peaked nipples.

Anger clouded around him like a force field. He took one step into the room and closed the door, but his expression remained tight. Her heart quaked in her chest. She smashed her palms together and refused to believe this had been a mistake, though her stomach disagreed.

“What in the—”

She held up her hand, and, damn-it-all, her boobs jiggled. “No. You’ve talked over me twice tonight, and I have something to say.”

His lips pursed and one brow slanted in a mean line.

“I want to give you everything…but I’m terrified. I’ve only ever presented myself in such a bold manner once in my life. Then it had nothing to do with the man, but the baby I desperately wanted.”

His hard edges softened. “And now?”

“And now,” she licked her lips, “it has everything to do with you. And the need you stir inside me.”

He let loose a long breath, nearly a growl. His wide chest puffed and his hands fisted at his side. “What exactly are you here to give me, Carmen?”

“For now, my body.” She couldn’t tell him he’d already made gains on her heart. There was too much at stake for that.

She wanted him in return, but she didn’t have the nerve to ask. She suspected she’d never get him. He held himself back. His joy and his anger were neat and tidy. Too ordered to be given freely. But she wanted whatever he would give.

And it seemed he wanted whatever she gave.

He stalked to the edge of the bed, the heat of his gaze smothering and raw. “Are you sure, Carmen?” His hand latched around her nape. Then he pulled her forward. She rose and scooted on her knees to the edge of the bed. The possessive action, and his mouth so close to her own, stole her self-consciousness. Her attention wrapped in the nuances of his features. “Once I claim your body, it’ll be mine. You’ll find it will no longer heed your commands. It will be waiting for mine.”

“I don’t follow easily,” she whispered.

One hot finger coasted from her chin, down the side of her neck, and then over the mound of her breast. Her body leaned into the touch as if his finger were a magnet tugging her desire to the surface. She gasped. He slid it over her hip. Her breath quickened and her body came alive with tingling heat. A sensation all too new and overwhelming flamed in her folds. That sweet finger dipped between her legs, arching around her sensitive flesh, and then slipped down the inside of her thigh to her knee.

“No, you don’t. And I don’t issue orders. Not with my voice. Which will make this even sweeter.” His lips skated over hers. The moisture of his breath clung to her mouth. The errant contact sparked the flame of her need.

“What?”

“Watching you crumble under my touch. Only to be built up stronger than ever by your reaction.”

She expected his kiss, an assault on her mouth that would topple the awesomeness of the one they’d shared, or nearly shared. But he released his hold on her neck and dropped to his knees before her. His face reached near-perfect eye level with her crotch. Yet, he gave her no time to fret. Those large hands gripped the inside of her thighs and urged them wide.

Shamelessly, her body obliged, spreading wide and displaying her intimate flesh. His wide palms caressed her inner thigh in long, slow sweeps. They made their way to the tops of her legs, slid around back, and then he clamped her ample thigh. Her lips parted at the surprise contact.

He leaned in, placing his nose so close to her vagina it tickled the close cropped, almost nonexistent patch of hair between her legs. His chest expanded as he deliberately inhaled her scent. A groan rumbled. His eyes closed. His head arched. The view robbed her of breath. Her kneeling and him kneeling before her. He rolled his neck, spread his knees a bit, and lowered. Then he was back, his mouth dangerously close to her skin.

He tilted his head, opened his eyes, and caught her gaze, while his tongue extended toward her aching flesh. She should feel uncomfortable, but she only felt what he made her feel. Sexy. Needy. Yearning. Carmen moaned at the long, flat swipe. It slid across her lips and abraded her already-swollen clit.

“This body is already mine. It responds too easily to have ever belonged to another man.”

There were words on her lips, but they fell away. His fingers sank into her skin, holding her in place while he shoved his face into her folds. Electricity tipped his tongue. Its lashing contact assaulted her receptive nub, charging her craving. Her breath came faster and until she was panting. Her body flushed.

Solitude struck her square in the chest. She hadn’t braced for the blindsiding punch of loneliness.

Carmen held her breath as Vail lapped expertly between her folds. She swiped at the tear that had no cause to fall down her cheek, though it did. Had she expected him to make love to her when love was not what crackled between them?

Foolishly, she had. And yet, the sensations driving her hard toward a wall she’d never crested, didn’t cease. They compounded to an unbearable weight.

She wanted this. But she wanted it…differently. With emotion. With a connection. Not a means to an end.

His hands freed her legs. She should move away. Distance herself from the overwhelming phenomenon. But his hands slid around front, between her legs. He cupped her bottom, braced her thighs on his forearms, and stood. She was suspended in mid-air by his brute strength. The chiseled rock of his shoulders glistened with sweat. He took two quick steps with his lips firmly sealed around her clit. Cold wall met her back and she bowed, shoving her lady bits farther onto his ravenous mouth.

Cupping her ass, he held her up to his face as he ate. His fingers bit into her cheeks. He pierced her with his tongue. Carmen’s head lolled back, hitting the wall with a quiet
thud
. She was trapped. Unable to escape the beautiful torment he wrought, she braced her hands on the ceiling and gave in. Her hips bucked. Every nerve ending in her body convulsed. And she cried in unbearable pleasure and inexplicable pain.

Where Vail’s emotions were neatly pressed, his lust boasted total abandon. Which was almost too much to endure.

H
is imagination had done
her a grave injustice. She tasted too sweet. So good that he’d lost himself between her legs. Her cry and the sweet cream it induced only aggravated his wild hunger. His cock pulsed with the need to be inside her.

He lapped at her one last time—for now—before sliding her to his hips. One hand on the button of his pants, he froze. She’d trapped her lips between her teeth and tears stained her beautiful face.

“Carmen, what’s wrong? Did I hurt you? I…I’m sorry. I…”

Her damp curls wavered slightly with her denial. But her nose twitched and she hid her face in the crook of his neck. Her sadness punched him in the balls, making quick work of his raging need. He carried her to the bed with wholly different intentions than he’d had seconds earlier.

Vail sat on the edge of the firm mattress with her arms and legs coiling his torso, scooted to the headboard, and leaned back. “We’re done, honey.”

She jerked back at that, her brows narrowed.

“I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. I’d never hurt you. Not intentionally.” He moved the hair from her face. “I’ll let you go, if that’s what you want, but before you go I need to know what’s wrong.”

She bit back a sob that threatened to break his heart, and then mended it by tackling him in a fierce hug. He held her tightly against his chest. When she seemed content to stay there, he gathered her hair to one side and gently caressed the length of her back.

As driven as he’d been to pound himself into her, he was nearly as content to hold her. In a way, maybe even more so. Shared comfort lasted longer, went further than shared flesh.

“I ran away after I watched my father blow the brains out of the man I’d been assigned to marry. I took my inheritance, a bag of clothes, and made it as far as Mexico City before they caught me.” She wiped the tears from her cheek and his chest. He closed his eyes, focusing on her touch and her words. “They told me I could never leave. We were family and family was loyal. Not to bother leaving because they would find me anywhere.

“They imprisoned me without bars, refusing my friends entrance to the house or me out without two escorts. When I ditched them at the market, they sent six with me from then on. I was so lost and lonely, surrounded by hatred and desperate for love. Someone to love. Someone to love me.” Her head rocked beneath his chin.

“I was so naive, having been sheltered from boys my entire life. But I knew the mechanics of it. I also knew there was no man who’d come near me because of my father. Besides, what I’d seen of men and the way they treated women, I didn’t want a man.

“I snuck out one night, found a forger who married me to an American man that doesn’t really exist, so that when I left I could hide where they’d never find me…or my baby. The gardener was a kind man, nice looking. At first, he was too scared of my father to hear me out. I paid him twenty thousand dollars so he could move away after he got me pregnant. It was the most selfish thing I’ve ever done.” She sat back, found his gaze, and added, “Aside from shooting you.”

The warrior inside Vail wanted to strap up all by himself and go to war with Carmen’s family. The primal man in him wanted to stay by her side for the rest of his days, stand between her and the world. He cupped her cheek and she leaned into his touch.

“I expected to get away before news of my pregnancy spread, but I was viciously sick from nearly the first day. Once my father realized I was carrying his grandchild he was both enraged and overjoyed. My guards doubled, and when Sophia was born they had all the leverage they needed to make me stay. I tried to find ways to leave, but I couldn’t risk my daughter.”

She placed her hand over his heart and it tried to leap into her hand. “All of that to say, I was a virgin when I began trying to get pregnant with Sophia. It only took two times, and I haven’t…” She bit her lip.

“You haven’t been with anyone since?” Vail asked. She gave a curt nod. “Jesus, Carmen. And I come at you like some sex-crazed maniac.” He braced her face in his hands and lowered his forehead to hers. “I’m consumed with wanting you. I’m also a determinedly patient man. I’ll wait as long as it takes.”

“I don’t want to wait. I want you,” she smiled meekly, “but I want more than just your body. And if you still want more than just
my
body, I want to give it to you.”

His cock stood at attention, but only succeeded in strangling itself against the front of his pants. And it would remain there for some time. Using the pads of his thumbs he smoothed away her tears, then pulled her mouth to his.

The world spun backward while Vail truly kissed Carmen for the first time. As slow as spring in Alaska, his lips warmed against the silk of her mouth. Her seductive pout breached the border of his own lips with their full softness. He focused on one at a time, taunting her top in easy strokes, and then sucking her bottom gently from one side to the other.

Her arms relaxed and slid up his nape. One palm gripped his neck. The other explored his close-shorn hair. He eased back to meld their gazes.

“I’m going to love you, Carmen.” He’d meant it in a purely physical manner, but no sooner was the thought off his lips then he knew they were true in deeper sentiment.

His heart burned. Rising on his knees, he flipped her onto her back and covered her body. Their chests met. Elbows under her arms, he continued to cup her face and graze her with his lips. The embers floated away, reducing the discomfort.

The slight jut of her cheekbones pulled his roaming mouth from hers. He coasted over her face, across her stubborn chin, down her strong neck. All the while, her eyes shimmered with desire and the hint of tears. He nipped her clavicle. A rich moan rose from her throat, sultry enough to make a lesser man plunge himself to the hilt.

Vail straightened and released her head. Cool air hit his chest. Wispy tendrils unwound from his fingers. Sitting on his heels, he spread his pant-covered thighs wide and settled her sweet bottom at the juncture. Her legs draped exquisitely over his lap. Leaning forward, he pressed his hands on either side of her arched throat, and then dragged them down her body. His wide grip exerted sturdy pressure as it prowled her breasts, abdomen, and belly. When he reached the apex of her hips he lifted his palms, wedging them beneath her shoulders and the bed before lifting slightly. He cosseted her flesh, moving his hands back down. Her chest arched toward the sky as he pulled. At her plush ass his grip drifted the lengths of her thighs, across her calves, to the tips of her toes.

He repeated the ritual until her body molded in his palms like clay. When she was ready, and he salivated with hunger, he bowed her chest. Leaning forward he toyed at one nipple with the pad of his tongue. Her arms stretched wide and she gasped. The dusky brown tips engorged, shimmering in the lamplight. Her chest flushed along with the large circle of her areola.

“Sweet Jesus,” he mumbled against her softness. He hadn’t meant for the words to rumble from his chest like a threat. But they did. He hadn’t meant to let Jr. participate. But his hips rocked onto her globed cheeks at the center of his fly. His cock rasped against her clitoris.

“More.” Her head thrashed on the sheets while she clenched them in her palm.

“In time,” he said. As much for her as for himself.

He moved to her other breast and suckled.

“Now.” Levering her feet on his calves, she met his shallow thrusts with ardor.

To maintain his grip on control, he closed his eyes and continued to tug on her nipple. Maybe it was an effort to keep himself from ripping his pants off and burying himself in her silk, but he wondered if she’d nursed Sophie. Ridiculous as it was, his dick throbbed to the point of bursting thinking of Carmen nurturing a baby. His baby.

He groaned, the sound long and painful.

“What?” Carmen asked.

He was about to issue his death warrant. Because if he didn’t get inside of her, and soon, he’d keel over from the most acute case of blue-balls the world had ever seen. But he’d rather die than cause her pain.

“I don’t have a condom,” he panted, his forehead firmly planted in the valley of her lovely bosom. He could suffocate himself here and die in peace.

“Oh,” she breathed.

It hadn’t occurred to her. And why would it? She hadn’t had sex in way too damn long, not that he could stand the thought of another man between her impeccable legs. He should have condoms, but it’d been a hell of a long time since he’d had sex. Not since Peggy, a lawyer who worked in the building. And he’d ended up throwing away most of the box. She hadn’t liked being in the dark about his schedule, and she hadn’t liked being eaten out. Both were deal-breakers.

He was a man who liked his job and pussy. At least his job had been steady throughout the years—credible women were not. Carmen and her pussy were sanctioned perfection. And he didn’t have a condom.

“Vail, look at me,” she whispered. He did and she grinned, dammit. Her smiled almost dictated he smile in return, but he didn’t want to. “You look sadder now than when I shot you, for heaven’s sake.” She pulled his head to her mouth and kissed him right off the edge of sanity. Her hips pressed against his straining erection.

They broke away, gasping. Her harlot lashes batted. “I haven't been regular for a long time, so the chances aren’t great that I’ll get pregnant. But…there is a chance.”

Stupidly, his chest swelled at the possibility, but then reality came crashing down. No way would she want his baby. Sophie was twelve. They were finally free.

“I’m willing to take it, if you are,” she said. “I don’t know what we would do, if I ended up pregnant. But I know the child couldn’t be more loved than with us as her parents.”

Vail’s heart swelled so completely it threatened to break a rib.

“His parents,” he corrected, a second before he sealed his lips to hers. She moaned, either in response to his crazy declaration or bearing his weight. He shoved his dick at her core time and again until she shoved at his shoulders. Instantly he stilled, thinking she’d had a crisis of conscience.

“I may not be an expert, but I know your pants are supposed to be off for this to work properly.” She shimmied her breasts enticingly against his chest.

“Yes, ma’am,” he growled.

With all the grace of an elephant in a mud hole, he fumbled with the buttons and zipper, and wanted to cry in relief when his cock sprang free. He shoved the pants to his knees and wiggled out of them without leaving the heat of Carmen’s thighs. With hands at the crook of her knees, he tugged her high enough for her cheeks to kiss his heavy sack. He leaned over her, grabbed his thick shaft, and spread his beaded pre-cum through her slick folds. He paid her sensitive nub and tight entrance special attention.

Carmen used her heels, positioned herself square on his head, and shoved her hips forward. Boy, did he like a woman of action. The tip of his head pierced her

narrow opening. Their moans and cries mingled in a quiet symphony sweeter than Joseph Haydn’s 104th at the Philharmonic.

He grabbed her in the protection of his arms and mapped her face. He thrust inside inch by maddening inch. Her hair spilled across the sheets in tousled heaps and frizzed all the more when they found their rhythm. In, just a bit. Out, to the tip. Then, back again. His muscles cramped with restraint. The slippery wetness of her channel told him she was ready, but damn. The way she squeezed him, he wouldn’t last long.

Vail breached the small distance between them. His tongue coaxed her mouth to open, and then slipped inside. She sucked on it, mimicking the fucking of their sex, only faster, greedier. Her moan vibrated his tongue as she pumped him nearly mindless.

Her thumb played over his lower lip. She flicked his nipple with her other hand.

Dear Lord.

Surprise sat him back. It had never done anything to him before, but now it smashed his flimsy reserve of discipline into a thousand pieces. Arms anchoring her, he shoved deep.

“Ah, Vail.” Her chin rose, exposing her neck. “Yes! Oh!”

Sliding a hand from her shoulders, he placed two fingers over her wet lips. “
Shhh
, honey. I’ve got you.”

“No, I’ve got you.” Hot breath slipped between his digits. She wrapped her legs around his waist. “And I’m not letting go.”

He pulled completely from her heat, and then thrust back home. “Never,” he growled. His balls smacked her soft bottom. Pleasure tingled up his spine, but he refused to give in to the sensation. He set a slow, steady pace that lasted all of thirty seconds before her moans and chaffing nipples against his chest drove his desperation to the brink. He plunged deeper. Recoiled faster, needing more.

Sweat sheened on their bodies as they scorched the chill in the air. He was so close to coming. Though he knew he’d gotten her there once already, and planned to do so many more times tonight, he wouldn’t climax without her their first time making love.

Leaning back, he locked on to her gaze, slid his right hand around her nape and the other to her tailbone. He lifted her sweet ass and adjusted their angle, then sank to the root. Her mouth opened, but she banked the cry. Her hips undulated. The softness of her rosy breasts shimmied from his thrusts.

“Come with me,” he demanded.

“You better…come…then,” she panted.

A bark of laughter shook his chest, but the suffocating wave of orgasm locked down every muscle, nerve, and synapse. He tried to move, to keep from stealing her pleasure. His cheeks clenched. Rigidly he fastened their bodies together and filled her to brimming with his seed.