by Lora Leigh
“Then this has something to do with what happened last year as well? When the Mackays and Cranston arrested the homeland terrorists?” she said. “I’d wondered. I knew Joe and Jaime were close with the Mackays, but I wasn’t certain if they were supplying them with information or not. Jonesy and I wondered about it, but they never said anything and I didn’t ask. But I knew they had connections to some of the suspects. They worked for Dayle for a while, and they were friends with several of the men arrested.”
“And Jonesy isn’t to know anything else,” he warned her. “Not until I know for certain who is who and talks where.”
“Don’t piss me off, Zeke. I know how to keep my mouth shut,” she warned him.
“And I know how to protect you now,” he promised her. “I won’t let you get hurt by this, Rogue.”
“But we’re responsible for ourselves, Zeke.” She sighed. “If I was frightened by someone who showed up at my door, then I’d take the necessary steps to protect myself. That would be common sense, wouldn’t you think?”
He wondered if any other woman would have thought of that. He wished he had thought of it then, perhaps so many things would have been different. But it wasn’t different, and Rogue shouldn’t have to protect herself.
“No,” he said gently as he let the backs of his fingers caress over her bruised cheek. “It would be my place to protect you.”
And that was how Elaina had felt. It was his place to make certain she was protected so she could enjoy her life as she pleased.
“Look, stud, I don’t need you to protect li’l ole me,” she informed him testily. “I’ve been doing just fine for the past five years, and I’m quite certain I’ll continue doing so on my own. It’s not your place to pave my way with bubble wrap, okay?”
No, it wasn’t okay, because Zeke knew she had no idea what they could be facing. Death could come around any corner, and she wouldn’t be prepared for it. And if the killer’s trend continued, then eventually, Rogue would be targeted, if she wasn’t already. She was close to Joe, Jaime, and their grandmother. She was also close to him.
“It’s my place to take care of you.” He cupped the back of her neck, holding her head in place as he relished the feel of her silken flesh against his fingertips and the way she seemed to push closer to his touch.
Her violet gaze was dark with emotion as he held her in place.
“You just keep thinking that, Zeke,” she said mockingly. “And I’ll even let you believe it, when it suits me.”
He almost laughed. Damn her, she shouldn’t have the ability to make him laugh when he was facing more emotional upheaval than he had ever known in his life.
“Brat.” His head lowered, his lips whispered over hers.
“Stud,” she drawled as her lips parted and she pressed closer.
Zeke started with small, sipping kisses. His lips tugged at her lower one, his tongue stroked over it as he felt her hands against his bare chest. Her fingers stretched out, touched tentatively, then curled against the hair-roughened flesh of his chest. Delicate nails rasped over his flesh, and a small, feminine moan left her lips as his settled more firmly over them.
She was sweet and hot and as addictive as hell. Damn, he’d missed her in the bed last night, ached for her. She was like a ray of sunshine, and she hadn’t spilled into his life all day. That was uncalled for, he decided. He had to have a taste of her, morning, noon, and night.
What the hell made him think he could do without her? he wondered as he pulled her closer and groaned at the taste of her kiss. There was no way in hell he could bear for her to leave his life, not when he was just beginning to learn what having her meant. Not when he was learning, with each new touch, her effect on his own sexuality.
He wanted to cherish this kiss, he wanted to make it last for an eternity, but she went to his head faster than moonshine. She made him drunk on his own lust, made him crazy to have her in so many ways. In every way possible.
Rogue trembled from the sheer power of Zeke’s kiss. She leaned in closer to him, let her fingertips rake over the hard, muscular line of his chest and let herself drown in the pleasure building inside her.
There was a different element to his touch this time. His hands were just as firm, his kiss just as hot, but each touch, each fractured breath of sound seemed more intense now, sharper, darker.
Her hands smoothed from his chest to his shoulders, her fingers gripping the hard muscles there as she felt the clamoring sensations bombarding her now. His kiss was hungrier, rougher. Sensation rioted through her as his tongue plunged past her lips and found her own. She tasted him, reveled in him. His taste was completely male, rife with lust, with passion. It seared her lips, it seared her mind, and left her reaching, pressing tighter against him, desperate for more.
Her arms twined around his neck, her fingers gripping the back of his head as she fought to get closer, always closer.
“There you go, baby,” he growled against her lips as she came to her knees and straddled his powerful thighs. “So sweet.”
A cry tore from her lips as her head tipped back on her shoulders; the feel of his hands sliding beneath the long shirt to cup her ass held her enthralled. It felt so damned good. The way his calloused hands cupped the curve of her butt and flexed into the muscle there. His fingertips rotated, caressed, pulled against the twin globes and sent a spike of heated pleasure burning into the hidden entrance there.
Writhing against him she could feel her breath panting from her lips, the tips of her breasts pressing into the material of the shirt as she rubbed against his chest like a cat.
“Damn, there you go, darlin’,” he crooned. “Go wild for me, Rogue. Let me feel you lose yourself, baby.”
She had lost herself with his first kiss. She lost herself in the sensations pouring over her and the heart-melting emotions she couldn’t escape, no matter how hard she tried.
Loving Zeke Mayes could be a dead-end street. It could be the most painful lesson of her entire life. She knew it, and she was walking into it with her eyes wide open.
Well, figuratively wide open. At the moment they were closed. Her hips churned against him, broken cries falling from her lips as she pressed against the hard ridge of his cock with desperate strokes of her silk-covered pussy. Her clit was swollen, throbbing in need. Her vagina was spilling its slick dampness, and she had no will to fight it.
“Sweet Rogue.” His hands slid over her ass, along her sides, then cupped the swollen mounds of her breasts. Calloused thumbs flicked over her engorged nipples and sent a flurry of sensation to strike at her clit.
She wanted it to last forever. She wanted the flames racing over her flesh to hold her spellbound for life. She didn’t want it to end. She didn’t want to chance ever losing this pleasure or this man.
“Hold on to me, Rogue.”
He was lifting her, rising to his feet as she wrapped her legs around his hips and cried out at the feel of the hard ridge of his cock pressing tighter against her humid flesh.
“This is so good,” she moaned as he walked. “Oh God, Zeke, its damned wicked.”
Each step was agony, it was desire in its rawest form.
“You haven’t seen wicked yet,” he promised her as he mounted the stairs, his hands moving to her ass again, cupping the cheeks and holding her to him as he moved up the steps.
Each step raked fiery sensations across her clit and drove fragmented arcs of sensation throughout her body.
It should be illegal to give this much pleasure, she thought. There should be a law against warping a woman’s mind until nothing mattered but one man’s touch.
As he carried her, she made it a mission to ensure that he was just as crazed from her touch. Her lips moved over the side of his neck as she ignored his groan for mercy. Her teeth raked over his pulse, then her lips settled at the base of his neck, parted, and she drew a small bite of tough skin into her mouth for a sizzling little nip.
She had carried his brand more than once; no
w he could carry hers.
She was surprised as one hand jerked from her butt. His palm covered the back of her head and a strangled groan left his lips as he seemed to stumble against the wall.
Rogue tightened her legs around his hips and kept her lips at his neck. She licked, nipped, and suckled delicately at the masculine flesh as she heard him curse, then whisper her name as though on a prayer.
“I should spank you for what you do to me.” His voice was dark and rough as he moved into a bedroom.
“Promises, promises,” she murmured.
A second later Rogue felt her back meet the mattress, though she refused to release the hold she had on him. Her hips lifted and she ground herself against his erection. A gasp of agonized need left her throat at the pure sensual pleasure that raged from the action.
“Get this damned shirt off.” He forced her arms down as he leaned back and ripped buttons and all.
“You like tearing my clothes,” she gasped.
“I want you naked. Naked and ready for me. Besides, it’s my shirt,” he reminded her, his gaze going over her breasts as they rose and fell with each desperate breath she tried to take.
Evidently, he didn’t care if she breathed or not. His head lowered and Rogue watched, suspended, held in a vortex of pleasure as his lips descended, parted, and sucked a tight, hard nipple into the hot, damp cavern of his mouth.
Arching, she cried out at the pleasure. It whipped its way across her nerve endings, sent jagged forks of heat racing across her flesh.
Tightening her legs around his hips, she lifted closer to the erection throbbing beneath his jeans and dug her nails into his scalp as he ground against her.
There was nothing like being held against him, feeling his touch, losing herself in the pleasure. He caressed each nipple, sucked it deliciously, and reduced her to begging for his possession.
“Not yet,” he growled long moments later as he pulled her legs from around his waist.
His fingers hooked in the elastic band of her panties as he pulled back from her and stripped the fragile material from her legs before dropping it to the floor.
Anticipation and sexual awareness sizzled in the air now. Rogue felt perspiration dampening her flesh, sizzling over her skin as he straightened at the side of the bed and lowered his hands to the band of his jeans.
He disposed of his jeans quickly, efficiently, and within seconds stood before her, naked and aroused. Rogue could feel anticipation like a physical caress as he watched her, his eyes narrowed, one hand gripping the stalk of his cock as his expression tightened with hunger.
“Spread your legs for me,” he ordered, his voice rough.
Rogue spread her legs slowly, watching him as excitement flooded her body. In that moment she realized how much he meant to her, and it terrified her. She should have run from him; she should have pushed him out of her life rather than giving him the opportunity to hurt her more.
But she couldn’t run. She couldn’t say no. Because she needed him more than she had ever wanted to admit.
“Have mercy,” he growled, his gaze centered between her thighs as he moved between her legs, his broad shoulders pushing them farther apart as he stretched out below her. “Sweet, sweet Rogue. You’ll be the death of me.”
She didn’t have time to argue the statement. Rogue’s head tilted back on a strangled cry as his lips lowered to the wet flesh between her thighs. Hot and voracious, he consumed her from the first lick. His tongue swirled around her clit, licked at the overly sensitive folds and sent her flying into a pleasure she couldn’t deny if she wanted to.
The rush of pleasure was intoxicating. Her legs fell farther apart as her fingernails dug into his scalp. The sensations were overwhelming, thundering through her veins. Nothing mattered but holding him to her, feeling him, touching him.
“Zeke, please,” she whispered as the pleasure began to build and tighten between her thighs.
“Oh, you please me very much,” he promised before his lips pursed over her clit and gave her a sucking little kiss.
Her hips arched as excruciating pleasure tore through her from the caress.
“Easy, baby,” he crooned as he lifted his head. “Just feel good for me.”
His lips returned, another kiss, the feel of his fingers easing through her juices, moving lower, lower, then touching, caressing the entrance to her rear.
Sensation whipped through her; it drove white-hot spikes of pleasure through her clit, her womb. Heat whipped through her, bonded her to him.
His fingers were as wicked as his mouth. He drew her dampness from her pussy back to the tiny entrance of her rear. He stroked, he massaged, then one broad finger slid inside her, stretching the opening and sending flares of heat racing through her.
She wanted more. Needed more. She could feel her mind dissolving as she cried out, arched, and drove his finger deeper only to cry out in protest as he retreated.
“Turn over, Rogue.”
He didn’t give her time to turn. Before she could catch her breath he rose between her thighs, gripped her hips, and turned her to her stomach.
Rogue felt the hands at her hips pulling her to her knees.
His hand smoothed over her rear, then landed in a series of small, heated taps that had her shuddering, shaking from need as he used the fingers of his other hand to lubricate and stretch her rear.
She was panting for breath, feeling the burning stretch of his fingers, the tension in the air, the hunger that seemed to sear every inch of her flesh.
She was crying out his name, lost in sensation, lost in the pure dominance of what he was doing. The significance of the act swirled through her head. A sense of submission, of bonding wove silk-covered chains through her psyche.
When she felt the broad head of his cock against the opening she stilled, barely able to breathe now and definitely unable to protest.
“Are you mine, Rogue?” His hand smoothed over her rear before he used both hands to part the cheeks of her.
“Are you mine?” Her voice was strangled, the need to own as much of him as he owned of her tearing inside her.
“Always yours now, Rogue.” His voice was heavy as he held her still and pressed inside her. “All of me, Rogue. Take all of me.”
“Oh God, Zeke.” Her back arched as burning pleasure tore through her. Her rear parted beneath the pressure as jagged lightning-hot sensations began to race through the nerve endings there.
She thought the pleasure couldn’t become more brutal. She thought she had experienced everything she could know about the extremity of sensation.
When the broad head popped inside the tender entrance, Zeke paused. She was lost in the flames of that small penetration when she felt another one.
“Zeke!” She tried to scream his name, but the breathless sound was more of a weak plea.
She felt the vibration of the vibrator tuck against the entrance to her pussy. Felt his wrist moving against her thigh as he impaled her slowly with it.
“There, baby,” he crooned behind her as the toy slid slowly inside her, parting her, working every nerve ending with an insidious, buzzing caress.
When it was lodged fully inside her she thought she was going insane from the pleasure. The vibration of the toy inside her set mini-explosions off inside her nerve endings. Her pussy flexed around it, her rear tightened around the intrusion easing inside it. She was a singular mass of sensation and she was drowning in the pleasure-pain filling her.
“Easy,” Zeke groaned behind her.
Easy? She didn’t want easy. She wanted it all.
“Here, baby.” He grabbed her arm, eased it down until her hand was between her thighs. “Hold it inside you.”
Rogue whimpered at the demand as her fingers curled around the heavy base. He pressed her hand forward, pushing the toy fully inside her until the thick, rough extension that rose from the base began to massage her clit.
She lost her mind, her senses. Sensation tore through her as Zeke began to m
ove behind her. His hands gripped her hips; his cock surged into her ass as he began to fuck her with long, even strokes. She was filled, stretched, burning, and aware of each and every stroke against nerve endings that were too sensitive to bear the pleasure for long.
Her pussy was filled, stretched tight with the buzzing toy. Her ass was on fire from the heavy strokes he was pounding into her now. She could feel every pulsing throb of his erection, each thick vein that ran the length of it.
Her head dug into the mattress as his hands tightened on her hips, and she felt the pleasure begin to build to critical mass inside her.
Every bone and muscle in her body began to tighten. She lost control of her senses, of her body. Fiery flames raced over her flesh and exploded in her womb as a long, agonized wail left her mouth.
Shock waves of destructive ecstasy flamed out of control and tore through her sensitive flesh as pinpoints of sensation ruptured inside her.
She screamed his name, the muscles of her rear tightened, trying to lock his erection inside her. Her pussy clenched on the vibrator, tightened. Her clit exploded in a cataclysm of sensation that raced to her pussy, her womb, and every point beyond as she heard him cry out her name.
He thrust inside her hard and deep, his hands tightened on her, the hard muscles of his thighs pressed into the backs of her legs, and within seconds she felt his release.
The feel of each shockingly heated spurt of semen inside her threw her higher, harder into the maelstrom of rapture.
She was flying through space and time, locked in a pleasure so intense she wondered if her heart could bear it.
Her back arched, her nails dug into the blankets, and finally, with one last powerful explosion inside her, she was flung into a place where only heat and pleasure resided. Where she knew nothing, felt nothing but the sensation coursing through her.
She was left shaking, trembling in exhaustion when it was finished. She had collapsed to the bed. Zeke covered her, still buried inside her, his lips at her neck, his groans still filling her ears.