Dangerous Passion

Nine

November 18

Drake had often woken up after being wounded. Less often, he had woken up beside a woman, though he never liked it. Usually, he dismissed the woman after sex, preferring to sleep alone. But he’d never woken up next to a woman after being wounded.

Never fuck while vulnerable. One of Drake’s hard-and-fast rules.

His women had no loyalty to him, and he had no reason to trust them while he was in a state of weakness. So when he woke up with the familiar feeling of having been wounded, he couldn’t factor in the softness on his arm.

Even the way he came out of sleep was unusual. Drake was used to waking instantly, rising up out of sleep in a flash, combat-ready. It was the only way he could have survived his boyhood. Coming awake instantly was second nature, whether he was in a dangerous situation or not.

Yet now, he came up out of sleep in long, languorous swoops, aware of someone beside him who wasn’t a threat. Aware of a certain warmth in the air and softness touching his skin. Rising, rising slowly until his eyes finally opened. His wounded shoulder ached, but that was nothing. What was astonishing was what was on his other shoulder. A mass of soft, reddish brown hair, pale skin showing from the too-large pajama top; long, lush eyelashes; a full mouth that begged for kisses.

Grace. Grace Larsen. Migrated, by some miracle, from her side of the bed.

No, not migrated. The nighttime memory came up from his subconscious like a cork bobbing up from a dark sea. He must have shown signs of distress in the night. The shoulder had been painful. Not the greatest pain he’d ever known, not by a long shot, but enough to pull him out of sleep. And she’d come to him, touched him, given him comfort.

He swallowed heavily, dry mouthed.

She had offered comfort.

He looked down at the beautiful woman whose head lay so trustingly on his shoulder, barely breathing so as not to disturb her.

He tried really hard to concentrate on his gratitude to her in order to take his mind off the erection that had sprung to life. What the Americans called a blue-steeler. If he needed any sign that he was going to live, it was right there, under his pajama pants, between his legs.

Having a hard-on was good, of course. He was going to have to seduce Grace to bind her to him. So fucking Grace was a really good next step—necessary even. And of course he’d have to have an erection for that; it went without saying.

Only…not quite such a big erection. He wasn’t supposed to feel as if he’d die if he didn’t enter her. This tightness throughout his body, culminating in his cock, stiff and straining to be in her, wasn’t really necessary.

Drake kept his cool, always. Even under fire. He was always totally in control of himself in bed with a woman. He liked sex. He liked the release of tension, he liked the feel of the softness of a woman. He’d started young on the streets. Sex was a source of solace for the street rats he ran with, girls and boys.

As he grew in power and wealth, for a while sex with beautiful women was a way to keep count, to establish his place in the hierarchy, to get back at the world. A spectacularly beautiful woman on a man’s arm was the perfect status symbol, and he’d had some real beauties in his day. It had pleased him to enter a room and have eyes widen at the sight of the eye candy on his arm.

It grew old quickly, of course. Drake soon realized that it was much better—certainly more efficient—to be feared than envied. So he made sure his revenge was public and his sex life private.

Sex was useful for releasing tension, pleasant for what it was, and nothing more.

But right now his entire body was drawn tight with anticipation. There was a huge band around his chest that had nothing to do with the bandages over his wound. As he reached out a hand to touch a lock of her hair that had spilled over his chest, Drake realized that his hand was trembling.

He hoped like hell it was a side effect of the bullet he’d taken yesterday, because if it wasn’t, if his hand was trembling because of Grace, he was in a shitload of trouble. If he and Grace were to get out of this mess, he’d have to keep a cool head and a steady hand.

Since when had his hands trembled? Never. He’d been a sharpshooter since he was fourteen. He made his fucking living selling arms. He was expected to be a better shot than anyone he sold to, and he was. It went with the territory. The hands of a marksman didn’t tremble. Not if the marksman wanted to live.

He touched the button next to the bed that opened the curtains. Judging by the light coming in through the windows, it must be around eight.

His finger touched her hair. The clear morning light picked out the highlights in her hair. Such an astonishing range of colors, from pale blonde to chestnut and everything in between. She was so right not to color her hair. There wasn’t a salon in the world that could duplicate that range of colors, that sheen. He carefully fit his finger under the lock and lifted it. As if it were alive, it curled around his finger. He shifted, turning into her, watching her.

The cuts and scrapes and bruises only enhanced the delicacy of her skin. He winced at the round scab at her temple, knowing precisely what a bullet planted right there would have done.

It would have wiped this beautiful woman right off the face of the planet in a spray of brain and blood.

He’d have woken up all alone on his huge bed, aching and sore, with nothing to look forward to, save plans for revenge. Plans he’d made and executed many, many times before.

Instead, by some miracle, he had this woman next to him, bearing the gift of kindness and beauty. In her person and in her hands.

How much better to contemplate that lovely face rather than watch the walls in the rising light, listening to his own breathing. If she weren’t here, he’d have been up at dawn, spreading his net to capture the fish of information.

And of course there was the business to run. He ran an empire, alone, and it required his constant attention, fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. Today, for example, there was a shipment to Yaounde to arrange, two new armorers to interview, the maintenance records of his helicopter fleet to check and the deputy premier of Montenegro to talk to on a secure video conference line.

None of these things held even a remote appeal. He let himself sink further into the bed, where he wanted to stay forever.

So be it. He wiped his mind of everything but the fascinating woman next to him.

He watched her face in sleep, the long lashes lying on her cheekbones. She was a quiet sleeper, the covers barely rising and falling with her breaths. He could stay here forever and simply watch her.

Grace’s eyes opened suddenly, with no warning. She was fast asleep one moment, eyes wide open the next. She stared straight up at him, disoriented. He watched her take in their position, close to him. A faint rosy blush rose in her cheeks.

“You, ah, you were restless and in pain—”

“And you comforted me,” he said softly. “Thank you. How are you feeling?”

“I don’t really know,” she confessed. “Better, I think. But sore.” She stretched her muscles a bit, moving her head. She was brought up short by his hand in her hair. The stretching had brought her closer to him. Watching her eyes, he rolled in her direction. Inches separated them.

Her breathing had speeded up, the slight flush along her cheekbones grew deeper. The blush warmed her skin, puffing out her natural fragrance like a cloud.

If Drake didn’t touch her, he would die. He finally gave in to temptation and ran the back of his finger over her cheekbone, marveling at the softness. She didn’t blink, she didn’t even breathe.

There was utter quiet, as if even the room were waiting for something.

This was the moment when Drake should start his seduction, that elegant dance between a man and a woman he was so familiar with. He knew all the moves, knew that he should touch her here and kiss her there.

But the music was off. Instead of a series of practiced moves, he found himself trembling with excitement, ready to burst out of his skin. He wanted to hold her so tightly her skin would be imprinted on his, he wanted to touch every inch of her, hold her breasts in his hands, suckle hard at her breasts, run his hand over her smooth, pale stomach. He wanted to roll on top of her, mount her, open her with his fingers and thrust inside, hard. Start fucking with all the strength of his body…

Whoa.

He was big and right now he was as excited as he’d ever been in his life. His size was a problem even for women who fucked constantly. The heated images in his head—holding her down with his hands while he fucked her as hard as he could—were crazy. He couldn’t do that with Grace. He’d scare her, maybe hurt her. God.

Something of what he was feeling must have communicated itself to her. Her color rose, her beautiful blue-green eyes shiny, watchful.

He had to go slowly. Be careful. Be in control.

For a second the notion that he had to tell himself to be in control was so alien, he nearly snorted. He was nothing but control.

His finger moved down her cheek, over the delicate jawline, running along the vein pulsing in her neck. He lifted his eyes to hers, finger poised to go lower.

“I want to touch you,” he whispered. “So badly.”

“I know,” she whispered back.

The finger hovered over her collarbone. He kept it steady only by applying the full force of his will, but the cost of that was that his entire body trembled, vibrated like a tuning fork.

He touched the soft silk of the pajama top. It was much too large for her and he could see pale skin bared where the material ballooned out. His eyes asked the question.

In answer, Grace arched, bringing her breasts close to his hand, baring that long, slender white neck.

Which to touch first? Both intriguing, impossible to resist.

Drake’s mouth settled on her neck while his hand slipped under the soft silk to her even softer, silkier breast. Grace let out a long, shaky breath.

Drake would have, too, but he was too excited to breathe. Too excited to do anything but cup her breast as he licked her, feeling the pounding pulse of her blood on his tongue, speeding up when he circled her nipple with his thumb. Ah God. Giving into temptation, he scraped his teeth along that smooth, smooth skin, then gave a little nip, of excitement, of ownership.

Grace jumped.

He hadn’t hurt her, but he lifted his head to check just the same. No, he hadn’t hurt her, but he had excited her. Color bloomed in her cheeks, along her neck.

Down to her breasts? He had to know.

His hand hovered over her and touched the top button of her pajamas. Moving his arm hurt his shoulder a little and he welcomed the pain, the bite of it. It grounded him, just a little, helped to keep his excitement from raging out of control.

“I want to see you, Grace. Will you let me?”

She let out a little huff of air. “I—ah, I seem to be having some trouble in saying no to you.”

He felt a slow smile well up from somewhere inside him, though he wasn’t normally a smiler. “Well the answer to that is obvious. Don’t say no.”

“That could get a little dangerous.”

“No, never.” The smile disappeared. “I don’t want you frightened of me, in any way. You can say no anytime you want, though I’m hoping you won’t.”

Grace shook her head, hair rasping on the pillow. “I mean dangerous in that you—you make me feel things I haven’t felt before. I don’t feel in control of myself.”

That makes two of us, he thought.

He unbuttoned the top button. “Tell me,” he urged. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

To his astonishment, she did. Eyes wide, voice halting, she told him exactly what she was feeling, with an honesty that stole his breath.

“Where you touch me—I burn, Drake. Only burning isn’t really the right word because it’s not painful, not at all. It’s pure pleasure.”

The top button came undone, the second, the third…finally he had the pajama top open, revealing a strip of pale skin that was rapidly turning rosy. Drake wanted to watch her eyes, but he wanted to watch his hand touching her more. “And this?” he breathed as he folded back the heavy silk, revealing a pale, perfect breast. The back of his hand had touched her chest as he unbuttoned the top, but now he turned his hand to cup her. She fit in the palm of his hand, perfectly.

Perfect. She was just perfect. And real. What he was cupping was pure woman, not some artificial sac of liquid just under the skin. He hated that so much he ended up passing on the women who’d had their breasts enhanced surgically.

And why should she want to enhance something already perfect, anyway? His eyes greedily drank in every detail. The tender undercurve, the milky blue veins barely visible under the skin, the pale pink aureole, the nipples turning harder as he watched, a bright red cherry color.

“You’re perfect here,” he said, his thumb circling the nipple slowly.

“You certainly make me feel perfect. Ah…” She exhaled shakily as he gently pinched her.

“What else?” he asked urgently. “What else do I make you feel?”

“Warmth. No, heat. Your hand is hot on my skin. I noticed that yesterday. Even in the wet and cold, your skin emanates warmth. Only now…”

“Now, duschka?” he murmured. The endearment came from somewhere deep inside of him. Russian wasn’t even his first language, though to tell the truth, he had no idea what his first language had been. He’d spoken a bastard medley until he was around eleven. But somewhere he’d heard this word murmured with love, man to woman, the tone unmistakeable, and the word came up out of him from somewhere deep in his chest, certainly not his head. “Now, what?”

“I feel the heat where you touch me, but I also feel it all over my skin. Oh!”

Drake had bent and taken a nipple in his mouth. The bud felt tender, velvety in his mouth. He pulled, as a child pulls at its mother’s breast, only he pulled with a man’s strength. Grace moaned, twisted, a hand coming up to cup the back of his head, the other his uninjured shoulder. He felt the small bite of her nails and would have smiled, except that the electricity he felt left no room for smiling.

“Oh God. When you do that, I feel it in my womb, with each tug.”

Drake lifted his head, frowning, the unfamiliar word bouncing around his head while he tried to pin a meaning to it. Womb…wasn’t that where pregnant women carried their babies? Then it struck him. She meant her cunt. She was feeling what he was doing in her cunt.

He had to breathe hard around his excitement. He pulled the covers off her, opened the jacket wide and, watching her eyes carefully, slipped the trousers down her legs. She swam in them; they came off easily.

Shaking, he pulled one long slender leg to one side and feasted his eyes on her. Narrow waist, round hips, smooth little belly. A puff of dark red hair between her thighs hiding a pale pink slit. He covered her with his hand. “Here, Grace?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “Do you feel it here?” He waggled his big hand a little and she widened her legs. His middle finger stroked her carefully.

She wet her lips, tried to say something, then finally nodded.

“Let me know,” he insisted. “Let me hear your voice. Let me know everything you’re feeling. I need to know if I’m pleasing you. I need that like I need air.”

Another long, light caress along her slit. The muscles of her stomach contracted.

“I don’t think—ah!” He’d bent his head again to her breast, suckling hard. He swirled his finger around her, thumb brushing her clitoris. She drew in a deep shuddering breath. “I don’t think not pleasing me is a problem.”

“That’s very good,” Drake murmured against her skin. God, touching her skin was like touching satin. Satin with the sheen of pearls. She didn’t take the sun, her skin was unmarred by bathing-suit stripes. She was the same color all over—a pale pearl with a slight pink glow of healthy skin, healthy woman. He lifted his head, torn between closing his eyes to savor the taste of her breast, the touch of her soft woman’s tissues, and wanting to see everything, every detail about her. All the soft little slicks and hollows, the unique set of muscles and angles that made up Grace. He wanted to watch her face as he touched her, watch the glow of arousal slowly blossom on her skin.

Grace smiled and Drake watched that lush mouth move.

It occurred to him that he hadn’t kissed her yet. How could that be? How crazy of him to forget the rules of seduction, just toss them out the window. First you kiss, then you touch. Everything was upside down and inside out with Grace.

A smooth shift of his muscles and he brought his head up to hers, mouth aligned with hers. She was watching him carefully, smile completely gone.

His smile was gone, too.

They both knew that this wasn’t going to be a casual kiss. Staring at her mouth, Drake actually hesitated a moment. He was at the edge of a precipice and should be windmilling his arms to get back to safety.

Instead, he lowered his head.

Ah, she tasted as delightful as he knew she would, though he tasted her briefly. A touch of his lips to hers, then a few molecules of air between them. A taste, no more. There was no hurry.

The room was quiet, as if they were the only two humans left alive on earth, which would suit him just fine. The walls were soundproof; rugs and tapestries absorbed any other possible noises. The only sounds were those of his mouth on hers. Another quick taste, lifting his mouth to angle for a better fit, his tongue meeting hers. At that first electric touch, they both exhaled shakily, then Drake finally just sank into her, tongue deep in her mouth, stroking.

One of her arms hooked around his neck and pulled, as if to bring him closer to her, when he was as close as her breath.

Drake was always hyper-aware of time. He wore an expensive Rolex because it really was nearly indestructible, but he rarely had to check it. There was a very accurate clock in his head that kept time for him.

The clock broke. He had no concept of time at all. Something broke loose in his head and drifted free.

The only time he recognized was the time it took to make her sigh, the time it took her hand to move from his biceps to his shoulder and back, the time it took for his skin to become so sensitive, it felt like she was touching raw nerve endings.

His tongue stroked hers again and he felt her little cunt muscles ripple. Oh God, yes! Moisture was welling up from inside her, as if he were licking her there instead of her mouth. They had a direct connection between their kiss and their genitals. With each sigh and each stroke, he could feel himself swelling, growing larger, longer, it seemed, with each beat of his heart, while she softened.

She was slippery. His hand moved with ease through the soft folds. He kept his touch light, delicate, trying to match strokes of his tongue with strokes of his thumb. The first time she nearly came off the bed, but he bore down with his mouth.

He lightened up. He was naturally dominant in bed, rarely letting the woman be on top, often holding her limbs down. He had to curb his nature with Grace, let her breathe, follow her lead.

Another slow journey around her labia, smiling inside at the light moan coming from the back of her throat.

Time to take the next step. She was wet. His finger was making slippery little noises as he explored the outside of her cunt. He opened his mouth wider over hers, and entered her with his finger.

Uh-oh.

Trouble.

Grace stiffened, then consciously relaxed her muscles, but Drake knew she wasn’t in that dreamy, lax state she’d been in. His finger was hurting her. She was hiding it, but he could tell.

Fuck.

She was incredibly tight, much too tight.

He lifted his head and she gave an uneasy smile. She was trying to relax her muscles around his finger, trying to breathe her way through it.

He remembered an old movie line. “Houston, we have a problem.”

That earned him a laugh.

“Sorry, I’m—”

He lay a finger across her lips. “Shhh. God, no apologies.” He slid his finger out a little, then back in. Tight little muscles clenched around him. “But if I make love to you now, I’ll hurt you, and I don’t want to do that. When was the last time you had a man…here?” He thrust his finger a little more deeply.

“Not…for a long time.” Her narrow rib cage was rising and falling rapidly.

Drake stilled, astounded. “Are American men blind, then? Or crazy?”

Grace laughed, her hands kneading his shoulder muscles. “Actually, I think American men think I’m crazy. Or eccentric beyond their comfort zone. I guess I actually stopped thinking about sex a couple of years ago.” Small frown lines appeared between ash brown eyebrows. “Is this really going to be a problem?”

Yes, but he would get around it.

Drake took her hand, lifted it to his mouth, then brought it under the drawstring of his pajama pants to fold around his cock. His breath blew out in a hiss at the feel of her hand around him. “You tell me if we have a problem.”

“God,” she whispered, her face showing shock. “I’m not—I can’t.” She sucked in a breath, her hand flexing around his cock. Experimentally, she ran it up over the head, feeling it weeping, then pulling her fist down to the base. She had to open her hand up to do it. Her touch electrified him. “What do you suggest we—”

The words were drowned in his mouth. The kiss was deeper, harder, more possessive than before, and it reverberated in both their bodies. He could feel how the kiss affected her. She clenched tightly around his finger, growing slicker by the second. And Grace could feel how his cock surged in her hand, echoing her inner muscles. She was growing wetter and so was he, the tip of his cock weeping so hard he could feel the cool air. It wasn’t all he was feeling. As he shifted so that his chest covered hers without breaking the kiss, a hot electric line raced along his spine. His balls tightened painfully. He could move his finger with ease now, in and out of her slick folds. His thumb passed over her clitoris again and she passed her own thumb over the slit at the tip of his cock that was weeping to be in her.

He felt it with every cell in his body.

“I will have my cock in you here, soon,” he breathed into her mouth, finger sliding into her deeply, so slick and hot. “But only when you are ready.”

Her hand speeded up. So did his. “I might…be ready now,” she panted.

She wasn’t ready for his cock but she was definitely ready to come.

“First you come for me,” Drake murmured against her mouth, setting up a rhythm of penetration and retreat echoed by her hand fisting his cock.

Grace gave out a little cry, almost of surprise, the walls of her cunt clenching hard, over and over as her legs shook. It pushed him right over the edge as every muscle tensed and the base of his spine exploded. He bit the pillow next to her head as he came in long, rhythmic spurts, in time with her contractions. She kept her hand around him, hot and tight, milking him as they both shook and moaned.

Finally, Drake’s muscles relaxed, felt like water as he lay half over her, one hand cupping her mound, one hand cupping her head. She released his cock finally.

Their breathing slowed, evened out.

“Well, that worked,” she finally whispered.

Drake could barely lift his head.

He rarely felt wiped out after sex. If anything, it energized him. But right now, lifting his head to give her a quick kiss seemed to be the most he could hope for. God help him when they could finally make love. It would probably kill him.

Ah, well. You had to go some time.

They lay like that, not asleep, not awake, as the room slowly filled with late-morning light. It was the first time Drake could ever remember when he hadn’t started the day early, with specific business plans. His big plan right now was to keep Grace in bed with him, making sure she got used to being naked with him, until her skin smelled of his.

He’d try again to fuck her, just as soon as he could move.

See if she loosened up a little, so he wouldn’t panic at the thought of hurting her when he entered her. It would happen, he just didn’t know when.

His head had come to rest against hers on the pillow, his lips close to the skin of her neck. Much too beautiful to resist. He moved forward the inch necessary to kiss her, breathing in deeply. He could smell her skin and his. The scent of their sex was unlike any other he’d smelled.

Grace’s hand dropped from his shoulder, making a faint plop sound as it fell to the mattress. “Drake, I think real sex is going to be too much for me. I’m not too sure I can handle it.”

He breathed in and out, slowly. Every single muscle felt lax, like water. His mind was completely empty, no thoughts at all. Only sensations, all connected with her. the feel of her silky skin under his fingertips. The scent of her skin, the sound of her breathing.

He’d traveled the world, racking up more air miles than any pilot possibly could. He’d lived in eight countries, was intimately familiar with fifteen more.

This was an entirely new country for him, a new, completely unfamiliar landscape.

He didn’t know if he could handle sex with her, either, but he was willing to try. His cock, ten minutes after an explosive orgasm, twitched at the thought. His fingers knew how she felt inside and now his cock was jealous.

You’ll get your turn, Drake wanted to tell it—and then thought that he was going crazy, talking to his own penis.

He wanted to lift his head, reassure her, but he didn’t have the energy. It was the oddest lassitude. Not the frightening weakness of being wounded. He’d been weak from blood loss only a few times and it was terrifying. When he was weak, he was instant prey.

No, this was different. His muscles weren’t weak, they were…relaxed.

How odd a feeling.

Grace’s stomach growled, loudly. Drake laughed into her neck. “I guess I know what you want. And right now, it appears that sex isn’t it.”

He could feel the slight shift in the air as she smiled. “To tell you the truth, breakfast sounds good right about now.”

He’d already ordered it. Trays would be waiting on a trolley outside the bedroom door.

Drake lifted his head. “Something tells me it’s ready. Stay right where you are.”

The weakness disappeared instantly. Grace needed food. Just the thought of her being uncomfortable—God, hungry—in his home, was enough to energize him. He rolled out of bed naked, making for the door, then heard a soft noise behind him.

Drake turned. She was up on one elbow, staring, mouth slightly open. Her hair was tousled, falling in soft locks over her shoulders. One lock, delightfully, had fallen to encircle one nipple, now not cherry red and diamond hard but soft and pale.

An enchantress that had been tumbled and would be tumbled again.

Her eyes widened and he didn’t have to look down to see what was shocking her. He could feel it. His cock rising, lengthening, thickening. Color rose in her cheeks and her nipples turned a deeper pink. His cock rose higher on a thick pulse of blood at the sight. A vein pounded in her neck, bringing the blood that now flushed brightly down to her breasts. Breasts he’d touched, kissed. At the memory, his balls tightened, drew up while his cock burned.

They were seducing each other across ten feet of space.

Her stomach growled again. “Food,” she said weakly.

“Food,” he agreed, turning back around.