“I need you.” She shifted so that her legs tangled with his and her pelvis was pressed against his suddenly throbbing cock. “Make love to me, Cole. Please.”
He stared at her for a long moment, tried to convince himself to leave her alone. To let her get the rest she so desperately needed. But she was wiggling and squirming, her n**ples growing hard against his chest, her p**sy radiating a heat that called to him.
Telling himself to be gentle with her, he pulled her shirt off, then feathered a trail of kisses from the hollow of her throat to her belly button. His tongue darted out, licked the intriguing lines of her tattoo again and again, until he felt her quiver beneath him, her body softening just a little bit more.
Reaching up, he ran his thumb over and around her n**ples. They were diamond hard and so sensitive that each brush of his hand against them had her sucking in her breath and arching her back for a harder pressure.
Licking his way up her body, he stopped at her br**sts. Drew her nipple into his mouth and suckled gently. She cried out, buried her hands in his hair, and he reveled in the feel of her fingers on his scalp. She tasted amazing—like the sweetest honey, the softest lavender—and he couldn’t get enough of her.
Inhaling deeply, he took her scent into his lungs, loved that the candy sweetness of her was mixed with the wild scent of his own soap. She smelled like him, and that mark of possession, that primitive proof that she belonged to him, lit him up like a rocket. Tightening his arms around her, he rolled until she was above him—her legs straddling him, her hot p**sy resting against his dick.
She gasped, her blue eyes darkening to black as she moved her h*ps gently against him. Rocked until he slipped between the moist folds of her sex, the head of his c*ck just touching her clit.
He groaned, fisted his hands in her hair and fought for control. How could he lose it so quickly? How could she steal it so easily when he’d been determined to take her with the sweetness and gentleness that he’d previously neglected to give her?
Biting his lip, tamping down on the raging inferno that was his body, he smoothed his hands down her back. Savored the silkiness of her skin, the warm softness of her body. No one had ever touched him the way Genevieve did so effortlessly.
Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he skimmed his hands over her ass, around her h*ps and up her stomach to her br**sts. Cupping the sweet weights in his hands, he rubbed his thumb in small circles on the undersides of her br**sts.
“Cole.” It was a whisper of sound, a plea for more, but he refused to be rushed. Today, he would savor her, so that when she went back to her hellish job, she would know just what she meant to him.
“Let me love you, Genevieve. No games, no control—just you and me and everything we can give each other.”
She bit her lip and her eyes darkened even more as she looked at him. He could see the wariness there, the need to give herself to him but also the desire to keep her battered spirit safe.
He slid his hands up her torso to her face, cupped her jaw in his palms. “I won’t hurt you, sweetheart. I already told you that. Trust me to do what’s right for you. What’s right for us.”
He sensed her disquiet, felt her holding her breath as surely as she held him between her thighs. And when she finally nodded, her long, loose curls flowing over her shoulders and br**sts in a cascade of gold, he felt his heart melt in his chest.
“I’ll make it good for you, Genevieve.” He nuzzled her breast, traced patterns on the delicate skin. “I swear I will.”
She laughed, the sound low and husky and amazingly feminine. “You always make it good for me.”
And then she lowered her mouth to his, caught his lower lip between her teeth and tugged softly, sliding the tip of her tongue over the outside of it before moving slowly, teasingly, over the slickness of the soft inner flesh.
He felt the caress through his whole body, from the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands to his balls, which were already threatening to explode. His hands tightened in her hair, and she laughed.
He took advantage of her open mouth, slipped his tongue inside to tangle with her own. As her teeth parted, he tilted her head so that she was wide open to him, until no part of her mouth was unavailable to his hot, hungry quest.
He slid his tongue beneath her upper lip, played with the soft skin. Relished the moan the little caress drew from her before wrapping his tongue around hers and sucking softly.
She gasped, and he felt her sex grow wetter, hotter against his cock. His h*ps jerked before he could control them, and his eyes nearly crossed as her legs tightened around him reflexively.
She was so turned on, her body pliant and his for the taking. Part of him wanted to shove her onto her back and thrust inside of her until they were both sweating, both screaming. Both coming.
But that was how he always took her—pushing her to take everything she could. Straining the boundaries of her experience and experimental nature until she took everything he wanted to give her, until she gave all that she was to him.
Today, he wanted to give himself to her. To love her without the tricks and the toys and the walls he’d kept between them until now.
But taking it slow was the hardest thing he’d ever done, when his body was on fire for her, his c*ck screaming for the chance to slip inside her slick warmth and ride her until ecstasy took them both.
Control, he told himself, as he took her mouth in another soul-searing kiss. Control was the ticket.
Cole had lost his mind, was doing his best to make her lose hers. Genevieve cried out as he nibbled at her lips, his tongue sweeping over and around and inside her lips until she was ready to scream with frustration.
What was he waiting for? How much hotter did she have to be? Already, her body was trembling, electrified, every nerve ending she had calling out to him, yet he refused to take her. Instead, he kept his mouth on hers, tasting and teasing until she was nearly mad with desire.
“Cole, I need you,” she gasped, rocking her h*ps against his hard cock. He felt so good, so amazingly, heart-wrenchingly good, that she was close to cli**xing just from the occasional, glancing caress of his tip against her aching clit.
At that moment, sunlight filtered into the room through the half-open shutters. For a moment, she was dazzled by the play of sun over Cole’s strong golden torso, enthralled by each shift and ripple of his muscles.
But then common sense kicked in and she yelped, jumping off Cole as if she’d been burned. His hands were still tangled in her hair and it tugged as she moved away from him, but even that didn’t slow her down as she raced across the room.
“Genevieve?” He sat up in bed, stared at her with confused eyes. “What’s going on?”
“The shutters. I need to close—” Her voice broke as she rushed from window to window as fast as she could, slamming each shutter closed until the room was once again blanketed by darkness.
Only then did she stop, her back to him as she tried to get control of the panic racing through her system. How could she be so stupid—again? Wasn’t once enough of a humiliation?
Horrified, panicked, she tried desperately to remember what had happened after she’d gotten to Cole’s a few hours before. They hadn’t made love—she’d been too zonked for that—but he had undressed her, showered her, carried her, nak*d, to his bed.
For a brief moment she thought back to Torres, who had followed her out of the station and through the Quarter to her house. Had he stuck around to see her climb into her car, or had he left once she was safely indoors? Had he been following her to keep her safe, or for some other, nefarious reason?
Luc, Shawn, Chastian, Jefferson, Jose—their faces swam through her head until Genevieve worried she might actually go insane. What was she thinking? They were cops, all of them. Her friends and partners, even her boss. There was no way any of them would do this to her. No way one of them could be this sadistic and manage to hide it so well. She was simply letting paranoia get the better of her.
“Hey, earth to Genevieve.” Cole’s hands landed heavily on her shoulders, and then he was turning her to face him. “You want to tell me what the hell that was all about?”
“No.” Her voice was rusty to her own ears. “I really don’t.”
“Let me rephrase that.” He strode over to the bed, pulling her behind him with a hand around her wrist. “I want to know what that was about. Now.”
He switched on his bedside lamp and a soft puddle of light chased away the last vestiges of night. If only he could do the same for the darkness invading her soul. But he couldn’t. She smiled sadly. He was just a man—one who spent most of his own life in the shadows. It was unfair of her to ask him to take on her ghosts as well.
“I freaked out.” She shrugged, tried to play it off. “I’m sorry—I’ve got an overdeveloped sense of paranoia. Sometimes it gets the best of me.”
The look he gave her was patently disbelieving. “You are the least paranoid person I know.”
She snorted. “Don’t bet on that.”
“Why are you lying to me?” His voice was curiously devoid of the anger she’d expected, and when she finally met his eyes, they were completely blank. As if he’d gone inside himself and nothing she said was going to be able to reach him.
Fear, ice-cold and vicious, whipped through her. Not Cole too, a little voice whispered in the back of her head. She was on the brink of losing another victim, her job, and the respect of her colleagues. She couldn’t lose Cole too, not when she’d just begun to figure out what he meant to her.
Too humiliated to tell him what was really going on, too frightened not to try to smooth things over, she finally said, “It’s work stuff, Cole. Can we leave it at that?”
“You think that sick bastard is following you? That he’s out there right now?”
He pulled her into his chest, held her tightly for one long inhalation, then shoved her behind him. He crossed the room in three strides and threw open the patio doors before she could stop him.
His eyes—dark and hyperalert—scanned the backyard, and she knew he didn’t miss anything in the early morning light. But when he strode outside, stark nak*d, she grabbed a blanket and clambered after him. “Cole, get in here! You can’t go out like that.”
He didn’t even acknowledge that she had spoken, and she knew he wouldn’t until he was well and truly satisfied. Time dragged as he walked his backyard, looking behind every tree and bench.
When he finally came back in, he was grim-faced and intense. Slamming the door behind him, he made sure the shutters were completely closed. Then he turned to face her, fury in every controlled line of his body.
Chapter Eighteen
“Tell me.” Cole’s voice was cold, his eyes colder as he watched her intently.
“It’s nothing.”
“He’s messing with you. That sick son of a bitch is hassling you, and you tell me it’s nothing?” His hands clenched into fists. “Worse, you don’t even tell me at all.”
“It’s not like that.”
“No?” He stalked toward her, every inch the sleek, sinuous jungle cat she’d thought him at their first meeting. And every inch as deadly. “Then what is it like?”
There was a desert in her mouth, and no matter how hard Genevieve tried to form words, nothing came out but a dry, dusty croak. Shaking her head, she backed hastily away. She’d never seen Cole like this before—he was all predator, all strong male animal on the hunt. And though it was nerve-racking in the extreme to be the focus of all that hostile male energy, it was also arousing as hell.
He stopped mere inches from her, his huge body crowding her from every side. “I’m waiting, Genevieve.”
The impatience in his tone set her free, got her back up and her mouth working before she could consider the wisdom of blowing him off. “Back off, Cole! I’m not some plaything to be backed into a corner by the big, hungry cat.”
His eyes swept down her nude, trembling body. “I never said you were. But you will tell me what’s going on.”
“And if I don’t?” She raised her chin, glared at him with narrow eyes.
“That’s not an option.”
Before she could so much as tell him to go to hell, he’d reached out and grabbed her. Yanked her against him. Lowered his mouth to hers in a kiss that was both brand and punishment.
Heat exploded instantly. Hot. Basic. Elemental. It flashed between them, through them, burned them from the inside out and then set fire to the room around them until nothing mattered but the way they made each other feel.
Maybe she should have pushed him away, should have fought against the possession of the gesture. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. As caught up as he was in the conflagration roaring between them, she chose instead to surrender. To let him take her however he wanted to—however he needed to.
Her body went pliant, the fight leaking out of her as she pressed herself as tightly against him as she could get. Her hands grabbed on to his shoulders and hung on, the need to touch him, to feel his strength under her fingers, a compulsion she couldn’t begin to fight.