Mercenary Trilogy - Willing Part 11

She felt impaled and couldn't move, but she wanted him to.

"Are you all right?" he asked, his brow glistening with sweat, the effort it took to hold back reflected in the tense lines of his hard face, the rigid set of his shoulders.

"More than all right."

"Are you okay if I move?"

"Please..." She bit her lip, trying not to yell demands at him, but gave up when the movement he made was so small it was more torture than a.s.suagement. She grabbed his head, her fingers curling into his dark, silky hair, and held on tight. "Move, Daniel. I want you to come inside me!"

Something seemed to break within him. Maybe it was his control. He began moving, pounding in and out of her with the power and speed of a jackhammer.

She loved every second of it and felt another stunning climax begin to build deep in her womb. Incredibly, he grew inside her. It should have been impossible, considering the condition he'd been in to begin with, but he got even harder, ma.s.saging her core in ways she couldn't fathom.

She clenched around him in involuntary spasms, on the edge of an explosion bigger than any bomb she'd ever built. He gave a deafening shout as his whole body went rigid in s.e.xual ecstasy, and the explosion hit, rocking her foundation with its power.

She couldn't even scream, the pleasure was so great, and her mouth opened on a silent, prolonged cry as her body convulsed around him.

Afterward, he collapsed on top of her, his face turned away on the pillow.

His dark hair was wild and wet with sweat, and she kissed it, emotion tearing at her insides with too much beauty to be borne. "Thank you."

He mumbled something, but she couldn't understand what, and then didn't say anything else. She smiled, resting her face against his head. Her eyes drooped, and she felt herself slipping into sleep.

Daniel forced himself to disengage from Josie, so he could take care of the condom. Otherwise he probably would have stayed inside her all night long. And smothered her to death.

She was so tiny compared to him. She'd laugh in his face if he told her he thought she was fragile, but it was how he saw her, and that would probably never change. He'd seen her hold her own in combat, but that didn't seem to matter to the part of him that claimed her as his woman.

For now.

Not even a woman raised to be a soldier could stay in his life forever. He wasn't capable of that kind of permanent intimacy, but they had now. He was going to revel in the present, for once dismissing both his pain-filled, guilt-ridden past and the certain loneliness of the future.

Josie woke surrounded by heat and hard muscle. The room was dark, the heavy drapes on the window blocking everything but a crack of light from the streetlights outside. She could make out the murky shape of the dresser against the far wall, the one practically covered by a huge bouquet of roses. She could still smell the sweet fragrance of the flowers, but Daniel's scent was even more tantalizing.

The man-woman aroma of their lovemaking clung to him, enveloping her in an intimacy she'd neverknown. Josie snuggled in closer, becoming immediately aware of hard flesh pressing against her backsideas a stifled groan sounded from Daniel's throat. She wiggled again, as intoxicated by his reaction to heras the memory of the way he made her feel.

He sucked in air as if she'd hit him, and a hard hand clamped on to her hip, stilling her movement. Did he

think she was asleep?

She scooted out from under his hand and turned over to face him. Pressing her body against his, she welcomed the feel of his erection against her belly.

His big body shook, and he groaned again, this time a lot more loudly.She looked up at him, unable to make out much more than the shape of his head in the darkness. "Hi.""Hi." His voice sounded strangled."I couldn't help but notice you were awake.""I've been awake for an hour."She reached down between them and closed her fingers around the heated flesh of his arousal. "Like this?""Yes.""Why didn't you wake me up?" She brushed up and down his length, amazed at how velvetlike and hot his skin was.His hand clamped over her wrist. "Stop that.""Why?" she asked again."You'll make me lose control."After the way he'd made love to her earlier, putting her comfort ahead of his desire, she didn't think it would be possible. "Would I?""Yes.""Good.""No, it's not.""I don't see why." She was no longer a virgin. She could handle him going a little wild. In fact, she looked forward to it. She shouldn't be the only one losing connection with reality when they made love."We can't make love right now.""Did you only get one condom from the concierge?"

"No."She leaned forward and inhaled against him before pressing an open-mouthed kiss to his smooth chest.He tasted spicy and all male. She couldn't help flicking her tongue out to explore more of his skin. His muscles were rock hard and so were the small nipples her lips found in the darkness. She circled onewith her tongue and then bit it very gently.He made the sound of a dying man faced with Heaven, but consigned to h.e.l.l. "Stop.""I don't want to.""If you don't, I'm going to end up buried deep inside you again.""And this is supposed to be a bad thing?" She liked, no loved, having him deep inside her body, one with her in a way no other person could ever be."It will hurt.""I don't think so.""You made love for the first time tonight. You're bound to be sore.""Why don't you feel me and find out?"His entire body went rigid. "No.""Don't be so Victorian about this. Women, even former virgins, are allowed to make love more than once in a night in this century.""I don't want to hurt you.""You won't. Touch me and you'll see how wet and ready for you I am." She reversed the hold he had on her wrist, looped her leg over his hip to open herself to him and pulled his hand into contact with the slick flesh at the apex of her thighs.

"d.a.m.n it..." But he turned his hand so his fingers could explore her.

"See?" she asked breathlessly, her body already quivering from his gentle ministration.He slid one of his fingers inside her. "Does this hurt?" His guttural voice sent pleasure arcing through heras effectively as his touch.

"Pain is the last thing on my mind right now."

"Are you sure?"

She couldn't help being moved by his concern, but she didn't want it to prevent them from sharing

something so incredible as often as possible for as long as they had together. "Positive."She pushed on his shoulder. "Now...Can I touch you?"He allowed her to press him to the mattress so he was flat on his back. "Yes.""You won't tell me to stop again?""No."

"Can I touch you anywhere?""Touch me any way you want to, little warrior.""I will."She grinned in the darkness, antic.i.p.ation fizzing in her blood like champagne as she straddled him. She should probably start off small, but she'd woken up aching for him, and patience had never been her strength when it came to waiting for something she really wanted. Without further thought, she pressed her swollen intimate flesh against his hardness.

He arched up against her. "Yes!"

Her smile faltered as intense pleasure radiated from the center of her femininity outward. Needing more, wanting to give him more, too, she rocked her pelvis so she slid up and down his length, groaning when

the ridge of his head touched her c.l.i.toris. Man alive, how did women survive this much delight on a regular basis?

Her thighs quivered with it, and she stopped moving, not ready to o.r.g.a.s.m yet.

The dark enhanced her sense of touch as her fingers learned the shape of his body that her eyes already

knew. They encountered solid ridges of muscle on his stomach, the turgid small nipples her mouth had already tasted, and then went on to feel the sleek skin over bulging biceps of his arms and hard angles of bone in his face.

As she brushed over his lips, learning their contours in a different way, he opened his mouth and took her finger inside. His tongue did strange and wonderful things to it that made her b.r.e.a.s.t.s tingle and her woman's center clench with need.

She pressed down more firmly against his erection, but it didn't help.She wanted to feel him inside her."Where are the condoms?""In the drawer."She forced herself to scramble off of him and fumble for the bedside table. She opened the drawer in the dark and scrabbled around inside for a condom packet. Her efforts were hampered by the feel of his hand caressing her bottom. She stopped moving completely, forgetting for a second what she was doing.

"Did you find one?" His voice reached out in the dark to surround her like warm velvet."What? Uh...yes, here..." She grabbed the edge of one small packet and went back to him, climbingonto his thighs and straddling him again.

Her fingers slipped as she tried to open the foil square, and it fell onto his stomach. She brushed her hand across his stomach, looking for it. Finding it, she used her teeth to rip it open.

"Do you want me to do it?" he asked.

She shook her head, but then realized in the dark he couldn't see her. "No."She pulled out the thin rubber, working out in her head how best to get it on him. It couldn't be that hardeven if she'd never done it before. Reaching out, she found his hard-on with unerring accuracy. His fingers curved into her thighs as she gripped him one-handed.

It took some doing, but she got the condom rolled on, refusing his second offer of help when she'd fumbled at first getting it over the broad head of his p.e.n.i.s.

Then she moved until the opening to her v.a.g.i.n.a was kissing the tip of his erection. "You know, there's something I've always wanted to do."

"What?" he asked in a strained voice.

"Go riding."

Chapter 8.

J osie pushed down, closing over his straining head, and it took all his self-control not to surge upward and complete the union. This was her show, and he would let her run it...for now. She made a frustrated sound as she got him halfway inside, but couldn't seem to go any farther.

"Rock it, baby."

"Like you did earlier," she said, as though a lightbulb had gone on inside her brain.

She emulated his earlier movements like she'd been s.e.xually active for years, taking more of him inside with every downward thrust. He thought the top of his head would come off with every slippery centimeter he went deeper into her hot little body. Her desire was so incredible. So intense.

She stopped moving and seemed to be trying to figure out how to achieve that last inch of penetration when his control slipped and he surged upward, completing their connection. Unable to stop himself, he kept surging upward, but she didn't seem to mind. She met his thrusts with her own, moaning each time he hit bottom. He squeezed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, playing with her nipples, feeling them grow tauter with each small stimulation.

"Daniel!"

"What?"

"I...It's..."

"You're close, aren't you, sweetheart?" So was he.

"Yessss..." She rode him hard, her toned thigh muscles contracting around him in tense antic.i.p.ation, but she didn't know how to take herself over the edge.

He reached down and separated her lips, exposing her c.l.i.toris to more direct stimulation, and then ground his pelvis against hers every time they surged together. She caught on right away, clamping her inner muscles around him and changing her tempo to one that kept their bodies locked while she moved against him rather than on him.

He felt her body tense further, and he pressed against her tailbone, keeping the friction steady, while he continued moving under her even as she started convulsing in climax. He grabbed the back of her head and brought her lips, open on a scream, to his. Her mouth was vulnerable to the possession of his tongue, and he thrust inside while he pleasured her body with his.

She shook with a second o.r.g.a.s.m close on the first, and he came with her this time, his entire body exploding with more sensation than a nuclear blast.She went limp, her body collapsing on top of his.He kissed her long and lingeringly before tucking her head down onto his chest.She rubbed her cheek against him like an affectionate kitten. "That was amazing.""Mmmm.""What does mmmm mean?""Very amazing."She laughed. "That must be Sioux, huh?""No." But he smiled. He liked her teasing."I like this, Daniel.""I do, too." He sighed, wis.h.i.+ng he could stay where he was and knowing he couldn't. "But I've got to move, or we're going to decrease the effectiveness of this condom by about ninety percent."

"Would that be the end of the world?" She snuggled in closer. "Haven't you ever wondered what a littleDaniel Black Eagle would look like?" she asked whimsically."No." He gently, but firmly pushed her off of him, his body rejecting her words as completely as his mind did, and rolled off the bed.

He knew exactly what his child would look like. Him. Just as he was the spitting image of his father. Hisfather's blood wasn't a legacy he had any desire to pa.s.s down to the next generation.He frowned down at her. "I'm not daddy material."She turned onto her side and propped her head up on her hand. All he could see was the outline of her body, but he could feel her eyes locked on to him. "Why not?"He wished he'd left a blanket on the bed, or a sheet or something she could use to cover up. Even with the cold chills skating along his nerve endings from her words, his body was reacting to the gentle curves revealed in the shadowy darkness.

"I don't want a family." He'd made that decision a long time ago and never changed his mind. "No wife.

No kids. Not even a live-in lover to visit between a.s.signments. I'm a mercenary, not a family man.""You're a mercenary trainer now. There's a difference." She sat up, her posture not nearly as relaxed as before. "My dad has been a good father, and according to what I remember of his time with my mom, hewas a darn good husband."Tension clawed at Daniel's insides. Was she building fantasies in her head around him? She'd do better to wish for the moon, d.a.m.n it.

"We had s.e.x, Josie, incredible, mind-altering s.e.x, and maybe because it was your first time, you'rethinking there's more to it than there was, but I don't do long-term commitment."He hated saying these things, had thought he wouldn't need to. She'd been a merc. She knew the lifestyle, and in a lot of ways, she knew him, but apparently, she didn't see him as clearly as he thoughtshe did. The prospect of losing her because he couldn't promise her a future made him sick inside, but hecould not have her under false pretenses.

"I'm sorry if I said or did something to make you think otherwise, but if you're looking for some kind of

happily ever after with me, we need to call it quits right now."

"I don't believe in happily ever after, and I wasn't offering to have your baby, though I guess I made it sound that way."

The coward in him was glad she could not see his face, but he wished he could see hers. Was she hurt?

Was she angry? He couldn't tell. From her tone, she could be either.

"Then why bring it up at all?""It was a joke, a lousy one apparently. I didn't expect you to take me seriously or make such a big dealout of it. And for the record, I may be pretty ignorant about what it takes to make a good relations.h.i.+p,but even I know better than to believe I can build a future with a commitment-phobic exmercenary whosees me as an obsession he wants to get rid of." She definitely sounded mad now.

"I'm sorry-""Don't apologize to me again, for goodness sake.""I didn't mean to hurt you.""Don't make a.s.sumptions you can't substantiate. I never said I was hurt."True, and while she sounded angry, there were no tears in her voice. "I'm glad.""I'm trying to change my life, Daniel. The last thing I need is a long-term commitment with a soldier.

Once we find my dad and his would-be killers, I never want to set foot on another training compound or

battlefield again."

He couldn't doubt the pa.s.sionate conviction in her voice, but far from appeasing him as they should have, her words left a hollow place inside. They implied that once this mission was over, she never planned to see him again.