Читать книгу Untamed - Crystal Jordan - Страница 10

Hunter jolted from a nightmare, his heart pounding and sweat rolling down his chest. His muscles shook with adrenaline that had no outlet. He clenched his teeth until the horror faded, wiping a weary hand down his face. He’d had the nightmare so many times, he knew to the nanosecond how long it would take for his body to cool, for his pulse to stop racing. If only his memories were as easy to predict and contain. If only the nightmares were nothing more than a figment of his imagination, but they were not. The images of his parents’ last moments on earth were lasered into his mind, their power never fading. The feel of his uncle’s blood streaming through his fingers when he meted out his own form of justice for the abuse…and for the corruption that had cost his parents’ lives. The two incidents were separated by years, but always tangled in his dreams.

He was only glad Delilah had slept through it. She was an intelligent woman, and she was bound to ask questions he didn’t intend to answer. Maybe it was better that he moved her to her own place after the week was over. A mistress didn’t need to live with him…or sleep through the night with him. The idea of having her whenever he wanted her and never having to admit to anything other than lust was so appealing it made his teeth clench. He could have everything he wanted, needed, craved. He could keep her forever.

Glancing to his left, he saw the tangle of covers where her slim body should have been.

But he was alone in his bed.

Terror fisted in his gut. She was gone. Lost. Like his parents. He leaped to his feet, kicking aside the covers that threatened to trip him up. He had to find her, had to protect her. His mate.

Whether she wanted him to or not. He couldn’t lose someone else. He simply…couldn’t.

The wide vidscreen embedded in the wall across from his bed chirped to alert him of an incoming message. Delilah? Had she crept away and left him a message for when he woke? He knew little of her, but it didn’t seem like the feline’s style to leave anything behind.

“Display message.” His voice was little more than a hoarse croak, and he worked his tongue around in his mouth in an effort to generate some moisture.

Pierce’s serious face greeted him on the vidscreen. “Avery, it’s Vaughn. The Los Angeles incident looks like a deliberate attempt to recreate the circumstances surrounding your parents’ death. Tarek’s looking to rattle you. Don’t do anything rash.” Those gray eyes seemed to look right through him, much the way the man did in person. “More information when I talk to Forensics. Contact me when you get this.”

“Huh.” He shook his head. One more reminder of the worst time of his life. But as much as the past haunted him, it was his future he was worried about.

Where was Delilah?

Whirling for the balcony doors, he was a nanosecond away from shifting to his hawk form to hunt her down when he caught sight of her in the moonlight. It turned her into a pale goddess, gleaming on her hair and skin. No one should have skin as flawless as hers with the acid rain and pollution in the city, but moonbeams kissed every perfect millimeter.

She crouched on the balcony railing, her hand braced in front of her on the figure of a carved gargoyle. A breath rushed out of him as relief almost took him to his knees. Swallowing, he struggled for the calm that usually came so naturally to him. All he knew was that he could never let her leave him. Now that he’d had her, now that the hawk had had a taste of its mate, he had to protect her. The way he hadn’t been able to protect his parents all those years ago.

“Leaving so soon?” He leaned against the open balcony door, arms crossed over his chest.

Tilting her chin down, she shot him a dirty look over her shoulder. “I keep my bargains, Avery.”

“Call me Hunter.” He frowned, annoyed now that his panic was receding. He’d been more terrified than he’d ever be willing to admit and she was perching on his balcony. “I don’t want you calling me Avery.”

She snorted and stepped down onto the balcony floor. “Then don’t insult me.”

A small sigh eased past his lips when her feet touched a solid setting. She wasn’t a bird; she couldn’t shift and fly to safety if she fell. He arched an eyebrow, forcing his body to relax. “It’s insulting to think a thief might be less than honest?”

“If I make a bargain, I keep it.” She gave a disdainful sniff. “I make bargains with my clients, not the people I steal from.”

That made him smile—something he’d never have guessed he could do so soon after the nightmare. “You did with me.”

“I also don’t get caught.” Her nose wrinkled and she folded her arms, the picture of annoyed feline.

He pushed himself away from the door, letting himself savor the most beautiful sight he’d ever beheld. His nude mate framed by the night sky and the lights of New Chicago. Lovely. And cold. The chill wind swirled around him once he’d moved outside the buffer of the door. Not cold enough to make him walk away from her, though. His grin stretched wider. “I caught you.”

“You’re an exceptional man.” But her tone was dry enough that no one could consider her words a compliment.

He stepped close enough that he could feel the heat of her curves. “Who was your client for my ruby?”

“I don’t always have clients.” She twitched her shoulders in what might have been a shrug, staring down at his rising cock. The heat he’d felt from the moment he touched her was always there, waiting for her to rouse it. “If an item is valuable enough on its own, I know I can move it if I steal it.”

She didn’t need to tell him that the Avery ruby was more than valuable enough to fit that category. She licked her lips and he forgot about clients and rubies and anything other than the craving he had for her and the need to burn off the fear of finding her gone.

Fear he’d never wanted to feel again. It was one thing to be plagued by a nightmare of events long past, another to be haunted by the reality of it every day because of his mate. He hated it, but the hawk inside him wouldn’t allow him to send her away—for once, the beast won the battle of wills with the man.

He craved her too deeply.

Cupping her biceps, he turned her to face the city lights. The smooth globes of her ass brushed against his cock and he had to fight to keep from dragging her to the floor and burying himself inside her. Instead, he bent her at the waist to place her fingers on the balcony’s railing, holding her there with his palms covering her hands. “I love this view.”

“What do you think I was out here admiring before you woke up?” She shivered, arching her back to rub against him. His cock slipped into the cleft of her ass and further forward until her damp heat drenched the head of his dick.

“Let’s enjoy it together then, shall we?” He spoke the words softly in her ear and saw goose bumps rise on her flesh. She tilted her head, baring her throat to him. The trust in that gesture from any natural predator shook him. Whether she knew it or not, some part of her had faith that he wouldn’t hurt her. He swallowed hard, his fingers twining with hers where they lay on the railing. The ever-present breeze swirled around them, ruffling his hair. “Are you sure you’re not too cold?”

“I don’t mind.” She wriggled against him, and he could hear the edge of wicked laughter in her tone. “But you can warm me up.”

He pressed his mouth to her throat, flicking his tongue out to taste her flesh. Her pulse raced, he could feel the beat of it under his lips. The way her body writhed, her hips already moving to a carnal rhythm, told him how much she liked what they did together. “How do you want it, Delilah? Fast or slow?”

“As long as I come, I’m game for anything you’ve got, birdie.” She shoved her ass back, opening herself to his penetration. He couldn’t resist and slid his cock into her until she’d taken all of him into her tight, wet channel. Her muscles clasped him snugly and he shuddered, biting down on her neck. She cried out, her body jerking against him, her dampness increasing in a hot rush. “Deus, Hunter! Fast. I want it fast. Now.”

“Good.” At this point, he wasn’t sure he could go slowly even if he had a gun pressed to his temple. He plunged deep into her pussy, her slickness coating his cock with each thrust. Molten heat flooded his body, and he barely clung to his sanity…and his control. Touching her was better than any pleasure he’d ever known—he couldn’t get enough, and he didn’t want to. The thought alone should have worried him, but he was beyond caring about anything other than the ecstasy he found in possessing her.

Their bodies shuddered with the impact of his thrusts, his hips driving hers against the railing. She met each of his movements with her own. A low, husky laugh slipped from her throat. “I really. Love. This view.”

“It’s the best.” His fingers tightened around hers, and his breathing hitched every time he slammed into her. Her slick sheath clenched around him each time he withdrew, as though trying to keep him inside her, and the fire racing through his blood reached a boiling point. He was going to come soon, but he intended to take her with him. Rolling his pelvis against her, he changed the angle to one that never failed to make her scream.

“Yes! Deus, yes!” Her slim body bowed and her pussy fisted around his dick in rhythmic pulses that dragged him into orgasm with her. He came deep inside her, grinding his pelvis into her with each hard jet of come.

The lights of the city blurred before his eyes, and he knew he’d never look at it again without thinking of his mate. Her cries were lost in the relentless wind off Lake Michigan, and only his ears would hear their sweet sound. He pressed his sweat-dampened forehead to the back of her shoulder and breathed in her scent. His muscles shook with the effort it took to remain upright, but he didn’t want to withdraw from her. Not yet…not yet. She was here, she was safe, and she was his. That was all he needed at the moment. Everything else could wait.

It wasn’t until she stirred against him that he pulled away from her, gritting his teeth at the drag of his flesh in hers. He drew her pliant body against his, nudging her in the direction of his bedroom. Every room in the house except the kitchen had indestructible polyglass doors that led out on to the balcony. The main space had several. There was another set beyond his room before the building curved around a corner. He never went in there.

“Where does that lead?” As if she’d read his thoughts, she jutted her chin toward those doors.

He considered not answering her, but thought she’d investigate on her own if he didn’t. And the last thing he wanted was the cat’s curiosity prying into his past. “That was my parents’ room before they died.”

“Oh. Well, what’s in there now?” Glancing down, he saw her head had cocked in question.

He blinked and frowned, nonplussed by the odd question. “It’s their room. What else would be in there except their things?”

“I see.” Something close to sympathy glimmered in her wide green gaze. “They died in an accident, right?”

He smoothed his hand over her silky hair, bending forward to kiss her forehead. “No, it wasn’t an accident.”

“How did they die, then?”

Sighing, he let her go and stepped around her to enter his main space. The whole evening had his insides churning. The nightmare. His fear for Delilah. Pierce’s message. Tarek trying to bring back the worst moment of his life while destroying the business the Avery family had been building for generations. His hands shook, rage and terror and a million other emotions he always avoided coursing through his veins.

Delilah’s palm stroked down his back. “Hunter?”

He pulled away from her, pacing in a tight circle. “My uncle was using one of our factories as a front for the slave-labor trade.” A fact Hunter hadn’t known until much later, that a man his father had trusted because he was family, because he was his beloved mate’s brother, had betrayed them all. “There was an escape that turned into a riot when my parents and I were visiting. We got caught in it. They didn’t survive.”

Her eyes widened, latching on to the scar on his face. The question was there in her gaze, but she didn’t give it voice.

Scrubbing a hand down the old scar, he sighed. “I got this as a memento of the occasion. A lovely reminder every time I look in a mirror.”

He hoped to Deus she dropped the topic, but that didn’t keep the memories at bay. There was a riot, true, but it was much, much worse than that. His father had discovered the truth about the factory when he arrived and nothing the manager told him made sense. They’d been on vacation, and his father decided to spot-check the site on their way home. Only an hour out of their day, he’d sworn.

They’d lost far more than an hour.

The air of desolation about the place had made both his parents suspicious. While his father had gone to question the manager, Hunter and his mother had looked around. She found a double reinforced mercurite door that latched from the outside and popped the seal on it.

His father and the manager had come around the corner then, their argument heated. Every scrap of color had left the shorter man’s face when his gaze locked on that door. He’d shouted for them to close it, but it was too late.

Shifters of all species came boiling through that opening. An enormous man, half-shifted into a grizzly bear, swung his hands around wildly as he fought for balance in the melee. His roar echoed over the crowd, a claw ripping through Hunter’s flesh as he rushed past. Hunter’s young body had flown back, slamming into the side of the building. He watched his father dive after his mother and into the mass of emaciated shifters, their sunken eyes bereft of anything except an animal’s survival instinct. No humanity remained there.

It had taken only moments for Hunter to lose sight of his parents, and for the people to scent the manager who’d caged them. They’d turned on him so fast he’d had no real chance of escape. When Hunter finally regained his footing in the rioting mob, it was to see the one memory he would give his entire fortune to erase.

His parents’ deaths.

They hadn’t just been killed, they’d been ripped limb from limb. When the authorities arrived to clean up the mess, they’d found the corpses mangled and half-eaten.

Bile rose in Hunter’s throat, and he desperately shoved the waking nightmare away. It shouldn’t haunt him anymore, shouldn’t have the power to make him sweat and shake. He balled his trembling hands into tight fists, dragging in slow, clean breaths that didn’t carry the acrid stench of blood and fear and death.

“How old were you?” Delilah’s voice sounded from a distance, but when he turned to face her, she was right behind him.

He cleared his throat. “Fourteen. The trip had been to celebrate my birthday with just the family. It was so rare that we had time to ourselves.”

“I thought…If your uncle…Did you stay with other family after that?”

“No, my mother’s brother received guardianship of me. And the company.” The man had done everything in his power to make sure Hunter would never take over his inheritance. Two years of beatings and abuse, of fear so sharp he could taste it, of being paraded in front of board members and the newsvids when his uncle wanted to assure others of how well the young heir was doing had ended in more violence, more bloodshed. The day he’d overheard his uncle bragging about the unexpected bonus the slave trade had granted him by taking care of Hunter’s parents had unleashed a rage he hadn’t known he was capable of. Rage that had cauterized his fear and made him turn on his uncle as surely as the slaves had turned on their manager. It was the last time he’d ever truly lost control, and he learned exactly how dangerous emotion could be—the good and the bad.

Delilah’s green eyes hadn’t left his face. “You killed him, didn’t you? It’s not just pure buzz.”

“No, it’s not.” Something so sweet it was painful sliced through him. He’d never confessed this to anyone in his life. The police had called it self-defense, the board of directors hadn’t wanted a scandal for Avery Industries, and they made all of it disappear. Only Delilah knew the truth from his own lips. “He beat me, stole from me, and was responsible for my parents’ deaths.”

She nodded, and there wasn’t a hint of recrimination in her eyes. Perhaps a woman from the Vermilion, a criminal herself, was one of the few who could truly understand. “You feel guilty for living when your parents didn’t. It’s why you work so hard.”

It wasn’t a question, but he answered it anyway.

“Yes.” He swallowed, rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, and tried to suppress the guilt of surviving, of not doing enough while his family died. “I emancipated myself and took over the business. I was sixteen.”

“It doesn’t sound like it was your fault. A riot, a bent uncle. Nothing you could do about any of that.”

“Does it matter? I’m still alive, and they’re not.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “My uncle, I don’t regret. He had it coming.” A bitter smile twisted his lips. “Even in the wealthiest of families, there are a few bad apples.”

“You don’t have to tell me that. I know firsthand.” The bitterness he’d come to expect when she spoke of the wealthy was barely discernable. She sighed. “That’s rough. I’m just saying maybe you should let up on yourself a little, get out of this ivory tower a little more often.” She slipped her hand into his and squeezed. He stared down at it, wondering when the last time was that someone touched him as a show of support, affection. He couldn’t remember. Perhaps his mother was the last one to do so.

He brushed his thumb over her knuckles and let her lead him to his bed. They lay curled on their sides facing each other before he spoke again. “I can’t imagine your childhood was any easier.”

“Yes and no.” She swallowed and looked away. “I didn’t have any of the money or the privilege, but I always had my sister to look out for me, and I always looked out for her.”

Curling his finger under her chin, he urged her to look at him again. “She needed you to look out for her?”

“She’s a mink-shifter. A lot of predators out there could take her in a fair fight.” The ghost of a smile danced across her mouth. “Not that she ever plays fair.”

He chuckled. “Smart girl.”

“She is, at that.” The smile bloomed more fully, and he could see the love Delilah had for her sister reflected in her gaze. Something wrenched deep inside him. He remembered that kind of affection for family, but more than that, he wanted her to look at him that way, to feel that way for him. Not as a sibling, but as a woman loves a man.

He swallowed, cold sweat breaking on his forehead. This was foolish. He shouldn’t crave her love and devotion. He’d already told her too much, let her in too deep. No matter how good and right it felt to do so, it would have to stop. Immediately.

The next day, Hunter seemed distant, more distant than he normally did. Delilah had woken to another round of explosive sex, but he’d left her gasping in bed, made an offhand excuse of work, and closeted himself in his office. She hadn’t seen him again until dinner. She hated to admit that it bothered her.

After dinner, she wandered into the main space of Hunter’s penthouse and watched him settle onto his big kleather couch with more work scrolling down the screen of his palmtop computer. During the hours that he’d left her by herself, she’d retrieved her own palmtop from her bag and left Lorelei a vid message that her latest job was taking longer than expected and not to worry.

She sighed, tilted her head, and squinted at the whorls of mercurite mounted to the wall next to Hunter’s office door. They seemed to form a spiral leading to a centerpiece that…wasn’t there. “Something is missing from that sculpture.”

Glancing up, he froze, grunted, and looked away.

She narrowed her gaze at him, then stared at the sculpture for another moment. The size and dimensions for the missing piece was just right for—“The ruby.”

“Considering why you came here, you can understand why I removed it and put it in a safe.” He gave her a sour smile and the way it curved his mouth made the scar on his face stand out. Her heart twisted as she remembered where’d he’d got it, but that didn’t dissipate her annoyance at him for ignoring her today. He was the one who’d insisted on her staying a whole week. He was the rich man who always got his way, and if he thought she would cater to his moods because of who and what he was, he could kiss her ass.

She propped her hands on her hips. “No, I don’t think so. For you, everything seems to have its place, and you like things to stay in their place. There has to be another reason you took the ruby down.”

His mouth worked for a moment before he gritted out, “My mother loved it. It was her favorite piece.”

“Why not take the whole sculpture down, then?”

He shrugged and went back to reading his palmtop screen.

Her gaze swept the whole room. Everything here reflected an older taste, and considering he still reserved his parents’ room for them when they would never sleep there again, she had a sad suspicion about whose taste the room reflected. “You never moved anything after your parents died, did you?”

“I liked it the way it was.”

She doubted that. Every piece of furniture was arranged to face the incomplete sculpture. She could understand why his mother might have laid the room out that way—the ruby encased in gleaming coils of mercurite would have been breathtaking. Now, it was just heartbreaking.

She swallowed and shook her head. It didn’t matter. He didn’t matter. She shouldn’t get involved in his problems. After this week was over, she would never see him again. And she was going to steal something his mother had loved.

He would hate her for it. Forever.

The whole flat was a museum, a way to showcase his many collections. It went beyond that, though. The way the furniture was arranged, the way everything was exactly as his parents had left it. His entire home was another piece in a collection of things he’d frozen in time when he’d lost his family. A reminder of the past with no hope of a better future.

Hell, that was depressing. Even in the worst moments of her life, in the shittiest gutter of the city, she’d always had a glimmer of hope that things could change and get better. Hunter didn’t even have that.

How had he lived this way without suffocating?

The one thing she’d learned first and learned well in the Vermilion is that everything changes. All the time. It was the one constant. She turned when his palmtop clattered to the surface of the low table in front of his couch. His dark eyes narrowed at her. “You can stare at it forever, and the ruby isn’t going to appear for you to take.”

She took a step toward him. “I wasn’t—”

His broad shoulders jerked in a shrug and he strode past her toward the doors that led out on the balcony. It was difficult to imagine that only the night before he’d pleasured her so thoroughly on that balcony. “I’m going for a flight. Stay out of trouble.”

Her hand lifted in supplication. “But—”

She didn’t get to finish as he flung open the door and shifted to bird form. The hawk screeched, a deep beat of dark red-brown wings allowing him to hover in the breeze for a long moment. The creamy feathers on his chest flashed in the sunlight as he tilted his body into the wind and was gone. Irritation and sympathy warred for dominance within her. Obstinate male. Poor, lost man.

She watched him through the floor-to-ceiling windows until he was no more than a speck on the horizon and even her cat eyes couldn’t make out his shape. He loved this view, he’d said. Loved the city, the skyline, the lake, the lights at night. Her gaze swept the room once more, and an idea formed—one that was guaranteed to ruffle the hawk’s feathers.

Maybe it was time someone ruffled them.

A wicked grin formed on her lips as she got to work, pushing, nudging, and scooting the furnishings and rugs until the room no longer faced the reminder of his long-dead past, but the living, changing, vibrant city he loved so much. She was panting with exertion when she was done, sweat sheening her skin. She wiped her brow with her forearm as she surveyed her work.

Oh, yes. He was going to be more than a little annoyed. She didn’t bother to hold back a chuckle, the lynx inside her purring at the challenge.

The more rational human woman argued that she should have left well enough alone, that she should put everything back before Hunter returned. It was stupid. She shouldn’t get involved. She shouldn’t even care enough to want to get involved. This was a disaster waiting to happen. What could she hope to gain from doing this? Nothing. It wasn’t as if she wanted a future with Hunter. He was everything she despised in a man. Rich, powerful, controlling. He wouldn’t survive a day in her world, and she had no interest in his. Kicking him into a better headspace wasn’t going to save her from his disgust, his hatred, when she stole something precious from him. She wasn’t going to get more creds for trying to help him, and he wasn’t going to thank her for her efforts.

Cursing herself for the moron she knew she was, she didn’t move the furniture back. Instead, she stripped out of her clothes, lay on her side on the table, and propped her chin in her palm to wait for Hunter to come home. Dusk fell, the lights of the city flickering to life as the sun faded behind the horizon. A few overhead lights turned on automatically, but she left the flat dim otherwise.

The barest flutter of movement and a large shadow detaching itself from the dark told her he’d returned. His scent reached her nose the moment he opened the outer door. Lust hit her with the masculine smell of him, the sight of his large, naked form. Her sex dampened, some muscles tightening, others loosening as her body prepared itself for sex…and the coming confrontation.

She didn’t have to wait long for the second one.

He blinked, his gaze taking in her and the rest of the room. “What did you do?”

A sound between a chuckle and a purr escaped her as she moved her shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “I rearranged the furniture.”

“I can see that.” He folded his arms and frowned. “Put it back where it belongs.”

She grinned and twisted into a stretch, noting the way his gaze locked on her nude body as she moved. It made her heart speed, made heat wind through her. Her hand cupped her hip, slid down and inward until her fingers brushed through her damp curls. “Why does it belong there? You like the view of the city better anyway.”

“Because that’s where it’s supposed to go.” His tone was distracted, his arms relaxing at his sides as he swayed toward her.

“Everything in its place.” And then she dipped her fingers between her thighs. Her muscles jerked at the delicious contact, and she caught her lower lip between her teeth.

“Yes, damn it,” he groaned, and she wasn’t certain if he was talking about the furniture or encouraging her to continue touching herself.

“I know of one very good place for you right now, Hunter.” She rolled to her back, letting her legs fall open so he could see all of her. Her sex would be gleaming with juices, and she parted her lips with her fingers, slipping her finger into her slick channel.

He shuddered when she said his name, his gaze following every movement of her hand as she toyed with herself.

Arching herself in offering, she added a second finger to the one fucking her pussy. “Come enjoy the view with me.”

“Delilah,” his voice held a low warning she ignored.

“I promise you’ll love it. Give it a try, Hunter.” She watched his pupils expand until only the thinnest rim of brown remained. The scent of his excitement was the most intoxicating aphrodisiac she’d ever encountered. A ragged moan tore free as she panted for breath. “I’m so hot for you, Hunter. So wet and ready.”

“Deus save me.” He reached her in three strides, scooped her off the table, and sat in the middle of the couch. His hands jerked her thighs apart, positioning her so she straddled his lap, but they both faced the view of the city. The heavy muscles of his chest burned into her back, and she arched as he surged inside her with one hard push.

Deus, he was big, but she was so wet, it didn’t matter. He slid deep with each plunging stroke, stretching her wide. She loved it, loved the feel of him, the scent of him mingling with her and sex. The sheer carnality of it made her even wetter.

Leaning forward, she braced her hands on his knees, shoving her ass back until her skin slapped against the hard muscles of his abdomen. He groaned, his fingers biting into her hips as he urged her on. “Delilah.”

She flicked a glance over her shoulder, noting the dark flush of lust that ran under his tanned skin. “Isn’t this the best view ever, Hunter? I love it.”

A laugh tangled with a ragged groan. “You’re evil, kitten. A menace.”

“I’ve heard that before.” She tossed a grin at him, rotating her hips to torment him.

His palm smacked against her ass, and she squealed and laughed. Her back arched reflexively, pressing her backside into his hand. He swatted the other cheek. The sting added another layer of sensation to the ecstasy skimming through her already. She flexed her pussy around his cock, increasing both their pleasure. He groaned each time he thrust into her, and she could feel the moisture between her legs rolling down the insides of her thighs. Her heart slammed in her chest and her lungs burned as she struggled to pull in enough oxygen. She needed to come so badly, every sense she had focused on the central point that joined their body. The pressure within her built until she had to clench her teeth.

He jerked her back against his chest, one hand fondling her nipple while the other flicked over her clit until her sex clenched tight and the tension within her snapped. She moaned and shattered in his arms, her body shaking as she came. Pleasure so hot it burned exploded inside her, and her orgasm went on and on until she screamed.

“Hunter, Hunter!”

He groaned, ground his hips into hers, and spilled his fluids deep in her pussy. His arms tightened around her, his lips nuzzled into the crook of her neck, and shudders racked his big body.

They stayed that way for a long, long time. Finally, he shifted beneath her, moving them until they were spooning on the couch. Since they were both so tall, she was grateful it was long enough for both of them to lie on. Their legs tangled and his cock was still nestled inside her, his arms around her. She rested her cheek on his bicep, watching the ocean of city lights twinkling beyond the edge of his building. She sighed, quiet contentment winding through her. “This is more comfortable than the balcony.”

“Mmm.” His chest vibrated against her back as he hummed. His free hand cupped her breast, his fingers idly plucking at her nipple. “Warmer, too.”

She grinned, brought his hands to her lips, and kissed the center of his palm. Then she put it back where it was, stroking her nipple. He chuckled, but the semi-hard erection inside her began to thicken, stretching her pussy. She sighed, subtly arching her back to press her breast into his hand and her sex into his cock.

He thrust into her, his rhythm unhurried. The tension within her built as his hands and cock moved over her, in her. Tingles broke down her limbs as the pleasure began to reach unbearable levels. She shoved her hips back harder, twisting under the harsh lashes of ecstasy. Deus, she needed him to hurry up.

Shivers rippled through her with each slow movement of his cock inside her, his fingers on her nipple. She was going to die, it was so good. Swallowing, she licked her lips and tried to find her voice. “Hunter?”

“Yes, Delilah?” His hot breath brushed against the back of her neck and made goose bumps rise on her flesh.

She whimpered and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood when he rotated his hips while twisting her nipple hard. “Could you…move a little faster? Harder, too?”

“Since you asked so politely.” His body flexed, slamming against her.

She choked, working her hips as fast as she could to encourage him to increase his speed and force even more. “You like it when I’m demanding.”

“I like touching you whether we’re wild or civil.” His breath hissed out when her hand reached back to clamp on his thigh. “I like it when you touch me, too.”

“Yes.” She slid her grip up until she could sink her claws into his ass. The feel of his flexing muscles under her palm was exhilarating. She loved the leashed power, and loved driving him out of control. Whimpering with every hard push he made, she closed her eyes to focus on the play of his flesh against hers, the hair-roughened thighs, the smooth buttocks, the hard pecs sliding against her back. It was the most perfect thing she’d ever experienced. The rush was better than pulling off the biggest heist of her life.

“I’m going to come.” She heard the way he gritted his teeth and hissed the words, felt the way his fingers shook where they gripped her hip.

He reached around her, pinching her clit hard, working it fast and rough until she couldn’t hold back any longer. Her thighs tensed and her body jerked as every single sensation rolled over her and dragged her under into orgasm. Starbursts exploded in pinpricks of light behind her eyelids, and shivers raced over her arms and legs until every micrometer of her body was consumed in ecstasy.

The sound of his harsh breathing and deep groan sounded distant over the buzzing in her ears, though she knew he still held her tight, still moved inside her. Every stroke he made into her pussy set off another tidal wave of orgasm, sending ripples through her inner muscles. He sank into her over and over again before he froze, his cock buried deep, and she felt his come fill her.

His forehead rested against the back of her head, and sweat sealed their bodies together. He brushed his lips over the nape of her neck. “Delilah.”

Lifting herself, she rolled in place until she could press her front to his. She threw her leg over his thigh and settled against him. A low purr soughed from her throat, and the deep, undeniable feline urge to sleep swept over her. He tugged her closer, his arms around her protectively, and she set her palm over his heart as her eyes slid shut.

“Hunter,” she breathed.

“Sleep now, kitten.”

And she did, feeling safer and more content than she ever had in her life.