Blood Dark (15 page)

‘Are you using me?’

It was still there – that small element of distrust that remained their biggest weakness, their greatest threat. He could feel her holding her breath. And he let the sensation linger.

He frowned theatrically. ‘Apart from for sex, do you mean?’

She exhaled sharply, her eyes narrowing defensively. ‘Like earlier?’

‘You know that’s not what it was about.’

‘But straight after you asked me to provide you with information to aid a suspect.’

‘And do you not think if I wanted those dates and times I couldn’t force them out of you? I know they’re all up there in your head. Now undo me,’ he said, his breath mingling with hers again.

The feel of her warm, soft fingers beneath his T-shirt fumbling with the top button of his jeans intensified his ache.

Releasing her neck, he loosened the side-zip on her bodice as she unfastened the last of his buttons.

Glancing back into her eyes only briefly, he cupped his hand over her breast relishing in the hardness of her nipple already pressing through the lace of her strapless bra. He brushed it with her thumb, loving the way her lips parted – lips that had taken him that afternoon with a willingness that even now made his freed erection jolt.

He thumbed her bra cup down, used his fingers still pressed against her sex to lift her to her knees to take her exposed breast in his mouth.

Caitlin gasped off the back of a whispered curse, one hand gripping his upper arm, the other the back of his head, her nails digging deep as he rolled his tongue over her hard nipple, the shudder of her flesh escalating his impatience, his hunger for her.

Feeling her hand fall from his neck to wrap around his erection, it was all the reinforcement he needed to widen his mouth over her breast, his tongue circling her nipple in one smooth rotation before sucking hard enough to make her gasp.

And she squeezed him. She squeezed his base in equal retaliation, making him smile.

‘You’re getting brave,’ he remarked, briefly meeting her gaze, his hand sliding to the back of her neck again, using the other still between her legs to ease her knickers aside from behind.

She glanced at the curtain before looking back at him.

‘No one will come in,’ he said.

She subtly wetted her lips before looking back at him.

‘I promise,’ he added.

‘You promised to remove my blindfold if I didn’t like it. Then you gagged me so I wouldn’t have the chance.’

He smiled. ‘Then we’d better do this before you change your mind.’

Kane clutched her behind, digging his fingers deep into her flesh as he eased into her.

She didn’t struggle, and he was glad of it. Because all he could focus on was her tight heat clenching him, sending ripples through every inch that longed to feel the rest of her, to bury deep inside her.

He slid his hands up under her dress to grab her waist. He looked from her breathless lips, to her eyes. Eyes that locked on his. Eyes that he should never have allowed to penetrate so deep.

She lowered her head, and he was grateful for it. Grateful of what might have slipped from his lips otherwise as he was reminded again of how it felt to be that close to her, to feel that connection he had never felt with any other.

And it was forged even deeper as she seemed to be trying to lower her resistance, to relax into him, allowing him to push another couple of inches inside her.

Using both hands she clutched the seat behind each of his shoulders.

Coupled with her body relenting to him, her groan was intoxicating, sublime.

He coiled one hand around her neck again, the other still on her waist. He could feel her shiver. He could feel the light coating of her perspiration beneath his palms.

‘All the way,’ he said against her ear. ‘Take me deep.’

She lifted her head and looked back at him as she took him another inch, her bottom lip trembling, her eyes glazing.

He cupped her neck with both hands.

‘
All
the way,’ he commanded, his breath mingling with hers, the tightness squeezing his erection making his groin ache with the desire to start thrusting.

She lowered another inch and then another until finally she sighed as she took him fully into her, her head falling forward to his shoulder.

The relief of it was immense – as much for him as he could feel it was for her. The scent of her, the sound of her ragged breaths, the heat of her flesh against his thighs through his jeans, the softness of the hair he grasped in his hand, the silken feel of her sex clenching his erection as he buried it to her hilt, only incited him further.

He tugged her dress down fully, her bra with it, exposing her to him, his gaze locked on her breasts as he thrust.

She clutched his shirt at his chest as he tucked his hands under her dress again, back into her knickers, grabbing the bare flesh of her behind. He squeezed as he thrust harder, her gasps heavy, erratic.

But his need was too great.

His need to have total control.

His need to avoid the compulsion to look in her eyes knowing there was a part of him that, for the greater good of Blackthorn,
was
using her.

S
he was so lost
in her pending orgasm that Kane’s withdrawal came as a shock.

He moved her off him with ease, but he was behind her a second later, placing the flat of her palms to the wall as he guided her from her haunches to kneel upright, the front of her thighs pressed against the seat where his back had been.

He slid his hand along her upper arm, along her shoulder, caressing her shoulder blade with his thumb before sliding it up the back of her neck. He brushed her hair aside and forward over her shoulder, before he ran his hand over the upper curves of her breasts and back along her collarbone, reminding her of the first time he’d touched her back during those initial few hours they’d spent together in his den.

She felt his soft, delicate cool kisses down the nape of her neck, along her shoulder and back along her bare back, the sensation ripping upwards through her body at his tenderness, her sex burning with pleasure. Light-headedness took over as if she was trapped in a dream she was about to break from at any point. His caressing kisses interchanging with gentle, taunting bites entrancing, his licks as his breath brushed her flesh causing her to flex her fingers against the wall.

Sliding her hands together above her head, pinning them there with one of his, he bunched up the back of her dress with the other, exposing her lace underwear to him.

‘Spread your thighs,’ he said.

She felt him ease her knickers aside again, the caress of his fingers as he did so making her gasp quietly. But not as much as when she felt his hardness nudge into her again.

His hand tightened on her wrists, his other hand on her hip as he eased back inside her, his penetration dangerously and purposefully slow with each withdrawal and new thrust.

The renewed feeling of him back inside her igniting every nerve ending, Caitlin tried to calm her breathing. But as he filled her, every time still felt like the first time.

‘Keep your hands on the wall,’ he said before she felt both his hands cusp the backs of her thighs right beneath the curve of her behind, Kane forcing her rounded flesh upwards with the pressure.

As she felt his thumbs in the cleft either side of her sex, she pressed her forehead to the wall, the depth of his penetration making her light headed, making her dizzy.

He thrust harder, freed one thigh to clutch her breast, his thumb brushing and then working her nipple with meticulous pressure as the rest of his hand squeezed her tender flesh.

She arched her back against him, her hand reaching back to grab the bare flesh of his behind, Caitlin digging her nails deep as with the other she grabbed the hair at the nape of his neck.

The bliss of her pending orgasm was agony, her fingers and the soles of her feet becoming numb.

She could have told him the dates and times there and then. She would have told him anything there and then.

She felt a tear trickle from her eye as she realised she’d do anything for him.

She parted her lips, wanting to tell him that he could trust her.

That he could trust her with his life.

She slammed her hand back against the wall as he grinded harder against her, her orgasm building, knowing from his breaths against her ear that he was getting close too. Because it was so easy to find their rhythm, as if they had now perfected it.

And this was the reminder amidst all the scrutiny back at the headquarters. This was exactly
why
she had given herself to Kane. Because in those moments, it was all that mattered – her and Kane.

As she felt his lips parted against her neck, his incisors partially exposed, she knew a feed in a public place was more taboo than what they were doing right then. She knew any sign of marks on her neck and the VCU would be all over her.

But she wanted that taboo.

She wanted to show him he mattered enough for her not to care about the consequences.

She tilted her head to the side to expose her neck to him, wanting to feel the freedom, the abandonment. She wanted to…

She glanced up at the screen.

Her heart skipped a beat.

‘Shit,’ she hissed as she instantly stilled.

‘They won’t get near here,’ he said, his teeth nipping her ear.

He’d obviously seen them too. He’d seen Meghan closing in on them in the far left-hand corner of the enlarged image. Flashing her badge, she was clearly looking for her.

Caitlin instantly tried to wriggle free, but Kane’s grip on her hip tightened.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘Kane…’

‘I told you: they won’t get anywhere near here.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘
You
never did. I’ve been playing this game a long time, remember?’ he said, his mouth still close to her ear.

But even as Kane’s lips caressed her neck, the tension coursed right through her body.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘I can’t do this. If they find us like this…
please
, Kane.’

Suddenly, waiting to see if he would cross the line was the furthest thing from game play. Because she knew then that if he didn’t stop, he would lose any semblance of trust she had left, any semblance of respect for him.

And there was no coming back from that.

She held her breath as she waited for him to make his decision.

As she heard his reluctant sigh, as she felt him gently withdraw, the relief pooled inside her amidst her own frustration at having to stop.

She hurriedly pulled her bra back into position, and semi-zipped up her dress. By the time she turned around, he’d refastened a couple of buttons on his jeans and had snatched up his jacket.

He caught hold of her hand, leading her across the room. He slid his hand down the back of the seat in the far corner of the room, pushed the seat inwards, a hidden doorway giving behind it.

‘You are
kidding
me,’ she said.

She knew she shouldn’t have been surprised. She shouldn’t have been the slightest bit surprised as they entered the secret makeshift, plywood tunnel before.

She looked down the three-foot-wide, twenty-five foot long tunnel as he shoved the door closed behind them. ‘Is there seriously nowhere in Blackthorn where you– ’

He spun her around and pressed her face-first against the wall not unlike he had the first time.

Her palms instantly flattened against the plywood, her breath catching in her throat. And she was instantly back there – back there in that corridor like the first time, his body pressed against hers, her team no distance away.

He scraped her hair back over her shoulder, ran the back of his hand down her neck, her shoulder, down to her waist, not unlike he’d done with the gun back then. Except, this time, he used his fingers to tease the waistband of her knickers as he tucked his hand back up under the hem of her dress.

‘Feels like a long time ago now,’ he said, as he looped his thumb around the band. ‘Do you remember how it felt from the outset? Like it was just you and me? How it didn’t matter that they were closing in on us?’

‘How could I forget?’

Because she’d never forget that moment. She’d never forget how many times she’d replayed it in her head.

‘I knew from the minute I pinned you to that wall that the spark was there. It took so much control to hold back from seeing just how far you would let me go.’

Her nails clawed the wall before he rested his palm over her one hand, interlacing their fingers. She wetted the inside of her mouth. It was something she had always wanted to know: ‘How far
would
you have gone?’

‘The way you were responding to me? If time hadn’t been so short? I think you would have had an awakening that night, shadow reader.’

‘How about one tonight, instead?’ she suggested breathily. ‘Show me what you would have done, Kane – how far you would have gone had I not resisted.’

This time, there was no playful stroke along the band of her underwear. This time, he tore her knickers off of her. She felt him tug his jeans open.