Branded Sanctuary (7 page)

There was something about him so centered on what she was feeling and wanting, it was a part of him too. What she couldn‟t give herself but wanted to, he did. Totally crazy but totally fine.

She‟d never been with a male with this kind of sexual and romantic confidence. He was unreal, but also so real he made her ache in every place a woman ached when she saw the epitome of what she wanted, needed, desired, even before she knew how to name it.

She lifted her hand, closed it on his wrist, stilling him. They stayed that way for another long minute, her staring at him, him holding her gaze with all the reverence of a worshipper come to the shrine of a goddess. Of a sudden, she felt clean and…not powerful, that wasn‟t exactly the right word. Grounded. She felt grounded, for this brief, all important moment.

She guided his finger into her mouth, tasted him. Bit down a little. Then harder. His hazel eyes heated, the sensual mouth curved, and she felt his response, his need reach toward her in that heat. A man‟s power and strength, rendered motionless, reined in by her touch. She wondered if she bit hard enough to break skin, if he would let her, take her need to inflict pain and let the desire to accept it from her become overwhelming.

“I want to touch you. Kiss you.”

She wasn‟t ready for that, so she shook her head. “I want to touch
you,
” she said instead. “While you drive.”

He opened the car door for her, and she got in. After he made sure her seatbelt was fastened, he strode around the front of the car. Though he kept his gaze on her face, she let hers course over him, blatantly appreciating the way he moved. As a stage player, he could probably stride with warrior purpose, lazily saunter, or manage a seductive swagger with lots of hip. He was mesmerizing to watch, but she had another way she wanted to appreciate him.

As he got in on his side and lifted the key, she closed her hand over his, not hampering him but holding on as he put it in the ignition and turned it over. He‟d shed his jacket from the morning and had rolled up his sleeves at some point. She let her hand glide down his wrist, his forearm. The mask made her feel brave. Dangerous.

“Will you keep two hands on the wheel?”

“I‟ll do anything you tell me to do.” As if he read her intent and was already feeling the arousal from it, he said it with a soft fierceness, nothing meek about his compliance.

Not when his body was like a taut wire that, if snapped, might wrap around her and bring her the sharp edge of his loss of control. Giving her a look that made the mask feel even more erotic in its close hold on her face, he put the Jeep in drive, put his hands on the wheel and headed out for the main highway that would take them to her home.

She knew she should care about whether she was being a hazard as he navigated the busy traffic, but it wasn‟t a reckless self destruction. She knew he‟d keep her safe, just as she knew he wouldn‟t take his hands off the wheel until she said he could, because it was the requirement itself in addition to the explosive energy between them that brought it to a combustible level.

She slid her fingertips under the sleeve to find the crease of elbow, the tender skin there at odds with his firm, tanned forearm and callused hand. While she did that, she put the other hand on his knee, and began to move upward along faded denim.

He shifted, though she sensed his self-imposed restraint. It made her want to test that leash. She slid higher. Stressed denim loved Brendan‟s body, outlining the lean thighs and cradling his groin. As her touch progressed, he adjusted his legs apart for her, anticipating her desire before she had it. The inseam curved over his testicles, tempting her to cup him there. She wanted to stroke the base of his cock with her thumb, a straining thick crescent beneath the zipper, not enough room to expand to its tumescent length. But she didn‟t touch him yet, leaving her hand high on his thigh.

His throat worked as he swallowed, his fingers tight on the wheel. Long, strong fingers. She thought of him last night, and imagined how he gripped and stroked his organ, starting slow and teasing, getting faster and faster, rougher, his body jerking as his climax finally spurted, wetting his abdomen and thighs as she listened, breathless, on the other end of the line.

Her hand was so close she could feel the pulse of blood in his groin, the heat emanating from it. He‟d merged onto a familiar stretch of two-lane highway edged with mature oaks dripping Spanish moss. Not the interstate, that would have been too impersonal. Too separate from the smell of marshy land dotted with small lakes. She was conscious of the dwellings they passed, trailers and fishing getaway cottages nestled on overgrown lots. Other, more opulent homes were set back on manicured lawns, interspersed with cottage clusters, the occasional citrus groves or fields with cows and horses. The eclectic zoning of the Florida coastal areas. It kept the scenery surprising, unexpected, hard to classify.

She felt the same about the choices she had inside the Jeep. She wanted to touch his cock, but she wanted to wait as well. Either option would allow her to tease him while he tried to drive, unable to do anything but endure what she wanted. So she deliberately skirted his groin, gliding over his hip bone to the belted waist of the jeans, then across his tense abdomen, to the buttons of his shirt. One, two, three…she unbuttoned it in reverse order, working her way up to his throat. She wanted to turn sideways in her seat to lean in further, but when she reached down to unbuckle the seatbelt, he broke his promise for the first time. His hand left the wheel, closed over hers.

“You can adjust it a bit to make it slack, but leave it on.”

“To keep me from crawling on top of you while you‟re driving?” She wanted to inject humor in her voice, but there was too much of a bite.

He glanced at her, the setting sun glinting off his riveted gaze, a touch of amber fire in the hazel. “To keep you safe.”

As he suggested, she loosened the belt and turned on her hip. When she did, she enjoyed the view of his naked chest framed by his open shirt. His cock strained against his jeans, obviously aroused, the display constantly shifting as he let off the gas and applied the brake as needed. She returned her hand to his bare chest, touching his flesh there for the first time, pushing her knuckles beneath the cloth of the open shirt to cross the terrain of a pectoral, drop down to fondle a nipple. The abdomen against which she had her elbow contracted as he drew in a breath. Leaning forward, she pushed aside the shirt and closed her mouth over the nipple, the whiskers attached to the mask tickling his skin.

“Ah, God. Chloe…”

She slid her other hand between the seat and his back, stealing down to the waist of his dress jeans. They were loose enough back there, even with the belt, to permit her fingertips to caress the upper curve of his buttocks. She didn‟t find any underwear. Of a sudden, she was very, very hungry. She wanted to eat him alive, leave nothing but bones when she was done.

When at last he turned into her driveway, he brought the vehicle to a jolting stop, car parked in a skewed manner behind hers. Releasing her seatbelt then, she left his in place but climbed on top of him, barely giving him time to reach down and slide the seat back. That space gave her hips room to clear the steering wheel as she sat down on his lap and rubbed herself on him, making a desperate mewl at the resulting friction.

She was needy, savage, not herself. Yes, he‟d told her to be whatever she wanted to be, and this was it, but it was wrong too.

She wanted to savor, but she was incapable. Savoring meant going slow, letting the emotion saturate the moment, and she couldn‟t bear that.

He reached up toward her face, those graceful male hands intending to cup her jaw she was sure, overwhelming her with the tender, romantic pleasure of his fingers passing over her lips. Clamping her hands around his wrists, she shoved them up to an awkward angle above his shoulders. She couldn‟t hold him there of course, but as he held her gaze, he slowly slid them back behind his head and curved his fingers on the head rest bars, restraining himself for her.

It was a cue, and her body responded with the mindless violence of a gladiator.

Trained to leap the moment the grate opened and the vulnerable opponent entered the ring.

If the shirt had still been buttoned, she would have torn it open, buttons clattering across the console. Instead, there was no barrier to the next step. She put her mouth on him, tasting, using her teeth, her nails to rake across hard male flesh and leave welts. He shuddered beneath her and yet she put a hand up to his eyes, demanding that they close, unable to bear his scrutiny even though she was hiding behind a mask. He obeyed, his biceps hard curves, thighs taut beneath her legs.

She moved down his abdomen, the seat pushed back enough she could slide down between his splayed knees, unbuckle the belt and open the jeans to find just him beneath. His ass had been rubbed by denim all day long, one thin cotton layer between him and whatever female lusted after him. It made her angry in some way, possessive and greedy at once, goading the aching, gnawing lust she couldn‟t seem to assuage, that didn‟t seem to belong to her. More like a symptom of an illness she couldn‟t shake.

Shoving that aside, she focused on what lay before her. Released from its confines, his cock straightened and rose, stiff with blood. Smooth and hard, perfect. He had no hair at the base, she noticed. In fact, he was smooth all over. Swimmer. Did he remove it for that? Still, he‟d kept that gorgeous black silky hair on his head, the sweep of eyebrows that saved him from being too pretty. They gave him a determined and dangerous look, particularly when he was protective, as she‟d seen him be, several times now.

A faint exotic scent told her he put cologne on those smooth balls, and it worked like an aphrodisiac charm with the natural male musk. She put her mouth over him. No teasing seduction, no taunting lick. She didn‟t care about his response, except for what she demanded for herself. She was using his body, pure and simple, and with his hands clasping the headrest, keeping himself open to her, she took it as a sign that it was her right to take what he was offering. She sank down on his cock, sucked hard, licked. She was pretty good at giving head, had always enjoyed the act, the way it could drive a guy wild, her mouth giving him a gift he couldn‟t give himself.

But this was a gift only for herself. Putting her hand up once, she squeezed his clenched knuckles as mute reinforcement of her desire. She didn‟t want him to touch or speak to her, or look at her. His cock was a delectable piece of meat she would exploit until it gave her what she wanted. The arch, jerk and thrust of his muscled body, the ripple over his abdomen, the rhythmic clench of his buttocks against the seat as he thrust into her mouth, she would wrest it all from him.

Clamping her teeth on his thick organ, she held him still in mid-thrust, flicking her tongue along his shaft behind the hold of her teeth. A languid serpent, playing with prey. The throbbing pulse beneath her tongue leaped and she tightened her jaw further.

With one hard bite, she could make him scream, cry for mercy. Bleed. Or she could do as she did now, one slow, slick glide of her mouth down, replacing her savagery with deep throated acceptance, then back up, calling forth what he was helpless to deny her.

That vein pulsed, and his cock jumped in warning.

“Shit…Chloe…” He coiled up. “May I… I can‟t… Please…”

No guy had ever asked before, certainly not on a knife edge like this. It gave her a flood of searing power to hear the plea in his voice. “Come for me,” she whispered against his flesh, and held him tight, her fingers curling around his balls. They contracted, drew up as he thrust into her mouth. His whole body arced to her, booted feet pushing into the car floor as he spewed.

She took most of him in the back of her throat, but some of it she let run back down over her fist, making his cock that much more slick. As he cried out, that harsh animal sound, she milked him to the last drop, fanned her sticky hand over his stomach, spreading his seed there. As he finished, his cock making tiny jerks against her tongue, she slowly slid off him. Pressing her open mouth to his abdomen, she licked each individual crease and ridge, cleaning the stickiness away as he shuddered and trembled beneath her.

Her body was as aroused as she‟d ever experienced, but she still didn‟t want him to touch her. She couldn‟t go forward or back. This agonized yearning was all she dared to feel. She wanted so much more, but why ruin it by asking for more than she could get?

Moving back into the passenger seat, she felt dizzy and almost weak, her skin so hot and cold at once. Pulling off the mask, she left it, opened the door and stumbled out into darkness, twilight gone to night.

She stopped, swaying, not sure which direction held the front door, but before she could decide, he was there in front of her. Shirt hanging open, jeans zipped, though he‟d left the top button open and the belt loosely buckled. It made her aching body shudder worse. But still she backed away. “No.” She shook her head. “Don‟t touch me right now.”

“Chloe.” He spoke softly, but there was strength and purpose in his voice, determination in that look. “You need me to touch you.”

“I can‟t… I don‟t know how I need you to touch me.”

“Will you trust me to know?”

She put her hands over her face, uncertain. He took a step forward, then another.

She swayed as he came close. “I might break if you touch me. A million pieces.”