Hot Ice (30 page)

A hard shudder of pleasure ripped through her, and she shifted her hips, feeling him strain against that invisible leash he kept on himself as he purposefully held that part of himself tantalizingly out of reach.

Annoying, annoying man.

Tearing his mouth from hers, he lifted his head. After a nanosecond of inactivity, Taylor opened her eyes. He was frowning down at her, so close she could see a rim of charcoal around the hot gray of his pupils. "I don't want to want you this badly."

"I can tell," Taylor said gravely, running an open hand down the hard plane of his belly to the jut of his very impressive erection. "It's a good thing you're not trying very hard to kick the habit." Her fingers closed around the hot satin length of him. "Your willpower sucks."

"Even when you annoy the hell out of me—
Jesus. Yes
!" His voice went guttural as she caressed him with her thumb, a leisurely arc over the tip. "I want you."

Delighted, she smiled. "Then you must want me all the time."

"Why in the bloody hell can't I get enough of you?" he demanded hoarsely, hips arching toward her. Her thumb did a slide, a light stroke that had his breath hissing through his teeth.

"Because I have your joystick in my hand?" She wrapped her fingers around him firmly, drawing them up, then down again.

"Now," he shuddered. "Not always."

"I don't know. But I'm not complaining."

Without answering, he brought his mouth down on hers again in a kiss so incendiary it made her toes curl and her heartbeat quadruple in a flash fire of response.

She drew both hands up his sides, using her nails to lightly score his skin. His back arched and he clenched his teeth as she wiggled her fingers between the burning heat where their bodies were flush.

His pelvis pressed down, trying to keep her away. Taylor tsked. "Now that is
such
a waste… of… energy. I can pretty much… get… my hands into any space. Ah."

When she closed her fingers around the satiny smooth length of him again, his penis jumped in response. She stroked up and down his pulsing heat, feeling her own damp heat on the back of her hand. In response, he shifted his hips. As impatient as Taylor was to have him inside her, the free access to his body parts was too good an opportunity to miss. She tightened her fist, using his own moisture to glide her hand up and down his length. Velvet over steel.

"Bloody Christ, woman." He spoke through clenched teeth, his voice guttural as he buried his face against her neck and took a love bite that made her entire body jerk, then shimmy with pleasure. "Are you trying to kill me?"

His fingers wrapped around hers, showing her how he liked it. She was a quick study; she could tell by his groan of pleasure. Taking away his hand, he left her to it. Taylor felt the strain of his incredible control as she touched him to her heart's content. His every muscle and tendon quivered as she fondled him, but otherwise he didn't move.

She cupped him gently. He was well proportioned, everything matching his height and breadth. Her own breath came in unsteady gasps as she took her sweet time memorizing his body.

Finally his incredible control snapped and he wrapped his long fingers around her wrist and moved her hand away. "Enough."

Before she could protest, he brought his mouth to her breast, tasting her skin with warm strokes of his tongue. She shuddered as his teeth grazed her nipple. His other hand stroked a heated path down her rib cage, caressed her belly, then moved down to her mound.

While he tasted her breasts, he rubbed his palm against her, until Taylor shuddered at the duel assault.

"Hunt." Her voice was barely recognizable, even to her own ears. "I can't—breathe. If you don't—
Ahh
."

His answer was to close his teeth gently on her nipple as he slid two fingers between her intimate folds. The ball of his thumb continued rubbing a maddening circle on the small bud nestled there. The sensation built until it was too sharp, too intense, and it was her turn to grip his wrist in fingers that shook.

Taylor's laugh was choked as she shifted, drawing her legs up alongside his narrow flanks and tilting her pelvis to receive him.

He yanked a pillow from the head of the bed and stuffed it beneath her hips. "I feel like a kid," he said roughly, resting his forehead against hers and trying to grab a stray breath from a room where Taylor already knew there was no oxygen.

"No." She ran her hands over the solid breadth of his shoulders. "You feel like a man. Come to me." She wrapped her legs high around his waist.

He ran the flat of his hand up her calf as he sank slowly into her, his muscled thighs spreading her wide for his entry. Her body was more than ready, and the sensation of him inside her was so sharp, so pure and perfect, Taylor didn't want to move.

He retreated, a long, slow glide, then returned, deeper, harder, better. The sumptuous whip of need unfurled through her body like the petals of a flower.

He eased in deeper, impossibly deeper. Taylor walked her heels up his back, feeling the flex and play of his muscles as he moved in a rhythm as old as time.

"More," she demanded, tightening her legs about him, wrapping her arms about his neck as she sought his mouth.

"I'll hurt you."

"No way." She bit his lower lip. Hard. "Double…jointed."

"Double—" He huffed out a laugh. "My fantasy woman."

Taylor tightened her strong legs around his lean flanks, drew him inexorably deeper. She took all of him. Reveled in the full sensation, the slick heat of his powerful thrusts that made her head toss and her heart careen out of control. "Yes. Like. That. Just. Like—"

He pushed and retreated, pushed and retreated, until their bodies were slick with sweat and their muscles quivered. Sound and light obliterated for pure sensation.

"Tell me—"

"Perfect. Again—
yes
." Her pleasure pulsed and burned, climbing impossibly higher and higher until she was incapable of drawing a breath. She dragged her mouth from beneath his and gasped for air, her teeth against his sweaty throat. She took a bite of salty male flesh and felt the answering contraction deep inside her.

With a fractured groan he plunged deep inside her, setting a new, more intense rhythm. Harder. Faster. Deeper. Inner spasms converged into a spiral, and she writhed against him as her body demanded release. The pleasure built, coiling tighter and impossibly tighter, until his name was wrung from her, a plea. A demand.

His hips hammered hers until he could go no deeper. Then he withdrew. Then thrust again. "Come for me, love," he crooned, his voice thick with passion.

"Yes. Oh, God, yes." It was a desperate plea as her body kept gathering tighter and tighter. The pleasure was so sharp, so intense, tears started in her eyes. Mindlessly, she walked her heels farther up his back, opening herself to him even more, then dug her fingers into his sweat-dampened hair.

"That's it, sweetheart, let go for me." He drove into her hard and fast, pushing the tightening spirals inside to an unbearable intensity until her cries became whimpers.

He plunged impossibly deeper for the final, mindless strokes until, with a final violent thrust, she arched. Shaking uncontrollably, her climax came at her in a blinding rush of pure white light and sensation too sharp to name.

Hunt's face twisted in a grimace of sublime pleasure as his muscles tightened and his large body vibrated with his own powerful orgasm. Taylor, feeling the intimate pulses of his release deep inside her, convulsed again.

He took her with him as he rolled to his side, taking his weight off her. Which was a good thing. She couldn't catch her breath. After what seemed like an eternity, she spoke, her voice thick and slurred. "Pretty dangerous stuff."

She was grateful to hear that he wasn't breathing too well yet either. "Sex?"

"Making love with you." She rolled up on her elbow to look down at him, then couldn't resist running her fingers through the mat of hair on his chest. His skin was filmed with perspiration, his hair tangled about his face as he watched her.

"I have no defenses against a man like you," she told him, her chest tightening with the truth of it. "I've never had to. I've never met anyone like you."

"Jesus, Taylor—"

Her hair brushed her back as she shook her head. "No, let me finish. I know I give the impression of being sophisticated and terribly experienced. But I—it's mostly for show so I can blend with the people my job requires me to mix with. I'm twenty-seven years old, Hunt, and I've had two lovers. And even fewer relationships. This—
you
mean something to me."

She lay down, settling her cheek in the curve of his shoulder, her hand over the steady beat of his heart. She yawned, then gave his chest a light, secret kiss, breathing in the scent of his skin. "I just thought you should know that before you leave."

Chapter Thirty

It was fully dark now, and windblown rain beat a restless tattoo on the black windows as Hunt walked through the darkened living room toward the kitchen and the sound of voices. He'd never had sex like that in his life, never known a woman who could meet him stroke for stroke. Could meet and match him physically in every way. Her soft cry seemed to be lodged in his brain. The sensation of her silky skin gliding across his own much rougher hide seemed to have somehow become a part of him.

She
had no defenses against
him
? He raked his hair back with his fingers. How could—
why would
—a woman leave herself that open and vulnerable to a man?

Especially
this
woman, who had a defense for every situation. "I just thought you should know that before you leave," he repeated through gritted teeth. "Bloody hell."

Hunt suspected that Taylor lived for her job, had few close friends and few, if any, outside interests. Which could account for the statement. It meant nothing, he assured himself, just something said in the aftermath of the heat of the moment. A "Thanks, you were great" kind of thing.

Shaking his head, feeling vaguely disquieted by her announcement, he didn't need to glance at his watch: forty-eight hours to the thirteenth at 3:33 deadline. Jesus, they were cutting it close.

Pleased that he was mentally back on track, he walked into the brightly lit, crowded kitchen. More of his team had arrived. The four newcomers sat at the bar counter. Bishop and Aries sat at a small bistro table. Remains of pizza and empty soda cans indicated they'd finished eating.

A space had been cleared on the black granite countertop, and the small computer was up and operational. The screen blank at the moment.

"Wright's about to transmit," Max told him.

"Good," Hunt said in masterful understatement. And not a bloody moment too soon. "Austin… Escobar… Savage… Fisk," he said, greeting them, pouring himself a cup of coffee and leaning against the counter to wait.

"Have a nice kip?" Catherine Seymour, aka Savage, asked, her voice suggestive and husky, with a slight Liverpool undertone, as she implied his nap was anything but.

The slow, catlike smile she gave him had at one time heated his blood. Now it left him cold. "Not nearly long enough," he answered smoothly. He'd slept for less than an hour. It was enough. He felt refreshed, invigorated, and ready to roll. His phone rang. "St. John… Right. Excellent. Audio or live stream?" He clicked Wright onto speaker, then put the phone down beside the computer.