Lords of the Sea (22 page)

stage.

He pulled away after a few moments and looked down at her, his expression troubled. “Your own people would not do that to you.”

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She smiled wryly. “If you say so. I have to tell you, though—they wouldn’t have terms like ‘friendly fire’ and ‘collateral damage’ if it never happened.” She reached up after a moment and smoothed the frown lines from his face with her finger tips. “I like you better when you smile,” she said wistfully. “You’re a little scary when you frown like that.”

He smiled faintly. “You are not afraid of me. You were not from the beginning.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m pretty much a coward,” she murmured, slipping her hand to the back of his neck and tugging him downward.

He yielded readily, lowering his head until his forehead rested against hers. “You should go back. You will be missed.”

Her lips curled. “You should be quick, then.”

He arched his head back to study her face. “There are some things that should be savored—not rushed,” he said huskily, his eyes gleaming with both amusement and the heat of desire.

Cassie chuckled. “The first time was pretty frantic if I recall.”

He swallowed audibly, the amusement in his eyes dimming. “I was—too eager. I failed to please you. I won’t do that again.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she disputed.

He dragged in a shuddering breath and released it slowly, as if he was trying to calm himself. “This is—unwise.”

“If they wake up, they do. I’m not worried about it,” she said, and realized she wasn’t—not anymore.

He grimaced. “There is that, too.”

She looked at him questioningly. “Too?”

He frowned. Lifting slightly away from her, he stroked a hand slowly down her body, setting off waves of heat even through the robe she wore as his hand moved over her from shoulder to thigh in a way that was both caress and exploration. He lifted his hand at the limit of his reach and brought it upward again, settling it over one breast and molding the fabric over it, watching as he did so as if to study the size and roundness of her breast. Her nipple hardened at his light touch, sending a rush of anticipation threading through her veins. “You want me as your lover?” he murmured.

Cassie studied his profile, trying to grasp the overtones in the question and failing.

She couldn’t entirely interpret his expression either. It flickered in her mind that there was some reluctance in him, but she couldn’t make sense of it. He seemed to want her.

She could feel his heat, hear the ragged quality of his accelerated breath, feel the faint tremor in his hand that seemed to imply eagerness. “Yes,” she said finally.

He met her gaze then, and she saw hesitation in his eyes, but she also saw his eyes were dark with desire—and tumultuous with conflicting thoughts. He looked down at her body again, settling his hand at her waist, kneading the flesh there and making her belly tighten just from the proximity of his hand. She tried to ignore it, confused and disconcerted by his hesitancy. Distressed, as well.

After a moment, his gaze moved to her breasts and his hand followed, almost as if of its own accord. Her belly tightened again as he stroked her breasts through the fabric, moisture gathering in her sex. He let out a harsh breath, as if he’d been holding it. His expression was pained when he met her gaze again. Uttering a profanity that startled her in its vehemence, he swooped down to capture her mouth beneath his with a suddenness 131

and ferocity that shocked her. She tensed all over at the abrupt assault, but she had no time to throw up a defense. He covered her mouth and thrust his tongue inside before she could do more than flinch, and the moment he did a shock wave of need crashed through her in a dizzying tide. She struggled against it for a moment, then yielded to the tide she discovered she couldn’t fight because she couldn’t dredge up an ounce of ‘want to’. The urgency of his mouth as it melded with hers awakened an answering hunger inside of her.

One moment, she merely wanted, felt the warmth of rising need, and the next she was drowning in it, drunk and disoriented, thoroughly aroused and desperate.

His heated breath mingled with hers as their mouths clung hungrily. His taste filled her mouth and then her entire being, creating a drugging, chemical craving within her. The stroke of his hands all over her stirred more heat, but she was only vaguely aware of it. Her entire focus was on the feel of his mouth, the stroke of his tongue along hers.

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A purring moan vibrated in her throat. Mindlessly, Cassie reached to touch him, needing to feel his flesh against her palms and fingertips. The silky feel of his hair caressed her palms as she looped her arms around his neck and stroked the back of his skull, trying to hold him more tightly to her, sucking at his tongue feverishly. He tensed, and then a shudder rippled through him. He dragged his mouth from hers after a moment, gasped hoarsely and wedged his face between her jaw and shoulder, sucking at the tender skin along her neck. “I am as certain as I can be that I will regret this,” he muttered, more to himself than to her, she thought.

She could barely assimilate the words anyway. By the time her mind had begun to interpret the sounds and seek their meaning, he’d moved to her ear. Her flesh pebbled from her neck to her breasts as he covered the shell with his mouth and his heated breath assaulted the sensitive skin, her nipples tightening to such hard points it felt as if it had drawn up the skin from her groin upward. She shivered, of half a mind to evade, and half to stay as she was and luxuriate in the intense sensations that bordered on nearly unbearable.

Before she could make up her mind, he sought her lips again. She opened her mouth eagerly for his possession, anxious to taste him, to savor the feel of him inside her.

Rolling toward him, she pressed her body as tightly against his as she could get, sucking at his tongue, stroking it with hers.

He tore his mouth from hers and sat up abruptly, dragging his robe off. He grabbed her as she pushed herself up shakily and began tugging at hers. Pulling on her robe until he’d managed to remove it, he tossed it aside and pushed her down again with the weight of his body, rolling half atop her. She lifted one leg away even as he rolled onto her and managed to keep him from pinning her to the bed. Wrapping her leg around him, she stroked his thighs with the sole of her foot, explored his muscular back with the palm of her hand as far as she could reach. His hand settled on her buttock and traced a path downward along her thigh and then back again as he sought the juncture and explored her cleft with his fingers.

“Gods, Cassie! You make me crazy,” he murmured against her skin as he dragged his lips over her throat and the upper slope of her breasts, nibbled at the flesh with his lips, tasted her with his tongue. And all the while his hand roved her belly and then downward to the nest of hair at the juncture of her thighs and up again to cup and knead her breasts as if he couldn’t make up his mind what part of her to explore first.

Good,
she thought! He made her crazy, too. She didn’t want to be crazy all alone. She loved the feel his body against hers, his weight, the feel of his skin against hers and beneath her palms. The only thing that could possibly feel better, she thought, was feeling him inside of her. Her belly clenched at the thought. Moisture flooded her channel and anticipation fired her blood.

She began to wiggle desperately against him to align her body with his, tugging at him, urging him to fill her. He arched against her in counter, bruising her thigh with the 133

force of his thrusts, but merely teasing her. She groped for the cock she could feel but not reach. “Raen,” she gasped plaintively. “Come inside me.”

He lifted his head and stared down at her uncomprehendingly, his eyes glazed with his own feverish need. Shifting after a moment, he aligned his body with hers and she felt the head of his cock slide along her cleft and burrow snuggly against the mouth of her sex. She tensed all over, holding her breath in anticipation, holding herself in readiness for his thrust. He tensed, but instead of thrusting, he pulled back.

Indignation filled her as he leaned away, supporting himself on one arm. His hand settled heavily on her belly, and then she felt his fingers delving her cleft. A jolt went through her as he found her clit, then bypassed it to search for the mouth of her sex.

Gasping for breath, she rotated her hips to end the search, groaning as his finger found her and slipped inside.

It wasn’t what she’d wanted, but it felt good. She arched against him in demand, gritting her teeth as the glide of his finger only increased the itch to be filled instead of appeasing it. She felt his gaze and opened her eyes slowly to discover he was watching her face as he stroked her with his finger. After a moment, he slipped it out of her and stroked upward along her cleft until he found her clit again, circling it with the tip of his finger and then covering it with the pad of his finger and massaging it. Her eyes slid closed of their own accord as sensation jolted along her nerve endings.

She felt him lean toward her a split second before she felt his mouth cover one nipple and tug at it. A bolt of electricity seemed to travel all the through her from her nipple to her womb. The massage of his finger sent another from her clit upwards, and her belly clenched painfully. She gasped, uncertain for many moments if she could bear the twin spears of fire running through her. He didn’t give her a choice. He teased her until she couldn’t catch her breath anymore.

She was trembling all over when he finally ceased the torment and moved over her again. This time, he didn’t merely tease, however. When he’d aligned his flesh with hers, he caught her hips and thrust hard. Her flesh protested the invasion and then yielded abruptly as the moisture of her arousal allowed his entry. She gasped with a mixture of pleasure and pain, panting for breath as he withdrew slightly and thrust again.

A low groan escaped her when he claimed her at last and she felt the quiver deep inside of her that promised relief. He shuddered, pausing for a moment to catch his breath before he began to probe her with slow, easy strokes that teased her almost as maddeningly as his caresses of before. Curling her hips until he was stroking her more deeply, stroking that place that craved his touch, she planted her heels firmly against the bed and tried to force him to increase his pace. Shudders went through him as he paused again and then, abruptly, he gave her what she wanted, needed—deep, hard thrusts, pounding into her at a nearly frenetic pace until her body suddenly seized and shattered with convulsions of ecstasy. Her mind seemed to fold in upon itself. She groaned as the first spasm of her climax hit her, groaned more sharply with the next, harder contraction and then uttered a series of keening cries as each successive wave hit her harder still.

Dimly, she was aware of his panting breaths, the shudders quaking through him. She felt the hot fountain of his seed as he came inside of her, but distantly. She was too caught up in the throes of her own rapturous climax to think and then too weak in the aftermath to spare a thought for anything but catching her breath, too faint from the expenditure to do more than cling precariously to consciousness.

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After wavering for a seemingly endless time between consciousness and unconsciousness, her senses began to expand beyond her again and she became aware that Raen was leaning heavily against her, felt the faint discomfort of stickiness from their exertions. With an effort, she lifted her arm and stroked her hand along his back.

Tipping her head, she nuzzled her face against him in appreciation.

It was more than that, though, she realized, more than appreciation for the pleasure he’d given her, more than mere acceptance of his weight on her. A sense of belonging feathered along the edges of her mind, a sense of rightness.

And, god, it was so very, very wrong it was almost mind boggling!

Not that she was surprised to find herself falling for him—fallen, she mentally corrected. She had a lifelong history of making all the wrong choices in men or she wouldn’t the thirty something and single.

He roused slightly at her touch. “I am crushing you,” he muttered.

Despite the depression her wayward thoughts had settled upon her, amusement wafted through her. “That’s alright. I can breathe later,” she murmured.

He tensed slightly, lifted away to study her face a moment, and then chuckled.

Rolling away, he carried her with him, draping her limp form over his chest. She snuggled her face against his throat, utterly content in a way she could never recall being before.

Then again, she’d never been so completely satisfied—except the last time they’d been together.

He smoothed her hair and then stroked his hand idly along her back. “You should go,” he said after a little while.

She grunted, reluctantly admitted that he was right, and finally heaved herself upward. “Must keep up appearances,” she muttered wryly as she sat up and moved to the edge of the bed, looking around for her robe. “They’ll never figure it out when I arrive looking like I’ve been thoroughly fucked and wreaking of sex.”

He caught her arm just as she’d gathered enough strength in her trembling limbs to attempt to stand. She glanced back at him in surprise. His gaze flickered over her face. Slowly, his dark brows drew together in a frown that seemed equal parts confusion and anger. “You will come to me again?”

“As long as I’m here—when I can,” she qualified. She looked around his quarters. “If I can find my way,” she added wryly.

It was a bad idea, she knew, but she also knew her limitations. Even knowing it was going to end badly and she was going to regret it later—if she lived long enough—it was just too tempting to consider depriving herself.

He walked with her until she reached an area she was familiar with—fortunately.

Otherwise, she would probably have wandered around lost for days.

Depression settled more heavily inside of her when she left him and headed back.

She was screwed. She was going to spend her last days yearning for something she could never have. On the other hand, it was better to have something than nothing, she decided.

The first thing Cassie noticed when she reached the room was that everyone was still sleeping.

The second thing she noticed was that everyone wasn’t there. Both David and Carl were missing.

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She looked around in consternation, trying to decide if they’d just gotten up to go to the bathroom, or maybe decided to sneak off to fornicate like she had.

The bathroom, she realized almost immediately, was doubtful. She would’ve heard them in the bathroom, and they sure as hell wouldn’t be in there together even if they’d both woke up for a piss call at the same time. One might have gone to find a another bathroom, but both?

Uneasiness settled in her belly. They might’ve gone off on an assignation like she had, or they might’ve discovered she was gone and went to look for her.

Surely, if that was the case, though, she would’ve run into them?

She had a bad feeling they were up to something that was just going to make matters worse.

The urge to run to Raen and tell him immediately washed over her. Directly behind that doubt flooded her. Just how screwed up in the head was she that she trusted Raen more than her own people?

She was emotionally involved with Raen—or at least emotional
over
him. How he felt about her remained to be seen—or tested. She couldn’t really trust her judgment, she realized in dismay. She
wanted
him to be what her heart told her he was—a man she could love, trust, admire—depend upon.

If Raen was emotionally detached, though—and the part of her brain that could still reason told her he probably was—he could easily see that she wasn’t, that she was putty in his hands, and he could manipulate her to do most anything. Maybe he’d been manipulating her all along, had set out to use the attraction she felt for him to turn her to his cause?

She knew, deep down, that she’d reasoned through everything she knew personally and had seen and had arrived at the correct conclusion in so far as the build up of military tension. But how much of what Raen and the councilor had told her could she trust? Any of it? Had she already betrayed her own people to enemies that would use everything she’d told them to destroy them?

She

couldn’t

make
herself believe that, and she still didn’t know what to do. If she told Raen, she might get Carl and David killed.

So, what to do? Crawl under the covers and pretend she hadn’t noticed they were gone?

The room was under surveillance. The Atlanteans must suspect something by now. If she went to Raen, she might at least save her own ass, but even the thought of informing on them made her sick to her stomach.

She settled on the mattress finally and covered her face with her hands, wishing she could just go to sleep and wake up
before
any of this had happened and make a different decision than the one she’d made. The thought made her heart squeeze in protest.

She would never have known Raen, then. She would’ve missed knowing what it felt like to be in his arms, missed his touch, his kisses. She would’ve missed feeling him inside of her.

She couldn’t have missed what she’d never known, she told herself.

But

she

had
missed it. She’d yearned for it—these feelings that were tearing her apart now.

God! She was so
sick
of being afraid!

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She didn’t pay any attention to the rustling sound of movement until she felt a presence beside her, felt the mattress dip. “What is it?” Linda asked in a whisper.