Obsession Untamed (8 page)

“You tried to kill me.” His voice was flat as he loomed over her, staring down at her through those dark sunglasses she was beginning to suspect were permanently attached to his face. Who in their right mind slept in sunglasses?

She hated him for making her feel so blasted helpless. Fear slithered down her spine. With his strength, he could kill her with his bare hands without ever breaking a sweat.

Her breath caught, her body tensing, as she waited for him to do just that. But to her surprise, he climbed on top of her, straddling her hips.

She tried to push him off, tried to get to her knees, but she might as well have tried to lift a bus. He was playing with her. Toying with her.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said softly, brushing the hair back from her ear. In her peripheral vision, she saw his face lower, felt his lips on her ear, his tongue tracing the cartilage, then delving into the cavern, drawing a shiver from her.

Her heart thudded as his hand slid beneath her until his fingers found her nipple through her shirt and squeezed just hard enough to send fire shooting straight to her loins.

His tongue stroked her ear, his lips grazed her cheek. Gently, so gently. Toying with her before he struck.

His fingers moved under her, tugging at her shirt, pulling at her bra until his fingers were against her bare flesh, his palm warm against her breast. Her breathing turned ragged.

She felt his hand move again, releasing her breast.
As the press of his thighs moved lower, to frame her own, he sat up and slipped his hand inside the waist of her sweatpants, his fingers sliding inside her panties to cup her butt cheek as he had her breast moments before. Then he leaned over her, his fingers kneading the flesh, his breath in her ear becoming as ragged as her own.

“You set me on fire.” His voice was low, pained, as his fingers dug into her, letting her feel his need, sending hers into an upward spiral.

He was half over her, half beside her when his palm flattened, his finger sliding into the crease of her buttocks and down, to stroke her swelling lips. His teeth grazed her earlobe, sending a shaft of wet heat straight to her core. His finger slid inside her, meeting that rush of heat.

Delaney gasped, trying to arch into his touch, but with him still half-straddling her, she had nowhere to move, nowhere to go. He stroked her, playing with her until she was soft and hot and wild with need. Then he released her and rose, only to straddle her calves.

She tried to rise, her arms shaking, but he dug his fingers into her waistband and yanked downward, pulling her pants and panties down to her thighs in a single jerk of a move, baring her to the cool air. To his gaze. Stealing her last scrap of protection.

Heat turned to fear on the certainty that he meant to take his revenge upon her body. Panic flared, and she tried to roll away, but his palm fanned across the small of her back, slamming her to the mattress.

Her heart thudded. Her mouth went dry.

His free hand dug into her butt cheek. “I’m not going to hurt you.” But the thread of anger in his voice did nothing to reassure her.

Tears burned the backs of her eyes. Fear knotted in her gut. If she was ready for him, it shouldn’t hurt, but if he wanted to hurt her, there were other ways. She knew too well the cruelty men could visit on women before they killed them.While they killed them. She had the crime photos hanging all over the walls of her living room to prove it.

She already knew this guy had a sick mind. God knew what he might…

“Don’t be afraid of me!”

She froze. “I’m not.” Her words sounded calm, soothing, despite the tears closing her throat. Long ago, she’d learned to keep her emotions out of her voice and expression, and she desperately called on that trick now.

His hand squeezed her rear to the point of pain as the tension in the air thickened. Slowly, his hand relaxed, and she began to breathe again.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

But she didn’t believe him for a minute. As she struggled against his impossible hold, his hand released her aching flesh to slide between her legs. She tried to clamp her thighs together, desperate to escape his touch, fear spiraling out of her control.

He was going to hurt her. Hewanted to hurt her, to punish her for attacking him.

“Dammit!” In a sudden move, he released her and flung himself off the bed.

Delaney shot to her knees, yanking her pants up and straightening her shirt and bra, then turned to find him pacing the room like a caged animal, his tight, coiled tension filling the room.

Definitely bipolar. With violent tendencies.

Her heart raced in her chest as she edged toward the side of the bed closest to the door. But as she sat and swung her legs over the side, he whirled on her, his finger pointing directly at her face.

“Stay!”

Delaney froze, her mind scrabbling, fighting down the instinct to flee. He was too fast. She’d never get away.

Deep breaths.He hadn’t attacked her. Other than squeezing her butt too hard, he hadn’t hurt her at all.

She watched him pace, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides like a man struggling to contain his temper.He was trying to get control. The realization slammed into her. The last thing she needed to do was make things worse by running again.

She forced herself to wait as she watched him warily. The streetlight filtering in through the sheer curtains played over his broad, bare chest, tripping in and out of the shadows created by the muscular definition. Scars, like claw marks, tore across his right nipple while a gold armband snaked around one thick upper arm. Even in the dim light, the man was a walking wet dream.

If she weren’t so wary of him, she might have enjoyed watching him. With his long legs, trim waist,
and sculpted upper body, he was truly a feast for the eyes.

Minutes passed as he paced, the tension slowly leaching from the air.

“Do you follow football?” he asked, at last.

Delaney blinked. “No.”

“What’s your favorite television show?”

Her brows puckered with disbelief. “Why?”

An animalistic growl rumbled deep in his throat. “Your fear sets me off, and I want your mind off it.”

Delaney scowled. “I’m not afraid.” She didn’t show it. Sheknew she didn’t show it.

Like a cat about to spring, he swung to face her, his body rigid. “Don’t lie to me! I can taste it. No one else would know, butI know. You can’t hide it from me.”

He couldn’t possiblytaste her fear. That was ridiculous. But it was hardly a leap for him to guess that she was afraid. Any sane woman would be under the circumstances.

He returned to his pacing. “What’s your favorite television show?”

Were they really going to play this game? “The news.”

He scowled at her. “Lame.”

His response inexplicably pricked her pride. “I don’t have time to waste on mindless shows.”

He stopped pacing and turned to her. “Your work is your life to the exclusion of everything else, isn’t it? You don’t even own a reading chair.”

“Excuse me,” she huffed. “What I do is impor
tant. I perform a valuable service to society by getting the monsters off the streets.”

The man snorted. “You’ll never get the monsters. You don’t even know what they look like, little girl.”

Delaney ground her teeth together, clamping her mouth shut before she said something she shouldn’t. Something that would make him even madder, turning a bad situation so much worse.

The man stopped his pacing and started toward her. “You’re pathetic, you know that? You got your life back, but you don’t even know how to live it, do you?” There was an ugly taunting quality to his voice that infuriated her. “You’re so hung up on your mother’s death you aren’t even living. Do you think this is what she’d want? You spending your entire life searching for her killer?”

She stared at him, shock vibrating through her body. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t true. Oh God, of course it was true. “How…?”

“I heard you talking to the cat. It wasn’t much of a leap. You’re living an excuse for a life. You don’t even own a sofa or a picture that isn’t a crime-scene photo! Your life’s a joke.”

She felt as if her chest were caving in and at the same time exploding from the force of her fury. Damn him.Damn him .

She lunged to her feet and rounded on him. “You son of a bitch. How dare you judge me. How dare you?” She struck at his knee, a move that should have knocked even a man his size off his feet.

Yet faster than she could blink, she found her
self flat on her back on the bed. Again.Blast it . She fought him, struggling with every ounce of strength she possessed. This was too much. Too much.

She reached for his sunglasses, intending to dig her fingers into his eyes and blind him, but he reared back out of her reach before she touched them. He grabbed her wrists and pulled them over her head, pinning them. Then he landed on the bed beside her, rolled onto his side, and pinned her legs to the mattress with one hard thigh.

“Let me go!”

“So you can claw my eyes out? I don’t think so.”

He grabbed her jaw with his free hand and kissed her.

She bit him. The taste of his blood ripped her back to her senses.Stupid, Delaney. Stupid, stupid move to risk setting him off again.

But to her amazement, he laughed, the sound rich and warm. Disturbingly nice. Then he bent his head and placed a kiss on her temple as gentle as a raindrop and lifted his head to look down at her, licking the blood from his lip.

She stared at him. “I don’t understand you.”

A half smile lifted his lips. “I’m not surprised. Fortunately, Ido understand you.”

She grunted with disdain. “Hardly.”

“I know just how to make you mad, don’t I? And anger is so much more pleasant than fear, isn’t it, brown eyes?”

He leaned down to kiss her cheek as she stared at the darkened ceiling, speechless.

“Youmeant to make me mad?”

“It worked.” She heard the shrug in his voice, then shivered as his tongue stroked her ear.

But her anger only spiked all over again. At him for saying the things that had cut her to the quick. And at herself for letting them bother her so much she’d lost control and tried to attack him again.

“I hate you.”

“I’m aware of that.” With the hand not holding her wrists, he pushed the lace cup of her bra down over her nipple, freeing her breast to his warm touch, then took the bare flesh into his mouth.

She gasped at the feel as desire sparked and flared, feeding her anger. Shehated this control he had over her body. With his superior strength, all he had to do was lift an arm, and she was flat on her back. All he had to do was touch her, and she melted like butter in the sun. He made hersick . He made her want to…

She arched off the bed in pure pleasure as his tongue twirled slowly around her nipple.

“Oh, God,don’t stop .”

With a last, soft suckle, he released her breast and blew, chilling the wet peak before he turned to its mate, freed it, and pulled the aching, needy flesh into his mouth. She felt his fingers slide once more down the plane of her stomach and into her pants. Though her mind rebelled, her body wanted this. Desperately.

The weight of his thigh lifted, his leg curling around hers and giving a gentle tug, spreading her thighs for his seeking finger. She jerked as the pad
of his finger stroked her clit, then gasped as it slid farther, deep into her heat. With a groan of pure need, she bucked, swallowing him deeper into the liquid fire he’d set ablaze inside her.

How could he do this to her? What was it about him that the simple feel of his mouth on her breasts nearly brought her to climax? Never had she gone so over the top with a man. Any man. She’d only had sex three times in her life, with two different partners, because it was so damned boring.

Even sex with this guy’sfinger was enough to turn her into a panting, raving, lunatic. If he ever pushed his cock inside her…

Just the thought of it nearly made her come.

“Look at me, brown eyes.”

She opened her eyes, not remembering having closed them, and looked at the dark line of his sunglasses.

A rush of warmth flooded her mind, a hot wind on a roaring flame, turning her body into a superheated bonfire. Her hips rocked against his hand, desperate for more. She needed…she needed…

The orgasm broke over her in an explosion of light and pleasure so sharp it was like nothing she’d ever felt, hurtling her into a rainbow of colors and ecstasy. As she rode the explosion, her body bucked wildly, forcing that finger deeper,deeper .

Her eyes started to roll back in her head.

“Look at me, Delaney. Look at me!”

She did, somehow knowing she met his gaze through those sunglasses. Something happened. A hot pressure gripped her head, a sharp pain that
was gone almost before it registered, disappearing in the clenching spasms of release.

Slowly, the pleasure eased, and her body floated downward. Her hips ceased their rocking, and she lay beside the man, trying to catch her breath even as his finger continued to play with her wetness.