Surrendering To Her Sergeant (9 page)

His mouth twisted in sinful
satisfaction. She struggled to dredge up the slap he should get for
the look, but all she felt was joy that she’d pleased him so. His
shadowed stare swept to her lips again, as if considering another
brutal kiss. Instead, he dragged her back inside without a word.
The second they cleared the door, he made a sharp left into the
villa’s wine room. The space was Bella’s idea of a tribute to her
name, with décor that looked like Caesar’s Palace had been invaded
by Bernini’s ghost: marble statues, velvet couches, dark tile
floors, chilled air—not that Ava even noticed the latter. She
burned for his touch again already. Yearned to get her hands on him
in all the same ways, too.

He couldn’t pull her in, slam the
door, and trap her back against it fast enough. The dim lighting of
the room, compared to the brilliant sunshine on the balcony,
temporarily blinded her. She didn’t care. She found him with her
hands. Learned his sculpted beauty in a whole new way as she
scraped her hands beneath his T-shirt and over his back while he
fused their mouths again. When he groaned in approval, she traveled
her fingers around, sliding down over every hard ridge of his
eight-pack. By the time she got back to his waist, he let out a
harsh grunt before simply tearing off the shirt. The silencers on
his dog tags clunked as he tossed the shirt aside then advanced on
her again.

His hands, rigid and tight, felt
amazing on her shoulders. His kiss, hard and consuming, turned
everything outside the door into unreality, unimportance. He shoved
her shirt off next, unhooking her bra as he did so it fell to the
floor, too. In the aftermath, she stood still, letting her lungs
heave, watching the shadows of the room play across his face as he
took in her bare, erect nipples.

“Beautiful,” he finally grated. “More
incredible than I could have imagined.”

“You too,” she whispered back. “Oh,
Ethan…”

He stopped her by pressing a thumb
against her lips. “I need to be clear. I want you, Ava. I want to
be inside you. I want to watch your face when I command you to come
and your body shatters around mine. I haven’t had anyone else,
haven’t dreamed of having anyone else, for seven months.” With his
other hand, he guided her grip to the front of his jeans. Her
fingers stretched around the black fabric, which was hot from the
press of the flesh beneath. “If you stay in here with
me—”

“I’m staying.”

She didn’t give him a chance to say
anything else. With a whip of her head, she captured his thumb and
sucked it into her mouth. He hissed as she rolled her tongue around
the length of it. The sound became a growl when he finally yanked
it away from her.

“I should spank you for
that.”

“Promise?”

“God
damn
.” As his breaths escaped in
heavy huffs, he pulled her close and sank his mouth to hers again.
Her breasts mashed against the broad planes of his chest, rubbed
and teased with friction that shot straight to the center of her
body, now soaking wet with sexual need.

He set her free but only far enough to
lock his gaze with hers again. “You have quite a sassy mouth,
sunshine. I should put it to good use.”

Ava slanted him a tiny
smile. Sassy? Yeah, he’d pretty much nailed it—which was damn weird
for her to admit. She’d never pulled shit like this on a man
before. But no other man in her life had dared to trap her against
a tree the second day they knew each other. No other man could
dissolve her ire with the magic of his subtle smirk, or make her
want to throw back that arrogance just to see how
he’d
react, hopefully
with that spanking he’d just threatened. No other man made her long
to unlock the hidden side of her sexuality for him…because she knew
he’d savor it, stroke it, make it soar.

And after this magical
hour, none of it would be hers again. None of him
could
be hers. She needed
to make every second of it count.

“
Gee. You’re ‘should’ing
all over yourself this afternoon, Sergeant Archer. Plan on doing
anything about that?”

That got his brows to jump. And his
lips to part. And his fingers to curl into the clothes she still
wore, unbuckling her belt then yanking down her pants zipper.
Without a word, he circled an arm around her waist and slammed her
against him, lifting one of her thighs against his waist. With his
brilliant stare still fixed on her, he yanked at the laces of her
ankle boot, jerked the thing off then tossed it to join his shirt
somewhere in the shadows. He lowered that leg and pulled up the
other to repeat the action. When he was done, he rebalanced her on
both feet, still not looking away, still radiating with dark sexual
energy.

A thick moment passed.
Neither of them blinked. With his arms at his sides and his
shoulders held high, his torso was more breathtaking than the
golden marble Adonises that peeked from the alcoves. Ava ordered
herself not to stare at the twin ridges of abdominal muscle that
arrowed down, leading beneath his pants…an impossible feat.
Ay dios mio,
he was
breathtaking.

“Take them off, Ava,” he ordered in a
low, sleek tone. “Take off everything. I want to see every inch of
the beauty I’ve been fantasizing about. All of it.”

If she opened every bottle in this
room and drank the contents, her senses wouldn’t whirl this madly.
She was achingly aware of every approving growl he issued as she
shucked her formfitting jeans and the black thong beneath. But he
saved the best sound for last. When she straightened, totally nude
before him, a sound curled from him like a plume of smoke from a
magician’s pyre, redolent with approval…and arousal.

Out in the living room, one of the
maids turned up some music. Ava almost wondered if the woman could
see through walls and knew what was going on, because the
selection, midtempo and belted by a Spanish soprano, was recorded
for one purpose alone. A lusty, sweaty purpose.

As she walked to Ethan, that heat was
carved into every inch of his perfect features.

“Good girl.” It rolled out of him as
he pressed closer. He was huge and hard and warm, consuming her
vision again, a welcome domination this time. Without a second
thought, she dipped her head into his chest. As her forehead
pressed between his dog tags, she felt at once connected.
Content.

Confused.

Don’t get used to this,
Ava.
She had to be diligent about the
reminders. This was a bite of sin only, meant to be savored in this
moment alone. There could be no “getting connected.” No being
“content.” No letting him into her spirit or her soul. No
anything
except one
beautiful lick of man candy. One. Period.

The mandate made her feel a little
stronger despite the shivers he induced by raking both hands down
her spine, continuing around the swells of her bottom, drawing his
fingers together in the crevice between her cheeks. But as he
glided further in, parting the sensitive wings of her sex from the
back, the tremors turned to liquid—and so did any rational
thought.

“Ava.” His voice was like a rich
cabernet against her neck, a silken caress backed by unmistakable
command.

“Y-yeah?”

“You’re already wet for
me.”

“Yeah…”

The dark thunder vibrated through his
chest again as he moved his grip back to her buttocks. Like
lightning had struck his inner storm, he kneaded her flesh with
increasing urgency. He openly bit her nape. The pain made her gasp
in surprise, which rocketed into excitement. As she mewled against
the base of his throat, she wrapped her arms around his waist and
clawed ten deep, slow tracks across his back.

A feral groan ripped out of
Ethan. Even when he’d trapped her in the forest those many months
ago, he hadn’t sounded like this. But that was it, wasn’t
it?
All those months
ago
. Lightning stored in a bottle for over
two hundred days was an explosion in waiting. She experienced the
truth of that now in every skin cell he marked, every tremble he
induced, every inch of her body that he claimed in sweeps and
squeezes that burned and branded. His fervor boiled her limbs to
the consistency of applesauce. When he shifted his hold from her
ass to her shoulders, her knees gave out and there was no way to go
but down.

Oh damn, it felt good.
Better than she imagined or hoped. Here at his
feet…
yes.
It was
natural. Perfect. Meant to be.

“Fuck.” It left him on a strangled
choke. When she pressed her cheek into his thigh, his muscles
bunched and tensed. She nudged him like a kitten seeking approval.
He answered her need, bunching his hand into her hair, gathering
the strands until they were tight between his fingers. Ava moaned,
again hating him and adoring him for the brutal pain…and the
magnificent mental journey into which he guided her
deeper.

“I’ve had fantasies, too.” She
confessed it as she rubbed her nose against his zipper. The bulge
beneath her face pounded for release. He held her there for a long
moment, grunting in pleasure as she bit at the denim. She’d never
done anything like this before and it was…wonderful. Naughty.
Forbidden. Completely wanton. The world always demanded that she be
calm and temperate, the graceful daughter, the sensible friend, the
poised stylist. For once, she longed to be wild, wicked, and lost
in sexual decadence with this dark, primitive warrior…and his hot,
throbbing spear.

“Show me.” Ethan’s order made it clear
he shared that mindset. He pulled her hair harder. “Show me exactly
what you fantasized.”

His choppy breath finished it, a sound
Ava savored as much as the musky scent of his arousal as she
unzipped his pants. As she pushed them down, a tattoo was revealed
down the length of his right leg. The design was rendered entirely
in black ink, depicting a chain of matching circles, each with a
smaller ring attached inside, that were hooked together with the
same Chinese symbol. She fingered it for a minute, wondering if the
angels themselves had given it to him since the ink was such a
perfect match for his dark beauty, before realigning her vision
with the tight cotton that covered his clamoring lust.

With a careful tug, she freed his
shaft from the fabric.

“Oh!” she blurted.

“What?”

She looked up into his face, its
classic angles crunched in concern. A smile bloomed on her lips.
“My fantasies weren’t as good as this.”

His apprehension darkened into desire
once more. As it did, she ran her cheek along his erect length,
letting her tongue trail in its wake. Ethan’s groan filled her ears
as she explored him even more, tasting, licking, kissing. His cock
was as perfectly formed as the rest of him, sleek and long, velvet
skin stretched over solid muscle. It was trailed with hard veins
that pulsed as she made her way along his erection. Finally she
closed her mouth over the bulb at the end, savoring the tangy
residue of his precum before she drew him in by an inch. Then
another.

“Fuck!” His reprise of the word came
from the depths of his gut. He brought his other hand around,
sifting through her hair again before bracketing her jaw. With his
thumb, he traced her lips as she sucked him over and over, deeper
and deeper. “Oh, sunshine,” he finally grated, “I don’t think mine
were, either.”

She pulled back for a moment, daring
another gaze up in his lust-shadowed face. “Please…tell me I was
here in your fantasies.”

His brows hunkered. “Here?”

“On my knees for you. Serving you…like
this.”

It felt so good to say it. To reveal
her darkest secret to him, this dream of being at her warrior’s
feet, naked for him, ready to please him in any way he craved, in
any manner he ordered…

No.
She needed to stop thinking like this. Weren’t the tags that
hung from his neck reminder enough of the fire with which she was
playing?
Military men are
not
good for
you
.
If that wasn’t
dangerous enough, she tossed kerosene onto the mix by opening the
closet on her kinky needs again. What the
hell
was wrong with her?

As soon as he spoke again, the answer
to that didn’t seem so important.

“Goddamnit.” His voice was husky in
all the right ways. He slid his grip beneath her chin, tilting her
head in order to lock her gaze with his. “They sure as hell did,
baby.”

An insane, hot sting surged behind her
eyes. She swallowed it back…then threw open the damn closet and let
her kinkster dance. “What else happened?” she asked in a whisper.
“In your dreams…what else did I do for you?”

A hard gulp plummeted in Ethan’s
throat. Her spirit jumped. As she’d guessed—and hoped—it seemed he
had a kinky closet, too. But he was fighting it.

“Some parts of my fantasies are best
left locked up.”

She lifted her chin by a notch.
“Unlock them.”

His pupils dilated. His erection
twitched. “Ava, listen—”

“Unlock
them.
”