She knew his pain. She knew his need for comfort when the demons rose within him.
Jethro's struck her deeper, harder, for the very fact that she knew so little about him.
"What are we doing to our marriage, Mac?" But she wasn't moving, she wasn't attempting to escape. Instead, she watched in rapt attention as he quickly undressed.
"Making it deeper, Kei, stronger," he whispered sensually, suddenly stilling and staring back at her silently as she gripped the hem of her shirt and jerked it over her head.
She needed him. She needed her husband. She needed to know that the desire was just as sharp—no, sharper, hotter—than it had been with Jethro. She needed to know she wasn't losing the dreams she had woven around them, that she wasn't losing the man she loved.
As he watched her, she felt the hunger rise inside her, hotter, stronger. She scooted to the edge of the bed, her legs draping over it as her fingers went to the snap and zipper of her shorts.
"You're falling behind, Mac," she breathed out imperatively as she glanced at the erection straining beneath the fly of his jeans.
She was skimming the shorts down her legs and dropping to her knees in front of him as he tore the belt loose. Brushing his fingers aside with frantic need, she tugged at the metal clasp, then eased the zipper down.
The material smoothed down his legs along with his underwear, leaving the thick, heavy length of his cock to her avid gaze.
"Just us," she pleaded, filling both hands with the heated length of male flesh as her tongue licked over the dark, heavily flushed crest while she stared up at him.
His gaze moved over his face as his fingers threaded through her hair.
"We're the only two here," he assured her before his fingers slid through her hair. A grimace controlled his face as she allowed nothing but her tongue to touch the engorged head of his cock.
She stared back at him, fighting to hold onto her control as his fingertips touched her cheek gently.
"Just us," she said desperately as she lifted her head.
"Yes. Just us."
Keiley stared back at him desperately as her mouth covered his cock head once again, filling her mouth with his flesh. She should have been nervous, frightened. She should have come to her feet and told him to jack off instead. But she couldn't. She couldn't because she needed this just as much as he did.
Leaning back, she licked her lips slowly before trailing her fingers over the upper mounds of her breasts, then glanced over the tight, hard nipples as he stared down at her.
"Like this?" she whispered breathlessly needing to tease, to tempt.
This she liked. Her fingers surrounded her hard nipples, adding a heavy pressure, caressing them with enough strength to redden the hard tips.
His eyes dilated as she breathed in roughly. He slid his hand into her hair before wrapping the fingers of his other hand around the base of his erection.
She knew what was coming, felt it burn through her nipples as she tweaked them erotically, felt it clench in her womb and spill slick heat between her thighs.
"Which way do you prefer?" His voice was husky. Wild.
"This." Her fingers tightened on her nipples until it felt like teeth were nipping the tight buds, causing her lips to part helplessly with pleasure.
A move Mac took full advantage of. With his gaze still on her trapped nipples, the head of his cock sank into her mouth.
Keiley moaned as she heard Mac's guttural growl. Her lips closed on the head of his erection and sucked with delicate greed as she pinched and caressed her own nipples.
She stared up at Mac, watching his expression tighten, the hard, hungry grimace on his face as he held her in place and pulled back, removing his cock from her possession.
She licked her lips, pursed them, and blew over the damp head.
And she watched the control he was relying on so heavily break. But it didn't break in any way that she had expected. She expected him to fall upon her in desperate need. To spread her thighs and fuck her like the conqueror she could see glittering in his eyes.
When Mac's control broke, though, it revealed more than a conquering sex god. It revealed the man who knew how to love.
He pulled her quickly to her feet, his hand once again shackling her wrists behind her back, his head lowering, his lips covering one hard, exquisitely sensitized nipple.
He didn't just suck it into his mouth. His teeth scraped, nipped, his tongue swirled and licked as he held her before him. Each caress was diabolically laid, performed and practiced with sensual precision. His free hand, calloused fingertips flat against her flesh, smoothed down her abdomen and tucked between her thighs.
Before Keiley could catch her breath or gather herself for the coming thrust, two of Mac's fingers began to work slowly, gently, inside the wet, hot depths of her core.
"You like that," he groaned, his head lifting as she arched in his arms.
"Yes." She writhed on his fingers. "Oh God, yes."
"My fingers fucking inside you, caressing you." His words followed suit, his fingertips curling, caressing with devastating results while he held her practically immobile with his hard body and restraining hand.
Rapid-fire bursts of pleasure exploding inside her body as Mac bent her over his arm, his lips lowering to play with her nipples again as his fingers moved inside her, stroking deep, caressing her, burning through her mind.
There were other things burning inside her as well. The fierce, blazing heat was followed by the knowledge that something wild, something untamed, was growing as well. Despite his gentleness, his emotion, she was burning higher.
She had once been content to let Mac direct their lovemaking; now she strained against him, needing to establish her own dominance.
He chuckled at the movements, ignoring her harsh cry as his fingers slid from between her thighs while he deftly turned her, bending her over the high mattress of the bed.
"Now, this is a pretty sight." His hand caressed over the rounded curve of her buttocks, stroking them, causing her to shudder at the submission of her position.
"You're a pervert," she accused breathlessly.
"Oh darlin', you have no clue," he murmured, his roughened voice stroking over her senses as she bucked against him.
Keiley could feel the familiar, blistering heat surrounding her as Mac's hand cupped beneath her thigh, lifting her leg until her foot was braced on the wooden frame of the high bed before she felt his cock pressing against the hot, wet folds of her sex.
"This is the sweetest pussy in the world," he groaned behind her as she caught her breath at the pleasure.
He was stretching her, working inside her with slow, heavy movements that had her crying out his name.
"Do you like this, Kei?" Bending over her, his lips moved to her ear as his erection pressed deeper inside her. "Do you feel how light and hot your pussy is around me? How sweet and wet you are?”
She could feel. She could feel every inch of his cock throbbing inside her, stretching her. The broad head parted her flesh, making way for the heavy stalk behind it to fill her.
And she could do nothing to hurry him along.
The sheer impact of the submissive position combined with the powerful strength behind her shouldn't have made her hotter. It did, though. She could feel her juices gathering and flowing, slickening her, easing his way as he drew back until only the broad crest remained within her grip.
A second later he plunged inside her.
Keiley arched, crying out his name, trying to writhe beneath him as the incredible pleasure threatened to explode inside her. She wanted it to explode inside her. The knot of tension gathering in her womb was agonizing, the pleasure of it building until it bordered on pain, until the need to orgasm was ripping through her mind.
"God, I love fucking you," Mac whispered at her ear. "Feeling you tighten on my dick, your pussy sucking it inside you and rippling around it like the tightest fist."
His voice was harsh and guttural, his hands less than gentle as he held her, his hips gathering speed, gathering in power. His cock plunged inside her, worked through the snug tissue, stroked and caressed, burning her with the strength of his passion as her own burned inside her.
She couldn't handle it. She felt stretched until pleasure and pain combined, until the need for release had her hands fisting in the blankets beneath her.
"Mac, please," she panted, barely able to breathe.
He was moving deeper now, harder, his breathing a dark rasp behind her as she felt her womb begin to ripple with the warning tremors of orgasm.
"So sweet and hot," he groaned again, pumping faster. "So tight and sweet."
Heat surrounded her, pulsed through and around her.
"I love fucking you," he groaned. "I dream of fucking you. I ache when I'm not fucking you."
She was crying out for him now, incoherent, lost in a world that centered on his thrusts inside her, his fingers sliding over her hip and delving between her thighs.
The swollen bud of her clit pulsed and throbbed as his fingers surrounded it, welcoming the touch as perspiration soaked her flesh and the demand for release pulsed in her veins.
His fingers stroked, his cock thrust, and within seconds Keiley felt the burn begin exploding throughout her body. First in her clit. An exquisite burning sensation erupted in the tight knot of nerve endings and tore her mind from her body. It echoed into her womb, then into her vagina, then throughout her body as a harder, deeper explosion ripped through her.
She bucked beneath him, trying to scream, trying to escape the intensity, the power of her orgasm until the violence of her pleasure ripped through her mind and sent her senses spinning. Flying. She was flying, lifted and flung into a world of kaleidoscope colors and an ecstasy she never grew used to.
Dimly, she felt the last hard thrusts slam through her before Mac poured his release inside her with a shattered male groan and the feel of his teeth at her shoulder. They were both shaking, shuddering, fighting to find their breath and their senses as he surrounded her with his arms and pulled her fully up onto the bed before stretching out next to her.
Keiley drifted in a haze of pleasure, pushing back the niggling little reminder that they had indeed been alone.
"It's not the same now, is it?" he whispered against her ear, satisfaction and dark knowledge filling his voice. "You know the difference. You feel it. And you miss it."
Her eyes opened, her gaze immediately caught by the wooden panels that covered the hole left by the shattering of the French doors.
"I can live without it." Her voice was quiet, reflective. Because she had heard those same words from Mac before they ever left Virginia.
What were they going to do when Jethro left? He couldn't stay forever. He had a life, his own interests, and one day he would fall in love himself. Where would that leave her then?
"It's different," she finally said, her voice low, thoughtful. "But I couldn't do this again." She knew that with a certainty. "When Jethro's gone, it will be over."
She expected an argument. Instead, she felt the smile on his lips that were pressed against her shoulder.
"When Jethro leaves, it will be over," he agreed.
Keiley rolled over, staring into his eyes with a frown. "I'm serious, Mac."
"I know you are, Keiley." He cupped her cheek with his palm. "I never imagined or considered sharing you with anyone else. And I never will."
"Why Jethro?"
He shook his head. "Because he suits us both," he finally said.
And that was all she was going to get out of him. He was so damned closemouthed about this that she felt as if she were walking through shadows alone, feeling her way through this strange new relationship.
"I love you, Mac," she said as she turned and rose from the bed before turning to stare back at him. "I love you more than my own life, but you're starting to worry me."
"How am I worrying you, Kei?" He turned on his back, lusciously nude, powerfully sensual, that arrogant quirk on his lips drawing a frown between her brows.
"Because you're playing games." She leaned forward, placed her palms on the bed, and stared him straight in the eyes. "It won't take me long to catch on to this new side you're showing, husband mine. And once I figure it out, this sexy little battle you're starting will even out. I promise you that."
His gray eyes lit with challenge and humor.
"I look forward to it," he drawled with a sensual smirk. "You have no idea how much I look forward to it."
She opened her lips to inform him how little she appreciated the arrogance when the soft trill of the doorbell interrupted.
Keiley jerked back as Mac suddenly surged from the bed and grabbed his jeans, jerking them on quickly.
"I wanted a shower," she said mournfully as she grabbed her clothes and rushed to the bathroom.
The slick warmth of sex still coated her thighs, reminding her of the excess of moments past. She hastily cleaned up before dressing and rushing back into the bedroom, where Mac was waiting impatiently.
"It's Maxine," he informed her as he glanced out the side of the curtains to the driveway.
"Maxine?" Keiley pushed her feet back into her sandals.
"Jethro let her in." Mac sighed, his expression rueful. "We'd better get back down there."
Keiley stared back at him with a measure of concern.
"What will Jethro do?"
He snorted. "With Jethro, who can be sure? It's according to the mood he's in."
Keiley stepped into the living room behind Mac to see that Maxine Bright hadn't arrived alone. She was accompanied by her quiet husband, Joseph.
Joseph wasn't rough and rugged, and he wasn't altogether handsome. But his quiet blue eyes and warm smile were steady and dependable. And his reputation for spoiling Maxine was legendary.
Six feet tall, lean rather than muscular, but with a surprising male grace, Joseph Bright was the complete opposite of his wife. Until Keiley had met his wife, she had imagined he was staid, stuffy, and self-righteous with his carefully combed thinning brown hair, light blue eyes, and carefully controlled lips.