Retrieval (26 page)

He was so toast. Never in his life had he been harder, and still he was hesitant to interrupt her enjoyment of her bath just to slake his own raging lust. She was going to change him irrevocably if he didn’t put a stop to it now, but for the life of him he couldn’t do it.

He couldn’t think of not touching her, seeing her, smelling her, talking with her. It made his heart hurt to think of not being with her, and it made his head pound to think of how easily she’d captured him. She was going to wrap his ass completely around her finger, and that just wasn’t right. What it was was pure insanity. Men should never be ensnared this easily.

In his entire adult life, he hadn’t felt this type of lust for a woman. The fact that Skylar was beautiful to look at was nothing compared to how she made him feel. Not just physically, but emotionally, and having never been big on the emotion side of things, a part of him was still fighting it every step of the way. No way was he going to let her know he’d even thought the word love in the same sentence as her name. It was crazy his head would even put that name on what he was feeling for her.

But there it was, and damn if he could stop it. She was an entire boatload of trouble and headaches, and he didn’t have the will to pull away from her. Maybe one of her superpowers was making poor, susceptible men fall in love with her. Great, now he’d have to watch his back for hundreds of other men looking to steal her away from him.

Quit being a schmuck
. He was thirty-five years old and secure enough to know that what they were embarking on was real, not just some passing fancy. He had a bone-deep knowledge that this thing between them wasn’t going away easily, and it wasn’t one-sided. She definitely felt the same. She couldn’t hide her responses to him the same way she could mask her thoughts. Speaking of which, he needed to search Raina out again later and get her help on building those barriers Sky had been talking about earlier.

He was transparent enough around her without adding her ability to walk into his mind at will and ferret out everything with little to no resistance from him. And he’d mistakenly thought he had control … what a crock. This woman was more than he could comprehend, but damn if he didn’t want to spend all his time trying.

Standing outside the bathroom door a smile broke across his face to replace a scowl harsh enough to scare little children. She must really like George Michael because she was now singing, “I Want Your Sex” and seemingly loving every minute of it. She had eclectic taste in music. Her sisters had demanded that she be subjected to Kings of Leon when she was out cold the entire last week, and he’d taken a look at her iPod a few nights ago. There’d been everything from Lil’ Wayne to George Michael to Toad the Wet Sprocket.

She continued to sing about wanting sex, with a little more sex and another topping of sex. And she sang so loud he was glad he’d soundproofed the walls in his home when he’d built it five years ago.

Then again, with the strange things these women could do, all of them probably heard her singing and were laughing their ass off even now.

His grin turned feral. Who the fuck cared anyway? His woman was taking a bath,
naked
, just on the other side of his bathroom door, and he was worrying about somebody hearing? He
had
lost his frigging mind if that even remotely mattered right now.

He sighed and opened the door. He was confronted with one of his own personal fantasies come to life. She was naked, her luscious breasts bobbing up and down slightly, enough to ripple the water around her body, sloshing some out on the tile beside the tub, as she continued to sing and move her hands in the air to the time of the music.

She’d pulled her hair up, and, wait, was that one of his
knives
holding up the back of her hair?
It better not cut even a strand of her hair
. She had her iPod buds in her ears, and he wondered if she heard him open the door. When she made no move to acknowledge his presence he felt safe just studying her.

Her face was flushed, and a tantalizing steam rose from the water. Her legs were bent slightly, and he could just barely make out the shadow of her mound beneath the steaming water. She was curved in all the right places, and he swore that if he didn’t have some part of him on some part of her soon, he was going to explode.

Then she opened her eyes, and her bow mouth curved upward slightly as if she knew what the sight of her was doing to him. She slowly, oh God, so slowly, licked her bottom lip and then removed the ear buds from her ears, while at the same time removing, yes it was one of his wicked looking knives, from its place holding up her hair. Standing up in the tub she placed her iPod safely away from the water, set the knife aside and stood there like a water nymph waiting on her lover.

He closed his own eyes and opened them again. She was still there.
Nothing that beautiful could be real
. Then she beckoned him to her and thought fled.

“Bastian?” she purred softly as the water streamed down her body, lovingly licking each hollow and curve of her breasts, abdomen and upper thighs.

It was too damn much. After the teasing from earlier, it was just too damn much. He felt savage all of a sudden, and the need to be inside her nearly overrode his intentions to be gentle with her. She was surely still recovering from what happened. She needed gentle.

“Bastian?” she questioned softly again when he didn’t respond. “I don’t want gentle.”

That was all it took. One second he was standing there staring at her perfection, and the next he had her plastered against him, his tongue in her mouth, and those unbelievable curves pressed against his body.

There was nothing he could have said in that moment. He’d blanked his mind to everything but the need to have her. He would look back and remember that he may have grunted something, but then Skylar had taken his mind with one swipe of her tongue against his, and he was incapable of doing anything but anchoring her against him and moving swiftly to the bed.

“Here,” she demanded. She pulled his hair in her efforts to keep his mouth fused to hers.

*

She’d taken a bath and tried to relax, but the tension stayed. She needed this man, and the whole time he’d been downstairs talking to his men she’d been making the decision to embrace whatever time they had left with abandon. She wasn’t going to hold back any of herself from him, and while she felt her life moving at a rapid pace to its completion, she was going to damn good and well enjoy what time she had left. And she was going to make sure that all of those moments involved Sebastian.

“Stop, baby, hold on, let me get us to the bed,” he pleaded. His actions as he stopped and pressed her against the wall right outside his bathroom made the plea a lie.

“Yes,” she urged him as she sank into his warmth and began tugging at his shirt.

“Get it off, Bastian, please,” she whimpered, and when he set her down to lift the shirt over his broad shoulders she took but a second to glory in his masculine beauty before she attacked his taut skin with her hot little mouth.

“You’re going to kill me,” he murmured gravelly

“Dying might be kind of fun if I can do it with you inside of me. Hurry.”

He’d taken his pants off in between their stinging, loving bites and kisses. He pulled her hips up and settled her on the hard bank of his thighs, and the tip of his shaft rubbed against her tangled bud of nerves. She whimpered again.

He felt so good, as if he’d been created for her and her for him. She was going to say a million prayers of thanks to God for the wonder of this gift.

*

The hard tips of her breasts pressed against his chest, and Sebastian pulled away slightly, keeping their pelvises aligned, and her resting on his thighs with her back against the wall. She was on fire, and he felt her need weeping slowly down the head of his cock. Her warm core called to him, and his shaft flexed, drawing him ever closer toward his goal.

She was wanton in her desire and with her cheeks flushed, now from passion, and her lips wet and plump from his kisses, he took his time looking her over. The tension drew on them both. The air was thick and redolent with their combined lust. The most beautiful thing he’d ever seen was her in the midst of desire. Water still dripped from tendrils of her hair, making wet pathways down her sleek body.

She was untried in the ways of sex. He’d felt the barrier and knew he had to be gentle. He could so easily hurt her. But his blood ran hot, and her hands on his flesh made him sweat.

“Sky, we have to slow down. I have to protect you,” he said on a groan as she lifted up and rubbed her flesh against his.

“We’re good. I can’t contract diseases. Besides, I scanned you. I know you’re safe,” she replied against his lips.

He inhaled sharply and again sought to slow down their play. They hadn’t talked about pregnancy, though the thought of her round with his child flashed through his mind, and his hips flexed.

“Please, baby, slow down,” he made one last attempt.

She must not have liked that too much though because she opened those whiskey eyes, lifted her hips up the smallest bit, and impaled herself on his hard cock.

She kept her eyes open, and they flared with a beautiful amethyst light he’d never seen before. His heart tripped as the breath stilled in his lungs. It looked like bottled lightning. Then her body tightened around his cock, her pupils dilating with their shared pleasure as she moaned, and he groaned with the force of his attempts to hold back, all thoughts of lightning gone.

Sweet Jesus, she felt like heaven. So fucking right. He’d never known this feeling of completeness.

“Fuck,” he ground out harshly.

The way her internal muscles clamped down on him had him gasping for breath, and when she smiled that siren’s smile again, he moved his hands from her breasts to her hips and lifted her back up so slowly off him.

“Tell me you’re okay,” he demanded in a tortured voice.

She shot him a look of pure pleasure for an answer, and he rewarded her response with a slow plunge back into her wet heat.

“Yeessss,” she hissed between clenched teeth.

“Is that what you want? Hold on to me, because that’s what you’re going to get.” His deep voice was full of promises, pleasure, and his inability to hold back any longer.

*

She could say nothing else as he set a pace that left her in the throes of a pleasure so true and so fathomless that the bottom was the top, and there was no end. She felt full when he was seated within her and empty when he pulled out. His eyes never left hers, and the feel of him pushing in and out of her receptive body while their eyes remained locked sent her spiraling out of control.

The pain had been swift. The joy of having him inside of her had eclipsed it. He held her hips in his large hands, his head thrown back as sweat ran in rivulets down his torso. She couldn’t stop reaching up to lick a patch from his collarbone to his nipple. He was beautiful. His muscles flexed as he lifted her up and then pulled her down for each thrust. The play of those muscles under his skin, the taste of his sweat in her mouth had her sobbing with the need to feel release from the fire he set within her.

She clawed and scratched at his chest and shoulders. Her breasts bounced with the force of his thrusts inside her body, and she was on fire. Her eyes closed only to be forced open again as he demanded she look at him. And his words to her? They sent her even higher, climbing and climbing an invisible ladder as she felt release barreling toward her.

“Bastian, please?” She shouted her need.

“Let it go, Skylar. Come, baby,” he ordered her as he thrust so deep she didn’t know where he began and she ended.

Then it was nothing but light as her world erupted in colors so intense they defied definition. She vaguely heard Sebastian shout out, and then felt the flex of her womb as his release bathed her insides. Her internal muscles milked him as wave after wave of release flowed over her. She floated on energy so pure and satisfying that nothing in her entire existence mattered but the connection to this man. Her man.

*

With her head thrown back, and her eyes closed she reminded Sebastian of a work of art. Sweat from both of their bodies dotted her chest, and her scent was a combination of cinnamon and something deeper, almost like chocolate. He was still buried inside of her, and as he regained his equilibrium he began to lift her off him and pull her away from the wall, but she moaned a soft protest, so instead he pulled her closer to him, secured her legs around his hips, and walked to the bed.

Without separating their bodies, he turned and lay down on his back and then settled her on top of him. He could not believe what had just happened between them. His life before her was a bleak and desolate landscape. She brought color to a world he’d previously seen in only black and white. He hadn’t thought a sexual connection like what they just shared was even possible, and yet he should have known that with Skylar, anything was possible … hell, probable.

He was still breathing hard and unable to wrap his mind around the fact that he’d literally poured all he was into her just moments ago. Their passion had flared hot from the moment they’d made eye contact in the hospital cafeteria. There was no logic, only impulse and instinct between them, and he couldn’t seem to muster the ability to care that he was acting way outside of his norm with her.

It was too right and having never had it before, he was intent on keeping her with him. Safe, secure and screaming in pleasure for the rest of her life.

“Sounds good,” she mumbled sleepily from her position on his chest.

The sound of her voice caused heat to skitter back up his spine, and he felt himself growing hard again within her.

“Go to sleep, baby. Get some rest. I don’t want you overdoing it,” he told her as he stroked her hair back from her face.

“If that’s overdoing it, I honestly need to be ‘doing it’ more often.” She snickered and then went boneless against him, placing a soft kiss on his chest. “We messed up the room.” The need to sleep was in her voice.