Secret Sins (37 page)

At that little nip Archer’s arms tightened around her. Pulling her closer to the hard
strength of his chest while his lips covered hers, taking them, possessing them with
his lips and tongue as a moan escaped her throat.

Pinpoints of sensation began to prickle through her body, charging her nerve endings
with hot, dancing jolts of pleasure.

Hunger raged through the kiss now. Pleasure licked over her senses, charging her nerve
endings and awakening parts of her body she’d never imagined could be so sensitive.

Such as the skin at her side where her shirt and the band of her jeans separated:
calloused fingertips stroked and smoothed the sensitive flesh. Pleasure washed over
her in waves, the need for more growing with ever increasing demand.

More of his kisses and more of his touch. She wanted his body fully against her. Turning
in the chair to press into him, she gasped as he gripped her, his head pulling back
to growl, “Straddle me.”

A second later Anna found her legs embracing his thighs as she straddled his hard
body, the wedge of his cock pressing into the mound of her pussy through the layers
of denim.

His lips immediately returned to hers, growing excitingly rougher and more demanding.
His tongue was less playful and more intent. His hands became questing and entirely
serious in their explorations as one palm pushed beneath the hem of her shirt to find
the swollen curve of her breast.

The heat of his palm seared her flesh through the lace of her bra, creating an exciting
friction as his thumb found the swollen tip of her nipple and rubbed it slowly.

Arching into the touch, her hands buried in his hair, Anna heard her own whimper of
pleasure and could barely believe she would ever make such a pleading sound.

“Please.” She might as well actually beg.

As he pulled back, his lips moving over her jaw to the side of her neck, finding the
ultra-sensitive nerve endings there as he licked and kissed a meandering path to the
lobe of her ear.

“Archer, it’s so good,” she moaned, the sensual lethargy that overtook her more intoxicating
than the liquor she had consumed earlier.

His hands tightened on her sides, holding her still as his hips arched to grind his
cock harder into the vee of her thighs.

Exquisite pain raced through her pussy. Her clit throbbed with an ache she had no
idea how to ease. Riding the hard length of his erection with their jeans separating
them was an exquisite agony she wondered if she could bear for much longer.

His hands moved from her waist once again, pushing her shirt up, cupping her breasts
as his thumbs raked over the lace covering them.

Shards of sensation tore from those swollen tips to the engorged bud of her clit.
Her womb clenched, her juices spilled to her panties as she forced her lashes open,
staring into the drowsy, lust-filled expression on Archer’s face.

As their gazes locked, she moved her hands from his hair, watching as surprise flickered
in his gaze when she reached behind her back and released the catch of her bra.

Immediately his hands pushed beneath the loosened cups, his thumbs and forefingers
gripping her nipples and tugging at them with an erotic pleasure-pain that had her
pussy melting in wicked hunger.

Arms lifting, she pulled the shirt as well as the bra from her body and tossed them
to the floor.

“Oh God—Archer.”

Every muscle in her body clenched and threatened to explode in rapture as a hot, hungry
mouth surrounded the painfully tight tip of a nipple and sucked it inside.

His cheeks hollowed as he drew on the swollen bud, his gaze still holding hers, locked
with it, the too-responsive tips of her breasts gloried in every touch.

The one buried in Archer’s mouth was in such agonizing pleasure she was certain she
couldn’t bear it much longer. Her pussy spilled its sensual wetness, her vagina clenching
at the emptiness there, aching to be filled.

“Take it off.” Tugging at his shirt as she made the demand and ground herself against
his cock, she swore she was close, so close to the rapture of release that she could
almost touch it, almost allow her body to slide into it. If only she knew how.

“Unbutton it,” he ordered, his lips and sucking mouth moving from one nipple to the
next.

Sucking the matching, pebble-hard tip into his mouth, one hand captured hers and pulled
it to the buttons of his shirt.

Anna moaned, knowing she would never manage to control her fingers enough to get his
shirt unbuttoned.

She didn’t even try.

As his teeth surrounded her nipple and nipped, Anna gripped the edges of his shirt
and pulled.

Buttons popped and flew across the room. The ping of the little discs hitting the
floor was forgotten as he released her nipple from his teeth and immediately surrounded
the nipple again, suckling at it strongly. Devouring it. Eating at the tip as though
nothing mattered but ensuring he sated the hunger for the taste of her breasts.

“Oh yes,” she panted, the painful pleasure that attacked her nipple streaking to her
pussy. “Archer, please. Oh please, yes.”

Her hips shifted, ground, rode the ridge of his cock as she searched hungrily for
release.

It had to be there, just over the edge—

Perspiration began to gather on her flesh, her cries becoming more ragged as her head
tipped back on her shoulders. His hands at her back, he pulled her closer.

His tongue lashed at her nipple, his teeth rasped it. His thumb and forefinger gripped
its twin, rolled it, tugged at it, sending increased fingers of lightning-fast sensation
to crash into her womb and surround her clit.

Thighs tense, Archer dropped his hands to her hips, guiding the desperate movement
of her pussy against the thick erection beneath his jeans. The clothing that separated
them was a painful friction and agonizing pleasure.

Heat and nearing ecstasy began to gather into increasingly tight swirls of growing
sensation. Anna could barely breathe as so many, too many sensations began to fill
her at once.

The suckling of her increasingly sensitive nipples, one, then the other, then back
again. The lash of his tongue against the tortured peaks, the thumb and forefinger
of one hand returning to the other nipple to torture it with those growing circles
of blistering heat and nearing release.

Her womb spasmed, her pussy clenched. Her clit tightened further, throbbing, expanding,
sensation surging, striking against it with each lash of sensation as he pressed silk
and denim against the steadily sensitized bundle of nerves.

She was tortured, her body strung tight as she fought for the center of sensation,
searching desperately for the edge where she dropped off into sheer sensation and
ecstasy.

It was close—

It was so close—

Muted mewls of desperation sounded around her. She knew they were hers, knew she would
wince at the begging, pleading sound of them later.

Then one hard male hand grabbed the side of her ass, as Archer’s hips moved faster
against her, dry fucking her with heavy strokes until those gathering, tightening
swirls of ecstatic sensation seemed to rupture inside her.

Her body imploded with a pleasure so violent it seemed to shred through her.

Her clitoris expanded, then exploded like a sun going supernova, tore through her,
and flung her into a climax that rocked her body and almost, just almost, touched
that center of her being she had placed in lockdown deep inside her soul.

Her nails dug into Archer’s shoulder as his lips released her nipple and buried in
her neck. He tensed beneath her, a muted male groan rumbling against the curve of
her neck and shoulder.

Holding her close, his body so tight, so hard it was like iron against her, Archer
kept her poised within the exploding heart of the ecstasy surrounding her.

One arm was clamped behind her back, the other clenched in the curve of her rear as
her sensitized nipples raked against his chest with each breath she took.

The sensual rapture held her, suspended in its grip as the world stopped around her.
The swirling sensations began to slow, to ease. The violence of her release echoing
weaker, then weaker still until she was left trembling against him, little shudders
of her climax echoing through her until she was left slumped against him, wasted—

The pleasure, the exacting explosion of release, still left her strangely aching for
more.

Beneath her, Archer’s cock was still iron-hard, throbbing. He’d eased the painful,
aching need torturing her, but he hadn’t—

“I’m sorry,” she said, as his hand stroked down her back.

“For what?” His head lifted, his lips pressing against her temple.

“You didn’t—” She stopped, heat flushing her face as she felt and heard the chuckle
that vibrated in his chest.

“Well, yeah, babe, I did,” he admitted, abashed as she lifted her head to stare up
at him.

She swallowed tightly. “You did?”

His grin was one of male bemusement. “Hell if I can explain it. Haven’t done that
since I was a damned teenager.”

“Oh.” She blinked back at him.

“Yeah. Oh,” he teased her.

Anna wished she could smile so easily, wished she could find the laughter inside her
that she used to find so easily whenever Archer was around.

“Come on, pretty girl. We’ve both had a hell of a night and day. I think it’s time
we went to bed.” Gripping her hips, he lifted her from him, steadying her until he
rose to his feet as well.

Taking her hand, he led her through the house to the staircase and upstairs.

As they stepped into the bedroom, she suddenly broke away and rushed across the room.

“Oscar.” Going to her knees beside the cat bed, she stroked the suddenly pitiful-acting
feline with gentle strokes.

Oscar stared up at her as though he’d had bones broken from the attack the night before.
And if Archer didn’t know better, he would have sworn the cat actually gave a little
moan rather than a purr.

“Poor baby,” she said, avoiding the shaved area of his head where his cut had been
checked at the vet. “Poor Oscar.” She turned to Archer then. “He bit Amory, you know.
Right on the inside of the thigh. It was all he could do to make Oscar stop attacking
him.”

She continued to rub the cat’s fur, and he ate it up like cream, the little bastard.

“Oscar did good,” Archer agreed as he moved to her, gripped her arms, and lifted her
to him. “Now forget the cat for a minute and come to bed with me, Anna. Let hold you,
baby. Just for a little while before we have to fight the world again, let me hold
you.”

He wanted to hold her, and Anna admitted she needed to be held by him, comforted by
him.

As he said, before they had to fight the world once again.

CHAPTER 22

Elizabeth Haley was laid out and waiting. Strapped to the metal table, gagged, the
drugs having worn off, and he couldn’t kill her.

He’d known before having Anna Corbin—or rather Sarah Ann Callahan—abducted that he
couldn’t kill her. Knowing that, the moment Amory had located Elizabeth Haley, the
woman whose name had been Ellen Mason, he’d had the other man abduct her and bring
her to the small cabin in Aspen that he kept for just such occasions.

Unfortunately, so very unfortunately, there was another young woman there as well.
One he hadn’t ever imagined having to kill, not really. But betrayal was betrayal,
and he couldn’t allow it to go unpunished.

There were few things so frustrating, he thought as he paced the floor in front of
the large monitor, as knowing the daughter a man trusted and loved could betray them
to the point that his sweet, precious Amelia had attempted to destroy him.

Why had she done this?

Because he’d forced her away from Crowe Callahan’s arms?

Or had she somehow learned the truth about her mother?

There was always that chance. She could have found the basement room where her mother
had been buried, the gravestone marking her grave and listing her crimes.

And all the inconsequential thoughts or questions in Corbin County weren’t going to
change the decision he had to make where she was concerned. Nor would it change the
fate of the young woman he viewed now.

Staring at the screen, watching as Elizabeth struggled against the straps, he could
feel his cock hardening, anticipation rising despite the circumstances, and resentment
building.

How dare those fucking Callahans interfere in his fun? Every time he turned around
in Corbin County now, they were locating yet another of his little hidden playhouses.

Not that they could possibly know who he was, but they were finding and destroying
the secluded line cabins he and Amory often used for their fun and games.

It wasn’t as though there were many ways to find recompense for everything he and
his ancestors had been cheated of.

This one pleasure was all that was to be had for so many decades of searching.

Naked, young, and so very beautiful.

Finding Elizabeth hadn’t been easy.

Hell, it had been damned hard because Crowe was real damned careful. Finding his lovers
was an almost impossible task. Catching up with Elizabeth had been even harder, and
he couldn’t figure out why.

It was almost as though she had been aware danger stalked her and refused to back
off. Hell, she had nearly managed to escape again. If he hadn’t gone looking for her
himself while Amory ensured Anna was released, then she would have escaped again.

“Are we sending her back?” Amory asked, his tone lazy and unconcerned as he tipped
back in his chair and watched the monitor.

Amory didn’t seem in the least concerned with the fact that they couldn’t kill this
girl either. At least, not at the moment.

Wayne had been set to enter her room and begin the fun himself when Amory had arrived
with the news that word was sweeping Corbin County that Anna Corbin was actually Sarah
Ann Callahan and Amory had been identified as her abductor.