Skin on Skin (23 page)

Condom. He needed a condom. Where the hell was it? His eyes fell on his pants and remembrance kicked back in. His wallet. He retrieved his pants, found the little foiled packet, and sheathed himself in one stroke. Walked back to her, slid over her, between her opened legs.

“Open your eyes, sweetheart,” he urged and watched as those thick lashes fluttered open once more.

Gently, firmly, he pushed into her. Easier than the first time, but he still had to work to get inside her, just barely.

“Hold on to me, baby,” and with that gentle warning, he lifted them up to his feet, and started walking.

Anne stirred from her lethargy. Walking? Where was he going?

“Oh!” she uttered, as she felt him slide inside her a little more with his movements. Another “Oh!” then her back was pressed against the wall behind, and he was pressed into her in front, his hands on her hips, holding her up, holding her immobile so she couldn’t move, just hung suspended like that, impaled by him, feeling so stretched.

“Are you all right?” he breathed, his voice strained.

“Yes, no. I don’t know.” She whimpered, wriggled against him, barely able to move. How far was he in? Her hand moved down, found him, moved up a frightening amount of length before she felt him end inside her, her lips stretched wide, tight and taut around him. Her hands blindly caressed him there where they joined. She squeezed him, wringing a groan from him. Looking into his eyes, so close to her, she said, “You feel so hard, inside and out.”

He rested his forehead against hers, his breath falling in hot pants across her lips. “You feel so incredibly soft and tight.”

“Do I?”

“Yes.” His hands shifted on her hips. “Hold still, darling. I’m going to let you take a little more of your weight.”

Anna didn’t know what he meant, until she felt his hands loosen on her hips so that he was no longer holding her up, supporting her weight. Gravity was. But gravity doesn’t support, it pulls you down. Slowly, slowly she sank down over him, and the sensation of it closed her eyes, her own weight sinking her down, pushing him slowly, inexorably in, stretching, stretching, stretching her. Torturously slow, torturously full, impaling herself on his thick pole, tight softness yielding to unyielding hardness. She slid down over him in flowing increments like hot molasses and she felt him push his way into her, thick, hard, and unrelenting. Doing nothing more than letting her own weight sink her down on him.
God!
The slowness of it was torture of the most exquisite kind, feeling every measurement of him entering her, leaving her panting, wanting to writhe, wanting to buck against him wildly.

“Does it hurt?” he gritted, teeth clenched.

“No!” It felt good. The sweetest agony.

“Just a little bit more.” His hands grasping her hips, holding her still, he bent his knees, tightened his buttocks, and surged into her, sheathing himself all the way to the hilt.

She twitched, shivered, cried out. “Oh, God, you’re killing me. Move, please move.” She wrapped her legs around his tight behind, and squeezed him even more into her, against her.

He groaned, laughed, rocked against her. “Loosen your legs a little, baby, and I’ll move.”

She loosened her cinching hold and he finally began to move. He pulled out, out, out. And then pushed in, in, in. Killingly slow. And all she could do was take it, her hips pinned against the wall by his hands. Her head fell back. Her back arched at the exquisite rippling sensation of feeling him surging into her. The slow drag and heft of him pulling out. The thickness of him forging unhurriedly back in, like a heavy ship parting reluctant waves.

Hot wetness covered her nipple, sucked her into the wet silk of his mouth, tugging, sucking, gently biting, one hand coming up to cup and caress, squeeze and play with her other breast. Lovely, but he’d stopped moving. She chewed her lower lip in frustration.
Oh, God.
Why didn’t he move! She swayed against him, danced upon him, shimmered her hips in shallow, rocking surges against him, just enough to feel beckoning pleasure shimmer like a promise. Just enough to tease herself crazy as he feasted upon her breasts with leisurely sucks and pulls. But not with the force, power, speed she so desperately needed. Urgently craved.

She gasped, she moaned, she whimpered, she begged. “Rand, please. Please, help me.”

“Like this?” he said, and did that slow pull out, that slow push back in again. Then stillness, him buried deep and thick inside her, her helpless feet dangling inches above the ground.

She squirmed, writhed upon him, clenched her inner muscles tight, felt him flex inside her. “Please, Rand. Help me!”

“Yes,” he murmured tenderly, kissed her gently. “Soon.”

The word lifted her eyes disbelievingly to his. Soon? She would die soon.

He looked strained himself, muscles bulging tight with his restraint. But his eyes…his eyes held a rock-hard resolve. “I’ll help you, baby, after you promise to make an honest man out of me.”

He did another one of those slow pull-and-push things again, keeping her strung out on the torturous rack of slow pleasure. Her eyes widened at his words sank in. “You…you want to
marry
me?” Anna said in bewilderment.

He circled his hips inside her. A twisting, grinding, lifting motion at the end that almost made her eyes roll back.

“Yes, darling,” he crooned. “More than anything else. My ring on your finger. Your ring on mine.”

She couldn’t grasp it, could not comprehend it. It was so hard to think. He wanted to
marry
her? She was older, he was ten years younger. She didn’t even know where he lived. “It…it’s too soon. We just met.” She gasped as he did another of those circling lifting motions inside her. She whimpered, wailed. “I can’t think like this.”

“Then don’t think, baby. Just say yes.” He swiveled-lifted his hips again. “I can stay in you like this all day until you say yes,” he murmured against her lips, a sweet, menacing promise, and flexed inside her.

She trembled against him, quivering helplessly, held up by him, on him. Pinned by his will. By his cock.

Gentle lips whispered over hers. “Say yes.”

It was too much. Too little. Sensations bombarding her, then leaving her cold, shivering, wanting. Unable to think, only feel and crave and desire.

“Say yes,” he breathed against her. She felt him thick inside her, his body tight against her, more than capable of keeping her strung out like this all day, driving her slowly crazy until she said yes.

In that moment of weakness, in that moment of want, she gave in to what her heart most desired. “Yes,” Anna whispered. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

His eyes blazed. Blue-green fire. He gripped her face and kissed her passionately, tremblingly, his heart thudding violently. He kissed her wildly. “Baby”—kiss—“Darling”—kiss—“Anna”—kiss—“You won’t regret it.”—kiss—“Promise you.” Another hard kiss. And then he began to move, and she didn’t regret it. How could she when he looked at her like that? Like she was his entire world, his entire desire. He was suddenly the one shaking, the one wild, the one out of control. He pulled out and thrust into her hard, fast, like he couldn’t get deep enough, close enough, lifting her up the wall with his driving force, pushing the very breath out of her. But who needed to breathe when you could feel?…His hands behind her, protecting her, cushioning her. His thickness surging again and again into her, slick and hard, strong and deep, filling her with fierce, shooting pleasure. Stringing her tight and tighter around him, clenching his heaving, surging length, trying to hold him, grip him tight when he entered, as he left, when he returned home again and again.

Then Anna was the one fighting it, not wanting it to end, not wanting to go over. But it was like trying to stop a flood from sweeping you away. It crashed over her, rolled her under, threw her up, light, weightless, suspended in a still, infinite moment of time. And then she was convulsing and shattering in an endless orgasm that smashed pleasure through her, over her, out of her. Splintering her apart while he moved strongly within her, holding her. Then it was her turn to hold him as he heaved and bucked and shuddered and groaned in his own climax. To feel the strong pulses of his ejaculation throb from his base up through his shaft and out. To feel the tiny electric pulses of his satisfaction push against her own sensitive tissues. And it was wonderful.

H
e treated Anna like a cherished lover or a beloved wife, washing her, drying her, tucking her into the soft covers of her bed and snuggling beside her, her head resting on his chest, the lovely
ba-boom, ba-boom
of his heart a lulling dear rhythm beneath her ear.

He stroked her hair. “The first time I saw you, I thought you looked like a perfect little China doll with your porcelain-white skin, jet-black hair, and red lips.”

“A China doll,” Anna murmured. “Surprisingly accurate. Something put carefully on a shelf, hidden behind protective glass, sheltered by my parent’s love, contained by my own fear.” She ran her hand idly down his chest. “But that glass shattered when my daughter almost died two months ago.”

Rand stiffened beneath her, lifted her chin so he could see her. “How?” he asked roughly.

“Lily helped break up a human smuggling ring. But the head of the Chinatown gang she brought down got away and came after her. I was in her apartment when he broke in, looking for her. He waited for her holding a knife at my throat until Lily arrived.”

“What happened?”

“He cut me then, made me bleed, using me to get her to come to him.”

Rand pulled the sheet down, baring her. “Where?” he demanded, dark rage in his eyes.

Her hand lifted to two thin lines on the left side of her neck, so faint Rand hadn’t noticed them until now. Now, pointed out, they were so ugly, so glaringly obvious. His fingers trembled as he touched those marks, ugly not in appearance, but in what had put them there. A little deeper and the bastard would have severed her carotid artery. Killed her.

It left him shaken and enraged.

“He was going to hurt my baby,” Anna said. “I couldn’t let him. I hit him between the legs, dropped down and rolled away from him. My Lily took it from there.”

“Is he in prison?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Rand said, jaw clenched tight. “May he rot there.”

A soft hand came up to stroke the shadowy line of his jaw. “It wasn’t so bad. No, that’s not true. It was bad. But it was a good thing. It was the first time in my life I’d fought for anything. I fought for my daughter’s safety, and then fought for her happiness. She was like me, after what her father did to her, never trusting men. She loved Wes, the FBI agent who helped her break up the smuggling ring, but she was going to walk away from him. I told to her reach out, to risk her heart, and she listened to me. Me! The hypocrite who’d only risked her heart once and lost and never dared risk it again. She shamed me, and I couldn’t go back to being that China doll. I couldn’t step back onto that protective shelf again.”

“Is that what you were doing that night in Indonesia?”

“Yes. Afterwards, I went a little crazy. I left the practice in my partner’s hands, traveled to Indonesia to help with the tsunami relief. And it helped me, healed me, made me ready to tackle my biggest fear—intimacy once more with a man. I wanted to break free of those chains that I’d let my own fear bind me in. I was a China doll that night you first saw me. But I no longer am. I no longer want to be.”

Rand kissed her, held her tight against him. “You’re so brave. But I’m glad, so glad you waited for me.” She felt so light and precious in his arms. And she’d almost died. The realization frightened him. “I don’t want to wait,” he said roughly. “I want us to be married right away. Tomorrow—no, tomorrow’s Sunday. The next day. Monday.”

“Monday?” Anna pulled away from him, dazed. “I don’t have a dress.”

He smiled. “We’ll get one tomorrow.”

“We don’t have a license.”

“We’ll get that first thing Monday.”

“Rand, I can’t marry you in two days. I need more time than that.”

He rolled her over suddenly, pinning her. Spreading her legs, he pushed gently into her. She was still soft, still wet.

“Say yes,” he said, his jungle-green eyes glinting with determination.

“Oh, God. Rand, no. Please don’t do this,” she begged, squirming beneath him, arching up, taking him in, feeling him slide in deliciously, wickedly slow. He felt different, somehow. Better.

He pushed all the way in, then held still. “Say
yes.
”

“Please, Rand. I can’t think like this.”

Buried deep inside her, his hips swiveled and lifted. “Say
yes.
”

She whimpered, groaned. Then gave in. “Okay. Yes. Rand, please!”

He did. He proceeded to please her. And himself. With slow deep thrusts. With penetrating forays.

“Do you want children?” Rand asked, his face taut, his eyes tender.

“What?” God, it was so hard to think.

“Do you want children?” he repeated, strain evident in his voice as he continued to move in her, a steady gentle rhythm, allowing her to moisten, heat, soften more.

Children. His child. Her heart turned over. “Yes, I’d love to have your baby.”

Rand’s eyes flared with heat, with tenderness, with love. “Good, because I’m not wearing a condom.”

“Oh.” Anna blinked her eyes in surprise as she wriggled around him, clenched tightly about him as if to hold him still with her inner muscles and examine him. “Is that why I feel you more?”

“Ah, baby,” he groaned. “Do that again.”

She did, making him groan again, move faster inside her, long surging strokes.

“Yes,” she panted, lifting up to meet his thrusts. “Harder!” Gasp. “More!”

The bed was creaking beneath them, in rhythm with their thrusts, the headboard bumping the wall in accent to his deep and deeper drives inside her, damp skin slapping against damp skin, her moaning, him groaning.

“More, Rand, more. Faster!”

He took her at her word and began pistoning into her. Hard, hot, thick, and complete. A wild impassioned taking, his lips swallowing up her cries, and then swallowing up a drawn nipple, achingly tight and sensitive. His teeth clamped down strong around her pebble hardness, bit down gently as he rammed sharp and deep into her with the full driving force of his hips and buttocks. She crested. Burst apart. Rippling, rippling, rippling endlessly around him, milking him dry. He arched back and spurted hotly within her, shooting his seed inside her. Tense man became boneless mass, sinking down, covering her with his relaxed weight. All too soon, he stirred, tried to lift away.

“No!” Anna cried, legs tightening around him. “Don’t go. Stay inside me.”

His weight crushed her back down into the bed. “I’m too heavy for you,” he muttered, his face half-buried in the fragrant spill of her hair.

“No you’re not.”

“How’s this?” He shifted a little onto his side, so that she bore less of his weight.

She stroked his hair. “Good.” Anything was good as long as he was still inside her.

They dozed. When she shifted her legs into a more comfortable position, he stirred, lifted his face, looked at her, his face sweetly relaxed with satisfaction and contentment.

Tears suddenly burned the back of her eyes.

“Anna, are you crying? Oh, God, did I hurt you?” he asked, eyes wide, a bit wild.

“No, no. I’m happy,” she sniffed and laughed. “You make me so happy. A baby,” Anna whispered, and wondered if they had made one just now, created new life.

His big hand splayed over her belly, a protective gesture, encompassing it. “If it’s a boy, we’re going to have to name him Randolph. I hope you don’t mind. It’s a family tradition for the first son to be named that.”

Anna smiled. “Randolph Weatherby, the—what—third?”

Rand’s smile was a trifle embarrassed. “The twelfth. I’m number eleven.”

“Randolph Weatherby,” Anna murmured, frowning. “That sounds familiar.”

“Paper,” he said.

“What?”

“Weatherby labels, paper products. That’s, uh, the family business.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. Weatherby. No wonder it sounded so familiar. It was usually blazoned in big, white print beneath their triangular logo. In fact, she had a box of their white address labels next to her printer. And she’d seen a picture of Randolph Weatherby, Rand’s father, on the cover of
Fortune
magazine six months ago.

“You’re wealthy,” she realized, stunned. His family, in fact, was possibly wealthier than hers. And they’d had their money far longer. Old money, not new like hers.

Rand frowned. “Yes, I’m wealthy. So are you.”

“Then why do you want to marry me?”

He stilled for a moment. Dangerously still. When she finally awakened to the threat in him, it was too late. He had her pinned, her wrists manacled above her head, his body hard, fully on top of her, in her, a throbbing, stirring presence between her legs. His hot, angry breath hit her face like blows.

“I want you to marry me because I want you to be my wife, my family,” he said, his voice hard. “Because I love you, you little fool. Not because I need your money.”

“You love me?” Anna said, bewildered.

His eyes softened. “Yes, is that so hard to believe?”

“Oh, Rand.” A catch of breath. “I love you, too.”

And then Anna was flat out crying, sobbing. Her wrists were freed and she found herself clinging to him.

“Oh, God, baby. Please don’t cry,” Rand said tenderly, desperately. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you. Don’t be afraid. Please don’t be afraid of me.”

A slim hand smacked his shoulder. “You didn’t scare me.” Not too much, anyway. “I’m just”—sniff—“
happy
.”

He rubbed her back. “Oh, darling. Do you always cry when you’re happy?”

“I don’t know,” she hiccupped.

Rand kissed her tears gently away. “That’s okay. We have a whole lifetime together to find out.”

Together. Such a beautiful word. “Love me, Rand.”

“I do,” he said and began that beautiful dance once more. The dance of their love, of their pleasure. Of their togetherness.