As for Alec, some of Duarte’s reservations about trusting him had smoothed as well, despite the numerous questions Duarte had when it came to his old friend’s current dubious affiliations. The two of them had shot the shit over dinner, falling into an easy camaraderie that made Duarte miss the old times. It had made him miss the tight friendship their one-time trifecta had enjoyed.
And it had made the specter of Kyle’s possible defection loom all the more ominously. Especially when Duarte had been seated at the table with his arm draped intimately around Lisa’s shoulders while the three of them relaxed after dinner.
Now, Duarte found her standing outside on the open-air veranda of her guest room. She’d excused herself from the table about twenty minutes earlier to freshen up, and it had taken just about all of his willpower not to insist on going with her.
He told himself the impulse was a protective one, but seeing her now, standing alone in the moonlight beneath a canopy of swaying palm trees, looking out at the dark water as he approached her from behind, the feeling that gripped him wasn’t simple concern for her wellbeing and a need to know that she was safe. It wasn’t even basic lust, though there was plenty of that going on.
No, what he felt when he looked at Lisa Becker went deeper than he wanted to acknowledge.
And he’d been carrying this feeling around for longer than he was willing to admit.
Hell, she’d gotten under his skin well before they’d fallen into bed together that first time. From the start, she’d gotten under and stayed there. He just hadn’t realized it until fate sent her back to him again last night.
Not good, Duarte. Turn the fuck around and let it go. If not for your own sanity, then for hers.
Too late. Lisa must have sensed she wasn’t alone.
She pivoted around and her soft eyes found him standing in the open room behind her. She was still wearing her clothes from that morning at the cabin. Duarte had left his shoes and flannel shirt behind in his own room a minute ago, and now wore only his jeans in the warm night air.
Lisa smiled hesitantly. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he said. For a moment, he stood there, his bare feet rooted to the cool tile floor. Still time to about-face and not complicate things any further with her. “Just wanted to check on you. Make sure you had everything you need for the night.”
“I do now.” Her shy smile warmed, became a welcoming beacon in the moonlit darkness and dim light of the room. She glanced back out at the night sky and endless expanse of glittering black water. “Pretty spectacular, isn’t it?”
Duarte stalked forward, all thoughts of doing the right thing—the uncomplicated thing—blown away on the tropical breeze. He stood directly behind her, their bodies’ mingling warmth heating his bare chest like a furnace. He couldn’t resist sweeping her silky hair away from the side of her neck to make room for his kiss. “Spectacular,” he murmured against her satin skin. “Never seen anything more gorgeous in my life.”
Her soft moan vibrated through him as she leaned back, into the cradle of his arms. “Is that you or the single malt talking?”
God, he wished he could blame the scotch. “Just me, and I mean every word. You are...” He shook his head slowly, still trying to make sense of everything she was to him—back then, and especially now. “You always have been... a surprise.”
“In what way?” She sounded curious, but he could hear the smile in her voice as well.
“In the best way. Shit, in the worst way, too.” He caged her loosely in his arms, taking another taste of the sweet softness below her ear. “I’ve made my living always knowing how to respond to any situation, how to approach and attack any kind of problem. Nothing knocks me off course. I’m prepared for anything because I have to be. It’s how I survive. But damn if I’ve ever known how to handle myself around you.”
“Oh, I think you do all right.” She caressed his arms as she continued to rest against him. “And sometimes it’s okay to shut all that other noise out. It’s okay for you to just
be
, Johnny. Especially when you’re with me.”
Duarte held her and watched the moonlight dance on the water beyond the island’s shore. For a moment, it was easy to believe they’d escaped to some secluded haven together. Someplace warm and pretty and tranquil, like she deserved.
Someplace where the Phoenix program never existed and they weren’t running from armed killers on their trail or dependent on a minor drug lord to provide them shelter. For just a moment, he wanted to ignore the nightmare premonitions that plagued him and the dread that he might not be able to protect Lisa from the danger his vision and Alec’s predicted.
For now, holding her like this, it was all too easy to imagine none of that could touch them.
Feeling Lisa going warm and pliant in his arms made him wish the illusion could be real.
She slowly shifted, turning around to face him. Her touch was feather light on his cheek and whiskers. That gentle caress alone nearly undid him.
“I hoped you’d come to find me here,” she confessed softly. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
The night breeze lifted the fine tendrils of her golden brown hair, sent it dancing around her beautiful face. Dusky hazel eyes stared up at him from under the fronds of her lashes.
He saw desire there, raw and unmistakable, and it sent an arrow of need into his veins. “I shouldn’t stay...” He trailed off on a low, muttered curse. “You look too good out here in the moonlight. It’s been a long, fucked up day, and you’ve got to be tired. The last thing you need is me pouncing on you again when I’m supposed to be protecting y—”
She silenced him with a kiss. A very hot, take-no-prisoners kiss. Her bold tongue pushed past his teeth and invaded his mouth, turning his cock to fire-forged steel. His pulse quickened and the growl that rolled off his lips was ripe with need.
“If you don’t stop now,” he warned thickly, “I won’t be able to.”
She licked her lips. “Do you want to stop?”
Fuck no.
He managed a vague shake of his head before he took her mouth in a hard, claiming kiss of his own. His erection pulsed with each heartbeat banging in his chest. His hips rocked forward, seeking the friction and heat of Lisa’s body.
“I want to be inside you, right now. Christ, I want that more than you can know.” He groaned. “All my stuff’s in the other room. No condoms on me.”
Unfazed, Lisa wrapped her arms around the back of his neck, pressing herself against him in delicious torment.
“Stop thinking every problem is yours to solve, John Duarte.” Her mouth curved in a wicked smile. “Now shut up and kiss me again.”
10
Lisa pulled John into another slow, passionate kiss.
He was right; she was tired and exhausted. And it had been a long hell of a day. But the one thing she needed most at the end of it was him.
She lost herself in their kiss, let her hands skim over his strong bare shoulders and into the thick waves of his hair. His soft beard rasped against her cheeks and neck as his mouth roamed over her in a fevered path, igniting sparks of heat everywhere he kissed her.
It didn’t matter that they were in a strange place, under troubling circumstances. Her heart needed this man, just as much as her body needed him now.
John’s low voice vibrated through her. “Damn, woman... what you do to me.”
“Then let me do it,” she whispered breathlessly. Twining her hands in his hair, she crushed her mouth to his again, thrusting her tongue past his teeth.
He met her with equal ferocity, then tore his mouth away on a growl. “You sure? Right here?”
She nodded, too swept up in him to reply.
They weren’t alone on the island, not even alone in the sprawling house, but it was warm and secluded on the veranda. The last guard to walk past on patrol of the perimeter hadn’t been back in a long while. So, with the warm breeze off the ocean sifting through the palms overhead, and nothing but the moon to see them, Lisa kissed him deeper as she reached down to unfasten his jeans.
She slipped her hand inside, moaning at the heat and power of his shaft. The velvety strength of him surged even harder, even hotter, as she caressed his length and teased the juice-slickened, broad plum at its crest. Her palm and fingertips glided over his shaft in smooth, wet strokes, each long pull drawing ragged breaths and delicious shudders from his immense body.
His hips thrust with the increasing tempo she set, and his kiss took on a wildness she reveled in.
She wanted him to let go with her.
She wanted to feel him lose control, and know that she had given him that freedom.
She wanted...
God, she wanted everything when it came to this man.
Hunger building, she broke their kiss to focus on pushing his jeans and boxers down to give her fingers better access to him. His erection sprang free, heavy and heated in her palm.
She couldn’t get enough.
Sinking down onto her knees in front of him, she helped him step out of his clothing and pushed it aside. Then she cupped and stroked him with one hand, the other trailing down to his balls and back again, praising him with her fingers. Beautiful. That’s what he was. Beautiful and strong and magnificent.
And he was hers, even if he didn’t know that. She wanted him to know tonight.
Yeah, their lives were tangled up in chaos and uncertainty now, but John Duarte had always belonged to her. And she to him.
Tonight she wanted—
needed
—to hear him say it. If not with his words, then with his body.
With the surrender of his hard-held, iron control.
She licked the crown of his cock as her hands continued their worship of him. The salty, hot taste of him intoxicated her, made her suckle him deeper into her mouth on a soft moan. He hissed as she drew him in and out with the suction of her lips and tongue. His big hands came down onto her head, fingers spearing into her loose hair.
On a throaty sigh, she swallowed him nearly to the root, relishing the surge of his pelvis as she descended on his length. His balls were tight in her palm, his thighs spread apart, quivering as she pulled back, then pushed down once more. Again and again, her own arousal mounting from the delicious friction of his cock filling her mouth.
“Jesusfuck... Ohyeahsugar...” The words rushed out of him, short, strangled whispers as she sucked him deeper, harder, into her mouth.
She loved the feel of him on her tongue. She loved the way his powerful body tensed, how his breathing gusted out of him, ragged and rapid, each time she slid along on his shaft. The head of his erection knocked against the back of her throat and a shudder wracked him.
He groaned, let out a harsh curse. “That sweet mouth of yours... you’re killing me here. So wicked... so fucking hot.”
She purred at his praise, every bit as frenzied as he was. His hands roamed wildly in her hair, messing it all up, winding the tresses around his fists while his body bucked and shook with each stroke and lick and nip she lavished on him.
Another groan ripped out of his throat. “Ah fuck... baby, you gotta stop now. You gotta—”
“Not a chance,” she murmured, glancing up at his pleasure-contorted face.
To demonstrate her intent, she took him deep and slow, all the way to the base. He dropped his head back, sucking in a hissed breath as she tightened her lips around him and pivoted her mouth on his cock.
Her name was a thick whisper on his exhaled breath as she worked him to the point of no return. She felt his body ratchet further, every strong muscle and tendon going tight as bowstrings. He held her head to him, fists tangled in her hair. His hips jutted forward in a hard thrust, and she smiled when she felt his leash begin to slip.
“Lisa,” he uttered again, though whether in warning or plea, she didn’t know.
With another fierce pump, his release spilled into her mouth, scorching and erotic. She lapped at him greedily, taking everything he had to give, savoring the moment.
Right now, nothing else could touch them.
Right now, they belonged only to each other, and to this moment.
The blazing look in his eyes left no room for doubt.
~ ~ ~
“Come up here.” Duarte could hardly croak out the words.
He drew her up from her knees and slanted his mouth over hers in an unhurried tangling of lips and tongues and panting, mingled breaths. His entire body was electrified, a tinderbox of raw, combustible need, even after the incredible orgasm that Lisa had wrenched from him.
Sucked from him without mercy or hesitation, like a cat with the cream.
Holy fuck, had she ever.
The thought alone rendered him rock-hard, instantly ready for another round. She tasted sweeter than ever, and the fact that his own juices lingered on her kiss only made him crave her more.
He needed to be inside her. He wanted to be the one delivering the sweet torture now, turning her inside out with pleasure until she couldn’t bear another second of it. He wanted to feel her body detonate on his cock in an orgasm she’d never forget.
Except he’d been the dumbass to walk into this without a condom.
He snarled a curse at himself for letting things slip out of control here.
Ought to be getting used to that by now.
Lisa Becker was the one woman who’d ever been able to make him crack.
Broke him wide open, and not just because she was the hottest thing he’d ever laid eyes or hands on.
He turned her around so she was facing the dark, moonlit water beyond the veranda. As she stood at the railing, bent slightly forward to brace herself, he moved in behind her. Swept her hair aside so he could nuzzle his mouth in the curve of her neck and shoulder. “Now I’m going to taste you, sugar. Every sweet inch of you.”
She tipped her head back on a sigh as he kissed her. Shivered as he ran his hands down her back, then onto the sweet flare of her denim-clad hips. She moaned as he took hold of her and pulled her ass against his erection. He thrust into her rounded curves, desire stabbing him like spurs as she met his tempo, grinding along with him.