Killer Secrets (31 page)

"Not in Russia." His hands framed her face, lips
lowering to hers as hunger beat at his brain in a steady

rhythm.

"Albania?" she whispered against his lips, her
hands pushing the edges of his shirt apart to touch the

hard, hair-spattered muscles of his chest.

"Never in Albania." She had been a rebel, a
competent warrior when she'd had to be one.

"Then why would I need protecting now?" she
asked, pushing at his shoulders until he dropped his hands

from her face and allowed her to shove the shirt away from
his arms.

Her hands smoothed over the powerful biceps, nails digging
in as she curled them into the thickest area

and clenched.

"You don't need protecting." Admitting that
wasn't easy. "What do you need?"

He watched the shadows that flickered in her eyes, regret
and sorrow.

"I need you." Her hands moved to the band of his
slacks, parted his belt, then the metal clasp that held it

secure, before her fingers lowered the zipper. "Give
me what I need, Ian. And, maybe, what you need

too?"

God yes, it was what he needed. Needed to the point that he
wondered if his soul would fracture

without it. Without her. Months of living a lie, sleeping
it, eating it, drinking it, fucking breathing it every

second of the day, had been eating away at him like acid.

Until Kira had arrived. Until she had blown into his life
again like a breath of sunshine.

"Come here." He lifted her into his arms, cradled
her against his chest, and moved into the bedroom.

He needed something he couldn't name this time. He needed
to touch and be touched in ways he

couldn't describe. He had been slowly dying inside until
Kira arrived in Aruba and now he was burning,

throbbing, all-too-living and desperate for more of her.

"What are you doing, Ian?" A flash of
vulnerability, of uncertainty in her expression and in her gaze,

almost had him smiling as he laid her on the bed.

She could meet him head-to-head in a confrontation, argumentative
or sexual, but for some reason this

seemed to throw her off balance. Hell, he'd have to
remember to relish her rather than gorge on her more

often.

"I need more than a quickie, Kira." He released
the button and zipper of her pants. Curling his fingers on

the waistband and drawing the the pants over her thighs and
down her long, sexy legs. And damn, her

legs were pretty.

"Why more than a quickie?" She frowned and he
couldn't miss the fact that her fingers curled tightly into

the material of the blanket beneath her. "Quickies are
pretty good, Ian."

"Quickies aren't nearly enough." He dropped her
pants to the floor then disposed of his own just as

quickly. "Unless you'd like to tell me why you prefer
a quickie?"

Eighteen

WHY DID SHE PREFER Aquickie? Kira inhaled tightly and
stared up at him with the knowledge that

she had made a slight tactical error where Ian was
concerned. He saw things no others saw, and he was

especially adept at seeing through her.

"We're rather running out of time." She cleared
her throat nervously. "I know you have business to take

care of, and Deke—"

"I hate it when you lie to me." His lips quirked,
a sexy little mocking smile that had her womb flexing and

the juices spilling from her vagina as he came to the bed
beside her.

"What am I lying to you about?" She turned to
him, lying on her side, feeling the slight roughness of his

chest hair caressing her nipples.

It was an erotic, exotic sensation. Why had she never
noticed that before? The extreme pleasure from

something so subtle as the feel of those hairs across the
tender tips.

"You've always pushed our encounters," he said,
his voice hushed as his hand stroked down her hip to

her thigh. "Except for the first time. I stole your
control then. Is that what scares you, Kira? No control?"

What was her life without control? Without the ability to
maintain herself and her emotions? Her

emotions especially.

"Sex isn't about control, Ian." She maintained a
confident smile despite the nerves gathering inside her.

"It's about pleasure, remember?"

Pleasure. All she had to do was make him feel the right
amount of pleasure, get the blood pumping and

the lust heating, and it might not be a quickie, but it
could leave her a part of her heart intact. If he

managed to take all of her, she would never be able to
defend herself against the results of her own

deception.

One hand slid down his stomach as the other curled around
his neck. Her lips lifted to his, touching

them, whispering over them.

Heat spiraled through her, wrapped around her as strong as
his arms, and when his lips responded,

opened and joined the kiss, she felt her breath hitch. Her
hand tightened on his neck, the other moved to

the hard, engorged length of his cock.

She needed to touch him, feel him. Nothing in her life had
ever felt so good as Ian did. His touch, the

stroke of his hands down her back, over her thigh. The
other hand threaded through the hair at the back

of her head. Before she could guess his intention, guess
his next move, his fingers clenched and pulled her

head back slowly, breaking the kiss, breaking the
incredible pleasure weaving through her. It also clued

her in to the fact that he wasn't going to be so easy to
manipulate.

"Ian, this isn't the place for games," she
reminded him, her hand curling around the broad length of his

erection and stroking it with a long, slow caress.

"Then you shouldn't play them," he growled.

His hips shifted, thrusting his cock into her grip even as
his free hand wrapped around her fingers and

forced her to release him.

His eyes burned within the darkened centers, the fiery
tobacco-brown depths glowing with lust as he

came over her.

"Restraining me won't ease either of us." But she
still arched to him, raking her nipples over his chest

even as he gripped both her wrists in one hand and secured
them over her head.

"I won't have to restrain you for long. Just long
enough to get the fires blazing inside that hot little body.

Isn't that right, Kira? Just long enough to remind you how
hungry you can get."

She bit her lower lip and glared back at him. "And you
don't get that hungry?"

"Oh, I get that hungry." Strong white teeth
grazed over her lower lip as he controlled the subtle

movements of her body while she tried to find a position
that would allow her to break the hold he had

on her. "I get very hungry."

His lips came back, moved over hers, his tongue pressing
past her lips to lick at her tongue as his

callused fingers curled around the aching mound of her
breast.

Kira jerked, nearly flinching at the pleasure of that
touch. His fingertips rasped around the delicate nerve

endings of her nipple, yet never quite touched the hardened
peak.

Her lips parted further, her tongue reaching out to stroke
his as pleasure began to envelop her. Rapid,

heated pinpoints of sensation built inside her, swirling
through her bloodstream, sensitizing her nerve

endings. She could feel the need growing inside her,
building with his kiss, with each stroke of his fingers

around her nipple and each second he held her restrained.

"Ian." She tore her lips from his even as she
arched closer to his hard, warm body. "Don't do it like this.

Please."

"Just say no, Kira." His lips slid over her
cheek, her jaw. "A single word. All you have to do is use it."

Her lips parted, the word hovered on her lips as she gasped
for breath.

"I'll stop," he promised, his voice velvet rough.
"I'll let you go. I'll shower and attend to business. You'll

be safe from whatever demons chase you then, won't
you?"

Her teeth clamped shut as a fractured cry tore from her
lips. She could say no and he would just stop?

She tightened her thighs, pressing them together, desperate
to stop the ache building in her clit. If he

stopped, it might kill her.

"You're not playing fair," she breathed out
roughly. God, even breathing was an erotic sensation at this

point.

"I never promised to play fair." He brought her
to her back once again, his head lowering, lips feathering

over her collarbone, his tongue tasting her skin.

She didn't know if she could bear this. Heat was spiraling
inside her body, attacking erogenous zones

and sensitizing the rest of her body to the point that
pleasure became near ecstasy.

"You have the prettiest breasts." His free hand
cupped a swollen mound, his thumb brushing over her

nipple.

Sensation whipped around the hard point then zipped across
her nerve endings and clenched the

muscles of her womb.

He didn't give her time to process the pleasure from it
before his head went lower, his lips and tongue

painting a trail of hunger straight to her nipple.

Heated moisture surrounded the engorged flesh as he drew it
into his mouth and sucked it deep. Kira

flinched, a ragged cry tearing from her lips.

"You want to destroy me," she accused him, her
voice rough as she ground her head into the pillow.

The feel of his mouth drawing on her nipple, his tongue
lashing it, was making her insane. The peaks

were torturously tight, throbbing at the continued friction
against them. With each rough lick the flames

consuming her body seemed to lick higher, hotter.

"I want to touch you too." Her fingers curled,
desperation tightening through her as the need to feel him

became imperative.

"Not yet." He lifted his lips only to smooth his
jaw over her breast.

The faint bristle of stubble rasped over the soft skin of
her breast, sending rapid-fire sensation exploding

through her.

"Why not yet?" She tried to twist beneath him, to
break the hold he had on her wrists, and on her

emotions.

She was weak. His touch was more potent than liquor, and he
affected more than just her body. That

was the problem. He affected parts of her that she wanted
to keep hidden. Parts of her that she had kept

hidden for so many years that she had forgotten they
existed herself.

"Because I want to touch you." His head lifted,
the piercing dark flames in his eyes searing her as he

pulled himself up on the bed.

He knelt by her head, which made no sense. He wanted to
touch her, yet the hard length of his cock

was poised just above her lips as he secured his hold on
her wrists.

Rather than trying to pull herself up to reach the engorged
crest, she went for the sensitive sac beneath it

instead.

Ian froze, his breath wheezing from his lungs as Kira's
lips covered the side of his testicles, her tongue

laving over it as a whispery moan vibrated into the tight
flesh.

God help him.

He leaned his head against the thick wood of the headboard
and concentrated on breathing rather than

spilling his cum. Her mouth should be licensed. It was
wicked, bordering on illegally destructive to the

male senses. She mouthed the flesh as it drew tight beneath
his cock, cum boiling dangerously close to an

explosion.

Gritting his teeth, he dragged the slender chain and wrist
restraints from the metal loop secured to the

back of the bed. Whoever had owned the house and furnished
it had had a definite eye toward hiding the

accoutrements of sexual pleasure.

As she busied her lips and tongue with his balls, he
quickly slid the velvet-lined cuffs over her wrists and