Seduction’s Canvas (Crimson Romance) (19 page)

He flipped his top lock and tugged open the steel door. Wide eyes met wide eyes and his heart did a skip jump thing that could only mean trouble. Yeah, it was a problem, alright, since that hot woman was Samara Leighton. The girl he’d loved his whole life.

“Samara.”

She seemed to falter for a moment, perfect teeth nervously nibbling on her full bottom lip. She looked down, vulnerable and suddenly quite young, her lashes fanning across her flushed cheeks.

Mark took her in. Still in her sexy dress, killer heels, hot as hell. He narrowed his eyes, thoughts of her driving off with Moss flooding his brain. “What are you doing here? You get lost on your way home?” he asked, leaning out and looking past her, down the empty hall.

Sam flinched at his tone, but then seemed to visibly shake off his comment as she flipped her loosely waved chestnut hair back over her slim shoulders. She brought defiant eyes up to his in a challenging stare.

“No, Mr. Thorn. I know exactly where I am.”

He raised a brow and leaned on the doorframe. “And … ”

“And I thought that maybe you’d like a bit of company.” She leaned forward and looked past him into the sparse apartment. “That is, if you don’t already have company.”

Something inside him broke. Who the hell did she think she was to be able to go from him to another man and then right back to him? He looked at her with astonishment and then narrowed his gaze. Samara Fucking Leighton, that’s who. She was perfection personified. Here it was, well after midnight and not a hair was out of place, her skin was glistening, eyes perfectly clear, even her lipstick was flawless. He shook his head and nodded toward her door, ignoring the killer erection he was working on and the need to pull her in and destroy every trace of that lipstick.

“Last I heard you belonged over there in number ten.”

Sam frowned and Mark watched as a shadow clouded over her dark chestnut eyes. She looked down; once again bringing with her a hint of that vulnerability that he saw when he’d first opened the door. “Sorry, I guess this was a mistake. I didn’t think you’d do it too.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and told himself not to ask the question even as the words tumbled out of his mouth. “What did I do?”

She turned back his way, a look of disappointment shadowing her features. “Tell me where and who I have to be.”

Shit.

It happened before he could stop himself. Mark reached out and took her hand, pulling her into his apartment and out of the hall. She was in his arms and up against the back of the door before he could think and she could protest, his lips covering hers in a hot mixture of breath and tongues that felt like all that life was about in that moment. Mark took a deep breath and let out a growl, pulling back. He looked her in the eye.

She looked up at him, chest heaving with every labored swell of breath. “What is it?”

“I can taste him on you.”

Samara stepped forward. “Don’t worry; it was nothing more than a goodnight kiss.”

Mark fought against the jealousy burning through his soul. “Oh, I’m not worried in the least. You’re here with me right now and I’m going to make you forget any moment you’ve ever had with him.”

• • •

Sam knew she should have turned tail and ran as soon as she heard him say her name. But for the life of her, in that moment she couldn’t move. When he said it, it was as if she was hearing the end of a prayer and the heavens opened up. She knew then she was lost and turning back was an option long gone.

Now Sam shivered, taking in Mark’s deadly, desirous intent. She knew she was crazy for coming over and knocking on his door in the first place, but as soon as she’d stepped into her apartment with the rest of the night ahead of her, an overwhelming sense of loneliness had overcome her being. Her mind had told her to just go to bed. Another part of her said to call Gabby — or better yet, call Peter and see if she could actually build a relationship with him. It would be the right thing. The smartest thing would have been to go to her studio and paint for a while, and she was all ready to do it too. She was just about to slip off her dress and change into her work clothes when it hit her. All she really wanted was him. He would fill that empty void. He would make that ache go away. More than anything, he could make her smile.

But now she wasn’t smiling. Now she was standing here out of control and very near ready to lose it all if he didn’t touch her right now.

“How will you make me forget?”

Mark’s eyes went to black and suddenly he was every bit the dark rider that she’d seen going in and out of the building. The same man who took on the guy in the bar without hesitation and the one who took on the two guys in the alley without a flinch. Sam swallowed and would have stepped back if she didn’t already have the door at her back. She saw Mark still, then shake his head. He leaned in toward her and put his forehead to hers. “No, don’t do that. One thing I never want you to be is afraid of me,” he croaked out, his voice going horse.

Samara reached up and cradled his roughened cheeks in her palms, loving the feel against her hand. “No, I won’t be afraid. This is why I’m here. This is why I came.”

She felt his slight smile. “Then this is why you can always come to me. You’re safe.”

She looked into his eyes and for a moment felt complete peace. She let out a breath. When had she last felt that? She hadn’t realized it had been so long. His lips quirked up and his smile turned wicked. “Now turn around.”

Her brows went up in shock as he spun her so that she was now facing the door’s peephole. She couldn’t help but look through as she saw her own door looking back at her. Sam blinked as Mark leaned down and kissed her bare shoulder. To be so large, his gentleness was always such a surprise. She went to lean back into him, but he stilled her, holding her upright as his hand went to the dress’s tie at her neck. She shivered as he undid it, the wispy fabric coming down and over her breasts, leaving her now cool and exposed. Her nipples instantly became hard peaks as she let out a shuddered breath. Mark’s hands skimmed down the sides of her body along with the fabric as it came down over her hips and pooled onto the floor.

Samara leaned forward, breasts touching the cool steel door, behind out, almost fully exposed and barely covered by her thong. She felt Mark’s heavy presence behind her and looked back over her shoulder.

“It would seem that once again you have me at your feet, Miss Leighton,” he said and kissed the rounded globe of one cheek and then the other. She let out a sigh as moisture flooded between her thighs. Gently, he hooked his thumbs on either side of her thong, oh-so-slowly pulling them down and off her hips. Sam thought she may swoon and leaned further onto the door for balance. “Take a step,” he said, indicating that he wanted her to lift her leg out of her panties — and almost as if by automatic pilot she found herself doing it. At that point she would do just about anything this man commanded her to do.

She felt both his palms flat on her behind and leaned back toward him, shifting her legs slightly. Her senses were on overdrive, as she was hot and cold, shivering and warm and fighting to balance on the heels she was still wearing. It was then that she felt a cool breeze like a whisper between her thighs and almost buckled.

Mark seemed to anticipate her and snaked his arm around her waist. “Hold on there, sweetheart.”

She let out a moan as his gravelly voice came from down between her legs and he punctuated the end of his sentence with a nibble on her lower cheek. “Turn around.”

“What?”

“Turn around, please.”

Sam blinked and did as she was told as Mark guided her. She looked down at his close shaved head at the same time that he looked up at her with strong willed intent and lifted one stiletto heeled leg and placed it over his shoulder. “I do love it when you follow directions, Miss Leighton.”

Sam laughed. “Just so you know. I only do it when you ask nicely, Mr. Thorn.”

But that was the end of all conversation as his tongue dove in. No preamble with gentle kissing on soft folds. It was Mark, all in, as he went for the center of her with all his power, making love to her with his tongue, stroking, sucking, licking, caressing, bringing her nearly to the breaking point over and over again. Causing her to vibrate around him as her essence overflowed and dribbled down his chin. Causing her to cry out and clench her fists as she twisted her hands into his tee at his shoulders, all at once begging him to stop and then, still, please don’t stop.

Mark stilled and Sam looked down at him, her breathing erratic and labored. “Come.”

“Oh, God. Haven’t I already?” she panted.

He chuckled, dangerously. “Not quite yet enough.”

He stood slowly, his hard body rubbing up against her own and for the first time in a long while she became fully aware of her nakedness and the fact that he was still fully clothed. “It would seem that once again you have me at a disadvantage.”

He gave her a look of disbelief. “Somehow I doubt that could ever happen.”

Mark then pulled her to him, kissing her fully and completely, stealing her breath, and at the same time lifting her and sweeping her further into the apartment. She tasted her own passion and his hunger as she felt his erection firm against her thigh. Then she was down, her back against cool leather. She looked at him through slitted eyes. “What is it with us and couches?”

He paused in his movements, going stone still. And for a moment a dark, clouded look of melancholy swept over his beautiful masculine face.

He was glorious.

“Hey, I was just kidding,” she said, trying hard to bring light to her voice and back to his demeanor.

He looked down at her, still darkness, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. He took her hand. “We can go to the bedroom. I didn’t mean to just throw you down on the couch once again.”

Sam smiled up at him. “No, it’s fine. I like it here. It feels … ” She paused, looking for the right words. “Somehow right. Looking up at you like this.”

But still he clouded more, as if lost somewhere in the past. Shit, now she’d gone and done it. What did she say? Fuck. Was her supposed easy rider full of deeper secrets than her own? She let out a sigh and fought to shake it off, grinning up at him. “Now come on, Mr. Thorn. This is getting way too deep and you are way too dressed. That shirt has got to go.” She poked at his hard chest.

He smiled down at her, finally visibly loosening as he reached for the hem of his tee and pulled it over his head to reveal those abs she loved so much. She felt herself compulsively swallow as he reached for the button of his jeans.

“Wait, I’ll do that.” She noticed it was his turn to swallow as he moved back to give her room as she pushed up and leaned forward to undo his jeans. As the zipper came down and she slipped her hands on both sides of his jeans to slowly pull them down, she took in his deliciously clean musky male scent, inhaling the pure power of him. Her eyes widened, once again amazed at the strength and the beauty of his magnificent length. Sam bit her bottom lip, suddenly desirous to taste him fully and completely. She looked up at him as if to ask for permission and was met with glistening eyes of yearning. She closed her own and inhaled once again, leaning her forehead against his taut abdomen as his hand gently came up to cradle her head. This was too much. This felt too deep. She blinked against the tears that were forming in the back of her eyes and shifted, leaning forward to taste. The first taste of his arousal was tangible proof that he was real and this was not all just a dream.

And with that she was lost, taking him fully and deeply. Circling him with long strokes of her tongue, going back down as far as her throat would allow then coming back up only when she needed air. She was a woman who could not be stopped and all she wanted at that moment was to have him, to possess him the way he had possessed her, for this real moment to never end, and for him to be hers.

“Sweetheart, you have to stop,” Mark ground out from somewhere above. He stilled her with his hand. “Baby, please. I’m going to lose it.”

“It’s ok,” she breathed out.

“No, it’s not ok.” He picked her up and leaned her back. “Don’t move.”

She watched through glazed eyes as he disappeared and came back, condom in hand. Impatiently, he ripped open the packet and sheathed himself. He looked down at her and grinned. “I don’t know how in the hell I got so lucky.”

At that, Samara felt her first real smile of the night bloom from deep in her belly as Mark leaned in and kissed her. He started at her mouth and trailed kisses to her breasts, nibbling and sucking at them as if they were the sweetest delicacies he’d ever had in his life. He then took his hand brought it between her thighs, coaxing them apart with gentle caresses and long circular strokes. “So damned lucky,” he moaned as she arched into him and let the wave of pleasure take her away.

It was then that he brought his thumb up and increased his pace and the pressure on her most intimate spot, causing her to cry out in incoherent murmurs.

Mark stilled for a moment and shifted above her, bringing one leg up and swiftly but surely, plunging inside her and at the same time still stroking that hard nub of pleasure. Sam broke around him, her inner walls vibrating violently as he arched over like a tiger, leaning down to lick her already tender breasts. She broke some more, clinging to his hard back with one hand and clawing at the cool leather with the other. It was too much, but still Mark kept on. Stroking and plunging, licking and caressing. He was everywhere and everything all at once.

“I can’t hold on, love,” Mark ground out.

At least that’s what Samara thought she heard.

“Don’t hold on,” she said.

“I can’t.”

“Just let go.”

“Never.”

“You have to.” Samara pulled him to her and looked in his eyes as she kissed him, clamping down on his erection once more as he came with her during her final rush of ecstasy.

“You have to,” she whispered once more.

The quiet click of the door closing was Mark’s signal to open his eyes. He had known the moment that Samara had shifted to get up once they were through making love that she thought he was fast asleep. As if he could sleep with her words about letting go churning in his head. Once again she’d rocked his world and then left him with a clear message that she was not one to be tied down. Mark stretched, letting out a groan as he clenched empty fists, wanting desperately to have them full of her. More than anything, he wanted to march across the hall and pull her back to him. By his side, in his bed, in his arms forever.