“Jordan, I’ve always needed you.” Every part of her needed him. Ached for him. Dreamed of him. “I’ve needed no one like I need you.”
Jordan stared back at her. He was losing it. That part of himself that he had always managed to hold aloof. That part that had always been cold, that refused to acknowledge weakness, emotion, or hunger. That part of himself that he had kept carefully hidden away was coming for her.
Staring up at her, he lowered his head, the taste of her sweet pussy exploding against his tongue as he parted his lips, laid them over the swollen bud of her clit, and kissed.
Her hips jerked against him the cry that spilled from her lips slicing across his control.
She was addictive as hell. Liquid heat, sensual nectar met his lips, as he rolled it over her clit and felt it flex against his tongue.
She was close. So fucking close. He could feel the need for release pounding against her clit as her soft juices spilled to his lips.
He knew what awaited him. The pleasure. A pleasure that burned brighter, hotter than anything he had ever known before.
Sucking her clit into his mouth, he drew on the swollen bundle of nerve endings as his fingers moved lower, finding the clenched opening of her pussy and pushing inside the silky, slick entrance.
Immediately the snug, silken tissue clamped on the two fingers working inside her. A cry shattered the silence of the room and the heated glide of her juices washed over his fingers.
And it only made him crave her more. Made him hungrier. Made that part of himself that he kept hidden strain closer to her.
His cock pounded, his balls were so damned tight with the need to come that it was nearly unbearable. With each taste of her lush little pussy, the hunger only grew. He found himself no longer caring that he ached for that illusion he was always warning her about.
Drawing his fingers back, he worked frantically to release his cock from the cloth binding it. Toeing off his expensive leather shoes, he quickly shed the pants, then rose just enough to remove his shirt.
Straightening, his gaze moved slowly over her as he gripped the base of his cock to hold back the release that threatened to explode despite his best intentions.
“Let me see, Tehya,” he growled, his voice harsher, darker than he intended. “Touch yourself, baby. Let me see.”
And God, he loved watching her.
Her hands rose, delicate, fragile fingers cupping the undercurve of each breast, lifting them as the tip of a finger stroked over each tight point.
Her eyes raked down his body, her gaze locking on the sight of him gripping his cock as her hips arched, her face flushing with a surfeit of sexual hunger.
“I want to watch, too,” she whispered as her hands slid from her breasts to caress lower, to stroke her midriff before moving to the flesh just above the slight rise of her pussy.
Bracing his feet against the floor, he let his fingers move over his cock, stroking it slowly, grimacing as his balls throbbed with the need to come.
The effect on Tehya was far more than he expected. The sight of him stroking himself drew a harsh moan from her throat as her fingers slid into the folds of her pussy to circle the swollen bud of her clit.
Her hips arched. Her juices gathered on the peaches-and-cream curves, glistening with an excess of feminine arousal.
Stretched across the table, her delicate feet still in the wickedly high heels, the violet smoke hue of the stockings still encasing her legs as she propped her feet on the arms of the two chairs to each side of her, she looked like a modern-day sacrifice to lust.
Lush, velvety flesh. Emerald eyes glowing. Graceful fingers thrumming against her clit as he stepped closer, the engorged head of his cock throbbing at the nearness of her pussy’s sweet, hot juices.
He could feel the heat of her. The remembered feel of the tight grip milking his dick was nearly enough to make him come as he watched her fingers slide through the swollen, flushed curves.
She parted her flesh, stroked the small, clenched slit, then he watched, his breath stilling in his throat, as the tips of two delicate fingers slid inside.
“No.” Before he could stop himself he gripped her wrist, pulling her fingers back as he stepped closer.
Lifting her hand he brought the glistening fingers to his lips, his tongue peeking out to lick the heated, feminine syrup from the tips as the head of his cock pressed gainst the slick entrance.
Their eyes locked.
He’d always been so careful in the past to ensure that he didn’t stare at his lovers’ faces. A man couldn’t lose himself in a woman if he didn’t stare into her eyes.
He’d also known instinctively, though, that there hadn’t been a chance of ever losing any part of himself until he met Tehya. Until he had seen in her eyes the hunger he denied in himself.
He couldn’t deny her anymore. Not inside. Not where that inborn knowledge of a man’s mate rested.
He might not believe in the illusion of love as others saw it. But he did believe in a man’s knowledge of the one woman created for him. Not love. Much more than mere lust.
It was a claiming.
And he was claiming her.
Watching her, her wrist still held in his hand, his hips bunched, his cock tightened impossibly further, harder, as with a single hard thrust he buried the painfully tight flesh several inches inside ecstasy.
There was no stopping him.
Finesse was gone.
Pure male hunger filled his mind, his senses. He released her wrist and his hands gripped her hips as he began moving, working the engorged length of his dick inside the impossibly tight depths of her pussy.
Fiery muscles clenched and milked his cock as her legs wrapped around his hips. Her hands flattened against his abdomen, slid up his chest and to his neck as he came over her.
His lips pressed against hers, his tongue slipping past them and he lunged inside her, shafting inside the tender depths of her pussy as he felt her juices gathering around him, searing his flesh.
Gripping her hips, he lifted his head as he forced his eyes open. Forced himself to stare into hers. And felt himself sinking inside her.
What he didn’t expect was to feel her sinking inside him as well.
Tehya’s breath caught at the deepening blue of his eyes, the savagely honed features, the dark swirling, shadowed emotion she recognized with feminine instinct.
Each hard thrust inside her body seemed to deepen that dark swirl of emotion even as it built the fiery pleasure racing through her body.
His hands moved from her hips to her thighs, pulling her legs from around his hips as he dragged them to his chest, her feet resting against his shoulders as his thrusts began to increase.
Tender nerve endings rioted with sensation at the feel of the engorged, flared cock head raking over them. Sizzling flames enveloped her clit with each stroke of his pelvis against it as he buried inside her full length, filling her, overfilling her, the thick, hard flesh almost bruising in the power of his thrusts.
The pleasure was agonizing. Her fingers curled over the edge of the table, her nails digging into the wood. His hands gripped her ankles to fuck her harder. His hips slammed into her thighs, flesh pounding against flesh as she felt the sudden, blinding rise to orgasm.
When it hit her, Tehya felt her senses exploding with it. Her breath caught in her chest, hips arching, a strangled cry trapped in her throat as seismic tremors began to race through her body.
Each shattering explosion jerked her body tighter against his as her pussy clenched further, milked harder, and then exploded in a second flash of rapture as she felt him coming inside her.
Each heavy throb of his cock, each fiery pulse of semen inside her heightened her release. It threw her into a brilliant wash of color, sensation, and pleasure so intense she wondered if she could ever recover from it.
And through it, her gaze remained locked with his, and, she swore, her soul became a part of his. She had been his since the day she met him. He’d marked her that first
night that he’d taken her, but this time, this time, she felt his possession to the depths of her soul.
This time, Jordan became a part of her.
“Oh God.” The shattered breath of sound escaped her lips, and this time, she knew what she was saying. “Oh God, Jordan, I love you.”
* * *
Silently, meticulously, Jordan helped Tehya into the wrinkled material of his shirt, buttoned it carefully, then stepped back and fixed his pants.
A part of him felt shattered.
He couldn’t explain it, and it sure as fucking hell didn’t make sense. His nerves felt on edge, and that coming from a man who had nerves of steel. He felt a curious fury burning inside him, or was it something else?
Whatever it was, his soul felt lashed by it, bruised by the violent waves of whatever conflict raged inside him.
“Jordan?” She whispered his name as he zipped his pants and turned from her to stride to the wet bar across the room.
God, he couldn’t talk to her right now. The kindest thing he could do was walk away. He needed to walk away before he ended up destroying them both.
Lifting his hand, he blew out a weary breath as he rubbed at the back of his neck. Escape was futile. There was no escaping her, no matter how much distance he put between them. He’d already learned that lesson the hard way.
“I’m sorry.” The heartbreaking regret in her voice sent a shaft of some white-hot emotion burning through his chest.
God dammit. What the hell was he feeling? Anger? It felt like anger. Like helplessness. And by God he didn’t do helpless well.
“Don’t apologize,” he finally blew out roughly as he turned to her, praying she wasn’t crying.
And hell no, she wasn’t crying. Her chin was lifted stubbornly, her gaze defiant, but he could see the regret shadowing the green depths of her eyes.
“I would say it slipped out, but that would imply I was trying to hold it back, wouldn’t it?” Her lips quirked with a strangely amused self-mockery.
“I can always trust you to be amazingly blunt,” he sighed. “And it’s not the first time it’s slipped out.”
Damned near every time he had taken her the words had slipped past her lips and dug sharp talons into his soul. Each time, he had tried to muffle the words with his lips; but still, the sound of them had slipped free enough to allow him to make them out.
A shrug lifted her shoulders as she tucked a heavy swath of hair behind a delicate ear.
Red-gold curls tumbled around her face and shoulders. The disarray caused by his hands, by the tossing of her head as she orgasmed beneath him, had given her a wanton, decidedly lush appearance. But her expression, the vulnerability in her gaze, made her appear too innocent, too easily hurt.
He knew Tehya. He knew her compassion, he knew the woman she pretended to be as well as the woman she truly was.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Tey, but if you allow yourself to believe you love me, if you give in to that illusion, then that’s exactly what I’ll end up doing.”
There was that strange little smile again. Part teasing, part mocking. It was one of those looks that never failed to put him off balance. He’d be damned if he could tell what she was thinking when she had that look on her face.
“Don’t worry about hurting me, Jordan.” She brushed back her hair again as she turned from him and headed for the bedroom. “It was too late for that a long time ago.”
She almost made the bedroom before he was on her. His fingers curled around her upper arm, dragging her to a stop as she jerked around, unable to hide the anger in her eyes before he saw it.
Jordan paused, surprised, watching as her chin tilted in determination and stubbornness and her cat’s green eyes narrowed back at him suspiciously.
“I’ve heard the lecture,” she informed him as she glared back at him. “I’ve heard you tell your men how love is an illusion, and how they need to watch their backs before that illusion bites them on the ass, so many times it sickens me. Unless you have something original to add to it, then I don’t want to hear it again, if you don’t mind.”
Yes, it was a lecture he had given his men often. Hell, they were his men, his team. They were his family. He felt it was his responsibility to warn them at the very least. Not that he didn’t like their wives. Hell, they were damned good women. But when a man allowed himself to live a lie …
“You’re fooling yourself.” He had to force the words past his lips. “You’re letting lust and pleasure betray you, Tehya. It tricks you. When it fades, all you have left is either friendship or enmity. It’s the enmity that worries me, the knowledge of all the little ways you can destroy one another with the knowledge you’ve gained. I don’t want us to go that route. I don’t want you to hate me.”
The thought of losing her had his guts clenching in dread. The thought of her hatred, of never seeing the hunger in her eyes and feeling the need in her kiss, had his jaw clenching in imminent fury.
“Who destroyed you, Jordan?” Her arms crossed over her breasts as her lips set mutinously. “Who ruined you before I ever had a chance at your heart?”
The question wasn’t asked in regret or in pain. Hell no, not with Tehya. She was too damned confrontational, as though it were somehow his fault that he’d had a life before he met her.
It took a second to process the question as well as the anger in her expression now. How was he supposed to answer her?
“You’re making me pay for what another woman has done.” Her lips tightened, her gaze glittered furiously as she made the statement.
“This has nothing to do with another woman, Tehya,” he growled.
He wished it had something to do with a single woman, with a broken heart, with a young man’s disillusion. How much easier it would then be to give in to the dark hunger he could feel brewing in his soul.
Kira had always accused him of giving up on love because he couldn’t save Killian Reece’s wife, Catherine, and their unborn child. That he had blamed Catherine, and Killian’s love for her for the change Killian had undergone after her death.
That had been a deciding point. It wasn’t the whole reason.
“What does it have to do with, then?” Her eyes sparked furiously as he almost gave into the lust beginning to rise inside him once again.
Damn her, he’d no more had her than he wanted her again.
“It has to do with reality,” he snapped. “It has to do with watching friends betray friends, countries betray their own soldiers, and lovers turning their backs on the very love they’ve pledged themselves to because the battle has become too difficult or because their own pride was more important. That is where it comes from.”
She shook her head, her gaze filled with pity. “You’ve watched your men love, Jordan. You’ve watched their wives give all they have to them. You’ve seen loyalty, Jordan, and love, and you deny it.”
He reached out and touched her cheek, her silken flesh heated and warm, beckoning him. “And sometimes,” he said, “the illusion is stronger than the truth. For a while.”
Tehya shook her head, mocking anger enveloping her as she read the belief in what he was saying in his eyes. He truly believed love didn’t last forever.
“I’ve met your father,” she finally said softly.
A dark frown drew his brows together. “What does Dad have to do with anything?”
“He still mourns your mother’s death. He goes to her grave daily, and he still weeps for the woman he lost.”
She knew Riordan Malone, the father who looked over the Malone sons and grandsons that his union with his Irish bride had produced.
Jordan’s jaw tightened as the battle to find an argument against her raged in his brilliant blue eyes.
Tehya shook her head. “I’m going to bed, Jordan, but perhaps you should consider this. It’s not reality that destroys the dreams, it’s your lack of faith. And it’s your own fears of facing what you believe your father and Killian Reece faced. The loss of that dream and the
only woman who could touch their hearts.”
She turned, pulled her arm from his grip, and moved through the doorway to the bedroom.
She wasn’t arguing with him, she wouldn’t fight with him. She would fight for him, she would fight over him, but never would she battle him over something she knew he had always refused to face.
The loss of his mother had been hard enough, but for years Jordan had watched the aching loneliness and Riordan Malone’s inability to ever lose the bleak sadness that had filled him with his wife’s death. Catherine Reece had disobeyed Jordan’s order during an operation involving Sorrel and a young girl he had kidnapped. She had managed to get herself killed as Killian and Jordan watched in horror, unable to stop it.
No, it hadn’t been a broken heart that had destroyed Jordan’s belief in love. It hadn’t been any single woman who had disillusioned him. The woman who had broken his father’s life, as well as his with her death, and the friend who hadn’t known how to survive, had given him the belief that no love could truly last forever.
Moving through the darkened bedroom, Tehya shed the shirt he had given her and crawled between the chilled blankets. From where she lay, she could see the light from the door, and Jordan as he stood in the doorway, simply watching her.
He was at his most dangerous when he was so still and silent. When he was plotting, planning, or worse yet, when he was thinking.
He had a wicked, devious mind. He was a man who believed what he believed, and there would be no forcing his beliefs to change.
“You’re wrong.” His voice reached across the room, so icy, so emotionless, that a chill raced over her soul.
“Of course I am.” She swallowed tightly and fought back the tears she would have shed if it would have done any good. If it would have won her the heart of the man she loved, she would have cried a river.
“I care for you.” The sudden, fierce sound of his voice, the underlying fury in it, had her eyes closing in pain as she fought the hitch in her breath that would have been a sob. “I don’t want to lose you, Tehya. Not your friendship. Not … this.” The snarl in his voice assured her that he meant much more than whatever relationship they had had at the base.