She shivered as she heard him purr again. That damned purr was going to steal her mind at this rate. She couldn’t stand it.
Bending forward, she trembled, shuddering as he flickered his tongue over her saturated flesh again. She had never been so wet in her life, or so desperate for the sensations racking up inside her.
This position had always been less than comfortable. Until now. Now, instead of tension filling her from the expectation of the male beneath her, pleasure and determination filled her. Determination to give as well as she was getting. Or at least to try.
The thick length of his erection rose to his navel, pulsing and throbbing, the mushroomed head damp with pre-cum as Scheme gripped the shaft and lowered her head.
There wasn’t a chance of keeping up with him, but unlike her previous experience with this position, she really didn’t give a damn. The flames flickering over her body overrode her sense of fair play. If he wanted to get as good as he was giving, then he was going to have to agree not to touch her while she was touching him, because his touch was destructive.
She could taste him though. She could completely immerse herself in the pleasure he was giving her, the sensuality building inside her. The hunger riding her with a desperation she didn’t know how to fight.
Her lips surrounded the head of his cock, drawing him in, tasting the wildness of him in the damp essence that covered the hard, satiny flesh. She felt his lust, his hunger, in the hard pulse of blood through the fiery flesh and the hard growl that vibrated against the lips of her pussy.
She jerked at the sensations that came from that sound, panting as she fought to breathe, her hips lowering further, her body demanding more, always more.
His tongue flickered, licked, painted her flesh with fire and left her gasping as she tried, she really tried to bring him the same pleasure, to tease his cock, to suckle it into her mouth and tempt his control the same as he was tempting hers.
But he was touching her, eating her with hungry lips and tongue as she shuddered above him, then exploded with a force that had her back arching and a scream tearing from her throat.
It was never-ending. It ricocheted from nerve ending to nerve ending, cell to cell, and left her writhing as she suddenly found herself beneath him rather than above him.
“I can’t keep up,” she cried out, her hands gripping his shoulders as she stared back at him, disappointed in herself, in the lack of pleasure she had given him.
A smile pulled at the tight, controlled line of his lips.
“Baby, if you can keep up, then I’m not doing my job.” A wicked flash of white teeth came a second before he shifted between her thighs and pressed home.
Her vision dimmed as the breath paused in her lungs. Oh God, it was so good. The way he filled her, pressing in slowly, stretching the sensitive tissue in her vagina to reveal hidden nerve endings and erogenous zones. Tender places she had never known she possessed.
He stroked over them. Working in and out, back and forth, rocking his hips against hers until he filled her completely and left her trembling beneath him.
“God you’re beautiful,” he whispered then, his voice hoarse, filled with hunger. “So beautiful you steal a man’s breath, Scheme.”
She was so close. Too close. She could feel her orgasm just out of reach and her own desperation to jump into it.
“There now,” he groaned as his elbows held his weight above her, his hands clasping her head as her hands gripped his hips. “I like this, Schemer. I like this a lot.”
“You’re killing me,” she whimpered. “Don’t tease me.”
“A little bit of tease is good, darlin’.” His head lowered, his lips sipping at a hard nipple as his hips shifted, the head of his cock rubbing inside her and setting off small tremors of impending release.
“Not like this.” The pleasure was killing her.
Scheme jerked beneath him as the fiery wedge of heat glanced over flesh so sensitive that the tremors of pleasure shook her to her core.
“Just like this, little love.” He continued to rotate his hips slowly. “Just relax for me. You don’t have to do anything, sweetheart. No thought required. Just feel good.”
She stared back at him, gasping for breath. Something was always required. Her head shook in denial as she fought for enough control to do something, anything to return the favor.
“Being buried inside you is like being plugged into pure pleasure,” he growled as his head lifted, his eyes such a deep, burnished gold that they stopped her breath. “Pure hot sensation that steals the mind.”
Lust, pleasure and so much more reflected in the heated depths, terrifying her with the need to respond, to give him everything inside her, to give him all of herself.
“Let me show you pleasure, Scheme.” He kissed her lips gently. “Just close your eyes. Close your eyes and let me show you how good it can be.”
Her lashes fluttered shut before jerking open once again. She was trusting him. Trusting him was dangerous.
A chuckle left his lips as his fingers threaded through her hair.
“I dare you.”
“What?” She could barely follow, barely think.
“I dare you to close your eyes. Just lay back and feel me taking you. No responsibility, Scheme. No need to think. Just feel for me. Feel good for me, darlin’.”
His lips covered hers then, his tongue licking at her lips, sliding inside, taking the last of her resistance as her nails bit into his flesh and his hips began to move.
“Feel good” didn’t describe the sensations tearing through her now. With each stroke of his cock inside her, he was filling her with demented ecstasy, soul-destroying pleasure. A pleasure that would haunt her, torment her even after death.
“There, sweet darlin’.” He jerked his lips from hers as she began to moan, to cry out with the sensation ripping through her. “You’re so sweet and tight. So hot. I could stay inside you forever.”
Her hips lifted beneath his, finding a rhythm to match him, to increase the pleasure building with such catastrophic demand that she couldn’t lie still.
Yet she couldn’t keep up. His rhythm would change, level, quicken, then slow. Perspiration ran in rivulets along her body, causing Tanner’s body to slide against her, to stroke with silky precision along her sensitive skin as his cock thrust hard and deep inside her vagina.
She was dying. It was too much. Too much pleasure. Too many sensations. She had to back off, she needed at least a modicum of control. Just a little.
“Oh no you don’t.” A primal growl left his lips. “Don’t you stiffen on me, Scheme. Give it back to me.”
His strokes changed. His lips nipped at hers. His hands clenched in her hair and he began to fuck her hard, deep. Powerful strokes that sent his cock shuttling in and out. Stroking, burning. Each thrust threw her higher, tossing her into a maelstrom of sensation that finally, blessedly, culminated in an implosion of such strength, such depth that there was no control, no restraint. She was helpless, tossed about within an inferno of twisting, searing sensation.
As she collapsed beneath him, she felt a last, desperate thrust before Tanner tightened and drove so deep inside her she was certain he’d pierced her soul. And then she felt his release spurting wet and hot inside her, his cock throbbing, pulsing as he let go.
And she knew she would never be free of him. Alive or dead, the need for this pleasure would follow her. The need for this man would haunt her for an eternity.
Scheme tried to remember how to breathe without gasping as Tanner rolled to her side and pulled her against his body. He was breathing hard as well, his chest rising and falling in fast bellows as he buried his head in her hair and nipped at her shoulder playfully.
“Next time you pull a knife on me, I’m going to spank you,” he panted.
“Remind me to use it next time.” A smile twitched at her lips as he nipped at her again.
“Remind me to keep the knives hidden,” he grunted.
Scheme shook her head with a soft laugh as her hand moved to her lower stomach, covering the slight warmth she could feel deep beneath her skin. In her womb. She caressed the area, bitterness seeping into her soul at the memory of all she had lost the last time she had dared to let herself believe in a man. Reminding herself of all that could be lost if she let herself believe in this man.
CHAPTER 15
Tanner was gone, right on time. Sleeping with a man helped you to learn the strangest things. How responsive he was to you, even in sleep. But also, how responsive a woman became to a man, even subconsciously.
She didn’t have to fully awaken to know when he left the bed, and she noticed, within a few days, that she knew when he left the room.
When he left the bed the next morning, she felt him move. She was more asleep than awake, as the lights flared behind her closed eyes, then just as abruptly darkened.
He wasn’t up to fix breakfast.
Swimming up from the deep sleep she had been immersed in after the bouts of sex he put her through wasn’t easy. Especially with the knowledge that he would sense her waking.
So she dozed, doing as she had done during the years she lived on her father’s estate. Coyotes patrolled there, and her father’s punishments were brutal for slipping around the house after lights-out.
She timed the Coyote patrols and learned how to fool them. The brain could do miraculous things when it had to. She had learned how to place herself in that state between sleep and awareness, in a place where her brain was aware of every move, every sound, every scent that drifted around her.
Humans were very much capable of certain animal awarenesses. She could hear Tanner walking; she had no idea the tunnel he had taken, but several long minutes after he’d dressed and left the room, she heard the scrape of stone. Faint. The sound was so faint it took precious moments for her brain to identify it, and even longer for her to force herself to awaken.
She slid from the bed, blinking at the lights that flared around her as she bent to retrieve her clothing from the floor.
The velvet pants were on the other side of the bed table, the top at the bottom of the bed. One sock was under the bed; the other had her gritting her teeth in frustration before she found it tucked at the bottom of the mattress.
Tanner really was going to have to start taking more care with her clothing.
Jerking the socks on over her feet, she moved for the tunnels. A smile tilted her lips as she found what she was looking for.
Tanner was definitely a Breed, but he had forgotten one major rule. Always watch for anomalies. Tanner had missed one. The very faint dusting of loose dirt on the stone tunnels.
She now had the faintest impressions of footprints, so faint she would have missed them if the day before she hadn’t found the small flashlight hidden in the supply room.
She had spent days working on the tunnels, breaking loose the packed dirt, scattering it here and there, one tunnel at a time, and checking for footprints.
Second day and bingo. Her luck was looking up.
This was escape day, she told herself. Today, she was getting the hell out of there and finding the nearest phone. Jonas would be waiting on her call now; he would know something had fucked up bad.
She pushed back her sorrow at the thought of leaving Tanner. Especially like this. But she had to find Jonas and give him the information she had; then she would deal with Tanner. First things first. She couldn’t trust this easily. She refused to let herself trust this easily.
Once she got out of the caves, she could get her bearings and avoid the Coyotes. They were around the cabin, and she had studied the area where that cabin was located extensively over the years. The caves would have to be located away from the general area of the cabin, because it took Tanner much too long to return after his excursions out of the caverns.
And if they weren’t…She breathed in deeply. She would solve that one once she got her bearings and figured out the location she was in.
Biting her lip, she followed the trail, faint though it was. She nearly lost it more than once, and each time found her heart in her throat as fear rushed through her.
