Claimed (Outlaws #1)

“Is this what you want?” His hoarse voice made her shiver. “You want me to fuck you like this? Hard enough to break this table? Hard enough to make you scream?”


He slammed into her again, and she actually did scream, needy and desperate. The pressure between her legs was beyond unbearable now – it was agonizing. Each time he thrust to the hilt, he hit a spot inside her that she hadn’t even known existed, an ache that ran deeper than the throbbing of her clit. She squeezed her eyelids shut and rode out the intense sensations, pleasure and pain and excruciating tension that finally snapped apart like an elastic band and swept her to a whole other dimension.

Connor came while she was convulsing, his fingers digging into her hips, his breath hot against her shoulder.

She couldn’t hear anything but the ringing of her ears, and her pussy was still spasming even as he pulled out and yanked her upright. His arms came around to clutch her possessively to his chest, their bodies slick from the shower, from perspiration.

“How the hell do you do this to me?” He sounded tortured as he held her even tighter.

“Do what?” she said breathlessly.

His hips flexed, and his cock ground against her ass. He was still rock-hard, still breathing erratically, as if he’d just run ten miles. “Turn me into a goddamn animal,” he mumbled. “I can’t think straight when I’m inside you.”

She choked out a laugh. “If it helps, I can’t think when you’re inside me, either.”

His answering laugh was strangled, laced with desperation. He twisted her body around and kissed her, moving backward as his tongue dove through her parted lips. Then he lowered himself on the bed and tugged her on top of him, his fingers sliding through her wet hair as he took long pulls on her tongue, kissing her with an urgency that floored her.

He felt it too, she realized. The overpowering need, that terrifying feeling of not enough. Because it was never enough, damn it. She always wanted more with him. She wanted to crawl deeper and deeper inside him, until there was nowhere left to go.

Eventually his kisses softened, becoming sweeter than she was used to. The lazy swipes of his tongue matched the strokes of his hands down her bare back.

“I like this,” she whispered, breaking their mouths apart just slightly.

Something flickered in his eyes before his expression went teasing. “Making out? Or fucking each other’s brains out?”

“Both. But right now I just meant the kissing part.” She pressed her lips to the center of his throat before lifting her head with a laugh. “I didn’t get my first kiss until I was seventeen, you know.”

“That late?” He sounded intrigued. “Are you telling me all those teenage city boys didn’t have the balls to lock lips with someone as gorgeous as you?”

“They were all too terrified of my brother,” she admitted. “He had a strict hands-off policy when it came to me.”

“Yeah? So who was brave enough to face your brother’s wrath?”

“Timothy.” She blushed. “He was the cutest boy I’d ever met, and I had the biggest crush on him. And trust me, he wasn’t brave at all. I cornered him in the hallway after math class one day and told him that if he didn’t kiss me, I’d just tell D—” She halted. Shit, she’d almost said Dominik. “I’d tell my brother,” she quickly amended, “that Timothy had done it anyway, so since he was already going to get in trouble, he might as well get something out of it.”

Connor’s laughter was the sweetest sound she’d ever heard. “Jesus. Your first kiss was the result of blackmail?”

“Yep.” She offered a self-deprecating smile. “But it was totally worth it. It gave me tingles and everything.”

That got her another chuckle, and another happy squeeze of her heart.

“Did your brother ever find out?”

“No. I kept my mouth shut, and so did Timothy. It only happened once, though.” Sadness washed over her. “All the boys were too scared to be with me. It sucked.” She forced another smile. “What about you? Do you remember your first kiss?”

“Sure. It was with this girl Kara. We were both thirteen.” He grinned. “Snuck away from camp one night and made out in the woods for hours.”

She wanted to ask for more details – about his camp, his life, him – but his increasingly uneasy expression told her to tread carefully. Instead of talking, she bent down and kissed him again. Their lips met, just briefly, a soft brush of their mouths, and Hudson sensed it the moment he shut down. There was no outward change in his appearance, no stiffness in his touch, but something had shifted and suddenly he was out of reach again.

“Let me stay with you tonight,” she whispered.

The change was visible now. A tic in his jaw. A flicker of unhappiness in his eyes.

“Not a good idea,” he said roughly.

“Why not?”

“Because that’s not what this is about.”

She was so frustrated she felt like throwing something. Instead, she rolled off him and sat at the edge of the bed. “What is it about, then?”

“Fucking.”