Chapter Three
When Rayna woke, her stomach growling since she’d skipped dinner, she found that someone had brought her things from the car. Her whole body ached pleasantly when she rolled to the side. Heat flooded through her, prickling up her neck. Goodness, what had she done? One thing was sure. It had been remarkable.
Gingerly, she sat up and hugged the blankets to her chest. A hot shower was in order then she’d scrounge up some breakfast—she’d make something for the guys, too.
“Hey, Rayna,” Patrick called as he passed the doorway on his way to the stairs. “We’re off to work. Feel free to use the phone to contact your bank and stuff. If you need anything, come over to the garage, otherwise we’ll be back about five.”
“O-okay,” she replied.
“Make yourself at home,” he added with a smile. He pulled her door shut and was off before she could reply. A few minutes later, she heard the others pass.
Quickly, she dug toiletries and clothes from her bags then went in search of a shower since there wasn’t one attached to her room. As it turned out, it was the door beside her room. Moaning, she let the water cascade over her and ease away the tingly aches from the night before. Her p-ssy was tender after her exertions and, with a naughty smile, she wondered how it would feel at the end of a week. Well used and needy for more, she decided. Before last night, it had been eight months since she’d been with a man. Would she long for one after the excess of the days to come?
With a chuckle, she reminded herself she had to do more than have sex while she was here. Planning her day, she headed for her room and stopped short when she saw a man beside her bed, her sheet raised to his face. He wore jeans and a button-down white shirt. His build was slighter than Patrick, Sean and David, and his hair was cut in a more businesslike, less shaggy manner.
Even with his back to her, she knew who it was.
“Jamie,” she gasped.
His back stiffened, and he froze. Then the sheet dropped from his fingers. He shoved his hands in his pockets but didn’t turn. “I thought you’d left with them,” he said quietly.
“No. Actually, I thought you went with them.”
“I only go in to work on the books a few days a week.”
She set her discarded robe and her toiletries on a chair that was near her luggage. Jamie, still hadn’t moved. Her brow furrowed as she stared at his rigid back. “Won’t you look at me?”
He shook his head. “It’s better if I don’t.”
“Please, I want to see your face and know who’s got my nerves all wound up.”
Jamie sighed, feeling the weight of her stare on him. She’d hate him, but how could he deny her. She’d see him sometime in the next week anyway. Better now than later when she’d be horrified that she’d let him f*ck her in the dark.
Slowly, he turned, presenting his good side first. Watching her, he kept moving. Her intake of breath stabbed through him, as did the way her teeth sank into her bottom lip, but he expected her revulsion and pity.
Instead, she rapidly crossed to him and wrapped her arms around him. She hugged him so tight, he thought perhaps she’d never let go but then, her hands moved up his arms. He cringed slightly when she touched his face.
“No. Don’t.” She shook her head, her thumbs smoothing his worry lines. “I had no idea…”
“That’s the point.”
She frowned. “What you must have been through… I can’t imagine. It horrifies me. Not because of the scars. But because of what hurt you this badly.”
Her compassion gripped his heart, squeezing tightly. Her hand traveled to his chest.
“There are more?” she asked.
He nodded. His hands gripped her waist, fighting the urge to draw her tightly against him. His pulse thudded. God, he wanted to be in this woman, to hold her naked body against him, to fill himself with her gasping breaths.
Her finger traced along the placket of his shirt. She stared intently at the flat, white disks as red tinged her cheeks. “Last night…” she started then took a shuddery breath. “It was awesome. But…do you know what I wanted most?”
“No.”
“I wanted you to f*ck me, Jamie. I still do.” She gave a self-depreciating laugh. “You’d think after three cocks, I’d be good to go. But you know how it is when you’re craving something. Whatever else you have just isn’t as satisfying. My problem is it was someone else who got me all worked up.”
She bit the side of her lip and looked away. Stunned, he turned her back with two fingers under her chin. If she wanted him, it was certainly what she’d get. His cock flooded to life and pushed against his fly. She wasn’t the only one in need. Hell, he’d barely slept for his desire and knowing she was in the room beside his.
Hungrily, he kissed her.
“Jamie,” she murmured against his lips.
“I love your mouth,” he groaned, darting in for another taste. “I don’t want to share it.”
She pulled back and looked at him, observing him fully, not flinching. He knew what she was doing. She wanted him to realize that the scars didn’t matter to her, that she didn’t think they detracted from him as a man.
But the scars did matter. He knew it. Maybe they didn’t in this brief moment, but they would. Later…
“Then don’t,” she said, taking him by surprise. “Don’t share it. I won’t kiss anyone’s mouth but yours while I’m here.”
He liked the idea of that and kissed her again as if to seal the deal. He tensed slightly as she started to open his shirt. His hands covered hers then slid down to her waist.
“Maybe you should undress first.” He shuffled them toward the bed and he sat on the edge. He wanted to help her out of her clothes but since his ability to kneel was lacking these days.
She smiled slightly, and her fingers stroked over his ridged cheek. “I’m not going to change my mind.” She pulled her T-shirt over her head then tossed it aside. “Seeing you isn’t going to change how I feel—how I felt the moment I saw you. It won’t change what I want.” Her palms slid over her torso, and her eyes drifted to half-mast. “Or how I burn.”
He leaned forward and pressed his lips against her sternum, just above the flimsy fastener of her bra. Backing up slightly, but staying within his arms’ reach, she swiveled her hips. Her fingers played at the closure of her jeans.
“I’ve never felt this free,” she said. Her teeth on her lower lip told of the nerves that still trembled through her.
“But?” he asked.
“But then I remember how…odd…this all is, and it makes me—well, I don’t know. What would people think if they knew I was with four men last night? And that I’m still yearning for one of them. That I’m not sure I can get enough…”
“Around here, they’d think you’re a goddess. Anywhere else doesn’t matter.” He pulled her forward and down to straddle his legs and she ground against his groin as he feathered his lips over hers. “What happens in Daly stays in Daly.”
“I thought that was Vegas.”
“They stole it from us.”
“Oh yeah?”
He flicked open the button on her jeans. “Oh yeah. And right now, it’s just you and me. One man. One woman.”
After he helped her to stand again, he lowered her zipper and pushed her pants down her hips while she rested her hands on his shoulders. He knew she’d be able to feel the ridges from his scars through the cotton of his button-down shirt. Her fingers flexed rather than drawing away.
“How?” she asked, as she stepped free of her clothing.
He swallowed momentarily unable to answer as he looked at her clad in mere scraps of black lace that sharply contrasted her creamy white skin. He pulled her forward to straddle him again. His hand immediately slid into her panties, cupping her smooth ass and pulling her p-ssy tight to his aching cock. Moaning, she ground against him. Her flat belly and breasts brushed against him as she rode up and down the ridge. He suspected the rough placket over his zipper was making contact with her * through her thin panties.
One of his hands pushed between them and covered her mound. Her wetness enveloped his fingers as he probed her folds, and satisfaction at her arousal triggered a primal response in him he’d thought long dead. She wanted him; there was no question.
Turning, he placed her against the pillows on the rumpled bed. Her long, sable-colored hair tumbled around her head in silken waves. Her eyes were deep, chocolaty pools of trouble. Her pale pink lips parted as she reached for him, and this time, as he leaned over her, he didn’t stop her as she moved to open the buttons of his shirt. He braced over her and remained still.
His eyes closed, and he tried to keep his face impassive as he waited for her to see the collision of scars from both burns and the metal that had clawed deep into the left side of his body. The damage hidden by his clothing was far worse than what had been done to his face.
“Oh, Jamie,” she whispered as she pushed open the cloth and shoved it down his arms. She opened his shirt cuffs, and he pulled free. His eyes opened when his upper half was bare, and he almost wished he’d left them shut. Tears brimmed her eyes as she met his gaze with such dismay at what had happened to him. “How?” she asked again.
He shifted to lie beside her, and she cuddled into his arms, not thinking twice about pressing her lips to his chest where scars pulled his nipple to an odd shape.
“I was a photojournalist. You know…that Life magazine, National Geographic, coffee table book kind of stuff. I was in the middle east—wrong place at the wrong time. I was filming a religious festival when a suicide bomber attacked the participants.” He splayed the fingers of his scarred hand. “I was a mess but still very lucky. Nearly a hundred people died.”
Her tongue flicked over his nipple then she kissed his chest again. Her nails dragged along his good side, sending fire through him.
“You have a remarkable attitude,” she said.
“I didn’t for a long time. I still don’t about some things.” Like his chances with a girl like her. He flexed his fingers on her ass. “But I still have my hand. And I have my life. And I can hold you.”
They lay silently for several minutes, chest to chest, two souls meshing. Despite his hold on her rear and their nudity, there wasn’t an overt sexuality to the moment. They comforted one another, though he wasn’t sure yet what had traumatized her. They accepted each other.
Rayna shifted upward and threaded her fingers through his hair. She kissed him hard. “And you can f*ck me. You better,” she threatened good-naturedly.
Rolling, he trapped her beneath him. Her legs bracketed his hips. He flexed into her, wishing he’d already removed his pants. “Or else what?” he asked.
“Or I’ll…I’ll march over to the garage, just like this, and start handing out kisses to any man I see.”
“Oh no you won’t.” He kissed her hard, grinding into her until she writhed and moaned. Wriggling beneath him, she removed her panties while he opened the front closure of her bra. His breath caught as her small, perfect breasts fell free. “So beautiful,” he murmured.
She trembled as he ran his thumb over one tip then took the peak between his lips. He sucked deep until she cried out and shook. Her fingers bit into his upper arms, but that was pure bliss in itself, for he knew the pain was due to her own pleasure.
“Oh yes, Jamie,” she moaned. Her p-ssy flooded as she moved beneath him. She wanted the hard proof of his desire plunging into her. She pushed up into his mouth as his tongue lashed over her nipple, each pass making her cunt clench with the need to be filled by him.
His satyr smile edged up her desire even more as he slid her bra along her arms. With a wicked grin, he tied it around her wrists then re-clasped it around one of the brass rungs of the bed.
“No fair,” she protested even though being tied up for him made her so hot she could barely think.
“Life’s not fair, sweetness,” he growled, his brogue now almost as thick as the one Patrick had put on yesterday. God, she loved the accent on him. “And now you’re all mine. At my mercy.”
She pulled at her wrists, not really trying to get free. “I was all yours before.”
“Perhaps you should know,” he said. “I have a penchant for tyin’ up my woman.”
At the moment, she had a penchant for being tied up by him. Who would have known? She’d never been tied up before, and her body had never responded so strongly to a man before either. Danger lurked inside him—nothing that would physically harm her. No, it was something that could possess her soul.
“I think you should have a penchant for removing your pants,” she said.
“In time,” he promised. Taking his time, he molded her breasts. His fingers pulled the nipples, pinching and twisting to bring her the slightest pain but great bolts of pleasure. Her body vibrated with it, her pulse pounding, her blood burning. Her p-ssy was so wet, she knew his cock had to be damp with it even through his pants.
“More,” she whispered, breathing heavily.
Ignoring her plea, he abandoned her chest to move downward. His breath was hot on her as his thumbs caught her labia and spread her wide. She screeched as he licked the length of her. She whimpered against the intense laps over and over as he took his time tasting her, dipping inside her channel—barely—and circling her *. When his lips closed on the needy bud, sucking hard, her hips jerked from the bed. Release rocketed through her.
“Jamie,” she screamed. On and on it went as he suckled ruthlessly on the tiny nub. “Jamie, oh God, please Jamie,” she begged. The clasp of her bra rasped on the brass post that held her as she struggled under her desire. But he wasn’t ready to let up on the tension coiling inside her. Two fingers thrust inside her quivering passage as he nipped at her *. He rose over her, his fingers never relenting, and made tiny bites up her belly to her breast where his teeth scrapped over one tip.
She bucked against him, needing him and crying out when his hand disappeared from her cunt. A moment later, she groaned in relief as his cock lined up with her opening. Her legs wrapped around him, urging him forward and she felt the fabric of his pants against her thighs. He’d opened his trousers and pushed them down just enough to free himself. Before she could think on it, he surged forward filling her with his thickness and stretching her passage. He didn’t pause for her to adjust—she didn’t want him, too.
Staring into her face with rigid determination in his green eyes, he pistoned in and out of her and claimed her as no one ever had. It didn’t matter who she’d f*cked before or who she might after, he was making her his. And she gave herself over to him, glorying in the feel of his possession and the rawness of being bound while he wasn’t fully undressed.
Her climax clawed up on her fast. She arched off the bed and pressed into him as hard as she could, taking him deeply as she could.
“Oh God, Rayna,” he gasped, still driving forward. “So tight… Yes, sweetness…”
He stiffened, and she felt his release pour into her. The heat seemed to flood through her. She groaned, having an overwhelming sense of closeness to him. His head dropped to her shoulder, and he reached up, freeing her. She hugged him, the closeness morphing to protectiveness as he breathed heavily. Her hand smoothed over his back, each ridge of damaged flesh piercing her. She prayed nothing would hurt this man again.
Rising on his elbows, he looked down at her. Gently, he pushed tendrils of hair from her damp face. “Thank you, Rayna.”
She shook her head, smiling and unable to believe he was thanking her. She had no words. Instead, she pulled him down into a kiss she hoped would show exactly what he meant to her.