Текст книги "Wicked Lies"

Автор книги: Lora Leigh

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

CHAPTER 11

How long she sat in the bathroom floor, drawn into herself, Kenni wasn’t certain. The waves of pain sweeping through her seemed never ending, ripping through her soul with a power she’d never before experienced.

There was no relief from the emotions breaking free inside her. Her eyes burned, her throat ached, and a band of agony tightened further around her chest.

It hurt to just breathe.

“Kenni…?”

The sound of Jazz’s voice, soft, so very gentle, had her freezing. Tightening her fingers in her hair, she tried to tell herself it was okay. It really was. She wasn’t crying. He wouldn’t walk away from her and leave her to hurt alone.

“Look at me, darlin’,” he ordered, his large hands framing the sides of her head to lift it, to reveal her face as he stared down at her, his expression gentling. “What’s wrong, Kenni?”

How could she tell him? How could she describe the agony racking her? The knowledge she’d lost his heart before she even knew she had it? The realization that even after all these years, she still had no idea how to save herself?

And the pain was destroying her.

She knew men didn’t handle tears well, and God help her, she couldn’t bear it if he walked away from her because of them.

“I’m not crying,” she whispered, hoping the lack of moisture would convince him.

She refused to let herself cry.

His expression immediately turned brooding and dark. He frowned down at her, those sapphire eyes darkening as heavy, inky lashes surrounded the most outrageous blue she’d ever seen for eyes.

“Maybe you should cry, Kenni.” The heavy sigh came as his arms went around her back and beneath her knees. A heartbeat later he straightened, holding her close to his chest and moving into the bedroom.

“Big girls don’t cry,” she whispered, repeating Gunny’s words as Jazz sat down in the large chair a few feet from the bed. “When it can’t be fixed, tears won’t help. If it can be fixed, tears aren’t needed. Right?”

He stilled against her so completely for a second that he didn’t even breathe.

“God, Kenni.” Pressing her head to his chest a second later, his arms tightened around her, holding her to him as a feeling of complete security washed over her.

She could feel his heart beneath her ear, the bare flesh of his chest warming the side of her face.

“All I wanted to do was come home.” She remembered that, remembered all the silent tears she’d cried those first two years. “But every time we stopped long enough to try to figure out how I could do that, they found us.” Her fingers tightened on his lower arm. “And I always knew who they were.” Faces flashed across her memory. “Men I was raised with, Jazz. Men who were trying to kill me.”

“Your uncle killed them all?” he asked, his fingers stroking over the side of her head. “He wasn’t able to question them?”

Gunny didn’t question, he interrogated with merciless determination.

“Sure he did.” She shuddered, remembering the one time she’d watched one of those interrogations. “They said they were following Maddox orders.”

She’d never been able to completely believe it. The fear that drove her, the will to survive and make someone pay for her mother’s death had kept her from contacting her family. It had kept her from contacting anyone tied to the Maddox clan.

Especially Jazz. If she’d been wrong, if her brothers were involved and he’d died, the added grief would have done what the Kin had been trying to do. It would have killed her.

“I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt, Kenni,” he whispered. “Because if anything happened to you, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. But for the record, there’s no way in fucking way in hell your brothers are involved in this.”

This time, he didn’t mention her father. The exclusion would have been deliberate. For some reason, between his last defense of them and now, he wasn’t so certain of her father.

Poppy … A dry sob hitched her breath at the thought.

The weary resignation in his voice was another burden on her shoulders. He believed in her brothers, trusted them, and that was something Jazz didn’t do easily.

“Tell me, Kenni,” he asked as the throttled sound of the sob escaped. “How long has it been since you cried?”

What did it matter? How long since she’d lived, or how long since she’d had a single second of peace? Those questions made far more sense.

“Why?” Why would he care? Hell, what did it matter?

“Curiosity,” he answered smoothly. “Not many women I know that don’t cry.”

How long had it been?

Frowning, she watched, kneading the hard biceps in front of her face with subtle strokes of her fingertips while the muscle flexed beneath her touch.

“My eighteenth birthday,” she finally answered. “Tom and Jason Keye caught me just outside Dallas, heading to meet with Gunny. They were going to rape me before carrying out their orders. They laughed and called me a crybaby. I realized Gunny had been right, tears didn’t help.”

Seconds later they were dead before Kenni realized the sounds she’d heard were Gunny’s rifle.

“Tom and Jason,” he murmured softly, but the tension in his voice was an indication of the fury he was burying for the moment. “We heard they’d moved to California.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, though the acknowledgment was a bit absent.

It had taken a minute for her to realize she was naked, and all that separated her from the heavy erection beneath her rear was the towel she’d had wrapped around her earlier. Because Jazz was naked as well.

He’d showered. Damp hair and shower-fresh flesh caressed her senses as his fingers trailed from the side of her head to her neck. Tilting her head up, Kenni stared into the somber, darkening depths of his sapphire eyes.

How would she be able to bear it when her time with him was over? When he was no longer touching her, when the chance to be touched by him was over?

She hadn’t known how much she needed him until he’d pushed his way into her life and gave a damn that it appeared she might be in trouble because the identity she was using was false.

“I told myself for years I couldn’t have felt for you what I knew I felt that summer,” she whispered painfully. “That sixteen was too young to know what love was, and it wasn’t as if you’d even brushed my lips with yours let alone actually kissed me. But every time I considered a lover, or the possibility of leaving America entirely to escape, you stood in my way, Jazz. The thought of never seeing you again was so abhorrent I couldn’t consider it.”

Those long, inky-black lashes lowered over the brilliant blue of his eyes as his expression softened into lines of pure male sexual hunger.

Beneath her hand his chest rose and fell harder, his breathing speeding up, just as his heartbeat did. Cupping her cheek with his hand, he slid his thumb sensually over her lower lip.

“Hell, I built your fucking house, Kenni,” he growled, not so much angry as perhaps exasperated. “Not to mention that friggin’ gazebo with a bed in it like you wanted. And not a single damned woman has shared either with me. I think that pretty much proves I was damned serious.”

As he’d said earlier, he was serious then. That didn’t mean he was nearly as serious now. But Kenni had realized she didn’t really care which club she had to join, she wanted more of Jazz. Desperately. Now.

She closed her eyes, barely holding back a moan when the fingers buried in her hair tugged her head to the side. His lips settled just beneath her ear, against the line of her jaw. The flesh there sizzled with pleasure as sensitive nerve endings caught the sensation and sent it racing across her body.

Involuntary shivers ran up her spine while a breathless moan escaped her lips. God, she ached for him, needed him. It wasn’t just the pleasure, it was the sense of finally being where she was supposed to be, if only for a little while.

She should be resisting this need, pulling back, reminding herself of the danger, something other than closing her eyes and reveling in the sensations. Because God knew, she would pay for this later. For every second of pleasure he gave her, Kenni had no doubt the pain would be worse in the not-too-distant future.

His teeth scraped against her neck, his tongue following as it flickered over her already sensitized flesh. It was like wildfire exploded through her senses, drenching her in the most incredible warmth.

“Like that, do you?” he muttered, his voice thicker, grating with hunger. “I love that little sound you make as your breath catches, but let’s see if I can do something to warrant a moan. Just a little one, if you can. If I deserve it.”

As he spoke, his head moved lower to the bend of her neck. There his teeth gripped the flesh for just a second, raked over it, then burned a path to the rise of her breasts as the arm behind her levered her back. As he licked over the hard tip of her nipple with slow, hungry strokes, each rasping caress sent forked trails of blistering sensation straight to her womb.

Moaning, arching into his hold, she tried to press closer, to feel more.

She needed to feel more.

Then his lips were on hers. Slanting over them, his tongue pressing between them as he began to sip from her kiss, to feed her the heady pleasure of his hunger as spiraling need stripped her to nothing but sensation.

And Jazz made damned certain there was plenty of sensation.

His lips moved over hers, rubbing against them, slipping between them, branding her with the hunger she could feel in each hungry kiss.

His fingers found the hard point of her nipple, gripped it, rolling it between his fingers and exerting exquisite pressure against the nerve-ridden flesh.

Sensation erupted in the hard tip, flashed through her body, clashing in her lower stomach.

Kenni was only barely aware of her hips moving. Each jagged burst of sensation erupting through her, obliterating more of the common sense she knew she was supposed to have. It was there, somewhere, just waiting for Jazz to let it come out and let her see the folly of her actions. It had to be.

Until then, she wanted to sink into the white-hot pleasure. She wanted to live within the heat wrapped around her, she wanted to burn in his touch.

She wanted to touch. If he would just release her wrists.

A cry, muted and hoarse, tore from her throat to fill their kiss as his fingers gripped her nipple again, tugged, pressed, and had flames searing a path to her womb.

Oh God, she needed. She needed Jazz …

*   *   *

His need for her, the overriding hunger and overwhelming drive to possess every part of her, was only growing stronger. Not by the day, by the minute. By every shattered look of longing, every pain-ridden gleam of love he glimpsed in her eyes when she looked at him, and every soft, whispered sigh of desire whenever he touched her.

Everything about her—her scent, the sound of her voice, the touch of her hand, shy smiles and hungry looks—only made him want to tie her tighter to him.

She was destroying him and she didn’t even know it.

Trailing his lips from hers to caress the line of her jaw again, Jazz had to force himself not to turn her to him, to slide beneath her slender thighs and have her ride him as he stared into those beautiful dark-emerald eyes.

“Jazz, wait … please.” Breathless, rough with desire, her voice had a groan tearing from his chest.

Wait?

She had to be joking.

Lifting his head enough to stare into her flushed, sensual features, he knew the wait was going be very short indeed.

“I want to touch you now,” she whispered, staring up at him with such somber need that she broke his heart. “I want to give you pleasure, too.”

There wasn’t a chance he could bear it. She would have him insane in minutes. But her hunger for it filled her face, her eyes. She needed, for whatever reason, to steal the last vestige of sanity he possessed.

“Good God,” he whispered as she slid from his lap. “And here I thought I’d have some control this time.”

“Control is highly overrated.” Rolling to her side she stared down at him, her expression heavy with feminine need.

“I’m not entirely certain this is one of those situations,” he told her, though he was definitely curious over what she had planned.

No doubt she had every intention of driving him crazy.

How much could a little innocent like her know, though? Surely he had the self-control to endure whatever she dished out.

Or so he thought.

What he forgot to take into account was his reaction to her and the effect she had on him whenever she was near, let alone touching him.

She kissed him like a woman desperate to build memories, to fill as much of her soul as possible with sensation and warmth.

At first slow, exploring his lips with hers, tasting them with her inquisitive little tongue. Jazz remained at her mercy, never taking his eyes from her as his heart ached for her.

*   *   *

She was convinced she would be running soon.

Like hell!

Jazz was more than willing to be the recipient of the pleasure; he could be a bit selfish like that, he decided. But his would-be-runaway was done running. She just didn’t know it yet.

Encouraging her hunger with each kiss, with each lick of her soft teasing tongue, he learned just how completely arousing a woman’s innocence could be.

Or maybe it was just Kenni’s innocence that was so damned arousing.

With each kiss, with each hungry stroke, the sensuality that was so much a part of her built until her own needs began consuming her.

Hell yes.

This was what he wanted.

Her hungry lips and quick hot tongue taking what she wanted.

A groan broke from his chest as heated kisses moved down the side of his neck. And damn, it felt good. Turning his head, he let her have her way.

Let her play.

Let her think he was actually going to let her run whenever she decided it was time to go.

Hell, she’d be lucky if he let her out of his bed.

Kittenish little nails pricked at his chest as she tested his muscles. She must have liked what she found in the feel of his flesh because she kneaded it again.

“Damn, darlin’, how I love your kisses,” he groaned, his jaw tightening at the catch of her breath when he spoke.

His Kenni liked hearing his pleasure.

Her teeth raked at his collarbone, that rasp of sensual hunger causing his already engorged dick to swell further and his balls to clench with a surfeit of sensation.

“Ah, baby, that hot little mouth will make me crazy.”

She tightened against him, a little whimper vibrating over his flesh as her lips and sweet tongue moved lower.

“Kenni, darlin’.” He stretched against the rasp of her nails running down his chest, nearly to his navel. So fucking close to the heavy weight of his cock as it lay against his lower stomach.

Her kisses continued over his chest. The flick of her tongue over the hard disk of his nipple had his teeth clenching. When she delivered a lingering kiss to it he had to curl his fingers into the arms of the chair to keep from grabbing her and dragging her over his thighs where she could ride them both into exhaustion.

“Kenni, you’re going to make me crazy,” he groaned. “That hot mouth of yours destroys me.”

And she had no mercy.

Lower she went until his fingers tangled in her hair, his muscles tightening to the breaking point.

Sweet, hot kisses—the head of his cock pulsed, throbbing with the need for attention.

“Come here, baby.” He watched her as he glimpsed the uncertainty that flashed across her face.

And uncertainty was something she should never feel while in a bed with him.

As he tightened his fingers in her hair to pull her up his body, the hot swipe of her tongue over the head of his cock had him stilling in shock and exquisite pleasure.

“Kenni, you don’t have to … Sweet mercy…”

Fuck!

It was good.

Her mouth encased the sensitive crest, damp heat milking it, pretty lips surrounding the thick flesh as she stared back at him in dazed fascination. And as she drew on the throbbing crest, that quicksilver tongue of hers tormented it.

Damp heat flicked against the sensitive head, rubbed at it, tormenting flesh already so sensitive it was all he could do to hold back, to keep from filling her sweet mouth with his release.

“Fuck, Kenni.” His fingers tightened in her hair. “Baby, it’s so good.” She drew back, her tongue still lashing at the eager flesh before sucking him in again.

Slow, experimental. She was letting herself get used to the feel of his hard flesh as she demanded the intimacy with greedy licks and slow, suckling hunger.

“Ah hell. Damn.” Weak with the surfeit of pleasure, Jazz let his head rest against the back of the chair, only barely aware of the fact that it was grinding into the cushion behind him.

She took him deeper, filling her mouth and rubbing her tongue against the ultrasensitive spot beneath the throbbing head. Each rubbing stroke against the nerve-ridden area sent pulsing fingers of pure ecstasy to race over his cock and arrow-straight to his already tormented testicles. Each slow rippling caress had his balls tightening, clenching with the need to spill his release to her hungry mouth.

“That’s it, baby,” he groaned. “Just like that. Sweet Kenni, your mouth is killing me.”

Each suckling stroke of damp heat was pushing him past the point of no return.

“That’s it, darling.” Breathing was almost impossible. “Ah hell. Yeah. Suck it harder, baby. That’s it.” Her mouth tightened, drawing him deeper. “How fucking good your mouth is,” he groaned. “So hot and sweet.”

Holding the base of his eager flesh, she widened her eyes as he began moving. Drawing his hard flesh nearly free of her lips before pushing in again, slow and easy. He watched. Watched her take him. Watched her sweet lips stretch around the width of him as he felt her sucking him inside.

“I’ve dreamed of fucking your mouth,” he bit out as his balls throbbed warningly. “Of sinking my cock past those pretty lips as you suck, hungry for the taste of me.”

Moving his hands from her hair to the chair arms again, he clenched the material desperately. His muscles tightened, sweat breaking out on his skin as heat began to consume him.

“Fuck, Kenni, I’m going to come. Baby, sweet Kenni.” He thrust inside her mouth again. Once. Twice.

His fingers returned to her hair, clenched, held her still and felt her mouth tighten further on him. He thrust past her lips again. Once. Twice.

God.

Pulling from her was agony.

Forcing his cock from the heat of her mouth, from her licking tongue nearly undid him.

And his control was shot.

“Ride me, Kenni.” Lifting her along his body, Jazz guided her leg over his hips as he held his cock ready to sink inside the sweet heat awaiting him. “Let me feel you take me, baby.”

Teeth clenched, Jazz watched as the engorged head of his cock parted the smooth, silken folds of her pussy.

Slick, wet heat began stretching around the engorged crest. Parting, taking him, her silken honey flowing around the penetration.

“Kenni, that’s it, baby,” he rasped, both hands gripping her hips as he pushed deeper, harder inside her.

Watching her face, his hands caressed from her hips to her swollen breasts. There he found the plump nipples atop her swollen mounds, ready for his fingers to rasp and excite.

The silky heat of her pussy enveloped him, wrapped around flesh throbbing with the exquisite sensation.

Ah fuck. It was so good his toes wanted to curl with the pleasure.

“Fuck me, baby,” he groaned, his voice graveled as her sheath rippled around his cock, sucked at it.

Hips bunching, straining, the need to push inside her, to stroke in to the hilt, was nearly overpowering.

Kenni’s hands braced on his chest, her nails pricked the flesh, and her hips moved with increasing speed. Taking his cock deep with each downward thrust, her head fell back in pleasure, perspiration gleaming on her creamy flesh, giving it a satiny sheen.

Soft, desperate mewls of pleasure slipped past her lips and just when Jazz was certain he couldn’t bear the pressure another second, complete, searing pleasure engulfed his cock.

Tight. So fucking tight.

Like a silken vise tightening and rippling around his erection, her internal muscles milked the entire length of his shaft.

Jazz’s hands tightened on her hips, the fragile hold he had on his control completely disintegrating.

“Jazz! Yes. Oh God, yes!”

All sense of reality disappeared as he felt her unravel, the pulsing ripples of her inner flesh milking his cock until he exploded with complete rapture.

Quick, heavy thrusts.

Rapture tightened in his testicles, taut bands of pleasure so extreme Jazz knew that holding back his release wasn’t happening.

He was dying.

His cock was so engorged, pounding with a furious need to come, that perspiration poured from him with the battle to hold back.

To feel her—

Stroking inside her, thrusting hard, heavy—her pussy gripped, milked his shaft. Tightened further with each contraction of her orgasm.

Tighter than ever—so fucking hot—

His release took him by surprise.

As her pussy rippled around him, gripping him like a vise, it was like a direct switch to his balls.

The first hard pulse of release tore a shattered groan from his lips. Arching, pushing deeper inside her with each furious ejaculation spurred ecstatic waves of sensation to tear through him. In some distant part of his soul, Jazz knew his fate was sealed. This woman was his. And there was no debt too great if it meant ensuring her safety and their future together.