Before she could analyze why that sounded wrong on so many levels, his fingers curled even deeper inside her and she lost the ability to clench the muscles in her legs. They fell limp, as if paralyzed. Pressure from his thumb on her clit, alternating with the “come here” motion of his fingers made her body feel as if she were on a runaway roller coaster, riding toward the crest of the highest hill. The bucking of her pelvis increased and she writhed. The air in the room felt cold against her sweat-soaked skin.
“Oh, don’t stop! Please, Marc! I want you inside me.”
He stopped. “What did you call me?”
“Oh, please don’t do this to me, Sir. I can’t think. I need to come. Now!”
“No, that’s not what you need right now, cara. You need to address your Dom properly.”
But you aren’t my Dom She left those particular words unspoken, because she didn’t wish to do anything to stop him for good. She looked up at him, begging him to fulfill her and frustrated when he just smiled. He held all the power. He even decided if she came or not.
He removed his fingers and spread the wetness to her clit. No! “Sir, please!” He smiled and his fingers thrust inside her again and she bolted upward, right back on the roller coaster, as he made contact with his thumb against her clit.
The pressure began to build again as he pressed that incredible nerve, or bundle of nerves, inside her. Was that the G-spot? She didn’t care what he called it, as long as he kept touching it.
“Yes, please, Sir. More. Give me more.”
He lowered his face to her once more and took her erect clit between his teeth. Afraid to move for fear of being bitten, she tensed. He released her and flicked the tip of his tongue against the oh-so-sensitive erection.
“Make me come, Sir!”
He pulled his mouth away and a third finger joined the other two that had already become intimately acquainted with her pussy. The fullness nearly undid her. His thumb rubbed her clit harder.
“Oh, yessss!!”
His fingers began to move inside her. She neared the crest of the hill, where she hovered. So close. She pumped herself against his hand, needing move.
“Don’t leave me hanging, Sir!”
“I’ve got you, bella. Come for me, pet. Now.”
The scream that escaped her lips, as she catapulted over the precipice and corkscrewed through Orgasm Curve, bounced off the bedroom walls, much as she bounced off the mattress and pillows.
“Oh! Ohhhhhh! Yesssss! Oh, God! Oh! Oh! Oh, God, yesssss!”
The spasms of her pelvic muscles came in waves, jerking her body as if she were dancing at the end of electrical wires. Her mind-blowingly explosive release exceeded anything she’d ever experienced before. She screamed, again and again, as the orgasm continued. Her body tensed, arched, jerked, arched, jerked, over and over. Just when she thought it would never stop, her body collapsed like a wet noodle against the oh-so-wet mattress.
Marc stretched out over her, holding the bulk of his weight off of her by propping himself on his forearms, but still pressing her lower body in such a delicious way into the mattress. She felt his erect penis against her clit, which spasmed in greeting—painfully so this time because it was so sensitive. He bent down to press his lips against her mouth, capturing her scream of pain inside his mouth.
She kissed him back, a sweet, gentle kiss that was about all she had the energy for. Spent, depleted, she lay for a few moments, gasping for air as her heart slowed its frenetic beating.
Marc cupped her breast and idly rolled her nipple. “You are the most responsive woman I’ve ever known.” He smiled down at her. “You can’t imagine what a turn-on it was for me to watch you fly apart like that, cara.”
Warmth infused her body, as if she needed to be any warmer. She hadn’t realized he’d been watching her. She still felt his eyes on her. “That was, um, incredible.”
“As are you, pet.”
“I’d heard of the G-Spot before, but I had no clue what all the fuss was about. Now I know.” When her heartbeat became more steady, she opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Please,” she begged. “I need to touch you, too.”
“You already have, bella. Watching you come almost caused me to embarrass myself without even using my fist.”
She smiled, remembering her experience in subspace. “Is that called Domspace?”
Marc laughed. “Yes, pet. There is Domspace, as well—when your Dom is so tuned into giving you pleasure, meeting your needs, waiting for and interpreting your every visual and verbal clue to know if he is succeeding at his mission. Very intense for a Dom, just as being on the receiving end is for a sub.”
A shadow passed over his face and he lay his forehead on her chest above her breasts, still keeping his weight on his forearms. She languished in the residual sensations and mini-tremors, thinking about how Marc had focused totally on her needs.
Suddenly, she became overwhelmed with the need to pull him closer. Emotions, needs she couldn’t express in words, bubbled to the surface. She didn’t realize she was crying until she felt cold tears trickling down the side of her face and around her ears. Uncomfortable and shy about asking for what she needed, she let her tears of frustration continue silently until a broken sob escaped her and he raised his head up to look at her.
“Oh, pet. Shhh. I know it’s intense.” His hands stroked her face, careful to avoid her bruised cheek. She blinked, trying to clear the tears and focus. He moved up to hover over the top of her. She saw worry lines on his forehead.
Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes and into her hair. Why she was crying? He’d given her the most beautiful experience she’d ever had, even better than when she came for her dream lover or for Luke on the sofa. So why did she feel so sad and lonely?
He brushed the tears away and curled her hair behind her ear. “You surrendered yourself beautifully. Thank you for trusting me.”
She shook her head, not wanting to admit she’d done that. But she knew he spoke the truth. He understood her better than she did herself sometimes. She gasped for air as another sob wracked her. Her throat ached, whether from crying or screaming, she wasn’t sure.
He rolled off her and helped her turn onto her side, facing away from him, then pulled her tightly against him, his hard body curled against her back and legs, spooning her as he molded himself against her.
“I have you, Amore. Just let it go.”
Love? He’d used the endearment once before. Of course, Marc also called her dear and beautiful. Must be like an American southerner calling someone sweetie. It didn’t mean anything. Marc further cocooned her, putting his leg against hers. Safe. She felt so safe with him. What was she going to do when he left her?
And what about Luke? Was he okay? She’d grown to need both of them so much in such a short time. In her efforts to become independent of her smothering brothers, she’d not allowed herself to let anyone get close for fear they’d smother her, too.
But she didn’t feel smothered by Marc or Luke. Marc tugged the comforter over them. She sighed. She felt well loved. Special.
Cherished.
Marc’s hand cupped her breast, not to stimulate her, but more as a possessive gesture. Safe in his arms, she let her eyelids droop. Just before she drifted off to sleep, he whispered in her ear, “Sleep, pet.”
* * *
Luke poured a mug of coffee and stared out the window over the kitchen sink. Dawn was still a couple of hours away. He’d been awake since he’d heard Angel’s screams, his muddled brain going on full alert at first, thinking she was in some kind of danger. But he’d quickly realized the screams resulted from passion, not fear or pain.
Marc walked into the room and filled himself a mug, as well. He looked like he hadn’t gotten any sleep. “Any more news from the sheriff’s department?”
“No. I checked in about forty-five minutes ago. They lost him after he left the hospital. He hasn’t shown up at his house. I doubt they’re going to keep looking long, unless he tries something that violates the protection order.”
Luke had been thinking about what to do about Angelina for hours—on both fronts. He’d told Marc last night he didn’t plan to pursue her any longer, and didn’t blame his friend for going after her. Hell, he’d have done the same thing. Angel was worth pursuing.
But he knew he needed to come clean and tell Angel what had happened on that mountain seven years ago. Guilt had been eating away at him ever since and he didn’t want to keep it bottled up inside anymore. Besides, if Marc and Angel started dating, he’d have to see her.
First, he needed to make sure she was okay. “How is she?” Luke asked.
“Sleeping. Look, we need to talk about what we’re going to do about Angelina before she wakes up.”
Well, apparently they were on the same page. Best to talk about the personal-safety issues first.
“I’ll call her brother, Tony, after daylight and let him know what’s going on. We can stick around until one of her brothers can take over.”
Marc slammed the mug on the counter, sloshing some of the liquid over the rim. “Like hell. She’s coming with us. I’m not leaving her anywhere around that man.”
Hell, this was supposed to have been the easier of the two discussions. “Just how do you plan to do that if she doesn’t want to come with us? Kidnap her?”
“She’ll come. I can be very…persuasive.”
“Yeah, so I heard.”
Marc’s face didn’t show any emotion one way or another, but the grip he had on his coffee mug told Luke his words had hit their mark. “She had a nightmare. Look, it’s complicated, but there was nothing in there beyond the BDSM stuff. That’s not always about sex. I just gave her what she needed.”
Luke should have been there for her. “I’m sorry about last night. I’m glad you could be there when she needed someone.”
“You ready to talk about what’s going on?”
Luke took a swig of coffee and braced himself. There was no subtle way to ease into this conversation. His hand nervously twisted the braided leather bracelet on his wrist. He just needed to come right out and explain why he’d behaved the way he had.
“I’m responsible for the death of Angel’s father.”
While Marc wasn’t one to show emotion as a rule, his eyes widened at Luke’s confession. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Unable to watch his friend’s reaction when he told him the truth, Luke turned toward the window again, but could see Marc’s reflection in the glass pane. “Seven years ago, Maggie and I were hiking in a remote valley up on Mt. Evans, ignoring avalanche warnings from the park service.” Luke looked down at his hands propped on the edge of the sink. The white band where his wedding had been goaded him on. “It was sunny and warm when we left that morning. She was on her break from the biology department at Texas. Early May.” He drew a deep breath before continuing. “We were fucking clueless. She wanted to catalog and photograph some damned plant reported only to grow in that valley that time of year.”
The backs of his eyelids burned. He didn’t like remembering the events of that day, much less talking about them. Losing Maggie. Killing an innocent man who’d been charged with rescuing a novice hiker in a place she shouldn’t have been.
Angel’s father.
Can the emotions, man. He continued to let the details spill out, as if he were describing a scene from a movie. He’d rewound this scene over and over in his mind so many times, he almost wished it were a movie.
“Maggie fell down a scree slope trying to get the damned photo. The scree rocks cut her up pretty badly, but she was conscious. I didn’t have ropes or anything I could use to rappelle down to her. Didn’t even have a satellite phone to call for help. I had to leave her lying down there to hike back.” Hardest thing he’d ever done in his life. He’d run to the car and then driven like a madman to the ranger station. “When I brought the SAR team back to her, I watched…”
Marc’s hand on his shoulder brought him back from the nightmare a moment. Maybe he hadn’t distanced himself from that day, after all. He shrugged Marc’s hand off.
“For some damned reason, they let Angel’s dad go down alone.” Marc turned to face Luke. “You and I both know procedure. I’ve never been able to figure out why the let him go down alone. But I guess if anyone else had been down there with them, they’d have died, too.” God, the thought of any other life being taken that day…he squeezed his eyes shut, but the images didn’t disappear.
“Then we heard the roar of ice and snow. Sounded like the whole damned mountain was coming down on us. I saw the avalanche uprooting trees and headed straight for Maggie and Angel’s…the SAR worker. He covered her, trying to shield her. I bolted toward her, but the rescue team pulled me back.”
He drew a ragged breath into his tight lungs. “All I could do was watch. One minute they were there. Then gone.” He stared at the floor.
“God, Luke. I knew it must have been bad, but I had no fucking clue.” He paused, then asked, “Does Angelina know?”
Luke shook his head again. He looked up at Marc, seeing some of his own pain reflected in the eyes of his friend, as if he knew what it was like to be responsible for someone’s death.
“She didn’t recognize my name—but her brothers will. Tony and I attended a training session in Colorado Springs once. He avoided me the whole week.”
Marc squeezed Luke’s forearm. “Man, you’ve spent four years with SAR atoning for that accident. You two were just ignorant of the power of the wilderness. How many lives have you saved of equally ignorant people? If Tony blames you, he’s a damned fool. Mr. Giardano knew the risks when he went down that mountainside. You and I would have done the same thing. It’s what SAR workers do.”
Luke shook his head.
“You need to forgive yourself, Luke. Until you do, it won’t matter who else forgives you.”
Luke shook his head. “I’ll be atoning for this one until the day I die.” He stood up, brushing Marc’s hand away. “But I need to tell Angel.”
“Why?”
“If we’re meant to be together, we aren’t going to get anywhere until that’s out in the open.”
Marc didn’t say anything for the longest time, then said, “We’ve got to get her to safety and I don’t want to give her any reason to refuse to go to Denver with us. Now is not the time to tell Angelina.”
He stared at Marc, a man who wasn’t one to be confrontational—ever—but was there more to it than that? Did he just want to keep Luke away from Angel? Is that what was going on here?
“Are you sure there isn’t something more to you and Angel than keeping an eye on her? Sure sounded like more to me.”
Marc looked down at the coffee mug. “Look, I just needed to help her get over a hurdle. There’s nothing between us.” His gaze met Luke’s again. “But I don’t want her to be alone. Which one of us is going to go in there?”
Hell, Marc had more of a claim on her at this point. He couldn’t just show up in her bedroom like he had some right to be there.
“Go. She’ll be more comfortable with you.”
“Don’t call Tony. She doesn’t want her brothers to know, and I plan to honor that wish—unless they need to know.”
Luke knew it was a bad idea to even entertain the thought of bringing her to Denver with them. What were they supposed to do with her when they got there? He had a one-bedroom townhouse. Marc had plenty of room, but did he want to throw them together? Could he compete with Marc? Even if Marc said there was nothing between him and Angel, what about her? She’d sure sounded interested in him in there.
Damn.
What now?
* * *
Marc eased back into bed with Angelina and stretched out on his back, afraid if he touched her, she’d awaken. Or that she’d awaken parts of him best left sleeping.
His movements didn’t cause her to move a muscle, so exhausted was she from the attack by Asshole—and more pleasant activities. She needed as much rest as she could get.
The coffee had revived him, not that he would have let sleep claim him tonight. Someone needed to watch over her in case Asshole returned.
But what the fuck was going to do about Luke? He had no clue the man had something like that eating away at him. Hell, Marc knew first-hand how that kind of guilt could mess with a man’s mind. He’d been counting on Luke pursuing her, if for no other reason than to keep him away from her. Telling her about Maggie’s death in connection with her papa’s would just drive her away from Luke. Marc wanted his friend to establish some kind of relationship with her to keep himself from giving in to his own attraction to her.
Yeah, he wasn’t sure when or how it had happened, but he’d begun to fall, and fall hard, for the little angel lying beside him. When was the last time he’d spent the night in bed with a woman—well, a sleeping woman, that is? He could easily have slept on the sofa and sent Luke in here. He told himself someone needed to be with her because of Asshole, but, in truth, he just wanted to be near her.
He covered his eyes with his forearm and saw images of her smooth skin covered in gooseflesh as he’d traced patterns over her skin. Of her nipples puckering. Of her mouth open and gasping in wonder as he’d discovered her G-spot. His cock tightened. He’d been hard since dinner.
Why hadn’t he buried himself inside her? She’d have welcomed him. Shit, she’d even begged him. So, when had he developed morals about such things? He told himself, it was because he hadn’t brought any condoms. But, if he’d been determined to have sex with her, he’d have found a box of condoms somewhere in town, even if he had to hit every gas-station head within the city limits. No, a lack of condoms wasn’t the issue.
Angelina was the issue. Vulnerable, curious, and very Italian Angelina.
What the hell power did she have over him? Was it about the rescue at the club last month? Or finding her bloodied and bruised in her doorway last night? His guts twisted at both images.
But Italian? That created a major conflict for him.
No, not because of Melissa. He’d come to realize rather quickly that he’d never loved her. That had been carnal, pure and simple. Well, maybe pure wasn’t the right word.
Fuck, he couldn’t have loved anyone back then anyway. He was shit-hot, the Italian stallion of Aspen; a gift from the gods to all womankind. He snorted in self-derision. Of course, it didn’t help that the women had laid themselves out before him as if on a smorgasbord.
Angelina stirred and he turned to watch her sleeping. She wasn’t a gold-digger like Melissa either. She was exciting, curious, and full of life. She also was sweet. Hell, she could have been his sister, Carmella. Okay, he wouldn’t go that far. Then again, maybe the fact that she did remind him of Carmella made her so dangerous to him. He wouldn’t want any man hurting his sister. With his track record, he had no doubt she would be yet another casualty of Marc D’Alessio.
The thought of being dominated might terrify her, but he was equally terrified of dominating her. He’d failed her once, albeit unintentionally. But what if he did so again, this time intentionally or recklessly?
She scared him shitless.
But she wasn’t his, so why was he even entertaining the thought of anything more? Marc suffered a pang of guilt that he’d unleashed the submissive buried within her tonight. If Luke didn’t swing that way, it could create problems for them in a future relationship. But better they deal with it sooner than later. If she ignored her sexual nature and chose a safe marriage, she’d only have regrets later because she’d denied and closed off a vital part of herself.
Marriage. Marc certainly wasn’t looking for those shackles. He’d come too close with Melissa and then Pamela to ever chance taking that path again. But Luke was the marrying kind. Angelina deserved someone like him. Stable, faithful, trustworthy. Hell, Luke would probably even play at being Dom if he knew that would please Angelina.
Not the same as being a natural Dom, but perhaps that would be enough for Angelina. Most men could get excited about bondage games, at least. He had no doubt she would surrender to restraints again, with a man she trusted.
Now how was he going to get her to trust him and Luke enough to agree to going to Denver and staying with one of them until things blew over with that abusive bastard Allen Martin?