His chin lowered, and intent mingled with the amusement in his amazing eyes. “Sassy now, are you?”
Her very blood sparked with the need to challenge him. Life had turned dangerous, and she wanted an escape. Just a moment to be a woman and have some fun. With Deacan. She was way too keyed up to sleep and needed to burn off some energy, and there wasn’t much she could do in the lab until the current experiments were concluded in the morning. Hopefully the charged nanoparticle experiment would work. “Sassy, I am. Think you can handle me?”
His eyebrows rose, and the amusement disappeared. “Yeah. I know I can.” That deep voice lowered even more, rumbling with a masculine truth he made no effort to mask.
Anticipation stiffened her limbs. “Prove it.”
His head lifted while his eyelids dropped to half-mast, giving him a primal look only a true predator could wear. “Run,” he said softly.
A nervous chuckle tickled up her windpipe. Trembles vibrated her legs, and her mind kicked into gear with a sense of warning. “I don’t think you can catch me.” Yeah, she was enjoying being a woman all of a sudden, completely ignoring reality.
His head cocked, ever so slightly. “Last chance.Run.”
As if her body were his to command, she turned and leaped into a mad dash. Around the sofa and over a stack of books. He caught her before she’d cleared her doorway, propelling them both hard and fast toward the bed to hit with a thud. She flipped onto her back and kicked, laughing, striking out with her hands to hit solid muscle.
He pressed a knee between her thighs and grabbed her wrists to stretch above her head against the pillows. Hard as she writhed, she couldn’t gain purchase to counter him. Masculine smugness angled his jaw as he stared down at her. “Appears you’ve been caught.”
Her struggles were useless, and she sobered at how quickly, how easily, he’d subdued her. Instead of providing caution, the reality speared fiery awareness through her. The power of the thigh between hers caught her breath in her throat.
He leaned up to gain better hold of her wrists, and that hard leg muscle pressed against her sex.
She gasped, and her body involuntarily shoved up into him.
He glanced down, eyes darkening, just as her nipples hardened to points inside her bra, causing small spikes of pleasure through her breasts. Holding her in place with merely one hand around her wrists and one thigh between hers, he quickly unfastened his harness and dropped the gun by the side of the bed. “Are you going to fight me?” he asked, the tone merely curious.
The game of run and chase had been fun, and playing with Deke was a lot more enjoyable than fighting with him. “And if I do?” she teased.
“You’ll lose.” One swipe down her front scattered buttons. “I may even tickle.”
She gasped. “Hey.”
He lifted a broad shoulder and tugged her bra up, revealing her needy breasts. “Spoils of war and all that.” His voice thickened.
Cool air caressed her flesh, providing an erotic contrast to the heat boiling inside her. Her skin ached, and a hollowness echoed throughout her. Even though they were playing, enough truth hinted in the air to flutter hunger through her abdomen. “Deacan.”
His head lifted, as did her skirt. He wasted no time removing her panties and instead snapped the sides away. His jeans were shed, the movement so quick she didn’t have time to move. Then he was above her.
Gaze to gaze, groin to groin. “Nora?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Definitely, yes.”
He didn’t ask twice. A hard lunge of his hips, and he sheathed himself completely.
Pain zipped through her, followed by an unreal pleasure. The combination overwhelmed her, and she closed her eyes.
His hold tightened on her wrists. “Open yer eyes.”
She blinked several times, a strangled plea buried in her breath. He possessed her, so strong, so male. No way could she have moved, even if she’d wanted to. Not for the first time, she wondered if she’d even come close to plumbing the depths of Deacan McDougall during their marriage.
Keeping her gaze, his expression inscrutable and his eyes filled with a light she couldn’t quite decipher, he pulled out and then shoved back in, setting up a pounding that rocked the headboard against the wall.
She gasped, her eyes widening at the powerful treatment. Even so, her hips lifted to take more, whether her mind could or not. The second she rubbed against him, he thrust harder, controlling her body, not allowing her to move. More of his weight descended on her, preventing even the small lifting of her hips.
All she could do was take it.
An orgasm rushed through her so quickly she could only gasp. He kept pounding, sweat drifting off his chin and onto her chest. It was raw and way too real. At the thought, electricity uncoiled inside her. Deep inside, way deeper than she’d known existed, the unfurling swept her up. She stiffened, trying to fight, needing to clutch at any semblance of control.
The hard pounding was slipping from the warmth of pleasure into the heat of pain, and she couldn’t stop the fire. She detonated, her body arching, his name spilling from her lips. With a smile akin to a snarl, he shoved hard inside her, his body jerking with his release.
