“Ah, Blair, sorry to bother you,” Beef said. “I was just checking to make sure we’re good with the cake.”
She clenched her jaw. “Yes. It’s made. I’ll bring it with me when I come in. Anything else?”
“No, ma’am. See you soon.” He hung up.
When she turned, Breakneck’s back was to her, a wall of muscle and shadow that stole her breath. He stood with his arms raised, palms pressed flat against the wall, fingers spread wide as if trying to absorb the cool, solid stability of the plaster into his own trembling soul. Every muscle in his broad back and powerful legs was rigid, locked in a fight she couldn't see but could feel vibrating through the air between them.
Then his posture shifted. His fingers curled, one by one, until his palms were no longer flat against the wall but were clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists. The change was everything. It was the shift from enduring to fighting. He was a gorgeous, devastating warrior battling an enemy only he could see, and the sight of his struggle was the most knee-melting, heart-wrenching thing she had ever witnessed.
He’d said to teach him. She was going to make him into an A student. She pulled off his T-shirt.
She moved, her body a fluid, confident motion. She pressed herself against his broad back, her breasts flattening against the hard, sculpted muscle, the heat of his velvet skin tactile against the ache in her nipples. Her arms came around his waist.
He went utterly still, his entire body tensing like a drawn bowstring. A sharp, hissing breath escaped him. She could feel the frantic, trapped beat of his heart against her cheek, where she pressed it to his back.
“Do you think you’re too much for any woman to manage,” she whispered, “that your passion is the same thing as exploitation?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it…until now. I just took my pleasure then walked away.” He shuddered, a full-body tremor that she felt everywhere they were connected. “I can barely think straight with you, Blair. Everything is jumbled and I told you I don’t know how to do this the right way.”
“Oh, Kelly….” She gently pulled at his shoulder, turning him around so they were facing each other. “There’s no right way. There’s just our way. What you need, I want to provide.”
His face contorted, his thick black lashes sweeping over the tormented gray fog of those eyes. She stepped into him, her hands going to his biceps, slipping down to his forearms, her touch slow, gentle until she caressed her thumb over his wrists, separating his painfully clasped fists. She entwined her fingers with his, pressing her hips into the hard, velvet heat. His head rolled on the wall, a guttural groan ripped from his chest, a raw, helpless sound that vibrated through her. His hips jerked, an involuntary thrust against her.
She released one of her hands and curled her fingers around him, adjusting to give her room. He was thick, beautifully formed, his erection jutting with a throbbing, visible pulse. “This is a part of you, not just your flesh and blood, but that desire you think is too much.” She moved her hand up, then dragged her palm down over his swollen head, spreading the moisture there. “For me, your intensity is intoxicating,” she whispered. “I count the seconds until I’m near you so I can feel it again.”
“Blair…” his voice soaked with the pleasure of her hand and her name. “Please…” he pleaded.
“Tell me,” she whispered. “Tell me everything that makes you feel good.”
"Your hand," he choked out, his head rolling back against the wall again. "The way you... God...the way you're not afraid to hold me tight." He swallowed hard, his hips thrusting involuntarily into her grip. "Don't...don't be gentle. I want to feel you tomorrow." She tightened her grip and slowed it down to heighten his pleasure, and his chin dropped, his chest heaving, his breath hissing out.
“Blair…fuck…harder.”
“You are so beautiful like this. Tell me what you want.”
He went so hard in her hand. "Everything," he panted, his eyes squeezing shut. "God, Blair...everything. The way you smell… the way you touch me like you own me... the way you're breaking me apart." He opened his eyes, and they were wild, pleading. "Don't stop. Please, God, don't ever stop."
Watching him catch fire, lose that restraint, was the single most satisfying moment of her sexual life. God, she wanted him like this, purely Kelly, purely himself. There was no more sniper, no more SEAL, no more stoic protector holding a piece of himself in reserve. There was only the man, raw and unfiltered, a force of nature pouring every ounce of his desperate, hungry need into her. It was a privilege so profound it stole her breath. She worshipped him, with her lips, tongue, sucked gently on his nipples, then harder, giving him not only her permission to ravage her, but to love her while he was doing it.
“Oh, fuck,” he breathed and tugged at her. “So fucking good.” His nostrils flared, and stark male desire heated his eyes. “Don’t you fucking make me come, woman,” he said.
“Was that an order or a plea,” she whispered.
In one fluid motion, he lifted her, his hands gripping her thighs, and turned, pressing her back against the cool, textured wall of the foyer. The shock of the cold plaster against her back was a delicious counterpoint to the blazing heat of his body. Her legs wrapped around his waist instinctively, pulling him closer.
He groaned, his forehead dropping to hers. “Stop talking,” he begged, his voice a ragged whisper. “If I lose control…I won’t be able to stop.”
“How is that a bad thing? Don’t you realize how much I want you, every dangerous, hard, hot part of you?”
His face contorted, his breathing went harsh. “Then, you’re the real threat here, because I think you’re killing me so damn good.”
He entered her with a greedy, primal taking, a single, powerful thrust that stole the air from her lungs and filled her so completely that a choked cry was torn from her throat. It was a claiming, Kelly unleashing every ounce of the hunger he'd suppressed, a raw, visceral need to possess her, to erase the memory of any other man, to mark her as his.
He set a punishing rhythm, each stroke deep and hard, a physical manifestation of the protective rage that had just filled her hallway. Her nails dug into the hard muscle of his shoulders, holding on as he used his body to give her unbearable, deeply penetrating pleasure, his hips pistoning, a relentless, powerful rhythm that was all about his greed, his desperate need to have her, all of her, right now.
"I love that," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "The way you show me how much you want me. How much you want to give me. How sexual and masculine you are. That's the Kelly I want and need."
A shudder ran through him, a tremor that had nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with the words she'd just given him. His rhythm faltered for a beat, his hips stilling deep inside her.
