Mercenary Trilogy - Willing Part 16

she'd put on for bed. She didn't own s.e.xy nightwear, other than the gown he had given her, but hadstarted buying more feminine underwear some time ago...right about the time she met Daniel.His dark brown gaze showed no disappointment in her lack of a proper negligee."Come to my bed, Daniel. I want you."His nostrils flared, his jaw locking into granitelike firmness, and he came over her in a silent rush that left her tumbled back against the pillows."Do you want to feed your obsession some more?" she asked breathlessly.He shook his head as though her words bothered him. "I want to make love with a very s.e.xy woman, with my woman."

She cupped his face and drew his head down until their lips were almost touching. "Make love with me, Daniel. Make me feel like a s.e.xy woman, like your woman."

He made her feel like living fire. Taking what little clothes she wore off of her with a lot more urgency

than he had shed his, his mouth devoured what his hands had uncovered, sending flames licking through her feminine core. As she arched under his lips and exploring hands, desire to consume him with the same blazing inferno inside her pierced her being.

She wanted him to feel everything she was experiencing, everything! The fundamental desire to be with a man created to be the other half of her. The agonizing emotion she had never expected to experience.

The clawing need for completion that came from the sharing of spirit as well as flesh.

She needed him to feel it all.

Flipping out from under him, she pushed him onto his back, and he let her, his eyes black with need she would never again mistake for anger. She straddled him, shuddering when her l.a.b.i.a kissed his erection. It was so profoundly intimate, she wanted to engrave the sensation on her mind for all of eternity.

His big body went rigid, and she smiled, loving this evidence of her effect on him. Licking her lips in needy antic.i.p.ation, she gave in to the uncontrollable desire to lift her pelvis slightly, only to come back down and kiss his hard s.e.x again with her highly lubricated flesh.

"Don't do that," he said harshly."What? This..." And she moved her pelvis once more.He groaned and arched up to meet her hungry femininity. "Don't lick your lips."Didn't he know that after saying that, she had no choice but to do it again?"Why not?" she asked before slowly running her tongue along first her upper and then lower lip.He watched her as if his gaze were welded to her mouth. "It makes me crazy."She rocked so her swelling flesh caressed the entire length of his velvety hardness. "I like making you crazy." Then she bent forward and kissed him all over his smooth, rock-hard chest, nipping him belowone nipple with her teeth."Josette.""I have absolutely no desire to do this to Hotwire."

"Good," he growled."This either." And she circled his nipple with her tongue until it was as hard as the rest of him and thensucked on it while he pulled in air like a man put on oxygen to survive.

After several seconds of the sensual torment, he grabbed her head and tugged her face up to his. She kissed him with hot, open-mouthed intensity that he returned with aggressive pa.s.sion. His hands moved down her spine and over her backside until one finger slipped into the intimate crevice at the apex of her thighs.

She wriggled against the teasing finger, aching already for a more solid possession. Moaning, she rubbed her c.l.i.toris against his s.e.x in an effort to a.s.suage the growing ache in her lower body. It wasn't enough, but heat pooled in her womb while her inner muscles clenched, telling her climax was imminent. She wasn't ready for the intimacy and touching to end. She wanted to come with him fully imbedded inside her, their flesh joined as deeply as possible. Only, she couldn't stop her body's movement, and she moved closer and closer to losing all control. Whimpering, she tilted her pelvis and lifted her hips without thought until his hardness was poised at the entrance to where she most wanted him to be. Fingers like vises locked around her waist and stopped her from taking him fully inside.

Chapter 11.

H er mouth broke from his, a protesting moan of anguish erupting from the very heart of her.

"Not yet, sweetheart."

She looked down at him, her vision blurred by pa.s.sion, but even so, she could see the harsh cast to his

features so at odds with the tenderness in his voice.

"Why not?"

He grabbed something from under the pillow, keeping her still with his other hand as she tried to move

downward again. When she saw what he was holding, frustration for the need to delay roared through her.

"I'm going on the pill," she muttered from between gritted teeth.

His slashing smile touched her like a caress. "Fine, but tonight, we don't have any choice."And no way did he want her getting pregnant. She scooted backward, making room for him to don thecondom, but chilled by the reality of what it symbolized. The transitory nature of their relationship andDaniel's absolute certainty he did not want a child with her.

Of course safe s.e.x wasn't all about pregnancy, but she knew deep in her soul that Daniel would neverhave made love with her if he was putting her at risk. Since she'd never been with anyone else, he couldn't be worried about what she might expose him to either. This was about keeping the intimacy betweenthem physical and allowing no consequences to come from it.

No result but a heart she already felt cracking under the knowledge he would walk out of her life the same way he had walked into it. Alone.

Daniel held the dark blue foil packet up. "Do you want to put it on?"

Without meaning to, she physically recoiled from the question, her thoughts too close to the surface to ignore.

His brows drew together. "Josie, is something wrong?"

Did she really want to ruin what time she did have with him, entertaining ultradepressing musings abouthow much it was going to hurt when their relationship ended? No, of course not. That would be stupid.And she wasn't dumb."Nothing's wrong," she said with what she hoped was rea.s.suring brightness, and then she winked at him. "But I don't think it will fit."

His eyes narrowed and then glittered in understanding, and that incredible smile flashed again. "I didn'tmean on you, little warrior."She eyed his erection with blatant skepticism. "I didn't either."He stared at her and then burst out laughing. She grinned in response and then remembering how successful the ploy had been in the park, tickled him. She loved the joyous sound coming from him. It made her feel special, because she knew that he hardly ever gave in to it with other people.

As it was, he laughed so hard she fell off of him. It took several seconds longer to get the condom on him than it should have, but by the time they did, they were both ready to finish what they'd started. He flipped her onto her stomach, and she twisted to look at him. "I don't want a ma.s.sage; I want you inside me."

"I will be."

He pulled her hips up and slid a pillow under them, making her realize he meant to enter her from the

back. She shivered nervously as his fingers separated her slick folds. This was new and for some reasonfelt very different, as though she was more vulnerable to him than when they made love in other positions."Don't worry, you're going to like this," he whispered in her ear as he pressed into her from behind.As he deepened his possession, she felt amazing inner sensations she hadn't experienced the night before.

He touched a nerve center inside her that made her grind her bottom against him."It's so good," she moaned out, needing to give vent to the feelings of sweet torment."Oh, yeah..." He thrust deeply into her, and she realized he was nowhere near all the way inside.By the time Daniel's pelvis was rubbing against her bottom, Josie was writhing under him like a woman possessed. He kissed the back of her neck, her temple, her cheek. She felt completely surrounded by him, cherished and coc.o.o.ned in his ardor. She turned her face toward him, and their lips met briefly, but she couldn't stay that way long. She didn't have the strength or muscle control...Pleasure had drained her, and she hadn't even climaxed yet. Her head fell forward against her hands, and she gasped as each thrust caressed the nerve center deep inside her from an unfamiliar angle. Her body tensed until every muscle was taut, but she didn't go over the edge. Instead the feeling of an impending cataclysm subsided, and her muscles went involuntarily slack. The same sequence happened twice more, taking her to a peak that turned out to be a plateau. She was nearly sobbing with frustration as her body tautened once again, the feeling more intense than any of the times before.

"Daniel," she cried out."What's the matter, baby?""I'm so close!""Yes." He thrust inside her, pulling her hips up toward him, and she thought she would die from the pleasure he gave her.

If she didn't implode first.

He kept thrusting, his hard p.e.n.i.s caressing her insides intimately and with purpose, but the spring inside

her only grew tighter and tighter."I want to come," she moaned against the bed, her hair wet with perspiration and her back slick with it."Okay, sweetheart."What did he mean, okay? Did he think just by saying it, she would climax?

He slid his hand under her and cupped her mound-a statement of possession, but also an incredible source of delight. She pressed against his hand, instinctively seeking more. He slipped his forefinger and middle finger between her slick folds. Catching her c.l.i.toris between them, he rubbed up and down, squeezing his fingers together to increase the pressure and sensation on her sweetest spot.

She splintered apart, her sense of reality shattering as her entire body convulsed with unbelievable bliss. Grinding her bottom against him, she sought deeper penetration until no rational thought remained while wave after wave of sensation crashed through her.

Daniel rammed into her from behind, driving for fulfillment and holding her hips up when she would have collapsed onto the bed. Suddenly, he buried his face in a pillow she'd shoved to the side earlier, his body going taut, his hips forcefully pressed into hers.

The pillow m.u.f.fled his hoa.r.s.e shout of satisfaction, but she reveled in his uncontrolled reaction to her. He was rigid with o.r.g.a.s.m for the longest time, his s.e.x, big and oh so hard, inside her as he erupted in a series of convulsions that left them both limp and spent.

She was barely aware of him climbing off of her and leaving the bed and only registered in the periphery of her mind when he came back and pulled her into his arms for sleep.

Curled up on one end of the couch, Josie absently drank her coffee while reading one of her dad's journals. He had some odd thoughts, that was for sure, but everything he wrote made sense if you looked at life from the perspective of a man who had seen too much brutality to trust in the goodness of human nature.

She felt uncomfortable at times reading his most personal thoughts because his emotions ran more deeply than she had ever thought they did. But he'd been the one to tell her to read the journals in the first place. Well, he'd said journal in the singular, but how was she to know which one had the information he wanted her to glean out of his writings?

"Josie..."

She looked up to find Claire standing over her, dressed for exercise in a pair of Lycra shorts and an oversized T-shirt that had been washed so many times the athletic logo on the front was barely discernable. However, her running shoes were one of the best brands on the market and almost new.

"Going jogging?"

"Uh-huh." She pulled her hair up into a scrunchy, taming the wild curls in a slightly less wild ponytail. "I thought I'd ask if you wanted to come, but you look pretty engrossed. And come to think of it, Nitro would probably have a male mercenary's version of a hissy fit if you tried to go outside without him anyway."

Josie had to agree. "It's weird. I mean, he knows I can take care of myself, but he still acts like a mother hen about some stuff."

Claire smiled, tightening her ponytail. "Don't knock it. It's pretty great to have someone watching out for you."

"Even if it's a little confining?"

"So's a seat belt, but given the option of going through life without one, I'd vote for safety first."

Josie laughed, shaking her head at Claire's a.n.a.logy. "I won't tell Daniel you think he's an oversized seat belt. I don't think he'd understand."

Claire's smile was rueful. "I appreciate that. Nitro is not a man I'd be comfortable offending."

"I'd say he's a p.u.s.s.ycat under all that male bravado, but I'd be lying." The iron in Daniel's character ran bone deep, as if it had been forged early and tempered by life since.

"No kidding. Better you than me, is all I've got to say. Not only is the man as immovable as a stone wall, but he's got a possessive streak a mile wide, too. He looked ready to kill somebody every time you smiled at Hotwire last night."

"It wasn't that bad."

"Says you, but then you were busy looking at Hotwire and not your boyfriend."

"I wasn't flirting or anything." Even if she'd wanted to, which she hadn't, she didn't know how.

Claire headed for the door, talking over her shoulder as she went. "You're not the type to make eyes at one guy while being intimate with another, and Nitro will figure that out. Eventually. Until then, you might consider smiling less at Hotwire."

Claire might have a point. Daniel had reacted with unexpected insecurity toward Josie's friendship with Hotwire. It was probably one of those guy things she didn't get. She might have spent most of her life surrounded by men, but she didn't pretend to understand how they related to the women in their lives. It hadn't been part of their soldier training, and her father had never had a girlfriend around.

She didn't know how long she had been reading when the sound of slamming car doors caught her attention. Her mind more on what she'd been reading than what she was seeing, she looked out through the sheers covering the big picture window in her living room. It took a second for her unfocused brain to interpret what her eyes were telling her.

A news van and two cars were parked in front of her house. A woman had gotten out of the van, and the driver came around to open the back panel doors. The occupants of the cars got out, too. A couple of them had cameras. One was carrying a tape recorder with a microphone.

She scanned the scene, trying to make sense of it, and saw Claire approaching at a sprint, running in a direct line to the house across the gra.s.s. She didn't slow as she crossed the street either. One of the men from the cars tried to stop her, but she brushed him aside and ran straight to the door. Josie rushed to open it and let her in.

"Claire?"

"There are more of them." She bent over and panted, her hands on her thighs. "I was across the park, and I saw two more news vans headed this way." She sucked in air and tried to catch her breath. "I was listening to the radio while I was running. It's all over the news."

"What's all over the news?"

"The explosion at your dad's compound."

"For heaven's sake, why?"

"They're saying it was done by ecoterrorists. The FBI is involved as well as the State Police and National Forest Service." She straightened, still breathing hard, which showed how fast she'd been running because Claire was in good shape. "It's that Homeland Security Act thing. All the federal agencies are in an uproar, and the media is already speculating on who might be responsible for the destruction of the compound."

The doorbell rang. Josie and Claire both turned to stare at the door as if it would spontaneously combust any second.

"Ms. McCall? This is Alison Spencer from KYTO News. I'd like you to answer a few questions." Claire sprang forward and pushed the door lock, then twisted the deadbolt into place with an audible click.

Someone started pounding on the window. Josie couldn't believe it, but several reporters were trying to peer in through the sheers, and one had a camera up to the window. The utter audacity of the action astounded her. The doorbell rang again, and Josie gave up shock for anger.

She headed to the door, ready to blast the reporters and throw a few people off of her property, whenher tank top was grabbed from behind. She was pulled up like a dog on a short leash."Hold on, sweetheart."Someone knocked on the door while the doorbell rang again.She glared over her shoulder at Daniel. "Let me go. I'm going to tell them to get lost."

"You're not opening that door." His voice held the implacability of command.He was not the officer in charge on this mission, and she was more than ready to set him straight. "I'mnot?" she asked with interest and no small amount of fury.

"No."

"We don't know who all is out that door," Hotwire drawled in a more placating tone, but with no lessfirmness.She turned her defiant stare on him. "A bunch of reporters who have no respect for my privacy, that's who.""Maybe, and maybe one or two of them are involved with the guys who blew up your dad's compound."Daniel hadn't let go of her shirt yet and actually started reeling her in. "Opening the door and letting you stomp outside in a rage is too risky." He pulled her around to face him. "We don't know if the enemywants to get rid of you and whatever you might know permanently.""Like they tried to with Dad?" she sneered. "We McCalls aren't that easy to kill."

His mouth quirked as if he enjoyed her feistiness. "I'm glad, Josette, but I'm not letting you risk it.""Letting? You're not going to let me go outside? You're not going to let me risk it?" she asked,transferring her outrage at the rudeness of the reporters to his autocratic behavior. "Who signed the orderpapers to make you Major General?"

"Josie, he's right," Claire said for the second time in two days, earning a frown from Josie. "Even if ecoterrorists weren't involved, you can bet they'll be trying to get some media coverage out of this. You don't want to become one of their targets either. I read this article on the Internet and-"