Identity Crisis(97)

She sucked a tight breath and shifted again, rubbing and gripping at his welcome invasion. But he didn’t linger. He moved his fingers, now slippery with her lust, up to splay her further as he hunched forward to get a better view, his hand shifting and opening, his fingers opening and spreading and shoving until all of her, every bit of her was fully exposed. She could feel his breath against her clit, she could feel his gaze against all of her; hot, hungry, curious.

He glanced up at her face, his pupils dilated, lips parted. ‘I’ve never seen anything so exquisite,’ he whispered. Then, still holding her gaze, he lowered a hot, wet kiss onto her clit. She gasped and squirmed, but he held her there, exposed, displayed against the desktop, as the kiss became a suckle, and the suckle gave way to long, circular lavings with his tongue.

It took her a minute to realize that the keening sound, the breathy, soft hum was coming from her own throat, that it was somehow a replacement for speech which she could no longer remember how to use. His hands moved up the inside of her thighs, opening her still wider before they moved to cup her buttocks, to knead and stroke, to pull her onto his mouth until his whole face was nestled deep and tight and wet against her, and his thumbs raked at her and then circled and stroked the gripping bud of her bottom. And the soft, breathy keening became deep, throaty groans and grunts that rocked her to her core as he grazed his teeth up over her clit and nibbled and nipped. The harder she squirmed and wriggled beneath him the tighter he held her, captive to the will of his mouth, until, held immobile in his powerful grip, she practically cried with relief when the first wave of orgasm broke, and there was nothing to do but feel it, feel it flood her, ripple through her, wash over her like ocean waves in rhythmic ebb and flow. And once again she found her voice. ‘Garrett, Garrett, Garrett.’ She whispered his name to the tidal flux of her own body.

When she had calmed, when she could breathe, when the world seemed someplace where she might have lived once upon a time, he lifted her into his arms and carried her back to the big bed.

When he entered her, she felt his own need, patiently restrained until he had pleasured her, now unleashed like a wild thing to devour her and ride her and ravage her until she was too caught up in the power of it to distinguish where he ended and she began. It was something she hadn’t wanted, something she should never have allowed, something that terrified her, and yet, folded in his arms with him on top of her, all around her, inside her, it was hard to think that there could ever be any other place. Ever.

Even with his own need driving him, threatening to break bones and pull muscles with each thrust, he sent her again, tumbling over, grasping and clawing and clinging, then he followed her. He followed her deep. So very deep.





Chapter Twenty-Four

‘I’ve just got off the phone with Don,’ Garrett said. Dee and Ellis both looked up from their coffee. He checked over his shoulder to make sure Kendra was still upstairs asleep. Then he blew out a sharp breath. ‘I’m … I’m outing Tess to the press today. I’ve made up my mind.’

Ellis sat down his cup, and he and Dee shot each other a quick glance. Then he addressed Garrett in the way he did when he chose his words very carefully because he knew his brother wouldn’t like them. ‘Look, Garrett, I’ve thought you should do this for ages now, you know that. But it’s not what you want, and that’s way more important than what I think. And do you really believe it’ll protect Kendra?’

‘If I didn’t I wouldn’t be doing it,’ he said. ‘Honestly, I can’t stand what this is doing to her, the stress she’s under because of this Edge guy from her past. I don’t know how she’s held it together like she has, knowing what she’s been through.’ He struggled to keep his voice calm, even. He struggled not to betray the panic he felt whenever he thought of something happening to her. ‘I think once the stalker realizes the woman he’s obsessing over doesn’t exist, he’ll either find someone else to obsess over or –’

‘Or come after you,’ Dee said.

‘Or come after both of you for deceiving him,’ Ellis added. Before Garrett could respond, he said, ‘You didn’t see the man in the woods last night, did you?’

Galina came into the breakfast room and gave him coffee in a travel-mug. The woman had the measure of him, he thought to himself. He thanked her and returned his attention to Ellis and Dee. ‘It doesn’t matter if I didn’t. Kendra did. And I did hear something.’

‘The woods are full of deer, Garrett, and lots of other things that can rustle the undergrowth when startled.’