She heard another curse in the darkness, but this time he didn’t push her away. She let the length of him slide into her throat. He was much too big to fit, so she wrapped her hands around the base as she took all of him that she could, savoring him, closing her mouth around him.
“Angel,” he said in a choked voice, but she ignored him once more, drinking in the taste of him, the texture, the iron-hard erection beneath the strangely soft skin, and she wanted so much more. She wanted to pull him in so deep her face was against his stomach, she wanted him to pour himself into her mouth, she wanted to swallow him, keep him.
She felt his hands on her head, his fingers threading through her hair, but now they were soft, caressing, not pulling her away, and she responded to his subtle guidance, changing the rhythm as he wanted, letting his soft instructions curl in her stomach with a fierce heat. “Relax your jaw,” he whispered. “That’s better,” when she did, and found she could take more of him. “Harder now. Harder.”
She accidently let her teeth graze against the side of him, and if anything he seemed to grow even bigger in her mouth as he shuddered with pleasure. She reached beneath him and cupped his balls. They were drawn up tight to his body, so she knew his orgasm was close at hand, and she gloried in it, so turned on she thought she might climax without touching herself, without being touched, just from the sheer eroticism of his cock in her hungry mouth.
“You like it.” His voice was soft. It was the only soft part of him, and she could feel the pressure build within him beneath her tongue, her deep, sucking gulps, and then suddenly he yanked her head away from him, setting off a deep wail from her.
“No!” she cried, reaching for his hips, trying to get him back. “I want it. I want it all.”
“Next time,” he said, lifting her up and turning her till she was up against the door, her feet dangling down. “I need to be inside you.” He drew her legs up around his hips and slammed into her, so hard and deep that she yelped and then climaxed with a deep shudder. Her entire body was on fire, shaking, as he thrust into her, over and over again, until his own climax set off a another round of powerful convulsions, and all she could do was cling to him, her eyes closed tightly in the inky darkness.
They stayed that way for a long time, and then he moved, still holding her, swinging her around to the bed, and she realized with shock that he was still hard inside her, despite the heat of his ejaculate. The mattress was beneath her, he was on top of her, with short, sharp thrusts, then longer, slower, deeper ones, as it built once more. She dug her fingers into the sheets beside her, rocking against him, and then su
ddenly he reared up, pulling her with him, sitting back with her astride him. She clung to him, and his thrusts were different, hitting different parts of her, filling her so deeply that all she could do was hold on to him, shaking, until she came apart in a soundless scream.
He held still while she convulsed around him, cradling her gently, and when the spasms finally slowed, he laid her back down on the bed again, pulling out. He was still hard, and she responded to his loss with a cry of distress, until his mouth closed over her breast, sucking it in deep, his teeth a sharp delight of pain and pleasure, and she cradled his close-cropped head, unbelievably wanting more. He pinched her other nipple between his long fingers, and she made a sound of mindless pleasure, and then his hand went to the slippery wetness between her legs, the mixture of both of them, as he sucked long and hard at her nipple, his tongue playing with her. She could feel the desire, so recently sated, rise again, but she was overwhelmed.
“Please . . .” she gasped, as he rubbed her clitoris, her entire body vibrating with frustrated need. “It’s too much.”
He let go of her breast with a sucking pop, and unbelievably the sensation brought another sharp stab of desire. “Nothing’s too much,” he growled, pulling back. Before she realized what he was doing he’d flipped her over, pulled her onto her knees at the edge of the bed, and he pushed into her from the back, past her wet, swollen tissues to the very heart of her, so deep, so deep, and she buried her face in the sheets that smelled of their sex, clinging to them, panting. He pounded into her, over and over, driving out his demons and hers, and she went past desire, past pleasure and pain and love into some dark, wonderful place where there was nothing but the rutting need between them, and then she was gone, past anything but the climax that finally ripped her into pieces, shaking, sobbing, lost.
Until she felt his body wrap around hers, his mouth on the back of her neck, the tightness of his muscles as he emptied himself into her, the hot flow of his semen, claiming her as nothing else could.
She let out a soft cry when he pulled out of her, then came back down on the bed with her tightly in his arms. He turned her until they were lying face-to-face, their sweat-slick bodies plastered up against each other, and he was holding her, suddenly tender, his fury past, kissing the tears from her face, tasting them.
IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou was a mantra in her brain, and she knew she should struggle to find something of herself once more, but there was nothing left. Only her love for him, unspoken and soul-crushing. She didn’t want to sleep. This would be the last time she lay in his arms—in a few hours he would hand her off and she’d never see him again, and she needed to feel his heart pounding beneath her head, needed to face his raw gasps as his body finally settled down. She wanted him to sleep so she could lie in his arms and store up every memory, every sensation, for the long cold nights ahead of her.
But James didn’t sleep. He lifted one hand, brushing back her hair that clung to her tear-damp face, gentle, tender, and she felt his lips against her forehead.
“Sleep,” he whispered. And she did.
Chapter Nineteen
It felt as if her eyelids were glued shut, Evangeline thought, as the bed rocked and rolled beneath her and the rumble of an engine filled the air. She tried to sit up, but the motion threw her back on the mattress, and she felt a blazing heat at her back, fiercer than the sun.
She pried her eyes open, and the world was oriented once more. She was back in the camper—he must have carried her out to it while she slept—and the vehicle was moving at breakneck speed away from the fiery conflagration that had once been the farmhouse.
She caught hold of the railing, noticing the bandages that were wrapped around her wrists before hauling herself up, and Merlin rose from his place on the floor to nuzzle her happily. “What is going on?” she cried, forgetting that she’d meant to keep away from him as best she could until he abandoned her in New Orleans. They’d said and done everything last night—or was it this morning?—and she wanted to keep that memory with her, not let him ruin it.
“Lie down!” James snapped, the lover gone. Forever. “I can’t worry about you being knocked around the place. We’re going to have a hell of a time crossing the river after last night’s storm, and I don’t want you distracting me.”
She slid off the bunk onto the floor, cradling Merlin for a moment. “What happened to the house?” she persisted, crawling forward as carefully as she could while the RV lumbered back and forth over the rocks and small trees. She didn’t want to distract him from his intense concentration, but she wasn’t going to hide back there. She wasn’t going to hide anymore. “Did Claude come back?”
“Claude is dead. I had orders to set the house on fire,” he said, never taking his eyes from the road. “We’ve got to get out of here before someone alerts the local fire department. Not that it’ll do any good—there’s no way a normal fire truck could cross that river now, and as far as anyone knows, it’s a deserted building that’s going up in flames. But they might come out to take a look, and we can’t be seen.” He shoved the engine into a lower gear. “And for future reference, don’t ever try to sneak up on me. I tend to attack first and ask questions later.”
She stopped her stealthy approach. “I didn’t want to distract you,” she said, feeling foolish. She really didn’t want to talk to him, to look him in the eye, not when she remembered that the last time she’d looked up at him, he’d been looming over her, inside her, and she’d been lost in such a dark, crazed pleasure that even the memory of it made heat flood her cheeks. But she wasn’t going to stay back there and risk being swept to her death without seeing exactly what they were doing. Not without being beside him.
“No one could sneak up on you, particularly not me,” she added in a deceptively calm voice, hauling herself into the passenger seat and putting the seat belt on. It was only then she realized what she was wearing—a huge flannel robe made for someone twice her size. He must have pulled it around her before carrying her out.
She felt sticky, sore, and embarrassed. She’d never lost her soul so completely, even on their so-called honeymoon. She would have done anything he told her to, had done anything he wanted, and most shameful of all, she’d initiated it. He’d been trying to leave her, and she’d gone up to him and . . .
She made a mortified sound. She remembered exactly what she had done, the feel of him in her mouth, and she started to unfasten the seat belt when he slapped his hand over hers.
“Leave it,” he said sharply. “You chose to come up here in the first place, you can stay put. I can’t be worrying about you being bounced all over the inside of the camper because you’re suffering from a case of postcoital regret. Frog in a blender, remember?”
She turned her face away to hide her expression, staring back at the burning building. Trust Bishop to put it right out there—everything she wanted to keep still and sacred in her heart. Next thing she knew he’d accuse her of raping him.