A Marked Man. Stella Cameron

passed his thumb back and forth beneath her nipple.

      Mark me. He wasn’t a child and neither was she. A man wasn’t completed by petting in the dark. And Annie would be unfinished until she found out what it was like to have Max Savage inside her.

      All the reasons to stop, now, coiled in her mind, swelled, warned her like a siren that what happened next could put her back where she’d once been; on the bottom. She stuffed down the fear and pressed her breast against his hand. Air hissed through her teeth. She wanted his skin on hers—all over.

      

      “Annie,” Max said. “We shouldn’t make this harder than it’s going to be anyway. But I need your help.”

      “To do what?” Other women kissed men—because they wanted to.

      “Back away from each other.” His words were strained. “Tell me to get out. Please.”

      “If you wanted to, you would.”

      “I don’t.” He turned his face away and took his hand from her. And he sat up, scrubbing at his face, raking his hair back. “I sound like a fool,” he muttered.

      Pulling in little gasps through her parted lips, Annie tugged her blouse free of her jeans. She fumbled the buttons, undoing them as if learning the task for the first time. Urgency drove her, and so did the rhythmic smarting she felt inside.

      Max looked at her, watched her fingers part the blouse. He could tell she was frightened but forcing herself to do this. He hated to see her suffer, but he couldn’t make himself intervene.

      If things were different, this would be fantastic, a dream come true, and he would be the one pushing for more. Annie wasn’t pushing. She hungered for intimacy but he wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t sure if it mattered. But what he felt had just one description: Lust. Lust wrapped up in fear for Annie—and for himself.

      “Help me,” Annie said. “Stop analyzing what’s happening, or might happen. Give in.” Her voice grew high and desperate.

      “Damn.” He didn’t have what it took to refuse her. “You are sexy.”

      She shed her blouse.

      He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

      Annie moved fast. She sat astride his hips, settled herself on top of his throbbing penis. And he sat there, supporting himself on locked arms.

      “My turn,” she said. “You tell me to leave you alone.”

      Sure. “That isn’t going to happen.” She started unbuttoning his shirt. “Annie!”

      “Annie!” she mimicked. “So push me away, or I’ll keep right on going.”

      This was unbelievable. Where had this new wild woman come from?

      “I get the message,” Annie said. He wondered if she knew her voice wobbled. She carried on until his shirt hung loose. “Now take it off.”

      “You get one last chance to nix this,” he said. “When we come together, it shouldn’t be while—”

      Her next kiss cut him off. She pushed his shoulders and he let her land him on his back again, their mouths still together. Annie sucked in his bottom lip, nibbled, let it go so she could explore the inside of his mouth again.

      Then she pulled her lips from his and sat up on him once more, with the same result as before, the hardest working part of his anatomy hurt like hell and he loved it.

      She unhooked her white bra and took it off. A sound came from her throat, like a click. Her full pale breasts took his mind apart. Annie pinched his nipples, tweaked them rapidly and while Max shuddered and responded, he looked at her breasts. They belonged against his hairrough chest—pulling cries from her—and in his mouth where he would make her scream out her pleasure.

      When she lowered herself over him, pressed against him, any light he’d thought shone on them, went out.

      “Please don’t…don’t turn into something I dreamed up, and disappear,” he told her. “I’ve done that plenty of times before.”

      “About me?”

      He smiled. “Yes, about you.” His belly felt like fire. “In my mind I’ve made love to you in every way I could come up with. And I got one thing right—you want sex as much as I do. We’re not playing around here anymore.” With his hands around her waist, he lifted her, pulled her higher until her breasts hovered inches from his face. They swayed and he fought for some restraint.

      He was losing the battle faster with every second.

      Annie pushed her hands beneath his head and brought his mouth to a breast. He opened wide and sucked, used his tongue to flick her nipple until she writhed.

      She collapsed on him and he shrugged his shoulders from the shirt. Annie pushed up and reached behind her. She lifted his penis, squeezed it again and again. He unzipped her jeans and pushed a hand inside.

      Annie would make sure they remembered this night. But it had to be on her own terms. She pulled his hand out of her pants and shifted until she knelt over his thighs. He was so hard that unzipping his pants took determination.

      Each time he tried to intervene, she slapped his hands away and worked his pants down. Not looking at him was impossible. He made a formidable bulge inside white undershorts. Annie rested her cheek there and her heart pounded, at the feel of him, and at the way he was helpless to stop the pulsing against her face.

      Tentative at first, she settled a hand on one muscular thigh and inched her fingers inside a leg of the shorts until she met hair, and taut flesh. Holding him in her hand came naturally, even if she’d never done it before, never taken any initiative with a man.

      She laughed, then kissed him through the shorts, made the fabric wet—with a lot of help from Max. Between her own legs, she was slick and hot. Annie wanted him to touch her there, but she was afraid to give him control.

      He twisted beneath her and his much stronger hands took hold of hers and pulled them away.

      Annie sprang to her feet. She backed slowly from him.

      “Come here,” he said, getting to his haunches. His voice wasn’t uncertain anymore, and it wasn’t gentle.

      Annie rushed into the dining room and faced his direction again. In here the drapes were closed and almost no hint of jolly lights punctured the darkness.

      Max remained where he was, but only for moments, then he was on his feet and closing on her. The white shorts were gone.

      She shivered, but her face pulsed with heat. I’m mad. Being mad was exactly what she wanted. Mad in his company.

      He reached her and she flattened herself to the wall, spread her arms wide as if she could force herself through. “I’m going to make love to you,” he said. “Any objections?” He sounded strange. Whatever she said he intended to follow through.

      With his legs braced apart, he anchored her hips, covered her. He tweaked at her and nipped. Her mouth, her earlobes, her shoulders. The sucking bites he landed on her shoulders would leave bruises.

      Behind Annie’s eyelids she saw black, then blinding red. Sweat sprang out on her skin. Nothing was clear, or quiet. Singing, whining sounds invaded her brain.

      All over her body, nerves quivered. She beat at Max, screamed at him but couldn’t hear her own words.

      His mouth stole hers, worked hers until she forced her face aside. With one foot on the wall, she shoved at him and he moved off a few inches.

      “Now it’s what I want,” Annie yelled. “Do what I want.”

      Sinking her nails into his side, she swung around until his was the back that faced the wall. And she shoved him until he threw his arms wide as she had.

      “Annie,” he said. “Do your thing. You’re angry and