Unforgiven Read Online Free Page B

looked different.”
    Delaney’s voice again, but he ruthlessly blocked her out. He needed all his strength and coordination to hold Marissa because she was shaking in his arms like she was going to fly apart. When he stroked in he knew why. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, stifling high-pitched gasps as her pussy contracted around his cock.
    She’d come.
    Thought flared in his brain in time to the rapid thumps of his heart. He’d done nothing for her except grope her with less technique than he’d used before, then fuck her in what was likely the most uncomfortable position ever, with her back to rough shelves. And she’d come.
    Thump.
    Sex could be like this?
    Thump.
    What would it be like if he got her flat on her back, in a bed, somewhere private?
    Thumpthumpthump . . .
    Endless, erotic possibility opened up before him, snapping his control. It was too much, a decade of denial, her helpless surrender, enforced silence, the imminent threat of discovery, sharing air in the small, dark space. Her heels hooked around his thighs, holding him close as he slammed home once, twice, then came. Hard.
    When the blackness receded he said the first thing that came to mind, drawn out of long-submerged dreams. “I wanted that to last longer,” he said, low and gruff. The sound of his voice recalled Delaney’s, and he glanced at the door.
    “They’re gone,” Marissa said expressionlessly.
    Her face was a pale oval in the darkness, her mouth still red temptation. She unwound her legs from around his thighs, and braced her hands against his chest until he withdrew and backed away. The ache receded, but he knew that was only temporary. What remained was a taste of something dark and edgy, yet familiar. The smell of sex layered over damp earth and Marissa’s skin. Perhaps it was the rich, bitter layer of revenge, the coppery tang of blood mixed with salty sweat. Maybe it was lust.
    Whatever it was, emotionless it was not. The dragon, awakened and hungry, shifted in his chest, stretched leathery wings against his collarbone and shoulders.
    “Fuck,” he said under his breath.
    He could hear her rearranging her clothes by feel in the dark, then she opened the door and peered out. “There’s a bathroom across the hall.”
    He crossed to the small, antique-looking half bath across the way. Inside he ditched the condom, washed his hands, and looked in the mirror. None of the glossy color on Marissa’s mouth had come off on his. He checked his neck and shoulder, and realization bloomed. Twelve years earlier, every minute of every hour they spent together dripped emotion. Anger, fear, longing, exhilaration, the temptation of testing the edges of his control. This time it was hot and slick and irresistible on the surface, and like her lipstick, she left nothing of herself behind. The Marine Corps taught him how to hold it all in.
    But who’d taught
her
? Where was the passionate girl he remembered?
    When he opened the door, she stood in front of the pantry, her arms crossed, the halter hiding the sex flush on her collarbone and neck. “See?” she said. “No big deal.”
    Her words landed with the impact of a roundhouse kick, but he’d learned his lessons well and didn’t so much as blink. “Right,” he said. “No big deal.”
    “Good night, Adam,” she said, then opened the door to the servants’ quarters and slipped inside.
    The bolt shot home with a firm click as he stood there, hands on his hips, and compared the only two women he’d let into his life. In the months since their breakup, he realized he hadn’t loved Delaney as much as he’d loved the way she looked at him when he came home on leave before deploying to Iraq the first time. He’d worn his uniform with a self-conscious pride that made him cringe now, and he hadn’t been too eager to closely examine the way it caused a sudden and profound transformation in the eyes of Walkers Ford. When pretty, kind Delaney Walker stopped to talk to him,