Inescapable (Men of Mercy Novel, A) Read online

Kai straightened from his lounging position against the doorframe, took two steps, and snagged her around the waist with one arm. Lifting her off her feet and up against him, he walked backward into his house and kicked his door shut with his foot.

  “That,” he said, eyes glinting with passion, “sounds like a very excellent way to spend a Thursday afternoon.”

  ***

  She’d expected fast, and she’d expected furious. She’d prepared herself for both and mentally strapped herself in for the ride. What she didn’t expect was that Kai, with one arm banded around her waist, would lift her onto her toes and maneuver her so that she stood with her back to the nearest wall, one hand on her shoulder, gently holding her in that position, watching her with a speculative look on his face.

  His eyes, containing flames of fire gold, collided with hers before he dropped his head to touch her forehead to his. “You sure about this?” he quietly asked, his lashes dark smudges on his cheek. “Because if we start I’m not sure that I’ll be able to stop.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Then I’m one very lucky bastard.”

  Kai lifted his head and the pads of his fingers skimmed her lips, her cheekbone, the sweep of her jaw. His gentle touch was something else she hadn’t anticipated and, in a way, it was even sexier than deep, hot kisses and frantic hands. That such a tough man could be so tender was a revelation, and she was surprised to find her desire for him, which she thought was already boiling over, could still climb a degree or two.

  Kai cradled her head in both hands and his thumbs drifted over her eyebrows, down her temples, and across her cheekbones. When she was on the verge of asking him—begging him—to kiss her, he lowered his head and his mouth skimmed hers, once, twice, before his lips covered hers. He kept the tempo slow but oh so sexy. He seemed determined to take his time, and Flick was happy to lean against the wall and let him.

  As they kissed, slow, long slides of discovery, she touched him where she could. She brushed her fingers against his chest, down his sides, danced them across those hard abs. She traced the long length of his sexy hip muscles and ran her finger under the band of his athletic shorts, and she felt powerful and feminine when he trembled in response. She stroked the tip of her finger along his erection, from base to tip, and was rewarded by the sound of him sucking in a harsh breath.

  After she slipped her hand inside those shorts and freed him, Kai turned her and placed her hands against the wall. She pouted a little, wanting to be able to touch him. He dragged her shirt up and over her head, he placed his hot mouth on each bump of her spine before flicking open the clasp of her bra and allowing the froth of lace to fall to her feet. His hands flirted with the underside of her breasts and skirted over her stomach before he cupped her breasts fully in his hands, groaning as he buried her face in her neck, sucking on that spot where her neck and shoulder met.

  “I want you,” he said.

  Flick groaned as he pulled at her nipples, stopping at that exquisite point between arousal and pain. She’d never been much of a talker during sex, so the words she uttered next were a surprise. “I want your lips on me. I want you to suck me.”

  Kai spun her around and his eyes drilled into hers. “Where?”

  Flick touched one breast and then the other. “Here.”

  Kai obliged by bending down and pulling her into his mouth, his tongue swirling over her sensitive nub. Flick felt the corresponding rush of heat between her legs and groaned aloud.

  “You keep doing that and I’m going to come,” she whispered as Kai swapped his attention to her other breast while his hands fumbled to undo the snap of her jeans.

  “No, you’re not. Yet.”

  “Can’t guarantee that.” Flick huffed the words out, her hands flat against the wall. Kai shoved her jeans down, pulled off her shoes, and lifted her ankles to free her from the constraints of the fabric. On his knees now, Kai rested his forehead on her stomach, his hands holding her sides.

  Flick pushed a hand into his hair. “Why are you stopping?”

  “I’m taking a breath, trying to slow things down.”

  “Don’t bother on my account,” Flick told him. “Throw a condom on and slide on home.”

  Kai looked up at her, his expression mischievous. “Not a chance in hell. This first time I want to watch you fall apart. I want to see you wild and crazy. I want to see if you’re as beautiful coming as you are every other second.”

  Flick swallowed. Dammit, this was supposed to be just crazy, hot, one-time sex. She didn’t know how to handle him whispering sweet compliments against her skin. It was nice but it meant nothing, she reminded herself. They were just words—sweet words admittedly, but they would fade away when their time together ended.

  Kai hooked his thumbs into her lacy panties and pulled down her thong. He stared at her thin strip of soft hair and she gasped as he ran his finger over it. “So pretty.”

  Flick, unable to help herself, widened her legs, and she heard his muffled laugh at her impatience as he kissed her hipbone, then the inside of her leg, his cheek brushing, ever so gently, that sensitive bundle of nerves.

  Flick slumped and gripped the hall table for support. “I swear if you don’t touch me soon, I’m going to jump you.”

  “I like it when you beg,” Kai murmured and finally slipped his finger between her folds and touched her . . . there, right there. Flick shook as electricity shot through her body, sensitizing every inch of her skin. She could barely think, barely breathe, and then that hot, clever finger slipped inside her, followed by another. His thumb swept over her clit and Flick felt the pressure building.

  “Kai, I’m going to come,” she whimpered, all her energy focused on the exhilarating tempest she’d been sucked into.

  “No, you’re not,” Kai told her, sitting back on his haunches, watching her with an intense expression on his face, his fingers still deeply inside her.

  “Please.” Flick fingered her nipples to keep feeding the storm building inside her. “Kai—you’re killing me here.”

  “Just hold on. It’ll be worth it.” Kai’s voice, rough and sexy, skittered across her skin. In a fluid movement he placed his mouth on her and curled his tongue around her clit.He sucked her, once and then again, and his fingers pumped into her and she became one with the storm. Her hips jerked as she pushed herself against his fingers, hardly aware that he’d lifted his head and that he was watching her fly.

  After the lights behind her eyelids faded and her shaking stopped, after he pulled his hand from her and held her thighs in a loose grip, her eyes slowly started to re-focus. Her heart bumped at the tender, penetrating look on his face. She pushed a hand through her hair and sucked her bottom lip between her teeth.

  “You’re looking at me,” she said softly, feeling self-conscious.

  “I am.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are definitely as beautiful, possibly more so, when you come.” Kai stood up in a graceful movement and held out his hand. “Come to bed with me?”

  Flick nodded quickly. Of course she would. His big hand enveloped hers and she followed him, naked, toward the stairs.

  ***

  Impatient, and with the spicy taste of her still in his mouth, Kai scooped Flick up and half ran up the stairs. He needed a bed for round two, he decided. His cock was rock hard and ready to explode, surging again as she turned her head and licked his neck.

  Kai kicked open the door to his bedroom and walked over to his bed. He placed her on top of the gray comforter and stood up, happy to take a minute to get his dick to stand down, to find some control. Not that looking at her helped; she was all long hair and wild eyes and smooth skin and he was desperate to sink into her, to discover her. Under his gaze her nipples visibly hardened, her skin flushed, and she lifted her hips in a silent plea to be taken.

  “Get undressed,” Flick commanded,
pushing her elbows behind her, the action pushing her bare breasts upward. Remembering the taste of her nipples, wanting to suck on them again, he was eager to yield to her request. He pushed both his palms down the sides of his hips, his thumbs catching his shorts and shoving them to the floor.

  Kai stepped toward the bed but stopped when Flick held up her hand. “Let me look at you.”

  He put his hands on his hips, fingertips pushing into his skin, which flared with heat everywhere her eyes touched; his chest, his stomach, his thighs. Then she cocked her head and simply stared at his groin, the tip of her tongue touching her top lip as she looked at his jutting cock. Fighting the urge to take her immediately, he wrapped his hand around his erection, his thumb brushing the head.

  “Does that feel good?” Flick demanded.

  “Better if you were doing it,” he said, surprised that he could still string a sentence together.

  Flick sat up, scooted to the edge of the bed, and used her right hand to push his away. Echoing his action, she encircled him with small, feminine fingers, her thumb sliding across his tip, rubbing the throbbing vein at the top of his shaft. She rested her other hand on his hip and dropped her head, opening her mouth as if to take him inside.

  He wouldn’t last two seconds if she took him into her mouth. “Hell, no. When I come I want to be inside you, making you scream.”

  Kai pushed her back onto the bed with both hands on her shoulders and closed his eyes, taking a calming breath. When he looked at her again, he could see the passion, the plea on her face. He placed both his hands on either side of her head and lowered his body to meet hers, his cock brushing her clit. Man, she felt so good.

  She whimpered and then sighed, “Kai . . .”

  He pulled away to jerk open the drawer of the side table. His hand found the box of condoms and he quickly tore one off the strip. With ruthless efficiency he rolled the latex down so that he was covered, and thought that this was it, this . . . this was what he’d been waiting a year for.

  Then her fingers, smooth, soft, and smelling faintly of a lemon-scented hand cream, skimmed his cheekbones and his jaw. They drifted down his neck, into his hair, and across his shoulder blades, each new touch causing his balls to contract, his cock to harden even more.

  Kai dropped his weight off his arms, pressing her soft, delicious body into the covers. He pushed his knee between her legs and the slickness and heat he felt coming from her made his head swim. And then he was where he was supposed to be, his cock at her entrance, insistent, demanding, desperate. Flick reached down, wrapped her fingers around him and guided him into her.

  He crushed his mouth against hers as the world faded away, his entire concentration focused on where their bodies met. He held himself rigid, knowing that if he started to push he wouldn’t stop, and he wanted Flick to come again, with him this time. She lifted her hips urgently against his so that he slid deeper inside her and he heard her moan. Blood roared in his head as his last strand of willpower shattered. This was mating at its most basic, wild and primordial, he thought as he shoved his hand below her ass to lift her higher even as he slammed into her.

  Harder, faster, higher. His breathing increased and his heart threatened to explode and—

  Shit, he was going to come. Not yet, he screamed silently, grinding his teeth. He couldn’t find the ability to speak, so he silently willed Flick upward, pistoning himself into her, deep and demanding. Judging by what sounded like a whimper and a sob, and the clenching of her body around him, she was close, and as his orgasm rocketed from his balls, his cock, up his spine, he pulsed into her and she came too, her orgasm sweet against every inch of him.

  Holy crap. As he laid there in the aftermath, coming down from that extreme high, sated and shocked at the intensity of what they had just shared, the thought that she was the best sex he’d ever had drifted through his admittedly fried brain. But maybe that was because he hadn’t had sex for so damn long, the rational part of his mind responded.

  Because, he thought as he rolled off her, there couldn’t possibly be any other reason.

  ***

  Flick lay with her head on Kai’s shoulder, thinking that her idea of an afternoon tryst had been a very good one, and that she was quite pleased with herself. There would be no walk of shame for her. She’d gotten exactly what she’d come for—mind-blowing sex—and she’d be damned if she’d feel guilty going to bed with a complete stranger. All she felt was contentment and satisfaction and, though it was probably a little weird, safe.

  Kai was as close to a perfect lover as she’d ever encountered and she idly wondered whether it was the freedom from emotion that allowed her to be so fully satisfied. Not that their time together had been robotic. At times Kai had even been tender, something she certainly hadn’t expected. He’d stopped her thinking—about Gina and Pippa and the mess her aunt had dumped her into, about whether he was happy or satisfied or whether he thought she had a big ass—and she’d let go. She’d allowed herself to lose control, to touch, to explore, to taste. She had lost all her inhibitions in her quest to explore that hard, tough body. That had never happened to her before. With all of her previous lovers she’d been more concerned about making them happy than worrying about herself. With Kai, all she remembered thinking was that she hadn’t wanted it to end.

  Flick felt Kai stir and bit her lip as he raised his wrist and squinted at the dial of his watch, the numbers just visible from the light spilling through the half-open door to the bathroom. Night had fallen and she knew that it was time for her to slide out of his bed and out of his life.

  Just five more minutes . . .

  Flick stroked her hand across Kai’s chest, twisting her fingers in his light smattering of chest hair. She yawned and re-settled her head on his shoulder, mentally begging him not to move. She’d barely finished the thought when she felt his reluctant tap of his fingers against her backside and she pulled her head back to look at him.

  To his credit, he looked regretful. “You need to go, Flick. Sawyer usually drops in on his way home and it would be”—he hesitated—“awkward to have to explain this.”

  “It really would.” Flick sat up as he shoved the covers away and swung his legs around to sit on the edge of the bed. “So, I take it that we’re keeping this between us?”

  “There’s nobody else in the room is there? Nobody else needs to know.” Kai lifted his shoulders in frustration. “There are lots of things I hate about Mercy but one of the major ones is that I feel like I’m living in fish tank whenever I’m here. So I’d prefer that the good residents of the town didn’t find out that I’ve just had sex with their favorite daughter.”

  “I’m not their favorite daughter,” Flick protested, even though she knew that she and Pippa were, sort of.

  “You hate Mercy?” Flick demanded, picking up on his earlier statement. “What’s wrong with Mercy?”

  “What’s right with it? No fast food, no decent coffee—”

  “Hey!”

  “Okay, I’ve yet to try it but I’m sure your coffee is decent,” Kai admitted. He looked at a spot on the opposite wall before shrugging. “It’s just pretty and wholesome and I find that weird, that’s all.”

  “How can you find pretty and wholesome weird?” Flick asked, genuinely perplexed.

  Kai just shrugged again and didn’t reply and Flick soon realized that the subject was closed. Okay, then. “Well, then, it’s a good thing that you’re leaving soon.”

  “Yep, tomorrow.” Kai tossed her a cynical smile. “So we’ll have lots of time to practice our pretend-we-didn’t-screw-each-other-sideways faces before we meet again.” He surprised her by reaching over and running his hand down her hair. “But I had a great time and I needed that. Thanks.”

  Flick placed her hand on his shoulder and turned her intended caress into a quick pat. Dragging up her most insouciant voice, she spoke quickly. “Me too. I
thought we’d spontaneously combust the first time.”

  His deep, sexy chuckle danced across her still-bare skin. She looked around but couldn’t see her clothes. “We shouldn’t have started kissing in the hallway. We gave Rufus quite an eyeful,” Kai commented.

  “My poor dog. He’ll probably be scarred for life.” Flick winced as she remembered Kai on his knees in front of her, her legs spread and her body completely naked. God, he’d been fabulous; that thing he did with his tongue and fingers was mind-blowing.

  “I have no clothes. I think they’re still downstairs.”

  Kai stood up and pulled on his boxers before walking across the room and picking up a pile of clothes on a chair in the far corner. They’d been folded so neatly that she didn’t recognize them at first. “I got them earlier, while you dozed.”

  Flick took them from his hands. “Thanks.”

  Placing his hands on his hips, he looked down at her, his mouth twisted into a wry smile. It was as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, because his eyes deepened and started smoking again. Then they filled with regret, and not a little frustration. “Can’t. No time and, even more important, I’m out of condoms.”

  And wasn’t that the mental equivalent of having a large bucket of ice water tipped over her libido? The last thing she needed was a baby as a lifelong reminder of the best sex of her life.

  Kai walked into the en-suite bathroom and Flick shook out her clothes, quickly pulling on her bra and panties, shirt, and faded jeans. She stood up and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the large chest of drawers and grimaced at her tousled hair and raccoon eyes. There wasn’t much she could do about either and it was a bit too late to fuss over her appearance since she was heading out the door.

  Out of his life. One afternoon of crazy sex. A one-afternoon stand. They were supposed to walk away—they had both agreed, Flick reminded herself. But it was crazy how much she wanted to stay.

  She shouldn’t want to stay at all.

  ***

  Kai stood in the bathroom, his hands gripping the edge of the counter. This was crazy, he thought. He should be eager for her to walk out that door, but instead he wanted to take her back to bed, make love to her again, fall asleep, and make breakfast for her in the morning. He wanted to know whether they could connect on some sort of intellectual level as well as they did in bed.