Exhaustion raced through her with almost the same force of her orgasm. Before she knew it, it overwhelmed her, sucked her in a deep, dreamless void and forced her to sleep, to rest, to finally escape the loss that had been haunting her. The loss of the man who now held her once again.

FIVE

Sierra drifted awake slowly that evening, a sense of lazy contentment radiating through her at the feel of warmth along her back and the hard, male arm lying across her hips.

She was on her side, her back tucked against his chest, the heavy width of his cock rising thick and heavy along the seam of her buttocks.

Full consciousness hadn’t taken hold yet, and she knew it. The feeling of adventurous sensuality was like a glow, bright and hot, heating her womb and sensitizing her flesh.

She was hungry for him. She hadn’t had enough. She had years and years of need to make up for, and very little time to do it in. She expected John’s father to call at any time to inform them that he knew who had attacked her and that he was in custody.

She was lying in his arms on borrowed time.

She should make the most of that time. She could be angry with him later. She could remember later all the reasons why she wasn’t supposed to be in his arms. But for this moment, she could be the woman she always wanted to be with him. A woman who knew what she wanted. The woman that could take him, love him, bind herself to his heart.

It made sense.

Stretching, she rubbed against the hard length tucked against her buttocks, her breath catching as his fingers flattened against her abdomen and moved slowly to a full, sensitive breast.

His fingers cupped, his thumb stroked against her nipple, and when she laid her head back against his shoulder, turning her face up to him, his lips covered hers.

The lazy hunger built, moving through her like the low flames of a fire rapidly heating out of control.

The embers were blazing, the flames licking over her flesh, turning her into the sensualist she had always known she would be in his arms.

“I won’t be easy,” he groaned as he nipped at her lips. “Do you hear me, Sierra? This stops right now, or taking you won’t be done as gently as this first time should be.”

“Hmm, it’s not the first time anyway,” she reminded him sleepily as she shifted against him, her thighs parting as she felt his cock nudge against her.

“The first time with me,” he growled.

“You don’t remember so well,” she whispered before her back arched and another cry left her lips.

The wide crest was parting her, stretching the entrance, pressing inside to complete the destructive possession he had begun a year before.

He wouldn’t stop this time, she assured herself as she felt him lift her leg and ease it back, over his. It opened her farther, allowing the hard flesh of his erection to penetrate deeper.

Holding on to his wrist, Sierra felt the low burn become a hard, controlled flame. Her hips shifted as she pressed back, her breathing rough, uneven as she felt him beginning to move inside her.

The entrance was a slow, rocking glide that penetrated her farther with each inward thrust of his hips. Each retreat had her crying out into the hungry kisses he took from her lips.

Tongues twined, fervent tastes became raging hunger as each second, each slow thrust buried him deeper, stretched her farther.

Her fingers dug into his wrist as the fiery agony-ecstasy of the penetration razed through her senses like wildfire now.

“Damn, you’re fucking tight.” Tearing his lips from hers, he moved his hand from her breast to the hard kernel of her clit.

There, his fingers circled, stroked, and built the flames raging beneath her flesh.

“John.” She stretched against him, opening herself farther and taking more. More until she could feel her pussy burning with the invasion as her clit began to pound in an agonizing need for release.

Pushing back against him again, she felt the heavy thrust against her, inside her, and froze in shock. He was buried inside her now, fully, his balls pressing against her as she felt his cock throbbing inside her.

The fingers of one hand clenched into the sheets beneath them. She didn’t know whether to back farther against him, stroking him deeper inside her, or to thrust her clit closer against his fingers.

“Sierra, I can’t do it this easy,” he groaned.

“This is easy?” she panted. There was nothing easy about this. She was so full, stretched to the point that the burning of her flesh blended with the pleasure, creating a conflagration of sensations that threatened to drive her insane.

“Ah, hell.” He pulled back, thrust.

Sierra jerked and arched, her body suddenly so hungry for the pleasure-pain of that hard penetration that she was shaking in reaction.

He moved, pushing her farther to her stomach as he came over her, arms braced at her shoulders, his knees bracketing her hips as he began to move. It was then she knew what he meant by easy. By being unable to be easy.

She felt his sweat drip to her shoulder and looked up at him, seeing the wild violet-blue eyes, the narrowed gaze, the lust that burned in his face.

And he was moving.

Sierra began to shudder as sensation after sensation began to rage through her body. She was dying beneath him now.

“More.” She couldn’t hold back the plea, the demand for more.

Her hips lifted closer, her knees digging into the mattress as she fought for the more that she needed, hungered for.

“John, so good,” she moaned, feeling drunk on the sensations racing through her body, just under her flesh, tearing through her womb.

Behind her, his lips settled to her shoulder, taking sharp little kisses as his hips lunged inside her, thrusting hard and deep, filling her until she felt ready to burst from the pleasure.

Every inch of her body was primed for orgasm now. The stroke of his cock inside her, rasping against tender, untouched nerve endings and sensitized tissue, was too much.

She felt as though she were dying of pleasure beneath him.

“Better than the dreams,” he groaned. “Fucking you is so damned good, Sierra. So fucking good.”

The thrusts became harder, filling her as she felt the muscles he was invading clench tighter on his cock until they were both groaning, breathing harsh, desperate as she felt her orgasm rising, burning closer, tightening through her until the explosion ripped through her body and her senses.

Shaking beneath him, Sierra fought to hold on to him as he thrust inside her, pushing deep and hard until he jerked free and she felt his release burn against her rear as he gave a hard, heavy groan of pleasure.

She hadn’t even thought of birth control. She hadn’t considered the fact that he hadn’t donned a condom and she wasn’t on anything herself. There was no need to be. John hadn’t been in Boston; there hadn’t been a chance of him touching her.

“Sierra.” He whispered her name against her shoulder as he kissed it gently, giving one last shudder above her as the spurts of semen against her flesh eased. “Sweet God, baby. You’ve killed me.”

He collapsed behind her, pulling her close against him as he fought to catch his breath.

“Hmmm,” she murmured. She didn’t have the breath nor the intelligence to form a response at the moment.

All she could do was feel. Feel the warmth that suffused her, the satiation that filled her.

“Did I hurt you?” There was an edge of concern in his voice now.

Sierra managed to shake her head. “Killed me.”

“Killed you, huh?” Amused now.

She imagined his expressions with each tonal change. She knew him, she realized. Knew that with his amusement, his gaze would sparkle with laughter; with his anger, it would gleam with fire. Concern was a furrow above his brows; sympathy was somberness that gave his expression a look of heavy emotion.

Did he know her so well? she wondered.

Of course he didn’t.

“You’re thinking too hard, Sierra,” he drawled lazily. “I can feel your mind working, going over things, dissecting them. Let it just flow, baby.” Another kiss to her shoulder and she was frowning at the wall across the room.

“Is that your new philosophy, John?” she asked warily. “Worry about it tomorrow?”

He chuckled at that. “Not hardly. But there’s no sense in thinking something to the ground that hasn’t firmly established itself yet, either. Just be easy, lollipop. Things will work themselves out how they should, no matter how you worry over them.”

“Hell of a way to live,” she sighed, moving away from him despite the obvious reluctance as he allowed her to leave his arms.

“A better way to live.”

She looked back at him, seeing his obvious unconcern over his nakedness as he watched her from the bed. For her part, she jerked the sheet that had fallen to the floor and wrapped it around her naked body.

She felt more in control, less vulnerable with at least partial covering.

“How can it be a better way to live, John?” she asked. “Perhaps I need to figure out how to defend myself against you. You’re going to destroy me before this is over.”

He frowned back at her. “Because we had sex? Has your heart been broken every time you’ve gone to bed with a man?”

“Pretty much,” she snapped back, her lips thinning. After all, she hadn’t had a lover before John.

He shook his head. “Bobby Worthington was pretty heart-broken himself, if I remember. Said you walked right out of his bed and never looked back.”

Bobby Worthington, she almost laughed at the thought, but the seriousness in his expression forestalled the amusement. She’d be damned. He believed the gossip and rumors? All along, he had believed it every time one of those bastards had sworn she had slept with him.

“Tell me, John, would you ever admit that a woman simply walked away from you?” she questioned him caustically. “Think about it. Bobby had more ego than good sense, and evidently it’s simply a male trait, because you don’t appear to be any smarter at the moment.”

She shook her head as he frowned back at her, his gaze narrowed as though he were deciding whether or not to believe her.

“I need a shower.” She wasn’t defending herself against this, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to cry again. What she would do was exactly what he said she shouldn’t. Figure out how to keep her heart from being broken.

He rose lazily from the bed. “Shower’s through there.” He pointed to a door off the side. “I’ll lay your bags on the bed, you can unpack into the extra dresser.” He pointed to a low set of drawers built into the wall of the bedroom. “I’ll order dinner in. Tonight, we have some things to figure out, plans to make, then we’ll go from there.”

“I can’t imagine what kind of plans you might need to make.” She shrugged as she headed to the shower. “Your father will have this figured out soon, then I’ll be going home. No big deal.”

No big deal?

John watched as she moved into the shower, the door snapping closed behind her.

She was angry.

The look on her face when he’d mentioned Bobby. There had been such an edge of disillusionment there, as though she couldn’t believe he’d mentioned that.

What the hell was going on with her?

She’d been as tight as a virgin, but he knew for damned sure that she was no virgin. So close to it that she may as well have been, a part of him argued.

And what had she said? That he hadn’t remembered that night correctly.

The hell he hadn’t. He’d passed out right between her thighs, the taste of her sweet pussy still on his lips. There was no way he would have forgotten taking her.

Hell, Sierra had always confused him, though. She never came right out and said anything. She kept things to herself, whether pleasure or pain, and rarely shared them. Getting information out of her was often like pulling teeth.

There was information that was going to have to come, though. There had to be a reason why she was attacked. His father had ruled out a serial rapist, there were no attacks that matched the MO, and there was no reason to believe it was anything other than personal.