The licking strokes against the tender walls had her hips writhing against him. Each devastating thrust burned brighter inside her, pushing her higher.

John pushed her legs back, spreading them farther, lifting her pussy higher to allow his tongue to fuck inside her deeper, harder.

Sierra could feel her orgasm rising, brewing in her womb, tightening through her body. She was dying. She needed more—deeper, tighter. Her pussy tightened around his tongue reflexively as the strokes became harder.

“Don’t stop!” she cried out in protest as his head suddenly rose.

He knelt between her thighs, draped her legs over the tops of his, gripped his cock, and pressed it against the clenching opening of her pussy.

John stared down at the darkening of Sierra’s gray eyes, the innocent pleasure, the flush and uninhibited response, and for a second, the briefest moment, he remembered that night. Kneeling between her thighs, and then it was gone.

It was washed away by the heat of her juices touching the head of his cock, her pussy milking at it, attempting to draw it inside.

John pressed closer, his teeth clenching as his gaze lowered to where he was taking her, slowly. He wanted to take her slowly, wanted to feel every nuance of the pleasure racing through his body.

John felt the fist-tight heat enveloping him, felt her muscles caressing each particle of flesh as he pressed inside her.

Her hips arched to him, taking each inch with hungry desperation as her cries echoed around him.

He remembered this.

John shook his head, sweat dampening his body now as memory and reality began to converge.

His hips jerked, driving his cock deeper as pleasure locked around the hardened shaft. It felt as though a million pinpoints of electric sensation were attacking the portion of his cock buried inside her.

His hand clenched on her hips as he fought to take her slow, easy.

“Never needed like I need you,” she cried beneath him. “John, never known anything like this.”

A growl tore from his lips. “Sweet baby. I didn’t know pleasure like this existed. Sweetest, tightest little pussy.”

He slammed in deeper, almost burying himself to the hilt as he fought to breathe, fought to keep his come from spilling inside her.

He had condoms now. He’d made certain to have Dawg bring a box. But he’d already taken her bare, he already knew the pleasure of having her naked, and being sheathed. And sweet heaven, this was so much better.

Pulling back, he thrust deep and hard inside her once again, burying in deep and hard and snarling with the extremity of the pleasure.

“Sierra, fuck,” he groaned. He couldn’t do this. Reaching across the bed, he snagged one of the condoms from the bedside table and fought to pull back.

It took all he could do to pull back, to release her.

“John.” Her hand touched his. “It’s not the same.”

Innocence. Pure sweet love and innocence filled her face as she stared back at him, her breathless words striking his soul with the force of a fist.

“I won’t let you go, Sierra,” he snarled possessively. “Do you understand me? If you become pregnant, I will never let you go.”

“Do you want to let me go, John?”

“Hell no.”

One hard stroke and he was buried inside her once again. Deep. He could feel her womb pressing against the tip of his cock. Delicate, tight flesh milked at his dick, stroked it, sucked at it.

John knew he couldn’t hold back. He was dying to thrust into her with all the speed and strength he possessed. The hunger raging so deep, so hot, inside overwhelmed him.

Sierra threw her head back against the pillow as he began moving inside her, thrusting into her pussy, separating the tender muscles with hard strokes of pleasure-pain and sizzling heat.

Her hips lifted, her heels digging into the mattress as she moved into each thrust, feeling him fuck her with the same desperation she could feel tearing through herself.

Each pounding thrust threw her higher, raced through her, until her orgasm slammed through her system with such force that she was trying to scream his name as it ruptured inside her.

At the same time, she felt his release overtake him as well. Each hard spurt of his semen inside her burned, fiery blasts that extended her release, threw her higher, exploding through her body with a force that had stars exploding before her eyes.

Shudders wracked her body as he came over her, pulling her tight against him as his hips continued to rotate, thrust, sink his cock inside her, his semen spurting inside her until finally they both collapsed against the bed in exhaustion.

He held her.

Sierra was aware of the fact that John wasn’t letting her go. His body covered hers, sheltered her.

His cock was still buried inside her, the feel of him still trying to catch his breath matched her own.

There was something . . . Sierra let her fingers curl at the nape of his neck, stroking his hair. There was something different this time, as though emotions held in check by both of them were slipping free without their volition.

“I fought this,” he whispered at her ear. “I fought it, because I looked at you, Sierra, and saw all the ways I could never make you happy then. All the ways I’d end up destroying us both because you were so sweet, your emotions so tender. And I felt so hard inside.”

Her eyes closed as hope and need began to build inside her.

“I made excuses.” He kissed the shell of her ear. “I tried to tell myself we were friends. That you were as close as a sister, but all the while, I knew better.”

Her breathing hitched at the admission.

“I hated who I was, and every time I saw you, heard your laughter, saw your smile, glimpsed that core of pure sweet love inside you, you shamed me.”

His head rose then.

Sierra promised herself she wasn’t going to cry. She wouldn’t cry.

“I left Boston to give you time,” he finally admitted, those violet-blue eyes nearly glowing in his sun-darkened face. “I would have been back. I was afraid of what had happened that night, that perhaps I had hurt you, said something cruel out of my own stupidity. But I would have never let you go completely. Do you understand me? I would have been back soon. And I would have caught up with you.”

“I wouldn’t have run again,” she admitted, fighting those tears. “I missed you, John. I missed you until a part of my soul was withering away without you.”

“And there was no peace inside mine,” he confessed. “Because you weren’t here, baby. You weren’t in my arms.”

“How fucking sickeningly sweet. I’m going to puke.”

John froze at the sound of the feminine voice behind them. He felt Sierra still, felt the fear that suddenly transformed the relaxed, sated curves of her body.

Moving quickly, he jerked around, keeping Sierra close behind him as he faced Marlena and the weapon she held in her hand, aimed directly at his head.

Marlena smiled. “How careless John. Just because you lock the doors and set an alarm doesn’t mean it can’t be broken. When you have the right friends, you can acquire the most amazing little toys to access damned near anything you want.”

Meaning those friends had given her the state-of-the-art electronics it would have required to get past his locks and security.

That gave him a chance, because it also meant the Mackays had been sent a silent alarm warning them of the break-in. He just had to hold out until they arrived.

“You figured it out, didn’t you, John?” Marlena sneered, her once pretty features twisted with such vile jealousy and greed that for a moment John wondered how he had ever believed the woman attractive. “That’s okay. You’re the only one. You and Miss Goody Two-shoes behind you. Bitch.”

“Marlena, you’re making a very big mistake,” he warned her.

“No, darling, you made the mistake the night you fucked that little whore in Boston.” She smiled with icy intent. “Because I simply can’t let that little slut win. I won’t let her get away with all the plans she destroyed. Which means now, both of you simply must die.”

ELEVEN

Sierra stared back at the impeccably dressed Marlena Genoa and wondered exactly how such insanity could have been missed. Was it detectable in the genetic strand perhaps? Scientists should create a test for it to ensure that such children are carefully overseen and raised to control their own reckless impulses.

Then again, insanity born of greed, a lust for power, and overconfidence likely wasn’t truly part of the human genome. Too bad, because the world would have benefited had Marlena’s madness been detected.

Sierra stared over John’s shoulder with the faintest feeling of morbid curiosity, wondering what Marlena was actually going to do with that gun in her hand.

“Have you lost your mind, Marlena?” John’s tone seemed entirely too controlled for the situation. Yet Sierra knew this tone of voice. It had a hard, icy edge that concealed pure fury. He was in control. He was planning. And God help the person he was planning against.

Unfortunately that person seemed to have the upper hand for the moment. The gun she was holding trumped any amount of unarmed fury that John might possess.

Fortunately for them both, Sierra was rather confident of the fact that John was saner, and therefore, possibly had a much better chance of coming out of this. She just hoped he could pull both of them out of it alive.

“Really, John, did you truly believe I’d give up so easily?” Marlena propped a slender, graceful hand on a silk-clad hip, her nails tapping against the material of her white slacks as her gaze narrowed on him. “You know, I really thought you’d come to your senses, return home, and realize what an incredibly stupid mistake you had made. The advantages of marrying me were by far better than becoming some Kentucky hick bumming on a lake with his little whore. And a virgin to boot?” She laughed as Sierra flinched. “I returned to the penthouse, bitch, and found the bloodstained handkerchief.” She glanced at John again. “You never even knew did you?”

“I’ve always known.” The answer shocked Sierra. Was he saying that only to throw Marlena off, or did he truly remember?

Marlena shook her head. “What a mistake.”

John’s shoulders were tense beneath Sierra’s hands. Whatever he was planning, he would move quickly, she thought. She dug her nails into his flesh. If he moved, Marlena would shoot. Sierra could see it in her eyes.

“And what mistake would that be?” The deceptive laziness in his tone was actually frightening.

“Leaving me, of course, especially for that little twit you’ve been screwing nonstop for the past few days. Are you two related to rabbits by chance?” There was genuine confusion in her voice. “Really, John, it’s disgusting how often the two of you have been fucking. It’s rather nasty, if you ask me.”

The disgust in her voice, in her expression, proved she actually believed her opinion. The woman couldn’t have a truly sensual bone in her body. Making love with John was like flying.

“I don’t remember asking her,” Sierra pointed out, unable to keep her mouth shut at this point. “And since when does she find sex disgusting?”

Wow. This woman had been in John’s bed and she hadn’t even enjoyed sex? She and John were going to have to discuss this later.

Marlena narrowed her gaze as her lips curled into a sneer. “Still such a stupid little virgin. Sex for its own sake is a waste of time and energy,” she snapped. “The two of you have been wasting both, no doubt.” The gun lifted. “But since you have so little time left, what does it really matter?”

Sierra didn’t think John’s shoulders could tense further, but they did just that. They felt like iron or steel as she clenched her fingers around him.

“What do you think that gun is going to accomplish, Marlena?” John asked then. “Killing us? It will get you nothing but a fucking prison sentence. If you live long enough, that is.”