Willing Sacrifice (Knights of the Board Room) Page 33

  The spot he’d picked out was in a birch forest. The trees were spaced widely enough to allow them a tent, and there was an appealing hushed tranquility. She was still thinking about that bathhouse, but seeing the location, she was more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  She learned how to put up a tent with his help, observed with fascination while he made them a campfire. He was as comfortable living out in nature as she was in her colorful bedroom with its many comforts. He’d provided a rollout foam mattress for the tent, complete with a couple pillows. When he camped alone, she suspected he was fine sleeping on the hard ground. Then she remembered his aversion to the cold and rethought that, noting he’d brought three tightly rolled blankets.

  She didn’t think staying warm was going to be a problem, however. Not with the intense gazes they kept exchanging and that aura of heat she felt between their bodies, even on the trail. More than once she savored the memory of him wandering around shirtless doing Gayle’s yard work. That kiss on the fence was still branded on her brain.

  A freshwater stream gurgled less than fifty feet from their site, and while he went to fill a jug with water, she knelt on the foam pad in the tent, ran her fingers over it. She remembered that first night Max had slept at her place. In the morning, he’d gotten up to go do a run. She chose to sleep in, trying not to hate him for his self-discipline, but when he left the bed, she automatically shifted into his spot, absorbing the heat he’d left, his scent. He’d paused over tying his shoe, head lifting to watch her.

  Thinking of what Gayle said about sleeping in her husband’s spot, she wondered if that was a common thing for SEAL wives. For military spouses, period. Had Max known about it, explaining his oddly pleased and touched expression?

  She was having a hard time dealing with the mere possibility of him going after a gang member. She wasn’t sure she could be as strong as Gayle, dealing with her man being gone for months, not knowing if he was alive or dead, or what kind of things he was facing. But it helped her understand Gayle’s patience with Jenny, as well as Max’s compassion. Max hadn’t been married, but he’d know the toll his absences took on his mother and sister, even before the attack.

  “Hey.” He was squatting in the tent opening, looking rugged and far-too-appealing in his jeans and T-shirt, his hiking boots. He ran a hand down her back. “All right?”

  “Yes.” She turned so she was folded on her knees, facing him. “So, what do you propose for dinner? If you plan to kill something that I have to de-fur or de-scale, I will take your truck keys and head for the nearest hotel.”

  He grinned, reaching over her shoulder to capture her braid. She’d plaited her hair this morning, assuming it would be the easiest style to manage for camping requirements. “But I have this mountain man-squaw fantasy, and you already have your hair done right for it.”

  “Give me your keys.” She made a lunge for his pocket and he caught her about the waist, holding her closer to him with a laugh.

  “Gayle packed us meals. It was the deal I worked out with her in exchange for my extensive manual labor skills.” He winked. “She’s a great cook. Tonight it’ll be her lasagna. She also put a couple salads in the cooler, and I brought a bottle of wine. You prefer red, right?”

  “Yes. How did you know that?”

  “I noticed it at the Christmas party.”

  A party that had been months ago. She shook her head. “If you’re trying to impress me, it might be working.” But when his arm loosened, thighs tensing as if he intended to leave the tent, probably to go check on her dinner, she hooked her fingers in the collar of his T-shirt. “What I want right now isn’t food. Not exactly.” She tilted her head toward the foam bed. “I want you to stretch out there. No clothes. Now.”

  He met her gaze. “How about you in no clothes?”

  “Maybe. If you please me.”

  Another weighted moment, then he inclined his head. When she released him, he backed out of the tent so that he could stand, pull the shirt over his head. No more questions, no hesitation. It fired her blood, made her wet her lips, especially when that muscular terrain rippled before her avid gaze. He unbelted the jeans, opened them, then bent to untie the hiking shoes. He toed them off, gaze returning to her as he got rid of them and then the rest of his clothes, dropping them in a pile on the shoes.

  “Stand there, just like that.”

  There was a pure beauty to a man in superior physical condition. Not bulges of muscle, but hard curves meant to support stamina, endurance…combat conditions.

  “Do you keep in the same shape as you did for the SEALs?”

  “Pretty much. It’s a good routine. Makes me feel connected to them.”

  It also kept him in condition for what was ahead. But she didn’t want this moment to be about that. “Turn around. Face away from me.”

  He complied, hips shifting. As he turned, her gaze drifted over the skull trident, then slipped back down to his fantastic ass, the muscular thighs. Rising to her knees, she put her hands on his buttocks, molding her palms over them. She slid her thumbs down to his thighs, causing him to widen his stance at the implied command. Making a noise of approval, she slipped her fingers between his legs to caress that sensitive joining point of the balls, then cupped them to squeeze. Leaning forward, she teased the seam between the cheeks with her tongue, nipping at him as he suppressed an oath. She suspected he would have turned then, but when he made to shift, she tightened her grip.

  “Unh-unh. All mine.” She whispered it against his flesh. “Mine to do with what I want. And what I want is you to keep this fine ass still.”

  He strangled on a half chuckle, and then his back muscles tightened as she kept idly tracing that line. She was aware of the responsive nerve endings she’d find deeper in the intimate crevice, around his rim. But to access that she’d need both of her hands, and she liked holding his testicle sac in her palm, her fingers closed firmly over the solid weight. Well, there was no need to limit herself. She had a pair of hands at her command, didn’t she?

  “Reach back and spread your ass cheeks for me.”

  It took another bated breath, but then he complied. She was touched and delighted to find he’d shaved his manly hair, at least in that region. It suggested he’d thought about some of the things his Mistress might want of him, and what would please her. He might not be a sub, but he anticipated as well as one of the best.

  He’ll treat her right, whether it’s today or fifty years from now…

  His fingers clenched on that delicious tautness as she ran her tongue over the crinkled area of his rim, then delicately pushed into his anal region, making him groan. He was going to leave bruising fingerprints on his own ass, and she had no problem with that. She’d love adding her own marks over them. She continued to knead his testicles, run her thumb along the base of his cock as far as she could reach, while she teased his anus. His feet were pressed into the earth, his thighs like cement columns. She slid her free hand up over his right one, caressing his fingers on his ass cheek, then she drew back, a clear message that she wasn’t inviting contact. Not yet. When he turned a hungry gaze on her, her libido growled in sympathetic response.

  “Lie on the mattress. Face up.”

  She shifted out of the way so he could duck into the tent opening. He squatted at the base of the foam pad, moving into a very tempting position on his hands and knees before he turned and stretched out on the mattress. His cock was a stiff soldier, making her wet her lips again. She was still dressed, and that was the way she was going to stay, for now.

  “Legs spread so your ankles are as wide as the tent entrance. Arms above your head. Grab the back tent support, and don’t let go. Not unless I say so.”

  The expression he locked upon her was the one that sent his power rolling over her, giving her that titillating feeling that she was in command of a wild beast who could overwhelm her with his strength in a heartbeat, but wouldn’t. Not if she managed that delicate play of power exchange per
fectly. He complied, body stretching to accommodate her desire.

  “Good boy.” Though there was nothing boy-like about the body she was appraising, or the rigid planes of his concentrated face. She knelt between his legs, running her nails up his thighs. “Your obeying my commands pleases me, Max. And you know about obeying commands, don’t you?”

  His eyes lit with flame, suggesting she was challenging the fighter in him further. But he was also very disciplined. His fingers tightened on the tent pole. “I can give you pleasure, Mistress, if you’ll let me.”

  “You are giving me pleasure, Max. I want to take, on my terms. Your only job is to comply with my desires.”

  She closed her hand around his cock, began to slide up and down, working him in her loosely wrapped fist. It was a method and rhythm sure to get a response, and she did. His hips flexed, and when she bent to put her lips on his head, slide down his length, he jerked, his fingers tightening even farther on the tent pole. She didn’t think that metal shaft could be any harder than the one in her mouth, and it was getting harder, blood filling and thickening it so he pressed against her tongue and teeth.

  “Jesus,” he muttered. “Janet….Mistress.”

  She dug her nails into his thighs, and he drew in his breath, shuddered. When she moved her hand to his stomach, she scratched him there as well, enjoying the score marks. She was tempted to draw blood, to put proof of her ownership on him. He said he was falling in love with her, and she viewed that declaration as synonymous with ownership, a giving of himself to her utterly.

  The new part, to her, was considering such possessiveness a two-way street. She’d seen it happen with each of the K&A men. All of them hardcore Dominants, yet each man had found that one woman who spoke to his soul and captured his heart. Perhaps she wasn’t much different. Max may have bided his time waiting for her to initiate, and she had taken that time herself, deliberately, but now, on this side of it, she realized they’d both known it, felt it.

  She would have liked to ease a finger up his rear passage to heighten the intensity of the climax she was going to give him, but her nails were too long. She didn’t want the sharp edges to give him the wrong kind of pain. Even the toughest guy in the world had delicate anal tissues. She’d keep that thought to herself though, since men like Max didn’t like to hear that any part of them was less than battle tough. But the fragility of those tissues was also what made the rear entry so deliciously responsive.

  She increased the suction of her mouth on his cock, the rhythm and flow of her grip, so he was bucking up against her like a bull in the chute, waiting to be let loose. She reveled in the sight of all that power, his arms stretched above his head at her command, him gripping the tent pole such that she hoped it was buried deep enough that he wouldn’t yank it loose. But the idea of that, the canvas floating down, blinding them to anything but the physical sensations they were giving one another, wasn’t unappealing.

  The vein under her thumb made a hard convulsion, telling her he was there. “Come, Max.”

  She spoke against his flesh, her mouth full of him to the throat, but he understood her. He let go with a harsh, needy sound, shoving hard between her lips. She held him taut at the base, reveling in the pump of heated fluid. She swallowed down the salty thick taste, letting some of it escape to lubricate his shaft further, wetting her fingers and giving him a full measure of the climax. He kept shuddering and jerking in her grip, every nerve ending oversensitized by the strength of his release. She brought him down slowly, squeezing, sucking, running her tongue over him, polishing and collecting every last bit of the climax she’d commanded from him.

  His hand landed on her shoulder, then the other, and he was pulling her up his body to lie fully clothed on him. He gripped her buttock, long fingers pressed intimately into her crotch, and held her tight against his cock, letting her feel that pulsing aftermath. Then he had her by the wrist and was cleaning her hand with his mouth, caring for her. Her throat tightened and she stroked his thick, soft hair with her other hand as he suckled each finger, licking her palm, her knuckles. “Max,” she murmured, a consecration. “Dear, sweet man.”

  Dangerous, loving, generous… His gaze turned to her then, his task done, and she saw all those things in his eyes as he put his hand in her hair, pulling loose her braid so her hair spread over her shoulders.

  “What about the squaw fantasy?” she asked softly.

  “This is part of it,” he said, studying her every feature so she felt worshipped by his regard. His gray eyes moved to lock with hers. “That’s what he’d be thinking about, when he was out hunting, checking traps…”

  “Doing whatever mountain men do.”

  His eyes sparked with sensual humor. “He’d be thinking about getting home to her. How she’d have a meal ready for him, and then at night, he’d unbraid her hair, brush it for her. He’d spread it out beneath her as he laid her down before the fire.”

  So many times she’d thought about cutting her hair, realizing that such long hair wasn’t necessarily fashionable for a woman in her forties, but his expression when he saw it tumble down her shoulders, or fall against his bare chest as it did now, made her glad she’d never given in to that impulse.

  “I want you under me,” he rumbled. “I want my cock plowed so deep inside you…” He left that hanging, but that was the only image needed. Her body, already charged with arousal, her panties soaked, wanted that too. It wasn’t a denial of her Mistress side, simply an understanding that she could be anything she wished with him. Like dancing with the perfect partner, who anticipated the flow of her movements with his own. No choreographing necessary, as if they shared the same soul.

  She was getting fanciful, like the romantic girl she’d once been. Only this was far more real, far more certain, grounded in the reality she was experiencing with him, not what she imagined the relationship to be.

  “I want that too. Whenever you’re ready.”

  He rolled them, his arm banded around her waist, putting her under him with that effortless strength that could steal away the most cynical woman’s breath. She wondered what all those who knew her would think of that. Janet Albright, Satan’s Mistress, out of breath, her heart tripping like…a woman in love. For the first time in her life.

  She managed to smile at him with her eyes, the weight of her heart too full and momentous. When she put her hand to his face, he turned his mouth to it, holding his lips against her palm. “You might need a little recovery time, sailor,” she whispered.

  “I’ll find a way to pass the time,” he promised, with a look that sent heat searing through every part of her that would benefit from that delay.

  He started by opening her shirt, one button at a time, nuzzling her breasts over the lace of her bra, showing his appreciation of the delicate, thin fabric with a pleased murmur. He traced the curves, let his tongue dip into one cup to find a nipple, curl around it. The pressure of the bra added to the intense pleasure of the sensation. He released the front clasp, replaced the cups with his hands, and she was mesmerized by how it looked, his large hands cradling her, his thumbs passing slowly over the nipples. She watched the way they gave way beneath the pressure, then became tighter, more rigid under the stimulation. Her breath was making little catch noises in her throat, and he was registering all of it.

  Moving down her body, he removed each of her shoes, fingers caressing her arches, then he opened her jeans, slid them off her legs, leaving her panties on, a match for the filmy bra. He could see the outline of her pussy beneath the undergarment. As wet as she was, the silky fabric had to be glued to her labia. Moving back up, he put his hand high on her thigh, thumb passing over that exact spot, so she arched into his touch with a sigh of pleasure.

  “I love seeing you wet for me, Mistress.” He cupped himself then, cradling his testicles for a moment before running his curled fingers up his shaft, his cock starting to rouse before her eyes as he masturbated himself, looking down at her, the bra open, panties wet.
Her pussy contracted at the stimulus, her thighs quivering in reaction to the convulsion, and he logged it all, the SEAL who wouldn’t miss a single detail.

  Now he shifted again, bending so he could place his mouth on the damp area of her panties. She moaned, and his hands slipped beneath her, gripping her ass, kneading the curves as he suckled her, licked the fabric, a dragging friction that made her undulate harder. She was already so worked up, she wanted him inside her now. But she also wanted this gradual unfolding of pleasure to never end, so she said nothing, seeing where his clever mind took them both.

  He pulled the crotch of the garment to the side to plunge his tongue inside her, and she cried out, locking her legs on his shoulders, heels pressed into his broad back. He took his time, settling down to play and tease until she was making helpless noises in her throat. Then he ducked out from beneath the hold of her legs. Before she anticipated what he was doing, he’d turned her onto her stomach. He pressed his chest against her back, curling those powerful hands around her wrists, gently tugging her arms until they were out to either side of her. The stiffening evidence of his cock was against her buttocks, his thighs between hers, spreading her open to accommodate him. He kept the majority of his weight off her, letting her feel just enough of it to make her feel sheltered, pinned in the right way.

  He kissed the back of her neck, the sides. He spent a great deal of time on her throat, the sensitive flesh beneath her ear, the line of the major artery, pumping fiercely beneath his heated mouth. Then he moved to the bump of spine at the nape, pushing her hair out of the way so he could tease the two slender bones that ran all the way to the base of her skull. He kept his hands on her wrists, thumbs caressing her thundering pulse. Now he was flexing against her ass, a teasing, coital rhythm that had her rising up against him in matching response, feeling him get harder, thicker, more ready.