Blaze of Memory

Her stutter was adorable, he decided. Sexy as hell, too. That mouth, those lips, he could look at them for hours, imagine exactly what he wanted to do. “Give me a second,” he said, and broke the delicious contact long enough to walk her backward—distracting her with nibbling little kisses that had her nails digging into his shoulders.

She made a startled sound when her back met the wall.

Stroking his hands down to her hips, he ran his fingers to the button at the top of her jeans. Her eyes went huge, but she didn’t stop him. Thanking the gods, he undid the closure and tugged down her zipper.

Katya knew she should pull away but she had no willpower where Devraj Santos and his wicked hands were concerned. When he tugged at the sides of her jeans, she shifted back, let him push the garment down. He made her lift her legs one at a time as he pulled it completely off her body.

Then, still crouching in front of her, he ran his hands up the backs of her legs.

The sensation sent waves of blackness rolling through her mind, but this black fire was as hot, as wild, and as masculine as the man who looked up at her with such sensual possession in his eyes. “Give in,” he whispered. “Let me make you feel good.”

It was an incredible leap for her to make, for a woman who’d never known intimacy, but she had to do this . . . because there would be no second chance.

CHAPTER 30

Quickly stifling that thought lest it escape, she watched as he rose to his feet and pulled off his T-shirt. Her throat dried up. “I guess all that kickboxing has its benefits.” She didn’t know where the words came from when her brain was stunned by the raw male beauty of him.

He chuckled. “I’m glad you approve.” There was an almost arrogant confidence in him, but she liked it. Better that in Dev’s eyes than the terrible pain she’d glimpsed for an instant when she’d spoken of forcing him to invade her mind.

Hands on her hips. Warm. A little rough. Perfect. She sucked in a breath, and when he lifted her, it was instinct to wrap her legs around his waist. He moved her until she—“Dev!” she screamed into his mouth as his still-covered cock pushed into her softness, parting her with possessive heat, the thin cotton of her panties no barrier.

His thumb smoothed over the crease of her thigh, inciting her to move impatiently . . . but that only rubbed her clitoris against him, further tightening the fist that was her body. Breaking the kiss, she pushed at his shoulders. “It’s too much.”

“You can take it,” he cajoled, kissing her neck, sucking on the beat of her pulse. At the same time, his fingers slid smoothly inside her panties, parting her with even more intimacy. Gasping in a breath, she buried her face in his neck. He smelled of heat and desire and a scent that was pure, aroused male. No, not just any male. Dev. She’d asked him if it would be like this with any other man, but she’d already known the answer—no. It would never be like this again. From the start, he was the only man she’d truly seen.

His fingers pinched her clitoris, that tiny nub of flesh she’d always known about scientifically but never really understood until this moment. Pleasure arced through her in an almost violent wave, and she could feel that fist within her tightening, tightening.

“Do you like that?” he whispered against her ear, releasing the pressure to circle the flesh he’d tortured so sensually the instant before.

“Yes.” She pushed into him, wanting to rub, but held in place by the delicious heat of his body. The weight, the pressure, it ratcheted up her hunger until she could hardly breathe. “Touch me.”

His lips curved. “Demanding, aren’t you?”

That smile made her breasts ache, it was so full of promise, of desire. “You’re teasing me.”

“It’s part of the fun.” One finger flicked over the bundle of nerve endings she so desperately wanted him to touch much more firmly.

“This,” she said, stroking her hand down to graze one flat male nipple, “is not fun.”

“On that we’ll have to agree to disagree.” His voice was husky, his skin hot under her touch.

He was reacting to her, she realized in wonder. Continuing to pet him, she found herself listening to every hitch of his breath, wanting to do what pleased him most. When his ridged abdomen went rock hard as her nails scraped over his nipples, she repeated the caress.

A single word that turned the air blue. Pulling out the hand he had between her legs, he grabbed both her wrists and pinned them above her head. “Now,” he murmured, eyes locked with her own, “where were we?” His free hand slid back down, over the twisting ache in her navel, under the edge of her panties, and—

“That’s not fair,” she somehow managed to gasp.

A kiss that stole her breath. “Who said anything about playing fair?” He rubbed lightly at her cleft, making her entire body clench. “Will you let me in, Katya?”

She shook her head. “No, you should be punished for teasing me.” But her body was already silken with welcome for him, her flesh lusciously damp.

“Please?” Another kiss, another intimate touch. And she found herself arching into the finger he stroked gently inside her. The sensation was the most exquisite pleasure-pain, as if her nerve endings were on overload. But instead of wanting less, she wanted more. More and more. Here, in his arms, the torturer’s dark room seemed light-years away. How could nightmares invade when there was so much heat, so much feeling?

“That’s it,” he murmured against her throat as he kissed his way back up to her mouth. “Move on me.”

She couldn’t stop the strangely fluid movements of her body—part of her knew what to do, how to do it. “More,” she ordered, nipping at his ear.

“You’re too tight.”

“More.”

Groaning, he slid a second finger inside her and pumped once. Twice. Pleasure and pain, a stretching ecstasy. Her arousal peaked, hovered there, waiting, waiting. . . His thumb brushed her clitoris.

Everything exploded.

She felt the back of her head connect with wall as she threw it back, heard Dev’s bitten-off curse, sensed her muscles clenching convulsively around him as the orgasm tore her apart. None of it mattered. For the first time in her life, there was so much pleasure coursing through her body that she was delirious with it.

Dev watched Katya’s face fill with pleasure and wanted only to undo the zipper on his jeans and take her. But no way in hell was he doing that with Tag and Tiara down the hall, not to mention Cruz. It had been hard enough to keep things quiet this long. A little more and his control would be shot to smithereens.

But no matter that they hadn’t consummated their attraction, they’d crossed a line tonight and there’d be no going back from it. His jaw set. He would fight for her, for the woman who’d woken from that hospital bed and started to battle for her right to live. No one would take that right from her.

Soothing her down from the sexual high, he carried her to the bed. Heavy-lidded eyes opened to give him an inherently sensual look as he laid her down. “What about you?” Fingers trailing over his chest.

He caught her hand. “Later.” Pressing a kiss to her lips, he thought he glimpsed a fleeting shadow, but when he looked up, her eyes were closed as she gave in to the kiss. “I have to go.” He’d have given anything to spend the night by her side, but he needed to sit down and go over the implications of the previous day’s conference call. The agitators were becoming more and more vociferous. Something had to be done—but how could he embrace a “solution” that would rip his people apart from within?

Katya’s fingers on his cheek. “You have so much weight in your eyes, on your shoulders. I wish I could share it with you.”

The honest offer made something clench in his chest. Bracing himself on one elbow so he could look down into her face, he echoed her hold. “That you made the offer is enough.”

He wondered what it would be like to have someone of his own, someone he could trust absolutely. The irony was, the only woman he could see in that role was the one woman he couldn’t ever trust. “Get some rest,” he said, brushing her hair off her forehead. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”