“Then what does?”
Stroking in, back out. In again, so deep … “Smokin’.” His chest expanded. “Sexy as sin.” His gaze was so intent, it affected her as strongly as his touch when he said, “Mine.”
Startled, Molly stared at him. She didn’t know what to say, how to interpret that. “Dare …?”
He moved away from her in a rush, going for a condom that he rolled on in record time. When he came back to her, he caught her hips and turned her to her stomach. “On your knees.”
Even as she got to her knees, her thoughts scrambled—until his hands clasped her waist and he drove into her with one hard thrust.
After two climaxes, she was swollen and sensitive and oh-so-ready for him. She cried out with that initial entry, then cried out again as he began a hard, fast rhythm. It was so deep this way, she felt every inch of him.
“Arch your hips up,” he told her in a rough command. She felt one hand on the small of her back, the other under her, first touching her nipples, then sliding down between her legs.
It was too much. “Dare … I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.” Just as he’d done to her nipples, he caught her clitoris and held it with his fingertips. Each of his deep thrusts caused her to tug at his hold in a maddening stimulation.
When she groaned, he said, “Spread your knees out a little more, baby.”
The pleasure drugged her until she couldn’t think, could only feel. She felt heavy, so heavy that her arms didn’t want to support her and they bent until she rested on her forearms.
Dare growled a low approval over that.
Another release began spiraling within her, drawing tighter and tighter. Her body throbbed, ripe and aching and in need.
Dare started pumping faster, and she knew he was close. His thighs were slapping hard against the back of hers. Heat poured off him, off her.
Tighter and tighter.
Her lungs burned. Her legs trembled.
Eyes clenched, Molly fisted her hands in the sheets to hang on—and the release hit her. She cried out loud, sobbing with the power of it, her body on fire.
Dare’s savage groan filled her ears. He stroked deep, stiffened, and she knew he was coming, too. He’d held on, waited for her.
When he stilled, she literally collapsed flat on the bed. Dare landed over her and started to move, but she whispered, “Please. Not yet.”
She could still feel him inside her, not as big now, but she didn’t want to lose the sensation yet.
“Just for a minute,” he whispered with a kiss to her ear, and he wrapped his arms around her, giving her his weight.
It felt heavenly. It felt safe.
It felt like love.
MOLLY FELT THE HANDS on her, pinching. Deliberately hurting. She couldn’t see beyond her fear, but she cursed them, English curses that she knew they might not understand but gave her strength all the same.
One man reached for her breast and laughed at her panic. Instead, he struck her in the ribs. She lost her breath, gagging with the pain, falling to her knees, knowing they might kick her, knowing the ground held bugs and mud and worse. She struggled to stay upright, struggled, struggled …
Jerking awake with a start, Molly cried out—and immediately Dare came into the room.
“Hey. It’s okay.” The overhead light came on, blinding her. The bed dipped when he sat down beside her, when he pulled her into his arms.
Her throat felt too tight for her to swallow, burning with the need to cry. She was crying. She felt the tears hot on her cheeks and shame beat at her.
Angry at herself, at the bastards who’d done this to her, she tried to struggle away from Dare.
He tightened his hold. “Don’t do that, Molly. I understand. I know. But don’t push me away.” He kissed her hair, closed those impossibly strong arms around her.
“I hate them.” Her voice sounded high and broken, infuriating her more. Shaming her more.
“I do, too.” Shifting, he pulled her onto his lap. “When I was younger, when I got that knife wound on my chest?”
That got her attention, and she nodded to let him know she was listening.
“I was so pissed off I was blind with it. Mostly at myself for not being able to stop it, but at the man who did it, too. It took me a few weeks to recover, especially after I got an infection.”
Dare wore a shirt now, and she subtly tried to dry her eyes against the soft cotton.
He caught the sheet and lifted a corner of it to her. “Do you need a tissue?”
“No.” She sounded strangled, as if those awful hands were around her throat again, threatening to kill her. She buried her face against Dare. Ignoring the rasp of her voice, the weakness, she asked, “What were you doing when you got stabbed?”
“This isn’t to be repeated.”
She nodded.
“A senator’s son was being held hostage. I was hired to go get him. Me, specifically, because no one knew me yet. I was brand-new, tested but not yet tried, if you know what I mean.”
His hands moved over her back, up and down, not in any way sexual but still possessive.
Molly gulped back a fresh wave of tears. “I don’t.”
“I’d been trained. Everyone knew what I could do in live-action tests, but I hadn’t yet gone out in the field. This was my maiden run. And I almost fucked it up.”
As the nightmare faded, she licked her dry lips. “But you didn’t?”
“No, thank God. Not entirely. If I had, the kid would’ve died. Talk about nightmares …” He shook his head and squeezed her again. After a deep breath, he continued. “The boy, who was around twelve at the time, was being held in a compound in Arizona. The place was owned by a wealthy, supposedly law-abiding businessman. No one would have thought to look for the kid there. But I’ve always had good instincts, and I tracked him to that location.”
“How?”
“You can almost always gauge a person by their associations. If a man has enough ties with people of questionable character, then I label him questionable.”
“Like my dad.”
“Like your dad,” he agreed.
Thinking about her father added to her angst. “How do you think you messed up?”
“I got too emotional.” Disgust sounded in his tone. “Thoughts of that kid and how scared he had to be, wondering if he was hurt or even being hurt right then, riddled my discipline.”
