Page 61 of Lawless in Leather

But that didn’t matter because he was here now. Here and naked and waiting for her watching with those sin-dark eyes. So maybe there was time to take a little time. She wriggled farther down on his legs and bent forward to taste him.

“Are you trying to kill me?” Mal asked as she closed her mouth over the head of his cock.

She let him go again and smiled up at him. “I can answer that question or I can keep doing what I’m doing. Your choice.”

“I’m shutting up now,” Mal said.

“Not for long, I hope,” she muttered and then she took him again. Took him slowly, learning the contours and taste of him. Experimenting with fingers and tongue to find out what he liked and what he didn’t until he was panting and groaning and his hands fisted in her hair, guiding her to take him deeper.

She did so. Slowly at first and then more feeding, sucking harder and faster and deeper until she felt his stomach muscles start to tremble. Then she stopped and he groaned. She rolled the condom into place and slid back up his body, groaning a little herself as she slid over the hard length of him. It felt so damned good she slid back down, taking her weight on her arms to enjoy the sensation all over again. And again. And a fourth time.

Apparently that was about the limit of his tolerance. Because he grabbed her and rolled her and then slid inside her with a fierceness that made her clench around him. She closed her eyes and let him take her, needing him to drive away the day and the fear and the anger. Letting him use her to drive away whatever demons were driving him, too. Faster and harder until there was only flesh meeting flesh. Pure sensation. Pure delight. No idea what was her and what was him. Until the orgasm exploded through her and dissolved her completely.

“That was lovely,” Raina said some unknown time later when they were both lying in her bed, naked and sweaty and boneless. Mal was pretty sure he’d melted completely. He’d come twice already and he was fairly sure Raina was one or two ahead of him. Either that or she was a better actress than he’d thought.

“Thanks,” he managed.

“You want to tell me what it was about?” she asked.

He came back into his body with a thud. “What do you mean?”

“You just flew for about three hours in the wrong direction in the middle of the night to land on my doorstep. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very, very happy you’re here, but it’s a little … unexpected.”

Odd was what she really meant. He felt himself stiffen. Had he screwed up coming here?

Raina’s lips brushed against his shoulder and he relaxed a little. Even if she thought he was odd, it didn’t seem to have put her off.

“You don’t have to tell me and I really do appreciate you coming to make sure I’m all right,” she said. “But I feel like maybe I’ve tripped and hit a button of yours. Something to do with some of those wrong choices you keep telling me you’ve made, maybe? So if you tell me, maybe I can avoid tripping over it again.” She pressed another kiss against his skin. “But it’s up to you. Your secrets are yours.”

His secrets. Not so much secrets as failures. The dead he carried with him like any soldier did. Friends he hadn’t been able to save. And then there was Ally.

Raina needed to know about Ally sooner or later. “I lost someone,” he said softly. “I mean, I’ve lost plenty of people. Kind of hard to avoid in my old line of work.”

“But this one was different? Who was she?”

“How do you know it was a she?”

“Call it a lucky guess,” she said and snuggled closer.

He tightened his arm around her, breathing in the smell of her.

“Do you want to tell me?”

Ally. How did he start with Ally? How to describe who she was? Who she had been. Who she’d become. The fierce wildness of her. Though the woman in his arms, though smaller and very different, had her own flavor of fierce and wild. So maybe she’d understand. Ally would have liked Raina. Probably would have gotten up on stage and demanded to learn how to dance in a corset and four-inch heels if she’d had the chance. But she never would.

“Ally was a soldier,” he said. “Kind of wild. I was kind of wild back then, too. We got each other through some tough times.”

“You loved her?” Raina’s voice was very quiet.

“Yes,” he said and even now, it made his breath go rough for a minute. “Very much.”

“What happened?”

“She got out of the army a few months before I did,” he said. “And by the time I got home, she wasn’t doing so well. Finding the transition hard. Stay in long enough and some people get addicted to the adrenaline rush.”

“I get that,” Raina said. “Performers get addicted to the high of it, too.”

“I thought she’d settle down,” Mal said. “I got her to talk to a counselor, thought that would help. Thought she just needed time. But she kept taking risks. Rock climbing. Parachuting.” Too much alcohol and other things. But he didn’t need to tell Raina that part. “One day she went ultragliding and things went wrong. She died.”

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