The Enemy Within (Daughters of the People Series Book 3) (11 page)

She pressed her
lips together, needing him so much. Where did a woman start with a man like
Bobby, with his dangerous eyes and godlike body and a touch that sent her
soaring higher than she’d ever been?

“When you do
that, I want to lick your mouth until you open for me.”

She huffed out a
breath. “Do you catalogue every gesture my mouth makes?”

“Every. Single.
One.” His gaze heated her where it flicked down her body. “Come to me.”

The low command
shivered through her, leaving her weak and helpless.

“Don’t make me
wait, Indi.” He held out a hand, beckoning her closer. “I need you.”

She clasped her
hand in his, let him tug her forward as she crawled onto the bed and straddled
his waist, lifted herself above him and guided his erection with her fingers
until the tip nudged at the entrance to her wet heat.

“Don’t stop,” he
said.

“I won’t. Not
this time.”

She shifted her
hips, taking him in little by little until he was completely sheathed and her
sex stretched, deliciously full. He rested one hand on her thigh, ran the other
down her stomach, down, down, and delved his fingers into the folds of her sex,
rubbing against the little nub hidden there.

Wild pleasure
streaked through her. “Bobby,” she breathed, and braced her hands against his
chest. She moved over him, undulating her hips slowly, sliding over his hard
length. Heat flooded through her, overwhelming her with a suddenness that took
her breath. He made her
want
, made her
feel
, and it was so good,
so
good
. She threw back her head and closed her eyes and met the rhythm he set
with the upward thrusts of his hips and the downward push of his hand on her
hip and the rub of his fingertips along her sex.

Faster and
harder they flew, their breaths gasping in time to the union of their bodies.
She lost herself in the need and the pleasure he gave her, in his low moans and
the feel of his hands on her, until she hung on the edge of a precipice,
waiting for him to join her.

He thrust up one
last time and came with a groan, his release throbbing into her, and then he
pinched the little nub he’d been rubbing, thrust into her again, and sent her tumbling
under wave after wave of her own release.

* * *

Bobby tucked a
hand under his head and stroked Indigo’s back, waiting for their breaths to
slow and their bodies to cool. Her weight was supported partially by her own
thighs. He wished she would slide her legs down and lay fully on top of him. He
wanted that, wanted to feel her skin pressed against his when she was sated and
full.

She slid to his
side with a sigh and rested her head on his chest, leaving him bereft at the
loss of her weight.

“You’re still
hard.” Her hand glanced along his hip and landed softly on his lower stomach,
just above the base of his penis. “I thought you came.”

“I did.” And
Goddess, it had been wonderful. The wet heat of her sex, the soft mews in her
throat. Desire stirred and he reined it in. “I’ll probably be like this for a
while.”

“Why?” Her
fingers slipped closer to his sex through the thick hair protecting its base.
“Was it not good?”

He laughed
softly. “It was beyond good, Indigo. Better than it ever was in my pitiful
dreams.”

Hesitation
filled her expression. He pushed her onto her back and settled on top of her.
His erection slid along the wetness at the core of her body, a remnant of their
shared pleasure, and he groaned with the beauty of it.

“Trust me,
sweetheart.” He dropped a kiss to her lips, savored her sweetness for an all
too brief moment before levering himself off the bed. “We’re gonna do this
again soon.”

Her eyes slid
closed. He took advantage of her inattention to snag his shirt off the floor.
In his rush to have her, he’d nearly exposed himself and the mark he carried on
his back. She couldn’t see it, could never know it was there.

“Is this one of
those
wham bam thank you ma’ams
?”

“What? No.” A
choked laugh escaped his throat. “Geez, Indigo, where do you get this stuff?”

“That’s what it
feels like.” She propped her head on an elbow and studied, her eyes cool pools
of sapphire. “I’m not complaining. It was really good.”

“Glad it met
your approval.”

She ignored his
sarcasm with a quiet blink. “Great, even, but the last time I did this, I’m
pretty sure there was more than two minutes of cuddling afterward.”

“So you feel
cheated, is that it?”

He crawled back
to the bed, taking his shirt with him, and aligned their bodies. Goddess, he
hated to leave her when her body was sated from their shared pleasure. He
wanted her again with a greedy desperation that surprised him. Not tonight,
though. Tonight, their first time, once was enough. Any more and it would hurt
her. Any more and she might see the
aenkanien
.

She shifted and
rested a hand against his chest. “Yes, absolutely. Also, I’m trying to figure
out why you’re rushing out of here when we’ve barely started.”

“Mom’s expecting
me home.”

Her neck was too
tempting a target to pass up. He dipped his head and licked, taking his time
exploring her skin.

“Can’t you, um…
Do that again,” she said when he nipped. “Can’t you text her or something?”

“I could, but
I’m not going to.”

She tangled her
fingers in his hair and tugged until he lifted his head. “You’re really not
staying the night.”

“Nope,” he said
firmly, and hoped she didn’t hear the regret or remember the erection he still
sported.

She arched her
hips and rubbed against him, and he sighed. She hadn’t forgotten the erection.

“I can’t believe
this.” She pushed him off and sat up, and he backed hastily away. “This is so
not what I expected from you.”

“Sorry,” he
said, and winced when she hit him, a full-blown punch in the shoulder.

“Don’t you lie
to me, Bobby Upton.” Her voice hit him like a battering ram, beating at the
guilt gnawing its way through him, degrees harder than her fist had been.
“What’s going on here?”

“Nothing. I just
have to go.”

He eased back
again and she pounced, tackling him onto the bed. He fought her in a panic,
deflecting her hands as gently as he could while she grappled with his limbs
and tried to turn him over. Her hand slipped through his guard and grasped his
penis in a firm grip. He stilled, careful not to shift suddenly. Her hand
tightened, making his breath hitch.

“Indigo, be
careful.”

“Oh, I’m going
to be careful, you weasel.” She squeezed again and his breath whooshed out of
his body with the pressure of her hand, somewhere between pleasure and pain. “I
want to see your back.”

Fear shot
through him, as wild and desperate as his need for her. “No, baby. Please don’t
ask me to do that.”

Her other hand
latched onto his balls and her fingernails dug into his scrotum. “Turn over.”

Her face had
gone cold, expressionless, though her voice was choked with anger and hurt. He
sat up slowly and, when she let go, gave her his back, exposing the tattoo he’d
tried so hard to hide from her, and with it, yet another reason for her to run
from him. He squeezed his eyes closed against the regret and the fear, and
breathed a silent prayer to the Lady Goddess.

Please let
Indigo forgive me
.

The hope that
She would hear his plea eluded him.

“Whose mark is
it? No.” Indigo’s breath came in heavy, uneven pants and her hands fell away
from him. “I don’t want to know. Just tell me, Bobby. Tell me how you could
have sex with me when you wear another woman’s mark on your shoulder.”

“Indi, honey,
it’s not like that.”

“Don’t call me
that. Don’t you dare call me that, not after we…”

Her voice
quavered and broke, and with it, his heart.

“I got this the
day I turned twenty-one.” He shifted to face her and blanched at the tears on
her cheeks. “Me and Hiro and Drew, we were home on leave and they got me drunk
as a skunk. I’m not sure exactly what happened after that.”

“You got
married.”

She said it the
way other people would say,
Well, duh, you idjit
, but with a flat rancor
he’d never heard from her.

“No, not
exactly.” He scooted closer, rubbed his forehead with shaky fingers when she
cringed away. “I had this picture in my wallet, a drawing I made a long time
ago when I was still young enough to believe I could have the woman of my
dreams.”

She curled her
legs up and wrapped her arms around them, her wide sapphire gaze scrutinizing
him as if he were a snake coiled to strike.

“Anyway, I guess
I showed it to Hiro and Drew, probably told them where it was supposed to go.
Next thing I know, I’m, er, getting sick outside a tattoo parlor with my shirt
off and my back on fire.”

Her tears had dried,
though she held herself stiffly. “Whose mark is it?’

He breathed out
a laugh. “How could you even ask?”

Her lips pressed
into a thin slash across her pale face. “That tattoo is my mark, my
aenkanien
?”

He turned,
putting his back to the light cast by the bedside lamp. “A dove in flight
carrying an olive branch in its beak and two intertwined circles in its claws.”

“It’s
beautiful.” Her fingers touched him gently, softly tracing the intricate black
line tattoo on his left shoulder blade. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want
you to feel obligated.” At her sigh, he said, “It wasn’t your fault that mark
ended up on me. I couldn’t make you take responsibility for it.”

Her hand dropped
away. “Who else knows about it?”

“My family.” He
stood and kept his back to her, ashamed to face her for the first time in his
life. Of all the things he’d done to her, this was the worst. “No one knows
whose mark it is, though.”

Her bark of
laughter held enough bitterness to have the shame curling into despair. “Your
mother does.”

He jerked around
so quickly his head spun. “No. I never told her.”

“Bobby, she
knows.”

“She’ll never
make you claim me.”

“She doesn’t
have to.” Indigo slid off the bed and stood next to him, her chill gaze steady
and even and determined. “I claim you willingly.”

“No.” Cold anger
washed over him, chased by fear. She would never love him if she were forced to
take him as her mate, never, and eventually it would kill any kindness she held
for him. He’d rather let her go than live with that. “Not like this.”

“What else is
there to be done?” She took the shirt gently from his hand. “We’ll sort it out
tomorrow, ok? I’ll talk to your mother, pay the fines, and we’ll work it out.”

“So that’s it,
then. Bobby’s made a mistake and you’re gonna make it all better.”

A puzzled frown
crossed her face.

“What about the
years I spent hacking my way through drug lords and terrorists and anyone else
the Army threw in front of me, all the time I spent burning through the anger
of your rejection by killing as many people as I could get my hands on?” He yanked
her to him. “You gonna fix that, too?”

“Bobby, please.”
Indigo’s eyes were round in a face that had gone pale. “I thought you’d want
this.”

“Oh, yeah, I
want you,” he ground out. “I want you so bad it hurts. It’s hurt for a long,
long time, Indigo.”

Her hands came
up, placating, seeking to gentle him as if he were a wild beast. “Bobby,
please. Come to bed and we’ll sort it out, I promise.”

“Yes, let’s do that.”
The fury dropped away in a rush, taking any softer emotion with it,  leaving
him as steely cold as the barrel of his gun. “Let’s go to bed.”

He rushed her,
capturing her in a quick grab, and threw her onto the bed, following her as she
scrambled back.

“What are you
doing, Bobby?”

“Living up to my
nickname.”

He grabbed her
foot and brought the inside of her ankle to his lips, licking the salty
sweetness of her silky skin into his mouth.

“I don’t
understand,” she said. “Can’t we just talk about it?”

She tugged at
her foot and he nipped at her skin, not enough to hurt, only enough to keep her
still.

“Oh, but we are.
Don’t you want to know what you’re in for?” He licked up her leg and when she
squirmed, he grabbed her other ankle and held it against the mattress with a
hard grip. “Don’t you want to know what kind of man you’re taking on?”

“I know what
kind of man you are, Bobby.”

He licked into
the crevice of her knee. Primal satisfaction ripped through him when her breath
hitched and her fingers curled into the bedspread. “Do you, Indigo?” He ran his
hands up her shins and pinned her legs down just below her knees. “I was very
effective at what I did.”