Enigma: Prologue to Live Wire Read online

  “I can walk away from any woman, Tehya.” He tried to keep his tone soft, gentle. God knew he didn’t want to fray those ragged edges further.

  Soft lips tightened as the sharp blade of her nose tightened. Emerald green eyes sharpened to a gem brightness, not from tears, no, Tehya didn’t cry easily. Hell, had he seen her cry at all in all the years he had known her? Definitely he hadn’t seen her cry for herself.

  “Can you really?” Her head tipped to the side. “Isn’t that nice, Jordan, to be so certain you need nothing, no one. How superior you must feel to the rest of us mortals.”

  Sharp, biting, her voice cut straight through the icy disdain he would have shown any other woman. The problem was, with Tehya, there was simply nothing but raw lust and shadowed emotions. That was the reason he stayed as far the hell away from her as possible.

  He couldn’t project an icy disdain that simply wasn’t there. What he did have was a dick so damned hard he could pound iron with it.

  “I don’t feel superior, Tehya.” Frankly, he felt lacking. In the past years, watching the happiness that filled men who had once been cold, hardened warriors, he’d finally realized what he’d lost in his life.

  It was a loss he had accepted long ago, he reminded himself. He couldn’t make the mistakes he had made in the past. The blood and rage that stained the darkest days of his life were never forgotten.

  “The hell you don’t.” Anger filled her voice, but naked need filled her eyes. “You stood above your men daily staring down that sharp, arrogant nose of yours as though they were recalcitrant children in need of discipline for actually daring to love. You were mockingly amused at the lot of them.”

  Surprise started inside him. Was this what his men thought? What his nephew thought? That he felt himself better than they because they loved?

  He’d be damned if that were the truth. He knew the choices he had made, just as he knew that his men were in a far better position than he. They had someone to hold onto at night, someone to ease the aching loneliness.

  “Is that what you really believe, Tehya?” He took a step forward, feeling blistering need and offended anger crowding inside him.

  He promised himself before coming here that he wouldn’t touch her, that he would simply tell her goodbye.

  Goodbye wasn’t going to be enough.

  “Why don’t you just go ahead and leave, Commander Jordan,” she sneered, those tempting witch’s eyes flaring back at him as the fiery red of her lashes seemed to blaze around the iridescent color. “There’s the door, don’t let it hit you in the ass. Isn’t that what you Americans say?”

  A whisper of French, that alluring little accent that only came out under the most extreme situations whispered across his senses as it always did.

  It may have whispered across his senses but it seemed to wrap around his cock and squeeze. His balls tightened, the tormenting ache filling them increasingly.

  She did this to him. She made him crazy like this and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to stop it. It traveled through his bloodstream like poison, like a potent drug, stripping away the control he prided himself on and leaving him grasping at the threads of decency as he tried to force himself away from her.

  “You don’t want to keep pushing this,” he warned her.

  “Well hell, you must be enjoying it, Commander, you’re still standing here.” Her breasts were heaving, the nipples so hard beneath the silken material he swore they were going to pop right through the threads.

  The urge to lick his lips was almost overpowering. The need for her was almost overpowering.

  “I could fuck you,” he growled then. “It’s what you want, it’s what we both want, but have you considered what would happen the morning after?”

  “Will there be a morning after?” she questioned him roughly. “Aren’t you the one who said you could fuck me, but then you would have to kill me? Double O Seven has nothing on you, does he, stud?”

  Stud? She did not just call him Stud?

  Damn her, the woman didn’t have the good sense to know when to keep her smart mouth shut or her tender heart safe.

  Before he could stop himself, his hands were on her. His fingers curled around her upper arms as he jerked her to him, watching as her eyes widened, her hair seeming to flow around her as the pure silk of her flesh met the calloused roughness of his hands.

  And then he froze. Because her skin was so fucking soft. Beneath his palms felt as heated, warm and soft as a cloud itself.

  Spreading his fingers apart he touched her with his palms only, watching as he let the inner part of his hand cup the curve of her shoulder.

  Hell, he wanted her. He wanted to fuck her until he was mindless with it, until nothing or no one mattered but Tehya.

  She would be the death of him.

  That was but a distant thought as he let himself relish the feel of his palms. He swore he could feel the sizzle of heat just below the flesh, drawing him, surging through his pores and washing through his system.

  “Bad idea.” Swallowing tightly, he stared back at her, so focused on the strength of the need surging through him that all thoughts of pulling back evaporated.

  The emerald green of her eyes darkened, glittering with need as he watched her lips tremble.

  “Six years,” she whispered. “I waited…”

  He didn’t want to hear it. He couldn’t hear it. The words she was about to whisper would be words she would regret the moment she realized that it wouldn’t have mattered if it had been twenty years.

  To hold back the words he covered her lips with his, because he couldn’t let himself hear it.

  And everything in the fucking world exploded.

  Son of a bitch.

  He would have froze if every lust cell in his body hadn’t risen in revolt. Because by freezing, he would be stopping. Hell no.

  He tasted her.

  His tongue slipped over her lips, licked at them, and before he could retrieve his basic common sense, he gave into this one hunger.

  It wouldn’t go any further. He wouldn’t allow it.

  But this one pleasure was incredible.

  Tehya was terrified to breathe, to whimper in hunger, or to moan in pleasure. She was entranced by the kiss she hadn’t really expected, held enthralled by a hunger that suddenly exploded through her system. His tongue stroked against hers, exciting that feminine, sensual part of her that went deeper than she had ever imagined.

  But oh God.

  She could feel herself trembling, shaking against him. Her hand lifted, fingers outspread, not really touching him. She wanted to touch him. Desperately. Feel him.

  He was warm, so warm. The feel of his lips moving against hers, over them, his tongue stroking against hers sent pleasure racing through her as she lifted, strained to get closer without gripping his arms and pulling herself straight into his embrace.

  His fingers curved around her shoulders, held her to him. Her fingers curled and before she knew it she was gripping the material of his shirt, feeling the rolled sleeves beneath them.

  Okay, maybe he wouldn’t feel her hands shaking through the material of his clothing. Maybe he wouldn’t sense the incredible need that, there seemed, there was no escape from. A need that had tormented her since the day she had met him.

  “God. Tey.” His hands slid down her arms, gripped her hips and jerked her closer, pulling her against the hard, heated length of his cock.

  Behind denim, thick and hard, the heated flesh of his erection was a wedge of temptation, a promise of satisfaction, and it was pressing into her lower stomach. She could feel the promise of satisfaction within her grasp. His hands gripped and kneaded her ass, lifting her, the silk of her gown falling, pressing between her legs as she felt his thigh wedging between hers, the rough denim rubbing the silk against the swollen, sensitive flesh of her sex.

  She had never deemed herself a romantic person, but she saw starbursts.

  His teeth nipped at her lips as she gasped,
fighting to draw in oxygen as his lips tore from hers, the rasp of the day’s growth of his beard scraping against her jaw in a caress that had her arching closer.

  It was exquisite. It was better than she had ever imagined it could be, and her imagination was damned good.

  “Jordan.” The gasp of his name was a sigh of pleasure as she felt his hand move from her rear to her thigh, his fingers edging beneath the silk of her gown, the calloused tips of his fingers stroking up the outside of her thigh.

  “Is this what you want, Tey?” His arm wrapped around her waist, lifted her, and before she could do more than breathe out roughly she was pressed against the wall as he lifted her thigh, pulling it to his hips as he lifted her closer.

  Her gown fell back from her thighs as she felt his hard, muscular thigh press harder, more firmly into the sensitive mound of her pussy.

  Her clit throbbed. The aching torment of unquenched pleasure rose inside her, burning through her body, and dampening her skin with perspiration.

  “Answer me, Tey.” Rougher, darker, his voice stroked over her senses as she felt his fingers curve over the bare flesh of her rear. “Is this what you want, sweetheart?” His fingers curved, pushed beneath the curve of her rear, and found the lush, slick flesh weeping in need between her thighs.

  “Yes.” It was a hiss of exquisite pleasure. His fingers stroked, rubbing against the clenched opening of her pussy and sent rasping flares of sensation rushing through the sensitive flesh, through her clit and straight to her womb.

  Oh God, she wanted to come. She was so close. She could feel the need throbbing in her clit, rushing through her veins. It was a pleasure borne of emotion, and she knew it. Emotion she kept tightly reined, until now.

  Until his fingers rubbed against her opening, pressed and parted the sensitive flesh to slip inside, just enough to make her entire body burn. To penetrate just deep enough to make her hungrier, to make her moan in rising excitement.

  “You’ve been begging for it, Tey,” he said, his voice sounding as desperate now, as tormented as her body felt.

  “And you haven’t?” she gasped, her head rolling against the wall as those two fingers sank just deeply enough to drag an unwilling cry from her throat. “Every time you warned one of your men off…” A startled, desperate cry tore from her lips as his fingers jerked back, then plunged forward, stroking inside her with a whiplash of intensity certain to weaken her mind.

  Her hips jerked, trying to force his fingers deeper as she felt her juices gathering, saturating his fingers as he pulled back and thrust inside her again.

  “If one of my men had touched you I would have had to kill him,” he suddenly snarled a second before his teeth nipped at her shoulder, the tiny shock of heat flooding her womb as his fingers pressed deeper. “I would have made sure he was gone, Tehya, one way or the other.”

  Those wild blue eyes glared into her as his head lifted, his dark face flushed with lust as she fought to keep her eyes open. It was hard. She wanted to look at him, to see him as he touched her, as lust poured into his gaze.

  She had waited so long for this. For his kiss, for his touch. She didn’t want to miss so much as a single sensation.

  He didn’t give her a chance to reply. His lips moved back to hers, kissing her with a greedy hunger that had her arching closer as her fingers gripped the back of his neck, beneath the long strands of rich, silky black hair.

  She had never known sensations so rich and lush, so incredibly vivid. She had had sex before, but never had it made her mindless, made her so desperate for it that all she could do was hold on and silently plead for more.

  A keening wail tore from her throat as the fingers lodged inside her began to rub rather than thrust. He chose a spot so ultra sensitive, so wickedly heated that she began to shake from the sensations.

  Her entire body was stretched on a rack of such incredible pleasure that she felt intoxicated. Her senses were dazed with the overload of sensations, her pussy clenching, tightening on the two wicked fingers stroking her with diabolical intent.

  “There, Tehya,” he panted as his lips slid from hers again. “You’re so wet, baby. So sweet and hot. So fucking tight.”

  Her pussy spasmed again, her juices spilling to his fingers as his head lowered, his teeth raking against her neck as he nipped and kissed the sensitive flesh there.

  The low cut bodice of her gown was pushed aside, her breasts rising to his lips, her nipples hard, aching, as he kissed a path to the first.

  Tehya swore she lost consciousness for a moment as his lips surrounded the hardened bud.

  Pleasure exploded through her.

  The feel of his lips drawing on the tender tip sent sensations racing straight to her womb. Ecstasy struck at her clit, her pussy. Fire raced through her, jerking her hips, driving her sex against his fingers as she nearly climaxed from the intensity of it.

  Nearly. Almost. She was so close to coming. She could feel her orgasm just out of reach, teasing her with the promise of mindless rapture as his fingers slid back and thrust inside her, driving into the responsive tissue and stroking a maelstrom of eroticism in their wake.

  Before she could process the fact that he had moved, Tehya suddenly found herself sprawled over the low bar that separated the living area from the kitchen. Jordan’s fingers were still inside her, fucking her with forceful strokes as her hips arched, her thighs falling further apart as he sucked, licked and nipped at the tender tips of her breasts.

  She felt the wildness of his response, the hunger she had glimpsed in his eyes burning out of control as he groaned around her nipple.

  She was finally in his arms. He was kissing her, touching her.

  “You’ll destroy us both,” he whispered as his lips moved from one nipple to its mate.

  She couldn’t answer, it was all she could do to breathe. The fingers of one hand held tight to his neck as she gripped his wrist with the other, desperate to force his fingers to thrust harder, deeper inside her. To give her that extra, added sensation that she needed to slip over the edge into orgasm.

  She just wanted to come. She wanted that heated, destructive release tearing through her before anything could interrupt it, before Jordan could regain his control and pull back from her.

  Then his fingers were sliding from her. There was no time to protest the action, no chance to make sense of the sudden desertion. His hands gripped her thighs, pushed them further apart, and in the space of a heartbeat, his tongue licked through the bare, saturated folds of her pussy.

  Tehya froze. Her body quivered, so close to orgasm it was agony to wait as she stared down her body and met those wild blue eyes.

  And he let her watch. Watch as his tongue stroked around and laved the swollen, flushed bud of her clit. It rubbed against the pulsing knot of nerves, sent clenching fingers of sensation spearing to her pussy, jerking her body tight and dragging a desperate cry from her lips.

  Pushing her thighs further apart his lips went lower, flickering over the quivering entrance before he thrust inside suddenly, spearing into the sensitive channel before licking with diabolical greed and wicked hunger.

  Tehya felt herself exploding. Arching, shaking, her back came up, her fingers clenching in his hair as the rush of flames tore through her body and seared across her nerve-endings in violent response.

  The rush of liquid heat between her thighs had Jordan groaning into the swollen folds of her pussy.

  He’d never tasted anything as sweet, as rain-soft as this woman’s response to his touch. Her body was tight, shuddering, pleasure tearing through her as he brought her to orgasm, holding onto her, amplifying it with soft licks of his tongue and the little rubbing motion he used against the underside of her clit.

  She was jerking in his arms, crying out his name, her voice hoarse, filled with emotion. God, he didn’t want to hear the emotion. This was one night only. It was supposed to be one kiss only, but the damage had already been done. They were both so damned hungry for this that he knew
there would be no staying away from each other unless this was finished.

  Then he could return to showing the world what a cold, hard bastard he really was. He would return to showing Tehya that there was no future to this, ever. That tonight was all they could ever have.

  As the final pulses of her orgasm flexed against his tongue, Jordan slid back slowly, lapping at her, filling his senses with the sweetness of her before straightening, picking her up in his arms and carrying her to her bedroom.

  He had been here only once before, when she first came to the Operation center. He had shown her to the small underground apartment, shown her around.

  When they had stepped into the bedroom, tension had whipped in the air, even then.

  It wasn’t much different now. Boxes were packed and awaiting transport rather than awaiting unpacking. The bed was larger, a king-sized rather than full as it had once been.

  He laid her in the center of the bed, narrowed his eyes down at her as he undressed.

  Shedding the last of his clothes, Jordan watched as Tehya tossed her gown to the floor. It would have been a shame to ruin the silk, but he would have torn it from her if she hadn’t removed it herself.

  Gripping the base of his dick he fought back the need to simply fuck her. That was what he should do. He should go right to her, thrust inside her and drive them both to climax.

  But he needed more. He ached for more. He had his own fantasies to fulfill tonight, especially this one.

  He watched as she sat before him, pushing her hair back, staring up at him with those witchy eyes as she licked her lips slowly.

  Jordan eased onto the bed, kneeling in front of her, the overriding lust stripping away what little restraint he had held onto over the years.

  His hand slid into the back of her head, delving beneath those silky curls.

  “You know what I want,” he growled, almost wincing at the sound of his own voice. “Suck my dick, Tehya. Let me fuck that sweet mouth.”

  Response flared in her eyes and he wanted to curse. He hated himself. Hated the needs that tore through him, the dominance that was too much a core part of him, and the hunger he couldn’t still for this too-delicate woman.