Fire Bound (Sea Haven Sisters Read online

  She heard her own panting lungs, the ragged breathing she couldn’t control. Her body didn’t feel like her own, it belonged to him. She couldn’t take her eyes from the sight of him feasting on her breasts. Her nipples ached. Hurt. Needed. The hunger in her was so sharp, so terrible, she gripped his hair in her fist and thought to push him toward the straining twin peaks. She couldn’t. She could only cling. Her pulse pounded in her clit. Slick heat gathered so that her panties went damp. Her heart hammered. She moistened her lips with her tongue. Waiting. She thought she might die with the wait. His mouth kept moving, following the path she wanted him to take, but slow, far too slow.

  Then he was there. His tongue lapped at her nipple and fire streaked. Raged. Flames rushed through her bloodstream, hitting her core like a fireball. She gasped. Cried out. His mouth closed over her breast, drew her nipple into the scalding, moist cavern, flattening the hard peak against the roof of his mouth. He suckled. Her knees buckled. She was forced to hang on to him or fall.

  “I can’t stand up,” she admitted, gasping the truth when she wanted to scream with pleasure.

  Casimir spent a good deal of time being a lover. He was expert at it. He could be anyone and easily became whatever his mark was looking for. Whatever they needed. He had complete command of his body at all times. He was that disciplined. He’d learned that discipline in a very hard, brutal school, but that had served him well over the years. His body never spun out of control. His cock never went hard and hot and aching, so painful he thought he might burst, not like now. Never without consent. Until now.

  He’d lost that control somewhere in the hours on that plane, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. He’d been into his role, deliberately, for his own amusement, annoying her, getting under her skin, and somehow, she’d gotten under his with her soft-spoken kindness. His body forgot those long hours of harsh lessons and spun out of control. By the time they’d reached Italy, he was a walking hard-on, something he hadn’t experienced since he was a boy.

  In his youth, before he realized there was no escaping the life monsters had chosen for him, he dreamt of a woman of his own. Fiery. Passionate. Oddly enough, a flaming redhead. Lissa was definitely everything he’d ever dreamt of. She’d been so calm on the plane with all of his taunting, but he’d seen the fire in her. Caught glimpses of it. She would catch fire fast, burn hotter than any volcano and come apart for him.

  Her skin was softer than he thought possible. He’d managed twice on the plane to get into her space enough to feel the satin under his fingertips. Any more than twice and he would have totally creeped her out. She wasn’t a woman to be trifled with. The heat in her eyes warned him so he’d resisted touching her. Now, he couldn’t get enough of sliding his hands over her narrow rib cage to cup her breasts while he fed.

  She was sensitive. Very sensitive. He took every advantage of that. His body might not be in his complete control, but he had enough experience to know when a woman liked something and when she loved it. Especially when something drove her out of her mind with pleasure.

  He wanted her hands on him. His cock was so full he was afraid he’d burst with the urgent, demanding hunger roaring through him, but he couldn’t rush this. Couldn’t let his own need make him lose sight of what was most important. She had kissed him back, her kisses better than anything he’d ever experienced because she was kissing him, Casimir Prakenskii, not one of his many aliases. She knew who he was and she wanted him, not one of them. He might not know who he was, but everything he knew about himself was definitely hers. All of him. What there was left of him. It might be miniscule, but the real man was there somewhere, and that man belonged to this woman.

  He hadn’t realized just how far gone he was. A man could only live so long in the shadows without an identity before the darkness consumed him. He’d made up his mind to try his hand at killing the Sorbacovs, both father and son. He knew they would be expecting those from the school to come after them, and they would be waiting. Kostya Sorbacov knew each of those students and what they were capable of. He would be looking for the master of disguises and suspicious of every man coming near them. Casimir didn’t expect to come out of the encounter alive, but he was fairly certain he could kill at least one, if not both of his targets.

  Holding Lissa in his arms, his hands moving over her soft skin, his cock pressed tight against her body, his mouth on her breast, touched something deep in him, something he hadn’t known existed. She was like the sun itself. Hot and bright, burning for him. Giving him that light when he needed it the most – when he was all but lost. Her breathy little moans filled his ears. Music. Beautiful. Filling his soul.

  He wasn’t a poetry kind of man. He’d skipped the lesson on hearts and flowers, but there it was. He needed her to see him. To want him. He needed her like he needed air just to breathe. All along he’d been swallowed by the shadows, but somehow, she found him and her bright light burst over him.

  He kissed his way back up the slope of her breast, her throat, nibbled on her chin and took her mouth again, needing to catch one of those soft little moans and swallow it. Her mouth was like velvet, but so hot he thought he might burn there forever. Her nails bit into his shoulders, scored down his back, and she went a little wild against him. He loved that no one else had kissed her. He knew they hadn’t the moment her tongue danced so shyly with his. She was only for him. Made for him. Her body’s reaction was real. For him. He loved that. Needed it like a man starving.

  She shuddered. Trembled. He deepened the kiss and slowly began to walk her backward toward his bed. He wanted to take her against the wall, right there, or the floor, anywhere at all, but this first time had to be the bed and he had to find it in him to be gentle. To keep the brutal need, so stark and raw, from swallowing them both alive.

  “Unbutton my jeans,” he ordered against her mouth. He didn’t stop kissing her. He couldn’t. He was fairly certain if someone were stupid enough to walk in on them and stop him, their life would be in danger. He needed. It felt good to need. The vicious ache in his cock felt good because it was real. More, even better, she wiped away the long years of emptiness, the dark, ugly memories of living day to day in other roles with the sole purpose of killing. She took all of that away and replaced that darkness with her fire. With her skin, and the hot pleasure of her mouth. The promise of paradise in her body. Real paradise. Not the unemotional detachment and discipline his body was forced to perform when touching a woman.

  Her hands didn’t just drop from his shoulders, she moved them down his body, branding him with her touch. Little flames seemed to dance over him. The room temperature went up along with the heat centering in his cock. His heavy erection pressed so tight against his jeans he was afraid the material would burst – or melt.

  Her palms continued down his body, gliding over his skin, lingering until he wanted to take command, but at the same time, with her feeding his natural hunger, the craving and anticipation grew in him, and he loved that. Loved he could feel so intensely. Her hands dropped to the waistband of his jeans riding low on his hips. She didn’t fumble, but she did tremble. Emotion burst through him. A desire to protect her. To hold her to him and keep her safe from everything and everyone – even him.

  He took a deep, shuddering breath and dropped his hands over hers. “Giacinta.”

  She looked up at him with her incredible blue eyes. He tried not to fall. Not to drown in all that blue. “I’m Lissa now. My sisters don’t know me as Giacinta. I haven’t told them yet, but if I get back to them, I will.”

  He nodded. Understanding. “In this bedroom, I’m Casimir and you’re Giacinta. We have to be real. And you have to know what I am. The things I’ve done. Not once, but many, many times.”

  She continued to look up at him for a very long moment. An eternity while time stood still for him. His blood thundered in his ears. Need pulsed in his cock. His entire being centered on her. Her lips began a slow curve. She ducked her head. Shook it. Her hands, beneath his, began
to work on the buttons of his jeans, slowly, one by one, with his hands covering hers, opening them.

  “Do you know what I’ve done, Casimir? You were there today, with Belsky. You knew I was there playing my role of Patrice Lungren. Patrice is still me when she goes after targets.”

  His jeans were open and her hands went to the waistband. Inside. Palms against his bare skin, thumbs hooked in the band. Her head tipped back and she looked up at him. Shyness, yes. Fear, no. She began to slowly divest him of his jeans and underwear. Her hands slid over his hips, down his thighs. She crouched, taking them lower to his ankles. He dropped a hand on her shoulder and lifted one leg at a time until he was stark naked, and his cock was harder and fuller than it had ever been.

  She stood up, slowly, her hands on either side of his thighs, burning a brand there while her eyes locked on his cock. She stared at the length and thickness of his erection. She was close enough that he felt her breasts skimming against him. Hard little points that beckoned. Soft, lush curves that he craved to get his mouth around. His tongue on. His teeth. She was short enough that when she bent her head, he felt the breath of her on his broad, velvet crown. Small droplets leaked out. Her tongue swept the full curve of her lower lip.

  Instantly every fantasy he’d ever had about her mouth flooded his mind. His cock jerked. As if mesmerized, her hands moved up his thighs, gliding over the muscles there, claiming him before they moved inward, cupping his heavy sac. His breath left his lungs in a rush. His mind slipped further into chaos. Into need. Into a place he’d never experienced. A fire roared. Threatened to break free and run wild.

  He didn’t stop her. He couldn’t do that. He didn’t have that kind of strength, when he’d been so certain he was stronger than any man alive, other, perhaps, than his brothers. He’d been sure he was more disciplined, had more control. All that was swept away by her small, delicate hands and her touch that burned through skin, straight to bone.

  “You have to know what you’re doing, Lissa. We do this, you give yourself to me, there’s no taking it back. Not once it’s done. You have to understand that. I get this, you hand it to me, you can’t just take it away.”

  Her hands moved over his balls, so gently, reverently, as if she were memorizing the shape and feel of them. He could only see the top of her head as she bent to examine that part of him.

  “You know neither of us has much time, Casimir. If we were always meant to be together, and I’ve seen that bond between your brothers and my sisters, then we deserve this night and any other nights we manage to get in before we make our try.”

  The heat of her breath was on his cock. Fiery hot. Scorching him. Her fingers rolled and kneaded for a moment and then her breath was there – right the hell on his balls – and he felt the first tentative touch of her tongue. This time his breath exploded from his body. His entire world narrowed to his balls and cock. There was nothing else but that part of his anatomy.

  She licked over him. Like an ice cream cone. Clearly tasting him. Very gently she sucked at the tender flesh of his balls and then rolled them again before her tongue took a leisurely foray up his shaft. One hand still cupped his balls, but the other went exploring right behind her tongue, her palm sliding up his length and teasing the underside of his flared crown.

  He threw back his head, trying not to roar with need. His hand cupped the back of her head, desperate to push her head down, to feel the velvet heat of her mouth surrounding him, but he knew better. His control wasn’t in shreds yet, although she was fast bringing him closer to that edge.

  He was aware of the way she massaged his balls, sending streaks of fire racing through his groin while her tongue continued exploring. She licked the droplets off of him, one fist closing around his shaft at the base. He knew she wasn’t experienced, but the intensity of her investigation coupled with her obvious enjoyment sent his senses reeling. She made him feel more than he’d ever felt before with any of the experienced women he had deliberately seduced.

  Casimir drew his hand down the length of her silky hair, fingers weaving and sifting, trying to distract himself enough from the fire spreading through his groin, from the need to have her mouth take him deep. She didn’t. She used her tongue to get to know his size and shape, but denied him that one thing he craved.

  “Are you afraid, Lissa?” His voice wasn’t his own. He sounded husky, almost hoarse. His cock raged at him. At her. With needs all its own. Needs he had never felt before, not like this. Not real. Not without him forcing his mind to go there, thinking to pleasure a woman to get the information he needed.

  Lissa wasn’t looking to be pleasured by him. She made it clear she was giving him pleasure. That she wanted to know every inch of him. His thighs. His balls. His cock. She’d showed attention to his chest, his back and shoulders. She was exploring, taking her time about it, trusting him to let her do what she was comfortable with. But she was killing him slowly.

  “Golubushka, tell me if you’re afraid of this.”

  “No. I want to get to know every inch of you. I want to claim you. I know once I’m on that bed with you, you’ll take over, and that’s a good thing. I want that. But I need to do this for me. I’m trying to tell you something about me. About us. About what is important to me, and this is the only way I know to do it.”

  She didn’t lift her head, but her gaze met his and once again that pure blue drew him into her. She wasn’t pleading. Lissa Piner didn’t plead. She wanted. Him. She was making that clear. Staking her own claim in her own way. She was claiming every inch of him, making him hers, branding him. His woman might be shy about this, but she wasn’t afraid and she had confidence in them together.

  He caught one hand and drew it beneath his balls, pressing her finger against that soft spot between his balls and anus, the one that could bring a man a great deal of pleasure just by stroking. He showed her and then brought his own hand back to her bare skin. Stroking caresses as her finger and mouth drove him mad.

  His palm itched, the burn in the center reminding him that she belonged to him. That once he marked her, nothing could come between them. His mark would create a pathway between their minds. The silk of her hair brushed against the mark, and he felt it as if her tongue had glided over him, leaving behind a trail of fire.

  “Give me this, Casimir, and then we do everything your way. I truly want that, but I need this.” She didn’t stop stroking him. Learning what pleased him that fast.

  Her breath was hot now, bathing the velvet crown of his cock in scorching flame. His hips moved convulsively, thrusting toward that heat, and to his shock, her lips parted and she took him in. Her mouth was scalding. Soft. Moist. Everything and more than he’d fantasized over. Fingernails raked down his thigh and then around to his buttocks. She cupped him, drew his hips toward her, her fist tightening around the base of his cock as her tongue swirled over the crown, catching every leaking drop.

  He was large. He knew that. In some cases it was a good thing. When it came to being in that hot, sacred mouth, that paradise he’d unconsciously sought his entire life, maybe not so much. He wanted all the way in. All the way. He wanted to bury himself deep, feel his balls against her delicate chin, the head of him with her throat squeezing around him. He wanted it all. He stayed in control, but just barely, he was losing it fast. She shredded it with her mouth and fingers so easily.

  She used her tongue and then sucked him deeper. An inch. Cautious. Still exploring.

  “Lissa, I have to tell you the truth here. You’re done with claiming. I’m branded. Yours. No one else. You alone. I’m not going to be able to take much more, so let’s move this to the bed.” He meant it. He was more than about done, he was already gone. His icy, rigid control had melted under the siege of her fiery mouth and he had to end this before he began thrusting deep and scared the hell out of her.

  5

  Lissa tilted her head back, but she didn’t release Casimir’s cock. The head was so soft, like velvet, broad and flared, and he tasted
delicious. Salty, but unique. She couldn’t quite figure out how when everything she’d read told her some women didn’t like the taste. Maybe the taste varied from man to man, but whatever, she wasn’t letting Casimir take over until she was done. And she wasn’t done.

  She looked up at him and drew him a little deeper. Suckled. Watched his eyes grow even darker with lust. He liked what she was doing. She might not know exactly what to do, but her instincts and all the books she’d read gave her a few clues. Lust mixed with emotions she couldn’t name blazed in the shocking silver of his eyes. She loved that look. That passion she’d kept locked up for so long answered that look. She felt it rise in her even more.

  She loved the taste and shape of him. The steel spike under all that soft skin. She loved to run her tongue along that throbbing vein and tease the underside of the head with her tongue so she could feel him pulse hotly in her mouth. She really loved the way his fingers curled in her hair, forming two tight fists while he held her head in position without forcing it down over him. She loved that his hips seemed to thrust without his consent. Shallow, but with enough insistence that she knew he could take over at any moment, but he chose not to.

  Staring into his eyes, she sucked him deeper, sliding her mouth around him, getting used to his girth. It wasn’t easy, but Lissa never backed down when she wanted something, and seeing the look in his eyes, feeling the nearly helpless movement of his hips, she wanted this more than she wanted most things. For herself. For him. Because neither one of them ever had anything real. For her, this was the real woman giving something to the real man. She wanted him to understand that. This was for Casimir Prakenskii and not one of the many roles he played.