Caine's Reckoning Read Online Free PDF Page B

side as she went. One, two, three. The well of his navel tempted her tongue to linger, and flick. The inhalation of his breath proved an incentive to tease.
    The gap that spread between the waistband of his pants and his flesh became an invite to explore. She caught the faint line of hair that started below, trapping a strand in her teeth, tugging it instinctively, smiling when he sucked in a harsh breath. He wasn’t so different after all.
    Caine’s hand cupped her skull, once again applying that subtle direction she was coming to expect. She opened her mouth, pressing a hot kiss to the hard flesh of his abdomen, tracing a scar with her tongue until the smooth center ended just to the left of his navel in a rough pucker of healed flesh.
    Thumbs under her chin pressed back, putting an inch between her mouth and his stomach, but never surrendering control, holding her in place for his pleasure. “Unbutton my pants.”
    She reached for the gun belt, flicking her tongue over her lips as she did, feeling his gaze as intently as a touch, the ache in her nipples a foreign, distracting sensation she pushed aside. “Leave the guns,” he said, surprising her. She glanced up. He was staring at her with eyes gone dark with passion and something else she couldn’t define. “They might come in handy.”
    She didn’t know whether to be comforted or dismayed he was still so aware of their location and the risk.
    It was harder to get his pants undone with the heavy weight of the guns dragging on the belt, but he didn’t fuss or swear, just waited patiently, his thumbs stroking her cheeks as she wrestled with the task. Around them the grass rustled with the passing breeze and birds chirped in a soothing melody she clung to, not understanding nor trusting the undercurrents that made this time feel so different.
    She finally got the top two buttons undone. The next three relinquished the battle with an eagerness that reflected the increase in Caine’s respiration, the only indication beyond his engorged cock she had that he was aroused. His stoicism annoyed her on some deeply feminine level she didn’t begin to understand.
    His hands left her cheeks just long enough to lower his pants the inches she needed to free his cock. And they definitely needed to lower. The thick shaft was too hard and too long just to pull out. A minute of expectant silence surrounded them as inch after inch appeared until finally, the broad head fell into her hand, swollen with passion, rigid with need, too heavy to stand upright. Dear God, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to make him fit. She gave him a tentative squeeze, running her tongue over her lip.
    His hand dropped to her shoulder while the other curved under her jaw, steadying her through the awkward moment.
    “Hungry, baby?”
    She shook her head on an instinctive “no.”
    His weight shifted and the whole atmosphere of the moment shifted right along with it. Desi’s sense of power blinked out as if it’d never existed, and she was, once again, just a pathetically weak woman on her knees before a man who held all the cards.
    “That’s what I thought.” The hand under her chin turned her face up to his, and she knew what that something else was she’d seen in his gaze. Pity. Her nails dug into Caine’s thighs as he said, “Seems to me a woman must be pretty damned desperate to be willing to freeze her ass off bargaining with a stranger this way.”
    She closed her eyes as emotion washed over her in a sick wave. She didn’t know what was stronger, despair or horror, just that both were potent contributors to the humiliation that had a stranglehold on her voice. “Maybe I’m just a natural born whore.”
    The statement she wanted to sound cold and matter-of-fact came out high and strained. Caine cocked his head to the side. His thumb stroked the corner of her mouth. “It’s been my experience there’s no such thing. Just women who’ve run out of options.”
    The downward tug on her