Watching, desperate to breathe, but unable to draw in a full breath, she watched as the dew-slick folds parted, encasing the heavy width of his c.o.c.khead as it began pressing inside the entrance.

At the first, heavy pressure a wave of sensation tore through her, taking her breath.

Her v.a.g.i.n.a clenched in a spasming wave of such painful pleasure that she cried out at the renewed shock of it. The intense sensations were so erotic, so exquisitely sensual that a shock wave of impending ecstasy struck at her womb, her body jerking with it.

The throb of her c.l.i.t, the erotic ache in her p.u.s.s.y all combined to send a rush of heated moisture to meet the crest now capping the entrance.

"Crowe." The first, fiery stretch, the protesting muscles of her entrance parting for him, the feel of his c.o.c.k throbbing as it wedged her open, pulsing, teasing her with the impending impalement, filled her senses with a hunger that bordered addictive.

"Yes," she hissed, then cried out in protest as he retreated, stealing the fiery pleasure-pain.

Only to repeat the process.

Continually working his c.o.c.k inside her, no more than an inch at a time, he impaled her over and over, rocking in and out, causing her v.a.g.i.n.a to milk at his flesh as the physical ache, the clenching, throbbing waves of pure sensation stealing her breath, grew to an unbearable intensity.

The slow, internal stroking, the pinch of each stretching, shallow impalement pushed her to the brink of sanity as he leaned her back against the mirror.

His hands cupped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, thumbs and forefingers gripping the peaks and milking them erotically as he thrust inside her. Watching each impalement, grimacing each time he pulled back from her.

"Oh yes." Back arching, fingers curling over the edge of the dresser, Amelia twisted her hips against him, thrusting back as her breath came in short, rough gasps.

"Like that, don't you, elf?" he suggested, still keeping his thrusts slow, a little deeper, then shallow, then deeper, his c.o.c.k stroking, stretching, delving into her p.u.s.s.y to create such incredible pleasure she could scream from it if she could find the breath.

"Yes." She could barely speak.

The word was more a hiss of pure desperate ecstasy.

Sizzling, electric sensation surged from the tightly swollen peaks of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to the throbbing bud of her c.l.i.toris in wave after wave of building, tightening, agonizing- And he was f.u.c.king her too slow- "d.a.m.n you!" Lifting herself to him, thrusting back in rolling lifts of her hips, Amelia was ready to sob from the agony of need.

She couldn't stand it.

Agony and ecstasy.

"d.a.m.n me?" A hard grimace pulled at his face, drawing his lips tight as a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his temple and another tracked down the hard, corded planes of his stomach. "Ah, elf, why d.a.m.n me?"

"f.u.c.k me, d.a.m.n you!" Breathless, caught in hard, ever-sharpening spirals of agonizing pleasure.

Each razor-thin, erotic blade of sensation bit into her senses. They tightened her muscles, her p.u.s.s.y, until she thought she couldn't stand any more.

Only to be forced to take more. The pending climactic implosion was held back, just out of reach.

Staring up at her tormentor, her lover-G.o.d help her-her heart, she was poised to fly straight into rapture and forced to stay tethered within the most ecstatic torture she could have imagined.

"Tell me, Amelia," he crooned in an erotic, exotically roughening tone. "Don't you love it, baby? Because G.o.d help me, I'm loving every sucking clench of your tight, sweet-" He grimaced again, a groan rasping from his throat. "-tight little p.u.s.s.y."

As though helpless in the grip of his own tormented need, he suddenly penetrated her with a single, hard, to-the-hilt thrust-oh sweet G.o.d, so deep inside her- Her eyes jerked open, staring up at him as he held still. The heavy throb of the flared crest buried inside her impossibly stroking nerve endings she hadn't known she possessed.

"I love it. Love having you inside me." Broken, breathless, the cry tore from her as her p.u.s.s.y fluttered around the heavy shaft buried inside her.

"f.u.c.k!" The harsh exclamation seemed torn from him as another of the twisting waves of sensation tore through her s.e.x, tightening the muscles around the heavy girth invading her.

"Ah baby. My sweet, sweet Amelia. Never knew anything this d.a.m.ned good."

Watching his eyes, the raptor brown and mixed fiery gold as it flared, his pupils dilating as his hips shifted, tilted just enough- The flared edge of the heavy c.o.c.k head buried deeper, higher, suddenly raking against a once hidden bundle of nerves in a shallow indent high in her c.u.n.t. Just a small dip, but Crowe knew exactly where it was and exactly how to find it.

"Yes." Another hiss of near rapture escaped her.

Holding his gaze, Amelia tightened her muscles on him again, milking at his c.o.c.k, stroking it-sucking at it erotically. "f.u.c.k me. I can't bear it. f.u.c.k me, Crowe. Deep. Please."

His expression tightened, a grimace contorting his face as sweat beaded his forehead and shoulders, his hip jerking-hard.

Amelia stared up at him, barely able to hold her eyes open. Needing to see him, to watch him. Needing to pleasure him, she used the muscles of her v.a.g.i.n.a to do what she had never done before. To stroke and suck his c.o.c.k deliberately. Erotically.

She jerked, shuddering as his hips clenched and he thrust against her involuntarily, the hard throb of his flesh so intense it was like a caress inside her.

"Oh-good. So good," she gasped, still holding his gaze. "So empty without you." Her hands gripped his powerful forearms as his fingers plucked at her nipples again.

"Always so empty." Her back arched, the constantly twisting, erotically sharpened waves of intense pleasure building, multiplying, tightening. "Oh G.o.d, Crowe. I love this. Love your c.o.c.k so tight and hard, opening me, taking me-"

His shattered, broken snarl of disintegrating control was like another trigger. It set off slashing internal contractions that were so close to an o.r.g.a.s.m-yet not quite there-she knew that when it came, it was going to control her.

A broken sob parted her lips.

She loved him. Loved him so much. Oh G.o.d-oh G.o.d.

He was suddenly moving, impaling, his c.o.c.k shuttling through the slick, saturated depths with destructive, torturous results.

f.u.c.king her with ever-quickening thrusts Crowe lowered one hand, caught one of hers, and lifted it from his arm before bringing her fingers to the engorged bud of her c.l.i.t.

"Touch yourself," he groaned. "Let me see, baby. Let me see you pleasure your pretty c.l.i.t, elf."

Amelia found the painfully engorged bud as he watched. His hand returned to her hips, holding them tight, watching her fingers as she stroked, caressed, pushed herself closer to the peak of pure rapture.

Sweat ran in rivulets down his flexing abs. His expression turned savage, as relentless as his strokes. The chaos suddenly surged, nearly taking her, building, reaching out to her.

"Yes. Yes." Her hips churned beneath him in short, shallow thrusts. "G.o.d yes. f.u.c.k me, Crowe. f.u.c.k me. f.u.c.k me until I never forget how hard you feel inside me."

His head tipped back. A snarl tightened his lips as he buried deep, hips twisting, maneuvering the thick flesh to stroke that high, inner spot, the hooded crest tucking in, raking against those erotically raw nerve endings.

Cataclysmic.

Waves of exploding, body-wrenching, ecstatic chaos.

She tried to scream his name as he f.u.c.ked inside the rapidly flexing, clenching depths of her p.u.s.s.y until he was buried to the hilt.

His c.o.c.k throbbed, thickened further, then fiery pulses of his release began flooding her. Each jetting e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of s.e.m.e.n sent another bolt of lightning-swift, razor-edged sensation tearing deeper inside her.

The force of the explosions raked through her senses with such pleasure she knew she would never be free of the need to experience it again and again.

Her legs tightened around his hips, her p.u.s.s.y flexing and milking his c.o.c.k with such internal spasms and ever deepening rapture that reality simply receded.

She was crying out, but she didn't care what she was saying.

She was begging, pleading, but she didn't know why, or for what.

Life itself was flooding her in a release so primal, so erotically violent there was simply no way to survive it.

Distantly, fearfully, Amelia knew when she could think again-when she could breathe again-it would only be to find that who and what she was before tonight would never exist again.

Crowe had somehow changed her.

To the very depths of her being he had changed something so intrinsic that she feared she may not even know the person who eventually rose from the ashes of a pleasure this perfect, this radiant.

"I have you, baby," he swore, his voice strained, hoa.r.s.e as he held on to her hips, holding her to him, refusing to release her. "I have you."

The most perfect pleasure given by the man who completely owned her heart. The man who completely owned every part of her that she had to give.

This was why she had never been able to bear the thought of another lover. Crowe had touched her first. She had loved him first. And she'd never been able to convince herself that she wasn't supposed to belong to him forever.

Because that woman's soul he held, that part of her refused to allow her to do anything else.

"I love you. I love you so much, Crowe. Oh G.o.d-Oh G.o.d-Crowe," she cried, her hoa.r.s.e voice broken, filled with pleasure, with pain, with a longing there was no hiding from. "I died without you-"

The memory of her cries echoing around him still had the same power they'd had at the moment they first fell from her lips.

The power to rock him to his very soul.

She had never told him she loved him. Not even that night, seven years before, when he'd taken her innocence on her father's office couch. Or the night she found his note then hid in the corner of her balcony, sobs ravaging her slight body as he had fought to contain his rage.

What would he have done, he wondered, if she had told him then that she loved him?

Holding her tucked against him hours later, watching as the first fragile beams of dawn began lighting the edges of the curtains and shades beneath them, he knew the words she had cried out to him had opened a door he couldn't close now.

Crowe closed his eyes, desperate to escape what he had seen in the depths of her gaze for the briefest time. There, unlocked, shining so pure, so f.u.c.king innocent, had been her woman's soul.

It had glowed in her face, transforming her expression with such love, such perfect, soul-deep, tenacious love that the sudden realization of this woman's strength and courage had terrified the h.e.l.l out of him.

Because he'd felt it. As though she had somehow found a break in the walls protecting his soul, he'd felt a part of her invading him before he could stop her.

Before he could pull back, pull his e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. c.o.c.k from the fist-tight grip she'd had on him, he'd come so hard, so brutally deep his b.a.l.l.s still ached. So explosively that somehow, his defenses had dropped, and she had slipped in.

And that c.h.i.n.k Amelia had found in his soul was like a raw, open wound he couldn't force closed now.

His parents had loved in just that way. As Amelia's love had glowed from the depths of her being, so had the love of his parents, and his cousins' parents. They had loved with such ferocity that it had bound them-even past death, he often suspected.

Opening his eyes once more, he stared down at her pale, slumbering features and felt his heart twist at the open, naked vulnerability she possessed. And he hadn't even realized it. He'd never let himself really see or accept how much she loved him.

How much he- Crowe quickly slammed the door on that thought.

He couldn't let himself think it. He wouldn't admit it even to himself. Because if he failed as his father had, as his uncles and his grandfather had failed, and Wayne actually managed to steal the life that gleamed so bright and pure inside her, then he'd never survive it.

The pain would lacerate his soul until there was nothing left but to follow her into death. He would leave Rafer and Logan to protect themselves-and that was just never a good idea. Those two could get into trouble faster than two Christmas pups. But he'd also be leaving Cami and Sky without the added protection of their lovers. And leaving Logan and Sky to raise their twins alone. And he knew there wasn't a chance in h.e.l.l his cousins and cousin-in-law could keep after two little Callahan h.e.l.lions.

He'd sworn he'd never allow anything to weaken the promise he'd made his cousins the night their parents were killed. The solemn vow that he'd look after his younger cousins, always. That he'd never allow anyone or anything to threaten his protection of them.

He'd sworn it on all their parents' graves as they were buried. And now, there was his sister Anna as well. The sister he'd believed was killed so long ago. He had sworn it again when they returned here two years ago, only to realize that the death that stalked them before they left had returned as well.

Or it had never left.

And now he was dangerously close to betraying his promise.

Because he may have closed the door on that one thought, but he didn't know if he could repair the damage to the protective shield around his heart and soul.

As he finally allowed sleep to gather inside him, Crowe admitted he may have just lost it to this courageous, enduring woman.

h.e.l.l, he had lost it long before this night. He may just have lost it the night he watched a pretty little autumn fairy peek from the summer foliage and motion him to her with a slow, teasing curve of her finger.

Yeah, he decided, that was when he'd lost his heart.

CHAPTER 15.

The shadows programmed into the wireless and wired cameras Crowe had installed outside the house finally revealed themselves the next afternoon. Staring at the screen thoughtfully as he rubbed his finger against his upper lip, Crowe wondered where the h.e.l.l Wayne had managed to get his hands on a military jammer armed with the ability to reprogram the monitor setups.

That was one h.e.l.laciously expensive piece of equipment.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," Cameron muttered behind him as the new tech, Jase Grogan, watched as the shadowed images slowly cleared to reveal the recognizable figure of Wayne Sorenson.

"How the h.e.l.l did he do that?" Jase breathed out, leaning in close to examine the reprogramming details.

"What I want to know is how the f.u.c.k that mad dog got into my system." Cameron's Texas drawl was now a deep rasp of anger.

"s.h.i.t!" Jase exclaimed, his tone still low as they all leaned in closer.

Crowe hit rewind, scrolled back mere seconds, and watched again as Wayne smiled up at the camera before just disappearing.

"What the h.e.l.l just happened?" he demanded, sitting back in the less-than-comfortable chair before leaning forward again and typing several commands into the program that had managed to pull the image in.

Nothing worked. One second Wayne was there, the next he was gone. Just that fast and just that impossible.

"Oh h.e.l.l no, we got a problem here," Cameron muttered.