Megan Hart - Bound By The Night - Dark Heat / Dark Dreams / Dark Fantasy

She wasn’t still dreaming. Monica hadn’t ever been able to control what happened while she was—she had friends who could lucid-dream, and there was a whole squad of people in the Crew who dealt with the monsters that lurked in the realm of the subconscious. The words had tumbled out of her before she was fully awake, though, and she wasn’t going to take them back.

The man in front of her had grumbled his way through their earlier introductions. He wasn’t someone she’d ever have considered in a romantic way. She was here on a job, not to get laid. Yet of course right now, after the nightmare, which had been even more intense than ever, all she could think about was getting fucked right through the mattress. It didn’t matter much who did it.

“Shit,” Jordan said.

Shirtless, jeans hanging low on lean hips, bare feet. If she’d ordered him from a catalog, he couldn’t have arrived in more perfect condition or with better timing. And, she realized as she took in the heave of his chest and the way his fists were clenched, he’d burst in here to...save her?

She was naked. The covers had come down. He could see her completely, and was he looking? Oh, yeah. He definitely was.

The dream was fading but her hands were still shaking. Now not just from terror. Her nipples had gone hard, and without thinking, Monica cupped her breasts. Not necessarily to hide herself from his gaze. More to draw his attention.

“Jordan,” she whispered. “Come here.”

He did, two hesitant steps until his knees brushed the edge of the blankets. He licked his lower lip, looking her over. His breathing had slowed, but only a little.

“Did you come here to save me?” Monica asked in a low, rough voice.

He nodded. “I thought whatever killed the animals was in here with you.”

“Do you still want to save me?” She shuddered, closing her eyes for a moment to push away the memories. Without opening them, she added, “I need you.”

The bed dipped beneath his weight. When his rough hands skimmed up her bare sides, Monica let out a small gasp and allowed herself to arch back onto the pillows. His breath gusted over her cheek and she turned her face, lips parting, waiting for him to kiss her. She thought he wouldn’t.

But he did, oh, he did. Hard and fierce and sharp, the way she liked it. The way she needed it. His tongue stabbed into her mouth as his hand slipped to cradle the back of her head. Then his mouth was moving down her throat to nip and nibble and then, yes, oh God, yes, to scrape along her flesh in that beautiful burst of pleasure-pain she craved.

When his lips closed over one nipple, Monica threaded her hands through his thick dark hair, fingers tangling. “There. Yes.”

She still hadn’t opened her eyes again. She wanted to be lost in this, all the sensations sweeping over her. She gave up to him.

When Jordan’s mouth moved lower, though, she tensed. His lips tickled the scars on her ribs and belly. She waited for the questions, but all he did was kiss her softly and then move lower to nip at her hip bone. When he parted her thighs, again she tensed, though this time not out of trepidation.

At his first slow, long lick, she cried out. She lifted herself to his mouth, but Jordan had moved to slide his hands under her ass and his grip stilled her. When she tried to move again, his fingers tightened on her skin hard enough to bruise. She didn’t quiet at the sting. She writhed.

His tongue flickered along her clit, then switched to flat, smooth strokes that had her bucking beneath him in a few minutes. Desire was already building, surging. She always woke from the dreams desperate for sex, but this, oh, shit, this was amazing. Brad had been a competent, considerate lover. Jordan, on the other hand, was eating her pussy as if he meant to destroy her with his mouth.

Monica’s orgasm tore through her, leaving her gasping. Her fingers tightened in Jordan’s hair again, involuntarily yanking. He made a noise, something like a low...growl?

Startled, Monica opened her eyes at last. With her climax still washing over her, all she could do was ride it as, seemingly without effort, Jordan pulled away just enough to flip her over. Hard. Reckless. Not at all gentle—in fact, her head butted the headboard for a second before she managed to look over her shoulder.

He was on his knees behind her, already tearing open his jeans. His cock, thick and gorgeous, sprang free into his fist. His other hand slapped her ass as he gave himself a few strokes. He looked at her, eyes gleaming.

A flash of red.

In the next moment, he was inside her, thrusting so hard she again moved forward and only her hands pressed to the headboard kept her from hitting it. He fucked so deep inside her that she cried out, expecting pain but feeling only the hot, slick engulfing of his cock by her still-clenching pussy. Again Jordan thrust inside her. Again.

When his nails raked down her back, she screamed, breathless and gasping. His body covered hers in the next moment as he leaned to find her clit with his fingers. No soft strokes now. He pinched, jacking it as he fucked into her, and it was too much, too much—she was going over again. Spiraling. Exploding.

Jordan’s growl this time sounded like her name, which sent one last wave of ecstasy pulsing through her. He shuddered against her and...oh, fuck, he bit down on her shoulder as his fingers gave her one last pinching stroke and he came inside her. Monica couldn’t come again, not after that, but it was close.

Spent, she collapsed onto her face in the pillows. His weight pressed her for a few seconds before he moved off her to flop onto the bed beside her. Boneless, sated, exhausted, Monica couldn’t move.

She ought to say something, she thought blearily but couldn’t make her mouth form any words. The dream had always made her crave sex exactly how she’d just had it, but this was the first time she’d ever had it exactly how she needed it. She tried to roll over onto her back to at least see if she could get up and go to the bathroom, but her body refused to do anything but sink back into dark and dreamless sleep.

When she woke up to golden streams of late-afternoon sunlight streaming through the window, Jordan was gone.

Chapter 6

As much as Jordan might have loved to take care of everything all by himself simply so he didn’t have to deal with other people, there was no way he could possibly manage to feed and clean the habitats of every animal in DiNero’s menagerie. Not even if he worked twenty-four hours a day. That was why he had a small rotating staff of three workers who took care of the daily care under his charge, while he spent his days visiting each habitat to be sure the animals were safe, healthy and as happy as they could be in captivity.

The woman was supposed to be with him again today on his rounds. He didn’t need her advice on how to keep his animals safe, he thought sourly, just some thoughts on what the hell was continuing to break through and attack them. So far, all she’d done was toss a lot of stupid theories at him. Nothing he could actually work with. Besides that, she hadn’t shown up this morning, not a call, not a note, nothing.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the taste of her.

He was hard now, thinking of it, and that pissed him off, too. For Jordan, sex over the past few years had been relegated to an occasional one-night stand when he traveled into New Orleans. He favored tourists, women in sundresses and wedge sandals, drunk on hurricanes. The ones who were shy or claimed to be, at least until he cut them from the pack of their squealy girlfriends and took them back to the small, barely furnished flat he kept just off Bourbon Street. Anonymous, brief, nothing but two bodies—or three, and once four—writhing and grinding until there was nothing but pure mindless pleasure. It was something he did with strangers, some who never even thought to ask his name. It was not something he did with women he ever expected to see again.