“Say Blackjack can stay.”
“Damn it, Maddie. It’s not safe to have a dangerous bear so close.”
“We’ll build him an enclosure.”
“Not good enough. I want him gone.”
“Let me go.” She shoved at him again, but he pulled her tighter.
“I can’t, sweetheart,” he whispered, and she was surprised at the need and the vulnerability she heard in his voice. Or had she simply imagined it? His steel grip hadn’t lessened. “I can’t let you go. I won’t.”
“And I won’t be a prisoner, kept under lock and key and your ridiculous mandates.”
“You’d like my mandates.” His lips tickled her ear, his wicked innuendo making her shiver.
“I might.”
His hand slid lower, sending small swirls of pleasure into her belly and between her thighs. She was wet for him, and yet she refused to give in.
She turned her head so she could look into his dark eyes. “But I’m not another one of your servants, Jack. I won’t be ordered about. I want to be your partner, your equal—in all things. I have my own mandates.”
Jack raised a brow, a sinful gleam in his eyes. “Oh, really? Such as?”
She turned in his arms. “Such as, Blackjack stays.”
Jack scowled and began to pull away, but she ran a finger down his throat, touching him lightly, opening the placket of his shirt. Jack stood immobile as she parted the material, revealing the bonze skin of his chest. On tiptoes, she kissed the stubble under his chin, then his throat, where she felt his pulse throb steadily.
His hands came back around her, pressing her flush against him. Maddie smiled and kissed him again, trailing her lips down his flesh and then tracing her earlier path with her tongue.
“I like how you taste, Jack.”
“I love how you taste. Take this dress off.”
Maddie pulled back and held up a chiding finger. “Oh, no. Tonight I’m the one with the mandates.”
He spread his hands. “Very well. What are your orders?”
She ran her hands over his shirt, dipping them into his waistband and pulling the white tails free. “Take off your shirt,” she whispered.
Unusually obedient, Jack lifted the tails and began to pull the material over his head. As his bronze flesh was revealed, Maddie bent to kiss him, touching lips and tongue to his hard abdomen, then to the smattering of hair on his chest, and ending once again at the pounding pulse point at his throat. She noticed his blood was throbbing even harder now.
“Do you want me, Jack?” she whispered, punctuating her soft words with a quick nip at his flesh.
“God, yes.” His hands were on her hips, and he pulled her against his hard erection. Maddie trailed her hand along his shoulders, down his chest, pressed against the muscles of his abdomen. His flesh quivered, and then she dipped into his trousers.
She could feel his velvet tip, and it moved at her first touch. Jack groaned, and Maddie, as aroused as he was now, flicked open his trousers, sliding them over his slim hips. He was bare underneath the material, and his manhood sprung free. Sliding her hands around to squeeze his buttocks, she cradled him close to her woman’s heat.
“I need you, Maddie.”
“Show me.”
His hands were immediately on her, ruching her skirt up, searching for the source of that heat she knew he craved. As soon as he touched her, her knees buckled and he was the strong one again. He went down with her, kneeling on the plush rug before her, kissing her, touching her oh so intimately in the ways he knew she liked best.
She felt as though it had been years since he’d last been inside her. Her body had missed his touch, the ecstasy he could give, and before she knew what was happening, she was clutching his shoulders and crying out as pleasure shook her.
When she opened her eyes again, Jack was rising. “The bed,” he said, breathing labored. “I want you on the bed.”
Maddie reached up and touched his erection, circled it with her hand. Jack sank down beside her again. “And I want you here,” she told him. “Lie down.”
