Page 10 of Double Take (Cosmic Mates #5)

He probably had no idea how much his face expressed his longing, desire, and fear. His vulnerability called to her, stirring her own yearning for a deep, binding connection—a soul mate. When she’d married, she assumed she’d found everlasting love, but her husband hadn’t loved her. She suspected he didn’t even like her.

More than an artist and an entrepreneur, she was a passionate woman with a need to be held, hugged, kissed, loved. She desired a man’s touch, company, warmth, strength, devotion.

Not any man’s— this man’s. Sometime between departing Willow Wood, crashing, and reaching the cabin, inner turbulence and ambivalence had calmed. You’re the one I’ve been waiting for.

John was a good person. Honorable and honest. Logic might question how she could be certain when she’d been wrong before, but her prescient, intuitive inner wisdom had no doubts.

He’s the one.

Her inner wisdom had recognized him when she opened her cottage door and found him standing there. Her eyes had deceived her, mistaking him for Mark. But her inner wisdom wouldn’t let her turn away. It urged her to take her pleasure, make lasting memories.

They should have had forever, but it couldn’t be so. His imminent departure would bring sorrow and tears, but that motivated her to capture and savor every precious second.

He stared at her, wary, uncertain, hopeful.

She felt bold, seductive, powerful. Mostly.

She palmed his smooth, heated chest. His heart was racing.

“Wh-what are you doing?” he asked.

“Trying to seduce you.”

For an instant, his face contorted, almost with pain, and her face flooded with heat. Misread this one. She started to drop her hands and back off, find a dark corner to slink into, but then he said with a heart-stopping grin, “Let me help you with that,” and planted his mouth on hers.

She melded into his embrace, craving his attention, his touch, sighing with blissful satisfaction as his soft lips coaxed and caressed while he massaged her bare shoulders.

Then a dam broke. His mouth sought entry, his tongue wrangling with hers. Firm hands gripped her hair as he crushed her against his chest. A rough, raw groan emanated from his throat. She all but swooned in his arms, going pliant, clinging to him.

Her nipples tightened, and her pussy let down a surge of wetness, his desire intensifying her own.

The sarong of the blanket came undone and slipped to her hips, or maybe he’d released it. She tugged at his, and then she pressed her nude body against hot, naked male flesh. His erection throbbed against her abdomen.

He kissed her throat, and she moaned with pleasure, arching her neck. Hot tingles sizzled through her, her pussy drenching as he nuzzled sensitive skin.

They stretched out on the mattress. Firelight danced across his muscular chest and his face, the heated fervor and vulnerable longing causing her breath to catch. Her ex had never, ever looked at her with such desire and devotion. A hot thrill ran through her.

Didn’t every woman wish to be loved, desired by the man in her life? Thinking of him as the man in her life would bring bitter heartbreak. He’d been clear and honest why and when he had to leave. They had tonight, and maybe a few weeks. It would have to be enough.

She stifled the insidious hunger for more before it undermined the pleasure. They could enjoy passion, caring, respect, and friendship, but not a long-term relationship. Loving him would lead to heartbreak. She did not need her heart broken again.

Pulling her close, John kissed her and caressed her breast, stroking the nipple to greater hardness. She arched under his touch, disturbing worries evaporating into the ether. She trailed a hand over his shoulder, biceps, and torso. Smooth skin stretched taut over firm muscle. Her fingers lightly probed a puckered scar under his rib cage, and a wispy memory crept in from the shadows, but vanished into the ether as she continued her journey for the holy grail.

His cock. The long, thick shaft was hot in her hand. Copious precum pearled at the meatus of the soft crown. He sucked in his breath as she pumped then jerked as she took him in her mouth. “Oh god,” he groaned, tangling his hands in her hair.

He submitted to the pleasurable torment but then pulled her away and retaliated, kissing his way down her body then spreading her legs and burying his face in her pussy.

“Oh lord. Good. So good,” she groaned as he unerringly found the exact spot and rhythm to drive her insane with pleasure. Again, an unbidden, unwanted comparison snaked into consciousness. Mark had disliked oral sex. Correction: he’d relished receiving. Giving, not at all. The few times he’d acquiesced, he’d acted like he was under great duress, and he hadn’t been very good at it, so she’d stopped asking—which had probably been the point.

But John? He was good . Tension coiled, her pussy began to flutter, stars exploded behind her eyes, and she came with a shuddering cry. He didn’t pull away then but scooted up and pulled her into his arms, caressing her back, shoulders, hips in long soothing yet arousing strokes.

Tongues mated, and his hands explored again. The way he laved and sucked on her nipples sent curls of sensation straight to her still-fluttering womb and pussy. She raced toward the peak again, and, this time, she urged him to mount her. “Now, please now.”

He slid between her legs, and she hooked her heels around his thighs. His cock found her entrance. Facial muscles tensed, and his eyes glowed fever-bright as he rocked inside, “So long, so long, so long,” he murmured. He seated himself, and corded muscles in his throat strained. He swallowed.

She moved her hips in encouragement, and he began to thrust, each plunge and withdrawal tightening the spiral of desire. He ducked his head and found her mouth in a wet, intimate kiss pantomiming the dance of their lower bodies. Together, they moved in perfect sync, friction, and rhythm.

Her body suffused with heat. “I’m going to come again,” she gasped against his neck.

“Yes, yes.” He jerked, his hips pounding faster, harder.

She climaxed on a wave of sensation, her womb contracting, her pussy squeezing his cock. He emitted a shuddering groan as he orgasmed, thrusting hard and fast, his body convulsing.

When his tremors ceased, he rolled to the side and wrapped arms and legs around her in a full-body hug. He kissed her temple, making her aware of the dampness of her hair.

“I’m a bit sweaty,” she said self-consciously.

His arms tightened. “You’re a bit perfect.”

“Just a bit?” she teased.

She felt him smile against her head. “More than a bit.”

She snuggled closer. He was a bit sweaty, too. And a bit perfect. She couldn’t remember the last time sex had left her feeling so connected and relaxed. She sighed. “That’s a happy sigh,” she said, in case he misunderstood.

“The best kind.”

A log popped, spraying sparks. “The fire will need more wood to last the night,” she murmured.

“I can make some wood,” he whispered against her ear.

She giggled.

“How about I toss a log on the fire—and then show you my wood?” He slipped out of bed, and she rolled up onto her side to watch him. Taut buttocks and back muscles shifted as he tossed a couple of logs on the fire. She caught a glimpse of his front. He was making more wood!

“If you’re ready for dessert, we can have the peaches now.” He picked up the jar on the hearth.

“I’m ready for dessert, but not peaches.” She waggled her eyebrows.

With a grin, he set the jar on the table away from the heat. Scooping up a fallen blanket, he approached the bed. She ogled him, sweeping her gaze from his broad shoulders, down his washboard abs, to his hard-on—then upward to rivet on the white, puckered skin below his ribs.

Mark had that scar. He’d come home from a business trip with stitches and a prescription for antibiotics, but no good explanation for the injury, just a muttered, impatient mention of a window grate.

An icy shiver skittered up her spine. “That scar.” Scars resulted from injury after birth. They weren’t genetic or congenital.

He dropped his smile and his gaze, fingering the area. Then he met her eyes. “After Hammond got himself knifed, Dark Ops stabbed me so I’d match.”

“They stabbed you?”

“More or less surgically, but they cut me to make a scar. I got a topical anesthetic, anyway,” he explained, providing more information than Mark had.

“That’s—that’s…barbaric.”

“I had to match him physically in order to be him. When I assumed his place, someone could have noticed the absence of a scar.” His mouth quirked. “I’m lucky he didn’t lose a kidney.”

“That’s not funny!” How could he be so nonchalant? The more she heard about the organization, the less she respected them, and her opinion hadn’t started out high. She shouldn’t have doubted his authenticity. But after the lies and betrayals, trust didn’t come easy anymore. Pressure built in her cheeks with an urge to cry.

He crawled into bed and cradled her against his chest. “Hey, it’s okay. Bad joke. They wouldn’t remove my kidney. Kidneys aren’t visible.”

“What if he’d lost an eye? Would they have blinded you, too?”

His silence chilled her to the bone.

“What is wrong with those people? How can they do that?”

“There’s no one to stop them. No one is aware of the agency other than those in it, so they operate unchecked.”

Mark’s enlistment in Dark Ops made sense. He would enjoy the power, the secret, feeling superior to those not in the know. But John was a gentle soul with a caring heart. He hadn’t chosen to enlist—the organization had created him. He’d been born into it. “Do clones ever leave?”

“After they’ve served their time.”

“Sounds like a prison sentence.”

“Not quite. You do get paid, and you get vacations.”

“So when can you quit?”

“After I’ve served out Hammond’s term—plus or minus.”

“How long is that?”

“As long as Dark Ops says it is. The rules are a little different for me than most.”

“But you didn’t choose it. You didn’t enlist.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“You don’t have any recourse?”

“It is what it is,” he said.