Free Under His Hand by Anne Calhoun Page A

upstairs the windows were unlocked and slid, loose and flimsy, in their frames. Discarding the possibility he’d slithered under the front door, he must have clambered in through the damned open window in her bedroom.
    “Tess, you are in so much trouble.”
    Silky menace simmered under the growled words as he shoved off his black stocking cap and tossed it behind him. His thick, sweat-dampened hair, bleached near-silver by hours in the sun and salt water, gleamed even in the midnight-blue of her bedroom. With a wickedly accurate sense of timing he’d caught her at her most vulnerable, dressed for bed in one of his tank undershirts, and string bikini panties. Her feet were bare, her body crushed between his and the wall, and she stood no chance of breaking free from his tight grip.
    “I can explain,” she said, but his palm muffled her words.
    “What?”
    The barked question told her that have the living daylights scared out of her hadn’t atoned for her sin. She tossed her head back, away from his hand, and he lifted his palm just enough to let sound escape. “I said I can explain!”
    His hand mashed down over her mouth again. “I don’t want an explanation,” he growled. “I’ve been gone for twenty-six days. I want you . Now.”
    A bolt of hot lust shot through her when his gorgeous tenor drawl, laced with rough need and tightly controlled ire, tumbled into her ear. She jumped when he nipped the sensitive rim of her lobe, then slapped her other hand up against the wall. Docile, trembling, she stood still for him as he pushed her panties down her thighs, then went to work on the buttons of his cargo pants. Sensations zinged through her as his abraded knuckles brushed against the soft, rounded flesh of her bottom. He made room for himself between her legs, the width of his thighs urging her feet farther apart, her thin panties straining against the muscles quivering in her legs.
    Disconcerting, palpable desire streamed along nerves lit up by the adrenaline rush from his unorthodox appearance. Need coiled tight and hot between her thighs. Without conscious thought she arched her back and tilted her hips toward him.
    His low, dry chuckle didn’t mask the sound of a condom wrapper tearing. After a pause he settled big hands on her hips and lifted her up and forward, to the very tips of her toes. Turning her face to the side to rest her hot cheek on the cracked plaster, she closed her eyes as fear, the unintentional aphrodisiac, heightened the sensations swamping her. His rough black BDU pants chafing her inner thighs. The soft brush of his cotton T-shirt against her shoulder blades and back. Sweat slicking the skin of her bottom and his lower abdomen where he leaned into her. Whirling, sharp sparks settling low in her belly, ready for him to strike the tinder and set her on fire.
    “Miss me?”
    Did doubt linger under his taunting question? It was so hard to think with his hand pressed flat to her abdomen, his cock hot and hard against her bottom. Nuances aside, the answer flowed easily from her parted lips. “I always do,” she whispered, and felt his breath hitch in response.
    The eight-inch difference in their heights didn’t deter him. He simply bent his knees, wrapped one arm around her waist to hold her up on her toes, and braced the other arm next to her face. His thick cock parted sensitive flesh only beginning to swell and dampen with arousal. He drove in, and she winced.
    He went still. “You okay?” he asked, his voice roughened, strained.
    No…maybe… “I…yes.”
    A soft, almost unwilling groan eased out of him, then he began to thrust, deep and hard. Experience had taught her that although the first time would be fast and furious, she could come from the intensity alone, riding the waves of Drew’s weeks-long adrenaline rush. Sometimes they made it upstairs before he was buried deep inside her, but more often than not he had her up against the door or on her rickety kitchen table. Watching