For the next several minutes, Walker was lost in a tossing sea of focused pleasure and cresting emotion. He dominated Madeline thoroughly, not just because he wanted her until it hurt like an unhealed wound, but because she let him. As she gazed up at him as he slid into her throat, he knew that Madeline had accepted what he’d said to her last evening in the bathroom.
“You’re mine,” he grated out between clenched teeth. Seeing her acknowledgment in her gaze made him bellow in anguished pleasure as he came.
He didn’t feel turned inside-out this time; he felt ripped inside-out.
When his thunderous orgasm finally quieted, he reluctantly withdrew and lifted Madeline to a standing position, murmuring to her softly as he kissed her sweat- and tear-dampened eyelids, cheeks and lips.
Seven
She’d lost all remnants of propriety or shame. She’d forgotten her anger at Walker and even her sadness for Tony’s foolish, life-altering mistake.
Nothing existed for Madeline in those moments that she was on the receiving end of the force of nature that was Walker Gray. His possession had been fierce, focused and forceful, but behind his sexual mastery, she’d sensed the unspoken lesson he strove to teach her.
Despite the long years of separation and Tony Hallas and Madeline’s stubbornness—despite it all—she was still Walker’s, body and soul.
And he was hers.
“I didn’t come after Tony to hurt you, Madeline. I love you,” he whispered gruffly next to her ear as he took her into his arms. He stroked her back and hips and buttocks while Madeline cried softly, her cheek pressed to his expanding and contracting chest. Walker’s gruff voice in her ear and caressing hands made her shiver uncontrollably.
“I know,” she replied almost inaudibly. She spoke the absolute truth. The power of his possession had opened her eyes. Walker Gray wasn’t the type of man who would have allowed what had just occurred unless love was involved. She understood Walker well enough to know what he’d just sacrificed. She whimpered when she felt his hand between her legs, moving, pleasuring tender, swollen flesh.
A moment before she was about to climax, she felt Tony press against her from behind. They both held her while she shuddered in climax, Walker taking what was his by nature’s decree, Tony experiencing for the first and last time what he’d always craved.
Madeline’s surrender.
* * *
Madeline didn’t turn around later that evening when she sensed him approach. She sat at the end of the long pier, her feet dangling off the edge, her gaze glued to the crimson-and-gold sunset. Walker didn’t make a noise as he approached her from behind, but she knew it was him, nonetheless.
He sat behind her, his long, jean-covered legs bracketing her hips. He pulled her back against his chest, his arms surrounding her. She leaned her head against him, her eyes fixed on the blazing departure of the sun.
It’d been a hell of a day. Wonderful and awful in equal measures.
“You okay?” he asked, his mouth near her ear as he nuzzled her hair with his chin.
“Yes,” she whispered. She reached back with her hand and cupped the side of his head. “I can’t believe Tony is in jail. It seems surreal. He seemed so resigned when they took him away.”
That wasn’t the only thing that seemed surreal. So was the entire sunlit, sex-drenched memory of being out on the yacht this afternoon with Tony and Walker. It was the memory of her good-bye to a friend she loved.
It was also the memory of her complete surrender to Walker.
Her feelings for Walker were strong enough to overcome the paradox of emotion, Madeline acknowledged as he lowered his head next to hers and pressed against her, cheek to cheek.
“I regret having to do it, Madeline. But Tony needed to be stopped. I was the only man who could do it.”
“I know,” she replied softly as they both stared at the sinking sun. “I wish to God he hadn’t been born so impulsive . . . so foolish. The degree of damage he created with his actions—not just real, but potential—boggles my mind. I can’t imagine what his parents must be going through right now.”
“They’re gone now. Victor plans to hire the best lawyer money can buy for Tony’s defense,” Walker said, referring to the Hallases, who had come to speak with Walker and Madeline after Tony had been taken by two members of Walker’s team and the Truckee police. Madeline had wandered out to the pier after Walker had regretfully described the charges against Tony. She’d been too hurt by the lost, wounded expression on Victor Hallas’s face at the news of the proof against his only son.
“Madeline?”
“Yes?” She turned her chin. His eyes were two perfect mirrors of the fiery waters of Lake Tahoe. An upsurge of emotion swelled in her chest. She recognized the sensation as her love for him, liberated. Her anguish for Tony remained, but her feelings for Walker reigned supreme, giving her comfort.
“I wasn’t lying. I did plan to come back to Lake Tahoe for you. I could have gone anywhere to start up my business. I’d already made my plans for leaving the Secret Service—for returning here—when all of the intelligence arrived on Tony.”
She swallowed thickly, her gaze glued to his.
“I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, seeing you after all these years and under thes