Authors: Monette Michaels

Cold Day in Hell (48 page)

BOOK: Cold Day in Hell

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Footsteps coming up the stairs had Risto pulling his handgun. He covered Callie with his body and aimed at the doorway.

“It’s me,” Paul’s voice called out.

“Come in, slowly,” Risto responded, not letting down his guard until he saw Paul and the local who he knew was a fireman/paramedic on the Osprey’s Point Volunteer Fire Department. The man had a huge metal box with a red cross on the side. “Everything quiet?”

“Yeah.” Paul moved to his brother’s side. “Shit, you’re bleeding again, twin.” He looked at the paramedic. “If he needs blood, I’m your man.” The medic nodded and opened his kit and began to pull out what he needed.

Risto swung his legs over the side of the bed and found his boots and put them back on. “With all of you here, I’ll go get a report before I move Callie to the boat and take her back to the island. Paul, have Big Earl loan you one of his boats to get to the island. Conn knows the security procedure for my dock.”

“Got it,” Paul said. “Big Earl’s leaving the dead where they lay until the State Police and Homeland Security and anyone else coming to the party do their thing. The live ones are locked up in Big Earl’s jail.” Paul chuckled.

Risto laughed. Loren looked at his brother then Risto. “What’s so funny?”

“Big Earl’s jail is an old root cellar under his diner,” Risto answered, his fingers stroking over Callie’s blanket-covered legs. “It’s colder than the dark side of the moon in that shit hole. He uses it to keep produce and meat fresh for his convenience store and the diner.”

“The bad guys will be thrilled to go to a real jail after that.” Loren gasped then cursed as the medic peeled off the dressings sticking to his neck.

Both Paul and the medic applied pressure to stop the renewed bleeding. The activity and the ever louder and creative curses Loren issued didn’t even rouse Callie. With one last stroke of her leg, Risto left the room. The sooner he spoke to Conn and Big Earl, the sooner he could get Callie home.

* * * *

Eight hours later, Risto’s Island.

Risto licked and stroked Callie’s pussy lips and clit. Her moans and tensed abdominal muscles told him she was close to her climax. “Don’t come, baby. I want to be in you this time.”

She laughed, then her breath stuttered as he thumbed her clit harder. “You said that the last time.”

“And you came so I had to start all over again.” He rubbed his beard-roughened cheek against her inner thigh and she trembled.

He’d woken her an hour ago with her first orgasm and had taken her to the edge and over one more time since then.

“This time I mean it.” Giving her clit one last lingering lick, he pulled her over him.

Bracing himself on his elbows, he watched as she guided his erection into her moist opening. She wiggled her ass as she took his cock fully into her.

“God, you feel so good in me.” She moaned and arched her back, settling his cock even more firmly within.

“You okay?” He loved this view. Her lean muscled body topped by full breasts hovering above him. He stroked a hand over one luscious breast. He cuddled it, massaging the rosy red nipple with his thumb. He lay back against the pillows and pulled her to him so he could nuzzle along her hyper-sensitive jaw line to her chin, which he nipped, then proceeded to nuzzle the other side of her face. Her hips moved up and down on his cock, her inner muscles fisting him tightly. With each downward movement, she circled her hips, grinding her clit against his pubic bone. Her breaths came in gasps and moans as she used his body for her pleasure—and his. He gritted his back teeth, holding back his orgasm as long as possible. When she reached her pleasure, he wouldn’t be far behind. Her pleasure always came first—always.

“Love you, Calista Jean Meyers.” He sucked on her earlobe. She sighed and closed her eyes. She shivered both within and without and began to ride him faster. His hips rose to meet her. “You’re my heart. My soul. Mine.” He licked the outline of her ear.

Her silver gray eyes opened. She smiled and reached for his face with one hand, her other remained on the bed by his shoulder. “I love you, Risto Smith.” She kissed his chin then nipped his lower lip with her teeth. “Mine.” She squeezed his cock and he groaned.

She took the sound into her mouth, kissing him deeply. He held her head to him. She lifted her mouth and whispered over his lips. “Come with me. Now.”

“God, yes.” He took her lips in a ravenous kiss and met her hips, faster, deeper, harder. He held her to him so she couldn’t move away from his hips as he took over the depth and speed of their mating.

As Callie went wild above him, he released her lips to shout his own climax.

“Callie!”

She rode him until her spasms faded away and his cock softened within her. She collapsed on top of him, her body a sweet, female-smelling blanket. He circled her with his arms, rubbing her back with long, slow sweeps of his hands. Tugging the covers up over their cooling bodies, he kept her on top of him, her head nestled in the crook of his neck.

“Risto?” she said on a yawn. She kissed his sweaty chest.

He kissed her forehead. “Yeah, sweetheart?”

“What now?”

“We’ll go to Chicago. Pack up what you’ll need for a long stay at Sanctuary. Make sure your brothers get back to their lives okay. Then we’ll move to my suite of rooms in Sanctuary until after the baby is born.” And maybe beyond that, depending on the lingering danger from the DOD traitor. Nothing would be allowed to happen to Callie or their child. They were his future.

She moved her head until she could see his face. “Why go to Idaho at all? Your island is safe. We have Big Earl and his buddies and the Walsh twins. Why can’t we live here?”

“It’s not secure enough. Cruz found us too easily—and that has to be chalked up to the DOD traitor. Next time, we might not be forewarned.” He shuddered at the thought of a rocket attack on his island. The DOD traitor had access to all sorts of technology and weaponry and mercenaries who would do anything for money. He kissed her lips, swollen from his love-making and her teething on them through the orgasms he’d given her. “I
need
for you to be safe.”

“I don’t want to be separated from you.”

“You won’t. I’ll only be here when Paul and Loren need me.” She scrunched her nose. “I hate that you have to change your…” He cut off her words with a kiss. “I
need
to have you safe. I also want to be with you—watch as you grow big with our child. Ren understands. We’re all good. So, stop worrying, okay?”

She nodded. He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. “Once I feel sure you aren’t a target of Paco and the DOD traitor, we’ll move back here.” He rubbed his cheek over her hair. “The Sanctuary move is temporary. We have our whole lives ahead of us to live in Osprey’s Point.”

“I look forward to each and every year I can be with you.” She snuggled into his body and sighed. “Hold me while I sleep. I love waking in your arms, all safe and warm.”

“And I love holding you.” Risto closed his eyes and enjoyed the feel of her body lying safely over his. No one would take his woman, his child, from him. Anyone who tried would die.

Epilogue

The following Monday, Washington, D.C.

His hands stuffed into the pockets of his wool overcoat, he walked along the Reflecting Pool, just another person enjoying the mild, sunny November day. The intelligence briefing he’d just left had him steaming.

Once again an SSI operative and the woman he’d chosen had managed to escape his carefully crafted plans. Using client Jaime Cruz’s misfortunes in running up against SSI in Colombia hadn’t worked to his benefit as he’d hoped. Instead, the private security organization had managed to destroy one of his better-paying clients and damaged any chance he had of getting Paco’s drug cartel on his client list.

He’d begun his campaign to destroy SSI, a thorn in his financial backside. But the mercs he’d hired failed to take out Maddox and his team in Argentina. He’d then tried a two-prong approach: sending mercenaries to attack Sanctuary and aiding Reyo Trujo to gain access to Sanctuary in order to kidnap Maddox’s woman, Keely-fucking-Walsh, the woman who’d foiled the attack in South America. Both those attempts had failed abysmally.

After another couple of attacks by his operatives from within and without Sanctuary failed to take out Keely Maddox-Walsh, he’d decided to lay off her and SSI for a while.

He became determined to work around SSI and the genius bitch Maddox married.

He’d had only minor success; Maddox’s bitch-wife’s NSA trapping programs made it too hot for him to do any major selling of US intelligence to his former client list.

Cursing silently, he sat on a bench and stared sightlessly at the sparkling water, the Washington Monument unheeded in the background. Now, he had Calista Meyers, soon-to-be Smith, assisting the Maddox bitch in putting the pressure not only on his network of moles but also on his financial assets.

They hadn’t singled him out … yet. But he was aware they were looking and getting closer than he’d like.

Even his lower level moles in NSA had told him they were being watched. It was only a matter of time before the two bitches’ systematic approach and some really bad luck on his part would see him uncovered. His many clients wanted to buy US military intelligence, but until he shut down the eyes and ears SSI had on the intelligence community through their NSA contract, his hands were tied.

It was time for direct action again. SSI needed to be taken down permanently.

Sanctuary had to have a weakness.

He pulled a throw-away cell from his pocket and pressed speed dial for the only number entered.

“Talk to me.” A low, gritty voice snarled the words.

“I have a job.”

Silence met his words. He muttered under his breath then ground out the words once more. “I said I have a job.”

“I heard you. We need to meet. Face-to-face. I’m not taking your jobs without a meet.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“’Cause the last guy who took one of your so-called jobs got dead. Him and a bunch of other guys, some of whom I knew and worked with. Good guys. The best. So, we meet and you can tell me why I should take this job. I’m not working for you unless I know who you are.”

Shit.
He’d been afraid of this. Mercs talked to one another. The word had gotten around in the insular world of soldiers-for-hire. This would cost him. The merc was buying himself some insurance—of the potential blackmail kind. If the guy survived the job, he might just have to kill the man to get free. He’d killed before, he could do it again.

“When and where?” he asked.

“This Friday night. Late.”

“I’ve got tickets to the Georgetown-Purdue game.”

“Fuck basketball. It’s this Friday or nothing. If I spread the word I turned down this job, you won’t be able to find anyone willing to take your calls.” He mentally snarled. He had no other choice. If he didn’t destroy SSI’s intelligence-gathering team and capabilities, he’d be on the run, living in third-world hellholes for the rest of his life—or dead, because the good ole US of A still sentenced traitors to death.

“Okay. Friday night. Georgetown’s Main Library, Fourth Floor Lounge, ten fifteen p.m.”

“Won’t there be students?”

“The game.” He left “asshole” unsaid. “Plus, it’s Friday.” Obviously the merc had never attended college. Fridays were party-nights. “The library will be deserted, trust me.

The game’s televised so it will start later. Ten fifteen will be around half-time. I can slip away from the game and be back before anyone misses me.”

“Fine. See you then.”

The static of the open line buzzed in his ear. He punched off the phone, then smashed it under his foot. He picked up the pieces, walked to the Reflecting Pool and tossed them as far as he could. The resulting plops were slight. He stood and watched the ripples until they faded away. Then he headed back to pick up the Metro to return to work.

The End

About the Author:

Monette Michaels is the pen name for a multi-published author of suspense/thrillers.

She's been married to the love of her life for far longer than she cares to remember. Her home is in Central Indiana.

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