Connor (20 page)

His clothes were gone before she had a chance to need them gone. Con's hungry mouth closed over one nipple as he drew her breast up to meet him. The sharp tug of his suckling had her flying over the edge yet again. This was madness. This was intensity unlike anything they'd experienced so far.

There was a hollow ache inside her; an emptiness that needed filling. Now, right now.

She grabbed at his cock desperately.

"Not yet," he said hoarsely, on a gasp. "I want to devour every inch of you first."

"No. No. Please, Con. I need this. Only this. Be inside me now. I need you."

And with no further encouragement, Con slipped his still-hard cock into her waiting core. And they both moaned at the exquisite pleasure that one single thrust provided.

He was trembling, trying to maintain control as another orgasm threatened to overwhelm him. She didn't want his control. She wanted him wild and feral. His control had been monumental all evening, just letting her do what she had to do. Now it wasn't needed any more.

"Fuck me, Con. Hard and fast. Please."

And with that he let go, doing her bidding, pounding into her while the blinding orgasms washed over her like waves of electrical energy. Her internal muscles clasped tightly around his thrusting cock, and Con growled, sinking his teeth into her shoulder.

Now the depth charges started going off, one after the other, all over her body. It shook her like a rag doll, the seismic shocks so powerful they bordered on pain.

Something in the way her body reacted had Con drawing away, retracting his teeth. She looked up at him and managed a smile. He smiled back and began his own final climb. When it came, it was enough to send her spiralling off into yet another blissful, exhausted release.

Maybe she blacked out, she wasn’t sure. But the next thing she was aware of was Con sprawled over her, his hot breath against her ear. Giggling tiredly, she shoved ineffectually at him, to get him to roll off. He weighed a ton.

Groggily, he took the hint and rolled, but taking her with him, still intimately joined.

"You don't do that again," he said.

"What, give you the best sex of your life?" she joked.

"I'm serious. I don't care what the Sons want; you don't compromise yourself like that again. It could have gone wrong. He could have raped you. I'd have killed him before he finished, but that wouldn't have helped you. It wasn't right Chase expecting you to seduce one of them like that. I don't care how far up the food chain he is. How much of a dent we'll make in the Guild by taking him out. It's not going to happen again. No more."

She was so glad to hear him say that. Even though it had been her decision, she still felt compromised by the Sons for even suggesting it. That Con agreed with her meant more than words could say. It meant he was putting her ahead of the Sons, ahead of his cause, even ahead of the whole damned planet. And as wrong as that was, it felt right too. There were some values that shouldn't be compromised for the greater good.

"No more," she repeated with a contented sigh.

"No more," he said as he kissed her damp hair.

Sometime during the night an alarm went off. Despite his determination to stay awake in case his brothers needed him, Connor had fallen asleep almost as soon as their incredible session had finished. Now, four hours later, by the digital clock on the bedside table, they were being drawn from a slumber so deep it was dislocating.

"Whhhat…" Allie mumbled groggily.

"The Sons. Someone must have set off an alarm when they boarded. I'll have to help. Stay here," he ordered, jumping to his feet with cat speed and heading for the door, naked.

"Boxers," Allie said, throwing him the pair he'd worn the night before. With a grunt, he threw them on in a blur of speed and then opened the door. The corridors were empty, but doors were slowly opening as sleeping guests tried to find out what was wrong.

A harassed looking guard appeared from the direction of the stairs and made his way along the hall, pushing open doors as he went. "Mr Rothmen. Has anyone seen Mr Rothmen?"

The Italian couple in the room the guard tried to push into broke into loud yells of rebuke. Or he assumed that was what they were jabbering. But the guard ignored them, even going as far as to point his semi-automatic rifle at them.

Seeing no sign of the brothers, and only the one guard with an angry bruise on his jaw, he felt his heart-rate drop. A bruise like that didn't happen immediately. Chances were it happened hours ago. If he'd been knocked out, wouldn't his first task have been to go to his employer. Not finding him, he'd have started a search. That meant it was likely the Sons had come and gone without waking a soul.

As the guard came level with Connor, he stepped back to let the frantic man search the room. "What's happened? Has something happened to Karl?"

The guard shook his head as he checked the bathroom. Allie was sitting up in bed with a sheet pulled up to cover her breasts.

"Pirates attacked a few hours ago. We were outnumbered. Those of us still alive have only just come around."

"And you think they've taken Karl?" Con continued, trying to sound upset.

"He is not in his stateroom. The last time he was seen several hours before, he was still very sick. Food poisoning. But we are checking all the cabins just in case he's still on board."

"Have you called the Coastguard?"

"All is being done, sir. I would suggest you both get dressed and go up onto the sundeck. What we know will be explained then."

Ten minutes later all the guests and staff were milling around on the sundeck, which made it a tight fit. Most people were shaking their heads and looking around fearfully, expecting another attack. Deirdre Rothmen was holding her son to her as if afraid he too would be taken. The young man looked mortified, and tried to make it look as if he was comforting her. But from the sly looks his so-called friends were throwing at him, it was apparent he was failing.

There were eight guards now standing, and their leader waited until the last man returned with his report before calling for attention.

"A well-organised and silent assault took place on this vessel two hours ago. Every guard was knocked unconscious or killed. It would appear they had only one goal: the capture of Karl Rothmen. This they have successfully achieved. A ransom note was left on the dining-room table."

"We don't pay ransoms. It is against our policy," Deirdre spoke up, as if insulted at the very idea. At least she wasn't hypocritical enough to appear upset at the loss of her husband.

No one seemed to question her decision, although Hugo looked bemused by the turn of events.

"I will be taking over control of my husband's financial interests until Hugo is ready to assume the mantle of command. If there is nothing else, I am going back to bed. I assume the authorities will arrive in the next few hours and I intend to get as much sleep as I can until then. I suggest you all do the same."

With that, Deirdre Rothmen marched away, her son still attached to her side. She looked triumphant. And, had he not known his brothers had been responsible for Rothmen's disappearance, he would have suspected her. More than one set of suspicious eyes followed her retreating form, likely thinking the same thing.

Colt led Alyssa away, and Con did the same with Allie. His heart felt light for the first time since this crazy scheme was thought up. They'd pulled it off. The Sons had the information they needed from the medallion, and it had been enough to legitimise the take-down. The trial that would follow would be nothing more than a reading of their evidence to the accused before he was put to death.

Connor had never had any desire to witness a trial carried out by the Résistance Judiciary before, but this time it was different. This time one of the bastards had tried to take his woman. It would give him great pleasure to see the man squirm when he realised just what had befallen him. He didn't know whether Allie would want to be there, but if she did, he would give her that opportunity. Her task had taken more out of her than even she had expected. He'd sensed that earlier when she was so frantic to wash the bastard off her.

Never again. He didn't care how critical the mission, he was never going to let Allie compromise herself like that again.

The Coast Guard and local Barbadian police arrived three hours later, just as the sun slipped over the horizon. For a few more hours they were all interrogated and Rothmen's stateroom sealed off for the Crime Scene people to go over once they reached Bridgetown again. The crew then set about making them all breakfast, which everyone except for the humans, or whatever the fuck the five of them qualified as, ate with gusto. No one was grieving the loss of Rothmen, not even his family.

Once docked, they made their excuses and headed for the airport. The police had not told anyone they needed to remain for further questions, so they took the opportunity to book flights for LA that afternoon. This time they took a taxi from the docks to the airport, marvelling at the traffic which was even worse than Los Angeles and London combined. Finally they completed the eight mile journey and, after booking in their luggage, wandered through the security hurdles and headed for the First Class Lounge.

Connor couldn't remember ever feeling as tired as he did right now. The day before, keeping his cat caged, had taken more out of him than he realised. Coming so soon after his brush with death, it was all too much. Allie looked no better than he felt. In the lounge, she curled up in his lap and fell instantly asleep.

"Well, that went remarkably well," Colt said quietly, putting an arm around the songbird and kissing the side of her head.

"Aye, if you say so," he muttered back, stroking short dark hair back from Allie's sun-kissed face. Her olive skin had drunk in the sun, turning it a pleasing light brown. She actually looked as if she'd been on holidays.

"I know how hard it was for you, Connor. If anyone knows it's me. You did good, and so did your girl. We've taken down one of the fucking Inner Sanctum. That's
huge
."

"Aye, as I said. But she's not doing anything like that again. Not just because I doubt I could handle it again, but because it isn't fair to expect her to whore herself like that."

"How far did she have to go?" Alyssa asked, her voice husky with concern.

"Not far. But you should've seen what it did to her. She never does that again, ever."

"What about her role with Cameron?" Colt asked cautiously.

"Yeah, well as long as that toffee-nosed bastard keeps his hands off her, okay. But none of the Guild ever touches her again. And I expect that Hall will be making his move on her soon enough anyway. He couldn't keep his eyes of her chest last night at dinner. He's our next target. He goes down before he has a chance to turn his attentions onto Allie."

"Fair enough. Chase will likely agree to that. But we'll be staying in the States now that all this is resolved. You'll have to go back to London with Allie alone."

"Yeah, I know. But I'm going to the trial first. I want to see the look in that bastard's eyes when he sees who took him down."

Colt nodded. "Know that feeling."

Connor remembered Akabar's extraction. The expression on the media mogul's face had been priceless when he saw a van full of identical Sons. He'd spluttered and choked, especially when Colt had told him what was going to happen to him, and who had made it happen. Moments like that didn't happen often in their line of work, but when they did they made the danger and hardship worth it.

Four days later, Allie sat beside her mate, watching the short but official trial of Karl Rothmen in the rural safe-house in the hinterlands west of San Francisco.

As far as she knew, Rothmen had been kept unawares of what was going on during his incarceration. Even the Sons had kept their faces covered. Now Con and Colt sat side by side in the courtroom, all elements of their disguise removed. Now they looked like every other Son present in the room, all ten of them.

The panel of five judges were all respected members of the Résistance, so she'd been informed. Scanlan, Chase's father was among them. They sat behind a raised bench just like judges who were part of the U.S legal system did.

When Rothmen was led in, looking like a broken man, she felt her heart soar. She'd seen the evidence from the flash-drive: The governments he'd helped take down, the drug cartels he supported, the hundreds of politically motivated assassinations he'd approved. The list went on and on. After all, the man had been a powerful member of the Guild since his German father, an industrialist with close ties to Hitler, had died shortly after Rothmen turned twenty five. Though there was nothing definitive in the files, the consensus was that Rothmen had likely taken his own father out so he could move up the ranks of the Guild more quickly.

Rothmen's bleary eyes took in the courtroom and they became more and more bemused as he saw the Sons sitting in neat rows in front of the judges. He frowned and rubbed at his head. Then his eyes came to rest on Allie, and she shuddered in revulsion. Every night she'd dreamed of suffocating, this bastard's tongue thrust far down her throat. The waves of nausea that followed always came back with her from dream-world to wakefulness.

Her greatest hope was that once she had closure the dreams would stop.

"W…What is this? Who are you people? Miss Aimes, Alice…"

"Silence," intoned one of the judges, his accent South African, if she had to guess.

The middle-aged Guild member stammered to a halt and turned to the judges. He drew himself up to his full but meagre height, and lifted his chin in a characteristic gesture of superiority.

"I am Karl Rothmen. How dare you subject me to these kinds of tactics! My men will track down every single one of you for this insult and you
will
pay."

"Your men, from what I understand, now work for your wife," the same judge continued with a smug expression on his face. "We left her a ransom note, and those who witnessed it, assure us your wife showed no interest in getting you back. She plans to run your empire until her son is capable of taking over. Which I gather may be many years, if ever."

"Deirdre would never… She knows we have a policy on kidnapping. But she will have men looking for me. When they find me…"

"You will be dead, Mr Rothmen. This trial by the De Facto World Government will hear the evidence of your crimes against humanity. You will have a chance to speak after you have heard that evidence and then you will be put to death."

"Where's my barrister. You have no right to try me without legal counsel present."

"You had no right to commit the following crimes against our world. You and your alien forefathers have made it your goal to grow rich on the resources of this planet. We are aware of your plans to leave it as soon as you feel you have exhausted those resources. Our intelligence has the planned departure for fresh fields for the year 2060."

"Don't be ridiculous, of course we have no such plans. I'm no alien. Where did you get such paranoid delusions? I am a business man, no more, no less."

"Karl Rothmen you stand accused of the following crimes," the man intoned over the top of Rothmen who was bleating indignantly. As the list of his crimes was read out, Rothmen grew quiet. He kept glancing over in Allie's direction, frowning and confused, fingering the medallion that still hung around his neck.

When the judge finished outlining all the crimes and evidence against him, Rothmen stared at the man and gathered his flagging bravado around him like a cloak. "How did you get that evidence? It was gained by illegal means. This trial is a travesty. I demand to be tried by a
real
judiciary, not this farce."

"The evidence was gathered by the brave actions of the young lady sitting in the courtroom. You know her as Alice Wunderlund. You thought it impossible for anyone to get the information on that flash-drive you wear around your neck, but Miss Wunderlund used a device that gave us access to that data. Everything we have presented here today is recorded on that medallion you wear around your neck. You made our work much easier having that data stored so efficiently together in one place."

Rothmen looked over at Allie and his face fell as he realised what must have happened.

"How did you make me sick?" he demanded, ignoring the judges completely.