Jacked Up (Bowen Boys #4) (15 page)

She flung her head back. God, she wasn’t going to be able to stop this time. She reached to him, hugging him.

“Your pussy is killing me. Squeezing me like a vise.”

He redoubled the speed, his plunging hard and devilishly hitting all her sweet spots while he rubbed her pulsing clit in tight circles and she dissolved in his arms, letting the wave sweep over her, unable to delay it anymore.

In the midst of her haze she heard him growling as he gave in to his own release and shot inside her.

After regaining consciousness, Elle realized Jack had rolled onto his back. God, she wasn’t sure if she’d climaxed or had a stroke. A stroke probably. Although she doubted there was any kind of stroke in the world that left you tingly all over and floating in neverland, extremely happy and satisfied.

She turned to Jack and studied him, trailing her fingers over his warm skin. She’d known he was fit, but man, he was magnificent. Thick veins running along starkly defined muscles, not an ounce of fat anywhere. Not an ounce of softness either. And not a single tattoo.

She lifted her gaze to his and found his eyes trained on her, his face inscrutable as always. He hadn’t been too open to letting her touch him, and with her holding to the headboard for dear life while he was eating her out or pounding in her from behind, she hadn’t had that many chances, either.

“I can’t believe you don’t have tattoos.” Clean skin, so weird. Considering how strongly she was attracted to him and how nuts she always went for tattooed bad boys, she’d figured he would be inked.

“I heard you have a thing for assholes with tattoos,” Jack said.

“Yeah, well, I sometimes have a thing for just assholes,” Elle answered, pointedly looking at him.

Her whole life she’d gravitated toward tattooed bad boys, but Jack wasn’t a bad boy. He didn’t go around flaunting attitude, pretending to be a tough guy because he had tattoos or a bike. Those were wannabes; Jack, she had the feeling, was the real deal. He didn’t need to show off or mouth off in front of anyone. The other way around: one stare, one word, and the job was done. He had an aura of authority very few people could pull off and even fewer could withstand without crumbling. Compared with her past experiences, Jack was in a class all his own.

Tattoos he didn’t have, but his body was full of marks and angry scars. “What’s this?”

She didn’t expect an answer, but surprise, surprise, she got it. “Knife wound. Bosnia.”

“And this?” she ventured, tempting her luck further.

“Shrapnel. Afghanistan.”

She moved unto the next one. He answered before she asked.

“Bullet. Sierra Leone.”

There was a very similar scar on his lower abdomen. “This a bullet too?”

He shook his head. “Bayonet. Colombia.”

Jesus Christ, the guy was a road map to the world conflicts of the last two decades, but he wouldn’t take any pity from her, so she went for light.

“You need to have a word with your travel agent, Borg.”

He let out a dry snort.

Several weird scars on his arm and chest got her attention. They were round and looked old. “And these?”

“Cigarette burns. My mother.”

She froze. The marks were by far the smallest and the least life-threatening, yet they were the most horrifying of all. Jack must have been a kid; she couldn’t envision anyone doing that to Jack as an adult, much less as many times as the circles on his body indicated.

She tried very hard not to let what she was feeling show, but she failed miserably, because his expression hardened.

He got out of bed, a scowl on his face, and turning his back on her, headed for the bathroom. And then she saw it.

Oh. My. God.

At her sharp intake of air he swirled and stared at her. “What? Did my shitty childhood put you off?”

She shook her head. “Your back…”

It was completely tattooed. A fallen angel of some sort covered it, not an inch uninked.

His expression relaxed as it dawned on him what she was referring to. “Right. You see, asshole with tattoos here. You didn’t stray too far from your path.”

* * * *

Jack watched Elle sleep, tense as a fucking bow.

She was resting on her side, her head on the pillow, her hands under her cheek. Man, she looked so sweet sleeping. So…agreeable. And why the fuck was he staring at her instead of sleeping, or better yet, why was he still in her room, he had no clue. It seemed he was incapable of making himself walk away from her, even after fucking her senseless.

It was the lack of shut-eye that was compromising his thought-processing and decision-making skills. He recalled getting more z’s during his last deployment in Afghanistan than these past days with Elle. Her rhythm was inhuman. Of course, if he used the little time he had left for sleep for fucking her, it wasn’t going to help matters. Not that he could do anything about it. Now that the doors were open, he wasn’t going to keep his hands off her. The need to get his fill and fuck her out of his system was too powerful.

Elle opened her eyes, a big smile on her sleepy face. “Something to say to me?”

He didn’t answer, just swept his thumb over her lips, propped on his elbow. “Why did you let me fuck you bareback?”

She laughed. “Good morning to you too.”

“Answer me. That was fucking dumb. I could have all sorts of diseases.” He didn’t; he got himself checked religiously twice per year, but she didn’t know that.

“You’re a stickler for security. The kind of man who would laminate his own dick. If anyone in this world is clean, it’s you. I’d bet my life on it.”

Which she actually had done.

“The million-dollar question here is, sunshine,” she continued unfazed by his hard tone, “why did you fuck
me
bareback? I could have all sorts of diseases. I might not be clean. I’m a reckless loose bullet.”

Good question. A tantrum from her and she’d had him losing his goddamned mind in a parking lot, eating from her hand like a fucking teenager, forgetting about everything. He knew Elle was reckless, but stupid she wasn’t. She was clean.

And now that he’d gotten to take her without protection, there was no way in hell he was going to suit up.

“Nothing else to tell me?” she asked after a long pause. “Not too skilled at morning-afters, are you?”

Nope, he wasn’t. He always went to the shower and suggested to the lady that she be gone by the time he came out, if they were in his apartment, which was very seldom. More often than not he would have his sexual encounters in hotels or in their places. Easier to leave. Less messy. Now? Now he couldn’t make a single muscle flex to move away from Elle. Mental.

“Okay, let me help you with that. What about, ‘Elle, my princess, you kicked ass. You blew my mind. You are the most beautiful woman in the world and the sexiest. Last night was the best, sweetheart.’”

“Do you need all those words to let me fuck you again, pet?”

To his utter surprise, she laughed. “Nope, Borg.”

“Good.” He wasn’t much of a pillow talker.

He rolled them onto their sides and lifted her thigh over his, palming her ass proprietarily and delving lower.

“How sore are you?”

He caressed her sweet pussy, her folds puffy from the night, but she didn’t flinch; she rocked against his hand. “Not sore enough.”

At her words, his cock jerked. Man, such a tease. His kind of tease.

“Any more UV tattoos your dress covered?”

She smiled coyly. “Women do not reveal their secrets.”

He was going to get his hands on a black light. In a place where he could strip her.

She reached for his cock and palmed him. “I thought piercings were not allowed in the military.”

“And they aren’t.”

“So there’s a rebel streak on you.”

He didn’t answer and slid a finger in her, then moved some of her lube to her ass.

“No,” she said, tensing.

He stopped. “I’m not used to that word.”

“Get used to it. Anal sex is not my thing.”

“Have you given it up for anybody?”

She shook her head. “No and don’t get your hopes up because I won’t. I’m not comfortable with the idea. Contrary to what men seem to believe, the route to a woman’s heart isn’t through her ass.”

“You mean you don’t trust your lovers to give you what you need.”

She snorted. “And who says I need hemorrhoids?”

He would not give her hemorrhoids. Far from it. He would make her come explosively, but he would never take something that wasn’t offered freely. “Understood. Ass’s off-limits. Anything else I should know?”

She pondered for a second. “Yes. I like my orange juice without pulp.”

* * * *

From the SUV, Nico watched the heavyset woman playing with the toddler in the front yard.

“Not her,” he muttered.

He’d hacked the company providing the IT services for the airline, and once he’d gotten the list of the people who had worked that morning shift, it had been a question of matching names with license pictures and comparing them to Marlene’s. There had been twenty-six women, of which only three could have passed for her. After some snooping around, he’d discarded two of them, and now, seeing Vivian Stone huffing and puffing under the blasting heat, trying to keep up with the kiddo, he discarded her too.

She might have been able to pass for Marlene some years back, when the picture on her driver’s license had been taken, but she was one of those ladies who married, had kids, and exploded, her ass expanding faster than the family’s credit line. No way did she dispatch their flight. Besides, she was safe and sound at home, taking care of her offspring, not under police surveillance.

“You don’t say,” the man sitting shotgun spat in disgust. “Jesus, when a toddler can outrun you, it’s time to take matters into you own hands and get your ass to Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig or major liposuction or whatever shit women do these days to stay slim. In between Photoshop and chicks using old pics, Carlitos Junior ain’t coming out to play until I see the bitch live and real.”

Nico didn’t answer, wishing Carlos would shut up. He didn’t have time for brainless idiots, and getting stuck with this moron rubbed him the wrong way.

“Stop smoking and roll the window up,” he snarled instead.

They were in the middle of a motherfucking heat wave and he was cranky as hell. The smell of tobacco wasn’t making things better.

“
Tranquilo
, Russian,” Carlos said with a chuckle, throwing the smoke through the window. “Take it easy. You don’t have that problem back home, right?” Nico thought he was talking about the heat, but Carlos pointed at Vivian. “Asses the size of aircraft carriers, I mean. Don’t get me wrong, amigo, Russia is probably as fucked-up a place as any and I’m in no hurry to freeze my balls off, but your women, perfect porcelain dolls. All primed up always.”

Nico didn’t bother answering. “This is a waste of time,” he muttered.

“We could always have a little chat with Vivian. Work her a bit. Find out if the bitch knows something. And this is a nice neighborhood; they might have expensive stuff. Besides, I like the sound that comes from fat flab. It’s like punching a jelly ball.”

And this was why he preferred to work alone.

Nico looked at the man, whose eyes were already shimmering with sick excitement. Jeez, that was the worst kind of thug: dumb and bloodthirsty.

Incompetent, ineffective bunch of shitheads. They’d managed to kill the very person they needed alive and then compounded the mistake by eliminating the wrong witness.

Annoyed, Nico started the engine.

“You’re no fun, Russian. Now what?”

At this point there was only one option left: track down the shift’s supervisor and ask who the fuck had dispatched Maldonado’s flight. Which he’d hoped to avoid, more than anything because Donald Solis, as luck would have it, was on vacation. In fucking Hawaii.

He drove into traffic, almost running a red light. Shit, he couldn’t think in this heat wave. He didn’t get how people could live like this, constantly sweating. The sun frying their brains. He’d take freezing temperatures any day over this. Cool kept you sharp, in movement. No wonder these assholes never got shit done and their tempers exploded at the smallest setback.

“Sure we can’t take a short detour to play with that fats—”

Carlos didn’t finish the word because Nico had smashed his face on the dashboard.

Then he cranked up the AC. Much, much better.

Chapter Ten

“Stop staring at my sister-in-law’s boobs,” James said to Jack. “You’re going to break blood vessels in both eyeballs. I don’t dare to guess what’s happening to your other more Southern pair of balls. Strangled blue, right?”

“I’m staring at your son.”

James let out a bark. “Right. Try again.”

Jonah was laughing and gurgling, looking happy as all fuck, lying on Elle’s chest and nuzzling her tits. Lucky kid. Jack would be happy as all fuck too in his position. Had been, just several hours ago. Elle’s shirt was getting ruined with so much dribble, but she didn’t mind. She continued kissing and caressing the baby while she talked to Tate, both of them sprawled on lounge chairs.

“You’re sleeping with her,” James stated.

Jack didn’t answer, but apparently his friend didn’t need confirmation.

“Don’t bother denying it. I can see it in the way you look at her.”

“How do I look at her?” As far as he was concerned, he was scowling like always. Because she drove him crazy, like always.

“Proprietarily. Like she’s yours.”

She was. For the time being at least.

“I knew this was going to happen if you spent any time together,” James continued. “The only reason it hasn’t happened earlier is because you avoided her like the plague.”

“She is a pest,” he muttered. A sexy, extremely fuckable, and devilishly attractive pest, but a pest nonetheless. That he wasn’t in a hurry to shake her was what surprised him the most.

As if she felt his gaze on her, she turned to him and winked. Fuck, she was beautiful. More so now that she’d lost the braids.

“You were in luck, buddy,”
she’d said as she’d came out of the beauty salon the day before, her thick hair free again.
“The braids were too tight and itchy. If I had liked them, there’s no way I would have given them up for you.”