On the Way Home (8 page)

“First question. This one has three parts—name, rank, and serial number.”

Surprise ran a live wire through my body, but I managed to hide the worst of my reaction. It was like getting kicked in the gut and falling back into three weeks ago, neck-deep in the cartel, under constant threat of discovery and torture.

I told myself she had just seen too many action flicks. This was her way of getting to know me. Or maybe she just wanted a little rough play in the bedroom. Okay, judging from the way she twisted my balls, a lot of rough play.

“Clint Adams. Specialist.” I rattled off my serial number, ignoring the twinge of unease. This was hardly confidential information. Any old girlfriend would have had access to that information if she’d looked at my papers. Of course, Della wasn’t my girlfriend.

And there was too much intent in her eyes for me to write off her interest as random curiosity.

“Your turn,” I said gruffly. “Pay up. Let me see you, sweet girl.”

With a smirk, she slipped off her socks. “Here you go.”

The little cheat. I gestured with my hand. “Pay up. Let me feel them.”

Her gaze turned worried. “You aren’t going to tickle me, are you?”

“Of course not.” I waited until she sat scooted sideways and slid her foot into my palm before adding, “Unless I don’t like your question.”

She tried to yank her foot away, but I wouldn’t let her. Her stern expression didn’t fool me. I wanted to kiss the little line between her eyebrows, smooth away the stress on her forehead. I wanted to shove my fingers inside her pussy and rub her clit until the only expression on her face was rapture.

I couldn’t touch that part of her, though. Only her feet.

So I focused on them, tugging her so that she was fully reclined, both her feet in my hands. They were small feet, delicate feet to match the rest of her body. Still, I knew how much she must stand on them with her job.

I pressed hard against the insole with my thumb, thoroughly enjoying the soft moan she emitted. I took it as a challenge and caressed her foot from the tips of her toes to the curve of her heel, teasing out more sexy sounds.

“Enough,” she gasped, and I wanted to argue. I wasn’t nearly done with her feet, but I wanted to see other parts more, so I released her.

She struggled to get her composure back, and I did nothing to help her. Seeing her primly walking down the aisle had turned my crank, but watching her eyes roll back and those plush lips part—yeah, I was getting more of that. Even if it meant playing by her rules. Even if it meant breaking them.

“Next question?” I prodded.

“How…how long? How long have you been in the military?”

Shit, another probing question? She chose that moment to probe me—literally—in the shadowed cleft beneath my balls. I strung up tight and let out a strangled sound.
She’s distracting you.
Protective instincts knew what was up, but god-fucking-damn it, she was really good at distraction. Really good when her forefinger teased the puckered hole, threatening to push inside but pulling back instead. I didn’t know if the tightness in my chest was relief or disappointment.

“Three years,” I ground out.

Her next question came immediately. “And before then?”

“Two items.” Only when she sighed and nodded did I say, “Before that I graduated high school. Foster parents asked me to leave since they weren’t getting money anymore, so I enlisted. Been there ever since.”

She nodded as if I’d confirmed something she suspected. I didn’t want to think about what that might be, so I tugged on the soft, stretchy hem of her shirt. “Off.”

“Ooh, so you do know how to give orders.” She winked, and I made a low growling sound I hadn’t even known I was capable of. Sure, I’d ordered a girl around before. I’d spanked her ass before, but only if she asked for it first. Sex had always been a respectful and obliging sort of exercise—one that ended in an orgasm, so who was complaining?

She pulled off her shirt, exposing the pale expanse of her chest and abdomen. A black lace bra covered her breasts, though it enhanced rather than restricted my view.

I waited with my breath locked up tight.
Reach back, undo the clasp.
“Let me see those pretty tits,” I gasped.

She grinned. “I love how eager you are.”

So of course she did the opposite thing. Of course she wiggled on the bed and scooted out of her denim shorts, revealing a matching pair of black panties that made my mouth water. The glimpse of her ass made my fingers twitch to touch it—and I could now. I could run my hands along legs that went on and on.

Her skin was like silk and the edges of her lace panties as rough as sandpaper. The contrast made me greedy. I slipped two fingers underneath the hem, wanting more, needing her, and she dug her nails in where my thigh met my groin.

“Bad,” she said imperiously. It might as well have been a rolled-up newspaper slapped on my nose.

Humiliation warred with arousal. Goose bumps spread over my skin like wildfire, like rain. I was alternately set ablaze and then doused, left chilled and damp and ready to begin again.

With Della, sex became a battle. She fought for every inch and set up barricades around herself so that I’d have to fight too. She drew out every combat instinct I had learned over the past three years—and before that. In the system, you learned early on about simple brute force, about bullies who would beat you up just because they could. I could overpower Della with a twist of my wrist, but I didn’t want that. I wanted to do what I did on an op: infiltrate her defenses and strike when she least expected it.

“God, Della,” I groaned. “Give me more.”

“Then earn it, big boy.”

“Ask me a fucking question,” I demanded. Anger pulsed in my erection, hungry and dangerous. I wanted her to refuse just so I could go over the edge. What would happen next? In every other situation I would back down, I would do what she wanted, but this wasn’t every other situation. Della wasn’t like other women I’d been with. It was almost like she wanted me to get mad at her, and my dick was happy to oblige.

She pulled back at the last minute. I imagined the doctor trembling at this moment, afraid of the monster he had created. Pretending she still had control in the form of a question. “What did you do there? The place you just came from? What did you
do?
”

Jesus fuck, what did I do? I killed people, that’s what I did. I shot them or slit their throats or choked the life out of them. Is that what she wanted to hear? Is that what she got off on?

The op had been messy as hell and no less bloody than a battlefield, but we’d won. Almost a million dollars in arms confiscated on its way into the US and twenty of their men currently in custody. As for the rest, they were going to turn their remaining guns on each other in the age-old blame game. So why did she fucking care?

“I did my job,” I said, reaching for the scrap of lace that connected her bra in the front.

She jerked out of reach. “Not good enough.”

“It’s the fucking truth. Those were the rules of the game.” It was almost an out-of-body experience as I launched myself after her and grappled her onto the bed. I never did stuff like this. I would never hurt a woman, but she winced before I loosened my grip on her wrists.

She panted beneath me, her eyes shooting sparks. “The rules are whatever I say they are. And that answer wasn’t good enough.”

I snarled—that was the sound that came out of me. She was a witch who had turned me into an animal. I would howl at the moon and stamp my paw in frustration. My dick hung heavy beneath me, bobbing, aching to be inside her. I could nudge her legs apart and push in. I could feel her hot warmth around me even with her shouting no.

She wouldn’t say no.

I tightened my grip on her arms, fury running through my body like a physical pain. “Do you want me to share classified information to play your fuckin’ game? Do I have to violate national security just to fuck you?”

 “So what if you do?” she asked, her voice haughty and breathless.

Reaching behind her, I yanked at the clasp on her bra. No finesse, just power. I heard the sound of metal snapping and stretching as the hooks came undone. The straps cut into her arms, leaving white lashes down her skin that faded by the time I threw the bra across the room. She didn’t fight me, even though I broke the rules. Or maybe she just knew me well enough, even in this short amount of time, to know I would follow them after all.

“I infiltrated a criminal organization, an international arms dealer.” That was for the bra. I pushed my fingers into the front hem of her panties and squeezed my fist tight. When I pulled my arm back, the lace came with it. Now I owed her another belated answer, so I gave her the next logical step. I gave her details. “They were in Russia. I was in Russia until two weeks ago. We brought down the organization, their shipping channels. We took their supplies and froze their accounts. They’re dead in the water.”

Her eyes widened, but I was too far gone to think about how a civilian might be afraid. I was too pissed off to care if she wanted to back out. She was naked now, but even without clothes she was only a blur. Pink and cream and a strip of blonde hair down her sex. I plunged two fingers inside her pussy, rough and vengeful.

“I didn’t—” She looked stricken.

“You didn’t say I could touch you here? Why, because I can’t see it? Deep inside where you’re so wet and swollen for me, I can’t see it, but I can feel it.”

Her eyes were wide. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

I laughed, the sound hollow and mournful in my chest. “You didn’t hurt me.” God, she was so slender beneath me, so fragile. “You
can’t
hurt me.”

“Clint, stop. You aren’t like this. This isn’t you.”

I’d never disagreed with her more. In that moment I could only see her skin and the blood of my enemies. I could only see rare moments of kindness and senseless violence. I lived on this line every goddamned day. This was my life. This was
me
.

“I tell you what, sweetheart. I’ll give you one more answer for free, before I fuck this pretty pussy of yours.” I twisted my fingers inside her, rubbing the pad along her wall until she cried out. I wasn’t sure she could even hear me anymore, and maybe that was for the best. “What I said before, that’s only what the US government knows about. There’s something else, something they don’t want to know about, something no one can know about.”

 “What?” Her eyes were glazed, and I brushed my thumb over her clit to make it worse.

“That’s right. It’s dangerous and it’s technically illegal and it’s mine. That’s who you’re fucking right now. A goddamned traitor.”

Even though I had done it for the good of the country, that was what I’d be labeled if shit went south. The list could start an international conflict that would mean more bloodshed. My commander was bound by a million and one restrictions not to act on that list, not to even acknowledge its existence. The only person who knew I had this list was James. I would figure out some way to get the list into the hands of the right officials.

Of course, it was supposed to be a secret.

It pissed me off that I had confided in this woman, that I’d let her lead me around by my dick. It pissed me off that she pried into things she shouldn’t know about, shouldn’t care about. It pissed me off that she kept secrets from me. So I made her pay for it by pushing inside her without any warning, by stretching the walls of her pussy with my cock until she gasped and clenched and shuddered in my arms.

“Clint. Oh,
Clint.
” Jesus, she sounded sad. It made me want to hide her away and cheer her up. It made me want to drag her to my cave and dress her in furs. I settled for giving her an orgasm, angling my cock to hit that spot that made her moan.

I thrust inside her, my hips pistoning like mad. Her hot flesh wrapped around me like leather pulling tight. That was how I saw her: dark and slick and rising from the ashes. So wet without any barriers—no condom.
Shit.
But she couldn’t have pushed me away at the moment. Nothing could have torn my cock from her thirsty, gripping cunt except her soft cries of ecstasy. Even then I kept going, grunting on every downstroke—harder, deeper, around the moon and back again. I managed to pull out right before I came in a splash on her belly, come pooling in her navel, creamy and white, a milky reflection of all that I’d lost.

Chapter Seven

Della

This was bad. Very bad.

If last night’s blowjob had been a mistake, the amazing sex today was a disaster. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Dmitri would do to him. All I had were whispers, gossip that had passed through the back room at the club. Fingers cut off. Burn marks. Torture.

I had managed to forget all that when it was only my sister’s life on the line. After all, whatever Dmitri would do to a man, he would do worse to a woman. Before I’d gotten on that plane, I’d known the deal.

Bring the passenger in seat 34B, and my sister would be released, safe and sound.

“You okay?”

I jumped. The previous passenger of 34B was looking at me with concern. And he was holding a hammer. The door to the garage was open behind him, giving me a clue as to where he’d gotten it from—his own boxes. I just didn’t know why.

“Uh… what’re you doing with that?” I asked.

He hefted the tool in his hand. “Figured I’d check out that loose step on your front porch.”

My eyebrows shot up. “My what?”

I had expected him to check something out, but not my loose step.
Isn’t this what you wanted?
This way, I wouldn’t have to have sex with him again. And I could be assured that he would stay for a while. But the problem was… I kind of wanted to have sex with him again, right the fuck now. Earlier had only been a taste. Through some combination of sympathy and ordinary lust, I wanted this man in my bed.

The other problem was I wasn’t sure I wanted him to stay anymore. If he stayed, Dmitri would get him. If he stayed with me, he was going to die.