Saved by His Submissive (17 page)

She interrupted herself with her own high, aching cry. It exploded from her as he widened his stance in order to mash their bodies with more ferocious force. Oh, damn. Her yelp…he instantly craved to hear it again. He hated himself for the admission, but it resonated deeply as his fucking DNA. He’d never wanted to go balls-out fighting with a woman at the same time he had balls in other places too. This…fuck, this was new as boot camp for him.

That’s not quite the truth, is it, Hawk?

He raged at the reminder note, courtesy of his past. At the same time, he couldn’t ignore the truth that was in front of him, very much in his present. There was no denying the effect that this new “thing,” whatever it was, had on both of them. Sage was an image of writhing, breathtaking beauty as she started to match his thrusts, her eyes closed, her lips panting, her body trembling. His anger from this morning, stirred with this week’s nonstop apprehension, flipped his desire for her into pure need. It wasn’t just his body that told him to conquer her now. It was his mind, his heart. He craved her surrender in every way he could get it.

The comprehension spurred his retort, flung with no apology. “’House arrest?’ That’s the line you’re going with, huh? Seems you really do want me to paint your ass red.”

Sage chuffed, matching him snark for snark. “It’s your punishment fantasy, baby.”

Again, he battled the simultaneous urges to spank her and screw her.

The former wasn’t happening here. But they were doing a damn fine job of dress- rehearsing the latter.

“Well, maybe I’m not fantasy-punishing your ass good enough.” He crushed her even tighter against the tree, shaking the thing so hard that a flurry of pine needles scattered on them. “You’re still spitting that sass at me worse than a thirteen year-old on restriction. Maybe that means you’ve got to have the punishment fucked directly into you.”

He didn’t give Sage a second to try and interpret that. He showed her exactly what he meant with his body. As he rammed more forcefully against her, he freed his other hand from her jumpsuit and grabbed her leg. Inside a second, he forced her thigh around his waist. His other arm remained raised, his hand still a shackle to her wrists, leaving her upper body open for his gaze and his lips. He took advantage of that opportunity, taking her collarbone, her sternum and her neck with his open, wet mouth. Every shiver she gave him in return was like a gift of molten gold. No matter what, he didn’t stop rocking against her, pseudo-fucking her into the high gasp she finally erupted at him.

“Y-yes! Oh…yes, Garrett. Maybe that is what I need…”

He intensified the pace. The friction of their clothes was an agonizing, erotic surrogate for the bond their bodies couldn’t have. “Tell me again,” he commanded. “Call me ‘Sir’ this time.”

“Yes Sir. Yes, you know exactly what I need.”

He clenched his thighs, counteracting the pure flame in his dick. He kept his gaze twined with the verdant glory of hers, watching her arousal spiral higher, feeling her legs shake, her breathing quicken. “What, Sage? Tell me. Use the words to make my cock harder, so I can give you exactly what you need.”

“I—I need you to punish me. To—to fuck the discipline into me.”

“Yes,” he growled. “That’s beautiful.
You’re
beautiful.”

He took her mouth so violently, he lifted her head from the force. He added a rolling motion to his thrusts, drawing out an exquisite little whimper from deep in her chest. He spread his knees a little more in order to drive harder at her.

“Oh!” She gasped and bit his lip, too lost in her escalating arousal to even realize what she’d done. That was all right by him. Her fire fed his, blazing into the corners of him that had been freezing for so long, fusing the driftwood of his desire back into a searing rod of need. “Oh, Garrett! Please!”

He grunted in chastisement. “Re-phrase, Sergeant Weston?”

“Oh, Sir!” she amended. “Please, oh please. I need to—”

“I know what you need. And I’m going to give it to you. The explosion’s on its way, Sage. Your sweet pussy will have its satisfaction, I promise.”

She whimpered and trembled beneath him. “Now,” she pleaded. “God, please…I don’t know how much more of this I can—ahhhh! Please! Now!”

“Don’t think so, sugar.”

“Garrett! Damn it!”

He speeded up their tempo, making her moan hard in protest. His own voice started coming in low, tight growls between his labored breaths.

“The punishment might have been a fantasy, Sage, but the lesson wasn’t. Tell me what lesson I’m fucking into you, then you can come apart for me,
with
me.”

“I—I can’t even think straight! Are you freaking kidding me?”

As much as it killed him to do it, he screeched his body to a full stop. The only thing he moved was his top hand, twisting it harder to keep her wrists in place. “Does this feel like kidding?”

She let out an agonized moan, clipping his ass with her heel, which made him screw the hold tighter on her thigh. “All right!” she finally cried. “All right, fine! Uh—errm—the lesson was—”

“The lesson
is
?”

“The—the lesson is—” Her mouth gaped open as he started the cadence between their bodies again. She learned, at the same time he did, that the thirty second break made their new grind a hundred times more intense. “Oh, Garrett!”

He gritted out a harsh redirect. “Sage? The lesson?”

“I know, I know! The—the lesson—uh—” She licked her lips with delectable desperation. “Don’t—don’t leave the house again without telling you. There. We good now?”

She lurched her hips, blatantly fighting to get him closer. The vibrations squeezed his bottoms in exactly the right way to stroke the aching head of his sex. He shuddered from it, but found the will to demand, “Why?
Why
don’t you leave the house without telling me?”

“Garrett! Please!”

“Tell me why, damn it!”

“Be-Because—it makes you feel—uh—”

“Like tearing the fucking neighborhood apart.” The renewed viciousnes in his tone wasn’t just because of the bonfire in his cock. His passion was intertwined with the other shit she needed to hear from him, to see in him. She needed to know how his heart seized and his blood became ice this morning when finding her note, how he’d wondered if she’d been forced to write it at gunpoint by one of King’s wanksters, how he barely held the truck to the speed limit when driving to the base after finding the papers in the driveway. She needed to feel what had driven him to pin her here, and act like this. “It makes me feel like I’ve been cuffed in steel and can’t get out, Sage. Like I’ve lost you all over again. Can you understand that? Can you understand what that does to me?”

Her face contorted. More tears slipped down her cheeks. Damn it, this hadn’t been his intention when hauling her out here. He’d hoped for some fast necking and a grope or two, maybe to help take the edge off her sexual frustration, if not his. If a crystal ball had floated ahead of them through the brush and shown they’d be dry-humping each other through a mini psychotherapy session, he would’ve hurled the thing into the woods and told it to go back to the cheap toy store it came from.

“I’m not lost anymore.”

She spoke it with the conviction of a courtroom oath. The solemn words resounded into the depths of his heart and chiseled at every aspect of his control.

“I’m right here, stronger for what I’ve been through, and you are, too. You came and found me, and now we’ve left the hell behind. We’ve left that bastard King behind…right?”

He heard the deliberate pause she inserted before that final question. When he didn’t say or do anything to fill that gap, Sage fell into contemplative stillness. When she moved again, it was to test his grip on her wrists. Garrett let her slip free. She extended her hands straight to him, threading her fingers through his hair. “Garrett? Look at me. I’m here. I’m
here.
Do you get it?” Her grasp tightened. “Or is there something
I’m
 not getting?”

He got in half a breath before the flames in his body turned to icicles. He went stiff from the impact, not in the great ways this time. The wind rustled through the pines, a sound so peaceful, it turned into a taunt at his heart and soul. He couldn’t hide it from Sage anymore, either. He raised his eyes to meet hers. Her gaze, deep and lush as the boughs over their heads, didn’t let him go. He witnessed every nuance of the conversion that took over her face, the lust dissolving, the dark bafflement taking over.

“Goddamnit,” she whispered. “Tell me, Garrett. You don’t get to walk back up the dock this time. What the
hell
is it?”

He stroked a steady thumb along her cheek. “What do I do for a living, Sage? You know I have to hide lots of things.”

She ditched the confused frown for an outright glower. He’d backed her into an impasse and they both knew it. Nobody had more reverence for his SF secrets than Sage, and he loved her for that integrity. To push him would be taking a hammer to that foundation between them. But her eyes revealed her insight. She knew this had nothing to do with “work.”

A bellow came from the landing zone. Kell had unknowingly perfect timing. “Are you two done sucking face? The van’s here. We’d all like to get back to base and enjoy some of that yummy-ass brunch.”

Garrett pulled Sage’s zipper back up before readjusting the painful weight beneath his thighs. Despite having to walk out of the wood with a modified gait from unfulfilled need, he silently thanked fate for smiling upon him in this instance. All right, it sucked that he wasn’t sure when he’d see a smile on his fiancé’s  lips again—but for now, he’d yanked her from King’s tentacles again., and she was technically none the wiser.

He had no idea how much longer he could keep up this ruse.

The sooner they put the asshole away for life, the better.

Chapter Twelve

Sage sighed heavily as she stood in the kitchen, watching him from the wide window over the sink. Garrett paced the lawn, side patio and back of the condo with careful steps and a vigilant gaze. All he needed was a brain bucket and an M16, and she’d swear he was out on patrol. The strain didn’t leave his body even as he sat at one of the chairs around the fire pit to strip off his T-shirt and get out of his boots. Every rope of muscle in his torso was still wound in tension.

None of it came as a surprise. Or a difference. He’d reinstated his mental smokescreen the second they’d climbed into the van with the other guys. Tait and Kell had led the bombardment of questions and general chatter, adding their embellishments about what their own first jumps were like, as well as their most harrowing jumps since then. Sage was glad some of their stories pushed believability, since she’d needed the distraction from the silence wrapped around the man who’d brought her such bright ecstasy just minutes before. Nothing improved during their drive home, when Garrett pretended to be interested in the entertainment news update oozing off the radio. Did he seriously expect her to believe the newest Hollywood hook-ups were a remote concern to him?

It was official. He was hiding something from her. And if it was an understanding about this new energy between them, she had a right to know about it. She’d burn through his whole damn forest to do it.
Let’s do this, Smokey the Bear.

She poured a couple of glasses of water as he came back inside. “Oh, hell yeah,” he murmured when she offered him the drink. “That’s good. Thanks, sugar.”

He guzzled the whole glass in one swig, slammed it down, and refilled it. The moment provided the shot of courage she needed. There’d been a few others like this, where he’d poked through the smoke to give her glimpses of the brash, wild mustang of a man who’d first captured her heart two summers ago, when she’d been refueled to fight for him again. To fight for
them.
It was worth it. She had to keep trying.

The mantra compelled her forward, next to him. As she expected, Garrett stiffened. She didn’t back off. Instead, she lifted a hand and rested it against his chest, above the V formed by his dog tags.

He didn’t retreat.

That was a good sign, right?

Sage slid her touch toward his neck.

He grabbed her wrist with the speed of a cobra.

“Don’t.” She said it from tight teeth. “
Don’t,
Garrett.”

“Sage—”

“You’re not going to fire bomb me out this time.” Though he swung away, she hooked a hand into the crook of his elbow and dug in, at least as much as she could against his coiled bicep. “I’m not going to let you.” She got him to stop, though he only turned his profile for her to see. “Won’t you even look at me?”

With slow resignation, he swiveled completely around. He hitched his grip backwards, palms against the counter. He raised his head, though his gaze only lifted far as her nose. His lips parted  as if he were going to say something, but he just scissored his jaw at her.

“Damn it.” Her rasp was more serrated than the knife stuck in the sourdough loaf she’d baked last night. “How long are we going to continue like this?”