Surrendering To Her Sergeant (34 page)

She stopped and forced herself to
breathe again. Like that did any good. From the way she ground her
lower lip into hamburger, Tait now realized that the woman wasn’t
just skittish. She was terrified. His logic, born from years of
instinct and field training, took the next step from
there.

“What happened?” He asked
it in a tone that conveyed he not only knew there was an answer but
expected to get it. “
What
happened
, Luna?”

She let out a leaden sigh. “Galvaz is
dead.”

He didn’t gasp or groan. His knowing
nod might have skated at the edge of callous but it was also the
display of strength she needed right now, and hadn’t gotten from
Colton. Not that Tait could blame the guy. Losing Galvaz was a loss
that couldn’t have come at a shittier time, especially if the
Aragons had dealt the blow. He had a feeling he could already solve
that little mystery, too.

“I take it he didn’t go peacefully in
his sleep?”

“Bullet through the forehead.” Her
voice was a rasp. Her forehead crunched and her eyes squeezed
shut.

“Colton has proof?”

She dipped her head. “They—they took a
picture. Dan got it as a text from Galvaz’s number.”

“That’s certainly a way of telling the
spooks you’re onto them.”

Luna fell into a taut
stillness, which got him even more stressed than all the frightened
fidgeting. “He—he knew it was going to happen.” Her stare stayed
riveted to the center of his chest. She raked him there with her
fingertips, the motions awkward and needy, which clearly deepened
her fear. “Weasley…he knew. When he called in two nights
ago…remember what I told you? He gave us specific directions about
all of it, about taking care of his family. He made Dan promise
that his wife and kids would get US citizenship and witness
protection. He talked about his little girl. He wanted her to get a
college education. He told us she’s really good at math. He was so
proud of her.” Tears shone in her eyes then brimmed and rained down
her cheeks. “He was so calm,” she uttered. “He was so…resigned. He
knew what was going to happen and yet he did it anyway. He
thanked
Dan for the
chance to do something right. Said he’d spent so many years doing
shitty things but he wasn’t a shitty person. He was just lost.
Just…lost.”

Tait slid his hand around the back of
her neck. But instead of compelling her face back up, he tilted his
down. He let her see that he valued every drop she cried and
understood every word she spoke.

“And you told him you’d been lost
once, too.”

She gazed at him. No. Not just at him
but into him, slamming his soul with the shimmering force of her
sorrow. “Yeah,” she whispered. “I did.”

“And today, you’ve done
what
you
had
to—but now you’re afraid to feel calm about it.”

She didn’t answer him in words. He
didn’t care. As her tears turned into chokes then sobs, he folded
her into his arms and let her plummet into the emotion she needed
right now. If the world was perfect, he’d be giving her this pain
in the form of cuffs, clamps, and whips, but they were miles from
perfection and the best he could offer was a few minutes of safety
so she could strip down her heart and give it release.

Incredible, intense woman. Her
emotional nakedness was as stunning to him as her bare body, and
just as precious a gift. He still didn’t know anything about her
beyond the few details Zeke had shared about meeting her on the
street when they’d been teens, but in moments like this, Tait
didn’t need her baby pictures and a life journal. Now, just like
that night when he’d helped her through the subdrop at Bastille,
she made him feel like a human skyscraper. A lion king. Her
personal hero.

The guy who’d fallen hard for
her.

After a few minutes that raced by too
fast, she snuffled, swiped the mascara off her cheeks, and stepped
back. “Damn it. I’m a mess.”

He couldn’t hold back from cupping the
side of her face again. “A beautiful mess.”

She shot him half a smile. “You
seriously need your head ex—”

He pulled the rest of the word off her
lips by dragging her close and kissing her hard. Reckless move?
Yeah. Completely unavoidable? He gave that a giant check mark, too.
Ahhh, God…the sweet nectar of her mouth, the lingering salt of her
tears, the lush taste of her lips…he’d never tasted such a
wonderful ambrosia in his life. And doubted he ever would
again.

“My head’s working just fine.” He said
it when he finally let her go, still pressing his forehead to hers.
“Both of them, as a matter of fact.”

“Shit.” She got it out between a
couple of labored breaths. The action made that damn sweater set go
tight in all the right places, which didn’t help the protest she
tried to stammer. “Weasley—we really can’t—”

He handled that just like the other
nonsense she tried to blurt. He simply meshed his mouth and tongue
to hers again. When she finally tore away, he grated, “Come to the
hotel tonight.” He traced her eyebrows, her cheeks, and her lips
with the pads of his thumbs. “Luna…come be with me.”

He watched the
yes
enter her whole face,
bringing a new sheen to her eyes and a slight part to her lips,
before the shadow of fear conquered it again. “I have to get the
stick to Dan. We have no idea what this is going to unlock on that
laptop.”

“And after that? Don’t you have to
sleep sometime?”

“Of course.” She guided his hand to
the back of her neck again, but made him press into her skin. His
fingers hit a little ridge that felt like a staple under her skin.
“In the bed where they can find me, via this fun little tracking
chip.” She sniffed and attempted a smile. “Karma’s quite a bitch,
huh?”

“Fine.” She wanted to play this for
the jugular? He could do that, too. “Then I’ll wait.”

Her laugh wasn’t surprising. “You’ll
wait,” she repeated. “Right. Sure.”

He squared his shoulders. Tightened
his jaw. “I know exactly where you’re going with that, Ms.
Lawrence. Be my guest. I’m right behind you.”

She folded her arms and
jutted her chin. “For the next year? Because you realize, no matter
what goes down with Lor and the Aragons,
that’s
the crazy assignment you’re
volunteering for, right?”

He didn’t alter his position by an
inch. “I’m a smart guy, flower. And a patient one.”

Finally, the words seemed to sink into
her. Her generous lips curled a little. She gazed up at him, the
darkness in her gaze beyond anything she’d ever hit him with
before. He almost felt like she was looking at him for the first
time ever.

“You mean that, don’t you?” Her tone
warmed him like someone had distilled the afternoon’s sunshine and
urged him to take a shot.

Tait swallowed hard before brushing
his knuckles across her cheek. “Don’t you remember what they say at
Hogwarts, honey? The beautiful, crazy witch is always worth the
wait.”

She gave him the gift of another
laugh. It filled his senses with melody and light, making him grin
like an idiot in return.

In another two seconds, the moment was
gone. She turned away, still teetering in those heels even though
she reached more level ground after leaving the palm grove. As Tait
watched the sway of her enticing backside, a jolt of something
strange hit his chest. He rubbed his sternum, unable to recognize
the shit at first. It had been such a long time since he’d felt
it…but the connection finally struck. It was pure, unfiltered
joy.

Ethan was pretty sure he was going to
hell.

There had to be some cosmic law
against using a Sunday night for dressing up in Dominance leathers
and a T-shirt laced with silver sparkle threads, pretending to top
a starlet who was as submissive as Xena the Warrior, in front of
ten floodlights, a catty photography crew—and the woman on whom
he’d much rather be wielding the crop. Yeah, the same woman who’d
been watching him for the last two days like a hen eyeing a fox
outside her coop, while a filthy fox named Ephraim Lor kept
slinking in through her back door.

Yep. Hell. He had no doubt it was
already stamped on his mortal train ticket. Didn’t have a problem
letting the track take him there either, as long as he got to kill
Lor first. Slowly. Painfully. Since tonight’s photo session was
taking place in Ricochet, one of LA’s largest and best-equipped
BDSM dungeons, he was sure he could find a stretching rack or a
high-intensity electro-stim kit that would help him carry out the
mission in style.

As Fulsom and his crew worked with the
Ricochet maintenance team to pull a St. Andrews cross into an area
that better depicted the “undercover kink club” theme for the
shoot, Bella clacked away on her latex boots to swap her red
leather skirt for a long black lace thing held up by Fulsom’s
fashion consultant. Sure, because that was more conducive to
depicting a “naughty spy sting” in D/s land, right?

He quashed the thought as soon as it
hit. He should be grateful for the costume change. It would force
Lor to ease the suction cups on his octopus hold around Ava. She’d
be called away to help toss Bella’s hair, straighten an eyelash,
adjust the cinch on the corset from which the woman’s plastic
cleavage was already tumbling…he didn’t care what the emergency
was, as long as he could take a break for even five minutes from
the torture of watching the man conduct a hands-on topographical
survey of her body, apparently with her full permission.

God
damn
it. The woman thought she’d been
making crappy choices in men before? He was of half a mind to march
across the room and tell her about the “prize catch” maneuvering to
get between her thighs now. An imposter who’d been raised by a pair
of zealots, politically radicalized at the age his hormones raged
highest and now deceived the world into thinking he was Hollywood
royalty while partnering with international criminals.

On second thought, maybe he’d skip the
whole “talking to her” part of that plan and get to the section
where Ava was in the next room from the bastard. Better yet, the
next country. He wondered how he could arrange another
planet.

Could this ordeal drag by any
slower?

He flung the crop a few
times, testing its
whir
to cut his tension while waiting for Bella to call
out for Ava. But when the actress finally spoke up, it was to tell
Ava that she and Fulsom’s assistant could handle the wardrobe
change themselves.

Damn it
.

Now he formed a seething audience of
one as Lor took advantage of Ava’s black knit dress in ways clearly
inspired by their kinky surroundings. With every inch of skin the
man revealed during his groping, a new tendon in Ethan’s body
coiled straight past jealousy and into incensed.

By the time the crew turned the lights
back on, he grabbed at Bella like an unthinking ape—a comparison
that didn’t veer too far from the truth. After tearing off the
bottom two feet of the useless skirt, he got to work on ignoring
Grant’s session directions, using his own instinct to pose her with
animalistic fury. It was just his fucking luck that Fulsom didn’t
just approve of the behavior, but was gleeful about it. The man
started taking shots with a camera in each hand, shouting at them
in wild encouragement. Bella, never missing an easy bandwagon upon
which to climb, got into the act, too. Her moans and sighs filled
the room as Grant flashed away, finally collapsing and declaring
himself “verklempt with photographic delight” before ordering a
furniture and lighting switch for the next round.

Dandy. Fucking
dandy
.

Grant turned his monitor toward Ava
and Lor so they could join him as he scrolled through the shots.
Ethan wondered why the views that garnered the photographer’s most
triumphant crows, the steamiest ones of the shoot, were also the
ones that drained the smile out of Ava’s eyes—and sometimes off her
lips, too.

The same lips that gave
you the grand kiss-off six days ago, Archer. Remember?