American Heroes: The Complete American Heroes Collection

by Teagan Kade

  I grimace and drop, a hand coming up to cover the wound.

  Yep. Still fucking hurts.

  I drop low as two more gunshots follow from the doorway, Triss managing to take cover behind a stack of pallets, the bullets sending chips of wood spindling through the air.

  Jason pushes Shannon behind him and hunkers down, gun raised.

  I signal I’m okay and direct him forward towards Triss.

  I look down the side of the pallets and realize Triss is boxed in. She’s got no way out without exposing her position.

  Jason gets Shannon to crouch down beside an old generator behind us, tells her to stay put.

  I take out my weapon and lift it, Triss’s round burning in my arm.

  I see a raised platform running above us. I motion Jason to take up position there. He moves away, headed for the stairs.

  Triss steps out from her cover and fires, the bullet ricocheting off the back of the warehouse.

  She moves back behind the pallets.

  “Let’s end this, Triss,” I shout. “You’re outnumbered, with more on the way.”

  I’m bluffing, but she doesn’t need to know that. Then again, I don’t want to feel like the only way out of this for her is with guns blazing either. I have to talk her down.

  Good luck with that.

  “You want to end this?” she shouts back, not a hint of exhaustion or panic in her voice. “You owe me, baby. You know you do. You left me there. Everything that happened to me in that fucking shithole was because of you. It’s all your fault. You touch something and it turns to shit. You know it, I know it, but at least if we’re together we can deal with it.”

  “That’s never going to happen, Triss. We’re done.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  Jason is only just getting into position. I signal for him to engage, but Triss has already spotted him. She fires, three times in quick succession, the shots hitting him square in the chest. He buckles forward and goes over the railing, the sickening thud of his buddy hitting the floor following.

  Shit.

  I can’t get to him without exposing myself. Even so, I can feel the wet heat of blood running down my arm, the dull tapping in my head telling me I’m going to have to deal with this, and soon.

  Not yet.

  Shannon’s pressed up hard against the back of the generator. I notice something’s wrong with her hand, her thumb.

  Triss screams and rushes out towards our position, firing as she comes.

  I return fire, but she’s coming too fast, managing to snake around the other side of the generator and drag Shannon away.

  Fuck!

  I stagger up and follow with my gun in front of me, rounding the corner carefully.

  Triss has Shannon pressed up against her, one arm around her throat, the other holding the gun to the side of her head. I can see Shannon’s chest puffing in and out. She’s terrified.

  I narrow the distance to twelve feet, maybe less. “Let her go, Triss. This is between you and me.”

  It sounds so cliché, so predictable, but I don’t know what else to say. Give her what she wants. “You win,” I tell her. “I’ll go back with you to Iraq. We’ll find every fucker who hurt you. We’ll kill them all, fuck up everyone they hold dear. You have my word. Is that what you want?”

  She’s smiling. “Yes. Let’s be together, just the two of us.”

  I know she’s going to do it. She’s going to take out the only obstacle standing in her way.

  A moment passes between us, a look. We were good together, unstoppable, but whatever Triss has been through, it’s changed her.

  Shannon closes her eyes. She knows what’s coming.

  I’m not going to let it happen.

  I have to put Triss down.

  Before Triss fires, I squeeze the trigger.

  The round hits Triss right in the shoulder, pinning her arm back against the wall, the SIG dropping away.

  I run for her, separating Shannon and taking hold of Triss’s arm, forcing her to the floor with my knee in her back.

  She’s screaming—not from the pain, but the defeat. “Why?!” she screams at me, thrashing on the ground. “Why?!” She’s hysterical.

  In kick the pistol away.

  I glance down to my vest, looking up to Shannon. “The cable-ties there. Take them out, put them around her wrists.”

  Shannon steps over and removes them, placing one around Triss’s wrists while she continues to twist and thrash. She pulls.

  “Tighter,” I instruct her.

  I tell her to do the same with her ankles, hauling Triss up and placing her against the wall, but any will she had is gone. She knows it over’s, continuing to mumble “Why?” staring straight ahead, lost in her own thoughts.

  I take the pistol off the floor place it behind my back, keeping my weapon trained on Triss while I head over to check on Jason.

  He moans when I roll him over. His vest took the bullets, but he’s going to have one hell of a bruise-fest come morning.

  “My arm?” he says, grunting.

  “Broken?”

  “I think so. Triss?”

  “Immobilized.”

  I pat him twice on the chest. “Sit tight.”

  I have Shannon call nine-one-one, have her wait outside while I watch Triss, her lips moving but whatever woman I once knew is gone for good.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  SHANNON

  As soon as the paramedics have finished tending to Gabe’s arm, I rush over and kiss him, happy to have his lips on mine once more, the steady thump thump of his heart against my own. This could have gone a very different way.

  I break away, breathless, holding up my bandaged hand. “I don’t even feel it.”

  “You will.”

  I sit beside him on the back of the ambulance. “How did you guys find me?”

  “I had to call in some serious favors,” says Gabe.

  “Did you track her cell or something?”

  “Her cell was off… but yours wasn’t. It was in her car the whole time.”

  We watch as Triss is loaded into the back of a cruiser. The carpark’s full of flashing lights, a black SUV pulling up to join the throng.

  Gabe nods towards it. “Here comes the cavalry.”

  “What’s going to happen to her?” I ask.

  Gabe shakes his head slowly. “Who knows? I hope she gets the help she needs, but I doubt she’ll be seeing the outside world for a while.”

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  He pulls me into his side. “I’m fine.” He holds his arm up, twisting it to show the back of his bicep. “The poor gecko copped it, though.”

  I smile and reach down to his crotch. “I’m sure I can nurse him back to health.”

  *

  I roll over each morning expecting Gabe to be gone, but each morning he’s right there beside me. It’s been nothing but bliss this last week.

  He’s watching me. “Morning, beautiful. Is it alright that I’ve kicked the kids out of the bed?”

  He’s talking about the gliders—both of whom have developed quite a liking for the new man in the house. He’s even started to feed them. We’re considering a shelter dog as well.

  I throw a leg over him. “I think they’ll survive. As for me…”

  He kisses me before continuing to stare. The sling is gone, a simple patch covering the spot where the bullet entered his arm. The inflammation in my thumb has gone down considerably. It looks less like a clown horn now. “Have you heard anything about Triss?”

  I’m not sure why I ask this. It’s a sure-fire way to dampen the mood, but I also know Gabe will be thinking about her, whether he wants to or not. They spent a lot of time together. You don’t simply stop caring about someone when they run off the rails. In fact, you probably start caring more.

  He leans back on the pillow, his good arm behind his head, looking up to the ceiling. “I have. She’s been taken to an Army treatment center, looks likely to get he
lp of some description, though I was warned off visiting, which I think is best. She needs time.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What for?” He starts to tick things off on his hand. “You were drugged, kidnapped, tied up, and you had to dislocate your fucking thumb to get out. I mean, you are badass, Shannon Bailey.”

  Pride swells. “You think so?”

  “G. I. Jane, watch out. You can have my back any day of the week.”

  I laugh, laying a leg over him, the hot hardness of his cock welcome. “I don’t think you’d want that.”

  “You’d look so hot in camo—K-bar in one hand, M16 in the other, rising from the water.”

  I laugh again and reach under the sheets to find his organ, warm and heavy in my hand. “Is this the K-bar you’re referring to?”

  I realize now I’ve been staring at him, caught in the cool vortex of his eyes.

  I open my mouth to speak. He meets it.

  I know now this is right. His lips fall on my own. They mold together. His hand is on my leg. I bring my hand up to cradle his chin, his neck, trying to press him deeper into me.

  My breathing has increased. I’m suddenly hotly aware of my heart beating, my pulse rising swiftly.

  I run my fingers up the back of his head, raking them through his hair as our tongues meet and roll between us. They twist in the heated ocean there as his hand continues its exploration, passing below my panties, searching.

  He pulls me closer and my legs fall apart automatically. I can feel the distinct pull of excitement gathering at my core. I’m well wet before his fingers fall into the crevice and seek my center.

  Our hands run over each other as the kiss remains unbroken above. We’re both breathing deeply, ragged, desperate to be one.

  I’m suddenly burning up. It’s all suffocating, my body building a steady sweat below that rises around us, heady and tempestuous. And I want this. I want him so bad it physically hurts. There’s an ache between my legs begging to be filled, pulsing in time with my temples.

  I pull away to catch my breath, my lips aflame, my mouth unexpectedly dry.

  My hands are on his chest now. There they find hard planes of muscle, the rise and fall of toned abdominals, scars…

  I move my fingers to his back and press him forward, twisting my head sideways as his lips move up the side of my neck, a moist trail cooling as the tip of his tongue finds the outer shell of my ear and curls around it, his hand rising up my neck to meet it while the other, between my legs, meets resistance.

  “You’re wet,” he whispers in my ear as his fingers probe at the ebony gauze encasing my cleft.

  “Aren’t I always?” I reply, my voice husky with need.

  He brushes the material aside and a single digit slips inside to the second knuckle.

  I gasp aloud at the intrusion, the simple ease by which he’s penetrated me, the shock at the level of my desire and the easy egress it has allowed.

  Soon it’s joined by a second, and then a third, folded upwards and pressing against the roof of my sex, rolling and twisting in the slickened boiler room it has become.

  He continues to whisper in my ear, relaying each microscopic detail, running me through his every stroke and touch, detailing what will come next in languid clips of syllables.

  I spread my legs wider. I’m aware now of his stiff cock stabbing at my leg as his joined fingers continue to slide in and out of my body.

  As his fingers curl against me internally, he presses the pad of his thumb against my clit, moving it in soft circles.

  A steady thrum starts up inside me. I close my eyes, lost in the sensation, his breath warm on the gooseflesh of my neck, his hand at my back now, cradling me, supporting my body as my climax builds.

  I’m sopping below. I offer no resistance at all, wet and completely open, my lips winged outwards and pressing moisture against the sides of my thighs. My clit throbs, rises to meet his thumb. Caught between his fingers and that weighty digit, my wet pussy fills with sensation, a deep and steady need that threatens to overwhelm me at any moment.

  Eyes closed, I clamp my teeth together, terrified if I don’t a cry will emerge from me so loud it will wake everyone from here to Texas.

  “Come for me,” he whispers. “Come on my fingers.” The hand that was at my back slides around and upwards. His fingers are moving faster below, his thumb’s pressure remaining consistent and the need to release so strong my entire body is shaking against him and the hard backboard of the bed.

  His fingers curl up inside me in a come-hither motion, thumb adding additional pressure. I can’t stop shaking, and as he takes the stiff tuft of my nipple between his fingers, I come, bucking against my bed, biting down as hard as I can and gushing against his fingers. My pussy clenches against him as he moans softly into my ear. Clench, release, clench, release, completely out of my control until the fire that has just crested across my vision fades and his fingers exit from my slackened hole.

  When I open my eyes, I find that smile once more, not a sense or triumph or domination, but instead a kind, warm smile that imbues me once again with fresh desire.

  I take charge, seeking to distance myself from the submissive.

  My lips collapse upon him hard. My tongue spears into his mouth.

  The smell of spice and soap never leaves his skin.

  I want him to come, come just as hard as he made me. I want to feel his cock pulsing in my fingers.

  I find his cock stiff and solid to my touch.

  I roll my hand over its glossy helmet as we kiss. I lubricate the head of his cock with his own arousal before pumping his shaft with both hands.

  He falls back and his mouth opens, eyes closed, an expletive on his lips.

  As I’m fisting his member, marveling at how hot and rigid it is between my hands, I whisper in his ear, “Do you want me to suck it? Do you want me to suck your cock?” I repeat, adding an inflection on the last syllable.

  He nods and I bob my head over his member, lips wrapping around the head before I take him fully in my mouth. As I do so, his whole body eases, tensing up again as I run my hands up his shaft to meet my lips.

  I’m already getting wet again.

  His hands run through my hair as I work. I savor it and with some effort drive my lips down almost to the base of him, his entire ten inches filling my throat. Every time I do this he seizes my hair and his hips rise.

  And then it’s gone. He’s pulling my head away, holding my face in his hands, his cock wet with my saliva and his own hot sex unnaturally stiff, bobbing the in the air.

  He takes my legs under the thigh and lifts them so I’m reclined.

  Slowly, he strips my panties away, the crotch coming away stuck fast to my cleft. He drops them in a lacy bundle on the floor and positions himself above me so I’m lying flat across the length of the bed.

  I bring my knees up, my slickness open and willing.

  Gabe lowers himself upon me carefully. My hands fall onto his buttocks. I squeeze them, press them forward, eager to have him fill me. “I want you inside me,” I whisper, breathy. “I want you inside me now.”

  With that, his hips dip, an infinite second passing before his cock drives in to the hilt. My mouth turns into a ring beside his head at the sensation of being filled completely, our pubic bones pressed hard together.

  “You’re so fucking wet,” he confirms, as his cock glides easily out, driving forward again to be buried deep inside me. I roll my hips forward to meet his thrust. It’s effortless, natural. This is how it’s meant to be.

  My fingernails rake his back and he groans in my ear, sliding back and forth on top of me.

  As he thrusts I can hear the sound our bodies make as they come together, the squelching, organic meeting they make. It’s loud, obscene, but I love it.

  Already another orgasm builds. I sense that Gabe is not far away himself, driving us deep into the corner of the bed so that with every stroke my head presses against the soft fabric of my headboard, our
mouths working over each other, tongues twined together.

  I struggle to maintain composure as Gabe thrusts with increasing speed, building to his climax and my own climbing steadily to meet it. My pussy twitches against him in expectation.

  I feel the pull now, the coming of it as he pistons forward relentlessly. But just as I’m cresting, falling into that space of no return, he pulls free.

  No! What are you doing? my head cries. It’s soon quelled as he flips me over so I’m kneeling on the bed, one foot flat on the carpet. He thrusts forward in one go, driving my face into the mattress. The sudden change in mood almost makes me come right away, but I regain control and focus on the feeling of him inside me, the mass of his body falling against me, seeking out new and uncharted areas of my body.

  His finger finds my clit. There he frigs me, his cock sliding in and out above as I come, mouthing into the quilt in a silent scream of rapture, my body shaking and convulsing savagely from the force of the orgasm.

  His own follows. He lurches forward hard, twisting me sideways. I’m dimly aware of his cum pumping hot into my body, pulsing and collecting there as the walls of my pussy milk him for every last drop.

  He collapses against me and we kiss again.

  We kiss until he’s hard once more.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  GABE

  “How’s the thumb?” I ask, stepping out of the shower. My cock’s still twitching from our special wakeup call. If that’s what I have to wake up to every morning, I’ve got it made.

  Shannon, doing her hair, gives me a thumbs-up. Reset, it looks brand new, most of the swelling having dissipated over the last week.

  “No problem,” she replies. How’s the arm?”

  I turn my shoulder to look at the wound. It’s healing nicely. “Nothing but a flea bite.”

  She rolls her eyes in the mirror. “You can drop the Action Man routine around me, you know.” She nods towards the birthmark on my ass cheek. “It really does look like Colombia.”

  “I simply call it the ‘stamp of approval.’”

  “More like tramp stamp…

  I take her around the waist, grinding myself against her ass. “So I can’t be your tramp-stamped action man? You’d rather a, what do they call it, metrosexual?”