“It’s hardly fair that you still have your clothes on,” she complained and started pushing up the hem of his T-shirt.
He grabbed her hands and flattened her palms to her side again. Stepping away from her, he hesitated and braced himself for her revulsion as he pulled his shirt off, toed off his shoes, and stripped out of his pants and shorts, carelessly discarding them to the bathroom floor.
She gasped and gazed at him in stunned silence.
It was as though he’d pulled the Band-Aid off an open wound, and he tensed at her silence. He knew what she saw as she stared up at her first sight of his naked stomach, chest, and biceps. After years of war and engaging in some of the most vicious hand-to-hand, blade, and gun combat, he had more scars than skin. The left side of his body had felt the harsh blast of an IED, and there was no hiding the discoloration. He sucked in his breath as her palms roamed over the chiseled muscles of his chest and stomach.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispered, closing the space between them to tenderly kiss a particularly jagged scar that was just below his left pec. Most women turned their heads, trying to ignore the evidence of the brutality he’d suffered, but she didn’t. She kissed his stomach next before winding her arms around his neck, lifting to the tips of her toes, and kissing his neck. He stood at about six and a half feet tall, and she couldn’t reach his lips. “So fuckin’ beautiful.” She used his words to her earlier in the day.
“You’re blind.” He tried to make a joke of it, but she would never know how close to tears he was. When he’d come home injured and torn up, his longtime girlfriend hadn’t stuck around. By the time he’d met and married Melissa, he’d learned to keep his shirt on while in bed. He’d forgotten a shirt once with Melissa, and it had been weeks before she allowed him to touch her again.
“My God, how much pain you must have endured.” Nakia continued her achingly gentle exploration of his neck and chest, leaving trails of kisses in her wake.
Her tenderness was too much. He wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her onto the edge of the granite countertop. This time the emotions gripping him were beyond anything he’d felt before. Never had a woman touched him as she’d done. He couldn’t control the need to be deep in her. Growling gutturally, he captured her lips in a hard kiss and simultaneously surged into her heat with an unrestrained intensity.
Her inner walls closed tightly around his cock, and he closed his eyes at the incredible silky feel of her along his hard length. Suddenly, everything about her was too overwhelming for his senses, her soft feminine scent, the feel of her smooth skin against his hard frame, the sexy rasp of her cries as he fucked into her, and the provocative swirl of her hips as she tightened her walls around his cock. Every nerve ending in his body spiraled out of control and combusted in mind-numbing pleasure that had him roaring her name.
He barely registered that his climax triggered hers. Even as the violent spasms started to ebb, it was still not enough, because he found himself mindlessly fucking into her as though he were an animal in heat and couldn’t satisfy this deep ache to have her. With his palms filled with her bountiful ass, he drove into her over and over again, reveling in being in her pleasure pot. Her body was his own personal haven, and his cock was in pure bliss.
His release started from the tips of toes to deep in his pelvis, then as a live wire up his spine, and finally exploding like a euphoric high in his brain, almost bringing him to his knees. “Fuck!” he roared in shock. Nothing and no one had ever wrung such emotions from him. He felt as weak as a babe as he slumped over her. “Are you okay?” he asked, only barely able to lift his head from her breasts to gaze down at her.
“I think I’ll be fine, slightly bowlegged for a few days, but fine.” She gave him a grin to show him that she was teasing.
He couldn’t return her smile. He was still too overwhelmed by what had just passed between them. Despite the many beautiful women in his past, this was the first time it had felt so right. He hadn’t believed the perfection he’d felt earlier with her; in fact, he’d thought that nothing had ever felt so good, until tonight. How was it possible that making love with her kept getting better each time? It scared the shit out of him.
He picked her up and took her into the shower with him. He’d thought that after the numerous times he’d come in her today, and especially the overwhelmingly intense encounter a few minutes ago, that there was no way in hell he would be getting hard again anytime soon. However, after she ran soapy fingers over his cock, meticulously rinsed him off, and fell to her knees to take him into her mouth, he was not only hard and pulsing in seconds, he was soon bathing her throat with his seed in a stunned release as she sucked him deep into her throat.
As much as he’d wanted to finally savor having her lush body beside him in bed, he couldn’t get enough of being inside of her. In fact, he ended up passing out still buried deep in her after his body gave in to exhaustion.
Chapter Thirteen
Justin followed closely behind Colt as they entered the grounds of Baldacci’s home on Hutchinson Street in Chicago. Justin was expecting more security for the head of one of the largest crime families in the country. There wasn’t a single guard out.
“Are you sure this is where the bastard lives?” he asked Colt again. Something was telling him that this just wasn’t right. Even if Baldacci wasn’t a crime boss, he was still a very wealthy man, with businesses all over Europe. No way was his security going to be lax enough that two armed gunmen could roll up to his front door unchallenged. Not only was the gate swung wide open but the guardhouse was empty, and there was no security along the perimeter impeding their progress. This wasn’t right.
“I’ve tracked this motherfucker for months to ensure we knew where to find him if shit went sideways,” Colt murmured distractedly. “He’s here, but something is off with this whole setup. There are usually a swarm of guards about the grounds, and that gate is always locked and well-guarded.”
“So, it’s not just me then?” Justin continued looking around
“No. That fucker wants us to walk in there. He also knows by now that we have an invisible shield and we could’ve come in here undetected. We’re not wearing shields. So, it’s clear he wants us to come to him.”
“He has something he thinks he can bargain with,” Justin supplied. Dread started to fill him as he considered the possibilities. “Did Mom and Dad get out like we asked?” he whispered urgently.
“They’re in Stockholm. They had no problem going to our relatives in Sweden.”
“And Matt?”
“Motherfucker stayed at the ranch despite our warning. His lazy ass better know how to protect himself and his family.”
Justin knew that Colt was still angry at Matt’s prejudice toward his family, but if Matt were in trouble, they’d all be there to help regardless.
The front door opened under Colt’s slight push. They looked at each other in a mutual moment of acknowledged need for caution as they noted that the door wasn’t even pulled shut. Having no choice, they moved farther into the foyer and were brought up short at the sight of Giovanni Baldacci standing in the open, grinning back at them. At least fifteen other men with various forms of weapons—guns, knives and spiked brass knuckles—stood behind him, looking smug and confident.
“Come, come, gentlemen. Welcome!”
The mobster’s big booming voice filled Justin with the urge to riddle his body with bullets. How the hell did they know he and Colt were coming? “What the fuck is going on, Baldacci?” Justin gritted out.
The mobster laughed. “Your woman took out three of my best men yesterday. Did you think that would go unanswered?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Justin hated having to listen to this asshole, but it stunned him that Baldacci linked his men’s death to Nakia. He was still trying to believe that possibility.
“I not only want the weapons. I also want that girl. She will pay for what she did to my m
en.”
“Are you saying that Nakia killed your men?” Colt asked, his expression devoid of emotion even though Justin knew that Colt saw the same scene that he did.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. And you’re going to turn her over to me. Those men had families. Fuck, one of them was barely twenty years old. She had no right to kill them like that.” Baldacci’s voice was filled with bitterness, and the men behind him seemed to become more menacing and angrier as he spoke.
“You’re not only delusional, you’re crazy as fuck,” Justin muttered. “There’s no way in hell we’re giving you Nakia even if she killed three enforcers of the mob.”
“Who did you think killed them? The Boogieman?” Baldacci scoffed angrily.
Justin scowled as he thought about the crime screen from the day before. He wasn’t ready to voice what he knew to be true, despite how illogical he was being. It didn’t matter his struggle with that conclusion, it appeared that the mob boss had no problem coming to that conclusion. “What makes you so sure that she’s even capable of that?”
“You really should get to know the women you’re screwing. First, you had no clue what a fuckin’ slag your wife is, and now you have no idea how much of a weapon’s expert your new woman is. You need to get rid of that punk-ass flaw.”
Justin clenched his teeth, unable to deny the mobster’s observation. He knew Nakia as a lawyer, and he hadn’t dug deeper.
“So, what if Nakia killed them?” Colt drawled. “Those men would be alive today if you hadn’t sent them to kidnap her. You alone are responsible for their deaths.”
“No! She killed them!” Baldacci’s voice shook with rage. “And if you don’t give her over to me, I will start killing some very important people in your life.”
“Cut the bullshit, Baldacci,” Justin growled. “We’re not giving you shit. Who was he? Who was the punk who died yesterday going after Nakia? Was he your brother? Your cousin? Whoever the fuck he was, he was there at your orders. What the fuck did you think was going to happen when you came after one of our women? In case you haven’t noticed, they’re not fuckin’ wallflowers. You killed whoever that bastard was.”
Baldacci charged him. “Mother…!”
Justin easily deflected the oncoming charge, and despite the mobster’s almost three-hundred-pound frame and being just over six feet height, Justin grabbed him by throat and slammed him hard on his back to the carpeted floor.
The clicking sound of guns being drawn and cocked split the air.
Justin had his redesigned Sig in his palm and nuzzled against Baldacci’s forehead before anyone could blink. The Sig was an additional gift from Imani. He ignored the guns of Baldacci’s men pointing at him and focused on the pissed-off face of the mobster. “Just so you know before you piss me off some more. I haven’t slept in four fuckin’ days and have no patience for this bullshit. So, think fast before I end your ass right here.”
Baldacci blanched and swallowed hard.
“Who do you have that you think we would hand over our women for?” Colt was embracing the calm-brother act that Justin was sure was unnerving Baldacci. He had to know that, of the two of them, Colt was by far the more volatile brother.
Still on his back, the mobster stared up at Colt as though he wasn’t sure who the hell he was.
Justin almost shook his head in disgust, but instead he growled, “Start talkin’!” He pressed the gun harder into the mobster’s forehead, ensuring that there would be a permanent mark.
“We have your parents,” he wheezed out.
“How do we know you’re telling the truth?” Colt demanded.
“Marco, show the man,” Baldacci ordered.
Marco walked forward and pushed an iPad toward Colt.
“They have Mom and Dad in a large room, looks like a warehouse, shackled to a chair.”
“Where is the warehouse, Baldacci?” Justin made sure the bastard knew he wasn’t fucking around by punching him in the nose, making sure to break it.
“Argh!” Baldacci screamed like a wounded animal.
His men rushed forward.
‘Back the fuck up!” Colt warned.
Justin wanted to smile at his older brother’s stance. He had his own custom tactical Glocks in his hands and looked as though he would be more than happy to pop off the first fucker that came toward them.
“Where the fuck are my parents?” Justin ignored the blood pouring from Baldacci’s broken nose and deliberately tapped it to get the mobster’s attention.
“Wait, why can’t I see my parents’ faces?” Colt looked at the monitor again.
“They’re where you’ll never find them if something happens to me,” he gurgled out. “And we have them turned for their own safety.”
“There’s nothing here to help locate them, Colonel.” The FBI agent, a friend of Colt’s, came into view, surprising Baldacci and his men. Andrew McAllister had served under Colt on one of his Special Forces teams during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Colt had called Agent McAllister to ensure the law was on their side if shit went sideways. Justin liked the agent, called Mac by Colt. The guy was old school and was an honorable man. Despite Mac’s job as an FBI agent, Justin had encountered him on covert operations that he was sure were well outside the FBI’s authority. On more than one operation, the brass had sent Agent Mac in to enter the enemy’s camp for reconnaissance before anyone else. The guy would go in, get intel that Justin thought was impossible to get in such a short space of time, and leave a clear path of dead bodies for their team to go in and complete their assignments. The agent always worked alone and was gone once the team returned from whatever mission they were on, only to return again on another mission months later and in some other fucked-up situation the brass found themselves in. Agent McAllister had a dark side, and Justin was more than happy that the guy was with them, especially with their parents involved.
“Where are they, asshole?” Justin pressed the gun against Baldacci’s broken nose.
“Aaargh!” Baldacci screamed.
“Stop that fuckin’ racket and tell me what I need to know,” Justin growled.
“Andre won’t call in for another few hours,” Marco said.
“Shut the fuck up!” Baldacci roared.
Justin laughed. “You’d better pray that your men don’t hurt my parents in any way, or you’re fucked.”
Baldacci glared at him with pure hatred.
“Let’s get out of here,” Colt muttered coolly. He gripped Baldacci’s arm by the bicep and twisted his arm in an angle a contortionist would find challenging.
Baldacci gritted his teeth. Through the sweat pouring down his face and damp hair over his eyes, Baldacci’s gaze promised retribution. “My men will never let you leave here.”
“You obviously haven’t gotten the message,” Colt muttered as he helped Baldacci painfully to his feet. “You’re going to enjoy our hospitality until our parents are returned to us.”
“No!” Marco, who seemed to be the spokesman again, stepped forward to try to stop Colt from dragging Baldacci.
Mac cut him down at the knees before the guy could take two steps toward them.
Justin got a chill from Mac’s cold expression. Baldacci’s man had taken a bullet to the knee and was screaming his ass off, but Mac acted as though nothing had happened.
“You will pay for that!” Baldacci roared.
“Damn, man, is this a family business or something?” Justin smirked. “You boys are a little touchy-feely, aren’t you?”
“Go to hell, Ragnarson!”
“You first.” Justin ignored the mobster’s sputtering as Colt dragged him toward the door. There was still something not right about the lax security around someone who had to know that they would be coming. Baldacci wasn’t stupid. So, what the hell was going on here?
As Colt marched Baldacci out, Justin and Mac brought up the rear with the guns trained on Baldacci’s men. Again, Justin got a weird
feeling about why the men were so calm. No one reached for a gun. No one tried to follow.
“Are you buying this?” he asked Mac in a near whisper, ensuring that he wasn’t heard by anyone else. This entire situation was making him uneasy.
“Not his usual setup.” Mac looked around as though he was expecting Baldacci’s security to finally show up. “His second-in-command isn’t here.”
They marched Baldacci to their dark SUV, which Mac had left parked close to the entrance of the property.
“Where are your men, Baldacci?” Justin knew there was something they were missing. Hopefully, Baldacci felt like bragging.
“What men?” Baldacci appeared indifferent, but Justin wasn’t about to trust the bastard.
“What are you going on about, Ragnarson? You saw my men back at the house.”
“We saw your men on surveillance yesterday,” Mac told him coolly. “There were at least fifty men here. There were only about fifteen men back at the house.”
Baldacci gave a short bark of laughter. “Was that all? I’m sure I had more men at the house than that.”
The fact that the mobster was laughing at them removed any doubt that the bastard was up to something. “Colt, you’d better call Imani. This fucker is up to something.” Justin reached for his phone. “I need to call Nakia.”
Baldacci laughed again.
Mac crossed over to the mobster and coldcocked him.
Baldacci hit the ground hard and remained there, unmoving.
“Damn, Mac, if we wanted him dead, we would’ve done that already,” Colt told him drily.
Nakia turned over and cracked her eyelids, only enough to peer at the clock on the nightstand. It said 11 a.m., but that just had to be wrong. No way in hell had she slept that soundly and for so long. She had slept the sleep of the dead.
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