Somewhere in the blissful madness that had overtaken her soul, she heard him moan and felt his thrust become harder and more out of control. His body stiffened as another low moan rumbled from his throat and then he was shaking as he found his release.
Jennifer’s thighs trembled, her muscles felt liquefied, and her mind raced. No, sex had definitely never been that good. Nothing had. As she slowly drifted down from the clouds of euphoria, she couldn’t help but wonder, What now?
He seemed to know. He buried his face in the side of her neck, kissed her flesh, and nuzzled his lips against her ear. “Give me about ten minutes and we’ll do that again.”
Jennifer laughed, albeit breathlessly, even as she felt the tension start to wind through her all over again at the promise of another round. At least she now had her answer when it came to his recovery time. She was willing to bet she could shorten that by a few minutes as soon as she found the strength to move.
For now, she was content lying beneath him, feeling his heart beat a rapid time with hers, and accepting his offer, knowing this was already going down in her personal adventure book as being one hell of a night. “You’re on.”
Chapter Three
Adam Cooper gritted his teeth so hard it surprised him that he didn’t feel bits of enamel shooting out of his ass. Although, he was currently sitting on said ass behind his desk inside his office at the Waterston branch of the FBI. He was livid and, if U.S. Marshal Clive Gatewood hadn’t figured it out yet, he was damn sure about to.
“Why am I just now hearing about this?”
This. The more than two weeks old murder of the WITSEC protected Rithrisak Vibol, a former member of the Ving Kim Phay cartel who had gained McIntyre’s trust during his infiltration and had alerted the bureau of McIntyre’s whereabouts after the agent had gone MIA.
Gatewood didn’t so much as squirm at the boiling anger Adam knew was in his voice or under the steely glare he pinned on the man. “We didn’t confirm Vibol’s death was connected to Boran Roumduol until recently. You know as well as I do murder investigations take time, especially when it is as carefully orchestrated and carried out as Vibol’s was.”
“How did they get to him?” Adam knew the statistics on the WITSEC program. No one had ever been killed, or even harmed, under the active protection of the U.S. Marshal Service since the program’s inception in the early seventies.
“He stopped following program guidelines, got too relaxed, and blew his own cover.” Gatewood was apparently an old-school marshal, one who still kept his notes in a small pocket-size book. He pulled it out, flipped open the cover, and read from the first page. “Witness accounts put Vibol keeping company with a tall, blond-haired man with either brown or green eyes.” His gaze flicked to Adam. “That part was inconsistent, but the man’s hair color and stature weren’t. We’ve been unable to locate anyone meeting that description and no one had a name to give us.”
Adam rested his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers. “The blond hair alone would set him apart from any former members of the Phay or Roumduol cartel.”
Gatewood nodded. “Which is why it took me a while to put two and two together. Knowing Vibol’s past, the connection was my first assumption, but I had nothing to confirm it.” He tipped his chin toward the crime scene photos scattered over Adam’s desk. “Until I gave those a closer study. Even then, it took me some time to see it. I’ll save you a few minutes by telling you these two”—he leaned forward and pushed all but two of the pictures aside—“are the ones that clued me in.”
Adam dropped his attention to the two photos, studying each one in turn. They were both pictures of walls inside the living room of the safe house where Vibol had been assigned. At first glance, Adam had dismissed both photos as mere thoroughness of the photographer and of little importance. Studying them now, he saw how wrong he’d been.
The first photo was of a mirrored wall clock, the time obviously irrelevant because it only depicted when the picture had been taken. The roman numerals, especially the V in the place of the number five, had been circled and x’ed out in what appeared to be blood.
Gatewood scooted to the edge of his seat, leaning further over Adam’s desk to point at that photo. “The V being crossed out fits with Vibol’s murder. Except, I don’t believe that was the intention behind it. Look at what the mirror is reflecting just above it.”
The reflection was of the opposite wall shown in the second photo. Adam didn’t need a magnifying glass to immediately see what Gatewood was talking about and, when he shifted his attention to the second photograph, his blood went cold. A collage of photos hung on that wall, images of places around the city where Vibol had been sent, but one near the bottom with the edges carefully tucked beneath others to make it appear as if it had been there all along obviously didn’t belong to the trained eye. That photo hadn’t been taken in the city. It had been taken years before Vibol entered WITSEC with none other than a non-scared, smiling Alec McIntyre aka Alec Veansa.
“Where is your agent, Adam?”
“Not in Waterston.” McIntyre was on Silver Island, the one place Adam was dying to be and the absolute last place he’d needed to go because McIntyre wasn’t the only one on that island. Jennifer Moss was, too. Adam knew it for a fact because, as hard as he’d tried to stop and as many times as he’d chastised himself for doing it, he still kept tabs on her.
“Bring him in. Let us put him in WITSEC. I know he’s refused the program already, but now is different. Whoever killed Vibol is going after him next.”
Adam had known there was always a chance Boran Roumduol would come after McIntyre if the fucker ever resurfaced. McIntyre had known it, too, but had refused to take on another identity, to live in secret, and hideout from the cartel leader. Adam couldn’t blame the man. His undercover assignment with the FBI had gotten him where he was today. Not to mention, Adam hadn’t given up hope that McIntyre would return to active status as an agent once he managed to put all his ghosts at bay.
“And let you protect him the way you did Vibol?” Adam shook his head as he leaned back in his swivel chair. “I don’t think so.”
Gatewood stiffened, and anger flashed in his eyes. “You can’t blame WITSEC for what happened to Vibol.”
“McIntyre is my agent, my friend. If anyone is going to protect him, it’s me.”
And when his path crossed with Jennifer’s, which he knew it would, he was going to put an end to his personal torment once and for all.
* * * *
Alec’s cover had been blown, and he had no one to blame but himself. Years of strategic moves, careful thoughts, and cautious planning had been wasted. He struggled to think past the pain, to stay conscious, to stay sane even as he took another hard blow to the midsection. Veng Kim Phay had ordered his men to kill him, but death wouldn’t come easily, and it damn sure wouldn’t come quickly.
He felt another rib crack even as he watched one of Phay’s men raise the knife once more. Though he knew the men torturing him, their names escaped him in the midst of the mind-altering agony. The one with the knife had already used it on him more than once. His torso, his back, his face… Though he could barely see, he knew he was covered in his own blood, and the men weren’t done.
One of them guided his left hand to a flat surface, held it down, and leered. Alec knew what would come next. He’d seen it happen to others who had betrayed Veng Kim Phay. When a man gained Phay’s trust as he’d done and became a member of the cartel, he was gifted the honor of the cartel’s mark, a small tattoo of a poppy plant at the top of his left pinky. Alec had been given that gift, and it was about to be taken away.
Beckoning the darkness that loomed just out of his reach, he clenched his teeth, fighting back the scream as the knife came down.
Alec jackknifed into a sitting position, the scream bubbling in his throat nearly escaping. He managed to stop it as his surroundings came into focus. An open door ahead on his right, a long dresser against the wall to the lef
t of it, a chair in one corner, and an amazingly sexy, thankfully still sleeping auburn-haired beauty in the bed next to him. He was in the bedroom of his cottage, not back in the pits of hell.
He focused on Jennifer as he worked to steady his breathing and calm his racing heart. Things between them had happened fast. He hoped she wouldn’t wake this morning with any regrets. She had been his escape last night. When he’d touched her, everything in his mind that hadn’t pertained to her had shut down. All the dark thoughts, the empty spots he couldn’t remember, they had all went away.
Only to come back to haunt him as the sun began to glisten through the slats in the blinds covering the bedroom window.
Could Jennifer be his escape again this morning? She was still naked. The both were beneath the thin sheet covering them. If he were to lie back down, draw her into his arms, kiss her, and touch her, would she take him to that wondrous world where only the two of them existed again?
Deciding there was only one way to find out, he started to reach for her when an upbeat dance tune cut the silence in the room. She stirred as the melody repeated itself, gave a soft, sleepy groan, and opened her mesmerizing eyes just as the music stopped. Her gaze landed on his, locked with it, and he watched as memories of last night played in super-fast-forward through her eyes. Then, she blinked, and her luscious lips slowly unfolded in a smile.
“Good morning?” Her tone made the greeting more of a question than an answer as if she were wondering if he were having any regrets about last night.
“The best one I’ve had in a very long time.” Aside from being startled awake by the one fucking memory he wished he could forget. “Was that your cell phone ringing?”
As if on cue, the upbeat dance tune kicked up again.
“It’s Lexie.” Jennifer raked her hair from her face as she sat up, then slapped her thighs and gasped. “Lexie. Oh, God. Where are my shorts?”
A quick image of Alec taking them off her last night flashed through his mind. He shifted to his hands and knees, crawled to the foot of the bed, and snagged them off the floor where he’d tossed them in his eagerness to sample her pussy. Feeling the extra weight in one of the front pockets, he dug out her cell phone and passed it over.
The volume on her phone was turned up high enough that he heard the female voice on the other end of the cellular waves when she answered the call. He considered going into the other room but ended up lying down next to Jennifer and attempting not to listen. He failed.
“Jennifer! Thank God! Where are you? Are you hurt? Are you—”
“Lex, calm down.” Jennifer winced as she spoke over her friend. “I’m fine, I’m safe, and I’m so sorry I didn’t—”
It was Lexie’s turn to bulldoze over Jennifer’s words. “I woke up and realized you didn’t come in last night, and I was so scared. Then, I tried to call, and you didn’t answer.” The relief in her sigh had guilt twisting in Alec’s gut. “But you’re okay. You’re sure you’re okay?”
“I’m sure.” Jennifer winced again. “I really am sorry. I should’ve called you.”
“Where are you? Where have been all night?”
Jennifer angled her head to look down at Alec, met his gaze, and chewed her bottom lip. “Remember the guy who gave us his table at Ménage a Drink?”
“The scary-looking scarred one?”
Still looking at him, Jennifer grimaced, and an apology moved through her eyes. “That’s not exactly how I would describe him, but yes. His name is Alec and I, well, we, uh… You’re about to head to the café, aren’t you?”
Alec swallowed a chuckle at her swift change of subject.
“Yes, and I’m going to text you when I find out what time I’ll get a break so you can meet me and give me all the details. Every one of them, Jen,” Lexie stressed. “I mean it.”
Jennifer laughed. “You really expect me to kiss and tell?”
“You kissed him!” Lexie followed a shriek with a snort. “Of course you kissed him. You’ve obviously been with him all night, and I seriously doubt the two of you were playing Candy Land. Are you still with him now?”
“Yes, and I’m pretty sure he can hear everything you’re saying.”
“Good. Then hear this Alec, if you harm one hair, even half a hair, on my best friend’s head, I’ll come after you and—”
Jennifer laughed again. “Lex, I think he got the message.”
Alec nodded once. “Message received and understood.”
“Did you hear that?” Jennifer asked Lexie.
“He does have a sexy voice.”
Jennifer’s jaw dropped at that comment. “He’s mine. Find your own.”
“Yeah. No. That’s not going to happen. I’ve got to go. I have less than an hour to get to the café.”
“Text me soon.”
“Oh, you can bet I will.”
Jennifer ended the call and let the phone dropped to the mattress as she covered her face with her hands. “Crap. I can’t believe I didn’t think to call her last night.”
“It sounded to me like she’s okay now that she’s talked to you.”
“Yeah, she’s okay now. And wow! I can’t believe she said that about your voice. Not that I don’t agree,” Jennifer rushed to add, “but that’s not an observation Lexie makes these days.”
Alec rolled onto his side and propped the weight of his upper body on one elbow. “I got the vibe last night that she’s leery of men.”
“With good reason. Lexie has had a hard life. She lived most of it on the streets, became a prostitute for a while, and then a stripper. She was working at this club, trying to get her life together by starting college and stuff when she got mixed up with the wrong guy. The guy turned out to be part of a sex trafficking ring.”
“Fuck,” Alec heard himself mutter.
“She was kidnapped, sold to the highest bidder, drugged, beaten, raped…” Jennifer shook her head. “It’s been a few years, but she’s still struggling to put it behind her and move on.”
“Some wounds are harder to heal than others, especially the internal scars.”
Sympathy clouded Jennifer’s eyes as she turned to him. She lifted a hand to his face and lightly dragged the pad of her thumb over one of his scars. “I’m not going to ask, but I hope one day you will feel comfortable with me enough to tell me.”
A part of him already did. There was something about her. He hated seeing the empathy in her eyes, but the look on her face, the one that was a sort of deep sympathetic understanding, made him want to spill his guts at her feet.
“I am going to ask,” she went on before he could conjure up a response, “what you have planned for this morning. I’m figuring Lexie will get a break just before the lunch rush hits at the café, and I don’t have to be at Ménage a Drink until this afternoon, so…”
“We could hit the beach, go for a run and a swim.” Alec mentally rolled his eyes. He was so fucking out of practice at this it was pathetic. Who cared if going for a run and following it with a swim was how he usually spent his mornings. Like either of those was really what he wanted to do today. He had an amazingly sexy, off-the-charts beautiful, very naked woman in his bed beside him and he was suggesting they go for a run and a swim?
“Hmm…” she purred as she skimmed the backs of her knuckles along his jawline. “I don’t have my bathing suit.”
“You don’t need one on the far end of the island.”
She made a face. “The nudist colony? I don’t think so.”
Alec heard himself chuckle and felt the grin stretch his lips before he could stop it, and she didn’t run away terrified and screaming. Instead, she threw back the sheet still covering his lower body, tossed a leg over his, and straddled his waist.
“Do you have any more condoms?”
“They’re in the drawer.”
“Good.” A wicked gleam danced in her eyes as she scooted down his legs. “We’re going to need one after I finish my breakfast.”
And, with that announcement, sh
e stole every thought that didn’t pertain to her from his mind again as she took his dick into her mouth.
* * * *
“I can’t believe you spent the night with him!”
Jennifer couldn’t either, but she’d done it, and that was that. “It just…happened.”
The look on Lexie’s face was comical as she stood on the other side of the counter in the Karma Café, a cup of coffee in one hand resting on the edge. She’d been given a thirty-minute break before the lunch crowd started to stroll in, but had been too full of energy to sit. Jennifer had taken a stool on the far end of the counter away from the few straggling breakfast customers where they could talk without being overheard.
“You don’t regret it either,” Lexie told her. “I can see it in your eyes.”
Jennifer pursed her lips. “Should I?”
“Not if you had as much fun as you look like you did. You’re positively glowing!”
Jennifer followed a half laugh with a sigh. “I know it was a crazy, wild, spontaneous thing to do. I just met him. I hardly know a thing about him, but…”
Lexie shrugged. “You like him. Are you going to see him again tonight after your shift at Ménage a Drink?”
“I don’t know.” Neither of them had made any promises when she’d left Alec’s cottage. Lexie had barely given her a ten-minute heads-up that she would be getting a break, leaving her just enough time to get dressed and come straight to the café. She needed a shower and change of clothes, but after the way she’d scared her friend by going AWOL last night, she’d needed to make sure Lexie really was okay in a face to face way.
“Well.” Lexie sipped her coffee, eyeballing Jennifer over the rim of the cup. “I think you should. It’s time you moved on and got him out of your head.”
Him. Lexie wasn’t talking about Alec now. She was talking about Adam Cooper, the one man Jennifer hadn’t been able to get out of her head for years, the only other man besides Alec that she’d ever felt such an instantaneous attraction to. And it was so stupid that she’d been all but pining over Adam since. He’d never made a move on her, never touched her, or even voiced his attraction to her.
Safe and Assigned to Ecstasy [The Heroes of Silver Island 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 6