Rebel Love (Kings of Corruption Book 2)

by Michelle St. James

  “You’re the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen.”

  He continued over her stomach and cupped the mound between her legs like it was something sacred. Then he leaned over, captured her mouth in a slow, sensual kiss that stoked the embers still smoldering at her center. His fingers were slipping into her folds when she rolled on top of him, pushing him back on the bed.

  “Not this time, my love.”

  She bent her head, slipped her tongue between his lips as she slid back and forth over his cock, letting it slip between her folds, hitting her clit with every motion until she was desperate to feel him fill her all over again.

  He groaned as she pulled away, kissing his strong jaw, making her way down his neck, across his big shoulders, down his muscled chest. She stopped at one of his nipples, circling it with her tongue, tasting salt as she sucked it, her hips hovering over his cock.

  He cupped her ass while she moved to his other nipple, then worked her way down his corded abs, dipping her tongue in his naval before she positioned herself between his thighs.

  He looked down at her as she wrapped her hand around his cock, slowly stroked him, savoring the feel of him lengthening and hardening in her hands. She loved that she could give him the same kind of pleasure he could give her.

  That it was a turn-on for her was just a bonus.

  He was already matching the rhythm of her hand with his hips when she lowered her mouth to his swollen head, circling the tip, tasting a drop of semen that had beaded there. She closed her mouth around it and sucked hard before sliding down the shaft an inch at a time, wanting him to savor the heat of her mouth.

  He groaned when she hit the bottom, his impressive length filling her mouth, hitting the back of her throat.

  “Fuck, Elle…”

  He stroked her head while she held him there, something he had always done when she took him in her mouth, never pushing, just stroking her hair as if in acknowledgement of the pleasure she was giving him.

  She wrapped her hand around the base of his shaft and stroked as she lifted her mouth, sucking on the tip again before sliding back onto him and pulling up again, finding an easy rhythm matched by his hips, her hands alternately massaging his balls and stroking his shaft as she licked and sucked.

  He was filling her mouth, growing bigger long past the point when she thought he had reached his limit. Her pussy was wet and swollen in response, her body anticipating the way it would feel when he tunneled through her like some kind of erotic muscle memory.

  “I need you to fuck me, Elle,” he gasped. “Unless you want me to come in your mouth.”

  She kissed his tip, circled it with her tongue. “You can come anywhere you want.”

  “Then get up here,” he said. “Because I want to look at you when I come inside you.”

  Working her way up his body, she straddled his hips, positioning herself over his slick cock. She leaned over him, pressed her lips to his. When she pulled away she was surprised by the intensity in his eyes as he held her head in his hands, looked into her eyes.

  “I never stopped loving you,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  She pressed her fingers against his mouth. “I love you, too, Locke. It’s as much a part of me as the blood in my veins. It always has been. We don’t have to talk about it.”

  She reached between their bodies, positioned his head at her entrance. Then she was sliding onto him, sighing as he filled her, stretching her channel as he pushed through it to the very top of her.

  He grabbed her hips. “Fuck, you feel good, Elle.”

  She rolled her hips, grinding on him as her body found the position that would allow for optimal friction on her clit and maximum penetration. He grabbed her ass as he lifted his hips to meet hers, and then they were moving together, his shaft filling her while his head pushed against the sensitive hollow inside her, sparking an ache that walked the knife’s edge between pleasure and pain.

  It only made her want more, and she flattened her palm on his stomach to give her better leverage and pushed down on him hard, heat blossoming outward from her clit as it hit him on the downstroke.

  The orgasm that had been building since the moment he’d lifted her into his arms on the beach was a full-fledged wildfire in her core, growing to a fever pitch as they moved faster, both instinctively reaching for release.

  He pulled her ass cheeks apart as he drove up into her with a vicious thrust, invading every inch of her until she cried out into the room. She spilled over the edge, riding the wave, the two of them coming together, her body clenching down on him as he groaned, thrusting feverishly into her as he let go.

  She was nowhere and everywhere. Part of the sea stretched out below the open windows. The sky stretched out over it. The man spilling his essence into her. She was suspended between reality and a netherworld where there was nothing but the light exploding in her body, the swell of her release, the fulfillment of the promise her empty body had been holding for eight long years.

  The bliss of nothing. Of everything.

  When she opened her eyes she was draped over him, his fingers combing through her hair, damp with sweat and spread out around them. Neither of them spoke, and she closed her eyes, savoring the rise and fall of his chest, the lullaby of his heartbeat under her ear.

  It was all she needed.

  31

  Locke was drifting on the surface of the sea, his body buoyed by a steady series of swells, Elle’s hand in his as she floated next to him. There was nothing but the lapping of water as it passed under them, the sound of gulls in the distance, the crash of waves as they rolled onshore.

  And then, a buzzing that didn’t belong.

  He opened his eyes, momentarily disoriented, feeling the pull of his dream even as he sensed Elle’s presence next to him in bed.

  It was still dark, the room chillier than it had been when they’d fallen asleep after making love for the third time. He sat up, reached for his phone, stepped out of bed to close the glass doors as he saw Archie’s name on the display.

  “What is it?”

  “I think they’re prepping,” Archie said.

  Locke didn't blame him for being cryptic. They were all paranoid — or as Locke preferred to call it: careful. He never wanted to be in a courtroom, hearing his own words or the words of his men played aloud as they prepared to send him to jail. If he was ever caught, he hoped it would be when he was on the move, driving a fast car or jumping from a plane or racing across the water in a speedboat.

  Getting nailed because of surveillance was lame.

  “Tell me,” he said into the phone, knowing he could trust Archie to be careful.

  “Truck pulled through the gates two minutes ago,” he said. “Then two Hummers, four men each.”

  “Did you check with our guy on standby?” They had a man at the Cancun airport watching the incoming reservations with flight control. It was possible Glover was planning to transport the money by truck, but they had to cover all their bases.

  “Yep. Departing reservation requested in the charter terminal for 0800.”

  “That’s all we need,” Locke said. “We’re leaving in ten minutes.”

  “One more thing,” Archie said as Locke prepared to hang up.

  “What?”

  “Those men in the Hummers?”

  Locke paused, sensing less-than-good-news. “Yeah?”

  “They looked like Federales.”

  Locke cursed under his breath. He shouldn’t have been surprised. It wasn’t exactly difficult to bribe the police in Mexico. Still, it was a complication he’d hoped not to have to confront.

  “Good to know. See you soon.”

  He hung up the phone and walked back to bed, covered Elle’s naked body with the sheet. He needed to get moving, but looking at her for a few more moments wasn’t a luxury — it was a necessity.

  There was no point denying that it had taken less than two weeks to make her the center of his universe again. It increased the s
takes considerably. This time he wasn’t only putting himself at risk, he was putting Elle at risk too. Not because she was guilty of anything, but because if something happened to him she would be alone again.

  She was a strong, capable woman, but it had been easy to recognize the pain in her eyes when he’d first found her again; it had mirrored his own. They’d both been incomplete for the past eight years, and he had no desire to deal her another loss.

  His heart hardened at the thought. Nothing would take him from her.

  Certainly not someone like Malcolm Glover.

  He would do what needed to be done to stop Glover from hurting anyone else. Would commandeer Glover’s getaway fund — the only way to insure Glover would be unable to retire in luxury while his victims suffered and his wife and family stayed behind to answer for his crimes — and get out.

  Then he would come back to the house over the sea and find his way forward with the woman who owned his heart and soul.

  32

  Elle poured another cup of coffee, vowing to switch to tea when Locke and the others were gone. He’d wanted her to stay in bed, but there was no way she was going to sleep like some kind of princess when he was preparing to take down Malcolm Glover.

  She knew she couldn’t go along. Hadn’t even bothered asking. She had no knowledge of this world, no experience with weapons or surveillance or theft. It was still strange to realize that Locke had become a man with experience in all of those things. The boy he’d been in college was becoming irreparably split from the dangerous man named Locke Montgomery.

  She couldn’t help it that she loved them both.

  In the face of her impotence on the mission, she’d worked instead to keep pots of coffee brewing while Braden and Colton double-checked the cache of weapons that were being loaded into two Humvees. In between, she’d whipped up a batch of scrambled eggs and put out pastries she’d found in the cupboard, pushing some of it on Nora as she strapped on a vest that Elle could only assume was Kevlar.

  “You didn’t have to do this,” Nora said, lifting a forkful of eggs into her mouth.

  Elle smiled. “I figured you might be a little hungover.”

  Nora groaned and took another swig of coffee. “You figured right. Fuck my life.”

  Elle laughed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh.”

  “No, you shouldn’t.” Nora grinned, then winced. “But only because it sounds really loud right now.”

  Elle turned to one of the cupboards in the kitchen. “I think I saw something that might help… Ah! Here it is.”

  She uncapped a bottle of aspirin and pushed three of them across the counter toward Nora.

  “Oh my god… I think I love you,” Nora said, gulping down the aspirin with more coffee. She set the cup down and seemed to consider her words before she looked up at Elle. “It will be okay, you know.”

  “Am I that transparent?” Elle asked.

  Nora laughed. “Maybe, but only because I’ve been there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m sure Locke told you I used to work for the FBI,” she said. “You’d think that would make it easier to deal with the scary parts of this operation.”

  “It doesn’t?” Elle asked.

  “Not really,” Nora said. “Not at first anyway.”

  “You get scared before one of these… jobs?” It was hard to imagine. Nora was so self-possessed. So calm.

  “I get scared for Braden.” She shrugged. “It’s dumb, I know. If something goes wrong, we could both go to jail, which would basically kill my father.”

  Elle wanted to ask why Nora had singled out her father — surely she had other family that would be devastated if she were to go to jail — but she sensed the story might require more time than they had.

  “You’re more afraid of something happening to Braden than going to jail.” It wasn’t a question. Elle completely understood the implication. Jail would mean Locke was alive. The other stuff… she couldn’t even think about living in a world without him in it.

  “Crazy, right?” Nora asked, setting down her fork.

  “Not so crazy,” Elle said. “Will you be okay? Really?”

  It made Elle feel better that Nora considered the question. Lies wouldn’t help her now. She needed the truth.

  “I think so,” Nora said. “I’ve only been part of three jobs since I joined Locke’s operation, but I’d say they were at least as dangerous as this one, and everything went off without a hitch. Braden was Special Forces before he joined the Bureau, Colton was a mercenary for an off-the-books black ops unit, and Derek was actually a journalist in the Middle East before joining.”

  “A journalist?” Elle couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice.

  Nora laughed and touched a hand to her temple. “Yeah, the bullet-dodging kind. He’s not the idiot he pretends to be. He can handle himself.”

  “What about Archie?” Elle asked, trying to cover her bases.

  “Archie was a SEAL.” Nora smiled. “These guys are all professionals. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  Elle traced a pattern on the granite counter with her finger. “And Locke?”

  Nora reached for her hand. “That one’s easy; Locke’s the brains behind the operation — and the one who will absolutely not accept its failure. His goal is to get back to you, and I would never bet against Locke getting what Locke wants.”

  Elle drew in a breath. “Thanks.”

  “Time to load up,” Locke said, appearing behind Nora.

  “Break a leg,” Elle said as Nora stood.

  Nora waved and headed from the room. For a long moment, Locke stood there, looking at Elle like he was afraid to move. Finally, she went to him, wrapping her arms around his waist and looking up at him.

  “No long goodbyes,” she said.

  He nodded. “No need. I’ll see you in just a few hours.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  He wrapped his arms more tightly around her. She breathed in his scent, memorized the feel of him surrounding her as he touched his mouth to hers. She let herself get lost in the pressure of his lips, the slow sweep of his tongue. Then he was reluctantly pulling away, stroking her cheek with his thumb as he looked into her eyes.

  “See you tonight,” he said.

  “I’ll get the blender ready for margaritas.”

  He grinned, then turned and left the room, his footsteps resolute. She waited for the sound of the front door closing, the engines on the Humvees starting up in the courtyard outside. Then she dumped the rest of her coffee down the sink and put the kettle on, dropped a bag of herbal tea into her cup. However much Locke tried to make light of things, it was going to be a long few hours.

  33

  They were twenty miles away from the Glover estate when Archie called to say the armored truck was rolling out.

  “Fuck,” Locke said, pressing harder on the gas. “Did you get the tracker on it?”

  “Damn right, I did,” Archie said.

  Locke turned on the receiver, watching as the blue dot of Glover’s money traveled toward the airport.

  “You’re sure they didn’t see you do it?”

  “Fuck no. Shot it from the trees as they passed. Only hit the armored truck though. Figured it’s safe to assume the Hummers were going to escort it all the way to the airport.”

  “Is our guy at the gate taken care of?”

  One thing was always guaranteed in Mexico: money talked, and Locke had arranged for Archie to bribe the guard at the charter terminal gate to allow for easy access onto the tarmac.

  “Bought and paid for.”

  Locke looked at the time on his dive watch. “Follow the mark at a safe distance. We’ll pick you up at the airport.”

  “Copy that.”

  Locke turned to Colton in the seat next to him. The other man was as intense as always, and Locke tried to remember a time before the shooting of the guard when Colton had been almost as carefree as Derek.

  “Call the othe
rs. Tell them to take Route B to the airport just in case. We’ll meet them there.”

  Colton picked up his phone and followed his instructions while Locke watched the blue dot. Glover had already been moving fast when Locke had infiltrated his estate. Now he couldn’t help wondering if he’d accelerated Glover’s plans with his break-in. It was an encouraging thought. People made mistakes when they were in a hurry.

  The passed a small road and he watched in the rearview mirror as the vehicle carrying Braden, Nora, and Derek made the turnoff. He’d worried about Nora on every mission leading up to this one. It was sexist, but the fact that she was a woman stirred some biological chivalry that was coded in his DNA. It didn’t matter that she was every bit as capable as the men — probably more so in some ways. The thought of something happening to her on his watch chilled his blood, and he felt a fresh wave of relief that Elle was back at the house. That she hadn’t put up a fight about having to wait for them. Waiting was harder than taking action every day of the week. That she was willing to do it for him only made him love her more.

  They passed the road leading to the Glover property and continued toward the airport. The radar detector in the Humvee was turned off — Mexican police stopped you over when they wanted to, no radar gun required — and he kept his eyes on the mirrors. The last thing they needed was to get pulled over.

  He looked over at Colton, his jaw tense. “You good?”

  “I’m good,” Colton said, his voice even.

  Locke turned his attention back to the road. In a perfect world, Colton would take some time off to process the death of the guard. Time would show him that he wasn’t responsible for someone else’s actions, even if he had vouched for the guy.

  But it didn’t take a rocket scientist to come to the conclusion that Colton had no intention of taking a break. If anything he’d only become more determined since the shooting at United Bank.

  And Locke knew better than to push men like Colton Pearce.

  Men like himself.

  The streets became more crowded with cars as they approached the airport, hotels and restaurants rising up out of the pavement to beckon tourists. Locke eased off the gas as they passed through the more populated areas, then sped up again as they approached the airport, the blue dot of Glover’s armored truck now stationary.