Behind the Mask (Undercover Associates Book 4)

by Carolyn Crane

  “Hugo!”

  He glided his finger down her bare belly, causing her insides to undulate. “You have no choice in the matter, Zelda,” he said. “You are my prisoner in this. I take care of what’s mine. Turn around.”

  Her heart beat in her throat. “Seriously?”

  “Must I turn you myself? Must I tie you? Are we back to that?”

  She studied his hooded eyes. Was he serious?

  His tone was strangled. “Face the sink. I have this under control.”

  She pulled off the gloves and turned to face the sink, the mirror. His head loomed above hers in the mirror, gaze dark, hair unruly. He reached around her to turn on the water, adjusting it to his satisfaction. “Bend over.”

  She complied, putting her head under the stream. He stood over her, massaging the water through her hair, bringing incredible precision to the chore. This was the precision he brought to throwing blades. An artist. A killer.

  He made her tip her head and stroked a bit over her ear. His fingers were magic, movements strong and deliberate. He was making the process his as he made everything his. As he’d made her his that first night with those slow, languorous motions. Destroyed by pain and opium, and still he’d made her his.

  He gathered her hair on top of her head and leaned over to kiss the back of her neck. “I have this…” he kissed her again “…under control.” He kissed her again, pressing into her. She could feel the hard log of his cock at her ass, nearly bursting through his jeans.

  He didn’t seem under control. He seemed out of control, and God, she loved it.

  “I have needed to be inside you all day,” he said, breath ragged, massaging the dye out of her hair.

  “Hugo—”

  “Quiet, or I will gag you again. All day I have imagined taking you, making you come over and over and over.” Her blood raced as he pushed her head to the other side, working symmetrically. “When you sucked in my fingers, I imagined them inside you.”

  He turned off the water and pulled her up by her hair.

  She opened her eyes to see him behind her in the mirror, holding her wet hair, focused down on her with a level of intensity that felt frighteningly primal.

  “And I imagined that I would make you come screaming. After that I would take you.” His words came out in gusts. “I can wait no longer.” The furrow between his eyes looked deeper, his cheekbones more sharp-cut, more ruthless somehow. Her killer, her lover.

  “Okay,” she said stupidly.

  He tightened his grip on her hair; she could feel his intensity clear through his fingers. His voice lowered, control clearly fraying. “Hold on to the sink. You must hold on.” He didn’t wait for her to comply; he fit her hands to the sides of the sink himself. The way he thought he had to stabilize her for what he was about to do—even that turned her on.

  With trembling fingers he undid he bra. Or maybe that was her trembling. The whole room trembled. She had to remove her hands from the sink to allow him to pull the bra free of her arms. He planted them back on the sink like she was an unruly child who hadn’t behaved. “You must not let go.”

  She gripped the cool porcelain, blood racing, as he pushed off her panties. He reached one hand around her hip, pressing his fingers between her legs, and with the other hand he took hold of a nipple, twisting it roughly.

  “Tell me to stop,” he said. “Tell me now.”

  “God, no,” she said, moving against him. She wanted nothing more than to touch him back, but he seemed to feel so strongly about her need to grip the sink.

  With a grunt he pushed a finger into her wet core, then he stilled and pulled it out. “This is not right.” He grabbed her hips, hoisted her up, and turned her, settling her onto the edge of the cool porcelain sink, facing him now. He grunted in approval. “You will watch me as I make you come.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, ready to promise anything.

  He pushed her legs apart, looking at her with the expression of a man possessed, then he bent his head to her breast, taking a nipple with his teeth, shooting twin bolts of pain and pleasure clear through her. “Back pocket,” he rasped.

  “What?”

  He rocked against her, biting her, coaxing her.

  She slid a hand around to his back pocket and found a condom. “You didn’t follow me. You stopped at a store.” God, he’d bought condoms instead. Did he trust her now? Had he decided not to kill her? You didn’t use condoms with a woman you were planning to kill. “You stopped to buy condoms.”

  He seemed beyond answering. Beyond anything. He snatched it from her and ripped it open with such force she wondered if it had survived intact. “Take me out.”

  With shaking hands she pulled his jeans open and shoved them down as he stepped out of them. He pulled off his T-shirt, exposing his muscular torso and the scars up and down him. Profanity tore from his lips as she grabbed him at the root; he pushed away her hands and rolled the condom over himself with clumsy movements, out of his mind.

  She helped roll it on as he took hold of her knees. He gazed into her eyes, panting, more animal than man, as he spread her legs further.

  And everything went still for a moment.

  She felt quivery, spread before him like a sacrifice, wet to the air, juices cooling.

  “Put me there,” he said to her solemnly. “Put me in.”

  She took him and fit the fat, wide tip of him to her core. He was so huge and hard against her, she couldn’t believe he’d ever fit inside her. He began to enter her, stretching her, filling her. She hissed and clunked her head back on the mirror as he speared her deep, pushing in, claiming her utterly. “Yes,” she gasped.

  His fingers gripped her knees, like he was channeling his intensity there, trying not to be too rough, but then he began rocking into her, pushing into her deeply, relentlessly, gripping her thighs.

  “More.” She grabbed onto his hips, holding on for the ride as he fucked her mercilessly, pushing her pleasure up and up.

  “Of course I purchased condoms.” He thrust into her. “You are mine.” He pushed in again. “My prisoner.”

  In and out he thrust. All her life she’d fucked men without emotion, but Hugo was a different species of man, a man who could penetrate through her scars, finding the nerve endings she’d thought were dead.

  “Harder,” she gasped.

  He shoved into her. She loved how he took her over. Every time she fucked him she felt like she was fucking for the first time.

  “Where are you? Come back. Look at me,” he growled.

  She opened her eyes and he held her gaze as he speared her with his cock. “Don’t take your eyes from mine.”

  She watched him, then, his rugged face, his eyes.

  It felt so intimate, the way he took her now, like he was crashing into her mind. Her cheeks heated, her body grew warm. Even the porcelain sink under her thighs felt warm. Still she watched his eyes.

  Tell me…” He pushed into her harder. “Tell me how it feels when I am inside.”

  “Huge.”

  “And?”

  “I’m not a dirty talker.”

  He scowled. “You’ll tell me how it feels.”

  “Hugo,” she protested.

  He was fumbling around with something on the sink behind her. What? Nothing was back there but a bar of soap.

  She heard the water go on. He fumbled some more and then she felt a slick finger at her asshole, sliding up and down, soaping up her asshole.

  She gasped when he stopped and fit a fat fingertip into her asshole.

  “What…”

  “You know what.”

  She felt his other hand grip her ass cheek, palm warm and rough and huge. Gently he pulled the globe of flesh aside to make way for his soapy finger. Little by little he pushed it into her ass.

  “What am I doing now?”

  “Ah…” she breathed “…pushing your finger in my ass…”

  He stilled the finger and thrust into her again.

  “…while
you fuck me.”

  “You see?” But he didn’t let up; instead, he shoved it in deeper, like he was fucking her entire body into his finger. “How does it feel when your man does this? Tell me.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “What else?” He pushed in deeper, curling the finger inside her asshole. “Or you get another finger.”

  She trembled. She wanted another finger. “Like I want to give you everything, and for you to take everything.”

  He put his lips near her ear, breath hot. “And?”

  “And huge. Like I can’t take more but I want more.”

  He changed his angle, bearing down on her. She gripped his thick shoulders, on the verge of madness, and closed her eyes.

  “Look at me.”

  She opened her eyes. The hard look he gave her as he invaded her from both sides was the kind that would start a fight if it went between wolves or men—utterly in your face. He shoved two fingers in, deeper.

  “Now?”

  God, he was invading her from both sides and invading her gaze, too. It felt like he was unfurling her soul.

  He slowed, eyes brown and bright and hard. “Say more.”

  “Don’t stop.”

  He slipped a third finger in, or maybe it was still the two but it felt like three the way he moved them. She reeled as he pounded her from the front and back. He brought his lips close to hers, words hot and hard. “Say more.”

  “Like you have me completely. So huge inside of me. Like you’re everywhere in me…” She went on, raving, repeating herself. It wasn’t the words he cared about—he just wanted to hear her undone. Hugo was a man who took everything from you. It was how he fought and it was definitely how he fucked.

  He stopped with the demanding questions and kissed her instead, gently now, filling her, loving her. “Touch your nipples. Make yourself ready for me to bite you there.”

  Jesus.

  “Do it.”

  She removed her hands from his shoulders and took her nipples in her fingers. He lowered his gaze as he watched her roll them gently, body rocking with his motion.

  “Zelda…” he panted “…Zelda.” His eyes were changing, glazing, breath going ragged.

  He seemed to be losing control. It was the hottest thing she’d ever experienced—him inside her, out of control. Penetrating her as nobody else could.

  “This is what your man does to you now.” He shoved his face to her breast, nuzzling his way past her fingers, taking a nipple into his teeth.

  Bright, sharp waves of sensation speared through her. He thrust again, firm and hard, cock drilling deep, fingers deep in her asshole, teeth pinching tender flesh.

  And right there on the sink she shattered apart.

  He groaned and went on, taken over by her pleasure, it seemed, driving her orgasm higher. Then he cried out and slowed, stilled. She felt him pulsing inside her.

  Afterward he put her down. “Now the shower, no?”

  He disposed of his condom and turned on the water, stripping the rest of his clothing off.

  She watched him, raw with exhilaration.

  He held his hand under the water. “What do you think?”

  When she didn’t answer, he looked back at her.

  “I think that was like no beauty salon I’ve ever been to,” she said.

  He gave her a dark look. “The water, señorita.”

  She stretched her hand into the small stall. “Good.”

  “Go on, then.”

  She went in and he came after, crowding her in the tiny, steamy space, washing her everywhere. She took the threadbare cloth from his meaty hands and washed him, soaping up the fur of his taut brown belly, carefully avoiding the mottled pink skin of his burn, spending her time softly swiping around his cock, watching him grow hard again as his eyes bore into her. She made him turn and learned his back, the scars beyond the burn, his mighty shoulders.

  They kissed slow under the pounding water. He made her come with his mouth this time, and their fucking was gentle and slow.

  He dried her off with a towel afterward and carried her to the bed. He liked to carry her. It was in his nature to protect her. He’d never wanted to kill her any more than she’d wanted to turn him over to Dax.

  Dax. Dax could find another way to deal with the pirates. Dax always found another way. The easy way was off the table; now he’d just have to figure out something else.

  She nestled the covers over herself and he sat at the end of the bed next to the bumps that her feet made under the sheet and the light blue blanket. He shaped the soft fabric around her foot, the foot, as if to create a cocoon around it.

  Her heart hammered. She prayed he wouldn’t ask about it. She had no excuses, no way to make her capitulation to Friar Hovde seem anything but ignoble.

  He worked on the strange cocoon with his beautiful hands. “The idea that, with the right training, most people can endure torture, this is one of the most terrible myths, I think.”

  She fought back the tears that sprang to her eyes. She’d been ready for anything but this.

  “It’s why you quit as an agent.”

  She tried to pull away but he had her ankle.

  “Why you quit the field,” he continued. “Hunters like you, they do not like to quit.”

  She shook her head. “Please.”

  “Few endure torture. That’s why you hear about the ones who do,” he said.

  “Hugo, you don’t have to—”

  “When I was a young fighter in the Balkans, my unit was issued cyanide pills. Torture endurance kit, they called it. Men used it, too. Most will take death over that shame. Even the possibility of that shame. It is a human fact that people will take death over shame. Evolutionary. Or, what do you call it when—”

  “Hardwired,” she supplied. That was the word they always used. She was familiar with the studies.

  He stretched out beside her, laying his arm over her cocoon of covers. “Most cannot endure torture. It does not make you bad. Simply not a superhuman.”

  “Don’t excuse it. I don’t want that.”

  He got in under the covers, pulling her against his big warm body. “Okay,” he said.

  It was this that broke her. That he’d just be with her.

  “Tell me, then,” he said.

  “I can’t.”

  “Please, Zelda.”

  She pressed her face to his lightly furred chest. He was doing it again, pushing into her raw center. “I wanted it to stop.” She began to cry silent tears. “I felt so scared and alone…”

  He stroked her hair, nose pressed into the top of her skull.

  “And I talked. I was so scared. This terror I’d never known I could feel.” Was she really revealing this? She didn’t know what it was, maybe being in this rabbit hole where nobody could find her. Maybe it was this man who had his own darkness. “Hugo, it hurt. He’d shot me with something that made it hurt extra, and kind of tweaked me out,” she sobbed. “I was so fucking scared.”

  “Of course you were scared.”

  “It’s no excuse for giving a name. That agent died, and I lived. And I hate myself every day for it,” she said. “I broke and a man died.”

  “You did not kill him,” he said angrily.

  “I talked.”

  “Have you looked at your feet? A man with a knife can do unspeakable things. Most people—”

  “I don’t care—a man died because I gave in.”

  “A man was murdered.”

  “Because I didn’t stick to my training.”

  “There is no training for torture. Only false comfort.”

  She shook her head, feeling hopeless.

  “Did you not do your best?”

  “I don’t feel like I did.”

  “I see how long you held. And the drugs he shot into your veins—you cannot be responsible. You did your best. I’ve been watching you—your best is what you always give. Except to yourself.”

  She had nothing to say. She didn’t feel like
she deserved a lot.

  “You are alive. You go forward,” he whispered.

  “How, Hugo?” she said. “I don’t know how to make it right.”

  “You can’t make it right.”

  She turned to him now. People said a lot of things to comfort her, but never that she couldn’t make it right. Just couldn’t. “Thanks.”

  “You know that you can’t,” he said. “You know it’s true. You cannot make the past right. You can only make it the best part of you—that horror, that shame. You have already made it the best part of you, I think.”

  “Like you know what’s inside me.”

  He looked into her with those root-beer-brown eyes, fingers digging deeply into her biceps. “I know your heart. You may be something of an enemy, but I do know your heart.”

  Wild, dark Hugo. It was too much. She looked away.

  He allowed it, allowed her to lay inert in his arms.

  Talk could never be enough. Nothing would be enough. Agent Randall had died because she had been weak.

  “What happened after?”

  She sighed.

  “Say more.”

  Say more. Hugo wanted to head into the darkness alongside her.

  It felt like love. He squeezed her to him. So much with him felt like love.

  “Friar Hovde raced out of there as soon as I spilled that his right-hand man was an agent. I went crazy trying to get loose, trying to save Agent Randall, but the friar got to him and put a bullet in his brain.” She told the story fast; afraid she might not get through it otherwise. Things were unraveling by that time. “Agent Randall was such a good man—one of the best you would ever meet.” She could still see his face, eyes staring up from a puddle of blood on the blue-and-white-patterned linoleum. “And then Friar Hovde sped off to his weapons cache—we’d defanged the worst of the weapons, and I suppose he’d guessed that. Fucking traffic stop got him in the end—turned into a high-speed chase, and he crashed.” He waited, sensing there was more. He seemed to understand so many things. “I never got the chance to apprehend him or kill him. Or even see him dead. Maybe it wouldn’t make a difference, anyway.”

  “Maybe it would,” he said.

  She told him about the few cases she’d been on after that, how she’d fumbled things, mind-set blown, lucky to be alive and not kill anybody else. She told him about going behind the desk at the CIA and meeting Dax, founding the Association. She told him everything. She’d never told anybody so much. “You said it was what we do to other people that hurts,” she said. “You were so right.”