by Alison Aimes
She’d surprised him again. “We’re not out to use it for destruction. We would never use it like the Council would.”
Her knowing stare locked on the carving at his neck. “So, if given the chance to avenge your wife and child, you would not use it to strike back at those who took them? You would not feel compelled to employ it against those who entombed you in those mines and tortured you for two planetary rotations, taking the lives of those you cared for while you could do nothing? The same people who attacked not only the Resistance fighters themselves, but your sons and daughters, wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, turning them into nothing more than chattel and slaves?”
Rage slammed through his veins, sludge so black and thick and murderous he shook with it, his fists clenching by his side. If he could…if that weapon gave him the chance…would he be able to stop from pointing it at the source of all his pain?
“I—I don’t know,” he admitted at last.
“Thank you for the truth.” Respect flared in her gaze.
He found he liked it more than he should. “I might not know the answer myself, but I do know my Commander. He would never allow such a thing.”
“You may be right, but I don’t know him. My allegiance to my employers was demanded while I was still a child. It will not be so easy to gain my trust this time around.”
“You’ll have to trust someone at some time.” Screwed up or not, he wanted it to be him. “And just so you know, I’m not on board with your plan. Sure, I’m all for working together to acquire the weapon. I can also respect your wanting to destroy it rather than have it used for revenge. But if you think I’m just going to accept the idea of you going off and letting the nano-bomb inside you detonate after you’ve saved all the rest of our asses, you couldn’t be more wrong.” He sucked down a deep, calming breath. “We’ll figure out a way to neutralize what’s inside you. It’s not your time to die. Not over this. You may have been Council, but you’re no lackey—and you’re not paying for the twisted sins of your employers.”
She waited a heartbeat. “It is not an easy thing to accept that your life has been a lie. That those you counted on to guide you might not have given you the full picture.”
“No.” His chest squeezed, the faint sense of lostness in her voice pricking at him. “I can’t imagine it would be. But that doesn’t mean you let those Council fuckers just blow you up. As someone very wise told Rufus recently, most things worth having rarely come easy.” His voice dropped. “If there’s anyone who can face what you have and come back stronger, it’s you.”
She swallowed hard. “You give me a great deal of credit.”
“You earned it.”
“I don’t…” Her stare shifted away, before slamming back to his. “I’m not used to such compliments.”
“Which makes us even. I’m not used to giving them.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “But for you, I’ll make an exception.”
Heat pinkened her cheeks, her eyes sinking to half-mast as her tongue flicked out to lick at her lips. “We seem to make exceptions for one another more than we should.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“For once,” she said, and, holy Janus, but it almost sounded as if she was teasing him.
He fought to stay where he was, every instinct clawing at him to claim that smart mouth once more. To ignore the jaded, broken part of him urging him to remember that damn ticking time bomb beneath her skin and what another loss would cost him.
Her gaze locked with his. “Lust”—she swallowed hard, her words making it painfully clear she’d discerned his latest thoughts—“lust can be controlled.”
“Maybe,” he conceded. “But if you think that’s all that’s going on here, you couldn’t be more wrong.” There. He’d said it aloud to her—and to himself.
Wariness swirled in her gaze. Along with desire. “We said no more.”
“We did.” He’d somehow moved close enough to touch her. Their bodies less than a palm-span apart. The tantalizing scent of her filled his lungs. “I have no fucking clue if a repeat of what happened in that cave would be the smartest or dumbest move of our lives. But I do believe we’re strong enough to survive it either way.” He sucked down a long breath and confessed. “I know, too, that I want to fuck you again so bad I can barely breathe.”
His words crackled between them, electricity and need sparking in the air. He was content to wait. He knew that clever mind of hers was weighing the risks, working to adjust to a new plan. He was beginning to understand how her mind worked—and it only made him want her more.
She didn’t disappoint. “It is true I am strong enough to survive whatever you throw at me.” Movements slow and deliberate, confidence oozing from every pore, she closed the gap between them, pressing her lithe, long body to his. “Sometimes plans must be changed.”
“Strategies reassessed.” His voice sounded like he’d swallowed a handful of rocks.
“Flexibility is an essential requirement for success.” Her voice was a throaty purr that glided over his cock like a caress.
“How flexible?” he teased.
“Very.”
She was teasing him back. He was certain now. A wash of tenderness flooded his veins.
He was so damn screwed. And he was already in too deep to give a damn.
19
“You with me in this, Jade?” Ryker’s voice was a rough rasp as he stared down at her, the press of his body—all steel and carved, rippling muscle—a blaze of heat that spiraled her need higher. Her hotheaded, raw felon.
“Yes.” She’d tried to fight it. Him. This. But she was learning there were some things logic could not overcome. Dragging her nails up the flesh of his glorious back, reveling in slab after slab of sculpted muscle, she tilted her hips to cradle his thickening shaft. “Touch me, Ryker.”
She didn’t share his optimism that they’d find a way to neutralize the technology inside her, but she was touched—and a little awed—by his determination to try.
“Nothing could stop me now.” Warm, calloused hands cradled her cheeks. “I like when you tease me, Jade. I like when you show me all your layers.”
He paused inches from her lips, his breath fluttering against her chin, his expression intent, almost…tender.
Panic shot through her, brow wrinkling. No, she had to be reading him wrong.
She was likely simply off-kilter due to his change in technique. The other times they’d fucked he’d come at her hard and fast. Claimed her neck. Licked. Sucked. Let the beast inside loose and stoked her own frenzied passion until she was out of control.
But this…this time he was behaving differently. Deliberate. Purposeful.
She opened her mouth to tell him to get to it—only to be immediately silenced. By the warm, slow press of the softest lips she’d ever experienced brushing against hers. Once. Twice.
“Who knew such fierceness could taste so sweet?” he whispered against her mouth.
Her body froze. Her heart, too. Then, it started up twice as fast, more frenzied than the howling storm outside. The unfamiliar sensation of his mouth against hers startling. Wonderous.
She hadn’t expected him to kiss her. They’d never been lip-to-lip before. Frankly, she hadn’t anticipated any of this. The sweet words. The lazy, gentle worship—his tongue tracing the curves of her lips, teasing, nibbling, asking.
It awed her, even as it broke her heart.
His secret revealed.
Her ex-cellmate might be ruthless, dangerous, and hotheaded, but he was also a man who’d once known another way. Who understood intimacy. Who’d obviously loved his wife. Who’d come home every rotation and pressed his lips to hers because he’d respected and honored her and embraced the idea that sex was more than penetration and quick rough thrusts in the dark. So much so that, even now—with a near stranger, with his sometimes enemy—he longed to find that again.
She’d been with targets who used their mouth by rote, marking their way down her body
as they fumbled or tore at her clothes, hurrying for the good stuff. She’d been with men who didn’t bother with kissing at all, who just took.
She’d never before been with someone like Ryker. Who kissed like it was the beginning and the end. Like it was his salvation. The slow nibble of his teeth against her bottom lip making her squirm and pant.
It was beautiful and gentle and sweet. Full of poignant loneliness and promise—and not at all who they could be together.
Not at all who she was.
The realization brought her to her senses.
With a growl, she bit down on his lip. Not hard enough to draw blood, but close. And felt something impossibly thick and hard jump against her thigh. Now that was more like it.
“What in the hell?” He reared back, a tiny red mark on his lower lip.
She met his wild stare head-on. “I’m not your wife.” Sweet and gentle had no place in her world.
His body snapped whip-tight. Fury replaced the softness that had been in his stare. “You don’t think I fucking know that?”
A slight sting, but it had to be said. Made clear. Life had forced her to become fierce. Wild. Aggressive.
Goddess be damned, it had made him that way, too. He wasn’t the tender husband he’d been before—and she didn’t want him picturing someone else when he was with her. If he didn’t want what she had to offer, better to know now.
She shoved him hard.
He hit the metal behind.
She stalked closer, slapping her hands against the wall on either side of his thick neck. “Then remember who you’re thinking to fuck, felon. We’re not in the dark anymore.”
“You think that matters?” His hands moved so fast she barely saw them, rough fingers gripping her shoulders and spinning her before she could react. Her spine hit the wall, trapping her between the cool metal and even harder, hot male. A thick thigh slid between her legs.
“This is not some honeymoon, romantic moment.” She couldn’t stop taunting him. “This is two near strangers stuck in some disgusting hovel, killing time until they can get back to hunting.”
“I’m very clear on exactly who I’m fucking, Council assassin.” His beautiful amber eyes blazed as he seized her wrists and pinned them to the wall by her head. “I knew it the first time in the cell and I know it now, too.”
She stifled a moan. His mastery only arousing her more. Yes, she could have executed a countermeasure and freed herself, but why should she? Logical or not, this was exactly where she wished to be. At the edge of the storm called Ryker. Drowning in all the sensations he professed not to feel.
Latching her leg behind his calf, she jerked him closer. “Don’t make this more than it is. Don’t make me into more than I am.”
“I know exactly what I’m getting here.” His finger clenched around her wrists and then…his mouth slammed over hers once more. Savage. Wild. Her brutal, ruthless opponent unchained.
The instant they broke apart, chests heaving, he glared down at her again. “What about you? You realize I’m not just some nameless, faceless target you’ll fuck and then destroy? You see me, assassin? A real person with scars of my own. Fuckups of my own. Desires of my own. All locked and loaded on you right now. My dick so hard I can barely move.”
“That’s the part that interests me.”
“You’re purposely trying to piss me off. Don’t think I don’t know it.”
“You’re wrong. I just want you very clear on what this is.”
“Crystal.” His hands seized the sides of her borrowed shirt and tugged, splaying it wide, baring her skin to his gaze, sparking her need, his aggression assuring her they were once more on the right track.
Until his gaze dropped and the fury bled into something softer. “Janus hell,” he whispered. “Look at you. Meant for the light. So damn beautiful.”
Her chest fluttered anew. The things he said. Against her will, her nipples tightened, thrusting upward, seeking more of his gaze, his touch, his approval.
“Ryker, no gentle.” She warned him again. Only to find herself spun around. Her palms and cheek pressed to the wall as his body caged her.
“Is this what you want, assassin?” He shoved her pants over her hips, baring the rest of her to his gaze. The shock of cooler air against her ass only driving her desire higher.
“Yes.” Her voice was too breathless, too needy, but it couldn’t be helped.
She couldn’t afford to feel too much.
This fierceness was what she required.
A warrior who would batter at her control as ferociously as he did her body.
A gladiator who understood pain and death. A fighter who gave as good as he got. A scarred soldier who was more like her than he realized.
Not someone who was looking for a way of life he’d once had, or a connection she’d never learned how to give.
“Do it.” Arching her back, she lifted her ass, pressing back against his hard length. “Mark me.”
A loud crack, a slight sting, as his palm connected with her ass.
RYKER RAISED his palm once more. So much for patient and understanding. So much for cool and detached.
This female managed to piss him off and turn him on more than anyone he’d ever met in his life.
And the fucking beauty of her all at once was almost impossible to take.
It was why he’d spun her around. So she wouldn’t see the pussy-assed worship on his face and accuse him all over again of seeing something that wasn’t there.
Which was bullshit. He and his dick were both front and center and fully aware of who was right in front of them.
The fucking dark and then the rush of last time had hidden so much. But he saw it all now. She was perfection.
Creamy skin like a pearl. Perfect, unblemished, because they hadn’t allowed her to be any other way. Narrow rib cage, lean muscles that could only have been acquired through tremendous discipline, hard work, and far too much pain. Slim hips and mile-long legs. And a pretty pink slit that was completely bare. Holy fuck. He’d felt it before, but seeing it up close…he stifled another groan.
Did she really think he’d been thinking of someone else when he kissed her? Ridiculous. Memories of Saralynee were tucked safely in his heart. He never could have confused those feelings with the whirlwind of sensation swirling through him now, provoked by a woman the likes of which he’d never encountered before.
No way was someone like her meant to be snuffed out in her prime.
“Do it again.” Her throaty command almost had him coming then and there. “I dare you.”
“You drive me fucking crazy, assassin.” His hand slid down the smooth silk of her belly to cup her pussy. Soaked. He let out a growl, growing harder at the faint catch of breath from her. One she tried so hard to hide.
His warrior didn’t like to appear out of control—even as she craved it. But he’d get her there.
He’d rip every pretense from her. Just as she’d done with him.
With a growl, he brought his hand down once more on her perfect ass. The exact one that had been leaping up and away from him not too long ago.
This time she couldn’t contain the low moan, her hips jerking away and then back toward his palm, eager. “Perfect.”
So, he changed tactics. He had no interest in punishment. At least not when it came to her. He’d save that for those who really deserved it. He had another plan of retribution in mind for his assassin.
“Before I’m done with you,” he growled, fingers butterfly light as he trailed them over the outline of her puffy lips and then to her rosebud and back again, “you’re never going to doubt again that I know precisely who I’m fucking.”
Without warning, he slid a finger inside her sopping pussy. Worked it up and down. Heated her ass one more time. “Never going to doubt I know how much you can take. Or exactly what you need.”
She cried out, spreading her legs as wide as the fabric at her knees would allow, arching deeper into his hand. Fuck. As always
, giving as good as she got. Never shying from anything. Pain and pleasure.
She worships the bite, just as I do.
He’d never been so rough or demanding with Saralynee.
But he wasn’t the same man he’d been then. Hadn’t seen what he had, survived what he had.
The woman bucking her hips in time with each raw thrust would accept no less. Years ago, he might never have been strong and ruthless enough to match his assassin’s desires, but now… Now he was right there with her. His balls swollen with want as the wetness of her slit covered his fingers, making a raw, dirty sucking noise as he pumped in and out.
Forehead pressing into the wall, she lifted her heels higher. “Janus, don’t stop.”
“You think I don’t know whose fucking my fingers right now? Whose tight needy cunt is so wet it’s dripping onto the dirt? You might worship control and logic, but deep inside you like it dirty, hard, and wild. Don’t you?”
“Yes,” she hissed.
“Good,” he growled. “Because I like it like that, too. But…” Slowing everything down, he rolled his thumb and pointer finger over her swollen clit. “You know what else I like?” He pressed forward so that his fingers plunged deeper, savoring her moan as she lifted higher on her tiptoes. “I like it slow, too.”
She shuddered. “No.”
“Slow enough,” he continued, ignoring her weak protest, “to savor every little gasp and moan. To draw it out until you beg.”
Shaking her head, she writhed beneath his hand. Wild. All that frost set aflame. For him.
“You’re an extremely intelligent woman, Jade. Likely a genius.” His other hand slid upward to claim a plump breast, loving the curve and the weight and the sweet, hot as hell way her breath caught as he palmed it, his thumb flicking out to glide over her areola. “But you don’t know shit about yourself or what I see when I look at you.”
Bucking, she tried to throw him off. “You’re wrong.”
“You think you need it hard because that’s all you deserve,” he growled the words at her and knew they’d found their target when she stiffened.