It wasn’t close enough. I slid my hands up under his shirt and over his smooth skin. I could feel goosebumps pebble on his back under my touch, and I smiled.
“My hands aren’t that cold,” I said against his mouth.
He growled and walked me back until I was up against the wall of the lighthouse – the ladder on one side of me, the bench on the other. He pushed his hips into mine, and the length of him pressed against the seam of my jeans. I wanted to feel him without clothes between us. I needed his skin directly against my own.
His hands lifted mine up to the ladder, and he wrapped my fingers around the rung above my head. His kisses were heady, and whatever focus I had left moved between his mouth on mine and his hands that trailed down my arms. He unbuttoned the black flannel shirt I’d worn over a black tank and then groaned deep in his throat when he realized I wore no bra underneath.
He tugged the fabric down and his mouth fastened on my nipple. I clutched the rung of the ladder above my head as he teased it with his teeth and tongue before taking it in his mouth and sucking hard. A bolt of pure desire flared between my legs, and I writhed against him with a soft moan. I dropped my hands to his back and clutched him to me. He kissed me again, deeply, and gently but firmly moved my grip back up to the rung above my head. My hands were free, but they felt fastened place as I clung to the ladder. He slid his mouth down again, and I squirmed under it as he exposed the other breast and gave it the same attention. I pressed myself against his hard length and moaned his name.
“Do you have a condom?” I whispered in a choked voice.
He kissed me then, deeply, and smiled against my lips. “I might.”
My eyes flew open and I narrowed them at him. “Get it.”
He unbuttoned my jeans and slipped a hand under my boy briefs, and I gasped as his finger slid inside me.
“I’m busy,” he said against my mouth. I bit his lip, and he laughed.
The sensation of his hand and fingers against me – in me – made me bold. I wanted this man inside me. I’d imagined how he would feel and smell and taste since the first night we met. I let go of the rung and slid my hand down the rigid length of him over his jeans. He stopped laughing and ground the words out through clenched teeth. “Front pocket.”
I lingered inside his pocket long enough to stroke him through the fabric, and he moaned and pushed another finger inside me. My breath caught as desire pulsed through me with each thrust of his fingers. When I had the foil packet in hand, I went to work on the button of his jeans, but I kept fumbling with the overwhelming sensation of need. He finally pulled my hands away, took the condom from me, and reattached my grip to the rung of the ladder.
“Hold on,” he murmured against my mouth as he kissed me deeply.
I did as he said, and he tugged my jeans down. I couldn’t kick off my boots, so I stepped on my jeans and pulled the legs inside out, trying unsuccessfully to get the pants off over the shoes. I reached for my feet to untangle them, frustrated at the delay, but Gabriel patiently moved my hand back up to the rung of the ladder.
“I’ve got this,” he said, with a mischievous glint in his eyes. He unfastened his belt and jeans, rolled the condom onto himself, and then stepped over my inside-out jeans, which were still attached to my boots, and kicked them back so they circled behind him. He lifted my thighs and cupped my ass with one arm.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he murmured as he kissed me.
No one had ever made me feel delicate enough to hold, but Gabriel was so strong he made it seem easy. I gripped his backside with my crossed legs as he guided himself halfway inside me. I didn’t let go of the ladder, and he didn’t let go of me. It was unbelievably sexy, and I squirmed on him, desperate to get closer.
He inhaled sharply and shuddered as he held me still. “God, Shane, you’re killing me.”
“I need more,” I said with a gasp. The urge to grind against him made me tremble with need, and I closed my muscles around him to draw him in. He groaned raggedly and thrust into me.
He filled me completely, and the melding of our bodies became my sole focus. His hands gripped my bottom, pulling me closer. Pressure built, and heat suffused my skin. Each thrust … every impact … grinding… filling …
Pleasure exploded through me with bright sparks of fire, and my orgasm left me gasping in surprise. I clutched the rung of the ladder over my head as he withdrew and thrust again, impossibly deeper, again and again. A second orgasm unfurled through me, and then he buried his groan against my neck as his own throbbed inside me.
He held onto me tightly, and when the shuddering in my body finally stopped, I let go of the ladder to wrap my arms around his shoulders. His strong arms held us both upright as our breathing slowed and our heartbeats returned to something that couldn’t be seen on the surface of our skin. He kissed me again, hungrily, and I captured the taste of his lips to relive later. I memorized the scent of his skin, and the feeling of his body pressed against mine.
I finally broke the kiss to breathe. “Except for the fact that that may have just been the best sex of my life, ending up with my jeans around my ankles, trapping us both, is fucking undignified.”
“What are the odds I can find a drugstore that’s open up here?” he chuckled into my hair.
I pushed his shoulders back so I could look him in the eyes. “What? Why?” I demanded.
He leaned in and nibbled my earlobe as he whispered, “Because I only brought one condom, and I want to do that again.”
The untangling of limbs and clothing was ridiculous and fun, and by the time we walked back to the car to retrieve the gear for our job, any possibility of afterglow awkwardness had disappeared. This time the shoulder bumps and accidental body contact felt like a promise rather than a wish, and I marveled at how easy it felt to be with him.
“For the record, if you ever decided to go back on the pill, I’m clean and healthy. I got checked when I left the UN.”
“Duly noted,” I said. “When was that?”
“Nine months ago,” he said.
“You haven’t had sex in nine months?” I scowled. “That doesn’t seem possible.”
“It’s been more like two years, and why not? How long since you last had sex? Wait, no, I’m not sure I want to know the answer, because if he’s in Chicago I might have to hunt him down and kill him.”
“Are you reverting to your inner caveman again?” I teased, feeling absurdly pleased about his possessiveness, even if it was feigned.
“Reverting? No. It’s always there. I’m just usually smarter about not letting it out to play.”
“Well, if it makes a difference, it’s been years,” I said.
He utterly failed at hiding his smile. “The gentleman in me is immensely grateful to have been given the honor of your trust. The caveman just wants to puff up like a rooster and claim you as mine.”
“Rooster is not the thing that comes to mind when I think of you. Now cock, on the other hand …” I giggled and ducked away as he tickled me, and an unfamiliar warmth settled into my chest. I liked this man, and despite all the odds, he seemed to have a little bit of a thing for me too.
He reached for my hand and held it comfortably as we walked and talked about easy things. His favorite subject in school had been history, mine had been literature. He loved looking for mentions of black people in English history, I loved women authors who defied gender stereotypes. We were comparing our favorite books and had just switched to the fantasy genre when both our cell phones buzzed at once in our pockets. My phone had been quiet for hours, and the silence had allowed me to forget, just for a moment, why we were there. I was only sorry that the respite hadn’t been real.
I looked at seven texts from Jorge and two from Fiona. “Crap,” I said as I read them. “I didn’t expect to hear from them yet, but they sent these over an hour ago.”
Gabriel had his phone out and was reading the screen too. “Communication at the lighthouse must be non-existent. I didn’t
even notice.” He looked up to meet my eyes. “I admit to being a little distracted.”
“Just a little?” I grinned before my phone pinged again and another message loaded. “Fiona’s already here, in the parking lot.”
“Yeah,” Gabriel said, in a voice that might have held a bit of disappointment. I appreciated it even as I had no idea what to do with the thought that he might prefer me over work.
We crested a dune and could see a dark green Subaru with a surfboard strapped to the roof parked next to Gabriel’s car. I texted Jorge that we were back in range of communication just as Fiona exited the car.
“Communications are either shit, or you guys were frolicking naked in the waves without your phones,” Fiona announced. “And because it’s too freaking cold for naked wave-frolicking, I’m going to guess we’ve got shit comms.”
I very carefully did not look in Gabriel’s direction, and was proud of myself for not even twitching at Fiona’s confident declaration as I pretended the activities of the last hour weren’t flashing all over my face like a neon sign.
“We both got all your texts less than five minutes ago, so yeah, apparently the lighthouse where we’ll station has shit comms.”
“Well, that’s not going to work at all,” Fiona snarled. “I need to be able to coordinate between you and the other two while keeping an eye on the satellite so we’re not completely blind.”
“If you can talk to the party boat from here, I have a walkie set that could work between the lighthouse and this parking lot,” Gabriel said as he went to his trunk and rummaged through it. He handed me a duffel bag and the case with Sparky’s new dive leg, gave Fiona one walkie-talkie, and clipped the other to his belt.
“We won’t know if this works until we can test it,” Fiona argued as Gabriel went to work on the surfboard straps. I opened the rear door of the Subaru and pulled out a dive bag, which I added to my burden.
Gabriel shrugged. “Worst case scenario, you signal the party boat at—” he checked his watch, “7 p.m., and we’ll meet them out there. We should be able to get a signal again through the yacht’s satellite and we’ll reconnect with you via our mobiles when we do. Does that work?”
Fiona glared at him, then included me in her focused gaze. I had the thought that she’d just fixed us with her “mom eyes,” and they were pretty damn effective.
“I don’t like it,” she said. “You’ll be without backup except when you’re on the yacht. That’s too much time on your own.”
Gabriel could have been bad-tempered about her concern. I’d seen other men react that way when a woman called their decision into question, but, as I was coming to realize, Gabriel wasn’t like other men. His voice dropped to the quiet one he chose when he wanted to make a point.
“We’ve got this, Fiona, and we’re both very capable of taking care of ourselves. Thank you for having our backs, and I know how frustrating it is to be out of comms with one’s team, but I promise, I’ll keep us safe.”
“We’ll both keep us safe,” I said quickly. Fiona’s gaze went to me, and she finally nodded.
“Right, then. Keep talking as you head back to the lighthouse so we can determine the range of the walkies, and I’ll wait here to run communications through the party boat. And Shane,” she said pointedly to me, “sorry for getting bossy on this. It’s a mom thing.”
“Oddly, it doesn’t suck to be mommed by you,” I said with a smile. “I have the feeling you’re pretty good at it.”
Gabriel tucked the surfboard under his arm, and we left Fiona to her Thermos of coffee. The walkie-talkie at Gabriel’s belt squawked as soon as we were out of sight. “Take care of my surfboard, Gabriel. My husband retains grand fantasies of the misspent youth he never had as a California surfer.”
Gabriel pulled the walkie off his belt and spoke into it as we walked back to the lighthouse. “Trust is a two-way street, Fiona.”
The sigh on the other end was audible. “I trust you.”
He grinned. “The absence of an apology to me was noted, by the way.”
Fiona must have heard the smirk in his voice, because she didn’t take offence. “Good. Because you don’t get one.” The radio squawked unceremoniously.
“Might I inquire as to why that is?” He wore his Britishness as civility when he needed to.
Fiona laughed. “Don’t think I’m susceptible to your proper English coldness, Eze – you forget, I married a Brit.”
“Then perhaps you’ll indulge me out of affection?”
She laughed again. “You don’t bristle at being told what to do by women.”
“And?”
“That means you’ve got bossy women in your life, and you’re either immune or too smart to be threatened.”
He burst out laughing. “My mum and sister would love you, Fiona,” he said finally.
“I’m entirely loveable,” she said with a smirk in her voice. “Just ask my—” And just like that, her voice cut out.
We stopped in our tracks not even halfway back to the lighthouse. “Fiona? Fiona?” Gabriel tried the walkie a couple of times, but there was nothing. I pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket and checked for bars.
“Phone’s flatlined too,” I said with a sigh.
“Does that bother you?” Gabriel’s tone was curious rather than sharp.
“No,” I said with a smile. “And if we hurry, we’ll have time to get warm before we go in the water.”
He grinned mischievously. “Cold?”
“I could be warmer,” I said with eyebrows that added the word naked to the end of that sentence.
Gabriel feigned shock for exactly one second, right before he took off at a jog across the dunes.
44
Shane
“Trust is more valuable than diamonds and as fragile as soap bubbles on a windy day.” – Shane, P.I.
We got back to the lighthouse, and Gabriel started to get our water gear ready for use. I borrowed his binoculars and slipped around the north side of the building to check on the yacht. The evening light made everything blur into a non-descript gray on the water, but the yacht’s running lights had already come on, which meant someone was definitely home. I just hoped it was a skeleton crew of only one or two people.
Our plan was designed to break as few laws as possible – an important distinction for Quinn and Dan, who didn’t care to play as fast and loose with the rules as I usually did. If everything went perfectly tonight, we would be trespassing and committing petty theft, neither of which was likely to be reported given the nature of the materials we hoped to steal. Various ideas for how to deal with whatever crew was onboard had been discussed and rejected as either criminal, violent, or too risky. We’d finally settled on a plan that involved a manufactured breakdown on Darius’ boat, an abundance of Dallas’ flirtation skills, and a fair amount of alcoholic distraction.
I looked through the binoculars again and could just make out a crewman coiling lines while another one stowed bench cushions in the seat storage compartments.
“Gabriel!” I shout-whispered to him as I watched the two men work on the deck.
He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. I would have been startled if I hadn’t felt the heat of him when he stepped close.
“Look,” I handed the binoculars to him. “They’re getting ready to leave.”
He studied the scene for less than thirty seconds. “You’re right.” He handed the binoculars back to me. “Keep an eye on them. A yacht that size will take an hour to ready properly, so we need to move. I’ll run back into walkie range and have Fiona alert the party boat.”
“Right. I’ll change,” I said.
He gave me a quick kiss and then sprinted away. I took one last look through the binoculars, then left them on the bench and moved around to the back of the lighthouse to change into my wetsuit and dive leg.
I’d modified the wetsuit with a thick rubber band at the end of the leg opening to close the neoprene around the peg of Sp
arky’s dive leg. Dry neoprene was warm enough, but a pain in the booty to pull on over goosebumps. The temperature had dropped as the sun went down, and I wasn’t looking forward to my first few minutes in the water.
I flipped up the fin so I could stand on the peg leg, and I had the binoculars glued to my face again when Gabriel finally returned.
“What are they doing,” he murmured in the low voice that warmed me to the core every time I heard it.
“Stowing gear.”
I could hear him changing into his own wetsuit behind me, and it took every ounce of self-control I had not to watch. I resolved to contain my ogling to off-work hours, mostly because I doubted I’d ever get anything done otherwise.
“You ready?” he asked quietly.
The gray evening had dipped to dark, and the lake had gone quiet in the way water did after sunset. I whispered back, “Yeah.”
He turned me toward him and took my face in his hands. “The Neanderthal in me has a request.”
“The Neanderthal may make his request if he concludes it with a kiss.” So much for my not-during-business-hours policy.
He searched my face in a way that made me wonder what he saw there. Nervousness? Fear? A zit growing on the side of my nose? I was on the verge of checking my teeth for spinach when he finally spoke. “I know how capable you are, and I know how prickly you can get when you think someone’s about to tell you not to do something.”
And just like that, my shoulders stiffened and I almost stepped back, but Gabriel didn’t let go of my face. He smiled ruefully. “See? Even the suggestion of it puts your back up.” He wasn’t wrong, so I exhaled and forced my shoulders to relax. “All I’m asking,” he continued, still looking into my eyes, “is that you trust the team to do its job. Every one of us is extremely capable – you don’t have to carry us, and you don’t have to do it all yourself. You can count on us to do our jobs just as we trust you to do yours. If something isn’t safe or we need to make a different play, remember we’re a team, and we’ll make decisions on that basis.”
Code of Conduct (Cipher Security Book 1) Page 27