“This feels wrong,” Isabella said suddenly. “Don’t you think?”
Trapp roused himself to respond. “How so?”
“Well, what happens now?” She turned to look at him. Lifting her mug, she took a drink of the chocolate that left a tiny residue of froth on her lips. “As much as I wish we could just stay here and forget about the threat of terrorism, that’s not how life works.”
Trapp thought about her words. It would have been nice to be a regular civilian. He could go to a regular job everyday and then come home to a house like this one and a wife, and maybe even a family. What would that be like? To let some other guy worry about threats and terrorism and bad guys? It was a completely foreign concept.
“What are you thinking?” she whispered.
“That we fight to secure a way of life for everyone else that we never really get to enjoy,” he said in a low voice. The flames danced before him and the sight mesmerized him. He could remember campfires all over the world, but he had never felt this same sense of helplessness before.
“Hey.” She stirred from her corner of the couch and moved closer to him. “Are you actually giving up? Because it sounds like Alexander Trapp is sitting here feeling sorry for himself.”
He snorted, shooting her a dark look. “I would hardly say I’m sending out invitations to my pity party.”
“Maybe not,” she allowed. He watched her, feeling a heightened sense of anticipation as her hand crept closer to his thigh. He wanted so badly for her touch him. He wanted to forget. Her palm settled on his leg. It was warm. She gazed up at him and he saw desire in her eyes. “You’re certainly being a little maudlin.”
“Maudlin?” The word amused him for some reason. “Is that what you think?”
“What? That you’re a whiny little girl?” she teased.
Her robe gaped open and he could see the curve of her breasts. Unable to resist, he gently traced a line over each warm mound with his fingertip. She shivered at the contact. He moved his wrist in a way that made her robe gape a little more. Reaching in, he cupped her left breast. Thumbing her nipple into a hard little point, he watched her eyes dilate with excitement. It never seemed to matter how much the two of them clashed like cats and dogs. The chemistry between them was always explosive.
“Kiss me,” she whispered.
Trapp leaned down and took her mouth in a long lingering kiss. He continued to fondle her breast, enjoying the texture and the tiny little whimpers of pleasure Isabella made. Soon he had forgotten everything but this moment and this woman and how much he wanted her.
ISABELLA GASPED AND arched her back. She hungrily devoured Trapp’s mouth, groaning when their teeth clicked together. She slipped her tongue between his lips and rubbed it alongside his. He made a sexy growling noise in his throat.
A hot wet ache developed between her legs. She squirmed a little, pressing her thighs together just to ease the pressure. Her clit throbbed and she wished so much that Trapp would slide his hand between her legs and just give her a tiny little rub. One little touch. That would be all she needed to come then and there.
He broke the kiss and pulled back just enough to whisper against her lips. “What do you need, sweetheart? What can I do for you?”
“Touch me,” she moaned. Her voice broke over the words. “I ache so bad.”
Trapp gently picked apart the belt of her robe. The garment fell open leaving her deliciously exposed. Cool air whispered across her skin tempered by the heat of the crackling fire. Then Trapp’s palm settled on her belly and she sucked in a quick breath of anticipation.
“Like this?” he murmured. “Is this what you need?”
She moved restlessly on his lap. She was practically draped over him. He settled her more firmly against the end of the couch with her body splayed out in front of him. She looked up and realized that he was gazing right back at her face. Was he looking for her reactions?
Then his hand slid lower. He brushed the light dusting of pubic hair low on her belly. She made a high pitched noise and bucked her hips to tell him what she wanted. He teased and toyed with her, running his fingers all over her belly and hips. He circled her navel and then headed back down toward her pussy. When he finally parted the swollen lips of her sex and gently spread her folds, Isabella thought she might die of need.
“You are so wet for me,” he growled. “It’s the highest compliment a woman can give.”
“I need you,” she moaned. “Please, Alexander. Please don’t make me wait.”
The sound of his name on her lips seemed to push him over the edge. He sank his fingers into her hot pussy and stroked her from opening to clit. She arched her back, thrusting her breasts into the air and trying not to leap right out of his lap. It felt so good. The way he touched her was magic. He found her clit and gently began to circle the tiny bundle of nerves. Each brushstroke left her panting with the need for more, yet he only gave her little bits.
“When I’m ready,” he said huskily. “I want to watch you come undone right here in front of me.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Her body felt as if it were on fire. The orgasm was coming. She felt the tingle of nerve endings all over her body. Everything culminated at a point between her legs and she thought she might actually explode with the intensity.
“I’m—I’m—Oh God, Alexander I’m coming!”
TRAPP WATCHED ISABELLA climax right there in his arms. He felt like a beast ready to howl and beat his chest with the ultimate satisfaction of bringing his woman pleasure. The desire he felt was so intense it gave him the sensation of flight. Like a helicopter had done a dive and a twist before soaring to the heavens once again.
He had put on a pair of simple shorts and a T-shirt after his shower. Now he was grabbing at his shirt and ripping it over his head. His shorts were a little trickier since Isabella was still giving tiny little moans and quivers while she rested across his lap.
“I’m dying here, Isabella,” Trapp told her roughly. “Get on the rug in front of the fire.”
Her expression was bemused. “What?”
“On the floor on your back. Now.” He had no more patience. He needed to be inside her. Immediately.
She scrambled to comply and Trapp yanked his shorts and underwear down his legs. He had visions of himself tripping and hitting his head. It would have figured that the man the whole unit considered a Casanova of sorts would knock himself out during a sexual encounter because of simple over eagerness.
Finally—finally—he was on his knees between Isabella’s spread legs. She was so beautiful. He put his hands on her breasts. The way the firelight caressed her skin made everything almost dreamlike. He traced the circular shape of her areolas until her nipples puckered into points.
Lowering his head, he took first one and then other nipple into his mouth. He licked and sucked until Isabella was scraping her nails over his short hair and begging him for more. Then he pulled back and put his teeth to each taut bud. She moaned, the ragged sound echoing in his ears.
He kissed his way down her body. His lips travelled over her belly, making her shiver in delight. He licked the skin around her belly button. He could smell her sweet feminine fragrance and wanted more. But as much as he wanted to taste the melting sweetness of her pussy on his tongue, his cock was demanding that he take her right now.
His balls were tight and almost painful. The long ridge of his erection was throbbing as blood rushed to his groin. In seconds he was going to be so far gone that he wouldn’t last a minute inside her. He didn’t care. This was going to feel better than ever before because every time with Isabella was better than the last.
Trapp gently touched the softness of her inner thighs. He pressed her legs apart and positioned his cock at the entrance to her body. Isabella was staring up at him. She had braced her body on her elbows so that she could watch. He reached up and gently touched her face with his free hand just before he penetrated her in one long thrust.
ISABELLA GASPED AT the sudde
n intrusion, but it wasn’t bad. It was good! It felt so amazing to have Trapp’s huge cock deep inside her body. The relief was incredible and yet the anticipation was so great she was trembling with the force of it.
Trapp thrust again, driving hard into her body. She arched her back and met him each time. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she began to move her body against his. She placed her hands on his chest and savored the feel of his muscles moving beneath the satiny skin. The friction became almost unbearable. It was as though her whole body was on fire.
His hands closed in on her hips and forced her to be still as he continued to fuck her with powerful strokes. She reveled in the feeling of being dominated by this man. It excited her to be beneath him like this. He bracketed her hips and lifted her lower body off the ground. The new angle sent the root of his cock sliding right over her clit. She could not hold off any longer.
Her climax hit hard and Isabella cried out with the powerful sensations. Even her fingers and toes were tingling. Pleasure ripped through her and she grabbed his wrists, digging her nails into his skin.
His cock grew harder. She could feel him filling her completely. Then he grunted and bent over as he thrust hard just one more time. She could feel him pouring his seed into her body. It was a strangely exhilarating experience. He was marking her. She belonged to him, and for some reason Isabella could not explain she did not ever want to belong to anyone else in this way ever again.
“Are you all right?” He gently pushed her hair back from her face. “I didn’t hurt you?”
“No,” she said quickly. She covered his hand with her own, loving the tender touch and wishing it would never end. “It was fine, wonderful actually.”
“Good.” He glanced at the fire before pulling out of her body and resting on his side. “I never want to hurt you Isabella. I never want you to be hurt because of me.”
“I think I knew that,” she whispered.
She felt too spent to move. Lying there on her back with the remnants of their lovemaking coating the insides of her thighs, she felt wanton and maybe a little bit naughty. But she also felt satisfied. This was what life was supposed to be. And suddenly she understood exactly what he had been talking about earlier. They fought so hard to keep people safe. Not people they knew, just people—everyone. Yet that safety, security, and just plain living was not something that would ever truly be a part of their lives.
Turning her head to look at Trapp, Isabella reached out and brushed his bare chest with her fingertips. “I love you. I think I have for a very long time, but I was never brave enough to say it.”
“Sometimes what people call the little things are the hardest to overcome,” he murmured. Then he caught her hand and held it against his chest. “I love you too, Isabella. We’re going to find a way out of this. And when we do, we’re going to grab a piece of that happily ever after for ourselves.”
Chapter Eleven
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Isabella protested. She rolled her eyes and wondered if she was a complete lunatic to be having this argument while naked in a great big bed that looked like something out of the Victoria era. “What purpose would there be in letting us catch them?”
“I’m not suggesting that it makes sense right now,” Trapp insisted. He rolled onto his belly and grabbed a pillow. He had a death grip on the thing as he rested his arms around it. “I’m just saying that since we don’t know what the end game is, we have to assume that no matter how crazy their actions seem to us, that’s the only reason why. Everything else is Occam’s Razor.”
“Blah, blah,” Isabella muttered. “I know. The simplest answer, no matter how strange or impossible, is usually the right answer.”
“Or something like that,” he agreed.
She stuck her tongue out at him, annoyed that he always seemed so damned reasonable. Why couldn’t he just be a normal guy? Why did he have to be so freaking perfect all the time? “So you’re thinking that they let you shut down their sales website on purpose?”
“I’m saying it’s a possibility,” Trapp allowed. “Yates has been tracking that thing and trying to shut it down without success for more than a week. Now it suddenly crashes and is basically DOA? I’m not buying that.”
She did have to admit that what he was describing did sound suspect, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to admit it out loud. That would have been feeding his ego and that certainly didn’t need to happen any time soon.
“So what if you’re right?” she asked in what she hoped was a reasonable tone of voice. “Say they did shut the website down on purpose? What then? Why would they do that? It’s killing their sales and they’re immediately stuck with a bunch of captives.”
“What would you say the first priority is?” He gazed at her, his beautiful eyes serious.
Isabella didn’t even have to think about it. “Getting those captives rescued and home to their families.”
“What would happen if those captives were carrying say”—he pursed his lips briefly—“some biological agent?”
Isabella’s brain stalled right there. “Oh my God.”
“Exactly.”
“You can’t possibly believe that,” she stammered. Except he did believe it and now she was beginning to believe it too. “But if we’re the only people who believe that to be a possibility, then what happens?”
He simply gazed at her, not even bothering to answer. She could not even imagine what this was doing to him. It was difficult to wrap her mind around the possibility that a terrorist might use Americans—actual humans—as a delivery agent for some biological agent that could wipe out millions. But she didn’t have to also take into consideration that one of her loved ones was on the carrier list. Trapp did. His sister Rachel could be out there right now being infected by some lowlife so that she could murder everyone she loved when she was released to her family.
“We have to stop this,” Isabella whispered.
He sighed. “How?”
“Oh. Oh. Oh!” Something awful had just crossed her mind and she could not even begin to hope that she was wrong. “What if all this time the reason that our State Department has been so complicit in this situation is because they actually believed that they had a handle on things—from a diplomatic angle.”
His brow furrowed and he rolled onto his back. Isabella struggled not to be so distracted by his amazing body, but it was hard to quit staring. Finally she threw a sheet over his very well endowed self.
“Hey,” he groused.
“You’re tempting me to attack you and we really have no time for that right now,” she told him irritably. “I mean really? Do you have to be so incredibly yummy? Why? Can’t you just be ugly for once?”
“Just once though, hmm?” he teased.
“I’m being serious here!” she begged. “Think about what I’m saying. If the State Department thought that we were all just getting in the way because they’d achieved a diplomatic solution, that would account for all of the wires getting crossed, don’t you think?”
His expression turned thoughtful. “Like they think they’re going to come out of this looking like they actually negotiated the return of hundreds of hostages?” he mused. “Yeah. I can absolutely see where you’re going with that. It would be about the biggest PR gift ever for them.”
“And it would make them look so good,” she whispered. Oh the whole thing was taking shape in her mind. All of it. The way her boss had been keeping secrets, the fact that all of the sources and information seemed to be tainted and yet never openly acknowledged. “But why murder men like Ryan?”
“Some people don’t want to share glory?” Trapp seemed to be thinking it over. “Or maybe not everyone is in on the deal. If someone is getting a payoff, then they’re going to want to get rich and look like a hero and they aren’t going to want a bunch of people knowing that it happened that way.”
“Great,” Isabella muttered. “Narcissistic hero complex. Isn’t that some fucking pathology for you?”<
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Trapp started to say something else, and then stopped. He sat up straight in the bed. Getting to his knees, he started sniffing the air. “Do you smell that?”
Isabella inhaled deeply. She smelled Trapp of course. In fact his male yumminess pretty much drowned out the rest of her senses. Closing her eyes, she searched for something else that didn’t belong. “Oh God,” she whispered. “Smoke?”
TRAPP’S STOMACH WAS in knots. They should have been safe here. Nobody but his men and their closest allies knew about this place. How could someone have found them here? But there was no doubt that the house was on fire.
Trapp leaped out of the bed and grabbed for his clothes. Then he grabbed a bag and tossed it to Isabella. “This is your go bag. Get some clothes and let’s get the fuck out of here.”
There really wasn’t time to get dressed, but facing a potential bevy of unfriendlies with nothing but his dick in his hand did not sound pleasant. And he was happy to see that Isabella knew how to hurry. The woman was deathly efficient. In fact she was dressed and shoving her feet into the pair of combat boots he’d found for her before he was donning his. Then they both grabbed weapons and headed for the door.
Isabella laid her hand flat against the wood. “It’s not warm.”
“Open it slowly.” Trapp held up his weapon and prepared for the worst.
But Isabella shoved the door open and there was no threat waiting in the hallway. Smoke was pouring up the stairwell from the first floor. The two of them stayed low and ran quickly down the stairs and toward the front door since it was the closest exit. There were orange flames licking at the kitchen and the living room. The floors were already smoldering, and the furniture was ablaze. It was obvious to Trapp that someone had set this fire on purpose using an accelerant. He just didn’t know who or how.
“Ready,” Isabella muttered to him. Her voice sounded hoarse. No doubt from the smoke.
Trapp shoved the front door open and went through first. He had barely made it onto the porch when the first shot rang out. The bullet went high and wide, shattering an upstairs window. The second shot was lower, but still nowhere near either one of them. Trapp reached out and grabbed Isabella’s hand. He tugged her along behind him as he ran the length of the porch to the steps at the side of the house. They had to make it to the vehicles and weapons before they were cut off for good.
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