by J. S. Scott
“I know what you need,” he answered gruffly. His hand slid down her belly and into the trimmed hair at her mound. “You need to get off. And I’m going to get you there,” he growled into her ear.
“Yes.” She breathed a tortured sigh of relief as his fingers delved between her thighs while his other hand continued to tease her nipples relentlessly.
“Jesus. You’re so fucking wet for me, Lara. So hot and tight.” He probed her sheath with his index finger. “Are you so slick because you want my cock inside you?”
“Oh, God, yes.” Lara wanted Tate more than she had ever wanted a man in her entire life. She’d been dreaming about him in the pool, about this, before he’d woken her up. Now, she wasn’t quite sure where the dream had ended and the reality began. All she knew now was that he was hot, hard, and she needed him. “Fuck me, Tate. Please.”
He pinched her nipple a little harder and demanding fingers sought and found her clit. He stroked over the pulsating bundle of nerves roughly. “Do you know what it does to me to hear you begging me to fuck you? It makes me want to give you exactly what you want.”
Lara moaned as her slick body slid against his muscular form, and she arched her back as he worked her clit harder with his thumb and index finger. “Oh, Jesus. I can’t take anymore,” she screamed. The coil in her belly started to unfurl.
“You can. Take it, Lara. Use it to come for me, baby,” he commanded harshly in her ear.
His husky, lust-filled voice made her body quiver and as his mouth moved to her neck, lightly nipping and lapping at the sensitive skin, Lara completely shattered. “Tate!” The ripples in her channel became massive spasms. Her climax gripped her hard and refused to let go.
“Need to feel you coming,” Tate growled.
Instinctively, she knew exactly what he wanted. Lara turned blindly, wrapped her arms around his neck and jumped, locking her legs around his waist. “Then feel it now,” she panted heavily. “Right now.”
“Fuck. Lara. I wasn’t going to—”
Knowing now that he loved to hear her beg, she pleaded, “Fuck me, Tate. I need your cock inside me now. No more waiting.” Lara needed him to lose control completely.
She looked up at him; the strain showed in his tortured expression. Their gazes locked, and she stared down at Tate’s ferocious desire firing in his eyes. “I want you.” She reached down between them to grip his massive shaft and fit the head against the entrance to her sheath.
“Oh, fuck yeah. Mine,” he growled as he pinned her against the wall of the shower and buried himself to his balls.
Lara gasped, but her eyes never left Tate’s. Her climax had ended, the muscles of her channel relaxed to allow the invasion of his massive cock, and clenched around him like a glove. His fingers bit into her ass as he held her tightly against his groin. She speared her fingers into his wet hair. “Fuck me—”
“Don’t say it again, Lara, or you’re going to get more than you bargained for,” Tate said in a dangerous, out-of-control rasp.
His eyes were wild and carnal, and Lara reveled in them. “Fuck me,” she said deliberately. “Please fuck me.” She wasn’t afraid of this man’s fierceness. It made her hotter than she’d ever been before, and an answering urgency came from deep inside her to push him to the limit.
Something between a growl and a groan left his mouth before it crashed down on hers. His hips moved in a punishing rhythm as his cock pummeled into her.
Tate fucked her mouth with his tongue the same way he did with his cock: hot, hard, feral and earthy, at a pace so fast that Lara could hardly keep up. She just held onto him and enjoyed the ride.
He tore his mouth from hers, resting his forehead against the shower wall as his chest rose and fell heavily. He ground his hips against her pussy with every thrust, lifting her higher and closer to another, more explosive release. “Feels so good,” she gasped.
“Too damn good,” Tate answered in a passion-laden grunt. “Need. To. Make. You. Come. Before. Me.”
Every thrust drove her higher, and there was no question she would tip over the edge. But Tate sounded desperate, driven. She didn’t want him to hold back anymore. Taking one of her hands from his hair, she reached between their bodies with her fingers and stroked over her clit. With a sharply drawn breath, she sent herself careening into space; her sheath clamped down on his cock as he entered and retreated.
“Fuck, baby,” he groaned. His big body shuddered against hers.
Lara screamed as her orgasm ripped through her body. Her internal walls squeezed and released Tate as he found his own release. He buried himself deep inside her one last time with a tormented groan.
He held her body tightly against him. Tate sat down on a marble seat in the massive shower and clutched her body as though he never wanted to let her go. He closed his mouth over hers, kissing her sensually, gently, before he released her lips and rested his forehead on her shoulder. “You nearly killed me,” he panted harshly.
“Are you complaining?” she teased breathlessly.
“Christ, no. It would be a hell of a way to go.” He leaned back and shot her a very naughty, dimpled grin.
The next morning, Lara eased out of the huge bed—presumably Tate’s—and sprinted to the closet to search for some clothing. She grabbed a tan robe from its hanger, slipped it on, and hustled out to the kitchen, her mind whirling.
What the hell was I thinking?
In reality, she hadn’t been thinking at all. She’d reacted. Falling into a twilight sleep, she’d been in the midst of an erotic dream fantasy about Tate when she’d heard his voice next to her in the pool. Wanting for her dream to become reality, she’d made it come true. Once he’d kissed her, she’d been doomed. Tate Colter was every woman’s fantasy, and she was far from immune to him. She’d fought her strange connection and attraction to him since he’d first smiled at her, resisted the temptation to kiss that sexy indentation on his cheek the minute she saw it.
Lara smiled down at Shep as the little fur ball danced at her feet. “You need to pee, huh?” As she looked around, she was amazed there wasn’t already a puddle on the floor somewhere.
“I’ll take him out,” Tate said in a sensual voice graveled with sleep from behind Lara.
Startled by his presence, Lara whirled around and caught his eyes roving over the silk robe that clung to her body. “I borrowed it. Sorry.”
His lips turned up sensually. “Don’t be sorry. It looks sexy as hell on you, and I don’t use it.”
He was already dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, his feet bare. “Let’s go, buddy, before you do your thing on the floor.” Tate opened the front door and pulled on his boots.
Before Tate could catch him, Shep’s little body flew out the door from behind him.
“Oh, no,” Lara groaned.
“He won’t go far. I guess he had to go pretty bad,” Tate remarked, his voice amused.
“It’s freezing.” Lara pulled the robe tighter around her body as she leaned against the doorjamb and watched the puppy as he ventured out toward the edge of the woods. “Don’t you want a jacket?”
“Worried about me?” Tate straightened after he pulled on his boots, sounding as if he liked the thought of her fretting over him. He crowded her up against the door frame and trapped her with one hand on the outside wall and one on the inside. “I woke up with my dick already hard, and the sight of that sweet bare ass of yours walking to the closet. I think I need to get just a little bit cold right now.” His eyes caressed her face as though he searched for something.
“Okay.” She almost blushed like a teenager. Dammit. Tate Colter got to her with the simplest of statements, rendering her senseless. Last night had proved that with a vengeance.
As he dropped his arms and turned around to follow Shep, Lara took a deep breath.
Get it together, Lara. It’s bad enough that you begged the man to fuck you last night. You need to pull your shit back together again. You have a mission to accomplish, and be
ing involved with Tate Colter is trouble.
Disgusted with herself, Lara started to close the door, but she caught a sudden movement out of the corner of her eye. She opened the door again, oblivious now to the bitter cold wind. Her brows narrowed as she realized that it wasn’t a larger dog that stalked the puppy, moving slowly closer to the defenseless little ball of fur. It was a large coyote.
“Tate!” she shouted, putting urgency in her voice as the coyote moved closer, no more than thirty or forty feet now from the tiny Shep.
“I see him,” Tate called back, his eyes focused on the predator. He reached down to the ground, digging underneath the snow. He picked up some rocks and sticks and flung them with accuracy toward the hungry coyote. The animal yelped from a direct hit with a small rock, but didn’t run away like a coyote usually would when hazed by a human. Tate cursed at the animal, yelled, and continued to toss anything he could find at the stalking predator, but the coyote just let out a low, feral growl.
Lara could see the ribs on the wild canine, and it was skinny, obviously hungry enough to feed on anything. “You’re not making Tate’s innocent puppy your damn breakfast,” Lara muttered angrily. She ran into the bedroom where she had shed her clothing the night before and was back to the door in seconds.
Stepping outside just in time to see Tate lunge for the puppy at the same time the coyote went in for the kill, she lifted her arms as Tate sprinted toward the door with his pet in his arms. The coyote turned to give chase with an angry howl.
The coyote would be on Tate in moments unless…
Given no choice, Lara sighted and shot the pursuing predator right between the eyes.
She lowered her arms slowly; the Glock 23 pistol came to rest against her thigh as she let out a sigh of relief. She had no doubt that the coyote was after the puppy. They rarely attacked humans. But if Tate got in the way, he could be torn up or even killed. She wasn’t about to let either the puppy or Tate get injured if she could help it.
But she’d need to think fast to explain.
“That was one hell of a shot,” Tate rumbled as he jogged up to the porch. Shep whined in his arms. He dropped the puppy inside the door and Shep scampered into the house gladly. “I’m not sure if it was the coyote or the gunshot that scared the piss right out of him,” Tate drawled as he watched Shep run for cover inside the house, seemingly totally unfazed by the fact that he could have gotten injured.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice. The coyote was giving chase and you weren’t going to make it to the house,” Lara argued defensively.
Tate wandered over to the dead animal and then back to Lara, nudging her to get back inside the house. “You don’t have any shoes on. Get back inside.”
She went back into the house and set her Glock gently on a high kitchen cupboard to prevent Shep from getting near it. “I really didn’t have any other option,” Lara told Tate again as she turned to him when she felt his presence behind her.
“Hey.” He dropped his hands on her shoulders. “I’m not arguing. Your quick actions and fucking awesome sharpshooting probably saved me some injuries and Shep’s life. Some of the coyotes are getting bold. I’m not sure if that one was rabid, but I know it was hungry. The tourists think it’s fun to leave food out so they can see them, and then they lose their natural fear of humans, become habituated. He definitely wanted to make Shep a meal. I’m not mad at you. I’m grateful.”
“You are?” Lara looked at Tate, confused.
He nodded. “You’re a damn good shot. And you carry a gun. Why?”
They were the questions Lara wanted to avoid. “Because I—I’m…”
Tate covered her lips with his fingers. “Don’t lie to me. I know you want to, or you feel you need to, but don’t. You don’t need to.” His brows drew together as he studied her carefully. “You’re Special Agent Lara Bailey from the FBI. You’re assigned to the counter-terrorism division, which makes a lot of sense to me now that I know how you lost your parents. My question isn’t who you are, Lara. My question is what in the hell are you doing here in Rocky Springs, Colorado?”
She stepped back until his hands fell from her body, completely in shock that her status as an agent had been discovered so easily. “How did you know?” She wasn’t going to deny it. There was obviously no point.
He smirked knowingly. “I’ve got connections you wouldn’t believe. All it took was a phone call. What I couldn’t discover was your mission. You aren’t a stressed-out employee on vacation. You’re here for reason.”
She folded her arms in front of her. “How do you know that? Being a field agent is a stressful job. And we do get vacation.” Lara just couldn’t remember ever taking one. She took a deep breath before she continued. “And how is it possible for you to find out my status that easily? I know that you were a Navy SEAL, but it wasn’t on your military records. Why? And how is it that you still have such powerful contacts?”
Tate folded his arms in front of him and mimicked her stance. “Maybe I wasn’t a SEAL,” he suggested calmly. “If it’s not in my records, it didn’t happen.”
“Bullshit.” She glared back at him. “You went through BUD/s training, SQT and you got your SEAL Trident. After that, it’s like you disappeared, except for the notations that you were a Special Forces officer with an exemplary record. You left because you were injured in the line of duty, but the mission was highly classified. What kind of mission is classified for an FBI agent?”
“The kind that doesn’t exist to almost anybody in the government,” he explained casually. “And I never claimed to be a SEAL. Although I’ll admit that I let anyone who thought so continue to assume that I was. I didn’t have a choice.”
Lara gaped at him. “You were in a top-secret Special Forces team? They recruited you from the SEAL team, didn’t they?”
She’d heard occasional rumors about a kick-ass special operations team that was known to almost no one, even the upper echelon of the FBI. But she’d blown off the continual rumors. His military record made sense to her. It was the only thing that did make sense. If he’d continued on as a Navy SEAL, his record would have reflected it. SEALs weren’t hidden from the FBI. None of the known Special Forces were hidden from the FBI. The only answer was a top-secret team, a team so elite that nobody knew about them except the very top of the food chain in the government. She’d never seen a military file like Tate’s, but it made perfect sense now.
She raised her brow when he didn’t answer, and he just shrugged. “I’d rather hear about you, Special Agent Bailey. Like what in the hell are you doing here? And don’t try to feed me the vacation bullshit. It won’t fly. The only thing I haven’t been able to put together is why you’re here when you’re a counter-terrorist agent. Is there a terrorist hiding out way out here in Rocky Springs?”
“It’s possible,” she hedged.
“Who?”
“I can’t give you that information, Colter. You of all people should understand keeping secrets.”
Tate moved forward and pinned her body against the kitchen cupboard. “Not from me. I grew up here. I live here. And I’m damn sure I have a higher security clearance than you do. You have no reason not to tell me. This is my turf. My brother is a goddamn US Senator. What if he’s a target?” he growled. The fierceness in his eyes glared at her terrifyingly.
“He’s not,” she told him sharply. She could share that much. The last thing she wanted was for him to think his brother Blake was in danger. “And if you’re out of the military, you no longer have clearance.”
Tate looked at her, and spoke as though he picked his words carefully. “I still do. We’ll just say I’m a consultant of sorts now.”
“To who?” There wasn’t a damn thing in his background check to indicate that, but there was never a file like his either. For some reason, most information on Tate Colter was hidden, buried beneath superficial bullshit.
He shrugged.
“Are you still military? What kind of accident did y
ou have?”
He stared at her with an innocent expression. “I broke my leg in a skiing accident.”
Lara rolled her eyes. “Sure you did. The accident is in your file, Colter. It happened while you were on active duty. You left the military because of it. It just doesn’t say what happened.”
“Nobody in my family knows that. I told them all that it happened while I was away skiing in Vail. As far as my family is concerned, it’s not job related. I left Colorado as soon as I had my last surgery just to get away. I found a place in Florida, hung out with a friend there so I didn’t have to keep lying to my family. I didn’t come back here until I was completely healed.”
“I won’t tell.”
“It was the result of a helicopter crash. I was the pilot. If I wasn’t flying it, I’d be dead. We all made it out. But I had to have corrective surgery, pins to put my leg back together,” he said slowly, cautiously.
“Nobody would ever know. You don’t limp.”
Tate shook his head. “I knew. It made me slower. Being slower means getting dead, and possibly causing other members of a team to get hurt or dead, too.”
Holy shit. If Tate Colter was slow now, he would have made her head spin before his accident. “So you gave up your position in Special Forces.”
“I had to. I knew I wasn’t in perfect physical condition.” His voice sounded pained to admit that he wasn’t flawless.
“Did that hurt? To admit you’re human?” she asked him quietly. Special Forces were cocky for a reason. If they didn’t have ultimate faith in their ability to do anything, accomplish any mission, they could very well die if they doubted their abilities. Obviously Tate was able to assess his situation and step down. She admired that ability, and she wasn’t mocking him.
“Damn right it hurt,” he grumbled. “But I don’t want anybody killed because I couldn’t admit that I wasn’t the same as I was before the…accident.”
Lara had a suspicion that the helicopter hadn’t just crashed. It had probably been shot down. But she didn’t bother to ask because he obviously wasn’t going to share the experience. If he’d been involved in some type of top-secret black ops team, he wasn’t going to talk to a virtual stranger about it, even if she was FBI.