The store didn’t sell sunglasses or shoes, so they spent another hour strolling up and down the streets in search of the items they needed. By the end of the excursion, he’d spent more on her than she’s spent on three months’ rent—when she paid it. Casing a bank with David turned out to be fun. Unlike in the shop, he behaved in a low-key manner. The last thing they wanted to do was draw attention. It proved a little challenging to keep her hands to herself. She felt like a woman on vacation with her lover, and it was difficult not to act like it.
By the time they returned to the hotel, exhaustion from the early flight had caught up with them. They took a nap, and Autumn slept wrapped in the familiar home of David’s embrace. Of course, she woke up first. By the time David roused himself, the room service she’d ordered had been delivered. Wearing only light robes, the lounged on the balcony to enjoy the tropical breeze as they munched gourmet seafood dishes.
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” A warm wind rippled through his hair.
“Excited. I haven’t done a bank before.” She sipped some wine. “I wish I was partnering with you, but working with Dean might be easier.”
He regarded her thoughtfully as he chewed and swallowed. “How so?”
“I won’t be distracted by his sexy eyes, his luscious ass, or the way he looks at me.”
Scrunching his nose, he said, “It’s wonderful to hear how attractive you find my best friend.”
Autumn laughed. “Don’t get me wrong. He’s cute enough, but I was talking about you. It isn’t easy to keep my mind on my job when I would rather spend my time staring into your eyes or checking out your backside.”
The scrunching disappeared, and he snagged another bite. “I didn’t sate you enough in the dressing room?”
Heat traveled up her neck. Never in her life had she been so daring. “The thing about you is that I can’t get enough. Having some just makes me want some more. Like right now, I keep thinking that you’re only wearing boxers under that robe.”
He licked sauce from his fingers. “And I keep thinking that I never finished stretching your ass enough to fuck it.”
She swallowed, though she hadn’t been chewing. “If you have enough lube, and you go slow enough, I’m sure it’ll be okay.”
“I don’t want your first time to hurt.”
Autumn shrugged. “I’m not afraid of a little pain, especially not if it brings you pleasure.”
He squeezed his eyes closed. “Sugar, I want to spank that pretty ass, put a dildo in your pussy, and then I want to fuck your ass. I don’t want to be gentle, and I don’t want to go slow. I want to hear you shout incoherently. I want to feel you submit to me. And I want to make you come until you collapse.”
“I’m okay with that, Sir.”
“Autumn—”
“Sir, we only have a few hours before Dean and Jesse will be here. I say we take advantage of our privacy before it’s gone. Also, I know the safewords. You have to trust me to stop you if you’re hurting or harming me.” She reached across the table and touched the back of his hand. “I trust you to stop if I call red.”
His gaze searched her face before dropping to her shoulder.
This time, she frowned. “Are you afraid to scene with me?”
He looked away, taking in the ocean view without really seeing it. “I’m afraid of losing you. This whole operation could go pear shaped, and you could get hurt. I hate having you here because it goes against my need to protect you.”
Autumn tried to turn the situation around to look at it from his perspective. “David, after this is all over, what is going to happen with us?”
His attention snapped back to her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, when you picture us having a life together, what does it look like?”
“I don’t—I haven’t really thought about it. I guess I assumed that you’d move to Kansas City with me. I have a great apartment downtown. You’d like the area—great restaurants and tons to do. We’d find the best rehab facility for Summer so that you could have her nearby.”
She hadn’t known that he lived in Kansas City. That explained why he had rooted for the Royals. “Did you think I’d stay home while you went out on all these dangerous mercenary missions?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, of course you’d want to spend as much time as you could with Summer. But you mentioned wanting to go back to college. You could do that.”
He knew nothing of her hopes and dreams. College hadn’t been a serious thought. She’d never been to a traditional school a day in her life. Pressing her lips together, she struggled not to say the unkind words that came to her tongue first. That was a defensive response, and he didn’t deserve it.
He must have sensed her rising ire. “Or you can take classes. Maybe you can get a job in accounting. I know some people who’d hire you.”
She nailed him with a fierce glare. “How about you give me a job? I can plan and carry out heists and cons. That’s essentially what you do.”
He gaped. “I know you and Summer broke into that drug dealer’s compound, but that was once, and it’s a miracle you’re both alive.”
“It’s not a miracle. It was good planning. Apparently you’ve forgotten that we’re here to carry out a mission that I pretty much planned. Jesse came on board with tech support, and you’re the muscle.” She stood up and wrapped her robe tighter. Dean was the eye candy, but she wasn’t going to say that right now. “My brains would be an asset to your company, which you’d see if you’d bother to take an objective look.”
He followed her inside, but before she could go far, he wrapped his hand around her upper arm and jerked her against his chest. “When it comes to you, Sugar, I’ll never be objective. I love you. I want to give you the things you need—roots, love, affection, and eventually a family. There’s nothing rational or objective about what I feel for you.” His grip tightened, and now he had both her arms in his grasp.
“Fine.” Her temper thinned in the face of his vehement declaration. “I’ll ask Dean and Jesse when they get here. They’ll be both rational and objective. We can look at this mission as an audition for me.” She wanted to belong to him and with him, but not as an afterthought. Besides, she’d go crazy with jealousy if he was always out there having adventures while she was at home making brownies and vacuuming the floors. Though she loved to bake, she could do it between missions as a way to blow off stress.
He gave her a little shake, enough to let her know that she was skating on thin ice. “SAFE Security is owned by four people, Sugar. We all get a vote, and mine is a resounding ‘no.’ Do you honestly think that my three best friends will go against me?”
“Perhaps.” She met his gaze with a challenge. “David, it’s not in my nature to be a housewife.”
He grasped for anything. “You once said that you and Summer were thinking of opening a bakery. You could do that. I’d front you the startup costs.”
She shook her head. “I am who I am, David. That’s never going to change. Just do this for me—don’t say no. Don’t say anything. Give me a chance to prove myself.”
Rational thinking must have broken through his emotional response. “Fine. But don’t hold your breath.” His grip on her arms eased.
Planting a kiss on his jaw, she wiggled closer. “You won’t regret it, Sir.”
He sighed. “You always try to deflect a serious conversation with sex.”
It was true. She’d done this several times to get his mind away from topics she’d rather not discuss. “I never claimed to not be manipulative, Sir. It’s one of the things you like about me.”
“It’s exasperating.”
She kissed a path along his neck. “Would you like to spank me now, Sir?”
“Yes. I’d like to tie you up and not let you leave until the op is over.”
That would cause difficulties because she was the bait. She nibbled her way back up to his lips. “You sound frustrated. Let me help.”
Gripping her hair
, he forced her to her knees. “Not a word, Sugar.”
He needed her submission. This scene wasn’t about easing her heart or mind; it was about giving herself over to him. Her ulterior motives melted away, and she relaxed against his hold. The tension of his fist eased, and he caressed her face with his other hand. “Is this relationship contingent on you getting your way? If I refuse to employ you, does that mean the end of us?”
Though his tone whispered across her with a soothing cadence, there was no mistaking the gravity of his questions. Autumn licked her lips. “No. I love you, Sir. Nothing will tear me from you, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let it drop. You showed me what it was like to live, and I’m not going back into a fringe existence.”
The color of his eyes lightened as he accepted her reasoning. He released her hair and settled onto a wicker occasional chair. “I’m going to spank you now. Lose the robe and take off your clothes.”
Autumn did as he ordered, draping the robe, shirt, and panties over the back of the matching occasional chair. Then she draped her body across his lap, lifting her bottom to await his pleasure. He caressed her flesh with deft hands, his palms sliding roughly over her skin.
“Why are you getting this spanking, Sugar?”
The only time Autumn had ever asked a bottom to explain a spanking was when her client had wanted humiliation or to be told they were bad. But she hadn’t misbehaved, not really. It took a second for her to formulate a response. “Because you want to spank me.”
“Precisely. This is for me. I’m going to spank you until I’ve had enough, and then I’m going to fuck that pretty pussy. If I want, I’ll spank you again and fuck you again.”
That sounded ambitious, but she was up for it. “Thank you, Sir.”
“You’ll think of me every time you try to sit down.” With that, he began spanking her. He started out with short swats that stung, but soon he progressed to thumping wallops that had to be leaving handprints on her behind. Autumn gasped, and her breathing became uneven, but she didn’t permit herself the luxury of crying out, not even when tears burned a path from her eyes to her hairline. This was for David, her Sir, and her pain or pleasure was an irrelevant byproduct.
It didn’t hurt in the conventional way. Her skin was on fire, and her ass throbbed with pain, but her pussy received a different message, and that pleasure overrode everything else. Soon her brain short-circuited, and she relaxed against the onslaught. He kept going. She didn’t bother to try to count or to keep track of how long it lasted. It didn’t matter. That lightheaded floaty feeling settled over her consciousness, and when it began to clear, she realized that his fingers were probing her vagina. They explored slowly, not to give pleasure but to stake out their territory.
“What a wonderfully wet pussy you have, Sugar. Your juices are dripping down your thighs.” He scissored his fingers open, stretching her weeping tissues.
She gasped at the way he made her feel so full.
“You’ve taken four fingers. It wouldn’t take much more to get my whole fist inside.”
Only if he wanted her to call red. They had not discussed crossing that boundary.
He withdrew his fingers. “One day. I’m not in a hurry.” Then she felt his fingers probing her anus. “This, though, I think I’ll take today. Relax, Sugar. Let me prepare you.”
He massaged and caressed the delicate muscles guarding her entrance. Like the plug he’d made her wear, it felt both foreign and good. After a time, he withdrew from playing there as well.
“Get up. Crawl to the bedroom and get on the bed with your face down and ass in the air.”
She slithered to the floor, but when she tried to crawl, she felt his feet nudging her knees.
“Wider. Don’t close your legs at all.”
It made for awkward crawling, but she managed to get to the bed in a timely manner. David went into the bathroom and washed his hands. When he joined her in the bedroom, he stood behind her and checked out her ass. Then he slid her body back so that she knelt on the edge of the bed. He massaged her from clit to hole, carving quick circles through her juices.
“I’m going to use a condom for this, Sugar.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“While I’m fucking you, I want you to masturbate. Put your hand down and play with your clit. You’re going to come too.”
She altered her position to put her weight on her right shoulder while she touched herself. “I’m close, Sir. That was a wonderful spanking.”
“My pleasure.”
“Yes. Your pleasure,” she echoed. “I want nothing more than your pleasure, Sir.”
She felt his tip at her sphincter and his hand on her lower back.
“Relax, Sugar. If it hurts, call yellow.”
“I will, Sir.”
He pressed forward, easing past that muscle. It didn’t hurt, though it wasn’t pleasant for a few seconds. He stroked her hot ass, sending waves of pleasure through her system. “The tip is in. What’s your color?”
“Green.”
“Keep playing with your clit.”
She hadn’t realized she’d stopped. She started again, and he penetrated until his thighs pressed against hers. Having him deeper felt much better. He slid back and forth, acclimating her to the sensation. She gasped and moaned as her ministrations to her clit bore fruit. Her movements sped up, and so did his. The orgasm coiled in her pussy and somewhere near the base of her spine. She cried out as it exploded, and her hand dropped away. He didn’t tell her to keep going.
He grasped her hips as he fucked her with a primal ferocity. Her body moved, roughly pulled back to meet his frantic thrusts only to be met with that opposing force. Grunting and growling, he made her into a vessel for his pleasure. Autumn relaxed, submitting to his passion and the role he needed her to assume. She was his, and she was giving him what he needed.
Finally, he surged forward one last time as he cried out her name. Then he collapsed, knocking her knees out from under her as he crushed her between his body and the mattress. His heartbeat thudded erratically against her back. When it slowed, he withdrew his cock, rolled to his back, and pulled her to snuggle against his chest. Neither of them spoke as he hugged her to him and stroked her hair.
When her body cooled, she looked up to see if he was asleep. Though his eyes were closed, she knew he was awake. “That was pretty intense.”
“Yep.” He scratched at his brow and moved a lock of hair away from his forehead.
“I bet it would be even better if you put a vibrator in my pussy. You’d feel that, right?”
“Yep. If I had brought toys, I’d do things like that to you.”
She smiled. “I think I’m looking forward to going home.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The snick-click of someone using a keycard on the door to his suite woke David. Autumn was sound asleep, so he eased his arm from under her. By the time he tugged on a pair of boxers, light shone from under the door. Intruders didn’t typically turn on lights, and so he headed to the common area. As he’d suspected, Jesse and Dean had arrived.
“Hey,” he whispered as they set their bags near the entryway. “How was the flight?”
Dean visually swept the suite. “Uneventful.”
“You know, when it was just us, you rented a room with two queen beds. You bring the little woman along, and suddenly we need a suite?” Jesse shook his head. “She already likes you.”
“It’ll go on the expense report,” he assured Jesse. “CalderCo will be billed the full amount.”
Dean inclined his head toward an open door. “Is that my room?”
“You and Jesse are sharing. It has two beds, but one is a fold-out.”
“You fucking suck,” Jesse said. “You could have just got two rooms with double occupancy.”
David blinked at the unexpected vehemence. On many missions, hotel accommodations weren’t available. They’d slept in cars and camped on the ground.
“He’s tired,” Dean explained
. “He spent all day trying to develop an algorithm to hack into the bank. And then when he tried to call Marlene to soften her up before our arrival, she wasn’t exactly welcoming.”
“Apparently she thought it was a one-time deal. She’s married.” Jesse scowled. The pretty banker had been all over him on their last trip. “I’ll convince her to meet with me tomorrow, and that’ll be your chance to sneak in to plant the security information we need.”
David had every confidence in Jesse’s ability to charm his way into another dalliance with Marlene. “I’ll let you get settled. We’ll review the plan over breakfast. I should warn you that Autumn gets up early.”
Jesse smirked. “Looks like you’re losing your touch. You used to be able to exhaust a woman in to a semi-comatose state.”
David chose not to rise to the bait. “She doesn’t sleep well in strange places.”
Dean leaned close and dropped his volume. “The DNA tests on Autumn and Summer came back with a positive match. Apparently their younger brother is an FBI agent out of Kansas City. He had it set up to automatically notify him if anyone accessed the files, and he called in favors to get the results expedited.”
This was not news he wanted to discuss with Autumn right now. She had been through so much recently, and to say she hadn’t reacted well last time was an understatement. He couldn’t begin to imagine the depth of her anger or sense of betrayal at finding out that her entire life had been a lie.
“That’s so close to home.” He passed a hand over his eyes. “Don’t say anything until after the op is over. I think she should be with Summer when they hear the news.”
“Rossetti already talked to Summer.”
Autumn wasn’t going to like hearing that. “How did she take it?”
“She didn’t try to kick his ass or accuse him of lying. Apparently she has vague memories, but she thought they were nothing more than dreams. She wants to see Autumn as soon as she gets back.” Dean clapped a hand on David’s shoulder. “Go back to bed. Tomorrow is going to be one hell of a day.”
When David slid back under the covers, Autumn turned to him and snuggled closer. “Was that Jesse and Dean?”
Re/Leased (Doms of the FBI Book 5) Page 31