“Hey—don’t fuck up my hair,” Rox protested laughingly. She was still wearing the wig she’d had woven in while she was in Israel. She’d gone for deep auburn locks with thick fringe across her brow since she hadn’t had time to mess with prosthetics or too much contouring to hide her face. She’d also been wearing a lot of heavy eye make-up and grey contacts to distract from her features.
Alejandro peered at her in the moonlight. “You look like a comic book character with that hair and your outfit,” he told her, referring to her tight black jacket and leather leggings.
She shrugged. “Red today, gone tomorrow. Maybe I’ll go blonde next time.”
“You think people have figured out you’re my sister?” he asked quietly, and Rox shook her head. They didn’t look like each other anymore. Not after all the surgeries she’d had to fix her face. She recalled the first time Alejandro had seen her after she’d recovered. The tears in his eyes as he’d stroked her fresh scars. She’d only ever seen her brother that upset at their parent’s funerals. But in a way, Roxanne supposed he’d also been mourning her death. She had changed irrevocably.
“Jack and Jaime know. So do Rush and Talon, but that’s it. We need to try to keep it that way,” she told him. “If anyone in Chicago finds out I’m still alive—”
“Won’t happen,” her brother interrupted, his voice reassuring. “No one could recognize you anyway. You wear enough make-up to give a transvestite a run for their money.”
“Hey!” Rox smacked his arm hard, and Alejandro batted her back, laughing. “¿A poco, güey?48 You suck.”
“What?” he smirked. “Just callin’ it like I see it.”
She rolled her eyes. “I better head in. Try to catch some shut eye before tomorrow’s madness begins.” She pushed away from the railing.
“Roxy—” Alejo grabbed her hand. “Be safe tomorrow, okay? I know you want this asshole, but don’t do anything crazy, okay?”
She lifted a brow.
“Okay, don’t do anything crazier than usual,” he amended.
“I could say the same of you,” she pointed out. “Good luck keeping up with Sam tomorrow. If she gets to Lightner first—no telling.”
“Just—take care of yourself, okay?” Alejandro reiterated. “If something happened to you—” he stopped, glancing away. Rox knew how he felt. It was just the two of them left now of their once tight-knit family. They couldn’t lose each other.
“No estés con cuidado,”49 she assured him, squeezing his hand. “I got this.”
Chapter 26
April—Midnight
Wyatt Towers, Houston, Texas
J A C K
He couldn’t sleep. Not with the unpleasant anxiety that rested inside his belly, not with the whisper of ill-defined misfortune and impending doom waiting for him and Samantha at tomorrow night’s gala.
Carey, Talon, Rush, Alejandro, Roxanne, and Samantha were all staying in the penthouse, too, and everyone had turned in after a long day of game planning with the rest of the team. She’d given Jack a beautifully-appointed and luxurious bedroom down the hall from hers. The architect in him appreciated the sculptural lines and panoramic views, but for all its refinement and considered design, the place felt impersonal, like a stunning façade designed solely to impress. It wasn’t a home. Not like his duplex at the Whitney in Chicago, or Samantha’s comfortable quarters at Wyatt Ranch. The penthouse was like a marvelous showroom, a palace in the sky, resplendent and cool, a gem at the top of a spire.
Restless, Jack stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of the guest suite, staring sightless as the city stretched out in front of him like a shimmering labyrinth of steel, glass, and concrete in the moonlight, the distant lights from buildings, street lights and homes winking at him like luminescent latticework.
Jack was startled from his reverie by a soft knock at the door—so soft he might have missed it had he not already been awake.
“Come in,” he called out, pleasantly surprised when Samantha slipped inside, silently closing the door behind her. A warmth spread through him at the precipitousness of her visit. He took in the silky Japanese robe she wore, ivory cranes edged in gold thread, long kimono sleeves that draped against her body in pristine origami folds. She looked gorgeous and wild, her hair falling around her like a black cloud, her neckline bare and exposed, just begging to be touched, kissed—worshipped. She stood in front of him, barefoot and vulnerable, though her expression had a certain determination to it, like she’d made a decision and she’d come to see it through.
“Tesoro?” Jack murmured, turning toward her fully. He was only wearing lounge pants, and her gaze dropped to his chest, eyes flaring with desire and emotion. She moved toward him, her limp slight, her gaze black and unnerving, the way a predator fixates on its prey, already tasting the win.
A frisson of awareness thrummed through him, the vital attraction they shared filling the space between them with a kind of breathless electricity as she came closer. He caught her scent as she neared, tantalizing, the smell of jasmine now forever reminding him of the lush, sensual beauty of her. This woman. His woman.
“Samantha, are you alright—?”
“I want you,” she said simply, touching him, her voice low and laced with something dark and delicious—a kind of willful determination. The voice of a woman who knew exactly what she wanted and exactly how she was going to take it.
Enthralled, Jack watched as Samantha slid cool fingertips along the firm ridges of his chest, down the muscles of his stomach, with an indecent slowness, goose bumps on his skin conveying his unspoken need. Her fingertips went lower, following the edge of his waistband, her expression intent, lashes half-lowered so that the crescent shadows formed on her cheeks. She dipped her hand into his pants, gripping him. He was already half-hard in anticipation, thickening in her hand as she dragged her fist over him from root to tip, making his breath fracture with each caress. She stared at his mouth, watching him struggle with his control.
The only sound was their breathing, as she worked him with erotic slowness, and he accepted her caresses, half delirious, though his mind would not completely acquiesce to the unexpected pleasure. Something was happening beyond the sex. Jack looked at his love, trying to see her—really see her—even as she cradled the shape of him, heavily aroused now, huge and rearing against the enticing pressure, wanting—needing more. More than just this. More than a seduction.
He pulled her closer, arms wrapping around her, and for the first time since he’d arrived to Houston, Jack felt the reverberations of her emotions, normally so tightly bottled and controlled, running her ragged on the inside as he looked into her eyes.
She wanted something more than this. She’d come for more than this. But she didn’t know how to ask for it. They’d always connected on this level, their passion like a flash fire, powerful and distracting. But Jack wanted more than sex now. He wanted her heart with it, and he suspected she wanted it too, though she didn’t know how to give it.
“Tesoro—” he said again, running his fingers through the silky strands of her hair. “Tell me what you need, love. Tell me, whatever it is—”
She stopped him from saying more when she caught his bottom lip with her teeth, pulling gently before she soothed the little sting with the tip of her tongue, the motion slippery and carnal. Jack groaned, gripping her jaw so he could find that perfect alignment, kissing her with the urgency she was building up inside him, her thumb rubbing through the cloven tip of his cock, spreading the slick heat of him round and round in luscious circuits.
“Dear God,” he gasped, pushing against her, seeking the satisfying pressure as he hardened to steel. It was a distraction though. He knew it. He could feel it: the barrier to her heart. The way Samantha used sex like a weapon. A way to bolster and protect herself in the face of true intimacy. He’d also come to realize that she used sex to distract herself in the face of chaos and uncertainty – a last, passionate stance against the tsunami rising on th
e horizon. Jack remembered the way she was with him the night before she left for Afghanistan—the fear in her eyes. The way she’d moved against him, desperate and a little lost, trying desperately to meld without truly connecting. Jack wanted her—wanted her more than anything—but not like that. Not without giving him the one thing she needed to trust him to protect—her heart.
Jack tried to pull back, tried to look at her again, but Samantha pressed closer, coaxing his mouth open, fitting herself to him with the full-on tilt of her hips, rocking against him with a low, savage sound. She tugged the waistband of his lounge pants, pulling them down roughly. The air felt immediately cool against the hot skin of his ass, his sex.
He gripped her shoulders, pushing the thick brocade silk back off her shoulders, her torso bared to him as it fell back. “What do you want, Samantha?” he growled, deep and needy. Tell me. Talk to me. Trust me—
“I want to fuck,” she said brutally, releasing the knot of her kimono, as she backed up to the window, bracing her naked shoulder blades against the glass. “I want to feel. Make me feel, Jack,” she rasped, her voice hoarse with desire, breasts jutting up. His mouth turned cotton-dry, hot flame rolling through his blood as he looked at her.
God, it had been so long… too long.
Samantha pushed the rest of the heavy kimono down, letting the silk pool at her feet as she stood naked before him, the angles and curves of her body illuminated and shadowed simultaneously by the moonlight. Jack was struck by the visual—didn’t think he’d forget it as long as he lived—her standing there, exposed, scarred yet beautiful, her body open to him, though her heart remained inscrutable, an enigma.
Jack slid a hand up her neck, tilting her chin up, forcing her to meet his eyes. He could see she didn’t want to talk, but she was brimming so full of unexpressed emotion that the only way she knew how to deal with it was to screw it out. Jack knew what that felt like. He’d played that game more than a few times.
“If I take you, Samantha—I’m not giving you back,” he warned her, gripping the back of her neck in one hand, his other hand sliding down her side, slipping over the old wounds until he got a good grip on her ass.
She stared back at him, wordless, eyes black and gleaming, fierce and vulnerable at the same time. She slid her hands up his face, fingers pushing through the tangle of his hair as she bent him to her and took his mouth aggressively, like she was staking her claim. With each flexing stroke of her tongue, Jack mimicked the movement with his hips, rolling against her, making her feel him. He lifted her up, ballasting her against the glass, the city glowing beneath them like a galaxy.
“This what you want?” he taunted, “To be taken? To be possessed and dominated by someone stronger? So you don’t have to think? So you don’t have to look too closely at what I make you feel?”
“Do it,” Samantha demanded suddenly, pulling back enough so she could fit him to her, bathing him in the sleek heat as she undulated against him. “I need you, Jack—I need this…—” her breath broke into a gasp as he obliged her, bringing her full weight down on him as he pushed through the soft, wet tissue, forcing her open, making her take him to the root.
Jack groaned against her throat at the incredible feel of her, like hot silk.
God, I fucking missed you—missed this—missed us—
Samantha threw her head back as she gasped out her cries, her shoulders braced against the glass, tilting up to meet each upward-plunge greedily. His mouth found her breast, sucking strongly, with each pull and stroke inside her spreading super-nova pleasure through his body, making him harder, rougher, faster. She answered each hammering, vicious stroke with plangent, groaning cries, straining against the pressure, driving against him, pushing him back, then pulling him in … in …
I could do this forever—love you forever—
Samantha tightened around him, riding the heat, the tell-tale spasms beginning too fast, too soon.
No—Not yet—
Jack wanted her open, needed her to stay with him like this, raw and unshielded. He pried her off the glass, swinging them both around to move toward the bed. He pushed her down to the soft linen sheets, and Samantha turned over, gripping one of the pillows from the top of the bed and dragging it down before she situated it under her hips.
She looked over her shoulder at him, sexy, devilish, and determined. “Don’t go easy, Jack. Make me feel you.” She gripped his wrist, draping him over her back, and Jack let her do it, pushing back inside with a digging shove, making her trill and gasp with the delicious pain-pleasure of it. He pulled back, almost completely, changing the angle just enough to strike against that perfect spot with his next drive inward, making her jolt and clench.
He gave her what she wanted: a vicious, visceral cadence that had him gritting his teeth as he buried himself over and over, awash in sensation, driving forward, sliding back, the friction mind-bendingly good. Samantha groaned and writhed, pushing back, lost in the pleasure, the accumulating pressure, gripping the thick muscles of his wrist as he bent over her, serving her relentlessly.
But there was a feeling of unreality about it. Jack couldn’t see her face, couldn’t gauge her expressions as she bowed and pressed against the mattress, her sex sounds hard and fractured, like she was going to get off regardless of whether it was him fucking her or the ghost of someone else. It could be any cock, any man attached to it. She was fucking him like a nameless, faceless stranger, and he was letting her do it.
Jack wanted her to see him, acknowledge him—choose him. Not Wes. No other man. Just as he wanted no other woman. His need for her was intense, possessive, almost violent. But he didn’t want to claim her. He didn’t want to demand her submission. Jack needed Samantha to give herself to him.
Choose me, Samantha.
Jack pulled out, flipping her over and dragging her down to him, opening her thighs, seeing the wet, tender center of her, blooming for him like the unfurling of a tight pink bud. He slid his fingers down her face, turning her face to him, making her meet his eyes—see him before he’d come into her again. Samantha gazed back in a daze, motionless, waiting to be filled. Jack wanted in that moment to tell her she was the fixed point of his universe. He wanted her to tell him she felt the same.
She was open and resistless now, slick and protean—a rarity he was going to take advantage of. He eased back, hooking her knee over his arm, levering her upward so he could shunt inside, deep and easy, his pace deliberately delayed, slow and dreamy compared to the hard fucking he’d been giving her just a moment ago. Samantha pushed and struggled, spread wide and helpless beneath the erotic gentleness of his movements. He wanted her to lose her infamous composure. He wanted to see what she looked like in total abandon, when she trusted him completely.
“No,” she panted, gripping his flexing ass harder, trying to force him deeper. “No—I don’t want it like this, Jack.”
“Like what?” he taunted, staring down at her, making her accept his pace, the shallow thrusts that teased and parried. “You don’t want me to make love to you?”
He leaned down to kiss her, and she jerked her head back, staring up at him, an angry flush in her neck rising to her cheeks, making her look even more wild. “I want you to fuck me, Jack. Just fuck me hard,” she insisted, gripping his face.
“No, tesoro,” he said against her lips. “Just let me love you. Even if you can’t take everything I want to give you yet—trust me to take care of you. Trust me to give you what you need, a little at a time.”
“Jack,” she breathed, struggling restlessly, trying to take what she wanted, the way she demanded it. He kissed her hard and sweet and long. Jack kissed her into stillness, his ministrations tender, sensing they were at the brink of something. He felt the tension of her conflicting desires—wanting to force him back, but powerfully drawn to him, needing to bring him closer. He waited her out, his patience steely. He wanted to take all her walls and raze them to the ground, but Samantha had to come to her own conclusions. She had
to bring down her own barriers. He eased back slowly, but she stopped him from leaving her, clamping her knees around his hips like a vise.
“Fine, we’ll do it your way,” she said almost warily, her whisky voice breathless and halting, like she couldn’t believe what she was saying.
Jack stroked his thumb over her lips. “And which way is that, tesoro?”
She turned her head away, but he urged her back around. “Which way is that, tesoro?” he asked again, wanting her to just say it. Just say the words, Samantha.
Samantha closed her eyes, opened them again. She took a deep breath and said, “Love me, Jack. I want you to love me.”
“Why?” he pressed, caressing her cheekbone.
“Because I love you so goddamn much, it hurts,” she admitted roughly. “Because the idea of not having you in my life just tears me apart, Jack. I don’t know if I’m going to fucking survive any of this, but if I do, I want you with me, alright? I want you. Just you.”
*
April—Midnight
Wyatt Towers, Houston, Texas
S A M A N T H A
Jack smiled slowly, and Sam held onto him, suspended between fearful longing and her intense love for this man, her body beginning to shake a little from the effects of trying to encompass and process too many feelings. She didn’t want to want him, to need him—because every time Sam had allowed herself the luxury of loving deeply, she’d lost that person, and each deprivation was more painful and wrenching than the last. But God in heaven, this man made her want to believe in something greater than herself. She didn’t know if she believed in forever, but Sam wanted to believe in him. She wanted to believe Jack meant everything he said, that each loving look, each intimate touch, each whispered promise—that it was all so much more than a fleeting passion.
She’d come in here feeling hot and agitated, was readying for battle, the crucible she’d been living in almost at boiling point. She’d been unable to give voice to her worries that this might very well be their last chance together. She just knew that she wanted this man. This breathtakingly beautiful, provocative, intelligent, honorable man. Sam wanted the world to stop for just a few hours. She wanted desperately to lose herself in his incandescent eyes, have him break her open and draw her out. She wanted him to push her into climaxes so powerful, she’d be numb afterward, drained of the fear within her—so she could be ready to wage war. Win or lose.
Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three Page 44