The Vigilante's Lover III

by Annie Winters

  I ice down my control and lash the end of the rope to the slats in the bed. She can escape this easily, if she chooses to. My job is to make sure she doesn’t want to.

  I slide one hand beneath her and shift her to lie down on the bed. When she’s in a comfortable position, I trail my hand from her bound wrist, to her shoulder, then trace the curve of that lovely breast.

  She sucks in a breath. I give her what she’s longing for, trapping that tight nipple between my finger and thumb. She moans as I roll it gently.

  I lean down to take her lips with mine. She is eager, hungry, as we connect with mouths and tongues. While I have her attention elsewhere, I touch the gun to her thigh.

  She breaks the kiss, flinching from the chill. Her breathing speeds up against my mouth, her lips no longer moving. I bite her lower lip and tweak the nipple again.

  She’s caught, I can tell, between the pleasure and the panic. But this is good. It means I can coax the terror away.

  I let the gun trail down her thigh. She relaxes a little, but I can still feel the tension, coiled and ready to spring again.

  Her mouth moves against mine. I linger for another moment, then slide down her jaw, her neck, and farther, to capture that plump nipple between my teeth.

  She moans again and arches into me. I blow hot air over the fabric, heating it.

  Mia lifts her hips, trying to establish contact between us down below. I smile around her breast. Such exquisitely sweet torture.

  The gun slips against her ribs and she halts again. But it’s less of an intrusion this time, and soon she resumes rocking up against me.

  “Good girl,” I whisper.

  I need her skin, so I lift the nightie. When my mouth closes over her breast again, she lurches up, a cry escaping.

  I move the gun lower and let it connect with her between her legs.

  Her eyes pop open in surprise. She watches me and looks down, fascinated at what I might do.

  She doesn’t show any fear of it at all now.

  “You like that?” I ask. I push it harder against her, feeling it engage between the folds, pressing her panties into her skin.

  “You’re crazy,” she says.

  “Mmmm.” I lift the gun a little, then let it slide inside the top edge of the blue satin.

  She takes in another breath. The metal is warm now, heated by her skin. I press it into her a little harder, letting it engage with her body.

  She moans. “This is so messed up,” she says.

  “I think I’ve made my point,” I tell her. I begin to withdraw it from her.

  But she tightens her knees. “Do it,” she says. “I want to push boundaries with you.”

  My entire body responds to this and it’s all I can do not to rip off the panties and thrust inside her.

  But I tighten my jaw and do as she asks, peeling her panties down with the barrel of the gun.

  Her gaze is riveted on it. I touch her myself to make sure she can handle this. Her body rises up to meet my fingers as I slide inside. She’s so wet. And vibrating with need.

  Now I’m the one who feels the anxiety as I press the barrel gently against her skin. Jesus. I hadn’t pictured going this direction.

  I glance up at her, the blue negligee pushed high and exposing her body, her arms tied above her head. She watches me with desire and wicked delight. “Nervous?” she asks.

  I slide only the tip of the barrel inside her. I’m so damn erect I feel like I’m going to explode. She’s pink and wet and the blue metal going into her threatens to send me over the edge.

  She spreads her knees wide and lifts up. Hell, I can barely manage this, slipping the barrel back out and letting it enter her again. Her body quivers with the movement. She isn’t watching any longer. Her chin is high, her body tense. I can tell she’s moving toward orgasm.

  I can’t take it any longer and pull the gun away, shoving it across the bed. I enter her in one swift stroke.

  Her body heaves against me, rocking. She’s moaning and crying out and mixing up my first name and my last. I hold on to her hips, driving into her, relishing the feel of her convulsions around me.

  We move together, the world completely erased, then I empty into her, my body flush against hers. I wrap my arms around her back and clasp her to my chest.

  The ropes hit my head and I realize she’s gotten them loose. Her arms come down and clutch at me.

  I hold on to her, and her to me, until our bodies settle. I kiss her neck.

  “You got over it,” I whisper into her ear.

  “I did,” she says.

  For the first time in over a year, since before Ridley Prison, before the night I killed Singer, and before I knew what a traitor I had allowed into my heart with Jovana, I actually smile. A real, genuine, non-sardonic, actual smile.

  Shit. I think I’ve fallen in love with this woman.

  20: Mia

  It’s still dark outside when I wake. I try not to move. Jax is asleep, and he will jump into fight stance at the drop of a pin. I wonder if that comes from Vigilante training, or if he’s just naturally like that.

  He’s so vulnerable looking in sleep. I can’t see much, just the shadows of his face from the glow of the alarm clock. But it tugs at my heart. I don’t know how he can live like this, wary and suspicious all the time.

  Maybe it’s just our situation. A normal Vigilante probably has breaks between missions. And if he was a director, there were probably days of paperwork as much as car chases and bullet dodging.

  I think back on last night and the gun. I shudder a little. Something I haven’t told Jax, but will soon, is that since seeing the gun, I remember a piece of my past that must have been long buried.

  I’m on a boat with my parents. I think I’m six, maybe seven. My mother is out on the deck, holding on to the rail. My dad is in front at the controls. This is a typical weekend for us off the coast of Miami.

  Mom is watching something through binoculars. I don’t know what she’s looking at. The water and sky seem unbroken to me. After a moment, she comes and takes my hand and calmly tells me to go below deck.

  We head down a little ladder. She gives me a puzzle and asks me to stay here a minute. She’ll be right back.

  But something in her tone worries me. I feel funny inside, a little buzz in my belly like something is wrong.

  She heads back up and through the door. I start on the puzzle, but the boat makes a turn and we must be speeding up, because the pieces slide off the table.

  The motor roars. My anxiety rises, wondering why we’re in a hurry. I creep up the ladder and push on the door, peering out to see if I can spot Mom.

  Nobody is on deck. I lift it a little more and look around toward the front cabin. My dad and my mom are gesturing at each other. They look upset. My dad is holding something. I can’t make out what it is. Mom takes it from him, and then I know.

  It’s a gun.

  A gun!

  I drop the hatch and scramble back down the ladder.

  I never remember feeling more afraid than at that moment.

  I crawl onto a beanbag chair and curl up in a ball, shaking and trying not to cry.

  Eventually my mom comes down again. The boat slows down. She calmly picks up the puzzle pieces and starts arranging them. She asks me if I’m tired.

  I tell her I’m not and get up to help with the puzzle. I don’t ask about the gun, because then she’ll know I disobeyed her and went up the ladder. But the fear remains.

  Lying in bed next to Jax, I swallow hard. I know the incident doesn’t have to mean anything. It could point to them being Vigilantes, and that’s why I ended up at a safe house. Or it could just be an element of who they were, a part I didn’t get a chance to know. Maybe they were just afraid of a boat coming at them too suddenly.

  But in my heart, I start to believe something I’ve held so tightly that I haven’t faced it until now. Jax’s world is where I came from. I didn’t get old enough to be told. And my aunt — if she really
was my aunt — didn’t want me involved.

  I mentally flip through the photo albums from my house. Were there pictures of my mother and my aunt together?

  Yes, I can remember one standing next to each other by a boat. A few others at parties.

  But I have nothing of the two of them together as children. And nothing of my grandparents. I never knew them. We didn’t have pictures.

  Suddenly I find it hard to believe that all four of my grandparents are dead. I saw my parents in their coffins. I know they are gone.

  But I never knew any of my grandparents. They died before I was born, or so I was told.

  Something isn’t right here. That’s too much death. This doesn’t happen to normal families.

  I want to wake Jax up, get him to look up my parents’ parents. I don’t know if he feels the rising tension in me, but his eyes open. He’s awake instantly, sitting up, scanning the room. “What is it?” he asks. “Did you hear something?”

  I put my hand on his arm. “No. I was just thinking.”

  He relaxes back down. “What about?”

  “I remembered something about my parents. On our boat. With a gun.”

  He draws me in close. “So you’re starting to think they weren’t as ordinary as you have always believed?”

  “Can we look them up? Or my grandparents? Why don’t I have any grandparents? Or pictures of my family when they were children? I never really thought about it, assuming the images were lost when my parents died and I moved to my aunt’s. But now, I wonder.”

  “Your information is locked up tight,” he says. “But I can try.”

  I lay my head on his shoulder. “Thank you,” I tell him. Emotion courses through me. I know we’re in terrible danger and that sometime later today, we’ll have to go to Washington and face everything. We might not survive it. Or we might get separated and I won’t even know if Jax is killed.

  I might never see him again, nor be told what happened.

  Like with my family.

  But there is nothing to do but go into it, just go.

  For the first time in days, I feel like crying, overwhelmed with fear of what is to come. Jax seems to know it’s happening, and kisses my hair. “They haven’t gotten us yet,” he says.

  It’s true. We’ve come through everything.

  “I’m scared,” I admit.

  “Fear is natural,” he says. “It’s how we perform in spite of our fear that sets us apart.”

  I lift my face and he kisses me, light and gentle. My body starts to warm up, a light humming coming over me. His hand comes behind my back to roll me closer. We’re still naked, and his skin is hot.

  “Come here,” he says, and guides my leg over him.

  My thigh brushes his erection, and I go from warm to flaming in one fevered rush. I settle my knees on either side of his hips, and lower myself down. No preamble. No startup. Just straight inside.

  Sparks fly through my body as he fills me. His hands hold my waist, then travel up to cup my breasts. I lift and lower at my own pace, taking him in easy. Every stroke is like a revelation, a new plane of ecstasy.

  The first glow of morning strikes the window, and I can see him a little better, watching me from the pillow. I brace my hands on his chest and speed up my pace. It’s building so fast, and I can’t control it. I just ride along with the rhythm set by my body, the direction and speed it is longing for.

  Then it begins, a tightening of my muscles around him, a thrumming sensation vibrating through me. It’s steady and predictable at first, spreading out. Then everything just bursts. The orgasm explodes out, reaching all the way to the roots of my hair. I cry out, saying words, an endless stream of endearments and exclamations. Jax clutches my hips, thrusting to my pace, then holds tight as he flows into me.

  I feel his arms shake as we keep this position, shattered, fulfilled, and both undoubtedly a little afraid that this is it, that one or both of us won’t see another morning rise up from the horizon.

  I collapse on his chest and bury my face in his neck. His arms come around me and he holds me tight. “It will be all right,” he whispers.

  My voice won’t work, so I say nothing. The sun keeps coming. No one, not even Jax, can keep it from rising and making this day begin.

  21: Jax

  I listen to the soft hiss of the shower in the bathroom as I dress. In my mind I picture the rivulets of water cascading down Mia’s body, caressing each curve as my own fingers have often done so recently. For a moment I envy them. They are ephemeral, however, a fleeting touch on her skin. Perhaps they should be jealous of me.

  I sit on the edge of the bed and pull out the Identipad. Mia’s record is easy to recall from the cache without pinging a Vigilante server. It still tells me nothing more than it did that first night. Just a name.

  I let my idle gaze wander the room as I think about how to find out more, and I spot the black onyx ring sitting on the nightstand. I pick it up and turn it in my fingers. Inside the band are the initials we found last night. KHS.

  I decide to risk a connection and pull up the Vigilante network on the Identipad after bouncing the signal through as many anonymizer nodes as I can find. It won’t stop someone if they’re looking, but it will slow them down. Then I let the Identipad scan the ring, and I start digging.

  Currently the ring has only a special’s ID attached to it, which means there is no way of getting a name for the current owner. The initials are a dead end, but a query into the history gets some hits. It’s old, dating back to the founding of the Vigilantes during World War II.

  But still no names. I idly flip through early records and stop on a grainy black-and-white photo of several early Vigilantes. They’re posing in front of what looks like the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The man on the far left has one arm around his neighbor, and the other clutching his suit. Prominent on his right hand is a large black ring.

  I check the names. The man on the right is Mr. Prescott Adams. I pull up his information and scan through photos.

  There’s no doubt. The black ring is his. But whose initials are inside the ring? They aren’t his.

  I type in his name in the network. He’s a special, which isn’t surprising since the ring is tagged as belonging to one. I glance at the identification number and blink, looking at it again.

  000001.

  He’s the first Vigilante. The first special.

  But his ID is not the one connected to the ring now.

  My heart speeds up. I have a hunch. A crazy, wild, unbelievable hunch.

  I pull up recent records from the St. Louis silo and skim the information. Somewhere among all the alerts surrounding me is what I’m looking for.

  I suck in a breath when I find it. A number. The ID number of the only special who entered the silo on the same day I did.

  Mia.

  I cross-reference that number with the one currently tied to the ring.

  It’s a match.

  I’m dumbfounded. No wonder they protect her. No wonder she has the key to everything.

  She’s a Vigilante. And not from just any Vigilante family.

  The very first one.

  My head buzzes. This explains so many things. The safe house. Her aunt. Her parents, and the gun on the boat. And all the wiped records surrounding them.

  But how do I tell her?

  A noise from beyond the closed door pulls me from my thoughts. I check the time. Too early for the bartender to show up, and any other staff would have announced themselves.

  Not good. I scout the room for defendable positions and weapons. No telling where the gun is. Somewhere on the floor, under the bed. Out of reach. I grab the rope we used last night. I can work with this.

  I jump from the bed as the bedroom door swings open on silent hinges. Two men fill the doorway, one standing and one crouched low, dart throwers in their hands. I catch a glimpse of a woman behind them.

  No mistaking Vigilantes.

  “Please don’t,” says the
standing man, motioning at the rope in my hands. “We really don’t want to involve Ms. Morrow.”

  I look at the bathroom door. The shower is still running.

  “She’s fine. And alone,” says the woman from behind the two men. “But we are not.” The implication is clear. The building is surrounded. And I’m trapped.

  For the moment.

  I sit back down on the bed. The rope and ring are still in my hands. I need to stall long enough to come up with a plan. “I expected you sooner.”

  The woman looks bemused and tosses me a shirt. I guess I’m leaving in my pajama pants. “We didn’t want to interrupt your romantic interactions,” she says.

  The crouching man snickers, and she nudges him into silence.

  “And that’s why you haven’t shot me yet, despite the standing kill order.”

  She nods. “Our orders were to take you away from the special first. We’ll take care of the messy parts soon enough.”

  “I’m sure you don’t want your lady in danger,” the crouching man says.

  If they are even entertaining the idea of involving her, then they have no clue how special Mia really is. I do not doubt the hell they would go through if any harm befell her. Accidents happen, however. And with Sutherland calling the shots, a cover-up would be a certainty.

  A sick feeling forms in my belly. The longer I stall, the greater the chance she gets hurt.

  Or worse.

  I can’t risk it. But I can’t just vanish on her.

  “Very well,” I say. “I will go with you. On one condition.” The woman raises her eyebrows but says nothing, waiting. I start tying a simple knot around the ring. “Mia’s gotten wrapped up in this circus surrounding me. I must know she will be safe and protected once I’m out of the picture.”

  “She’s a special, of course she will be,” says the woman.

  “Not good enough. You know her house was blown up. That wasn’t just about me.”