Blaine, Destiny - Breakfast by the Sea (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Destiny Blaine

“I wish it were that simple, darling.”

  “Right,” she whispered. “You must want me to suffer. But of course you would. I’m the Queen of Hearts, and that’s the only thing that matters. My face is on that damn card. Everyone believes I’m an armed and dangerous woman. Naturally, you’d want to kill me. Of course you’d want to torture me. I’m one of the most dreadful females in the world, one of the few women in the Most Wanted Deck of Cards.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Paige stretched her neck, still refusing to open her eyes. “Just get it over with. I’m not going to beg you. I refuse to grovel for my life or sudden death, although that would be my preference, so the only thing I can do is surrender now and hope you’ll show mercy.”

  Oh, God, did that sound like begging?

  “What on earth are you babbling about?” His hand slid across her belly and hipbone. He rested his fingers in the curve of her waist, tickling her skin as he trailed higher, caressing her ribs as if he counted them one by one.

  She swallowed hard. “Do your job, Jeff. You’re expected to silence me.”

  He leaned over and whispered. “I’m going to silence you, all right, but I won’t be using a loaded gun when I do.”

  His mouth pressed against hers, and his greedy tongue worked between her lips. He kissed her like he had all day. When he finished, he said, “Open your blasted eyes, Paige.”

  She blinked.

  “You aren’t going to die today unless you go out of this room and try to get yourself killed.”

  She blinked again.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered. “I’m not going to kill you,” he added, this time stealing another kiss. His hands roamed over her body, and he drew her to him, pulling her into his muscular arms and holding her against his warm chest. “I may do a lot of things to you, but harming you isn’t on my agenda.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t know how relieved I am to hear you say that.”

  Jeff studied her intently. “I’ve never seen a woman do…well, I’ve just never seen a woman like you. There’s so much I want to know. So much you can show me, if you can believe that. You enjoyed us earlier, didn’t you?”

  Her skin heated in all the right places—her cheeks, neck, and stomach burned for the touch only he could give her. The hottest place, the most bothersome area, was one she couldn’t wait to feel him stroking again.

  “I want you to give me an appropriate send-off,” Jeff told her, whispering against her neck, pinching her nipples and sliding one hand closer to her pussy.

  “I…”

  “You can’t deny me, Paige,” he said. “You aren’t that crazy.”

  She admired the lust in his eyes, the deep-rooted need he possessed settled in his stormy gaze.

  “Let me make love to you,” he said softly, towering over her. “Let me have you before we start this thing tonight. Give yourself to me. Trust me.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and this time she initiated the kiss with the fiery need she had spiraling out of control. She opened her legs and encouraged him.

  He followed her lead, slipping inside her with a sudden thrust. Did he have enough self-control to let her feel the strength of his erection without barriers, without protection?

  He grunted as he entered her. “I won’t come,” he promised, easing forward and groaning when he pushed higher. “That’s it, lover. Just one or two more strokes.”

  Jeff took her with long, hard thrusts, pausing between each. His thick cock thrummed inside her, and she felt him losing control. His dick pulsed with such ferocious intensity that her walls collapsed with the weight of his cock. Their bodies connected in such a way that Paige couldn’t deny him, or herself, any longer.

  She lost her inhibitions, and didn’t try to harness her control. She became wild with him, scratching his back as he fucked her, digging her nails deeper and deeper into his flesh, clawing at him like a woman hell-bent on never letting go.

  He delivered hard strokes, studying her as he entered her, setting his jaw like he had the determination and the desire to make their moment last forever. She arched for him, locking her ankles behind his hips and trying her best to keep him inside her.

  Jeff pressed his palms to her knees and spread her, watching his cock enter and retreat. “Beautiful,” he growled. “God, I can’t stop!” He bit his bottom lip and squirmed between her legs, twisting and turning. “Damn! I can’t get close enough.”

  She slapped her hands against his rock hard chest, and her body undulated with his. She bucked under him, taking them both right to the edge of release and gasping for air when he slid away from her. “Give me a second,” he said, but he immediately entered her again, and hammered inside her like he wouldn’t stop, and then retreated once more.

  “Fuck! I can’t wrap it when I want to feel you milking my cock like this.” He breathed against her ear, screwing out his right to claim her.

  Finally, the earth moved. She became another creature, a more sensual woman. She clawed at his chest, drew him to her and kissed him like crazy, moaning against his thick lips while her legs tightened around him.

  She refused to let him leave her.

  “Let me pull out!” Jeff growled.

  Their eyes met. His jaw dropped with a newfound understanding. He pursed his lips and gripped her knees. Then, he claimed her with more determined strokes, pounding into her center like the only goal he had was existing within her body. He screwed her hard and wild, faster and faster.

  “God help me, I have no control when I’m with you,” he muttered.

  He took her quicker, pushing himself inside her, yanking her hair and holding her to him as he screwed her, fucking her like a man who had no intentions of stopping at all. And she didn’t want him to quit. She wanted him to stamp her as his, leave her with his seed, his release finding a permanent home within her body.

  “Oh, Jeff,” she cried, looking down at the connection they discovered together.

  Sweat rolled off his forehead, and he jerked violently, growling and groaning, guttural sentiments falling from his lips too fast to translate. When they fell against the bed sated and truly satisfied, he pulled her over him, draping his body with hers.

  “I’ve never felt anything, nothing at all, until now,” he confessed.

  She listened to his heart beat, and for the first time, she started to believe him. His hands ran up and down her back. A few times, he kissed her head nervously, like he felt uncomfortable showing her affection but couldn’t resist pampering her a little while longer.

  They stayed together, arms entwined, for a long period of time. She’d started to doze off to sleep when she heard him confirm her newly formed suspicions. “I’m falling for you,” he whispered against her hair. “The truth is, Paige, I’ve stumbled right into what some men might even call love.”

  * * * *

  “I hope that drove you as crazy as Adam and I were a little while ago,” Callan said, joining Connor in their mobile unit parked two hundred yards from the hotel.

  Connor grinned, rubbed the pad of his thumb over his bottom lip, and studied Callan. “You have no idea.”

  “Right,” Callan said. “How could I understand? You’ve been in her bed, after all.”

  “You sound jealous,” Miles told him, looking over his shoulder.

  “Are you eavesdropping again?” Callan asked.

  “No way,” Miles replied, grinning. “I’m committed to surveillance, and the only thing I’m monitoring is what’s going on in that Presidential Suite.”

  Connor studied Miles. He wondered what was going through his mind. Had he overheard the sexathon and ached to be back in bed with Paige, too?

  Miles was hard to read. Regardless of whether he was happy go lucky or mad as hell, Miles kept a smile on his face, determined to work his way through whatever obstacles they faced without showing any expression whatsoever.

  “I listened,
and you got to watch,” Miles remarked, pointing toward the small screen.

  Connor laughed. “Somebody had to keep an eye on those two. Jeff was in no position to watch his own back.”

  Callan grinned. “I never thought I’d see the day when Jeff Jacobsen was crazy about a woman.”

  “He’s not hooked on Paige Lambert,” Miles said. “He’s using her. That’s Jeff for you. He uses all women. That’s why he’s called the master manipulator, Callan.

  “Jeff Jacobsen doesn’t fall in love. He doesn’t know how to love. You can bet your sweet ass he’s using Paige. The personal hatred he has for her ex-husband would prohibit him from feeling anything at all for her.”

  Connor raised a brow. “What do you mean the personal hatred he has for her ex-husband?”

  “You mean Adam didn’t tell you?” Miles shrugged. “Jeff has a childhood secret that someone should’ve told us about long before now.”

  “What are you talking about?” Connor asked, saving some file documents he’d received via email.

  Callan moved closer, apparently just as interested in what Miles had to say.

  “The reason Jeff wasn’t here from the beginning is because Adam didn’t want him on this mission at all. Jeff went over Adam’s head to get the assignment. He could’ve left Hilton Head in plenty of time to meet us here, but Adam tried to keep him away.”

  “Why?” Connor asked, convinced whatever Miles shared with them certainly had the ability to only complicate matters.

  Miles took a deep breath. “Ramone Carpasia isn’t just the King of Hearts to Jeff. He’s the man who killed his mother, father, and two little sisters in cold blood.”

  “What?” Connor asked, standing.

  “It’s true,” Adam said, entering the van.

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell us before we started this mission?”

  “Jeff’s story isn’t mine to tell, Connor. Miles shouldn’t have said anything either. Every man on this team has a right to keep their personal history private.”

  “His past affects us in this case!” Connor clenched his fists. “Damn it, Adam, he’s made all of us think he didn’t have a family. Now, here we are on the most important mission of our careers, and you tell us that the number one operative on our team has an old score to settle with our primary target?”

  “I don’t see how this changes anything,” Miles said, typing out something on one of the keyboards.

  Connor swung his gaze toward Adam. “That’s why you’ve been walking around on hot coals since this operation began. You knew Jeff was and is a ticking time bomb. Hell, he’s a damn nuclear weapon! He’s not an operative on this mission. He’s a cold-blooded killer, an assassin ready to do a job and get his revenge.”

  Adam sat on a chair in front of the computer station, staring blankly at one of the recent images Connor had just saved. The picture captured Jeff in bed with Paige. Her arms were wrapped around Jeff’s middle. His hand rested on the small of her waist, and he looked content.

  “He has a vendetta,” Adam said. “She has nothing to do with that now.”

  “She has everything to do with this and by damn I think he has a little more than a personal dispute to settle, don’t you? He’ll be ready for a blood bath, and when he’s done, he may be the only one to walk out of here alive!”

  “He’s right,” Callan stated flatly. “You should’ve told us what we all have at stake, Adam. We would’ve still been here. This mission is important. We’re all hungry to put down the King of Hearts, but keeping this from us placed us at a weakened position. We’ve all watched Jeff in action. When he’s fighting for something he truly believes in, he’s like a machine.”

  Connor released a sarcastic chuckle. “You think you’ve seen him function as a machine? Just you wait. Jeff Jacobsen will be in kill-mode. He’ll take out anything in his path, destroy anyone who gets in his way, and he will not follow protocol! The Jeff you and Miles have watched is nothing like the Jeff I watched train. He will be out of control, and God help the man who walks in front of him once his wrath gains momentum.”

  Adam stood. “Jeff will do his job.”

  Connor pointed toward the computers. “And what if he gets her killed?”

  Callan and Miles had started out the door, but they stopped abruptly, apparently interested in Adam’s reply.

  “I care about Paige. I do. But let’s step away from our own interests for a second and think about the facts. Paige Lambert is Jillian Carpasia. She isn’t entirely blameless in this situation.” Adam turned around and typed something out on the keyboard. Images scattered across the screen. “Gentlemen, if you’ll notice in the first frame, there’s a woman in the car. This picture was taken several years ago at the assassination of one of Carpasia’s men. Jillian Carpasia—Paige—was thought to be in the passenger’s seat.

  “Take a closer look at frame four. Jillian Carpasia is poolside, sipping iced tea, and watching as her husband beats one of her personal maids. Frame five shows a woman still sipping her cool beverage and looking unaffected by the recent turn of events.”

  “What is your point?” Connor demanded.

  “We’re not trying to protect an unsuspecting civilian here. Paige may not have blood on her hands, but she’s had enough splattered on her skin to make her an accessory to murder.”

  “She’s not this cold-hearted woman you think she is!” Connor screamed, defending her.

  “The hell she’s not!” Adam spat. “Now I may care about her, too, but damn it, Connor, you’d better get your hands out of your pants long enough to wrap your mind around what we know. Paige Lambert is Jillian Carpasia. I don’t give a shit what we’ve seen and witnessed for ourselves. The truth is, she is—was—a target. Her face was on the Queen of Hearts card, and by all accounts, she should’ve been removed from this equation a long time ago.”

  “Then why wasn’t she?” Miles asked softly, almost as if he didn’t mean to speak at all. “I mean, if she was supposed to be taken out, then why haven’t we followed orders?”

  The mobile unit was quiet. Four men stared at one another knowingly. Adam finally slammed his fist against the door. “Because I can’t follow through where she’s concerned! And, by God, neither can any of you!”

  “This mission has gone all to hell, and we haven’t even begun to get started,” Callan said, leaving.

  Adam didn’t acknowledge Callan or Miles when they departed. He remained in a stare-down war with Connor. “I don’t know what you expect me to say. I made a choice.”

  “Sounds like Jeff took away your options if he went over your head.”

  “Connor, I planned to tell you.”

  “When? We’re minutes away from this thing exploding in our faces, and you forgot to share one major piece of information. Ramone Carpasia killed Jeff’s family? Damn!” Connor swung his gaze toward the monitors. Jeff abandoned the bed he shared with Paige and made his way to the shower. “Tell me something, Adam. Did Ramone Carpasia love Paige?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Because if he did, Paige is dead. The revenge Jeff seeks will be far greater than anything he feels for Paige himself.”

  “Jeff won’t hurt her. I believe he loves her.”

  “He’s a born killer,” Connor reminded him. “He’ll never love anyone more than he craves the taste of retribution. If Ramone Carpasia loved Paige, or if he still cares about her at all, Paige could be in a great deal of danger.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The grand dining room projected old school splendor. Jeff and Paige dressed to the hilt and stepped easily into the role of a happy newlywed couple. He tucked her delicate arm through his, patting her hand when her slender fingers curved toward the bend of his arm.

  Large, handsome columns, three fireplaces, polished woodwork, and large windows accented splendid decorative mantel pieces. Dimmed candlelight flickered from sconces throughout, encouraging romance. With the inviting ambiance and a beautiful woman at his side, Jeff continua
lly reminded himself he was there for a reason. He was there to take care of business.

  Paige shot him a smile when he held out her chair. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.” Jeff took the seat opposite her, and his gaze immediately fell to her cleavage. Paige Lambert, regardless of her past, was an extraordinary woman. She had bedroom eyes, high cheekbones, and curves in the right places, a smile that would stop warriors from drawing their weapons, and a heart he couldn’t wait to break. Gulping, he stared at the menu. That wasn’t entirely true.

  He glanced up all at once. It pained him to look at her then. How could he take her into his arms, make love to her like she was the only woman in the world, and know that one day soon, he would leave her? His heart belonged to her, but he would still shatter everything he’d told her when he packed up and moved on.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No, why?”

  “You looked like you wanted to say something.”

  “If something important comes to mind, I’ll let you know.”

  “Okay. You do that,” she whispered, looking more stunning than she had the second before.

  Jeff ordered a bottle of 1999 Moet et Chandon, Dom Perignon. They shared an appetizer and meal—southern fried oysters and grilled sea scallops—after deciding everything on the menu sounded scrumptious. Bypassing dessert for a little slow dancing, Jeff stood when the piano hummed with appropriate music for swaying along.

  “Shall we?” he asked, holding his hand out.

  “We might get shot,” she warned him, placing her hand in his.

  “We might,” he agreed. “But if we can be seen, we can see. Sitting here in the corner is romantic, but we’re at a slight disadvantage.”

  She walked in front of him, and his gaze fell to her hips. God almighty, she had a body that wouldn’t quit. The little black dress she chose caressed her every muscle. He placed his hand in the small of her back, dipping his fingers under the silky material when he turned her toward the dance floor.

  “Behave,” she whispered, easing into his arms and clasping his hand in hers.