by Kimball Lee
“Bly oh Bly,” she smiled as he kissed her, nipping at his full bottom lip and drawing a drop of blood that only seemed to fuel his passion. “I want to show you something amazing. Come on, we’re nearly there and then you can take complete advantage of me.”
“Okay, but I’m holding you to that,” he said, resting his cheek against hers, his chest heaving with the will it took not to take her, to claim her right there and then, the ever-present voice in his head shouting “MINE!”
She led him through their bedroom and along a wide private hallway into a large room that was being outfitted as a luxuriously masculine closet and dressing area just for Bly. She tapped a code into the security panel next to a nearly invisible door that he hadn’t noticed before and as it swung open a series of lights in the crown molding illuminated an entire portrait gallery. The charcoal-grey walls served as a museum filled with life-sized black and white portraits and each one was a moment in time laced together to tell the undeniable story of Charlotte and Bly’s love. It was as if a photographer had followed them from the first moment they laid eyes on each other and had captured every meaningful glance and love filled moment they had shared.
“Charlotte… how did you do this?” Bly whispered, his voice was filled with awe and Charlotte hid her face in her hands both smiling and crying at the absolute wonder and joy on his face.
Each framed portrait was a snapshot of their lives, candid shots of Bly and Charlotte’s faces as they secretly watched each other over the years, their faces were filled with love and lust and hope. West had helped Charlotte track down every security tape that existed over the last twenty-plus years that might have caught an image of the two of them. There was a shot of Bly watching a nearly naked Charlotte intensely at the legendary photo-shoot for American Jock and one from the same day of Charlotte staring transfixed by Bly’s handsome face as he peered into the distance. There was a riveting shot of Charlotte when she had just turned her face up for their first kiss at the Mayor’s Gala with the Gauguin painting in the background. Another was the two of them tangled together in an elevator at the Plaza Hotel and yet another of them kneeling on the stairs at the San Diego mansion, their eyes boring into each other’s as their lips met.
There was a dazzling close-up of Charlotte’s glowing face when tiny naked Atticus, brand new to the world and not even a minute old, was held up for her to see for the very first time. And another of her radiant as she held her newborn son to her breast, her hand cupping his silky down-covered head. Finn had taken those shots and Charlotte could tell that they were Bly’s favorites as well as hers.
There were many, many more, a lifetime’s worth of poignant and precious remembrance saved from oblivion by the grace of modern technology. In the center of the room, in the midst of those sacred life images, Charlotte had placed a low sleek chrome and leather Barcelona daybed so that she and Bly could sit together and admire the scope and bounty of their love. She lay down on the daybed and opened her blouse baring her lovely breasts to his sight. He hovered over her with tear-stained cheeks and they made love slowly and tenderly pouring a multitude of unspoken longing and past denial and missed chances into every touch and pleasurable plea and ecstatic moan.
Chapter Three
“So this is what’s happening,” Lucy Archer said as she sat perched on the edge of a chair in a private suite at the Hay-Adams Hotel with a perfect view of the White House. She had gathered her covert team there rather than at CIA headquarters to brief them. The mission was more than top secret, it was totally unknown to all but a chosen few and it would bring the wrath of the current presidential regime down on her head if word leaked out. But her younger sister’s life was at stake and that was what mattered to her. She needed a team of highly trained young operatives with more guts than brains to do her dirty work. Not that Atticus and the men who would accompany him weren’t intelligent, they were, but they had a fervid need to see some serious action on the battlefield and she had offered them the chance. “My sister Ivy is twenty-three years old, she had just graduated from Ole Miss and was traveling with a group of journalists to the World Cup Soccer Tournament in Brazil last month. While she was there she met and began a romantic relationship with one of the players who is from Honduras and she stupidly accepted his invitation to return to his country with him. He was the son of a high ranking and extremely corrupt General in the Honduran military and I don’t need to tell you that Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries in the world at this point in time. I’m sure you saw footage of the soccer player’s death on CNN or one of the news channels, he was gunned down in the streets of San Pedro Sula. Intel has informed me that my sister is living in his father’s vacation home in La Ceiba on the Honduran coast.”
Lucy watched Atticus’s face as he she spoke, his own mother had been a student at Ole Miss and she could tell that he was weighing and measuring that fact. Despite the deliberate restraint of his emotions, she was sure a soft heart beat beneath his steely exterior. Lucy trusted Atticus as she trusted in her own instincts, he would bring Ivy home and although he had yet to fire his weapon at a human target, he would certainly kill to achieve his goal.
She had intended to pursue both Atticus and Holden sexually if not romantically, but Ivy’s situation had put an end to such things for the time being. Lucy forced her eyes away from the brothers with their obscenely handsome faces and mouthwateringly muscled bodies and continued. “Fifty percent of the country’s population is under the age of nineteen. Highly volatile and deadly street gangs virtually control the remainder of the population through indescribably sadistic forms of violence. The government isn’t backing this mission, although I’ve called in some personal favors from your commanding officer with the help of our future president, Jordan Sullivan. Tomorrow at dawn you’ll leave from Langley Field and fly to a carrier in the Southern Caribbean, from there you’ll travel by Seahawk to the jungle near La Ceiba. The General who is holding my sister is a renegade and he hasn’t offered a deal to trade her at this point, he’s simply keeping her close to him and under heavy guard. The details of the mission are in the files in front of you, study them and you’ll be further briefed tomorrow on your way to Central America. Once there you’re basically on your own, there will be two helo pilots to take you in and only a small window of time they can afford to wait to wait for you. The three of you— Atticus Hale, Holden Bly and Jack Thomas, well… let’s hope that Atticus chose his teammates wisely. In Honduras the civilians are allowed to carry five weapons on them at all times and believe me the men who are holding my sister are not mild-mannered civilians. Chances are fairly slim that you will rescue my sister and come out of this alive.”
It surprised Atticus that Jordan Sullivan was backing this mission, in fact he wondered exactly how Lucy Archer had convinced him to get involved. There had to be some sort of underhanded involvement between the two of them. It was still fairly early in the game but the polls had Sullivan as a sure bet to win not only his party’s nomination as its presidential candidate but to win his bid for president in a landslide. Matilda was devoted to Jordan’s desire to ascend to the presidency but there was no way she would have stood with her husband in allowing Atticus to be sent on a mission with only a skeleton crew of young operatives that had almost no chance of succeeding.
“Alright,” Atticus said, taking long strides across the suite’s living room to hold the door open for Lucy to leave. “We’ll make this happen and get the girl out, Ms. Archer, consider it done. We have four hours to get some sleep and then we’ll catch our ride at Langley. I’ve spoken with my C.O. and he’s made sure our gear will be on the transport. Goodnight and we will see you again when we bring your sister home to the States.”
“Lucy Archer, I should have known,” Matilda Rhodes Sullivan stepped inside the suite as Lucy was leaving. “I’m sure you have some positively life-altering reason for bringing Atticus Hale to Washington, but I’m sure it’s only of the utmost significance to you. You do
understand that Atticus and I go back a very long way? We were family in fact, my mother and his grandfather, well… not that it matters to you but his welfare means a great deal to me. So what the fuck do you think you’re doing by using him to further your own career? I’m dead serious, Lucy, find someone else to do your dirty work, someone expendable. And don’t kid yourself that I can’t snap my fingers and end your cushy little CIA job. With one phone call I’ll make sure that you spend the rest of your career changing empty toilet paper rolls in the basement of the Pentagon.”
“Oh really? Why don’t you run that past your husband, Matilda? Let’s see who side he’s on…” Lucy spat but then decided she had probably said too much.
“Don’t worry about it, Lucy, my plans won’t change,” Atticus said, grabbing Matilda’s hand before she could slap the retreating Lucy. He pulled Matilda into the suite, said goodnight to Lucy and told Holden and Jack to get a few hours’ sleep, pointing to the extra bedrooms so they would leave him to talk with Matilda. “What the fuck Matilda? I have a mother, I don’t need you to try and run my life. This is what I do, so stay the fuck out of my business.”
“Do you have a death wish, Atticus?” She said, reaching up to pull his mouth down to hers before he could stop her. “Oh Atti,” she whispered against his cheek when he forced his lips away from hers. “Why are you so intent on putting yourself at risk? You’ll be what, twenty two in a few months? Take my word for it, there’s so much more ahead of you other than this insane rush of guns and knives and all your gear and camo bullshit. I’m sure you have some skewed notion in that gorgeous head of yours that taking all the same risks that Finn took will somehow honor your dad’s life,” Matilda said. “Can you imagine what it would do to your mother if you were killed? I know she’s survived time and again but even the indomitable Charlotte wouldn’t survive losing you. Just say no to that pushy political-ladder-climbing Lucy Archer. Her idiot sister got herself ‘detained’ and La Ceiba is an excellent place to spend time on the beach at the edge of the Caribbean. Just maybe the little twit has a thing for the General, she could be kinky that way and into fucking the crazed power-monger.”
“She’s a twenty-three year old girl who went to Ole Miss. My mother went to Ole Miss if you recall, not that it matters but I don’t believe the girl is staying of her own free will. Why the hell would she choose to stay with some burned out sleaze bag third world General? I can bring her out, no problem, and it’ll be over and done with. I’m doing it Matilda, and I’m not fucking you tonight so go home to your husband.”
“Jordan is out on the campaign trail and other than needing my family’s money and expecting me to behave myself in public and avoid any negative press, I’m free to fuck whomever I deem fit. You, Atticus Hale, are definitely fit. I really am into all these bulging muscles you’ve developed, remind me to send a thank you note to the testosterone addicted SEALs you’ve stupidly gotten yourself involved with. Jordan will be president-elect by this time next year and I intend for him to remove you from the SEALs and bring you to Washington as part of the Secret Service. We don’t want to compromise my favorite bulging muscle with all those covert missions,” she said, sliding her hand down his sculpted torso to rest on his obvious erection.
“Stop Matilda, this isn’t going to happen. I have a hard-on, so what, it happens all the time. Must be part of my testosterone addiction, ya think?” He caught her small wrist to move her hand away but she lifted up on the tips of her toes and slipped her little pink tongue between his parted lips. “Don’t…” He said but there wasn’t much conviction behind his words. It had been a long time since he’d had sex and as much as he hated it, he craved the warmth of a woman’s body for release. He was sick of the feel of his own rough hand every morning and every night as he stood beneath the hot spray of the shower and imagined Sky’s sublime body under his hands and opening for his cock. He had no love for Matilda whatsoever but she was familiar and she had been his first lover. Oh the things she had taught him, how to move slowly, deliberately and take his time, how to bring a women to the edge and then make her wait while his own pleasure built. Matilda had taught him to make a woman scream in bed and the truth was she knew how to take his body to the edge and beyond.
“Atticus you know how good our bodies are together and you want me, don’t try and deny it. Let me make you feel good, you need this and so do I,” Matilda had moved his shirttail aside and unzipped his jeans and she felt her pussy begin to vibrate with unstoppable need when his straining cock sprang free.
She’d had plenty of men but not one of them could compare to him in looks or size or skill. Of course she’d taught him everything about sex, guiding his hands and his cock from the time he was a teenager. She had no regrets about having used him and his big hard body over the years, he had used her too and they’d enjoyed every minute of it. He cared nothing for her, she was simply a vessel to him and nothing more. She, on the other hand, had fallen in love with him and she wasn’t exactly sure when it had happened. She was sure that above and beyond the fact that Jordan required her to have a baby, she actually did yearn for a baby. That Jordan was as sterile as a mule was a blessing really, she only intended to burden her perfect body once by carrying a child. She had no intention of buying sperm even if it was from some elite repository that only accepted donations from the most brilliant and physically perfect donors. She had the perfect donor right in front of her and she was in love with him. Atticus could never return her love, that was a forgone conclusion, but would it really be so terrible if he didn’t know he was aiding her in the creation of their legacy? Perhaps it was unscrupulous, but scruples were of no consequence to Matilda.
Next November Jordan Sullivan would be elected president, it was a certainty with the Rhodes Ranch money and all that Texas political muscle at his disposal. The nation was ready for a young vibrant leader and his politically correct wife and newborn baby would seal the deal and ascend to the White House by his side. Just imaging the power her child would wield in the future made Matilda more anxious than ever to feel Atticus’s huge hard cock inside her. He would never know, of course, until it was too late, but the mixing of the Bly billions and the billions she would inherit, plus the child would grow up as the son or daughter of the president of the United States. It was practically orgasmic to think that the future of her child would be one of wealth and unlimited power beyond imagining….
“We don’t need a condom, Atti, I’m already pregnant,” she lied and she could see a look of shame cross his face as he raked his fingers through that errant swath of hair on his forehead. “Don’t look at me like that… we don’t have to fuck if you have some sort of misbegotten notion about putting your cock in an expectant mother. Let me make you feel good Atticus, does anyone know how to that better than I do?”
“I’m glad for you Matilda, but this is wrong. Fuck, there’s a baby growing inside you… I can’t do this.”
“It’s alright, I’m only a couple of days late. It’s barely a blip at this point. Shhh, lie back and let me put this glorious cock in my mouth.”
He was so ready for a woman’s touch, he’d kept so much sexual need and energy pushed down beneath the surface for too long to resist her. He had trained day-in and day-out as a SEAL and he had kept his distance from Skyler for more than a year. He shrugged out of his shirt and lay back on the bed with one arm covering his eyes and the other gripping Matilda’s hair as she laughed and lowered her head. Maybe he shouted her name as she worked her special brand of magic on his cock, or maybe it was Sky’s name. It didn’t matter, neither one of them cared.
All he knew was the sensation of losing himself, of being guided and not having to be in control for a change. In his mind he saw himself as a teenager with Matilda invading his bed. Before Matilda he had never before known the erotic perfection of a woman’s hands or mouth or pussy. She took what she wanted from him then as now and he gave himself over to her, eyes closed without a word passing between them. First
there was the beguiling wet heat of her swift tongue as she licked the glistening tip of his cock, a tortured moan escaping her lips as she tasted his musk. She used all her skill to bring him to the edge and then she mounted him quickly before he could protest. He settled his huge hands on her narrow hips and looked into her eyes but it was too late to stop. She leaned forward so that her pale pink nipples grazed his lips and she settled her hot greedy pussy down, down, and farther still, taking his entire length. His only awareness was the silken clutch of her sex as it gripped tighter and harder, rocking in perfect rhythm until he was lost and shuddering as he emptied himself inside her in hot pulsing bursts.
*
“We are gonna have a blast, Sky. I have a few days before I have to do that awards thing and I’m not ready to face the whole premiere networking biz for my new movie. I am so glad you’re coming with me and Reef to his mother’s farm, it’s without a doubt the most peaceful hidden place you can imagine,” Hadley said as she waited for her luggage to be loaded into Reef’s jeep. “Oh, and there’s this guy who’s staying there… he’s a boy actually, probably fifteen or sixteen. I want you to meet him, it’s weird, I feel like I know him from somewhere, you’ve gotta help me figure it out.”
She thanked Charlotte’s new bodyguard, Davis, for loading the car and wondered what in the hell Alex was thinking when he had hired the man. Not good, not a good move at all, was all she could think where he was concerned. Jake Davis was younger than her dad but they had served together on a SEAL team at some point in their careers. Maybe Alex didn’t know that, it was certain that Charlotte didn’t. Hadley had met him years before when Finn had taken her and Atticus on a tour of the naval base on Coronado Island. Even as a child it was obvious to her that Jake Davis was a true disciple of Finn’s, right down to the tattoos and the way he moved with a fighter’s swagger. “Thanks Davis, take of care of Alex and my mom, okay? They’ve gone through a lot to be together, their marriage means the world to our family.”