Hard to Come By

by Laura Kaye

  “I’m clean, too, Emilie, and you are going to feel every inch of me.” He pressed wet, open-mouthed kisses against her shoulder, her spine, her neck. “Roll over on your stomach,” he said, shoving the pillows out of the way.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said as she removed her tank and he settled over her ass.

  “You’re gonna listen to my voice and nothing else. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t have my cock if you don’t listen.” He stroked light, teasing fingertips down her back, and then he softly fucked the cleft of her ass cheeks.

  “Derek,” she whined.

  “Stop thinking, Emilie. Just feel my cock. That’s all you worry about.” He settled on his knees again, his thighs straddling hers, and pushed his cock between her legs. She cried out when he grazed her opening, and then penetrated her inch by maddening inch. He withdrew halfway and stopped. “Use your body to fuck me. Work yourself on my dick.”

  She moaned as she rotated her hips. Bracing her hands by her shoulders, she used the leverage to rock herself back onto him, impaling herself on his length.

  “That’s it. Fuck my cock, Em. Get me nice and wet.”

  God, his words were like a blowtorch, licking flames over every nerve ending. But as good as it felt, it was making her crazy to not have him driving into her. She wanted to feel his hips slam into her ass so bad she could hardly breathe. “Please move,” she finally cried.

  He smacked her ass and pulled out. “Who’s doing the thinking here, Emilie?”

  “No!” The emptiness hurt. “You. You are. Please.” She rocked her ass cheeks against his balls, begging with her body for him to return to her.

  He slid back into her core. “You need it bad, don’t you, baby?”

  “So bad,” she said, groaning in victory when his weight fell heavily over her back.

  He wedged an arm under her chest, one hand taking tight hold of a breast, and then he wrapped the other around her head, forcing her face to the side and using his hand to cover her mouth. Just the feel of that alone made her pussy twitch around him.

  His hold tightened everywhere, immobilizing every part of her except her calves and feet. And then his hips flew.

  It was a frenzied madness. She’d never had a man move so fast inside her in her life.

  “You’re going to take me, aren’t you?”

  She tried to nod.

  “You’re going to feel me own you, control you, cover you.”

  A smothered moan ripped from her throat.

  His hand tightened against her mouth and around her breast. His hips impacted her ass so hard and fast, she wouldn’t be surprised to find bruises from his hip bones. And she’d fucking love it.

  How did he know just what she needed? Because she was so overwhelmed by him she couldn’t do or see or think about anything else but him.

  She could think about body parts. Getting enough air to breathe. The way the head of his cock stroked her G-spot. Those were things she could handle.

  “Stop thinking, Emilie,” he growled in her ear. “All you need to know is my cock.”

  Yesyesyesyes.

  Deep. Hard. Fast. Thick. Filling her over and over until it was her entire world.

  Her orgasm crashed over her and she screamed against Derek’s hand as her body bucked under his weight.

  “Fuck. You just gushed on me. And you’re going to do it again.” He shifted his hips and legs, changing his angle inside her, and then he removed his hand from her mouth and replaced it with a devouring, claiming kiss. Using a fist in her hair to guide her head, his tongue invaded her mouth so aggressively that all she could do was suck on it as he fucked her.

  “Aw, you like your hair pulled, don’t you, Em.” She gulped for air and moaned, his words hitting their mark in her brain and between her legs. Intense pressure built behind her clit. Derek tugged her hair tighter, setting off a low burn in her scalp. “I bet that pull travels right down your spine and makes your pussy clench.”

  “Derek, Derek, Derek,” she said in time with his thrusts. When he wrenched his weight off her back, she almost cried.

  A big hand landed in the middle of her back, holding her down. His other dragged down her back and his thumb slipped between the cheeks of her ass. He pressed against her anus.

  “Oh, God,” she said, jerking under him.

  “You want to be filled everywhere, don’t you? You want to feel me in every part of your body?”

  “Yes, Derek,” she rasped.

  Slowing his hips, he pushed his thumb lower until it slipped into her pussy right alongside his cock. He gently moved it back and forth, and then he slowly fucked her with his thumb wedged inside, making her feel fuller than she’d ever felt.

  “Look how good you take two. So fucking sexy.”

  She would’ve agreed, except just then, he withdrew his thumb from her pussy and pushed it against the ring of her ass. It took less than a minute before he’d penetrated her all the way up to the second knuckle, and she wasn’t sure she’d breathed once the entire time. She was on sensation overload.

  He settled into a rhythm of withdrawing his thumb from her ass when his cock sank into her pussy, and then fucking her ass deep with his thumb when his cock withdrew.

  It took about twenty seconds of that before her body tightened like a corkscrew and then blew apart into a million floating pieces. She buried her face against the sheets and wailed at the freeing force of the release.

  “Shit, Emilie. That was too fucking perfect. You’re gonna make me come.” Derek’s hips flew against her, his thumb buried deep. “Oh, God, here I come.” He unleashed a pleasured groan that sounded so damn sexy it made her stomach flutter, and she felt the fast jerking wetness of his come inside her. “Holy fuck,” he rasped as he gently withdrew his thumb and laid his weight atop her again, his cock still deep inside her core.

  In that moment, Emilie was so perfectly relaxed, so perfectly sated, so perfectly at peace that all she knew was the intense gratitude and awe and emotion she felt for this man. “I love you, Derek.”

  She gasped, the reality that those words had just left her mouth dispelling the haze of lust from her brain. Oh, my God! Oh, my God! What the hell had she just done?

  And why wasn’t he saying anything?

  Oh, God.

  Derek withdrew his cock and lifted off of her. And then he flipped her onto her back, straddled her belly and braced his hands by her ears, his handsome face just visible right above hers. “Say it again.”

  Her stomach flipped as she met his gaze. And it was absolutely blazing. “I love you, Derek.”

  “Again,” he rasped, lowering himself until his forehead rested on hers. “Please.”

  Her arms surrounded his shoulders. “I love you, Derek.”

  He shuddered out a breath. “I have waited thirty-two years to hear another human being say those words to me.”

  Her head spun at the admission. How could anyone not love this man? She would make sure he heard it every day from here on out.

  He stroked her hair. “And I’m so fucking glad it was you, Emilie. Because I love you, too.”

  “You do?” she said, the impossible goodness of this moment making her sure she must still be asleep. “Say it again.”

  His grin was immediate and huge. “I love you, too, Emilie.” He kissed her, a soft, soulful meeting of lips and tongue that made her chest feel too tight to contain her heart. After a few moments, he slid down on his side beside her, and hugged her into his chest.

  She’d returned to her senses enough to recall all the things she’d wanted to forget. And the pain of her loss was as ever-present as it had been all day. But the amazing, powerful, transformative thing about love was that it gave you the strength to persevere, the will to fight, and a soft place to fall when the world became too much.

  He’d given her everything she needed to walk through this grief and make it out on the other side. Eventually, at least.

  “I love
you,” she whispered against his chest.

  He hugged her tighter, and then drew in a deep breath. “And Iiiiiiiiiii-ee-iiii will always love yoooooooou,” he sang, or rather butchered, the old Whitney Houston song.

  Impossibly, Emilie burst out laughing. “Oh, God, that’s horrible, Derek.” She pushed out of his arms, grasped one of the pillows from the edge of the bed, and planted it over his head. He continued to warble from under the cotton, and Emilie couldn’t stop laughing.

  Their playfulness quickly escalated into a pillow fight, and then a wrestling match, and of course she ended up underneath him.

  Win-win in her book.

  “I’d been trying to figure out all day how to make you smile, because it’s the most beautiful fucking thing to see.” He stroked her face. “I know things aren’t okay right now, Emilie. And I know things might yet get worse. But I will be there for you and protect you and love you every step of the way.”

  “I know you will. And I will, too,” she said, amazed at the adoration in his eyes.

  “Thank you for loving me,” he said, and there was a note of pain in the words that nearly broke her heart.

  “Oh, baby,” she said, pulling his head down to her shoulder and wrapping her arms around him tight. “It’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

  Chapter 26

  Wasn’t it funny how life could give you your best day ever the dawn after you’d had one of your worst?

  That was exactly what it felt like to Marz.

  That Emilie loved him was a miracle beyond any he’d ever expected to experience. And it filled him with a sense of hope, a sense of invincibility, and a sense of strength he’d never really felt before.

  Because, no matter what, he wasn’t alone.

  He hugged his arms around Emilie’s waist, where she sat perched on his left leg. After what they’d shared, he hadn’t wanted to be apart from her even a little.

  They were all gathered at Marz’s desk in the gym, a little before six in the morning, watching the key search count down its last several minutes. He was strung so tight with anticipation, that he literally couldn’t watch the clock anymore. And thus Emilie had landed in his lap.

  Would this chip provide them with any of the answers they needed? Would it give them a way to regain their stolen honor? Would it allow them to find redemption for their fallen friends who could no longer find it for themselves?

  “Three minutes, Marz,” Charlie said from a chair at the desk beside him.

  “I can’t look,” he said, his voice muffled against Emilie’s back.

  Someone smacked the back of his head.

  “Ow, motherfucker,” he said, wrenching around to find Beckett grinning behind him. Well, as close as Beckett got to grinning.

  “You did all this hard work. Watch it.”

  Emilie kissed him and got up. “Do what you need to do. I’ll be right here.” She stepped back next to Becca and Katherine.

  Ding, ding, ding.

  At the sound of the computer notification, Marz’s gaze cut to the screen. “Holy shit,” he said. The running numbers had turned into just one number. One long-ass number framed by a box. “Nobody move,” he said.

  Charlie chuckled, but Marz could feel the tension and anticipation rolling off of him, too.

  Marz grabbed his phone and took a picture of the screen, then grabbed a piece of paper and hand wrote the key, with Charlie double-checking him as he went.

  “We’re all dying here, Marz,” Nick said from over his shoulder. “Translate for those of us who don’t speak geek.”

  Minimizing the key search, Marz clicked over to the external drive containing the chip. “If we’ve all been good boys and girls this year, Santa Marz is going to bring you presents in juuust a minute.”

  A login box popped up for the external drive.

  Moment-of-truth time.

  “Check me, Charlie,” Marz said as he typed in the key. Finally, he’d keyed in the entire string.

  And then Marz pressed Enter.

  A spinning icon appeared in the center of the screen and then it transformed to a directory listing. At the top it said,

  USER NUMBER: _

  PASSWORD: _

  Blinking cursors appeared after each one.

  “Does that mean what I think it means?” Beckett asked.

  Marz wanted to smash something with his fists. Five days invested only to hit another brick wall.

  Charlie stood and rifled through the papers on Marz’s desk. “Where are the binary numbers from Becca’s bracelet?”

  “Stop!” Marz said. Charlie’s hands flew off. “There’s a system.” He reached across the desk. Second pile over, all the way at the bottom, because it was a smaller sheet of paper he didn’t want to lose. “Ta-da!” he said.

  “Do it, Marz,” Nick said.

  They had two numbers because Becca’s line-and-circles charm bracelet could be read from left to right and right to left. There was no indication if one way was the right way. But if these were the keys to this username and password, the lack of guidance on the bracelet made sense. This required two numbers, and the bracelet gave them two.

  USER NUMBER: 631780

  PASSWORD: ******

  All Marz could hear was the low hum of the processors and fans on the machines, as if everyone was holding their collective breaths. He hit Enter, and his stomach dropped. Incorrect login. Please try again.

  Fine. He’d reverse them this time.

  USER NUMBER: 162905

  PASSWORD: ******

  Blowing out a long breath, he hit Enter again. Long pause, and then a directory of file folders and file names popped up in a huge and scrolling line.

  “We’re in!” Marz said, shooting from his seat with his fists in the air. He and Charlie hugged. Cheers and whoops and shouts of good work filled their corner of the room. And Marz felt like he was fucking ten feet tall.

  “Proud of you,” Emilie mouthed to him.

  He put a hand to his heart and let those words sink in.

  And then he was back in his seat, his head one of about six all crowding in.

  “Is it just me or are there a shit-ton of documents here?” Nick asked.

  “Shit ton and a half,” Marz said, his mind already organizing the huge job that lay ahead of him. “It’s gonna take some time to go through it all, but let’s play a little What’s behind Door Number One, shall we?”

  “How ’bout the one called Investigation?” Beckett suggested, pointing to the line on the screen.

  “Why not?” Marz clicked the folder icon, and a series of files named by dates appeared. He clicked on the earliest date, almost three years before the ambush that had ended their careers, and it launched in Microsoft Word.

  Mission Needs

  Required Afghan Contacts:

  Farmers

  Warlords

  National Police

  Border Police

  Special Narcotics Force

  Ministry of Counter Narcotics

  Minister of Defense

  Port Authorities

  Buyers

  Mission Needs? What mission?

  “Anybody else following this?” Nick asked. A rumble of no’s. “Open another one.”

  Marz clicked on a file from about three months later. It seemed to be a log from a regional counternarcotics task force responsible for destroying captured opium and heroin, and it listed amounts captured and amounts destroyed by date.

  “They don’t match up,” Marz said, drawing his finger across the screen. “There’s always more captured than destroyed.”

  “Two guesses what was happening to the difference,” Shane said.

  “Merritt kept records for the smuggling business?” Beckett asked. “What kind of sense does that make? And why would he send them to Becca?”

  Nick shook his head. “Keep going, Marz.”

  Scrolling down, he chose at random. One file seemed to be an inventory of farmers in one particular region, with notations next to e
ach. They didn’t have the key to it to know what those notations meant, though. At least, not yet. Another file was a list of Afghan warlords, not by real name but by nickname. Marz recognized a few from the counternarcotics work their SF team had done. Notes next to each warlord’s name included things like: “French, 18-” or “American, 24-” or “Japanese, 18-”. One read, “American, 18-, blond.”

  “Are those notes the warlords’ fucking preferences for girls?” Shane asked, disgust plain in his voice.

  “It’s like a goddamned menu,” Easy said.

  That was when it struck Marz—those dashes after the numbers weren’t dashes at all. They were minus signs. Eighteen minus. Twenty-four minus. Meaning, that age or younger. His stomach soured.

  Marz switched back to the directory and chose a document with a date exactly six months after the initial file. It was a heavily redacted letter with all names, places, or other identifying information blacked out, but Marz’s eyes tripped on one word: deniable.

  In the special operations world, deniable usually referred to covert operations in which operators often worked out of uniform to perform certain tasks so their government could deny any involvement if the whole thing went south.

  “What is this meaning to you?” Marz asked, pointing at the word.

  “Paired with the phrase ‘assignment evaluation’ at the top there,” Beckett asked. “Sounds to me it’s talking about a deniable covert operation.”

  “Look at the last line of the third paragraph,” Easy said, nodding. The unredacted part read, “reaches into the command structure.”

  Marz’s instincts were starting to set off alarms. Something was just feeling off here. He opened another document, which seemed to be a list of code words relevant for interactions with farmers. But what did the code word indicate to the farmers to do?

  Sighing, Marz went way far down the list, to the next-to-last file, dated about six months before the ambush that ended their careers.

  It was a Request for Reassignment. Frank Merritt appeared to be asking to be removed as commander of their Special Forces team and reassigned to SAD as a solo operative.