Tackle (K19 Security Solutions)

by Heather Slade

  But now, eight years later, she had to have had more…experience, right?

  “Sloane—”

  She bolted upright, reached for her sweater, and held it in front of her. “If you changed your mind, just say so.”

  “Hey, now,” I said, gently pulling her back to lie down. I took the sweater from her hands and tossed it on the floor. There was no way I was going to change my mind, and I prayed she didn’t either. I’d come too close to dying, not just once, but many times. The plane crash had been the worst, though. I couldn’t imagine leaving this planet not knowing how it felt to hold Sloane’s naked body in my arms.

  I leaned forward and kissed her. “I want this,” I murmured.

  “I want it too.”

  I smiled. “Good.”

  She rolled to her side, took one of my hands, and put it back on her breast.

  “You like that, huh?”

  Sloane nodded.

  “Me too.”

  It wasn’t easy to take my time. I wanted to grab a condom, roll it on, spread her legs, and finally know how it felt to be inside her. But where Sloane had seemed in a hurry earlier, now she was taking her time, exploring me with her eyes and hands. As painfully hard as I was, I still had to let her.

  “Your body…”

  “What about it?” I asked.

  “It’s changed.”

  I leaned forward and swirled her nipple with my tongue. “So has yours.”

  She ran her hands from my shoulders down the front of me, stopping when she got to my pecs. “Do you like this too?” she asked, running her finger around my nipple. She laughed when I grabbed her hand. “I guess not.”

  “Too sensitive right now for that.”

  I might be able to wait to sink my cock into her heat, but I needed to touch her. I trailed my hand down and pushed open her thighs.

  “Oh my God,” she groaned when I circled her drenched opening with my fingertip and then pressed against her clit with the pad of my thumb. She grabbed my wrist like I had her hand.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, not allowing her to move my hand away. “You need more, Sloane?” I put one finger inside her and then added a second. I couldn’t help but breathe a metaphorical sigh of relief that, while she was tight, I didn’t feel any kind of barrier. Not that I would know exactly what it felt like since, to my knowledge, I’d never had sex with a virgin.

  “Can I touch you?” she whispered.

  “Of course you can,” I said, guiding her hand to my steel-hard cock. That worried feeling crept back when it seemed like she hadn’t touched one before. “Put your hand around me.” When she did, I put mine on top of hers. “Harder,” I said, squeezing her fingers. “That’s it.” Damn, it had been too long since I’d been with a woman, and her touch felt so fucking good. “Stop,” I groaned.

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No. Not at all.” I reached over, grabbed a condom packet, opened it, and rolled it on.

  “Good thing they’re extra large,” Sloane teased when I gritted my teeth.

  “I can’t wait,” I said. I placed my cock at her entrance and eased in. Her fingernails dug into my shoulders, and her eyes opened wide. “We’ll take it slow,” I said as much to myself as to her. I felt her body softening and slid inside a little farther. “You doing okay, Sloane?” I asked.

  “You’re so big.”

  “Why, thank you,” I said, sliding in another inch.

  Sloane closed her eyes and arched her neck. “More,” she moaned.

  “You’re so wet,” I said, allowing myself to thrust deeper.

  She opened one eye. “Um, thanks?”

  I pulled almost all the way out and then thrust back in, picking up the pace of my movement. When I reached down with one hand and fingered her clit, she almost came off the bed.

  I stopped thinking and let my body take over, focusing only on how fucking good Sloane felt. When she met my thrusts, I let myself go, deepening, quickening. Sloane wrapped her legs around my waist and cried out her release. Seconds later, I followed.

  I slowed, but was in no hurry to separate my body from hers. Still inside her, I shifted our two bodies so I didn’t crush her slight frame with my weight.

  When I felt Sloane trying to wriggle away, I held her still. “Not yet,” I said. “Let me feel you.”

  She remained where she was for a few more seconds. “I need to get up.”

  “Okay.” I pulled out but kept my hand on her waist. “Look at me,” I said when she tried to hide her face. She shook her head and tried again to get up, but I wouldn’t relent. “Sloane, look at me.”

  “No.”

  I put my hand on the side of her face and turned her toward me. “Why are you crying? Did I hurt you?”

  “No. Just let me go.”

  This time, I did and watched her rush off in the direction of the bathroom. I sat up and looked down to remove the condom. “Fuck,” I muttered, noticing two things. First, it was ripped. Second, I could see faint traces of blood. I heard the shower go on and made my way down the hallway. The door was closed, and when I tried the handle, I found it was locked.

  “Hey, Sloane? You okay in there?”

  “I’m fine,” I heard her holler back.

  “Why’d you lock the door?”

  “I don’t know. Habit. I’ll be out in a sec.” I heard the water shut off a literal second later. The door opened, and Sloane scooted past me with a towel wrapped around her.

  I went in, disposed of the condom, and got in the shower to rinse off. After getting out, I grabbed a towel, put it around my waist, and padded back to the bedroom.

  “Hey, where’d you go?” I shouted as I walked out to the main room. I didn’t get any response, and the place wasn’t big enough that she wouldn’t have heard me.

  I went back into the bedroom to look for my clothes. As I pulled on my pants, I heard an alert on my phone. I swiped the screen and looked at Sloane’s text.

  Got called into work. Lock the door behind you.

  What…the…fuck? When I tried to call her to say those exact words, it went straight to voicemail.

  Three days later, I still hadn’t been able to reach her. I tried calling; every time, it went to voicemail. I stopped by her parents’ house, but other than to say hello, I couldn’t think of any way to find out when Sloane was last home, so I asked how she was. That alone got me an odd look from both of them. I even went back into the city and staked out the damn apartment building.

  Finally, I decided to say fuck it and called Halo.

  “How’s Onyx?” I asked when he answered.

  “No change.”

  “Thought I’d head down to DC.”

  “I can keep you updated if you don’t feel like it.”

  “Nah. I’m getting bored up here anyway.”

  “Let me tell ya, brother. It ain’t exactly fun times around here.”

  “I stopped in to see your parents yesterday.”

  “Yeah, my mom try to feed you?”

  I laughed. “I told her straight off I couldn’t stay.”

  “It was nice of you to stop by. I feel kinda bad for not going home like you did.”

  “Have you talked to them?”

  “No, and I should. I’ll call when we hang up. You really headed this way?”

  “Yep. I’ll swing by the apartment and drop my stuff, then I’ll head over.”

  I drove by Halo’s parents’ house one more time on my way out of town, but not for any good reason. Unless I happened to catch her going in or out, I wouldn’t know if Sloane was there anyway.

  At first, I was worried when I couldn’t reach her. Then I got pissed. I was almost to the point where I didn’t care.

  I mean, how awkward would it have been if, after having a good, solid fuck, Sloane thought it meant we were a couple? I should be grateful she’d bailed before I had to.

  Two things didn’t sit right with me, though. Actually, it was more than that, but two main things. First, the broke
n condom. Second, the blood. Had I been right when I initially thought Sloane seemed inexperienced? Or worse, had I hurt her? If I had, why the fuck hadn’t she said so? Was that why she’d been crying?

  It occurred to me that I probably should’ve told her about the condom right away, but shit, what chance had I had? I hadn’t expected her to disappear while I was in the shower. Nor did I expect her to ghost me.

  When I got to Logan, I parked in the private lot where K19 Security Solutions kept several spots. As I rode from there to the terminal in one of the shuttles, I decided to try one more time.

  I pressed the button, not even bothering to hold the phone up to my ear. Like every other time I called, it didn’t even ring. It occurred to me that maybe she’d blocked my number.

  If so, she wouldn’t get the text I sent anyway. Might as well keep that simple too.

  Condom broke.

  Apart from the briefings we had to give about what went down on our flight to Columbia, Halo was right. Being in DC was a drag. We went to see Onyx every day. Better put, we went to see Monk, who was there all day and night from what we could tell.

  I felt for the guy. I mean, he’d been the handler on the op that went sideways, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could’ve done differently.

  No one, least of all Onyx, would’ve believed Corazón, the woman who’d almost killed us all and who Onyx had been sleeping with, was a double agent.

  Damn women. Who would’ve thought Sloane would ever pull the shit she was, either. I shook my head. That wasn’t fair. Just because my best friend’s sister had decided she didn’t want anything more to do with me didn’t put her on par with a fucking traitor and murderer.

  “Ready?” Halo asked, coming out of the bathroom.

  “Yep.” We were on our way to the hospital one last time before we caught a flight back to Boston to spend the holidays with our families, who always got together at least two or three times between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Part of me considered not going home, but that wouldn’t have been fair to my parents. I’d figure out a way to politely decline to go along with whatever they did with Halo’s parents. Either that, or I’d show up just to see how Sloane would react.

  “I’m sure you’ve already briefed Doc about this, but what went down that day?” Monk asked when we were getting ready to leave to catch our flight home.

  I rubbed the back of my neck, wishing he hadn’t asked, especially today. “It was a major Charlie Foxtrot, Monk.”

  Halo nodded. “I don’t know what went on in the cockpit, but when we were just past Aruba, all hell broke loose. It all happened so fast. We heard a shot being fired and stormed the front of the plane. Onyx had taken a direct hit, and Corazón had her gun turned our way when I fired.”

  “By that time, the plane was already taking a dive. I didn’t think there was any way we’d live through it,” I added.

  I tuned Halo out when I heard him telling Monk how almost dying had changed his outlook on life. I’d heard it too many times. When he nudged me, I gave Monk the same song and dance, telling him how every time I wanted to put something off until the next day, I thought better about it. But was that even true? If I had really wanted to find Sloane, I could’ve. I could’ve grown the balls to call her house and try to talk to her. Or ask her parents when she was expected home. But I hadn’t. I’d allowed myself to sink back into my comfort zone of avoiding confrontation. So was I really living every day like it was my last? Fuck no.

  “You all right?” Halo asked when we left the hospital.

  “Yeah. I’d rather not have to talk about that day ever again.”

  “I hear ya.”

  We’d just stepped off the elevator in the parking garage when Halo got a call.

  “Tackle and I are about to head to the airfield,” I heard him say to whoever was on the other end. A few seconds later, he hung up.

  “What was that about?” I asked.

  “That was Striker. I’ve decided not to accept K19’s offer.”

  “Why not?”

  “You can drive,” he said once we were in the car.

  “Why not?” I repeated without turning on the engine.

  “I gave it a lot of thought, and I’m just not ready to make that kind of commitment.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know yet, but maybe some PI work.”

  Striker had called me a few days ago. I told Halo to say the same thing I had. “Tell him you need more time.”

  “Have you given them an answer?”

  “No.”

  “What about you? What are you going to do?”

  “I’m thinking about working for my dad.”

  My dad owned a construction company and had made it clear that if I wasn’t ready to go back into intelligence either now or in the future, he had a job waiting for me.

  “Is that what you did, told them you needed more time?”

  I nodded.

  “Nothing like surviving a plane crash to make a guy reassess his life,” Halo mumbled.

  “Listen, I’m sorry I’ve been so distant.” It wasn’t his fault his sister had had sex with me once and then decided she didn’t want anything to do with me.

  “We okay?” Halo asked.

  “Always.” When we walked into the terminal, Striker was waiting. I shook his hand and told them I’d be at the bar.

  “How’d it go?” I asked when Halo came and joined me a little while later.

  “He gave me a side job.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Missing person. Apparently, Tara Emsworth disappeared shortly after Thanksgiving.”

  “Name sounds familiar.”

  “She’s one of Razor’s wife’s best friends.”

  “That’s right. Mercer’s wife’s too.” Both men were guys we worked for at K19 Security Solutions.

  “So your job is to find her?”

  Halo nodded. “Wanna help? And by that, I mean come up with a plan.”

  “Sure, I can do that.” No way in hell I’d take a mission, though. Maybe never again.

  When I drove up to Halo’s parents’ house a couple of hours later, he invited me in. Instead, I told him I’d come by that night. It was obvious it bugged him. No other time that I could remember had I refused to at least say hello. However, my reason for not wanting to now, was something I couldn’t admit or explain.

  6

  Sloane

  I saw the car pull up and hoped Tackle would park and come in. I equally hoped Knox would get out and Tackle would drive away. My second wish came true.

  Tomorrow was Christmas, and if my parents didn’t invite his over, they would the following day. I thought about telling them I had a work emergency requiring I travel out of town, but why would I lie to my parents, ruin Christmas for them, just to avoid my brother’s best friend, a man who now had a different and more significant descriptor—the one who took my virginity?

  When I was growing up, we had plenty of ruined holidays when my father’s work with the State Department took him away from our family. He’d been gone more than he was home, at least until we moved to Newton, outside of Boston. I hadn’t asked and never would, but I assumed my mother had given him an ultimatum of some kind, and that was the only reason he’d agreed to the move. Even though his travel was cut to twenty-five percent of what it had been, it was still hard on her when he left for weeks at a time. Sometimes, at night, I’d hear her crying after we’d both gone to bed.

  The day my brother announced he was going to work for the CIA, my parents had a terrible argument. It got so bad, I left the house. But not before I heard her demand my father forbid Knox from taking the job.

  She didn’t get her way, and for the six months after their fight, she’d let my father know loud and clear how unhappy my brother’s decision made her. It was the only time in my life I thought they might get a divorce. In the end, they’d made up, in part because my brother seemed happy.

  Then when Knox was kidnap
ped in Somalia, my mother went into a downward spiral. Fortunately, my brother was rescued within days, but that didn’t change the fact that my father had paid dearly by way of burnt meals, the silent treatment, and who knew what behind closed doors.

  Next was the plane crash. Her emotional state was so fragile during those endless hours when we waited to hear who the survivors were that she’d leaned on my dad. When we found out Knox was injured but alive, I think she was so thankful, she forgot to be angry with either of them.

  That Knox had promised he wouldn’t take on any missions until after the new year, and maybe not even then, had elevated her mood, made obvious by the extent to which our house had turned into a Christmas wonderland.

  Perhaps this time around, she punished my father through his wallet, given the amount of holiday decorations seemed to quadruple.

  “Sloane?” I heard my mother call from downstairs. “Your brother is home!”

  “I’ll be right there,” I hollered back. Before going downstairs, I powered on my phone, thought about unblocking Tackle’s number, but shut it down again without doing so.

  I knew I was behaving childishly by avoiding him, but after rushing from the apartment that fateful day, I’d set something in motion I had no idea how to stop. I asked myself why I’d felt compelled to throw on my clothes and race away, but I never came up with a good answer.

  Mainly, I guess it was because I couldn’t face him after he’d witnessed my tears. I’d escaped to the bathroom without answering when he asked why I was crying. I didn’t expect that he’d drop it, and there was no way I could explain it to him.

  Because after all these years, I finally had sex with the one man I’d waited for. And it was as amazing and wonderful as I’d hoped it would be. I’d had my first orgasm under a hand that wasn’t my own, and it was so mind-blowingly spectacular that I’d cried.

  “Hey, peanut, whatcha doin’ up here?” asked Knox, coming into my room.

  I walked over and hugged him. “Avoiding the elf-fest downstairs as much as possible.”

  He laughed and messed my hair like he’d do when we were kids. “Everything okay with you?”