Drops of pre-come wet the tip of his penis, and she couldn’t resist flicking her tongue out. Sucking the head into her mouth, Lena mimicked her earlier stroking. She took her time, sliding the full length of his penis in and out of her mouth.
Jumping slightly at the newness of her touch, he let out a soft groan. Looking up at him, she found that he was gazing down at her, his chiseled face strained, arm muscles shaking as he gripped the bed sheets with one hand. She reveled in the power that she held over him; amazed that she could make this big, strong man’s knees quake and arms shiver. His gorgeous green eyes had a faraway look in them as they rolled back in his head. She didn’t realize how close he was to orgasming until he stopped her with a soft touch of his hand to her cheek.
“Honey,” he groaned, his voice tight. “That feels amazing, but you really gotta stop.”
“What?”
“If you don’t stop right now, baby, I’m going to come,” he explained, pulling his hard length out of her mouth.
“Well, that would be the point,” she said, still unclear of his problem.
He laughed. “Yeah but, I have something else I want to do with you first.” Leaning down, he kissed her hard on her lips. “Do you, uh, have any condoms? I didn’t bring any with me, I wasn’t expecting to…”
Oh. “Top drawer, bedside table,” she said, blushing. She shivered at the loss of his warmth when he left her for that brief moment to cover himself. Jesse was back in an instant, flipping her over onto her stomach then lifting her to her knees. She gasped as he pushed his hard length into her vagina from behind; the complete fullness of it shocked her.
Reaching in between her legs, he rubbed her clitoris as he pumped in and out of her body. Hard and fast. Soon, she caught his rhythm and began to move to match his tempo. After a few moments, the only sounds that filled the room were her throaty gasps, his deep pleasure-infused groans, and the primal sound of flesh slapping against flesh. She’d never had sex with this much intensity before. It was hot, earthy, and all-consuming.
The last thought she had before the blinding, white light hit her again was that now she didn’t feel alone.
CHAPTER
TEN
It was ten o’clock in the morning and Lena was lying in bed. Her legs were intertwined with Jesse’s and her head pillowed against his broad shoulders. A soft glow of pale light filtered in from the openings in the plantation shutters. Threading her fingers through his hair, she lightly twisted the short strands around her fingertips.
“Why do you dye your hair?” she asked. She’d had her suspicions about his curiously midnight dark hair and light-colored eyebrows, but after last night, she knew for certain that he was a natural redhead.
Opening a red-rimmed bleary eye, Jesse wrapped a powerful arm around her waist and kissed her gently on her forehead. She was incredibly happy, curled up against the furnace-like warmth of his body. She would be perfectly content to stay like this, in this moment with his arms enclosed around her, for the rest of her life.
“Self-preservation,” he replied. She gazed up at him, her eyebrow arched in an unspoken question.
“Well, you know on my team, I’m the only redheaded stepchild in the bunch,” he explained, only the hint of a smile tugging the corners of his lip. “The mocking can be pretty brutal.”
“Yeah, right,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Okay. Seriously, it’s just convenient for me to dye my hair a darker color when we’re on covert missions because it’s not ideal to stand out. For most of the places we travel to, red hair and green eyes basically scream out foreigner.”
“Oh, I see.” An easy silence fell between the pair of them then. Lena shifted her head to lie on his chest and marveled at the steady sound of his heartbeat. Last night, she had kissed every inch of his skin. So she knew that he was all hard planes and rough edges. She had reveled in the feel of his sinewy arms around her. Loved that he knew exactly where and how to touch her to send her floating off into the stars. She basically loved everything about him.
“What is this scar from?” she asked, tracing her finger along a jagged raised scar on the side of his stomach.
“Gunshot.”
Lena visibly blanched. The fact that he had actually been shot and wounded sent chills down her spine.
“When did this happen? While you were overseas?” The injury probably happened while he was deployed, but he’d shared with her that he and his family loved to hunt. So it was possible he’d gotten injured accidentally while out on a hunting trip. She was hoping that it had just been an accident, and not that someone had purposefully shot at him to kill him.
He was quiet for a moment. His legs restlessly moved back and forth underneath the sheets. “Yeah. It was one of my lovely souvenirs from Afghanistan. A few years back, I was on a counterterrorism strike mission there and ran into a bit of trouble. Our convoy came under enemy fire.”
“What happened?”
Clearing his throat, he told her, “It was in the summer. I still remember the God-awful heat. Can still remember the smell of blood and bodies. We had just completed a successful direct action strike against a militant target, and we were driving to our extraction point. We had nearly made it too. Then everything just went straight to hell.”
“How?”
“We got ambushed. Some of the locals who were friendly with the Gulbuddin terror group got wind of our strike, and notified some of the HIG operatives in the next province over. They hit us from all four sides.”
“That’s terrible. Did anyone die?”
“Luckily no,” he said, staring into her eyes. “But four of my friends were severely wounded. The whole situation was completely jacked up.”
“I’m sorry, Jesse.”
“Yeah, it happened a while back. It sucks, but it’s something that goes along with the job description. At least I am still here, you know, still able to perform the job that I love. Some of my friends had to swallow down a medical discharge.”
“Did you see anyone, like a psychologist, to talk about it?”
“Yeah. The Navy ordered all of us to see a psychiatrist for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms.”
“Did it help any?”
“Yeah,” he said, his eyes hooded. “It helped some.”
She could sense that he was holding something back from her, but she decided not to push him on it. It was jarring to see the aftermath of the injury against the smooth perfection of his skin. Hugging him close to her, she placed a kiss on his long-ago healed wound. Just thinking about how dangerous his job was made her queasy. He could suddenly be taken away from her at any given moment. That thought didn’t sit well with her.
“So, what happened between you and your father?” he asked after a quiet moment. “You mentioned earlier that you weren’t especially close to him.”
“I’m not completely sure what happened,” she admitted after a while, her voice barely audible. “Okay, I know that might sound lame, but it’s true. There isn’t some definitive cataclysmic event to point to. Nothing to say, this is where we went off the rails.” She thought about it for another minute. “I guess most of the trouble started right before my parents’ divorce. We just started to drift apart around that time. Our relationship was never the same after that.”
“I would imagine that happens to quite a few families after a divorce. People drifting apart.”
“Yeah, I suppose. But just because my father divorced my mom didn’t give him free pass to pretend that I never existed.” Jesse intertwined his fingers with hers, squeezing her hand. She continued, “I used to be such a daddy’s girl, you know? When I was seven, he bought me this pony I named Ricochet, and—”
“Wait. Ricochet? How did you come up with that?”
“It was just the name of a character in a cartoon I used to love to watch. But anyway, no matter how busy he was he would always make sure to take me out riding every week. It was something of a ritual: Saturday afternoon horseback riding w
ith Ricochet and Daddy. But then I grew up, and suddenly he wasn’t there anymore. I was hoping that this summer would be a fresh start between the two of us.”
Lena looked up into Jesse’s eyes then, to find him gazing down at her, intently listening to everything she had to say. He was night and day from Kevin. Kevin had not even attempted to pretend to be interested in anything that she had to say. But Jesse seemed to honestly want to know how she felt about things.
“And was it?”
“No.”
Jesse tugged her even closer to him then, clutching her naked body against his. “Well, he’s the fool, Lena. It’s his loss. You are a great person.”
A slow blush crawled up her cheeks at his compliment. “I wish my father could see that. I can’t help but wonder what I did to make him so indifferent toward me.”
“You shouldn’t. Sometimes people just don’t live up to expectations. Your father’s failings are not because of you, Lena.”
“This whole experience has been very difficult for me to absorb,” she whispered. Absentmindedly, she trailed her fingers across his chest. “My own father wouldn’t even pay the ransom to have me released. It’s his blood flowing through my veins, and whenever I look into the mirror, it’s his eyes that are staring back at me. Yet, the man who is half responsible for my existence would have rather let me be killed by terrorists than to part with his precious fortune.”
Jesse bestowed a delicate kiss on her forehead. “He doesn’t deserve to have a daughter like you. That’s for damn sure.”
“Thank you,” she said, snuggling in his warmth as if it could chase away the cold and loneliness that infused her whenever she thought about her father. “I don’t want you to think that I’m just feeling sorry for myself. I don’t want to be the ‘poor little rich girl with daddy issues.’ It’s just that, for the longest time, my father was the whole world to me.”
“Lena, I don’t think that about you. I’ve never thought that about you. I think that you are an incredibly strong person. As for your father…you know what they say, even though you can’t alter the direction of the winds you can still adjust your sails. Maybe it’s time for you to start living life for yourself, not for your father.”
Lena had never thought about it like that. She had been living for her father. Every action she had taken in recent memory had been done for her father’s approval. From her choice in colleges to her career. She could have chosen to enter into any type of engineering field, yet she had chosen petroleum. Jesse was right, she would have to start to take steps into a different direction. She may not be able to control how her father treated her, but she could start living outside of his shadow.
A few moments passed between them in silence. “So why did you really come to see me?” she asked in his ear. “I mean, I know you said you wanted to check up on me, but why now? It’s been weeks since you rescued me.”
His eyes snapped open at the question, gazing down at her he took a moment to answer. “One of my friends died during this past mission I was on.”
“Oh, God. Jesse, I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” Her heart ached for his loss. From what he’d confided in her, she knew he thought of his teammates as brothers.
“Yeah. It’s okay,” he told her. “Things happen, you know? Extremely shitty things happen all the time. I guess I wanted to come see you, part of the reason why I wanted to come see you, was because you reminded me why I’m risking my life every day.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, in my profession I see a lot of the bad, Lena. I see terrorists killing and mutilating innocent men, women, and children. I see promising lives snuffed out before their time. I see all manner of death, waste, and misery. And every now and again, I see something good. You’re something good. You’re a good person. And I guess I just wanted to hold on to that for a little bit longer.”
It was a simple explanation with a nuance that did not surpass Lena. She could only imagine some of the horrors he’d probably witnessed.
“What are your siblings like? I mean, their personalities.” Lena asked after a moment, breaking the silence that had enshrouded them once again.
“Well, we grew up rough and tumble—everything you would expect from growing up on a ranch. We all wrangled in steer and rode horses.”
She could not help but smile. She had a picture of him in her head as a young redheaded wild child trying to herd in his first steer. “It must have been fun to grow up in such a large family.”
“It was a good time. We are all still very close. But we’re all into different things now. My older brother, Kyle, is the quietest out of the four of us. He’s not really shy. He’s just thoughtful. Along with my other brother, Ben, he helps to manage the day-to-day operations of the ranch. Ben has got the cutest little four-year-old girl named Macie. She has a vocabulary on her like you wouldn’t believe. And then there’s O. My baby sister, Ophelia. She is a regular heartbreaker. You’d love her. She’s currently in her second year of college at UK, and I hope that she changes her major to something a little more practical than Fashion.”
Lena laughed. “What are your parents like?”
“My folks are the best,” he said in that slow, easy twang he had seemed to perfect. “They got married right after high school, and even after over thirty-five years together they’re still going strong. My mom was Miss Beech Grove ’75 and my dad was the high school star running back. The way he tells it, he fell in love with my mom back in the first grade. Right along the time she cold clocked him in the jaw for pulling her pigtails. Don’t worry, they didn’t officially start dating until much later.”
“Do they still work?”
“Yeah, they’re basically workaholics. My mom teaches the third grade. And my dad still wakes up at the crack of dawn to make sure the ranch is running smoothly.”
“Your family sounds great, Jesse.” Lena couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like to grow up in such warmth, surrounded by such love. Jesse was incredibly fortunate.
“Well, they are all a cast of characters, for sure.”
“I bet you followed right in your father’s footsteps.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I expect that you were the heartthrob, star running back who also happened to date the head cheerleader in high school?”
“Now that you mention it…” He laughed, his dimples making deliciously cute indentations in his cheeks. “Actually no, I never got into football. Basketball was my sport. I played the forward position all through middle school and high school. I don’t want to brag or anything, but I was the all-time leading blocker all four years of high school. But, as far as dating the head cheerleader goes, guilty as charged.”
“Ah ha, I knew it.”
“How about you? Any pompoms in your past?”
Now it was her turn to laugh. “No, no pompoms. I did play field hockey, though.”
“Which position?”
“Goalie.”
“Wow that definitely explains a few things,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “Now I know where those cat-like reflexes and that flexibility come from.”
A few more moments ticked by without either one of them speaking, until Lena thought of something else. “Jesse?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“The man who killed my friend Steven…you don’t think that he would come after me, do you? I know that it’s probably nothing to worry about, but my nerves have been a little frazzled.”
His grip tightened around her. He seemed to think for a moment before saying, “No. I don’t think that he would come after you. You said that you never met him prior to AnSawar’s siege on the oil facility, right?”
“Yes. I’d never seen him before.”
“Well, from all of the info we have right now, the attack seems to have been motivated, in part, by the terrorist group’s desire to make a name for itself in the region. A couple of ways that these types of groups try to show their toughness is through intimida
tion and attacks on those who they perceive are weaker than they are. This psychology helps to explain AnSawar’s attack on your father’s oil plant. Although the facility had “security,” realistically speaking, the defense measures taken were really basic. I’m sure that AnSawar did its research when it came to the limited security measures and your father’s overall wealth.”
“So, I shouldn’t have anything to worry about?”
“No. Right now, I don’t think you should be too concerned. We don’t have any indications of an active threat against you.”
“Okay.”
“That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t continue being vigilant,” he warned. “I have to admit, I’m not exactly thrilled that you’re out here all by yourself. Have you considered moving back to the States for a while? Maybe you should live with your mom for a bit or get an apartment near her?”
She shook her head. Moving near her mother was not a viable option. If she moved back, then she really would need to see a psychiatrist. “No. I don’t want to change more of my life because of what’s happened. It’s already been altered enough. Right now, Africa is one of the best places for oil exploration. That means it’s also one of the best places for my career. Anyway, it’s not so bad out here in the sticks. I love it here by the ocean. It’s peaceful. I can think here.” He still looked displeased so she added, “The police station is less than half an hour away from here.”
“Okay, you should make sure to get the security gate fixed as soon as you possibly can. I know you’ve already contacted them, but sometimes these types of companies get behind on their requests. Make sure they actually show up.”
“I will, I promise.”
Silence.
“So our age difference doesn’t bother you?” she asked, looking away and nervously twisting a shortened lock of hair.
Swift Strike (SEAL Team 14 Book 2) Page 13