by Angel Payne
He looked out the window at the courtyard that grew brighter with the peachy shades of dawn. A grim smile took over his lips. This morning, King and all his henchmen were behind bars. The Thai police had gladly turned them over, and now they’d face international repercussions for what they’d done to Sage, Rayna, and the five aid workers.
The shitty thing was, men like King were human cockroaches. Kill one and you ended up stirring the whole intrusion. He had no doubt that other Special Operations Forces teams would be called here soon to try to quash more of the monsters.
Sage’s throaty laugh was a welcome step into his thoughts. He turned and visually feasted on her again. She was propped against the wall with his phone against her ear, her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. Her calves and thighs were nearly as sinewy as his now, but all the curves that’d invaded his imagination for the last twelve months were still there. Barely. She’d lost a lot of weight. There were old scratches on her ankles, indicative of heavy hiking through thick brush. The muscles in her arms were pronounced, too. Every inch of her body that he could see was clear evidence of what she’d survived in the last year.
What had she survived?
Patience, damn it. This isn’t an op you can control. You can’t kick in the doors of her psyche and just demand answers.
“Okay, Mom. Yes, I’ll call as soon as we get back stateside.” She bit her lip and swiped at the tears that escaped anyway. “Yep, he’s right here. I love you too.”
She clicked the call off and extended the phone to him with a watery smile.
“Is she doing okay?” Garrett asked.
Sage nodded. “Yeah. Just stunned, I guess.” She shook her head, bemusement touching her features. “Suppose I’ll get that reaction from a lot of people.”
He put the phone down on the utilitarian bureau and then scooted around to the foot of the bed. After he sat down, he braced his elbows on his knees. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “You should prepare yourself.”
About a minute passed. It felt like an hour. He tilted his head in order to steal peeks at her, watching her shred her bottom lip as she stared at the far wall. He could practically see the thoughts tumbling through her head, a mental gymnastics team on crack. It was just as hard to follow in terms of what she was thinking.
Patience.
“Did you…have a service?” she finally asked.
During the drive in from the jungle, he’d tried to explain what he’d said about welcoming her back to life. He’d followed it with the flyover version of what had happened after she and Rayna had disappeared. He’d tried to smooth over the rougher parts, as semi-impossible as that was. There was no way of sugarcoating the visit from the CNO, the papers Heidi had been asked to sign, the medals that were promised, the condolences imparted. He’d told her about the army’s certainty they weren’t still alive and the dictate from sources much higher than him that a search wasn’t feasible, hopeful, or possible.
To his perplexity, Sage had merely nodded and said they’d done the right thing. When Garrett questioned that ludicrous shit, she’d turned and gazed into the night, her eyes matching the darkness.
Darkness he’d never seen in her gaze before.
What the hell had happened to her in the last twelve months?
He jammed the thought into a mental side pocket. There was an answer to that and he’d damn well get it, but right now, she needed hers more.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “We had a service. We did it on a Navy cutter, out on the Sound.” He lifted one side of his mouth at her. “You would’ve liked it, sugar—except for the being dead part.” When she returned his smile with a tentative smirk, his ribs turned into mush, baring his heart to the warmth of her regard. It gave him the courage to continue. “We tossed yellow and pink roses onto the water, along with your—well, what I assumed were your ashes. And we served grilled cheddar cheese sandwiches while listening to classic disco.”
She laughed in full. “Okay, you’re right. I really would have loved it—except for the being dead thing.”
He joined her in a chuckle, but it was all he could manage before his next words came out, shaking as they did. “Damn it, Sage. I’m so glad you’re not.”
The air thickened back into awkwardness again. He kept his stare threaded into the thin bed blanket, suddenly unable to meet her gaze.
“Are you?”
It was only two words, but they asked so much more. He knew it, and he knew she did too. She inched one foot toward him and then nudged him with her big toe. “Then why don’t you show me?”
He curled his hand around her foot. The sensation of touching her, really touching her, and of caressing her warm, soft skin… It turned the crumbles of his ribs into dust and dissolved his senses into a chaos of confusion, need, heat.
“Garrett.” Now she leaned over and grabbed his wrist in one of her tiny but iron-strong hands. “Please. I need this. I need…”
She drew his hand up to her cheek.
“I need you.”
He took a shaking breath as she leaned her face into his palm. Then another as she turned and kissed his wrist. Goddamn, her lips were so warm and soft and succulent. Don’t think about that. Think about the Mariners’ chances for the playoffs this year. Or getting the oil changed in the truck when you get home. Or—
Shit.
She pulled his middle finger down. Wrapped her mouth around it. Her gaze, now green and clear as spring itself again, opened to him in blatant need.
He was done with breathing. With patience. With the goddamn Mariners. With anything else except needing her in return.
“Oh, fuck me, sugar.”
He groaned it as he surged at her. He grinded their bodies together, mashing his mouth onto hers. When he pulled up to give them both a gasp of air, she curled a breathtaking smile up at him.
“Isn’t that my line, soldier?”
He didn’t have the self-control to return her grin. His blood burst into fire, raced through his system, and then gathered force in his balls. He didn’t waste a single moment to let her know it, either. Shoving her thighs wide with his knees, he fit the khaki-clad ridge between his legs against the cotton-covered groove of her own and rocked with slow, teasing thrusts until Sage’s mouth parted on high, breathy cries. He stared in fascination at the locked edges of her teeth beneath. Damn, he’d forgotten how breathtaking her mouth was.
He lifted a finger to her lower lip and pressed down. “Open up,” he said with guttural demand. “I’m going to taste you, Sage.”
With a gorgeous little mewl, she complied. He rose up, bracketing her jaw with one hand, holding her still for his descent. He dove in, ramming his tongue deep, exploring the cavern of her mouth with two overriding intents. The first was to claim her again, filling her with the taste and heat and feel of him alone. And the second? To make damn sure she knew exactly what he was going to do to her body next.
Beneath him, she didn’t just open. She blossomed. Piercing sighs erupted up her throat, soaking him with her essence in return. She wrapped her arms around him, jerked his T-shirt up, and dragged her fingers up his back, making him vibrate with a million electric tremors of arousal.
“Garrett!” Her plea was strident in his ear. “Oh, please!”
He ran a hand downward, tucking it beneath the band of the panties, his lust roaring hotter when her body drenched his fingers in creamy heat. He couldn’t control himself from going farther, inching a finger up her secret channel. They moaned together when her vagina clamped on him like a long-lost lover, sweet and tight in its desperate bliss.
Damn. What was it going to be like when he slid his cock into her?
He couldn’t wait to find out.
His breath came in harsh spurts as he shoved the panties down to her thighs. In seconds, he returned his fingers to the curls a few inches higher, spreading her again, coaxing the ridge of flesh where she was most sensitive, stroking her desire into a blaze to match his.
“My heart
,” he murmured against her lips.
“My hero.” She gasped and arched into his fingers, stunning in her hot, panting desire.
He hovered his face an inch above hers, breathing in the sweet natural essence of her, a mix of spring mist, wildflowers, and complete woman. “Now I know why I couldn’t let go. Everyone told me to move on. They said I could make a fresh start with a civvie girl, that life wouldn’t be filled with so much red tape. But I told them all to fuck off. Told them I was in love with your red tape and always would be. I refused to buy their simplicity pie. Part of me knew…knew my brave, proud woman wouldn’t have given up that easily. And now”—he sank his lips deep into hers—“I’m not ever going to let you go again.”
“I love you, Garrett.”
She smiled again at him, her eyes dreamy. Her lips were stung from his kisses, her face aglow in the radiance of expecting him to return the words. His heart rang with them, and his soul clamored with the need to bellow them from the fucking rooftops if he had to…but in the pit of his throat, the consonants were a gob of mud, the vowels were a tangle of nails. Even thinking of dissolving the mess made him shake with pain and loss.
What the hell is wrong with you?
That was the ten-million-dollar question, wasn’t it? His lack of an answer was agony. He’d dreamed of seeing her like this again, open and ready and beautiful for him. He’d clung to this memory for what felt like forever.
This memory.
This memory.
Holy fuck. This was how she’d looked the night before she left for Botswana. The night he’d lost her forever.
“Garrett?”
He dropped his head, breathing hard. He couldn’t take her this way. Not like this.
He craved the Sage who’d shared his dream this morning. The squirming, writhing Sage…in his captivity, under his control. Holy God, he needed her.
“Garrett? Baby?”
He lifted his face again, curling a slow grin at her as he did. “I’m here, sugar.” With slow, gentle circles, he started another kiss. As he skated a hand up beneath her shirt, he tilted his head and trailed tiny bites on her lips. She rolled her mouth against his, trying to give back as good as he gave, but he stopped her, increasing his pressure, always bringing her under his rule again—until, with a frustrated cry, she nipped at him and captured his upper lip with a giggle of triumph.
Garrett growled low, raised his hand to her erect nipple, and tugged it hard.
“Ahhh! Garrett, what the—”
Before she could finish, he’d lifted her shirt all the way off, hurled it to the floor, and returned his mouth to the peak he’d just pinched, licking the irritated skin with the flat of his tongue.
“Oh.” It left her on a startled breath. The sound turned into another tiny keen when he pulled again at that distended nub, using his teeth this time. She tunneled both her hands into his hair, digging at his scalp with her nails. “Ohhh! Shit!”
She began to writhe now. And God help him, his dick throbbed harder.
She gasped as he took both her hands and pinned them over her head. He snarled low, yanking down his fly with his other hand.
She twisted and trembled. He grunted and gritted his jaw. His precome alone was a geyser. Looking at her like this, completely his, tamed for him at last, his cock was screaming to seal his claim on her.
“Kick the underwear free.” He gave her the order on a harsh, hot rush of sound. “Then you’ll spread wide for me, sugar. I’m gonna claim every inch of you, Sage. Every fucking inch.”
He watched her breath hitch once and then speed up into a wild gallop beneath her trembling breasts. “I love you,” she said again. “I need you. Please, Ga—”
“Hush.” It left him on a monotone, which was an odd contrast to his curt, commanding actions. The second she got the panties free, he pushed back one leg and then the other, letting out a hungry rumble at the sight of her spread and glistening pussy. When he reached and plunged two fingers into her quivering entrance, Sage screamed and then, remarkably, laughed.
“Oh, Garrett! God, yes!”
He lunged over her then, drilling a stare of dark intent into her. Laughing wasn’t part of this. She’d laughed the night before she’d left him, even through her orgasm, drowning him in her joy, her beauty…her love. She’d laughed, filling the condo with it so that the memories of it haunted him for that horrid, dismal week before he was able to get back into the mission rotation on the squad. No. Laughing wouldn’t be a part of things tonight.
“I said hush.”
That was when he flipped her over and brought his hand down on her ass in a resounding smack.
Chapter Four
Wow.
Sage blinked, unsure if she’d actually just experienced…well…that. Had he really just spanked her? Had he really just done it to reinforce an order he’d given her?
If she were honest, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. Garrett had burst into her life by defending her honor, fists first, at Opal’s Tavern on that unforgettable June night. He’d sealed the deal just three weeks later, making her body feel like the meteor shower overhead, over and over again. Joe and Hannah Hawkins might as well have given their son the middle name of Firestorm instead of Flynn.
So yeah, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to put the man’s intensity together with all the newer things she’d seen in him over the last four hours. Cobalt smoke hovered at the corners of his gaze, which had once been the pure blue of a summer sky. Tense lines now embedded themselves at the corners of his mouth. Nothing casual remained in how he moved. Every action was sharp, full of purpose and battle-honed balance.
Sage had noticed it all and understood. She’d seen it all and accepted it. His grief for her had gouged a chunk of his soul. He hadn’t filled that hole with anything easy or forgiving, especially for himself.
Now they were just dealing with a few readjustment issues.
To the tune of two more sharp slaps on her backside.
They hurt. Oh damn, how they hurt. For a second, she thought about breaking free and scrambling away. But the next second, something deep inside her body was startled awake. Something illicit, decadent and, until this moment, very secret. She’d thought these dark desires had been banished from her body, long-forgotten before the year in Botswana—even long before she’d met Garrett. For a few brief months, during those carefree months prior to boot camp, she had let illicit fantasies of letting a man bind her, control her, use her solely for his pleasure, romp free in her imagination. But beyond getting her hands on a good vibrator and a few mouthwatering novels, she’d never done anything about them…
Certainly nothing like this.
And ohhhh, how this felt…exhilarating. Heart-stopping. Like she was alive again. Like she was desired again.
Again. Please do it again.
No. Wait. Wait. Okay, her logic was still around here somewhere, right? They needed to talk about this, to figure it out, to set up some—what did the novels call them?—limits. Right. Limits were good to discuss when a guy decided to pull down your panties, flip you over, and then smack his palm on your bare ass.
But she didn’t move. Didn’t make a sound. That shadowy instinct coaxed her to stay motionless, full of trepidation and anticipation, despite this new wilderness of emotional ground for them. It had been a long year for him, too—and eagerness filled her to know more about these new parts of the man who’d snatched her from the jungle, who’d brought her back to life. She wanted to know it all…especially now.
She breathed deep. Again. Then waited, listening to Garrett’s rough exhalations above her. The husky releases were choppy, hesitant, distant. Though the heat of his massive body still hovered over her, she shivered as if he’d left the room.
She continued waiting. It was one of the hardest things she’d done. His silence tormented her. His grip tightened around her wrists. With his other hand, he claimed her spine from nape to ass with a possessive, clawing sweep. A deep moan sto
le its way up her throat.
“Ssshhh.”
He followed the track of his hand with his mouth, nipping her in tiny but savage bites. Her moan pitched into a little yelp.
“Ssshhh.”
He dipped his touch between her thighs. With just a small grunt of warning, he pinched her sensitive folds.
“Ohhhh!”
He didn’t shush her this time. With one deft move, he turned her over again. Without skipping a beat, he flattened his hand into a paddle and swatted what he’d just pinched.
Wow. And whoa.
“Garrett! What the—shit!”
Her exclamation coincided with the discipline he kept delivering to her mound. Shock ripped through her. And on its heels, self-reprimand. She was just the one asking for more, right? For the chance to finally let her wicked desires flare into delicious flames? Had she meant it, even if her imagination never included this?
Her mind had a tougher time answering that when her body weighed in on the issue. Every nerve ending sizzled like exposed electric lines. The most intense heat came right from the tissues he’d enflamed. Her pussy pulsed with awareness, and her entire vagina trembled and dripped anew. It stole her breath, spiraled her senses, pulled out her deepest sighs. Every swat Garrett gave seemed to unlock something inside her, something amazing. The ugly pain of the last year was slowly replaced by an exquisite pain that set her senses free, that told her body it was all right to feel this way again.
She sighed with the sheer radiance of it, raising her hips, silently begging him for more. She opened her eyes, needing to watch him as he did this, needing to know that this was really what he wanted too…
She blinked in surprise. The view wasn’t what she expected. Garrett’s teeth were locked beneath his slightly parted lips. His jaw was granite hard, and his gaze was the same color and texture. Nothing about him conveyed pleasure or joy. It almost looked like—
Like he wasn’t enjoying this at all.
“Garrett?”
Damn, she wished she could touch him. She needed to soothe the hard lines from his face, to feel his pulse, to try to understand where his thoughts hovered. But she could only watch in mute frustration as his gaze roamed the length of her body again, his expression still impenetrable.