The door! She covered her head and rolled into fetal position as the hulk crashed to the ground on top of the door. Instinct, even though Jake had drilled into her to never look back, forced her to look over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of Jake advancing on the hulk's writhing body.
"Jake!" She stood up then fell back to the ground when another shot exploded from inside the room. Oh my God, Henry! She started to turn back then focused on her Lexus and half squatted, half ran toward it, dropping down behind the wheel. "Jake! Henry!" She had to see what was happening. She turned and lay flat on her stomach, peeking out from under the car from behind the rear wheel. The biker who had the gun, Squid, came stumbling out of the door, blood pouring from his nose. No sight of the other one, though a big pair of boots lay in sight through the open door.
"Henry!" Her eyes widened as Henry ran out from behind the stumbling man and tackled him onto the hulk and Jake. Four bodies rolled on the ground, grunting and kicking and punching, until Jake was on top of the hulk holding the man's vest in one hand and punching him with the other.
"Jake!" He was going to murder the man, something she was sure would get him kicked out of his beloved Navy. She started to get up when Jake dropped the hulk, a complete bloody pulverized mess onto the pavement.
"Marianne!" Jake hollered as he scanned the parking lot. He turned toward his brother, still rolling around on the ground with the other guy. Jake kicked the biker in the face, immediately halting all movement. "Marianne!" he hollered again and looked toward her car, his face and knuckles bloodied.
"Over here!" She pushed onto her knees.
"Stay put," he ordered, then leaned down to Henry. "Get the fuck up." He pulled his brother to stand then stormed back into the motel room. He came out seconds later with her purse, his duffle and the knapsack in his hands. "Start the car, babe!" He threw the keys at her.
*****
Jake kicked the new motel room door shut with his foot. "Don't make me have to tie you to that bed, Marianne." He watched her walk to the bathroom and dump his duffle at the door before turning on the water. She grabbed a washcloth and tossed it into the sink. "We've never used rubbers before, why the hell would we start now?"
She glared at him over her shoulder.
They'd been having this insane argument for the past half hour in the car. He'd just taken out three bikers, their buddies were probably already on their asses for payback, he was still bleeding, and they had fifty grand in a fucking knapsack on the back seat, his brother curled around it and snoring, fucking snoring! And all she wanted to do was give him hell for not using a rubber?
He'd come back home to the Twilight Zone.
Yes, he had lost his mind finding her in bed with his brother, and at the time had done all his thinking with his dick, but who could blame him? He was also clean. They all but crawled up his ass with a microscope to regularly test him on the teams, and he had no reason to think there was anything up with her. She'd been on the pill for years for “girl” reasons as she'd informed him, and she'd never been with anyone but him so why would a condom suddenly become necessary? His heart stumbled and he frowned at her.
"Did you go off the pill? Is that what this is about? You don't want to get pregnant?" He was unexpectedly insulted. What would be so wrong with having his kid? It wasn't like—he moved when something came hurtling at him. "What the fuck?" Her shoe hit the door beside his head then bounced to the floor.
"You are a colossal ass!" She strode out of the bathroom to the desk and yanked out the chair.
"What?" He eyed the way she slammed down the frail piece of furniture. "You're freakin' out over condoms we've never used. It doesn't make any sense unless—you're on the rag?"
She held up a hand. "Jake—" she reached down for her other shoe but stopped and turned it over in her hands. "Stop talking. Just stop before I start screaming and ruin both of these." She set the shoe on the desk, but didn't actually take her fingers away. One more wrong move and that shoe was going to be embedded in his forehead.
He blew out a breath with all the restraint of a bull.
"Now, are you going to stand there, guarding the door, snorting and pawing the ground, or let me fix your face?" She let go of the shoe and held up the wet cloth.
He crossed his arms. "We have shit to work out."
She stared back at him. "Forget it, Jake. Let's just fix your head."
"My head's fine." He set his jaw and snapped the door lock in place.
She lifted her eyebrows and opened her mouth, but he cut the sarcasm he knew she was about to deliver. They would get to the bottom of this before either one of them left this room. Something had her on a tear and it was more than his brother, the money, or anything to do with this situation. It was something between her and him and started back before he left.
Soldiers and their women knew the fragility of life. They lived with the knowledge that everything they had, the life they lead, the people they loved could be taken from them just like that. War. The enemy. A battlefield didn't care if you didn't get a chance to kiss her goodbye, tell her that you loved her, or say you were sorry. Military families accommodated, adapted, and always looked ahead. They made up from fights immediately because deployment could happen in moments. They kissed, and said sorry, and made sure things were set right before leaving because they might not come back.
When he left, he and Marianne had set things right enough that he left without worrying about things at home. But something had been wrong… and had festered… and was now between them.
He sighed. "Babe, tell me what this is all about. What's really going on here? Because I have feeling if I didn't find you first, I might not have found you at all."
"Jake—"
"Why are you planning to take off on me?"
"I'm not planning anything."
"No?"
"No." She gripped the back of the chair.
He looked pointedly at her fingers. "You're lying." He walked to the chair, pulled her around in front of him and sat down. "Why are you fighting the idea of being permanently my girl?" He took her hands and held them in his.
She looked away and for a such a long moment he wasn't sure she'd ever answer. "I like things the way they are—were."
"We've always been together, babe. That's how things always were."
"You tried to change them before you left."
His stomach tightened at the memory. "I asked you to marry me. You tried to dump me. I shouldn't have asked at such a critical time but…"
"I wasn't ready to get married, Jake..."
Her words still felt like a punch in the gut. Three months later and enough time to get used to the idea that she said no, and still her words went down like cut glass in his ears.
Her dark eyes asked him for understanding. "You’ve been out to see the world. You have the Navy to take you places, see new things, go wherever you want to go and do whatever you want to."
"Honey, the military is not like that. The teams are nothing like that." His travels involved strategic planning against insane killers, targeted strikes before they got you first, and life and death situations where you maintained uncomfortable positions for hours at a time. He wasn't allowed to talk about his missions, but she must know what was involved in his work on the teams. Didn't everyone know what a SEAL did? He suddenly realized the truth of what happened when you assumed.
"You've still had way more life experiences than me. I've never left Virginia except to go to the Hamptons. I've learned to speak Spanish, Arabic and Mandarin and have never been to any of those countries. I'm about to graduate with a double Master's in bioengineering and humanities without any idea of what I'll do with them. All the sisters in my sorority house know exactly where they're going and here I am… Hell, you've been my only sexual experience and I'm friggin’ twenty-three!"
He stood up slowly, forcing her to watch him grow to his full imposing six foot four, two-hundred-pound height and weight. "This is about you wanting to hav
e sex with other men?" He didn't know how he forced the question through his lips.
"Oh for Pete's sake. I didn't say that."
His eyes hardened. "There's someone else." Not a question. An accusation.
"No. Not like how you’re thinking," she huffed.
"You don't want to know what I'm thinking."
"Jake… " She ran a hand through her unbound hair.
"Who the fuck is it?" He literally felt his blood begin to boil. "My brother?"
"Oh good God no. Haven't we been through this already?"
"Who is it, Marianne?"
"No one."
"But you want to. You don't want to commit to me so you're free to fuck—"
"Dammit, Jake that's not what I said."
"Married or not, you are not free to fuck anyone but me."
She rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah sure. There's the biggest double standard I've ever heard. You who has a girl in every port."
He blinked. "What? Where did that come from? You think I'm out fucking whenever I'm away from you?"
She raised an eyebrow. "You told me I should get to know the military better, get to know some wives, some of the other women, so I went down to the Oasis and let me tell you, it was very enlightening."
"The Oasis." He ran his mind over one of the more popular Navy watering holes close to the base. It was where soldiers went for some R and R fucking and goodtime girls. Not where military wives and women went. How the hell had she ended up there? That was the last place he'd want her to go. He could just imagine how many horny brothers would have been all over her. He grit his teeth. "I haven't been there in years."
"Well your reputation lingers."
"My… what?"
"Rep—u—tation," she sounded out the word like he was an idiot child. "There was long line of women in there just waitin' to tell their story about how you broke their heart."
"What the hell are you talking about!?"
She fluttered her eyelashes. "Oh you know, Jakey? He's a such a good choice for a good time. He got me so hot I almost spontaneously combusted before his hand was even in my panties."
"Okay, I don't know who you were talking to but I haven't been with another woman in three years!"
"Uh huh." She looked unconvinced.
"Not since BUD/S and I went into the teams. You know that!"
"I don’t know any such thing."
He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. How did they get from a bag of payout money, to condoms, to this? He gathered the frayed ends of his patience. "You pierced yourself with my diamond."
"To fulfill my end of the challenge."
"To fulfill your end of the challenge." He growled out the confirmation.
"It was supposed to mean something more?"
"Yes," he glared down at her. "As much to you as it did to me."
She stepped back and considered him for a long moment. "What exactly did it mean to you, Jake?"
He pressed down hard on his back molars. He would maintain control. Three years on the teams, his life dedicated to the practice of discipline and control and his girl was going to make him lose it. Again. "I gave you my diamond. You have it pierced in your body. That fucking brands you as mine. I haven't been with another woman since. Can you say the same?" He held his breath. Fucking held his fucking breath like a giant pussy because he was suddenly worried at what she'd say. "This is the only time I'll ask you, even though the answer could gut me." And if she said there was someone else, he wanted the bastards’ names because his next step would be to hunt the cock-suckers down and cut out their innards. "How many other men, Marianne? I want their fucking names."
She held the intensity he knew was in eyes.
He was going to be sick. The storm of jealousy and sharp possessive rage was turning his stomach. Fucking hell.
She blinked her big brown eyes at him. "None, Jake. I've been at school like a good little girl and—Jake!"
He leaned down, gripped the sides of her jeans and tossed her onto the bed.
She righted herself as she backed into the thin headboard. "What are you doing? We haven't come to an understanding here."
He stripped off his t-shirt. "Fuck understanding." He kicked off his boots and unbuttoned his jeans. "I understand everything I need to." He crawled onto the bed. "Get naked." He grabbed her ankle and pulled her beneath him. "Right fucking now."
*****
Jake had been dry for months without Marianne, and the weeks of dry humping his fist only made him more sexually aggressive now. He'd been a rough bull yesterday after finding her with his brother, and no matter how innocent the scene, fear, anger and dark possession had gripped him. He’d lost control and went at her without much restraint, driven to dominate and come hard inside her body.
Tonight he wanted to be better, keep himself together and make it unbelievably good for her.
"Babe," he tugged down her jeans and tossed them behind him. "You and I are going to reconnect." He slid his hands between her thighs before running them over her body and pulling her t-shirt up and off. "Right here, right now, and all night." He moved his big hands around her lace-covered tits, sliding his thumbs into the material and across her hardening nipples.
"Oh yeah, babe." He tugged the bra cup aside and licked at one delicious bud.
"Jake…" she moaned and arched to his mouth.
His dick tightened in response, making his jeans restrictive and uncomfortable, but he wasn't taking them off. Not fucking yet or it'd be all over. He'd be in her and fucking her hard and he wasn't doing that so soon again. This time he planned to make it last.
He clicked open the front clasp of her bra and smiled at the way her tits bounced into his hands. He immediately covered one and sucked the nipple into his mouth, circling it with his tongue until she undulated beneath him and moaned.
He switched sides when she ran her feet along his calves then wrapped her long legs around his waist. He pushed away the temptation to settle between her thighs and pulled his lips slowly off her breast. He rested on his elbow and traced a line down to her navel and around his embedded diamond.
"You have no idea how hard I get every time I see this in you." He replaced his fingers with his tongue before licking his way down to the lace tip of her panties. "Off—" He tugged down the thin scrap of material revealing what he was really after.
He parted the thin folds of her skin and inhaled. "Mine." He dipped his head and easily found her nub.
"Ahhh…" She gripped his head and moaned his name exactly the way he'd heard in his mind for the last two months. He licked and pulled at the nub, slid his tongue between her skin and pressed his thumbs just above her pubic bone until she writhed and moaned his name in a steady chant.
"Fucking beautiful," he said against her skin. He lifted one of her legs and placed it over his shoulder, giving him deeper access, and her more intense pleasure.
She lifted her hips to his mouth. "Jake… so good… you are so… soooo good." She held his head and undulated against his lips.
"Oh yeah, baby… tell me… tell me more." He pushed his tongue into her weeping opening, making her arch and sigh again.
"Oooh… Jake. Only you… it's always you."
He smiled and slid his tongue in and out of her body, building her heat, making her moan and sigh and so fucking wet he started to grind himself on the bed.
Fuck he couldn’t take much more.
"Inside me… Jake. I want you inside of me…"
"Uh-uh." He kept at her with long strokes, tonguing her pussy—his pussy—until he knew she was going crazy.
"Please… Jake, please…" She started to beg. He slowly slid out his tongue and ran it around her nub before unzipping his pants and pushing his aching length inside her.
"Oh God yes… ah—ah—ah…" she chanted in long sighs as he began a nice slow fuck. In all the way, with a hard jam at the end. He loved to watch the way her body reacted and shook with every final buck he delivered. He sat back on his haunches and
grasped her hips, increasing his pace into a new rhythm.
"I fuckin' love the way your tits bounce when I fuck you." He crawled over her so her tits rubbed and bounced against his chest.
Fuck. His dick swelled inside her.
"Really?"
He held her face with his hands. "Fucking absolutely. I'd see them in my mind whenever I humped my bed." Did he really just admit that?
She hung onto his neck and kissed him deep, her tongue going right to his as she lifted her hips and banged him harder. "Talking to me like that… telling me that… you're going to make me… come… Jake, you're making me—"
"Not yet." He pulled out of her and flipped her over. He dug into his jeans pocket then forced his pants to his knees. He pulled up her hips and pressed his hard length between her ass cheeks as he laid his body over her back. "I've been waiting to feel this. Me between your ass. That beautiful ass squeezing me." He slid himself along her cheeks, pushing and pulling long slides within her crack.
Ohhh fuck he missed this. Wanted this. Dreamed about fucking this.
He slid himself back one more time, then slid inside her pussy, deep and to the end so his balls rode against her soft lips. This was what he wanted. This was—fuck. He stretched himself out, knees digging into the mattress, hips snug and intimate on her ass, his chest to her hot skin, his arms along hers, his fingers curling through hers.
"Say you'll marry me, Marianne." He slid the 2.5 karat, round cut diamond ring onto her finger.
"Wh—what?" She froze and watched his fingers work the platinum ring onto hers before he slid his hand back to reveal the stunning diamond. He flattened his hand over hers, his fingers through hers. She bucked up against him, but he had her securely trapped down beneath him. He ran his other hand along her side, then pressed them between her body and the bed, and spread his hand over her pussy.
"Say yes—" he stroked her nub.
In the Arms of the Dragon Princes Page 39