by Angel Payne
“Something tells me you don’t want soup anymore, flower.”
Luna’s mouth swept upward. “No, Sir.”
“Maybe I can find something else to fill up your mouth.”
She grinned a little bigger. “Please, Sir.”
He didn’t return the look. Instead, with his face somber and his eyes steady, he told her, “Slide to the other side of the bed. Let your head hang back, over the side.”
She didn’t even bother with the Yes, Sir. Her eager compliance perfectly coincided with Tait’s need to unsheathe her body from the black pants. As she scooted away, he tugged down, letting the opposing forces work their magic on baring her long, smooth legs. And oh yeah…her gleaming, aroused pussy.
He kicked himself free from his own pants before circling the bed to where she dutifully waited for him. But before he knelt to align his erection with her lips, he stripped her from her top and bra, too. Though he’d seen her completely naked before, the sight of her tits and nipples, now angled perfectly at him due to the drop of her head, made his knees feel like they’d been shot off. Good thing he was lowering to them already. Before he got fully into position, he had both hands on her generous mounds, fingers tugging their erect tips into stiffer attention. She cried out a little as he did, though her ass and hips grinded against the bed, proving he aroused her in the midst of the pain.
“Someone a little sensitive?” he asked, watching the little grooves of her nipples become more pronounced as he flicked them with his thumbs.
Luna sighed. “Someone hasn’t had this in a long while…so yes. Ahhh!” Her exclamation came when he joined his forefinger and thumb, and pinched hard.
“You want more?”
She moaned as he added twists to the pinches. “God, yes. Please, Sir.”
“Even while my cock is deep in your throat?”
“Especially then.”
He teased her with the slick knob of his erection, tracing the length of her parted lips. “I can’t tie you down so if you need to stop, you safe word by rolling away and stopping. Understood?”
She licked his head with a provocative sweep. “I’m not going to safe word.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that.”
She whimpered in approval of that—until Tait dominated her mouth with his penis in one commanding stroke. She choked a little and he withdrew by an inch, only to enter her again a second later.
“Use your nose to breathe, flower. You know how to do this.” He shuddered as she obeyed, allowing him access into the deepest regions of her mouth. “Good Christ, you feel so good,” he praised, watching the thick veins of his body disappear inside the soft depths of hers. “Yes. Yesssss.”
His balls already surged and swelled, banging with his cum, aching for release. To hold off the flood, he focused on giving Luna what she needed. He pulled relentlessly on her nipples, turning them into lush, engorged strawberries before alternating his approach to lightly slap her breasts, a torment that made her spread her thighs and swipe faster at the blood-filled ridge of her hottest need.
“Do it,” Tait encouraged. “Come for me, Luna. Show me how you’ll scream when my cock is in your gorgeous cunt instead of your mouth.”
She breathed harder. Sucked him in deeper. Stroked herself faster. Her back arched. Her muscles tightened. With a high, guttural shriek, she tumbled over the ledge into a paroxysm of bliss, using her free hand to grab the back of his thigh while the waves of orgasm washed through her again and again.
It took a Herculean effort not to sink into the back of her throat and shoot his seed into her then and there. Instead, gritting his teeth with the effort, he helped her up to the pillows and lay beside her while her equilibrium returned. He leaned in to kiss her, but tasting himself on her tongue didn’t help when it came to self-control. Not a hell of a lot was helping at this point—with the woman herself leading that brigade a moment later.
“You going soft on me, Weasley?” she taunted before biting his lower lip. “You told me you know what I need.”
“Damn. Damn.” His growled repetition came as she grazed his balls with her fingernails. “Luna…”
“You remember that, don’t you?”
“Yes. Shit, woman!”
“Well, it’s time to pay up,” she whispered. “Fill me, Tait—with every inch of you. Please.”
“Yes, Ma’am, Agent Lawrence, ma’am.” He kissed her again, fast and feverishly, before leaning to the night stand and wrenching the drawer open. Nothing there except an old cough drop, a small LED flashlight, and a dog-eared Shayla Black novel. Great. If LA got hit by a major earthquake while he had a cold and wanted to read the adventures of Hunter and Kata, he was set.
“Doesn’t Colton stash condoms around here?”
“How the hell should I know?”
Her answer was a braid of good and bad news. Her perplexity proved that when Colton brought her up here last week, it had been strictly business. But now he was naked and horizontal with the woman of his dreams and couldn’t do anything about it—a dilemma that twisted its way across his face and made him wonder just how cold that eucalyptus wet room could get.
“Tait—”
“What?” He almost sliced her head off with the severity of it but made a mental note to apologize after breathing down his erection.
“I’m clean. They test us every other minute in prison.”
He gave her a sardonic smile. “It’s once a year in SOF. I just got my all-clear.” He added extra meaning to his stare. “But I haven’t touched anyone in months.”
Her own eyes darkened. She lowered back to the pillows, pulling him with her this time. “Hmmm. Imagine that. Neither have I. Which means if you don’t fuck me now, I’m liable to become crazy Luna for real.”
“Unnh-uh.” Sometimes a guy had to let out his inner caveman in order to get a point across. But in case she wasn’t clear, he whipped the pillows out from beneath her head. The next moment, he had her wrists locked to the mattress on either side of it. “No cray-cray on my watch, beautiful.” He edged forward, letting the crown of his cock dance with her slick, hot folds. “Just well-fucked, very magical, little witches.”
“Yes…” Her eyes fluttered closed. “Yes!” They flung back open as he thrust deeper. On the third lunge, his balls hit her ass as he seated himself all the way in. Heaven. He was finally in Heaven.
She kept her gaze on him, mesmerizing as a twilight sky, as he retreated and plunged, rocked and slid, over and over again. In the work he did for this country, getting lost wasn’t an option—but right now, it was the only choice. Her eyes and her body pulled him into a wilderness of heat, of need, of beauty…and the magic of her submission.
“Raise your legs,” he ordered, not wavering his gaze either. How could he, when her face bore so many marks of his possession? Her cheeks, flagged by his stubble burn. Her lips, swollen from sucking on him. Her skin, glowing with the sheen of her arousal. She was a thousand times more breathtaking than anything his fantasies had conjured. “Now wrap them around my neck.”
As soon as she complied, a long moan spilled from her. As he suspected, the openly naughty position awakened the darkest side of her submissiveness, turning his jungle into hers as well. It also locked him closer to her, pressing his chest against hers, securing his stare into hers. He watched as she shook beneath him, the new angle ensuring that his cock filled every tight corner of her pussy.
He couldn’t hold out any longer. The wilderness rose up and surrounded him. Oh yeah, was he lost…yet had never been so found.
Everything turned silver and white as his senses spun and his cock exploded. Somewhere in that chaos, an inner voice shrieked that he needed to pull out, to cut the chances of planting his seed significantly, but Luna’s cries, climbing higher as another orgasm twined through her, kept him buried inside her pulsing walls. While her body wrung every drop of his seed, her face held every inch of his focus. With her dark hair tangled on the mattress, her forehead furrowed in sensual
bliss, and her teeth digging into her delectable bottom lip, she stopped his heart and made him vow to imprint this moment on his memory forever. The first of so many he planned to have with her.
He finally forced himself to withdraw though he clutched her close while rolling to his back. All the while, he inhaled deeply to bring his heart rate back to normal. After trotting to the bathroom and back with clean towels for them both, he cracked, “Why did we wait so long to make that happen?”
Her reply came quicker, and filled with more regret, than he expected. “Because of me.” She pulled her towel against her chest. “Because I didn’t trust that you were for real…that you meant all those things you kept telling me.” She tucked her hair behind an ear, actually looking a little sheepish. “You…see me differently than the rest of the world does, Tait. You’ve always believed in me.” Her forehead scrunched once more, as if she still couldn’t believe the promise of the words.
He knelt on the bed in front of her. Cupped her face and lifted it. “And I always will.”
The conflict didn’t leave her eyes. She sat in expectant silence, as if thinking he was about to drop the “just kidding” disclaimer. Tait let her look. Though he longed to press her back down and kiss the truth into her, he held back. Pushing this woman would send her running. Easy does it. Some of the most important battles were won by gaining small but steady ground, not blowing up the whole countryside.
“Hey,” he finally murmured, “how about some of that soup now?”
“You bet.” The purple sparks returned to her eyes and she gave him a soft smile. But before she turned to search for her clothes, Tait caught her by the elbow and dipped one more earnest stare down at her.
“Luna…if what we did today gets you pregnant—”
“Psshhh. Weasley! Seriously? Now?”
He reeled her close again, clutching her other elbow. “Yeah, seriously. And yeah, now.”
She rolled her eyes. “Morning-after pills come over-the-counter now. I’ll just go to the drugstore—”
“Which is six blocks away.” He squared his shoulders and slipped his hands around both of hers. “Sorry, flower. Sleeping with a Special Ops guy means you get the photographic memory, too—the same recall that’ll also remind you how Stock’s boys are searching for you as much as me.” He kissed her forehead. “So no dice on the drugstore. Now will you listen to me?”
She skipped the eye roll in favor of averting her gaze completely. “Fine. What?”
He lifted one hand to the side of her face. “I just need you to know,” —then slipped a soft kiss to her lips— “It’d make me the happiest guy on the planet.”
She shook her head. Uncertainty tangled her features again. “So you’re going to slam a ring on my finger, find us a house in the suburbs, build the kid a jungle gym, and let me make casseroles from Pinterest recipes?”
The bloom of warmth in his chest shot its way right up to his lips. He couldn’t resist planting a harder kiss on her. “Fuck yeah.”
That got her to forget about the insecurity, at least. Her lips twitched as she shoved against his chest. “I’m going to make your soup, dork.”
He laughed and pulled his pants back on while she sashayed out toward the kitchen, deciding to leave the top button undone when her backside mesmerized him with its typical hypnotic powers. Dear Christ, he’d never get tired of that sight. He couldn’t wait for this cluster of a mission to be over, so he could get back to the fantasies of waiting for her prison term to be over, and treating her to a nice long session at Bastille to celebrate…
Time for a change of mindset. He was going to be rock hard and very frustrated if he didn’t think of something else. Now.
While Luna puttered in the kitchen, he fired up the television and instantly regretted the move. It was one of those late morning “women’s” talk shows where the set looked like a patio from the Hamptons and everyone had a coffee mug with the show’s name on it.
He hovered his thumb over the buttons, ready to hunt for SportsCenter, when he heard the studio audience on the talk show break out in screams and applause. Since the volume was turned low, that was saying something. He watched for a moment longer in curiosity.
He gaped for longer than that in open shock. “What the hell?”
Luna’s gasp confirmed he wasn’t alone in the feeling, joining him to watch as the show’s perky hostesses escorted their new guests to a fake Hamptons seating area.
Bella Lanza. Cameron Stock.
And Ethan Archer.
Chapter Twenty-One
So this is what it felt like to be brought back from the dead.
Memories of the morning had returned to Ethan in agonizing flashes, starting with the one that brought him back to consciousness. He’d gone from darkness to light inside a minute, thanks to the epinephrine vial that came into view once he could focus his vision again. The artificial adrenaline got a giant helping hand when he realized it was Cameron Stock who’d jammed it into his thigh. He remembered glaring at the asshole across one of the studio’s dressing trailers. He’d been stripped naked but considered bolting anyway. After the getups forced on him by Grant Fulsom, streaking bare-assed across the back lot wasn’t an unthinkable follow-up. And the idiots hadn’t even bothered to zip tie him.
That was when his scrutiny had widened to the other corner of the trailer—and fell on Ava, passed out cold in a chair, clad only in her bra and panties. Her purse lay at her feet with its empty epi pen pouch on top. Next to that was a gallon-sized jar that trembled—from the force of the thousand agitated bees inside.
Cameron had smiled with slow confidence, just as he did now beneath the glaring TV studio lights. Ethan had clenched his jaw against a cold river of bile, recognizing why they hadn’t bothered to cuff him. If he complied with their plan, the bees would stay cooped up. Otherwise, Ava would die in horrific and painful circumstances.
Thinking of her was the only thing that kept the fake smile plastered on his face now. He sat next to Bella on a hanging love seat in his dress blues, steeling himself against the images that played havoc with his head. One second, he drowned in helplessness while remembering the hotel’s atrium with the soldiers surrounding them, then the canister clanking and the air thickening with deceptive sweetness. The next, he floundered in panic as more recent recollections hit. The windowless room in the back of the trailer that held his captain, battalion mates, Sage, and Rayna, all passed out and chained. The order from Stock to get his ass up and don his dress uniform. The sickening recognition, during the golf cart trip across the back lot, that calling Stock out as a terrorist on live TV was only going to get him labeled as a “poor, traumatized soldier who’d succumbed to the stress of his Special Forces duties.” Not only would Lor and Stock still be free and primed to carry out the plan that still remained a mystery, but he’d be tossed into a padded room faster than anyone could say the lunatics are taking over the asylum.
He had to put it all away. Scour it all from his mind. Leave a fresh slate for focusing on the materials he had to work with on accomplishing the goals. Lor and Stock had to be taken down. His teammates had to be set free before getting used as terrorist bargaining chips.
He telescoped his mind on a small opening of hope. It was just a pinhole but it was all he had.
T-Bomb hadn’t been at Stock’s Kumbaya-fest this morning.
He had to assume that Tait had somehow been warned off and was watching this somewhere. Right. Because the guy’s so excited for the summer mimosa tips coming up in the next segment, right?
Fuck it. Even if T-Bomb wasn’t watching, maybe one of Colton’s spook friends was. Maybe Luna had fed them enough details to start piecing things together and they were in the audience now, hoping they’d get a hint of what Stock had done with Dan and the others.
Maybe he could give them a little more than a hint.
“…and he’s been just wonderful, sharing all kinds of stories that are going to help this live broadcast be a special e
xperience for our viewers.” Bella paused for a breath along with the chance to wiggle closer to him, twining their hands together. “Nothing classified, of course.” She playfully nudged him. “Right, dear?”
“Umm, yeah. Right.”
All the ladies, and Cameron for that matter, joined in teasing laughter at his expense. Like he cared. The longer they laughed, the more he could peer around for “props” to help him divulge the team’s location. And the sooner his battalion was secured, the sooner he could redirect his efforts on putting Lor and Stock into prison jumpsuits forever.
The show hostess across the coffee table from them, a leggy, mocha-skinned model he recognized but couldn’t name, leaned forward and queried, “I imagine this has all been an interesting change of pace for you, hmm, Sergeant? You Special Forces boys travel the world but I’ll bet you’ve never been anywhere like Hollywood.”
He tilted his head a little, appearing to weigh out his answer, though he was actually taking time to thank the Creator for plopping this opportunity in his lap. Who needed props when he could get creative with words?
“That’s an interesting question,” he began. “There’ve been some days, like today for instance, where I’ve seen nothing but the studio’s back lot.”
The model beamed a commiserating grin. “They’re working you hard, hmm? Beginning to wish for a deployment again?”
“Well, the food’s much better here.”
The model giggled. A lot. “Oh my goodness, that face and that wit.” She glanced to the audience and was answered with a round of squeals that made him squirm. “Tell us more,” she encouraged.
That he could deal with. What else would help Colton’s team find them? “I really like the dressing-room trailers. I’ve heard that people sleep like babies in them, even in the middle of a studio back lot.”