by Holley Trent
Felipe shook his head and laid it against the pillow. The sun would rise soon. He wanted to be well on the way to slumber-land before all that yellow light poured into the room. “Once Jacques secures the next location, they pack up and move fast. May be already gone.”
“But if they leave, it’ll be harder for you to track your brother. I’m good, but if people are intentionally obfuscating their tracks, it takes me twice as long to catch a lead. Confuses even the best psychics. I’d have to rely on the old-fashioned methods which can sometimes yield results too late.”
“I’m not worried yet. After all, what good is a famous two-man acrobatic team if one of the men is absent? Even if they leave, Jacques will want me to catch up.”
“You do realize you’re talking about walking into a trap, right?”
He closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath before answering. “Querida, my entire life has been one dangerous trap after another. What’s one more?”
“Don’t go out without me again,” she said. It seemed more a request than an order. Whether it was because she didn’t want to be left out or that she maybe cared a bit about him, he couldn’t say. But, when he draped his arm over her waist and pulled her a little closer, she didn’t swat him away.
Didn’t say a word.
CHAPTER NINE
When Sarah opened her eyes again, that unsettling feeling was no longer riding her. Everything felt as it should.
She tested her limbs and found them entwined with Felipe’s. He lay on his belly, his left arm still pinning her waist.
With some effort, she turned her body and studied the alarm clock.
Eleven. They’d slept through breakfast, and judging by the gnawing sensation of her gut and the slight throbbing at her temples, refusing dinner hadn’t been a smart choice. She should have tried harder to eat a good meal the night before, but she’d always found eating difficult when there was so much going on.
Right then, though, besides her empty belly, the only things that seemed important were the rise and fall and Felipe’s back as he breathed, the sight of his hair obscuring his handsome face, and the way his fingers tightened on her waist every time she shifted. All things considered, being wedged beneath his arm wasn’t that bad a place to be, but her bladder had other ideas.
“Felipe.” She whispered his name and wriggled beneath his arm.
He smacked his lips a couple of times and groaned, only to fall right back into his sleep pattern.
She sighed. “Felipe.” Now she dragged her fingers along the side of his face and pushed his hair away from his eyes.
What a beautiful man.
Of course, Fabian had been attractive, too. They were identical—cut from the same cloth. But when she was near Fabian, she hadn’t automatically thought Damn the way she did with Felipe. Maybe it was because Felipe had stuck his neck out in their first meeting and made his attraction clear, and a day later she’d gone from ambivalent to flattered. At that first interaction at that barn, she hadn’t been concerned with romance, if that’s what it even was. She’d only been thinking about the job she had to do. She was supposed to find and protect this man, but he hadn’t really wanted to be found, nor did he need protection.
“Felipe…let me out.” She leaned in as close as she could to his ear and whispered, “We’re going to miss lunch. We need to get moving.”
He drew some air in through his lips and blew it back out in a sigh. “Why can’t we just stay here?”
She’d be lying to herself if she’d say the thought hadn’t crossed her mind. As much as she liked having a high-octane life, there was something gratifying about feeling safe enough to go slow, too. Felipe somehow made her feel safe. She didn’t try to understand it, but maybe it was the same thing that made Dana so calm when she was around Patrick. There was no need for her to perform around him. He saw through the act, so Dana just stopped putting it on. He loved her whether she was soft or hard or somewhere in between, so she didn’t try for hard all the time anymore.
This thing with Felipe, though—it wasn’t love. It was a mutual partnership. Merely bed-sharing.
He opened those pale gray eyes and focused on her. “There’s nothing for you to do right now.”
“That’s not true. I can be doing a security shift at Patrick’s. Let one of the other ladies off the hook.”
“I think they’ve got it under control, querida.”
“It’s not fair if I’m not pulling my weight. Teams work better if everyone is holding up their share of the bargain.”
“And what if one member of the team is so exhausted everyone has to hold up their share and drag the tired person behind them, too?”
She sucked her teeth and pushed up onto her hands and knees. “I’m not tired. I got some sleep.”
“If you say so…” He pushed up so his back was against the headboard. “But, you think one morning of sleep can make up for a lifetime of pushing it?”
“Don’t act like you know me.” She crawled to the edge of the bed and stomped to the bathroom.
His response was a throaty chuckle. He read her like a book, and it smarted.
After relieving her bladder and brushing her teeth, she cranked on the water and quickly shed her clothes. She knew the water heaters at the lodge to be somewhat cantankerous, and there was no way to predict how long the hot water would hold out. If she were lucky, there’d be nothing but ice cubes left for mouthy Felipe. That’d serve him right.
She stepped in and drew the curtain closed, quickly ducking her head beneath the spray to wet her hair.
A cool draft from the door opening made her roll her eyes. Damn him. “Can’t you wait to pee until I’m finished?”
He shut the door. “Don’t need to pee.” He pulled back the curtain and stepped in, completely nude.
She stopped lathering her hair and stared, though to her credit she was looking above the waist.
Mostly.
She eased back a step, pulling her breasts out of the way of his arm reaching for the soap. “What are you doing?”
“Showering. Eric told me the hot water is unpredictable here.”
Eric had just earned himself a spot on her other list.
Annoyance aside, she had shampoo in her hair and didn’t plan on indulging in a cold-water rinse, so she turned her back and kept scrubbing.
“Either view works as well as the other,” Felipe said with a chuckle.
“You could be a gentleman and not look.”
“Ha. Ha.”
She turned and tipped her head back into the spray to rinse the suds, keeping her eyes closed, even when Felipe’s wet, soapy body grazed hers. “Are you admitting you’re not a gentleman?”
“I’d be less of a gentleman only if I were raised by wolves.”
“So you’re just going to ogle me? That’s nice.”
“Por cierto. Only you, though.”
“That makes a girl’s heart flutter, let me tell you.”
She turned her back again, reached for the bar of soap he’d discarded, and went to work at quickly lathering her arms and legs. Bending over required some tact.
“Do you want me to soap up your back?”
“No, I think my back can go a couple of days without a scrub.”
“Suit yourself.” He placed his large hands at her waist and gently moved her out of the direct spray of water to rinse his body.
And a magnificent body it was. He may have thought he was too old to be swinging from trapezes, but the work had molded his body into an undeniably breathtaking form. The long, muscled torso with hard abs tapering to a V pointing down to…
She cleared her throat and cast her eyes to the ceiling as she wrung water from her hair.
“Never seen a…what do you Americans call it? A dick before?”
“Nope. I’m as virginal as the day is long,” she said, reaching just outside the curtain to the rack and grabbing a washcloth for her face.
“Shit. That’s no good.”
“Really? Most men think the opposite.” She rolled her eyes. “They always want to be the first.”
“That’s not my hang-up. I wanted our first time to be pleasurable. Didn’t want to make you cry.”
Her turn to scoff. “Ha. Ha,” she intoned, but, well, if she had been a virgin, he’d certainly be capable of making her cry…or at least whimper.
He grinned and closed his eyes, now rinsing his own hair.
She risked getting caught, and let her eyes trail down his belly to his semi-erect cock. And caught, she got.
“I think it’s dirty,” he said with a chuckle.
“Just like the rest of you.” She pulled her stare away and looked up to find him wearing that damned smirk. After draping her wet washcloth over the hook, she poised her foot over the edge, ready to step out, but Felipe grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back in.
The dull prick of his cock against the small of her back wasn’t something she was well equipped to ignore. She’d never had training for that type of thing, and even if she had…
“Water’s still hot, and I’m not clean.”
She swallowed and concentrated on the white grout lines—anything but the tip of his shaft gliding against her wet back.
“Um. Th-then maybe you should get to work,” she said breathily.
“Maybe you should.” And he turned her, carefully, never taking his hands from her waist until she faced him.
His fingers traced up her torso and paused at her breasts where he plucked at her nipples. It wasn’t an altogether unpleasant sensation, though certainly one she hadn’t anticipated.
Her hands slapped over her breasts reflexively, but he wasn’t concerned with her breasts anymore, anyway. The flirtatious glint in his eyes gave way to something darker, and before she could question him, he pressed his hands onto her shoulders and nudged her down onto her knees.
“You’re insane,” she said, reaching for the handrail to stand. To flee.
“¿Es cierto?” His right fist wrapped around her wet hair and he pulled, tipping her chin up and forcing her eyes to meet his.
“Yeah, I’m pretty certain,” she said. It came out sounding pretty saucy, but her heart wasn’t really in it.
Sarah Miller had followed orders very well for a lot of years, and always knew her place in the hierarchy. People knowing their places made the big people machines run that much more smoothly. Now, her head reeled and she was unsure, exactly, what her place was.
His gaze was intense. Anticipatory. And there on her knees with small sprays of water misting her face whenever he shifted a bit to the side, she felt completely out of sorts. Her trepidation, however, quickly shifted to exhilaration when she realized that she wasn’t a woman on a ledge. Instead, she was walking a tightrope with a taut net down below to catch her.
“Say no,” he said, loosening his grip on her hair.
It was her choice, and she didn’t want to say no.
She leaned in close and grazed her lips up one of his hard thighs, watching his expression, though finding no clues within it. His face was a blank mask.
She kissed up further, landing at the crease between his thigh and sac and let her tongue explore its seams.
His hand returned, raking through her wet hair and winding the length of it around his fingers. For the moment, he neither pulled nor pushed. Just waited.
Even when she steadied herself with her hands planted on his hips and swirled the tip of her tongue over his cock’s tip, he didn’t react, though his shaft jerked on her tongue.
She took him further into her mouth and paused with it halfway in to set her teeth against it.
He gave her hair a tiny pull of warning, but waited to see what she had planned.
She pulled her head back so her teeth dragged lightly along the skin of his shaft, and at the very end, she wrapped her lips around the head and sucked.
That drew a breath from him. He pushed his cock between her lips once more and held her head still, forcing her to take in as much as he pleased.
If he expected her to gag, he had another think coming.
She increased her suction and locked her eyes on his face, watching his teeth grind, his lips part, and his eyelids fluttered as she did her work.
His hard ass clenched beneath her nails. His grip on her hair tightened, and she sucked harder, grazing him with her teeth and massaging with her tongue until he hissed and yanked her back. “Stand,” he said, offering his arm to aid her.
She took it, and as soon as she had both feet flat on the tub floor, he turned and wrenched the water off. He moved slowly enough that she caught a blast of the last frigid spray. Who knew how long he’d been taking the brunt of that cold water? He hadn’t seemed to notice it at all—the ultimate employment of mind over matter.
He snatched back the shower curtain, looped an arm around her waist, and carried her to the bed. No sooner had her wet hair mashed against the bedspread, he was straddling her, teasing her lips apart with his own and whipping her tongue into compliance.
His possession of her mouth was so primal, so needy, she could hardly breathe. Couldn’t plan. Just as well, because he seemed content with steering the ship without her input.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he growled after drawing back from her mouth, and she did, right as he pressed his hard cock against her entrance. He paused there only long enough for her body to accommodate his girth, then slid the rest in one eager thrust.
“Dios mío, you’re so tight. Como una virgen.”
“Celibacy will do that to you.”
“I won’t stop unless you tell me to.” He nipped at her lips and tilted his hips to ease himself out of her.
“Okay.” She squeezed her muscles tight around his shaft, inviting him in—for him just take her, already.
He needed no further prompting. He propped himself on his forearms and stared into her eyes for a long moment before his hips took over the talking.
His pace was nearly frenetic, but his control was remarkable. She expected as much given his strength. His limberness. But those large muscles weren’t what he needed to worry about. Those, he’d trained long and hard. Those had stamina.
But other things—untouched things, certainly those would retire more quickly.
He didn’t slow as she expected. His thrusts got faster, harder, and what she felt down below was in that fuzzy area between pain and pleasure. Maybe the bit of pain made it all that much more arousing.
He nudged one of her legs over his shoulder, then the other, gaining even deeper access.
She tried to find some outlet for what she was feeling. If she were at home, she’d probably scream, but the walls were too thin and too many ears were open. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and bit, and that helped. She clawed at the sheets beneath them, digging her nails in so hard she was certain the fabric had ripped, and that helped, too.
She’d started to shudder when he finally came, filling her, and murmuring something in Spanish she didn’t quite catch. Then, breathless, he tipped her over the edge. He shifted his hips and probed her g-spot, while pressing his thumb over her clit.
And she did scream, but he muffled it with his mouth, teasing her tongue until she kissed him back, her body nervous and shaking from all the sensation.
When he eased back, she expected his expression to be triumphant, and she expected she’d snap at him, because that’s what she always did.
But, no. His expression was neutral as he let down her legs and pushed off of her. He didn’t say anything, just grazed her parted lips with the pad of this thumb, then loped to the bathroom.
Water drummed into the sink bottom, then Felipe returned with a wet washcloth that thankfully wasn’t too cold.
She held out a hand, expecting him to toss it to her now that his work was done, but instead, he parted her legs and gently dabbed her clean.
As thoughtful as the gesture was, she had other concerns. “Felipe, I’m not on birth control,” she said when
he’d finished.
He didn’t respond right away. His eyes went a bit round for a second, but beyond that, he didn’t react. He disappeared into the bathroom again, ran some more water, and when he returned, his cock was flaccid and hands dry. He’d plucked her comb from the counter and pulled it through his hair. She watched him gather the sleek blond mass into a ponytail, and his eyes stayed locked on hers.
“Felipe, did you hear me?”
“Sí.”
She propped herself up on her elbows and raised a brow at him. “And you understand what I’m implying, yes? We just had unprotected sex. We Shrews tend to be resistant to yucky stuff, but there’s nothing stopping me from getting knocked up.”
“And?” He tossed her the brush and she caught it handily.
“What do you mean, and? That was irresponsible.” She batted at her now-curly hair with her rescued comb, but gave up on the endeavor. She’d have to wet her hair again. No way she’d be able to get the tangles out otherwise. Lunch suddenly seemed a long way away.
“Maybe your idea of responsible is different from mine.”
“Apparently.” She scooted to the end of the bed and stood. She walked past him into the bathroom and placed the comb on the counter.
Felipe padded in behind her and pressed his front against her backside. He bent her over the counter’s edge so her breasts mashed against the tile and ground his semi-erect cock against her ass, probing at an entrance left un-breached.
“Think about it, Sarah,” he ordered, slipping his hand around her waist and finding her clit. He rubbed it in lazy circles and pressed his lips against her ear.
She moaned, and hated herself for it. She hated herself even more for inching up on her tiptoes to nestle his cock more firmly between her cheeks.
“I’m it for you, huh? Someone who you can tell your secrets to, who won’t be shocked at them? Who won’t run from them?”
He had a bit of a point. Truth was, she hadn’t been with anyone since the mutations. She didn’t know how she would explain what had happened—whether a man would be afraid to touch her for fear it was contagious. It wasn’t, but…