by April Hunt
“So then tell me why I can’t get that night out of my head,” Trey added. “Tell me why, for the first time in my life, I couldn’t give a fuck about not mixing business and pleasure and want nothing more than to have you right here and now.”
“But I still don’t know y—”
“Former Major Trey Michael Hanson. Delta. Thirty-four. Taurus. A son. A brother. Never married, although I hope to be, when the right woman comes along. I haven’t been all that interested in anyone for a damn long time—and then I saw you sitting on that bar stool and couldn’t think of anything else but having you in any way—or amount of time—I could. Still can’t. Now, your turn for a bit of honesty.” Trey paused. “Why did you take a stranger up on his offer?”
Elle didn’t know if she could handle much more of this honesty thing. Her pounding heart threatened to burst through her sternum. “Because you looked like you were the type of person who did what you wanted, whenever you wanted, and didn’t apologize for it. Ever. I hoped some of that would rub off on me.”
Maybe she shouldn’t have been quite so honest. Trey looked at her as if trying to read her mind, and she was thankful that he couldn’t. Right then, it was a huge mess of contradictions.
“So then why the fuck are you so ready to bolt?” Trey’s question was no more than a whisper. “Is it because of your ex? Did that asshole hurt you that badly that you’re unwilling to take a chance?”
Yes, but not in the way he meant. She’d already been hurt by the time she found out that James was a cheating bastard and her father an emotionless one. When she’d formally broken things off, she’d been…numb.
“No,” Elle answered truthfully. Her stomach clenched, and she wished she could blame it on turbulence. “James didn’t hurt me, not even when I caught him half naked and bending his secretary over his desk.”
“Then why the push back?”
“Because I don’t want to get drawn into a relationship with someone who could.”
Chapter Seven
Elle wished she could rewind time and say something different because, the second the words left her mouth, Trey’s eyes lit up with something akin to challenge. That was the only way to describe it.
She needed to retreat before he acted on the look in his eyes, because once he did, she didn’t know if she was strong enough to resist. As it was, she was in a constant battle with her body’s natural desire to navigate into his personal space.
“I think I’m going to lie down and take that rest after all.” Elle made it as far as the end of the hall, her hand braced on the half-open bedroom door, when she felt his presence behind her. “Trey, this isn’t a good idea.”
His mouth caressed the back of her neck, making her tremble. He gently turned her around and skated a palm up the length of her arm. Over her shoulder and into her hair, his fingers combed out what was left of her updo and then gently fisted near her nape. A chill zipped along the path of his touch.
“I know.” Trey skimmed his mouth down her cheek until it hovered over her lips. “And I don’t care. Tell me you don’t fucking care right now, sweetness.”
God help her, but she didn’t.
She gave her head the barest of shakes, unable to say the words aloud. But that was all Trey needed. He walked her backward into the bedroom. His boot kicked the door shut, and then his mouth descended on hers in a kiss that made her body release a little sigh.
Elle clutched his forearms and held herself steady as he slowly slid his tongue past her lips and retreated. Over her jaw and to the soft spot beneath her ear, he sucked and nibbled, rolling her lobe between his lips before giving it the barest of tongue flicks.
“What the hell have you done to me?” Trey murmured.
He gently backed her into the wall, using the stability behind her to anchor his body against hers. His arousal nestled into her stomach, but it was when he lifted the hem of her dress and inserted a muscled thigh between her legs that her knees went weak.
“I need to hear you come, Elle.” Trey groaned against her ear, the sound an erotic whisper. Flick. Lick. Nibble. Every caress of his mouth drove her nearly out of her mind.
“Yes,” she panted, arching into the palm of his hand as he thumbed her cloth-covered nipple. “God, yes.”
If this was his idea of keeping a strong line between personal and professional lives, she couldn’t imagine what it would be like if that line were erased.
He shifted his knee and urged her hips into a slow rotation that ground her damp panties on top of his thigh. Elle’s eyes rolled backward as a hefty dose of heady desire washed over her whole body. She was wet, ready, and so freaking needy.
Trey brought his hand between her legs. Gently dragging a knuckle over the spot where her clit ached for attention, he waited until her hips bucked into the touch before breaching the edge of her panties with that same finger.
“You’re about to go off, aren’t you, sweetness?” He rubbed against her wet folds, careful to avoid where she wanted him most.
She rolled her hips and he pulled his hand away. Elle let out a frustrated growl and gripped his wrist in an attempt to hold him where she wanted him.
Trey chuckled against her mouth before giving her lower lip a gentle nibble. “Do you want me to make you come, Elle?”
“Yes! Stop teasing me.”
“I’ll never tease you.” His eyes fixed on hers and, finally, one wide finger glided through her wetness and into her more-than-ready body. “At least not more than you can take.”
One finger, then two. He thrust slow and steady before brushing his thumb over her clit. Elle grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him in for a kiss that this time made him groan. Her tongue tangled with his, and he met her stroke for stroke, both in the kiss and in the unhurried plunge of his hand.
Her muscles tensed and clenched, the low drumming ache building with each thrust and stroke.
“Oh my God,” Elle panted between kisses.
“Let go,” Trey demanded against her mouth. “Let go so I can feel your body wrap around my fingers.”
Elle never knew she could come on command, but she did. Hard. Her entire body went up in a flash of pleasure. The rush flooded over her, so intense she didn’t know how to contain it—she couldn’t contain it. Trey silenced her cry with his mouth and kept up the same slow momentum, thrusting and rubbing his hand against her until the very last quiver rolled from her body.
Only Trey’s arms kept her from hitting the floor.
It took forever for her to catch her breath and, thankfully, she wasn’t alone. Trey panted heavily, his voice husky with lust. “I need you to know that it’s bringing me true physical pain to fucking say this, but we better put on the brakes.”
Likewise, but he was right. Not only was this not the time or place, but Elle had a nagging suspicion that Trey could easily become an addiction—the more she savored, the more she wanted.
She shouldn’t want because she couldn’t have.
Trey removed his hand from her panties and stepped back, clearing his throat. “I’ll leave you to take that nap.”
“Okay.”
After one more heated look, he left her alone. Her body still hummed from the orgasm that had crashed through her body when she plopped facedown onto the full-sized bed and screamed into the pillow. “I’m in so much freaking trouble.”
* * *
Trey grimaced, shifting his cock in his pants to a less painful position. A throbbing dick was his penance for not letting Elle go like he should have. When they’d been together the first time, he hadn’t known she was his assignment. This time, the blame was on him.
He changed into jeans and a T, and then waited in the rear fuselage until his erection went down to semi before letting himself into the cockpit. Chase, lounging back and appearing to be asleep, had his feet propped up on the only vacant seat and Rafe fiddled on his phone, no doubt talking to Penny. Vince was the one navigating them closer to headquarters.
Trey pushed Chas
e’s legs off the chair.
“What the hell, man?” Chase startled awake, and then seeing Trey’s face, sat up a little straighter. “How’s the patient?”
“She’s going to lie down until we get to headquarters.” Trey sat and glanced over toward Rafe. “How’s my little sister doing? She come to her senses and decide she can do a hell of a lot better than you?”
Penny wasn’t really his sister, but thanks to her father’s inability to parent, she and her niece, Rachel, had come into his mother’s house at the ages of twelve and nine, and made his own teen years as hellish as any little sisters could. He’d been the big brother to their skinny pains-in-the-asses until a string of fucked-up ideas created a nearly ten-year rift. And now, Penny was engaged to his best friend.
Once upon a time, the idea of Rafe and Penny together bugged the ever-lovin’ hell out of him, and on the occasions they sucked face in his vicinity, he still felt the need to bleach his eyeballs. But bleach be damned, he was glad two of the most important people in his life were now the most important in each other’s.
He hadn’t booked a fucking wedding venue, but he couldn’t deny that he wanted to wrap himself around the same body every night too. He wanted someone comfortable enough with him to tell him when he was acting like a jackass. And caveman-like or not, he wanted someone to protect and worship, someone who wouldn’t be deterred by the fact that he’d keep her in bed all the damn time.
He wanted it all.
Rafe put his phone away, but his grin remained plastered on his face. “You know Penny. She’s trying to save the world, one unfortunate soul at a time. Last week, we visited Rachel at the clinic, and the second Doc Stevens glanced Penny’s way, he got the hell out of Dodge. No lie. I’ve never seen him move so fast away from a woman. It had to have been a fucking record.”
Trey snorted. “She tried to fix the good doctor?”
Rafe chuckled. “Poor fuck didn’t realize what he was doing when he off-handedly mentioned his recent slew of odd-ass dreams. But you bet he won’t make that mistake again.”
Trey asked the question that was probably on all their minds. “Did she say how Rach was holding up since we’ve been gone?”
As quick as a snap of the fingers, the mood in the cockpit went from light to dark. There wasn’t a day that went by when Trey didn’t want to kick himself in the ass for abandoning his family. He might not have hand-delivered Rachel into the arms of drug lord Diego Fuentes, but he sure as fuck hadn’t been there when she’d gone missing. He hadn’t been there when Penny had traveled to Honduras to get her back either—herself.
Fate and a mutual enemy had returned Trey’s family to his life, and now that he had them there, he wasn’t about to let go. Rachel fought a constant battle against Freedom, the nasty-ass super-drug Fuentes had pumped into her system and even though he couldn’t fight it for her, he was sure as hell going to be her back-up.
They all were.
Rafe’s jaw flexed with the effort to keep his own emotions under wraps. “It’s one step forward and then a few steps back, but she’s a tough cookie. Right now, her only problem’s that she wants to kick Freedom to the curb too fast to let her body adjust.”
A menacing growl emanated from Vince. “If those Fuentes bastards weren’t dead already, I’d drop a building on them a second time.”
“And I’d be the one to push the fucking detonator,” Trey agreed.
Chase gave him an encouraging fist-bump. “Amen to that.”
“Speaking of bastards”—Rafe diverted the subject and twisted in his seat—“what the fuck’s up with your lady’s daddy dearest? Christ. I thought I was going to have to pull you off him.”
Vince snorted. “And I would’ve pulled you off Trey. That ass-wipe deserved a good beating more than anyone I know—except for that hemorrhoid he called an assistant. What the fuck was his name?”
“James,” Trey growled. “Elle’s ex.”
Vince’s eyes widened. “The hemorrhoid was the bastard she reamed into at the gala? I should’ve let Charlie pummel his ass like she wanted to do. How the fuck did Elle ever end up with a first-class ass like him?”
Trey shrugged, not knowing himself. The Elle he was getting to know and like didn’t take much shit from anyone—him included. He couldn’t imagine her linking herself to a fuckwad like James Worth.
Rafe’s sudden burst of laughter broke the brewing tension, catching Trey’s attention. “I thought our little nurse was going to have to administer CPR to her own father when you basically told him to shut the fuck up about that damn gala business. The man was one vein-bulge away from having a coronary.”
And Trey hadn’t cared. Still didn’t. His father had engrained into him the proper way to treat and talk to a lady, and it pissed him off when he witnessed others doing the exact opposite. That Elle’s own father treated her that way made him see all fucking shades of red.
Trey barely kept his voice even. “First thing Stone’s going to need to understand is that the Senator’s done calling the shots on Elle’s protective detail. There’s no more working with him and trying to calm the waters.”
Three sets of eyes landed on him, and he made sure to meet each and every one. “Don’t look at me like I’ve lost my fucking mind. There was no goddamned reason—at least a good one—for her to be at that fucking event. And because we did what that asshole wanted, she was put at risk. Never again.”
The cockpit went quiet for the second time. Vince looked to Chase. Chase looked to Rafe…and Rafe cursed.
“You need to tread really fucking carefully, my man,” Rafe stated.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Trey demanded.
“It means that it’s awfully fucking easy to blur lines, and I think you’re halfway to smudging that shit up real good.”
“Coming from you, that’s awfully fucking priceless. You know that, right?”
Rafe held up his hands in surrender. “I love Penny, and I don’t want to imagine what my life would be like without her in it, but I have tunnel vision when it comes down to her safety. I cringe just thinking about the number of times things could’ve blown up in our fucking faces in Honduras because of it. I was lucky—pure and simple. I just don’t want you to put that same kind of risk on your shoulders.”
“Elle’s safety is paramount, too, but it’s not the same.”
Rafe’s raised brow silently called him on his bullshit answer.
“Seriously. We happened and it’s done. Besides, she’s already said she’s not looking for anything serious, and I’m not in the market for quick fun. Makes the clean break an easy one.” He wiped his palms on his jeans as if cleaning his hands.
This time, Chase was the one choking down a snort. “Yeah, brother. We hear you. We also heard the two of you a little bit ago. If that’s what you call making a clean break, I’d be curious to hear what a messy one sounded like.”
Trey knew that in order to talk himself out of this corner, he’d have to lie through his fucking teeth. He took complete responsibility for his actions. Always. “It was a brief lapse. It won’t happen again.”
The guys all exchanged a look, but wisely stayed silent. They razzed the hell out of each other at every opportunity, but they knew when to draw the line. All of Alpha was the same. They were a brotherhood with boundaries. Unfortunately for him, they were headed to headquarters where there were two people who didn’t give a flying fig about personal no-fly zones.
Chapter Eight
Elle’s thirty-minute power nap lacked both napping and power—unless you counted the powerful vividness with which she replayed the bedroom-wall interlude with Trey. Over and over, and maybe in reverse, too. But when she wasn’t reliving every detail of the event itself, her mind drifted to dangerous places—like Trey’s uncanny ability to slip beneath her defenses.
She’d gotten lucky with James, barely feeling a twinge when she broke off their engagement. Heck, she’d been relieved. But if she handed her heart to someon
e and then watched him look at her differently when she shared that the accident that had hijacked her life with surgeries and doctor’s appointments had also stolen her ability to have children?
It would shatter her.
It couldn’t happen. She couldn’t let it happen. And that’s where her rules came into play.
No expectations. No relationships. No futures. No messy strings.
As long as she focused more on those rules than on Trey’s broody gaze, or his talented hands, or wicked mouth, she’d be safe. Unfortunately, an hour later, when she was the middle of a Trey and Chase sandwich in another SUV, it was practically impossible not to dwell on how the Alpha operative could light her body up like a bonfire. So instead, she focused on the passing scenery.
Mountains and more mountains, with the occasional green valley nestled between. The sun faintly started peeking over the long cascade of treetops, giving them a gorgeous blue halo.
“Those are the Blue Ridge Mountains,” Chase said, noticing her look of awe. “They’re a small segment of the Appalachian Mountains. Gorgeous as hell, but a clusterfuck to drive through in the winter.”
“And we’re home,” Rafe announced from the driver’s seat.
Elle glanced out the opposite window and did a double take. As far as headquarters for a clandestine private security firm went, a country bar was the last thing she expected. Somewhere in the depths of the one-story stone building, a single light illuminated panes of stained glass. A string of small banners lined the overhang, advertising burger specials and beer brands that could be found within. And above that, was the sign.
Alpha.
“Is this the bar you told me about when we were at the gala?” She looked to Trey for confirmation and got a small nod.
“It is.”
“But I thought we were going to the Alpha headquarters.”
“You’re there, hon.” Chase gave her a grin before slipping out of the car.
Everyone followed, unloading bags from the trunk while she inspected the front of the building.