Guarded Desire

by Christi Snow

  My cock jerked as if pleading for her to do exactly that, but she had to be at least buzzed if not flat-out drunk. I shook my head. “I’ll take care of it tonight.” I had to at least jerk off or I’d never be able to sleep in the same bed with her. I had no intention of sleeping elsewhere tonight. Not with this deal between us.

  “You mean you’re going to masturbate without me, although I’m right here, offering you my body to use.”

  “Elle, honey...” Telling her no was starting to physically hurt. “Damn, you’re so hard to resist. There’s nothing I want more than to sink deep into your body.” But I’d already done that once today without thinking of her and her needs. I wouldn’t do that again, no matter how much I wanted it. “If this is something you still want tomorrow, believe me, there is nothing that will keep me out of your panties. I want you so much it hurts. But for tonight, we’re just going to sleep.”

  She huffed out a sigh of frustration, stepped out of the stairwell into her bedroom, and peeled off her top as she muttered, “You’re so bossy. Well, you go take of yourself in there” She waved me toward the bathroom, but I followed her instead. “And I’ll take care of myself out here.” She removed her bra and I became distracted by the hard, dark-pink buds of her erect nipples and not her words. I wanted to lick and bite her there. Then she bent over, toed off her boots, and unbuttoned her jeans, sliding both them and her panties down her hips. She flung them off to the side on the floor.

  Her words finally sunk into my brain. Take care of myself...

  She couldn’t mean...

  I stood there with my mouth hanging open as she lay down on the bed and began to stroke her damp folds with her fingertips. I could see the moisture from where I stood just three feet away.

  My cock throbbed with urgent need, slamming up against the unyielding fabric of my jeans.

  As she threw back her head and ran her fingers up and down her slit, I gave in and lowered the zipper on my jeans, finally releasing my throbbing dick into my hand. I gave it a long, hard stroke. I could remember how good that initial slide into her hot pussy had felt, and my balls tightened with impending orgasm. Already. I gasped at the pleasure zinging through my groin, tightening my ass and climbing up my balls.

  Watching her pleasure herself with wild abandon... Hell, this wasn’t going to take long at all.

  “You’re so wet. I can see it from here.”

  Her eyes opened at the sound of my low, husky growl, and her desire-filled gaze immediately dropped to my cock.

  She moaned, and it was like her vocal cords were attached directly to my balls. My cock jerked, and a bead of pre cum wet the slit. I ran my finger over it, spreading the liquid over the tip.

  “How does that feel?” she asked.

  “Fucking awesome,” I said.

  She didn’t take her eyes off my moving hand, and that ratcheted up the tension in my body by a million.

  “Having you watch is almost as good as sliding inside you.”

  She closed her eyes and arched, her fingers diving deeper into her pussy, making a wet, sloppy sound that shouldn’t be sexy, but oh my fucking god, it was.

  “Touch your clit for me, Elle.”

  Her eyes shot open as other hand dropped to her groin, and she widened the spread of her legs. Her head flung back again as she rubbed her clit, going at it in a fast rhythm that I matched with the hand on my cock.

  My balls pulled up tighter. I watched Elle, desperately needing her to orgasm before me. “Please...” I pleaded. “Tell me you’re close.”

  Instead of answering, her back arched off the bed, and she screamed. The muscles of her core flexed the folds of skin over her fingers, and I lost it.

  White-hot jizz shot from my cock as I groaned her name. My length spasmed and thrust into my fist as I caught the cum with my other hand. The orgasm that slammed through me was more powerful than ever before. I thought for a moment that my legs were going to collapse, leaving me in a puddle on the floor. I locked my knees as my thighs shook with the force of the pleasure rolling through me.

  A couple of minutes later, the only sound in the room was our lingering panting breaths. For myself, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to breathe normally again. I felt like I’d just run a marathon.

  I should be embarrassed that Dillon was in the living room below us and had just listened to all our porn-worthy noises, but I was too relaxed and drained to care.

  Elle was my only focus.

  I stepped into the bathroom, quickly cleaned up, and wet a washcloth for Elle.

  Her eyes were dark with slumber and satisfaction when I came back out of the bathroom. I sat on the edge of the bed and gently ran the washcloth between her legs as I kissed her lips softly.

  “That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” I whispered.

  In response, she hummed in agreement.

  I shucked my clothes and slipped into bed beside her, finally completely relaxed. She settled into my arms, and I let the worries of the day go as I slipped into sleep.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jonah

  The next morning, I awoke to the sound of my phone ringing way too early. But damn, I didn’t remember sleeping that hard in my entire life. I bolted upright and grabbed my jeans from where I’d dropped them on the floor the night before.

  Elle squinted at me from her side of the bed, looking sleep-rumpled and way-too sexy. I needed to get whoever was on the phone off quickly so I could give her a proper good morning...with my cock. I winked at her, but then glanced at the screen of my cell.

  Samantha, my boss. That did a bit to deflate my overeager dick.

  “This is Sutton,” I answered.

  “ViviAnna’s press conference will be in thirty minutes. This is your head’s up so that you can make sure Illumination is awake and watches it.”

  “So, the plan is a go?” I asked.

  “Yes. Dillon has the bulk of the information already,” she said, and the line disconnected.

  I flipped the call off. At least Dillon hadn’t ratted me out to Samantha, which would have been well within his right since his ass was on the line with this mission, too. I was going to owe him big time after this assignment.

  “Who was that?” Elle asked softly.

  I held a finger up. “Not yet. First...” I leaned over and kissed the top of her head, because no one needed to deal with my morning breath. “Good morning, beautiful.”

  Her smile glowed at me. “Hey, you.”

  She had the sheet tucked up underneath her armpits, and I wanted nothing more than to rip it off and explore her delicious body. But I had to put work first.

  “Second, as tempting as you look, we can’t stay in here. Your mom is going to do a news conference in...” I glanced at my cell phone clock. “About twenty minutes. We probably should watch it, and then I can explain everything about Hawk Works’ plans.”

  That seemed to wake Elle up quickly. “VA doing a press conference about me never seems to work in my favor,” she grumbled.

  “But this time, it isn’t just your mom calling the shots. Samantha, our boss at Hawk Works is in on this one, so have faith it will be okay.”

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Dillon, Elle, and I sat down in Elle’s living room to watch her mother’s press conference.

  Elle sat in one of the turquoise-blue, velvet club chairs and had pulled the oversized, sequined pillow into her lap as if to protect herself from what was to come. I wanted to be the one she counted on to protect her, not some little ball of fabric and stuffing. But her stiff posture and the fact she sat as far away from me as possible said “hands off.”

  While I wasn’t real fond of the idea, I understood that she might need the barrier when it came to her contentious relationship with her mother.

  Dillon and I sat on opposite ends of the sofa sectional, and we all focused on the big screen TV hanging on the wall beside the gas fireplace. An entertainment news anchor for TENews was replaying the saga of Elle’s life for the last month
. With every word the reporter said, Elle’s pallor became paler. I had to fist my hand to keep from reaching for her to comfort her.

  Then the screen cut to the news conference. ViviAnna strode to the podium looking much more subdued than normal. She’d toned down her normally fashion-conscious style to look more matronly. Her hair was styled back into a low ponytail, her makeup was more neutral, and she even had on actual pearls.

  An entourage followed her, including several of her own bodyguards, her PR manager, and my boss, Samantha.

  ViviAnna cleared her throat and placed a sheet of paper on the podium. “Thank you so much for coming here today. I’m going to make a brief statement, and then will be able to take only a few of your questions. I appreciate your patience in this. As you can imagine, it’s been a trying time for myself and my beautiful daughter, Illumination.”

  She gave them all a soft, kind smile, touched her pearls, and refocused on the paper. “As you know, I have a very public life, but I also have a very private one. Illumination, my daughter, has spent the last decade withdrawing from my public life. I’ve tried to respect that, but as you all already know, the events of the last month have thrust her into the spotlight, something that she never wanted or asked for.”

  ViviAnna wiped at the corner of her eye and her mouth actually trembled. Who said ViviAnna couldn’t act? Damn.

  “Unfortunately,” she continued, “there are those out there who try to take advantage of my innocent daughter, and I think right now she is dealing with a despicable man like that. I’ve seen the video of him manhandling her, and it makes me feel ill. If I could, I’d go to her college and rip her out of his arms right now.” The fury blazing from her eyes was a sight to behold. I knew this was all an act, but my balls still crawled inside my body. All that venom was aimed at me...at least in theory.

  “But Illumination is an adult, and like any young person trying to assert herself in her adulthood, she doesn’t want her mother butting in.” She grabbed at those pearls again for effect. “So, while I can’t protect her from making mistakes in her personal life, I can make sure she’s protected in every other aspect of her life. As a result, I have sent an agent from Hawk Works Security”—she gestured to Samantha—“to make sure no one.” She took a deep breath and met the main camera with her nostrils flaring. “And I mean no one hurts my baby. You hurt my little girl, and I’m coming after you with a rusty, dull knife, and you’ll regret the day your balls ever fell.”

  A few of the reporters chuckled nervously while a few others whooped and clapped. ViviAnna just gave them all a mild, meek smile laced with ice that froze my balls in place.

  “Damn,” Dillon muttered. “Who knew your mom could be so scary? Just...” He shook his head. “Damn.”

  “Yeah, that’s good old mom,” Elle said with a grimace. “Only VA could go on national television, threaten to neuter her daughter’s boyfriend in the most gruesome way possible, and be applauded for it. She has a special skill.” Elle mimicked her mother’s, wiping at a non-existent tear from the corner of her eye. “It makes me so proud.”

  Dillon turned his stricken gaze to me and whispered, “You are fucked.”

  I already knew this. He didn’t have to keep telling me. In fact, I would like it a whole hell of a lot more if he’d stop saying it. Period.

  ViviAnna cleared her throat. “My only wish as a mother is to take care of my little girl in the very best way I possibly can. This is the only solution that Illumination and I could agree on. If I can’t be with her to watch over her or convince her to come to the safety of home, then this is the next best alternative. Please, I’m begging of you...please don’t make this already difficult time harder than it has to be. Please leave Illumination in peace. She has protection, and now, she just wants to move on with her life. Thank you.”

  ViviAnna bowed her head as if she was finally at peace, but then the reporters started yelling the rapid-fire questions at her.

  “ViviAnna, we’ve heard reports that Illumination was taken to the emergency room with bruises and broken bones received from her boyfriend. Do you know anything about that?”

  There went that pearl-clutching again. “Of course not. No. That has to be a fabrication.”

  “ViviAnna, what are the police saying about the latest letter from Illumination’s alleged kidnapper to TENews? Do they think it’s all a farce, too?”

  ViviAnna shook her head. “The police aren’t very forthcoming with what’s happening with the investigation, but I find it extremely distasteful that TENews chose to give that common criminal a voice to his insanity. They should be held accountable for their actions as much as he will be held accountable for his. While we all love a little titillation, it’s something else entirely to endanger someone’s life like that.”

  Her PR manager whispered into ViviAnna’s ear and she nodded. “I’m told we have time for one more question.”

  “ViviAnna, I’m not sure if you’ve heard the latest on Illumination’s boyfriend, Jonah Sutton.”

  ViviAnna looked confused.

  A slow, frigid ice slid down my spine. What could they think they had on me? My record had been wiped clean when I began working for Hawk Works. According to the bio they’d created, I’d been in the army for four years...truth, although they’d wiped the record of my working intel in special ops. The last four years had been fabricated with a lie about me being in college, transferring to NM Tech to help Elle with her problems. There shouldn’t be any skeletons to dig up.

  “TENews followed up on an anonymous tip about Jonah Sutton’s mother.”

  I frowned at the screen, dread pooling in my chest. My mother’s life was off-limits. She’d had a hard time, and that had come to a head when the army extended my deployment from twelve months to sixteen months, but that was no one else’s business. My mother had raised me single-handedly after my father and her family abandoned her when she got pregnant. She’d had a hard life and had loved me as best as she could.

  The reporter glanced down at a notepad. “From what being reported, a Ms. Mariana Sutton was listed as Jonah Sutton’s mother. Four years ago, she killed herself. Does it make you more concerned to know that your daughter’s boyfriend may have undiagnosed mental problems in his family?”

  Blood roared in my ears. I couldn’t hear anything else.

  My mom had had her issues, but she’d loved me unconditionally. My birth had caused her to lose everything. Her boyfriend—my father—abandoned her. Her parents had disowned her and had kicked her out when she’d refused to abort me. But despite all that, she had loved me through and through. We never had much, and life had always been a struggle for her to provide for me, but she’d done that.

  That’s why I’d joined the army at seventeen, to help support her like she’d always done me. But in the end, my absences grew too long, and her depression lasted longer and longer. That final deployment, I hadn’t known how bad it had gotten since I was at a forward operating base with little to no way to communicate with home. When I’d received the Red Cross notification of her death, the reality of what she’d been going through at home had hit me.

  Oh, fuck.

  Bile crawled up my throat. For them to drag my beautiful, precious mother into this made me feel ill. My mother had been the best woman. She deserved so much better than this.

  I had no idea what happened during the rest of the press conference, because the next thing I knew, Elle knelt in front of me, staring at me worriedly.

  “Um...” I frowned, knowing I’d missed something. “I’m sorry. What?”

  Her hands wove within mine, and I clutched them, feeling like that was the only thing keeping me grounded right now.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Um, yeah.” I glanced around the living room. Dillon had disappeared. The TV was turned off. Shit. I must have really zoned out there. I tried to center my mind on work. I needed to do something. Explain the plan entirely to Elle and Dillon. “Where’d Dillon go?”
/>
  She glanced toward the front door. “He went to the security offices to take a phone call from your boss.”

  I chuckled out a hollow sounding laugh. “Yeah, they all have to be really scrambling now about how to fix the clusterfuck that reporter just dropped about my mom and my supposed psychosis.” I ran a hand over my face.

  She cupped my cheek. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I shot out of the chair startling Elle with the suddenness of the movement. “No. Fuck. No. My mom is dead. They had no right to bring her into this.”

  “Is your dad still alive?” she asked.

  My laugh sounded hollow. “Hell, if I know. I never even knew his name. He abandoned her as soon as she got pregnant.”

  “Oh, Jonah. I’m so sorry. My parents aren’t exactly going to win ‘parents of the year,’ but I can’t imagine not having either one of them in my life. I probably should be ashamed at just how many times I’ve wished for exactly that.”

  I stopped my pacing and suddenly turned to her. How could I have missed this one, glaring omission from her file? “Who is your father?”

  She grinned. “Even distracted, nothing gets by you, does it?”

  I rubbed over my face. “Geez, I hope not or else I need to be replaced right the fuck now. I should have realized before now that I didn’t know that. Could he or someone associated with him have anything to do with your kidnapping?”

  She shook her head at me. “Definitely not. I was the result of a one-night stand between ViviAnna and Hayes Wilcox.”

  My eyes widened. “Hayes Wilcox, the investment guy?” Oh, holy hell. He was on countless magazine covers like Forbes where he constantly spewed facts and numbers about the US economy that kept investors salivating for more. They said everything he touched turned to gold, and I was looking at his best creation before me right now.