Known Threat

by Kara A. McLeod

  We stood quietly, holding one another for a while. Allison started tracing absent patterns on the wet skin of my back that made me shiver. I squeezed my thighs together to subtly relieve the ache building there.

  “So, um…Do you want to tell me what’s going on with you and your boss?” I asked, barely managing to bite back a low moan when Allison’s hands skirted down over my ass. I was trying to stay on topic, and she was making that extremely difficult.

  “No,” Allison murmured, shaking her head. Her eyes dropped to zero in on my lips, and I gasped at the stab of arousal that pierced me.

  “You…promised.” I faltered as Allison slid her hand up my side and brushed it across the outer swell of my breast, barely glancing off one already-stiff nipple with her thumb. The contact was enough to make me scream for more. But, stubborn as I was, I refused to give in to my desires. “You said you’d tell me what happened with you two. You’ve been stalling for weeks.”

  “I know,” Allison replied, her lips gliding over my jaw as she spoke. “And I intend to keep that promise. Just not right this second.”

  As she finished, she closed her lips over mine in a slow, languid kiss. I lost track of…well, just about everything as I allowed myself to become lost in the sensation. She kissed me deliberately, her pace unhurried, as though we weren’t standing in a shower stall in the locker room of the training center, and we had all the time in the world.

  I slid my hands into her silky black hair and twined it around my fingers as I pulled her even closer. I felt her smile against my lips, and I matched the gesture with a tiny grin of my own. Without breaking contact, I pushed off the wall and walked us a step or two so we were fully immersed in the spray.

  I sketched light, random patterns across her slick skin, enjoying both the feel of her beneath my fingers as well as the tiny gasps and moans she made under my touch. Allison tipped her head back, and I set to work licking the droplets of water off the delectable flesh of her neck.

  Allison fisted my hair and clutched me tighter to her. I wrapped my arms around her waist. As I palmed one perfect ass cheek, Allison gasped and rolled her hips into me. I bit down lightly on the tendon in her neck and inserted my thigh between both of hers, bracing the ball of my foot against the tiled wall for leverage. When she undulated her hips again, I pulled her even closer, gasping a little under my breath at the feeling of her warmth against my leg.

  “Oh, my God, Ryan.” Allison’s voice was a low, throaty moan that did wicked things to my already aching sex.

  Allison used the hand she’d threaded through my hair to guide my head down to a pebbled nipple and used the other to press my fingers to the apex between her thighs. It was my turn to moan as I felt just how ready she was.

  I took her nipple into my mouth and sucked on it gently as I slowly toyed with her slick folds. Allison hissed and tried to angle her hips so I was touching her where she wanted me to. I smiled against her breast and moved my hand away. Not enough to completely deprive her of my touch, but enough so she got the message that we were going to do this according to my whims, not hers.

  Allison groaned and dropped her head so her lips were pressed into the crown of my head, but she stilled her hips and waited. I moved my mouth over to her other nipple. As a reward for her compliance, I stroked her more firmly and ran the middle finger of my other hand lightly down the crack of her ass.

  Allison’s hips bucked, and she turned her head and rested the hollow of her cheek against my hair. When I repeated my motions, she squeezed me tighter and let out a whimper.

  “You’re driving me insane,” she whispered.

  “Mmm. Good,” I mumbled around the mouthful of flesh I was busy enjoying. I bit down hard enough to make her gasp and then soothed the ache with a gentle caress of my tongue.

  “Christ, I’ve missed you.”

  I dipped the tips of two of my fingers into her opening, awed by the moisture collecting there. I took my time spreading it over her swollen lips. “I can see that.”

  Her grip in my hair tightened until it was painful. “Stop teasing me.”

  I chuckled lightly. “Never.”

  I slowly slid my fingers inside her, reveling in her groan. I ran my free hand down the back of her leg until I’d almost reached her knee pit, at which time I tugged. Allison immediately obeyed my unspoken request and hitched that leg up so it was wrapped around my waist. The new position provided the perfect angle for me to grind the heel of my hand against her as I thrust in and out.

  “Mmm, yes,” Allison mumbled into my hair. I could feel her rolling her head from side to side. “Oh, God. Just like that.”

  The loud bang of the locker-room door being thrown open interrupted our carnal activities, and Allison and I both froze. Our heads shot up, and we stared at one another. Had the new arrival heard anything incriminating? I couldn’t tell. All I caught were the faint rustling sounds of someone rifling through their belongings, underscored by a low, almost absent whistling.

  The thwap-thwap-thwap of flip-flops steadily became louder as they got closer and then softer again once they’d passed by. After another moment, I heard the sound of a shower-stall door being opened and water turning on. Then the door closed, and the soft whistling resumed.

  Allison and I stared at one another for what felt like an epoch. “What now?” she mouthed silently.

  I shrugged, not considering the consequences of the action before I performed it. The motion jostled the hand I still had buried knuckle-deep inside her, causing her to gasp. I grinned as a thought occurred to me.

  “No,” Allison growled as loudly as she dared.

  In response, I wiggled my fingers and used the pad of my thumb to make light circles around her clit. Allison’s eyes fluttered, and she bit down on her lower lip.

  “We can’t,” she murmured in my ear, but her tone wasn’t convincing.

  I smiled as I noted the flood of moisture that coated my hand as well as the way her inner walls were starting to clench around my fingers. I drew my fingers out and pushed them back inside her, making sure to drive the palm of my hand against her as I did.

  “Oh.”

  I pressed my lips to hers for a long moment, enjoying the sensation of kissing her just as much now as I had the very first time I’d done it. When we finally parted for air, I nuzzled her chin and made my way slowly over to her ear.

  “Want me to stop?” I punctuated the question by rolling one of her nipples between the finger and thumb of my free hand.

  “I will literally kill you if you do.”

  “Be very, very quiet,” I whispered, emphasizing the command by taking her earlobe between my teeth and biting down on it gently.

  Allison nodded and buried her face into the crook of my neck. She latched onto the sensitive skin there, presumably in an attempt to muffle her groans. Her leg tightened around my hip as her hands dug into my back.

  I wrapped my free arm around her waist and clutched her to me, as much in an effort to still her hips as to forge a physical connection. I enjoyed nothing in the whole world as much as I enjoyed holding her. Except maybe causing her to come undone with my fingers. Or my mouth. Or possibly—

  Allison’s teeth sank hard into the juncture where my shoulder met my neck and pulled me out of my musings and back on task. Her breathing had become shallow and ragged, and those uneven puffs against my skin were making me dizzy. Her hips were bucking frantically now, and occasional grunts escaped her lips as she drove herself closer and closer to release on my hand.

  I smiled into the flesh of her upper chest and continued to match her motions thrust for thrust. She was on the edge of losing it, I could tell. Her fingers dug into the flesh of my back hard enough to bruise, and the muscles in her body became rigid. The one leg I was using to support her weight trembled, so I sought purchase against the shower wall with the heel of the other.

  I slid the hand not buried inside her up her back and tangled my fingers in her hair. I made a fist and pulled, fo
rcing her to release the skin of my neck with a loud pop. I winced at the slight ache I felt there and made a mental note to talk to her later about her propensity toward marking me.

  I tilted her head back so I could meet her eyes. The passion I saw swirling in those inky depths left me breathless. Having caught her attention, I released my hold on her hair and cupped her cheek in my palm, caressing the soaked flesh of the hollow there.

  Allison’s inner walls were fluttering now, and her hips were slamming into my hand. I decided to forsake my hold on her cheek in favor of wrapping my other hand around her hips. I had a feeling she would need the extra support very soon.

  Allison’s lower lip started trembling, and her eyes glazed over right before they shuttered closed. A low groan bubbled up in the back of her throat as she chased her orgasm, and I surged forward, pressing my lips to hers to swallow the sound.

  Her pleasure seemed to go on forever, yet it wasn’t nearly long enough. All too soon, her hips stilled and her breathing slowed, until eventually she sagged against me.

  I continued to kiss her for a long moment as she set her leg back down and slid her hands up to rest against the sides of my neck. She broke the kiss to press her lips lightly to my nose, my cheeks, my eyes before pulling me in for a long hug. I felt more than heard her sigh and closed my eyes.

  “I love you so much,” she whispered softly into my ear.

  “That’s only because I give you the best orgasms you’ve ever had,” I whispered back, trying not to laugh.

  Allison pinched my ass hard, and I yelped. She slapped her hand over my mouth and glared at me. The water in the other shower stall turned off, and a long, drawn-out silence followed. I was afraid to even breathe. We stayed huddled, intertwined with one another like that until whoever had just finished washing off had wandered past us and back toward the front of the locker room.

  Allison shot me a warning look and slowly removed her hand from my mouth.

  “Love you, too,” I mouthed, grinning like an idiot.

  She smiled brightly and rewarded me with a soft kiss. Her countenance turned thoughtful, and she tilted her head as the faint sounds of a locker being opened and someone rustling around drifted to my ears. A mischievous gleam shone in her eyes.

  I gulped, simultaneously titillated and wary. “What?”

  “Looks like we still have some time to kill until we can get out of here without being seen.” She slid her hand purposefully down my chest as she pinned me with a meaningful stare.

  I swallowed hard again and bit my lower lips as her hands slipped between my legs. “If we must, we must,” I said with great difficulty.

  “Oh, we must.”

  Chapter Seven

  The last thing I wanted to do with my remaining time in DC was sit in a doctor’s office taking round after round of intense psychological tests. If a person hadn’t been disturbed before, they sure would be after having to slog through all that. It was like high school all over again with all the dots I had to fill in. After about forty-five minutes, I wanted to poke my eyes out with one of my number-two pencils.

  Of course, after I’d finished taking the tests, I had to wait until they’d been scored and the doctor had a chance to go over them before this tableau could proceed. It gave me plenty of time to reflect on how wrong I’d been earlier, that this was the last thing I wanted to do with my remaining time in DC. At least Allison was working while I was stuck here, so it wasn’t like I was really missing anything on that score. I wouldn’t have been able to see her anyway. Small consolation, but it was better than nothing.

  “So, Ryan,” the doctor said as, a very long while later, he entered the room I’d been holed up in, perusing the contents of the folder in his hands. Based on the context, I assumed it was my file. He never once lifted his eyes from the page he was reading, not even when he moved to sit, and for some reason, that absorption grated on my nerves.

  “Yes.” I bounced my feet a little. This interview was mandatory if I wanted to go back to work and get on with my life, but I really didn’t want to be there.

  “It says here you were shot.” The doctor spoke again, still keeping his face buried in my file.

  Is he kidding me? I mentally snorted even though I shouldn’t have been surprised. Not with the nonchalance that’d been the agency’s response to the entire incident. “Yes.”

  Something about my tone—or perhaps lack thereof—made him pause. He finally settled his attention on me and took his time studying me. “I see.”

  The urge to fire back with a snarky retort bubbled up inside me, but I managed to tamp it down, reminding myself that the ultimate goal here was to tell this man whatever he wanted to hear in order for him to feel comfortable clearing me for full duty. I bested the compulsion to fold my arms across my chest, too, knowing the posture would be seen as defensive. I watched him warily.

  “Normally I’d ask how you feel about that, but I imagine the answer would be ‘not good,’ so we’ll skip that line of questioning for the time being.”

  “Much obliged.”

  The corners of the doctors mouth lifted in a small smile, but he didn’t comment. Instead, he refocused on the file in his hands. “It also says here that your doctors feel you’re ready to go back to full duty.” He paused and glanced at me from underneath his eyebrows. “Physically.”

  “Yes.” I hesitated, unsure how much to expose. “I’d like to go back to work.”

  The doctor took his time closing the folder and placing it on the edge of his desk. His left hand rested on top of it, and he toyed with a ballpoint pen. “You haven’t really been out of work, though, have you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been reporting to the office. You’ve been doing casework.”

  “Only what was absolutely necessary. And it was just paperwork stuff.” How the hell did he know that? I opened my mouth to ask but decided that’d seem too much like I was ashamed of those actions. I wasn’t, and I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.

  “How often?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “How often did you report to the office?”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking me.” That wasn’t strictly true. I was just trying to gauge his feelings on whatever my answer was likely to be.

  “Was it every day? Every other day? Once a week? How much time did you actually take off to recover?”

  I averted my eyes, uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation. My idea of appropriate recovery time and his were most likely two completely different things. And unfortunately for me, in this scenario, his carried far more weight.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said.

  I met his gaze again, determined not to be intimidated or shamed into feeling guilty. I’d done what I’d had to in order to cope with the situation as best I could. And no amount of forced embarrassment would undo that, so why bother?

  He appraised me for a time. “How have you been sleeping?”

  I tried not to cringe but was afraid I didn’t manage it very well. “Okay.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He sat back in his chair and allowed it to tilt a little bit. He clicked the pen a couple of times as he watched me. “You know, I’ve been doing this for quite a long time.”

  I cleared my throat, attempting to ignore the feeling of unease building inside me, but said nothing.

  “Long enough to tell when someone is lying to me.”

  “I’m not lying. I am sleeping okay. Not great, but okay.” I paused, considering whether to say what was probably the key word. “Now.”

  “So, you admit you had some trouble sleeping before.”

  I sagged, defeated, and broke eye contact. “Yes. I did. For a while.”

  “And now?”

  “It’s better. For the most part.”

  “Did you dream?” The doctor sat back up, clicked his pen back open, and poised it over the paper.

  I felt an un
welcome twinge inside my chest and swallowed hard. I didn’t want to talk about this. But it appeared we were going to. “I did.”

  “Often?”

  “More often than I wanted to, yes.” That didn’t even begin to paint an accurate picture of what’d happened every single time I’d closed my eyes, but it wasn’t exactly a lie, either. Briefly, I wondered whether I should put aside my natural instinct to play the semantics game and just lay all my cards on the table. This might go faster if I did. Of course, it might get me benched for an indeterminate amount of time, as well.

  “Do you still?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What do you dream about?”

  “Different things.”

  “The incident?”

  “I really wish people would stop calling it that.” My response was immediate, my tone sharp.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I think that moniker minimizes the entire experience, don’t you?”

  “I’m much more interested to hear what you think.”

  “And I just told you.”

  The doctor paused and allowed the metaphorical dust to settle before trying again. “Do you think headquarters is deliberately trying to minimize it?”

  “I don’t know what they’re trying to do. I only know that they haven’t formally acknowledged it.”

  “And you want them to.”

  “It’d be nice.”

  “What part would you like them to acknowledge, exactly?”

  “All of it. Any of it.” I knew what the doctor was trying to do with this line of questioning, but that didn’t make me any less frustrated.

  “And how would you like them to express this acknowledgment?”

  “I don’t know! I just think someone should say something about the fact that Lucia died, and one of our agents was responsible for it.”

  The doctor brought his hands together, and the fingers of his right played with the wedding band adorning his left. I was curious whether that was a conscious or unconscious action.

  “I find it interesting that you want them to acknowledge that part,” he said after a long moment. “Not your getting shot but hers.”