by Angel Payne
Zoe forced a cordial nod to the man. Hypocritical cabrón. He liked the idea of reaping the financial benefits from selling Shay’s sperm but not the mess required for it. It was frightening to contemplate the man and his ego ever leading men into real battle.
Stock followed in Newport’s steps, leaving Homer behind with Zoe and Buffy, as well as the nurse who monitored Shay’s vitals in masked silence. Zoe eyed him expectantly but Buffy sidled up to him with a seductive sashay, pulling suggestively at both his elbows. “Homie,” she said in a whine to rival a four year-old, “can’t you stay?”
Zoe pretended to scribble data on her clipboard. Between fighting the need to throw herself around Shay this second and the craving to knock Buffy out before she got anywhere near the bed, keeping her composure was a big enough win on its own. She didn’t need to go for the bonus round with “Homie’s” continued presence.
“I’m flattered, darling,” Homer crooned, “I truly am, but it’s not a good idea.”
Thank God.
“But why?
Maybe that client Buffikins had left behind had been into Daddy/daughter play.
“I’m not Shane’s favorite person in the building. It’s probably best for everyone concerned if I wait with the other men. Besides, I think Newport brought a bottle of his good brandy.”
“Mmmm. I love brandy.” She pouted at him. “Save some for me?”
“Uh-uh-uh.” He gave her nose a chiding tap. “None for you…Mommy.”
Her dagger. The man’s neck. It swirled into a better dream by the minute.
As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, Buffy turned and beamed a bright grin at Zoe. “So…whaddup, H?” She wiggled her shoulders rap girl style but the last thing Zoe wanted was some lame white girl humor. More awkwardly now, Buffy murmured, “You’re supposed to give me the all-systems-go, right? I mean, Homie told me that they’re going to make him a little more…lively.” She glanced toward Shay. “I mean, the chains are fine. I can be a kink bunny as much as the next girl. But I’m not into necrophilia, you know?”
“Sure.” She pushed it out by sheer force of will. With her remaining strength, she pushed down the ocean of nausea in her stomach.
Dios. She really wasn’t any smarter than Buffy, was she? Just like the moment she’d first entered the room, she thought she was ready for this moment. Had drilled over the op plan a thousand times with Caspar, thinking that would anesthetize her to everything when it really went down—but like her students at the university, she’d gone through the motions as a lame simulation of the truth.
And now, with timing that sucked ass, Shay let out a long and painful moan.
“Hmmm.” Buffy’s eyes sparkled like she smelled fresh cookies. “Now that sounds promising.”
“Sure.” She was getting pretty good at this lying-through-her-teeth shit. Swallowing back another surge of bile, she followed Buffy to the bed.
Shay jerked weakly at his wrist chains, grimacing when they didn’t give. He rolled his head from side to side on the pillow. As sweat broke out on his neck, Zoe had to clench the back of a chair to keep from grabbing a washcloth off his tray and soothing him. Homer had been specific in his instructions to “Helena.” After the men departed the room, Buffy was the only person in the room who touched Shay.
It was a good thing that Buffy at least knew her way around a man.
Or maybe not such a good thing.
Part of Zoe’s heart exhaled with relief when the woman automatically reached for the washcloth. The other part railed with the wrath of Hera at watching Buffy stroke Shay with it, slowly and carefully, murmuring words of comfort to him as she did.
Both sides froze into silence when he dipped his head toward her hand, his lips parting on a wordless entreaty for more.
“That’s it,” Buffy whispered. “That’s good. You’re okay, tiger.”
Zoe whirled, pretending to write on her notepad again. Her scream of anguish began in the pit of her gut, roared its way up her throat, and was barely kept in by her clenching teeth. Nobody in the room heard it.
But Caspar, embedded in her filling, sure did. “Zoe,” he barked over the comm, “you need to keep it together, girl.”
“We’ll handle it.” The new voice on the comm delivered a double punch. First, it was another female, albeit with a rasp coming in somewhere between Courtney Love and Kirstie Alley. Second, and most weirdly, Zoe heard her words in stereo. “Won’t we, darlings?”
Zoe breathed to school her features while she slammed her gaze over to the masked nurse in the corner. One of the eyes above that mask, glistening with dark amber wickedness, winked at her.
Tait.
For once, she was grateful as hell for the man’s intrepid side.
“Everything’s just fine.” Buffy said it, thinking the “nurse” had spoken to her. She re-wet the washcloth and started wiping down Shay’s chest. “We’re going to take this in easy steps, baby.”
“Slower is better, I’d say.” Tait flashed a stare that was filled with apology but told her he had the bigger picture in mind.
Even though Zoe didn’t know how much bigger she could stand it.
Before Buffy even tugged the sheet away, she knew what the woman would find. Shay’s erection was a mouth-watering sight even at half-strength. As the woman hummed her approval and began to circle the firm bulb at the head of his cock, she screamed at Shay with her eyes. How far do we let this go?
It wasn’t a fair question. She already knew the answer, anyway. They couldn’t unshackle Shay and expect him to stumble anywhere now, let alone walk.
“On the other hand, I don’t know if our boy is on-board with that thinking,” Buffy commented. “Whoa, tiger. You really want to roar, don’t you?”
“Mmmm. Fuck…yeah.”
Dios. No.
As the words tumbled out of Shay’s mouth, Zoe’s heart really did beg her for a bungee jump out of her chest. She couldn’t do this anymore. No matter what kind of platitudes her mind threw at her, that he had no idea what he was saying—that he barely knew where he was let alone to whom he spoke—they were meaningless against the pain of watching him struggle anew against his bonds, battling to reach for Buffy…as his sex lurched higher beneath her fingers.
“That’s it,” the woman murmured, letting her hand slide over his whole stalk. “You’re doing great. God, you’re magnificent.”
“Mang—mal--magificant,” Shay babbled back. “No. Not me. You. Bew-ba-ful. You.”
Zoe glared at Tait. I can’t do this.
“Hmmm,” he murmured, seeming to direct every word at Buffy. “Just a few more minutes, I think.”
Buffy shot back a questioning stare. “Are you sure? I mean, look at him.”
“No.” Shay’s voice was clearer this time. The lunges of his head against the pillow were sharper and stronger. His eyes started to twitch. “Just wanna look at you—”
“That’s it.” Zoe slammed the clipboard into the chair.
“Zoe.”
She already had her gaze locked with Tait’s. His eyes detonated with elated astonishment—the same stuff coursing through every inch of her soul.
“Zoe.” It erupted from Shay in damn near a shout this time. “Don’t—go. Need—you. Zoe. Zoe.”
Buffy stretched out beside him, continuing to work her hand over him. “Sure, baby. Call me Zoe, if that’s what you want. I’m going to take such good care of you and your cock…”
The words were just as soothing as everything else the woman had said but Shay reacted like she’d just told him she was a succubus. “No. Not right. This—this isn’t right.”
“Of course it is, Shay. It’s so good. So right.”
“Wh-where’s Zoe?”
Zoe pinged her stare around the whole room. Tait joined her, clearly on board with the same task. There was a good chance, despite her presence there as Helena, that Newport, Stock, and Homer were also observing the party from the next room. But where would such a camera be?
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Once Tait stood close enough to her, he relayed, “Yo, Cary Grant.” It was their pet name for Caspar. “I-Man’s rising from the fog a lot faster than I expected. Little B and I are hunting for the room cam now.”
“Little B?” Zoe queried. “But—”
“You’re the new Little B now,” he explained. “Come on, it’s just a matter of time—if we can get all our asses out of here in one complete piece.”
“Save the wedding invitations for later,” Caspar yelled, “and find the damn camera.”
“Check. Hey, Double-O, you still with us?”
“Wouldn’t miss the fun for the world,” Rhett answered.
“You still want to try your hand at jamming these doors?” Tait charged.
“Is Scarlett Johansson the key to world peace?”
“God help me,” Caspar mumbled.
“Every lock in that building should be tighter than a virgin in five—four—three—”
Rhett’s countdown was drowned by the sound of cracking wood. Zoe joined Tait in whipping their sights back around in time to see Shay break both his wrist shackles free from the top of the bed. Coming along for the ride was the mounting plate for the restraints—and the monitoring camera embedded into it. Both were ruined.
“Uhhh—found the cam,” Tait announced. “And disabled it, too.”
“Where the hell is Zoe?” Shay roared.
Buffy, who had to be either the bravest or most clueless woman she’d ever met, continued her seduction with a sultry game face. “Sssshhh, baby. It’s going to be okay, I promise.” Estimation option number three: maybe she really was that desperate for fifty-thousand dollars. Undoubtedly, her payout depended on producing a healthy baby. But was it worth getting swung at with a splintered headboard and a couple of heavy chains?
“Zoe. Goddamnit, I need Zoe!”
“Okay, tiger. I’m Zoe, okay? Now let me show you what else I can be…”
Zoe smacked a hand atop the woman’s thigh just as Buffy untied her string panties, preparing to straddle Shay’s erection. “Oh, honey. Quit while you’re ahead. And alive.”
Buffy flashed her the pert cheerleader grin again. “Oh, it’s okay, doll. Thanks for your concern but I’m used to some rough stuff.”
“Oh, it’s not him you have to worry about, doll.” She flickered her own version of the bimbo smirk while stabbing her fingernails into Buffy’s skin. “I’ll break it down into simpler terms. You will not fuck my man tonight. You will not fuck him in the light. You will not fuck him on the bed. You will not fuck him on a sled. You will not—”
“She gets the point,” Tait interceded. From his rolling medical cart, he yanked out parts of a rifle and began screwing them together.
“Yeah. I get the point.” Buffy held up her hands and backed off the bed. After grabbing her shoes, she bolted from the room.
“On a sled?” Tait sneered.
“I’m under stress,” she snapped.
“If you don’t get the hell out of there in five minutes, you’ll also be under siege,” Caspar barked.
“Roger that,” Rhett confirmed. “We’ve got a couple of hawks on the roof now, T-Bomb, and so far, those bozos think the threat has originated from there. Hostiles are racing for the higher ground like sheep to the cliffs. We’ve already confirmed Adler’s flight from the building, too. Someone in that place unjammed my door jam.”
“What about Newport and Stock?” Tait asked.
“No sign of them,” Rhett conveyed.
“Good. That’s really fucking good.”
“There’s no time for cowboy games, T. We’ll be able to keep up the ruse on the roof for only a few more minutes. You need to get I-Man up and moving now.”
Tait looked over his brother while using an attachment on his utility knife to jimmy the locks free on all the shackles. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about the ‘up’ part.”
“I do not want to hear about it,” Rhett retorted.
“Me, neither,” Caspar growled. “Zoe, can you still hear me?”
“Yeah.” It was the first thing she said since getting her hands on Shay again, and it was a natural wobble of emotion. “Yeah,” she repeated, as much to the man beneath her touch as the agent in her tooth. “I’m here. I’m here.”
“This is coming down to you, girl.” Caspar sounded like God once more. “You’re clearly the only one he’ll listen to. Talk to him. You can do this.”
She nodded, struggling to keep her tears at bay. Right now, she felt like she could scale Everest if asked—except that holding Shay in her arms again felt like arriving at the summit already.
“Shay,” she whispered. Then a little more forcefully, “Shay. Baby. You need to wake up, okay?”
His face flopped against her chest. “Zoe. Please. I—I need Zoe.”
“I’m here, my love. Right here. Open your eyes.” She kissed his forehead. “Good. You did it once. Try it again.”
“Zoe.” He kept his gaze open but it was a bleary, straw-colored mess as he grabbed her sweater. “Can you get her for me? I miss her so much.”
“Mierda.” Her voice splintered. She fought the total breakdown by sucking in another tight breath. “Oh, God. I am Zoe. Don’t you know me?”
“She says that a lot. Mierda. She’s so fucking cute when she spits it out. Then sometimes, she bites her lip after it, and I just want to kiss her…”
It was good inspiration. In desperation, Zoe went with it, grabbing his face and kissing him hard. When she finished, she kept her head bent over him, running soft fingers down the side of his beautiful face and letting him feel the rain of her tears. “Look at me, Shay. Look at me and know me…please. I’m here and I love you so much.”
He let out a weary sough. “I love her so much. I didn’t tell her, and now I’m afraid she’ll never know.”
“Oh, Shay.” She cried harder. Prayed that the love in every drop of her tears would baptize his memory and bring him back to her. “I know. I do know.”
“Zoe. I need Zoe.”
“She’s right here. I’m right here. Open your eyes. See me.”
“Zoe.”
“I’m here. Your baby girl. Your tiny dancer. The heart you’ve taken hostage…forever.”
As she rasped the words against his lips, she felt his breath hitch. Then his whole body seize. Hers did the same, raw dread jolting through her.
What the hell was happening to him? Was it a bad reaction to coming off the drugs? Was he going to try throwing her away like he did Buffy?
If that was the case, she was too late to stop him. He shifted his hand to her arm and wrapped a grip around her like a steel claw.
But he didn’t hurl her away.
He jerked her closer.
Zoe stared down, nervously scanning his face again.
Her heart didn’t stop again. But it sure as hell skipped a lot of beats.
His lips stared inching into the grin that could stop traffic. The corners of his mouth and eyes crinkled. And his eyes…held all the hues of the desert sky.
Only this time, they were the colors of the dawn.
“Zoe.”
It wasn’t his question any longer. Or his plea.
It was his certainty.
“Shay.”
It was her certainty, too.
Chapter Twenty-Three
One layover, a few adventures, and a lot of love later…
Zoe Margarita Madonna Chestain
and
Sergeant Major Shay Bommer
request your presence at our wedding vows…and a second celebration, too
Saturday, October 1 – 3:00 pm
Spring Mountain Ranch
Blue Diamond, Nevada
Barbecue, Bar, Riding and Roping immediately following the boring stuff
In lieu of gifts, please make donations to
The Melody Bommer Institute for Progressive Gene Research
But if you insist—registries can be found at Babies Plus, Infant-A-Go-Go, and Babies
In Arms
RSVP to Zoe’s cell: 702-555-7429
Please leave a message; she’ll return the call…when she’s not tied up.
# # #
Ready for more W.I.L.D. Boys?
Here’s a glimpse of what’s waiting in
A W.I.L.D.ER KIND OF LOVE
A W.I.L.D. Boys of Special Forces Novella
Coming in January 2015
It was going to be a breathtaking fall sunset in Red Rock Canyon. The birds still sang in a cloudless sky. Awakened by recent rains, the wind was still redolent with desert lilies, poppies, agave, and cholla blossoms. The air was cool but not cold yet. On a ranch in the valley below, a band played Can’t Help Falling In Love With You for the crowd at a joyous wedding reception. Appropriate, given that the lights of the Las Vegas strip just started to glitter in the distance.
“Good night to be alive. But an even better one to be dead, I reckon.”
Daniel Colton glanced over at the source of the comment. His buddy, Special Ops Master Sergeant Tait Bommer, added a cheerful whistle to it while sharpening a wicked battle knife. The last rays of the day’s sun glinted off the steel as Bommer checked the blade, which flashed the dying rays of the sun into the eyes of the man who was bound and gagged in the dirt at their feet.
Dan grunted. “Wouldn’t know the difference between the two anymore.”
Tait nodded. Though he added a frown of sympathy, he kept the expression to himself. Dan didn’t need the guy’s goddamn empathy, pity, attempt at understanding, or whatever the fuck they wanted to call all of it. His face was a freak show, end of discussion. He didn’t want to “process” anything further than that. Didn’t want to re-hash the mission in which he’d “selflessly saved a woman’s life” in a fire that should’ve killed her and him. Didn’t want to talk about the months of burn therapy that made him wish he really had died, anyway—or the face that caused most people to think he was.
It was best to simply keep putting one foot in front of the other.