by Hype, Jenn
His smug grin when he finally looked up confirmed that he knew exactly what he was doing.
Cheeky bastard.
Then his mouth was on me. When I screamed out, he latched on harder. He wasn't taking his time, savoring me. No, he was ravaging me. Stealing every breath from my lungs, ruining me for all other men. Every lash of his tongue branded me. Every stroke against my clit claimed me. Every finger digging into my flesh as he feasted on me marked me as his.
And when I cried out his name, my body shuddering, thighs clenching around his head, I knew I was changed forever. My legs were weak, but he held strong as I rode out my orgasm. He never eased up, not until the last shudder rocked through me.
When he sat back on his heels, my legs gave out completely, but I didn't hit the ground. Grant was there, holding me up. I registered briefly that he was naked. Not sure when that happened. He must be one hell of a multitasker.
"Now. Can't wait," he muttered as he gripped my ass and lifted me up. My legs instinctively wrapped around his waist, locking at the ankles. I could feel the tip of his dick at my entrance, and realized what he was asking me without words. "I trust you. Do you trust me?"
I couldn't respond. My voice was caught in my throat from the sudden onslaught of emotions. He reached out with one hand, still gripping me with the other, and slid the baggy t-shirt up and over my head. Goosebumps spread across my skin under his intense gaze.
Then he leaned in, taking my lower lip between his teeth, connected our bare chests for the first time. I gasped and heard him suck in a sharp breath before covering my mouth with his. It was nothing like moments ago, where his mouth lapped at me vigorously.
Now his mouth moved languidly, exploring.
"I trust you." The words were barely out of my mouth when he thrust his hips, filling me completely. "I need to touch you. Can I touch you?"
He nodded, pulling all the way out of me before thrusting back in slowly. My hands wrapped around his neck, gently pulling his face back towards mine. He took the hint, closing the distance.
His tongue moved in time with his hips. The restraint couldn't have been easy, but he never picked up the pace. My back arched when he hit the spot deep inside of me that few men ever had before. The slow build of another orgasm trickled through me, starting at my toes and snaking up my legs and pooling low in my stomach. He moaned my name when the first wave hit me, my core tightening around him.
Though I was still pressed up against the wall, nothing about our tangled limbs was casual. I'd expected a quick, rough fuck. Not for Grant to be looking directly into my eyes, his hand half tangled in my hair, half cupping my cheek while we came together. And when my name rolled off his lips, a mix between a moan and a plea, I gave myself over completely.
He didn't know it yet, but he had just become the sole owner of my heart.
Chapter Fourteen
Early To The Party
Grant
There never lived a more selfish asshole than me.
Jack was missing, Brooke's mom was missing, I had no idea if my team was okay. And all I wanted to do was stay in bed with Brooke and never leave.
I lost count of how many times we had sex. We should have been sleeping, trying to gain our strength for whatever happened next. Instead, we were wrapped around each other all night, barely coming up for air. Pretty sure we christened every inch of the small cabin, including the shower after we had some fun with a can of whipped cream.
Leaning down, I pulled her nipple into my mouth. I could swear I still tasted the sweet cream on her skin. Or maybe that's just how Brooke tasted. Never again would I be able to eat a strawberry and not think of her. Wild. Carefree. Completely uninhibited. I'd had some really enjoyable fucks with girls in the past, but none of them compared to Brooke.
Maybe it was her submission after being so damn difficult that made it all the sweeter. Never would I ever have thought Brooke would turn over the control willingly. Especially in the bedroom. She did, though, and the power was heady. After two days - shit, it'd only been two days? - Of her fighting me on every little thing, her obedience made me feel like I'd won a damn award.
If I were honest with myself, though, I'd have to admit that everything about Brooke turned me on. Even her feisty, sarcastic, argumentative side. And the moments where I got to glimpse a vulnerable side of her that I doubted she let many see, I couldn't deny the admiration and genuine concern I felt myself growing for her.
It wasn't the time to see where her head was at, but once this was all over? We were going to have to figure something out. The smart, responsible thing to do would be to part ways. That was not fucking happening. No, my job didn't really allow for a personal life. And I thought about offering Brooke a job on our team, since she obviously could handle herself, but if I wanted to pursue something more with her, was that the best idea? Not to mention the whole Jack situation. Until I knew their connection, I couldn't go shelling out invitations to our private business.
Then there was the possibility she wouldn't even want to try for anything with me, but we'd see about that. I may not have been an expert on relationships, but in my thirty-two years I'd learned a thing or two about how rare it is to truly bond with someone. No, I wasn't in fucking love with her, but there was more there. I'd sensed it the first time I laid eyes on her through the security camera at Wilson, and I felt it last night when our bodies connected.
I didn't know what it was about her, or what might come of the future, but I knew one thing for sure - one night together wasn't anywhere near enough. Even now, sliding into her and watching her regard me with soft eyes while I slowly pull almost all the way out before pushing back in, I know I already need more. As soon as we find our release, I'll be ready again. And again. And again. The few hours we had left before the team arrived wouldn't sate the hunger to have her body. If the past few times were anything to go by, I was only going to get hungrier.
And if the look in her eyes when she climaxes was any indication, she felt the same way.
What started out rough and dirty the first time had morphed into slow love making. The gang would give me so much shit for even thinking that, but it was true. The way she so easily curled into me, fitting like she was made to rest in my arms, made it clear that keeping emotions out of it was no longer a possibility.
"We should probably get up and eat at some point. And shower. I don't want to be all sweaty, smelling like sex when all your friends get here."
Brooke was tracing circles on my chest with her finger, her head resting on my shoulder. Laying there on my back, sated and relaxed in a way I hadn't felt in years, the last thing I wanted to do was get up. If it weren't for the loud growling of her stomach, I might have kept her trapped in bed with me forever. But my woman needed fed.
Yep. Totally just called her my woman. All the sex had made me lose my damn mind, apparently.
"I'll make you breakfast while you get a shower," I said as I slapped her on the ass.
She stopped at the door to the bathroom, looking at me over her shoulder. You'd think by now my dick would be about to fall off from exhaustion and overuse, but the seductive look she gave me before winking and disappearing into the bathroom had the big guy ready for action.
Slipping on a pair of boxers, I made my way to the kitchen. We didn't have much other than heavily processed foods since no one lived here full time. The night before, we'd used all the fresh fruits and vegetables for dinner and Brooke's idea of creative fucking. We had people that maintained our properties; kept them clean, the kitchen stocked, did general repairs as needed. But since it was actually pretty rare we had to use one of the safe houses, they didn't have things like fresh fruit and vegetables. So that breakfast I told Brooke I would make? It was most likely going to be cold cereal or pop tarts.
The sound of glass clanking in the kitchen stopped me short. Instinctively I reached for my gun, but wouldn't you know it? My boxers didn't have a holster.
I weighed my options. Try to cat
ch the intruder off guard and hopefully tackle him before he can use a weapon on me, or sneak back to the bedroom and grab my gun and risk losing the element of surprise. Nope, I only had one option. Because my fucking gun was in the living room.
"Hope she was worth it. Jack is going to fucking kill him when he finds out." Was that Nick?
"Keep your voice down, Nick. If Brooke hears you, Grant will rip your nuts off." Definitely Hunter's voice.
Shit. Why were they here early? I was supposed to have another six hours with Brooke before real life took over again.
"She's going to find out sooner or later. The longer we wait to tell her, the more pissed off she's going to be." Like I needed Alice stating that out loud as a reminder.
"You guys are early," I growled out, making Alice jump when I came up behind her. Nick flashed me a shit-eating grin.
"Dude. Go put some pants on. You're showing way too much brain right now."
I quickly looked down to readjust myself, only to find everything covered. Nick was cracking up.
"I seriously fucking hate you sometimes." I grabbed the file we found at Jack's off the table and tossed it at Trent. "Look into this. I'll be back."
Moving past a still laughing Nick, I grabbed some toaster pastries out of the pantry to take back to Brooke. Partly to warn her that everyone was already here - because no fucking way did I want them to see her in her underwear - but also to steal a few more minutes alone with her.
Ignoring Nick's catcalls and Alice's warnings, I made my way back to the bedroom just as Brooke was coming out of the bathroom. Steam billowed around her. It would have almost given a halo effect if she hadn't been stark naked. Standing there with one arm raised above her head, clutching the doorframe, while eyeing me seductively was too damn sinful of a sight for her to seem angelic.
She crooked a finger at me, and forgetting all about our unexpected company, I tossed the breakfast I'd brought her onto the bed and closed the distance between us in a few long strides. Her skin was still damp and warm from the shower and I could taste mint toothpaste on her tongue. Spearing my fingers into her wet hair, I tilted her head, deepening the kiss. Even the ten minutes away from her had felt like a lifetime. Everything else just seemed to melt away when Brooke was in my arms.
Forcing myself to break the kiss, I pulled back enough to press my forehead to hers.
"The team is here already."
Brooke yanked a towel off the countertop and wrapped it around her. "Why didn't you tell me sooner!"
So adorable with her wide eyes and accusatory tone. You'd have thought I just told her they had been watching us through a camera the whole time. Funny how just yesterday I would have been annoyed with her drastic shift in attitude, but now I found it endearing.
"I just found out when I went to get you something to eat. Your gourmet breakfast is on the bed, by the way. I'm going to get dressed and make sure Nick doesn't try to sneak back here and see you naked. I'd hate to have to start off my day by killing a co-worker."
That earned me a smirk. My body's reaction to her smiling was completely over-the-top. Nick was right - Jack was going to break every bone in my body when he found out about my thing with Brooke.
By the time I dressed and made it back to the group, my mind was back in work mode.
"Alright, fill me in on what happened at HQ."
Trent cleared his throat. "They knocked out the rear cam to the building. Nothing fancy. Just aimed a gun at it. Luckily I had the feeds pulled up on one of the monitors and saw it happen. Without that extra few minutes of warning, things could have gone down a lot differently."
"Trent yelled out the command right before the explosion," Hunter explained. "Without going back to check, can't say for certain, but I'd say it was C-4 that they used to take out the door. Ballsy assholes, too, doing it in the middle of the day with people all around. They were definitely trained though. From the time they took out the camera to when they made it upstairs, it was only a matter of minutes. It's a good thing Jack is paranoid and we were prepared. Never thought I'd see the day when someone fucked with us there."
When Jack bought the building, he'd chosen the location carefully. Should a day like this ever come, he didn't want civilians to get hurt in the crossfire. Our operation ran behind the scenes of a dummy corporation. Trent did all the magic with the computers to falsify our tax documents in a way that the IRS would never know. We were all careful about not sharing what we did or why. For someone to have even located our HQ and come prepared with C-4? That either meant someone within the team was leaking details - which I didn't believe for one second - or whoever had it out for us was about twenty steps ahead of us.
"Well, you all seem to be in one piece, so I take it you evacuated safely?"
Trent's face fell and Alice snorted. "Jane didn't make it out. Trent is pretty upset over it."
"Too soon, Alice!" Trent barked. "The wound is too fresh. Don't say her name."
All of us rolled our eyes. Jane was Trent's beloved laptop. That he had to leave her behind spoke volumes as to how much of a close call they'd been in.
"We took the tunnels. As soon as we were a safe distance away, I took out the building," Hunter spoke up, bringing us back to the real issue at hand. "Used a payphone to call Jack's buddy in the force and give him a heads up. He said he'd handle it."
Jack had friends everywhere. How he got them to be on our side without revealing too much information, I'd never know. More times than I could count, though, we'd had to call in favors to his contacts and have them cover our asses when plans went awry.
"I take it you all stayed together instead of splitting up then?"
Nick nodded, not having a sarcastic comment for once. "With Jack missing and so many unforeseen attacks, we figured it would be best to stick together. Plus, we were down to only two safe houses since the others were all destroyed. We figured this was the house you'd come to with Brooke, and we didn't want to put you both in danger until we knew we weren't being followed, so we chose the other."
"Code Grey calls for a twenty-four hour waiting period before meeting up. Why'd you come early?" I tried to keep the agitation out of my voice. I failed. Nick gave me a knowing smile, but otherwise didn't comment.
"I found something and we felt it shouldn't wait," Trent said as he pulled out a laptop. We kept one stashed at each safe location. He didn't look happy to be using it instead of Jane. The guy seriously needed to get out more. His emotional attachments to his computers were enough to require therapy.
"I stayed up all night, managed to track whoever hacked our computers to within a five mile radius of the Baybank River. There are dozens of shipping containers and warehouses all along the river within these five miles. Even if we managed to figure out where they are, assuming they're still there, we don't know if they have Jack. As of right now, though, it's our only lead."
"Did you say Baybank?"
We all turned to see Brooke stride into the room. Wet hair dripping in a baggy tee and sweats, my heart practically seized in my chest. After seeing her naked, she shouldn't have affected me so dramatically. Would she ever stop drawing such an extreme reaction out of me? I hoped not.
"Yeah, you know it?"
Brooke turned her attention to Hunter. "Sort of. I've never been there, but my mom made such a huge deal about me never going near the area. To be honest, she'd drilled it into my head from such a young age that I never really put much thought into why. Now that I think about it though, she never gave me a reason. Just made sure I knew that it was not somewhere I ever wanted to go."
Trent's fingers were flying over the keyboard. We all stood there, not knowing what he was doing but knowing there was a reason. The only sound in the small cabin was the clicking of the keys.
Seconds later, Trent's head popped up, his eyes wide. He opened his mouth to talk, but was stopped short when Hunter suddenly collapsed to the ground.
Chapter Fifteen
Don't Sweat It
Grant
I watched Trent and Nick dragging Hunter across the floor from under the table where I covered Brooke's body with mine.
"How is he?" I shouted over the sound of gunshots breaking through the sheetrock and destroying everything around us. It was worse than the attack on Wilson. The shots weren't sporadic and spread out. They were constant and seemed to be everywhere at once. There had to be at least twice as many shooters, and if things went similar to last time, there would be an explosion soon.
"Hit his shoulder and went clean through. Doesn't appear to have hit any major arteries. He'll be okay, but we need to get him to a hospital stat."
Alice was inspecting Hunter the entire time she was shouting to me. Her voice was steady and sure, but one tear streaked down her cheek. Nick pulled dish towels out of a drawer and handed them to her. Blood covered her hands as she pressed them to Hunter's shoulder. Trent somehow had managed to grab his laptop, and he was clicking away, glancing up occasionally to check on the situation.
"At least eight men!" Trent shouted over the continued gunfire. All of us were narrowly being missed. It was only a matter of time before another one of us took a bullet. "They took out three of the security cameras, but the other two were hidden. They must have missed them."
We had motion sensors at all corners of the property that should have triggered alarms. Since I didn't hear the team enter, they must have disabled them when they approached and forgot to turn them back on. Shit.
Brooke squirmed underneath me. "Can't. Breathe. Ass. Hole."
I shifted off of her a little and she took a deep breath. "Sorry."
Just then a bullet hit one of the legs of the table Brooke and I were under. It gave out and crashed over us, but my body took the brunt of the fall since I was still angled over her. The heavy oak knocked the wind out of me temporarily.
Only a couple minutes had passed since Hunter hit the ground, but it felt like we'd been pinned there under that table for an hour. We couldn't keep sitting there like waiting ducks.