by Angel Payne
“Of course you can.” He dug his teeth into the succulent dip at the base of her neck, continuin’ the path of his lips into the creamy valley between her sweet breasts. “Tell me, a leanbh. Tell me. All of it, sweet Jenny.”
“I just—oh my God, I’m seeing stars.”
The words alone had him lunging deeper and harder. “And that’s a bad thing?”
“Yes! I mean no. I—I just—” Her thighs trembled against his. Her gorgeous chebs now had nipples erect as red candies. “It’s…so much. It’s too much. I don’t know if I can—”
“Of course you can. And you will.” He doubled the tempo of his thrusts. Her sex shivered around him. God damn, she felt so fine. So tight. So wet. Engulfin’ every hot, demanding inch of him—and beyond. She didn’t just surround his cock anymore. She swallowed his senses. Transformed his reality. Engulfed him in a special kind of reality…
Called her submission.
And in doing so had given him a gift beyond what he dreamed.
A power he’d never thought to know in full again.
A part of himself he’d mourned a long time ago…
But it wasn’t dead. It had only been sleeping. And it was reawakened now. Holy Christ, was it awake.
“God, yes. Take it, sweet Jenny. Take all of me…and all of you too. Let it all in, darlin’. Let it take over.”
Through a fog of feeling he heard his voice, sounding like he’d swallowed a crate of glass. He was beyond caring. His resistance was fraying. Pressure pulled and growled at him, prowling the base of his spine until descending through his ass cheeks. He fought to give the beast room, but there was very little lead rope left for it. Once it ran the rein taut, he’d break.
Jen’s scream grabbed at the final inches of that tether.
A bellow, hoarse and harsh, exploded from his lips. Heat, wild and wonderful, pumped the length of his cock. He could think of nothing but the orgasm that tore him apart and the incredible, beautiful woman who’d given it to him. The sweet creature who’d stumbled into his path ten days ago but who’d been part of his imagination for so much longer than that.
Because he’d been asking fate for her.
No. Not asking. Taunting. Daring the universe to prove that someone like her could still exist. A woman—hell, a person—who could connect to him on every level there was. Even the dark ones.
Especially the dark ones.
The levels he showed her now, even as she locked her legs against his back, urging him to take her even harder, fixing him with a stare as clear and adoring as it was unaltered and unafraid.
Making him think…
Or possibly even hope…
She really was strong enough for the darkness.
All of it.
As if the bloody enchantress had read his mind, her eyes narrowed a little. Not a lot—certainly not enough that he held back on his lust—but enough to tell him that she saw. And she knew. Just enough to know that she didn’t know. That she didn’t have all of him. Not yet.
“Sam.” And though she panted it out, the dictum in her voice was also there. Just enough of a husk beneath her breath that he now knew…
She wasn’t going to relent until she saw it all.
“Sam. Damn it!”
“Ssshhh. I know, sweet one. I know.”
“I will not ‘ssshhh.’ And you don’t know, because if you did, then—oh!”
She finished that with a strangled choke.
He reared back, until his shaft was simply kissing her outer lips again—
And then fucked into her with everything he had.
Everything he was.
Every inch. Every force. All the brutality. All the darkness.
“Oh. My. Ahhhh!”
Her sex convulsed around him. Then again. And again.
And all over again, as soon as he reached beneath her and then searched deeper, finding the forbidden pucker with its ring of sensitive nerves…
“Sam! Oh, God!”
He breathed hard and heavily into her ear while working his two forefingers at her most illicit entrance. “Good girl,” he grated. “Naughty girl. You’ll let me in here too, won’t you? You’ll take it because I want you to. Because this is what you want from me.”
Her hips bucked. Her lungs pumped. A menagerie of sounds vibrated in her throat, whines and growls and mewls and hisses conveyin’ her new arousal so much better than words could. That was just dandy by him. If she needed words, he could supply them. If she needed anything, he would give it. The woman was all his now. Spread wide, soaking wet, and panting hard. His perfect little mouse. His darling little treasure.
“That’s my girl. Yes, sweet Jenny. That’s right. Let it happen.”
“D-Do I h-have a choice?”
He considered the question for all of two seconds—while pressing his fingers a little farther inside her perfect rectum.
“Not especially.”
Her response came just as fast.
In the form of a shocking, dazzling smile, stretching nearly from one of her gorgeous ears to the next. “Good.”
As soon as she blurted it, her orgasm hit.
And was easily one of the most dazzlin’ sights of his existence.
It moved through her like a tsunami, quiet but devastating, until she was well rocketed to a stratosphere of screams from it. Her composure was ripped away from what little moorings it had left, making her babble with more animalistic noises, along with I-don’t-give-a-damn-who-hears lust. Her fervor washed over him too, spurrin’ him to a pace that could barely be described as “fuckin’” anymore. This was definitely no longer a fuck. This was a pound. A blast. A cataclysm. A conquest.
Only who was conquerin’ whom?
And did the answer even matter?
The slaps of their bodies were like erotic gunshots on the walls, dueling with passion and power, straining through every muscle in his body…through every inch of his cock.
“Jenny. Fuck. Fuck.”
As the fire grew in his balls, he punched deeper into her. And as the blaze took over his cock, he gave in to it. Surrendered to the cosmic force that took hold from the inside out, turnin’ him into a star gone supernova, consumed by silver-white light as he stiffened and pulsed…
And then exploded.
Deep. So damn deep inside her.
And as he did, recognizin’ the strange part of himself that burst along with it. A wall, tumblin’ in…
A cavern, newly exposed…
Fuckin’ hell.
What had she done to him?
And did he even have the fortitude to sift through the rubble right now and figure it out? If he did, would it matter? Jenny lay beneath him, still limp and languid and possibly in just as many mental pieces as he was. A smile worthy of a spring meadow adorned her lips, leading him to think she was even baskin’ in those fiery fragments. At once, he recognized his own mind turnin’ the facts into somethin’ new too. Maybe that catastrophic explosion actually had been epic fireworks. Or maybe it had been both. Could there really be beauty in destruction sometimes? Was it possible to raze something to the ground—like a man’s damn soul—but have something left afterward to build on? To make better?
“Hey.”
Thank fuck for the return of his soft mouse and the single word strong enough to haul him out of his metaphysical brood.
“Hey.” He gave his head a solid but swift shake, getting his shit together before focusing fully on her again. “You awrite?” With a couple of deft twists, he freed her from the cuffs—though the longing look she flicked up at them was enough to melt away a few more fences inside him. Still he charged her, “Did I hurt you?” When she didn’t reply after an obligatory two seconds, he rolled to her side and took her head in his hands. “Shit. I did hurt you. Where? How? Why didn’t you say—”
He stopped as soon as she reached up too, yanking hard enough on his hair to bring his mouth slamming down on hers. “I would have said something, had there been anything to say.” Though she
gentled her hold, she repeated the kiss with twice as much passion, working her tongue along the seam of his lips until he opened for her, letting her roll her tongue along his with devouring devotion. At last, while letting him go with a long and reluctant drag, she whispered, “I’m not hurt, Captain Mackenna.”
“So what is it?” Because it was something. He just couldn’t get a proper bead on exactly what. Even threading his voice with a deeper growl and jerking a commanding finger beneath her chin didn’t impel her to give up any feedback beyond her self-deprecating smile.
“Honestly, Sam…it’s nothing. I’m just being stupid. Indulging in too much Jane Austen lately.” She shrugged. “And Emily Brontë. And Diana Gabaldon…”
“I like Jane Austen.”
“Because you had to get more perfect than you already were?”
He speared her with a tighter gaze. No way was he buyin’ the sweet talk she was peddlin’, even with the sarcastic tone—but that decision meant he had to shuffle through at least a little of his mental rubble to reply. “I’m far from perfect, Jenny.” And then the disconcerting conclusion that brought him to. “You’ve seen enough of my file to know that.” Fuck, even the declassified parts of the thing were harrowing to read through. If she knew everything she wasn’t supposed to know…about the missions that officially never occurred, in places they weren’t supposed occur in, on targets that were never supposed to be authorized…well, she’d have probably thought differently about even mentionin’ the word “friends” to him, much less lettin’ him lock her down and have his kinky, filthy way with her…
Which said what about him now?
He couldn’t fuckin’ go there.
Because if he did, he already knew the conclusion he’d reach. The explosion he’d see, instead of the fireworks. The resolve he’d make to roll out of this bed this very second and get himself—and his secrets and his darkness and his violence—as far away from Jenny Thorne as he possibly could.
But he didn’t move a fuckin’ muscle.
Because he was a selfish wanker, and he was brilliant at math.
Three: the number of years the woman had been employed at Nellis Air Force Base.
Nineteen: The number of days left in his assignment here.
Which added up to the number of chances they had of workin’ this insane chemistry into any entity more than a solid case of animal attraction.
Zero.
So the selfish wanker was stayin’ right where he was. And did so with a clear-as-hell conscious and steady-as-fuck nerves.
With those odds, he was more than happy to be her fireworks and meadows for a little while longer. No. He needed to be.
That was why he had no trouble about dustin’ off his finest, cockiest smirk and wielding it along with his comeback to her. “So what do I get if I admit to reading Wuthering Heights and Outlander too?”
She narrowed her gaze. “All nine parts of Outlander?”
“There’s more than one part?”
She chuckled. “Doesn’t matter. Your guy card is already seriously in danger.”
“Which is why I may need to fuck a vow of silence into you.”
Her laughter quickly dissolved into a sigh. And then an appreciative moan as she slid a hand down to the center of his chest. “Why the hell did I fight this so hard?” she whispered. “Why did I fight you?”
He abandoned the smirk. He needed her to see and feel the sincerity behind his next words. “Because your principles don’t get just your lip service, Jenny.” He curled a hand atop hers, locking her fingers over his heart. “Which has been, and continues to be, one of the reasons you fascinate the hell out of me.” He dipped his head as he raised their joined hands, brushing an adoring kiss atop her middle knuckle. “I know it was no trivial choice for you to break your code for this, no matter how magnificent this sorcery seems.” He moved his mouth along her hand, purposely scraping the curves of her fingers with his stubble. Balls. He’d slipped out of her no more than fifteen minutes past, and his psyche already clamored at him to mark her in a new way. In any way. The stubble burn would have to do for now. “No,” he muttered after a long, silent pause. “Not sorcery.” Then delved his gaze back at her, selfishly drinking from the depths of her jade lagoon eyes, before committing to declaring, “This is a miracle. You, Jenny Thorne, are my pure, bright, bonnie miracle.”
Her breathing noticeably snagged. Her features widened as if the word he’d spoken had levitated them off the bed. “Miracle? Me?” But she interrupted herself with a sharp chuckle. “Riiight. And all the other girls on your base stops across the world, right? Do I get some kind of an engraved edition number and a certificate of authenticity?” But when he gave her the only response that would truly set in, a longer-than-comfortable silence and a colder-than-steel stare, she traded the saucy giggle for a hard gulp. Then another. “Sam. All right, come on. I’ve been pretty damn forthcoming with you. Don’t you think it’s time to return the favor? No bullshitting, buddy. What is my number in the lineup? You know it won’t piss me off. You trying to pull off coy and cagey, on the other hand? Now I’m getting pissed off.”
For another long moment, he didn’t say anything. Simply turned his head, released her hand, and then stretched out her fingers so he could fit his cheek against her palm. At last, he murmured, “You’re on the magic money, mouse.”
Her lips twisted. “Excuse me?”
“It’s time for me to return the favor,” he stated. “Which starts with askin’ you this, then.” But the words were harder to get out than he expected, even after forcing air down into every available crevice of both his lungs. “You do know…there was a specific reason why they sent me over for the cross-training here.”
“Besides the fact that you can turn a fighter jet into poetry?”
Her compliment could’ve been in Swahili for all its effect on him. “I wasn’t in a good place, Jenny,” he confessed. “I…haven’t been in a good place for a while now. The deployments have finally started taking their toll—or so everyone keeps telling me. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Afghanistan again…”
“I know,” she rasped. “And nearly all of them on top of each other.” And then screwed her lips together until the elegant ribbons were more like mashed-up twine. “Why the hell did they—”
“Stop.” Another intention gone awry, as the bite emerged more violently than he intended. But enduring her pity was like forcing him to swallow rat poison. “You also need to know…I wanted them, Jen. Every single one of those assignments”—along with the ones I signed agreements to never talk about—“was an honor. A statement of my country’s ultimate trust and belief in me. I would’ve gone again had they called. I wanted to go again.”
“Why?” She didn’t hide her confused scowl. “You’ve carried your fair share of torches for the cause. You know that, yeah?”
Sam rolled back against the pillows. Though he looped an arm around her shoulders to keep her close, he stabbed his scowl toward the ceiling. There was a seam up there he hadn’t noticed before—wasn’t as if he wanted the grand tour of the room when they first got here—which, he imagined, operated at the command of the zillion buttons in the headboard. He imagined the panels slid back to reveal a massive mirror, but then he imagined it no more. Forced it from his mind in order to do the hard shit here. Jen had trusted him with her very control. It was time to trust her with his truth.
“It was easier.” And that was a truth, though he didn’t like it. “The missions, the pace, the noise, the violence. When your world is consumed by all of that, it’s effortless to block out the rest. The rest of life just…freezes, I suppose. At least in your mind, yeah? You just think of it all like leaves caught in ice.”
“Until they’re thawed out.”
“Until they’re thawed out.”
“And you hope they’re still there.”
“And you hope they’re still there.”
“But they’re not.” She trailed the center of his sternum with her
fingertips again. Though he stiffened beneath her touch this time, she didn’t relent with her gentle comfort—nor her quiet words of wisdom. “You find out that the ice turned into a river and carried them away.”
It was his turn for the harsh gulps. And then to grunt hard, throwing a hand across the backs of his eyes. “And you don’t even recognize the river anymore.”
“Sam…”
“Even the bridges over the fuckin’ thing are gone. And everyone who meant anything to you before…is standing on the other shore.”
Jen pushed up until her face hovered over his. “But I’m right here. On this shore.”
She shook a little as she proclaimed it. He dropped his hand in time to see that the words were huge for her. A gargantuan risk. But again, she’d never been so right. “I know,” he rasped, tucking her head down against his chest. “I know—which is why I’ll never stop thankin’ them for sendin’ me here.” His whole body rose and fell with his deep breath. “For sending me to you, Jenny Thorne.”
He said no more than that but knew the husk in his tone already gave away his thick emotion beneath the innocuous words. Even before tonight—but especially after tonight—he was convinced more than ever in some higher cosmic hand at work here, guidin’ the hundreds of operational gears that had to click to land him at Nellis for this program. And that was fine and dandy, but why did he have to go and confess as much to her right now? They really were working toward a solid base of friendship—and the Almighty already knew how much he probably needed a friend more than a lover right now. An arrangement much more than wall-rattlin’ sex.
But there was where his mind sixed-and-sevened with his soul once again.
She hadn’t just rattled the walls.
She’d spun his axis.
But that didn’t mean he’d just spun hers. That she didn’t want something now more than a little pillow chatter. That she wanted—or needed—him to go spillin’ about how deep he’d been flyin’ in the darkness before she fell down in front of him last week and drenched his world in light. About how bein’ inside her tonight had been like takin’ a long, incredible bath in that light. About how he just wanted to pin her down to this mattress, possibly even lock up her legs as well as her arms this time, and drench himself inside her all over again. And flood her with his essence, over and over and over again…