by Angel Payne
“Yes Sir. Yes, you know exactly what I need.”
He clenched his thighs, counteracting the pure flame in his dick. He kept his gaze twined with the verdant glory of hers, watching her arousal spiral higher, feeling her legs shake, her breathing quicken. “What, Sage? Tell me. Use the words to make my cock harder, so I can give you exactly what you need.”
“I—I need you to punish me. To—to fuck the discipline into me.”
“Yes,” he growled. “That’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”
He took her mouth so violently, he lifted her head from the force. He added a rolling motion to his thrusts, drawing out an exquisite little whimper from deep in her chest. He spread his knees a little more in order to drive harder at her.
“Oh!” She gasped and bit his lip, too lost in her escalating arousal to even realize what she’d done. That was all right by him. Her fire fed his, blazing into the corners of him that had been freezing for so long, fusing the driftwood of his desire back into a searing rod of need. “Oh, Garrett! Please!”
He grunted in chastisement. “Re-phrase, Sergeant Weston?”
“Oh, Sir!” she amended. “Please, oh please. I need to—”
“I know what you need. And I’m going to give it to you. The explosion’s on its way, Sage. Your sweet pussy will have its satisfaction, I promise.”
She whimpered and trembled beneath him. “Now,” she pleaded. “God, please…I don’t know how much more of this I can—ahhhh! Please! Now!”
“Don’t think so, sugar.”
“Garrett! Damn it!”
He speeded up their tempo, making her moan hard in protest. His own voice started coming in low, tight growls between his labored breaths.
“The punishment might have been a fantasy, Sage, but the lesson wasn’t. Tell me what lesson I’m fucking into you, then you can come apart for me, with me.”
“I—I can’t even think straight! Are you freaking kidding me?”
As much as it killed him to do it, he screeched his body to a full stop. The only thing he moved was his top hand, twisting it harder to keep her wrists in place. “Does this feel like kidding?”
She let out an agonized moan, clipping his ass with her heel, which made him screw the hold tighter on her thigh. “All right!” she finally cried. “All right, fine! Uh—errm—the lesson was—”
“The lesson is?”
“The—the lesson is—” Her mouth gaped open as he started the cadence between their bodies again. She learned, at the same time he did, that the thirty second break made their new grind a hundred times more intense. “Oh, Garrett!”
He gritted out a harsh redirect. “Sage? The lesson?”
“I know, I know! The—the lesson—uh—” She licked her lips with delectable desperation. “Don’t—don’t leave the house again without telling you. There. We good now?”
She lurched her hips, blatantly fighting to get him closer. The vibrations squeezed his bottoms in exactly the right way to stroke the aching head of his sex. He shuddered from it, but found the will to demand, “Why? Why don’t you leave the house without telling me?”
“Garrett! Please!”
“Tell me why, damn it!”
“Be-Because—it makes you feel—uh—”
“Like tearing the fucking neighborhood apart.” The renewed viciousnes in his tone wasn’t just because of the bonfire in his cock. His passion was intertwined with the other shit she needed to hear from him, to see in him. She needed to know how his heart seized and his blood became ice this morning when finding her note, how he’d wondered if she’d been forced to write it at gunpoint by one of King’s wanksters, how he barely held the truck to the speed limit when driving to the base after finding the papers in the driveway. She needed to feel what had driven him to pin her here, and act like this. “It makes me feel like I’ve been cuffed in steel and can’t get out, Sage. Like I’ve lost you all over again. Can you understand that? Can you understand what that does to me?”
Her face contorted. More tears slipped down her cheeks. Damn it, this hadn’t been his intention when hauling her out here. He’d hoped for some fast necking and a grope or two, maybe to help take the edge off her sexual frustration, if not his. If a crystal ball had floated ahead of them through the brush and shown they’d be dry-humping each other through a mini psychotherapy session, he would’ve hurled the thing into the woods and told it to go back to the cheap toy store it came from.
“I’m not lost anymore.”
She spoke it with the conviction of a courtroom oath. The solemn words resounded into the depths of his heart and chiseled at every aspect of his control.
“I’m right here, stronger for what I’ve been through, and you are, too. You came and found me, and now we’ve left the hell behind. We’ve left that bastard King behind…right?”
He heard the deliberate pause she inserted before that final question. When he didn’t say or do anything to fill that gap, Sage fell into contemplative stillness. When she moved again, it was to test his grip on her wrists. Garrett let her slip free. She extended her hands straight to him, threading her fingers through his hair. “Garrett? Look at me. I’m here. I’m here. Do you get it?” Her grasp tightened. “Or is there something I’m not getting?”
He got in half a breath before the flames in his body turned to icicles. He went stiff from the impact, not in the great ways this time. The wind rustled through the pines, a sound so peaceful, it turned into a taunt at his heart and soul. He couldn’t hide it from Sage anymore, either. He raised his eyes to meet hers. Her gaze, deep and lush as the boughs over their heads, didn’t let him go. He witnessed every nuance of the conversion that took over her face, the lust dissolving, the dark bafflement taking over.
“Goddamnit,” she whispered. “Tell me, Garrett. You don’t get to walk back up the dock this time. What the hell is it?”
He stroked a steady thumb along her cheek. “What do I do for a living, Sage? You know I have to hide lots of things.”
She ditched the confused frown for an outright glower. He’d backed her into an impasse and they both knew it. Nobody had more reverence for his SF secrets than Sage, and he loved her for that integrity. To push him would be taking a hammer to that foundation between them. But her eyes revealed her insight. She knew this had nothing to do with “work.”
A bellow came from the landing zone. Kell had unknowingly perfect timing. “Are you two done sucking face? The van’s here. We’d all like to get back to base and enjoy some of that yummy-ass brunch.”
Garrett pulled Sage’s zipper back up before readjusting the painful weight beneath his thighs. Despite having to walk out of the wood with a modified gait from unfulfilled need, he silently thanked fate for smiling upon him in this instance. All right, it sucked that he wasn’t sure when he’d see a smile on his fiancé’s lips again—but for now, he’d yanked her from King’s tentacles again., and she was technically none the wiser.
He had no idea how much longer he could keep up this ruse.
The sooner they put the asshole away for life, the better.
Chapter Twelve
Sage sighed heavily as she stood in the kitchen, watching him from the wide window over the sink. Garrett paced the lawn, side patio and back of the condo with careful steps and a vigilant gaze. All he needed was a brain bucket and an M16, and she’d swear he was out on patrol. The strain didn’t leave his body even as he sat at one of the chairs around the fire pit to strip off his T-shirt and get out of his boots. Every rope of muscle in his torso was still wound in tension.
None of it came as a surprise. Or a difference. He’d reinstated his mental smokescreen the second they’d climbed into the van with the other guys. Tait and Kell had led the bombardment of questions and general chatter, adding their embellishments about what their own first jumps were like, as well as their most harrowing jumps since then. Sage was glad some of their stories pushed believability, since she’d needed the distraction from the silence wrapped ar
ound the man who’d brought her such bright ecstasy just minutes before. Nothing improved during their drive home, when Garrett pretended to be interested in the entertainment news update oozing off the radio. Did he seriously expect her to believe the newest Hollywood hook-ups were a remote concern to him?
It was official. He was hiding something from her. And if it was an understanding about this new energy between them, she had a right to know about it. She’d burn through his whole damn forest to do it. Let’s do this, Smokey the Bear.
She poured a couple of glasses of water as he came back inside. “Oh, hell yeah,” he murmured when she offered him the drink. “That’s good. Thanks, sugar.”
He guzzled the whole glass in one swig, slammed it down, and refilled it. The moment provided the shot of courage she needed. There’d been a few others like this, where he’d poked through the smoke to give her glimpses of the brash, wild mustang of a man who’d first captured her heart two summers ago, when she’d been refueled to fight for him again. To fight for them. It was worth it. She had to keep trying.
The mantra compelled her forward, next to him. As she expected, Garrett stiffened. She didn’t back off. Instead, she lifted a hand and rested it against his chest, above the V formed by his dog tags.
He didn’t retreat.
That was a good sign, right?
Sage slid her touch toward his neck.
He grabbed her wrist with the speed of a cobra.
“Don’t.” She said it from tight teeth. “Don’t, Garrett.”
“Sage—”
“You’re not going to fire bomb me out this time.” Though he swung away, she hooked a hand into the crook of his elbow and dug in, at least as much as she could against his coiled bicep. “I’m not going to let you.” She got him to stop, though he only turned his profile for her to see. “Won’t you even look at me?”
With slow resignation, he swiveled completely around. He hitched his grip backwards, palms against the counter. He raised his head, though his gaze only lifted far as her nose. His lips parted as if he were going to say something, but he just scissored his jaw at her.
“Damn it.” Her rasp was more serrated than the knife stuck in the sourdough loaf she’d baked last night. “How long are we going to continue like this?”
Garrett’s shrug was a maddening display of male evasion. “As long as it takes.”
Sage dropped her hand from him. Fury eclipsed even her urge to leave a good scratch behind. “To quote someone near and dear to me, Sergeant Hawkins, that’s the line you’re going with?”
That got him to pin his stare directly into hers. Nothing had changed about the dark cobalt edges in his eyes. “Were you listening to me today at all? You know there’s information I’m entrusted with, Sage. Information that can’t be—”
“And you know that’s not what I’m talking about!” She shoved past him, storming into the living room, where there was more room to fling out her arms in frustration. “Keep all your classified secrets, Garrett. I get your job. I always have. But you’re not getting off that easy. You’re not going to hide behind your security clearance to avoid talking to me at all. Uncool, Hawkins. And completely unacceptable.”
She watched a deep breath fill his chest. “You’re talking about what happened this afternoon.” He didn’t look at her as he said it, his tone even as his gaze. “After the jump.”
She swallowed hard. “I’m not letting you pretend it didn’t happen, Garrett.” Her chest tightened as the memories, hot and sweet, flooded her mind’s eye. “I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen.”
She dropped her arms. Held her breath. For a moment, she let hope bloom in her heart and gut again. She openly offered that longing to him, letting it paint every inch of her face.
Garrett’s shoulders heaved as if she’d dragged home one of the trees from their forest and dropped it on him. His lips twisted. Conflict roared across his features. Still she waited. She prayed for that dark haze in his eyes to give way to the brilliant cyan stare of the lover who’d revealed himself to her beneath the pines today. Maybe if she envisioned him that way again, trapping her, consuming her, taking her in whatever way he could get her…
“I liked it, Garrett.”
Her voice quavered. The words were dangerous. The last time she’d spoken them, he’d been marked with scratches from another woman, and they’d fought like hellcats. That night, they’d slept back-to-back for the first time in their relationship—“slept” being a really loose term for those fitful hours.
This time, his reaction was different. Really different. Garrett didn’t bellow or growl back at her. By this point, he barely moved. He’d either shoved the invisible tree free, or decided to die under it. By the way his eyes slowly squeezed shut, Sage guessed the latter.
Damn it.
Fine. She knew how to light fires. Spark by excruciating spark.
“I liked it…Sir.”
She had nothing to lose anymore. If he was going to slip away from her, if he was going to let her rot in sexual and emotional frustration on the pedestal of his “protection,” she wasn’t going to let him go without knowing she’d risked it all, including his ridiculous misconceptions of her. If he stomped out of here now, she’d at least know she’d thrown every stick of emotional dynamite that she could at his stubborn, beautiful soul.
He finally moved again. He went nowhere near the door, thank God. He pivoted back into the kitchen, grabbing his water glass on the way. He set the tumbler into the sink then braced his hands on both sides of the basin. The pose made her ache. It was only a slight modification of how he’d spread himself across the window of their room in Bangkok. As he gazed out the window, she only saw the spread muscles of his back, but imagined his face was stamped in a similar grimace to that day. His glare likely probed the horizon, reflecting a mind lost in a conflict she couldn’t comprehend.
“I know you liked it, Sage.”
She tamped her lips together to keep them from shaking . His tone was still shadowed, but the words were a caress instead of an accusation. Maybe this was a bit of progress.
“If I remember things correctly, you did, too.”
Tension invaded his stance again. “What happened this afternoon …” His head sank. “Look, between the adrenalin from the jump, and watching your own excitement about the experience, and having you against me again—” He finally turned around, but made no move to leave the kitchen. “I should’ve controlled all that better, okay?”
Had the word “progress” actually crossed her mind a minute ago? Sage folded her arms, trying to muster a composed nod but feeling more like a bobble head doll on the dashboard of a lurching VW. “You should’ve—” Her lips stopped wobbling. She locked them together instead, hoping the action helped her clamp back a horridly familiar sting behind her eyes. “Right. Sure. I understand. Because God help your sorry ass if you lose control with your fiancé, of all people. Oh yeah, her. The one who’s supposed to make you feel like taking her hard and fast and dirty against a tree.”
His eyes slid shut again. “Hell, Sage.”
“Nice choice of comeback, Hawkins. Is that where you think you’re headed now, because we did what we did?” She watched two waves of awareness crash across his face. The first was raw arousal. The second was unfiltered shame. Nothing like that juicy combo to tempt her into playing with fire again. “Or is it because of what you were thinking about while we did it?”
“I wasn’t thinking,” he bit back. “Don’t you get it? We were in that forest. Everything felt so surreal. Finally, everything just…went away. I lost rationality.”
“Why? Because nobody who’s ‘rational’ would have half a kinky thought about their woman?”
He surged forward, stabbing a finger at her. “Not about the woman they love. Damn it, Sage. We’ve been over this!”
“No. You’ve been over this.” She uncurled her arms and planted her stance. Every step of his approach brought dual bites of anger and fear. G
ood Lord, he really had gotten huge over the last twelve months. But he wouldn’t hurt her. Shit, they were here like this because he was spooked about touching her at all. Her fear stemmed from the very real possibility that they’d leave this room standing on the exact same game board squares, separate pawns at the mercy of his dice. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Stay in Jail. Stay in Jail. Stay in Jail.
No way. Not this time.
“What the hell?” He fired it back at her with what looked like confusion—on the surface. But they’d always been able to stab through each other’s one-liners, whether they were joking or fighting. The fact that this was the biggest skirmish of their relationship didn’t change a thing. Garrett knew it, too. One look up at the blue flames in his eyes told Sage that.
“You heard me,” she retorted. “I said you’ve been through this. That wasn’t a two-way conversation we had in Bangkok. It was the Garrett Hawkins sermon hour, concluded when you decided the gospel had gotten pounded into me enough, and it was time to ram your close-minded brain back into the quicksand of denial.”
He stopped in front of her, eclipsing with the force of his presence. “I’m not in denial about a damn thing here.”
Sage sneered. “Is that so, Preacher Boy?”
With no warning, he clutched her by the shoulders. The move was so sudden, her head snapped back. That was a good thing, since the searing intent on his face said far more than the gravel in his reply.
“You don’t think I know what I’m talking about, Sage? My best friend is a hardcore Dominant. Half the unit practices the dynamic too. I’ve trusted these men with my life, and I’ll do it again. You think I’d toss a single one of them into hell?” He pulled her an inch closer. Both their chests clutched. His jaw tensed as if her body was a stem of Belladonna, breathtaking but deadly. “I don’t damn anyone for enjoying Power Exchange, okay?”
“Just yourself,” Sage whispered. When his hold tightened, she persisted, “I’m right about that, and don’t you dare deny it.” She pressed her fingers to his sternum. His heart thundered against the taut skin. “Why am I right, Garrett? Why are you denying yourself? Why are you denying both of us something we clearly want to explore?”