by Lora Leigh
He turned his head as the shower door opened and she stepped inside the large cubicle.
She didn't speak, and his tongue was paralyzed as her hands slid down his back.
"You should be sleeping." He cleared his throat, certain his already ruined voice sounded like a monster's growl as a smile flirted at her lips.
"I got cold." She blinked against the drops of water that splattered to her face.
He knew better. The temperature was controlled, she couldn't have gotten cold. Hell no, she was hot, burning inside the same as he was, even after the rapture that had claimed them hours before.
His arms went around her. Trapping her against the side of the shower wall, he stared down at her intently, watching the passion that clouded her eyes and feeling the response clear to the engorged, painfully hard length of his dick.
Hell, he shouldn't be this hard. He shouldn't be bending his knees and rooting it against the slick, hot folds of her pussy.
He had work to do. He had killers to take care of, a drug cartel business to run. He had to play the game until the minute he put a bullet in Sorrell's and Diego's heads. That required planning, not fucking himself blind.
"I need to be downstairs." His head lowered to the ripe, plump bead of her nipple and he heard her gasp as he fought to make sense of the thoughts and emotions jumbled inside him.
"Okay." Her hands tunneled into his hair though and held him to her breast.
Ian surrounded her nipple with his lips, drew it into his mouth and let his tongue play with it. He stroked it, lashed it, sucked at it with firm draws of his mouth.
"You're a wild man." A thread of satisfaction filled her voice as he moved his lips to her neck, licking along the smooth column and taking nips of her with his lips.
God, he loved tasting her flesh, loved immersing himself in her scent.
"Horny man," he muttered.
She laughed, her hands flattening against his shoulders as she pushed him back and went to her knees before he could stop her.
Ian stared down at her, unable to move now, unable to form a coherent thought at the sight of his heavy shaft aimed at her soft, pink lips.
Her tongue peeked from between those perfect lips, curled along the underside of his cock and had him gritting his teeth at the wild pleasure that ricocheted up his spine.
Now, if she had given him a chance to recover his sense, he might have pulled her to feet, lifted her until her legs could circle his hips, and his cock could burrow into the paradise he found between her thighs. But she couldn't keep it that simple.
Her mouth surrounded the crest, took him deep, and began a long slow suction as her hands wrapped around the shaft and a groan tore from his throat.
"Ah yeah." He gave himself over to the most wicked, heated head job a man could ever know.
Sweet lips surrounded him, a tight hot mouth stroked him, and that tongue of hers was a curling, lashing little demon of ecstasy.
"Deeper." His hands slid into her wet hair, his fingers tightening in the strands as he braced his legs firmly beneath him. "Take it deeper, Kira."
Slumberous, erotic sensuality transformed her features. She was beautiful. Exquisite. And she was sucking his dick like a favorite treat. He loved it. Loved her.
God help him, he loved her.
His cock slid farther along her tongue as he felt her moan vibrate along the shaft.
"Deeper," he urged her, his voice so thick, so rough he could barely understand the words himself. "Come on, baby, you know what I want."
Uncertainty flickered in her eyes, causing him to pause. She had never . . .? At least not like this. Not deep, not to the point that a man knew he would lose his mind buried inside her mouth.
He smiled down at her. "Just relax. Let me show you."
His fingers tightened in her hair, tilted her head back just a bit, aligning the head of his cock with the soft inner depths of her throat.
"Breathe through your nose, relax. It's good, Kira. So good."
He watched her nostrils flare as his eyes narrowed and he began to move again. His hips shifted, nearly pulling his cock free of her mouth before he moved inside again, going deeper, just a little deeper, feeling her tighten on him.
"Relax." Ah God, he was desperate, burning for that final depth where he would feel the exquisite clenching at the back of her mouth, feel her tongue rippling along the undershaft.
He pulled back and filled her mouth again, touching that final portal for the briefest instance before retreating. It was so fucking hot, blistering, destroying him.
"A little more," he panted. "Just a little more."
Ah hell. He was dying, burning alive. His balls were drawn so tight against the base of his cock that they felt constricted to the point of pain. The need to come was like a burning lance shooting straight up his spine and sizzling through his brain.
Her long black hair flowed down her back, her exotic face was filled with hunger, and she sucked his cock like a woman starving for the taste of her man.
Ian clenched his jaw tight with the effort to hold back, pushed through her lips again, and swore he was going to die before he managed to come.
It was perfect. It was a haven in the middle of a storm, the center of the hurricane, the depths of a volcano. It was white-hot heat and a pleasure he knew he couldn't live without now.
He felt the back of her mouth relax, though it rippled against the head of his cock. The muscles of her throat spasmed, tightened, and before he realized he'd lost it, his semen was jetting from the tip of his dick and filling her mouth.
Her throttled cry was another ripple along his cock, her stroking hands, her rapturous mouth. His head fell back on his shoulders as a harsh, guttural shout filled the steamy shower and he pumped his release down her throat.
Damn her. She was still there, the muscles at the back of her mouth spasming and rippling, extending his pleasure until he forced himself to jerk from between her lips. If he didn't, he wouldn't stop thrusting. As good as the release was, as exquisite, as fucking hot, he needed more now.
Ian pulled her to her feet, clamped his hands beneath her ass, and lifted.
"Wrap around me," he snarled.
Her legs went around his waist, her arms around his shoulders, and his cock nudged into the fierce, honey-slick folds between her thighs.
He didn't ease into her, he couldn't. Bunching his thighs, he held her in place and with a harsh cry pushed into the swollen, slick portal of her clenching pussy.
"Son of a bitch." He locked his teeth together as she cried out against his shoulder, her teeth sinking into his flesh.
He was buried in fire. Lightning clashed and burned through his nervous system as sweet, wicked spasms of hunger rippled over his erection.
He was buried to the hilt, balls deep in rapture and sinking fast.
He pushed her against the shower wall, tightened his grip on the cheeks of her ass, and pulled back before impaling her against it with a deep, desperate lunge. He was groaning, whispering her name, his face buried in her neck as her cries echoed in his ears. And he couldn't stop.
Fucking her was imperative, stripping away reality and filling it with the pleasure, the erotic sense of belonging that only came from possessing her. That need filled every particle of his being.
She was a part of him. He filled her body and she filled his soul, and God help him but the thought of losing her was destroying him.
"Hold me," he whispered, knowing he had whispered those words before, knowing he had needed her like this all his life.
"Always." Her voice shattered his control. "Always."
He plunged inside her, thrusting hard and deep, feeling her explode around him as his semen jetted inside her, filling her, marking her, a part of him held forever inside her.
Even as the last shudders of release rippled down his spine, he couldn't let her go. The water streamed over them now, washing along their bodies, steamy, relaxing, but the thought of easing his flesh from hers had h
im clenching in denial. He wanted to hold her like this forever. Right here. Hold the world at bay and deny the knowledge that anything existed outside the two of them.
"Water's gonna get cold." That Southern drawl was lazy, relaxed, filled with satiation.
Ian grunted in response, his face still buried at her neck, his tongue stroking across her flesh occasionally just to feel the little ripples of response beneath her skin.
She didn't say anything more, just held on to him, her hands stroking along his neck as he fought to gain the strength to pull away from her.
His head lifted and he stared into her eyes, holding on to her as she found her footing on the shower floor. Deep, dark gray orbs ringed in ocean blue. Like a fairy, or one of those damned pixies his mother had been forever telling him stories about when he was a child.
"You're my weakness." He acknowledged the reality of it with the words.
"You're my strength. And I'm yours, Ian. We'll fight better, stronger, together. Don't try to send me away." Somber determination glittered in her eyes. "I won't leave."
He hadn't even realized what he intended to do until she said the words.
"I'll be distracted."
"You'll be distracted even worse when I take a two-by-four to your head after this is over. I won't be protected. I'm not a hothouse flower and I'm not a weakness. I know how to defend myself and you know it. Start this again and I'll make sure you're limping when you face Diego this morning."
She was a wildcat. Pride swelled within him as she faced him, more determined, willful, and confident than any woman he had ever known.
"Muriel's going to die this morning," he warned her. "I can't risk him informing Sorrell that we know he's a plant. I'm killing him."
He had learned lessons since taking over the reins of the cartel. Never give them time to get a message out. In this world, take an enemy prisoner and it was the same as giving them a knife to cut your throat. He wouldn't risk it. Not with Kira's life on the line as well. And taking out Muriel was one less drug-running, innocents-destroying bastard left to breathe precious air.
He knew Muriel's guilt. Knew the crimes he had committed, just as Ian knew he was taking the task of judge and jury onto his own shoulders.
He nodded. Pulling two washcloths from the small shelf above the shower head he handed her one and kept the other for himself.
"We finished this then. Let's shower and get to it."
Kira dressed for battle. She wore soft figure-hugging tan leggings, a matching cotton tank top, and ankle boots made for comfort as well as endurance. She wore a shoulder holster beneath a matching dark brown blazer, but anyone with eyes, or experience, would realize she was armed.
Diego sure as hell didn't miss it. As they stepped into the small office he used, his head turned from where he sat with his cousin Muriel, the traitorous bastard, his brow lifting as he met Kira's gaze, then Ian's.
"She's armed?" There was an edge of condescension in his voice as he directed the question to Ian.
"She's not the first woman to go to war with her lover." Ian's voice snapped with ire as he strode across the room and, as Diego's expression turned to disbelief, used the butt of his pistol against the back of Muriel's head.
The other man slumped against his chair, his coarse black hair feathering over his swarthy features. He was unconscious before he knew what hit him. Diego was out of his seat, suspicion tightening his features even before he pinned Ian with black, furious eyes.
"What has he done?"
Kira could tell Ian was surprised by the question. It flickered in his gaze for only a second before he motioned Deke over.
"Strip him. Make certain he's not wearing a skin tag then have him bound and held in the basement. I'll deal with him later," Ian ordered Deke.
The bodyguard wrestled the broad Colombian from his chair, hefted him over his shoulder, and left the room. Trevor, Mendez, and Cristo placed themselves in defensive positions around Ian and Kira.
Diego's gaze tracked their movements before he turned back to Ian.
Suave, dressed in dark slacks and a white silk shirt, his black and gray hair still full and pulled back to his neck and bound with black elastic, the father stared back at the son coolly.
"I believe I asked you a question, Ian," he stated. "What has he done?"
Ian lifted the file he carried in the other hand and slapped it down on the table between the two chairs Diego and Muriel had occupied.
"He's been giving Ascarti, and in turn Sorrell, information on the entire network. I told you to keep this son of a bitch out of the loop. Do you remember that, Diego?"
Despair flashed in Diego's black eyes as he sat down slowly and opened the file. In living color, the pictures were displayed before him.
Kira glanced at Ian's face and swore she saw a flash of regret, but it was gone as quickly as it had come, and had been missed by Diego as his attention centered on the photos.
"There was no need for him to betray us," Diego whispered heavily. "I would have given him whatever he asked for."
"Now you can give him what he deserves," Ian snapped. "Or I will."
Diego's lips twisted bitterly as he lifted his gaze to Ian. Kira saw the pain, a flash of anger, and a soul-deep sadness she knew the other man had no right to feel.
"I cannot kill a maid who would give this information to our enemies, but I may kill my cousin who was like a brother to me since his birth?"
"You demanded the right to seek retribution." Ian shrugged. "You can take it, or as I said, I will. I have no problems killing the bastard. Liss was another story, Diego, and you don't want to remind me of that one."
"Then you may have the pleasure." Diego shook his head wearily.
"Growing soft, pop?" Ian snapped. "Maybe it will help you to know that Muriel was behind the attempt to blow my limo to hell last week. If that doesn't faze you, try the meeting with the Misserns and the fucking assassin waiting for me there. He's going to die, and he's going to die before he can contact his good friend Ascarti again and warn him that we're on to him."
Diego's eyes narrowed. "You have proof of Ascarti's involvement with Sorrell?"
"I have something a hell of a lot better than that," Ian growled. "I need you ready to move at a moment's notice. When the call comes in we'll be meeting with Sorrell himself, and we'll end this war once and for all."
Ian was frighteningly cold. Kira watched him warily, seeing the fury he had kept under control for so long edging to the surface now.
Diego, Jansen Clay, and Sorrell had taken great delight in torturing Nathan Malone, the SEAL they had held for more than a year and half. Ian knew Diego had been involved in the torture, knew he condoned it and added to it even after Sorrell had believed the SEAL had been killed.
Regret might be a fragile light buried somewhere deep within him, but she knew in that moment that Diego was a dead man walking.
"And you have arranged this how?" Diego moved from his chair to the bar across the room, his hand shaking, Kira noticed, as he poured himself a drink and brought it to his lips.
It was tossed back quickly and another poured before he turned back to Ian, his brow lifting in question. "I believe I asked you for details, son."
Kira saw the slight tension that tightened Ian's shoulders, the natural defensive block against the flinch that nearly betrayed his disgust at that word.
She could feel his pain. She couldn't see it, but she ached for him. Ached because this man was his father, this monster that shed blood, filled children with drugs and destroyed lives without a thought to the tragedies that resulted from his actions.
Ian faced this man daily. Faced the horror and the agonizing realization that he had come from this man's seed. Kira wondered if she could have borne that pressure without breaking, and knew she couldn't have. Something inside her would have died had she been forced to play the game Ian was playing.
"I don't have details for you, pop." Ian's voice was savage. "I have something he wants
now, and he'll come for it."
Brutal fire flickered in Ian's gaze then. "I'll take care of your cousin, you get ready to move, we may have to leave at a moment's notice."
"You are allowing me to play now?" Sarcasm filled Diego's voice. "What? Hell has frozen over? To what do I owe this glorious surge of allegiance that you would finally involve me in my own business?"
Pain. Kira watched the pain that burned in Diego's eyes as Ian mentioned killing Muriel.
"Give it up, pop. I promised you, when the time came we'd do this together, and that's what we're doing," Ian snapped, the disrespect in the title nearly causing Kira to flinch now. If she didn't know Ian as well as she did she might believe he was enjoying this. But she saw the subtle shifts of color in his eyes, saw the tension that tightened his body.
Diego stared at him silently, his face creased with sorrow, before he nodded wearily and turned back to the bar. The room was thick with tension, with the powerful opposing force of the two men and the connections that bound them, as well as set them on opposite courses.
For Kira, it was heartbreaking, though she knew to Ian it was finally the beginning of the end of this mission, the end of the lifestyle he had been forced to live and the blood that was shed daily.
Ian fought the knowledge that Diego was hurting, fought the memories, the pain of regret as he relived the times he too had been betrayed by those he had trusted. Not that it had happened often; Ian had never been a particularly trusting sort. But he knew the pain, the shame, he knew how it cringed inside the soul and left a lasting scar.
How Diego Fuentes could feel such shame because of a betrayal, Ian wasn't certain. The man should have burst into flames and died a thousand deaths from the horrors he had perpetuated over the years.
Hope lit a fragile light in Diego's eyes though as Ian told him they would be working together. Like a child that had been kicked one time too many, the older man quickly hid the emotion.
What the fuck was he doing? Ian asked himself. He should have never taken this mission, should have never put it into action in the first place. He should have just put a rifle scope on his ass and pulled the trigger despite orders.