The Princess And The Mercenary

by Victoria Paige

  “All talk, Spear.” Her eyes flashed. “Been waiting … oh, god!”

  He surged into her in a hard up-thrust, groaning by her neck, as he filled her to the hilt. Yara’s nails dug into his shoulders, eyes blinded as a bolt of ecstasy pierced through her.

  He wasn’t huge. He was massive. Every nerve ending in her pussy lit up and clamped down on the intrusion.

  “You okay?” he gritted through his teeth.

  She couldn’t answer. She thrashed, desperate for that release that was just beyond her reach, frustrated with her inability to reach it. She couldn’t move her hips. She desperately wanted to ride his cock.

  “Oh god,” she whimpered, eyes squeezed shut.

  “Babe, you okay? Coz, fuck, I can’t wait to pound the shit out of this pussy.”

  Her eyes popped open. That was what she needed. A hard pounding. “Do it.”

  Kade bared his teeth and withdrew … and she felt every inch of that withdrawal. He slammed back into her. “Feel that, Tink? Balls deep inside you. That’s what you wanted, huh?” He pulled back and thrust back inside her. “Well, guess what? Your wish is my fucking command.” He hammered her with a series of fast thrusts followed by long pounding drives and she relished every stroke. But it was his grinding rhythm that hit her sweet spot, shattering her into a million exquisite pulses.

  Her moans, his grunts, their harsh breathing saturated the room.

  As she came down from her orgasmic high, it was to see Kade watching her fiercely, pounding between her legs as he continued to deliver on the promise of a hard fuck.

  “You’re beautiful when you come.” Her vision was blocked as he devoured her mouth, his tongue sweeping in as they shared a kiss as fierce as the way he was pumping her.

  When he tore his mouth away, he sped up his pace, he grew harder and bigger and on one final drive he canted his hips, planted deep, and growled her name.

  22

  My backside is imprinted on the wall.

  I fucked Kade.

  And, wow, that man can fuck.

  He was still buried inside her, making good on his promise that she would feel him for days because he stretched her to her pleasurable limit. He lowered her right leg but kept her left one wrapped around him as he mouthed the skin between her neck and shoulder, tasting her.

  “Kade?”

  He grunted.

  A wisp of laughter burst from her mouth. “One would think sex would put you in a good mood.”

  In response, he bit her shoulder at the same time ground his hips into hers and whatever part of him that pressed at the top of her pubis elicited unexpected delicious pulses. Yara shuddered against him. “Thank god for multiple orgasms.”

  A chuckle rumbled deep in his throat. He finally raised his head to look at her, a wry grin on his face. His eyes were hooded and lazy. “You are exquisite.”

  “Thank you.” She beamed at him, and then a thought occurred to her, heat flushing her cheeks. “You think Abdul heard us?”

  His body shook. “Too late to worry about that now.”

  “Kade!” She pushed against him and he lowered her other leg. Before she could get away from him, he scooped her up and deposited her on the bed.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered. Walking to her backpack, he grabbed some tissues and took care of the condom, and then he walked back to her and climbed into bed, dragging her into his arms. He seemed content just to hold her, but Yara wanted to talk, wanted to ask him questions. She traced the lines of his tattoos.

  “I can hear those wheels turning,” Kade murmured. “You’re wondering how I got the condoms?”

  Yara shrugged. “Figured you have a healthy sexual appetite.”

  “I do.”

  The bastard. That wasn’t very reassuring. Was this still a one-time thing? Were they a thing now?

  “Still hearing you, Tink.”

  “Well, what exactly do you hear?”

  She was rolled on to her back, he got on top of her, propped up on his elbows while she shamelessly opened her legs to accommodate his hips.

  He cleared a wisp of hair from her face. “Bob put the condoms in my bag.”

  “What?”

  “He figured I would need them.”

  Yara covered her face with her hands. “This is so embarrassing. It’s like everyone is expecting us to do the deed.”

  This time it was Kade who shrugged. “Everyone sees it as an inevitability.”

  “So, are we at one and done?”

  He frowned, then the lines smoothed out as he remembered what he said the first time they nearly had sex and his gaze softened. “No. I think I want to keep you.”

  They weren’t the most romantic words, but it was in the way he said them, like she was the most precious thing in the world and her heart took notice. He lowered his head and kissed her, his cock hardening again. Her fingers traced along his abdomen, along his tattoos and the ridges of scars underneath them. He stiffened and pulled away.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Kade put on his boxer briefs and then picked up her bra and shirt from the clothing pile on the floor and handed them to her. “Need to get dressed. No telling when we’ll have to split.”

  Made sense, but his whole demeanor had changed. After Yara got dressed, she sat at the edge of the bed. “The scars under those tattoos on your side. Where did you get them?”

  He had his back to her and his shoulders visibly tensed. He raised his head and stared out the window into the mountainside. “It was a long time ago.”

  “There’s no electricity. Doesn’t look like we’re getting naked again. I’m not quite ready to face Abdul yet in case he heard us having sex, so I’m all ears.”

  Kade removed his duffel from the couch, dropped it to the floor and sat, facing her. He leaned forward, resting elbows on his knees and examined his hands. Yara had seen him do this before when he was conflicted.

  “Six years ago, we were stationed in Afghanistan. Our base was small, mostly special ops folks. We had a good rapport with the locals who were our eyes and ears for terrorist activities in the area.” He paused. “Sure you wanna hear this? It’s gonna get ugly.”

  “Go for it.”

  “As part of winning the hearts and minds, our commanding officer encouraged us to support the local economy. Buy local food, use local services. Anyway, there was this girl, Aysha …” Kade looked at her and Yara stiffened. “She was no more than seventeen. Very pretty. A lot of the guys on our team liked her, flirted with her.”

  Yara cleared her throat. “Did you …?”

  Kade’s eyes widened. “Hell no, I was thirty years old. No business lusting over a girl almost half my age.”

  “As you already know, some men have no problem with that.”

  “That’s why this whole child-bride business pisses me off,” he growled. “That pisser—”

  Holding up a hand, Yara said, “Let’s not get sidetracked.”

  His lips flattened, jaw tensing. “Aysha had been hanging around our base for a couple of months, selling flatbreads. She’d become a regular fixture and we’d grown protective of her. One day, she staggered onto the entrance of our base, all beaten up.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Sent me and my team into a killing rage. She told us that we had to help her get her thirteen-year-old sister out because her parents were going to marry her off to a sixty-year-old man. Aysha offered to take her place but the old man thought she was too old and she wouldn’t be a virgin.”

  Yara’s stomach turned, but Kade’s face had shuttered into that bland mask she hated, as if the words out of his mouth were poison.

  “She said she had an uncle who would take her and her sister in, but our CO told her we couldn’t interfere. It was up to the local police and their clerics to decide. That night my unit and I decided to defy our CO. We were looking at a court-martial, but Aysha had wormed her way into our hearts. We retrieved Aysha from the clinic, left the compound with the excuse about going into
town. We were in civilian clothes. Nothing unusual about that because we did a lot of recon that way. Aysha led us further and further away from the center of town. We should have been alarmed, but we were hopped up on battle rage.”

  He paused, his breath becoming raspy.

  “Kade?”

  “She …” Blood rushed to his face, turning it ruddy. His mouth twisted in repressed rage. “She …Aysha … she led us into a trap.”

  “What?” Her heart plummeted to her feet. Yara did not see that coming.

  “All her sweetness and smiles.” His eyes grew distant, unseeing. “It was a ruse. She led us to a compound, knocked on its gate, someone yanked her inside and then, before we knew it, we were surrounded by Al Qaeda.

  “Seven of us. Tubs and Spike died that night. Gunner, Iceman, and Maze were injured. Smoke and I were knocked unconscious in a blast. We woke up in a filthy dungeon. Iceman was not responsive. He died shortly thereafter.”

  Tears filled Yara’s eyes. She was tempted to tell him to stop, that it was okay, but she had a feeling this was what destroyed the man he was, the man who’d shown compassion to a young girl only to be betrayed.

  “Even then we thought Aysha was being blackmailed, we didn’t believe the worst of her. Torture began almost immediately. The flogging. One day, Gunner and I were strung up and caned until we passed out only to be reawakened with a splash of water and the beatings would start all over again. Another time it was Aysha who woke us up.” His voice faded into a whisper. “Her specialty was cutting.” His mouth curled into a snarl. “She liked cutting close to the bone. Along the ribs.”

  “Oh, Kade.”

  “I was numb to the pain she inflicted. I couldn’t feel physical pain. But each maniacal laugh and each time she sliced, my heart broke into pieces. Over and over.”

  “How long?” Yara asked. “How long were you prisoners?”

  “Six months. Gunner died after three; Maze followed soon after. Smoke and I were the last holdouts, but we were almost dead anyway. They gave us only enough food to survive and torture us.”

  “Nightmares?”

  “Once in a while. Less frequently in the past two years.”

  “How did you get out?”

  “Max and Garrison.” At her surprised look, he continued. “We were considered deserters by our command, but Garrison knew the whole story because they’d been keeping an eye on this nest of vipers. They knew we’d been taken. They just didn’t have the sign-off from higher channels to initiate a rescue because they didn’t want to undermine almost a year of covert ops.”

  “That’s horrible that they knew you were there and didn’t do anything.” She was beyond outraged. “What happened to Aysha?”

  “She was killed in the raid. Max was the one who freed me and Smoke from our cell. I saw her body in the courtyard. Beside her was an AK-47.”

  “Obviously, you didn’t go back to work for the Army.”

  “Smoke and I were honorably discharged.”

  “No court-martial?”

  His mouth quirked. “Garrison took care of everything.”

  “And now you work for him?”

  “No, he hires me and Max occasionally.”

  “Semantics,” she said. “And Smoke?”

  “Went back to Texas and took up ranching.”

  “And your deal with Garrison now?”

  “We’ve never had a deal with Garrison. He was a middleman. Our contract was with the Saudis.”

  “Why didn’t you follow through with Nasir’s assassination?”

  “When we didn’t find any chemical weapons in the crates, I knew in my gut that Boustari was full of shit.”

  Yara wasn’t sure she heard him right. “Wait. What chemical weapons?”

  His story must have laid him out like an open wound because Kade didn’t manage to hide the guilt on his face.

  “Fuck,” he muttered.

  Yara slowly got to her feet, hands on hips, she glared at him. “Kade Spear, you tell me everything right the fuck now or, I swear to god, you better hide sharp objects from me.” When his mouth twitched, she screeched, “I’m not kidding!”

  “We thought there were chemical weapons in your crates.”

  “You thought I was an arms dealer?” she yelled.

  “Keep your voice down!”

  “I just had sex with you.” Her eyes grew wide. “How could I be so stupid?”

  “Don’t say that,” Kade growled, taking a step toward her.

  “Don’t come near me!”

  “Calm down.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down,” she hissed, but lowered her voice. “The last thing you tell a woman who’s hysterical is to calm down. The last thing,” she spat, “you want to tell a woman you’ve fucked while thinking she is a terrorist and she finds out. Is. To. Calm. Down!”

  Her fingers grabbed the first object they could find and hurled it at him. He ducked and her shampoo bottle hit the wall. Before she could launch her toiletry bag at Kade, his shoulder hit her midsection and they went tumbling onto the bed.

  “Get off me!” Arms, legs, and nails struck out, but Kade was an immovable boulder of muscle. His hips and muscular legs rendered most of her body immobile. Her hands flailed, but he finally caught her wrists and slammed them at her sides.

  Yara slammed her forehead against his face and caught his chin.

  Yow!

  “Stop it,” he growled. “Listen to me.”

  “I’m done listening to you! You’re vile, motherfucking scum of … of a goat herder. Let me go!”

  “I can’t.”

  Something in the way he said the words caused her to pause and she looked at him … really looked at him.

  And her heart flipped.

  Fierce determination heated his eyes. “I can’t let you go, Yara. Not now, not ever,” he gritted out. “I don’t fucking deserve you. Hate me, but I can’t … I won’t let you go.”

  “Why?” she cried in frustration. “All you do is hide things from me!”

  “It slipped my mind.”

  “Convenient.”

  “Listen to me!” he snarled. “We started with a lie between us. I’m trying to explain what makes me such a fucked-up bastard. Why I’ll probably fuck this up with you,” he said. “I’ve never told anyone about Aysha. Not Max, not Garrison. Only Smoke and I share the scars from her betrayal.” He searched her face. “And now, you know too.”

  “But you helped Laila …”

  “Helping Laila is a moral responsibility,” he said. “Wanting to kill her father runs much deeper.” He inhaled raggedly. “Since I joined the Army and up until now, with this job I do, everything is layered in need to know. It’s not because I want to keep things from you. There just hasn’t been an opportunity to tell you everything that I think would matter to you.” His face searched hers earnestly. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  She did. She really did, and it mollified her to a certain extent.

  “I admit, I’m finding myself pissed at the Iddy and Laila situation and starting to care more than I should.” His eyes locked on hers. “You, Tink, are making me care more than I should. Making me human again. See why I need you?”

  Her brows furrowed. “That’s blackmail.”

  He rested his forehead on hers and sighed. “I’m addicted to you. This mad rush and the feeling of coming home. I can’t fucking let that go. Can’t go back to that numbness.”

  “Sounds a lot like love,” she croaked.

  “Maybe,” he mumbled against her lips before sealing his mouth over hers, trying to coax it open with that diabolical tongue of his.

  Acutely aware of the hardness pressing against her thigh, that it could erase all her worries for a few stolen moments, it took all her willpower not to fall into the kiss. She still needed answers. When she resisted, his teeth nipped at her jaw, sending shivers through her body. He let go of her wrists and the second his fingers brushed her torso, she escaped his lips. “You still haven’t expla
ined about the terrorist part.” A conversation they had in the past came back to her. “That was what you meant, wasn’t it? When you said you can’t start anything with me until the mission was over.”

  Kade pushed back from her and pulled her into a sitting position. “I needed to be clear of my commitment to the general before I pursued you.”

  “But you believed I was a terrorist that time.”

  He hesitated for a beat. “One percent.”

  Yara quirked a brow. “So, you were ninety-nine percent sure I had nothing to do with any chemical weapons?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even before verifying the cargo.”

  “Yes. Someone who’d cry over people eating leaves to survive couldn’t possibly transport nerve gas.”

  “That’s what you all were looking for?”

  “Something similar,” Kade said grimly. “It’s still missing.”

  “Missing?”

  Kade nodded slightly. “The manifest from the shipping company stated nine crates.”

  “But there were only eight?”

  “Yes.”

  A feeling of unease crept over Yara’s skin. “You think someone at ERAF knows about it?”

  “Garrison told me Jeff Kennedy showed up at the UN camp.”

  “He was worried about me. Guilty he hired you guys.”

  Kade stared at her, as if wanting to say something.

  “What?”

  A crackle came from their night lamp and it blinked on.

  “Electricity is back,” he said. “We should check the news.” He scowled when he saw her expression. “I’m not hiding anything from you. I really don’t know, but I suspect Kennedy is someone with information.”

  “You think something is on the memory stick Garrison gave you?”

  “Let’s look through that after dinner.”

  Kade glared at the TV as the Yemeni news flashed the segment on Sullivan Emerson’s missing daughter. There was no official acknowledgement from the government. Kade suspected someone from the UN camp leaked the news to a reporter. There was nothing on the U.S. news channels and Kade could only point to Sully threatening anyone broadcasting that his daughter was missing, thereby making her fair game to Al Qaeda.