“Please,” he ground out, as she flicked her tongue around … and around … then sucked him inside, slow and hot and impossibly deep.
Her skill almost brought him off but he fought her pulsing, hypnotic rhythm. He didn’t want it to end yet. He had too much to prove.
He clenched every muscle in his body with heroic effort and breathed it down, but the erotic sensations still rocked him.
She lifted her head. “Um … did you come?”
“Almost,” he told her, his voice thick and dry from panting.
“Give it up,” she urged. “I want to watch. I want to taste you.”
He still had some goddamn male pride left. “You can’t dictate that.”
“I can’t?” Her eyes widened. She cupped his balls, stroking the skin just behind, pressing right there … and … oh fuck …
He just barely breathed it down this time. It was a losing battle, and she knew it. He could see it in her smile when he finally dared to open his eyes.
“You don’t get to hold back,” she chided him softly.
“I want to be inside you when I come.” He said the words and meant them, but his body had other ideas. Hot pre-come trickled down his aching cock.
She took control again, using it to lube a tight, milking twist-and-pull while cupping his overstimulated balls. His hips bucked and he gasped for breath. “Oh Jesus. Simone. Please.”
“That’s more like it,” she whispered. “That’s what I like to hear.”
“Yeah? Go for it. Mount up. Fuck me hard. Show me who’s boss.”
Oh, God, her smile. It was radiant, now that the stim fever had melted away the tension in her face. And totally sexy. That tender pink tongue, caught between her teeth. Beautiful.
She swung her leg over him again, taking the bait, and braced a hand against his chest as her other hand slowly guided his cockhead into the slick folds of her pussy, nudging him inside with subtle pulses of her hips.
So slow. An erotic eternity. She sank down, enveloping him in the clasp of her body. Hugged, squeezed. Anointing him with her slick hot magic balm.
Taking him right up to the fucking brink.
His ASP sputtered and flashed like fireworks. He barely noticed. So good. She was taking him in so deep. Fucking amazing.
Her eyes looked dazzled once he was all the way in. She was almost immobilized, staring down as he surged beneath her, forcing himself deeper inside. Sensors and circuits were blown to hell.
She spread her fingers open over his chest as he thrust upward, her nails digging into him. The stimulation felt so good. “I gotta let go of this damn bedframe,” he urged, lifting his hands. “Let me hold your hips so I can control—”
“No. You don’t get to control anything. Keep your hands where they are.”
He breathed his own frustrated lust down with a ragged gasp. He owed her this. How she needed it was how it had to be.
He reached back and grabbed the iron bedframe again without a word.
Simone seized the top bar, curling her fingers over the wrought iron curlicues. She leaned forward so that her tits were just out of reach of his mouth. Her eyes held a perilous gleam of mystery.
She started to move. The light and shadows danced and shifted over her body. Each stroke intensely intimate. Every nerve charged with sensation, emotion.
He squeezed that iron bar hard enough to bend it. Concentrated harder. It worked. Kind of.
She stopped moving when she felt the heavy pulsing in the base of his cock.
“I thought you wanted to come inside me,” she said.
“I do. And I will,” he assured her. “Just not yet.” He groaned as she pulsed over him, milking him inside the tight, plush grip of her pussy. “Don’t do that.”
She kept right on. “Why not?”
“Because I want to make this last forever,” he said.
Last forever. The words reverberated between them.
Simone bit her lip. “Goddamn you, Zade,” she gasped, as a wrenching orgasm tore through her. Long and sweet and devastating.
He caught her in his arms and held her as pleasure racked her body. Her rhythmic pulses clenched his cock, squeezing him like a fist. So good.
Her eyes were wet when they fluttered open.
He had her. She had him. Souls bared, walls down. And he seized his advantage like the highly trained predatory combatant that he was.
He rolled her over, pinning her beneath him, and started in on her, deep and hard and desperate.
She writhed against him, whimpering, but he didn’t ease off. He could feel her pleasure building again already. He sensed it in her hitching breaths, her body arching against his, her hips lifting, moving faster … and faster …
Right into another long, shuddering release.
He slowed down to savor it, but not for long. He was back in the saddle now, and had something to prove, and right now she was too exhausted and dazed by pleasure to be pissed at him.
He’d enjoy it while it lasted. To the fullest.
“Again,” he growled.
She licked her lips, tried to speak. Her throat was too dry. The aftershocks of her orgasm fluttered tenderly against his cock. He loved that.
He kissed her as he fucked. Slow, deep, sensuous. Tongue and cock thrusting in tandem. Her tight little hole was slick and quivering around him. He pumped himself into her, swiveling his cock around, rocking and pulsing to open her still wider. She trembled with jolts of pure sensation.
He pushed her legs up and braced her feet against his chest. The heat, the wet, the awesome view. He watched the hot, luscious stroke and glide of his naked cock into the glowing pink flower of her pussy. Clasping him. Kissing him.
So excellent. Pushing over the edge. Reveling in her pulsating bliss.
She wrapped her arms around his neck when he took her for yet another juicy, lazy, rocking ride. Tongue kissing. Slow-fucking.
This time, when she came, he let go for real and pounded against her hips in a fury of lust. Violent pleasure coursed through him in deep, throbbing pulses.
He wanted to stay there forever. Fused with her.
He rolled to the side when he finally opened his eyes, his leg still hooked possessively around hers, reluctant to pull his cock out. It belonged right where it was. When he finally did, he slid his fingers inside her folds, stroking.
“I love to see my come dripping out of you,” he said.
The words were crude, but his tone was reverent and utterly sincere.
She lay there staring at him, her hair a wild tangle over the pillow. She licked her lips, tried to speak.
He held up his hand. “I know. I was bad. I broke the rules. Guilty as charged. Rest now and scold me later. There’ll be plenty of time for that.”
He reached down and snagged the comforter, tossing it over them both. It landed, as soft as a cloud. He tucked it around her and dragged her close, her head on his chest, wrapped in the hot shelter of his body.
She splayed her hand over his chest, limp and spent. Her temperature was lower now, a modest 98.9. He did a swift technokinetic synch and data-swept all the vid-cam security feeds that he’d neglected completely during the crazed fuck-fest.
He’d completely forgotten to do that. Scary. It was a good thing no one had attacked them. They would have been toast.
Simone stirred and rolled up onto her elbow.
“Sleep now,” he urged her. “Please. You need the rest. Just try.”
She frowned at him. “Zade. Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Don’t give a fuck? Don’t take care of you? What?”
“None of the above. I just don’t feel like sleeping.”
He heaved a sigh. “Is this going to turn into an argument?”
“Yes and no.” Her lips curved, and her hands slid down his chest. “It depends.”
“On what?”
Her hands slid lower and gripped his cock, already stiff and ready for action.
“On how well you please me for th
e rest of the night,” she whispered.
Chapter 22
Braxton sat with his bandaged feet up on Mark’s desk, tossing back a swallow of Mark’s expensive single-malt scotch. No reason not to enjoy life’s small pleasures now that he was closing in on the end game. He was exhausted after a bitch of a day slogging through the snow, trying to track D-14’s flight.
No blood trail. No dragging tracks of numb feet. No nothing.
D-14 had to be dead. There was no way he could have survived that snowstorm and those temperatures. Not in his condition.
Braxton’s swollen, stinging eyes were bothered by the rapidly changing sequence of random images on Mark Olund’s screensaver. They felt like a taunt. He hadn’t yet succeeded in hacking his way into the computer’s hard drive, and the fitful flashing of the bright, colored pictures made his stomach churn nastily.
Then the pocket of his lab coat buzzed. Fucking phone. He listened to it ring for a few seconds before he took it out. The metallic device gleamed, clean and luminous against the stained, grayish gauze wrapped around the sores on his hand.
He didn’t know the number on the display, but only those Obsidian assholes called him now. Some fat cat or other, wanting him to deliver something to them that they didn’t have the guts to just take for themselves. Lazy pricks.
“Who’s this?” he demanded.
“Braxton? This is Phillip Holt here.”
Braxton searched through his memory. Expensive suits, calculating minds. Some fatter, some thinner, but they all looked about the same. “What do you want?”
“Just checking up on you.” Holt’s jolly tone was fucking irritating.
“Here I am,” he said. “Get to the point.”
“Fine. Are you still in the business of tracking down rogue operatives?”
Braxton hesitated. “Why would you think that?”
“I’m looking over your order from our pharmaceutical lab out in Montana,” Holt said. “Ten vials of Finurol-19. Ten vials of Trib-Theta. Huge doses. So what’s going on?”
Those pharma lab pussies had sold him out. Braxton ground his jaw in rage, which made his loose teeth ache. “Nothing special. Just keeping my stash topped up. You never know when you’re going to need to take out the garbage.”
Holt paused for a second to take that in. “Then why was the order couriered to a new address? A rural route in … what is it, oh, yes. Wyoming. I didn’t know you’d moved out of Nevada.”
“I haven’t,” Braxton said. “Still at the same lab.”
“Ah. So. Vacationing then? Skiing, snowboarding?”
“Nah. Just needed fresh mountain air,” Braxton said.
“I see. Well, we’re having some trouble here in Seattle with a rogue operative.”
“Research group? Serial number?”
“Unknown,” Holt said. “We can’t place him. I thought he might be yours from an older set. You did some bold work back then. I remember those breathtaking demos you held back at the Denver headquarters. None of us could sleep at night afterwards. The possibilities were just electrifying.” He chuckled nostalgically.
Braxton had no reason to share in the laugh. He gave no shits about being buttered up after having been fucked over by those lying pricks. And he certainly didn’t care after losing his lease on immortality and downing three sloppy shots of single malt.
“We have video,” Holt said. “I’d like you to take a look.”
“Fine. Send a link. But my boys are all accounted for,” Braxton said. “The boys from all the older sets are dead. Lethal gene mutation. You know that.”
“Yes, I know. Except for the Midlanders,” Holt said. “You didn’t see them die. So theoretically, some might have escaped that fire and survived, right?”
“Theoretically,” Braxton said slowly. “But they’d be dead from the gene mutation by now. All of the test subjects died sooner or later. Where’s your rogue now?”
“We don’t know. He’s kidnapped Simone Brightman and he’s holding her in an unknown location. Obviously we’re desperate to get her back. Aside for our concern for her well-being, she knows a tremendous amount of confidential proprietary information. It’s a difficult situation. I’m sure you understand.”
Braxton ignored Holt’s attempt to bond. “What makes you think this rogue could be one of my boys?”
“His drug resistance. We shot six full doses of Corbatrix into him. He went down, but it took a while, and didn’t hold for very long. He recovered fast, took out a whole squad of ultimate gen operatives, and took off with the Brightman girl.”
Braxton felt a flicker of excitement stirring. Six doses of Corbatrix and still standing? That did sound like a Braxton Boy. “Let me see that video,” he said.
“Stand by. I’m sending.”
His smartphone pinged. The file appeared in his email. Braxton downloaded it and set it to play.
Holy fuck. He jolted upright. He did know that man. That was D-13. He’d recognize that scrappy, foul-mouthed shithead anywhere. Similar to his brother in looks and size, though D-13 was taller and thicker in the shoulders than D-14.
A huge pain in the ass. Never knew when to shut his trap. Zero impulse control. No matter how brutal the punishments became, D-13 just never learned.
Only the calming influence of his brother had made him halfway manageable. D-13 had been extremely attached to the older boy.
Probably still was. Hmmm. Braxton leaned closer, peering at the phone.
Fully grown, D-13 appeared to be in perfect health. So he had the same gene protection as D-14 did. Another fountain of youth running around on the loose.
Life, health, wealth, power. It all spread itself out in front of Braxton once again like a shimmering mirage. Excitement pulsed through him. Yes.
A fresh clip showed D-13 fighting in a kitchen. He slid down limply to the floor, leaning against a butcher-block table, trickling blood from multiple darts still stuck in his body. Eyes closed. Not seeing the young woman with messy blond hair—yes, Simone Brightman—who cowered in a corner and then scrambled across the floor to D-13, pulling a dart from his cheek. Gently, as if ministering to him.
That was sure as hell not the action of a terrorized victim.
“ … damn it. Are you there? Braxton?”
His phone was squawking. He’d forgotten about the call parked in the upper green bar of his screen. He waited a few more seconds to tap it, staying with the video, appalled by the cheap cuffs they’d slapped on him, when monster-grade was required. For fuck’s sake. He’d exhaustively documented the strength of the Braxton Boys. The info was all on file and readily available. Obsidian always underestimated him.
Assholes. They deserved this pounding.
“ … even listening to me? Hello! Braxton?”
Tap.
“Yeah,” Braxon said. “It’s a bad connection. But I can hear you now.”
“Good,” Holt huffed. “You’ve seen the footage?”
“Still looking at it.” He parked Holt and went back to the video just as D-13 snapped through his bullshit cuffs and promptly flattened the rest of the squad.
The newer mods were more controllable. They were extremely tough, fast, and strong, but they just didn’t have that mad killer edge he’d forged into the Braxton Boys. In fact, Obsidian had eventually scrapped Braxton’s projects because they were afraid of his results. The video demonstrated exactly why.
“So do you recognize him?” Holt asked. “Could he be one of yours?”
Show over, the video went to black with a replay icon.
Braxton tapped back to Holt. “I can’t be sure,” he said. “My subjects were teenagers when I gene-vectored them. He’s a grown man now, obviously. Could have had plastic surgery since then, for that matter.”
“You mean to look worse? More like a thug?”
“How the hell would I know, Holt? I went through hundreds of boys. And it was years ago. Their ID photos and all the other data were lost in the fire. You know that.”
> “So you don’t recognize him.” Holt had an edge in his voice. “But you can’t rule it out either. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“I suppose,” Braxton said reluctantly.
“Could you match his control codes to him, if you positively identified him?”
Braxton’s lips stretched across his aching teeth. He would never forget those codes. Not while he was still breathing. “I’d have to see him face to face and then do a DNA analysis to be sure,” he hedged. “Where is he now?”
“If I knew that, we would be having a different conversation. He and Brightman are still at large. We fear for her safety. Any timely insights on your part would be extremely welcome. We need to bring him in as quickly as possible.”
“Got it,” Braxton assured him.
“Well, if that’s all you can contribute … ” Hold paused. “Just study the video again. Send me a list of possibilities and relevant data. Control codes in particular. Can you do that for me? Quickly?”
“Sure. On it.”
Braxton ended the call and went back to staring at the flickering cycle of images looping endlessly on Mark’s monitor. He started to laugh but it disintegrated into a wheezing, hacking cough. Too much icy wind and snow today.
D-13 with Simone Brightman? So that tight-assed, high-strung doll was getting nailed by a Braxton Boy. Trained to be rough. There was something deeply satisfying about that image. She was probably naked and sweaty and moaning right now, with D-13’s dick shoved all the way up inside of her. Pick a hole, any hole.
Instantaneous, long-lasting erectile response was a hallmark of his gene cocktail. A special bonus treat for his boys. Dead or not, they could never say he hadn’t given them something.
But D-13 had to have targeted Brightman for something besides her big, dewy eyes and her bouncing tits. He must have learned from Mark about the prototypes she’d designed that were in Mark’s collection. No mistaking that distinctive yellow striped laminate she used to personally mark her designs.
All of which were tagged with an active RFID beacon.
Yes. That was what D-13 wanted from Brightman. He was dead sure of it.
He knew those Brightman designs down to the last byte and bit. He’d worked long and hard for years, tweaking them into alternate versions that were actually useful for something other than medically supervised treatment for miserable lunatics.
My Next Breath Page 20