Lear

by Jasinda Wilder

  He called my name in hoarse guttural snarls and I met the rhythm of his beautiful thick spurting cock inside me, filling me with all of him again and again until I was glutted on his manhood and overflowing with his seed and weeping his name as his seed wept out of me around him in messy trickles, yet still we joined, still we moved, tremors racking me, shudders juddering through him, whimpers from my lips now instead of screams, low groans from him instead of mad primal roars.

  How long? A minute? An hour? A lifetime?

  All in a moment. An instant. Nowhere near long enough. I wanted to be melded with him and take his cock and swallow his screams and know his soul, all night, every night, all day, every day for the rest of time. I never wanted to stop, never wanted to be apart from him.

  Yet finally sated, sticky and gasping, I collapsed on him, still and quiet, whispering his name just to hear it, just to say it, just to feel his name on my lips.

  I lost myself in a tangle of us, in the simple complication of we.

  I was wrapped up in him, pretzeled around him. He twisted and I was in his arms, face buried in his chest and the sheltering nook of his strong arm, and I let myself be utterly and totally feminine, let myself feel small and weak and afraid and vulnerable and fragile—let myself be all the things I could never be, until now. Until him.

  He held me, unspeaking, knowing I needed the silence to endure such porcelain fragility.

  I let him hold me, and I let my eyes close, let the warmth and safety envelop me.

  Chapter Nine

  Don’t Be a Cowboy

  It almost didn’t register at first—the detonation. We were both so content and sleepy that it almost seemed too distant and not anything to do with us.

  The heaviness in my limbs and fogginess of my brain told me we’d fallen asleep—for how long, I had no way of knowing.

  A split second later, I shot upright, dislodging Dani. “Fuck!”

  She blinked at me, and then clarity rushed into her face. “They’re here.”

  Naked and messy, we laughed as we dressed.

  Dani winced as she stepped into her underwear. “Wow, that is not comfortable at all.”

  I grimaced. “Sorry.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t apologize. It was worth it.”

  We dressed in record time, even for us. Strapping vests on, attaching webbing and clipping rifles into place and checking loads, we were ready within seconds, boots stomped on and speed-laced.

  Cans jangled. Another explosion rocked the cabin, from another direction.

  I met her eyes—they were surrounding us. She slapped the charging handle of her HK and nodded at me. And, just like that, Dani was gone—all business, now, Cuddy replacing softness with razor-sharp menace and icy calm.

  “You take the front, I’ll take the rear,” I said. “Peek out, tag a tango, roll back in.”

  She nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  I laughed. “We never interrogated our captive.”

  She carefully tugged open the front door, standing to the side, then nudged it open further with her toe once it was unlatched. She peered through the opening, scanning slowly. Paused.

  Tacka-tacka-tack. Her HK spat three rounds in a tight burst, and went silent.

  I stood beside the doorframe at the back of the cabin, tugged it open as she’d done, just a couple of inches, and scanned the opening. I caught a shadow slinking through the trees, aimed for center mass—CRACK-CRACK; I kept my weapon on semiauto, triggering twice in quick succession. Saw the shadow pause, vanish.

  Tacka-tacka-tack.

  No time to watch her, now. I had to trust her to do her job, to handle that side. I stepped further out into the opening and scanned a full 180 degrees; saw two shadows near each other. CRACK-CRACK…CRACK-CRACK. Both shadows dropped.

  They’d seen me, then—crackcrackcrackcrack…the full-auto bark of an M4, dirt bursts walking up toward the back door, slamming into the logs inches from my face. I ducked back in, heart hammering with adrenaline from the close call.

  “Pro tip, Lear—duck before they get close.”

  I laughed, despite my shaky breathing. “Yeah, got it. Thanks.”

  I heard her curse and glanced her way—she was leaning inside the doorway, wiping splinters off her face. “Should heed my own advice, obviously,” she said, wryly.

  The next several minutes went by as time does in a firefight—dragging second by second and then, all at once, time compressed and moved at warp speed and then back to sludge-slow. I replaced my magazine several times, lost count of how many shapes I’d tagged. My Steyr went hot, jammed. I tossed it aside to hang from the strap behind me and snagged an HK MP5A off the floor, shouldered the strap and shoved a pair of spare mags in the webbing on my vest.

  Scanned the opening, swiveling left to right, far left and then nearer to my side of the door.

  Silence.

  “Too quiet,” I heard Cuddy mutter.

  “No shit,” I agreed.

  More silence.

  “Fuck this,” I heard Cuddy snarl. “I’m the fucking hunter, here.”

  I turned just in time to see her eject her partially spent magazine and tap in a new one. “What are you doing?”

  “Going out there.”

  “Cuddy, we can hold them off here.”

  “I know. But I’m sick of this.”

  I eyed her. “Impatience gets you killed.”

  She slapped the handle, settled a spare mag in her pocket. “This isn’t impatience, Lear. I work best out there.”

  I growled, did another scan, but saw nothing moving. Glanced back at Cuddy—she was waiting, her eyes on me. “What’s your plan?”

  “Hunt the fuckers down.”

  I laughed. “I know. I meant more specifically.”

  “Circle wide and then spiral back in. See how many there are and how many I can tag.”

  I nodded. “I’ll cover you.” I met her eyes, and I knew she wouldn’t thank me for telling her to be careful; I closed my door and stood behind the front door, hand on the knob. “On three. Ready? One…two…three.”

  I yanked the door wide and swung out, dropped to a knee and scanned for targets. Nothing. There was no way that was the entire assault, was there? No way.

  This was the best plan though, I realized—go on the offensive. We could hold them off indefinitely, but in order to get ahead and move toward ending this bullshit, we couldn’t just sit around and wait for them to hit us. Cuddy was the better operative, the better hunter. This played to her strengths.

  She was gone already, out into the shadows of…whatever the fuck time it was. I realized I had no clue. This particular shade of darkness, black tinged with dull gray at the edges, smacked of predawn. I watched her shadow meld into the morning, her feet utterly silent even on the deadfall leaves. I scanned, my rifle moving in a constant back and forth arc, sweeping the shadows. With Cuddy out there, I couldn’t fire at any shadows that moved. That was the risk. I had to wait to be sure it was an enemy.

  I heard something, a low, quiet sound—a rustle, a grunt. I saw a shadow move, peered hard at it, and realized it was Cuddy slinking from tree to tree in a crouch, rifle snugged to her shoulder. I watched another form follow her, a moment later, and I knew this one was a tango. A single round dropped him. Two more moved—two rounds, two shapes dropped.

  Crackcrackcrack—three rounds slammed into the wood of the porch, and I threw myself backward as more bullets bit into the wood, walking up to the door. I landed on my back and rolled again, behind the shelter of the wall.

  Crackcrack—

  The burst cut off abruptly.

  Cuddy.

  A shout, stopped with a gurgle.

  Tacka-tacka-tack—tacka-tack—tacka-tacka-tack—tack—tack.

  Silence, long and tense.

  I swung out and peered out the window into the lightening gray of misty predawn. My breath hung in clouds. The chill licked my cheeks, my nose.

  My spine prickled, and I obeyed instinct.
Dropped to my belly, rolled to my back, and aimed my rifle down my body toward my feet, at the side of the deck. A shape in tactical black, M4 aiming up at me, spitting deafening fire, rounds buzzing and snapping through the air where I’d been an instant before.

  My round took him in the T-box, and he fell backward, the hole between his eyes weeping red.

  I let a sigh out, and moved to my feet. Scanned again, saw that same slinking graceful predator shape ghosting through the trees, rifle down now and a knife in each hand, one held blade up, the other blade down. I watched, rapt, as she crept up behind four shapes moving in a diamond formation for the cabin.

  She danced into the middle of the diamond and became a whirling dervish of death, blades singing in razor angles, slamming into the rearmost tango’s throat, her other blade already whipping down to slice through his femoral. The first blade withdrew immediately after impact, and she spun in a circle, blade creasing the lead merc behind the knee; he dropped howling, and she swept around in front of him, her second blade opening his throat. A flip of her wrist, and the blade held point down suddenly was held point up, and she lunged upward from her crouch, both blades jamming upward, slamming home under the chins of the two remaining mercs—now corpses.

  Four mercs, highly trained assassins each, dead within seconds.

  She sheathed the blades without looking, palmed her HK, dropped to a knee, and blasted four three-round bursts in quick succession. Three running steps forward, a swivel, three-rounds, three more steps at a sprint, ducking behind a tree, rolling out the other side, firing. A pause, an instant’s hesitation, and I saw the shape sneaking up behind her and my rifle was lifting to fire even as she whirled—she drew a KA-BAR, flipped it to hold it by the blade, and hurled it, all in one fluid movement.

  Goddamn.

  She didn’t lose a single second, running to retrieve her knife, re-sheathing it, and spinning to drop two more mercs in a pair of two-round bursts so quick together they sounded like one.

  I felt like a klutz, watching her work.

  No one had even gotten a shot off on her. I’d lost count of how many she’d taken out, all in less than three minutes.

  I held my position, watching the shadows for movement, tracking Cuddy as she prowled through the forest.

  Finally, she emerged from the woods walking upright, HK held casually one-handed. “We’re clear. I found their caravan—two Suburbans holding eight each, and I counted sixteen dead pieces of shit.”

  I trotted off the porch. “That was some impressive work.”

  She grinned at me. “Told you, I do my best work out here.” She gestured at the cabin.

  I smirked. “I don’t know, I think your best work was in there.”

  She snorted, but she was all business at the moment. “Save the innuendo, babe. Let’s check our friend.”

  We rounded the cabin and found the tree we’d tied my captive mercenary to. He was still there, awake, alive, and clearly ready to piss himself.

  Cuddy pressed the barrel of her sidearm to his forehead. “You don’t make a sound till we ask you a question. Nod if you understand.”

  A quick jerky nod.

  I ripped the duct tape off, yanked the rag free, and he spat, worked his jaw. I stood back, withdrew my knife from the sheath on my vest. Stared him down with all the rage I felt boiling over.

  He was breathing hard, eyes wide, sweating despite the cool air. Dawn was rolling over us in leavening gray, mist skirling low on the forest floor. I let the silence work on him, let my rage seethe.

  I traced a line down his cheek with the tip of the knife, loosing a trickle of blood. “Who’s tracking us, and how?”

  He swallowed. “I do not know, I swear this.” He was young, good-looking. Blond, blue-eyed, too soft for this world; his voice was heavily accented, Eastern European. “We get call from our contact. He is called Antoni. I never meet him, only speak on phone. He tell us we are called up, he send us directions, photos of target.” He glances from me to Cuddy. “You, and you. We are to kill and bring body, or bring alive.”

  “Bring where?” Cuddy asked. He hesitated, and Cuddy snatched the knife from me, drew a deep red gash where his ear joined his skull. “I’ll cut you to pieces bit by bit, you fuck. So I’d talk, if I were you.”

  “I talk, I am dead anyway.”

  “You don’t talk, your death will be a lot fucking slower and a lot more painful.” She deepened the cut, and I steeled myself to not look away, to look unaffected. “You’re dead either way. But you choose how fast.”

  He swallowed. Looked from me to Cuddy. “Airport, near city of Green Bay. Plane is wait, many more soldiers with it. Where from there, I do not know.”

  “Directions?”

  A shrug. “I am not drive.” He gestured with his chin at the carnage on the other side of the cabin. “Directions in phone. Nils, big man, big muscle, big belly, no hair, scars on face. He has phone.”

  I nodded. “Where do the orders come from, beyond Antoni?”

  Another shrug. “Cain, I am told. I am paid, I do the work. Not ask questions.”

  “You’ve heard things, though.”

  A slow nod. “I hear. I tell, you not kill me?”

  Cuddy laughed, a vicious, unkind bark, derisive. “What are we going to do with you? Leave you here, tied up? Bring you with us?”

  He sagged. “Cain…is Cain. No one I know sees him, though. Antoni, he does not see him, Antoni is call by someone else, with orders. Like this.” A hesitation. “You are the bait, I think.”

  “Bait?” I asked.

  He eyed me. “You. Not her. She is nothing to Cain. Only you. We get you. Bring you. Cain want all your friends. He spend much money to hire us…many, many of us.”

  I cursed under my breath—I knew it was too easy for Cain to be going after us one by one.

  He tipped his chin up, eyes closing. “That is all I know.”

  Cuddy stared at him. “We could leave you here, but there’s no guarantee anyone would ever find you.”

  “Better than to die.”

  “You’d die anyway. Die of thirst, exposure. Animals.”

  He shrugged, fatalistic. “Better to take that chance.”

  “Suit yourself.” Cuddy glanced at me. “Cool with you?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.” I met his eyes. “Take whatever pay you’ve earned and stay out of this.”

  He shook his head. “There is no stay out. I run, they find, they kill me. My mother, my sisters. Everyone. There is no choice.”

  Cuddy shrugged. “That’s the choice you make, I guess. Sucks.” She turned away, tossing me the knife and swaggering away without a backward glance. “You don’t get a second chance with us, pal. Stay out of it.”

  I caught the knife one-handed and followed her as she headed into the cabin; she tossed the HK onto the bed and stood scrubbing her face with both hands, before realizing they were both covered in sticky wet blood.

  “That was a hell of a time,” she said, sighing.

  I replaced magazines, set the HK aside, cleared the jam on my Steyr Aug. “I’ll find the phone.”

  She nodded. Waited until I was partially out the door. “Lear.” I stopped, turned around; she offered me a tentative smile. “Thank you for trusting me.”

  I just nodded, shrugging. “I’d be stupid not to, professionally speaking. But personally, it was a no-brainer. I respect your skills and talents. I’m realizing there are very few people I’d rather be in this situation with.”

  She nodded again. “Well, thank you. It means a lot. More than you know. I think most men in your situation would go all macho and protective because we just slept together, and shared…all that.” A thick pause, her eyes on mine. “You didn’t.”

  “I told you going in that I wouldn’t do that. We’re in this together.” I grinned. “Facts are, you’re better at that than I am. I’m no slouch, but you’re a fucking artist.”

  “It doesn’t scare you?”

  I shook my head. “Not at all.”
A grin. “It turns me on.”

  She chuckled. “You freak.” A wry, seductive grin. “What doesn’t turn you on?”

  “About you?” I laughed. “I don’t think there’s anything about you that doesn’t turn me on somehow.”

  “Go find the phone. I’ll pack up our gear.”

  “You don’t want to hang a while longer, maybe clean up?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I’ll clean up, but I think we need to move while we have the opportunity. Get to that airfield and see if we can trace things back to the next layer.”

  I nodded. “Sounds good.” I gestured at the kitchen. “There’s wet wipes underneath the sink.”

  She ducked her head. “Yeah, thanks.”

  I smirked at her. “You’re not embarrassed, are you?”

  She shot me a dirty look. “I mean, yeah, I am, a little. I’ve got a ridiculous amount of your spermatozoa leaking out of my hoo-ha. Not a feeling I’m exactly used to.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I, um…”

  She held up a hand, and I trailed off to let her speak; I watched her shift, subtly, from Cuddy to Dani, shedding the intangible hardness and soulless lethality. “Don’t apologize, Lear.” She closed the space between us, crossing the cabin to stand in front of me, gazing up at me; she had her HK in her hand, geared up for war, with blood smeared on her face and hands, yet her deep brown eyes were soft and warm and oozed promise and seductive female allure. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I do want to clean up before we head out, though, so get that phone for us.”

  I nodded, locking stares with her. She smiled, a quick tip of her lips, and then lifted up, kissed me, and dropped back down. Pushed me toward the door.

  I went, with a backward glance.

  Searching the bodies proved useful—more cash, more weapons and ammo, several phones. I collected anything useful, stripping one of the less messy corpses of its jacket with which to haul the load more easily. I found the body in question, eventually—the last corpse I searched. As described, he was huge: barrel-chested, with as much gut as muscle, the kind of man who is probably deceptively quick for such a large person. He had a cell phone in his shirt pocket, a Colt .45, the grip well worn, evidence of a much-loved weapon. He was the lead in the diamond Cuddy had taken out with her knives, and thus his entire front was soaked with blood from his opened throat. The phone was none the worse for wear, and it was an older model smartphone, unlockable with his thumbprint. Once I had it unlocked, I opened the text message thread—there was only one—containing the orders. There were grainy CCTV images of Cuddy and me, our names, coordinates of our last known position—the gas station we’d stopped at for gas and snacks—and our suspected current location, which could only be narrowed down to a large search area, some hundred miles square, probably triangulated based on vector, estimated gas tank range, and possible highway intersections.