by Wasp, A. E.
“So what can we do? We follow him, eyes on him the whole time. Weapons up. And just as he jumps into the helo, the asshole slits Asadi’s throat. Right in front of us, Breck. As close as that fucking sandbar is to us right now. It happened in an instant, and there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do to stop it. He killed the kid and threw his fucking body at us.” Steele’s nose flared, and his throat worked. “Asadi was still alive when I got to him,” he whispered. “And when the life drained out of his eyes, he was looking at me like ‘you promised.’”
It was so much worse than I had imagined.
Tears ran in a torrent down Steele’s cheeks, dripping into the gulf and adding more salt to the water.
I didn’t try to stop my tears, either. I wasn’t sure he was aware of his tears or of me. But after a few long minutes, he turned, wrapped his strong arms around me, and dropped his face into my hair. He shuddered.
My face was crushed against his enormous pecs, my arms clasped so tightly around him they were going numb, and Steele was clinging to me like I was necessary to his survival, like he trusted me to take his weight.
It was heartbreaking and beautiful and ridiculous all at the same time, which was pretty fitting for us… whatever us meant when you could count the days of your maybe-relationship on two hands and still have some fingers left over.
I’d been so worried about what to say and how to say it, when all Steele needed from me was to be present – to hear him, to bear this with him, and to care about him anyway.
Which was perfect, because that was exactly what I wanted to do.
I had no idea how long we stood there. I was dimly aware of a couple older ladies in visors strolling past us at the water line and the rustle of a hundred sea birds taking off from the sand all at once. None of it really touched us.
But eventually, the sky darkened as the afternoon rain clouds moved in and the wind kicked up. When the rain came, it wasn’t a drizzle, but a deluge, soaking us where we stood.
“Shit,” Steele said. “Come on, Sweetcheeks.”
He hauled me back toward the house, and I went along reluctantly. I didn’t want to see anyone else. Listening to Steele’s story had left my heart raw and tender; I couldn’t imagine what it had done to him. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be capable of laughing along if the guys made sex jokes about us again.
But when we got back to the pool area, it was deserted, like maybe the rain had driven the others inside. Steele didn’t head toward the patio near the house. Instead, he veered toward one of the outbuildings, opened the door, and dragged me in.
It was a gym – a treadmill, an elliptical, and a bunch of free weights lined one wall, while a couple of weight machines dominated the other. Interlocking black rubber squares covered the floor, and one entire wall was a mirror, probably so you could check your form.
Unfortunately, right now my form was pretty gross. My curls were plastered flat to my forehead, and the towel around my waist was sodden with rainwater, so I stripped it off and threw it in the corner.
The breeze from the air conditioning made me shiver – apparently, it was possible to have it jacked up too high. Who knew? But Steele turned around and wrapped his arms around me again, just as he had out on the beach. Even though he was as wet as I was, he was so fucking warm. I burrowed into him, burying my nose in his armpit.
Steele grunted. “Wait right here,” he said. He walked to the back of the room, ducked around the corner, and returned a couple of minutes later with two big white towels raised triumphantly in his hands.
“Charlie thought of everything,” I said as Steele draped one of the towels around my shoulders and pulled it tight, then chafed my arms through the fabric, like I might catch hypothermia from the slight chill.
“He’s got a sauna back there,” Steele said, frowning. “I can turn it on if you wanna warm up? Or there are showers.” He took the second towel, which I’d assumed he’d gotten for himself, and tied it around my waist so I was wrapped up like a burrito.
A very warm, emotionally raw, insanely turned-on, and possibly in love burrito.
“I don’t want a sauna, Steele. Or a shower.” What I wanted for him to fuck me again. I needed it so badly I could practically imagine every detail in living color. I would be putting my fingerprints on those mirrors before the day was out.
But first, there were things we had to resolve. “We need to talk. Though, I guess you’re probably pretty talked-out,” I said softly. I extracted one hand from my swaddle of towels and cupped his jaw. “There are things I need to say, though.”
Steele nodded woodenly and retreated a pace. “Yeah. Yeah, I figured you would. Listen, for what it’s worth, I truly didn’t mean to go off on you, okay? I get that I had no right to do that. I’m sorry. I feel like an idiot. And I appreciate you listening to my tale of woe out there.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the beach. “I really had no right to unload that on you either.”
I stepped toward him and grabbed him by the back of the neck. “You really are an idiot,” I informed him.
He nodded again, and I shook him – all six tons of him – and forced him to look at me.
“You’re an idiot… if you think that you freaking out about keeping me safe would make me anything but stunned and grateful that somehow the universe put you in my path! Especially now that I know where all of that fear came from.”
He frowned, like he couldn’t quite understand my words. It was adorable… and ridiculous. “God, Steele. You’re amazing, you know that? But you take on so much responsibility for everyone, too much for one person. And you know that you can’t control every force in the universe.” I pressed my lips together. “Part of me wants to back down and let you take charge of this thing with the senator. To stay home and sew your camera button back on or whatever.” I gave him a half-smile. “But I can’t.”
“You deserve vengeance,” he said. “I get that. I do. It’s just…”
“That’s not it,” I said. “I do want to be there. I told you that. But after everything you told me, I’d be willing to back off or at least compromise. But I can’t.”
“Can’t?” His hands came up to my hips, and he held me lightly, but his dark eyes were clear now, penetrating, like something in my tone had finally broken him free from the guilt and memories that haunted him. “Why, can’t?”
I licked my lips. “Wellllll.” I cleared my throat. “It turns out that Danny wasn’t completely upfront about handing over his cell phone when we got here.”
Steele’s eyes widened. “Jesus. Did he communicate with someone you know? Can Harlan track him here?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t… I don’t think so.” Honestly, the thought of Snow White tracking Danny here hadn’t even occurred to me. Fuck. “But he doesn’t have to. Because Danny told Harlan he and I would be at the party. At his house.”
Steele froze in place, I swear he even held his breath.
“Danny took his ring,” I blurted. “The night that he beat us. Danny came to for a minute, took Harlan’s pinkie ring from his finger while Harlan was asleep or passed out, and…. and swallowed it.” I shook my head. “He wasn’t thinking clearly. He was out of his mind. He thought we were gonna die and that ring would be the clue that implicated Harlan when they found our bodies.”
“He watches too much fucking TV,” Steele spat.
“He does! Totally. But like I said, he wasn’t thinking and… well, Harlan had to know it was one of us, obviously, and if he taped the encounter, which seems to be his MO, he’d have seen Danny. Which he did, also obviously, since he, uh, started texting Danny death threats if he didn’t return the ring.”
I was babbling now, praying that Steele didn’t walk away. I’d kept this information from him, from everyone, and I was just now realizing how stupid and shortsighted and selfish I’d been. Pride, pride, pride. Damn it.
“He texted Danny death threats?” Steele said, his voice rising an octave.
“And neither of you mentioned it to me? To any of us?”
“I only found out the other night,” I told him. “But I… yeah. I kept it from everyone. Because I figured you or Ridge, or both of you, would want to cut me and Danny out of the plan to take down Harlan. I was annoyed at you for stopping stuff the other night up in the media room and generally treating me like a kid who didn’t know what he wanted and…”
“And so you wanted to prove your maturity by keeping this from everyone on the team?”
I winced. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “Honestly. I was selfish. But when Danny and I were in my room, before you came back from Harlan’s party, Danny texted Harlan back on the secure tablet Josie gave us and told him we’d be there Saturday. With the ring.”
Steele stared at me, his jaw clenching. Finally, he nodded. “Okay.”
“O-okay?” I stammered. “Just…okay? Do you mean okay, like you’ll deal with it but you hate me now? Or like, okay you accept my apology or…”
“Or, okay, I get that you didn’t want to stay home sewing my buttons.” He shook his head, but it was like he was exasperated with both of us rather than just with me. “That’s not you. So… we’ll go back to the original plan, with some modifications. And I guess I’m gonna have to work on my overprotectiveness. Because I get that you’re the kind of person who really needs to feel in control of his own life.”
“I’m pushy,” I told him, repeating what I’d told myself over and over earlier. “And proud.”
“You’re resourceful,” he countered, pulling me into him so that the hard plane of his stomach rubbed against mine. “And you don’t back down. And those are good things, Sweetcheeks. I love those things. We’re just gonna have to work on this, because going forward I am going to want to smother you in cotton wool, and if I try, you’re gonna be mad. As much as I love prickly Breck, I don’t actually want to make you angry.”
Going. Forward.
Which meant this wasn’t the end. And it also very possibly meant the whole holy shit this feels so permanent vibe I’d been feeling for him (and pretending I didn’t feel because it was way too soon for that) was reciprocated.
Emotions I couldn’t put into words clogged my throat. I opened my mouth, then closed it again. “I could promise to kick your ass if you try,” I told him finally.
“I don’t doubt that for a second.” He hesitated. “I’m going to try to back off. But you’ve gotta understand, Breck. I’m not always a good guy. Not when it comes to stuff like this. So if you’re there, you’re going to listen to me without hesitation. When I say duck, you duck. When I say run, you do the best Usain Bolt impression anyone’s ever done. Okay?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Yes, of course.”
He nodded, somewhat appeased, and I pressed a kiss right to the center of his chest. God, this guy. Protective and reasonable and logical and sensitive and hot as fucking hell. He was perfect. Perfect for me, anyway.
But when I tried to raise up on my tiptoes to kiss him, he held my hips tightly and stopped me. “Breck. There’s one more thing you need to know.”
I frowned at the thread of unease in his tone. “What’s that?”
“After Asadi was killed, the higher-ups figured we were compromised, so they extracted us. They wanted to wait for Haji Khan to resurface elsewhere and find a different low-key way to take him out. But I couldn’t let that happen. My men couldn’t let that happen. We hunted the bastard down in Mazar-e Sharif a week later, and…”
“Killed him and every single guy who worked for him?” I finished.
He narrowed his eyes. “Did Wes tell you? Or did you see the evidence Charlie had?”
So this was the blackmail Charlie had on him. It made sense. But unless Charlie was a total asshole, I’d have been willing to bet that none of the information would have ever seen daylight, even if Steele had turned down this “job.”
“No,” I told Steele, my eyes staring into his unflinchingly. “Wes didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. I knew because that’s exactly what I’d have done. And I wouldn’t spend a single minute regretting it, either.”
He gave a half laugh, and his dark, serious eyes lit up. “I don’t know where you came from, Breck Pfeiffer, but I’m starting to think I owe Charlie a big fucking favor.”
I grinned. I couldn’t agree more. Somehow I’d found the one guy on the planet who thought my biggest flaws were assets and who looked at me – the whole boiling hot mess of me – and saw something precious.
“And maybe,” I whispered. “You just owe me a fucking.” I lifted myself on my tiptoes, and this time he didn’t stop me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and whispered in his ear, “Maybe you should make sure I know how to obey.”
A shiver ran through him, and that made me shiver too. Steele’s arms came around me like bands. “I’ll get you warmed up,” he promised, and I didn’t protest even though cold was the last thing I felt.
I had no need to push or protest, because I trusted Steele to get us exactly where we both needed to go.
13 Steele
I had to kiss him, how could I not? He’d seen the worst of me and not turned away. I’d never imagined anyone would accept me like that.
When I’d freaked out and run from him, he’d chased me down and listened and understood. He hadn’t told me to calm down or that everything was going to be okay because he knew it never would be. That Asadi’s death was something I was going to have to live with the rest of my life.
But if I were very, very lucky, Breck would be something—someone—I got to live with for the rest of my life.
I lifted him up, cradling his ass in my hands. He wrapped his legs around my waist and his arms around my neck.
I could have stayed there kissing him forever, his hand cradling the back of my head and his lips firm beneath mine. He was so slender. I bench-pressed more than him every day, so it was no effort to hold him up with one hand. With one arm under his ass and the other around his back, I pulled him even more tightly against me. Any space between us was too much.
His kisses turned desperate, and he shivered. The towel around his shoulders fell to the ground. His skin was warm and smooth against me, reminding me that I was still damp and cold and I was going to give him pneumonia if I didn’t stop kissing him, at least long enough to dry off. Maybe we could take this somewhere warmer, somewhere with a bed.
I should do that, but I couldn’t stop.
He pulled away, mouthing up my neck and licking the rainwater off my skin. “You’re wet. And cold and tasty.” He unwrapped his legs and tried to slide down, but I wouldn’t let go. I caught a hand in the waistband of his tiny bathing suit and yanked. He ended up dangling from my arms, the towel bunched up around his waist and his naked ass hanging out.
That I had to see. I turned us so we faced the mirror. “Now that is fucking sexy.”
“Put me down you Neanderthal,” he said, laughing.
“Soon.” I cupped his ass cheeks, kneading them and loving how they felt in my palms. His back was a smooth expanse of tan skin I wanted to map with my tongue. His mop of curly blond hair begged for my fingers.
“Stop!” He smacked me on the shoulder, not really angry. “You’re cold. Put me down.”
Reluctantly, I did. The way the other towel slid off his hips, leaving him completely naked, mollified me a little. Thanks to the mirror, I could see his front and back at the same time. It was glorious.
Before my body could act on its urge and sandwich him between it and the mirror, he bent down and yanked my bathing suit off too. I stepped out of it at the same time I pulled my wet shirt over my head.
“Nice coordination,” he said approvingly. Grabbing one of the towels off the floor, he roughly and quickly rubbed me down from shoulders to feet. Crouched down as he was, my cock was right at his face level when he looked, and he eyed it greedily. “Hmm.” With a wicked grin, he swallowed me down.
Holy fuck. The contrast between the heat of his mouth and the chil
l of my skin weakened my knees. I pitched forward, hands landing flat against the mirror for support.
Breck laughed around a mouthful of my cock. He pulled off with a pop, then licked a long stripe up the underside of my cock. He closed his lips over the head, dug his fingers into my ass and pulled me deep into his mouth.
“Jesus, fuck. Fuck!” One hand flew to the back of his head, holding him in place. I clamped the other on his shoulder. I tried to hold back; I hadn’t been able to take my time the first time we’d fucked, and I wanted to remedy that. I wanted to take all the time in the world. But really, how much time did we have? How long would it be until someone came looking for us?
Breck’s tongue swirled around my cock, and he sucked hard. My eyes closed against my will, and I caressed his cheek. God, this kid. This man. He turned me inside out. Was it wrong to fall in love in the middle of a blow job? Was it love? Would I even know if it were?
His hand tightened on my balls, and I gasped, my eyes flying open. Pulling off, Breck sat back on his heels and stroked his heavy erection. “Do it, babe. Fuck my mouth. Please,” he begged. Arched back, he rested his head against the mirror and closed his eyes in pleasure as he pumped his hips into his fist. A dark pink flush of arousal spread down his neck to the divot of his throat.
My brain shorted out. I let him take a deep breath, then grabbed his hair and yanked him back down on my cock, pumping fast and hard into his mouth. He gagged, his hand grabbing at my hips, my ass, his nails digging into my flesh and dragging me deeper down his throat. I forgot how to breathe.
