by Rachel Grant
Josh wanted her. Not Trina. Not some ideal woman. Her. And he wanted her with an intense, raw, virile energy that lit up the room and set her on fire.
She tugged at his belt, desperate to get him naked. Desperate to have his bare skin pressed to her. Inside her.
She stopped and scooted back, moving just out of his reach. “I’ve got an IUD, and I’m clean. I was tested when I found out my ex cheated on me. I haven’t been with anyone since.”
“I’m clean too. Regular physicals are part of my job, and I always have them run all tests.”
She bit her lip, feeling surprisingly nervous. “I want you bare inside me, but if it’s too soon for that for you, I’ve got condoms.”
He climbed on the bed, also on his knees so they faced each other. She tilted her head back to see his face as he loomed over her, so beautiful in the dim light of the bedside lamp. “I always use condoms when I don’t want more than a casual relationship with my partner.”
Flutters traveled from her belly to her heart, which started to pound to her own ears. “And do you want something more than casual with me?”
“I want everything with you, Maddie. I want it all.”
She leaned her forehead on his chest, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, taking in the scent of him, flooded with feelings and overwhelmed. His arm closed around her, holding her tight. Several seconds passed as she reveled in the wash of emotion. Then she raised her head and met his gaze. “Make love to me, Josh.”
As promised, he took her slowly. His attention to detail and her reactions guided his touch as he explored her. Undressing her was easy—she wore only a T-shirt, pajama pants, and underwear—but he still managed to take his time with it, giving her breasts all his attention before moving lower to remove her pants and panties.
He moved to go down on her then, but she clamped her legs together. “Strip!” she demanded. She wanted to see and touch him too.
He complied with a laugh and then proceeded to slowly remove his clothes, stopping between each item to caress a new area on her body with his hands and mouth.
She was in a frenzy of need by the time his boxer briefs finally hit the floor and she could see every beautiful inch of him. He stood next to the bed, and she knelt at the edge, rapt with attention. She ran her hands over his body, taking his thick cock in her hand and stroking the smooth length. She was going to have this. She already had had it. But tonight would be different.
Yesterday in the gym had been wild. Hot. Frenetic. Perfect for what she’d needed. But this was something else altogether. Today, he was claiming her, and she was claiming him. Her body was his to play with, and she would give as good as she got.
She lowered herself and licked the tip of his penis, then put her mouth over the head. He bucked, and she loved that small loss of control. She’d made him do that.
She slid her mouth down on the shaft until she could take him no deeper, then she licked and sucked and cupped his testicles with one hand while the other wrapped around the base of his cock and stroked him. Her mouth and hands worked his body, his hard flesh sliding along her tongue.
He gasped and wrapped his fingers in her hair, and she reveled in the pleasure of it all, this perfect moment as she had Josh Warner deep in her throat and lost in the pleasure she could give him.
He wasn’t worried about anything in this moment. He wasn’t taking care of anyone but the two of them. He was taking selfish pleasure. She wanted him to come in her mouth. She wanted to feel him pulse against the back of her throat as she swallowed. She wanted to give him that ultimate selfish pleasure of only receiving.
But he didn’t let her. He withdrew from her mouth even as she resisted.
“Later, sweetheart. I promise.” His voice was deep and guttural and oh so sexy. He rubbed the tip of his cock across her lips. “I’m going to take everything you want to give me. But right now, I want to give to you, and then I want to come inside you, without a condom.”
She gave the tip one last lick, then obeyed his orders to move up on the bed so he could put his face between her thighs. Damn, she realized she really liked being ordered around in this situation. She was one hundred percent on board with this hot, bossy bodyguard in bed.
His tongue was hot and wet on her clit, and it was her turn to buck involuntarily. As he’d done with undressing her, his touches were slow and languid, each stroke of tongue or fingers a precision strike that maximized her pleasure even while drawing it out. He traced her folds and kissed, sucked, licked, and worshiped. It was a slow yet intense buildup to orgasm that tested her sanity.
When she reached her breaking point, he increased the speed and pressure of his tongue, and the delicious friction sent her over the edge. She cupped his face between her thighs, her arms cradling his head as she gasped and groaned, her orgasm coming at her in multiple waves.
She loosened her legs and tugged at his hair, opening her body, urging him to enter her. He kissed her belly on his way up her body, then sucked on her nipples. Finally, his mouth reached her neck. He sucked on her skin at the same time he entered her slick vagina with a sure, hot, deep thrust.
She gasped with the pleasure of being so utterly filled. Joined. Connected. Claimed.
But this wasn’t hard and fast like in the gym. No. As promised, he tempered his speed, and each slide of his body in hers was measured perfection. She rode the waves of her ongoing orgasm, the pleasure continuing endlessly.
He rose up on his hands, locking his elbows as he thrust into her. She opened her eyes. As much as she was lost in the moment, she wanted to see his face. His eyes were open as he gazed down on her with such intensity, and she felt utterly claimed. Part of him, as he was part of her.
He increased his speed, ratcheting up her pleasure and, from the look on his face, his too. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back. He was so close, and now she was climaxing again, but she wasn’t entirely sure she had stopped coming from the first orgasm yet. One pleasure flowed into the next.
He came, his thrusting punctuated by a guttural groan. He kept up the friction, rocking his hips, and she went over the edge again, taking her long, sensuous orgasm to a new peak. She clenched around him, gripping his back with her hands, sweat glistening on them both.
His breathing was ragged as he held himself above her, then slowly lowered to kiss her, long and deep. A romantic kiss that said so much more than words.
He raised his head and looked into her eyes, and for the first time since this afternoon, she saw the question there.
He still didn’t know. Sex without a condom in the heat of the moment wasn’t a binding commitment, and yesterday, after she’d gotten the sex she needed from him, she’d rejected him. He’d braced for that to happen again.
She smiled and stroked his cheek, her heart pounding as pure, unfettered feelings for this man flowed downstream, having cut a new, more direct path. “You’re mine, Josh Warner, and I’m never going to let you go again.”
Josh woke with a start, disoriented. For a moment, he feared it had all been a dream, but the cool sheets against his naked skin, not to mention the sleeping woman beside him, reassured him that the previous hours had been gloriously real.
He wanted to pull her against him and breathe her in, revel in having her in his bed—well her bed for now, but that would change in the safe house—and in his life. He didn’t want to wake her, though, so he rose on his elbow and stared at her. She was naked, and the blanket had slipped, leaving one breast bare in the dim light of the room.
She was so damn beautiful, from the shape of her nose to the slope of her shoulders to that perfect breast he wanted to tease and suck.
He wouldn’t screw this up again.
She shifted, rolling toward him, and said in a sleepy voice, “Are you staring at me, Josh?”
He pulled her to him, and she pressed her face against his chest. “Only a little bit.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m happy. Being with you makes me
happy.”
Her lips pressed to his chest with soft little kisses. “You make me happy too.” She raised her head, and while her body was relaxed against him, he sensed she was more awake than asleep now. “This is real between us, isn’t it? No more excuses, no more yo-yoing from either of us? We’re together, in bed and out?”
He traced her hairline, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I’m all in, Maddie Foster. I’m crazy about you. I’ve never felt this way before, and I’m pretty sure that’s because I’ve never been in love before.”
He could just make out her features in the darkness. He really should have turned on a bedside lamp before making his declaration. A romantic strategist he was not.
She must’ve felt the same way, because she pushed him to his back, leaned across him, her chest pressed to his, and fumbled with the lamp to his left until the light snapped on.
He blinked at the sudden brightness as she did the same. “Say that again,” she commanded.
He held her gaze, forcing his eyes to adjust to the light. “I’m falling in love with you, Maddie. Head over heels. Ass over teakettle. All those phrases finally make sense, because you’ve flipped my world upside down, but when I’m with you, I know it’s the way the world should be.”
Her entire face—eyes, cheeks, brows, mouth—lit with the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen. “I’m crazy in love with you too, Josh Warner.”
30
The heat wave had broken, thank goodness. Today would be a perfect seventy-eight-degree summer day, not so hot that tempers would rise exponentially due to discomfort. Tempers would be bad enough without the added stress of dehydration and sunburn.
A cool breeze courtesy of the Willamette River, which snaked alongside the park, wafted across the wide swath of grass. The grass strip was so long, it intersected with three bridges. Josh and his team had set up at the south end of the park, just below the historic vertical-lift truss bridge, the oldest of its kind in operation in the United States, according to Maddie, who was prone to giving fun facts about historic structures within the city.
He glanced toward the hotel where she and Ava were holed up, but kept his gaze moving, in case White Patriots were watching. He didn’t want them to see him pay undue interest to that particular building. He scanned to the area where Portland Police Bureau officers were inspecting volunteers for weapons.
Given that many who’d signed up to protect counterprotesters had a history of confrontations with cops, this act went against their sense of self-preservation, but still, they were here, playing by the rules that Josh had managed to negotiate to keep everyone as safe as possible.
Desmond was back, his cut from three weeks ago now a thin line across his dark skin. Remembering his promise to Ava, Josh would invite the young man over for dinner, except he didn’t exactly have a house just yet. And he probably should discuss it with Maddie first, given that the current plan was that they’d all move to a safe house once it was ready.
Maddie.
His body, his heart, heated yet again. Last night had been a new beginning. A restart. A damn miracle. And this morning had been a continuation. He’d woken in her bed to find her hands on him, as if she couldn’t get enough, and he’d made love to her again, knowing it was the first of thousands of mornings that would follow the same pattern.
She’d come apart in his arms, his body giving her everything she demanded, and damn if it wasn’t a thousand times more satisfying than anything he’d felt before.
He’d been waiting his whole life for this morning and hadn’t even known it.
They still had much to work out, and he wasn’t foolish enough to believe that it would be smooth sailing with Ava from here on out either, but there was so much he had to hope for.
He focused on the scene before him. He needed to get his head out of the dreamy afterglow of magnificent sex and get his head—the one on top of his body—in the game. He had a job to do.
Cleared by the police, Desmond approached. After his experience at the last rally, he’d been promoted to green T-shirt and could take a place on the front line if he wanted it, but could also choose to hang back, interspersed with the crowd. Josh wouldn’t pressure him either way.
“Your niece going to be here today?” Desmond asked in a voice that was so not casual, but clearly trying to be.
Josh couldn’t suppress his smile. “Nope. No way. Too distracting for me if she or Maddie were here.”
“Maddie’s your girl? The one who was with Ava at the gym last week?”
“Yes,” Josh said, utterly thankful the relationship was truer now than it had been when Owen joked about it on the radio at the last rally. “She’s all mine,” he added in a whisper that was only for himself. Every curvy inch of her.
“Good. That they’re not here, then. I mean.” Desmond’s words came out a bit stumbling.
It appeared the interest between Ava and Desmond went both ways. As much as that made Josh happy for Ava’s sake, it also filled him with a little dread. Was he ready to deal with the prospect of her dating?
He’d just become a father. He was supposed to have seventeen years to prepare for this moment, and instead, he’d had less than two months. At some point in the future when he could catch his breath, he’d have a stiff drink and assess what bad karma he’d incurred to bring him to this point.
“You want to take the front line, or work the crowd?” Josh asked.
“Front line. No way are those assholes going to scare me off with their bullshit false flag tactics of trying to make it look like we instigated violence.”
“Okay, then. Take your spot. Counterprotesters and White Patriots should start arriving any minute, and we need to be ready.”
“Yes, sir,” Desmond said and went to the line of thin barricades that were supposed to separate counterprotesters from rally attendees on this side of the bridge.
Other volunteers passed inspection and took their places. Slowly, the park began to fill. Josh couldn’t stop himself from glancing toward the hotel again. The two women who were his whole world waited, unprotected, but locked in tight until the rally was over and he and Chase could return.
They were safe. They had planned for every contingency. He needed to focus on the men and women who were here on the front lines and protect them as he’d promised.
The park was filling up fast on both sides of the barricades that had been set up to separate White Patriots from Josh’s team. She was so damned impressed with his willingness to put his physical body on the front line. That man, who lived his convictions, who volunteered his time so others could do the same, was hers.
She glanced at Ava, whose attention was divided between the television and her phone. Local news channels were just beginning coverage of the rally, while counterprotesters were live tweeting from their side of the barricades. Ava was following the hashtag and, Maddie suspected, looking for pictures of Desmond.
The girl had a full-on crush. It was sweet to see, but Maddie also knew Ava was scared for Desmond.
It was impossible not to be worried, given the situation. Josh had been a Navy SEAL, and still Maddie worried. This wasn’t an op. These were Holocaust-denying American citizens who talked about taking “their” country back with violence.
And Josh was down there on the literal front line.
It was scary stuff, and just two days ago, she’d been abducted by one of them.
This rally would be bigger than the last. For starters, it was at a larger, more central park, but also, after the news coverage three weeks ago, even more news organizations had shown up to document every second. The road that fronted the hotel and paralleled both park and river was lined with satellite trucks. She opened Facebook on her laptop to see what was being said about the Portland rally there. There would probably be live videos taken by counterprotestors.
A notification popped up for one of her favorite groups—Archaeologists for Science and Freedom. It was a safe space for roughly five thousand of her
colleagues to discuss what was happening in the world and how attacks on the veracity of scientific data and historical facts affected their profession. They discussed the suppression of data on climate change, and academics posted when their universities took action to curtail research at the behest of government or corporations. There were several threads calling out professors for sexually harassing students in the wake of #MeToo.
Failures in NAGPRA enforcement popped up a fair amount, as well as pleas for help when willful destruction of archaeological sites was occurring unchecked. Many landowners believed that because they owned the property, they could destroy sites, but in most states, it remained illegal to knowingly destroy an archaeological site even when on private property. But enforcement of those laws only happened when Cultural Resource Management professionals knew the destruction was happening and it was documented.
The group was a cornucopia of information on what was going on in the world of CRM, mostly in the US, but with contributing members from all over the world. She clicked on the notification, which indicated she’d been tagged in a post, and smiled when she read it. A man she’d worked with several years ago said he intended to go to the rally and was thankful for the Raptor-Bond Ironworks alliance to make it safer for counterprotestors. He tagged Maddie, asking that she thank Josh for him personally, and added concern and support for her abduction on Friday. In the two hours since the post had gone up, there were over two hundred comments from her colleagues, all offering her support and virtual hugs and appreciation for the work she did. Some people knew her, like the original poster, because they’d worked or gone to school together, some were well-known and respected archaeologists who only knew her from the group, and still others were lurkers with unfamiliar names. Her eyes teared as she read them all.
In her rush to shut down social media yesterday, she’d forgotten that in safe spaces like this one, it could also be a comfort.
