Last Chance (Second Chance Book 3)
Page 8
He sucked it into his mouth, flicking the tiny bud with his tongue. She moaned long and low, her hips rising off the bed to meet his mouth. It was one of the things he loved most about fucking her: the one time when she offered all of herself to him, the one place where she held nothing back, the primal need of her body stripping away the reason that made it so hard to listen to her heart.
He licked her clit, flattening his tongue and lapping while his fingers worked their rhythm. Her channel clamped down on them as her orgasm became imminent and he worked her clit faster, his own need spiking with the urgency in her hips.
“Declan…”
She gasped his name into the room and a moment later her hips shuddered under his mouth, convulsing with the orgasm that rocked her body.
He licked and lapped until her body grew still, the pressure loosening around his fingers. Her breath was shallow in the silence of the room and he stretched out over her, dropping kisses on her hairline, damp with sweat, her nose, her closed eyelids.
He stood to take off his jeans, almost sighing with relief when his engorged cock sprung free of the denim.
She sat up, her thighs on either side of his legs, and wrapped her hand around his shaft.
He sighed, closing his eyes as she lowered her mouth to his swollen crown. Her lips closed around him, enveloping his head in her delicious heat.
“Fuck…” He was already so close to orgasm he almost didn’t dare to let her keep it up.
If only it didn’t feel so good.
She sank her mouth onto him, taking his full length into the back of her throat. He groaned as she held him there, her hands on his hips, then dragged her mouth slowly off him.
She stroked the base of his shaft as she sucked, working up a rhythm that was dangerously close to the ecstasy of fucking her. The orgasm gathered in his stomach, a wildfire he was running out of time to extinguish.
“Kate…” He held her face in his hands, stopping her before it was too late.
He pushed her back on the bed and lay on top of her. Her body was soft and warm and he nestled his cock between her thighs. “Let me fuck you.”
She looked up at him. “Let me fuck you, Declan.”
She hooked an ankle around his calf, trying to get enough leverage to roll on top of him.
To take control.
It was a move she’d made countless times, one he usually enjoyed immensely.
This time he used the weight of his body to prevent her from making the move, stroking her hair back from her forehead and gently kissing her as he looked down at her face.
It was a face that had brought him to life in college, that had haunted him for six years. It was the face he wanted to fall asleep to, wake up to, every day for the rest of his life.
“Not this time, Kate. Not yet. Let me be in charge for a while.”
Some of the tension left her body and touched his lips to hers, dipped his tongue into her mouth, sweeping it with long strokes until it grew urgent all over again. She locked her knees around his hips, opening herself to him.
It was all the signal he needed. He positioned himself at her entrance. The head of his cock brushed against her velvety folds and was immediately covered in her slick juices.
He pushed into her with a groan of pleasure.
11
She cried out as he drove into her. He was massive, his cock stretching her channel as he tunneled into her, but her body welcomed him, opening until he sank all the way against her cervix.
“Jesus… you feel so good, Kate. So warm. So tight.”
She locked her ankles around his calves and grabbed the hard rise of his ass, pushing him even deeper. It was the only way she could tell him that she wanted all of him. That she wanted to give him access to every secret part of herself even when it didn’t seem that way.
He rained kisses on her face, then lowered his lips to suck one of her nipples. The combination of his cock filling her and the heat of his mouth around the peak of her nipple was the best kind of torture.
She moved underneath him, the friction against her clit almost unbearable, her body already reaching for another orgasm.
She worked with him as he dragged himself slowly out of her, putting distance between them in anticipation of the moment when he would drive into her again. When it came, it took her breath away, the penetration swift and deep, a long hard stroke that forced her turn her head and muffle her scream into the crook of her arm.
He pulled out, faster this time, eager to push back through her channel, tight with her impending release. Their bodies were tuned into the same frequency, working to mutual benefit, mutual release, perfectly timed as he drove into her, pulling out just long enough to drive into her again.
Her need for release was mounting, rising like high tide in her stomach, threatening to spill over. She was lost in sensation, so lost she gasped when Declan rolled under her, flipping their positions until she was on top, straddling his hips, his cock still buried inside her.
He looked up at her, his hands on her hips, and she knew what he was saying, what he was telling her.
This is how it is with us. How it will always be. You can be in control. But you have to give yourself to me too.
She bent to kiss him, her hips already moving, her body still primed for release.
He moved with her, lifting his hips to thrust into her, pulling back enough to let her sink onto him with maximum pleasure. She used her hands to brace herself against his chest, grinding into him on the downstroke, letting the friction work her clit until she was desperate to come, to feel him come inside her.
“Oh god…”
“That’s right, beautiful. Come for me,” he coaxed.
The words demolished the last of her self-control. She cried out as pleasure exploded at her center, the orgasm taking hold of her all at once.
She closed her eyes, letting the sensation wash over her, taking her out of her mind to a place where she was pure feeling, pure ecstasy.
Declan groaned, his body tensing as he released everything he’d been holding back. His upward thrusts were almost vicious as he pushed through her again and again. He spilled into her, his fingers digging into her flesh, until he finally let loose a long sigh.
He lay back on the bed, his chest rising and falling, hands still possessively on her hips, and she dropped into his chest, her own breath shallow and jagged.
“I love you,” he said, stroking her back. “I love you.”
She kissed his chest. “I love you too, Dec.”
His heart beat a lullaby under her ear, their breathing slowly returning to normal, falling into a rhythm the way their bodies had just worked in rhythm.
She didn’t know how much time had passed when she woke with a start. She’d dozed off, still on Declan’s chest, her thighs still straddling his hips. A chill had settled over the room, and she shivered, turning her head toward the glass doors leading to the balcony.
Soft green light, eerie and otherworldly, leaked into the room.
She eased off Declan’s naked body and covered him with the blanket before pulling on his discarded T-shirt. Walking to the glass doors, her gaze was pulled upward where undulating ribbons of emerald light waved across the night sky.
She wondered if it was her imagination that there was a high-pitched hum in the air, a frequency that seemed to come from the heavens and that was barely audible to the human ear.
She opened the glass doors and slipped onto the balcony, oblivious to the cold on her bare arms and legs, mesmerized by the light show playing out overhead.
Time seemed to stand still in the moments — seconds? minutes? — before she felt the heat of Declan’s body behind her.
“Aurora Borealis,” he murmured, wrapping her in the blanket around his shoulders.
“It’s like a dream,” she said, leaning back against him.
“Like you.”
She stood in silence, letting the warmth of his naked body heat her skin, lost in the myster
y of the sky above.
She felt small. She felt big. She felt like everything. Just like Declan said.
But not just her. All of them. They were all part of the same strange enigma that was life. Watching the ethereal colors bend and twist overhead, she realized there was no hope of figuring it all out.
She suddenly didn’t know why she tried.
She didn’t even know what questions to ask anymore. Didn’t even know if they mattered. She was just one instrument in a strange orchestra, an invisible conductor leading them through movement after movement, the music somehow beautiful even when she didn’t know which notes were coming next.
Declan thought she was strong, but strength was more than intelligence. It was more than knowing how to lead people, how to make decisions. It was even more than resilience, than fortitude.
Strength was having the courage to stand tall on the ground of the things you knew — and to stand strong in the face of the things you didn’t.
It was being brave enough to let go.
She turned in Declan’s arms, her eyes combing the face of the man who was every bit as beautiful to her as the rippling sky.
“Do you remember when we went to the Bahamas, and you told me after that, it would be you and me? For real?”
He nodded. “That was our deal.”
“You’ve lived up to it,” she said. “I haven’t, and I’m sorry.”
He held her face in his hands. “You have nothing to apologize for, Kate. You and me for real doesn’t mean smooth sailing. It means we get through the storms together.”
“You’re right. You’ve always been right.” She slid her hands around his waist and looked up at him. “It’s you and me, Dec. For real. So tomorrow, do what you have to do to come back to me. That’s all that matters.”
He lowered his head, crushing her lips under hers. Then he swept her into his arms and carried her back to bed, the night sky still rippling overhead.
12
Declan strapped on his Kevlar and rechecked his weapon. Nick and Ronan did the same, each of them working silently in the trees surrounding the house where Neil Curran was in hiding.
They’d parked the car on a narrow path off the side road where they’d taken turns monitoring the camera feeds. The Rover had barely fit through the overgrown pathway, but the trees provided ample cover for the car and their preparations.
In the two days they’d been planning the raid on the house, no one had come or gone and there had been no sign of Beth. It was the kind of uncertainty they took pains to prevent on any job, but it was unavoidable. They couldn’t afford to wait. The risk of Neil running was too great, especially after Jóhanna Leifsson’s message from Gunnar Ármannsson, who’d obviously reached the limits of his hospitality.
And waiting wouldn’t do them any good anyway. They had no more leads, no new information in the pipeline.
Neil was the lead. He was the pipeline.
They needed to find out what his plans were for WMG before Aiden and Kate walked into the company to find it had been stolen out from under them.
And they needed to find Beth.
He heard Kate’s voice in his head, almost felt her in his arms the way she’d been the night before, her body pressed to his under the mystical sky.
Do what you have to do to come back to me. That’s all that matters.
The words had come at a cost to her, and he knew she meant them. But that didn’t mean there would be no fallout if Beth was killed in the raid, and it didn’t mean there would be no fallout if she remained missing.
One way or another, Kate needed closure on the issue of her sister. Declan was determined to provide that closure, starting with beating every bit of information out of Neil before killing him for what he’d done to the Walsh family.
To his family.
“You good?”
He looked up to find Ronan staring at him, his forehead creased with worry. It was after one a.m., the forest dark and silent except for the scurry of small animals.
“I’m good,” Declan said.
“You sure?” Ronan asked. “Because Nick and I can probably take him if you think you should sit out.”
Declan spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m not sitting out. Jesus. I’m fine.”
“We have to ask,” Nick said. “You know that. There’s a lot at stake.”
They had no way of knowing Kate had given Declan her blessing to do what had to be done, and he had no intention of telling them. Putting Beth in danger had to remain a last resort, and while Ronan and Nick were always careful when it came to the innocent, Beth wasn’t entirely innocent.
Declan didn’t want to give his brothers an excuse to be anything less then meticulous if she ended up being in the house with Neil. He was grateful for the escape hatch of Kate’s forgiveness, grateful she’d given him her blessing to do what had to be done, but he would still try to keep Beth alive if she was in the house.
“No one knows more than me how much is at stake,” Declan said, slipping on his earpiece.
“You know what I mean,” Nick said.
He nodded. Nick wasn’t talking about the stakes for Kate and Beth and the Walsh family. He was talking about the risks to them, about the fact that if one of them got sloppy or sentimental, it could cost their lives. None of them had ever had a death wish, but they all had a lot to live for now. No one wanted to come out of the house in a body bag.
“I know what you mean.” Declan thought of Alexa, of Julia and John Thomas. Of Kate and Griff. The greatest stakes imaginable. “I would tell if you if I wasn’t solid, but I am. This is just like any other job: breach the house, get to Neil, keep him alive so we can get information out of him before I kill him.”
“And Beth?” Ronan checked his weapon and shoved it into the holster strapped to his side.
“We protect her if we can, if she’s even there,” Declan said.
Ronan met his eyes. “And if we can’t?”
“Then we do what has to be done to get out alive.”
Ronan nodded, satisfied.
“Let’s do a comms check,” Nick said.
They adjusted their earpieces and tested the audio.
“I’m taking the back,” Declan said when they were done. The drone had only given them the most basic of information, but one of the things they’d learned was that the single light that came on in the house at night came on at the back of the house.
Declan wanted to get to Neil first.
“I’ll take the front.” Ronan looked at Nick. “You cover the cellar, come in through the basement, just in case.”
“You got it.”
“Approach through the trees like we talked about,” Declan said. “I don’t want this fucker seeing us and trying to run.”
The end was in sight. They would deal with Neil, get what they needed, eliminate him. Then Declan and Kate could start building their lives.
You and me. For real.
It was all he wanted.
“Everyone ready?” Ronan asked.
Looking at his brother, his black clothes rendering him almost invisible in the dark, it was easy to forget he was also the man who was so tender with Julia, who rocked his son to sleep when he was sick.
This version of Ronan was like the image on an underdeveloped photograph, his cold eyes and the hard set of his jaw an alter ego behind the man who had emerged under the love and care of his wife and son.
It was comforting. None of them could afford to take their most vulnerable selves into the house where Neil had been hiding. Tonight they had to be the men they were before.
Before Kate. Before Julia and John Thomas. Before Alexa.
“Ready,” Nick said.
Ronan nodded and started for the footpath. “Let’s do this.”
They parted ways before they reached the road. The trees surrounding the house would probably provide enough cover, but the less movement the better. They would be harder to spot from a window if they weren’t in a group.
Within seconds the moonlight was swallowed by the canopy overhead. Declan walked carefully, both to camouflage any sound and to make sure he didn’t trip on one of the exposed tree roots snaking across the woodland floor.
He could hear his brothers’ steady breathing over the comms system, all of them silent, focused on the task ahead.
He glanced at his phone now and then, using the GPS to guide him toward the house, glad they lived in the modern world where he wasn’t in the middle of nowhere trying to find his way with nothing but a compass and a vague idea of how the house and property was laid out.
He was almost to the tree line when he heard a branch crack somewhere behind him. The sound was deafening in the silence and he stopped, putting his back against one of the giant trees.
The scurry of animals that had accompanied him so far had grown quiet. Declan listened, his ears tuned to the possibility of someone following him, someone moving unseen through the forest.
Movement to his right caught his eye. He spun toward it and was met with two big eyes staring at him through the low-hanging foliage.
He froze. The doe was tall and stately, her ears standing on alert, gaze wise and calm. They stared at each other before it sprinted off, branches cracking under its feet as it disappeared into the forest.
The scurry of smaller animals resumed. He exhaled a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding and kept walking.
He reached the tree line less than fifteen minutes after he’d parted ways with Ronan and Nick. The house was barely visible, a tiny glow emanating from the other side of floral curtains that blocked Declan from seeing anything else.
He stepped behind a tree and spoke into the comms system. “In position.”
Nick’s voice came a few seconds later. “Almost there.”
“In position,” Ronan said. “Jesus, Nick. What’s taking you so long?”