by Em Petrova
Swimming away, she got only a few feet before he darted in front of her.
“My brother and I used to play sharks in the community pool. Sometimes Mom put us in a summer camp while she worked days.”
“Who won the shark game?” she asked.
“Usually Lennon did.” He chuckled.
Nealy studied his handsome face. “You love your brother very much. Does it bother you to have him with you… on the team, I mean?”
He arched a brow. “No, why?”
“Knowing he could get hurt.”
Linc’s expression changed, and he twitched his head toward a few lounge chairs set up on one end of the pool. “Let’s sit a while.”
They swam to the steps and he strutted bare-ass to a unit with stacks of white towels. He grabbed two and tossed one at her, which she unfurled and wrapped around herself, aware of her nudity.
Her skin pebbled against the terrycloth, and she drew it closer, watching Linc bind his own towel around his hips. He sank to a lounger and opened his arms to her.
She fell into them, enveloped by warm steel and cool droplets of water. Somehow, their swim had brought her closer to him. Why or how, she wasn’t sure. But seeing him in a totally different environment, doing an activity that wasn’t everyday, had her looking at him closer.
There were depths to this man that she’d never guessed at back in the hospital those first days she’d known him. Then, she’d known he was tough, rugged, and stood up for what he believed in. He had a hell of a tolerance for pain and a stiff upper lip about everything he endured.
Only… he’d made it clear how much he enjoyed her presence.
Now she was cuddled against his chest, with his arms wrapped snugly around her.
And she couldn’t think of any place in the world she’d rather be.
He tucked her head beneath his chin and kissed the top of her wet head. “You’re not cold, are you?”
“Not at all. It’s a warm night.”
“Are you over your anger at what happened tonight? That we hit a dead end?”
She sighed. “It’s frustrating, chasing tails sometimes. It’s not as if I haven’t experienced it before, but I can’t say I’m very patient when I do.”
He rumbled a laugh, chest vibrating against her side. “I’m quite acquainted with your patience level.”
“I was just doing my job.”
He flexed his arms, bringing her closer to his hard chest, her ass seated firmly over the thin terrycloth barrier between them. One slip of the towel and he’d be buried inside her.
While the sexual awareness took over her body, she had a bloom of warmth over her emotions. Being so close to Linc was something she’d never believed would happen for her. Deep down, she wasn’t a woman who dwelled over who she’d marry, dreamed of her wedding dress or picked out names for her future kids ahead of time. She loved her work and her life was full.
Somehow, the universe had thrown her a curveball, though, and she’d fallen straight into the black hole of loving a wonderful man.
“Tell me more about this director of yours.”
His question jarred her. Her mind was so far away from DC and Mark Mitchum. Linc must be thinking on the promotion they’d spoken about earlier.
“Well, he’s the acting deputy director.”
“Ah.”
“He took the position not long ago. And I was given this. I eagerly took the challenge, because I want to prove myself. Maybe next time an opening comes around, I’ll have enough in my file to back me.”
Linc asked her a few more questions about what she’d figured to be a touchy subject. But she found talking to him about it somehow knocked the situation down a peg or two on the importance scale. Like telling someone a tidbit of your life that was behind you now.
Her focus was on the present. And presently, she was in Linc’s arms.
She pressed a kiss to his stubbled jaw… and around to his neck. When she lifted her head again, he kissed her, a soft brushing of lips that quickly turned to a hunger neither could—or wanted to—control.
When he broke the kiss, she climbed off his lap, and he stood from the lounger. Together, they gathered their clothing into bundles in their arms and made it back to the apartment, leaving behind the pool glimmering in the moonlight, looking as untouched as before they swam. But Nealy felt the ripples of their time together deep under the surface of her being.
Chapter Nine
Nealy lay spread eagle on Linc’s bed, her firm thighs straining with the tension of holding her legs apart while he looked at every inch of her.
His cock jutted out, the tip angry and purple, but he wasn’t ready to give in and bury himself in those juicy wet folds of hers. Watching her squirm was too good to miss out on.
She twisted the sheets at her sides and bit into her lower lip. “Don’t torture me, Linc. I need you.”
Her throaty rasp sank deep into him. It fucked with his control, his mind and every part of his body as he held back from pleasuring the one woman on earth he wanted more than the next breath of air he took.
As he looked on, she raised her fingers to her hard nipples and strummed the tips. They both moaned in reaction.
“Spread your pussy open for me. Let me see how wet you are, babe.” His gritty tone reflected the inferno going on in his body. Not even his raging hard-on gave it away as much as his voice did.
Holding his gaze, she skimmed her hands down her torso to her mound. Then slipped her fingers over her outer lips, swollen and damp with juices, to part them. The instant her pink folds were exposed, a trickle of arousal ran from the tip of his cock.
“You want me,” she rasped.
Fisting his cock at the base, he gave it one slow pump, squeezing more precum from the head. She wet her lips.
“You wanna suck my cock, babe? You want me in the back of your throat?”
She made a tiny noise that had him standing at the bedside, his shaft at her lips. She parted them and snaked out her tongue, and he rested his cock head on it. When she closed her lips over him, a shudder rose up from his toes. For a long minute, he allowed her to suck on his cock, drawing him into the back of her throat with deep, sucking pulls while he swayed his hips.
Feeling that familiar tingle of ecstasy closing around his nerve endings, he drew his shaft free of her mouth and stood over her, staring through hooded eyelids.
“Turn over.”
His command had her eyes opening wide, but she did as he instructed, rolling into the sheets and presenting her rounded ass.
“Get on your hands and knees.”
Christ, he was aching hard and dying to plunge deep inside her.
He walked around the bed and stood looking over her dipped back, her rounded globes and the wet, pink slit between her thighs.
It was too much. He couldn’t hold back any longer.
Dropping to his knees, he palmed her ass, spreading her open to him. He eased in, inhaling her arousal. When he flicked the tip of his tongue over her soaking pussy, she cried out, fisted the sheets and pushed backward all in one motion.
His tongue was driven into her slit, and he moaned at the exquisite flavors coating his tongue. Need burst through him, and he rubbed his cock on the edge of the mattress just to ease a bit of the ache.
Licking her pussy up and down, curling his tongue around the hard pearl of her clit and back up to tongue-fuck her, he couldn’t stop the rumble of pleasure he got from eating her out.
The clench of her pussy around his tongue told him she was about to tip over the edge, and he thumbed apart her ass again. When the cooler air hit her pucker, her body tightened. Dragging his thumb over the tiny ridges of her anus, he felt her buck in his grasp.
Holding her firmly, he continued to suck and nibble her pussy while stroking the pad of his thumb over her ass. The moment he felt her give a shudder, he knew she was lost to sensation, too far gone to even cry out.
He drove her on, taking what he wanted from her, until she su
cked in sharply and let go.
Her body pulsated from head to toe. Juices flowed onto his tongue, and he lapped faster, extending her orgasm even as her pucker clamped down beneath his thumb.
When he drew away, she finally made a noise—one of regret.
His lips tipped upward. “You like that, babe.”
She twisted her face in the sheets, showing him one flushed cheek, her bitten lips and her eye, glassy with pleasure.
She was far gone, and damn if it didn’t turn him on even more.
Moving to his feet, he knelt on the mattress and gripped her by the hips. The head of his cock angled straight for the sweet center of her. Without willing his body to move, it did. Heat enveloped the tip of his erection, and he was burrowing into her one inch at a time until his balls were snug against her clit.
A rock of his hips brought out the moan he’d been hoping for. Then another. Soon, her cries were filling the room, and he grunted in time to them. Yanking her ass up, he edged a bit deeper.
She reared her head back, and he wrapped a fist around her hair, pulling her up for a kiss. From behind he couldn’t kiss her as thoroughly as he wanted, but it was too late to change position.
He was right there, on the edge of explosion, and she was already tensing around his cock.
Blinding need took over, and he released his hold on her hair to hook his hand under her breasts, and as he pounded into her with a frantic need, he flicked her nipples.
She came apart first, and he swore to God he felt her clit pulsating against his balls. The sensation threw him overboard, and he lost all sense of anything but loving this woman.
After long seconds of spurting his cum into her body, he realized his lips were at her ear, and he was whispering “I love you” over and over again.
* * * * *
Tears of emotion tasted salty on Nealy’s tongue. She collapsed onto the sheets, with her lover’s cock still buried to the hilt in her and their combined release running freely out of her pussy.
Her limbs felt heavy, sated. And she couldn’t move if she tried.
Linc flattened himself over her, his weight pressing her down a moment before he pulled free and rolled off. He gathered her into his arms and pressed soft kisses over her face and hair. Finally, he took her lips.
The tender kiss was full of passion, love and so much more she couldn’t begin to find names for. All she knew was what lived in her heart.
Placing her palm along his chiseled jaw, she looked into his eyes. “I’m in love with you too,” she whispered.
His eyes burned and took on a look of incredulousness, as if he couldn’t believe she would ever say the words or feel the same about him.
A breath left him, and he pressed his forehead against hers, eyes shuttering as he ingested what she’d said.
“Christ, I don’t know how. I was horrible to you from the start.”
“Not always.”
He opened his eye and pierced her in his very serious stare. “It was my cock, wasn’t it? It’s too good not to fall for.”
The unexpected joke in his words set off her giggles. Then he was chuckling too, and they shook for a moment with mirth.
“I think it was more your angry glares that did it, Linc.”
“How ’bout your sharp tongue? You were always slamming me for one thing or another. And those interrogation sessions…” He grunted.
She pressed her palms into his chest to lever herself up and looked into his eyes. “We had a rough start, I’ll agree.”
“And a slippery end.” He reached between her thighs and dragged a fingertip through her soaking folds. The sensation pulled her hips off the bed, and she lost herself to the way he watched her as he fingered her again.
Gliding his digits in, out and around her clit. She never expected yet another orgasm, but soon she was coming apart for him, shaking and holding onto him.
He kissed her mouth, open on a gasp of bliss, and she tumbled into loving this man full force. No holding anything back. No barriers between them.
Now she only had to figure out how to make life with a member of the Ranger Ops team work. With separations, challenges in finding time for each other and many other things she couldn’t even think of right now, it wouldn’t be easy.
She wasn’t about to give up her job, not when a promotion could be in her future. And he’d never ask her to leave the ATF anyway.
His light, fluttery touch on her spine had her melting into a boneless state on the edge of sleep.
“Babe.”
“Hmm?” she responded.
“Come home with me and meet my momma.”
She went still. She’d never been a meet-the-momma type of girl. Her relationships had been more of the quick fling that ended just as fast.
“I’d like you to meet the woman who raised me and Lennon without any help. And I want her to know the woman who finally captured me.”
Her smile spread over his shoulder muscle, and she turned her lips into his warm, steely skin. “When would we go?”
“Right away. Now.”
She pushed up. “Now?”
“In this line of work, I never know when I’ll be called out. Can you sleep in the car on the drive there? We’d make it in time for breakfast, and my momma always makes the best breakfasts.”
The spur of the moment decision to go wasn’t something Nealy was accustomed to making, but what did she have to lose? A few hours of sleep. But she’d gain so much more in doing this for Linc.
Throwing herself out of bed, she smacked him in the thigh. “Let’s go. Time’s a-wastin’.”
The grin he tossed her way warmed every corner of her body, and she wondered what she’d ever done without the man.
Especially when he donned that cowboy hat and gave her the wickedest grin imaginable.
* * * * *
Linc drew a deep breath in and held it, savoring the feel of country air in his lungs. He looked toward the house where he’d grown up. A simple white ranch without any traits to make it stand out on the pages of a décor magazine, other than the big red pots of flowers flanking the door. But it was a quiet, homey place that raised a nostalgia in him to find his bag of army guys and lay out a war on the front porch with Lennon opposite him, spitting with the shooting noises he made.
Nealy got out of the car and came to stand beside him. When she took his hand, he raised it to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “I miss this place every day.”
“I can see why.” Her stare went to the fields on every side of the house, the small plot surrounded by farmland. The fence corralling the neighbor’s horses touched the edge of his momma’s yard.
“Come on. She’ll have the coffee on.”
“But not enough for three people,” Nealy responded.
He grinned down at her. “You don’t know my momma.”
They stepped up to the front door, and Linc knocked. While they waited to surprise his mother with their appearance, he glanced down at the frame of the door and some notches cut into it.
He pointed. “See those? Linc caught hell for taking his pocketknife to the wood. Said he was measuring his action figures the same way we had a growth chart on the closet door.”
She laughed. “Your mother must not mind much if she left the marks there.”
He shook his head. Sentimental was the best word to describe his mother.
Suddenly, the door flew open and a woman hurled herself at Linc. He released Nealy’s hand to catch his mother, and she bounced up and down and squealed.
“My boy! I haven’t set eyes on you for so long. You must have known I was longing to see one of my boys. Or did you bring that rotten twin of yours with you?” She looked up to see Nealy standing there and pulled away.
Linc planted a kiss on his mother’s cheek, but she barely registered it as she stared at Nealy.
“I’m Sheila, Linc’s momma.”
“Hello. I’m Nealy.” She held out her hand, and his mother gave it a warm squeeze.
“Come in, come in! You’ll be wanting breakfast and plenty of hot coffee, I’m guessin’, if you showed up at this hour.” His mother bustled to the kitchen, and they followed. Linc threw a smile at Nealy, who seemed amused and maybe a bit shell-shocked at his mother’s whirlwind greeting.
“Now tell me, where did you find this beautiful woman, son?” She pulled down two more mugs and poured the coffee. “Do you take milk, dear?” she asked Nealy.
She nodded, and his mother went to the fridge. While she was there, she pulled out eggs and a pound of bacon. Linc winked at Nealy before rolling up the sleeves of his denim shirt and sidling up to the stove.
“Oh, look who’s cookin’ us breakfast,” his momma said with a beam of pride in her eyes. She handed Nealy her coffee and passed her the milk. “Come, have a seat at the table and we’ll watch this big special ops man cook us breakfast.” A look claimed his mother’s features. “Wait—was I supposed to keep the special ops part a secret or does Nealy know?”
“She knows. If she didn’t, it’s too late now.” Linc chuckled as he took out a cast iron skillet and added the bacon strips. He smiled at his mom. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too. Oh, what a happy surprise this is. And to think I was considering going into town to the farmer’s market today. I’m glad I didn’t go or I might have missed you. So tell me, Nealy, how did you meet Lincoln?”
He smiled at the use of his full name, as only a momma could say it. While the bacon fried, he listened to the two most important women in his life discuss how they’d come to meet.
Nealy eyed him with a sparkle in her eyes. “We got locked in an elevator together, and that’s when things really took off between us.”
“Oh heavens, just like the soaps! Locked in an elevator! For how long?”
“Long enough to make me fall for her,” Linc added.
His mother’s cheeks flushed with pleasure, and she talked to Nealy for long minutes while Linc finished with the bacon, laying it on a plate covered with paper toweling and started on frying the eggs.
