by Zoe Dawson
After the hardest hug on the planet, he released her enough to look down into her face. There was a deep-seated fear there, and it wasn’t until this moment that she realized how badly she had hurt him. A sick feeling of guilt washed through her, and she swallowed hard, unable to look away.
“Charlie,” he whispered, his chest heaving, “Tell me what to do? Leave the SEALs, travel, make promises, get on my knees, beg…anything. I’ve tried, but I can’t live without you. I don’t want to.”
She tossed her bag down, a fierce protective feeling washing over her like a tidal wave. She pressed her face against him and tightened her hold, her throat clogged with tears. It tore her to shreds, knowing she had hurt him so badly, but here he was spilling his heart to her, showing her that he was the most courageous man she’d ever met.
He tensed, not sure even now which way she was going to go, and Charlie touched his mouth again, her fingers trembling. “Oh, Ocean, I’ve been so scared for so long,” she said, trying to explain past the awful cramp in her throat. “I just kept thinking things couldn’t change. I’ve only known the navy. They were my family, all I thought I needed. Safe.”
Blue continued to give her his full attention, that hope that had blossomed only moments ago getting stronger.
“But as much as I’ve put my trust in them, and I’ve felt completely comfortable, I realized only a few minutes ago that I’ve harbored this terrible fear that I couldn’t have love and the navy and make it work. That I was undeserving of you. I’ve never trusted a man before…until you. I thought it was going to make everything complicated, our jobs, jobs we both love. The navy we both love and serving our country is so ingrained in us that it’s hard to separate who we are without it.
“But all of it was nothing but an excuse to protect myself against feeling again, getting hurt. You deserve my full trust, everything I have to give. I wasn’t sure I had the courage.”
“And now?” he whispered as if he couldn’t bear for her to turn away from him again, his gaunt face filled with hope, his eyes never leaving hers. Regret rushing through her, she touched his mouth, her tears warm against her cheek.
“I was that kid looking for my family, not realizing I had found it in the navy and in…you. I’m sorry, Blue,” she whispered brokenly. “So sorry.” With love infusing every bone in her body, every pore, every line and curve, she said, “I love you, Ocean. I love you beyond measure.”
He closed his eyes as his arms came around her in a desperate, crushing embrace. Holding onto him with every ounce of strength she had, she turned her face against his neck and choked back a sob. She waited for the awful ache to ease, then she hugged him, closing her eyes tight against the swell of tears.
“God, I can’t live without you either.”
Caving in around her, Blue tightened his hold and tucked his head against hers, and she felt him release a pent-up breath. Experiencing such a wealth of love for him, she cradled his head against her, giving him what comfort she could, her relief nearly as wrenching as his. He came here for her, and right then, that was all that mattered.
Releasing a ragged sigh, he lifted his head and loosened his hold, kissing her temple. She gently smoothed over his short hair as he rested his forehead against hers. For one awful moment, she realized what she had stupidly thought she should give up, how she would have lost him. She could feel him trying to pull himself together. She cupped the back of his neck, gently stroking him, and he released another unsteady sigh and shifted his hold. She heard him swallow, then he raised his head and met her searching gaze, his eyes so full of the love she knew was in her own.
He shifted his gaze and tucked a strand of hair that had escaped her now messy ponytail. It always happened when she dived. “Are you free now?”
Her throat suddenly tight, she smoothed her hand across his ravaged face. “Yes, I’m off-duty now. You have something in mind?”
He started to speak; then he abruptly looked away, and she could see the glimmer of moisture in his eyes. Her eyes burning, she lowered her head and grabbed the side of his shirt, needing that connection with him.
Shifting his hold, Blue caught her along the jaw and tried to raise her head, but she resisted, not wanting him to see the tears in her eyes. He rubbed her chin with his thumb, his voice very husky, very soft when he spoke. “Yeah, I got something in mind.” He covered her hands, holding them still against his chest. “Come make love with me.”
Her throat cramped hard, and she closed her eyes and rested her head against his, struggling against the swell of emotion. “That sounds just wonderful,” she whispered. “So wonderful.”
He bowed his head, but Charlie saw how hard he was fighting to keep from losing it, and she refused to let him go. She drew his head down against her shoulder, and he tightened his arms around her. She waited until she felt him take a steadying breath, then she gently eased away and took his hand in hers.
All she cared about was getting him out of there. He looked so exhausted and ravaged. He didn’t say anything on the ride to a beautiful hotel she passed often on her way from their quarters. He sat with his head resting and his eyes closed, dark stubble accentuating the hard set of his jaw. His stillness was complete except for the hand resting on her inner thigh. That physical connection was everything to her.
There was only a faint aura of light remaining on the western horizon when she pulled into the parking lot. She did all the work of getting them a room. She led the way up the stairs, but when she turned around, he wasn’t behind her.
Alarmed, she went back down and found him leaning against the railing, his eyes closed, and even in the faint light she could tell that he was exhausted, both mentally and physically. Her vision blurring, Charlie went to him, something painful happening to her when she saw how overcome he was.
She slid her arm around his waist. “Come on, baby Blue. Let’s get you into bed.”
For a moment, he looked up at her, his face impassive, then without warning, he pulled her into his arms, flush against his chest. Without any effort, he carried her up the rest of the stairs, stood there while she unlocked the door. He carried her inside and then released her legs, letting her slide down every inch of his hard, aroused body.
He took his time taking her clothes off while she stripped him of his, baring his incredible form. Cupping the side of his face, she tipped her head and pressed a kiss to his wide, muscled chest, licking over his nipple and making him groan. She looked down at the raised scars that marked his groin and shaft, knowing that he no longer needed to hide from her, his shame banished and his honor restored.
He back-walked her toward the bed, then folded down with her, his heavy, warm body enveloping her as he pulled her beneath him, his weight braced on his forearms. As he hugged her against him, he murmured, “I need you, Charlie. I need to make love to you.”
Shaken to the core by the agony of need in his voice, her body primed for the feel of him, she clutched at him, rubbing her wet heat against him. “I’ve so needed to hear that, babe,” she whispered, her voice fracturing from the frenzy of hot, surging desire.
Blue roughly tightened his hold and made a low sound, and Charlie arched her back and lifted her pelvis. There was no need for dominant and submissive here. He went rigid in her arms, another low, ragged sound wrenched from him as he entered her in one thrust.
There was no room for gentleness or patience. There was only room for urgency and a fever of need—and greed, a driving, desperate, frantic greed that consumed them, drove them, carried them to the very edge of an emotional precipice. Then Blue clutched her and drove into her one final time. The blackness exploded into splintering shards of silver, then all the pieces of them settled into place in the brightness of that blinding release that took them both under, completely, blissfully two parts of the same whole.
16
Blue stood naked in the shadows behind the open set of French doors in the mansion Charlie’s father had left her, looking over the second-floor
garden. Lush greenery and the kaleidoscopic colors and sweet scents of hundreds of flowers in full bloom filled the space.
Everything was pristine again, Charlie’s home back to normal after the damage wrought by automatic gunfire and badass Navy SEALs.
The sun was sliding behind the mountains, the air cooling and blowing gently across his skin, the quiet before the storm. Sometimes, every now and then, when he least expected it, all the jumbled-up pieces of his past would streak like a bolt of lightning across his brain, frying synapses and circuits and throwing him into an abyss of chaos.
He took a long, steady breath, letting it spiral into his body, lazy and gentle, and fill his lungs. Tonight, there would be death. Here. But it would be something good.
Before…before the night in the basement of that dark place, he didn’t think he’d known things, not the way he knew things now. How he’d been treated had morphed him into the complicated man he was today, fucking him up but good. His memories could not be escaped. Other portions of his brain had been walled off. He could feel the walls, but he couldn’t get around them.
And another part of his brain had been opened up, unblocked, let loose; foresight, a stream of it, not always good for anything, but sometimes good for what he needed. Like tonight.
He let his breath out, slow and easy, and softened his gaze. The Kirikhanistan mission had been a cluster fuck from the moment they’d inserted at the drop zone. The rebels had no idea what kind of shitstorm they had unleashed, had never imagined that their empire would be brought down by one lone Navy SEAL.
He wasn’t tame by any standards, even with the medical training he’d received. He hadn’t taken a vow first to do no harm. No, he’d vowed to do harm in the name of Uncle Sam. Red, white, and fucking Blue. He wasn’t out to save lives unless they were the valued and precious lives of his teammates, his band of brothers who had gone to great and dangerous lengths to get him out of that prison, bring him home. How could he let them down? How could he let his own mind destroy what he was?
Fuck. He dealt with the ugliest and most dangerous badasses on the planet. That’s what he signed up for. He’d taken out the Golovkins. His mission was complete, for now.
Behind him, he heard Charlie rise from the bed. He let his eyes drift closed and took another soft breath.
He could still feel her, still feel where Charlie had been on his body, could still feel the pleasure she’d given him. No one made love like that sweet angel.
His future with her was certain. For a moment, no longer, he halted his breath, held it inside, then released it gently back into the night.
That life was part of him, for better or for worse, and there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that most of the time it was for the worse, that his service had demanded a price he’d paid willingly, and would continue to pay.
He took another breath and slowly opened his eyes. The shadows were deepening across the garden, melding into one darkness, the veil of night spreading out from the horizon.
Smoothing his hand low across his belly, he let out a sigh and waited. Charlie moved quietly, but he could sense her growing nearness, sense the warmth of her desire and the warmth of her body reaching out to surround him. When he felt her come to a stop behind him, when he felt her hand slide around his waist and draw him close, another softer sigh left him.
She was shameless, this angel he’d fallen for. All of twenty-eight years old, she’d known more about his body than he had, known more about what he’d needed, more about what he’d wanted. To this day, she knew more about giving him pleasure than she should.
“Close your eyes,” she said quietly, her mouth brushing across the back of his neck.
Yes… He let his lashes fall and inhaled the scent of a thousand flowers.
“Bow your head.” Her voice was so sure, so gentle, and yet so undeniably firm.
He obeyed.
“Submit to me, my beautiful, strong Ocean Blue,” she whispered with a soft laugh, and he felt her teeth graze his skin, so lightly at first, then harder, never enough to mark him, but enough to let him know she was there, in control, and that if she so chose, he would be helpless…helpless.
It was time for that, and he was ready to face it.
Fucked up Blue, so helpless, bound, and gagged. So frightened. So terrified. Violated.
The angel slipped a loop of soft rope around his wrist and drew it tight. Then she wrapped the rope around one of the brackets she’d set into the wall above the French doors and pulled, surely, steadily, until he was stretched taut with only his toes touching the floor, his arm raised above his head.
“I’m ready for—”
“Yes, you are,” she said, her voice so calm.
And she was right.
The blindfold came next, tight enough for him to feel, tight enough for him to know it wasn’t going to accidently fall off.
There were no accidents in this exchange. Ever.
The cloth was soft. He felt the edge of it across the bridge of his nose and across his eyebrows, creating darkness, the place of fear.
The loss of sight was complete.
His breath sharpened, then evened when her mouth came down on his in a drugging kiss. Wet, serious, taking and wanting, her tongue pushing deep, again and again, consuming his mouth, demanding more, and he gave her everything he had. It was the only way. He slid his free hand up into her hair, tangling his fingers through the mid-length strands, holding her close and moving over her mouth with his, pressing himself against her curves, the rock hardness of his body coming up against the softness of hers. The taste of her filled him, the gentleness of her breath against his skin, the strength of her arms around him.
Then she was gone, and he felt a strip of cloth going around and around the bottom half of his face, covering his mouth, fitting snugly against his jaw, wrapping around the back of his head and coming up the other side, binding him, stealing his voice, enough cloth to keep him from being able to scream.
His heart started to beat faster, to race, and her hand was there, sliding down his torso and cupping his engorged dick, her palm warm, her fingers strong but gentle.
His panic eased, but an edge of fear remained and grew sharper when her hand left him. He felt her at his feet, tying his ankles together with the other end of the rope. It took some time because of the intricacy of the knots and stringing the rope through the ring in the floor to keep him from being able to move, at all, in any direction.
When she was finished at his feet, she brought the same rope up and tied it around his waist. The tug of each successive knot tightened the one before, one after the other. He knew what came after his waist, and he started to fight, but she caught him to her firmly, her hand capturing his free arm and holding it behind his back.
She tied it there, tied his wrist to the rope at his back, and he was in bondage, in the limbo of the unknown. Fear and anticipation rolled through him, holding him in place more surely than the ropes, bringing him to a perfect standstill, balanced on his toes, his raised hand gripping the rope leading from his wrist to the bracket on the wall—and being careful to breathe. He waited.
* * *
Charlie took a step away from him and dragged her hand over her breasts.
God help her. What a piece of work. Just looking at him was enough to make her come. The arch of his feet, the hard contours of his legs, the incredible musculature of his torso, the heavy muscle of his ass, his whole body licked with a sliver of light. He damn near shimmered, his skin so bronzed. Thick, ridged abs, that smooth, buzzed golden hair, and two bands of black across his face—it had started with a connection of pain, this affair with him that would have both of them locked up or at the very least sanctioned, dishonorably discharged. They had needed to break the rules, needed the illicit and unconventional. It had been the only way the navy could get them back, these two well-trained, priceless human beings they had invested in for more than a decade. This was their private way to search for what each of them wanted, so
mething he needed, something she craved.
It was dark and sweet, so hot she ached even when he was inside her.
Yeah, they were healing each other this way; she was loving him this way.
To make him whole again. And she needed to bind him, watch him, get him off while he was bound. She needed the domination. Tying was the path open to her, part of her.
In the darkness of her mind, her trauma lingered even after all these years. Even with her training, she’d never come this close to being whole.
He wasn’t going anywhere until she released him. That was the point. No half measures would do for her fierce warrior. The man who worked without a net—all the time, every time.
And every time, he pushed her straight to the edge. The gag and the blindfold kept her right there, balanced on the edge between her commitment and her conscience. It was a damned uncomfortable place to be—and yet it turned her on. She knew her boundaries. She knew his, thanks to all the times they’d explored the fear tied to his sexual abuse and torture at Natasha’s hands. Charlie had spent days designing the rigging, testing the knots, practicing tying them, but no submissive she’d hired had ever done what Blue was doing.
That was because Blue wasn’t submissive. He was dominant, but he was allowing himself to be submissive. That’s what she needed—a man confident enough in his own masculinity to give her what she needed so she could give him what he needed. Timing was everything with this thing they were doing, and when it was time to let him go, it was time to let him go. The knots needed to release them. Finally, release the last part of his fear. And they would.
