Imagine (Black Raven Book 4)

by Stella Barcelona

  Yet she spread her legs wider, crying out as he pressed. She shuddered, flexing her hips for more.

  “We’re not,” he mumbled, with only a slight pause in the open-mouthed kiss he was lavishing on her left breast. “Just a kiss. Or two.”

  “This is more than a kiss.”

  “Didn’t say I’d just kiss your lips.” He broke away from her breast, then gave her another open-mouthed kiss on her hips as his fingers probed at her opening. She felt a fingertip slide into her, and arched into him for more, as he groaned. “Mmmmm. So perfect. Didn’t promise not to grope.”

  “But we…oh…”

  He slid his finger deeper into her. He pulled out, but kept working her folds with his fingers. His touch was gentle. Less insistent. He took his mouth away from hers, lifted himself on one elbow, then met her gaze. “Anything you want to tell me?”

  She felt the blush burning up her neck, into her cheeks. “No.”

  “Seems like I should know if this is your first time.”

  “Let’s just get past that part without talking about it.”

  “It really is?”

  She pushed at his shoulders, then his chest. He barely moved more than an inch off of her. “You were guessing?”

  He gave a deep-throated chuckle. Usually, she was happy to hear that laugh. Now though, she wanted to crawl under the blankets and hide. “After two years of knowing you, I had an inkling.”

  “How?”

  He shrugged. “Just a gut feeling. You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever met. How is it that—?”

  “Come on, Ace. Drop it. You went two years without seeing me as sexy. When I was younger, I was too busy being a prodigy to pause and have sex. I started at Black Raven the minute I graduated. Until now, I never dreamed of making it with a co-worker. As I just told you, it’s against the rules. Besides, I work twenty-four seven, so how would I meet any—?”

  His kiss stole her words, while his hand made her forget her reluctance. He barely put the tip of his finger into her.

  “More,” she whispered.

  His tongue glided over hers, as he did things with his fingers that made her wonder how she’d gone her entire life without anyone else ever touching her there. When her muscles started clamping on his fingers, and she was sighing into his mouth, he used his thumb on her clitoris. An orgasm ripped through her that made her sigh and scream into his mouth as he continued to kiss her.

  He moved his lips away from her mouth, then slid them down her body. Planting a trail of kisses along the way, he gave her a smug smile as he positioned his shoulders between her legs. When he pulled her thong down her legs, she kicked it away. While she was still trembling from her first orgasm, he opened his mouth on her. With his lips, tongue, teeth and yes, his fingers, he pushed her almost to the brink of mindlessness.

  Energized to act, she moved away from him, rotating as she twisted herself down his body. Lying on her side, she pushed his pants to his thighs. He shifted closer to her, then lifted her leg and resumed where he’d left off, gently thrusting his fingers inside her and using his tongue to trace lazy circles around her clitoris. She shivered as she eyed the smooth, taut skin of his full, heavy erection.

  “Hey,” he said, moving his mouth from her for a brief second. “Let me focus on you for a while.”

  “I’m better when I multitask.”

  His chuckle became a groan as she ran her fingers along the length of him. Like everything else in life, she didn’t let the fact that she hadn’t done the act before stop her. She’d figure out how to do it. Though she’d never placed her mouth on a penis, she gripped his shaft and licked at the liquid that was beading on the head. He was so large, she had to use her mouth and her hands to cover him.

  “Oh,” he groaned. “Yeah. Was wondering if you…” His words trailed as she squeezed her fists around him, opened her mouth wider, and took more of him in, until she could feel him at the back of her throat. “Perfect.”

  He shifted, rolling them so that she was on top, with her legs draped over either side of his face. She flattened her tongue along the length of him, while he gently suckled her and gripped her hips. Their hips flexed slowly, at first, then faster and faster, as they matched each other, thrust for thrust, sigh for sigh, hungry groan for hungry groan. She squeezed his shaft and took him deeper in her mouth, until she felt urgency in the movement of his hips. When his fingers inside of her lost their gentleness, when he licked her then suckled her until she felt his teeth nibbling at her clitoris, finally, an orgasm ripped through her.

  As she moaned with the force of it, while squeezing him and taking as much of him as she could into her mouth, he mumbled something that sounded like, “Let go.”

  Instead, she squeezed his shaft harder, holding onto the base of it with both hands as she sucked harder at the head.

  “I’m…aw…yeah.” He flexed deep into her throat, pumping into her, with a long groan that matched her sighs. After his hips stopped flexing, he pulled away from her. While their bodies shook with the aftereffects, he moved her so that she was in his arms, their legs entwined. “Sorry. Meant to pull out.”

  “I wasn’t going to let you. That didn’t seem like it would be the best ending…” Stunned by the force of their mutual climax, she let their noses touch, while her words trailed and her thoughts swam. Her body became heavy with lethargy. Before she could even think about what had happened, her eyes closed. Fighting sudden exhaustion, she nestled further into the warm space between his arm and his side, and whispered, “Glad that’s out of our system.”

  He gave a short chuckle. He pulled her in closer, closed his arms around her, and kissed her forehead. “Not a chance.”

  “It’s got to be.” With her last ounce of energy, she opened her eyes. Locked gazes with him. “Promise.”

  He gave her a slow, lazy smile as he lifted her leg so that it draped over his abdomen and pulled her in snug against his hip. He bent his head to plant a lingering kiss on her forehead, “Can’t make that promise. We just need to talk a bit. We’ll figure something out.”

  She let her eyes close again, feeling a sudden, overwhelming fatigue. “That conversation would take a lifetime, and my answer will never change. It won’t work.”

  “It will. You’ll see. We’re too compatible. Too good together.”

  “Too tired.”

  He closed his arms around her. In the small of her back, she felt him turning his wrist to check his watch. “I’ll wake you in ten minutes, then help you zip your dress.”

  “Exhausted. Can’t…think,” she mumbled, as her mind zoomed towards an unconsciousness that was more than tiredness. Her last glimmer of thought told her something was wrong. Her drop-dead fatigue was too sudden. Yet before she could say anything, her mind crossed the thin line that separated light and awareness from darkness and unconsciousness.

  Chapter Six

  December 23; 12:20 a.m.

  ‘Bomp-bomp-bomp.’

  Insistent and loud, the emergency signal blasting over the ship’s PA system was almost as irritating as the sharp icepick of pain that jabbed through Ace’s skull. As though his lower and upper eyelids had billions of interconnected nerves, the pain intensified when he opened his eyes. Between blinding flashes of emergency lights, his and Leo’s suite was pitch black.

  ‘Bomp-bomp-bomp.’

  Three blasts. Not seven, which ship’s protocol indicated would have signaled an emergency requiring immediate abandonment of the ship. Three blasts signaled an emergency that required all passengers to pay attention for further instructions. They’d been told that at the muster drill.

  With his mind reeling as fast as the strobe of the emergency lights, the muster drill earlier that day now seemed like a distant memory. He tried to impose order to his addled brain, but all he could think of was Leo. Kissing her. Touching her. Tasting her.

  What the hell was I thinking?

  Apparently, not much, other than how good it felt to have her mouth on him while hi
s mouth had been on her. In no way was oral sex the equivalent of the conversation they needed to have. But, damn…the side trip certainly had been mind-blowingly fun. His thoughts drifted back to the moment when she’d closed her mouth on him. He shut his eyes because opening them was impossible. He was too damn sleepy.

  ‘Bomp-bomp-bomp.’

  His body jolted out of sleep, again.

  Fuck!

  Time.

  How much had passed?

  Think.

  You’re on a job, goddammit.

  THINK!

  Ace gasped, ripped open his eyelids, and realized the air was thick with a sickly-sweet tinge. Gaseous ether, having strong analgesic properties. In a murky recess of his headache-addled mind, he remembered encountering the scent before. Afghanistan. He and his recon team had infiltrated a prison where it had been used only moments earlier.

  He inhaled again and wished he hadn’t. Ether had been mixed with something…pungent and lingering. He couldn’t identify it. But it was effective, whatever it might be, because he had no idea how long he’d been out.

  Too long.

  Leo was pressed against him, unmoving, in the space between his arm and his chest.

  “Wake up.” He managed to say the words, though his head swam and his tongue felt like it was glued to the top of his mouth. With a touch of his watch, he checked his comm settings. “All agents. Report. Ragno. Copy?”

  Silence.

  ‘Bomp-bomp-bomp.’

  Leo was pliable. Limp. Too limp. Not sleeping. Unconscious. Maybe worse. While ether wasn’t normally lethal, this wasn’t simply ether, and she could’ve had a reaction…

  No! Don’t even think it. Get her air. Now!

  He sat up, lifting her with him as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. Kicking aside the sheet that was wrapped around their legs, he fought a wave of nausea as his brain protested the sudden movement. Ace felt for a pulse. Found one at her carotid. Faint, but there. Gasping, he inhaled and almost lost a sudden, violent battle with bitter bile that rose in the back of his throat.

  ‘Bomp-bomp-bomp.’

  Fighting the ether-induced urge to lie back down, he shifted Leo into the crook of his left arm and glanced at his watch. Half past midnight.

  What the fuck!

  They’d been out for almost four hours. Stumbling to his feet, he lifted Leo with him. The sliding glass door that led to their balcony was a mere fifteen steps away. It was easier to get to than their equipment that was underneath the floorboard near the vanity, yet the noxious air made the distance seem like a football field.

  ‘Bomp-bomp-bomp.’

  “Emergency. Emergency. All guests. Proceed to the Clio Deck, Calliope Theater. Immediately.” The voice of First Officer Raznick, the officer who’d led the muster drill when they’d first arrived on the ship that afternoon, was calm as he delivered the instructions in English.

  During the muster drill, the Calliope Theater had been designated as one of two potential assembly points for emergencies requiring congregation of the guests. “If you need assistance, press the call button from any ship’s phone.”

  Ace took unsteady steps towards the sliding glass door that led to their balcony. The suite went from dark to light to dark with the flash of the emergency strobe. Their reflection—caught like a snapshot in the glass door—stopped him in his tracks.

  Her head lolled against his chest, floppy arms and legs supported by his arms. Naked. Curvy. Muscular. Beautiful, but limp. Lifeless. Through the murky recesses of his ether-addled brain, the vision of her lifeless body in his arms played the cruel trick of transporting him to another place and time.

  Not again. Not Leo. I’ll die this time.

  With one of his classic flashback symptoms, his legs became useless, while his mind snapped into overdrive. His brain raced to four years earlier when he’d carried Kat from the battle that had killed her. He could feel her weight again. Could feel the life slipping from her. Heard himself screaming.

  After Kat had died, he’d returned to the village where his unit had been ambushed. For the next twenty-four hours he’d been in stealth mode. Beyond going rogue, he’d become a hunter who lived only to kill the men who were responsible for Kat’s death. He’d found them. Tested them. Determined they were complicit in the ambush. Then he killed them. In various circles, his unofficial actions were unofficially legendary. Despite all that happened, his discharge was voluntary. He kept all his medals, but had earned a reputation, behind closed doors, as a dangerous loose cannon. His rogue actions hadn’t healed him.

  Now, in a reel of memory-film, worthy of a sick, twisted, depressing Hollywood movie, he saw himself as he’d lived in the months after returning to the States. There had been long periods of lonely numbness. Just him, his surfboard, and the ocean. Or his motorcycle, rural roads, and no one else.

  Until an old friend called, a Black Raven agent who he’d met when on a joint mission that had pulled in a few private security contractors. Gabe Hernandez. Zeus’ younger brother.

  Of the two Hernandez brothers, Gabe was the brother who smiled. It was something that Gabe did frequently, with warm enthusiasm that reached even into the dark corners of the worst of Ace’s post-Afghanistan days. It had taken a while for Gabe to persuade Ace that Black Raven could be an option. Ace had hesitated, because only he knew the depths to which he’d sunk. After his anger finally left him, he felt profound grief. For Kat. His team members. No one had ever told him that grief could feel so much like fear.

  I need to stand. Fight this paralysis.

  Yet the strobe light flashed Leo’s reflection again. His mind replayed the past, while forcing him to remain on his knees. The first step in the right direction had been two years earlier, when he’d arrived at Last Resort, with a grief-stricken heart and more than a little bewilderment at how his once-perfect life had imploded, so quickly.

  He’d met Leo that first day. He’d pulled up alongside her at the training facility, after their motorcycle sprint. As though none of his tours of duty or the awards he’d won as a Marine meant jack shit in the hallowed world of Black Raven’s elite agents, she’d laughed when he introduced himself as Ace Evans. ‘We’ve been expecting you at Last Resort, Adam Cooper Evans. Ace is a name you’ll have to earn here. Welcome. By the way, it wouldn’t be a good thing if all the agents knew that I just kicked your ass. I won’t tell them. You owe me one.’

  The ‘bomp-bomp-bomp’ of the emergency signal jarred his mind to the present, but the memory of that day in the parking lot gave him the strength to get off his knees. Tuning out Raznick’s repetitive instruction, this time in Spanish, he stood and walked to the balcony door. Opening it a few inches, he turned Leo’s face to the fresh, cool air. “Come on, honey. Breathe.”

  Their suite was on the starboard side of the ship, the same side he’d been on when talking to Ragno earlier. There was one striking difference between then and now. When he’d been talking to Ragno, there hadn’t been another ship in sight. Now, though the night was dark, he could easily see another vessel, about a mile away.

  Most of the lights on the boat were off. Moonlight, though, revealed the dark, shadowy outline of a ship that seemed to be slightly behind Imagine.

  He eyed the following ship’s nighttime navigational lights. A red light was visible on the side of the vessel. Eyeing the distance between the red light and the bright white navigational light on the stern, he guesstimated that he was looking at a two-hundred-footer.

  If the ship was complying with international navigational laws, the red light was a signal that the port side of the following ship was facing Imagine. The fact that he could see the red navigational light from the starboard side of Imagine meant that the two ships were travelling almost parallel to each other.

  Probably not a good thing.

  His night vision scope, under the floorboard with their weapons, would give him more details. But, for the moment, reviving Leo and figuring out what the hell was happening were more
urgent matters.

  In contrast to the darkness that cloaked the other ship, Imagine was lit like a Christmas tree. As strobe lights flashed in his and Leo’s suite, he opened the sliding door more, dropped again to his knees, and crawled onto the balcony with Leo in his arms.

  He sat her on the deck, leaned her head back, and opened her mouth, as he used his foot to ease the balcony door almost shut. Inhaling cool ocean air, he pinched her nose and exhaled into her mouth. He repeated the process a few times, until she opened her eyes and gave him a glazed, disoriented glance.

  “Come on, goddammit.” He remembered how hard it had been for him to get out of the bed. It didn’t matter. He needed her better, fast. “Breathe. Deep.”

  He felt her inhale, while his mouth was on hers. Finally, she grabbed his forearms, then pushed him away. She leaned to the side, clenched her stomach, and started heaving. He held her hair away from her face, giving her a few seconds of silence to shake off the initial rush of sickness.

  “What…the…hell?”

  “We’ve been gassed. Ether, and more. Pirates? Terrorists? I don’t think labels matter much at this point.” He let go of her and sat back.

  She dropped her head into her hands. “My head’s swimming. We went through potential attacks at headquarters. Historically…piracy…isn’t successful on cruise ships.”

  “I know. I think we’re at the inception of what might be a history-changing event.” With each breath that he took, his headache receded a bit more. His thoughts became clearer.

  She wiped her hands and mouth on a lounge chair cushion, sat back, and breathed deeply. Wincing, she held her palm to her forehead. “Someone hammered a railroad tie into my head.”

  “Based on what I just went through, and the fact that you weigh a lot less than me, you’ve got about fifteen more minutes of pure hell before you get to the other side.”