by Avery Flynn
"Isaac," she moaned as she rotated her hips and angled her body so that only her shoulders touched the mattress.
"How can I make it better, darlin'?" He'd do it. Whatever it took.
"Fast. Hard. Now."
Her wish was his command. She met each of his forceful thrusts, their bodies urging each other toward that sweet spot where pleasure bordered on blissful agony. A strangled moan escaped as her orgasm exploded and she clamped down on him, holding his cock tight.
He drove into her, his balls slapping against her bare flesh. The tempo increased to a frantic rhythm, ecstasy laying just beyond her reach. The pressure swelled until it consumed him. In an instant, the world shattered as he plunged inside of her one last time, coming with her name on his lips.
Their breathing was ragged and satisfied. Every bone in his body weighed a thousand pounds. Letting go of her wasn't something he wanted to do, but logistics was a bitch that way.
"I'll be right back." He got rid of the condom in the world's fastest trip to the bathroom.
Before he could dive under the covers and pull her close though, she had both feet on the ground and a pinched look on her face. He knew that look. It was the oh-shit-what-have-I-done look. God knew he'd worn it often enough after some of his crazier nights. But this wasn't one of those nights.
So much for a warm, fuzzy, post-coital feeling. "Having second thoughts?"
Her chin went up ten degrees. "No."
His gut gave a twinge. "Then what?"
"I should shower." She smoothed her hair. "I'm all sweaty and my hair's a mess."
Oh hell no. He didn't know who in the world had fucked with her enough that she confused a sexy, just-been-fucked afterglow with being dirty, but he would very much like to shove his fist down the asshole's throat.
"Darlin', I like you just the way you are."
She giggled. "Are you stealing lines from Bridget Jones's Diary?"
"I do have five sisters." Taking advantage of her moment of distraction, he tugged her down to his side, letting go of a breath he didn't realize he was holding when she rolled onto her side and laid her head in the pocket of his shoulder. "I've watched every rom com there is."
"Oh, and you even know the lingo."
He could feel her smile against his skin. It felt good. Really good.
"Don't start with me, Tamara Post."
"Does that mean you’re finished already?" she teased.
"Not even close." He wrapped an arm loosely around her waist. "Sleep while you can. I'll be waking you up in the best of ways in an hour."
"Promises. Promises," she half sighed, half mumbled.
He turned his head and brushed a kiss across her forehead. "You know I always keep them."
Tamara said something, but her words were too faint to understand. Her deep, steady breathing told him everything he needed to know. Relaxing back into the pillow, his own eyes drooping, he picked up the tablet on the bedside table to triple-check that all of the security systems were engaged. He'd promised Tamara she'd be safe with him. He wasn't about to break that pledge. One glance at the proprietary app he'd designed confirmed that anything bigger than a gnat would trip the alarms. That plus the beautiful, complicated woman asleep in his arms was all it took to knock him out for the night, and with any luck, it would banish the recurring nightmare he'd brought back with him from Afghanistan.
Chapter 12
Tamara
The sun was still a soft pink line on the horizon when Tamara started carefully scooting out from underneath Isaac's arm. It was a delicate procedure. Waking him up wasn't a good idea. There were things in the duffle that needed her—and only her—attention. The B-Squad was plan A, but if that fell through she needed to make sure plans B and C were already in motion, and that meant solo access to what was in the duffle. Her lungs tight from holding her breath, she'd made it from being flush against his naked body to almost the edge of the bed that seemed as big as Texas when his strong fingers curled around her waist and tugged her back against his hard form.
"Going somewhere?" Isaac asked, nuzzling the back of her neck.
The husky, sleep-roughened gravel in his voice set off a flurry of kamikaze butterflies in her stomach. "I wasn't sneaking out."
"Really?" He nibbled his way down the column of her throat.
It was really hard to come up with a plausible cover story when he did that. It made her brain foggy and the rest of her soft and wet. "Okay, I was sneaking out of bed, but that's it. Most human beings do have to pee after they wake up."
"And you just naturally wake up at…" He let go of her and reached past her to swipe his phone of the bedside table. He squinted at the screen. "God, that can't be right. Do they actually make a time this early? That's wrong."
He put the phone back and brought her in tight against him again, close enough that there was no doubt that not all of him was still asleep. She shouldn't stretch so her bare ass rubbed against his fast-stiffening cock. It was wrong...he had other things to do...but it felt so good.
He groaned and cupped her breast, rolling her nipple between his fingers.
"Not a morning person?" she asked, as if she wasn't doing her best to wake all of him up.
"Darlin'…" He took a soft nip of her shoulder. "I'm more of a wee hours of the morning person."
The temptation to keep pushing, to just lay in bed and tease him until he couldn't take it anymore was so strong it almost made her forget everything that was at stake. Almost. Her mother may not have taught her the best lessons in life, but she'd given her an up-close and personal class on the most important one: Don't ever expect anyone to come to the rescue. Fate favored the hustler.
"Go back to sleep." She slipped his hold and scooted across the bed in the next breath. "We're not due at headquarters for another couple of hours. I'll just take care of a few things."
"Like what?"
Plane reservations. Buying a new piece of shit car to cross the border in. Hair dye. Working up some fake personas online to make her fake identities more realistic. "Shower. Get ready. Girl stuff."
He curled his body in one smooth motion so he was sitting up in bed staring at her, the sheets tangling in his lap and the morning sun touching the hard planes of his chest. "So why do you have the duffle?"
Damn, the man was persistent. "It's got a change of clothes."
She grabbed the duffle off the top of his dresser, ignoring the tug of the extra twenty pounds on one side, and hustled toward the bathroom and the door she could lock shut between them.
"Not to mention half a million dollars and a bunch of fake IDs."
She jerked to a stop and whirled around to face him. The smug satisfied look on his face just torqued up her annoyance. "You went through my bag?"
"Three in the morning and I are old friends."
"What, is that when you think about how awesome you are?" she put just enough disgust in her voice to make each word transform into a slap across his square jaw.
His eyes darkened to almost ebony, but he wasn't looking at her. He was gazing at something in the distance with a weary, mile-long stare that said too much without saying anything at all. Whatever haunted Isaac at 3 in the morning, it was eating away at him one chunk at a time—and she'd rubbed his face in it because he'd done the thing he was trained to do and left no stone unturned and no duffle unopened when it came to keeping her safe.
Tamara Post, you are a royal bitch.
Admitting this wouldn't help. No one knew better than she did that some wounds were best left unexplored. So instead of apologizing, she did what she always hoped others would do when her facade cracked. She pretended it hadn't happened.
"What, am I a prisoner?" Her tone didn't have the bitter heat the question required. "Do you want to watch me shower next?"
His attention snapped back to her and, in a heartbeat, the torment was gone from his eyes. "No, and yes, but for totally different reasons than you're insinuating." He drew out the Texas drawl, no doubt because
he knew exactly what it did to her equilibrium.
Maybe it was nerves. Maybe it was because of the way he looked at her. Maybe it was because it was hard to stay annoyed with a man who hid his hurt behind enough charm to catch all the girls in the state. Whatever it was, the giggles escaped before she had a chance to squash them. For his part, Isaac put his hands behind his head and leaned back against the pillows, a sexy grin playing at the corners of his mouth.
Her shoulders relaxed as the tension ebbed from the room. "Look, I'm not doing an Irish goodbye, but I do need to get some things in place just in case."
"Always a plan B, huh?"
"C, D, and E too." And wasn't that the truth.
"And you don't care to enlighten me as to what those plans are?"
"Essie is safer if fewer people know."
"Keeping you safe would be a lot easier if you trusted me."
"It's not you."
"You don't trust anyone."
"I trust my gut." And it was telling her to get her ass in the bathroom and start setting everything in motion, because the more time she spent with Isaac, the softer her edges got. She needed those sharp lines. Fuck the world before it fucked you first. The mantra was tattooed on her soul.
He narrowed his eyes, way more observant than a person would assume considering the pretty packaging. "What's your gut saying?"
The truth slipped out before she could stop it. "That you're too tempting by half."
He laughed, the big booming sound echoing in the room. "Go take your shower. I'll get breakfast started."
She strolled into the attached bathroom. "Black coffee is good enough for me."
"I don't think so." He shook his head. "My mom would skin me alive for having guests over and not feeding them properly."
"You really know how to cook?" she asked as she laid the duffel on the floor in the bathroom.
"Trust me," he said, his voice dropping a few octaves to the low rumble that made her thighs clench. "I could teach you a thing or two."
That her hand only trembled the slightest bit as she closed the bathroom door would have to go down as a top ten moment of triumph. The man was sex personified, and after last night, she had no doubt that he could definitely teach her a thing or two—and she'd more than enjoy returning the favor.
Chapter 13
Marko
Pretty boy was nervous. Scratch that. Camacho was antsy. As his mother always said, poison ivy was the only thing that got a man more twitchy and itchy than a woman. The female who got Camacho all twitchy stood next to Isaac at the front of the B-Squad briefing room giving the rest of the team a rundown on Jarrod Fane, the Crest Society, and her niece Essie as if every single person in the room didn't already know it the whole story backwards and forwards.
Sure Tamara had given them the bare bones on the flight to the Indulgence Resort before they'd rescued Gidget from that crazy-ass drug-dealing bitch Yasmin Romanow, but he'd done some digging into Tamara’s story after they'd returned. He wasn't the only one.
She might be brass tacks when it came to organization and logistics, but she didn't know jack about how hard it was to keep secrets in a place like the Devil's Dip Gym building.
The B-Squad worked together, they played together, they fought together, and they lived together on the second and third floors of the building like a hippie commune. Well, if that commune had access to enough firepower and know-how to take over a small country, anyway. But she'd been dead set on acting as if nothing was wrong and they'd let her. Looking back, that probably hadn't been the best plan.
Almost out of nowhere, a pair of pointy-toed black stilettos with a metal snake winding around the narrow, shiny four-inch heels landed on his thigh, jerking his attention away from the front of the room. His gaze traveled up from the wearer's feet to her long leather-encased legs to the jade green filmy tank top to Elisa Sharp's face as she sat in the chair next to him. She'd plopped down on the seat next to him right before the Isaac and Tamara show had started. Up until now she'd let him be. He'd known it wouldn't last. It never did.
The woman did love to toy with him as if he was an idiot boy fresh off the farm instead of the kind of highly sought-after scarred up and colorfully tattooed muscle with explosive expertise that mercenary companies from across the globe wanted. He'd been courted by the best and yet here he was in Fort Worth, being tormented by a pocket-sized badass who twisted the truth for a living.
His whole body itched and twitched and almost shuddered. Also, his dick got harder than the heels on her fuck-me shoes—not an unusual occurrence around the B-Squad's resident chameleon and con artist.
She raised one dark eyebrow and blew him a kiss.
It was a tease.They both knew it. He wasn't her type. She was small and beautiful and devious right to the core. He was big, lumbering and a mama's boy—okay, not really, but he and his mom did talk once a week. Family meant something to him. It always had. He'd started watching out for his mother and little sister the day his father went to prison for life and had never stopped. That wasn't going to change just because Duke, Lash, Keir, and Taz liked to bust his balls about it.
Unlike him, Elisa had lost her entire family when her dad died years ago. He'd asked her about it once and she'd told him family didn't matter. That was the instant he'd known that for as much as she turned him on, for as much as he wanted to fuck her silly, that was all it would ever be. Family meant everything to him. Always had. Always would.
Marko encircled Elisa's narrow ankles with one hand and lifted upward before she had the chance to rub against his cock, which was trying to go all Hulk on his jeans. He offered a silent apology to his dick and swung her legs away from him. Once she was clear, he released his hold, but not before he saw a knowing look cross her looks-like-an-angel face.
"Please don’t say you’re scared by little ol’ me.," she whispered, leaning close enough into him that her tits pressed against his bicep.
He gulped past the rush of lust. "Right down to my bones."
"There's only one of those I'm interested in." She danced her fingertips up his thigh, stopping before things got interesting. "And it sure is interested in me."
He should remove her hand. Having her fingers that close to his cock while her tits were against his arm was detrimental to his higher functions. He knew it. She knew it. He kept his hands where they were.
"You're imagining that."
"Just like I imagine you're always watching me? That it's not by accident that we always end up sitting next to each other?"
"You sat down beside me," he responded.
"This time." She squeezed his thigh with her quick fingers before letting him go and nodding her chin at Isaac and Tamara. "Think they've fucked already?"
"I don't think about where Camacho's dick has been." Too many places to count was the answer to that.
"What about your dick?" Her hand was back, this time hovering over his thigh, the proximity almost as bad—in the best way possible—as her touch. "Where has it been lately?"
Not a question he'd be answering here. They were set off from the rest of the group, closest to the back wall and the door per usual and were whispering, but he'd be a fool to believe everyone in the room didn't have at least half an ear tuned into their discussion. Gossipy assholes.
"You're going to miss the briefing."
She snorted. "We both know the score. And what's going to have to happen next."
"Exfil and take down." The question was how they'd do it and how hard Tamara would fight it. She was smart, but she didn't trust anyone. Without that, you couldn't work in a team environment. Camacho had lone wolf disease so any mission involving him was already going to be a cluster fuck without adding in Tamara's stubborn streak.
"It's what we do—but not all we could be doing," she said, the look in her eyes as innocent as her meaning was downright dirty.
That's the way it was with her. You never knew what you were getting, what was a lie and what was true. He'd figured
ignoring how she affected him was the way to go. Maybe it was time to change tactics and go on offense.
He turned in his seat, giving her the perfect view of a face that had seen too many fists to be called anything but ravaged. It wasn't enough, so he let his eyes go cold. Serious. Mercenary.
Her eyes widened and the vein in her neck jumped in response. This time he was the one who leaned in close, but not to whisper in her ear. He wanted to see her face.
"You looking for a quick, hard fuck, Elisa?"
"Always." Her breath was ragged, but she didn't flinch. She was too flinty for that.
God, the woman unnerved him, and damned if his dick didn't love it. Instead of answering, he turned his attention back to the front of the room. Tamara was finishing up with her spiel.
"Chicken." Elisa issued the one-word challenge with a soft chuckle.
He shook his head. "Smart."
"It's always the quiet ones that I really want to hear yell."
"You want to hear me to cry uncle?"
"That's not exactly the sexiest thing you could scream when you're buried inside me."
With that last shot, she stood and walked away swinging her narrow hips and giving him the perfect view of her pert, leather-clad ass as she crossed the room to where Vivi and Lexie stood. Typical. She wound him up and left him itching for more, which was exactly why he needed to stay the fuck away from her. Once he had a taste, he wasn't sure he'd be able to deny himself again—and there was nothing more dangerous than getting involved with a woman who lied for a living and liked it.
Chapter 14
Isaac
Everyone in the room was getting restless. Isaac couldn't blame them. Vivi, Lexi and Elisa stood on one side of the room. They were a dangerous trio of investigative know-how, hacker can-do and flimflam artistry. Gidget was in attendance, sitting sandwiched between Taz and Bianca like a guarded treasure. Keir, Lash, and Duke were set up around a table littered with cards from an abandoned game of Spades between them. Only Marko sat by himself in the back of the room, dividing his attention between Tamara as she talked and Elisa across the room.
