He tore his mouth away. “Wait. I will do it.”
Gina bit back a smile at the haste with which John stripped off his clothes. She pressed against him as he slipped in bed and gasped at the thrill of pleasure that shot through her. His body sliding against hers started a tingling in her breasts that worked its way down to her toes.
She kneaded the knots in his back until he relaxed. Luke always had loved that. There wasn’t an ounce of softness on his body. Feeling his cock against her stomach, she reached between his legs and ran her hand over its smooth sheath. “Hmmm…like silk.”
Hands on her shoulders, he pushed her away. “Rachel! What are you doing?”
“Don’t you like it?” she whispered, trailing kisses across his chin to his mouth. She swallowed his next words. Her tongue slipped between his teeth.
John groaned and tightened his hands on her arms before sliding them around her back. His erection grew in her hands. Yet, it seemed he didn’t know the first thing about pleasing a woman and had no clue what a woman could do to please him. Gina wouldn’t have been satisfied with the sex life John and Rachel must have had. Probably a quick slam-bam process. God, she was confused. Right now, all she wanted was a release from her worries.
Since she was stuck in this godforsaken century with no home and no money, she sure as hell was going to enjoy herself with a man who, if by some horrible twist of fate turned out not to be Luke, was his double.
A sob tore at her throat. Please, Luke, remember me.
John pushed her to mattress and thrust his knee between her legs. “I will have you now, Rachel.”
She giggled. How formal and how rude. “I don’t think so. We’re not through playing.”
He drew back. The last candle flickered and died. She couldn’t see, yet sensed his gaze on her face. “Play? Whatever do you mean?”
Gina drew his hands to her breasts. His sudden intake of air sounded like he’d been sucker punched. She held his trembling fingers and brushed them over her hardened nipples. He didn’t need any more tutoring.
“That feels so good, John. Don’t stop.”
He played with her breasts, making her wetter. She ran her hands up his chest and tweaked his nipples. His cock twitched. Snaking her hands down his belly, she grasped it and gently pumped its length, eliciting a drawn-out groan.
If only she could take him in her mouth. Poor John. He would more than likely run back to the stables as if the devil were after him. She wanted to laugh, remembering he’d called her a lusty wench. Obviously, he didn’t know the meaning of the word.
Then a thought struck her as fast as a bolt of lightning. Could the real Rachel be back in the present in Gina’s body getting it on with Luke? No, that couldn’t happen. This was Luke in bed with her. She had to believe that or she’d crumble.
She jumped as a jolt of pleasure-filled pain shot through her. John had grown bold and captured a nipple between his lips. He sucked. For such a big man, everything he did was gentle. Tonight she didn’t want gentle. She wanted to forget and lose herself in the moment.
John wiped beaded sweat from his forehead. Who was this pliant woman stroking him as if it were an everyday occurrence? What had happened to the woman he had come to love? Rachel had never been this passionate. Would never have handled his manhood with such boldness. His concerns vanished as lust overtook him.
He ran his lips across one nipple. Her moans of pleasure excited him, brought him to his limit of stimulation. Grasping her hips, he pulled her under his body and settled between her spread thighs. He took a deep breath and resisted the temptation to plunge himself to the hilt. Rachel did not care for frantic coupling. Tentative as always, he ground his teeth in frustration and slowly pushed into her moist warmth…and almost died with joy. Rachel was moister than she’d ever been. Proof that she wanted him with equal fervor. He pushed again, gaining another two inches. He hesitated and rested his forehead on hers, willing his body to remain under his control. She would be angry if he was too rough.
Suddenly, the woman beneath him raised her legs and wrapped them high around his waist. The new position opened her wider and drove him over the edge. All rational thought fled. He thrust hard with no thought of her discomfort until he was fully embedded. He breathed like a hard-ridden horse. “I’m sorry,” he gasped. “Did I hurt you?”
Expecting to hear cries of protest, her words shocked him. “Don’t stop. Please.”
He was nearing the brink of explosion and strove to please the lady. He captured her cries with his mouth, his manhood swelling when clenched by her feminine muscles. He rocked his body a few more times and emptied his seed deep in her womb. She continued to squirm underneath him.
“Rachel?” he asked in a hoarse voice. “What are you do—”
Her lips sought his in a wrenching kiss. Stunned, he held on tightly as she spasmed around his shrinking manhood. He could not believe that he grew hard again. Unable to control the need to couple for the second time, he pushed to his knees. Her legs slipped off his back. He grasped under her knees and pulled her tight against his groin, working her hips back and forth. With the second explosion, he collapsed. “Rachel, by all that’s sacred, you are going to kill me.”
“Don’t,” she protested when he started to roll away. “Stay inside me.”
Totally confused at this turn of events, John stayed put. He was shrinking and knew he’d soon slip out of her moist center. His heart thumped wildly. “Are you all right?”
“Hmmm…” she murmured. “That was good.”
This woman may look like his love, but she was not his Rachel. He was no doctor, but he did not think a simple bump on the head would turn a proper lady into a wanton woman. He frowned, unsure of his feelings. Rachel was the woman he wanted to marry. A wife to bear his children. God-fearing women did not behave like this. No matter how much he loved their coupling this night, did he want to marry a woman such as this?
An assassin can't afford a conscience. It's bad for business.
The Assassin Journals: Hunter
© 2007 S.L. Partington
Ex-soldier turned assassin Gage Brassan is having a very bad year. First, an unwelcome attack of conscience has him switching targets at the last moment, which doesn't sit too well with the criminal organization that hired him. Then an old girlfriend’s betrayal and a trip to prison stir up memories of his military past and a promise left unfulfilled.
Tortured by his haunted past and hunted by the organization he betrayed, Gage seeks the truth behind the execution of the elite military patrol he once commanded. With the help of Jak, a Rigian street kid, and Joanna, the sister of an old army buddy, Gage follows the blood trail from the war-torn Androsian system to the highest echelons of the Galactic Security Force to the corrupt halls of the Rigian People’s Palace.
On the run, unsure whom he can trust, he struggles with a growing attraction to Joanna while trying to protect his estranged father from the personal fallout of a life gone wrong.
He knows the answers are out there. The trick will be living long enough to find them.
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Assassin Journals: Hunter:
I woke to darkness and the certain knowledge that I was in very deep shit.
Light crept in under the door of the windowless room, and I heard muffled voices outside. I sat up slowly, closing my eyes against the pain in my head and shoulders.
Someone had sold me out.
Probably the waitress in the bar.
I really was going to have to stop trusting women like that. The odds were pretty good that Jak the Rigian Rat Boy rotted in the alley along with the garbage while the barmaid spent his cash.
I listened through the pain in my head, trying to figure out where they’d taken me, but the voices outside the door weren’t dropping many hints. I could only assume the Guilds had elected themselves a new Grand Poobah, and I was at the top of his shit list.
Shouldn’t I be dead?
The heat and stale ai
r in my windowless cell weren’t doing much to help alleviate my headache. I heard the sound of a lock rattling and looked up as the door opened. Skinny Sorrellian stood over me with a canteen that he tossed on the floor in front of me. I thought about asking him where I was, but he didn’t look like he was in the mood for conversation. He shut and locked the door without speaking. I opened the canteen and sniffed, then took a tentative sip. Water.
Another hour or so passed and I dozed, jerking awake when the lock rattled again. Skinny Sorrellian was back.
“Get up,” he said. “The master will see you now.”
I got to my feet, and he led me from the room. I wouldn’t want to keep the master waiting.
I was led into a large, spacious room, furnished with expensive Terran antiques and hand-blown Lyrian crystal. A log fire burned in a black marble fireplace; above it hung a watercolor painted by a renowned Rigian master, five hundred years dead. A massive rosewood desk sat in the center of the room and a man stood before the French doors leading to a stone flagged terrace. Rigian, older, gray streaked his yellow hair. He didn’t turn as I was brought in, just continued staring across the darkening lawn.
“You disappoint me, Hunter,” he said at last. “Is there no honor at all among murderers and thieves?”
I didn’t reply and he turned to face me. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.”
“Do I know you?”
“My name is Artur Melardis. I am the Guild Master. I believe you were acquainted with my predecessor. You seemed to have no trouble at all taking the money he paid you to eliminate our esteemed president.”
I shrugged. “My shot went astray. Sometimes it happens.”
“An interesting argument. It is not often that an assassin pleads incompetence. You took the Guild’s money and reneged on your contract. A rather substantial sum provided in good faith with the expectation of results. There are those within our organization who scream for your head, but I believe that would be…unproductive. You owe us a death.”
“Who did you have in mind this time? Delaren? Again?”
“Master Delaren is learning, to his frustration, that attempting to transform a system like ours is rather like trying to bail a sinking ship with a thimble—a valiant attempt, but in the end, an exercise in futility. He has made some modest gains, I will admit. Members of the civilian security patrol are less inclined to accept Guild direction, and financial benefit. The general population does not fear us as they once did. These things are inconvenient, but will be overcome with time. His constitutional amendments, however, are making potential business associates nervous. Several have already canceled rather lucrative contracts. This I cannot allow. Since you are directly responsible for inflicting him upon us, it is only right that you correct your mistake. Kill him, and your debt to the Guilds will be cleared.”
There had to be more to it than that. They’d never make it that easy.
“I don’t suppose refusing is an option.”
“Unfortunately, no.” Melardis moved to the desk and switched on the com-link. “Bring in the boy.”
He looked back to me. “Equally unfortunate is the fact that we find ourselves unable to trust your word. Once burned, you understand.”
The door behind me opened, and Skinny Sorrellian came in carrying Jak the Rat. The boy’s hands were bound, and an angry, purple bruise decorated his left cheek. Skinny Sorrellian dumped him on the carpet at my feet.
“A friend of yours, I believe.”
I kept my face carefully neutral as I looked from the boy back to the man behind the desk.
“Let him go; he’s no threat to you.”
“I am afraid that is not possible. He is our guarantee of your good conduct. Once Master Delaren is dead, we will release him to you, and you both may be on your way.”
They’d release us all right. Into death.
“You will spend tonight as my guest. In the morning Oren will drive you back to the city. I expect to hear of our esteemed president’s death within the month. Otherwise, I fear your young friend will meet an unfortunate end.”
Skinny Sorrellian picked Jak up and tossed him over his shoulder like a sack of flour. He drew his weapon and motioned for me to leave the room ahead of him, passing Jak off to a man standing guard outside the door. A nudge in the back with his blaster told me he expected me to precede him down the hallway. I glanced back in time to see the other guard carry Jak through a doorway at the end of the corridor.
Fuck.
I knew I shouldn’t have come back here.
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