by Maia Dylan
“Not at all,” Aaron bluffed, starting to move down the side of the tree. He left the rifle behind and took the handgun that they had stashed there at the same time. “It’s just that there were only ten of them, and I took out four, so that only left six. Surely a contract killer with your experience and reputation could have taken care of them a lot quicker than this?”
Aaron heard Marshall’s light laugh and felt strangely blessed that he was able to get that response from him. “Firstly, there were thirteen men. So you left me with nine. All but one of them is dead.”
Aaron froze looking back at the hide he had just left. “Should I not have left the tree?”
Marshall’s growl was one that rang with resignation. “I told you, baby, to not leave until I gave you the all clear.”
Aaron frowned. “Isn’t that what you just did?”
“No! I was—that—Christ!” Aaron wanted to grin at the frustration in Marshall’s voice. “Just come back to the house. There’s someone here that would like to see you.” Aaron heard a muffled curse then a groan of pain. “And he promises to be nice, otherwise I’ll gut him slowly.”
Aaron had a sneaking suspicion he knew who Marshall was referring to. He ignored the tunnel that led back to Marshall and hurried back to the house, but circled wide of the bodies he had left behind. He might have felt justified in his actions, but he didn’t want to have to look at the result up close and personal.
He entered the house and made his way to the living area. He grimaced at the bodies that littered the hallway, but his jaw dropped when he walked into the living room. Every single piece of furniture was broken, and among the debris were at least two bodies, and a quick glance past the broken bi-fold door told him another three men lay out on the veranda.
He walked to where Marshall stood with his back to him. When he turned to step back slightly, Aaron stopped. His father was tied to the only piece of furniture that remained intact. Blood streamed from a gash over his left eye which was swollen shut, the right side of his lip was split and from the way the man wheezed in the chair, Aaron figured Marshall had got in a few body shots as well.
“Hello, Father.”
“Aaron,” Franklin snarled, his voice slightly slurred, no doubt because of his rapidly swelling jaw. “Still a sniveling piece of shit, I see. You’ve not stopped hiding behind Marshall even after all these years.”
Marshall suddenly reached out and yanked Franklin’s head back with a handful of his hair. “Talk to him like that again, and I’ll cut out your tongue.”
Aaron took a calming breath. “You have done nothing but hate me, hurt me, and want to end me my entire life. Why not just fucking kill me as a child?”
“Because for whatever reason, Marshall loves you!” Franklin snarled in answer. “I kept you around because I wanted him as my own personal weapon.”
Aaron nodded. That wasn’t exactly a surprise.
“Then, when you were too powerful, too rich, you didn’t need me,” Aaron surmised. “Marshall was going to stay with you, no matter what, and you were going to make it impossible for him to leave. Your problem now is that he knows too much.”
Franklin grunted which Aaron took to be in the affirmative.
“But none of that matters now,” Marshall said, his tone deadlier than Aaron had ever heard it. “I wanted Aaron and me to be the last thing you see before I do the world a favor and end you. Our entire lives you fought to use the love we have for each other as a weapon against us,” Marshall lifted the pistol he held in his hand and pointed it at Franklin, “but all of that ends now.”
Aaron reached out a hand to stop Marshall from pulling the trigger before stepping closer. “Know that after this night, when Marshall and I leave you here to rot, we will not ever think of you again. You didn’t succeed. Your belief that you are untouchable led to your downfall. And I for one am glad that I can bear witness to this moment.”
Aaron stepped back and recognized the flare of emotion in Franklin’s eyes for what it was as Marshall leveled the weapon at him once more. Fear.
Epilogue
“How does it feel to be retired?”
Marshall heard the amusement in his lover’s tone and grinned down at him. He had never felt so free of burden, so completely at home in his own skin. He loved how sassy his Aaron was. Standing as he was at the foot of the bed, Aaron on his back before him with his ass nestled on the very edge of the mattress, it gave him the perfect way to answer.
“You tell me,” Marshall held his breath as he pushed the head of his cock against Aaron’s ass, not stopping until he was settled balls deep, drawing a groan from them both. “How do I feel to you?”
Aaron’s only answer was a groan as he lifted his hips, grinding himself hard against Marshall’s invasion. Marshall began to move, driving himself and his lover closer and closer to that enticing point of no return, where nothing existed in the world but the two of them.
Gritting his teeth against the pleasure, Marshall concentrated on maintaining his rhythm, willing himself to hold back the tidal wave of pleasure bearing down on him until he felt his lover shatter around him.
“Oh, God!” Aaron lifted his hand to his own cock, but Marshall beat him to it.
Marshall held every muscle in his body taut as he concentrated on Aaron’s pleasure. Stroking his hand from tip to root in long firm strokes he knew drove Aaron wild. Nothing felt as amazing as being buried balls deep inside the man he loved, except when he brought Aaron to a roaring release while he was there, moments before he surrendered to his own.
Just when he thought he might fail in his task to see to Aaron’s pleasure before he took his own, Marshall felt Aaron’s cock swell in his hand a moment before he came. The sight of ecstasy on Aaron’s face was all it took for Marshall to be thrown off the edge of the abyss and into the maelstrom of pleasure that waited below.
He slammed his hips forward as he shuddered, shouting Aaron’s name to the room and the world at large. Marshall had no idea how long it took for him to get his brain working again, but when he was finally able to focus, all he could see was the satisfaction that shone on Aaron’s face.
With a smug grin of his own, he gripped Aaron's hips as he slid from his body, both of them groaning at the sensation. As soon as he was able, he pulled Aaron up into his arms and carried him into the bathroom, ignoring the lights, and not stopping until he stepped into the shower. With the moon high in the sky beyond the floor to ceiling glass that surrounded them, shimmering across the water of the ocean that stretched out before them, it was a scene that looked like a dream. But that was exactly what the Bay of Islands was, a dreamlike setting in the South Pacific nation of New Zealand.
He flipped the shower on and stepped beneath the warm spray, setting Aaron on his feet, but keeping him tucked safely against his chest. The two stood like that for a long time, staring out at their own private beach for as long as they chose to stay at the exclusive lodge. As far as Marshal was concerned, they could stay forever.
“This place is amazing,” Aaron sighed as he lifted his arms up to wrap them around Marshall’s neck, the glint of gold on his ring finger sparking a possessive wave of happiness.
“That it is, husband of mine,” Marshall murmured as he pressed a kiss to Aaron’s temple. They had married in Auckland a month ago, the day they arrived here after leaving Houston. After that final showdown with Franklin and his assholes, they’d doused the place at Lake Conroe with an accelerant and burnt it to the ground, then hit the road. Marshall had proposed on the flight and they’d made it happen hours after touch down.
“You don’t miss it?”
Marshall frowned at Aaron’s question. “What? Houston?”
Aaron shook his head as he pulled back to look up at him, the love and happiness shining in his eyes almost dropping him to his knees. “No, the thrill of what you did. Finding contracts and making the world a better place by taking out one asshole at a time.”
Marshall grinned. “Hell,
no. Franklin was my last contract.”
Aaron smiled back. “That’s ironic really, given the fact that by making that one last hit, you stopped him from stepping into power and really fucking things up for the rest of us. You’re a hero.”
Marshall disagreed, but if Aaron believed that, he wasn’t about to tell him any different. He’d simply live the rest of his life trying to live up to it.
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BONUS SAMPLE CHAPTER
THEIR LINE OF DRIFT
Sniper Team Bravo, 1
Maia Dylan
Copyright © 2016
Chapter One
“You know, when I pictured heaven as a kid, LT, it definitely looked a little like this. A lot cleaner and, well, you know, with some nice landscaping and shit, but it sure does bear some resemblance,” Marcel said from the passenger seat of Devon's truck as they pulled over at the side of the driveway. Devon had deliberately pulled over a little further from the house than was necessary so he could get a real good look at the place.
Reaper leaned forward from his position between Maddox and Sam in the back seat of the Ford Expedition they were traveling in to get a better look at the house. “When you said your grandmother left you a house, I pictured a little old house with a small flower garden at the front of it, somewhere in the burbs. This place is so far removed from that it’s not fucking funny!”
Dev was still shocked as hell that his grandmother’s homestead in Redwood Falls was now legally his. There had been a five-year waiting period after her death while a distant relative she had wanted to give the property to had been unsuccessfully searched for. But hey, all was well that ended with him being given a two story, eight-bedroom homestead on fifteen hundred acres of reasonably fertile farmland in the heart of agricultural Wyoming. It even came with three large outbuildings which were perfect for what he and Bravo team wanted to do.
Dev shrugged as he stared up at the house. “It’s just a house on some land, with a fancy name, but with some time, the buildings and grounds will be one of the country’s leading tactical training facilities. Not much has changed since I left eight years ago.” He was almost crippled by the guilt that struck at that statement but refused to think too much on the sequence of events that had driven him from Wyoming and into the welcoming arms of the US Marine Corps. “It needs some work, but it will eventually be what we want it to be. We have the plans, we just have to get things in motion and start getting organized.”
The mission to eliminate al-Hassan had been their last as enlisted Marines. All of them had decided they’d done their time, ridding the world of some seriously large assholes, and it was time for them to think about their own futures. It was irony at her spiteful best that had their last mission as the one that nearly killed them. When the dust had settled after that RPG round slammed into the floor above them, they had each had to crawl out from a pile of debris. They’d each been left banged up and bleeding from that, but it was the firefight which followed that really caused the damage. None of them had come away injury free, and it had been a damn miracle they’d been able to make it to the extraction point alive. For Reaper, it had been touch and go, and without Sam’s medical training and the fact the man was basically a fully trained surgeon, it would have been a very different story.
Shaking his head to clear the dark memories of that day, Devon looked more closely at the homestead his great-great-grandfather had given the name, Three Pines. Damn, that name was one of the first things that had to go. The place was surrounded by cottonwoods for starters, not a damn pine tree in sight! Dev had always thought the property was better suited to the name Cottonwood Farm than Three Pines, and he guessed now he could actually make the change. His grandmother had always prided herself on the property, ensuring the house and grounds were immaculate. It was obvious no one had been looking after the place in the five years since her death.
The driveway curved around in front of the house with a large car port and garage off to the left. The fountain and grassed area in the center of the curved drive had always made an impressive statement as you drove in, but now the grass and weeds almost completely obscured the base of the fountain. The large white house, with its wraparound veranda on both levels, and large floor to ceiling windows looked dirty, badly in need of painting, and completely unloved, which was appropriate given how little love there had been in that house in the years he had been forced to live there.
“Dude, that place looks fucking haunted,” Maddox growled from the back seat and Devon had to agree with him. And although he would never admit it to the boys in the truck with him, he wouldn’t have put it passed his grandmother to come back and haunt his ass given the great disappointment he had been to her when she had been alive.
“You’re not afraid of a few ghosts, are you Maddox?” Sam asked, humor clear in his tone.
“Fuck you, Sam,” Maddox muttered, but when Devon looked in his rear view mirror, he could see the smile on his friend’s face. “You just wait until you wake up one night and your bed is floating six feet in the air and the LT's grandmother’s floating above you with a knife.”
Laughing, they all climbed out, opting to walk the last one hundred feet or so to the house. Dev felt the ache and pull of his injuries, and had to bite back a laugh as they all seemed to mutter curses and stifle groans as they moved out of the truck, sounding like men three times their age.
“Come on, let’s go up to the house and see what we’ve got to work with.” Devon led the way to the stairs up to the front veranda. He was assaulted by memories the closer he got, most of them that featured his grandmother were ones he would rather forget. But there were the happy memories he’d called upon to help him through the lonely nights and danger filled years that had passed since the last time he had been here. These memories were filled with laughter, and desire, and a pair of soulful green eyes that were so damn mesmerizing, Devon had found himself drowning in them on more than one occasion.
It was the happy memories that took place in the small bedroom just off the main hall that he treasured the most. But they were also the most painful to remember.
****
Someone was in the house. The creaking noise of someone treading on the loose board of the third step leading up to the porch was unmistakable. Oh God, had Silas come looking for him?
Finn’s heart began to pound at the thought of his father finding him and fulfilling the threat he had made earlier that morning. Sliding off the bed he had been resting on, Finn silently pulled the dust cover up over it again. He had been doing this ever since the old lady who owned it passed away. Every time Silas had beat on him in the past five years, he would come here to this house and this bedroom. It was the only place he could remember ever truly being happy as a child.
Ignoring the pain in his ribs from the body shots Silas had given him, Finn pressed his shaking frame back against the wall nearest the door. From here he had a clear view of the entrance, but the angle made it difficult to see him. He held as still as he could, trying to make himself as invisible, and peered down the hallway to the front door.
He had to fight to keep the whimper of fear that was building within him inside. He was surprised to hear a key being slid into the lock and turned. Whenever Finn had come here, he’d had to climb through the window in one of the back rooms he knew was loose. It was the same one he and Devon had used to get in and out as kids. Whoever was coming into the house had a key, and that meant it sure as hell wasn’t Silas. Finn’s mind filled with scenarios of burglars, squatters, a real estate agent come to show the house to its new owner, but nothing prepared him for who actually stepped into the house.
The door opened and Devon Roberts crossed the threshold and
entered the house. Finn’s entire world shifted on its axis. He gasped as he hungrily drank in the sight of the man who had taken his heart long before he’d finally taken Finn’s virginity. Dev seemed taller and definitely a lot bigger than he had been when he’d left. Devon had once been wiry, tall, and thin, but there now stood a broad, muscular man who definitely knew his way around a set of weights. His hair was shorter too, but there was no mistaking him.
“Come on in, guys.”
Finn closed his eyes briefly at the sound of Dev’s voice. And there was certainly no mistaking the deep timbre of his tone either. Finn wobbled on his feet, his head starting to spin. Whether it was from seeing the only man he had ever loved again for the first time in eight years, or the injuries he had sustained that morning from his father, he would never know. Either way, the result was the same. Spots formed at the edge of his vision until everything turned black. Fortunately, he was unconscious before he actually hit the floor.
End of sample chapter
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