Prisoner Mine

by Megan Mitcham

  Her hands latched around his nape. Their gazes met in a kinetic storm of lust and emotion—emotion on her part at least.

  That was okay.

  Greer lied to herself. She didn’t believe it though.

  Z rose to his knees, hefted her higher on his hips, and used the finger that had tormented her breasts to release his buckle and shoved his pants down his legs. He wrestled the elastic of his boxer briefs over his swollen cock. The full length of it smacked against her fevered bottom. She met the touch with carnality, shifting in his hold, seeking his wide crown with her aching flesh. When the silk head glided across her clit to the opening of her eager channel he lifted her cheeks with one hand.

  “No you don’t.”

  Shock dropped her jaw. “You’re not going to—”

  “I’m going to when I’m good and ready.”

  “You’re not ready?” She scoffed.

  He bombarded her with a savage kiss. “I’ve been ready since you strutted onto my training field. You’re not ready.”

  “I am.” Need pulsed through her veins like an illicit drug. It prodded her heart beat and dampened her skin. “Z, I’m ready for you.”

  “Tell me what took you away from me.”

  “What?”

  Striations flexed and rolled in his chest. “One second you were with me, so in sync it hurt, and next your fiery eyes cooled.”

  “No.” She used her body to protest, undulating against him.

  “Don’t lie to me, Greer. I know sorrow when I see it.”

  “Not sorrow.”

  “Then what?”

  She clamped her lips together and glared in challenge.

  A hint of a smile kindled in his eyes. He reached between them, fisted his length, and stroked twice. Hefty beads of pre-cum formed at his pretty pink slit. Z pressed the wide head at the base of her clit and dragged it over the live wire of her sex, caressing all the way to the back. She sank into his touch. The grip on her cheeks held firm, barring her hips from the promised ecstasy.

  Greer whimpered. He only reversed his stroke. She grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled him forward into a merciless kiss. Of the two he was more heartless. On the next rub, he levered her down until the barest of an inch spread her lips wide.

  “Yes. Oh, Z. I’m with you. I’m so ready.” Her insides wept for his intrusion and still he held back.

  “If it wasn’t sorrow, then what?” His hoarse voice gritted through clenched teeth. He started to pull out.

  “Regret,” she moaned.

  His forehead dropped to her shoulder.

  “Not how you think.” She yanked his head with serious effort. Sorrow clouded his gaze. Another piece of her heart broke away. What more did she have to lose?

  Greer melted her gaze to his and swallowed her fear. “I love you, Z.”

  Everything suspended for a heap of seconds. She watched his face for a reaction, but found none. No horror. No shock. No reciprocation. Only unfettered desire.

  She pushed herself onto his throbbing cock at the same time his hands locked around her hips and he scored her onto his length. Z’s roar muffled inside her mouth fusing with her cry. He filled her to the point of pain. Tears welled in her eyes. His arms grabbed at her back and shoulders, pulling her closer. Pain marbled with pleasure. His hips receded, and then plowed forward once more.

  He unfastened the clasp of her feet, adjusted her legs lower on his hips. His grip levered her up, and then drove her down to meet his thrusts. She tugged him ever closer. Her hips rolled in time with his demands. Sweat slicked their bodies. The air around them charged. Pressure rose inside.

  Her pants filled the air, fusing with his low rasps that stumbled toward the tattered edge of growls. The harder he pushed the shorter her breaths became. Tension coiled the tips of her fingers and curled her toes. Z lowered his head, clasped his teeth onto her lower lip, and popped the tender flesh through the unforgiving points. He jerked her hips back and drove the head of his dick into a place she never knew existed.

  Once. Twice. Three times.

  The ache she wrestled with ballooned to a fine point, and then disintegrated. She clung to Z’s shoulder to keep from flying apart with it. Shrapnel ricocheted through her insides, pinging and thrilling everything it touched. No words formed on her lips. Only shattered moans declared her rapture.

  Z tightened his already crushing hold, sealing her torso to his hard front. His hand tangled in her hair. A firm tug exposed her neck. Stuttered breath and molten kisses caressed her as his hips jacked frantically. The width inside her swelled. He barked a hearty string of curses, mixed with, “so tight, so beautiful.” Spasms rocked her body from inside. Spurts of liquid heat filled her.

  When the cursing stopped he stood with her in his arms, toed off his boots, and shook off his pants and briefs. She buried her face against his neck, unready to face him. The prospect of being pushed away burned more acutely than the first thrusts of his girth. Not that she could hold her boneless neck up if she wanted to. His heavy steps told her he’d expended an ample amount of energy as well.

  Old floorboards creaked under their combined weight. He moved through the kitchen and living area down a short hallway to the first door. Every step shifted his still pulsing cock, stroking her to maddening need. Like she hadn’t just taken her fill. They entered a stuffy bedroom. Z shuffled between the wall and the queen sized bed. He jerked back the hideous rose and white checked quilt.

  Her back hit the sheet. His body followed, covering her front. A pinch gathered at the center of her scalp. Z used her hair to pull her face from his safe scent. He leaned over her, the hard ridges of his body visible for the first time since they’d come together. Droplets of sweat collected in the grooves of his abdomen. Veins bulged along his forearm scant inches from her gaze.

  “You can’t hide from me. So, don’t try.”

  Totally at his mercy, Greer stared into the torrent.

  She waited for a lecture or his denial of her feelings.

  He moved his hips slowly, almost imperceptibly, pressing his hard length in an inch, and then almost leaving her body. His free hand braced on her hip, while the V of his flexed and contracted with his steady seduction.

  Greer’s legs splayed wide, allowing him better access. Distended, red lips clasped his shaft. Each slow stroke brought him both deeper, and then farther from her core. His tempo never sped. The tattoo on his oblique danced with the tension of his abdomen.

  Her hips jerked, trying to rev things, but his hands held her in place. “What are you doing?” she panted.

  “I fucked you.” His voice rasped with the barely hinged barbs of lust. “Now, I’m trying to make love to you.”

  The hold on her hair loosened. His rough palm abraded her cheek. His thumb rubbed across her lower lip. She turned into his touch and his eyes closed for the briefest of seconds. He urged her through pleasure to the untenable precipice of orgasm with the tenderness of his love making.

  She covered both his hands with hers, and then pressed her lips to his palm. Her breath cascaded over his skin with choppy exhales. Their gazes tangled. The tension in his jaw broke.

  Z grabbed both her hands. He spread them wide, holding her palm to palm. His heart covered hers. He thrust hard and deep, binding them like forged metal. They came together, losing themselves in each other's souls.

  20

  F ractured sunlight poured in through the window as the sun found its way to the horizon. How in the hell had a street kid from London found his way into the arms of a woman who loved him? She’d said it only once and he believed her. She was pure and fierce and good. Well, not quite so pure now.

  Greer’s head lay against his chest. Gentle breaths escaped from her slightly open mouth, blowing a damp clump of blonde hair sandwiched between them. Long lashes rested on her cheeks. Her arm and leg crossed his body not just draped, but clinging to him even in sleep, holding him close…as though she knew.

  A lump formed in Zeke’s throat. He
kissed the top of her head for the hundredth time. Terror, stark and daunting, reached inside his chest and played table tennis with his heart.

  He didn’t sleep around, but when he enjoyed the company of a woman he always used protection. Without fail. It had been within arm’s reach two hours ago when he’d known they’d both reached the boundaries of their control. He’d made the conscious decision not to protect her. Now…he hated himself for it. Yet, at the same time, the vision of Greer cuddling a dark haired, fat cheeked, blue eyed babe to her breast—their baby—brought the biggest dopey grin to his face.

  Never had he wanted a partner. The thought of kids had not once grazed his scalp, but with Greer he wanted it all.

  Cue the terror.

  Zeke was many things. A family man didn’t hit the list, not even a thousand feet down. His chest cramped at the ugly realization.

  He hugged Greer to his chest one more time, placed a kiss on her corn-silk hair, and then pried her limbs from his body. After standing and cursing himself once more, he covered her with the blanket. When she snuggled in and her breathing evened he moved back to the living area.

  In the corner of the kitchen he found the hollow board with a few quick taps. It slipped up without a sound. In the shallow hole a white handkerchief lay wrapped in a neat rectangle just the way he’d left it when setting up this place nearly two years ago. Zeke plucked the cloth from the hole and unwound it. He stared at the small black cell phone for a long minute. His gaze lifted to the closed bedroom door.

  No turning back now.

  A series of buttons activated the device and dialed the only programmed number. Into the silent line he said, “Sierra. Hotel. Romeo. Oscar. Uniform. Delta. Two. Zero. One. One.”

  After a series of beeps an operator answered. “Voice confirmation complete. Lieutenant Slaughter, how may I direct your call?”

  “OIA, Commander Hawk.”

  Forty seconds passed. Not unusual for the number of safeguards in place. Salma Hawk, the director of Oversight and Internal Affairs—the clandestine division of the most covert operations group in the world—always liked to throw in a few added stockades before answering. They needed those fail-safes today. Zeke's jaw twitched.

  A hard feminine voice cut onto the line. “If you try and die on me again, I’ll kill you myself and save the worry.”

  “Aw. You’re getting soft in your old age.”

  The woman who’d recruited him into the secret division of the Base Branch, who’d saved him from himself when he’d taken off into the dark after killing his father, chuckled. “Five years doing what I do and, hell yeah, I’m feeling old age.”

  “You’re the oldest thirty-three-year-old I know, and I’m about to make you feel seventy.”

  “I’ve never known you to fail a mission. Finally missed your man, huh?”

  “Not quite.”

  “So you found the source?”

  “Yeah, but you’re not going to like it.”

  21

  The thump, thump, thump of a propeller jerked Greer from a deep sleep. Bright, temporarily blinding morning light spilled in through the unshaded windows. Twice during the night, he’d woken her. The desperation she remembered in his ardent thrusts drove a spear of dread straight to her heart. Her arms patted the bed in search of Z.

  Her fingers found only cold covers. Greer shot from the bed and ran naked through the small maze. Sticky evidence of their lovemaking clung to her thighs. They hadn’t used protection. She hadn’t protected herself against Z, not her heart or her body. No way would she regret the cognizant decisions.

  Not even as hollowness filled the four walls that hours ago had teemed with action and emotion. The house was empty. Suddenly, so was Greer.

  She tossed back the rug and searched frantically for the tool to open the hatch. A stack of her clothes, a knife, two pistols, and a rifle lay in neat order on the table where Z’s bag had been. He was gone.

  Again the whir of a HELO’s blade drew her attention. She grabbed Z’s rumpled T-shirt from the floor and threw herself at the front door. Headed toward the far clearing on the rim of an oak forest, Z stalked the distance, his wide frame covered in a vest and full tactical gear. Greer wrenched the handle, yanked the door open, and screamed his name.

  Maybe it was his uncanny senses that turned his head. Maybe it was the utter despair in her voice. Maybe he just happened to look above the cabin, searching out the arriving bird. Uncaring of the reason, she seized the opportunity to snare his attention; Greer used the T-shirt as a flag. While her arm arched wide, her heart tried desperately to break free from her chest. She let the balled weight of the shirt swing through the air while she rushed down the steps and the crest of the long sloping hill.

  He pivoted and broke into a dead sprint before the soles of her feet hit the harsh mixture of dirt, rock, and grass. The craggy ground bit into her heels, but she didn’t stop. If anything, she sped with the increasing whop of blades.

  They covered the uneven thirty yards in a flash, meeting at the first line of trees separating the yard from the pasture. Sadness, confusion, and rage clogged her throat. Just as well. Z pulled her against his chest so quickly it forced the little bit of air left in her lungs out. He whirled with her in his arms and shoved her back against the coarse bark of a large oak. His grip encircled her wrists and he pulled her arms from around his middle. Before her eyes, he seemed to grow a foot taller and wider.

  A Blackhawk filled to the open hatch with weapons and soldiers screamed overhead. Z held her still, hiding her from view.

  When the Hawk passed them Z’s gruffness molted. His damp forehead met hers. “What the fuck, Greer.” He panted the words. She didn't so much hear as see them on his pale lips.

  “What’s going on?” she hollered.

  “I have to go.”

  “I can see that.” Her arms thrashed, but his grip contained the gesture. “Why are you leaving me here? I can help.”

  His jaw screwed tight.

  “We’re back to that? After…everything…”

  Hard lips stole the words out of her mouth. His kiss was sorrowful and oh so sweet. And over too quickly.

  “You’re not coming back.” She choked the words so softly he may not have heard them.

  “Listen to me, Greer. You have to stay here, stay hidden. When it’s safe a car will come for you.”

  His hands slipped from her wrists. When she tried to reach for him a tempest glare stayed her. He turned, snaked through the line of trees to the edge of the clearing, and then broke the tree line.

  The tendons in her legs turned to rubber. Greer gripped the tree to keep from crashing to the ground. She turned slowly, trying to stay hidden as he’d asked and trying not to fall. Too late. Like a fool she’d fallen in love with Zeke Slaughter, international man of mystery.

  Z ran toward the Blackhawk. When he neared, the soldiers parted for a woman with a long, slicked-back pony tail and more military decor than Greer had ever seen. She extended a sturdy hand to Z. He used it to leap into the belly. The moment his feet hit metal the landing skids lifted. He never looked back.

  22

  F or so long he’d straddled the fence between good and evil. Sitting in the midst of eight Base Branch operatives he’d never met Zeke felt like a pimple on a rhino’s ass. The feeling didn’t have long to root. Hawk shoved a thick stack of maps, city grids, and schematics at his belly. He flipped through the highlighted routes they’d planned during the night, checking alternate courses, and then ranking the order of probability. They had a tight window, but if anyone could do it, Hawk and her team could.

  “Checks clean.” He returned the laminated papers.

  “Did you have any doubts?” His superior snatched them back and winked.

  “Only about two a second,” he hollered in the wind tunnel created by the two open doors and a change of direction.

  “You had to make a splash on reentry, didn’t you?” Salma Hawk peeled the rank patch off her shoulder and stuck
it to the fabric covered wall.

  “If there was another way…”

  “But there’s not.” She shrugged. “Let’s see if I can earn my keep.” She gave the team captain a hand signal; Hawk had called him Prosper over the phone. Prosper in turn signaled the men’s legs inside, and then closed the doors. Her fist balled and rapped twice on the ceiling. The men turned in a short burst of movement. Hawk looked over her shoulder. “Welcome home.”

  “Good to be back.”

  Hawk nodded, and then addressed each of her men with a measuring gaze.

  “You’ve all been with me a while, but none longer and more entrenched in the filth of our jobs than Lieutenant Slaughter.” Hawk hiked a finger in his direction. Ten pairs of eyes landed on him with the weight of a freight train. He stared back, unmoving, but his insides crawled, reminding him why he worked under a shroud.

  “Each of you were handpicked to protect this organization and the balance it works tirelessly to maintain. I’ve trained you. I’ve pushed you as far as you could go, and then demanded you steel yourself, gore the ground, and push harder. Today, I’ll take you to the limit of even my own mettle, and I ask you to stand with me as I dig in and do the unthinkable for the greater good.”

  The men jarred fists against each other's backs. Oorah’s and hoorah’s punctuated their anticipation.

  “I like your enthusiasm, but let me finish, and then see how anxious you are to follow me.” Hawk’s shoulders straightened a degree more. The men leaned forward, their gazes intent on their leader.

  “Thanks to Lieutenant Slaughter’s undercover efforts, we know the location of the Stas's US strongholds and that US Elite is in violation of over a dozen policies. Base Branch regular teams one through five are moving into position for a simultaneous strike on both. Our target is the president of the United States.”

  To their credit none of the agents gasped. They each gripped their pre-battle calm, if not a little tighter than necessary.