Against the Rules

by Tori Carson

  She screamed. He was going to be the death of her. No doubt about it. “Yes.”

  “Over and over again?”

  Her breath was coming in short, sharp gasps. She groaned. “Yes.”

  “Okay, you’re a hard negotiator, but I agree.”

  It only took a second or two at most before she was screaming again, this time in ecstasy instead of frustration.

  Her upper body came up off the bed with the force of her orgasm. As the last throb ran through her, he pulled her down within reach of his thick, sheathed cock and impaled her in one firm stroke.

  He rode her hard and fast. Before she knew what was happening, her arousal began building again. Fear skittered down her spine. It was too much, too overpowering. She began to struggle.

  Reese clamped a hand around her neck. It wasn’t constricting, but oh so dominant. His eyes bore into hers. “Come for me.”

  At his command, she stopped fighting. Hell, for all she knew the world may have stopped its rotation. The pressure built unabated until she shattered again and again.

  She felt him spasming deep inside her. So large, he stretched her until every twitch or jerk of his cock brought a new wave of aftershocks. Their bodies were still thrumming when he told her to turn over.

  He ripped off the condom and put on a new one before he entered her. Slowly, he began to build the fire again.

  Her body was deliciously sore, but she didn’t care. She had come here to make memories and she certainly had. She had also come to realize how pitiful her fantasies really were. This man had surpassed twenty-some years’ worth in less than forty-eight hours and she doubted she’d done more than scratch the surface of his talent.

  When his hand reached around and began stroking her clitoris in time with his thrusts, she cried out again. She knew she wouldn’t walk for a week, but it was worth it.

  Reese took her over and over. “I guess you were serious a few minutes ago, huh?”

  “Very serious. You promised and I intend to hold you to it.” To emphasize his position, he wrapped his left arm around her waist and plunged deep inside her.

  She laughed. “I think I’m getting the best of this deal.”

  * * * *

  The real world came knocking on the door as she realized the sun was setting. Fantasy time was coming to an end. Monday morning was just a few hours away. She knew what was coming next. The brush-off.

  Gee, what a lovely time we had together. Now let me take you home. I’ll get on with my life and you try to pick up the pieces of your pride before the door hits you on the way out. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. You knew what you were getting into when you agreed to come to his house. Suck it up, Chantel.

  She cleared her throat before she dared to speak, demanding that her voice sound calm and cool. “I guess I’d better get home,” she managed to say without even the slightest waver to give away her breaking heart. She just hoped he didn’t look too closely at her eyes, which she kept focused on his chest. It was impossible to hide the sheen of tears trying to break free.

  Reese was quiet for a long while. Chantel wanted so badly to look at his face, to read his expression and know what he was thinking, but she didn’t dare.

  “Okay, I’ll take you home.”

  That’s it? Though she’d expected it, she still wanted to scream back in his face. The best two days of her life and it ends with a simple, ‘Okay, I’ll take you home’? Not even a catch in his voice while he had said it. Nothing. No emotion at all. Like it had meant nothing to him.

  Chantel rolled off the bed and headed to the restroom. Behind the locked door, she allowed a tear to roll down her face. Just one. Not the flood that was sure to hit as soon as she stepped on her own home soil. A cool washrag helped take the sting from her embarrassed face. She’d let herself believe the fantasy. Stupid. She knew better and yet here she was with her heart in her throat. Damn.

  She was an adult. She could handle this. All she had to do was pick her pride up off the floor and find her clothes.

  Once she had herself together, she found Reese in the kitchen sipping a glass of orange juice while leaning his gorgeous ass against the counter. Damn, he was a fine hunk of masculinity.

  “I’m ready except for those shoes you hid,” she said with a practiced carefree note.

  A quick nod of his head was all she had expected, but he responded softly, “They’re in the car. I’ll get them for you.” And he was gone.

  Like he couldn’t wait to get rid of her. Chantel swallowed the lump in her throat and slowly walked to the foyer. When he came back in, she was standing by the door waiting for him.

  He looked like he was going to say something, but instead he bent down and placed her shoes within reach.

  Stepping into her pumps, she lost her balance. Her hands flew out of her pockets where she had tried to hide their shaking from Reese’s ever observant eyes. Her left arm flailed out and knocked her purse off the entryway table sending the contents scattering across the floor.

  Reese caught her about the waist and kept her from falling. As the items in her purse went flying, Reese tracked one object in particular. She turned to see what had caught his attention. She reached for it, but he was quicker.

  Reese stared at Chantel as he pulled the fully loaded Sig Saur forty-five ACP from its holster.

  Chapter Six

  Once Chantel had shoved everything back into her purse, she stood up with her hand extended, a silent request for her pistol. Three shades of red from embarrassment, she wished for a hole to hide in. “Sorry.” A quirky smile lit her face. “I’m such a klutz.”

  “So, when did you plan to use this, Channy?”

  His tone sent a shiver down her spine. Gone was the sexy timbre that had caused heat to pool. Gone was the caring, provocative man who had spent the last couple of days winding his way into her heart. In his place was a man devoid of warmth or emotion. Dead, gray eyes held her prisoner and promised retribution.

  The little hairs on the back of her neck were standing to attention now. Okay, so her instincts had been wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. Reese was scaring the holy crapola out of her. She desperately wished she was holding the gun.

  Her mind searched for a reason to explain his complete about-face. She tilted her head and tried to get a bearing on his mood. If he kept looking at her like that, she was bound to fall down dead at any moment. Unsure of how to proceed, she shrugged and answered honestly. “Next Tuesday, if I remember correctly.”

  She could tell it wasn’t the answer he had expected. His cold, deadly façade cracked for just an instant.

  “Explain,” he demanded, in a flat monotone voice that suggested he didn’t care what her answer was. He was the judge and jury and she was the condemned criminal.

  “I come from an outdoorsy family. My father was sadly disappointed when the nurses brought him out a baby girl instead of the son he had dreamed of. Taking it in stride, he decided he’d make do.” She laughed a bit self-consciously since she was telling personal information to a man with the current expressive qualities of a brick wall.

  “My first pair of shoes were hiking boots.” Since Reese just kept staring at her, she went on, “Instead of father-daughter dances, we went hunting—elk, deer, quail, it didn’t matter. Whatever was in season.” In her entire life, she had only received one doll. It was porcelain and she cherished it above all else, but she refrained from telling him that. He was scaring the hell out of her and she refused to give him any emotional ammunition.

  Unable to take his harsh scrutiny much longer, she came to the point. “Family game night is a weekly shootout at the range. Some people bowl—we shoot. The tournament’s final round takes place the end of this month so we meet each Tuesday night and practice until my wrist begs for mercy.”

  Could it be that simple? Did he dare believe her? He shook his head. He was such an idiot. He knew he was going to give her back the gun and because he was a total idiot, he would be shocked when she p
ulled it on him. Shit.

  “You want me to believe you carry a handgun in your purse because you have a standing range time every Tuesday?”

  Her facial expression was priceless and unless she was an award winning actress, which she wasn’t, it was honest and believable.

  “No!” ‘Moron’ was implied, but she was nice enough to not voice it out loud. “I carry a loaded handgun because I’m licensed to do so and this town can be a bit scary when I’m out alone,” she snipped, with disdain dripping from her voice.

  With the smooth actions of a man completely at home with a weapon in his hand, Teague dropped the magazine, worked the action and checked the chamber. Tsking, he removed the round, closed the slide then snapped the clip back into place and returned the pistol to her. By the time she had pulled it from the holster and worked the slide, he could have drawn his weapon to defend himself.

  “It isn’t safe to have a round in the chamber. It could have discharged when it hit the floor,” he admonished.

  “Come on, I’ll take you home,” he muttered, as he stepped back, indicating that she should go first. He refused to be shot in the back. If she was going to kill him, and being the special kind of idiot that he was, he’d given her back the means to do it, at least she’d have to look him in the eye.

  The ride home was filled with a strained silence. He refused to look her way and see the tears he hoped were there. The bastard in him wanted there to be tears. He wanted to believe she was the sweet little teacher he’d thought she was, not a gun toting spy for a drug cartel.

  When they pulled in front of her house, she turned slightly and looked up at him. She opened her mouth, and promptly shut it again. Finally, Ms. Manners must have taken over. “Thank you for a lovely weekend, Reese.”

  Teague was quiet for a moment. He should say something, but he refused to lie to her any more than he already had. He never intended to see her or speak to her again… So what was there to say? He took her hand and brought it to his mouth, placing a gentle kiss in the direct center of her palm. “Take care, Channy.”

  Like a star-struck little girl, she sat there waiting, obviously expecting something more. A scarlet blush branded her face when she must have realized that nothing more was coming, that he’d said his piece.

  Teague sat motionless as she ran into the house. He wanted so badly to go after her, to drag and chain her to him like the caveman she had called him. Damn her. It felt like his heart had been ripped out of his chest. He could hardly breathe. His vision blurred, ratcheting his anger up a notch. Slamming the shifter into first, he dumped the clutch and pulled away. At least she hadn’t tried to shoot him. That was some improvement.

  Without conscious thought, Teague drove out behind the airport. There was a dirt road not far from the end of the runways. It was illegal and he’d likely get dragged off to jail, but he didn’t care. One call and he’d be out anyway.

  When his existence—that’s how he thought of it, he didn’t have a life—became too much, he would watch the planes take off. One after another, hour after hour, they were always there for him. The scream of the engines as they fought to get the air buses off the ground allowed his mind to go blissfully numb.

  ‘Ted’, one of his many aliases, had tried seeing a psychologist to get relief from the persistent nightmares. The shrink hadn’t been able to help him with them, but had offered the opinion that Teague watched planes because he wasn’t happy with his life and he wanted to get away. He’d likened it to a prisoner staring out at the cars flying down the highway. What bullshit! It had nothing to do with wanting to get away. Where would he go? There wouldn’t be anyone at the other end to greet him. No one here would be sad to see him go.

  No, if the shrink had been worth half the money the government paid him, he would have known that Teague identified with the planes’ engines in a constant struggle with an unknown force. Except the planes always beat gravity and broke free. Teague, on the other hand, was hunted at every turn by an enemy that struck without warning. And never the real enemy—only a far-reaching tentacle that, once removed, just grew back more vicious and tenacious than before.

  Damn her. He couldn’t even find peace here. His last remaining refuge gone. Giving in to the inevitable, he flipped open his cell phone and dialed the damn number. “Agent Seaver, it’s Teague four-six-two. I need an immediate transfer outta here.”

  * * * *

  Chantel couldn’t see for the tears pouring from her eyes. Moving through the house on autopilot, she ran to the bathroom then cried herself out, all the while calling herself every term for fool she could think of. It didn’t help. She could still feel him, smell him. Still wanted his arms wrapped around her.

  How pathetic was that? The guy scared the crap out of her, obviously didn’t have any true feelings for her and yet she still wanted him.

  Quickly, before the tears could start again, she undressed and got into the shower. Her fingers were prunes and her skin red and blotched by the time she surrendered all hope of scrubbing Reese from her memory. He was deeply entrenched, and a treacherous part of her wanted it that way. When she reached for the towel, her brain finally decided to turn back on.

  The towel was wet. Why was the towel wet when she hadn’t been home for days? Panic struck hard. Her knees quivered and threatened to give out. She dropped the towel as if it had burned her and reached for her robe on the back of the door. As soon as she pulled it off the hook, she knew something was wrong. Staring at it, she sank down onto the toilet seat. Someone had cut out the chest section. Had she put it on, her breasts would have been left exposed. Chantel threw it to the floor and covered her face with her hands trying to force air into her burning lungs and calm her pounding heart.

  She had to listen for a sound, something to tell her whether she was alone or not, but all she could hear was the frantic beating of her heart and the silent screams inside her head. With a Herculean effort, she pulled herself together. She was not a fainting violet. She could take care of herself.

  As quietly as she could, she eased the door open, expecting everything from Jason with his machete to Norman Bates with a shovel, but only silence greeted her. Logically, she knew that if anyone were in her home he would have come after her already, but logic didn’t hold up against fear.

  She had to make it to her closet—she had a virtual arsenal in there. A few years back a motorcycle gang had been terrorizing the community. Her father had been beside himself with worry. He wouldn’t rest until she could defend herself against an invading army. Or so she had joked at the time. Right now, she was just grateful. Why hadn’t she listened to him and put a cell phone and weapon in every room? He’d certainly told her enough times.

  Steeling herself for anything, she quickly popped her head around the corner. Nothing moved at her so she decided to risk it. Slinking along the wall, she tried to stay out of view from the rest of the house until the bed came into focus. Chantel stopped moving. Or even breathing. She drew her hand defensively to her throat as a strangled sound escaped.

  Her doll. Her precious doll, kept forever in a glass case to protect it from dust and sun fading, lay mutilated and tied to her bed. Tied to the bed. Oh God! This couldn’t be Reese. Could it? He’d just been kidding. Hadn’t he?

  When he’d left to buy condoms, and she’d cringed at the thought of her wanton behavior, had he come over here? Her keys had been in her purse. He could have taken them and returned them without her knowing it. He had been gone a lot longer than she’d expected.

  Chantel surveyed her room. She couldn’t believe it. Her underwear drawer was ajar. Glass from the shattered case littered the hardwood floor. Strips of satin, undoubtedly from her intimates, were strewn amongst the glass shards. How could she have missed this when she first came in? Scared that it might have happened while she was in the shower, she ran to the walk-in closet, grabbing the phone off the nightstand as she passed by, and closed the door.

  Taking no chances, she pulled every weap
on she owned from their various hidey holes and loaded them. Every knife pulled from its sheath and placed within easy reach. Then she felt safe enough to dress and pick up the phone. But who to call? Her heart, the betraying organ that it was, wanted her to call Reese.

  A slightly hysterical laugh burst from her chest as she realized that she didn’t even know his number. Her brain told her to call her father. He always came to her rescue, no matter the disaster, but if she did, she would have to tell him about Reese and she didn’t think she could do that. Knowing she was only postponing Armageddon, she called nine-one-one.

  * * * *

  “Budget cuts?” A bean counting, muddle-headed moron was telling him no due to budget cuts? They were a black budget agency. Their budget went up, not down. Back in 2000, when the agency had been formed as a response to Congress signing the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act into law, they’d only recruited the best, most seasoned officers who knew their ass from a hole in the ground. Initially their manifesto had been fairly narrow and focused on human trafficking. After 9/11, the scope had shifted to incorporate anything coming over the border illegally. The downside, though, was that as the agency grew, so did the red tape. Now, it seemed as bogged down in bullshit as the rest of the government bureaucracies.

  “Unless you want to be more specific concerning the immediate danger, your transfer will have to go through committee,” Agent Seaver told him again.

  “Are you aware of the ‘specific’ details ‘concerning’ the last threat made against me? The ‘threat’ that ended in two men dead? Or how about the one before that where my house was blown to kingdom come?”

  “Sir, I can understand your fears. However, the information you gave me is a bit vague. We would need specific details before we could take any action.”

  Blah, blah, blah was all Teague heard. Maybe the agent could sense that Teague was full of shit. In his gut—not his heart, he refused to acknowledge such an organ—he knew that Channy was innocent. He just wanted to keep her that way. If he stayed near her, he would have her again and again. And when Mr. G. found him, he’d hit him through Channy.