Curve Effect (A BBW Box Set of Contemporary, Science Fiction and Paranormal Romances)

by Vremont, Ann

  Her ex had always slept on the far side of the mattress, even when she still would have characterized their marriage as good. When the nightmares started, he always woke her and complained until she slunk down the hall and slept on the couch.

  Amanda inhaled a ragged breath.

  Lips brushed her shoulder.

  "You awake?"

  "Yes," she murmured. With his heightened senses, lying to Loren wasn't possible. Not that she needed to lie anyway. She ached to spend every minute with him she could get.

  He cleared his throat with a swallow. "You want some ice?"

  The question puzzled her until she moved her shoulder and a dull pain brought back the memory of his biting her. She closed her eyes, a little surge of triumph swelling her chest.

  "What's wrong, Amanda?"

  He sounded worried, guilty. She put a hand over the one cradling her breast. "Nothing."

  She rolled in his arms and kissed him on the mouth. "I’ll take that ice if you promise not to be gone too long."

  Loren nodded. The tender look of concern stamped across his strong features as he left the bedroom made her melt blissfully back into the mattress.

  She knew the look.

  Knew the bite, too.

  She had seen such a mark on the throat of the woman from the second team Amanda had been sent to pull out. She had piloted the couple back to safety. With no debriefing agent to immediately whisk them off, the pair had showered then made their way into quarters nowhere near as private as they thought. Awake for more than twenty-six hours, Amanda had already opted to bunk down in a dark, quiet corner in lieu of a quick shower.

  Not that anyone could sleep with two wet, naked bodies tumbling onto a nearby bed, the man possessively pushing the female down onto the mattress, his gaze reverent as he ran a fingertip against the bruised outline of his teeth on her flesh.

  "I am yours now. Always." He had said. "Hold me safe."

  With a look as sad as it was devoted, the woman had acquiesced with a nod.

  Tears misted Amanda’s eyes as she remembered the couple, the memory followed fast and hard by the Army’s betrayal and Ronnie’s abandonment as he placed his career above marriage to a woman his commanding officer now considered toxic.

  She allowed one self-indulgent sniffle for the past and then dried her tears with the edge of her pillow case. Loren entered the room with a bundle of cubes wrapped in a damp cloth a second later, his sheepish smile fading as the phone along her bedside rang.

  Amanda frowned. No one called her. Her new bosses and co-workers would be home for the night. She had no family left -- no friends either. And Ronnie only contacted her through his attorney.

  She grimaced. All the improvements in technology and artificial intelligence in the last few decades and society still hadn’t figured out a way to rid the world of divorce lawyers.

  Eyes locked on Loren, she picked the receiver up and answered with a curt "Yes?"

  "Amanda?"

  She swallowed, mouth pursing at the grate of her ex-husband’s voice in her ear.

  "It’s me--"

  "’Me’ who?" She hoped the question would put a dent in his over-inflated ego. Raising her left hand to Loren, she tapped the pad of her thumb against her ring finger and the faded outline from where her wedding band had circled for more than a dozen years. He nodded his understanding.

  "Ronald," the voice on the other end answered.

  She smirked. Her ex would seeth for days whenever she slipped and called him "Ronnie" during their marriage. Now that they were divorce, Ronnie was all she called him when she wasn't hurling asshole, bastard, or cock--

  "Amanda, are you listening?"

  She smiled wider as Loren sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled a single cube from the bundle. He stretched his arm out and rubbed the ice against the bite mark. Amanda cupped his elbow with her free hand and coaxed him closer.

  "Yeah, I’m listening. What the hell are you calling for?"

  "I was worried about you."

  "Worried?" She laughed. "That’s a first."

  Someone had called Lt. Colonel Ronald Ridenhour and told him there was a man in his ex-wife’s house. Someone with a caravan of big black SUVs, fully equipped with infrared dishes and powerful antennas.

  "Are you alone?"

  "No, I have company."

  Loren’s gaze was on her shoulder, but she knew he also was listening to both sides of the phone conversation, smiling at Ronnie’s discomfort and the bored tone with which she answered her ex-husband. Pausing in his gentle administration of ice to her shoulder, he motioned to the phone and mouthed the words may I?

  She nodded and he took the phone from her, holding it close to her breast as he ran the melting ice over her skin and down to the hardening nipple. Ronnie’s voice stuttered a series of unanswered questions.

  Once her skin was coated with water, Loren sucked Amanda’s nipple into his mouth. He left the cube melting in her belly button and retrieved a fresh one from the night stand. Keeping the receiver close to his face, he left a trail of wet, noisy kisses down her stomach.

  She could hear her ex-husband’s nervous cough on the other end at the same time the ice touched her clit.

  "Oh, god!" The words rushed from her.

  Tongue followed ice, ice followed tongue. Cold, warm, both wet.

  Loren let the phone rest on Amanda’s hip, leaving his hands free to tease her. There was no sound coming over the phone, but she knew Ronnie was listening, frozen in dread fascination or indignation as her soft moans began to fill the room. She lifted the receiver from her body and quietly said his name.

  Ronnie responded with a hard, breathless, "What?"

  "You’ve been retired, jackass. Don’t ever fucking call me again."

  With that she hung up and surrendered every ounce of attention she had to the man nestled lovingly between her thighs.

  "Thank you," she said, ready to cry again.

  He blinked slowly, his bristly cheek nuzzling her thigh as if to tell her it had been his pleasure. His fingers slipped lower, still holding the ice. He circled the ring of her cunt with it then lowered his mouth to blow warm air against the same spot. He teased her like that until the ice melted. Only then did he climb back up her body, his rock hard cock sinking into her like a gun returning to its holster.

  Fucking her, slow and sweet, he whispered against her ear, "Tell me you left him."

  She shook her head.

  Loren squeezed her breast, sinking ever deeper into Amanda’s soft flesh as he sighed into her hair. "The man was a fucking moron."

  *****************

  Amanda watched the clock blink from 3:59 to 4 am. Loren was sitting up in bed. He had moved slowly into the position, attempting, perhaps, not to wake her.

  "You don’t think they’re still watching?" she whispered.

  "I know they are...but maybe they’ll think of how lovers often slip away at night..."

  She rolled towards him and brushed her fingers against his back. "Not the good ones."

  He turned on the lamp on his side of the bed and looked at her, his features pained. "I can’t stay much longer without showing my face. And I can’t show it in broad daylight."

  Amanda pushed the covers away and sat next to him, her legs tucked under her. Taking his hand, she guided it to the spot on her shoulder where he had marked her. "Can you really leave me?"

  Anguish washed over Loren’s face and he pulled his hand away. "It’s not what I want."

  "Good," she whispered. "Wait here. Please..."

  He nodded and she bounced up from the bed, her steps down the hall crisp. In the kitchen, she drew the curtains shut and opened the refrigerator, leaving it open so she had light to work with. Keeping her movements natural in case someone watched her heat signature, she opened the dishwasher and pulled the bottom tray all the way forward.

  Twisting the water blade, she lifted it and shook. A package fell out. She grabbed it then quickly replaced the blade. Tak
ing a clean glass from the top tray, she closed the dishwasher, poured some iced tea and carried the glass and package back into the bedroom.

  She set the glass on the nightstand next to Loren. Still holding the package, she walked over to her bedroom closet and dug through the clothes before returning to the bed with an unused pair of men’s casual pants and a light jacket.

  Sitting next to Loren, Amanda fingered the bottom of the pants. "My ex’s. Forgot to take them in to get hemmed and then..."

  Letting the rest of the sentence fade into nothing, she unwrapped the package. A tight seal of opaque plastic gave way to a tighter roll of twenty thousand in paper credits. She had saved it in case she needed to make a run for it, but the money was only half of what she wanted him to see. Shaking the roll, two tubes fell into her hand, each about the size of her pinkie.

  She held them forward for Loren to take.

  Picking one up, he inhaled sharply. He rolled it between his fingers until the stock number and date faced him.

  "They’re still good," she assured him.

  He lifted a brow. "If they were good to begin with instead of fakes."

  She nudged him with her elbow. She wasn’t some ultra-bad ass operative, but she wasn’t an amateur, either. "There were three to begin with. They’re not fakes."

  He sat a little straighter, his gaze lighting with a smile as it danced between the black market injectors that would temporarily alter his features and the civilian clothes. "You are a miracle, Amanda."

  He put the injectors down and turned toward her. His finger traced the outline of her bruise. "My miracle."

  "Your traveling miracle," she corrected, her gaze and tone clear in their meaning -- she intended to leave with him.

  "First I want you to tell me why you have these. Why you helped me."

  Sinking onto her side, Amanda rested her head on the pillow and remained silent until he folded his body around her and nudged her with his chin. "Tell me."

  "Two years ago I piloted an extraction mission in Puerto Rico... " When she hesitated, Loren filled the gap.

  "The Massacre of Las Mareas."

  She nodded, then stared into the bright blue eyes. "It wasn't the rebels who killed all those people."

  Amanda braced, waiting for him to make the connection. Based on his reaction to her earlier plea to think about the children outside before starting a gun fight, she hoped he understood her motivation to betray her government.

  He brushed her cheek. "And you wouldn't stay quiet."

  "I stayed quiet enough." The ghosts of entire families danced through her head, the parents clinging to their bloodied offspring. "I only had my testimony to offer if I spoke out -- the video files were classified before we even made it back to the ship."

  "They would be altered by now," Loren added. "Although the originals will still exist somewhere for future leverage."

  He lifted a brow, his mouth quirking to the right as he mulled over her situation. "Actually, they may have disappeared and the Army thinks you have them. Otherwise you'd be dead already."

  She snorted, the same thought having occurred to her after the first time she discovered her home had been searched. Even though the government hadn't killed her already, she had been as good as dead until her return home this evening. The constant monitoring and secret searches of her home and new work place were grinding her to dust. Most days, she doubted her own senses and even her sanity. Even when she didn't, the image of slaughtered civilians pressed down on her.

  Leaning in, Loren brushed his lips across her eyelids to ease the pain sparking inside her. "Baby, when you pack, I want you to include that pale green nightie -- the one that matches your eyes."

  "Yeah?" She chuckled, a gentle wave of relief washing over her. Loren had definitely looked at more than her medals when he rummaged through her dresser.

  "Yes, please."

  She laughed again as he moved the injectors onto the nightstand then rolled her onto her back, his hard cock wedging itself between her swollen labia.

  In the morning, they would pack a small bag, the kind any couple might take on a day trip. Only it would be full of cash and guns, a few toiletries and first aid items, and one sea-green negligee. They would leave Lawton Hills together, she with the same dark auburn hair she had entered the house with, his shorter and lighter. Her features would be the same as those he kissed and caressed; his would be temporarily altered -- the nose and lips thicker, the jaw less defined, his cheeks and brow more pronounced.

  It would hurt like hell as the injectors remolded his face. He would bear it in white-knuckled silence. And, once they were finally out of range of the cameras and high-powered microphones, there would be rest and conversation. A spilling of secrets and stories to strengthen the bond that had already built up around them.

  But at that moment, as they moved tenderly against one another and waited for dawn to break, there was no talk or sleep to be had.

  Curve Beast

  Scrabbling naked over rooftops and darting between shadows as he tracked the drift of clouds across the moon’s full face, Cruz Medina came at last to a stop. Across from him was a rundown building, its brick façade chipped and crumbling. Steel framed cathedral windows ran across the third floor, all but one shut. Through the open window, he heard a sultry torch song playing in the background.

  Moving the few inches right to see inside her apartment would expose him. He dropped flat against the corrugated metal roof and waited for another thick cloud to cover the moon. He ached to see her, had gone all day waiting for the chance. She would likely be in her chair, naked -- the day's camouflage of baggy jeans and sweaters thrown off and every sweet curve and roll of her lush flesh visible to him.

  The music all but guaranteed the vision dancing through his head. The low throb of a cello joined a woman’s voice. Every note was music to fuck by--exactly the kind of music Tamsyn listened to when she was alone, touching herself and thinking of him. Feeling his own low throb, he inched closer to the roof's edge, stirring up the odor of rust and sweat from his climb. He lifted his head, searching for the first faint stirring of her scent as a cool breeze played over his bare flesh.

  Cruz jerked back, eyes narrowing as he emitted a low warning growl. He could sense Tamsyn, but only barely. Something else covered her gingery sweetness--something masculine and drenched in the stench of meth. He inched to his left, leaving the safety of the shadows to see through her open window.

  Tamsyn sat in an overstuffed chair that faced the window at an angle. She was every bit as naked as Cruz. Dark brown hair fell in loose waves against her shoulders. Her hands covered her full, heavy breasts, the fingers tense as she worked the achingly thick nipples.

  The sight of her broad hips, soft plump thighs, and that sweet, sweet rounded ass as she toyed with herself would have fueled a month’s worth of wet dreams--if she’d been alone. Instead, a dark shadow was prone on the ottoman, its head bobbing between Tamsyn’s legs.

  Bracing himself, Cruz drew another deep breath, reading the scent signature of her lover.

  Lonnie Woodrow.

  Between Tamsyn’s soft thighs.

  Lonnie’s tongue--

  The sound of metal groaning as he bent the edge of the roof checked the impulses warring inside Cruz. He quashed the urge to leap from the roof, scale the building up to the open window and rip Lonnie’s throat out.

  Tamsyn was her own woman. She certainly did not belong to Cruz Medina. He had gone out of his way to make sure of that, pushing her away every time they ran into one another. He pretended every day he wasn’t crazy in love with her or couldn’t smell the subtle changes in her body each time she realized he was near. Every meeting between them was an exercise of his shitting on a friendship that stretched back to high school.

  Worse yet, she thought it was her size that kept him away, that all those womanly curves made his stomach roll instead of his cock hard and his fingers stiff with the need to grip her malleable flesh. So she covered up t
hat gorgeous body ignored him with the same feigned indifference he directed at her -- even if she came alone in her bedroom and calling his name.

  The music stopped. Cruz lifted his head, ears pricking forward. Tamsyn had her foot against Lonnie’s shoulder and resolutely pushed the little fucker away.

  "C’mon, baby," Lonnie whined. "You said three songs. That was only two."

  "It could be two CDs, you still couldn’t make me come." Dropping her foot to the ottoman, she gave a hard shove.

  Cruz heard the sound of the spindly furniture legs scraping against century-old floorboards. He watched as Tamsyn stood, her full breasts swinging forward as she bent to retrieve Lonnie’s jacket and threw it at the tweaker.

  "Baby--"

  Tamsyn pointed a finger at him. "Never call me baby."

  "Then let me be your baby." Lonnie reached for the nearest breast, the nipple softened now that she no longer teased it.

  Tamsyn brought her fist down on his wrist.

  Lonnie jerked his hand back, holding it against his chest as he rubbed at the sore flesh. "You said three songs. If I could make you come in three songs you'd fuck me."

  Tamsyn pointed at her apartment door. "You want to walk down those stairs or get thrown down them?"

  She watched, stony-eyed, as Lonnie left. Then she bolted the door and returned to the chair. She pulled her legs to her chest, wrapped her arms around them and rested her chin on her knees. Her lips moved in a whisper Cruz strained to hear.

  *****

  Damn you, Cruz Medina.

  Tamsyn’s curse followed him down from the roof and into the alley. Cruz hit the ground on all fours, double-layered fur hiding his skin. The stealth of his padded paws as he stalked toward the building’s exit was ruined by the clicking of razor sharp nails against the asphalt and the steady growl in his throat. Hearing footsteps from the building’s stairway, he slid alongside a dumpster and waited.