by Anya Summers
Then his thick shaft prodded her entrance. His hand gripped her hip as the other guided his length inside her. Rayna moaned at the deliciousness of his wide cock stretching her sensitive tissues.
Gripping her hips, he began to move, his strokes long and deep. Rayna rocked her hips back, meeting his firm thrusts. Her mouth dropped open on a moan. Pleasure infused her body. There was no one like Jack. The way he loved her—his possession, his command—was the sweetest drug in her veins. The hard slap of flesh meeting flesh filled the room.
Over and over he glided in deep, pumping his cock in hard, deep thrusts that left her mewling and writhing, whimpering for more. Before she neared the ledge of no return, he withdrew.
“Jack,” she wailed.
“I want you to ride me.” He climbed into bed and pulled her onto his lap. His cock glistened with her cream, jutting proud and thick from his pelvis. He helped position her body so that she straddled his thighs. His hands on her butt, he lifted her up. She fit the crown of his shaft at her opening, then oscillated her hips, taking his cock inside her in one smooth downward thrust.
“Look at me.”
She lifted her gaze to his and drowned in the emotions in his eyes. She rocked her hips, thrusting and withdrawing in a decadent rhythm, drawing out their lovemaking. And she did love him, with everything that she was. She just didn’t know what to do with that love. The people she loved tended to die.
In that angle, Jack penetrated her channel all the way to the lip of her womb. She held herself up on her arms, her palms against his pecs, staring down at his face. Her heart trembled open. And in that moment, she knew she was irrevocably, deep in her gut, in love with Jack. The forever kind of love. The type that, even if it were to end between them here, now, today, was a love she would have for him until the end of her days.
Even with all the madness of her life, her constant running from her past, her past stalking her, and her life hanging in the balance, there was no place that she would rather be than here, with Jack. Exactly like this, with him surging inside her, his eyes half lidded and filled with lust and more emotion than she’d ever dreamed.
She rotated her hips, biting her bottom lip as the tension rose, tautening in her midsection. Jack rose until he was sitting, gripped the back of her head, and crushed his lips over hers for a hungry melding of lips and tongues and teeth. She moaned into his mouth and held on tight, rocking her hips faster and faster.
But then Jack rolled her onto her back, still embedded deep inside her sheath. He clasped her hands above her head, threading his fingers through hers as he thrust. His face hovered an inch above hers as he watched her. Their bodies were slick with sweat. A series of gasped moans slipped out of her mouth.
Jack thrust and withdrew, ramming his cock in deep.
“Jack,” she whispered on a breathy moan.
“That’s it. Come for me. Give me everything. Surrender to me,” he demanded, pounding his cock inside her. She met his thrusts, rolling her hips up to meet his.
He took her mouth in a devastating kiss. His hands gripped hers tight. And her entire being surrendered to his mastery.
Ecstasy rocketed through her system like an exploding shooting star entering the atmosphere. Sonic waves rolled over her. Her pussy clenched and shuddered around his plunging staff.
Jack stiffened and lifted his mouth off hers. His cock elongated and swelled. He thrust deep, and poured hot jets of semen into her quivering channel.
“Rayna,” he bellowed as he came, pounding her pussy as he spurted inside her. It set off another series of rippling flutters of ecstasy in her.
Burying his face in the crook of her neck, Jack thrust until they had squeezed every drop of pleasure from their bodies. They lay entwined, breathing heavily, hands still clasped together.
They had crossed another boundary.
He lifted his face and stared down at her, still embedded inside her. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Travino being in town and that I was here to guard you. I was under strict orders from Agent Carson not to inform you. I wanted to tell you, I thought you needed to know, but I was overruled. More than once.”
“I understand that on a cerebral level, but Jack, you have to understand, my entire life up until I was twenty-one was a lie. My father, uncles, and cousins all hid what the family business was.”
“Surely you had some clue that their dealings were at least unethical.” Jack rolled off her and lay next to her on his side. His hand played with a strand of her hair.
She rolled on her side to face him. “No. That’s just it. I never saw it coming. My family, my father, was old fashioned, and treated me like I was a princess. He never involved me in any of it. He wouldn’t even conduct business at the house, at least that I was aware of. Perhaps, deep down, a part of me knew that my family was different from others and I ignored it.”
“But there came a time when you couldn’t ignore it any longer?”
She nodded. “Yes. When I met Nicolas. He wooed me and was my first real boyfriend. A junior in college and he was my first.”
“As in your first, first?” Jack quirked a brow.
She sighed, sat up and drew her knees to her chest. “Yes. He was sweet and romantic and I fell in love with who I thought he was…”
“And then you learned he was FBI,” Jack finished for her.
She gave him a self-deprecating smile. “I seem to have a type. Anyway, I was angry with him, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself from loving him. When I finally answered his call and invited him over to our house, I had no idea that my dad knew who he was. If I had, I never would have asked him to come over.”
“What happened wasn’t your fault. You know that, right?”
“In my head, yes, I do. But it was my blind faith in my family that got him killed. I met Nicolas at the front door but my father was right behind me. He asked Nicolas to come speak with him in his study. I can still remember the sound of gunshots and the sound of his cries.”
“Jesus.” Jack sat up and hauled her into his arms. “It’s a wonder you survived.”
“If my father had known I was going to turn on him, for killing Nicolas, I’d be dead. He would have killed me that day. I know he would have. As it was, he beat me for bringing Nicolas into his home. I moved out after that, after I transferred my inheritance to an account he couldn’t touch and didn’t have access to. He tried to make amends, but I wouldn’t let him.”
“What made you go to Agent Carson?”
She sighed. It was time he knew the whole story. “When he first let it slip who he was, Nicolas gave me a business card with David’s cell phone on it. Said I was to call him if I ever needed help or if something were to ever happen to him. When I moved out of my father’s house it was the first call I made.”
“And you decided to become an informant?”
“Yes. I had to reconcile with my father, at least for appearance’s sake. I think the fact that I moved out helped. It took me almost six months of working my way back into my father’s good graces, feeding David every scrap of information I could collect. Taking pictures of documents and sending them his way. Having the FBI show up at a few of their rather unsavory meetings and not at the rest. It had to appear random, like there was a mole from some other quadrant.”
“Did your father ever suspect you?”
She remembered the venom on her father’s face when she had visited him after he had been sentenced to life in prison. The monster inside him, the one he had always hidden from her with the exception of the day he’d killed Nicolas and beaten her, had been out in all its glory. “No. And he never forgave me, or was repentant over killing Nicolas. He was defiant until the end, called me the worst sort, even mimicked the kiss of death through the plexiglass window, for my betrayal of our family.”
“I’m sorry. I know you’ve been through hell and back more than a few times. It was the bravest thing I have ever seen anyone do. I watched the trial.”
“You and hal
f the country.” She snorted.
“You did what was right, not what was easy. Because what was easy would have been to walk away and not do anything. You honored Nicolas in doing so; made his death, his sacrifice count for something.”
“I know that deep down, but that doesn’t mean it has been easy to live with. I have questioned whether he truly cared or if it was just circumstance that brought us together. Whether if Raoul wasn’t my father and I wasn’t a Giancarlo, he would have even given me the time of day. It’s something I will never know.”
“I can’t speak for him, nor would I pretend I could, but I don’t see how he could have not loved you. I never meant to touch you or fall for you. I don’t do emotions well, and you snuck through all my defenses.”
Her heart dropped into her toes. Her relationship was purely circumstance once more, where she would never truly know. It felt like she was on this endless merry go round, destined to fall for the undercover guy with the badge, who only wound up dead and left her questioning everything.
But Jack wouldn’t let her retreat when she tried to withdraw from his side embrace. “Look at me, Rayna. Even without this case, before it came across my desk, I wanted you. The case gave me an excuse.”
“But why didn’t you approach me before? I mean, I’ve been part of the circle for a while now, and you never did anything or indicated…”
“I think a part of me realized that the moment I touched you, it would be the end.”
“Hey.”
He smiled. “Not the end of my life, but the end of my illusion that I didn’t want or need someone in my daily life. I think, deep down, I looked at you and I wanted you, not just for a night, but for you to belong to me.”
Her breath expelled in a rush and she sighed. “Jack.”
He cupped her chin. “That’s what I want, Rayna. I want you to belong to me. I want to claim you as my submissive. I want you in my life, period.”
“But, why?” Because she had no idea what was real anymore, and she was too afraid to hope.
“Isn’t it obvious? I love you. I’ve never met anyone as brave or as strong as you. You awe me every day with your fortitude and the way you fit me.”
Her heart rolled in her chest and exposed its soft underbelly. He loved her. Warmth infused her. “You really love me, even knowing I betrayed my family and can never again bear the name I was born with, and that I have the second biggest crime boss in the country after me?”
He cupped her face in his hands, his gaze smoldering. “Even with that. I’ll protect you with my life. And to me, you’re Rayna.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want you being reckless and dying for me. Promise me you won’t.”
“My job is dangerous. It’s not only the big crime bosses I have to worry about. Being with me… danger comes with the territory of my job. I’m careful and I’m good at my work. But I can’t promise that a suspect won’t ever get the upper hand. Life doesn’t come with a guarantee. There’s only here and now. Everything else is up for grabs.”
She wouldn’t let him die. Not for her. No one else was getting harmed because of her. He stroked his knuckles over her cheek and along her throat.
“Are you going to tell me?” he pressed with a secretive smile.
“Tell you what?”
He quirked a brow. He knew her, better than anyone, and saw through every pretense she had. Dammit.
She sighed and caved. “All right. I love you, Jack. I didn’t want to, you’re bossy and heavy-handed with the discipline, but you’re also kind, caring, and love me like no one else.”
“Not even Nicolas?”
“I loved Nicolas. A part of me always will for how pivotal his entry into my life became, but I don’t know if we would have made it. I think one way or the other, it would have ended. But no, no one else has ever loved me quite the way you do.”
He kissed her then, sweetly, with such tenderness she was moved by him. But she wouldn’t let him die for her. No one else would.
“I can see that brain of yours working. What aren’t you saying, Rayna?”
She played it off like it was nothing and let the plan formulate in the back of her mind. “Nothing. I was hoping you’d do that thing with your tongue again.”
A sexy, male grin spread over his face. “Is that so? I think I can oblige.”
Then he proceeded to show her once more how skilled he was with his tongue, until she was boneless and cradled in his arms. Her last conscious thought was that it was time to end it with Dominic, one way or the other.
Chapter 25
The following afternoon, David Carson with the FBI, Chief Sheffield of the Jackson Hole Police Department, and Jack were sitting at his oak kitchen table. Rayna served them all coffee, except Jack. He had not liked that she had contacted both David and the chief without running it by him first. She had barely slept a wink last night. Even wrapped up in Jack, with his comforting strength encircling her, she had not been able to fall asleep.
Any other time Dominic Travino had caught her scent, she had run. The first time, he had rearranged her face—quite literally. After her surgery, she had become a monk in her next location. And she had survived that way; no friends, no family, no one but herself to depend on for four years. Yet Travino had somehow located her again. She was able to leave before he got to her that time. So she had changed her identity once more. Then she’d moved here and had begun to live again. That made this time, this place, different for her. She would rather die than become Dominic’s plaything to torture.
In the wee hours of the morning, she’d devised a plan.
She looked around the table. David wore a black dress suit and tie. She’d never seen him in anything but boring, dark-colored suits. The chief had his black uniform on, the short sleeved black dress shirt was in deference to the heat, and bore his insignias and badge. Jack had slipped on a plain white tee shirt and jeans. The shirt contoured to his rock-hard chest.
She took a sip of coffee to wet her throat and attempt to hide her nerves. “Thank you all for coming.”
Jack wore a blank expression on his handsome face, but underneath his stalwart exterior, she sensed his tension. She had not told him what she was planning. Knowing him like she did, he wouldn’t like it. But he would have to get over it because she needed to do this.
“What’s this all about?” David asked, drumming his fingers on the table.
“I’m getting to that. David, you and the Bureau wanted to force Dominic to play his hand. The problem is, it’s not good enough to catch him, to put him away for once and for all. I know him well. I know how he operates, how he thinks, how he is always two steps ahead. Dominic and I grew up together. I know him better than anyone. I know how evil and decrepit his soul is and what he is capable of better than most. If you would have come to me from the start and been honest with me…” She held up a hand to stop him from speaking and defending his position. “We both know you should have come to me first off. You didn’t. And the plan failed. He knows that Jack is protecting me.”
David leaned back in his seat. “Your point?”
She glanced at her audience. Every single one of them had that stern, law enforcement look shrouding their features, the one she believed they taught at the academy. Tough crowd. But she’d had tougher when she had acted like she’d forgiven her father. “Look, none of this is going to end until he’s caught. I’m tired of running. It’s all I’ve known for the last decade. Even with Jack guarding me, it won’t stop him. He’s a sadistic, vindictive bastard, and the only thing that will satisfy him will be taking a pound of flesh: my flesh. He won’t stop until I’m dead. Period.”
“And what do you want us to do about that? Beyond what we are already doing? You have the best detective in my department protecting you,” Chief Sheffield commented.
But it was the last man at the table whose opinion mattered most—to her, at least. Jack scowled. Storm clouds had entered his hazel eyes, turning them nearly black in his c
ontrolled fury. “She wants to use herself as bait. More than she already has been. Or am I wrong, Rayna?”
Oh boy. His hands flexed as he crossed his arms in front of his chest, and the look on his face… She had one pissed off Dom to contend with once this meeting was over. A shiver went through her at the prospect. She’d deal with it just like she did everything else. She wouldn’t worry about it until she had to confront it. “No, you’re not wrong. Dominic’s going to keep coming after me until he is either dead or behind bars, or I’m dead. I’m tired of running, tired of living in fear that someone will recognize me. If I don’t confront this—him—now, I will be running for the rest of my life. And to be honest, if that is the case, I would rather you let him find me so it can be over.”
David cocked his head to the side. “And you’d be willing to put yourself in the line of fire that way? Even knowing the potential risks?”
“Yes. I’m already in the line of fire. This is me taking a proactive approach instead of waiting for him to come get me. Plus, because I know him, I know how to do it.”
Jack snarled, “No. That’s out of the question. I won’t have you—”
She cut Jack off. “It’s not your decision to make. I know what this means for me. I know the risk I’m taking.”
His eyes narrowed into angry slits. But she was saved from responding by both David and the Chief.
“How?” David queried.
“Enough, Detective, let Miss Thompson speak.” Chief Sheffield derided Jack with a controlled stare in his direction.
Jack nodded curtly at his chief.
“As I was saying, I think I have a way to do this that will draw him out. Dominic never could resist a challenge. In three days’ time, the town will be hosting the annual Fourth of July parade along Main Street. The day before, in the Jackson Herald newspaper, they announce a list of the floats and who is going to be on them.”
“And you want to be up on one of the floats?” David asked.
She kept her smile to herself as she explained, “It will draw him out. I know it will. The downside is that it puts the parade-goers at risk. I doubt he would take a shot at me in front of everyone, but he could.”
