I lifted my chin. “Is that a good thing?”
“Well, you’re certainly not the daddy’s girl you used to be.”
“Don’t call me that.”
He cocked his head to the side. “It was a compliment.”
I bit my bottom lip and stepped closer to him to feel the press of his cock against my hip. “I don’t like it. I don’t like to think about him. About what he di—”
Xavier silenced me with a kiss.
It was a good thing, too. I didn’t want to go down that road of dark thoughts. Not tonight. There was already too much weighing on me and the kiss chased it all away. He was the knight in shining armor I never expected. Wicked, dark, mean, dangerous, and sexy as hell.
He was the only reason I was still breathing.
I spread my legs for him when he pushed his knee forward. His hand wandered up the inside of my shirt while his tongue explored my mouth, and I was suddenly struck with a wonderful vision of us kissing like this on a beach somewhere safe. Somewhere unreachable.
When he broke our kiss and ran his lips across my jaw and down my neck, I opened my eyes.
We weren’t on a warm beach. We were encompassed by darkness and cool evening air. But his hands on me were warm, and so were his lips, and there was solace in his touch that even a beach couldn’t give me.
I leaned into him.
Xavier popped open my jeans and trailed kisses across my hips after he pulled the jeans down. I stepped out of them and he tossed them into the front seat before pulling my shirt off over my head. Then with a flick of his wrist he snapped my bra off and I found myself being pushed down on the back seat in only my panties.
Then those were gone too and thrown down on the grass by his feet before he undid his jeans and dropped to a crouch in the open door.
I propped myself up on my elbows and looked down at him as he settled between my thighs. He ran his fingers along my skin, giving me goose bumps, and then he bowed his head to roll his tongue up my aching, swollen slit, and then swirled it around my clit.
I fell back down to the seat and stared up at the gray roof of the car.
His tongue licked and lapped and flicked, and I sighed with pleasure at his every touch. He knew all the right places to tease me. To press hard. To press lightly.
When he drew my clit between his lips and sucked, I lost it. He let out a soft moan that had me sinking my fingers into his hair and pulling madly, and then he eased a finger inside me, scattering me into a thousand pieces in the backseat of the car as I came hard and fast, my hips bucking and my chest heaving with wild gasps of pleasure.
He continued fucking me nice and slow with his finger as I rode the high back down to sanity and collected myself in the back seat.
Another finger joined the first.
I reached down to push him away, needing only another minute to recover, but he wouldn’t relent. He held me down with a hand on my chest as he fucked me until I came again with a scream and body shaking tremors.
Then, he patted my clit—three hard taps with his open palm. Each one sent shocks of pleasure rocketing through me. I watched as he got to his feet, pulled his shirt over his head, and dropped his pants and boxers.
He descended upon me. His shoulders flexed and rolled and the muscles in his arms bulged as he held himself up and pushed my legs back.
I reached for him and ran a hand down the middle of his chest, reveling in the swell of muscle beneath my fingers as I traced his abs. Xavier was pure power, inside and out.
And he was mine.
Until the world ripped us apart.
I pulled him down to me as he slid his cock inside my pussy. His kisses were hot, wild, and full of fire, and they left me breathless as he rocked his hips nice and slow, filling me up and then leaving me empty and aching for more.
“Harder,” I pleaded, coiling my hands into fists in his hair.
The car shook with the force of it when he held me down and did what I asked. There was nobody around to hear, so I cried out with pleasure as my back arched and my toes curled and everything around us dimmed.
Except for him.
Xavier was perfectly clear. I admired the line of his jaw and the swell of his shoulders and I clung to him, desperate to somehow get closer. He wrapped his arms around me and buried himself deep, and we both lost ourselves to each other.
Chapter Fifteen
Xavier
“Remember,” I said to Violet, as she and I crossed the terminal of the Montreal airport to the ticketing desk, “we’re newlyweds and we like spontaneity. We want a flight somewhere far and fun, but affordable. Whatever the agent says. So long as it’s off this fucking continent. Any questions?”
Violet shook her head once. The wheels of our suitcases hummed and bumped along behind us and we kept our eyes trained on our destination. “No. It’s simple enough. You do the talking. I’ll giggle and hang off your arm and hide my left hand.”
“Good thinking.”
We fell into line behind a family with two children who spent the duration of the time from the end of the line to the counter bickering about who was going to get the window seat.
Violet and I stepped up to the counter and she did as she promised. She hooked her arm through mine and smiled brightly at the ticketing agent, who seemed about as interested in us as I was in botany.
I waited for her to look up and address us.
When she did, she did it without a smile. Her thin lips were pressed together in a firm line and her eyes were cold and hollow. “Passports and tickets, please.”
Violet slapped our passports on the counter and I stretched my cheeks in the most civil smile I could manage. “We don’t have tickets, actually. We wanted to buy some today.”
“Where to?” The agent drawled, clicking on her computer and navigating her way to what I assumed was the sales page for flights.
I looked down at Violet. “Where to, sweetheart?”
Violet did a great job of looking love struck as she gazed up at me. “Somewhere far where our families can’t get a hold of us.” She turned to the ticketing agent. “We just got married. My parents don’t know. They think he’s no good for me. But he’s the only man I’ve ever loved and we just want to spend a few weeks away from everyone. You know?”
The agent blinked lazily at Violet.
Violet leaned forward. “Where can we go for less than a thousand dollars? Somewhere far. And warm, preferably.”
The agent sighed and clicked through a couple more screens. “For twelve hundred I can get you each a one way flight to Madrid.”
“Spain?” Violet asked incredulously.
The agent sighed again, more dramatically this time. “I said Madrid, didn’t I?”
Violet let out a soft giggle and looked up at me. “What do you think?”
I shrugged. “I can see you in a bikini on a Spanish beach. Sure. Let’s do it.”
The agent made our booking while Violet and I pooled all the cash we had together and set it down on the counter to pay. Then we checked our luggage after tagging it, received our boarding passes, and were ushered through the terminal toward security.
The hard part.
“You did well,” I told Violet, as we made our way to the security line ups.
“She was so miserable we could have told her any fake story and she wouldn’t have cared.”
“Quite true.”
The line at security was three times as long as it had been to purchase our tickets. We inched forward, slowly but surely, and the closer we got to the metal detectors and scanners, the heavier the weight on my chest felt.
We were playing with fire being here like this.
If the police were onto us and they had our pictures or our names, we were done for. This would seal the deal. Violet Wynn’s name would have popped up the ticket purchase went into the system. I was lucky. I had an alias and a fake passport with a name on it that I used to travel out of the country on the rare occasion that a contract t
ook me outside the United States. It had only happened a handful of times and all of them had gone off without a hitch.
But this.
This was different.
There was a hell of a lot more opportunity for shit to go wrong, and we were walking into the battle right now.
Violet had her arms crossed over her chest and she was gnawing on her bottom lip.
I took her hand in mine and gave it a squeeze. “Relax.”
“Sorry,” she muttered.
“This will be over before you know it. Stay with me. We go through the same metal detector. No separation unless we absolutely can’t help it.”
“Okay.”
“You go through the detector ahead of me.”
“Why?” She asked. People up ahead were taking off their shoes and setting them in gray plastic bins to roll through the security scanners along with their carry on’s and laptop bags.
“Because I’m going to set it off and I’d rather you be on that side than this side.” If for some reason the cops or the Shades caught up with us at security, I wanted Violet to be through the gates and in a spot where she still had a chance to run.
“Why will you set it off?” She asked sharply, eyes widening a bit.
I pressed a hand lightly to my side. “Bullet.”
“Right,” she breathed, looking up rather frantically to the front of the line. We were getting closer. A couple more minutes and it would be our turn to take our shoes and coats off. “Fuck. How are you going to explain that?”
“Don’t worry about me. Worst case scenario I tell them the truth.”
“Explain to me how that’s a good idea.”
I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into my side. “If you have another brilliant lie I can tell them, I’m all ears. But lies in an airport can get us in serious trouble. Fast. I’d rather try my luck with the truth and see what happens. Plenty of people have been shot. All it takes is the right background story.”
She arched an eyebrow at me. “So in other words you tell the truth about the bullet and then lie about how it ended up in your side?”
“Exactly.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Okay. Well. We’re here now. So this is happening.”
“In less than twelve hours we’ll be in Spain. We’ll have the time we need to plot our next move and start thinking long term.”
She set her jaw. “Long term like bringing the Shades down?”
I admired the young woman beside me.
She’d changed a lot since I first met her just a month ago. I could still recall the first time I’d laid eyes on her at the fundraiser. She was all beauty, coy smiles, and carelessness. She didn’t have to worry about anything. Everything she could ever need or want was hers. Her father paid her way through life and she lacked for nothing.
But now?
Well, now she was someone else entirely.
She was still beautiful. Hell, she was even more beautiful. And she was fierce. A fighter through and through.
It still took me by surprise sometimes.
Violet bent down and took off her sneakers. She set them in a plastic bin and I did the same with my boots. She tucked a purse she’d stolen from the house we crashed at in the same bin, and then walked barefoot down the line to slide the bin onto the conveyor belt.
Then we waited, her standing in front of me, for the security guard at the metal detector to usher us through.
Naturally they were having difficulties with the passenger ahead of us. A man in his mid to late sixties with poor hearing who, despite his best efforts, kept setting the alarm off.
Violet turned her head to the side to talk to me over her shoulder. “Once we get through this security check I think I need a drink. A really stiff drink.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged,” I said, resisting the urge to look over my shoulder and scout the place out.
I felt like a caged in animal.
This was not where I wanted to be, caught in the middle of escape and death. We were in a bad spot. If the Shades caught up with us now there was nowhere to go. Not only that but I was unarmed. And airport was no place to fool around with trying to smuggle a weapon on your person. I’d left my knife and my gun behind.
It unsettled me.
Violet leaned back to rest her head against my chest. She exhaled slowly in an attempt to remain calm. It seemed she was feeling the heat of the situation as well.
I put my hands on her shoulders and rubbed gently. “Only a few more minutes. And we’re through. Keep your eye on the prize.”
She tilted her chin back to look up at me. “Always.”
Before I even realized what I was doing, I pressed my lips to her forehead. Her eyes fell closed. I could have counted her lashes. Could have played connect the dots with the few freckles across her cheeks and nose. Then her eyes fluttered open and she gave me a warm smile before stepping away and facing the security officer who had just finished with the older man.
He motioned for her to come through.
She went.
I watched, heart hammering wildly in my chest, as the little light on top of the detector blinked green after she passed through. The officer nodded to her and Violet offered him a polite thank you before going to the conveyor belt and collecting our items.
Then he turned to me. “Next.”
I walked through. The officer didn’t even look at me. He stared at the light above, which, as soon as I passed through, blinked red and beeped.
He stepped forward. “Do you have any metal on your person, sir?”
I showed him that I did not. “No, but I have some inside me.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Surgical?”
I hesitated for only a second to study him. If I said yes, was he the sort of man who would wave me through? Or would he ask a dozen questions? Did he care enough about his job and airport security to be thorough, or was he more likely to send me on my way and move on to the next passenger?
His poor posture, blank stare, and weak jaw told me all I needed to know.
“Metal hip,” I said, pointing at my right side. “I had surgery a few years ago and—”
“Step over here,” he said, pointing to a soft mat on the other side of the detector.
I was aware of Violet’s eyes on me as I did what I was told. I stood where he wanted and he used the flat paddle wand he held to roam it over my body. It beeped at my side where the bullet was, which was close enough to my hip for the lie to be convincing enough.
“Alright,” the officer said, pointing for me to collect my stuff from the belt. “Have a nice flight.”
“Thanks,” I said, trying not to sound as relieved as I felt.
I went to Violet who had all of our stuff in her arms. She opened her mouth to speak.
“Wait,” I said softly. “Not here.”
She licked her lips, and we put on our shoes.
Then, as I straightened up, my eyes fell upon a pair of shiny black men’s shoes. I followed the line of his legs up to find a broad shoulders man in a black suit standing in front of me.
“Sir,” he said in a deep, commanding voice.
Shit.
“We need you to come with us.”
Violet grabbed my arm. I wished she hadn’t. We could still play this off like we had nothing to be afraid of.
I frowned. “I’m sorry, has something happened?”
The man in the suit took a menacing step toward me. Playing the part of innocent man rather than assassin, I fell back a step. He reached for my arm and grabbed me by the elbow. “You’ve been selected for a randomized search. Don’t worry. You’ll be on your way shortly. So long as you have nothing to hide.”
Three more men stepped up behind him. One went to Violet. He reached for her but she yanked her arm out of his grip. “Don’t touch me,” she seethed. “I can walk on my own.”
And that’s exactly what she did.
She followed along behind me and I was sure her mind was racing
just like mine.
There was nothing random about this.
All I wanted to know was who these clowns were working for.
The police, Jonah Wynn, or the Shades?
Either way, I had a bad feeling Violet and I were not going to make it to Madrid.
Chapter Sixteen
Violet
Two security guards in suits with earpieces in to communicate with each other flanked me on either side, while the remaining two walked up ahead with Xavier. I kept my eyes trained on the middle of his back and tried to act like a confused wife who was irritated that her vacation was being postponed.
I couldn’t break until I knew without a shadow of a doubt that we’d been caught.
That bad feeling remained, but there was still a chance that this was exactly what the guards said it was—a random check.
Maybe all we had to do was answer a few questions, let them pat us down, and then we’d be on our merry way.
“How far is it?” I asked, looking back and forth between the guards beside me. “Are we going to miss our flight? If I’m not on a beach by this time tomorrow I’m going to have words with—”
“It takes as long as it takes, miss,” the one on my left said.
Damn it.
I huffed in frustration. “This is for our honeymoon, you know.”
Neither of the guards said a word.
Each step brought me closer and closer to panic. I wished I was closer to Xavier. I wished I could see his eyes and read his face to get a feel for how bad this was. He’d know. He was probably plotting our escape at this very moment.
I lifted my chin, realizing I didn’t have to rely on him for everything like this. Maybe I could pick up on some cues myself.
Cues like the way the guards each had a hold on one of Xavier’s arms. Cues like how tight they were holding him. Tight enough to make the fabric of his jacket bulge on the outside of their hands.
Cues like the way they walked with purpose and ignored all other airport staff.
This is bad.
Who did these guys work for? They weren’t Shades that was for sure. They were too well kept for that. Too straight and narrow. I doubted they were cops, either.
Dark Lover: Sins of the Night Page 9
