by Jess Bentley
He kisses the spot where my neck meets my shoulder and whispers into my ear, “I want you to feel every part of me, Arie.”
“I…” start to stutter out, but I can’t form a coherent sentence. The indulgence is too perfect, too all-consuming.
Pierce wraps his arms around my waist and rocks me back at an angle. Riding him from this new position floods me with a new wave of extraordinary sensations. I can feel the smoothness of the skin of the head; the firm hardness of his perfect cock fills me up and sends me reeling in the most perfect of ways. I can’t fathom how deep inside of me he is right now. He gyrates as if he is trying to get even deeper inside of me, but there is no way that’s possible. I am completely stuffed to the absolutely limit. His thick manhood ravages my pussy, pushing me into places I’m not sure my mind can handle.
“Pierce,” I scream.
Pierce gently rubs my back as he floods me with a deluge of focused thrusts. He rains crash upon crash of pounding plunge until all I feel is the fire of our bodies meeting. The wicked scorch is driving me to the point of climax, and I know I am right on the edge. I hold my breath. Pierce slams once. Twice. Again. One more time.
And then, an orgasm tears through me. Blinding, exhausting, and beautiful.
Pierce jerks underneath me, reaching his own climax. His huge cock shudders inside of me, emptying his seed. I can feel his every spasm, the clip of his labored breathing. He kisses my chest as our waves of ecstasy begin to ebb away. When the final of pleasure drifts away, I feel sleepy and satiated. All I want to do is sleep in the sun in Pierce’s arms.
I slide myself off of him, though he seems hesitant to let me go. I laugh, exhausted. “So, how long were you out here waiting for me to wake up?” I ask.
“Too long.” Pierce grabs me by the waist and rolls me onto my back. We tumble on to the glass floor and Pierce ends up back on top of me. “I’ve been thinking about it since I woke up and saw you laying there in the morning sun, asleep, glowing, and beautiful.”
I try to hide a grin. “Funny you should mention the word ‘glowing’ actually.”
Pierce raises an eyebrow and surveys me with curious eyes. “Oh?”
“Well, right before the wedding, I was feeling queasy. Sick. I started to worry that maybe something was wrong again. That I was going to need to go back to Manhattan to my doctors. But then I realized…”
Pierce sits up. He’s catching on, and his face is practically on fire with excitement. “You realized?”
“I was late. So, the concierge picked me up a pregnancy test.”
“And?” he asks, practically jumping out of his skin.
“We’re pregnant,” I answer, trying to stifle my smile. When I look up, Pierce looks like he’s about to explode. He laughs happily and picks me up in the air, spinning me around and around until we are both dizzy and giggling. When he puts me down, he kisses me long and slow, then pulls away and brushes my hair out of my face.
“You’re my family now, Arie. And I’m going to make sure you, and Chloe, and whoever else the universe brings us, will be safe forever. I love you, Arie.”
And when he pulls me into his arms, the warmth of the Fijian sun beating down on us and the gentle lapping of the waves filling out ears, I believe him.
Epilogue
One Year Later
“Congratulations on the addition to your family, Mr. Cochran. We heard you and your lovely wife welcome twins.”
Spencer James and the man I’ve come to know as Rufus are sitting across from my desk in our Auckland office. I look at the picture sitting across from me: Chloe on the beach with our twins, Layla and Beckett, and my heart swells. Chloe may look like me, but the twins are the spitting image of Arie, and together, we make a perfect family. I peek over the men across from me, and see Arie sitting at the reception desk. She was going crazy at home, so we got a nanny for the kids and now she works in the office with me. As if she knows I’m watching her, she turns her head and gives me a wink, then goes back to answering one of the dozens of emails we get every day, asking for our services.
While we take on the occasional side case, then contract out to another local security firm, my main business is what Spencer and Rufus brought me over a year ago. And it was a doozy. The men were the head of the Worldwide Securities Agency, or WSA, a privatized offshoot of the CIA. They were a group of elite former Marines and SEALs and “secret agents” who were hired to take on missions too intense for any federal government to handle. Sometimes, the cases were so covert, a government might not even know about them. But they were always too dangerous to risk the lives of anyone who was considered a “volunteer.” So that is where we come in.
For the last year, Cochran Securities LTD has been putting together a private, select collection of men and women who travel across the globe, helping solve issues that the average person never even hears about. From our base in Auckland, we assist the WSA in finding agents to help complete their missions. My job isn’t just to find the agents; I help them plan, organize, and do damage control, accounting for any eventuality and strategize future missions. It’s an amazing, rewarding, and challenging job, and I can never allow myself to devalue its importance.
Arie has also proven to be an invaluable part of our CSL branch in Auckland. I always knew she was brilliant, but over the last few months, she has shown me that she is a wiz at mapping and charting. Every time I think I have figured out the best course for a planned mission, she shows up and within five seconds, she’s found a safer, more efficient course. I couldn’t even begin to guess how many lives she’s saved, or how much money. She calls herself my receptionist, but she’s much more… and she knows it.
I realize I’ve been staring at Arie when Spencer clears his throat. “Mr. Cochran?”
“Yes! Sorry. You were saying?”
“Well, first, we wanted to thank you for saving our asses in with that thing in Tasmania. Not sure our guys would have made it out without your help.”
I nod. “That’s our job.”
“Now, we need to ask you for something else,” Rufus says with a stern look. I try and keep my poker face. There is no telling what these men want from me. It could be anything. Literally.
“Go ahead.”
Rufus sets a chubby hand on my desk. “Mr. Cochran, we’d like you and your wife to start doing some field work. Getting out there in the muck, so to speak.”
I don’t remotely intend to laugh out loud, but that is exactly what happens. I actually laugh loudly enough to draw Arie’s attention from the front of the office. Laughter isn’t generally something she hears coming from meetings with the men from WSA.
“What the hell are you talking about? We can’t go out in the field. My leg never properly healed from the injury I sustained in service and Arie isn’t trained in… anything. What could you possibly want us to do in the field?”
Spencer gives me a very serious raised eyebrow. “Mr. Cochran, we know full well that your wife is the brains behind your mission charting. And she’s exceptional. Training or no training, she has an instinct that can’t be taught. And you may be injured, but the fact you think that means you are sidelined from the game permanently? That’s just disappointing.”
I sit back, processing what he’s just said. “So, explain to me what it is you want us to do. What you think we can do.”
“Track and report only. You will travel to wherever we tell you and collect whatever information we need. Maybe follow a target. Maybe gather some intel. Maybe just map out a mission that we’re planning before we go boots on the ground. Nothing that would put either of you in any immediate danger. But we feel that your unique talents are being wasted in an office. Both of your unique talents.”
I can’t even begin to guess how Arie is going to respond to this. “Can we have some time to consider it?”
They stand up at the same time, and nod at the same time. “You have twenty-four hours. Same as last time.”
Before I even have a chance to fo
llow them out to the waiting area, they have completely disappeared from the office.
“How do they DO that? How do they just… vanish like that?” I ask Arie, who is eyeballing me. But Arie is looking at me with a very defined scowl.
“Forget that. What exactly do you have twenty-fours to decide? What is going on now?”
I look at her and chuckle. “Oh, right. Well. How would you like to be a spy?” I ask with a wink. Arie chokes on the mouthful of coffee she just swallowed.
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Spencer and Rufus have asked us to become, well, field agents of sort. Nothing high-risk. No espionage. Well, light espionage. Travel to some exotic countries, gather intel, maybe steal the occasional priceless antiquity and sell it on the black market.” I think I’m hilarious, but Arie isn’t laughing.
“Pierce, don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t even finish college. I am your receptionist. I am not remotely qualified to be any kind of field agent. And what about you? Your leg is just starting to heal! You want to risk your progress for what?”
“Adventure? Intrigue? A chance to travel on someone else’s dime?” I know I shouldn’t be joking because Arie is worked up, but I can’t help it. I’ve been in this situation before, and I know in the end, she is going to side with me. The allure of the unknown is just too great. But she is still frowning at me.
“That’s fine for you, but what about the kids? Layla and Beckett are babies, and Chloe… I can’t leave her again. What if she thinks this is the time I leave her for good? I don’t want our kids to end up orphans, Pierce.”
I cross over and sit on the desk next to her. “We’re not talking about parachuting behind enemy lines in a war zone, Arie. It’s basically analysis work in the field. Some traveling. Occasionally following a few bad people and seeing where they are headed. And I promise you, we will never be away from the kids for more than a long weekend.”
Arie scrunches up her face and crosses her arms over her chest. Then she starts thinking, and she thinks for so long, I’m pretty sure the twenty-four-hour deadline might pass. When she finally speaks, she actually startles me.
“And you promise me we’ll never be away from the kids for more than four days at a time?”
I nod. “I promise. And we’ll bring them back lovingly-curated knick-knacks from every trip.”
Arie shrugs. “Okay then, let’s do it.”
My jaw drops. “Really? Just like that?”
“Well, not just like that. We’ll have to work out a lot of details and prepare for every eventuality, but we should at least try it. I think we’ll regret it if we don’t give it a shot, you know?”
I grab her, sweep her up in my arms, and give her a huge, long, kiss. I really am the luckiest man in the world, to have a wife who is so brave, so utterly fearless. When I put her back on the ground, I kiss her again.
“You deserve this, you know. You are brilliant, and capable, and this is your chance to shine.”
Arie stretches up and gives me another kiss. “I do all the shining I need to with you.”
Just as I’m considering taking her into my office and really making her glow, the phone in my jacket pocket rings. The phone that only Spencer and Rufus have access to. I look at Arie with a smile.
“Ready for our next adventure, Mrs. Cochran?”
She winks. “I was born ready, Mr. Cochran.”
Copyright © 2016 by Jess Bentley
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Janie
I take a deep breath, and unclench my fists. Looking down at the stinging in my palm, when it opens I see the deep crescent indentations of my fingernails. Since I was a little girl, that sight was more or less the definition of home.
Inside the little brick single-level cottage, behind the yellow, ratty yard, I can already hear my stepfather screaming. I’m still on the sidewalk, so chances are everyone else within a three-house radius can hear him as well. Why he was there when my mother called me, I can’t imagine.
Mom called me about a panic attack.
George is pretty much the opposite of helpful for that.
No one knows I’m here yet. I look back at the car — I could still leave. No one would know. I could just say I got busy, or that someone quit at the restaurant and I have to cover. That’s what the owner does; what I always do. They’d believe me.
But no amount of fantasizing actually will make that dream a reality. Pushing the chain-link fence gate open with a sigh, my heels tap up the cracked walkway through the dead yard and up to the screen door where I don’t bother to knock. It’s not locked.
Besides, Gloria’ll just tell George that I’m lying if I try to make something up. And George would ask. George is an asshole.
“Jesus Christ, Gina,” George is barking when I open the door to the scene. “You said you were dying! You get a little nervous on your own. Can’t you just piss in a corner like a dog instead of — what the fuck are you doing here?” He turns on me the moment I close the door.
I give George a long, flat look. It‘s better not to engage. So instead I turn my eyes more softly on Gina. “Sorry it took me so long, Mama,” I say. “You know you didn’t have to call anyone else.” I shoot George another brief, flat glare.
Gina takes my hand when I’m within arm’s reach, her pale lips widening into a wobbly smile. Her eyes are still wide, her pupils small, and it doesn’t look like she’s showered today. After almost fifteen years, George still can’t tell the difference between “nervous” and a full-blown panic attack by looking at it. The sleeve of Gina’s sweater is frayed from constant picking, which she’d have been doing for hours before the worst of it finally peaked.
“Oh, Janie,” my mother breathes, her bony hand squeezing mine as she says my name like a prayer. Probably a prayer for deliverance. Her eyes are red and puffy from crying, but by now her cheeks are dry. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called you. George… he came over, so… I just never see you and I think this time I… I just missed you and you know how I get. I just — ”
“Shh, it’s okay, Mama.” I let her draw me close, until she kneels by the old recliner she’d been sitting in and smiles up at me.
It’s not true; I drop everything to come and help her manage panic attacks sometimes as often as twice a week. During really bad weeks, it can be three or four visits. But she rarely retains much in the way of clear memories of the worst attacks.
This time looks to be one of the easier ones, George’s outburst notwithstanding. I’ve come through for my mother on everything from flies wriggling through the window and porch screens, to checking every closet in the house to assure her there’s no one lurking in the dark corners of the house. Once, I had to check the gas lines in the basement and prove that the house wasn’t in imminent danger of burning down.
Every time I do it, I know I’m enabling her, letting her get through another attack without having to self-manage the symptoms the way her many therapists have taught her to do. But I’m a problem-solver; a chronic micromanager. It’s true at the restaurant, it’s true at Mom’s house. Hell, it’s true of ordering takeout and getting my clothes dry-cleaned.
“Come on, Mama,” I urge as she stands, tugging her up to her feet. “You’ve got to be exhausted. Let’s get you to bed.”
“Yeah, right,” George grumbles. “I come all the way home from work, and you tuck her in for a nap. I ain’t on salary, you know.”
I roll my eyes and ignore him.
“You come in here when there’s a problem, sure,” he goes on. “Now you’re a big shot, you can’t be bothered to come spend time with your mother. That’s why she gets these fucking attacks in the first place. On account of you think you’re better than us. How do you think that make
s her feel, you coming in here in your fancy dress and high heels like you’re — ”
Drawing myself to my full height, with said heels on, I’m at least at eye level with my stepfather, and when I want to I can put the fire in my eyes. When I turn them on George now, his teeth click shut. I force my hands to relax, again.
“The least you could do,” I say, struggling to keep calm and rein in my fury at the man, “is not be a complete bastard when she’s vulnerable like this, you self-centered son of a bitch. Go the fuck back to work. I can take care of my mother.”
In the typical fashion, George sneers at her, but says nothing. When George Acropolis speaks, people listen… or he pretends not to have spoken in the first place. What a keeper.
“Janie,” my mother whispers.
I bite the inside of my cheek, and draw her toward the back of the living room, to the hallway where the bedrooms are. “You’re okay, Mama,” I say as she clutches her arm for the trip. “Do you have your pills here?”
Gina hesitates before she gives a nervous affirmative.
“Mama, you have to take your pills,” I sigh. “If you take them like the doctor said, this won’t happen.”
“George doesn’t like me on them,” she says. “He says they make me lazy. And they do.”
“No, Mama,” I say, trying not to grit my teeth, “they make you normal. George is… he just needs to understand that.” It doesn’t matter what I say about George, or how often I air my opinion of him to my mother. All it does is make her more agitated.
Almost the same time I open the door to my mother’s room, the front door slams, startling us both. George is going back to work, at least. Hopefully it’s one of the days he works overtime. Or, maybe he has a mistress. I don’t even care as long as it keeps him away long enough for Mom to get some much-needed rest.
As she takes her slippers off and lies down on top of the blankets, I dig through the bedside table for her pills. I find the orange bottle nearly empty, and as I tip one of the little pills out and hand it to my patient, I frown. I grab a plastic cup from their bathroom, fill it with water and bring it back to the bedside.
