by J. L. Saint
“It’s okay. It’s not you. It’s me. I cannot seem to forgive myself for forgetting my baby’s father. It happens every time you walk into a room, every time I look at you I forget Neil. What does that make me?” She shut the door and locked it. Not to keep him out, but her in.
Chapter Fourteen
Atlanta, Georgia
The fire in Rico burned a path from Angie’s curling toes all the way to her heart. Every time she shut her eyes, she heard the sniper’s rifle echo through her mind. She hadn’t wanted a dead hero. She’d prayed to have him alive and vibrant in her arms, but was unprepared for the explosive combination of his unrestrained desire and her aching need.
She couldn’t get enough of him. Whatever it was that had held him in check for weeks had come unleashed. She could read it in his heated gaze and feel it in the deep thrust of his tongue—sexual, demanding and all hot male. Her tongue met his in a succulent dance that upped the urgency between them with every stroke.
Even though his cream-colored shirt had grass stains from his fight with the sniper, he tasted and smelled delicious, a combination of seductive cologne and something she could only name as pure Rico. Potent sex pheromones that were an unimaginable aphrodisiac—the final crème de la crème that had iced his Latin looks of black curly hair, dark eyes and tanned skin to an impossible-to-resist level. Rico Santana was “So Smooth”, just like Santana’s hit song.
Before meeting Rico, Angie hadn’t given much thought or credence to humans being in tune to pheromones. That was a phenomenon relegated to the animal world and their heightened senses. At least for her, because she’d never experienced the awareness of others described in pheromone research until she’d met Rico. The instant he’d walked into the room her every sense had exploded into life and completely succumbed to his appeal.
May the good Lord forgive her, but the man was a walking orgasm. From the lift of his brow, to the flash of his smile, to every move his honed body made. And that was before he’d even really looked at, kissed or touched her.
She’d been perched on so sharp an edge for weeks, sexually, emotionally, spiritually that now, in one fiery look, in one consuming kiss, and in one urgent touch as he cupped her nape with his left hand, bracing her for another kiss, she hurtled into an abyss that in thirty years of life she’d never fallen into before.
When she was ten, her father left to go get the tires changed on the car one Saturday morning and never came back. After forty-eight frantic hours of calling police, hospitals and every person known to them, her dad had called. He’d decided that the responsibility of the commitments he’d made was too much to uphold and not what he wanted out of life. He’d ditched his wife, Angie, his job and moved into a commune populated with New Agers. She hadn’t seen him since and in some ways, like her mother, she kept men at a distance from her heart.
Moving his hand from her neck to her back, Rico urged her even closer to him and Angie moaned in a mixture of ecstasy and fear. She knew from the things he’d said that in past relationships, he hadn’t even come close to the casual-commitment status to which she’d ventured—sort of a friends-with-benefits thing with men that she’d kept in touch with even after interest in the benefits had waned. She cared about them, just wasn’t about to count on them.
Rico had done one-nighters, weekenders and an occasional monther or two and then moved on. At first she’d thought they’d get along famously until two things happened. One, she realized casual and Rico didn’t fit into the same sentence in her world, and two, he’d waited weeks to make this move. Why? Did that mean what he felt for her went beyond the casual?
He’d sounded like it. The vibrations of his deeply toned answer to her question when he put his plate on the coffee table still reverberated inside her.
“I’m starving. Hungrier than I’ve ever been in my entire life.”
Her breasts met the solid wall of his chest and desire wiped coherent thought from her mind. All she wanted to do was feel. Feel every nuance of him. She pushed him back as she rose up from the couch to straddle his lap. Kissing him hard, she went for the buttons of his shirt and spread its edges wide, exposing the chiseled contours of his chest and shoulders to her gaze, her hands, her mouth. A thick gold chain hung around his neck with what she knew to be a Saint Christopher Cross. The vague legend that the saint supposedly carried the world on his shoulders flittered briefly in her mind.
Rico was far from saintly though. Thank God. He was a living, breathing warrior defined in muscle and supple flesh. He shifted, trying to slide his shirt down and off, but then winced and groaned with pain at the movement.
He cursed under his breath and exhaled in a sharp hiss.
A wounded warrior.
His pain twisted her insides and she pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. Are you all right?”
He nodded, jaw clenched. “Not your fault. I’m just frustrated with this…”
Injury…weakness…she could read the anger in his eyes even if he couldn’t say it. Along with the anger, she sensed his fear that his physical situation wouldn’t improve.
“Let me help.” She eased his shirt off his shoulder and arm then leaned forward, kissing the angry, red scar.
He sucked in a breath.
She met his gaze, sensing an undefinable dark emotion mingled with his sharp need, evidenced by the heat of his arousal pressing against her damp sex through the thickness of their jeans. “It’s okay. We’ll take it slow. It doesn’t matter to me. I am just thankful that you’re here and I don’t have to do anything insanely crazy to get to you.”
She ran her palms over his pecs, her mouth watering at the broad expanse. Michelangelo couldn’t have sculpted better.
Rico huffed out a laugh and his brooding darkness receded. “Seems you’re as hungry as I am.” He shifted his hips, sliding his arousal against her crotch.
She shivered. “That is the understatement of the year. I would have dynamited my way into the Fulton County Jail. There was no way I was going to spend another night only dreaming of you inside me—”
Anything else she planned to say disappeared from her mind as Rico pulled her shirt up to cup her breast. His heated hand felt so OMG good, she could hardly jerk her shirt off or unclasp her bra.
He groaned as he snatched the lacy scrap away and gazed at her breasts, then thumbed her nipple into an aching point.
“You are so freaking beautiful,” he said huskily. “I can’t get enough of you.”
Looking down she arched her back, giving him more. His tanned complexion against her milky, slightly freckled skin was visually stark and sexually exciting. She watched as his mouth claimed her other nipple, stroking it with his tongue, and her vision blurred as he rhythmically rocked his erection against her sex.
Hot, damp, desperate, she braced herself with her hands on his knees behind her and met him thrust for thrust, pushing hard. Breathing as heavy as he was, she trembled with the flash fire of passion overtaking them both.
“You’re killing me.” Deep and guttural, his voice was caught between a cry and a groan. “I am freaking exploding from the inside out and going to die unless I can get inside you right this minute.”
Angie shook her head. She couldn’t think. They should have stripped naked before they even started, because right that second she wasn’t capable of stopping what she was doing. She was out of control, beyond gone. Even whimpering—if that raspy cry was her.
Rico cursed.
One second she was straddling him, on the verge of everything, and the next she was on her back on the coffee table as boxes of Chinese food and paper plates flew to the floor. Rico was on his knees between her legs, his mouth and good hand doing a damn good job of getting her jeans off. She lifted her hips and shoved down the clinging denim, swearing she’d wear skirts and go commando from now on.
The waistbands of her jeans and panties only made it to her knees before Rico spread open her sex and planted a tongue lashing right on th
e swollen nub of her core. Wave after wave of fiery pleasure burned through her in an explosive rush to an orgasm that rocked her world because it was so good, but it wasn’t enough. She didn’t have Rico inside her. She didn’t have his arms around her. She couldn’t look into the drowning depths of his eyes. She pulled on his good arm, feeling his body trembling with his desire. “I need you now. More than ever before I need you inside me now. Please.”
He didn’t say anything. Just like her, he was breathing hard and shaking with need. He fumbled with his belt and jeans and brought a condom from his back pocket, tearing the foil package open with his teeth before he slid the protection on with one hand. She knew she should help him, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything else but watch and absorb his every move.
Meeting her gaze, he gripped her hips and thrust into her deeply, completely then repeatedly, rebuilding the fire with strokes so intense and powerful that her whole being swept up with his into a convulsing orgasm that had her screaming his name.
Rico’s every nerve burned with pleasure, even his injury throbbed with a pleasure pain. He was on fire for Angie and drowning in the depths of her misty green eyes at the same time.
She hadn’t needed dynamite to blast her way to him tonight. She’d only needed herself, and he was rocketing to a universe he was sure he’d never been to. With every thrust of her hips she propelled him farther and farther from any comfort zone he’d hidden in before. Her red hair framed her heart-shaped face with a mass of sexy curls. Her lush mouth waited for his kiss, parted and inviting. Her rosy breasts shook with his every thrust, begging him to go deeper, harder, faster.
Being inside her surpassed his every experience. He tried hard to hold back, tried to make the pleasure last longer and longer. He could watch her come until he went insane. Leaning down he sucked each nipple until she cried for release. Her freckled, milky-white skin glowed in the lamplight. He wanted to slide his tongue over every inch of her. He could still taste and smell the musky sweetness of her sex. He—
“Rico!” she screamed, shuddering in her release. She tightened her legs around his hips and reached her arms out for him. Her sheath clamped his erection like a burning fist as her body demanded he follow her over the edge. Physically that was already happening. Big time. He was buried all the way in with his balls kissing her sweet ass as the biggest orgasm of his life blew his mind. He literally saw stars. But it didn’t end there. Emotionally and spiritually she was sucking him into her and he was driving harder and harder to get there himself as his gaze locked with hers. She grabbed his heavy necklace and pulled his mouth to hers, demanding and claiming, giving no quarter. They rode out the pleasure, wave after wave, milking every drop of it together with moans, touches, tiny thrusts, and sealing it all with an endless kiss that left him breathless—soulless—everything-less. She stole it all.
Chapter Fifteen
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Roger stood beneath the punishing blast of cold water, shuddering from shock, regret, desire, guilt. Hell, he didn’t know what all from. He had so much crap battling inside him that if it wasn’t for his do-or-die-until-the-mission-was-done training, he seriously doubted that he’d be functioning.
He wanted to cut out the part of him that had felt a rush of something akin to pleasure at Mari’s parting words. She’d rocked the ground he stood on.
It’s okay. It’s not you. It’s me. I cannot seem to forgive myself for forgetting my baby’s father. It happens every time you walk into a room, every time I look at you I forget Neil. What does that make me?
There was a hell of a lot more going on under the surface of her quiet demeanor than just panic attacks and shooting lessons. More than he ever really believed possible. Not that he hadn’t dreamed of being with Mari. And to his damnation, he’d fantasized it once or twice at weak moments when his determined control lapsed.
But really believing that he’d be lucky and deserving enough for her to share with him all of her shimmering beauty and gentle spirit had been totally out of the question. Still was, even though he now knew another key to what was causing her so much distress. Mari was going through hell and in a very vulnerable state. The fact that she’d developed an attraction to him was akin to some weird combination of gratitude, too much trauma and Stockholm syndrome. It wasn’t real. After all, he’d practically made her a prisoner in his apartment trying to keep her safe from Dugar—
Oh fuck! Dugar. Roger clenched his fists and would have hit the tiled wall for good measure, but stifled the urge. Mari didn’t need anything else negative, visual or audible, for which she could put the blame on her shoulders. And the craftsmanship in buildings these days guaranteed his fist would have plowed all the way through the wall. He snapped off the water and grabbed a towel and his cell phone at the same time. The police officer on Mari’s case answered immediately.
“Cain, here.”
“Officer Cain. It’s Lt. Col. Weston. I should have called you earlier. Due to unfortunate circumstances, Mari was caught on a news camera outside the post earlier today and it’s being broadcasted everywhere. What do you want to bet Dugar will show up at the Butner Access Control Point looking for another chance at her.”
“I’d bet the jackpot you’re right. But the sniper situation has every police force in the country on high alert. We’re already on double shifts here. I doubt a stakeout is in the cards.”
“Right. I’ll see what I can do on my end and keep you posted.” Hanging up, Roger quickly dried, cursing himself for having his mind on his dick instead of his duty where it was supposed to be—assuring the well-being of Mari and the child that Neil Dalton had fathered. It was also Roger’s duty to make sure Neil wasn’t forgotten by anyone, especially him.
Duty was a soldier’s saving grace no matter what hell they faced, personally or professionally. Exiting the bathroom, he glanced at his bedroom door. The blood staining his heart and soul became darker than ever before, but he shook off the guilt and put his mind on his duty.
A few calls had Surf and Mac, men he knew could handle anything Dugar threw their way, lined up to watch the Butner Access Control Point for any hint of the SOB or Neil’s stolen ’57 Chevy. Then Roger watched the repeating video of Mari in the crowd and the ongoing sniper news as he put his mind to work on what he could do to help Mari cope with what was happening to her.
Not more than an hour later, Holly returned, but she wasn’t alone. General Dekker walked in on her heels. Roger stood as they entered the apartment, wondering if hell had frozen over. For an unguarded moment, he swore Dekker’s gaze had been centered—with interest—on Senior Airman Holly Gear’s rear. But when the man looked up, Roger decided he’d been mistaken. The man was all hard-assed business as usual. Roger owed the general an explanation about Mari and what had happened today.
“General, DT mentioned you were going to call. I didn’t expect a visit. You’ll have a full explanation of today in your office first thing in the morning. Mari just retired a few minutes ago.” Roger prayed Dekker would realize that he didn’t want Mari to hear anyone talking about what she’d been through today.
“Relax, Weston.” Dekker cleared his throat and glanced at Holly. “No explanation, other than the information I’ve already received is necessary. I decided to kill two birds with one stone since Senior Airman Gear was in need of a ride.”
Roger bounced his gaze to Holly. He’d always been able to read her expressions, but tonight her face was a straight-laced mask.
“My car apparently suffered more at the hands of the crowd than I originally thought. Had a flat when I came out of the sniper meeting. General Dekker and Beck helped me with that, then my car wouldn’t start at first, after it did, it’s making a weird engine noise. So I decided to leave it till morning. Beck is going to look it over for me and take it to a mechanic if needed.”
Damn. Beck and Dekker were together. Them having face time was not a good thing. Not as long as Beck was still reeling from Lebanon. Ro
ger had to force himself to not ask how that encounter had gone. “There was video on the news of protesters jumping up and down on your bumpers after you followed Mari into the crowd. The car did take a beating,” Roger said, recalling the clip that had sent both him and Mari into dangerous waters tonight.
Holly moved over to the dining table and examined the leftover pizza. “They likely shook everything imaginable so loose in my car that I’ll be having issues for months. I hate to say it, but somebody needs to give those cops this morning some balls. They don’t even have to be brass, just solid enough to handle some wimp-ass puppets with signs.” She motioned at the pizza.
Roger laughed. Holly’s comments rarely failed to amuse. Even Dekker cracked a smile at that one. “Help yourself to the pizza. You too, General. Beer and Coke are in the fridge.”
Roger wasn’t sure if Dekker would accept the invitation or not. In all the years they’d worked together, Roger had had one glimpse beneath Dekker’s hardcore veneer of professionalism. It had been the day Roger came up against Dugar’s IED at Mari’s house. After hearing Roger’s predicament, Dekker had cursed and then called Roger by his first name rather than rank or last name. By the time they’d hung up, Dekker had been almost back to form. He’d told Roger to prepare for a double ass chewing, but there’d been a warmth and care in the threat. After the incident, Dekker had returned to character, a steel-eyed man as frosty, solid and invincible as Mt. Everest. He never fraternized with the men of the teams like Roger did. Roger knew Dekker was divorced. Years ago, before he became a general, his wife had split for Washington, DC, and led a very public life, first as the mistress of a senator and now as his wife. In DC, some people could get away with murder and still smell like roses while others were crucified for minor traffic violations.
