It was a kiss like no other.
Swoon-worthy.
And when he broke the kiss, she felt as if he’d taken a part of her with him. And Rory knew with certainty she’d gladly give this man anything he wanted.
Chris positioned the tip of his cock against her opening, and when she gave him a nod, he pushed inside.
When he filled her, she swore she grew wings.
She could fly.
Feel everything.
She was awake and whole.
Tears crept out of the corners of her eyes as so much raw and intense emotion poured out of her with every thrust of his hips.
“You okay?” he asked, bringing his mouth close to hers again, a sweet kindness in his question and in his eyes.
“I think I’ve been chasing this moment my whole life. Chasing a feeling like this. And here you are just giving it to me,” she rasped around more happy tears.
He closed his mouth over hers, tenderly kissing her and moving in a slow but incredible rhythm. When he lifted his head, lips off hers, he whispered, “I think I’ve been chasing it, too. I just didn’t know until I met you.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Soft, sinful sweeps of his tongue had Rory writhing on the bed. Her thighs were positioned on each side of Chris’s head, legs draped over his shoulders, as he went down on her. Pricks of almost painful need and intensity built inside her while he drove her freaking wild with his mouth. Her ass was nearly hanging off the edge of the bed as he knelt on the floor before her, worshipping her with his tongue.
They’d made love earlier in the evening, and it’d been more incredible than anything she’d ever experienced in her life.
And then they had to face reality and work. Talk smuggling. Traffickers. Avoid a few calls from her brother (yeah, maybe she had some avoidance issues like Jesse).
But when midnight approached, Chris whispered into her ear he needed to steal her for a few minutes. Bear was left under the supervision of A.J. and Liam in the living room while Chris whisked Rory back to their suite.
As it turned out, he didn’t steal her time. He stole her breath. As well as her heart.
No, he didn’t steal my heart. Wrong word. She’d given it to him. Freely and unconditionally.
And now, after he’d kissed every inch of her heated skin, devoting more time and attention to her scars, he tortured her in the most amazing way with his mouth.
“I want you everywhere. In every position.” She gripped the bedspread at her sides, her fingers curling into the fabric as she resisted coming too soon.
Chris released his mouth and stood, and she nearly cried in protest but then remembered she’d requested sex.
He offered her his hand, which she gladly took, and gently pulled her to her feet. “So gorgeous,” he whispered.
Rory let out a surprised laugh when he gripped her hand and lightly pushed her away only to lift her arm above her head and guide her into a twirl. She laughed again when he used the momentum to spin her to his chest.
“You’ve got some moves, mister,” she teased as she ran her short nails down his washboard abs.
He growled and lightly cupped her jaw, then shifted closer to ease his tongue into her mouth, giving her a taste of her pussy. “Ride me,” he commanded, then returned to the bed and positioned himself with his back to the headboard. She followed the sailor’s orders and climbed on to straddle him.
Alpha in the bedroom. Yes, please.
“I have an idea,” she purred. Purred? This man was turning her into a sex kitten. She flipped around so her back was to him. With a coy look over her shoulder, she set her hands to his thighs and positioned herself at the head of his cock.
“Fuuuuck,” he hissed as she sank onto him, giving him a perfect view of her ass. His fingertips bit into her hips as she leaned forward and moved up and down, providing him a ride with a view.
Chris glided his hands up her sides and around to cup her breasts before pinching her nipples between his fingers. The tight press of his chest to her back, his broad shoulders and strong arms surrounding her like she was a precious gift, was more sensual than she could have imagined.
Oh my God, this man. He kept pushing her to the edge only to back off. She was going to scream in frustration, not giving a damn about who might hear her. And then he slid one hand down from her breasts to her wet center and used his thumb on her clit as she rode him.
Rory closed her eyes, her orgasm on the verge of cresting, her body tightening and clenching. And when Chris pinched her nipple again, she screamed out his name in climax, and he came with her.
When he set a kiss to her shoulder, she looked back and gave him her mouth.
“I want shower sex next,” she whispered, and he grinned.
And before she knew it, he was pounding her against the shower wall, threatening the integrity of the glass as he took her hard and fast.
And then they were in the closet for who knew what reason. Expensive clothing fell to the floor, padding her hands and knees as he drove into her from behind, one hand gripping her hip, the other pressing down on her back.
It was hot. He was hot. This is hot. Her brain was mush because the only word in her head was hot.
Stamina, the man had an incredible amount.
She was breathing hard once they landed back onto the bed. Sweaty and spent. Her body like rubber.
Chris nudged her legs farther open. “Not done with you quite yet.” He dragged his palms up the inside of her legs before he found her sore sex. “Fucking incredible.” He lowered himself down her body, setting his mouth to her sensitive skin, finishing what he’d started when they’d run away to their room for a “quick break” that had turned into thirty minutes of ecstasy. Or maybe an hour.
She’d lost track of time as they made love all over the room like they were sex-starved maniacs.
She palmed her breasts and squeezed the flesh as she watched him. “I was planning to go down on you, and you keep distracting me.”
He lifted his mouth from her center, eyes meeting hers. “You dissatisfied?” he asked, a smile in his hooded gaze.
She reached for his head and gripped his hair, directing him back to her sex. “You’re always so funny,” she teased, then moaned when he dragged his tongue along her seam, licking and sucking.
“You’ve officially ruined my vibrator for me, in case you were wondering. And I’ll never be able to take a shower again without thinking of that amazing thing you did to me in there.”
“Mmm.” He lifted his mouth again, that devious and naughty spark in his eyes. “Must have liked it since you told me to do it two more times.” He playfully waggled his brows. “And I’m sure I can find a better use for your vibrator. Maybe a back massager. You won’t need it for down here, I promise.”
“Oh, really?” she mused, releasing his hair. Her fingers trailed down the center of her body, and her palm splayed over her abdomen. “And when you’re traveling for one of those operations for the President, what am I supposed to do? Read a book?”
“Okay, maybe then,” he compromised, one eye closed. “But think of me?”
“I’ll rename it Little Chris in your honor,” she giggled, bringing a hand to cover her mouth. He dropped his forehead to her thigh as if distraught to hear the words “little” and “Chris” in the same sentence. And his dramatics had her laughing again. “You know, so I can keep you with me all the time.”
“All the time?” He lifted his head, a smirk playing across his lips. “How would you get anything done if you’re constantly m—”
“Seriously, though, who do you think I’ve been fantasizing about when I touch myself since we met back in June?”
He planted a kiss to her hip and worked his lips higher up her body, inching his mouth over her skin, then he cupped a hand over her sex once his face was level with hers. “Let me guess, me?”
“Well, close. Captain America.” She chuckled, and he pinched her nipple.
“I—” Chr
is let go of his words at the rap on their door.
“Hey, you guys alive in there? The lights are on, so I know you’re not sleeping.” It was A.J. At least he was already too late to cockblock them.
“You need us?” Chris called out.
“Nah, I just thought it’d be fun to knock on your door at zero one hundred,” A.J. said, his voice husky as if either tired or fighting back a laugh.
So, it had been an hour. Oops.
“What’s up?” Chris grumbled.
“We have news.”
A.J.’s announcement startled them both and had Chris quickly searching for his sweatpants.
“Meet us back in the living room on the second floor in five,” A.J. said, then added, “That, uh, enough time?”
Definitely not. Rory wasn’t shy, but she felt her cheeks growing warm at the thought that A.J., who was like a brother to her, knew exactly what she and Chris had been doing.
“That’s fine. Thanks.” Chris set his hands to his hips and eyed Rory. “I guess we let time get away from us. Surprised Bear didn’t beat down the door.”
“Probably asleep on Liam’s lap. They’ve bonded.” Rory stood and stretched, her body tight in some places and Jell-O in others. “I’m gonna wash the smell of sex off me before I go upstairs to find out what new bomb they’ve discovered.” From the moment she arrived at Carter’s place, it’d been one blast after another, so she had to assume something big was about to explode.
Chris rounded the bed once his sweats were on and nuzzled her ear. “Well, you smell damn good to me.” He kissed her cheek, then started for the door.
She waited for him to leave, then rinsed off in the shower before dressing in gray cotton drawstring shorts and a tank top with a built-in bra, one that was probably made for working out. Whoever shopped had been thorough.
When Rory entered the second-floor living room, she found Chris, Roman, Jessica, and Harper in what looked to be a deep discussion at a table in one corner of the room. Liam sat on the couch, legs stretched out, boots on the coffee table, and Bear snoozing beside him. Rory had to smile at the way Bear’s head lay in Liam’s lap, and his paws twitched. The pup was probably dreaming about taking down bad guys. Liam looked as if he were about to doze off, too. His hand rested on the keyboard of a laptop sitting next to him on the couch.
“Where’s everyone? Shouldn’t they be here for the news?” Rory crossed the room to join Chris.
“We’ll update them soon. We wanted to talk to you first,” Harper said, and yup, a bomb was going to drop. She felt the vibrations beneath her feet. “Sit.”
Chris pulled out the chair for her, and the five of them squeezed in at the four-person table.
Harper turned the laptop so Chris and Rory could share the view of the screen—a map of the world with lines crisscrossing every which way.
“Is this that thing you were talking about back on Mona Island?” Chris asked her. “That the trafficking network is like a series of toll roads, and trying to find a smuggler is like trying to find a needle in a haystack?”
Rory was so tired that the lines appeared to be moving on the screen. She rubbed her eyes and blinked, but no help. “Are those lines really moving, or did Carter actually slip something into the food, and I’m tripping?” Yeah, she didn’t need another brownie-like experience.
“No, you’re not high,” Chris confirmed, then quickly looked at Harper. “We’re not, right?”
“No.” Harper cracked a small smile, then went back into intelligence mode. “The Italian took the bait. That cover story we established for a previous job—weapons smugglers—worked like a charm. An hour ago, we managed to secure the safe transport of our weapons on one of The Italian’s trade routes. We had less than a minute to hack his server while he processed our payment, and we were only able to download about a quarter of his information before we had to get out, but we still got a lot.”
“Oh my God, are you serious?” Rory stared in surprise, looking back and forth between the two women. “How is it that no one has managed to do this before?”
“We couldn’t have done it alone. We had to call Wyatt’s daughter for an assist,” Jessica admitted.
Wyatt’s daughter? Right, Chris said she was a genius hacker. Wow.
“No one else has the three best cyber minds in the world working for them,” Roman said, his dark gaze pinned on Harper.
“Dealing with smugglers is like chasing your tail. You go round and round, and the merry-go-round never stops. But that doesn’t mean we won’t stop fighting the good fight.”
Rory turned to see A.J. now in the room, and his comment had Liam startling awake. Liam ran a hand down his face and yawned before he and A.J. joined the table, standing off to the side. Bear turned in a few circles to find a new comfortable position and went back to sleep.
“So, what does this mean?” Rory’s focus returned to the two brilliant women before her. “Can we find his location? Arrange a meeting?”
Rory had tried something similar on the Dark Web in the past, but she wasn’t nearly as tech-savvy, and The Italian never took the bait. She also didn’t have a cover story that looked like the real deal as an assist. Of course, The Italian probably would’ve used her as bait, the way Carter had turned the tables on her in France. And she still had no idea why The Italian didn’t seem to want her before now, especially because in the world of bad guys and smugglers, everyone believed she was worth a fortune to The Italian.
“We haven’t been able to isolate his location. Not yet, at least. Look here.” Harper pointed at a few of the lines on the screen. “Those moving lines aren’t his trade routes, they’re where his IP addresses have once been, or where he presently has them pinging to lead people to believe it’s his current location,” Harper explained. “But we scored big by getting a list of The Italian’s trade routes.”
Jessica tapped a few keys and moved the cursor, and a new map appeared, this time with a string of steady lines. Lines that connected various locations all over the globe. “We uploaded his trade routes to this map so we could have a better look.”
“But we stumbled upon some inconsistencies between your list of twenty-five smugglers and these trade routes,” Harper said, her voice low.
“What is it?” Rory asked, and Chris reached for her hand as she waited for the bomb to drop. The metaphorical other shoe to fall. And this shoe would be far too big for Bear to drag around.
“First of all, you successfully helped take down seventeen guys in total. Fifteen from the list, plus Santiago and Josef. That is insanely impressive,” Jessica began, and why did Rory feel like she was being prepped with a compliment before the bad news? “But the remaining ten names, aside from one who died of natural causes, and another who was killed by a jaguar—guess an animal he illegally captured got some payback . . . well, those remaining eight names on the list aren’t connected to The Italian.”
Shoe. Officially. Dropped. “That can’t be right.” Rory heard Chris mutter hell and suddenly realized she was squeezing the life out of his hand.
“We cross-referenced every trade route he runs, and from what we can tell, they’re all separately controlled by small criminal groups or individuals. No big players. No connection between them, either.”
“What about the research Rebecca and I did tying those names to The Italian?” She’d handed all the proof over to Jessica and Harper. Was it bullshit?
“The proof you pulled together online linking the names is now gone,” Harper announced, and Rory squeezed Chris’s hand even tighter.
“What about the other smugglers, the ones I successfully went after? Santiago admitted to working with The Italian.” She wanted to stand. To pace. But she tried to pull herself together and remain seated.
“The Italian controls the fifteen trade routes linked to the smugglers on your list that you helped take down. Plus, the routes of the two men you chanced upon who weren’t on your list, Josef and Santiago,” Harper said with a nod.
; “There’s a but, right?” A.J. asked, stealing Rory’s thoughts. “Always a but.”
“From the information we gathered, The Italian didn’t garner control of those routes until after you took down those fifteen smugglers,” Jessica announced in a soft voice as if hoping to weaken the blow. “But according to the intel we pulled from The Italian’s server, the routes Josef and Santiago used were under his control long before you went after them.”
“I need you to spell this out for me because what I think you’re suggesting is that I helped The Italian take out his competition, and he took control when I was done,” Rory cut straight to the point, her voice trembling as she stood, releasing Chris’s hand in the process.
“Rory,” A.J. whispered, and although Chris stood with her, she couldn’t take her eyes off Jessica.
“It’s possible while Rebecca was being shadowed in Colombia, you popped up on The Italian’s radar. You said she missed a meeting with Josef to save your life just outside his compound. Maybe The Italian later made the connection you were the one to take down Josef, and he—”
“You saying this asshole tried to turn lemons into lemonade?” A.J. interrupted Roman, and Rory stepped back, her chair sliding on the wood floor.
Her chest tightened, and she was struggling to find her breath.
Was this a panic attack?
Before she knew it, Bear was at her side. Tail wagging. Eyes on her. Concern in his gaze and prepared to comfort her.
She set a hand to Bear’s head and did her best to find her breath.
“I hope I’m tired and misinterpreting this, but if not, does that mean what I think it means?” Liam asked, speaking up for the first time, his Aussie accent floating through his words. “Are we saying Rebecca set up Rory? Did Rebecca work for The Italian?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chasing Fortune (Stealth Ops Book 8) Page 31
