by Dale Mayer
As soon as the door shut, she broke out in laughter. “Oh, my God, that was too priceless.”
Laszlo turned to her. “How much of this did you find funny?” He looked at her in mock anger.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and said, “He’s gone.”
Instantly Laszlo’s arms crushed her against him. “Now can we pick up where we left off? It’s a little earlier than you said.”
“That’s okay. We can get in some extra practice.”
He chuckled, and, with his arms wrapped around her, he had her walking backward, their bodies pinned from hip to chest. “Maybe you need it, sweetie, but I shouldn’t.”
At that she grinned. “Oh, this is a male thing, isn’t it?”
He shook his head. “No, it’s not a male thing. It’s just a you-and-me thing.”
And before she realized it, she was flat on the bed, and he ravaged her like she’d never been ravaged before. She couldn’t get enough. Her hands stroked his body, pulling his shirt out from his jeans. She really wanted where that fascinating bulge was hidden, but he wouldn’t let her get that close. Every time she tried, he kissed her senseless, until she just lay there gasping, trying to figure out where her center of balance had gone. And, as soon as she did that, he trailed kisses down her until he had her shirt off and was suckling her nipple through her soft cotton bra. She arched her back off the bed, twisting and turning, welcoming his attention, loving the distraction, yet desperately in need of so much more.
“It’s not fair. If my clothes are coming off, I want to see you too.”
“But you’re beautiful. I’m just battered and worn.”
“You’re beautiful too,” she said softly. “And every one of those scars is a reminder of what you’ve survived.”
But he took her lips in another drugging kiss until she couldn’t do anything but sag against him.
“Oh, my God, you kiss so beautifully,” she murmured, her body pliant, soft. “I could stay here and kiss you all day.”
At that, he slid fingers inside her jeans, just to the edge of the soft folds of her skin, and stroked her one stroke, which had her screaming.
“Oh, my God. I was lying.” She quickly shifted out of his range, removed her bra, skidded out of her jeans, tossed her panties with them, and then, still wearing brown cotton socks, lay on the bed spread-eagled. She reached up, her arms going around his neck.
He shook his head. “You’re still wearing too much. He lifted one leg, gently stroking his hand down the top of her thigh, under her calf, to her foot and pulled off her sock. But before he was done, he kissed the arch of her foot.
She shrieked with laughter. “That tickles.”
But he wouldn’t let her escape. With his tongue, he lapped up the side of her foot and around her ankle. He continued to drop kisses along her leg, and, at the back of her knee, he stopped, giving it particular attention.
She twisted, half torn by the tickling, half caught by the erotic emotions. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to taste him. And he wasn’t letting her. As soon as she got her foot out of his grasp, he turned his attention to the other one. By the time he was up to her knee, she was moaning, her hips writhing in front of him.
He placed one hand on either side of her hips and held her down; then he lowered his head and tasted. She screamed, her hips rising up to meet him, and he feasted on the bounty before him.
She was mindless with joy, her body screaming for more, and finally she grasped his hair in her hands and pulled him up to make sure he listened to her.
He chuckled as he slid his tongue past her belly button, between her breasts, under her neck and her chin, before latching onto her lips, kissing her again and again.
She slid her hands inside his jeans, cupping the erection she was desperate to touch.
He gave a guttural groan, slipped out of her reach and quickly stripped down. When he stood before her, he didn’t give her a chance to look at him. He threw himself on top of her, shifted the angle she lay in and, with his erection poised at the center of her, plunged in deep.
She cried out, and he froze. She shook her head. “More. More.”
And he set that into motion, with her chanting for more, always more. He plunged harder, deeper, faster, taking them both to a crescendo, then pushing them over.
By the time he collapsed on top of her, she was barely breathing. She was still gasping for breath, waiting for her heart to slow down, her body boneless, her mind empty.
He groaned and slowly rolled to the side. Held his weight on his arm. “Okay, now I’m dead,” he muttered softly.
“That makes two of us,” she whispered.
He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her up close.
“Even that motion is too much for me,” she whispered. “I don’t think I could move on my own.”
“You don’t need to. We are just going to lie here until we feel better.”
She chuckled. “I couldn’t feel any better.”
He stroked the hair off her forehead and dropped a kiss on her temple. “Good.” His voice said he was satisfied. “That’s the way it should be.”
She wrapped her arms around him. “You know? We could have done this before he came in with the food.”
He chuckled. “We could have, if you woke up sooner. I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t planning on getting dressed right away or anytime soon or going out and meeting people.”
“Good point.” She let her hand stroke his chest. Her fingers eased from one scar to the next. And there were some big ones. “Lost a few organs, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I did. Muscles and skin too. There were surgeries to replace skin, surgeries to reattach muscles, surgeries to put in bone plates and pins, surgeries to remove a spleen we had hoped would survive but didn’t. There were too many surgeries.”
She stroked her hand down the top of his thighs and over his knee. “You are beautiful, you know that?” She rose up onto her knees and studied him.
“How can you say this broken body is beautiful?” he protested.
She placed a finger against his lips. “Because it’s a warrior’s body. You asked it to do something superhuman, and it responded in kind. It rebuilt itself when it had no business doing that. It survived when anybody else would have given up the ghost and died. Not only survived, look at you. You’re positively thriving. You’re walking and talking. You’re powerful.” She shook her head. “And that is something I respect. You didn’t give up.”
“I wanted to,” he said, his voice dark. “Many times.”
She nodded. “Of course you did. Anybody would have in that situation.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know about that, but I know, in the dark of the night, I didn’t think I’d make it. I didn’t know that I wanted to make it.”
She smiled, straddled his body, her fingers stroking, exploring the multiple indents, scar tissue, hills of his body, a body unlike any other male she’d ever known. He was right. He was battered. But it wasn’t scars of shame. They were scars of honor.
“And how about now?” She settled on top of his thighs. She leaned down and kissed each scar as she came to it, taking the time to admire how well it had healed, how his body had responded by accepting the wound and making it part of him.
He gently stroked her back. “I might need a little bit of time before we go at it again.”
“Really?” She slid a hand down his ribs, across his belly, sliding it into the curls below and chuckled.
He groaned. “Okay, scratch that.”
Her hand closed around him, feeling him lurch against her fingers, wanting everything she had to give. And she had a lot. Her life seemed so alone, so empty. And as he filled her, she was more than grateful to give him what he needed.
Laszlo couldn’t believe he was quite where he was. But he was overjoyed. Not only had she not been turned off by his broken body, it hadn’t seemed to faze her. If anything, she’d been thrilled by everything she saw. He had to wonder a
t that. But then he was biased. He’d known what he was before. He’d always been proud of his physique, his fitness level, his strength. There was nothing like having all that knocked out in an accident, erased in just one instant, and his whole world changed to make him appreciate what he had now versus what he had then. Because what he had now, he’d worked so hard to get. Before it had been a gift, a gift of genetics, part of his training, something he had rejoiced in. But what he had now, he’d worked every damn day to get to.
He knew how much pain he’d been in, how much sweat he’d worked up, how much effort it had taken to get here. And he didn’t take it lightly anymore. He appreciated every damn muscle that worked because, for a long time, so many hadn’t. With her sleeping in his arms, he kept stroking, hugging her. He couldn’t get enough. He didn’t want the night to end. He didn’t want to leave, not if it meant leaving her behind. She’d handed in her resignation. He knew it was damn fast, but it was no faster than Honey and Erick, or Faith and Cade. And now there was Talon and Clary.
Although Talon and Clary had known each other years earlier. Regardless Laszlo wanted what they all had, what Badger and Kat had. Hell, what Levi and Ice had. What Mason and Tesla had. What a lot of their teams had going on too. Laszlo had hoped to find what they had. He just hadn’t expected to. And now that he had it, a part of him was worried it wasn’t as strong, it wasn’t as good, it wasn’t as real. But it didn’t take long, lying in the dark as he was, to realize that was fear talking. He was scared to lose what he had and scared what he’d found would disappear with the light of day. Maybe he was just a one-night stand to her. He hoped not because he wanted so much more.
“What are you thinking?” she asked sleepily.
He stroked her hair off her forehead. “You should be sleeping.”
“You’re thinking too loud.” She smiled.
That surprised a laugh out of him. “I was thinking I don’t want to lose contact with you.”
“Good. I already told you that I wanted to stay in touch.”
“Come to New Mexico. Even just for a couple days. See how you like it. You can go anywhere in the world. There’s no reason to come to New Mexico over any other place, except this,” he said.
She raised her head and looked at him. “This? As in sex?”
He chuckled. “The sex is magnificent,” he said with a teasing smile. “But I meant us.” He frowned. “I’m not very good at this kind of stuff.”
Her gaze gentled as she stared at him. “You’re doing fine.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m not because I don’t know how to express how full I feel, how happy I am inside. How much I admire who you are, what you’ve survived. And how much I don’t want to let go of that. I want to figure out what we have, if this is the start of something fantastic or if it’s just for tonight.”
She stretched her fingers, sliding across the bottom part of his leg and said, “I was never into one-night stands. And I have to tell you that I never ever allowed myself to feel for somebody again because I knew that to open myself up was to end in pain. And I was done with pain. I was done with loss. I was done with abandonment. But, in your case, I’ve already opened up my heart further, deeper and wider than I ever have before. So I’d better go to New Mexico. Because otherwise you’d be abandoning me.”
“Well, I can’t do that,” he said softly. “That would be extremely dishonorable of me.”
She smiled and whispered, “And what you are is a man of honor.”
He grinned. “Always.”
Just then they heard a sound outside her bedroom window. Instantly he shifted and slid out from under her. He quickly pulled on his boxers and jeans, tossed his T-shirt over his head and held his finger against her lips. “Stay quiet.”
She handed him his phone.
He wasn’t sure where the hell he’d lost it. He quickly texted Geir with Noises outside.
The response was immediate. Yes, rear of the house. Watch your back.
Laszlo slipped into the kitchen and, without turning on the lights, checked out the window to see if anyone was there. Being a basement apartment, they were at ground level. He watched the front of the house but couldn’t see anything. Slipping to the living room, he checked there. He thought he saw a shadow outside, coming around the corner. He sent Geir another text, letting him know. Pocketing his cell phone, he stepped behind the main door, watching as Minx, fully dressed, came out of the bedroom.
He held up a hand to stop her, motioned her back toward the bedroom. She disappeared. He waited. Sure enough, the doorknob turned. As the front door pushed open, Laszlo realized that either Geir hadn’t locked it as he went out—not possible—or this asshole had a key. How hard would it be to have gotten a copy of her key? If he worked in the same office as Minx, probably not hard at all.
The door opened with a slight squeak. The person on the other side froze, and, when he couldn’t hear anything, he pushed it open just that much more. Laszlo waited until the man was fully in the room. Just as he was about to jump on the intruder, he caught sight of the handgun in the man’s hand. Laszlo came up behind him and caught him in a headlock, tripped him and dropped him to the floor. But whoever this guy was, he was big, strong and fast. He was also mean as a snake.
He dropped, turned, reached up with his legs, kicked, spun around with his right hand fisted and caught Laszlo in the jaw. But Laszlo was already moving out of the way and took a slight clip, not the full force of his blow. Ignoring the screaming pain in his back, he twisted, turned, slammed his hand down on the man’s wrist, his fingers releasing the gun, and Laszlo kicked it, making it skitter across the room. The man threw an arm around Laszlo’s neck, trying to choke him as he went down and rolled on top of him.
That crocodile move was a death grip, but Laszlo hadn’t been through heavy military training for nothing. He rose up on his knees, trying not to wince at the pain, slammed an elbow into the man’s lower abdomen, reached up and around, and pressed a finger into his eyeball. The man roared. Laszlo moved quickly, flipping the intruder, and was once again on top. He reached around the man’s neck, grabbed his chin and pulled back to the point he could snap his neck. Of the gun there was no sign.
“Enough,” Laszlo roared.
But the man wasn’t listening. “Fuck you,” he roared. “The stupid bitch. Figures she’d have some asshole here to fuck her. Apparently she’s completely useless without a man.”
In the silence that followed, the click of a gun hammer being pulled back was heard.
“What did you just say about me?” Minx asked, her voice hard and cold. Lights flicked on, and she glared down at the man in front of her. “Well, well, well. Look at that. Since when were house calls part of your job?”
“Is it him?” Laszlo asked.
She nodded. “It so is.”
Just then Geir came sliding in through the front door, took one look, and, in a move Geir had perfected a long time ago, hit a pressure point between the man’s neck and shoulder, and he dropped cold on the floor. “I’m not sure he’s alone,” he said to Laszlo.
Minx motioned to Laszlo. “Head down the hall. I’ll stand watch over him.” She still had the gun in her hand.
He glanced at her. “Do you know how to use that?”
She gave him a hard glance. “Since I was about six,” she said mockingly.
He took a close look at her face, realized she was really okay and then raced down the hall.
He slid into the back room where the door to the upstairs was. And found it open. He shook his head and swiftly moved to the bottom of the stairs. There were no lights on upstairs either. He peered upward but couldn’t see or hear anything. As soon as he stepped on those stairs, he knew there would be creaks. Every old house creaked. He grabbed the two handrails and, using them, leveraged himself up to land gently six steps up. And then did it again. He didn’t know if it was any more silent, but it was certainly unorthodox, and not what anybody would be expecting.
Just
as he was about to turn a corner at the top landing, where there was a short wall, he thought he heard a sound nearby, a grunt and a half cry as if somebody had landed wrong as he came down. And then there were running feet. And in a second unusual move, he jumped over the railing, over the short wall, landing in the upper hallway.
Laszlo gave chase, hitting the hallway light switch as the man bolted for the upstairs kitchen. And just as he raced through the kitchen, Geir came through the rear kitchen door, and the intruder ran right into Geir’s right hook.
Laszlo hit another light switch to see the second intruder sprawled on the upstairs kitchen floor. He looked over at Geir’s right hand and said, “You should patent that sucker.”
Geir grinned. “It is pretty deadly.”
Between the two of them, they got the intruder up and on Laszlo’s shoulder, and he carefully made his way down the stairs, dropping the second man on the floor beside the first one. Still heaving and trying to catch his breath, Laszlo pulled out his phone and called Carson.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” Carson snapped. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
“We had been sleeping just fine until somebody tried to come in and kill Minx. And he brought a buddy again.”
“New hit men?” Carson asked, his voice rising in shock.
“No. He decided to make the trip himself.”
With excitement brimming in his voice, Carson said, “Please, please, please tell me it’s him.”
“Oh, it’s him. He came in with a gun. Somehow he also had a key to her apartment. And then the second man came in through the upstairs, ready to come down the stairs and take her out or give Conley a hand if he ran into trouble.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” the officer said, almost singing. And he hung up.
Laszlo turned to find Geir wrapping ties around the men’s arms and legs. “Carson is on his way.”
As soon as the men were secured, Minx held out the gun to Laszlo. “I might know how to use them, but I hate them.”
He took the weapon from her hand and checked it. “Not only is it loaded, there’s one in the chamber.”
