by Jayne Rylon
He gauged the distance, fairly sure he could reach it if he got a good enough push off the ledge.
But he didn’t have time to be 100 percent sure as boots clomped up the metal stairs to his right. Any moment they were going to burst through.
Lucas roared, releasing a battle cry. He shot out the window, which shattered into a billion pieces, raining glass shards onto the level below like some kind of extreme waterfall. He didn’t stop to be impressed with his handiwork.
Instead, he climbed onto the busted-out window frame, stood on his good leg, bent his knee and swung his arms once…twice…
“Lucas, no!” Ellie screamed from below.
He wasn’t going to stop now.
On the third swing he had enough momentum—he hoped. Recalling what Ellie had told him about hope and how she had used it to stay alive, he figured that was the best he could do given the situation. He leapt, shoving off hard with his foot.
The rope flew toward him, and for a moment he thought he might have overshot it. Then it was in his hands and the impact of his full weight broke it loose from its hook in the wall.
His guts lifted up to flop around somewhere in the vicinity of his throat as he rode the pulley in an arc down to the second level like some insane version of a bungee jump crossed with a zip line. And when he skimmed the floor below, he dropped off, tucked and rolled.
Good thing too since his reception wasn’t very warm with the two henchmen below.
His inertia took him straight toward one, bowling him over. Lucas kept his momentum going, landing on top of the stunned man. He took advantage of that hesitation to punch the man in the face a few times until he could wrestle the guy’s gun away.
Seeing as the limo driver’s had fallen out of Lucas’s pants somewhere around the time he did his Tarzan routine, he was grateful to be armed again. Lucas shot the man between the eyes then came to his knees, blowing away the second gunman before the bewildered guy had even processed what happened.
That only left Ellie and her guard.
Lucas edged closer to them on his knees.
“I can see why you like this freak.” The guard laughed as if they were best friends. “He’s as nuts as you are, Pretty. Too bad he’s still not going to be able to save you.”
Ellie gasped when the guard pricked her neck, drawing blood.
“Put the gun down or I’ll slice her open.” The guard grinned. “You don’t know how many times I dreamed about that.”
The guard wasn’t alone. He was the bastard who haunted Ellie. Lucas had known their limo passenger was her old guard the instant he’d called her Pretty. And he wanted to make the man pay.
But the knifepoint was sinking into her a sliver deeper with every instant.
So he tossed the gun away.
“This is the OSPD,” someone—Mason, it sounded like—blared through a bullhorn. The commotion from the upper level increased as the cops rounded up the majority of their opponents.
The guard snarled. He glanced up to the first level as if he could see the raiding cops.
Lucas couldn’t believe what happened next. He wasn’t prepared when Ellie took her chance. She picked up her foot and kicked blindly between the guard’s legs, catching him directly in the balls with her heel. Thatta girl!
The guy went down. His knife skittered away.
Ellie dove for it and the guard chased her.
Lucas looked around, but the only thing within easy reach was his prosthesis, which the guard had displayed beside where he was holding Ellie, presumably to upset her. That would do. Carbon fiber was strong shit.
He rose to his good foot, snatched the socket and bashed the guard over the head with it, imagining the birds Ellie had drawn on it were pecking him to death as he made a second impact on the man’s skull.
It was enough to slow him down but not stop him entirely.
At least it diverted the guard from Ellie and the knife. He changed directions, taking Lucas down by swiping his leg out from beneath him.
They grappled with each other. Wrestling. Rolling over and over.
Ellie screamed for help, begging for the Men in Blue to make it to them in time.
Lucas didn’t think there was a chance of that. They were on their own.
The guard landed a particularly painful jab directly to Lucas’s gashed arm. It went completely numb and hung by his side. It probably would have recovered fairly quickly, but there simply wasn’t time.
The guy scrambled to his feet then hauled Lucas up, with his hands around Lucas’s neck.
Lucas couldn’t breathe and the furious thrashing he did was making darkness encroach on the fringes of his vision pretty damn quickly.
If he was going to die like this, he wanted to see Ellie one last time.
When he peeked over at her, she was staring at something on the floor. Her fist unclenched and she leaned forward to take it.
Ellie picked up the guard’s knife—likely the one that he had used to torture her so often in Morselli’s dungeon—and while Lucas watched, with huge eyes she charged, stopping only when she’d plunged it into the man’s neck from behind and slightly to the side, just enough to miss his spine. The tip of the blade emerged clean on the other side, nearly severing his head in the process.
Blood gushed from the guard and he gurgled out his final breaths. His hands fell from around Lucas’s neck, allowing him to suck in huge lungfuls of air. At the same time the guard collapsed, Lucas set his prosthesis down, jammed his leg in the socket and ratcheted the proximal lock tight before jogging to his discarded gun.
Even Lucas wasn’t cruel enough to leave someone to suffer like that.
He returned, putting the gun point-blank against the man’s temple.
The guard surrendered a wet whisper. “Please.”
“Close your eyes, E,” Lucas ordered.
She fell to the floor and put her hands over her face.
He pulled the trigger.
When the body quit flopping, Lucas toppled over then dragged himself to Ellie with his unhurt elbow. He wrapped her in his arms and held her tight, cocooning her in whatever comfort he could muster.
He shouldn’t have been surprised when she looked after him before herself.
She tugged on his tie, loosening the knot then using the silk to put pressure on his wound. If he’d expected her to unravel into hysterics, he would have been mistaken.
They sat there, propping each other up, until Matt and Clint burst through the stairwell door, guns drawn. When they took in the human wreckage around them and the two survivors sitting relatively calmly at the center of it, Matt cursed.
“I always knew you were a badass, Lucas,” Clint said in awe. “But…damn.”
“Thank God you two are okay.” Matt used his radio to alert the team to their status. “We had no idea that guy was part of this organization.”
“I don’t care,” Lucas practically growled. “It’s over now. You hear me? She’s done. For good. This will never happen again.”
“Roger that.” Matt put his hand on Lucas’s shoulder.
Thirty seconds later, paramedics hit the scene in response to Clint’s call for help. They began fussing over Lucas’s arm and Ellie’s shock, wrapping her in a warm blanket. Still she plastered herself against Lucas and he was happy to have her there.
“Lucas?”
“Yeah, E?” he asked, his lips set in a flat line.
“I decided,” she said, sounding drained.
“What’s that?”
“When we go home, I want to go with you. To yours.”
Lucas couldn’t help it. With all the lights and noise and blood and gore, he laughed, remembering that he’d told her to wait and see how the night went before committing to their future.
Even in the darkest of times, she brightened his world.
>
Chapter Seventeen
Two days later
It took a while for Ellie to get her wish. Turned out they had to file a zillion reports, do paperwork out the ass and then talk to a bunch of doctors. Both the physical kind, so Lucas could get stitched up, and psychologists, who helped her deal with her PTSD following the incident.
They’d spent the first night in the hospital under observation.
No one had bothered suggesting that they be kept in separate rooms. Hell, different beds were even out of the question.
Lucas had stayed with her the entire time, and she had returned the favor. She’d listened to him talk about the burden of taking a life and wondered again at how much he’d sacrificed for her.
By the time they made it to his house late the next day, they then endured a parade of well-intentioned visitors—Ryan first, of course, then the rest of their friends—and officials who dropped by to ask questions, snap pictures, record statements or even just to see if they were okay.
After nearly two full days had passed, Ellie and Lucas respectfully asked for some breathing room.
Finally, finally, they were alone.
Ellie had taken a shower and pulled one of Lucas’s faded T-shirts over her head. She toweled off her hair as she wandered downstairs then into the sunroom, where he was lying on one of the couches, staring at the painting she’d started before they’d left the house on the night of the thwarted heist.
“How are you doing?” she asked quietly.
“Okay.” He patted the space beside him and she accepted the invitation without question, stretching out next to him with her head on his chest and their legs entwined.
Lucas no longer flinched when she touched his residual limb.
“You sound about as talked out as I am.” She smiled softly as she traced the ridges of his muscles with the tip of her finger. It distracted her from the sight of the fat bandage wrapped around his upper arm. The terror she’d felt when she thought she’d lost him… She shivered.
“Everything’s all right now, E,” he promised, completely in sync with her.
“But it almost wasn’t.” She had tried not to think about it but, honestly, she couldn’t get her mind off what might have been. How unfair it would have been. “I just found you, Lucas. I don’t want to lose you.”
“Not gonna happen.” He rubbed her shoulder then down her back. The motion, intended to be soothing, did something entirely different to her instead.
Something about their near miss made her need to reconnect with him on a carnal level.
Ellie hummed and rocked against him.
A thought occurred to her and she shared it without reservation. He wouldn’t judge her. “You know, this is the longest I’ve gone without an orgasm since I got free from Morselli and the Scientist.”
“Shit, E. With the chaos, I didn’t even think about that. You should have told me what you needed.” His hand wandered to her ass and squeezed. She liked the possessive flair to his touch. She wanted to belong to him. In all ways.
“Honestly, it didn’t occur to me. And even now it feels kind of different. I want you, Lucas. But…it’s more like because I just do than because I need relief.”
“I noticed you didn’t have any nightmares last night either.” He tipped her chin up so he could stare into her eyes.
“I feel like, maybe, they might start to fade, now that I know the guard isn’t out there anymore. And because he got what he deserved.” She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry if that makes me a horrible person.”
“It makes you honest.” He sat up and hauled her onto his lap.
Ellie straddled him, laying her face on his chest, her forehead touching his neck. She could see his pulse pounding there and it made her want to celebrate. They were still alive. Survivors.
“Lucas, I need you,” she whispered.
“Thank God. I didn’t want to pressure you after everything, but I’m dying for you, E.” He stripped the shirt over her head and dropped it on the couch beside them. “For some confirmation that we’re both still here, and that we’re in this together. Long term.”
“You can’t get rid of me now,” she confirmed.
Putting her hands on his cheeks, she cupped his face as they kissed. This time their interaction was slow and gentle, long and lingering.
As if they both realized they had all the time in the world together.
Ellie knew nothing was powerful enough to separate them now.
She lifted up on her knees, giving him room to slide his athletic shorts down and off his legs. He wasn’t wearing his prosthesis since it tended to tear up the furniture, though it was nearby. It had come through their ordeal unscathed, and the irony of her bird design having helped to free them wasn’t lost on her.
“What’s that smile for?” Lucas asked.
“I’m not scared anymore.” And it was true. Despite any additional trauma they’d endured, she’d quit looking over her shoulder so much. “Everyone kept telling me how strong I was to have survived what I went through, but now…with you…I actually feel like I am. We can make it through anything, Lucas, as long as we stick together.”
“I like the way you think.” He buried his fingers in her hair and let her grind her bare pussy over his hard shaft, which rested against his abs.
For the first time with him, she didn’t feel frantic. Something had shifted in her to sublime and she hoped he noticed it too.
Lucas reached between them and tipped his cock up. “Ride me, E. Nice and slow, huh?”
“Yes.” That was exactly what she craved.
So she aligned their bodies then sank onto him, letting gravity do the work for her. After sliding down his entire length, she sighed, holding him entirely within her.
Only when they began to kiss, their mouths savoring more than devouring, did she allow herself to move in time to the rhythm they set. They maintained that pace for longer than she could imagine, watching each other enjoy being connected so tightly.
But, eventually, even Lucas couldn’t hold out. His abs began to tighten beneath her, giving her something to stroke her clit on as she swung her hips over him.
“E, I want to try something,” he groaned.
“I hope you have lots of lube if you’re planning on”—she made their ridiculous sign for fucking—“me in the ass right now. I’m relaxed, but…”
Despite his obvious intense arousal, he laughed. Though it kind of sounded like a launt—a mix between a laugh and a grunt. “Not that. Though for how often you bring it up, maybe that will be fun for next time.”
Ellie kissed him. “Whatever you want. I’m sure you’ll make anything you do to me pleasurable for us both. I trust you.”
“Good. Because I’m about to come in you.”
“Yes.” She loved feeling his liquid heat inside her.
“But then I’m going to keep fucking you,” he proclaimed.
“What?” She blinked a few times, trying to make sense of his words despite the Sex Offender-induced lust that hazed her logic.
“You’ve noticed it too. Right?” he asked, though he didn’t stop thrusting up into her. Neither did she pause the rocking action of her hips in his lap. “That when I come in or on you, it fades. The SO effect.”
“I noticed.” She didn’t give a shit right now, though. All she wanted was to come with him. Once was plenty when it was a solid twelve out of ten on the fuck-of-a-lifetime scale.
“Well, this time I want to see what it’s like to make love to you. The regular you, not the enhanced you, which I also adore, by the way. Please don’t think I have a problem with that.”
She understood perfectly. “You want to see that, drug or no drug, I still want you beyond reasoning?”
“Yeah.” The idea alone must have been blissful to him. He closed his eyes and said, “Just thinking about
it is going to make me come, E.”
“Go ahead.”
The tempo of her riding increased, using her channel to lure him into giving them both what they wanted. She used her muscles to squeeze him, hold him and grant him ultimate pleasure while she kissed him reverently and brushed his hair off his forehead with every scrap of tenderness she could muster.
Then she whispered in his ear, “I want to feel you flooding my pussy, Lucas. Come on; do it. Give me your come.”
“Fuck!” He stared directly into her eyes as he gave himself permission to do as she’d asked. He surrendered to his release and pumped her full of his semen.
Like ice on a sprained ankle, it soothed her. Taking away the fiery edge of her passion.
And though she’d been too focused on him to climax simultaneously, her need receded. It didn’t hurt when he paused to resituate them. Or at least that’s what she thought he was doing.
So she flung her arms around him and squeaked when he tipped them forward and brought her to the floor instead.
Something crinkled beneath her. She realized he’d spread her out on the tarp she used beneath her easel to make sure she didn’t ruin the carpet.
“How do you feel?”
“So far, so good,” she assured him. “Other than kind of frustrated. The normal sort. I was close, Lucas.”
He chuckled at that, a completely self-satisfied, male sort of sound that had her toes curling. “I’m getting to that, E. But, first, I thought I’d make a little art of my own. I need a couple minutes to recover, you know.”
“I thought you were a superstud. Isn’t that one of the skills they teach you in spy school? Like James Bond 101 or something?” She loved teasing him.
“Do you think it’s smart to sass me when you want to come and I have this?” He stuck his tongue out at her and pointed to it.
“Mercy,” she said then laughed.
“Oh no, not yet.” He grinned up at her. “Your eyes are so lovely right now. Bright like the sky. I’m sure I’m not going to hurt you if I take my time here.”
“You jerk!” She wasn’t really upset and he knew it.
In fact, it sounded sweet to be able to lie back and enjoy the ecstasy he gave her, without having to rush to an orgasm or a dozen just to keep her system in check. Though, honestly, that could be fun too, this time she wanted something different.
